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FOMO: How to plan your retirement without missing out

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is one factor that can greatly affect retirement planning. Award-winning author and retirement expert Anne Lester spoke with Robert “Bob” Powell on the first episode of Decoding Retirement about FOMO, present preference, and advice from Lester's book, Your Best Financial Life: Save Smart Now for the Future You Want. Present preference (decoded): Present preference is the tendency to favor immediate rewards over larger future benefits, leading to short-term decisions. “So I'm watching Netflix and it's 10 a.m. and the next episode starts and I press skip intro and I think, wait a minute, what time do you have to get up?” Lester explained, “And then it's 10:30 a.m. and then I press skip intro again and then all of a sudden it's one in the morning and you think, I only have one episode left, I'm going to keep watching. Right? We've all done that. That's present preference in action.” How to Stay on Your Retirement Plan “One of the most powerful policies that helps Gen Z and anyone changing jobs right now is auto-enrollment,” Lester added. “So does your employer automatically increase your savings rate? That's another trick. Most people stay on the plan. They don't get out because they know they should. If your employer doesn't automatically do that for you, you can do it yourself by either asking them to increase your contribution rate or just saying…I'm going to increase my rate. Those are tricks to help you stay on track.” Retirement planning doesn't mean saving your money for a rainy day and then forgetting about it. Planning for your future means reacting to events today. Decoding Retirement gives you the tools to navigate the years ahead and act now! Yahoo Finance's Decoding Retirement is hosted by Robert Powell and produced by Zach Faulds and Alexander Frangeskides. For more episodes of Decoding Retirement, visit Thoughts? Questions? Fan Mail? Email us at [email protected] Editor's Note: This post was written by Zach Faulds.