一位记录个人理财的专栏作者在每月发薪后的周六更新家庭账目；电子表格监控现金账户、养老金账户、投资组合分配和按揭计划，每次月度更新大约需要一个小时左右，而图表上花费的时间更长。

作者约翰·坎贝尔和塔伦·拉马多赖认为金融扩大了财富不平等：一项2000至2007年的瑞典研究发现，最贫穷的财富十分位只获得无风险利率，而最富有的十分位每年多获得5至8个百分点；最富有人在债务上支付的利率比无风险利率高1至2个百分点，最贫穷的人支付的利差为4，第二贫穷的人为7。富人也存更多钱，该瑞典研究发现回报和利息账单差异几乎解释了同期不平等增长的全部；2017年一项美国研究估计回报差异解释了30至40%的退休财富不平等。

他们列举了使穷人处于不利地位的障碍：惩罚小额账户的固定成本、更大的应急储备、被排除在如私募股权等高利润市场之外的监管以及因更高违约风险导致的更高利息成本。作者认为金融教育不足以解决问题，并提出价格上限、禁止过度的游戏化和更简单的产品，但此类干预可能扭曲激励、提高他人的信贷成本并减少帮助人们改善财务的学习。

A columnist who tracks personal finance updates household accounts the Saturday after payday each month; spreadsheets monitor cash accounts, pension pots, portfolio allocations and a mortgage schedule, and each monthly update takes an hour or so, with longer time spent on graphs.

Authors John Campbell and Tarun Ramadorai argue finance widens wealth inequality: a Swedish study (2000–07) found the poorest wealth decile earned only the risk-free rate while the richest decile earned 5–8 percentage points more; the richest paid 1–2 percentage points above the risk-free rate on debts, the poorest paid a spread of 4 and the second-poorest 7. Richer people also save more, and the Swedish study found differences in returns and interest bills accounted for almost all the increase in inequality; a 2017 US study estimated returns differences explained 30–40% of retirement-wealth inequality.

They list barriers that disadvantage the poor: fixed costs that penalize small accounts, larger emergency buffers, regulatory exclusion from profitable markets like private equity, and higher interest costs from greater default risk. The authors reject financial education as sufficient, and propose price caps, bans on excessive gamification and simpler products, but such interventions can distort incentives, raise credit costs for others and reduce the learning that helps people improve their finances.