Write decision rules that tie your actions to your own situation instead of to headlines.
Write down ahead of time what will make you act on your loans, deposits, investments and job. Then, when the news gets loud, let those written rules decide. Knowing you shouldn't react to headlines is easy. Holding still is much harder when the news is everywhere and people around you are acting on it, and rules you wrote in a calm week hold up better than willpower.
Grace and Marcus share their savings, some unit trusts and a home loan. Grace keeps a note on her phone of the money decisions they nearly made. Once she almost moved all their savings into a two-year deposit because a headline said rates had peaked. One night Marcus wanted to sell their unit trusts after a market fall dominated the news. One morning he was ready to refinance after a Fed cut, which is the episode from Lesson 7.2, Separate what changed from what was expected. Each felt urgent at the time, and none would have helped. Grace's note became the start of their decision log, and from it they wrote their first three rules.
Rule 1 is to link every money decision to something in your own situation. A trigger is an event or date in your own life that needs a decision, as opposed to a news item. "Rates are falling" is a news item, and "our lock-in ends in March" is a trigger.
Your own situation creates real decision points. When a home loan lock-in period ends, you can switch packages without a penalty. When a fixed deposit or T-bill matures, the money needs to be placed somewhere new. Your job risk can change, for example through a hiring freeze at your company or your role being restructured. Lesson 5.1, How the job market turns before the headlines do, describes these changes. A child's university fees falling due is another decision point. At a decision point the news can inform what you decide, but it should not decide when you decide.
Rule 2 is to give each rate-sensitive decision a review date: a calendar date on which you check that decision and act on what you find. For a floating rate loan, compare your current rate with new packages every six months or every year, and decide whether refinancing is worth the costs. For a loan with a lock-in, set a reminder a few months before it ends, because banks often let you lock in a new package ahead of time. For deposits and T-bills, the maturity date is the review date.
A review date only works if it replaces the urge to check every time rates are in the news. Between reviews, you leave the decision alone until the next date on your calendar.
Rule 3 covers the moments that feel urgent anyway, such as a market crash, a surprise rate move or a recession warning. A cooling-off rule is a commitment to make no money decision within a set number of days of a headline like that. You choose how long the period lasts, and a week works for many people.
The period lets the first wave of fear or excitement pass. It also gives you time to check whether the news was truly a surprise or was already expected, using the method from Lesson 7.2. When the period ends, ask one question: has anything in my own situation changed? If your job, income, plans and timeline are unchanged, the decision you wanted to make in a panic usually looks much less attractive.
The exception is a genuine personal emergency, such as losing your job or getting a medical bill. That is an event in your own life, not a headline, and your buffer exists for exactly that.
Habit 4 is a decision log, with one line for each money decision recording the date, what you did and why. Grace and Marcus's log has entries like these two example lines. They fixed a two-year deposit at a bank promotion because it matures when the car loan ends. They did not sell their funds after the fall in March because their playbook said not to.
Because you record your reasons at the time, you can later check them against what happened without hindsight rewriting your memory. The log also shows which of your decisions came from your own triggers and which came from the news.
A good rule names what you will check, when you will check it, and what would make you act. It needs no view on where rates or markets are heading, because it ties an action to your own dates and circumstances. These are the three rules Grace and Marcus wrote:
Six months before the loan lock-in ends, compare their rate with at least three new packages, and switch if the saving over two years beats the switching costs. When any deposit or T-bill matures, place the money according to their savings plan, whatever that week's rate headlines say. Make no change to their investments within seven days of any big market or rate headline, and none at all unless their job situation or timeline has changed.
To write your own, first list the real decision points in your situation: lock-in end dates, maturities, changes in job risk and fees falling due. Give each rate-sensitive item a review date. Pick your cooling-off period, and log every money decision in one line from now on. Write each rule so it states what you will check, when, and what would make you act.
Now look at your own loans, deposits, investments and job, and think about which dates and events should be the ones that move you.
Write three decision rules for your own money. Each one should say what you will check, when, and what would make you act.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).