Why Saving for Your Future Self Won’t Buy a Better Retirement (And What Will)

2026-06-11

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You spend 30 or 40 years protecting your future self. Then you finally retire... and the person you were saving for never quite arrives. There's always an older version down the road who still feels like they need protecting. So you keep saving for tomorrow while postponing the life you could enjoy today. But more money for "future you" isn't what makes retirement better. In this episode, Hal Hershfield, Ph.D. — a UCLA professor of Behavioral Decision Making and author of Your Future Self — joins me to explain why. Here's what you'll lea...

You spend 30 or 40 years protecting your future self.

Then you finally retire... and the person you were saving for never quite arrives.

There's always an older version down the road who still feels like they need protecting.

So you keep saving for tomorrow while postponing the life you could enjoy today.

But more money for "future you" isn't what makes retirement better.

In this episode, Hal Hershfield, Ph.D. — a UCLA professor of Behavioral Decision Making and author of Your Future Self — joins me to explain why.

Here's what you'll learn:

→ Why your brain treats your future self like a stranger (and how that shapes every money decision)

→ How "projection bias" distorts irreversible choices like when to retire or claim Social Security

→ The "denominator problem" that stops retirees from spending + a simple reframe to help

The distance we feel from our future selves is real and well-documented.

It is also, with the right perspective, something we can learn to close.