A group of Modern Husbands and Lead Dads is beginning to meet monthly to discuss ideas to be better husbands and fathers.
For our latest conversation, Geoff Girvitz [Dad Strength] and I shared systems-based strategies to reach two common goals for the new year: to frequently exercise and better manage our finances.
Here are five graphics I used to illustrate a systems approach to saving more money.

Your system to save should start by embracing who you want to be.
In his book, "Tiny Habits," Dr. BJ Fogg explains that identity-based goals integrate who we want to be into our everyday lives. Outcome-based goals, however, are centered on achieving a specific result, like publishing a book or losing 20 pounds.
Dr. Fogg suggests that identity-based goals can lead to more sustainable changes because they align actions with deeply held beliefs about who one wants to be, promoting a more holistic and integrated approach to habit formation.

Dr. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics. In his book "Thinking Fast and Slow" he introduces the "concepts of System 1 and System 2 to describe the two main ways our brains process thought.
As you can see from the graphic, System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2, on the other hand, allocates attention to effortful mental activities that demand it, such as complex computations or critical thinking.
Kahneman's theory jives with researchers who have found that willpower is less important in reaching our goals or desired lifestyle when our environment is structured to make good decisions automatic or easy and bad decisions effortful, inconvenient, and difficult.
The remaining graphics illustrate how, using this theory, you can build savings-based systems to become savers in your marriage.

Money is the leading cause of stress in a marriage. Our relationships with money are complicated, often originating from our childhoods, and easily influenced by our current environment. Adding a relational component to money management adds another dimension of challenges.
Couples will be more successful when they work together to establish shared financial goals and systems that make it easier to reach their goals together.

Splitting your deposits into different savings buckets is an easy system to establish to save more money. However, this is useless unless your savings account is at a different financial institution than your checking account.
Having your checking and savings accounts at the same financial institution makes moving money between the two effortless and instant, eliminating the barriers needed to be less impulsive. Behaviorally speaking, it's no different than having one spending account.
Accounts at different financial institutions create the inconvenience of waiting 1-3 business days for the transfer to go through and are out of sight (and out of mind).

Here are more ways to make bad habits invisible or hard and good habits easy or automatic.
If you enjoy learning about the science of saving, you will love our free power course, Money Marriage U Save.
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