Listen Money Matters - Free Your Inner Financial Badass. All The Stuff You Should Know About Personal Finance.

Do you feel like you always have to one-up your friends, colleagues, and neighbors when it comes to having nice things?  Stop that, you’re digging a hole. Many people are competitive and that can take many forms, including always having to one-up those around you with something bigger and better (and more expensive). Marketing has a lot to do with this.  There aren’t ugly people in commercials for a reason.  If you use Product X, you’ll be smarter, sexier, richer etc.  But most of us are bigger than our more base instincts.  We all know how marketing works and why it works. What can be harder to combat is jealousy.  Your neighbor brings home a brand new BMW.  Why should he have one and not you?  Guy’s a douche.  So now you want a new BMW.  But you are not five years old.  Just because someone has a shiny toy doesn’t mean you have to have a shiny toy too.  And all you know about the guy is that he’s a douche with a BMW.  He might be mortgaged to the hilt and working a job he hates to pay for it all. There