Insights by Dr. Daniel Crosby | Cahaba Commentary by Will Jackson, CFP®
10/2026
A Note from Will: Many of you have heard me say—somewhat tongue-in-cheek—that I have never had an original idea, and I do not plan to start now. 🙂
The truth is, very few ideas are entirely original. Progress usually comes from observing what works, learning from it, and adapting it to a new situation. That is true in engineering, medicine, science, music, art, and finance. The people and organizations that succeed are often not the ones with the most novel ideas; they are the best observers. They recognize effective patterns, lean into them, and avoid the habits that reliably lead to poor outcomes.
At Cahaba, we work to understand the behavioral practices associated with better financial decisions and then design strategies that make those practices easier for our clients to follow. Dr. Daniel Crosby has been an especially valuable resource in this area. His books and articles consistently reinforce an important point: financial success is often less about knowledge or willpower than about building an environment that supports good decisions.
The following idea and exercise are worth considering.
The Power of Making Good Financial Choices Effortless
Make the Right Choice Easy
In 2010, the United Kingdom created a small team officially called the Behavioral Insights Team—often referred to as the “Nudge Unit.” Its mission was unusual: rather than create more rules or regulations, the team applied behavioral science to existing public-policy challenges to make better choices easier for citizens.
The results were meaningful. By rewriting tax notices in plain, personalized language, the team improved on-time tax payments. By simplifying retirement-plan enrollment, it helped more workers begin saving. By changing the way information was presented in areas such as health, consumer protection, and criminal justice, the team influenced behavior at scale.
The common principle was simple: Make desirable behavior easier and undesirable behavior harder.
The team’s framework became known as EAST:
Easy — Reduce the effort required to take the desired action.
Attractive — Present the choice in a clear, compelling way.
Social — Show that others are making the same positive choice.
Timely — Deliver the prompt at the moment it is most relevant.
Of these, “Easy” may be the most powerful. Many behavioral problems are not primarily failures of motivation, intelligence, or character. They are failures of design. When something takes too many steps, requires too many decisions, or creates unnecessary inconvenience, people tend to postpone it—even when they know it is important.
The Financial Lesson
One of the most influential applications of this idea is the “Save More Tomorrow” program, developed by behavioral economists Richard Thaler and Shlomo Benartzi in the late 1990s.
The challenge was familiar: most workers understand that they should save more for retirement, but good intentions often lose to present bias, competing expenses, and inertia. Save More Tomorrow did not try to solve this problem by asking people to become more disciplined. Instead, it changed the default.
Participants agreed in advance to increase their retirement-plan contribution rate when they received a future raise. Because the contribution increase occurred alongside higher pay, employees did not experience the change as a reduction in take-home income. They could opt out at any time, but many did not.
In the original research, average savings rates for participants rose from 3.5% to 11.6% over 28 months. The lesson is not that every family should follow the exact same formula. The lesson is that well-designed systems can accomplish what willpower alone often cannot.
Today, automatic enrollment and automatic annual contribution increases are common features in many workplace retirement plans because they help people save consistently without requiring repeated decisions.
Friction Works Both Ways
The same principle applies beyond a 401(k).
Behavioral research has shown that people often spend more easily when payment feels abstract. A card swipe, online checkout, or saved payment method can make a purchase feel almost effortless. Cash, by contrast, creates a more tangible sense of giving something up—a concept often called the “pain of paying.”
That does not mean credit cards are inherently bad. Used responsibly, they can provide convenience, rewards, and purchase protections. But if convenience consistently leads to unplanned spending, then convenience may be working against your goals.
James Clear describes a related idea in Atomic Habits: environment often beats willpower. If gym clothes are laid out the night before, a morning workout becomes easier. If healthier food is visible and convenient, better eating choices become more likely. The same logic applies to financial behavior.
Good financial habits become more reliable when the desired choice is the easiest choice.
Practical Applications
Here are several ways to use friction intentionally in your financial life:
- Automate recurring savings and investment contributions. The fewer logins, transfers, and decisions required, the more likely the money is to be saved consistently.
- Review whether your workplace retirement plan offers auto-escalation. A small annual increase in your contribution rate—particularly after a raise—can meaningfully improve long-term retirement savings without creating a dramatic lifestyle disruption.
- Schedule transfers to investment or savings accounts shortly after payday. Money that never lingers in checking is less likely to be spent unintentionally.
- Simplify your financial architecture. Fewer active credit cards, fewer redundant accounts, and a clear spending structure can reduce mental clutter and make it easier to notice small leaks before they become larger problems.
- Add friction to discretionary spending. Delete shopping apps that turn boredom into purchases. Remove stored card information from websites you visit too often. Unsubscribe from promotional emails and text alerts designed to create urgency.
- Create a waiting period for nonessential purchases. Even a 24-hour or 48-hour delay can separate a genuine need or meaningful purchase from a passing impulse.
- Make important financial tasks visible. Put an annual insurance review, beneficiary update, or savings-rate check on the calendar. A financial task that has a date attached to it is far more likely to happen than one left on a vague mental to-do list.
The Bigger Point
Most meaningful financial change does not require a dramatic overhaul. It rarely requires becoming a different person or suddenly developing perfect discipline.
More often, it requires building a better system.
When the right action is automatic, convenient, and easy to repeat, progress becomes more likely. When an unhelpful action takes a little more effort, it becomes easier to pause and make a more deliberate choice.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is to reduce the number of times each month that you must rely on willpower to do what you already know is in your best interest.
This week’s challenge: Choose one financial behavior you want to make easier and one you want to make harder. For example: 1. Make saving easier by setting up an automatic transfer to an investment or savings account on payday. 2. Make impulse spending harder by deleting a shopping app or removing saved payment information from a favorite retailer.
Then pay attention to what happens. You may find that the behavior changes not because you became more disciplined, but because you designed your financial environment to work in your favor.