Vote for the Best Savings Idea
Thanks to everyone who shared money-saving tips in the latest Alpha Consumer Challenge! There were a lot of great contributions, and it was hard to pick the top three.
Now, it's time to vote on the winner, who will be featured on this blog and receive a copy of Rob Walker's Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. That book is also the first selection for the Alpha Consumer Book Club. To participate in the book club, all you have to do is read the book, which is an intriguing look at consumer culture. Then, E-mail questions you have for the author to alphaconsumer@usnews.com, or post them as comments on this blog. Rob Walker will answer them here over the next few weeks. You can also join the book club on Facebook and post your questions there.
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Reader Comments
Thanks for the selection!
Thanks for picking my tip! (Note to self: use exclamation points sparingly! Er, I mean ".")
Foolish spending
People 'redefine themselves' with the purchase of a product . And chances are, if the ads are good -- they already 'are' that person in their minds, they just have to make the purchase to confirm it . (Think Harley-Davidson buyer - they are on that open road...wind through their hair, in their minds -- even before they step into the showroom.) Advertisers play on our insecurities -- we are not good enough now - but have the potential to be 'great' - or at least look similar to (by association, of course) Giselle, Kate or Naomi. It's all so pathetic -- young women spending hundreds/thousands of dollars on clothes/stuff and putting themselves in debt. For what? So they can tell their girlfriends they are wearing a specific label? (Most men wouldn't know the difference anyway.) The sad reality is that their net worth is probably hanging on their shoulders or deep in the recesses of their closets .
The New York Times' David Brooks' "The Great Seduction" (below) says it brilliantly. Why don't parents teach this kind of thinking to their kids?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html?em&ex=1213329600&en=880ca02d8ce9672e&ei=5087%0A
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