Sometimes when I talk to friends about saving money and buying things, we often get carried away about WHY we buy all those things, and everyone has different reasons, and it’s so hard to discuss all of them during small talk.
So I thought I’d make a list of all the possibilities I can think of and, eventually wrong reasons, why we buy things, we usually don’t need:
- Shopping Therapy – Because we had a bad day.
- Reward – Because we had a good day, and we deserve it.
- Appearances – I was raised with the notion of „What are the people going to think?“. Often we are made believe to have to own particular things because we need to represent a certain position, occupation, or status.
- Safety – Being surrounded by useful items, or objects that are valuable and could be sold in bad times, makes us feel secure.
- Productivity – Whenever I spend hours online searching for the perfect toy for my children or ordering books, I will never read, about a topic I need to know more about, it makes me feel unreasonably constructive.
- Anxiety – Covid 19, no need to say more.
- Upbringing – My parents are children of the Kriegsgeneration, the war generation, and also lived 40 years in East Germany. They experienced times when it was vital to keep and own as many (useful) things as possible.
- Sentiment – Memories, and emotions can stick to objects like sap on a Christmas ornament. But do we really need the item to remember the event or person? Are those memories genuinely good ones?
- Instability – Keeping things just in case we might need them in the future, or that might save us during hard times, are a desperate attempt to control the future.
- Hormones – Who doesn’t know the Adrenalin kick or Dopamine rush when we come by a really good deal or find a rare collector’s item in a thrift shop?
- Chaos – If you have too much stuff, and it’s in disarray, you might not find the thing you need, and will buy it again.
- FOMO – The need to own an object that is produced in a limited quantity, e.g. vinyl music records.
- Nostalgia – Christmas comes to mind for me first. I buy decoration that reminds me of my childhood.
- Fantasy Selfs – Owning the best running gear will definitely help me become more athletic.
- To be continued…