Money messages – your earliest memories about money, often passed down by your parents – influence your financial perspective in an extremely powerful way. For instance, one of my clients has a strong memory of his father putting change in a huge container in the living room every evening, explaining that when it was full, they’d be able to go on a vacation… and teaching the value of saving for a goal. This client uses the same tactic with his kids, tweaking it slightly so they realize that when their containers are full, they can exchange the coins for bills.
Those who were raised to believe that money equates to power, freedom and control are going to behave much differently than those who were taught that money isn’t a good thing. Among the money messages some people learned as a child are:
- You have to work hard and suffer to earn money.
- Having a lot of money isn’t “spiritual.”
- Money is too hard to manage.
- You’ll never be rich.
If you were brought up with these beliefs, you can actually sabotage yourself as an adult with respect to making financial decisions. Your upbringing will also have a lot