Not Buying It

Parents will do just about anything to give their kids the best shot at good lives. Marketers know this—and use it to manipulate parents into buying millions of dollars worth of unnecessary products each year. Enough is enough.

In Not Buying It, Brett Graff, the “Home Economist,” separates the truth about what parents need in order to raise their kids to succeed from the fiction. In this bold takedown of predatory marketing, Brett shows how parents can save over a million dollars by investing the money they would otherwise spend on overpriced and unnecessary purchases for their kids. Plus, Graff exposes the many ways that overspending can actually harm kids by encouraging narcissism and unhealthy habits. Her tips range from the everyday (go for the functional stroller, not the one with an onboard cell-phone charger) to the long-term (don’t waste thousands on private school if public school will do just fine), making this a valuable manual for all stages of a parent’s life.

An essential book both for new parents and veterans , Not Buying It is the definitive guide for moms and dads who have had enough of dishonest marketing—and just won’t buy it any longer.

About the Author: Brett Graff, the “Home Economist,” is a former U.S. government economist and correspondent for Reuters who writes on the psychology of consumer spending. Her writing is published in the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Kansas City Star, Detroit News, and has been featured in Glamour, Good Housekeeping, American Baby, Redbook, Maxim, Ladies’ Home Journal, First for Women, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Forbes.com, Learnvest.com, the Nest, the Knot, and the Bump.

Her television segment, “The Home Economist,” ran for four seasons on Nightly Business Report, and Brett has made appearances on CNN, CNBC, Headline News, France 2, and each of the Miami ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates.

Brett is a wife, a mother of two young girls and a recovering PTO officer, where she learned in the trenches that traditional economists are wrong in assuming people are rational shoppers—particularly if those people happen to be parents.