Everyone in My Family Has Always Been Bad with Money. How Do I Break the Cycle?

Speaker A00:00:37

You grew up watching money slip right through everyone's fingers. Your parents, their parents, the same struggle every single generation. And a quiet fear whispers that you're going to be next.But listen, a family pattern is not a life sentence. So today we're going to talk about how the cycle actually breaks and how it can actually break with you.And I know it feels like destiny, but it's just habits. And habits can be unlearned. So stay with me today, and let's make you the one who changes the story forever.Hello and welcome to Financially Confident Christian. I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And I just want to thank you for carving out a little time for me today.Today we're going to talk about breaking the cycle of that financial chaos.We've got a listener question from somebody who grew up in complete chaos, and they're afraid they're going to repeat it, but they want to break free of that. Right now they feel like it's impossible. But I'm going to tell you right now it's not impossible.And I'm going to show you exactly how to do it on today's show. Now, maybe you've got a question for this show. Maybe you're going through chaos of your own and you're like, ralph, I really need someone to help me.I'd love to help you. Go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question Tell me what's going on in your life and I may put it right on the show again.That's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question Now let's get right to today's listener question. Subject line on this one is, how do I break a family pattern of being bad with money?Man, That's a term I hear all the time, Ralph. I'm bad with money. But let's get into the question. Listener writes this hi, Ralph. I come from a family that has just never been good with money.My parents lived paycheck to paycheck my whole childhood. My grandparents lost everything more than once.There were always collection calls, always tension, always that feeling that we were one bed week from disaster. I'm 31 now, and I'm terrified I'm going to end up exactly the same. Honestly, I already see some of it in myself. Ralph. I avoid looking at my accounts.I get anxious about bills. I never learned any of this stuff growing up because nobody knew it to teach me. I don't want to pass this down to my own kids.Someday I want to be the one who finally does it differently. But it feels like it's in my DNA. Ralph, is it even possible to break a cycle this deep? And where would I even start?Thank you so much for sending in that question. I want to tell you, first of all, what you've learned is habits. And habits can be broken. This isn't some grand destiny.And the best part of this is you don't have to have wealth to make this work. I'm going to show you today the steps that you were never given. But let's get right into it.First thing I want you to do is I firmly believe that in order to change something, you got to name it. So write down the beliefs that have been built into you. Beliefs like, well, there's never enough. You name what you've inherited.Money always disappears. I don't even look at my stuff, friend. Those are scripts, they're not facts.That's that recording that goes off in your mind because that's what you've been trained to do for 31 years of your life. That's what you've heard. You've seen it in your parents, you've seen it in your grandparents, and it's reinforced habits that have kept you stuck.But if you name strips the power, and when you strip the power, you can be the person that breaks that cycle. Yes, you inherited their habits, but not their destiny. So you gotta break the avoidance. So one of the things you said is, I just avoid this.You gotta look at your numbers. So you named the things that bother you, but you also have to stop avoiding looking at them.You've been living in this survival reflex, but that's become a trap for you. So go and look at the actual numbers.Say, I'm not telling you to go fix anything today, but if you have that unknown and that's what you're really living in, you're living in an unknown. Unknown fuels the fear in our mind, but when you actually look at it, I got a feeling you're going to find you're doing things differently.This is the thing I've seen so many times. People who grew up in this cycle are usually hypersensitive about not repeating those mistakes. But the fear that you're living in is in the unknown.You said to me yourself, I'm not looking at my accounts. I'm not paying attention. Looking is how you take its power away. But now let's talk about learning the basics that nobody taught you.Just because you were never taught anything doesn't mean you're not capable. It drives me crazy when people say, well, Ralph, I'm not good with money because my parents weren't good with money.Their parents weren't good with money. That's fine. You were never taught, but that doesn't mean you're not capable. You got to give yourself permission today to be a beginner.It's okay to start from scratch. I've got a ton of shows about building a budget. I've got shows about emergency funds, how debt and interest work. Go and review those. Go and look at.I've got over a thousand episodes in my back catalog. Start and do one a day. Use our show. Find some books, go to class. Just pick one of those. Knowledge is the tool to breaking out of this cycle.And then what you're going to do is you're going to pass down that knowledge to your children instead of passing down the chaos. I want you to hear something loud and clear. You're not bad with money. You're not bad with money. You were just never taught how to do it correctly.So today, build one new habit at a time. Don't go for everything overnight. Listen, you're starting out as a