North Americans are the people that spend the most amount of money in the world! That’s all because of our needy desire to have the latest thing. People don’t even have the money to buy so many things! That’s why the average Canadian household has a debt of 69,000 dollars! According to statistics for every dollar we receive, we spend $1.31.
First of all, to understand what I just said you have to know what a debt is. A debt is when you owe money. If you need 100 dollars the bank gives them to you but you have to pay the bank 120 dollars. That’s how the bank makes their money. So what I just said is that the average Canadian household owes their bank about $69,000.
Why do people have to have the newest thing? People do not really need to change their electronic devices every year or every couple of years. For example many people change their cell phones or computers every year; they are just wasting money and are not being friendly to the environment. Another thing is that many people buy things when they just got into the market. That is when things are at the highest price! If you wait a couple of months the price will drop. Wanting something and needing something is different. For example, people need food and water, but people don’t need the newest computer or TV. Many times companies flush out more and more new and “different” things to waste your money.
In addition, commercials use many strategies to get your attention. I will list some of them: Music and other sound effects add to the excitement of commercials, especially commercials that are aimed at kids.
Those jingles that you can’t get out of your head help you to remember the commercial and keep your mind on trying to buy the product. By repeating the product name, they remind you of it over and over again.
Watch out for false advertisements.
A good example of false advertisement is a picture that I found on the internet when I was searching for false advertisement pictures. It was trying to sell an anti-wrinkle cream. But if you looked closely, you could see that half the face was of a young looking woman and the other half of the face was of an old woman with lots of wrinkles! The advertisement was telling you that if you are old and have lots of wrinkles, and you use their product, you will have skin like a 23 year old.
The strategies of advertisement I talked about, and many more strategies, help people to want and buy the newest things they don’t need, I have to say that sometimes even I see a commercial and want to buy the object, everyone does sometimes. You do not need to have the latest thing to be happy. But you can find real happiness in family, true friendship and most of all GOD.
