A short excerpt from a YouTube conversation (Ramit Sethi interviewing a guest) about money-related phrases and household rules the guest heard while growing up. The speakers discuss how parental statements like "we saved everything" and "we don't spend money outside — we're planning for your education" create family culture and norms around saving versus spending.
We saved everything. When I was in middle school, high school, we did not go out to eat. My dad cooked at home.
Did they tell you why?
I went out to dinner with a friend one time and she was upset with me, and she said, we don't spend money outside. We have money here. We are planning for your education.
Wow. Everybody noticed that we don't do X is a very powerful phrase to create a family culture. Or we do X. I'll give you a few examples. We ate steak yesterday, so we don't eat steak two days in a row. That really communicates something about your food values. When we come home, we take our shoes off and we put them neatly aside. That communicates something. And we don't eat out when we have food at home because.
We'Re saving for your education.
