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Paying for groceries with cash may encourage you to go for healthier options.
The pain of paying in cash can curb spending on unhealthy foods, new research suggests. Shelling out your hard-earned moolah appears to put a crimp in buying "vice products," such as cookies, ice cream, and chips.
Using plastic -- either a credit or a debit card -- at the supermarket led to more impulse purchases of these guilty pleasures.
In the first of several experiments, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers looked at register receipts over a six-month period from a random sample of 1,000 loyal shoppers in one-family households at a Northeastern supermarket chain. (They used single-family households to be sure the same person was doing all the food buying, which is less clear in larger families.)
The researchers looked at what types of foods were purchased in 100 different food categories as well as the payment method. Before analyzing the register receipts, they had other consumers rate foods based on whether they perceived them to be healthy or unhealthy, and impulse buys or planned purchases.
The study found that payment method appeared to weaken impulse control: Shoppers bought more food items considered impulsive and unhealthy when paying by plastic than when ponying up the dough. Researchers also noticed that consumers who shop on weekends were less likely to be impulsive and tended to stick to a list.
"We were surprised to find that debit cards had the same psychological effect as credit cards," says Manoj Thomas, an assistant professor of marketing at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Although debit cards are equivalent to cash since the money gets deducted from your bank account almost immediately, Thomas says the "mere abstractness of plastic payments can reduce the pain of payment and influence consumer's purchase decisions."
In other words, we don't feel the same sting in the wallet with either type of plastic as we do when peeling off the bucks. But perhaps these spending patterns are more a function of cheapskates versus big spenders?
Researchers investigated this question by observing 125 students doing a computer-simulated shopping task. They observed that tightwads were more likely to buy impulsive products when using a credit card than cash, but payment method had little influence on spendthrifts impulsive buys. Interestingly, payment method had no effect on the purchase of "virtue" products -- healthy foods such as fat-free yogurt or whole grain bread.
"Vice spending is more susceptible to pain of payment," suggests Thomas, the study's lead author. But it's a double-edged sword psychologically: It brings out positive feelings from a visceral desire to consume the product and negatives ones from anticipated regret after eating it.
Virtue products don't elicit these regrets and you can easily justify spending money on them.
So, is a cash-only diet the new secret to a slimmer waistline?
"Those consumers who find it difficult to control their impulsive consumption might find it helpful to use cash instead of plastic," says Thomas. "The self-control related advantages of paying in cash might outweigh the disadvantages for some consumers."
Do you think you make more spontaneous food purchases when paying with plastic?
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Cash only diet? I haven't had a credit card in years and only pay cash for all my purchases and I am still overweight. Try again!
Think again. Maybe you'd be vastly bigger on the credit card diet?
If I only used cash to buy food, I'd be dead. I haven't had cash in my pocket in years. Direct deposit means I almost never have to go to the bank, and as a result, never pull out cash.
With that said, I do see the value of a cash only diet. The time or two I have had cash in hand, I've been reluctant to spend it. There is always the thought, "do I really need this?" Same thought would apply to food I'm sure. "Do I really need the giant bucket of ice cream? No, I'd rather have the cash."
Not true. People don't tend to carry large amounts of cash at all times, and so the only thing that is affordable to them when hunger strikes is junk food. As long as healthy options are so pricey compared to cheap junk food, there won't be many people eating healthy, even if they want to do so, simply because they cannot afford to do so!
Nonsense. There are still plenty of affordable healthy foods available. Even so better to spend more on good food then 100 times that at the hospital.
My husband and I manage to eat pretty well, without spending much.I just came from the supermarket and got a week's worth of food for my husband and myself for $40 (this includes packed lunches as well). I just avoid middle aisles like the plague, except for the bean aisle, and stick to mostly fruits and veggies. I make my own hummus and guacamole, and instead of dipping chips into them, I use fresh veggies. I even was able to purchase a 3lb bottom round roast, and for the two of us plus lunches the next day, I will only cook half at a time. I also picked up a family pack of boneless chicken breasts, and further butchered them myself, into thin cutlets. I don't buy cookies, ice cream, sodas, or any of that junk. If we want ice cream, we will go out and get a pint and split it, which is about once a month. Most times, I just make a pudding using fresh mangoes, canned coconut milk, and honey, to satisfy my sweet tooth.
Eating right is easy, if you put a little more effort into it. Do I like my junk? Sure, but between constant bouts of acid reflux, and weight gain, I had to change. We are actually spending less money eating healthy, then when we were eating junk, my food bill went down by at least $20 a week.
I lost my job a few years ago and had to curb my junk and convenience food habit. I now have money, but have kept the habit. You'd be surprised how healthy and cheaply you can eat. The problem is we are sold on convenience, but it isn't that more inconvenient to eat right. A grilled pork steak, boiled frozen veggies, and rice takes all of 15 minutes to cook (without much watching) and is a around $1 per person. Your cheapest fast food meal will be at least $3.
