The True Cost of Happiness: The Real Story Behind Managing Your Money

Chapter 4. The Price of Pleasing Mom and Pop: ARE YOUR EARLY LESSONS WORKING FOR YOU OR AGAINST YOU?

I think one of the most surprising things I discovered as I delved into Life Planning was how big a role our family dynamics, or early "money scripts," as many planners and psychologists call them, play in our financial behavior.

When I say family dynamic, I do not mean the trials and tribulations of trying to live in financial harmony with a spouse or partner—that gets is own chapter. I'm talking about the ways in which the first lessons we learned about money as children affect our decisions about making and spending it as adults.

Pearls from Planners

"If you think of an unconscious belief as a script, it's easy to understand it as a set of instructions written by someone else. Actors are given scripts, which they rehearse until they can follow them perfectly. In the same way, we blindly follow our money scripts. We've learned our parts well, and we faithfully act them out."

Rick Kahler, President, Kahler Financial Group; coauthor, Conscious Finance (Rapid City, S.D.: FoxCraft, 2005) and The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge (Deerfield Beach, Fla.: HCI, 2005)

Psychobabble?

Initially, the notion that our adult financial behavior was rooted in our childhoods sounded like it could be a bit of psychobabble. The cynic in me thought that the "blame it on mom and dad" rationale would work as a great excuse for people who want to justify irrational financial behavior. Still ...

All beliefs, ...