Mindless consumption: Social media and 'keeping up with the Joneses' drive unnecessary spending.

“But then we have to really address the core issue. And I think that's what we're going to get into here, which is what matters to me as an individual, what moves the needle from a purchase perspective, Because the truth is, some of the things that we buy are meaningful. We even did an episode back in the day matt on experiences versus things, and a lot of the literature shows that buying experiences matters most. We'll talk about that in a second. But like, it's that that's true to a certain extent. But some of the things we buy mean a lot to us too. There are definitely some things that I own that I place a lot of value on, Like my bike is one of them, right, And if my bike got stolen, it would feel a lot worse than someone taking that money out of my bank account even right, because I've got I just have like a lot of history with this thing. And sometimes the things we own can have that deep of a tie to who we are. And but like, not everything we own should have that. Probably we should have a relationship to everything we own. Probably true, that's that extreme, But you know, let's focus on spending less on the things that the culture is steering us towards and more on the things that matter the most to us. I think it's a really important thing when it comes to spending smartly, and who we follow on social media directly impacts our mental state and how likely we are to go out there and spend like maniacs. If you're following celebrities and fashion influencers and they're putting you in the wrong state of mind, that could lead to spending in ways that you don't want to write.”

“And so yeah, I think a decent chunk of the American public they kind of tend to base consumption choices on what they're seeing others do around them, and when we're marching to the beat of other people's drummers, we're bound to find ourselves making decisions that aren't in our own best interest and which cause us to spend money in ways that don't line up with our own personal goals, you know, our own personal desires. And it's also known as keeping up with the joneses, of course, like you've heard that term. But that's why starting to think more about what we want, not what our culture tells us we should want, is an important and step to take and kind of like another nerdy term here, Matt, that is called compensatory consumption. And probably the best example of this is a guy in like a yellow sports car. You're like, oh, what's he? What's he? What's he? Uh? What's he making up for? Yeah? Uh, yeah, he's compensating for something, right, and so, but we often do this in smaller, more subtle ways too, and we tend to tend to spend, at least sometimes in ways that are making up for other ways in which we feel like our lives aren't what we want them to be, and that leads to a precarious financial position for a lot of people. It's just it's poor spending, but largely goaded by the fact that, like other parts of our lives just aren't going exactly. The way we hoped.”