Men, women have different financial regrets
Men and women aren’t too far apart on their ¿nancial expectations, but their biggest ¿nancial regrets diverge.
Men’s biggest money regret is not investing, while women’s biggest ¿nancial regret is not saving, according to a study from Go Banking Rates, cnn.com wrote.
The survey found that nearly 15 percent of men said not investing was their top ¿nancial regret compared to about nine percent of women. Men are also more likely than women to have a fear of losing money in the stock market.
Men also have a stronger regret of falling into debt and even putting money toward college.
Women’s top regret, according to the study, was not saving enough. And for good reason: A higher percentage of women than men have less than $1,000 in a savings account and 36 percent of women (versus 33 mpercent of men) have $0 saved for retirement.
When it comes to overspending on non-essentials, a quarter of women chose this as their top regret. Women may be more concerned about spending too much money each month because one of their biggest ¿nancial fears is living paycheck to paycheck.
Here are some ways to slay the anxieties.
Investing
One reason people are hesitant to invest is that they don’t know what they’re doing and are afraid of picking the wrong investments, or not having enough money to invest. Rubicoin is an investing app that takes many of the bad options off the table and leaves you to choose from 90 of the best performing stocks (as picked by investment pros) that you can opt to buy fractionally.
“We handpick one percent of listed businesses that have been proven over time to outperform the S&P,” said Emmet Savage, chief investor and cofounder of Rubicoin.
They explain that an awful lot of platforms leave new investors to it, left in a show room of shiny objects.
“The value we bring is that we show you what’s best.”
Stash studies earning patterns and spending habits, then determines when a user has extra funds and moves it into a savings account.
If you’re having trouble getting traction with your savings, an automated app like this may be just what you need. While other automated or round-up apps move money into an investment account, Stash’s Smart Save option puts your money into a savings account.
The average Smart Save user is 27 years old with an average household income of less than $50,000, but the platform aims to make it seamless to save no matter your age or income.
“People really need help getting on the right foot,” said Ally Federbush, head of communications at Stash.
“Investing is their priority, but saving is safer, until they build that emergency fund.”
Debt
Qoins, is similar to other round-up applications, but rather than putting the money toward investments or savings, it goes directly toward debt payments.
The service charges a fee of $1.99 per month, or about $24 a year.
You link the accounts that you use to purchase things and tell Qoins who to send your debt payments to. Then as you spend money, Qoins will round up your purchases and withdraw your spare change in $5 increments.
You may not think $5 here or there will make a difference, but over a year it can have a big impact. Qoins reports, on average, you can pay off an extra $600 per year.
Overspending
Clarity Money uses the power of arti¿cial intelligence, machine learning and data science to help save your money from yourself. It learns your spending patterns and then ¿nds ways for you to save, like ¿nding and canceling wasteful subscriptions, getting a better credit card or lowering your bills.
First it combs through your recurring payments and subscriptions looking for things you no longer use or need to cancel, saving you money.
Then Clarity Money ensures that you stay on your regular budget by letting you know when you’re going overboard.
You’ll also get suggestions of credit cards that may lower your fees. That’s how Clarity Money makes money, but you’re not obligated to sign up for the cards and the app is free.
There was a real-life application of the “what they really need” approach when Enron developed the Dadhol project in India, intended to rely on imported LNG to power gas turbines and sell very expensive electricity. It would, however, be clean and reliable, something the company insisted were priorities for India. Reliability was de¿nitely valuable for Indian industry, but the political backlash resulted in the contract being rewritten to reduce the power price (and the project’s viability). The plant is now owned by the Indian government, but the reliance on imported LNG (or petroleum), far more expensive than domestic coal, means it still struggles (to put it mildly).
Better to emulate Alan Lloyd, chairman of the California Air Resources Board in the late 1990s, who canceled the electric vehicle mandate, arguing that his job was to reduce pollution, not promote electric vehicles. Too many proponents of renewable energy in Africa want to promote renewable energy, regardless of whether it is the optimal approach in a given place and time, because they are not addressing either energy poverty or climate change, but because they have ¿xed on renewable energy period, as if it were a moral question rather than one of costs and bene¿ts.
This kind of posturing is all too common amongst many in the West. Genetically modi¿ed organism (GMO) foods, for example, have an excellent safety and health record, yet there are activists who oppose its use in poor nations because malnutrition is better than, well, whatever is wrong with GMOS.
As The Economist said, “The more sensible reason for being wary of GM foods is that there are people who, not being in any danger of starvation, are precious about what they eat. They are called Europeans.”
Actually, I would call them ‘Antoinettes’, as in “Let them eat organic cake baked on solar ovens.”
*Michael Lynch is a professor in the School of Life Sciences in the UK.