It is often easier to follow the crowd as we don’t need to take time off and think for ourselves. Even in terms of internalizing your life’s purpose , crowd mentality saves us most of the times. There is no denying that we also fall victims to a bad crowd mentality since most of us fall into the trap of wanting to be a part of the environment.
Enough said in terms of philosophy, when it comes to the field of savings, investments and spending there is a tendency to follow the crowd here as well. When we see the environment of consumerism in our western counterparts, the people in these countries are influenced by the thought of upgrading your life by buying a product. Data suggests that culture is a strong force that shapes a consumer’s buying habits.
Asian countries like India and China have predominantly higher savings compared to the western nations. Here culture pays an important role as financial nuances like credit, emi, mortgages penetrated the society at a slower pace. An Indian Father will emphasize saving over spending and also show a way to invest those savings. That’s because in his youth in order to buy a bike he had to save up for it.
These cultural preferences are changing in recent times , products like emis, personal loans are available easily. An individual can buy an Iphone today even if it costs 8 months his salary. It remains to be seen what ideas about financial savings and investing he will pass on to his next generation. This will have an impact on the overall debt in the macro scenario as well. Maybe in the next few decades the consumer’s debt will be many times that of government debt. Now that would be a bad situation to be in, because the government cannot tend such a situation as it has its own debt to take care off.
Attaining a balance between the culture of savings and consumerism is what the world should aim for going ahead.
Simple Finance 