Seven Ways to Trick Yourself Into Making Sound Financial Choices
Take advantage of insights from behavioral economists.
Illustration: Yann Bastard for Bloomberg Businessweek
We spend too much and don’t save enough. We pay interest on credit cards. We buy shares in GameStop Corp. at the top of the market. We are, in short, human. Fortunately, there are hacks that can help us get our financial lives under control with minimal time and effort. Here are tricks for beginners:
Use your birthday. People often assess their lives and make new commitments on their birthdays, so it’s a “beautiful opportunity” to make changes that are short-term annoying but long-term beneficial, says Katy Milkman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and author of the forthcoming How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.