
Scroogenomics
Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $9.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lloyd James
-
By:
-
Joel Waldfogel
About this listen
Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illustrates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste - to the shocking tune of 85 billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays.
When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls "deadweight loss." Waldfogel indicates that this waste isn't confined to Americans - most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction.
While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives. By reprioritizing our gift-giving habits, Scroogenomics proves that we can still maintain the economy without gouging our wallets - and reclaim the true spirit of the holiday season.
©2009 Joel Waldfogel (P)2009 Princeton University PressListeners also enjoyed...
-
Predictably Irrational
- The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
- By: Dan Ariely
- Narrated by: Simon Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.
-
-
Good lessons, mediocre science?
- By William Stanger on 02-24-09
By: Dan Ariely
-
9 Rules to Dominate Your Money and Learn What 67% of Adults Don’t Know
- Financial Literacy for Teens by a Teen (With a Little Help from Mom & Dad)
- By: Finley Lewis
- Narrated by: Tyler Boruff
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The younger you are when you unlock the secrets of money, the more money you’ll have in your life. At your age, you have an advantage over the adults around you–the earlier you start with good financial habits, the more money you’ll have later. You’ve found a fun and engaging guide written by a teenager–one who already understands how to build wealth.
-
-
Insightful Guide to Financial Success!!
- By Patty Hudson on 06-26-23
By: Finley Lewis
-
The Cash Cowboy Combo!
- The Ultimate 2-in-1 Book Bundle to Launch Your Journey into Long-Term Investing, Retirement Planning, Tax and Debt Reduction, and Frugal Living
- By: Paxton S. Finnegan
- Narrated by: Eric Reed
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now you can enjoy both of Paxton S. Finnegan's step-by-step guides to a better financial life in one convenient volume containing the complete unabridged versions of You Can't Have My Money! and Hunting Purple Elephants.
-
-
Fantastic Financial Advice
- By hudlocke on 05-17-22
-
The Undercover Economist Strikes Back
- How to Run - or Ruin - an Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Cameron Stewart, Gavin Osborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist. Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge-fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does.
-
-
Macroeconomics is hard
- By Noah Smith on 05-11-14
By: Tim Harford
-
Freakonomics
- Revised Edition
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.
-
-
Good, but be careful
- By Shackleton on 07-03-08
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Your Money or Your Life
- 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018
- By: Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Mr. Money Mustache - foreword
- Narrated by: Vicki Robin
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, Your Money or Your Life has been considered the go-to book for taking back your life by changing your relationship with money. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed this nine-step program, learning to live more deliberately and meaningfully with Vicki Robin’s guidance. This fully revised and updated edition with a foreword by Mr. Money Mustache is the ultimate makeover of this best-selling classic, ensuring that its time-tested wisdom applies to people of all ages.
-
-
Not A Book About Finances
- By Tristan on 09-24-18
By: Vicki Robin, and others
-
Predictably Irrational
- The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
- By: Dan Ariely
- Narrated by: Simon Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.
-
-
Good lessons, mediocre science?
- By William Stanger on 02-24-09
By: Dan Ariely
-
9 Rules to Dominate Your Money and Learn What 67% of Adults Don’t Know
- Financial Literacy for Teens by a Teen (With a Little Help from Mom & Dad)
- By: Finley Lewis
- Narrated by: Tyler Boruff
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The younger you are when you unlock the secrets of money, the more money you’ll have in your life. At your age, you have an advantage over the adults around you–the earlier you start with good financial habits, the more money you’ll have later. You’ve found a fun and engaging guide written by a teenager–one who already understands how to build wealth.
-
-
Insightful Guide to Financial Success!!
- By Patty Hudson on 06-26-23
By: Finley Lewis
-
The Cash Cowboy Combo!
