Pocket Change: Using the Science of Personal Change to Improve Financial Habits

Winner of the 2014 Excellence in Financial Literacy Education (EIFLE) Adult Book of the Year award from the Institute for Financial Literacy, this guide teaches readers how to use well-tested techniques from the field of behavioral science to build and sustain positive money habits. The author, Dr. Heidi Beckman, is a psychologist who covers topics that range from goal-setting and self-monitoring to personal efficacy and self-discipline. She also suggests how to design the social, emotional, and environmental context in which good habits will thrive. In this way, she gives readers renewed energy for healthy money management well into the future. Getting better with money and achieving your financial goals do not happen through passive waiting, wishing for life to be different, or gimmicky quick-fixes that promise you instant wealth. Living a healthy financial life requires real personal change (or a pocket change, you might say!) Thankfully, behavioral scientists have uncovered the secrets of habit modification which have the power to convert your resolutions into action. These secrets are covered in detail in this book.

Dr. Heidi Beckman is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Certified Educator in Personal Finance. She currently works in the field of health psychology at a large academic medical center. She is passionate about understanding what helps people change so that they can lead lives that are physically, emotionally, and financially healthy. She reads the research literature on motivation, persistence, and impulse control and applies it to everyday problems. Over the past fifteen years, she has delivered numerous presentations on the science of habit change to members of the community, medical patients, and professional audiences. She has designed and led a number of psychotherapeutic groups that help medical patients optimize their coping and health management. Dr. Beckman writes about the well-tested willpower techniques that enhance motivation. She is excited to help readers find their own unique way to change their habits, one habit at a time.