Why do you try to avoid pain so often?

Do you use Alipay, payWave, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay or boring NETS or even Credit Cards to part with your money?

Then for you making payments might hurt less than it should.

The pain of paying may be the trickiest, and most ominous, of all the ways you mess up with money.

Maintaining some pain of paying helps you at least consider the value of your options.

The pain of parting with cold hard CASH that you can see and feel helps you pause before purchasing and consider whether or not you really should spend your money then and there—it helps you consider opportunity costs.

The problem, of course, is that those people who make payment systems don’t share your desire to slow down, consider alternatives, and think.

This is why the best solution for the pain of paying may be as simple as “Don’t use credit cards.”

Or maybe it’s an even simpler “Stub your own toe hard against the payment counter every time you use those … so you really feel it.”

Ok, that might not be a sustainable financial plan since eventually, the medical bills might catch up with you.

Then try paying with CASH and keeping mainly LARGE bills in your wallet. You spend averagely 23% less than if you use credit cards and you make use of the “denomination effect”—which causes us to be less likely to spend large bills than their equivalent value in small bills.

Well, realistically, we won’t suddenly stop using credit cards and payment apps (aka anesthesia against the immediate pain of paying).

But at least we should be skeptical of the latest financial technologies, especially those that are designed to demand less of our time and attention and make it easier for us to part with our money.

It won’t be long before blinking in a certain way will be a payment option.

Don’t sign up for that if you’d like to flirt with the opposite sex often or you’d like to avoid overspending.

Further Reading: 10.5 safe ways to safely save you money  and  Whatever you earn – live within your means