Check your stories. Pinpoint and chang
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What Others Are Saying: "LOADED: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind is that rare resource which somehow captures both theoretical and practical wisdom about money, personality, and life. Sarah Newcomb has done a phenomenal job of distilling the latest concepts from behavioral finance and psychology for the benefit of the everyday reader who simply wants to know how to handle money better. She opens with a big-picture perspective on how we form our money personalities and behaviors, using relevant personal anecdotes and case examples. By book’s end, she leads us to taking charge of our money decisions to create budgets that really work. Writing in a highly readable style, her tone is upbeat and empowering. Your views – and actions – with money will be much improved after reading the wonderful advice in LOADED."
- James Grubman, PhD. Author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations and co-author of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: When It Comes to Money, We’ve All Got Issues 7
Note 9
Chapter 2: Money Messages 11
We Don’t Talk about Money 11
We Talk about Money Constantly 13
From Freud to Frodo: The Stories We Tell Each Other 15
The Stories We Tell Ourselves 19
Stories Can Help or Hurt 24
Heuristics and Biases Shape Our Stories 26
Identifying Core Beliefs 27
Challenging Core Beliefs 28
Using Science to Our Advantage 32
Notes 32
Chapter 3: Poverty, Privilege, and Prejudice: A Crash Course in the Science of Money Psychology 33
Money and Social Psychology: How Poverty, Privilege, and Comparisons Affect Our Minds and Behavior 35
Poverty: Why Not Having Enough Is a Major Drag 35
Privilege: Why Having an Advantage Is Great . . . and Not So Great 46
Prejudice—We’ve All Got It 54
Movin’ on Up 59
Money and Cognitive Psychology: How Specific Thinking Patterns Affect Financial Decisions 63
Why Retail Therapy Feels Good: Identity and Ego Depletion 64
Time and Money: Why We Always Want It NOW 70
Thinking in Circles 81
Finances and Emotions 83
Financial Knowledge 87
Making Change 90
Notes 94
Chapter 4: The LOADED Budget: Creating a Human-Centered Money Management Plan 99
What’s Wrong with Your Budget? 100
Where Does Your Money Come from? 102
Assets and Resources 108
Where Does Your Money Go? 114
Rules of Thumb for Creative Resource Management 140
The Asset Test 141
Putting It in All Together: Your Personal Economy 149
Enjoying a Loaded Life: Living in Harmony with Your Money and Your Values 161
Notes 164
Appendix A: Self-assessments 167
Write Your Personal Financial Narrative 168
Define Your Core Beliefs 169
Financial Management Behavior Scale 170
Emotions and Money (from HelloWallet’s 2014 Pilot Study) 171
Mental Imagery 172
Behavior Identification Form 173
How Impulsive Are You? 174
Big Five Financial Literacy Questions 175
Appendix B: Interventions and Exercises 177
Change the Narrative 178
Challenging Core Beliefs: Find a Counterexample 179
Age Progression 180
Future Visualization Exercises 181
Exercises to Combat MoneyThink 182
Affirm Core Values 183
Cash Flow Worksheet 184
Resources Worksheet 185
Expenses and Needs Worksheet 186
Your Personal Economy 187
Just-In-Time Financial Education Resources 188
About the Author 189
Index 191
