Sales and financial pitfalls. What do these two have in common? Let me give you two hints:

You walk into a retail store advertising 50 percent off store wide sale. You walk out the store after spending $150. Your budget was $80. Although it was over your budget, you did manage to walk out the store with more items for $150 than you could have without the sale.

When reading “financial crisis of 2008 to 2010” what images and emotions come to mind?

What they both have in common is fixation. For the majority of people, our minds are preoccupied with the idea of saving money on a sale and a memorable moment impressed upon our frontal lobe that seems to never fade.

The advertisement of a sale has no advantage unless you are saving money. Typically, we tend to overspend when there’s a sale which makes it difficult to …