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THE PROLIFIC MR. QUINN recently wrote that people who were irresponsible in one area of their life, such as failing to return shopping carts, also tend to be irresponsible in other areas, like managing their finances. He’s probably right. Still, I’ve had times when, even though I’m a “responsible person”—I’ve had a successful career, my kids lived to grow up, and so forth—I nonetheless had pockets of disorder in my life.
For me, the two biggest areas of chaos were managing money and maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regimen. I’m embarrassed to think back on the bounced checks, late fees, and even the checks I accidentally threw away because I was distracted and disorganized. I’m even more horrified to think about how many fast food and vending machine “meals” I ate because I hadn’t been to the store or found time to eat a proper breakfast or pack a lunch. There was even the gym membership that I had for seven years, which I paid for—but never once used.
These unacceptable patterns needed to be changed. Responsibly managing one’s finances is important. Ditto for attending to one’s health, as Rick Connor has written in several pieces. Thus, I’m happy to report that I have restored order in both of these important areas.
Our bills are paid on time, our credit scores are pristine, we have no debt beyond our mortgage, and we have savings, insurance and an estate plan. As for health and fitness, I’ve lost nearly 60 pounds since 2020, I’m absolutely devoted to working out and I’m now at a healthy weight for my height. When I had recent lab work, my doctor told me everything looked great, and “just keep up the good work.”
How did I do it? The short answer is habit formation—James Clear’s Atomic Habits was very helpful to me—with an assist from automation. My personal finance transformation happened some years before my success with diet and exercise. To improve my health, I applied many of the “automation” lessons that worked with our finances. Still, the real key is that I’ve made decisions and built habits that have helped me reach my financial and health goals.
Automating our finances. It was around the mid-2000s when I started using the online bill-paying service that our credit union offers. Since then, I’ve moved to setting up automatic payments directly with vendors, including the utility, phone and insurance company, rather than having checks sent from the bank.
Every time I get a new credit card, I set up my online account with automatic payments on the statement due date. Our retirement contributions and health insurance payments come straight out of our directly deposited paychecks. I opened a donor-advised fund with Fidelity Investments so our charitable contributions would be automated, and I set up an online account to make automatic quarterly tax payments to the IRS.
Now, it’s rare that I ever write a check or pay cash for anything and, on the infrequent occasions that I do need to pay a bill myself, I just go online and take care of it promptly. Because most of the task is automated, I have the time to attend to the parts that still need my attention, such as checking our bank accounts and credit card statements to make sure there’s nothing amiss.
Automating weight loss and fitness. Slowly but surely, I’ve learned what works for me. Where does automation fit in? It’s helped me stay on top of a sometimes mentally challenging process.
Specifically, an online calculator that considers age, gender, height, current weight and activity level provides me with recommended daily and weekly calorie ranges for losing or maintaining weight. I also rely on an online calorie-tracking website and app called MyFitnessPal. I have the tracker set to a lower calorie goal for workdays and another, higher one for weekends. In addition, I use an app called Happy Scale to enter and track my weigh-ins.
Using MyFitnessPal, I enter upcoming meals and snacks for the day ahead, inputting the information either the night before or first thing in the morning. Taking five to 10 minutes to plan reduces decision fatigue throughout the day, especially if I’m hungry, tired or stressed. I can just work the plan I’ve made rather than relying on willpower when the flesh is weak.
Since I like to cook, and meal planning is crucial to my success, I use an online recipe organizer called Copy Me That to collect and edit recipes that I’ve tried and decided were keepers. I also have themed Pinterest and Facebook folders to save new recipes I want to try. When it’s time to plan dinners and make my grocery list for the coming week, I consult these sources.
My fitness and exercise goals are tracked on my Apple Watch and on the Peloton app. I always “stack” my workout on the Peloton app—meaning I pick out and bookmark the classes I’ll do the next day—so that the decisions have already been made. The app also keeps track of my metrics in the Peloton classes. Meanwhile, the watch tracks my steps and my non-Peloton activity.
As with my financial management tools, I do have to get involved. I have to plan and cook the meals, pick out and do my workouts, and stick to the plan. But having all these tools reduces cognitive overload, and makes it more likely I’ll stick to the plan (well, most days) and make progress toward my health goals.
