Apps to Change Spending & Eating Habits 

Bad spending habits can be just as challenging and destructive as weight problems. Now there are Apps like Urge or Make a Habit, Break a Habit to make it easier to stay on track.

What kind of challenging money habits do you have? Are you an unconscious spender? Do you go to the mall and two hours later have bags of purchases yet you can’t remember what exactly you paid for them?  Are you a secret shopper? And, I don’t mean the kind that’s hired by Safeway to check up on their customer service. I mean, do you sneak your purchases home when your husband is busy and hide them so you don’t get feel guilty, or get grilled? Do you struggle to maintain a budget or is budget a word you haven’t yet acquainted yourself with?

Changing our habits is not for the weak willed. We need help. Food, weight and exercise habits have been particularly tough to change long term.  But now there are apps that are based on making small incremental changes that build progress over time. You may be surprised to know that Weight Watchers is basically a behavorial modification program and it’s one of the most effective.

For those of you that have a money problem, (& perhaps a weight problem combined) there are apps like Lose It or Make a Habit, Break a Habit which lets users choose the behavior they’d like to change, like shopping less, or Urge, which “prompts users to hold off on impulse purchases to hit budgeting goals.”

These Apps are exciting, cool and they work because they improve on the principles of good ol’ 12 Step Programs – support, feedback, slow steady changes and the good feelings that come with healthy change. (based on The Perfected Self by David H Freedman, The Atlantic June 2012)