How can social media hinder successful investing? The pages of friends, acquaintances, and strangers are filled with images of a seemingly perfect life. The fear of missing out drives individuals to conform to idealized images, often at the cost of additional resources.
This leads to unnecessary spending, accumulation of debt, and deferral of savings and investments to an uncertain future.
It is possible that your friends who appear to have it all may have already fallen into this trap – living a beautiful life on credit, while the necessity of building savings is overlooked.
By turning off the fear of missing out (often referred to as FOMO) and focusing on your true priorities, you can methodically work toward your goals. In due time, you will likely find yourself able to afford luxuries through investment income rather than through credit.
One of the best solutions to enable calm and systematic investing and saving is to automate the process. Banks offer features to link "savings jars" to accounts and cards, while Google Play and the App Store provide a variety of investment apps.
In the initial stages, automation will simplify the task of saving, making it easier to adjust to a lifestyle with lower expenditures. In the long run, such discipline can yield significant rewards.