Dana Ferris and her husband live in Davis, California. She’s a professor in the writing program at the University of California, Davis, and is the author or co-author of nine books on teaching writing and reading to second language learners. Dana is a huge baseball fan and writes a weekly column for a San Francisco Giants fan blog under the nom de plume DrLefty. When not working, she also loves cooking, traveling and working out. Follow Dana on Twitter @LeftyDana. Her previous articles were Buying Time and A Better Plan.
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Nice article. Lots of nice behavior psychology wisdoms and practices (actually work) in it. Thanks for sharing and it is inspiring to see the change and your result.
Thank you!
Thanks for this. At several points you mention the importance of reducing mental fatigue and resistance by automating processes and planning. That approach supports successful outcomes for me, also.
Exactly. Two cases in point for me, just today. I just got back from a late-morning downtown appointment. When I got done, I was hungry and it was lunchtime, and there were plenty of places around to get a quick bite. But I already had lunch made, in my lunch warmer, and logged in MyFitnessPal. So I went home and ate the lunch I planned. It wasn’t really (much of) a struggle. It’s just what I do now.
This morning I woke up early after a poor night’s sleep. Instead of using that as an excuse not to work out, I had a cup of coffee, checked my “socials,” played Wordle, filled my water bottle, and headed off for my workout. It’s just what I do now.
Love this article. I have several books on rotation, one being “Atomic Habits”. I never tire of it.
It really is good. One of my favorite points is the importance of identity statements (e.g., “I’m a fit person who works out” or “I’m a person who takes charge of what I eat through meal planning”).
Dana, good for you on both the finance and the health fronts, and on a nice article.
Thank you!
Technology has really helped you change your life and many others for the good. I try to take advantage of it as much as I can, but the aging process is starting affect me and at times it seems difficult to keep up. My wife almost has a breakdown when there are new things or changes. She won’t even use the many benefits of the calendar on her phone…has to be the old paper book style. Her vehicle has too much technology built in that she refuses to learn the benefits of it.
Very glad you shared your story as it gave me inspiration to do things I hadn’t thought of.
I’m aging, too, but I think working with college students has forced me to keep up with technology, at least for the classroom—which then gives me the confidence to try other technological affordances. I share the dismay about new cars, though—when I bought my most recent car in 2020, I literally sat in it for quite awhile watching YouTube videos (filmed by the carmaker) to “go to school” on my new car. I still forget sometimes how seldom-used features work.
Congratulations!! I entirely agree about the importance of habits. It’s great for getting things done, and frees up thinking time for more enjoyable activities. I have been using bank draft for bills for years, but not for my credit cards, even when I’m traveling. I like to check the charges before I pay the bill.
I also check my credit card accounts several times a week, make payments, and keep an eye on if anything is amiss. That was a habit I had to build because I agree with you that I want to check the charges.
We’ve had autopay on basically everything for ages. Before we started traveling all the time, getting our statement would be our trigger to check the month’s charges. Now we check charges even more frequently as we longer have paper statements to remind us. While chances of a bank mistake may be almost nil, the chance of a compromised card isn’t, and best to know it sooner rather than later.
After spending all that time, have you caught many mistakes on your credit card statements?
All of our most recent cards have the ability to notify us as soon as a charge is made. If you have this feature I would recommend you initiate it, that way you IMMEDIATELY know both if a charge is entered correctly by the business, or if there has been an unauthorized charge. If you have this feature there is no need to remember to check your card. When any charge is made to your card it texts you, your phone notifies you with a sound, and like Pavlov’s dog you check the amount. Easy Peasy!
I’ve caught a few, not a lot. But it doesn’t take “all that time”. I would download the transactions to Quicken in any case, and checking them against the receipts would be worthwhile even if it did take a lot of time as it reminds me of what I’m spending money on. Also reminds me to check that expected refunds have posted.
Thank you, Dana, for sharing your ideas. “Slowly but surely, I’ve learned what works for me” seems central to your success.
