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Budget > Buying and Spending Habits >
Defeating External Influences (1)
In today's society, we are continuously tempted with
advertising and marketing schemes. Every time we turn on our television, get on
the Internet, or page through our favorite magazine, we are offered emotional
images that many of us feel we have to live up to as means of fulfilling a
successful image. Advertisers go so far as to suggest that if we do not purchase
certain brands or logos, we will not be able to achieve our desired "human
potential" or social status. Most consumers are victims of credit abuse
only if they allow themselves to be. Commercialism causes consumers to
victimize themselves through lack of self-control and feeds our competitive
instincts. Advertisements distort our perceptions and create irrational needs
such as the need to "Keep up with the Jones" that results from our
desire to out-do our peers. In the scheme of things, the advertisers are the
predators and we are the prey. To successfully get out of debt, we should take
measures to remove ourselves from the danger of being preyed upon.
Advertisements are often manipulative, misleading, and
deceitful in that they have a vested interest in enticing us to purchase the
goods that they are marketing us. Marketers understand that products may not
appeal to our true needs so they have to create false needs by creating images
that prey on our senses and emotions and “implant” our desire to purchase their
products. When we are enticed to make purchases based on our emotions, we often
fall into the most destructive spending behavior, impulse buying. We are
conditioned to believe that accumulation of possessions is the true standard in
evaluating our importance and success and that the standard is judged by how
much we spend, rather than how much we can save.
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