Science wants you to be rich

Lemme guess: Talking about money stresses you out, right? Don’t worry — research has got you covered. Scientists love studying the Benjamins.

If you want more money, pay more attention to money

I love talking about money — in part because talking about money means I’m thinking about money. And I get better at the things I think about. (And worse at things I avoid.)

​One meta-study found that nudging yourself to think about money — simply, say, tracking spending and bank balances each week — significantly reduces spending and increases savings. (Why? Because if you’re interacting with the numbers, it’s impossible not to see the trends.)

Luckily, there’s lots of ways to track money. I use Simplifi ($72/yr) to pull my bank balances and credit card transactions into one place. Other options include Tiller ($79/yr - here’s a helpful video), Monarch Money ($100/yr) and Copilot Money ($95/yr). (RIP Mint.)

But an app isn’t enough. You need something that pushes you to interact with your finances. (I have a spreadsheet I update by hand every week. There’s a simplified version you can copy here.)

The key is to play with the data — type in figures, look at the totals, tell yourself a story about what happened. Messy and noticed is better than clean and ignored. (This is known as ‘creating data disfluency‘.)

I need a budget, right?

Yes — but your budget doesn’t need to be particularly accurate at first.

Budgets are important because they prompt us to make decisions in advance (when it’s easier to make the right choice), and to see if we’re succeeding or falling behind in our goals. (They also make us less anxious.)

The best budgets are perpetual works-in-progress: One study of 350 million transactions found that people who set unrealistic budgets still spent 22% less than people with no budget at all.

There’s lots of easy systems for setting a budget: The 50/30/20 Rule devotes roughly half your monthly income toward essentials like rent and food, 30% for fun, and 20% toward savings. The Envelope System consists of putting some cash in multiple envelopes on the first of the month (rent, food, drinks with friends) — and when the envelope is empty, you know you need to stop. (You can also do this with multiple bank accounts.)

Or, there are online resources. Google Sheets has a monthly budget template. There’s a bunch of other useful templates here. All those apps I mentioned can create and track budgets. And if you are looking for advice on how to start, I recommend spending some time on Reddit. (The first comment is particularly helpful.)

But what’s most important isn’t creating the perfect budget. Rather, you should be interacting with your imperfect, work-in-progress budget, and your behavior will start to change.

But there’s shortcuts, right? I got an email saying if I buy crypto/gold/weird financial options/AI stocks/girl scout cookies RIGHT NOW! I can double my money.

I think you already know the answer to this question.

That said, there are some tips that are useful:

• You almost certainly have zombie subscriptions. Subee is a good way to identify them ($79/yr). The best strategy, however, is downloading all your credit card transactions, sorting by payee, and looking for what (sneakily) repeats each month.

• HAVE A MONEY FRIEND. Choose someone to talk about money with every week. Then be honest with them. You’ll feel less anxious and save more.

• Make saving into a game: The 100 envelope challenge will net you $5,050 in 100 days.

• Read random reddit posts (and newsletters) about money. Studies show that financially literate people accumulate significantly more wealth — and literacy comes from reading and trying stuff. (It’s okay to ask dumb questions.)

• Before any big purchase, make yourself wait 24 hours. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget about the purchase. (And by the same token: decide in the morning, when temptations and hunger aren’t present, what you’ll buy for lunch and dinner.)

• Don’t invest in anything you have learned about on TikTok, YouTube or most of Reddit. It’s not going to work. Just invest in index funds.

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What’s your favorite financial tactic? What are you saving up for? Let me know in the comments!

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