(Lifehacker | Low Self-Control | Dev) cards - Paid Product

I’ve been looking at the gambling blocks Monzo can enable on a users account and it got me thinking about the power that could have to help people control their spending.

Now, granted people should have the ability to have self control, but explicit blockers are sometimes some of the most powerful motivators for helping someone make a new, or break an old habit.

The idea is that a user could specify certain transactions from being blocked from their card, with a 24hr unlock period to unblock it - so no more wasteful Pret runs in the morning.

I read once the idea of actually freezing your credit card in a block of ice, the way you need to wait for the thing to thaw out before you can use it - and by that time you’ll have had time to think about the purchase and possibly not make it anymore, thus killing impulse buys.

This would change the path of least resistance to be one of NOT spending money, rather than spending.

I would pay probably up to 9.99 a month for a service like that because it would save a magnitude of order more than that in savings and non-impulse buys.

Barclays have the ability to disable the card for a section of retailers eg restaurants but it’s just a toggle on and off with no friction.

Monzo were working on features to help people manage their impulse spending. How that will work is unknown, might be category or specific merchant. Hopefully we will hear something on that soon

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