Financial Wellbeing
Money Scripts: The Beliefs We Grow Up With
How unconscious beliefs about money, often learned in childhood, shape our spending and saving, and how to recognise and rewrite them.
Why does one person feel guilty spending anything, while another spends whatever they earn? Often the answer lies in money scripts: deep, often unconscious beliefs about money, usually learned in childhood.
The research
Financial psychologists Brad Klontz and colleagues identified four common types of money scripts:
- Money avoidance: believing money is bad, or that rich people are greedy. People may sabotage their own finances or feel uncomfortable earning more.
- Money worship: believing more money will solve all problems and bring happiness. This can lead to overworking or overspending.
- Money status: linking self-worth to net worth and possessions. This can lead to spending to impress others.
- Money vigilance: being careful, anxious and secretive about money. This encourages saving but can create excessive worry.
Where scripts come from
- Family experiences: growing up with scarcity, or seeing parents fight about money.
- Culture and religion: beliefs about wealth, giving and debt.
- Significant events: a family business failure or a sudden windfall.
Why they matter
Money scripts can drive behaviour that does not match our goals. Someone who grew up in scarcity may hoard cash and never invest. Someone who learned that money shows love may overspend on gifts.
Rewriting your scripts
- Notice: pay attention to strong feelings about money, such as guilt, fear or excitement.
- Trace: ask where these feelings came from.
- Question: is this belief helpful now?
- Replace: write a more balanced belief, such as “Money is a tool to support what I value.”
A woman's grandmother lived through hard times and always said, "Keep cash at home - banks cannot be trusted." Decades later, the woman keeps large sums in a cupboard, earning nothing and at risk of theft. Once she recognises where this belief came from, she moves most of it into a bank and a mutual fund.
Emotions and beliefs learned early in life strongly shape financial choices. Recognising them is the first step to better decisions.
- Money scripts are unconscious beliefs about money, often learned in childhood.
- Klontz identified money avoidance, worship, status and vigilance.
- Scripts can drive behaviour that conflicts with our goals.
- Noticing, tracing, questioning and replacing beliefs helps rewrite them.
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