3 psychological tricks to help you save money | The Way We Work, a TED series

Translator: Aznah Arshad Reviewer: Haslina Abdul Hardy

Kita tahu menabung itu penting

dan harus kita semua lakukan.

Namun, semakin kurang kita lakukannya.

[Cara Kita Bertindak]

Kita tahu perkara yang perlu buat.

Persoalannya - Bagaimana?

Mari saya ajarkan caranya.

Cara kita menabung tiada kaitan dengan tahap kebijaksanaan

.. atau kesungguhan kita.

Wang yang disimpan berkait rapat dengan persekitaran sekeliling.

Biar saya beri satu contoh.

Berdasarkan satu kajian, dalam satu kumpulan,

kami tunjukkan gaji secara bulan.

Dalam kumpulan yang satu lagi, gaji mereka secara mingguan.

Kami dapati kumpulan yang menerima gaji mingguan

lebih cermat sepanjang bulan itu.

Perlu diingatkan...

... kami tak ubah jumlah yang diterima,

kami hanya ubah persekitaran hingga mereka faham tentang gaji mereka.

Petanda persekitaran begini memberi impak.

Saya takkan berkongsi helah yang anda telah tahu.

Saya takkan beritahu cara buka akaun simpanan

atau cara mula simpan untuk persaraan.

Saya nak berkongsi cara merapatkan jurang

dari niat untuk menyimpan

dan tindakan anda.

Sedia?

Pertama:

manfaatkan kuasa pra-komitmen.

Asasnya, kita melihat diri kita dalam dua cara:

diri sekarang dan diri masa depan.

Pada masa depan, kita sempurna.

Pada masa depan, kita akan simpan untuk persaraan,

turunkan berat badan,

hubungi ibu bapa lebih kerap.

Namun kita sering terlupa diri masa depan

adalah orang yang sama dengan diri sekarang.

Kami tahu antara masa terbaik menyimpan adalah ketika dapat pulangan cukai.

Jadi kami cuba ujian A/B.

Dalam kumpulan pertama, kami mesej orang di awal bulan Februari,

harapnya sebelum mereka failkan cukai.

Kemudian kami tanya,

"Jika dapat pulangan cukai, berapa peratus yang boleh simpan?"

Ia soalan yang sukar.

Mereka tak tahu jika mereka dapat pulangan atau jumlahnya.

Namun kami tanya juga soalan itu.

Dalam kumpulan kedua, kami tanya sebaik mereka terima pulangan,

"Berapa peratus yang nak simpan?"

Ini yang berlaku.

Dalam keadaan kedua, apabila mereka baru terima pulangan cukai,

mereka mahu simpan kira-kira 17 peratus pulangan cukai.

Dalam keadaan kami tanya sebelum mereka failkan cukai,

kadar simpanan meningkat dari 17 peratus kepada 27 peratus

bila tanya di bulan Februari.

Kenapa?

Sebab anda beri komitmen pada diri masa depan,

dan tentulah diri masa depan boleh simpan 27 peratus.

Perubahan yang besar dalam tabiat menyimpan

datang dari tindakan mengubah persekitaran membuat keputusan.

Kami mahu anda berupaya manfaatkan kuasa yang sama.

Ambil sedikit masa

dan fikir cara yang anda boleh daftarkan diri masa depan

untuk perkara yang anda tahu agar sukar dilakukan hari ini.

Sertai aplikasi yang membolehkan anda buat keputusan menyimpan dari awal.

Helahnya adalah untuk menyertai kontrak yang mengikat.

Nombor dua: gunakan saat peralihan untuk manfaat anda.

Kami buat eksperimen dengan satu laman web

yang bantu warga emas, berkongsi kediaman.

Kami lancarkan dua iklan di sosial media,

sasarkan kepada populasi 64 tahun.

Dalam satu kumpulan, kami kata, "Hei, awak makin tua.

Dah sedia untuk bersara?

Kongsi rumah boleh bantu.

