What is manipulating you into spending too much money and what can you do to resist?

What our neighbors buy affects what we buy, as does our names, the weather, and the type of floor a store has.

Music manipulates us into spending in flower shops and restaurants.

Which products are next to each other on the shelf influences what we buy. In fact, one product can catch “cooties” from another.

Attractive salespeople mess with our heads too, especially if they touch the products. Truth is, we’re more satisfied after buying from good-looking people.

Stores use lots of tricks to get us to spend. Limits on how many items we can purchase make us purchase more. So does stocking fewer items.

The word sale makes us less likely to comparison shop and yellow tags fool us into thinking we’re getting a discount even when we’re not.

Retail therapy does work, but being happy can end up sapping our self-control in the face of tempting sales.

Materialism may be connected to unhappiness but buying generic products can reduce your self-esteem.

Luckily there are fast, easy tricks to avoid buying too much and breaking a budget.

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