By Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang

DECLINING house prices, rising job layoffs, skyrocketing oil costs and a major credit crunch have brought consumer confidence to its lowest point in five years. With a relatively long recession looking increasingly likely, many American families may be planning to tighten their belts.

Interestingly, restraining our consumer spending, in the short term, may cause us to actually loosen the belts around our waists. What’s the connection? The brain has a limited capacity for self-regulation, so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others. The good news, however, is that practice increases willpower capacity, so that in the long run, buying less now may improve our ability to achieve future goals — like losing those 10 pounds we gained when we weren’t out shopping.

The brain’s store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task.

In one pioneering study, some people were asked to eat radishes while others received freshly baked chocolate chip cookies before trying to solve an impossible puzzle. The radish-eaters abandoned the puzzle in eight minutes on average, working less than half as long as people who got cookies or those who were excused from eating radishes. Similarly, people who were asked to circle every “e” on a page of text then showed less persistence in watching a video of an unchanging table and wall.

Other activities that deplete willpower include resisting food or drink, suppressing emotional responses, restraining aggressive or sexual impulses, taking exams and trying to impress someone. Task persistence is also reduced when people are stressed or tired from exertion or lack of sleep.

What limits willpower? Some have suggested that it is blood sugar, which brain cells use as their main energy source and cannot do without for even a few minutes. Most cognitive functions are unaffected by minor blood sugar fluctuations over the course of a day, but planning and self-control are sensitive to such small changes. Exerting self-control lowers blood sugar, which reduces the capacity for further self-control. People who drink a glass of lemonade between completing one task requiring self-control and beginning a second one perform equally well on both tasks, while people who drink sugarless diet lemonade make more errors on the second task than on the first. Foods that persistently elevate blood sugar, like those containing protein or complex carbohydrates, might enhance willpower for longer periods.

In the short term, you should spend your limited willpower budget wisely. For example, if you do not want to drink too much at a party, then on the way to the festivities, you should not deplete your willpower by window shopping for items you cannot afford. Taking an alternative route to avoid passing the store would be a better strategy.

On the other hand, if you need to study for a big exam, it might be smart to let the housecleaning slide to conserve your willpower for the more important job. Similarly, it can be counterproductive to work toward multiple goals at the same time if your willpower cannot cover all the efforts that are required. Concentrating your effort on one or at most a few goals at a time increases the odds of success.

Focusing on success is important because willpower can grow in the long term. Like a muscle, willpower seems to become stronger with use. The idea of exercising willpower is seen in military boot camp, where recruits are trained to overcome one challenge after another.

In psychological studies, even something as simple as using your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity. People who stick to an exercise program for two months report reducing their impulsive spending, junk food intake, alcohol use and smoking. They also study more, watch less television and do more housework. Other forms of willpower training, like money-management classes, work as well.

No one knows why willpower can grow with practice but it must reflect some biological change in the brain. Perhaps neurons in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for planning behavior, or in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with cognitive control, use blood sugar more efficiently after repeated challenges. Or maybe one of the chemical messengers that neurons use to communicate with one another is produced in larger quantities after it has been used up repeatedly, thereby improving the brain’s willpower capacity.

Whatever the explanation, consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life.

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I want to thank the people who make our life easier. I really like our mailman, my hairdresser and the butcher. Our building manager is pretty nice and helpful, too.

Tough to decide what to give: don’t want to seem like a total cheapskate but still want to show “we appreciate you”. And you never know what they’re allergic or morally opposed to.

We gave chocolate truffles to a client once. When he called to thank us, he said “Even though I have diabetes, my granddaughter enjoyed them very much”. And yet candy seems like a safe choice. In worst case, they can just re-gift it.

• The Mailman got a special edition holiday Toblerone ($8.50). Everyone loves Toblerones, right? He didn’t seem very moved but said that he’s in our area for awhile, hopefully he’ll be here next year as well (his words). So I’m thinking he wasn’t too offended. I thought about giving money but it’s against the law.
• I tipped the Hairdresser 100%. I did well here, she was happy, everyone loves cash.
• The Building Manager will either get a box of cookies or a Tim Horton’s gift card. He’s always carrying a Tim’s cup.
• The Butcher is tricky. We shop at the Whole Foods, so would a WF gift card be appropriate? A steak? cash? I’m open to ideas. He is a very friendly young guy. I don’t want him to misinterpret it though.

