哄騙自己節省開銷的方法

The mind works in mysterious — and expensive — ways. But you can pump up your willpower or trick it into helping you spend less. Farnoosh Torabi, author of Psych Yourself Rich (FT Press, $22.99), explained a few mental approaches on Huffington Post:
頭腦的運作方式非常神奇——和昂貴。但是你可以發揮你的意志力或哄騙它幫你節省開支。Psych Yourself Rich（金融時報出版社，$22.99）的作者Farnoosh Torabi在《赫芬頓郵報》中解釋一下精神方法。

Think it through.
Pressured? Rushed? You’ll spend more recklessly. Infomercials are designed to take advantage of this brain quirk.
仔細考慮。
緊迫？匆忙？你會不顧一切地花費更多。信息商業都在利用大腦這一古怪行爲。

Take stock regularly, even if you don’t have to.
Is your budget fine the way it is? So-called status quo bias means you’ll keep paying what you’re paying — cable bills, credit cards — unless you have a compelling reason to change.
定期清查存貨，即使不必要。
你的預算跟實際花的剛剛好嗎？所謂的現狀偏見意味着你要支付你一直支付的東西——有線電視費，信用卡——除非你有一個令人信服的理由去改變。

Saving money is all relative.
Duke behavioral economist Dan Ariely says we’re bad at making comparisons: We may readily pay $3,000 to upgrade to leather seats in a new $25,000 car because it’s a relatively small percentage of the total price, but we’d think a lot longer about paying $3,000 for a new sofa that we’d sit on every night to watch the latest Charlie Sheen interviews.
省錢是相對的。
杜克大學行爲經濟學家Dan Ariely說我們不善於作比較：我們比較容易花$3000對$2.5萬的新車增加皮革座，因爲它比起總價格相對比較少錢，但我們應該想得長遠一點，花$3000買一套新的沙發，每天晚上都可以坐着看最新的Charlie Sheen採訪。

And Ramit Sethi, who runs the website I Will Teach You to Be Rich, gave some tips on increasing willpower (financial and otherwise) to the Bucks blog of the New York Times:
I Will Teach You to Be Rich網站的經營者Ramit Sethi在《紐約時報》雄鹿隊博客中給出一些增強意志力的提示。

Automate everything.
Pay bills automatically to avoid late fees. Channel a portion of your paycheck to your 401(k) and savings accounts.
使一切自動化。
自動化交付肩負所有費用避免滯納金。把薪水的一部分轉到投資401K計劃和儲蓄賬戶。

Do a little bit all the time.
If you’re overwhelmed by choices, it’s easy to do nothing. “Instead of trying to save a little bit on everything,” he says, “focus on your two biggest discretionary expenses,” like eating out and drinking, in his case. “Over the next six months, cut each down by 25 to 33 percent.”
每次做一點點。
如果你因太多選擇而不知所措，很容易什麼都不做。“代替試着對任何事都節省一點點，”他說，“集中在兩項最大的任意開銷。”如對他而言，在外面吃飯和喝酒。“在接下來的6個月裏，每種減少到25%—33%。”

(恆星英語學習網原創編譯,轉載請註明出處!)