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    如何讓守財奴學會多花一點錢

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    2009-12-21 21:00:29    作者：    來源：《華爾街日報》中文網

    Writing this column has had a disturbing effect on me: I'm getting less cheap.

    Have I become a free spender? Hardly. In the coming months, I will be singing the virtues of everything from cheap haircuts to greasy-spoon restaurants. Still, I've noticed some small but noticeable changes in my spending habits.

    The biggest is tipping. As a former busboy, I never stiffed waiters. But I used to think a 15% tip was just fine unless the service was outstanding. I learned through writing a column on the subject that 20% is rapidly becoming the standard tip. So that's pretty much what I give now.

    Of course, if I thought 20% was outrageous, I wouldn't care what other people tip. But waiting tables is a tough, underpaid job, and I decided tipping an extra 5% made more difference to the waiter than it did to me. （It amounts to only an extra dollar on a $20 meal.）

    The more subtle change has been around the house. I'm generally getting less bent out of shape when my wife, Clarissa, and the kids spend money on things I consider a waste. The shift has been subtle enough that Clarissa says she's barely noticed. 'Just a smidgen,' she told me. 'Or as we say in cooking, 'A dash.''

    Well, it has seemed like more than a smidgen to me. But I'll come back to that.

    The more pressing question: Why would writing a column on being cheap make a person less so? Wouldn't it have the opposite effect?

    I talked to some academics who have researched tightwads, and they weren't surprised. Cheapskates have an emotional aversion to spending -- they can actually experience pain when they spend. The pain can be out of proportion to the amount spent.

    So if you want to make a person less cheap, the cognitive side of his personality has to override the emotional. One way to do this is to make that person explain in writing why he's being cheap.

    The goal is to encourage 'heightened deliberations,' says Scott Rick, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan. 'That will tend to extinguish the influence of emotion.'

    Thanks to The Wall Street Journal, I've conducted a giant writing experiment on being cheap, penning thousands of words on the subject over the past 18 months.

    And I haven't liked everything I've learned about myself. I've had to ponder the times when my penny-pinching irritated my family or when I denied myself some small pleasure because it wasn't the cheapest choice.

    The result: I'm making an effort to not be automatically against every expenditure. I try to bear in mind that it isn't usually the little purchases that drag down a household budget. Far more important is how big a house you buy, how expensive a car you drive, where you send your kids to school.

    It's not an easy transformation for me. Wasting money on little things still bothers me quite a bit. Let me give you an example. We had some friends over for dinner a couple of months ago. So Clarissa ran out and bought a large electric coffee maker for $40 before the dinner.

    I thought it wasteful. I don't drink coffee, and our children, all now adults, don't either. Clarissa drinks just one cup a day. So we're never going to use this coffee maker unless we have company over.

    After that dinner, Clarissa asked who wanted coffee, and nobody did. So the coffee maker went unopened. It sat there. I asked Clarissa about it once, and she said she planned to return it to the store. She didn't. It's still sitting in our den because Clarissa says she might need it some day.

    Before, I would have nagged her several times about the pot. The thought of us owning another appliance we didn't need would have bugged me. More so than the $40.

    This time I bit my tongue, mainly. To me, that's a change. To Clarissa, the fact I mentioned the coffee pot at all shows I haven't really changed. In any event, Clarissa thinks any talk from me about not being as cheap as before is beside the point.

    'You were never as cheap as you thought,' she informed me. 'Because I was spending the money anyway.'

    寫這個專欄給我帶來了一種讓我不安的影響：我沒那么節儉了。

    是不是已經變得大手大腳？很難這么說。接下來的幾個月，我會歌頌從進便宜理發店到進普通餐館的各種好處。但我也注意到自己的花錢習慣出現了一些細微但看得見的變化。

    最大的變化是付小費。曾經在餐廳收過盤子的我從來沒有不給服務員小費，但我曾經以為，如果服務不是格外出色的話，給15%的小費足夠了。當我在寫一篇有關小費的專欄時了解到，20%已經很快地成了付小費的標準比例，所以我現在很多時候都是按照這個比例來付。

    當然，如果我覺得20%很多，我才不去管別人付多少。但當餐館服務員是一件苦差事，工資也很低，所以我覺得，多付5%對服務員來說意義很大，我自己損失的相比之下不算什么。（畢竟20美元的一頓飯只多付1美元而已。）

    更細微的變化發生在家里。當我妻子克拉麗莎（Clarissa）和孩子們把錢花在我覺得不值的東西上時，我一般不會像以前那么動肝火了。但變化程度小到克拉麗莎說，她基本沒有注意到我花錢習慣的改變。她是這么說的：僅僅是"一點點",用廚師的話來說就是"少許".

    但對我自己來說，似乎不只是一點點。我以后會再做解釋。

    更急迫的問題是，為什么寫 "錙銖必較"專欄的人，反倒變得不那么節儉了呢？豈非適得其反？

    我跟一些研究過吝嗇鬼的學者談了這個問題，他們并不感到意外。守財奴對花錢有一種情緒上的排斥──花錢的時候他們覺得很痛苦，而這種痛苦可能跟花的那點錢不成比例。

    所以如果你要讓一個人別那么節儉，就必須讓其性格中的理性成分戰勝感性成分。一個辦法是讓這個人寫出來自己節儉的原因。

    其目的是鼓勵這個人"加深考慮".密歇根大學（University of Michigan）市場學助理教授里克（Scott Rick）說，這樣做往往會清除情緒的影響。

    因為在《華爾街日報》寫專欄的緣故，我針對過節儉日子的問題做了一個大型書面實驗，過去18個月里，就這個主題洋洋灑灑寫了很多。

    在做這個實驗的過程中，我并不喜歡在我自己身上的所有發現。有時候，自己的錙銖必較讓家人生氣；有時候，因為想買的東西不是最便宜的，我不得不忍痛放棄。為了撰寫專欄，這些情景我都得一樣一樣地回味。

    其實我這是在努力改掉不假思索反對每一筆支出的習慣。我努力讓自己記住，拖累家庭財務的，不是那些零碎的花費，比這些花費更為重要的是你買多大的房子，開多貴的車，還有把孩子送到哪間學校上學。

    這種轉變不是輕易就能實現的。把錢浪費在小東西上，還是讓我頗感煩惱。我來舉個例子吧。幾個月前，我們請了幾位朋友來家吃晚餐。于是在吃飯之前，克拉麗莎跑出去買了一臺大大的電子咖啡壺，花了40美元。

    我覺得花得不值。我不喝咖啡，現在已經長大成人的孩子們也不喝，克拉麗莎每天只喝一杯，所以如果家里沒有客人，我們從來不會用到咖啡壺。

    晚飯過后，克拉麗莎問誰要咖啡，沒人回答。所以咖啡壺就沒有開箱，擱在了那里。有一次我跟克拉麗莎提起，她說她打算把它退給店里。但她沒有退，任其一直趴在我們家里，因為她說，某一天可能還會用到它。

    換了以前，我早就數落她好幾回了。一想到我們又添了一件多余的電器，我會如芒在背，不只是那40塊錢的問題。

    這一次我基本上是緘默不語。對我自己來說，這是個變化。但對克拉麗莎來說，我畢竟還是提到過咖啡壺，說明我并沒有真正改變。不管怎么樣，克拉麗莎都覺得，我說自己不如從前節儉的話都是沒道理的。

    她提醒我說，你從來都不像你想象的那樣摳門，因為不管怎么樣我一直都在花錢