Chatterbox #346 – The psychology of spending money
Culips Everyday English Podcast
Culips English Podcast
4.8 • 979 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why does paying with cash feel different from tapping your phone? In this Chatterbox episode, Andrew and Anna talk about the psychology of spending money. They share what they happily pay extra for, what they refuse to spend on, and the small tricks companies use to get more money out of our wallets. Along the way, they look at why we sometimes feel like we got a great deal even when we just spent five times what we intended.
Listening to many natural responses is one of the best ways to build your everyday listening skills in English.
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References:
Dan Ariely TED Talk, Are we in control of our own decisions? — Watch here:
American Psychological Association, The psychology of spending* — Read here:
🔑 Key expressions
Keep an ear out for these phrases during the episode:
- To recoil
- Hit or miss
- To break a bill
- Couldn’t give a toss
- To be averse to
- To game
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Chatterbox, the Culep series for Intermediate to Advanced English Learners, |
| 0:05.5 | where we have natural conversations about all kinds of super fascinating topics, |
| 0:11.7 | from cultural trends and big news stories to debates, maybe viral moments that we see online, |
| 0:18.3 | and just everyday things that we don't always stop to think about. |
| 0:22.4 | I'm Andrew, and today in just a moment I'll be joined by my co-host, Anna. |
| 0:27.5 | I've got a question for you. |
| 0:29.9 | What's something you're always happy to spend money on no matter what it costs? |
| 0:35.3 | And on the flip side, what's something you absolutely refuse to pay for, even when it's |
| 0:41.5 | cheap? |
| 0:42.5 | If you really start thinking about it, our spending habits are kind of strange. |
| 0:46.4 | Sometimes we'll happily drop money on things like coffee or movie tickets without |
| 0:51.8 | thinking twice, and then other times we'll spend an hour on a subway |
| 0:56.2 | to go to a physical store so that we can buy something in real life instead of having to pay |
| 1:02.5 | for a shipping fee for online shopping. Well, today, Anna and I, we're going to get into all of this, |
| 1:09.3 | and we're going to talk about the psychology |
| 1:11.3 | of spending money. We'll chat about the things that we're happy to splurge on and the things |
| 1:17.5 | that we won't pay for no matter what. And also some of the interesting tricks that companies use |
| 1:23.9 | to get us to spend more money. We'll get started in just a moment, but before we do, if you're serious about improving |
| 1:31.7 | your English, then becoming a Culeps member is a fantastic way to do it. |
| 1:37.1 | As a member, you will get a study guide and an interactive transcript for this lesson. |
| 1:42.6 | Inside the guide, you'll find detailed vocabulary |
| 1:45.2 | explanations and real world examples of the interesting and useful vocabulary that you'll hear |
... |
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