Merle van den Akker

  Merle van den Akker is a PhD student in Behavioural Science, at the Warwick Business School. She studies the effect different payment methods, especially contactless and mobile methods, have on how e manage our personal finances. In her "free" time she writes articles on personal finance, behavioural science, behavioural finance and life as a PhD student, these are all published on Money on the Mind. With DDI, she writes on personal and behavioural finance, to ensure that knowledge from academia trickles into the mainsteam, and can help as many people as possible!

 



17 Stories by Merle van den Akker

Can Any Formula Tell You How Much Money To Save?

We are led to believe that there is a way to properly prepare for any financial disaster. But in the current (rapidly changing) economic...
5 min read 208

Psychology of Poverty

There seems to be a genuine belief that if you just work hard enough, dream big and go hard, you will escape poverty. If...
4 min read 236

The Price of Poverty

There is a high price to pay for living the life of those who don’t have any resources to pay it. Most people can imagine...
3 min read 277

How Much Money Will Make You Happy?

According to two Nobel Prize winners, $75k should be enough. Money and happiness. Two very different concepts that have gotten a lot of attention...
4 min read

Are You Experiencing FOBO?

Have you heard of Fear Of a Better Option yet? We know that making choices is hard. The more choices we have, the less...
4 min read 693

The Dangers of using Spending as a Reward

“Treat Yourself.” It’s a very common phrase these days. And it can mean a variety of things. Either you should indulge because everything’s been...
3 min read 169

Are you wasting your time on Switching Costs?

Switching costs might not be a term you are familiar with. And reading the words for the first time might not give you even...
3 min read 201

The Mystery that is Compound Interest

In my article “Why we need to teach Personal Finance” I have already alluded to the damage compound interest can do. Especially, when no...
7 min read 429

Pay Yourself First

Money comes in. Money goes out. Bills, debt repayment, groceries, etc. After all that, how’s your saving strategy going? Many of us dream of...
3 min read

How to Build a Successful Goal

We have many desires in life. To be successful, rich, well-liked, healthy, respected, desired, attractive, and many more. For some people, achieving these goals...
4 min read

Don’t pay later, pay NOW!

The idea of buying on credit, meaning you get your product now and the bill (the pain of paying) later, is as old as...
3 min read 399

We Need To Start Teaching Personal Finance in Education NOW

If there is one thing the crisis has taught us, is that no one seems to have a clue what’s going in our financial...
8 min read 423