Insights
Insights for smarter expense management
Practical tips, user stories, and financial strategies that help you track expenses, organize your finances, and make better spending decisions.
Insights
Practical tips, user stories, and financial strategies that help you track expenses, organize your finances, and make better spending decisions.
When Anna (34) finally admitted to herself that she hadn’t opened her banking app in over a month, it wasn’t because she didn’t care about money. It was because every time she thought about her balance, she felt a tightness in her chest.
Like many, she lived in the avoidance loop:
Psychologists call this avoidance the “ostrich effect”: people deliberately avoid financial information when they expect it to be negative. Recent research shows that when people feel financially scarce, they literally look away from financial information more often, both with their eyes and their mouse clicks.
This case study shows how Anna moved from avoidance to control in 60 days, using methods backed by research — reminders, tiny habits, and simple tools — similar to those tested in university trials on financial wellness and savings behavior.
Profile at Day 0:
Her pattern matched what large studies are seeing: young adults with financial anxiety often avoid their accounts, even though that makes things worse.
Instead of starting with a big budget, Anna and her coach set one goal for the first week:
“Reduce avoidance, not fix everything.”
Inspired by exposure-based approaches from psychology, they started tiny:
For the first 10 days, Anna had only one task:
This mirrors lab findings: very small, low-pressure exposure to previously avoided information reduces emotional response over time.
Instead of a cold bank notification, she created her own daily reminder:
“60 seconds of honesty is kinder than 60 days of worry.”
Self-written prompts like this are close to what behavioural scientists call “boosts”—tools that support people’s own motivation and self-efficacy, not just push them.
End of Day 10:
Once checking the account felt less scary, Anna moved to light structure.
Instead of a full budget, they picked just two categories to track:
This “narrow focus” approach mirrors findings from intervention trials: people are more likely to stick with simple, specific tools than with complex, all-inclusive budgets.
Each evening, Anna wrote:
On Day 18, they did a 30-minute subscription review. She found:
Total monthly saving from cancellations: €37/month.
Research from savings and nudging experiments shows that visible early wins increase engagement and perceived control, which keeps people using the tools longer.
Once a week, she answered three questions in a note app:
This protected her from the shame spiral that usually pushes people back into avoidance.
End of Day 30:
In the second month, the focus shifted from “stop avoiding” to “start steering.”
Instead of a big spreadsheet, Anna tracked only three numbers weekly:
She logged them in a simple note and drew a tiny arrow:
This is very close to what financial capability labs test in the wild: extremely simple visual tools that show progress without overwhelming people.
Together, they identified typical danger moments:
For each, she made one pre-decision, for example:
This kind of “if–then” planning is widely used in behavior change research because it turns vague intentions into concrete triggers and responses.
On Day 40, Anna set up her first automatic transfer:
Trials on savings nudges repeatedly show that small, regular transfers build both savings and psychological safety, especially for people who previously felt out of control.
By Day 60, Anna wasn’t “perfect with money” — but she was no longer hiding.
Quantitative changes:
Qualitative changes:
Her journey closely mirrors what research suggests:
This 60-day transformation isn’t magic; it’s behavioral design:
Existing research tells us it’s realistic for people to:
Sources:
American Psychological Association (APA) (2023) Stress in America: Key Findings on Financial Anxiety. Washington, DC: APA.
Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2020) Improving Household Financial Decisions: Behavioural Field Experiments. London: UK Cabinet Office.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (2022) Financial Well-Being and the Role of Simplicity in Financial Tools. Washington, DC: CFPB.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999) ‘Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans’, American Psychologist, 54(7), pp. 493–503.
Harvard Kennedy School – Behavioral Insights Lab (2021) Reflection and Habit Formation in Financial Behaviour. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
JPMorgan Chase Institute (2021) Income Volatility and Financial Behavior in U.S. Households. New York: JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Karlsson, N., Loewenstein, G. and Seppi, D. (2009) ‘The Ostrich Effect: Selective attention to information’, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 38(2), pp. 95–115.
Locke, E. A. and Latham, G. P. (2002) ‘Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation’, American Psychologist, 57(9), pp. 705–717.
Mullainathan, S. and Shafir, E. (2013) Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. New York: Times Books.
OECD (2024) Household Financial Resilience in Times of Inflation. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Princeton University – Center for Behavioural Science (2017) Cognitive Load, Bandwidth Tax, and Financial Errors. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R. (2008) Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
University of Chicago – Center for Decision Research (2022) Emotional Avoidance and Financial Decision-Making. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
World Bank (2020) Digital Finance, Savings Nudges and Behavioural Interventions: Global Evidence Review. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (2023) Financial Lives Survey: Capability, Vulnerability and Behavioural Patterns in UK Households. London: FCA.
Financial anxiety is one of the most common forms of modern stress.
Research shows people are more likely to skip financial information when they expect the outcome to be unpleasant. In the moment, ignoring feels easier. But it quietly creates long-term damage.
Mental accounting is not just psychology—it is tradition, culture, and identity expressed through the way we handle money.