A Spendaholic Goes to Confession: A secular sermonette

Feeling Good After Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Millions of Americans overeat on Thanksgiving and overspend on Black Friday. Come Saturday, it's regrets time.

How might you feel good on Saturday? I’m under no delusion that a how-to article can outweigh years of bad habits, peer pressure, and the desire for instant gratification. But perhaps one or more of the tactics I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today might be of value.

What I'd Tell My Teenager About Earning, Spending, and Saving

What I'd say to my teenager about money: earning, spending, saving. That's my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Alternatives to Black Friday

"Black Friday” is the latest marketing ploy to get you to buy more than you need or even, unnudged, want.

Yet, like lemmings, millions of Americans will trot out, or should I say crawl out given the likely traffic and parking problems, to the mall to get the “bargains.” Of course, only a tiny percentage of most stores’ items are much less costly than after Black Friday. And the odds are even tinier that one of those items is what you really want. So if you’re lucky and they haven’t run out of those “bait” items in your size and color, it’s misleading to say you “saved” anything. You’ll probably spend good money on something other than what you really wanted or maybe didn’t want at all---Do you really need yet another pair of shoes, even if it is half off the likely inflated regular price?

So, might it be time to create a new post-Thanksgiving tradition, a more colorful and rewarding alternative to Black Friday? In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I propose 17.