声音简介：

【听力文段】mp3

Number two: use transition moments to your advantage. We did an experiment with a website that helps older adults share their housing. We ran two ads on social media, targeted to the same population of 64-year-olds. In one group, we said,

"Hey, you're getting older. Are you ready for retirement? House sharing can help."

In the second group, we got a little bit more specific and said,

"You're 64 turning 65. Are you ready for retirement? House sharing can help."

What we're doing in that second group is highlighting that a transition is happening.

All of a sudden, we saw click-through rates, and ultimately sign-up rates, increase when we highlight that. In psychology, we call this the "fresh start effect."

Whether it's the start of a new year or even a new season, your motivation to act increases. So right now, put a meeting request on your calendar for the day before your next birthday. Identify the one financial thing you most want to do. And commit yourself to it.

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The third and final trick: get a handle on small, frequent purchases. We've run a few different studies and found that the number one purchase people say they regret, after bank fees, is eating out. It's a frequent purchase we make almost every day, and it's death by a thousand cuts. A coffee here, a burrito there ... It adds up and decreases our ability to save.

Back when I lived in New York City, I looked at my expenses and saw that I spent over 2,000 dollars on ride-sharing apps. It was more than my New York City rent. I vowed to make a change. And the next month, I spent 2,000 dollars again -- no change, because the information alone didn't change my behavior. I didn't change my environment.

So now that I was 4,000 dollars in the hole, I did two things. The first is that I unlinked my credit card from my car-sharing apps. Instead, I linked a debit card that only had 300 dollars a month. If I needed more, I had to go through the whole process of adding a new card, and we know that every click, every barrier, changes our behavior.

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We aren't machines. We don't carry around an abacus every day, adding up what we're spending, in comparison to what we wanted. But what our brains are very good at is counting up the number of times we've done something. So I gave myself a limit. I can only use ride-sharing apps three times a week. It forced me to ration my travels. I got a handle on my car-sharing expenses to the benefit of my husband,

because of the environmental changes that I did. So get a handle on whatever that purchase is for you, and change your environment to make it harder to do so.

Those are my tips for you. But I want you to remember one thing. As human beings, we can be irrational when it comes to saving and spending and budgeting. But luckily, we know this about ourselves,

and we can predict how we'll act under certain environments. Let's do that with saving. Let's change our environment to help our future selves.

【单词短语】

1. click-through

2. sign-up

3. fresh start

4. get a handle on

5. death by a thousand cuts

6. It adds up

7. ride-sharing

8. in the hole

【地道美语，长句精练】

1. Use transition moments to your advantage.

2. Get a handle on small, frequent purchases.

3. We can be irrational when it comes to saving and spending and budgeting.

【课堂纠音，上节连读】

1. It isn't a question of how smart you are.

2. We asked people right after they received their refund.

3. We want you to be able to harness that same power.