Consumer expert Grace Forell said using the ‘friction’ method was crucial as 2026 starts
An ITV expert has told Amazon customers they need to make a change to how they pay. Appearing on This Morning consumer expert Grace Forell told host Cat Deeley what people need to be doing after getting their first payday of 2026.
She spoke out as many want to get the new year off to a better start financially and reign in spending. She said the first thing people should do is disable all cards in their phone’s digital wallet.
The idea is to make is slightly harder to pay – and introduce a bit more thinking time and space before rushing to buy something you might not actually want or need. She said: “The temptation may be to splurge, but January is the perfect time to introduce new habits that will help you make 2026 more financially fruitful.
“My favourite tip is to introduce ‘friction’ to your payments, by disabling cards in your digital wallet, removing autofill for card details on your internet browser, and disabling one click shopping on Amazon. Making things harder to pay for could well do your bank balance a favour.
On the issue of people not actually understanding all the information in their payslips Cat asked: “If you can’t understand your payslip, then how do you do it?”
Ms Forell said: “So I would say my five steps to saving money and making your paycheck go, last for longer is starting with your payslip. So go back to the basics and read it properly.
“Now everyone, well, usually we are on the tax code ‘1257L’, meaning that we get, £12,570 tax free, before we’re hit with income tax. So most people’s paycheck will have this tax code on.
“But sometimes if you’ve recently changed jobs, you might see ‘C0T’ or ‘W1’ or ‘M1’. And this is an emergency tax code. Now if you’re on an emergency tax code, it’s likely that you’re paying far more tax, than you ought to be. Usually this is rectified automatically by HMRC, but not always. So it’s so crucial to make a note of any overpayments that you’re making.”
Not everyone was impressed as viewer Karen said: “You don’t have to fully understand it to know how much you’ve earned! It tells you in the final box normally. Not rocket science”.
Wesley said: “Maybe this kinda thing should to be taught in school instead of working out what X equals or analysingpoems which probably have a straight forward meaning aways…. maybe teach how to understand payslips, along with tax, pension plans, how to do an invoice, how to claim tax back, bonds, credit cards, workers rights, how to go about exposing a company who aren’t treating their staff correctly, how to look for housing and get around rejection due to not having a guarantor, what the benefit system is actually designed for and why its important not to abuse it, etc… honestly the list goes on and on… maybe everyone will be aware and in the know. Name the class. Life experience.”
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