money biases Archives

Today’s top story: How to make your money biases work for you. Also in the news: How to get airline perks without elite status, where people with the best – and worst – credit card habits live in the US, and spending down your FISA starts with the right payment card.

How to Make Your Money Biases Work for You
Making our quirks work to our advantage.

How to Get Airline Perks Without Elite Status
You don’t need to be a jet-setter.

This map shows where people with the best – and worst – credit card habits live in the US
Where are you on the list?

Spending down your FSA starts with the right payment card
When to use your FSA debit card.

The way our brains work can cost us a lot of money. But some of our mental quirks can be turned to our advantage.

Cognitive biases are the faulty ways of thinking that can persuade us to run up debt, save too little and make stupid investment decisions. The bandwagon effect, for example, entices us to buy the hot stock everyone’s talking about, rather than the mutual fund that makes more sense for our long-term goals. Or we sign up for a too-large mortgage because of optimism bias (“I’ll figure out a way to make the payments, somehow!”).

We can try to be more rational, but sometimes it makes sense to exploit our faulty wiring instead. In my latest for the Associated Press, three money biases that you could put to work for yourself.