The term money scripts, describing the unconscious beliefs that underlie our financial decisions and behavior, has been used by financial planners and therapists for over 15 years. Since the term (coined by Brad Klontz, Ted Klontz, and I) was first published in my...
If you’ve ever lived in real poverty, struggling to meet your basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing, it’s almost certainly not a “lifestyle choice” you would voluntarily opt to return to. If you were to ask people who are living in poverty whether they would...
Two years ago, writing at the outset of the pandemic, I cited a March 2020 New York Times column by David Brooks, “Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too.” He warned that, historically, pandemics, unlike other disasters which bring communities and nations...
The last thing in the world I would ever want to be is a couples therapist. This is despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that for 40 years most of my work as a financial planner has been with couples. Helping individuals negotiate their relationship with money...
Money scripts are beliefs we have acquired about money and how it works. We are usually unaware of these beliefs, in part because we see them as facts—”just the way it is.” We typically hold 50 to 200 money scripts, which affect every financial decision we...