babe. You're on the milk. You're not going to get to the solid food yet.So find one habit and make it stick. Maybe it's something as simple as automating one small account transfer to build that emergency fund. Maybe it's that 10 minute weekly check in.It's those small repeated things that rewrite the pattern. They break those habits. What do they say? A habit takes about six weeks to start. Do one thing at a time.Make this the new normal for you and next generation will benefit from that. It's all about consistency over intensity. You're not going to break this cycle in a day. But they do break one new habit at a time.And I want to encourage you. You can be the person that turns this on purpose. Decide it out loud. It might sound funny, but say this out loud. I am going to break this cycle.Talk openly with your kids. I don't know if you have kids or not, but if you have kids, talk openly about it. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be different.You can change a direction and it's actually an answer to a prayer that they couldn't even pray because they don't even know any better. But every family that breaks a cycle has one person. And you might be this person who decided to be the turning point. That could be you today.Now, you said something in your message that it feels like it's in your DNA. And I understand why that is? Because that's what you've known. But hear me on this. You're not bound by what came before you in Christ.All of us are a new creation. And yes, that includes the way you handle money. Now, here's what faith doesn't promise us, though.It doesn't promise us that those old fears are going to vanish overnight. You know the fear. You know the feeling of, are we going to have enough food? Is the cable, Is the electric going to get shut off?Are we going to lose our home? That's not going to go away overnight. It doesn't promise that you're never going to feel the pull of those inherited habits.And it doesn't promise that the learning curve is short. You are starting at the beginning. This is going to be a challenge. But I know you can do it. Because here's what faith does promises us.It promises us that the God who redeems lives is in the business of restoring that which was lost across generations. There's a beautiful message in the Bible. We'll talk about it in a second. About locusts. And God says, I'm going to restore the years.The locusts ate that generational loss into a blessing. You're being called right now to redeem the future. You're going to break those chains and you can do it because you've got a strong God.So step forward as the new creation that you are today. End the cycle. The cycle ends here. But it's not by your strength alone. It's by the grace working with you. You're already doing the hard work.You're already answering the questions. You're asking the tough questions. And wanting to break it is proof that you actually can. You are the turning point that they've been awaiting.So here's your win for today. I want you to write down three beliefs and I want you to write a truer one beside each. In other words, what money felt like at home.Write down what it was, name the belief, counter it with truth, and it disappears. When you can give it a plan, you can fix it.You're not going to rewire everything today, but you're going to expose the scripts and you're going to replace them. Well, let's get right to the Bible verse I talked about. It actually comes to us from the Book of Joel, chapter 2, verse 25.It says, the Lord says, I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts. This was a Bible verse about the years that the locust ate the crops. But what does God Tell us he restores what felt lost.That past that you felt doesn't get the last word. The promise that he's making you today, the change that you're going to make is going to be lived out. How about we pray together right now?Heavenly Father, I bring before you someone carrying the weight of generations and they're afraid. They're destined to repeat a painful pattern. But Lord, they want to do it differently for themselves and for their children who will come after them.So Lord, right now, at this moment, I ask that you would strengthen them, Lord. Give them courage to look at their money without fear. Teach them what no one else could teach them, Lord.Give them new habits, just one step at a time and make them the turning point. And Lord, restore the years and bless the future generations. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.Friend, you came in today feeling like you're stuck on this destiny. But I've given you some habits out of this one person decides to change generational cracks and generational trains and that's you.So here's the takeaways for you. Name it. Expose the scripts. Break that avoidance. Look at your numbers for real and learn what you were never taught.Find that one habit that consistency can rewrite the story and you can be that turning point. And it stops with you today. And I just want to encourage you one more thing.If you're battling something or you've had a triumph over something, I would love to hear and share it with the show. There are a lot of people that are tuning in every day and they want to be encouraged.They want to know that someone else has broken this change and been that decisive person. If you've got a story like that, I would love to hear it.You can go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail we'll put a link in the show notes. All you got to do is click on it and just record your voice again.That's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail I just want to thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for your honesty. Stay financially savvy. May God bless you and you have a truly great day. 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