Do You Have Error Prone Tendencies?

Let us pretend you have a lot of money. How you got Money is up to you. Everyone loves money, right? How careful are you with your money? Do you crunch pennies or are you loose with the funds, not really checking prices because you're confident you definitely have enough money in your account to cover whatever it is your buying. That's a nice feeling, wouldn't you say? I am not wealthy by any means but I am putting in the work. I have created this blog, this website selling merchandise, trying to make something happen. However, progress is slow because I have to fund my start up companies with funds from a part time job at Kroger. But think about when you go shopping. How do you react to different prices? Do you think about the money you you're spending?

If you have money, you don't pay too much attention, do you? Yeah its three buck. But you keep doing this over and over and eventually you find yourself with a big cart of groceries you plan to purchase and take home. How much thought did you put into your groceries and the prices? Or, did you do your research when it came to buying your television? There are so many makers of TV's nowadays, that it really is worth it to do you research and see if you can get the best bang for your buck! Like most, I didn't do my research when I bought my TV. I spent about a half an hour comparing capabilities and prices relative to the size of the tv. Did I want to spend $100 more and upgrade the 32-inch I had my eye on, to a 40-inch? I decided to save the $100 even if it meant that I was missing out on a bigger, better TV. Are you willing to sacrifice quality just to save a buck?

According to an article in February 2022's edition of Scientific American by Carmen Sanchez and David Dudding titled Leaps of Confusion , one in five American's spend more time planning their vacation from work than they do planning their financial future. I for one, should not be telling anyone about financial advice. But if I was to offer advice that is sound, I would say spend more time doing your research before you make a bigger purchase. Not enough consumers are rational like they should be. When you see numbers, your brain instantly jumps to a conclusion. If you are "jumper", you are more likely to question the authenticity of events. Do you jump to conclusions when you hear a news story?

This article had a good saying to test if you jump to conclusions even if you're wrong. "A baseball bat and ball cost $1.10 together. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?". Instantly what do you guess? Ten cents, the ball cost ten cents is what I initially guessed. Then I thought about it. If the ball costs 10 cents and the bat is a dollar more, that would mean the bat cost $1.10. 10 cents plus $1.10 equals $1.20. So that's not correct, obviously. How much does the ball cost then? The answer is five cents. The bat would then be $1.05 which together makes $1.10. But why did my brain jump to a conclusion that was wrong?

This is all important to note how our brain can jump to conclusions. I believe that when it comes to financial decisions, our brain instantly leans one way over another, and sometimes you have to slow down, regather your thoughts and make an educated decision based on the information before you. But it doesn't stop with financial decisions. Think about conspiracy theories for a second. The Apollo moon landings, there is a large amount of people who believe we faked the moon landing in July of 1969. When they hear a little bit of the story, their brain jumps to a conclusion when they don't have all the facts, and they then believe that the whole story is all made up. Is it their fault, or are humans just programmed to jump to conclusions? In everyday life, we come a crossed dozens of decisions. Some decisions that we have to make should be made with more weight to it, if you know what I mean. The way you handle a decision, may affect in more ways than you know. The biggest question that each day brings is should we think more about our decisions to make well thought out choices, or do we go with our gut feeling and trust our intuition? The article I read has taught me that recent studies show gathering even a tiny bit of information before making a decision may help us avoid huge mistakes in life.