6 Signs You’re Keeping Up With The Joneses

Mark Wealth

How do you decide what to spend your money on? Do you decide based on what you really need and how much you earn or spend more than you earn on things your neighbour, colleague or friend buys? If that is the case, you are keeping up with the Joneses.

Psychologists report people who let their neighbour’s possessions decide their spending habits may not realize it and this will eventually cause great financial harm. Check out these typical signs to help you tell if you’re keeping up with the Joneses.

1. Celebrity Fashion Advisers

How do you select your wardrobe? How many of your clothes are styled after something you saw on TV and you had to pay a good buck for a piece? Or maybe it’s Madam Helen, your boss’s wife you’re keeping up with. Her necklace looks so good and you must have one too. If Madam Helen earns more than you and you’re trying so hard to replicate her lifestyle, you’re keeping up with the Joneses.

2. You Always Have The Latest Gadget as soon as it comes out, even if you have to pay in installments. And you’re doing this just because you want to be seen as ‘current’ or you feel someone in the office is ‘oppressing’ you with their own latest version.

3. You Get Upset When Others Show Off

Your friendly or unfriendly neighbours or colleagues are being flamboyant or showing off their wealth or luxurious possessions and it’s upsetting you? It won’t be long before you start trying to show ‘money ain’t a thing’ by buying things beyond your means just to earn the bragging rights.

You think you’re giving them a run for their money but soon you’ll be wondering how your money keeps running down.

4. You Feel Lazy Or Unfulfilled because of your friend, family member, colleague or neighbours possessions. Your neighbour has changed cars twice and you’re still driving a model that’s like 10 years old.

5. No Savings

There’s always something to pay for, like your membership fee at the exclusive spa where you meet society ‘big boys and girls’. Or the splurging you go on with your friends who are earning twice your income.

Why not try meeting those big boys and girls in some free networking seminar or workshop? At least there, they’ll be open to your money making ideas, if you have any, and you can gain from interacting with them.

6. You Work Harder because you want to be able to keep up or better yet, outshine someone or get their approval.

If this is the reason you work harder, you’ll never feel satisfied because there will always be someone that will have more than you or that you want to impress. Keep at it and you might even surpass the Joneses but one day, you’ll realize you have missed out on your own life because you were trying to impress others.

Conspicuous spending amounts to keeping up with the Joneses. It means you’re spending so that you will be noticed, not because you have needs. This is completely different from getting motivation from other people’s successes. Aspirations are not measured by spending behaviours or possessions but by hard work and contributing to society.

So, quit keeping up with the Joneses. It’s a trap; a vicious cycle that makes you lose sight of what’s really important.

Let me conclude with something I read on www.investopedia.com. It says, “stop keeping up with the Joneses, they are broke.” You heard Kanye West and 50 Cents have said they are bankrupt, right? I don’t think you want to model your spending after these celebs.