Economics 101 states that price declines as supply increases. But today’s Yahoo!Finance column covers a new study showing when it comes to high-quality purchases, that’s not true. When confronted with a dense selection of luxury items,  consumers’ focus shifts away from price to quality, and they tend to overspend.

In any case, if you’re wondering where I’ve been these last few weeks, the answer is simple, chained to my computer. And traveling while chained to my computer. I hosted a roundtable on personal finance for the members of Women in Cable Television at Time Warner Center in New York in late June (here’s a related story). We celebrated the eighth grade graduation of my oldest daughter. Then I headed out to the Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making, sponsored by the Leeds Business School at the University of Colorado. In a gorgeous mountain setting, some terrific research was presented (I’m fascinated by things like annuity purchase decisions). Watch for upcoming stories.

I went almost directly from Colorado to Chicago for my mother’s 80th birthday, which was celebrated by her eleven children and 26 grandchildren (and my dad was no doubt there in spirit). Beautiful. Thanks to my college roommate Patty for putting us up, showing fabulous sportsmanship in multiple rounds of Bananagrams, and for taking us to the hospital parking lot where you can watch the country club fireworks for free. Sweet. Thanks to brother Tom for hosting a BBQ for basically a million of us at his place on July 4. And thanks to my niece Ellie for pushing him in the pool. Classic.

Meanwhile, the deadline for my sixth book arrives at the end of the month. A crazy summer, but as my friend Elizabeth likes to say, it’s all good. I’ve spent so many years juggling multiple projects on deadline (and three kids), I’ve become the zen master. It all gets done somehow. (As my heroine Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing you think you cannnot do.”) Maybe it’s a mid-life thing, but I’ve finally learned you can meet a deadline kicking, screaming  and weeping, or meet a deadline without kicking, screaming and weeping. The latter choice makes you, and the people you love, a lot happier. (A cold glass of  Vouvray now and then after a long day of writing helps too.)

Finally, on August 1, I am leaving Yahoo!Finance to join AOL/The Huffington Post as a senior writer on the business desk, heading up retirement coverage, continuing to provide personal finance tips in the media, and keeping tabs on the topic of money and happiness. Thanks to the kind folks at Yahoo!Finance, including Becky Auslander, Chris Hunter, Bahareh Ramin, Diane Galligan and Lisa Scherzer, and former Yahoos Christopher Jones, Mark Holcomb and Tanya Singer. It was an awesome six years.

I’ll continue to blog here as well, so drop me a line with questions or comments at laura at laurarowley dot com.

• Loving Life With No Cable
• Asking for “Grace Days” on a Credit Payment
• Where the Jobs Are in 2008
• Good Morning America: Cutting Travel Costs
• Credit Scores May Become Free…For Uneducated Consumers

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Money & Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.