How shops trick you into spending more, and which of it is illegal.
Consumer authorities checked 314 online traders across Black Friday 2025, and only 40% fully complied with the EU's discount rules. Other tricks here are illegal too.
Financial Psychology
Cognitive biases, the hedonic treadmill, and the behavioural patterns that drain an account regardless of what arrives in it.
You can know the right thing to do with money and still not do it. This section is about why, and what helps.
Some pieces name the patterns. Mental accounting explains why a refund feels like free money, and loss aversion explains why selling a losing investment feels like admitting defeat. A longer piece covers ten of these biases, with those two among them. The hedonic treadmill explains why a pay rise stops feeling like one within months. Others look at where the patterns come from, such as the money scripts people pick up growing up, which you can check against the self-assessment tool, and the newer anxieties the internet has given names to.
Then there’s the spending side. We cover the psychology of buying things you don’t need, how to train yourself to wait, and the tricks shops use to make you spend more, including which of them are illegal. There’s a piece on the cost of doing nothing with your money, and one on trading, where the damage usually comes from how often people trade.
Two pieces are about the other direction: what money can buy in the way of happiness, according to the research, and what financial therapy is and who it’s for.
None of this is about blame. The aim is to see the pattern clearly enough to change the setup around it.
Featured
Our best attempts.
The cost of doing nothing with your money, and what to fix first
Four money lines go stale at once: savings, tariffs, an uninvested surplus, and a pension rate you never set. Here's the ten-year bill, and what to fix first.
The psychology of spending: why we buy things we don't need
A €200 jacket split into four payments reads to your brain as €50. The psychology of spending, and how to put the brake back.
Your stock picks were fine. The trading is what cost you
You picked your broker on about €4 of commission and handling. Currency conversion on a €5,000 US-share round trip is €25 (DEGIRO, September 2026).
More posts
The hedonic treadmill: why you get used to being richer
You got the raise. The new flat. The gym upgrade. And six months later, none of it feels like anything. That is the hedonic treadmill.
Money dysmorphia and doom spending: the money anxieties the internet named
The internet named two money anxieties, money dysmorphia and doom spending. What each means, whether either is a real diagnosis, and what helps.
The psychology of financial goal setting, minus the willpower myth
You don't need more willpower or a nicer vision board. You need an if-then plan and one automatic transfer that fires without asking you.
10 cognitive biases that are costing you money (and how to fix them)
Find €100 and you get a small lift; lose the same €100 and it lands harder. That one quirk drives ten money mistakes, each with a fix you can actually set up.
Loss aversion: why you're too scared to sell losing stocks
That losing share isn't an investment any more. It's a small shrine you tend, waiting for it to apologise. Here's the disposition effect, and the way out.
Financial therapy: what it is, and who it's for
Financial therapy treats your relationship with money, not the money. Who it helps, what it costs in Europe, whether it works, and how to find a real one.
How to teach your brain to delay gratification
Delayed gratification is a skill, not a flaw you were born with. Four small levers turn it into a saving habit instead of a daily willpower fight.
How your upbringing and 'money scripts' shape your financial habits
Money scripts are the childhood beliefs that drive how you save and spend. Meet the four types, find yours with a short self-check, and rewrite them.
Mental accounting: why a euro from a refund spends differently
A euro is a euro, but your brain files it into pots and spends each by a different rulebook. Spot the pots quietly costing you, keep the ones that save you.
Scarcity vs abundance: what your money mindset does to your wealth
Your money mindset is real, just not the way Instagram swears. Real scarcity taxes your decisions, and manifestation is a sales funnel with a candle.
When did your bank balance start grading you?
Self worth vs net worth is a real, studied tension, mostly working against you. The named research on why your balance feels like a verdict, and how to stop it.
The science of how to buy happiness (it's not what you think)
Science says you can buy happiness. Four evidence-based rules for spending so it lasts, with real euro examples for European readers.