Financial Health
A Model of Scalable Support to Achieve Financial Goals
The Problem
People across a range of incomes in the United States struggle to build savings, pay down debt, and manage irregular cash flows. As a result, a large majority of American households are in a state of financial vulnerability without a savings cushion to help take care of unexpected expenses or income disruptions.
That’s because setting aside savings is often more difficult than it seems: A single deposit or transfer involves multiple steps such as reviewing balances across accounts, planning for upcoming payments, and navigating online banking portals. How could we make it easier for people to achieve their financial goals?
Our Solution
We worked with BECU, a credit union in the Northwest, to create a Financial Health Check they could use with their clients. During a one-time, 30–60 minute phone call, consultants with BECU worked one-on-one with clients to review their monthly budgets and create financial goals.
We designed the Financial Health Check with three principles in mind:
Create a moment that fits into people’s lives to help them focus on financial goals instead of doing it piecemeal with information that overloaded them.
Facilitate follow-through in real time to support decision-making and action rather than information sharing and a to-do list that needed follow up. Easy-to-follow guidance broke the decision-making process into concrete steps, like filling out a budget template to identify cash available and a detailed visualization of goals to help members prioritize.
Make transfers automatic, so members have one less financial task to worry about each month.
The Results
In a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of the Financial Health Check, we found that people saved 34% more than a control group of peers who did not have access to appointments.
These results, tracked during the 12-month period following the calls, demonstrate the promise of services like the Financial Health Check to help families achieve financial resilience.
