Pocketmint

Tag: psychology

1. Women and money: four destructive myths

   8 March 2013

   Among financial bloggers, this has been designated Women’s Money Week. I don’t usually think about finances and economics in a gender-specific ways, but coincidentally, last week I happened to be reading a book called Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry. The author, Helaine Olen, devotes a chapter to the way […]

2. Spoons, decision fatigue, and a glimpse into poverty

   17 January 2013

   In recent years, people who have chronic illnesses have adopted lingo which may seem odd or fanciful to the uninitiated, dealing as it does with the presence or absence of spoons. The choice of cutlery as a metaphor was random, but it appears to have filled an explanatory void for a whole lot of people. […]

3. Gasoline spending: the problem

   21 December 2012

   This is the first of two posts about how I adapted our budget system to control our gasoline expenses. When I set up our budget in July 2011, Jak and I both had contract jobs. That meant two things with regard to transportation: a long commute several days per week, and free transit passes. Mostly, […]

4. To give great gifts, think like a behavioral economist

   13 December 2012

   For Jak’s last birthday, I gave him peace of mind. Also, sushi. Our mutual favorite restaurant in the area is Mashiko Sushi, way down in West Seattle. These days we eat out very rarely — a bit less than once per month — but we spend more time at Mashiko than anywhere else, in no […]

5. Now Read This — what you really want, house happiness, and the fiscal cliff

   30 November 2012

   Erica Strauss on getting what you really want Remember ‘miswanting’? Erica at Northwest Edible Life offers a another way to rethink your tangible purchases with Occupy Your Brain (Why You Don’t Really Want What You Want). She lays out a nice little chart to help you dig down past the initial desire-reflex and examine the […]

6. The credit card rewards system is gaming you

   8 October 2012

   Warnings against credit cards, while common, are almost always of the ‘don’t carry a balance’ variety. Over and over, we are told that as long as we pay off your balance each month and avoid fees and interest charges, we’ll come out ahead. I’ve noticed that bloggers in particular love to trumpet the advantages of […]

7. How American culture is causing widespread misery

   19 September 2012

   One of the fun things about reading extensively in different disciplines — psychology, history, sociology, economics — is that I sometimes encounter essentially identical motifs in unrelated sources. For example, I recently ran across a striking quote from President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “Crisis of Confidence” speech, in which he acknowledged the declining trust in government, […]

8. The secret to the new iPhone’s popularity

   14 September 2012

   So the iPhone 5 goes on sale in just one week. Here’s an early look at what people think of the improvements over last year’s 4S model: This cracked me the hell up. You’ve probably heard of ‘planned obsolescence’, where products are deliberately designed with a limited lifespan. There’s a bit of that with the […]

9. Salary negotiation: we’ve been doing it wrong

   27 August 2012

   For as long as I can remember, the standard advice to job applicants has been ‘never be the first one to name a number’ when it comes to negotiating compensation. Penelope Trunk, founder of Brazen Careerist, says so in no uncertain terms: … when it comes to discussing your potential salary, never give the number […]

10. Miswanting, and two strategies to counter it

    6 August 2012

    As part of my attempt to downsize our life, I’m culling my collection of clothes and shoes. As I ransack my closet and dresser drawers, I’m struck by the occasional item that was a complete misfire. There aren’t many of them, because I know myself pretty well, but I’ve run across a few things that […]