Analytical Consumers Do Better Financially

New research by Money Anxiety shows that analytical consumers earned an average of $139 a year in interest income on a $10,000 certificate of deposit compared to only $62 in annual interest income earned by consumers who made an impulsive decision to move their money to liquid bank accounts such as checking, savings and money market.

The research shows that consumers, who moved their bank deposits to liquid accounts, acted impulsively due to high level of money anxiety. This phenomenon is defined as “mattress money” in the book Money Anxiety, when anxious consumers want to feel that their money is readily accessible to them in case of a financial emergency. Such impulsive decisions originate in the reptilian part of the brain and are designed for survival and self preservation.

Conversely, analytical decisions originate in the neocortex and are calculated and slower to make. Consumers, who resisted the impulse to move bank deposits from certificate of deposit to liquid accounts at the beginning of the Great Recession, did much better financially even though interest rates on all bank deposits declined in the past six years.