Yabba, Dabba … Don’t?

Every day we see between 1,500 and 3,000 advertisements. That’s upwards of 125 in-your-face fliers, billboards, commercials and print ads per hour — or 2.08 per minute.

Which makes perfect sense considering the average American debt per credit-card carrying household is $8,500 to $14,000, according to Federal Reserve Board of Governors statistical releases and the U.S. Census Bureau. As much as we’d like to think that our decisions to buy, buy, buy are independent choices based on personal preference, price, etc., we’re wrong. Advertisements influence our purchases — nearly all of them — whether we like it or not.