Updated: February 22, 2020
Cognitive dissonance is a term in psychology where an individual experiences discomfort because they hold contradictory beliefs, ideas or values at the same time.
It’s the guilt you feel when you eat junk food after you promised to yourself that you’ll start making healthy food choices. Or when you take personal calls at work even though you know it’s against company policy.
To reduce the dissonance, that is – to make you feel less guilty about the situation – you try to justify your behavior.
After eating that junk food, you’ll say that it’s just one time and you’ll run an extra 15 minutes next time at the gym to burn it off.
Or you’ll justify that it wasn’t your fault that your friend called you at work, and besides you’re a good employee and a few minutes of personal time will not affect the quality of your work.
Interestingly, cognitive dissonance happens often when it comes to money habits.
For example, most people believe that saving money is good. But ironically, not everyone has cash savings.
People would rationalize this by claiming that their salary is just too low and they’ll just start saving when they get a salary increase.
When it comes to investing, a lot of people will also say that it’s very important to invest. But you guessed it… not everyone invests.
How do people rationalize this behavior? Through these four silly reasons.
I don’t know how to invest.
I’m sure years ago, you did not know how to use a computer. But you learned it eventually in school, through self-study, or with the help of a friend.
It’s foolish to say that you don’t invest because you don’t know how to, when there are a lot of websites you can visit, books you can read, seminars you can attend and people whom you can learn from.
I don’t have time to learn and invest.
You are reading this article, so you actually have the time to learn. More harshly, if you have time to watch television, then you definitely have time, but you probably just don’t want to.
Additionally, did you know that investing in the stock market only takes a few minutes of your time? It’s just like paying your bills actually.
I don’t have money to invest.
A lot of investments today only requires P1,000 to start. The minimum investment in some mutual fund companies is just P5,000. That’s really not a lot of money given that you can afford to eat out, or watch a movie every so often.
The real problem here is your spending priority. Cut back on your unnecessary spending to create an investment fund.
I want to enjoy my money.
I agree that you should enjoy your money because you worked hard for it. But more importantly, it doesn’t have to be a choice and you can do both.
You only need to save and invest a portion of your income, then after your necessary expenses you can spend what’s left however way you want.
Moreover, realize that when you invest, you’ll eventually have more money in the future that will allow you to enjoy life better.
Keep this in mind… a little sacrifice on your spending today means having a lot more choices to enjoy your life tomorrow.
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Photo credits: zoe and adamd
Naalala ko noon. Ayoko maginvest kasi un ung kinalakihan ko: Kotse, Bahay, Pampaaral tsaka magiipon for retirement (wala ang investment sa equation). Besides di ko rin nmn alam ang investment.
Then my friends open an investing account. Wala ko kasamang maglunch kaya nakisabay narin ako.
Nakakatawa lang balikan na kundi pa nangyari yun talaga, di pa ko makakapagumpisa. wink*
For me, just started investing in UITF and at the same time investing in stocks summer of last year. Yes Sir, there are lots of resources especially in the internet nowadays that are promoting financial literacy for Filipinos and I’m very grateful that I had found them like social media pages (e.g. facebook page), online forums, and websites. Thanks to all these people who are sharing their wisdom for the next generation of Filipinos to be financially literate.Kudos to all of you Sir!
I only have a low risk mutual fund. Pero I’m happy at least hindi ako gumagaya sa officemates ko na ni savings wala. Kaya ayun, kapag nadedelay ang payroll ng ilang oras, daig pa nila ang kinawawa kasi ni wala na sila natirang pang kain
I’ll start getting high risk investments kapag stable na emergency and savings account ko. It’s a blessing for me na I have financially literate friends na nagcocoach sa’kin
it really pays to be around people with the same mindset towards money in general, and investments in particular. kaya if at the moment you’re surrounded by people na magastos for the sake of simply spending what they earned and/or those who are using any of the reasons above why they’re not striving towards making their money work for their future, find another set of financially-savvy friends. sabi nga daw each of us is the average of the 5 people we are constantly in contact everyday so it will do us well to associate with people who have the same financial priorities and goals as we have…
pero syempre, mas maganda if later on we can also influence our greater circle to be as money-smart as we are – sort of paying-it-forward 🙂
I just started investing this year, opened two high risk investment accounts from two reputable and prominent banks with the minimum amount in each. Since I’m a newbie, I check the NAVPU daily. So far so good and I like the excitement of checking the value of my units everyday. I started by investing on financial books two years ago. Some them are authored by Kiyosaki, Colayco, Tabaniag and of course, Villafuerte’s “Guide to Investing”. One of my close friends is into investing already and has been generously sharing what she knows about it. I fixed all my finances such as paying all my loans and budgeting wisely for more than a year until I was able to open two savings account. As I save, I also place there all the money that I received unexpectedly. Until the end of 2014, I felt the readiness to invest… and I just did… and I’m so happy. I noticed that since I invested, I became more conscious in handling money because I want to save more so that I can invest regularly. It has brought about so many advantages and right now, I am trying to share what I am experiencing to my other close friends who have not invested yet.
[…] They come up with many excuses, and I gave you four of them last week. […]