How to Avoid The Keeping up With Joneses Syndrome

How to Avoid The Keeping up With Joneses Syndrome

Avoiding debt on things you can't afford. Lower your mortage. Avoiding debt on things you can't afford. Lower your mortage.



The Joneses are in debt up to their eye balls and broke, so why do we want to keep up with them? We should be avoiding them like the plague.

Whether the Joneses live down the street from you or Jones is your co-worker, brother, sister or best friend, trying to keep up with them or compare yourself to them will only lead to your disappointment.

Avoid getting caught in the trap or get out of the trap if you are in it already.


Step1
Stuff you can't really afford. Stuff you can't really afford. Avoid the pursuit of impossibility. It's a giant waste of time and very stress inducing so STOP IT!

So, the guy next door just got a new big screen television, a new car and the smallest cell phone you have ever seen. How is he going to pay for all that debt? Well, I would bet that if truth be told they are barely making it.

Why do they do it? Some people need their McMansion to feel good about themselves or prove that they have finally made it. Others just need to show off fulfilling some perceived social or psychological need to be seen as better off then they really are.

Step2
The newest stuff you don't really need. The newest stuff you don't really need. With the grim outlook for the economy, spending money on status symbols just for the sake of showing off should be a thing of the past. If you are driving a Hummer but have nothing in your retirement accounts, you might want to reevaluate your priorities.

Look, that ipod you bought last month is already an antique and the new and improved iphone has another hundred features you will never use.

Step3
Cut up your credit Cards Cut up your credit Cards Now is the time to trim the fat.

Set your priorities: how many cars can you drive at one time?
We live in a disposable society and we want instant gratification. We see it now, we want it now, we put it on the credit card. Whatever happened to saving up for what we want? If you can't afford it now, don't buy it now.

Leave the materialism of the last ten years behind and be concerned about your future. Start building up your nest egg and cutting out or not getting at all, things like the three hundred channels on Dish network or the Blu-ray player.

And like my mom told me as a kid. What the neighbors do aint our business.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4844890_avoid-keeping-up-joneses-syndrome.html