Hair Color and Money Habits
Here’s an idea to cure the savings crisis: just direct everyone to dye his or her hair grey or white.
dollar bills (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)
That’s the impression you might get from a survey released today by couponcabin.com, a provider of coupons for online sites, which teamed up with Harris Interactive to determine if hair color has any influence on our money habits.
According to the numbers, almost two-thirds of those with white hair and more than fifty percent of the grey-headed claimed to have a six-month emergency savings fund. Of course, such a finding might well be explained by the fact that someone with grey or white hair is more likely to be retired than someone with black, brown, blonde or red hair.
Certainly, it appears form the survey that those snowbirds might have something in the way of discretionary funds. Those with white hair were more likely than any those with any other hair color to describe themselves as having taken “ a calculated financial risk” like borrowing money for short-term investments or investing in financial instruments with the potential for high payouts.
Perhaps it’s not hair color at all. The elderly, many of whom get by on a combination of Social Security and investment income, are suffering more than any other group from our current low-interest rate fiscal environment. It appears likely this has led some proportion of the over-65 crowd to turn to riskier investment choices. For example, the World MoneyShow in Orlando, an annual investors event that it taking place this weekend, attracts a senior crowd, with more than 80 percent of those who showed up over the age of 55. I attended a few years ago, and picked up pamphlets offering ways to “earn annual yields of 40 percent or more because your bank is too cheap to pay 2 percent interest on your jumbo deposits.”
Another tidbit from the survey: blondes might have more fun but they must do it on the cheap. Almost half of those with golden locks can claim six months liquid savings vs. a mere 20 percent of redheads.
Unfortunately, no one from couponcabin.com and Harris Interactive thought to ask about male pattern baldness and money habits.
About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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