Know Yourself Know Your Money by Rachel Cruze
How your money story shapes your financial – and therefore life – choices.
Know Yourself, Know Your Money by Rachel Cruze explores how your financial habits stem from deeper money beliefs formed by upbringing, emotions, and personal experiences. She shows how identifying these patterns can reduce anxiety, improve communication, and create more intentional decisions. By pairing insights with practical steps, she lays out a path for building healthier behaviors that support long-term financial stability.
Your Childhood Money Classroom
“Childhood either enables you or stunts you; it doesn’t create you.”
- Childhood experiences shape adulthood
- Subconsciously influence mindsets
- Different experiences aren’t inherently better or worse
- Siblings can interpret differently the same experiences
- Children learn emotionally and verbally
- 4 Types of Childhood Environments
- Unstable: Open & Stressed
- Anxious: Closed & Stressed
- Secure: Open & Calm
- Unaware: Closed & Calm
Stressed Classrooms
- Unstable (open & stressed)
- Constant fighting & yelling, open communication but negative
- Later Challenges: expectation of conflict, ignoring money
- Anxious (closed & stressed)
- Rarely heard discussions; tension instead of direct arguments
- Observed habits; discouraged from asking questions
- Later Challenges: difficulty opening up, fear around lack of money
Calm Classrooms
- Secure (open & calm)
- Open discussions about money, everyone on the same page
- Not necessarily financially strong, but intentional decisions
- Later Challenges: underestimate responsibility it takes, entitled
- Unaware (closed & calm)
- Never knew specifics about family finances but felt taken care of
- Short-term great emotionally, long-term lack of understanding
- Later Challenges: struggling with responsibility, avoiding finances due to discomfort
Your Unique Tendencies
- 7 Most Common:
- Saver vs Spender
- Nerd vs Free Spirit
- Experiences vs Things
- Quality vs Quantity
- Safety vs Status
- Abundance vs Scarcity
- Planned Giving vs Spontaneous Giving
- Current needs can distort what is natural – what is instinctive?
- Knowing your tendencies helps you communicate with others
- Find a balance
- Ex → If you save everything, you’ll miss experiences
- Ex → If you spend everything, you’ll be broke
Responding To Mistakes
- Too Much Grace → Enabling
- Enables self-destructive habits by avoiding consequences
- No boundaries, rarely taking a stand
- Recognize the issue, set boundaries, and stick to them
- Too Little Grace → Legalism
- Efficiency prioritized over relationships
- Sacrificing relationships to be right
- Remind yourself that mistakes are normal and okay
