Latest / Ghost Stories / Ghost Stories #112: Decision fatigue - why important financial decisions get delayed

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Ghost Stories #112: Decision fatigue - why important financial decisions get delayed · Ghost Stories

0:00
Speaker A: This episode of Ghost Stories is brought to you by Satrix, the leading provider of index tracking solutions in South Africa and a proud partner of ghostmail. With no minimums and easy low cost access to local and global products via the Satrix now online investment platform, everyone can own the market. Visit Satrix Co Za for more information. Welcome to this episode of the Ghost Stories Podcast and today we are talking about decision Fatigue. This feels very personal right now. As someone who is tired, I've got to tell you, day to day demands of school, WhatsApp groups and apps, endless emails, the always online expectations of work, that friend group you keep meaning to reply to frankly, that friend you keep meaning to reply to, and that message from your mom you haven't gotten to in two days as well. Now layer on everything from what clothes to wear through to remembering to wish someone happy birthday. And frankly, you have a brain that is being assaulted from all angles at the moment, no matter how smart you are or how professional you are are, or what fancy job you're in. In fact, I think if you're in one of those jobs, it's even worse. Now what tends to fall over in this case? Well, as Satrix has highlighted to me, something that very quickly becomes a victim of this crazy modern world is your retirement goals. The challenge of just getting through each day can have quite painful long term effects on not just your physical health, but your financial health as well. To further set the scene and bring us lots of insight into this topic, I'm welcoming a new voice from Satrix, which is very exciting, Colleen Wagner. She is the CFO of Satrix. She's joining me to talk today about this concept of decision fatigue and how it affects our retirement savings. I'm going to quote a stat here that Colleen shared with me ahead of this. It's from the Debt Busters Money stress tracker. In 2026 women reported their highest financial stress levels in five years. So that is since basically the middle of COVID with close to three out of four women reporting financial stress. Now, we've been celebrating the women in our lives this month, but they are going through a lot and I really am not sure that it's much easier for men either these days, especially ones with kids, because they've taken on much more of a role with the kids than in generations gone by. It's a wild time to be an adult, Colleen. So thank you for taking time out of your stressful schedule to do the show with me. It's lovely to have you here.
2:17
Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Ghost And I couldn't agree more. It is a wild time to be an adult.
2:22
Speaker A: No, it really is. It's not called adulting for nothing as a terrifying verb. So perhaps as a starting point, please walk us through how these multiple roles we play in our daily lives directly leads to this concept of decision fatigue that you've brought to the fore.
2:37
Speaker B: So I think an important starting point is that decision making doesn't happen in isolation, it accumulates throughout the day. Most of us are making countless micro decisions before we even get to the bigger financial decisions that require proper thought and, and attention. And the decisions that you're making relate to family, logistics, school admin, work priorities, household finances, caregiving responsibilities, and of course, social commitments and everything else that sits in the background of your daily life. And the mental note is not only about doing the tasks, it is about remembering what needs to happen for all of those decisions. So anticipating what could go wrong, planning around everybody else's needs, and being the coordinator for all the moving parts. This is mentally exhausting. Even when others can't see what you're doing, there's this constant stream happening in the background of your life. So by the time you get to your long term financial decisions, there's no bandwidth left for that. Things like retirement planning, increasing contributions, reviewing investments, it falls to the wayside because it feels like it's not as urgent as your current day to day decisions. And when you do get to those decisions, it's not that you make bad decisions, it's just that your decision is delayed.
3:55
Speaker A: Yeah, it's a funny thing, right? I think back to being a teenager and all I wanted was a smartphone. And now at the ripe old age of 38, all I want to do is be able to get rid of my smartphone. Sheer bliss for me would be to just get rid of my phone for a week and it wouldn't actually bother anyone. And it's because we are just assaulted by all these things, right? As you said, they're coordinating all the moving parts. I think that's exactly how daily life goes. And, and it's difficult. And I think we can all acknowledge that women on average do play a huge role in the coordination of our general daily lives, our household affairs. And yet, According to the 2025 Sunlam Financial Confidence Index, women are 21% behind men in reaching their retirement goals. And that's a really big gap. And that's a gap that compounds, which is also concerning. So do you believe that at least part of this impact is the disproportionate daily toll that women are perhaps carrying versus men again on average, there are always going to be exceptions. This is an averages gain. That's how statistics work. Do you think that's having an impact on the retirement savings of women?
