Money Is More Than Math; It's a Relationship
If the math isn't "mathing," it might be because your relationship with money is running the show.
There’s a “Golden Rule” in personal finance that we can all grasp in concept:
Money in should be greater than money out.
Manage the difference well.
Include saving and investing for the future.
Seems simple enough, right?
Except that it’s not that easy. And here’s why:
Money isn’t just a math equation. Money is also something you have a relationship with. And that relationship can complicate the math.
Where Your Money Relationship Begins
How you end up with a money relationship starts with what money is and what it means.
Let's start with something fundamental: money is a made-up thing.
That's right, friends, one of the most powerful systems that shapes our daily lives exists only because we’ve collectively agreed to believe in it. We trust that money can be exchanged for goods and services and saved for future use. Today, its value doesn't come from what it is—coins, bills, or digital code—but from what we’ve all decided it represents. And this representation goes far beyond its purpose as a currency, an economic tool or means of exchange.
Money has a lot more meaning.
The Cultural Stories Money Absorbs
As a social construct, money absorbs all the values, expectations, and emotional weight of the surrounding culture. Then, our dominant economic system, Capitalism, tosses in its own messed-up vibes and influence. So, money starts to carry all kinds of collective stories about success, who is worthy, what is possible, and how we measure security or status as a society.
Let me give you some examples:
Success looks like homeownership.
Debt is a personal failure rather than a financial tool.
“Good with money” means being frugal, disciplined, and low-maintenance.
Your lifestyle should “match” your career, status, and social circle (i.e. keep up with The Joneses).
While these statements aren't necessarily facts, we still internalize this type of messaging every day. Then we filter them through the personal beliefs we’ve inherited about money growing up, and the experiences (good and bad) we’ve had with money throughout our lives.
Money Means Something Different to Everyone
For each person, money means something different. For one person, money means freedom; for another, safety; and for someone else, power and control. There’s also a lot more nuance to this, but you catch my drift.
So, while we’re moving through life, we take all we’ve learned about what money represents, what we believe it says about us and the emotional tone we’ve developed in response to it and use it to hopefully make some logical and practical financial decisions.
Except that, for many of us, hopefully tends to fall through.
When Money Stops Being a Tool and Becomes a Relationship
When something like money plays a constant role in our lives and stirs intense emotions and behaviours that influence our daily choices, it stops being just a tool. It becomes something we are in a relationship with.
To clarify this idea, I can point to another very relatable example of a similar dynamic we have with food. (IYKYK)
But that is not my lane to expand on.
Anyway. Let’s keep going.
What Exactly Is Your Relationship with Money?
Your relationship with money is the ongoing dynamic between you and money's role in your life. It’s made up of how you think about money, how you feel when you engage with it, and how you tend to act with it. It lives in your financial habits, reactions, beliefs, assumptions, and patterns.
Your relationship with money is shaped by your lived experience, including:
how you were raised
what you've had to navigate in life
your responsibilities
your identity
your environment
The relationship isn't static. It changes depending on your season of life, capacity, context, and needs. Sometimes, the relationship feels secure and steady. Other times, it is tense, avoidant, or unpredictable.
But it's always driving your money decisions, how much trust you place in yourself with money, and how connected or disconnected you feel from your financial life.
The TL;DR:
Your relationship with money reveals not just what you do with money, but why you do it that way.
How Your Money Relationship Affects the Golden Rule
Many of you believe your money problems stem from poor math skills and a lack of financial literacy. In reality, most financial challenges aren’t rooted in a lack of information or capability. They are rooted in your relationship with money.
It shows up clear as day when:
You buy stuff on impulse to feel better about yourself and end up with a growing credit card balance because the swipe happens almost on autopilot.
You avoid looking at your bank account because you dread what you might find and end up missing payments or running your money into overdraft.
You aggressively overpay debt to feel "responsible" without considering your cash flow needs, and end up dipping back into credit because you’ve squeezed yourself too tightly.
You say yes to social plans you can’t really afford because you don’t want to feel left out and end up spending beyond your comfort zone to avoid the discomfort of saying no.
You keep too much money in cash because it feels safer, but you miss out on long-term growth and under-prepare for your future goals.
You avoid asking for a raise so that you aren’t seen as too “greedy," and you continue to under-earn even when your skills or workload justify way more.
You will not find math or financial literacy issues in any of these examples. What you will find is unhelpful money moves driven by mindset, beliefs, and emotions. This is all relational stuff.
So when you try to solve these relational issues with things like budgeting, spending trackers, automated payments or contributions, and maybe a few buy-nothing months, it's not uncommon to find you are still stuck.
Why Transactional Tools Aren’t Enough
Attempting to build better financial habits without understanding your relationship with money is like building a house on unstable ground or a weak foundation. The structure might hold for a while, but eventually it cracks under the weight of unacknowledged forces.
When emotional and behavioural forces are overlooked, unspoken and reactive, they keep leading you toward many feel-good choices temporarily, which don’t help you get ahead in the long run.
And your relationship with money often bids for your attention in ways beyond your purchases. This looks like:
When you find yourself earning well but feeling insecure about your financial stability, or setting financial goals that never quite stick.
When you avoid essential financial tasks, react strongly to unexpected financial situations, or follow a plan for a while and then abandon it on a whim.
When you’ve tried dozens of money hacks and financial strategies to get on track and hope to manage your money well, yet nothing seems to lead to lasting change.
In these bids for attention, it’s almost impossible to respond to them with transactional financial tools.
I mean, have you ever tried to solve a relationship problem by building a spreadsheet, using an app, or setting up automations?
I didn’t think so.
You need a different approach that begins with awareness.
Awareness is the Starting Point
Most of the women I work with have a relationship with money that disrupts the Golden Rule to different degrees. When I work with each of them, I always start by helping them build awareness of how they engage with money and why.
When you are aware of your money relationship, you can better identify the deeper causes of your financial behaviours, including the emotional triggers, learned beliefs, and survival strategies that shape your daily financial choices and outcomes.
You get helpful information about:
What matters to you.
What feels threatened.
What you're trying to protect or pursue.
The relationship reveals the truth about what’s driving your money choices and helps reduce shame or blame. You can reframe your struggles as responses that formed for a valid reason, rather than just inability or failure. And then you can toss the idea that you’re just “bad with money” or “bad at math” right into the bin.
When you understand where your patterns come from, you can pinpoint where behaviour change is needed and start making financial moves that align with your actual needs and what you want to achieve.
You can pause before you react with money. And, in the moment, identify the difference between feeling and fact, urgency and habit, so that the motives behind your financial decision are more grounded.
As you regulate your emotions and your intentions with money, you become more grounded. From there, you can focus on building your financial literacy and start making money moves that feel more rational. In time, you see the math, actually “maths”, better.
What to Do Next
We’ve established that if you aren't living the Golden Rule, you probably need to get clear on your relationship with money FIRST.
Start by tuning in to how money actually feels for you. Explore how it is showing up in your life right now, how you are moving with it, and why it keeps playing out the way it does in how you earn, spend, and manage the difference.
Get curious about your patterns. Look at when you avoid money, when you spend impulsively, or when you stretch yourself to say “yes” to others. Then come up with possible reasons why that keeps happening.
Look at how the math plays out in this relationship. Review the past 30 days of actual spending and highlight where emotions and other money relationship patterns played a role in those decisions.
After this exercise, you’ll be able to identify what parts of your money relationship you should work on that will have the most positive impact on the numbers and the math.