Defaults and Friction: The Money Machinery Someone Else Built for You

In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy turns from the money machinery listeners build themselves to the machinery that gets installed before they arrive.

He starts with the default — what happens if you do nothing — and shows how much of a household's money moves according to settings that somebody at a company chose in advance. The workplace retirement plan serves as the rare example of a default that works in the saver's favor, along with a caution that plenty of employers are still exempt from it.

From there he takes up friction, the effort standing between wanting something and having it, and traces how the same business will strip every step out of a purchase and then build steps into the exit.