The Case for Financial Procrastination

TIME:

In our first TIME Moneyland post, we explore an issue we’ll return to a lot: the effect of framing and state of mind on financial choice. Framing is one of the aces in the deck of cards that make up behavioral economics; and state of mind powerfully influences how we frame our financial decisions. It’s ironic that people generally consider many factors when making financial decisions but rarely give enough weight to their own state of mind and body. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that how we’re feeling — literally, how we physically feel at a given moment — can affect our decisions about all sorts of issues, including those that have nothing to with those feelings. In a straightforward example, if we’re cold we’re more likely to spend more on a heating system. In a more nuanced hypothetical, someone feeling anxious may be likelier to save more for retirement or to be more risk-averse with their retirement funds than they would otherwise.