During this time of year, you can’t walk through a store without hearing at least one Christmas or holiday song. The stores’ intent, however, is not just to annoy you with a constant replay of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,”, it actually has to do with altering your thoughts so you are more pressured to buy the items in their store to make them into lovely holiday gifts. The repetition of holiday music over-stimulates the senses and makes us more prone to losing our self-control and making an impulse buy according to the New York Times. .

In addition, there are also many factors such as Black Friday sales and the pressures of satisfying your family and friends’ wants and needs that lead to more overspending during this season.

According to Rick Kahler, an expert in the psychology of money, the issue of many people with overspending can be traced back to the economic status and values of their family when they were younger, as stated in Daily Finance and Psychology Today. A majority of people who were raised on a tight budget will stick to more essential purchases rather than if they were raised with a wealthy family, in which case they will turn into “spenders” who tend to be more generous and impulsive with their shopping.

These overspenders usually see money as a source of happiness to buy materialistic items although holiday shopping should revolve around spreading joy and not spreading items.

So instead of making impulsive buys to impress people, spend your holiday shopping money on creative gifts that will make the investment more special.

To find out more about the psychology of overspending, check out these websites:

• http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-201307301630–tms–savingsgctnzy-a20130730-20130730,0,1910346.story
• http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/02/01/why-we-buy-the-psychology-of-overspending/
• http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/open-gently/201311/are-you-overspender