Having a Healthy Relationship With Money

There are two types of people in this world: Cheap Fucks (CFs)—people who spend a little—and High Rollers—people who spend a lot. That shouldn’t surprise anyone—we all know examples of each. What is surprising is that there are so few people in the middle. And the people in the middle, the tiny minority of them, are the only ones with a healthy relationship with money.

I have stories. Boy, do I have stories of mind-bogglingly stupid financial behavior out of CFs and High Rollers. Unfortunately, they all read this newsletter, so I will not be able to share them here. Maybe over drinks sometime. Let me just say that your relationship with money is important, because it affects all your other relationships. If you cheap out on college for your kids, everyone is going to end up in therapy. If you blow cash on six-figure cars when you make five figures, everyone is going to end up in therapy.

I came from a CF family, at least on my mother’s side. There were extenuating circumstances: we lived in Connecticut, the biggest cheap fuck state in the entire country. Connecticut is filled with women in their late 50s with bowl cuts and L.L. Bean sweaters and turtlenecks calculating out 15% tips to the penny with the tip calculator cards they keep in their purse. Connecticut is the land of separate checks, Venmo-ing for gas, and paying for things with coins. You may have heard the term Nutmegger, a slightly derogatory term for a CF Connecticutian. I grew up this way. I got a passbook savings account at the age of eight, and started depositing my allowance in there. The only money I didn’t save were the quarters I plunked into the Xevious machine at the arcade. I graduated high school in 1992 with $2,000, which was compounding at eight percent. My friends blew their cash on stupid shit, and I laughed at them. This was my life.

You might say that I had an unhealthy relationship with money. You know how you know when you have an unhealthy relationship with money? When someone borrows ten bucks off you and it causes you stress. When you give precisely zero to charity. When you get Starbucks gift cards as Christmas gifts. When paying for something, even something as simple as parking, causes you pain. You are not in control of your money—your money is in control of you. It is your master.

I’ll go further and say that you know you have an unhealthy relationship with money when you are living below your means. When you have a seven-figure bank account, and you’re living in a 1200-square foot house and driving a Saturn of early 2000s vintage. When you shop for clothes at Target—or even Walmart. When you can afford the JW Marriott but you stay in a goddamn Super 8. I’ve written about Super 8s in a previous essay. Shit. Hole. When you are causing yourself discomfort in order to save money, when there is really no reason to be saving money. That is how you know that you have an unhealthy relationship with money.

The converse is also true, naturally. These are the people who live above their means. The fancy cars, the fancy houses, the fancy vacations. The person who spends too much is a bit of a terrible cliché, because these are the people that Dave Ramsey shits on all the time. Yes, people spend too much money. But people also spend too little money. I bet if some social scientist ran a poll somewhere, what he or she would find is that the latter far outnumber the former. Ramsey, the dick that he is, isn’t the only one. We’ve farmed literally thousands of personal finance experts in this country, and they all say the same thing: make your coffee at home. Consume less. By the way, the amateur personal finance expert is a thing, with the FIRE movement and Van Life. I like my personal finance like I like my porn: done by professionals.

There is a pervasive belief that consumption is bad. This belief exists on both ends of the political spectrum. The left wants you to consume less because consumption is bad for the environment. The right wants you to consume less because luxury is considered a sin. The solution is in the middle: to consume the right amount relative to your income, and to live at your means. Not above your means, not below your means, but at your means. If you make seven figures, you should not be buying used middlebrow cars. I am morally opposed to this. Cars are the ultimate personal finance litmus test, because they’re terrible investments, what with the depreciation and maintenance, and people view them to be status symbols. I will also tell you that an $80,000 car is twice as nice as a $40,000 car, which is twice as nice as a $20,000 car. It is more pleasurable to own and to drive. So if you have the money, you should buy a nice car. Stop being a cherry.

There is another pervasive belief that people are not saving money unless they’re denying themselves small luxuries. People will be thirsty instead of spending a dollar on an Arizona iced tea at the gas station. The discomfort that they experience by being thirsty reinforces their belief that they are virtuous by forgoing consumption. I know, because I used to do this. Now, if I am hungry, I buy food. If I am thirsty, I buy something to drink. If I am sleepy, I get a hotel room. That is literally what the fucking money is for.

Yes, there are people who have problems with spending and going into debt. They are the object of ridicule of thousands of personal finance experts. In my experience, they are not too common. If you really want to know the state of personal finance in this country, talk to a waiter or waitress, and ask about all the horrible tips they get, when a family with three kids sits down in a place like Olive Garden, and the kids smash food into the table and leave snot and barf everywhere, and the parents leave a $4 tip. Or when twelve women go out to a sushi lunch, and get twelve separate checks, and then spend the next 15 minutes arguing about who got what roll. These people are far more common than the couple that gets a $65 dinner, slaps down a hundo, and gets in their car and leaves. We did this to ourselves—we created a nation of cheap motherfuckers.

So the goal here is to have a healthy relationship with money. You don’t want the porridge to be too hot or too cold, but just right. How do you know when you have a healthy relationship with money? When you no longer stress about money. People who spend too much experience stress—they’re always worried about how to make the next credit card payment. People who spend too little experience stress—they’re agonizing over every penny. The goal is not only not to experience stress about money, but to not even think about it at all. I have an assignment for you: try to go a week without even thinking about money. I bet you can’t do it. It’s a lot harder than you think. Everywhere we go we are bombarded by financial decisions. Shit, the price of gas is high these days. Shit, Chipotle is $20 nowadays. Shit, my HOA dues went up this month. Do any of these things cause you stress? If so, that provides an insight into your psychology.

Unfortunately, because my livelihood is tied to the financial markets, I have to think about money all the time. And sometimes I make a bad trade, and I have my ass in a sling. If I could make the same amount of money by just writing books and essays and short stories, trust me, I would. That is my curse—I think about money all the time. I even dream about it. But it’s inescapable if you live in a capitalist country.  You are at the mercy of wages and you are at the mercy of prices. I’d still rather have that than the alternative. And maybe one day I will get to the point where I can just write short stories and make a living, though I probably won’t live that long.

Like I said in the beginning, your relationship with money affects all your other relationships. People don’t remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel. Also, separate checks are for candy-asses. I pay, then you pay. We take turns.

P.S. THOSE BASTARDS will be available for pre-order on Amazon soon. Remember, I want you to buy 10 copies and hand them out to your friends. Don’t be a CF.