《市場學期刊》的一項最新研究表明，購物時越是想要約束自己的花銷，事實上會花的越多。

So, they’re scanning your items at the grocery store, and when the last tomato gets bagged you’re stunned at the cost. How did you spend so much? Maybe those cherries were 12 bucks a pound. Or maybe you should have paid more attention to what you put in the wagon. Then again, maybe not. Because a new study in the Journal of Marketing [see http://tinyurl.com/yl5dbxg] shows that the harder shoppers try to keep track of what they’re spending, the worse they actually do.

With the economy still in the dumps, sticking to a budget is key. And food’s a major expense. So a lot of shoppers try to keep a mental tally of what they toss into the cart as they go along. Scientists [Koert van Ittersum, Joost M. E. Pennings and Brian Wansink] interviewed 300 shoppers, and found that more than half of them try to crunch the numbers without a calculator or even a pen and paper. The trouble is doing that math in your head is hard. As a result, they underestimate their total cost, and end up overspending.

One trick, the scientists say, is to count what’s in your cart and multiply by a guesstimate of the average cost of the items. So nine things at $2 a pop should give you change of a twenty. It’s not perfect, but it’ll also tell you whether you can get in the 12 items or less lane.

—Karen Hopkin

瞧，商店的收銀員正掃描你的東西呢，當最后一個西紅柿裝進你的袋子時，有沒有被總價格嚇到啊？怎么花了這么多錢�。繘]準是因為這些櫻桃要12美元一磅�；蛘吣銘�該注意一下都往推車里扔了些什么。又或者，什么原因都不是。因為《市場學期刊》的一項最新研究表明，購物時越是想要約束自己的花銷，事實上會花的越多。

由于經濟仍處于低谷期，堅持做預算是關鍵。食物是最大的花銷，所以很多購物者們在逛街的時候盡量使心里的小算盤與扔進手推車里的東西一致。科學家們采訪了300名購物者，發現其中超過一半的購物者們心里想著縮緊花銷，卻連計算器都不帶，更別說一支筆和一張紙了。問題在于做心算是件比較困難的事情。結果是，他們總低估了他們的總花銷，以超支華麗麗的收尾。

科學家們說，有一個竅門，數數你的推車里的東西，然后乘上你估算每件物品的平均價格就可以啦。舉個例子，買了9件東西每件2美元，你給20美元還會找回些零錢。雖然并不完全準確，但是它肯定能告訴你是不是可以排在購買12件物品甚至更少件數的收銀通道里（注解：有的超市會為購買件數較少的顧客開辟專門的收銀通道以提高效率）。