I come from a long line of savers. My Mom has actually taught courses on making budgets and sticking to them at the local community community college. She is coupon-clipping, sales paper scanning, and frugal. Okay, she's cheap. And she's definitely passed her cheapness on to me. I'm always saving. My only real expenses are gas and school. I have to work and save hard to afford those two things alone. My priorities are pretty pragmatic. In the future, I see myself still being a saver. After I'm finally done with school, I'll still be saving. The only difference is that my expenses will be mortgage, car, and food. I'm not looking forward to it.
Okay, that's not exactly true. I'm occasionaly a failure as a saver. I feel really guilty about it. Sometimes marketing gets to me and I go out and buy a new shirt or go see a movie. Afterwards, I feel a bittersweet mixture of pleasure and remorse. The pleasure is at marketing successfully realized in me. The remorse is over my perceived lapse of responsibility.
Thus, I'm probably not the ideal consumer citizen. I've never had cable (until I came to college), so I was never part of the Nickolodeon Nation. I appreciate branding, let it affect me and define me, but I rarely actually purchase the brands I like. That about defines me. Conservative and boring, but occasionally I break loose and buy something.
2 comments:
I try to save using coupons, but I get tired, and just hope the item is on sale aready, lol.
Anyway, about not being the ideal consumer citizen... I think you are. You have some money and little expenses. Although you might seem conservative due to you not being exposed to cable and Nickolodeon, you were exposed to coupons(ads with a purpose), school, and network tv. I had cable here and there, but I was influenced from many different places (school, home, MTV Spring Break 1998, Road Rules, TV in general). You also know about the brands-even though you do not buy the ones you like.
You're right about that. I'm totally branded. A lot of my branding has come from my addiction to broadcast TV (I can quote just about every commercial). I'm young and still very susceptible to branding. I switch my shampoo brand loyalty just about every time I see a new commercial.
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