Negative Reasons For Overspending

Another reason so many are going into debt these days is due to overspending or excessive spending. Overspending has become a social art in the American way of life because immeasurable people are buying products for reasons other than to satisfy their needs. Continuously, American shoppers are buying things to conform socially with others in their societies. Economist Juliet Schor, explains that American families are buying “designer clothes, a microwave, restaurant meals, home and automobile air conditioning, and, of course, Michael Jordan’s ubiquitous athletic shoes, about which children and adults both display near-obsession” (1988) that are luxury products and dissimilar to crucial needs like medical care or basic housing costs. Additionally, Americans are

Now, stores like Walmart, CVS and Walgreens manufacture their own store brands of products that are exact in every way except the name. The consumption of bottled water over tap water, making compulsive purchases and spending more money on food items simply because of brand names are preferences by some consumers that some may consider as wasteful spending. Another reason for exorbitant spending derives from a desire to make oneself feel better, which can lead to uncontrollable or compulsive buying. “Recent proposals, which draw on social psychology, conceptualize compulsive buying as compensatory behaviour, where individuals attempt to deal with identity and mood problems through buying material goods” (Dittmar 467). An American television show entitled, Hoarder Buried Alive, shows some individuals that have gone into great debt. Some of the individuals have lost their homes, are fined by the cities and fall into deep depression due to their inability to quit spending excessively. Excessive spending is only part of some of their