This Week In Your Wallet: Your Perfect Age…
“If you had a pill that could stop biological aging in its tracks, when would you take it?”
It’s a question UIC professor Dr. Jay Olshansky asks his students. People rarely agree on the answer, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Clare Ansberry (though I have to admit my first thought was: If by aging, you mean wrinkles, sign me up). By way of data, however, it can be easier to determine the “ideal age” for tackling certain challenges or undertaking particular life events. For example: If you want to get married? Doing it between ages 28 and 32 could be the way to go if you want the lowest divorce risk. And if you’d like to run a marathon, prime time is about 29 for women and about 27 for men. (Someone might want to give Chip Gaines a heads-up. Not that you can’t — or shouldn’t — do one later. I did my one and only marathon at age 46 and found it exceptionally rewarding.)
As for financial decision-making? A 2009 study by the Brookings Institution studied people of different ages’ abilities to handle financial situations (think car loans, credit card balance transfer offers and mortgage loans). Their findings put the magic number around age 53, when people tended to make the least money mistakes. But unlike running a race or even getting married, financial decision-making isn’t a choice. These are decisions we have to make at all ages and stages of life. To keep yourself out of the error zone: Automate hard-to-keep habits like saving and time-consuming tasks like bill-paying (that come back to bite you if you forget), do your homework when it comes to things like mortgages and auto loans (where securing a good deal on the financing is just as important as securing a good deal on the car or home itself) and don’t hesitate to get help if you need it.
Oh, and if you’re worried about growing older, note that people ages 65 to 74 report having more fun than folks in any other age group, according to Age Wave and Merrill Lynch. So here’s a happy birthday wish to Charles de Montebello, who engineers our HerMoney Podcast — and anyone else celebrating today. Tomorrow, we’re launching a special episode on caregiving recorded at AARP‘s Family Caregiving 2018 summit. We had amazing conversations with bestselling author Lee Woodruff (who cared for her husband, ABC’s Bob Woodruff, after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while reporting in Iraq), Sheila Lirio Marcelo, founder, chairwoman and CEO of Care.com (who founded the site as a young working mother with two young children and ailing parents) and actress and activist Holly Robinson Peete (who at 19 was the caregiver for her father and, two decades later, for her son with autism). If anyone you know is a family caregiver — or concerned about aging parents — there is a lot of helpful info in this one. Subscribe today so you don’t miss it tomorrow.
Econom-chicks?
The dismal science is seemingly more dismal if you’re a woman. Earlier this month at the annual American Economic Association (AEA) meeting, a panel of women unveiled new research about gender bias in the field of economics. The research covered gender discrimination beginning with barriers to studying economics and continuing “through the life cycle of their careers, including securing job opportunities, writing research papers, gaining access to top publications and earning proper credit for published work,” reports The New York Times. Case in point: The most popular introductory economics textbooks refer to men four times as often as they do women — and when women are mentioned in examples, they’re more likely to be shopping or cleaning than, say, running a company. (Ugh.) Also, 90 percent of the economists cited in those textbooks are men. AEA leaders announced they’d address bias concerns more seriously by drafting a code of conduct for economists. But clearly, there’s still a lot of work to do to level the playing field.
College As A Value Proposition
More than ever, it’s important to weigh the value for your money when choosing a college. Today, The Princeton Review released its new edition of “Colleges That Pay You Back,” and Stanford University — with an annual undergraduate tuition of $48,987 — snagged the number one slot. How? The Princeton Review measured return on investment (ROI) via alumni starting salaries, mid-career salaries and career social impact. Also in the top five ranking are Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. For more on the book, click here.
Mindful Spending
The rent may be too damn high, but so is the total household debt, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It reached a new peak of $12.96 trillion in 2017’s third quarter — $280 billion above the previous 2008 high — and was marked by a 3.1 percent climb in credit card balances. If you contributed and regret it, “mindfulness” might be a spending strategy to consider. The term might bring up an image of people seated on cushions and a chorus of “om,” but if you can incorporate the practice into your lifestyle, it’s been shown to be useful in changing your spending habits.
For example, instead of waking up to immediately roll over and check your phone in the morning, take a second to check in with your body and think about your goals for the day (like thinking before spending, paying off a small chunk of debt, etc.). Later in the day, whenever you’re about to swipe your card, pause for a moment to think. Ask yourself if you’re spending out of habit or with intention — and if the purchase will bring you joy. A piece I wrote on this for NBC News will be going live soon — I’ll share the link on social media when it does.
Have a great week,
Jean
