Dollars and Sense

To save requires us to value the distant, uncertain future and plan accordingly.

It’s easy to feel good now. It’s hard to feel like we might not feel good later.

Everyone recognizes that the moment we open a phone while driving increases the probability that we will die in a dramatic way. Everyone also recognizes that doing so is a really stupid way to risk our own lives and the lives of others. Nobody thinks it’s a wise choice. Nevertheless, we keep on doing

Everyone recognizes that the moment we open a phone while driving increases the probability that we will die in a dramatic way. Everyone also recognizes that doing so is a really stupid way to risk our own lives and the lives of others. Nobody thinks it’s a wise choice. Nevertheless, we keep on doing it.

Temptation explains the gap between how we rationally know we should behave and how we emotionally do,

willpower, by definition, requires effort—the effort to resist temptation, to refuse our instincts,

It’s also easier to justify our behaviors than to change them.

we often eat just because we see food—not because we’re hungry, but because it’s there. It’s our instinct to eat because eating feels good. It’s tempting, it is immediate, it is now.

about 60 percent of NBA basketball players are in financial trouble within five years of leaving the game.

about 70 percent of lottery winners go broke within three years.

Almost everything about our culture encourages and rewards the loss of self-control.

We can overcome some of these problems by learning about our behavior, about the challenges we face, and about how our financial environment encourages us to make poor choices.

low prices send us uncomfortable messages about the nature of luxury items.

low prices send us uncomfortable messages about the nature of luxury items. We infer that discounts mean lower quality. We start thinking there’s something wrong

When we can’t evaluate something directly, as is often the case, we associate price with value.

When we know how much we’re spending on what we’re drinking, then the correlation between price and enjoyment is incredibly strong.

We love precision—and the illusion of precision—because it gives us the feeling that we know what we are doing.

when we don’t know how to evaluate items, we are disproportionally affected by features that are easily comparable, even when those features (the torn cover, in this instance) have little to do with the real value of the product in question.

No one ever lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time with their money. But because money is much easier to measure

No one ever lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time with their money.