People Who Keep Spending More Money Than They Should Usually Do This One Thing Without Thinking
Convenience really does come at a major cost.
valentinrussanov | Getty Images Signature | Canva Pro If you're of a certain age, you likely remember the bad old days when any time you wanted to buy anything, you had to dig out your credit card, if you could even remember where your wallet was at that moment. What a nightmare!
Nowadays, of course, we all use cards so frequently that many of us know our numbers by heart, and even if we don't, our phones and computers have all that info stored for us. Buy whatever, whenever at the click of a button! But it turns out, this convenience comes at a major cost, especially for Gen Z.
A study found that memorizing credit card numbers is linked to overspending and financial problems.
The study, conducted by Western & Southern Financial Group, surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, and boomer consumers who own at least one credit or debit card. Of them, 30% had at least one card number memorized.
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Those 30% revealed a pretty interesting correlation: They had significantly higher rates of bad financial habits and purchase regrets.
People who memorized a card shopped more, had more buyer's remorse, and carried more debt.
We've all been there: We get bombarded with ads while scrolling Instagram Stories, and before we know it, we're buying something completely ridiculous for an extortionate price. Or at least YOU probably have — I actually did NEED that sweatshirt screenprinted with a still of Bethenny Frankel yelling at Kelly Killoren Bensimon to "go to sleep!" in the "Scary Island" episode of "The Real Housewives of New York!" AND $80 was a perfectly reasonable price for it. I will die on this hill.
But you get my point: It's hard to imagine we'd buy a lot of the stuff we buy these days if we had to first get over the hump of going and finding our credit card. That lack of what psychology calls "pattern disruption" seems to be having a huge impact, according to Western & Southern's study.
They found that 1 in 5 Americans who have at least one credit card memorized spend more than $500 a month buying crap online, an amount that is more than double those who don't have a card memorized.
Impulse buying and stress buying were higher among card memorizers, too. The study found 26% of memorizers made impulse buys compared to 23% of non-memorizers, and the stress-shopping breakdown was 22% vs 15%.
As for the debt picture, it's pretty sobering as well: Western & Southern found card memorizers carry 10.8% more debt than the non-memorizers, an average of $5,010 vs. $4,523. Unsurprisingly, buyer's remorse was much higher among memorizers, too.
Gen Z had the biggest problems and most regrets.
Every age group studied by Western & Southern showed remarkably consistent trends on all these factors. But perhaps unsurprisingly, the youngest among us showed some of the highest rates of bad habits, as well as the most regrets.
For Gen Z, of course, having a card number committed to memory, whether it's their own or their phone or laptop's, has been the default for basically their entire adult lives. More than 1 in 4 said they feel it is negatively impacting their financial health because of the ease of overspending and impulse buying.
While overall 1 in 6 survey respondents said they wish they could have their credit card numbers erased from their brains (pitch: a sequel to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" about credit card numbers), for Gen Zers it was more than 1 in 4, at 26%.
So what's the solution? Western & Southern found that many they surveyed had taken the obvious steps to curb their overspending: 16% had actually deleted their card numbers from their phones, laptops, browsers, and apps, and 17% had switched to using cash whenever possible.
Of course, many simply set spending limits and developed a budget that they adhere to. But that's the kind of move that makes $80 Real Housewives of New York sweatshirts out of the question. Boring! Sometimes debt is just worth it.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