I have a very limited budget, $20 to $25 per week, and fresh fruit and vegetables are out of my price range. The in-season fruits, peaches and apricots right now, are almost $1.50 each. If I buy one piece of fruit per day for the week, I am spending over half of my budget on that one item. Top Ramen is cheap and filling. I know it is very unhealthy, but for about $10 I can get almost 100 meals - sometimes more when it is the end of the month and there is no more money.
Spaghetti with tomato sauce is healthier (more nutrition, less fat) and only a little more expensive. I would encourage you to think about what your meal is when you eat top Ramen. I, too, have been that poor, but super convenience shouldn't win out. $20 to $25 is plenty if you plan a menu and use healthy carbs as filler (oats, spag, rice, etc.). Or eat beans or lentils (from dried) with every meal. Cheap and way nutritious.
I have tried. I have been living on less than $25 per week for over 3 years. When I am out of shampoo, soap, other essentials, or my prescriptions, the budget for actual food is much less. That little more expensive can put me the 5 to 10 cents over the $20 bill I brought to the supermarket and force me to put something back.
I feel for you, poor. I have been there, too. Trying to explain to people without money troubles how you end up bargaining with yourself before heading to the register is nearly impossible. They simply don't have the same reality. I can still remember the look on my mother's face when I tried to explain to her that I didn't buy cheese because cheese was a luxury. It was a mixture of complete bewilderment and pity.
I am not so sanctimonious that I would tell you how to live. Nor, would I be so hypocritical as to say you must not ever eat food that isn't the healthiest. I can only relate my experience. I have found, in the past, that living off of nutritionally minimal food like Ramen actually affects the way I feel. Being poor already puts your mental and physical health at risk for many reasons (not the least is the cost of health care). Simply eating healthier can counteract those things a little, especially mental health in my case. With healthier eating I have more energy and don't feel weighed down all the time. This is especially evident as I get older. What I did when I was twenty would just about kill me at thirty five.
I only suggest that you try to eat healthy when you can. I say it not as some holier-than-thou, eat-only-healthy hypocrite. (Fast food dollar menus keep me sane sometimes.) I say it because I hope you thrive and I hope that my experience can help you in some way. Good luck.
Thanks for the encouragement.
POOR: No need to buy fresh - buy frozen. Veggies are frozen at their peak and so is fruit. Buy in season stuff and balance on sale in frozen section. Skip ALL prepared foods and those with added sauces, etc. It just drives up prices. Stay basic. In CA why aren't you growing some things?
Cooking oil makes a pretty good shampoo substitute. You just have to massage it in, since it doesn't foam nicely like shampoo, and of course you have to do it before you get in the shower, and then you just wash it out using soap.
Nope, cash or credit , people are going to eat what they want.
That's so not true, but what a person to do on a fix or low income and can't afford all Healthy foods not to say that they will turn to junk food but we as people try to Eat all the Healthy foods that We can AFFORD....
Hey, everybody, read the article again. They are talking about IMPULSE junk food-- cookies, ice cream, etc. You know, the stuff you weren't planning on buying, but looked too good to pass up.
This article isn't about your daily nutritional needs. This is about buying the extras.
We eat virtually every meal at home. And mostly they're non-boxed foods -- everything made from scratch.
We are fat, fat, fat. I've gotten a little too good at making virtually any kind of food I might want to eat.
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Winco
Costco
Grocery Outlet
Trader Joes
Sure, use only cash and you'll be investigated by homeland security.
Just found that "123 Samples" is promoting a wide variety of major brands by providing free samples. You’ll have to fill in your zip code to see if you can qualify to receive them. You can get all samples from one place. I think it is available for most of the zip codes and it worked for me.
I burned myself out on Ramen noodles in college, but I have discovered that they make a nice "filler" for some meals. Add some veggies, leftover meats, and voila! Dinner.
Hamburger is now a luxury for me and the wife. almost 3.00 a lb for the fatty stuff. My stomach growls when I open a can of Alpo for the dogs, as it smells better than Dinty Moore Beef Stew, which is also a luxury.
I do buy large quantities of items when they are on sale, like I buy Campbell's chicken noodle soup when it's about 60 cents a can in the winter, and eat it for the rest of the year, after the price goes back to over a dollar a can.
Another way I save money is to save all of the grocery ads from the stores in the "big" city 30 miles away, and use the Wal-Mart price matching to buy the same item at the sale price. Saving gas AND money, too. As long as Wal-Mart carries the same item, I'm golden.
It always hurts more to hand out bills than to press "Accept." This has nothing to do with diet and everything to do with debt.