Dollars and Sense
Dollars and Sense is an insightful guide that helps people better understand every financial decision, and give them the knowledge they need to make better ones. With explanations on how our irrational behavior often interferes with our best intentions when it comes to managing our finances, it also covers the relationship with money, and why we have the spending habits they have. Dollars and Sense explores a wide range of everyday topics—from credit card debt and household budgeting to holiday sales—the authors properly demonstrate how everyone’s ideas about dollars cost us much more than we know.
Dollars and Sense Key Notes
Key Idea #1: Irrational spending stems from not considering the alternatives and an overreliance on external signs of value.
Key Idea #2: Without value cues, we can be poor at recognizing value or making decisions.
Key Idea #3: Mental and emotional accounting plays a big role in our decision-making, and both have their irrational tendencies.
Key Idea #4: Language and rituals can change our perception of value.
Key Idea #5: There are ways to boost your self-control and resist or remove the temptation to spend.
Table of Contents
Part I: What Is Money???????????
1 Don't Bet On It
2 Opportunity Knocks
3 A Value Proposition
Part II: How We Assess Value in Ways That Have Little To Do with Value
4 We Forget That Everything Is Relative
5 We Compartmentalize
6 We Avoid Pain
7 We Trust Ourselves
8 We Overvalue What We Have
9 We Worry About Fairness and Effort
10 We Believe in the Magic of Language and Rituals
11 We Overvalue Expectations
12 We Lose Control
13 We Overemphasize Money
Part III: Now What? Building on the Shoulders of Flawed Thinking
14 Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is
15 Free Advice
16 Control Yourself
17 It's Us Against Them
18 Stop and Think