Ep 71A Jewish Therapist Shares What She Sees Behind Closed Doors
If you change your spending, you'll change what you think is important
Don't wait until you feel differently about money to act differently about money.
Dr. Debra Alper
A Jewish Therapist Shares What She Sees Behind Closed Doors
with Dr. Debra Alper
Don't wait until you feel differently about money to act differently about money.
More moments · 4
Try this · top 3
Quotes
“It's not just the financial stress, but it's the burden of having to make it look as though you're not under financial stress.”
“If you don't want to share when you're struggling, maybe you shouldn't be quite as excited to share when you're successful.”
“If you change your spending, you will actually change the things that you think are important.”
“If nobody saw this purchase, what would I do?”
“We have shifted a lot into a mentality of what money can buy as opposed to what it can do.”
“Money actually doesn't fix the most important things.”
Takeaways
- 1 Kids and young adults feel their parents' money stress and often feel guilty about it. Many carry shame and hide that they can't keep up.
- 2 Even high earners feel it's never enough: each raise is exciting for five minutes, then it feels normal.
- 3 We get used to everything - the big first house, the new car. When everyone buys bigger, the community standard keeps rising.
- 4 Communities hide the real range of incomes. People show off successes and hide debt, so everyone assumes others are paying cash.
- 5 Shame breeds secrecy and blocks change. Feeling bad about something you can control is useful, because it pushes you to act.
- 6 Overspending works like the extra dessert: a quick reward now and regret later.
- 7 Comparing yourself to others can push you forward, until it starts to hold you back.
- 8 Spending shapes values. When you spend heavily on clothes or cars, you start to believe they matter.
- 9 Self-regulation beats rules. School rules (like bar mitzvah parties in school) help, but community-wide wedding rules tend not to last.
- 10 Technology, social media and money are all powerful, and each can do as much harm as good.
- 11 Her grandparents asked what money could do (time, education, helping the next generation). Today many ask what it can buy.
- 12 She isn't against money or big simchas. The attitudes around money are what hurt us.