Holiday tipping guide from CNN
The article suggests that cash is the best choice, average recommended tip is $20 or so, with some going a lot higher.

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Frustrating…

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It’s practically impossible to predict even a close income figure. Yes, you can see how much money you should be receiving in the next month or two based on outstanding invoices (if that’s how you operate. With anything retail you don’t even get that.), but the reality is that some clients pay faster, some take their sweet time, invoices get lost, and – on the plus side – unexpected quick-paying jobs come in. I’ve given up on trying to predict how much money we’ll receive in any given period.

Instead, I know exactly what our base budget is, and I know what the after-tax minimum is that we need to make to stay afloat. If we don’t make that, it doesn’t mean we’ll go bankrupt, because thanks to sticking to this budget for several years, we have a comfortable cushion to last us at least a couple of years.

For most small businesses cash flow is not stable or guaranteed, at least to a certain point in time. So it’s critical to save in those months when you do have more money coming in than going out. It’s also important to have a “barebones” budget that you can realistically stick to when times get a bit harder.

Self-discipline is the name of the game in “self-employment”. In organizing work hours, choosing business direction, promoting, budgeting – it takes a higher level of self-discipline to do it on your own. I’m not putting down those people who are working for the Boss. I know it can be extremely frustrating and nerve-wrecking, but the truth is there’s a lot less responsibility riding on most employees. By following someone else’s order you essentially give up a part of the reponsibility for your own life. Of course, there are two sides to everything, and you can feel trapped in either situation. But I’m digressing…

Having all of the above in place is helping me avoid a freak out right now, even though March ended with a loss. *sigh*

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Last year’s food spending worked out to this (average per month):
Groceries – $540
Coffee/Eating Out – $43
Alcohol – $30 wow! (I mean, not much at all)
Supplements – $91
Total: $740

This is for a family of 2 adults.

We don’t eat out or drink alcohol much, as you can see; and we rarely buy pre-packaged foods of any kind. 99% of what we eat is cooked by us at home from raw ingredients. We’ve also been switching to an all-organic diet over the past 3 years, and we’re practically there. The only exception are fruits and vegetables that we buy from local farmers, especially in season. I will take a non-organic local cabbage over imported organic one any day (all berries are an exception).

We shop downtown Toronto at the St. Lawrence Market & Kensington Market (15-20% combined); at Dominion, Loblaws, sometimes at No Frills (35-40% combined); and at the Whole Foods in Yorkville (45%).

Buying organic and/or fresh local food is a personal choice. Even though we grumble at the end of the month seeing how much money we “ate”, we don’t want to start eating lower-grade food. If you live on boxed mac-and-cheese and microwavable “soup in a bowl”, you may save money in the short term, but I firmly believe in spending money on health and prevention today, rather than fix health problems down the road. And bad food WILL make you sick. “Let your food be your medicine”, said Hippocrates.
I can talk about food quality for hours, so I better cut it short now.

We allocate about 30% of our monthly budget for food, that’s almost as much as Americans used to spend on food in the 1930′s. Very interesting graph here: Food, clothing, and shelter see different historical spending patterns.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a money-saving workaround for this. I use coupons and like sales, but those are rare for items that we buy.

If you think we’re just wasting money, and in general are gullible suckers, well… I have eaten really good nutritious food for most of my life. And then I also felt what generic mass-produced pesticide-laden food did to me in US and Canada, when I wasn’t so selective about what I ate. The contrast in my well-being was stunning, and it only took 3 years to go from feeling fabulous, to feeling crappy. Again, what to eat and how much to spend on food is a personal choice. If you grew up on TV and happy meals, you just don’t know any better. You weren’t taught about food and what it should be like. But if you know better, this is a corner you shouldn’t cut. If you buy premium gasoline for your car, and cheap mass-produced food for yourself – is it because your car is worth it and you are not?

If you have 48 minutes to spare, and even remotely curious about the meat you eat, check out this video.

Wow, first post under “Frugality” and here I am, defending wasteful spending (pardon the pun?)

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