Dalam kumpulan kedua, kami cakap lebih spesifik

dan kata, "Umur awak 64, nak masuk 65.

Dah sedia untuk bersara?

Kongsi rumah boleh bantu.

Perkara kami buat dalam kumpulan kedua

adalah menekankan waktu peralihan sedang berlaku.

Tiba-tiba,

kami nampak peningkatan kadar klik dan kadar penyertaan

apabila kami tekankannya.

Dalam psikologi, kami gelarnya "kesan permulaan baru."

Sama ada permulaan tahun baru atau musim baru,

motivasi untuk bertindak meningkat.

Jadualkan satu temujanji dalam kalendar anda

sehari sebelum tarikh lahir.

Kenal pasti satu perkara kewangan anda paling ingin lakukan.

Kemudian pastikan anda lakukannya.

Helah ketiga dan terakhir;

urus pembelian kecil yang kerap.

Kami jalankan beberapa kajian berbeza

dan dapati pembelian nombor satu yang orang kesal, selepas yuran bank,

adalah makan di luar.

Ia pembelian yang kerap kita lakukan setiap hari,

dan ia seperti membunuh dengan ribuan luka.

Secawan kopi, sehiris burrito...

Jumlahnya meningkat dan mengurangkan kemampuan menyimpan.

Semasa saya tinggal di New York City,

saya lihat perbelanjaan saya

dan dapati saya belanja hampir $2,000 pada aplikasi perkongsian kenderaan.

Lebih banyak dari kos sewa di New York City.

So now that I was 4,000 dollars in the hole, I did two things.

Saya berjanji untuk berubah.

The first is that I unlinked my credit card

Bulan berikutnya, saya habiskan $2,000 lagi--

from my car-sharing apps.

Tiada perubahan, kerana maklumat sahaja tidak ubah kelakuan saya.

Instead, I linked a debit card that only had 300 dollars a month.

Saya tak ubah persekitaran.

If I needed more,

Memandangkan saya boros $4,000 saya buat dua perkara,

I had to go through the whole process of adding a new card,

and we know that every click, every barrier, changes our behavior.

We all know that saving is important

and is something that we should be doing.

And yet, overall, we're doing less and less of it.

[The Way We Work]

We know what we need to do.

The question is: How do we do it?

And that's what I'm here to teach you.

Your savings behavior isn't a question of how smart you are

or how much willpower you have.

The amount we save depends on the environmental cues around us.

Let me give you an example.

We ran a study in which, in one group,

we showed people their income on a monthly basis.

In another group, we showed people their income on a weekly basis.

And what we found was that people who saw their income on a weekly basis

were able to budget better throughout the month.

Now, it's important to know

that we didn't change how much money people were receiving,

we just changed the environment in which they understood their income.

And environmental cues like this have an impact.

So I'm not going to share tricks with you that you already know.

I'm not going to tell you how to open up a savings account

or how to start saving for your retirement.

What I am going to share with you is how to bridge this gap

from your intentions to save

and your actions.

Are you ready?

Here's number one:

harness the power of pre-commitment.

Fundamentally, we think about ourselves in two different ways:

our present self and our future self.

In the future, we're perfect.

In the future, we're going to save for retirement,

we're going to lose weight,

we're going to call our parents more.

But we oftentimes forget that our future self

is exactly the same person as our present self.

We know that one of the best times to save is when you get your tax return.

So we tried an A/B test.

In the first group, we texted people in early February,

hopefully before they even filed for their taxes.

And we asked them,

"If you get a tax refund, what percentage would you like to save?"

Now this is a really hard question.

They didn't know if they would receive a tax refund or how much.

But we asked the question anyway.

In the second group, we asked people right after they received their refund,

"What percentage would you like to save?"

Now, here's what happened.

In that second condition, when people just received their tax refund,

they wanted to save about 17 percent of their tax refund.

But in the condition when we asked people before they even filed their taxes,

savings rates increased from 17 percent to 27 percent

when we asked in February.

