Bulletin E-Edition:
Ringing in remorse
Coming to grips with your finances and feelings this holiday shopping season
By Anna Sowa / The Bulletin
Published: December 17. 2008 4:00AM PSTIllustration by Greg Cross / The Bulletin
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If you’ve ever spent more than you planned on gifts for your kids, bought a spouse an extravagant kitchen appliance that now gathers dust on your counter or sheepishly avoided eye contact with the Salvation Army bell-ringers as you hurried a cart full of groceries to your car, you are experiencing a common byproduct of this season of giving: consumer guilt.
For those who study human behavior, it’s easy to see why we feel extra bad about spending during the holidays, even though we’re buying presents to make loved ones happy. Advertisements for door-buster deals at the mall come along with pleas from every charity trying to help those who aren’t having a happy holiday. On top of that, financial times are tough for many Americans, making this time of conspicuous consumption a little more painful.
Behavioral psychologist Matt Wallaert, who is the lead scientist at New York financial consulting firm JustThrive.com, explains this phenomenon and how we deal with it.
“I think people spend a lot of time justifying their purchases to themselves and others to combat guilt,” he said. “The best way to not feel guilty is to not buy things, but that’s not tenable in this world.”
Why the guilt?
Consumers feel guilty for myriad reasons: financial guilt, when they don’t think they’ve been financially responsible; health guilt, which includes smoking or eating cookies when you’re trying to diet; social guilt; and moral guilt.
“The holidays tend to tap the moral and financial guilt,” Wallaert said, adding that each person’s guilty feelings vary greatly based on their history and personality.
Moral guilt comes from our feeling that it’s “bad” to spend while others are going without, and that we’re all simply feeding the consumer machine during the holidays, Wallaert said.
Financial guilt stems from feeling that we are spending money we should be saving, or that we can’t afford to spend.
“We happen to live in a culture where thrift is seen as positive,” he said. “Getting a good deal reflects positively on you.”
As a result, buying luxury items often makes us feel bad. And whereas carefully considered purchases don’t typically make us feel guilty, unexpected spending does.
“One thing we know about consumer guilt is that it’s really those splurge purchases that do it,” Wallaert said. “That violation of expectations causes some of that guilt.”
We also feel guilty if we don’t properly take advantage of our purchases, Wallaert says, which means that $500 chef’s knife you bought your can’t-even-boil-water brother could be a basis for guilt.
“We want to feel like we’re consuming within our bounds to use things,” Wallaert said. “Otherwise, there’s a lot of negative social judgment.”
Overcoming the guilt
If you don’t want to feel guilty about spending, most people find some way to talk themselves out of it, Wallaert says. “People tend to regret purchases they don’t get the full utility of.”
This involves spending some time beforehand thinking about the purchase.
“Thinking of ways you’ll use it, integrating it into your daily routine, is a great way to get rid of some guilt,” Wallaert said.
With purchases you’ve already made and feel guilty about, start using them in innovative ways, Wallaert suggests. For example, if you don’t feel you’re using your new 52-inch plasma television enough to justify the price, try hooking it up to your computer to display artwork.
Guilt-free charitable giving
Bend resident Marjorie Sherman’s mailbox is full of what many other Central Oregonian’s notice during the holidays: letters, postcards and newsletters from local charities asking residents to think of the less fortunate during the holidays.
“I would like to give to everybody,” she said, “but you just can’t.”
Especially when times are tougher than previous years.
Sherman recently decided to donate money for a rented storage space for the Court Appointed Special Advocates’ Community Hope Chest, which offers free clothing and household items to women and children in need. Her donation will amount to $1,620 for one year, she said.
Sherman, who regularly donates to other nonprofits, felt inspired to donate this season because the holidays make her more aware of the needy in her community. This thought crosses the minds of many during the Christmas season, Wallaert says.
“It is easy to think of better ways we could have spent our money,” he said, so we feel that moral guilt about buying presents for people who aren’t struggling.
Charities are happy to remind us of this. Social service organizations and nonprofits are more strapped for donations now that more people need their services, so they are using the holiday spirit to gain as much support as they can.
Wallaert, who is loyal to a number of nonprofit charitable organizations, says consumers shouldn’t think of donating to charities as guilt-reduction or a way to buy off their consumer guilt. Instead, we should be thinking of charitable giving throughout the year.
Allow yourself to buy what you want this year, he says, but include the charities.
This doesn’t have to be a financial commitment: Try donating your time or energy, Wallaert says. For example, tell yourself that you will donate one hour of charitable work per $100 you spend.
Or you could visit a senior care facility, donating your “emotional capital” to the residents.
“Many (seniors) need emotional stimuli,” he said. “You can come and bring your energy and your cheery, happy face and it will make their day.”
Central Oregon Home Instead is a care-giving company that collects gifts for seniors who won’t otherwise get presents for the holidays.
Co-owner Todd Sensenbach says those who can’t buy presents to donate can help in other ways. He hosted a gift-wrapping party Monday, where volunteers wrapped donated presents for the “Be a Santa to a Senior” program.
Those interested in volunteering can also help deliver the gifts with the supervision of a Home Instead employee.
“I can’t tell you what a tear-jerking experience it is to give seniors presents if this is the only present they’re going to get,” Sensenbach said.
For information on “Be a Santa to a Senior,” visit santa toasenior.com, then type in the ZIP code 97701 for participating retailers.
Anna Sowa can be reached at 541-383-0304 or asowa@bendbulletin.com.
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