Emotional poverty and money: How trauma affects income. “Romanians prefer to leave than to negotiate; you have to believe you deserve more”
Before you calculate your income, you need to analyze your beliefs. The way we learn to view money from childhood influences our consumption decisions later, our relationship to financial security and the courage to ask for what we think we deserve. In Romania, these things can be clearly seen in numbers: from emotional consumption and fear of instability to hesitation to negotiate a better salary. In an interview for Adevărul, Corina Cimpoca, the founder of MKOR, explains what the data says about Romanians' relationship with money and why financial success does not depend only on how much you earn.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Behind many purchase decisions are not only real needs, but also emotions, frustrations or the need for validation. From the data you analyze, how much do Romanians consume out of need and how much out of impulse or compensation?
Corina Cimpoca: The figures show us that there is indeed a consumption that far exceeds functional needs. In the quarterly MKOR Consumer Sentiment survey, on a total sample of over 22,000 respondents (the largest study of this type in Romania)we found that 28% of Romanians live exclusively on basic expenses, and 20.7% ended up in debt even for basic needs. And yet, in parallel, we have data from other studies that we're running that show that 39.4% say that shopping makes them feel good. The two realities coexist. This tells us something important: consumption is never purely rational. There is a consistent emotional component: we buy to reward ourselves, to reassure ourselves, to feel in control. How much of each shopping basket covers a real need versus an emotional need? We can't pin down an exact figure, but the data shows that the border is much more permeable than we like to think.
Do we often assume that we make rational financial decisions?
The premise of rational decision is basically a myth that data is constantly eroding. In one of our nationally representative studies of 1,159 respondents, 22.8% admit to feeling remorse after shopping, a sign of impulse buying. And 28.5% of those interviewed in another study stated that they bought not out of necessity, but out of pure desire. It is not about an irresponsible population. It's about psychological mechanisms: we buy when we're tired, when we're stressed, when we want to mark a moment. Promotions amplify this dynamic even more: 80.8% of Romanians buy more when they see discounts, according to MKOR Consumer Sentiment. The question is “under what conditions does the emotional decision become dominant?”, and the almost invariably answer is: when the financial or psychological pressure is (too) high.
The relationship with money is often formed from childhood, from what we see and learn at home. How much does this feel later in your professional life? Is there, for example, a reluctance of Romanians to negotiate their salaries and ask for what they think they deserve?
Data from the labor market confirm this hesitation, even if it appears indirectly. In our MKOR Employee Sentiment study, conducted over the last 3 years on representative samples of the active population, we see that 21.9% perceive that they have colleagues paid more for less, and the predominant reaction is not negotiation, but migration. Romanians prefer to leave than to ask. Negotiating involves believing you deserve more, and that belief is formed early. If in childhood the message was that money is scarce, that it is shameful to ask, that it is safer to remain silent, this pattern is transferred to professional life. We do not have longitudinal data that explicitly link childhood to adult wage behavior, but the behavioral implications are visible: we avoid direct confrontation with the subject of money, regardless of whether it is negotiation or personal financial planning. We prefer to solve the problem by changing the context, not ourselves.
Does more money actually mean more peace of mind or just a more expensive lifestyle and the same worries?
This is one of the most interesting phenomena we observe in the data. In MKOR Consumer Sentiment we applied an income analysis and discovered that in the high income category (over 6,000 lei net), discretionary expenses suddenly rise to 30–34% of the budget. In other words, as income increases, so do expenses. It's a correlation we see in all the studies we run. Not necessarily for more important things, but rather for a more expensive lifestyle.
Only 8.7% of Romanians actively save, regardless of income. That's right, with incomes over 15,000 lei the percentage of those who save reaches 49%, but until then, the increase in income tends to be “consumed” straight away. It is exactly what economists call “lifestyle inflation”: each level of income brings expenses accordingly. Real financial security does not come automatically with a higher salary, but with deliberate financial behavior, and this is less often than we would like.
From what do you see in the market, how often do we buy for utility and how much for image, status or social validation?
We have data to suggest that status signaling through consumption exists, but is not as dominant as public discourse portrays it. Our figures show that 28.9% of Romanians believe that a higher price automatically means better quality, an indirect indicator of aspirational consumption. At the same time, 33.9% of the participants in the study declared that they felt good buying something else than they had planned. There is real satisfaction in exceeding your own expectations. The problem arises when this satisfaction becomes the rule, not the exception, and when it's financed with resources you don't have. I don't have a percentage to say “so much from consumption is pure status”because no one explicitly admits it. But behaviors such as buying products that “I can't normally afford them”stated by 24.5% on Black Friday, speak more clearly than self-reports.
