To celebrate and encourage Wealth Junkie readers to achieve financial freedom, we are celebrating the month of July at Wealth Junkie as Financial Freedom Month. Each day, I and/or other financial bloggers will be sharing one tip to help you achieve financial independence.

Today’s tip for financial independence is: When it comes to spending money, don’t succumb to peer pressure.

You know those Loews commercials where the neighbors keep outdoing each other, buying bigger grills, decks, a gazebo, etc.? In that neighborhood, the neighbors keep spending money to try to outdo each other, pushing each other into more and more debt in order to do it.

Though it is funny to see them competing on television for who has the most stuff, in reality it is a downward financial spiral for everyone involved except the store itself.

And yet that’s what people do. All the time. As a culture, we always need the latest gadget (iPhone, anyone?), flashy new cars, and an expensive new home that is really out of our price range.

The bottom line: peer pressure is a bad reason to buy a gazebo. If you really want to compete with your neighbors, compete for who has more money in the bank. If all you do is burn your money at Loews, the only winner will be them.