Rather than waiting for Congress and to act to improve credit card and bank account terms, you can start making better personal finance decisions now by examining your own behavior. Behavioral economics, a field that’s seen increasing attention in the past few years, realizes that we all aren’t homo economicus—the perfectly rational “economic man” that really exists only in economics textbooks who always desires wealth, avoids unnecessary labor, and has the perfect information and ability to make ideal personal finance decisions.

Instead, behavioral economics realizes that we have certain behavioral biases: we underestimate the probability we’ll pay late or overdraw our checking accounts, for example. And a recent report by the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys, or NARCA, confirmed that consumers, specifically young adults, don’t act rationally 100 percent of the time when it comes to money and finances. According to its poll, NARCA found that more than 25 percent of college students think it’s reasonable to run up a debt to splurge on a special celebration with friends at a restaurant or to use a credit card as a way to "raise cash."

But behavioral economics can be used to your advantage if you “nudge” yourself to make the best decisions by remembering the power of defaults and reminders. This concept—which extends beyond personal finance into other topics like nutrition, health and public awareness—was put forward in the book “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness” and its authors’ blog. The authors spoke of how you can help yourself make the best decisions by setting up the right “choice architecture”: for example, putting the most nutritious foods at the front of the refrigerator.

Another example of this is when a handful of large companies started to automatically enroll their workers in 401(k) retirement plans rather than leaving it at their option, in effect making the better option the default option. Following this change, 86 percent of workers at companies with automatic enrollment are saving for retirement under their employer’s 401(k) plan, whereas 45 percent of workers at companies with opt-in policies are not.

There’s a number of steps you can take to nudge yourself in the right direction, either by setting the best default option for yourself, or setting a reminder. In terms of default options, most of our large credit card companies offer automatic billpay, which allows you to pay your credit card bill automatically unless you log in and opt-out of it. Or, some credit card companies allow you to change your due date, which can be reset to a few days after your payday.

In terms of reminders, some banks allow you to set up text message alerts. These can be used to text you when your credit card balance is within a threshold of your credit limit. Or, your bank can text you when you’ve spent down to a certain level in your checking account, say $200, to help you avoid an overdraft.

While responsible Americans certainly deserve better banking regulation than what we have, setting up a couple of defaults and reminders could go a long way to keep you out of a debt trap.