What Do You Say About Money?

I know that I am not the only one walking around with voices in my head. No, I am not crazy, and neither are you. We all have these different voices playing back messages to us about who we are and how we should live our life. Many sound like the messages our parents told us. In psychological terms, these voices are called scripts. They are messages that replay over and over again in our head and guide the way that we make decisions and live our life. 

In Mind Over Money: Overcoming The Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health by Dr. Brad Klontz and Dr. Ted Klontz, the authors talk extensively about scripts and how they are formed and influence our financial decision-making. The book highlights nine common relational money scripts, several of which I recognized as my own, and others as ones I have heard from people with whom I work. 

Take a few minutes to review this list of common relational money scripts and see which ones resonate with you. Think about why that may be the case and where you learned them. 

- Take care of your children now and they’ll take care of you later.

- You can tell how much someone loves you by how much they spend on you.

- If you hold others financially responsible, they will reject you.

- Spending money on others gives my life meaning.

- One of the ways to keep friends and family close it to give them gifts and loan them money.

- There will always be someone I can turn to for money.

- I’m not competent enough to take care of myself financially.

- I don’t need to learn how to manage money.

- It’s my duty to take care of less fortunate family members.

Each of these scripts has elements of truth but often gets distorted and misguides the way that we make financial decisions. The challenge is that, when we live out these scripts, they usually end up having both practical and emotional consequences on the way that we view and use money. 

Let’s take one script for example: "Spending money on others gives my life meaning." While this is one of the greatest truths of our culture and spiritual lives and grows out of a teaching that is it is better to give than receive, when taken too far, we rob ourselves of financial security and deny the receiving party the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. When we give too much to one person or group of people, they become dependent upon us, and they lose the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. 

Continually taking time to evaluate your scripts for their truths and distortions can start to set you free in the way that you handle your finances. To start identifying other scripts you may replay in your head, ask this simple question: “What do I believe to be true about money and relationships?”

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.

Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on Facebook

For all your communication needs, she is all you need.

Grow your marriage by getting all the latest blog posts.

* indicates required

Email Address * First Name Last Name