Why?

Because you're committing for your future self,

and of course your future self can save 27 percent.

These large changes in savings behavior

came from the fact that we changed the decision-making environment.

We want you to be able to harness that same power.

So take a moment

and think about the ways in which you can sign up your future self

for something that you know today will be a little bit hard.

Sign up for an app that lets you make savings decisions in advance.

The trick is, you have to have that binding contract.

Number two: use transition moments to your advantage.

We did an experiment with a website

that helps older adults share their housing.

We ran two ads on social media,

targeted to the same population of 64-year-olds.

In one group, we said, "Hey, you're getting older.

Are you ready for retirement?

House sharing can help."

In the second group, we got a little bit more specific

and said, "You're 64 turning 65.

Are you ready for retirement?

House sharing can help."

What we're doing in that second group

is highlighting that a transition is happening.

All of a sudden,

we saw click-through rates, and ultimately sign-up rates, increase

when we highlight that.

In psychology, we call this the "fresh start effect."

Whether it's the start of a new year or even a new season,

your motivation to act increases.

So right now, put a meeting request on your calendar

for the day before your next birthday.

Identify the one financial thing you most want to do.

And commit yourself to it.

The third and final trick:

get a handle on small, frequent purchases.

We've run a few different studies

and found that the number one purchase people say they regret, after bank fees,

is eating out.

It's a frequent purchase we make almost every day,

and it's death by a thousand cuts.

A coffee here, a burrito there ...

It adds up and decreases our ability to save.

Back when I lived in New York City,

I looked at my expenses

and saw that I spent over 2,000 dollars on ride-sharing apps.

It was more than my New York City rent.

I vowed to make a change.

And the next month, I spent 2,000 dollars again --

no change, because the information alone didn't change my behavior.

I didn't change my environment.

Saya padam pautan kad kredit saya

dari aplikasi perkongsian kenderaan.

We aren't machines.

Saya pautkan kad debit yang hanya ada $300 sebulan.

We don't carry around an abacus every day,

adding up what we're spending, in comparison to what we wanted.

Jika perlu wang lagi,

saya terpaksa lalui semua proses untuk tambah kad baru,

But what our brains are very good at

dan kita tahu setiap klik, setiap halangan, ubah kelakuan kita.

is counting up the number of times we've done something.

Kita bukan mesin.

So I gave myself a limit.

Kita tak bawa sempoa setiap hari,

I can only use ride-sharing apps three times a week.

menambah semua perbelanjaan dan bandingkan dengan belanjawan.

It forced me to ration my travels.

Namun otak kita sangat cekap

I got a handle on my car-sharing expenses to the benefit of my husband,

mengira jumlah perkara yang kita lakukan.

because of the environmental changes that I did.

Jadi saya hadkan diri.

So get a handle on whatever that purchase is for you,

Saya hanya boleh guna aplikasi perkongsian kenderaan tiga kali seminggu.

and change your environment to make it harder to do so.

Ia paksa saya mencatu perjalanan.

Those are my tips for you.

Saya dapat urus kos perkongsian kenderaan yang beri manfaat kepada suami saya,

But I want you to remember one thing.

As human beings, we can be irrational when it comes to saving

kerana perubahan persekitaran yang saya lakukan.

Jadi uruskan pembelian anda,

and spending and budgeting.

dan ubah persekitaran supaya sukar melakukannya.

But luckily, we know this about ourselves,

and we can predict how we'll act under certain environments.

Itulah petua saya untuk anda.

Namun saya nak anda ingat sesuatu.

Let's do that with saving.

Sebagai manusia, kita mungkin tak rasional berkenaan simpanan,

Let's change our environment to help our future selves.

perbelanjaan dan belanjawan.

Nasib baik, kita pun sedar,

dan boleh agak cara kita bertindak balas dalam sesuatu keadaan.

Ayuh lakukan dengan simpanan.

Ayuh ubah persekitaran kita untuk bantu kita pada masa depan.