More than half of us are at risk of being unable to maintain our standards of living during retirement. According to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, that’s about 10% more people than in 2004. The reasons are varied – lower interest rates, recessionary job loss, the shift from pensions to personal responsibility, etc. – but they all have one thing in common: lower overall retirement/savings balances.
Boosting these balances and getting people to save more has been the bane of financial advisors and behavioral scientists for years. How do we get people to understand the tradeoffs between present and future rewards?
Well, the answer may be staring you in the mirror.
There’s plenty of research which now suggests that saving more comes down to simply looking at ourselves from a future angle.
