Are you a ONE or TWO Marshmallow Person?

The marshmallow experiment is a famous test focused on the concept of DEFERRED GRATIFICATION (which is highly important in both medium term & long term financial planning). It was conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University with over 600 children aged 4-6 taking part. 

These children were given a delicious fluffy white marshmallow and told that they can either have it right away or they can wait to eat it. If they didn't eat it after a certain period of time they would get TWO fluffy sweet marshmallows (100% return!).

As you can see with this video, most children chose instant gratification (and lost the chance of a second marshmallow (getting 0% return)) but one third of those who deferred their gratification, got to enjoy double the amount of the sweet treat (and gain that 100% return they knew they wanted). Ironically enough, many years later there seemed to be an unexpected correlation between the results of the marshmallow test and the success of the children!

This seems to be the same story for financial planning. Most people plan for 'today' and worry about tomorrow, 'tomorrow.' It doesn’t take all that much (in this case it was 20 minutes) to gain EVEN more gratification than available instantly (even if you have to wait for it). The wait will make gratification BETTER, BIGGER and STRONGER!

Creating that financial plan for the purposes of your ‘tomorrow’ is HIGHLY important and STRONGLY encouraged as it could change everything for you. Starting now will give you that HUGE gratification at that time in the future.

Rather than buying a new cell phone (because you HAVE to have the new model... even though yours is working fine) or a new dress for that one occasion, put the funds toward your finances and enjoy the BIGGER gratification you truly want and deserve 'tomorrow'.

Become a TWO marshmallow person 

Here is the video link in case it didn't work in the text:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3S0xS2hdi4

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(Video provided by Youtube. Information on study gathered from bottom of Youtube video, Wikipedia and Time.com)
(Photo of marshmallows from http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2012/02/getting-both-marshmallows/)