Childhood Money Wounds: Find the Sentence You Were Raised On

September 24, 2026

Find the sentence you were raised on

Everybody has one. It was said in your kitchen or your car or at a register, usually by somebody who loved you and was doing the best they could with what they had.

We cannot afford it. That costs too much. How did they afford that? Must be nice. Do not ask, you already know what they are going to say.

You did not choose to believe it. You were a child, and it went in whole.

Write down three 📝

Not one. Three. The first one comes easily and it is usually the polite version.

Write three phrases you heard about money growing up. Then next to each one, write who said it. Then write what you learned to do when money arrived.

That third column is where it gets interesting, because that is the part still running. Spend it before it disappears. Hide it. Give it away so nobody thinks you are showing off. Never mention it. Never ask.

They were not trying to hurt you 🤍

I want to be careful here, because this is not an exercise in blaming your parents.

Most of those phrases came out of somebody's real fear, in a real situation, on a day when there genuinely was not enough. They were protecting you, or protecting themselves in front of you.

The phrase did its job at the time. The problem is that nobody ever came back and told you that you could put it down.

Now write the new one ✍️

I was taught ____________. Today I choose ____________. My next kind money action is ____________.

Make the middle one something you can actually stand behind today. Not a fantasy, not something you read on a poster. A sentence that is true enough that saying it does not make you wince.

You can upgrade it later. You will. Start with one you believe.

The phrases I hear most 🗣️

We cannot afford it. That costs too much. How did they afford that? Must be nice. Do not ask, you know what they will say. Money does not grow on trees. We are not made of money.

And the ones that sound kinder and do the same work: do not worry about it, that is grown up business, we will find a way.

Every one of those teaches a child something about whether money is safe to look at.

What you learned to do 🏃

This is the column people skip and it is the important one.

Spend it fast before it disappears. Hide it. Give it away so nobody thinks you are showing off. Never mention it. Never ask for it. Feel guilty for having it. Feel ashamed for not having it.

Those are behaviours, and behaviours are changeable in a way that beliefs are not. That is where the work actually happens. The spending reflex is usually the first one to surface.

What if I cannot remember any phrases?

Then look at the behaviour and work backwards. What do you do when money arrives? Something taught you that.

What if my family had money?

Wealth carries its own phrases. Do not talk about it. People will want something from you. You have no idea how hard this was to get. Those wound too.