ADHD and entrepreneurship. The surprising link between attention deficit disorder and initiative
If we look at the generational differences, do young Gen Zers seem more relaxed about money or, on the contrary, are they carrying on many of their parents' financial fears?
Gen Z is probably the most misunderstood generation in the money conversation. Our data from the PulseZ study conducted with VSFA on 1,080 18-27 year olds shows that the number one motivation of this generation is financial independence (35% put it first and 50.2% give the highest mark to financial security).
It doesn't sound like a relaxed generation, it sounds like an anxious generation. And there's reason: 37.5% identify financial constraints as their main challenge, a trend also confirmed in our Consumer Sentiment study, where we see that Gen Z has the highest percentage of people drawing on savings, 27.5%. Young people are not reckless spenders, they are structurally disadvantaged (high prices, low entry wages, huge rents) and try to survive. That's not to start a discussion about the fact that the explosion of AI is stealing their entry-level jobs into the labor market, the ones that train them and help them climb the ladder of a career. The fears of their generation are not inherited, they are “earned” on your own, in real time.
When economic pressure increases, do people temper their consumption or does that phenomenon of “shopping therapy” occur as a form of stress relief?
Both phenomena coexist, and this is precisely what makes the analysis of consumption behavior in times of crisis so complex. On the one hand, in MKOR Consumer Sentiment we see a real prudence: 67.4% of Romanians choose cheaper brands, 60.3% reduced the quantities purchased, 80.8% buy more during promotions. These are rational, survival adjustments. On the other hand, 34.8% of participants in another study describe shopping as a “real joy”and 32.2% feel the thrill of discount hunting. The discount itself became a source of emotional satisfaction, not necessarily the product purchased. So yes, there is shopping therapy, but it has become sophisticated: we no longer buy expensive to feel good, we buy “smart” to feel that we have gained something. It is a more subtle coping mechanism, but just as present.
From the studies you coordinated, what is the most common mistake Romanians make when it comes to the personal budget?
The most common self-sabotaging behavior we see in the data is not overspending, but lack of monitoring. From the PulseZ study, 21.1% of young people do not track their income and expenses at all. If you don't know where the money is going, you can't make any conscious decisions about it. The second problematic behavior is what I call “promotional economy”: 80.8% buy more on sale, but buying something at 50% off that you wouldn't have bought at full price doesn't mean you've saved, it means you've spent on something useless. Data from Consumer Sentiment show that this behavior has increased in recent years, a sign that it is no longer an emotional reaction to the crisis, but rather a stabilized pattern. And a consumption pattern that you are not aware of is, by definition, one that you cannot control.
“We no longer work out of fear.” Generation Z is rewriting the rules of the game and no longer accepting abusive jobs
If someone notices that they spend on impulse or under stress, what would be the first practical step to regain control?
The first step, and the most concrete, is to introduce a deliberate pause between impulse and action. Our data from our annual Black Friday study shows that 54.2% of shoppers had been eyeing the product for a long time before purchasing it. That is, more than half of them practiced, instinctively, exactly this technique: deliberate procrastination. They didn't act on the first impulse, they waited for the right moment (knowing that externally set moment will come).
You can apply the same principle in everyday life: when you want to buy something that was not planned, write it down and come back to it after 48-72 hours. If the desire persists, it probably has substance. If it disappears, it was momentary emotion. Simple, free, effective. You don't need an app or a financial coach, you need a habit. And habits are built through repetition, not momentary will.
Another thing that I personally practice is to go shopping with a clear list. What is not on the list must fit into a budget (eg I remember I forgot to put something on the list)and the rest I buy online. I add them to the cart, but I don't buy right away, I wait 1-2 days, to figure out if the impulse of the moment really is a real need.
What is the biggest myth related to the way Romanians spend their money that you clearly dismantled through the data collected in recent years?
The biggest myth that our data unequivocally debunks is that Romanians buy impulsively and irrationally on Black Friday. The popular image is of a consumer who goes on a shopping spree. The reality of our Black Friday study, conducted over the past 3 years on more than 2,600 respondents, shows the exact opposite: 54.2% have been eyeing the product for a longer time, 72% set their budget based on available resources, and only 2.7% buy because “everyone around is buying”. This is highly planned behavior. The Romanian on Black Friday is not a victim of marketing, but uses the discount event as a tool to afford something that would otherwise not be in the budget, and 24.5% explicitly admit this. It's a form of adaptive financial planning, not irresponsibility.
