MoneySaver

Emotions can burn a hole in your wallet, too
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March 3rd, 2009

After many years of over-spending – while suffering from conditions I like to call ‘obsessive fashion coveting’ and ‘a penchant for vodka & dry’ – I think I’ve got an idea about what makes my fortnightly pay packet disappear in less than three days. In fact, I think I have identified ten emotions - so far - that make me (and others, I’m sure) fling my cash around as though the words ‘financial crisis’ have never been uttered within my earshot.

Now that I’ve identified them, theoretically I should be able to control my spending accordingly. Well I’ll give it a shot, anyway.

Guilt spending

Best (or worst, really) example of this is the pregnant or new mother, already over-stretched with new expenses and probably generating less income than before. The TV, newspaper and magazine advertising tells her ‘expensive means better’, which computes in her brain as ‘I’m a bad mother if I don’t buy the most expensive brand of pre-packaged baby food/most hi-tech nappies/fluffiest Disney dolls for my child’. Guilt spending can be a really insidious form of wallet-hole-burning.

Sadness spending

You’ve just broken up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, and by ‘broken up’ I mean ‘been dumped hard’. Some irritating switch in your brain goes off and suddenly you need chocolate. But Cadbury won’t do, it has to be Lindt. Another switch in your brain tells you that red wine is the only cure for your pain. But cleanskin wine is repellent to you in your current state – it has to be Rockford Basket Press Shiraz, and you guzzle it like you’re back in first year uni. There goes 100 bucks and all you’ve got to show for it is a sore head and a pimple or two. Or is it only me who does this?

Envy/rage spending

Said ex-boyfriend (see above) gets a new girlfriend. Not just any girlfriend though; this girlfriend looks like Jessica Alba and dresses like Alexa Chung (she’s dating the guy from the Arctic Monkeys, people). You must beat her. You must look amazing. In this mindset, you single-handedly spend Australia out of the recession, all the while berating yourself for being so superficial. (If you’re a bloke, imagine that your ex-girl’s new boyfriend looks like one of the Kings of Leon fellas. That would drive anyone to buy a pair of expensive skinny jeans.)

Love spending

The ex is out of sight and out of mind, and you’ve found a new love. You’re so excited about him/her, so keen to show your affection, that you buy anything cute or pretty that you see, just to make him/her smile. Probably the nicest form of emotional wallet-burning, but the memory of this kind of spending may grate a bit when the next Jessica Alba/Kings of Leon type comes along. Love Spending is also a killer for new parents, who, enraptured with their adorable baby, can’t help buying a new toy/pair of booties every time they go to the shops.

Excitement/elation spending

The sun is shining, your world is glowing, things are looking up…you feel untouchable. Just for fun, you decide to try on a fabulous dress. It fits perfectly. You walk out of the change room, and at that very moment you get a phone call back from a potential employer offering you a great new job. What do you do? You whack that dress on the credit card. What’s $250 when you’ve just been offered a new job? You need to celebrate! I did this exact thing and then later realised that, great as my new job was, I still couldn’t afford $250 dresses. (And it ripped the first time I wore it.)

Boredom spending

I like to call this ‘Silver Spoon Spending’, or ‘Lots of Money and Nothing to Do’. Because what else do WAG-types do when they’re bored? They buy stuff! Any reason? Nup! And that’s fine if you’re a cricket or soccer WAG, but if you’re like me and money is a little harder to come by, there’s no excuse for spending money because you’ve got nothing better to do and you just kinda feel like buying something. That’s what hobbies are for!

Ego-driven spending

The need to impress others by acquiring material possessions is probably not just confined to humans. I’m sure that birds play the ‘my nest is bigger than yours’ game too. But we’ve developed it into a fine art, buying handbags in order to display the luxury brand logo and expensive cars that cost more than the average house, thereby demonstrating that we are more successful/better endowed than our poorer neighbours. This conspicuous consumption is, however, going out of fashion faster than Donald Trump is losing money now that the economy is contracting and people are starting to lose their jobs.

Inferiority-complex spending

Also known as ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’, the Inferiority Complex Spend is closely related to the Ego Spend and the Envy Spend. This is basically the need to reassure ourselves through material acquisition that we are ‘as good’ as everyone else. For lack of a better way to describe it, it’s how you feel when you pull up to a set of lights in your burgundy coloured Commodore and see the bloke in the car next to you – driving a …. insert name of cool car here, people! WRX? Is that still cool? Or maybe…an Audi! No? How about…a Porsche! OK, a Porsche – is being mooned over by three gorgeous women. You look at your burgundy Commodore. There are no hot women in your burgundy Commodore.* You’re certain that the reason the bloke next to you has the hot women is because of the Porsche. You must have the Porsche.

Pity spending

Your mate is feeling low. She’s just been dumped, her car’s been towed and she’s gotta pay 300 bucks to get it back, she’s recently gone back to uni and is strapped for cash because she can only work two days a week, plus her rent has just gone up. Well, you can’t fix her all her problems, but you can take her out and make her feel better, can’t you? And of course you’re paying for her meal, her taxi and all her drinks. While there’s nothing wrong with being a good friend, sometimes it’s a better idea to instead just bring her a pizza and a bottle of red. She’ll still appreciate it and she’ll be able to have a cry on your shoulder without anyone else seeing.

Warm fuzzy spending

I like this kind of spending. It’s where you buy something that you know is supporting a cottage industry, someone within your community, or a charity. I have even stretched this category to include spending money on local fashion designers that design and make their clothes in Australia. So when I visit Thread Den or Gorman and blow a week’s pay I can say that I’m supporting the local economy and local jobs! And all while getting that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from doing good and buying beautiful things. Yay!

So, what conclusions can I draw from this? I should ignore all my emotions except the warm, fuzzy ones! No, maybe I just shouldn’t take my credit card with me when I’m feeling….anything.

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*May I just add that the bloke I am currently seeing drives a burgundy coloured Commodore. And no, it is not a cool car. But I still think I look pretty hot in it. There’s a moral to that story, I’m sure.

**Also, the burgundy Commodore’s name is Ron. As in Ron Burgundy.