There’s no escaping it. It’s like a disease that no one is immune to. Whether you are willing to admit it or not, we all suffer from this little problem called materialism. All of us want something, whether it’s the most adorable Coach purse you have ever seen, that sweet high-definition TV, or the North Face fleece everyone on campus seems to own. I am no exception. I would love nothing more than to have a lot of money so I could buy all of the clothes, purses, and shoes in the world. So why do we fall into this? What persuades us to become materialistic? Why do we go into debt just to get these frivolous things that we really don’t need?

It all starts when we are kids. We see what the other kids have and want it terribly. Then we beg and beg until our parents get us what we want. It’s pretty easy to just buy a toy to make your kid happy. That’s all any parent wants for their child, for them to be the happiest kid in the world. We grow up watching TV (more than is necessary), going out to eat, wearing nice clothes, going to the mall, seeing movies, and getting what we want with no problems. No wonder we’re materialistic! Growing up in today’s society pretty much guarantees that we will get what we want, when we want it. Everything is instant, thanks to the internet, and our parents have made it seem almost effortless to satisfy our needs. We have become a generation that is mooching off our parents more than ever. We don’t want to grow up and our parents are more than happy to take care of us for as long as possible. They don’t want to see us go and we don’t want to take on the responsibility to grow up. Then we get to college and see all of these new, fabulous things to spend our money on. Now we have to learn how to budget and pay our own bills. And this still doesn’t stop us from spending money when we need to save it. Unfortunately, it will catch up to us; the job market is decreasing which isn’t very promising for when we graduate. The money we aren’t saving now could someday be important when those loans need to be paid off. Most of us never had to learn how to save money because our parents did it for us. They took the Christmas money from grandma and put it in a savings account we couldn’t touch. Now we have entered the real world full of temptations and those accounts are ours to spend on whatever our hearts desire.

A major factor that contributes to our spending is advertising. Companies know that there are tons of college students out there just waiting to buy whatever crap their companies are trying to sell. According to The New York Times, the average American views up to 5,000 ads per day. This doesn’t just happen from TV or the radio. When you walk down the street you see signs, flyers, and stores all trying to encourage you to buy what they are selling. You may think that this doesn’t affect you, but we looked at a study in psychology class that showed how these ads get into your head. When you need to buy something, the more familiar brand, thanks to their advertisements, will grab your attention and you’ll choose this brand’s product. Plus, a majority of advertisements use celebrity endorsements, making them even more desirable. LeBron James has his own line of Nike shoes. A lot of fans of the Cavs or LeBron are willing to buy these shoes at any cost. Magazines show celebs wearing the latest fashions, like Taylor Swift, who claims in Seventeen magazine to have every color of the new Steve Madden flats. These celebrities who are the same age as us have so many luxuries, and we want them too. We admire them and want to be just like them, which means owning the things that they own.

Then you have celebrities like Paris Hilton who are famous for simply being rich. She has it all and shows up on the red carpet just to flaunt what she has. And people look up to her for it! We wish that we could have half the things that celebrities like Paris Hilton do and dream about being rich someday. No one grows up dreaming about being just average, working as a waitress, just getting by. We all want to be doctors, engineers, astronauts, singers, actresses, etc. Getting these high paying jobs will help us obtain the huge house with fancy cars and a maid to do the cleaning as well. It’s not bad to have these dreams and work towards them, but they aren’t always attainable. We will do whatever we have to do to get close to these goals. We will buy the clothes and purses for the label, not for the quality. No one honestly sees that Prada bag in the backroom on the streets of New York and thinks, “Wow, these shady people are selling some really quality bags.” We buy it because it’s the desired label for a cheaper price and that’s what we want. Or even worse, we go for the real thing and pay outrageous costs just to have a designer bag. The label shouldn’t be the reasoning behind our purchases. And when we do decide to splurge from time to time, it’s important that we budget wisely. We should only spend that kind of money when it’s something that really matters.

I would love to say that I am going to change and stop buying things that I don’t need, but let’s be realistic. Most of you are going to read this, think about it, go grab your North Face and continue on with your life. Unfortunately, I don’t know if this is going to be able to continue for much longer. With our country in a financial crisis, something is going to have to change. Eventually we’re going to be out of college and have to pay off our college loans, and most likely we will struggle for awhile. It’s then that we’ll look back and realize that we made a lot of stupid purchases that we could have done without. We could have saved some money. Just being smart about where you’re money goes is always a good thing. Think twice before you buy something, and possibly even utilize the wonderful world of coupons. Make sure that you know what you’re spending your money on and take that step to save a little now because someday that little bit may make a huge difference in your life.