IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedlpo/103010.html

How Mental Accounting Shapes Our Financial Choices

Author

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of mental accounting and how it affects a person’s financial choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Caceres-Santamaria, 2026. "How Mental Accounting Shapes Our Financial Choices," Page One Economics Newsletter, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlpo:103010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/page-one-economics/2026/apr/how-mental-accounting-shapes-our-financial-choices
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/teaching-resources/personal-finance/spending-budgeting/how-mental-accounting-shapes-our-financial-choices
    File Function: Federal Reserve Education resource landing page
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/resources/readings/article--how-mental-accounting-shapes-our-financial-choices-reading.pdf
    File Function: Full text with Reading Q&A
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heath, Chip & Soll, Jack B, 1996. "Mental Budgeting and Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 23(1), pages 40-52, June.
    2. Broekhoff, Marie-Claire & van der Cruijsen, Carin, 2024. "Paying in a blink of an eye: it hurts less, but you spend more," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 110-133.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Darren Duxbury & Thanos Verousis & David Marsh, 2026. "Behavioral drivers of intentions to use cash: UK survey evidence," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, December.
    2. Howard Kunreuther & Erwann Michel-Kerjan, 2015. "Demand for fixed-price multi-year contracts: Experimental evidence from insurance decisions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 171-194, October.
    3. Kim, Joonkyung & Zhao, Min & Soman, Dilip, 2023. "Converging vs diverging: The effect of visual representation of goal structure on financial decisions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 362-377.
    4. Stephanie Moulton & Cäzilia Loibl & Anya Samak & J. Michael Collins, 2013. "Borrowing Capacity and Financial Decisions of Low-to-Moderate Income First-Time Homebuyers," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 375-403, November.
    5. Elias L. Khalil, 2024. "Mental accounting, heuristics, and the second‐best: Solving the calculator‐jacket puzzle," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(4), pages 2415-2427, June.
    6. He, Haonan & Wang, Shanyong, 2019. "Cost-benefit associations in consumer inventory problem with uncertain benefit," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-284.
    7. Robin Maximilian Stetzka & Stefan Winter, 2023. "How rational is gambling?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1432-1488, September.
    8. Dora Gicheva & Justine Hastings & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2007. "Revisiting the Income Effect: Gasoline Prices and Grocery Purchases," NBER Working Papers 13614, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Mohammad Reza Nikbakht & Mehrdad Sadr Ara, 2016. "A new experimental model for profit maximization," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(3), pages 45-52, June.
    10. Jozsef Sakovics, 2007. "Reference price distortion," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 177, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    11. Nilton Porto & J. Michael Collins, 2017. "The Role of Refund Expectations in Savings: Evidence from Volunteer Income Tax Preparation Programs in the United States," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 183-199, March.
    12. Ho, Cony Ming-Shen & Chin, Shih-Chun (Daniel) & Wang, TzuShuo Ryan, 2025. "Recurring versus one-time donation requests: The toll on attracting donors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    13. Andersson, Henrik & Ouvrard, Benjamin, 2026. "Not on my plate! Challenges to promote meat substitutes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    14. Dilip Soman & Amar Cheema, 2002. "The Effect of Credit on Spending Decisions: The Role of the Credit Limit and Credibility," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 32-53, September.
    15. Koch, Alexander K. & Nafziger, Julia, 2020. "Motivational goal bracketing: An experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    16. Huang, Jiaqi & Antonides, Gerrit & Nie, Fengying, 2020. "Is mental accounting of farm produce associated with more consumption of own-produced food?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Christophe Bellégo & Romain De Nijs, 2020. "The Unintended Consequences of Antipiracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1064-1086, December.
    18. Epper, Thomas & Ibsen, Kristoffer & Koch, Alexander & Nafziger, Julia, 2026. "Predicting University Dropouts: Evidence on the Value of Student Expectations and Motivation," IZA Discussion Papers 18439, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Xu, Yonghao & Meng, Juanjuan & Zhang, Yu & Koo, Jeffrey, 2025. "Present bias, mental budget constraint, and the payday consumption cycle," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    20. Norvell, Tim & Horky, Alisha, 2017. "Gift card program incrementality and cannibalization: The effect on revenue and profit," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 250-257.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedlpo:103010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Scott St. Louis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.