The Nudge

It’s a Saturday morning and I’m walking over to the Starbucks near my house. As is my routine, I’m scanning my email and pruning my inbox when I encounter an email from Starbucks Rewards. The subject line says “Try these two items and get 15 gold stars”. My interest piqued, I opened the email to read a suggestion that I get a croissant along with coffee.

 Disinterested, I delete the email. 

Thirty seconds later, I’m at the register. The image of a croissant bounces around in my head. 

Rats! 

I find myself walking out with a warm croissant tucked away in a brown paper bag that rustles satisfyingly in my grasp. 

In my head is a nagging question: What just happened? Why did I just do that? I hadn’t wanted that croissant.

Primed by the email, my mind had been nudged into reinforcing a habit loop — and I of all people should know better. 

Mindful engineer meets behavioral enthusiast

Now would be a good time to introduce myself. 

A software engineer by training, a product manager by experience, and a self-read psychology fan by interest, I’ve been passionate about melding these three paths my entire professional career. A chance encounter with meditation 20 years ago convinced me that there was much to be learned from the automatic behaviors that seem to drive most of my life. 

For over 11 years, I applied behavior change techniques in helping design UX flows and gamification systems that grew the Spiceworks community into one of the largest B2B IT communities in the world. If my thoughts were hashtags the trending ones would be #lifehack #productivity #habits 

So, as you can imagine this joust with an uninvited croissant was the sort of stuff that got my curiosity engine going. 

It dawned on me that an entire area of my life seemed to be unfolding on autopilot. Barraged by the endless prompts and cues of the world my spending habits were forming and changing beyond my awareness.

But were these spending habits serving me?

By some estimates, over half of our daily behaviors are habitual. And each day our actions reinforce or weaken these habits.

The power of a good question is that it takes hold. It lives with you by day and keeps you up at night. And so began my journey of discovery about how we spend — specifically learning about the person behind the phrase personal finance. This article captures some of those insights and observations.

The answer to money problems may not be money

In survey after survey, Americans report that their biggest source of anxiety is money. And it’s not just about not having enough money. Even after our basic needs are met, we have anxiety and distress about not saving enough and spending too much. One author noted that regardless of our income level, we feel that we’d be happier if we made 50% more. 

What exactly is money and why do we want it?

At the basic level, it’s a mechanism for us to get things. But more broadly, money is just a measure. Like inches or gallons it counts something. The value of that count is up to each of us — it’s subjective. What we seem to want are the experiences that money unlocks for us.

For me it’s an experience of security — the capacity to walk away from a bad job or situation. For others it’s the ability to care for their family or community. Sometimes it’s the ability to treat ourselves to something that brings us joy.

The utility of money seems to be in its ability to enable us to live our life according to what we value. 

But… who’s in your wallet?

According to analysts, the urban American is exposed to up to 5,000 advertising messages a day driven by a $100B+ industry. Like little nudges they plant thoughts of croissants, shoes, and cars in my mind. I start the year wanting to spend on traveling or working on my hobby… yet inexplicably seem to end the year with unused workout equipment, faded memories of meals I didn’t enjoy and a blank passport.

So what’s the cause of this drift from intention? Is there a solution? We can take solace in the fact that behavioral psychologists have extensively studied this tension between long term goals and instant gratification. These learnings have made their way into our lives in areas such as health & fitness. Apps like Fitbit and Noom leverage this science in fun and easy ways to help us live healthier.

You get what you inspect - not what you expect

Surprisingly, personal finance hasn’t fully leveraged this science. Money apps still treat personal finance like an accounting issue. Like a mathematical equation they seem to distill our rich life experiences into numbers with one goal — make the expenses smaller. They seem to berate and shame us for enjoying our lattes, making the experience of learning about and managing money feel like ??.

It’s not a surprise then that less than 5% of people actively use personal finance tools. It’s in this gap created by a lack of awareness that our habits drift from our values… and we spend on autopilot.

Perhaps all we need then is a little awareness. One that helps us be mindful of how our actions and intentions intersect and diverge.

We need a new way to look at our money

What would it look like to approach personal finance from a mindful perspective? One that brings the energy of curiosity not the dread of scarcity and fear? Could it possibly even be fun? How could we see money from the perspective of the desired outcomes it provides and not just abstract dollars and cents?

How could we enable everyone to have a healthier and happier relationship with money?

A journey begins

As I talked to people, I was struck by the resonance. Quick catch-ups over coffee went long and Zoom calls only ended when batteries ran low.

The product manager/entrepreneur in me began to wonder if this is an idea whose time has come. In a raucous world of digital distraction, apps like Calm & Headspace arose to help us carve out a peaceful space. In the hustle of a busy but sedentary life, Fitbit & Noom have become guides that help us with health & fitness. In the midst of loyalty programs and other never ending mechanisms to nudge us to spend we need the help to stay focused on what matters to us. Why wasn’t there an app for that?

Soon I wasn’t alone. People I’ve worked with (Scott Abel, Brian Simmons, and Jen Slaski) found the idea so compelling they joined me. We started a new company called Mazlo with a goal of bringing a solution to life. In part 2 of this series, I’ll share what we learned as we conducted our user research. How people talked candidly about their challenges, and how they experienced money. In part 3, we’ll end with how what we learned became the basis for an app we’re launching.

But what about you? Do you spend money? Would you want more insight into the habits drive your spending? Join us in this journey. Sign up

PS: We started this journey before the pandemic began. Interestingly, it seems to resonate even more now that we’ve all been forced to change our normal behaviors & habits.

PS: Part 2: The Epiphany is now live.