On the House: The Household Management Science Insights Podcast · Life Management Science Labs

Janneke Blijlevens: Smart Shopping and Money Management for Your Household | On the House #75

·54 min·3 clips

Reward systems can help, but only if they serve your household finances, not the retailer.

1. On On the House: The Household Management Science Insights Podcast, Gabriella Jastra speaks with Janneke Blijlevens about smart shopping and household money management. 2. Janneke Blijlevens is introduced as an Associate Professor in Behavioral Business and Social Impacts at RMIT University, and Gabriella Jastra hosts from Melbourne, Australia. 3. The episode asks how psychology can help households make better shopping and budgeting decisions under rising costs and economic uncertainty. 4. Janneke says her background began in psychology before she moved to a design school and then a business college and marketing school. 5. She describes that path as an interest in why people think products and packages are beautiful and what drives them to buy them. 6. Gabriella and Janneke define household management as managing groceries, utilities, laundry, beds, dinner, and the planning behind those tasks. 7. Janneke defines consumer behavior as the decisions people make when they purchase products, services, or experiences. 8. She says household spending is connected to consumer behavior because people choose utility partners, grocery stores, bedding, and food through those same decisions. 9. Janneke says shopping choices are driven by needs such as autonomy, safety, belonging, gratification, learning, achievement, and status. 10. She defines smart shopping as conscious shopping or aware shopping rather than buying on autopilot. 11. Janneke explains that the brain uses heuristics, or shortcuts, to make many daily decisions quickly. 12. She links those shortcuts to impulse shopping and to buying things that are not actually needed. 13. Her first smart-shopping step is to track spending for three months and sort it into categories such as food, takeout, cleaning products, medical expenses, public transport, and utilities. 14. She says the next step is to ask what need each purchase was trying to meet, such as hunger or an emotional pick-me-up. 15. Janneke uses examples like muesli bars before shopping and calling a husband or looking at a child’s picture as alternatives to checkout chocolate. 16. She says budgets should be set slightly below current spending so the first attempt is achievable and feels rewarding. 17. Janneke speaks in a practical interview style, with Gabriella using follow-up questions, personal examples, and household scenarios. 18. The tone stays conversational and instructional, with repeated back-and-forth examples about bananas, gardening, reward points, and grocery habits. 19. People managing family budgets, shopping habits, or retail rewards would get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a theoretical marketing lecture without household examples may skip it.

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