Nov 10 • General discussion
📍 START HERE: What Is Financial Psychology & Why Does It Matter?
THE PROBLEM
You've been told your whole life that if you just:
- Budgeted better
- Saved more
- Spent less
- Had more discipline
...then you'd be "good with money."
But here's what nobody tells you:
You don't have an information problem. You have a psychology problem.
And it's not just YOUR psychology. It's the intersection of:
- Internal forces - Your unconscious patterns, beliefs, and emotional triggers
- Social forces - Comparison culture, status signaling, algorithmic manipulation
- Structural forces - A system deliberately designed to exploit your vulnerabilities
Traditional financial advice only addresses math. It tells you WHAT to do with money.
Money psychology asks: WHY do you do what you do? And what forces are shaping your decisions without your awareness?
MY THREE FORCES FRAMEWORK — This is the foundation of everything we do here.
🧠 INTERNAL FORCES: Your Psychology
These are the unconscious patterns running your money decisions:
- Money beliefs you inherited ("Rich people are greedy," "I don't deserve wealth")
- Autopilot behaviors (emotional spending when stressed, avoiding bank accounts when anxious)
- Cognitive biases (present bias, loss aversion, confirmation bias)
- Using money to regulate emotions or signal identity
👥 SOCIAL FORCES: Your Environment
These are the external pressures shaping your decisions:
- Status signaling through spending
- Algorithmic comparison (keeping up with 1,000 Joneses on social media)
- Friend group spending norms
- Cultural expectations about what you "should" have by now
- Peer financial opacity (everyone performs success, hides struggle)
🏛️ STRUCTURAL FORCES: The System
These are the intentional designs and policies working against you:
- Exploitative product design (subscriptions easy to start, hard to cancel)
- Dark patterns and gamification (one-click purchasing, BNPL apps)
- Economic barriers (wage stagnation while costs soar)
- Algorithmic manipulation (social media showing you envy-inducing content)
- "Being poor is expensive" (overdraft fees, can't buy in bulk, predatory loans)
WHY THIS MATTERS
Most financial advice blames YOU for systemic problems.
— It tells you to "just have more discipline" when companies spend billions engineering products to bypass your willpower.
— It tells you to "stop comparing yourself" when algorithms are designed to trigger envy because engagement = profit.
— It tells you to "budget better" when your rent increased 40% and your salary increased 3%.
Your struggles aren't personal failures. They're designed outcomes.
But understanding the system isn't enough.
You need:
✅ Awareness of all three forces
✅ Individual tools to protect yourself
✅ Structural understanding so you stop blaming yourself
This is called "double consciousness": See yourself clearly AND see the system clearly. Then act on both levels.
WHAT WE DO IN THIS COMMUNITY
- Build self-awareness - Understand YOUR specific internal patterns, triggers, and autopilot behaviors
- Redesign your environment - Create systems that work WITH your psychology, not against it
- Protect yourself from manipulation - Identify when you're being exploited and add friction to autopilot spending
- Stop blaming yourself for systemic problems - Recognize what's your responsibility to navigate vs. what's structural failure
- Take action on both levels - Individual solutions AND collective advocacy for change
Questions? Drop them below. This is your community!
— Hanna
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📍 START HERE: What Is Financial Psychology & Why Does It Matter?
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Understand WHY you behave the way you do with money. Psychology > advice. For people tired of generic financial tips.
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