Without a smart phone or tablet (and wanting for neither), relying on apps as do you is not for me. Now a year into retirement, I could easily spend all day immersed in hobbies and exercise. Instead, I consciously structure most mornings for doing “responsible” things; afternoons are “me time”. Lists and calendars are part of the system. Works for me, and like your system, one highly reliant on knowing one’s self.
I like gadgets and tech, but I know not everyone does. I used to also have a hard time with calendars before I got my first iPhone—I’d double-book myself or forget appointments. But now I can pull out my phone at the dentist or hair salon or when someone at work asks for a meeting, put the appointment right into the phone, and it syncs with my home and work computers. I can’t say I NEVER screw up anymore, but those times are lot fewer and further between.
I love your pattern for your days in retirement. I look forward to that!
Congratulations Dana – great article. I sounds like you’ve worked very hard to come up with a system that works well for you. I found the accountability of logging the health data was a great motivator.
I had a similar question to Dick Quinn’s about the credit card. I’d love an article explaining your CC miles/points strategy. When I stopped working full time and stopped traveling ~30-40 weeks a year, I moved to a $$ rewards strategy instead of Marriott points and airline miles. But I never really analyzed it to see if it was the right move.
Thanks, Rick. Your articles on this health topic have been motivating for me, as well. I have worked hard, and one of the surprises along the way is how mentally challenging it is to maintain a long-term sustainable weight loss and fitness program. I thought if I just figured out what to eat and how to exercise, that would do it. But that’s only part of it. I’ve had to confront hard truths about myself like “I’m a stress eater” and “If I don’t plan well, I’ll default to junk food.” Also just getting tired of the whole process—I’ve had to learn how to refocus and find external inspiration when the “motivation bus” hasn’t shown up that day/week/month.
Dana, you’re right. Our lives are ruled by habits, good and bad. Thank you for sharing your practical system that has obviously produced results for you. You’re making decisions before you are affected by fatigue, hunger and distraction. Smart.
Thank you! I’ve always been a planner—just not a last-minute kind of person—and when i finally applied that to these areas of my life, it helped some things fall into place.
Congratulations, Dana. One of the most frequently cited habits of successful people is organization. Fortunately, organization is as much a habit as a personality trait. With ordered planning you have made a positive impact on your life.
That’s an interesting comment, Marjorie. I have always thought of myself as kind of a mess because of the disorder I described here, but I actually AM organized, in my own way. That is a comment I’ve gotten for decades on my student evaluations—that I’m well organized, which they appreciate—and modern educational technology (learning management systems such as Canvas or Blackboard) has played right into my strengths there.
You’re an inspiration!
Great job, see, it is possible.
But I have to ask about this sentence. “Every time I get a new credit card” How often do you get a new credit card?
And talking about automating, have you tried my A-F bank account strategy I wrote about a while back on HD?
Ha! Interesting question about the credit cards, and that may be another article (it’s on my list of ideas). I play the points and miles game because we love to travel (which I know you do, as well), and that involves holding more credit cards than some here would approve of. That said, because I’ve restored order financially, everything is always paid off in full.
I loved your A-F banking article. Our own banking scheme is pretty simple—we have one main checking account with two savings accounts through our local credit union and two online savings accounts, one of which is (sort of) designated as our emergency fund account. We have never had his-and-hers accounts, but we might try a modified version of what you described once we retire and need to stick with our reduced income.
I love to travel too (or did before RA and Covid) but I never played the points game. I collect all my miles with a Citi AA Mastercard, which gives me access to the One World carriers. They used to have a fabulous RTW award which sadly no longer exists. I also acquired Capital One cards, because they didn’t charge foreign conversion fees (supposedly Citi has stopped doing that) and a PenFed card because it provided a PIN as well as a chip. I think I have an AmEx around somewhere, but it’s not useful for foreign travel. Traveling solo I needed multiple credit and ATM cards in case one was lost or stolen or eaten by a machine.
If you like playing the credit card game, you should read Root of Good blog. He is a FIRE person and uses his rewards to take his family on world travel several times a year.
Thanks! I’ll check it out. The Points Guy (website, Facebook group, daily email newsletter) is my main go-to, along with brand-specific Facebook groups such as the Marriott Bonvoy Insiders.