Easy Way to Save Money: Carry Large Bills
Posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 and is filed under Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You might have noticed when you carry large bills in your pocketbook, you spend less money. Well, there is research to back up that hunch. You actually do spend less money-an easy way to save money–when you carry large bills according to researchers.
It’s the “pain of paying” that keeps the cash in your wallet said researches. “If you want to cut back on your spending in this tight economy, keep your cash in a few big bills vs. a number of smaller ones,” said Joydeep Srivastava, associate professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, co-author of the research. “In the face of the temptation to spend, you’ll be more reluctant to break that hundred-dollar bill so you’ll end up saving it.”
Thus, researchers warn against the “what the heck” effect; once you break those large bills, you could actually start spending uncontrollably. In fact, they found that once consumers decided to spend the money, those who carried large bills actually spent more than those who carried small bills.
“Unfortunately, once you break a big bill you’re less likely to pay less attention to the total amount you spend,” said Srivastava. “You’re more likely to throw self-restraint to the wind once you’ve released the impulse to buy.”
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