A $400 purchase sounds expensive when you picture $400 leaving your bank account today. But show the same item as “four easy payments of $100,” and suddenly it can feel much more manageable, even though the total price has not changed.
That psychological shift helps explain the enormous growth of buy now pay later services at online and physical checkouts. The installment itself becomes the number shoppers focus on instead of the full financial commitment. That can be convenient, but it can also make an expensive purchase surprisingly easy to rationalize.
