A couple days ago I asked you something a little different.
I asked whether your money struggles might have less to do with discipline and more to do with what you absorbed growing up.
And you showed up.
I got more replies to that email than almost anything I’ve sent.
me seeing a stack of replies
People sharing stories of growing up in households where money was always tight, always stressful, always the thing fights were about.
People who watched their parents spend everything the moment it came in, and realized somewhere along the way they’d learned to do the same thing.
People who have savings now, REAL savings, and still don’t feel safe.
I'm not going to quote any of the emails directly.
(I respect y'all's privacy.)
But I want to shoutout a guy we'll call Timothy, who hit a real tock bottom before a kind of divine intervention.
He got it together, but it almost cost his family something they'd never get back.
I genuinely got misty-eyed reading his (along with many other people's) email.
I want you all to know that if it ever gets to where it feels like too much...
If it just feels like one more day isn't worth it...
I see you.
And it's always worth it.
You are SO MUCH more than your bank account.
So if any of this sounds familiar, keep reading.
Today’s email is about what you actually do with all those patterns you keep falling into.
And it won't magically solve your problems.
But it might help you start.
Step one: Stop treating it like a willpower problem
same
The first thing to do is also the hardest: stop trying to fix a psychological pattern with a tactical solution.
If you grew up watching money disappear, your nervous system learned that money is temporary.
Unsafe to hold.
Better to spend it before something takes it anyway.
Or put it where you'll get to it.
No amount of brute force budgeting can help that.
What CAN help is recognizing the moment the pattern kicks im, and naming it.
Not to shame yourself out of it (that doesn’t work either) but just to see it.
“Oh. There it is. That’s the thing.”
Awareness isn’t the finish line.
But you can’t change what you can’t see.
Step two: Separate the past from the present
keep it separate
Your nervous system learned its lessons in a specific context.
A childhood home, a specific kind of scarcity, or maybe a parent’s specific relationship with money.
That context is not your current life.
This sounds obvious, but it isn’t.
Because the body doesn’t automatically update like your iphone.
It keeps running the old program until you consciously interrupt it and remind yourself: that was then. This is now.
The context is different.
Practically, this looks like pausing before a financial decision, even a small one, and asking: am I making this choice from my actual situation, or from an old fear?
One person emailed in to say she was hiding money from her partner and had almost an entire YEAR of emergency fund.
Yet she STILL didn't feel like it was enough.
That's some real scarcity trauma.
Which is totally valid for her situation, and I'm not going to tell her to stop doing what she's doing.
(I'm not a therapist.)
Because we all have work to do...
And that pause before a financial decision is where the work lives.
Step three: Build evidence, not just habits
come correct
A lot of financial advice tells you to build better habits.
Sure, habits matter.
But it's putting the cart before the horse.
But for people carrying financial trauma, habits alone aren’t enough, because the underlying belief hasn’t changed.
What actually shifts the belief is a fat stack of evidence.
Small, consistent proof that you can handle money.
That it doesn’t disappear the moment you’re not looking.
That you can make a decision and it turns out okay.
That safety is something you’re building, not something that gets yanked away.
That evidence accumulates slowly, but it accumulates.
And at some point the story starts to change.
Not because you forced it.
Because you started small and showed yourself something different, over and over, until it stuck.
You can do it.
Now, if you are already making better choices, but can't get out from your debt mountain, I understand.
When you’re drowning in debt payments to multiple lenders, it can feel like you’ll never break free.
And if I were in that situation today, I’d seriously consider a consolidation loan.
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Taquitos,
Caleb "I'll be back to yelling at you Monday" Hammer
P.S. If you’re not sure where your money mindset stands right now, give you a clearer picture of what you’re actually working with.
Take my quiz and see where you stand.
P.P.S. If you're in a situation like Timothy, please don't wait until you're bouncing off the bottom.
Call that hotline number you're afraid to look up and talk to someone.