- The Ultimate 2-in-1 Book Bundle to Launch Your Journey into Long-Term Investing, Retirement Planning, Tax and Debt Reduction, and Frugal Living
- By: Paxton S. Finnegan
- Narrated by: Eric Reed
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now you can enjoy both of Paxton S. Finnegan's step-by-step guides to a better financial life in one convenient volume containing the complete unabridged versions of You Can't Have My Money! and Hunting Purple Elephants.
-
-
Fantastic Financial Advice
- By hudlocke on 05-17-22
-
The Undercover Economist Strikes Back
- How to Run - or Ruin - an Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Cameron Stewart, Gavin Osborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist. Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge-fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does.
-
-
Macroeconomics is hard
- By Noah Smith on 05-11-14
By: Tim Harford
-
Freakonomics
- Revised Edition
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.
-
-
Good, but be careful
- By Shackleton on 07-03-08
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Your Money or Your Life
- 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018
- By: Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Mr. Money Mustache - foreword
- Narrated by: Vicki Robin
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, Your Money or Your Life has been considered the go-to book for taking back your life by changing your relationship with money. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed this nine-step program, learning to live more deliberately and meaningfully with Vicki Robin’s guidance. This fully revised and updated edition with a foreword by Mr. Money Mustache is the ultimate makeover of this best-selling classic, ensuring that its time-tested wisdom applies to people of all ages.
-
-
Not A Book About Finances
- By Tristan on 09-24-18
By: Vicki Robin, and others
-
Misbehaving
- The Making of Behavioral Economics
- By: Richard H. Thaler
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth - and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.
-
-
Great book if it's your first about Behav. Econ
- By Jay Friedman on 09-30-15
-
The Paradox of Choice
- Why More is Less
- By: Barry Schwartz
- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
-
-
The Tyranny of Pop Economics
- By Darwin8u on 10-28-13
By: Barry Schwartz
-
When to Rob a Bank
- ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Freakonomics was initially published, the authors started a blog - and they've kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books.
-
-
this book is free on the blog and podcast.
- By S on 05-12-15
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Dollars and Sense
- How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter
- By: Dan Ariely, Jeff Kreisler
- Narrated by: Simon Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exploring a wide range of everyday topics - from credit card debt and household budgeting to holiday sales - Ariely and Kreisler demonstrate how our ideas about dollars and cents are often wrong and cost us more than we know. Mixing case studies and anecdotes with tangible advice and lessons, they cut through the unconscious fears and desires driving our worst financial instincts and teach us how to improve our money habits.
-
-
This financial literacy book is different--and funny!
- By Susan K Donley on 11-09-17
By: Dan Ariely, and others
-
Nudge: The Final Edition
- Improving Decisions About Money, Health, and the Environment
- By: Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the title has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens, and consumers everywhere. The book has given rise to more than 200 "nudge units" in governments around the world and countless groups of behavioral scientists in every part of the economy. It has taught us how to use thoughtful "choice architecture" - a concept the authors invented - to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society.
-
-
Doesn’t include a Pdf of the images the book calls out
- By John O'Connell on 08-03-21
By: Richard H. Thaler, and others
-
Stop Acting Rich
- And Start Living Like a Real Millionaire
- By: Thomas J. Stanley
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author of The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind and leading authority on the wealthy, Dr. Thomas Stanley uncovers the truth that few people become rich by way of a high income, and even fewer high-income people are truly rich. The good news is that almost anyone can become wealthy - even without a super high income. Just stop acting...and instead start living like a rich person.
-
-
The Millionaire Next Door's Outtakes
- By Robin Olson Mayberry on 02-20-10
-
Poor Economics
- A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
- By: Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics. Work based on these principles, supervised by the Poverty Action Lab, is being carried out in dozens of countries. Drawing on this and their 15 years of research from Chile to India, Kenya to Indonesia, they have identified wholly new aspects of the behavior of poor people, their needs, and the way that aid or financial investment can affect their lives. Their work defies certain presumptions: that microfinance is a cure-all, that schooling equals learning....