4:56
Speaker B: I think there's a very real connection there, Ghost. The evidence increasingly suggests that the mental load women carry every day has long term financial consequences. And I think it's important to note up front that it's not a question of whether women are capable investors because in many households they are already deeply involved in managing day to day finances and making important financial decisions. The issue is that that responsibility and that pressure and constant coordination make it much harder to prioritize long term retirement planning. And in South Africa, you know, the stats show that women carry a disproportionate share of household and caregiving responsibilities. The Stats Essay 2021 Household Survey showed that more than 40% of children live only with their mothers compared to about 4% that live only with their fathers. And the practical financial implications are that women have greater childcare responsibilities, higher household expenditure, more career interruptions, and very often less room to actually save consistently for retirement. And as you mentioned earlier, this also shows up in the pressure that women experience in terms of how they use their retirement savings. You know, the research shows that women are 1.3 times more likely than men to withdraw from their retirement savings under the two pot retirement system and 80% more likely to use those withdrawals for school fees. So this also tells us that women are often using their long term savings to solve immediate household needs, which is completely understandable in the moment. But every withdrawal reduces the amount that can compound over time.
6:30
Speaker A: Yeah, it's such an indictment on society in so many ways. I like to think that there are no deadbeat dads listening to anything that I do because I think that this is a financially savvy audience who understand responsibility. But this is a reality facing South African women. It really is. I think the other thing that is worth mentioning around the disproportionate load is particularly young kids and preschoolers. And this is my lived experience. Doesn't matter how involved you are as a dad. We can convince ourselves of everything we want to try and convince ourselves of. But the reality is that a three year old and a four year old want mommy more than they want daddy. They just do. It's one of those things and it creates an additional source of decision fatigue. Obviously this balances out as kids grow up, but I think it's a time in our lives that's so difficult. You're in your 30s, you're upwardly mobile in your career, maybe even early 40s on average, you know, you've got preschool kids. It's a time where it's like absolute crunch time for your career and everything else. And that's the exact moment these days where we have children running around who need an enormous amount of time from us. As opposed to back in the day when our parents were having us in their, like early to mid-20s. We were in high school. By the time my parents were, you know, or not in my case, but late 30s, we were in high school. And it's just a completely different life now. It's a completely different time to be carrying all this strain. Plus today, unless you have a dual income household, good luck, you know, Whereas back then you could get away with a single income household or a primary income, secondary income household. These days, if you want your kids to go to the good schools, etc. Chances are very good that both of you are working. And that just talks to those points you raise around two pot withdrawals and using that money for school fees. I mean, this is retirement money going into school fees. So it's tough out there. There's a huge daily load. And I think you're seeing it come through in the birth rate, right? You're seeing fewer people have children. If I look at my own peer group as well, people are just too scared to take on this responsibility because it's a huge amount of time and it's a huge amount of money. I'm guessing you've probably seen some of that in your peer group as well.
8:29
Speaker B: Absolutely. I think in my peer group the average age of having kids is so much later than our parents because it is so expensive to have a child. It's not a decision that you can make lightly because you do have to think about school fees and supporting someone for at least 18 years, if not longer. And again, it seems counterintuitive that you withdraw your retirement savings to pay for school fees, which the long term effects of that can be quite detrimental to your retirement. But in the moment when you need that money, it makes absolute sense because retirement is a decision that is happening in 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
9:09
Speaker A: Of course all we're doing is the stress is just flowing down through the family, right? So we withdraw from retirement savings to help our children today. But there's almost this implicit social contract of like, well, one day when I'm much older, then you're going to need to help me. And then the birth rate Issues just compound because then our children can't afford to have their own children because they're busy looking after their parents. So there's a hard thing going on out there that I think people are not talking about quite enough. And it all adds to stress. And this is the exact point, right? So you've got your daily life, you've got your money concerns, you've got your impact on your health from these things, which then drives additional fatigue, which I think makes you even less likely to get it right around retirement savings and believing in, frankly, just being around 30 or 40 years from now, let alone what will my quality of life actually be? It's a tough time, and there's a spiral going on here. I think a lot of people get caught in it, and it can be very damaging and very dangerous. But I know you've got some practical steps here that people can actually put in place to just try and break that tailspin and to just start to at least level out and, you know, get back to where they want to be getting to.
10:22
Speaker B: I think Ghost people think they need a complete financial overhaul to get out of that financial stress cycle. But in reality, the opposite is true. Momentum starts with small, manageable actions. And if I can break it down into five sort of frameworks or principles, I'd start with reducing friction. Make the next step as easy as possible. That could mean simplifying your accounts or choosing fewer but clearer investment options, or deciding in advance what your first action will be. Then the next one is to automate where possible. And I can't emphasize this enough, it takes away the pressure of having to make a decision every month. If you decide upfront what you're going to be doing, what you're going to be investing, and where you're going to be investing, and automate that, it's one less decision that you need to make on a daily basis. Seek clear and realistic goals. If a goal is too vague, it can actually be overwhelming. It adds to your stress. But if a goal is specific, you know, it's a set amount that you're going to contribute to a certain savings plan or investment. It's easy to track and it's easy to stick to. I would also say schedule regular financial reviews and stick to those reviews, because it also means that your retirement planning doesn't fall to the bottom of your to do list, and it avoids the pressure of having to make decisions about this every day, because you decide once a year or twice a year what you're going to be doing in terms of Retirement planning or investment saving. And then I think the last point is to use advice and trusted frameworks. You don't need to make your financial decisions in isolation. There are advisors and trusted experts that you can use and this will reduce the uncertainty around making these decisions and providing structure. For me, it all speaks to the fact that small actions matter. So progress creates confidence and confidence creates action. And then you're in a sort of positive cycle in terms of addressing financial stress.
