Understanding Money Scripts and Financial Behavior

If you struggle with getting your financial house in order, you may feel that what you need is more information on how things like stocks or IRAs or budgets work. However, my guest today would say that what you actually need most of all, is a better understanding of the relationship that your parents' and even your grandparents' had with money, and how the "money scripts" they've passed down to you have affected your own thinking about finances.

His name is Brad Klontz; he's a psychologist who specializes in money issues and the author of Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health. We begin our conversation discussing what Brad calls the Big Lie in personal finance. Brad then explains how money scripts form in your childhood, and can keep you from making progress with your finances in your adulthood. We dig into why you can feel shame over being both poor and rich, why it's hard to move ahead from the socio-economic status you came from and easy to get dragged back into a financial comfort zone, and how you can break out of old ingrained patterns. We end our conversation with how to be more intentional about the money scripts you're passing down to your own kids, including why you shouldn't tell them, "We can't afford that."

Get the show notes at aom.is/moneyscripts.