Brow-Raising News Alert!

In an attempt to scare…uh, I mean encourage Americans to save for retirement, Merrill Edge recently launched a tool that digitally ages a consumer through the years, concluding with a rendering of how they might look after over a century of wear & tear.  To make the scenario even more terrifying, they also include information about how much the cost of living will increase.  As your face drops, the price of bread, milk, gas & other consumer items skyrocket.  Sure this tool will encourage me to save—for a facelift!  While I imagine many Americans will have the same reaction, the face retirement tool is actually based on a series of 2011 Stanford University Experiments.  The study found that people who viewed older versions of themselves were more likely to accept future monetary rewards over immediate ones. However, I think they were just too depressed to have any interest in immediate monetary rewards!  I’ll give Merrill Edge the benefit of the doubt, though. Seeing the snow bird version of myself makes it easier to imagine retirement & (once I recover from the shock) the need to save for it.  In the meantime, though, I’m slathering on sunscreen & getting more sleep!