12:24
Speaker A: Yeah, some really great stuff coming through there. I think something else that I find very helpful is just write things down. I know it sounds ridiculous, but just write them down because now it's out of your head. Like this concept of headspace is an enormous thing and we hold in so much all the time that we have to try and remember and then we forget things, then we feel even worse about that. And that's where the spiral really comes in. And it's amazing how just having that good old fashioned to do list makes a huge difference. I personally like actually writing it out. Well, I say that I should do that sometimes. It's just a reminder in my outlook. In fact my all time low, which I remember my wife laughing at a lot because it was very funny, was I had a particular Thursday in my calendar in outlook and at 8am I'd written as a diary entry, Thursday, 8am Helpful. Right? So I obviously wanted to put something there. But what I ended up writing in the Thursday 8am slot was Thursday, 8am Great reminder, very useful. Really helped me understand what I needed to do in that moment. So that's how your life can end up going. It's like the senior citizen problems that we joke about. You lose your glasses, you lose your wallet, you Write things like 8am Thursday in your diary and it's because you're just overwhelmed and you've got to get it under control. It's so difficult. Right?
13:32
Speaker B: You know, if you think about your diary, you've got your work meetings in your diary because those are important and things that you cannot miss. So why wouldn't you have things like review financial plan or set up debit order or you know, things that are important to your financial well being. Why not put that in your diary as well or on your to do list?
13:52
Speaker A: Just do a better job than me. Don't write the date and time as the date and time. You got to do better than that if you're going to write reminders. So I think let's move on then to some of the financial stress that has a longer term flavor to it as opposed to the day to day stuff, managing budgets and that kind of thing. In my experience, I think women tend to be all over that. Honestly, I just think on average you guys are way more organized than us men and just on top of it and stick to plans and all those kind of things, which is amazing. And research does seem to suggest that so St. James's Place in the UK their research found that 84% of women are involved in household finances. And the reason why that stat is relevant is because the same research then showed that only 34% of women lead investment decisions. So they are very, very involved in the day to day of how the house is run. But then only a third of them roughly take the lead on the investment decisions. And that obviously leads directly to a conversation around retirement saving. Now, in the modern world where pretty much everyone is working and the gender pay gap is hopefully at least closing a lot, I mean, I don't know, I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I don't even work in corporate anymore. But I like to think that these issues are starting to fall behind us. It feels like there should be equilibrium then in taking the lead on investment decisions. There's no logical reason why it should be male dominated. So how do you believe that equilibrium can be achieved in that space over time? How can more women feel empowered to actually play a major role here in the long term? Thinking not just keeping the lights on every week and making sure that the household doesn't collapse.
15:28
Speaker B: Effy so gust, I think this is extremely important because research shows that women's life expectancy is longer than men's. So a healthy 65 year old woman is going to outlive a healthy 65 year old man by approximately two years. And in practical terms, women are retiring with less money, but they need that money to last longer. And therefore retirement investing isn't optional or secondary. It's central to long term financial independence. And I think the way to get equilibrium in financial planning is to normalize women as long term investors so they're not just household budget managers. Because women also demonstrate investor behaviors that are associated with success. You know, patience, discipline, goal orientation, long term thinking, and a willingness to seek advice. Another important point is that very often people think that in order to invest, they need to be experts before they participate. And in reality you don't need to be an expert. Confidence will follow action, so the more you act, the more confident you will be. This is also why investment conversations need to be less intimidating. So we need to move away from jargon, heavy discussions and focus on clear questions. What am I investing for? How long do I have? How much do I contribute? What level of risk am I willing to accept? And this also feeds into education because education is a key confidence builder. Knowledge reduces uncertainty and very often uncertainty is one of the major factors that feeds into the inertia related to decision fatigue. So long term investing should be viewed as an act of self care and financial independence as opposed to something secondary or something that you will get to when you have the time.
