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Tightwads
Loosen Up; You're Not Alone
Survey shows tightwads outnumber spendthrifts 3 to 2
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Do
you hate to spend money and wince when you reach for
your wallet? You've got lots of company.
Tightwads outnumber spendthrifts by a 3-to-2 ratio,
researchers report in the Journal of Consumer
Research.
Data
came from surveys completed by 13,327 adults, most
of whom heard about the survey through The New York
Times.
In
the surveys, participants were asked to rate
themselves on a scale ranging from "tightwad" to
"spendthrift." The survey defined tightwads as
people who have difficulty spending money, and
spendthrifts as those who have difficulty
controlling spending.
Tightwads made up 24% of the group, compared to 15%
who called themselves spendthrifts. The other
participants fell somewhere between tightwad and
spendthrift status.
Being a tightwad wasn't the same as being frugal.
Both scrimp, but for different reasons.
"Conservative spending by tightwads is likely driven
by a pain of paying, whereas conservative spending
by the highly frugal is likely driven by a pleasure
of saving," write the researchers, who included
Scott Rick, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania's
Wharton School.
Rick's team also noticed that tightwads can be lured
into spending, say, $5 to get a DVD delivered
overnight if the $5 fee was framed as a "small $5
fee." Spendthrifts weren't swayed by that tactic;
they went for the $5 fee, whether it was called
"small" or not.
But
if tightwads are more common, why is debt so high
and savings so low?
"One
possibility is that our samples are not
representative of the population," write the
researchers. "Another possibility is simply that it
is difficult for many people to make ends meet."
They
also note a third theory, which is that some
tightwads aren't so pained by paying that they stop
spending. It hurts, but they still fork over the
money.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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The survey defined tightwads as people who have
difficulty spending money, and spendthrifts as
those who have difficulty controlling spending. |
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