Regularly Contribute to a "Future Me Fund"

Confession time: I spent years making financial decisions based on temporary happiness, and now that I’m in my 60’s I realize that was…

Hmmmm….what’s the opposite of “wise”?

Oh yeah: DUMB!

Like, why did I spend all that money on designer shoes when I could have contributed it to retirement?

The financial choices we make now will set us up either for freedom or regret in our later years.

So this is my reminder to you…

Regularly contribute to a “Future Me Fund” — aka a retirement fund.

Literally label your retirement account “Future Me Fund.”

Why label it this way?

Because when you do, then you’re remembering there’s a Future You out there… counting on you not to be the opposite of wise (aka: dumb!).

This is actually research based.

In my book Your To Die For Life I share a fascinating study called: “Saving for the Future Self: Neural Measures of Future Self-Continuity Predict Temporal Discounting.”

(Yeah, academics really love their long-winded titles, eh?)

Anyway . . . in this study, researchers showed participants a glimpse of their future selves using the digital wizardry of a face-aging app. They showed people what they’d look like several decades down the line. Wrinkles, age spots, the works!

Then, something remarkable happened.

People who confronted their future, aged selves were more likely to save for retirement rather than spend their money on immediate gratification.

It was as if coming face-to-face with their future faces ultimately slapped some sense into them. Like a cinematic moment, where “Old Them” traveled back in time and shook “Young Them” by the shoulders and yelled, “Wake up, you fool! Quit blowing all of our cash!”

The takeaway?

When you confront the reality of Future You, you think about your present choices differently.

You become more motivated to improve your daily habits — to make Future You happier.

So, whenever you’re tempted to make an impulse purchase, ask yourself:

“Is this worth taking from Future Me?”

Sometimes the answer is yes! Life needs joy and spontaneity.

But making the tradeoff in a conscious way prevents the regret of realizing too late that Past You consistently stole from your Future You.

Share your thoughts on this below!

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