17:18
Speaker A: Can't possibly put it better. Myself, I love the self care reference there. I think that's so important. And I also love the point around not needing to be an expert. Because you don't need to be an expert. You can go and find any of the research you like. Go and listen to some of the podcasts I've had with experts, even from the Satrix team, Kinsley, Nico, Sia, Duma, they'll all give you much the same message which is to say, listen, I Over the long term the stats show us that participating in the market is going to give you the best long term returns. It might give you some short term volatility or it will give you some short term volatility and it might not look the best over six months or one year or even three years if you get unlucky with the cycle. But long term diversified equities work and that is where you don't need to be an expert, you just need to be consistent and you just need to believe that what you are doing today is going to be worth it in 10, 20, 30 years time. And of course using things that exist, the structures that are out there, like a tax free savings account, which is a very rare example of a free lunch if ever there was a free lunch. And I know Kinsley always says there's no such thing as a free lunch, but if ever there was one, then it's got to be the tax free savings account. It's literally a gift from government to say hey, max this out every year and never pay tax on anything you earn in this account. That is my go to every year is to first get the tax free savings account done and then worry about what to do with the rest. So there are some just really good rules of thumb out there that you can use. Plus of course speaking to a financial advisor is very important because it brings some much needed structure to the conversation and it frees up headspace which as we've discussed is actually something very important. So from your perspective, Colleen how do you see the importance of financial advisors and the roles that they play?
19:01
Speaker B: So advisors play a very important role ghost, because they turn an overwhelming topic into a structured conversation when you're already carrying a lot of mental load. The value of advice is not only the technical stuff, it's also about creating clarity and narrowing your options and helping you make a decision in the right order. An advisor can help you prioritize your goals, understand the trade offs, and set up a disciplined plan that you can then commit to even when markets are volatile. And I think that matters because uncertainty, again, is one of the biggest drivers of decision fatigue.
19:36
Speaker A: Absolutely. And let's maybe finish off then with a point around ETFs, because this, of course, is the Satrix bread and butter. It's what you are known for. In fact, you basically created this market in South Africa. We've had some good chats before on the show about the history of ETFs here, but they really are a handy solution. There are ways to invest in them with small amounts consistently every month, which sounds like it ties up with the financial plan and the sort of advice you were giving there around how to just break the spiral. And there's obviously Satrix now, which makes it nice and easy, but there are a number of different ways to invest as well. So perhaps just give us an idea of how the Satrix product suite can actually reduce the mental load here. And let me just say very authentically, I firmly believe that something like exchange traded funds would be a really smart way for the majority of people to participate in the market. I think when you're going to go down the route of stock picking and trying to be clever, you're adding to your mental load. You're not taking it away. You're choosing to make it a hobby or something you want to really get good at. And that's wonderful, and I love you for it because it means you're probably reading ghost mail and learning about stocks, but it's not for everyone. Whereas I think this is a really smart way for people to just get their retirement savings on the right path.
20:47
Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, as you said, ETF simplify access to investing. So instead of trying to choose individual shares, one ETF can give you exposure to a basket of securities or a particular market, or even give you global access. This gives investors diversification, transparency and cost efficiency in a way that's easy to understand and easy to implement. And when you already stretch, simplicity is very important. It reduces that sense that investing has to be complicated before you can participate it also means that you can build a repeatable habit. So again, reduces your decision fatigue. You decide once where you're investing, what you're doing, how much you're investing, and that's it. And at Satrix, our philosophy has always been about democratizing investing and reducing barriers to participation. Satrix now allows you to invest very, very minimal amounts into a range of local and global ETFs. It allows you to automate your contributions and this means you can build your wealth gradually over time. The overall point is that we don't want to add another task to someone's already busy life. We want to make investing something that can happen consistently in the background and with a plan that's simple enough to stick with.
22:07
Speaker A: All of that sounds incredibly sensible, I must say. Colleen, thank you so much for your time today. And to everyone out there listening to this who feels like they are spiraling, you are not alone at all. I mean, I've had to make some pretty big changes to Ghost lately to actually just get my own life to a place where I feel like I have a chance of actually watching my children grow up. Because honestly, it was just impossible. And if you're trying to do this on hard mode with young kids and a career or your own business or whatever the case is, just stay the course and wherever you can reduce mental load, just reduce it. Try and simplify where you can write things down. It's hard. It's really hard. You're not alone. I feel it all the time, Colleen. I suspect you do as well. I guess that's the message today really is just in all the noise and in the storm. Just try and remember there's a 20, 30, 40 year, hopefully horizon. And you do need to just try and be consistent and put the small steps in place today that are going to make your future self. Thank you. In a big way. So that's the message today. And please do check out the Satrix platform and all the ETFs there. Speak to your financial advisor. As always, Colleen, thank you very, very much for all of the insights today, some really cool stats and for your time, of course.
23:20
Speaker B: Thank you very much for having me.
23:21
Speaker A: Ghost Satrix Investments Pty Ltd and Satrix Managers RF PTY Ltd are authorized financial services providers. Nothing you have heard in this podcast should be construed as advice. Please do your own research and visit the Satrix website for more information on all their ETF products.