http://moneyandminds.com A blog about personal neurofinance Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:03:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This intriguing article discusses decoy marketing, a tactic marketers use to make their products look better by comparing them to inferior ones offered for a similar price. The author, Roger Dooley, discusses falling prey to this when shopping for shaving cream. First he stares at the shelf, trying to decide ... http://moneyandminds.com/psychology/decoy-marketing/ This is a post that discusses this post about a man who finds out that his wife has been hiding credit cards from him while he's been working to pay off their debt. It's an interesting story, but what really got my attention was the comments. The post describes a husband ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/money-in-marriage/ We have an odd attitude towards tax returns and pretty much any money we get from the government.  As this money falls outside the limits of our regular salary, it usually hasn’t been allotted to pay any particular bills, and isn’t needed for day-to-day expenses.  So, what do we do ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/tax-returns-and-found-money/ I’m a great fan of The Div-Net, a blog on dividend and value investing. Not being as knowledgeable about the topic as I want to be, I find the posts there to be quite educational. However, in a recent post titled "How much money do you really need to achieve financial ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/retirement-and-other-concepts-and-traditions/ A recent WiseBread post discusses how people's standards of living tended to rise linearly before the advent of credit cards, and how they don't necessarily now because credit-card holders can borrow money against their future to raise their standards of living in the present. The author, Philip Brewer, discusses being ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/good-news-never-lasts/ We live in a now world. We’re not taught to delay satisfaction of our wants and desires, but why is it so important to own something new at the first moment possible? Marketing. If you look at marketing, there are curves of acceptance. Early Adopters is the term for people who pick ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/the-price-of-immediate-gratification/ We know that humans are a competitive species. In this blog, my fellow writers have brought up the concept of "status" and its perils. So, we know it exists. The question we have to ask ourselves is how we can use this to our advantage. Can we? It seems a big stretch, ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/keeping-up-with-the-jones%e2%80%a6-in-reverse/ "Should we buy more angelfood cake mix?" I wondered as my husband and I walked down the aisles of our local Kroger. "It's only up twenty cents." "I'm not buying beef jerky," my husband said several aisles later. "I can't stomach paying that much for that little." "Eggs are almost as bad ... http://moneyandminds.com/livecheaper/letting-fear-act-on-you/ I confess, I am an optimist. Not a wide eyed and naïve one, rather I am a cautious optimist who tries to plan ahead for things. Sadly, my optimism does someone lead me to underestimate things. A recent study from the University of Southern California called "Will I Spend More in 12 ... http://moneyandminds.com/budgeting/the-psychology-of-budgeting/ We’ve talked about the different ways that our brains and the way we think can work against us when it comes to money, but what about how we outright lie to ourselves? Yes, in many ways, we’re the victim of our own lies when it comes to money. But generally, even ... http://moneyandminds.com/money/5-ways-we-lie-to-ourselves-about-money/