Conscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life

by Rick Kahler, Kathleen Fox

Chronic money troubles aren’t really about money. "Save it for a rainy day" or "Shop till you drop." Such opposing attitudes reflect conflicting beliefs about money we don’t even know we have. We make decisions about money based on unconscious "truths," often learned in childhood, that are sometimes valid in adulthood but also can be incredibly detrimental. Self-destructive or ineffective financial behavior has little to do with how much money we have. Whether we are rich or poor, our relationship with money can be a source of deep pain and damaging chaos. Unconscious money decisions may result in compulsive spending, obsessive saving, using money to manipulate and control others, or repeatedly rescuing children financially. Conscious Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life, by Rick Kahler, CFP®, and Kathleen Fox, shows that our financial decisions are governed not by logic and facts, but by our deep-seated – and deeply unconscious – emotions and beliefs about money. Conscious Finance includes essential information on investing, budgeting, estate planning, and asset protection, but this book goes far beyond strategies for solving immediate money problems. Its goal is to help you build a healthy long-term relationship with money, a relationship in which money is a trusted and valuable servant – rather than your master or your enemy. This groundbreaking book is at the forefront of the emerging field called financial integration. In a practical, personal way, it offers a plan for building a comfortable and productive relationship with money. Authors Rick Kahler and Kathleen Fox take you on a readable, insightful journey toward financial clarity and self-awareness. Through their own stories, as well as detailed exercises, they encourage you to discover your own hidden, harmful attitudes about money and learn to make financial choices that will nurture and support your life aspirations and goals.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Rick Kahler is a pioneer in integrating financial planning and psychology. Rick is one of the founders of financial therapy and the originator of IFS Informed Financial Therapy. He has been recognized for his pioneering work in the financial therapy field by InvestmentNews who gave Rick their 2019 annual Innovator Award and in 2018 by the Insiders Forum who named him and their annual Iconoclast Award recipient. He is also a founding board member and Past-Chair of the Financial Therapy Association. He is a Certified IFS Practitioner, a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University, a Finology Fellow, and a past chairman of the South Dakota Investment Council. His work and research has been featured or cited in scores of national and international periodicals and books. He is in his 30th year of writing a weekly column on personal finance that appears in several newspapers. He is a co-author of four books blending financial planning and therapy.