Seriously, though, a problem people have saving is that they view their older selves as strangers. After all, they have never met their older selves! This is the interesting research finding produced by Hal Ersner-Hershfield et al. detailed in Social Cognitive and Affective Neural Science. I learned about it at the Investment Fiduciary site. It is reasonable that, if we see our older self as a stranger, it makes it more difficult to save - especially for retirement.
Today there is a way to overcome this hurdle because there is (you guessed it!) an app that will take a current picture and age it digitally so you can meet your future stranger self! The app is a $0.99 iPhone app called AgingBooth.
You can see my aging picture on the main page to this blog :)
I hope they come up with an app soon that makes us all younger so we can save more at an earlier age!
Conflicting advice here! :)
ReplyDelete"Need help saving?"
"if we see our older self as a stranger it makes it more difficult to save"
"an app that will take a current picture and age it digitally so you can meet your future stranger self!"
Hey you want me to save or not?! ;)
Good point. I need another sentence in there. If we meet our older self then our older self is no longer a stranger and it is easier to save for our older self. I hope that makes it clearer.
DeleteI don't want to see my older self yet. It may take away my enjoyment of food, amongst other things JK :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't think you need to see your older self. From reading your blog I know you have a nice balance and have thought out the relationship between saving, frugality, and earning an income.
Delete