-
-
Excellent for non-economists
- By D. Martin on 07-01-12
By: Abhijit V. Banerjee, and others
-
Scarcity
- Why Having Too Little Means So Much
- By: Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do successful people get things done at the last minute? Why does poverty persist? Why do the lonely find it hard to make friends? These questions seem unconnected, yet Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir show that they are all are examples of a mindset produced by scarcity. Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioral science and economics, Mullainathan and Shafir show that scarcity creates a similar psychology for everyone struggling to manage with less than they need.
-
-
Super interesting. Time to start saving money.
- By Zhen Zhu on 09-30-16
By: Sendhil Mullainathan, and others
-
The Motley Fool
- You Have More than You Think
- By: David Gardner, Tom Gardner
- Narrated by: David Gardner
- Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David and Tom Gardner are back to help you take control of your personal finances. Fully updated, The Motley Fool: You Have More Than You Think provides guidance for anyone trying to balance lifestyle aspirations and financial realities. Also: The Motley Fool Investment Guide.
-
-
Mixed feelings
- By GregK on 04-15-04
By: David Gardner, and others
-
CPR for the Soul
- How to Give Yourself a 20% Raise, Eliminate Your Debt, and Leave an Inheritance for Your Children’s Children
- By: Shawn Rochester
- Narrated by: Derrick E. Hardin
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
CPR for the Soul is a paradigm shifting new book which not only changes how you think about your finances but also creates a new mission and purpose built on leaving a legacy. The entire book is built around three fundamental pillars of stewardship, ownership, and legacy - without which, there can be no wealth accumulation. The central theme is about understanding and implementing the steps necessary to position yourself to leave an inheritance for your children’s children.
-
-
How to structure your finances
- By AEC on 08-17-24
By: Shawn Rochester
-
The Science of Money
- How to Increase Your Income and Become Wealthy
- By: Brian Tracy, Dan Strutzel
- Narrated by: Brian Tracy, Dan Strutzel
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The subject of "money" remains one of the most fascinating, thought provoking, emotional, polarizing, and well-researched subjects in the world. Scores of books, articles, blog posts, and speeches have been written on what money is, how to earn it, how to spend it, who has it and who does not, and a myriad of other topics related to the effects that it produces. Yet, despite the constant focus and interest on the topic, there is one word that describes the average person's views around money: confusion.
-
-
Quality book
- By Amazon Customer on 06-14-17
By: Brian Tracy, and others
-
The Money Deception - What Banks & Governments Don't Want You to Know
- Money Power, Banking Rules & Secrets Exposed. The Money Education & Makeover Guide.
- By: Thomas Herold
- Narrated by: Ken Strecker
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook unveils more than 20 secret methods used by banks, governments, and corporations to legally steal 90 percent of your income. Brilliantly authored and astoundingly easy to understand, this audiobook is an eye-popping exposure of the most sophisticated fraud in the history of mankind.
-
-
Five Stars
- By Anthony Daniel on 07-04-19
By: Thomas Herold
Critic reviews
"Waldfogel delivers a badly needed poke in the eye at holiday-time consumer madness, positing that not only is compulsory gift giving stressful and expensive, but it's economically unsound.... This lively, spot-on book may be the one gift that still makes sense to buy come Black Friday. ( Publishers Weekly)
What listeners say about Scroogenomics
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Candace Cotto
- 11-29-09
a little dry
Excellent research methodology make the premise of this book very credible, but, by virtue of that fact, it is heavy on statistics and economic theory. It isn't a "casual" listen, but if you can stay focused, it makes a very good argument for an alternative to the madness of unwanted Christmas gifts.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- J. Martinez
- 02-11-10
Bleh-onomics
Despite the catchy title and interesting premise, I found my mind drifting after the first 20 minutes of this book. It is clearly trying to capitalize on the success of "Freakonomics" but unfortunately does not engage a reader with no economic background. While "Freakonomics" strives to make economics weird and interesting to the common man, this book feels like it was written for people interested in the finer technical points of economics. There were times when it felt distinctly textbook-y. So 2 stars for effort.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful