If part of your work involves educating others on how consumption can affect their ability to build and maintain wealth, looking for outside patterns of data and trends might be a way to bring an “ah-ha” moment to clients, children, friends, or family members. A string of articles in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal wove an interesting pattern for me, and the interpretation might prove educational for consumers and clients. First, this: Holiday Shoppers Were …
With a variety of interests, behaviors, experiences, personalities, and attitudes about money, we manage finances, invest, and save. Even if we are not directly responsible for financial management, we are involved via spending or generating income. How do financial institutions and advisors provide guidance? They divide us up into groups by our age, gender, net worth, income, and maybe some less-than-ideal measure of risk tolerance. The focus on Millennials is a great example of this: …
Friendships need to be cared for like any other precious resource in life. A recent article in USA Today provided a good argument for the fostering and care of friendships. The author cites the importance of ongoing friendships in that they can positively impact life and health: Smarter friends make us smarter; more social friends make us more outgoing; healthy friends make us more health conscious. Who they are becomes part of us. The article left me …
Why do we spend money? Why do we buy things we don’t need or items that are outside of what we can afford? What advice should we heed if we’re trying to improve our ability to walk out of a store with only what we intended to buy? Some argue that gender, ethnic group membership or socio-economic status alone can explain differences in shopping and spending. Like with other areas of research (including affluent …