The Reward-Yourself Trap

Because We Can Get You to Pay a Lot More!

I had just come home from the library last Tuesday, where I tutored for several hours. It was a 25-minute walk each way, and I was bushed. And the first thing I did was to fix a big mug of strong, hot tea with milk. It seemed like a little reward, although It was just plain Jane Lipton... a thrifty reward.

I've been thinking about how we tend to reward ourselves a lot these days, and how the rewards often add up to quite a bit of money. We've become a more hedonistic society in many ways, but I think advertising has played more than a small role in fostering this reward thing.

"Go on, you're worked hard... you deserve it!" Don't we hear variations of this theme in advertisements for everything from beer and fast food to shampoo and coffee drinks? Who can't remember the L'Oreal ads that urged you to splurge on their more expensive hair color... "Because you're worth it"? I used to color my hair, and I honestly noticed very little difference between brands, other than the conditioner packets that came with different brands.

That theme, that mindset... spend more on yourself, buy the more expensive item... you deserve a special little treat... you need it to brighten your day, to reward yourself for all your hard work... or just because... was picked up and continues to be used, either directly or implicitly, by a host of advertisers and their handmaidens in journalism and social media.

Clearly these Madison Avenue-inspired blandishments have worked over the years to get us to spend more and more on all the little things we use during the day. I'm not sure when my focus was first directed to this fact... I think it may have been something from Suze Orman decades ago. But it's stuck with me, and I've learned to filter some of my buying decisions through it.

Remember when you just bought a plain bar of (inexpensive) soap? Maybe Ivory, or a generic store brand. But for many people that's not good enough any more. We want "special" soaps - with lotion, or deodorants, and costing 50% more. Or we want specially scented soaps that cost 5 or 10 times as much as that bar of Ivory. Leafing through a magazine yesterday, I saw suggestions for perfumed soaps that cost $10 a bar. But... don't you deserve to have a really great scent in your morning shower? Isn't starting the day with something that makes you feel good worth the price? Uh... not necessarily.

We're being continuously upsold on everything these days. We don't just buy a jar of instant coffee, or a pound of ground Maxwell House. We buy special organic custom dark roast beans from wherever, at three or more times the price. Or we have to have K-cups that allow us to brew ever-more-expensive cups of coffee using even more expensive equipment. We don't buy the inexpensive Banquet frozen pot pie for 75 cents, but rather the big, luxurious Marie Callendar pot pie for three or four times Banquet's price, even though it has too many calories, is no more nutritious, and actually doesn't taste much better. We no longer want to eat boring old American cheese, either - we "deserve" imported gruyere, extra-sharp Vermont cheddar, or goat cheese, all at prices double (or quadruple) that of the American cheese.

OK, so the special roast really is better, and perhaps the Marie Callendar pie is a little tastier.  The gruyere is definitely delish. None of these choices is bad in and of itself. The problem is that as a society we've come to do this with everything. And as a result, we're spending more, way more, on our needs. At the grocery store, at the drug store, everywhere and on everything.

Those of us who have hit retirement age can remember when we (or our parents) mostly just bought basic items. Sure, we usually had the choice of several brands, but not the enormous choice offered today. We bought basic ingredients and created delicious meals, without using packets of expensive "special" spice mixes or "gourmet" sauces from jars. We bought plain coffee, plain soap, plain jelly or jam, and only occasionally did we "splurge" on something less basic. Splurges were the exception, not the rule that they have become.

And sometimes the splurges are a rip-off. I remember reading about a study of women's face creams ranging in price from a few dollars to over $100 a jar. Objectively, despite the claims in glossy magazine ads, no advantage was found in using the expensive creams. The best results came from one of the less expensive brands. The more expensive house cleaning products are sometimes a little more effective than the old fashioned, cheaper brands, but they also often contain more toxic ingredients. Often we're better off health-wise by sticking with more frugal, less hazardous products or even the old-fashioned staples of soap and vinegar and baking soda.

I like good coffee, but long ago decided to use a store-brand instant most of the time. My rationale is that when I make good coffee, I drink too much, so the instant is better for my health. Once in a while I have a cup of really good coffee and it's quite a treat, but I don't need to treat myself every morning. I also find the cheapest bar soap gets my skin just as clean as expensive scented soaps. I get my fix of a good scent on mornings when I shampoo my hair, because I buy inexpensive shampoos that come in a variety of wonderful aromas - I'm currently luxuriating in a coconut hibiscus-scented shampoo from White Rain, which I got at a dollar store. And by the way, my experience says that the $1 shampoo cleans my hair just as well as the $6.95 brand. I like a good gruyere now and then, but I mostly use a standard American-type cheese for cooking and eating, and it tastes just fine with my apple slices.

Living well on a small income requires finding good, or at least acceptable, low-cost staples, and then deciding, based on personal priorities, where you want to occasionally splurge. Advertising, and our friends and family who mindlessly follow advertising's dictates, will tell us to splurge on everything... because we deserve it. I'm not saying it's wrong to splurge, but it's our tendency to splurge on everything that has contributed to an unnecessarily high cost of living. Constant splurging - 'cause you deserve it! - is a trap that can ruin our budgetary goals. The good news is that we can substantially reduce our cost of living by giving a little more thought to what we choose to buy, and what we decide to splurge on.