Are you feeling stressed about your inability to spend the way you want to? Are you losing the strength and energy to resist the urge to splurge?
According to a poll conducted by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), 66% of Americans are suffering from “frugal fatigue.” In a nutshell, people are sick and tired of the pressure of living below their means.
Can you blame them? For many, there is nothing readily desirable about creating a budget, examining your spending regularly and essentially cutting coupons and pinching pennies. It is unfortunate, however, that American’s see some of the fundamental principles for wealth creation as such a hassle. Living below ones means should not be a strategy that we pull out only to weather a recession. These principles should technically be our way of life. I’m not saying that we must create a lifestyle of deprivation, but I am saying that we exercise discipline in all circumstances, i.e. in and out of a recession.
I believe the number one issue is that people have been forced to live differently as opposed to having a mindset shift and realizing for themselves that their behavior needed modification. Despite how you “got in” on frugality, the question is now that you’ve been here, where do you go from here once the economy begins to look up? How do you live the life you want, but maintain the lessons you’ve learned?
Whether you are suffering from frugal fatigue or not, I suggest creating both a written and visual plan for your life in a place where you can access it daily. Whether you use a dream journal, vision board or any other method you can think of is totally up to you – the point is to just use SOMETHING! No matter how strong-willed you are, everyone has a moment here and there where they want to just give discipline the peace sign and do what they feel like doing – no matter how detrimental to their progress. But, when you keep the vision you have for your life at the forefront of your mind, it becomes much easier to control yourself and stay focused.
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Bundle, a New York City startup collects data on how people handle the same financial decisions to learn what works and what doesn’t, with the goal that we can all get smarter about money, together. In short, it crowdsources personal financial habits so we can all make better choices.
Bundle published a terrific amount of data ranking tech spending across the United States. Surprisingly, California and New York didn’t even make the top 5!
Here’s who did:
1. Washington, D.C.
While not technically a state, Washington, D.C. led the pack for the most tech spending Washington, DC with an average consumer spending $62.25 on electronics per month, 35.5% higher than the national average.
2. Connecticut
My home state of Connecticut comes in at #2 with the average consumer spending $64.25 per month, 33.4% higher than the national average.
3. Hawaii
This was surprising to me! If I could unplug anywhere in the U.S., it would definitely by Hawaii, but seems this isn’t true for the 3rd biggest tech spender with the average consumer spending $57.67 a month on electronics, 19.7% higher than the national average.
4. Delaware
Delawhere? Jokes. Home to one of our finest social media bloggers, Megan Sayers, Delaware ranks as the 4th biggest tech spender with an average consumer electronics spending of $56.08 per month, ranking 16.4% higher than the national average.
5. Oklahoma
Rounding out the top 5, Oklahoma tech fiends spend $55.83 per month on electronics, 15.9% higher than the national average.
To see the entire 5-state ranking list, click here.
Bundle’s data is based on the anonymous transactions of 25 million Americans. They have an in-house team of mathematicians and data specialists who work with the raw data to classify transactions by category and demographic, etc., and then put the info into a digestible format, which can then be used to create rankings such as this one. To play with the fun visualizer of spending bubbles, check it out here.
They also have a similar feature for an individual’s own spending via their personal finance management tools. Use it to compare your spending with others in your neighborhood, divided by age group, income bracket, etc. Think of Bundle as a Mint plus Blippy service.
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