5 Signs You Have Money Blocks: How to Identify and Overcome Them

Do You Have Money Blocks Without Knowing It?

Money blocks are habits of thought and behavior around money that work against your financial goals, often unnoticed. Money strain is common: 72% of US adults reported feeling stressed about money at least some of the time (American Psychological Association, 2015). If you earn a decent income and still never feel secure, the cause may not be arithmetic.

What Are Money Blocks?

Quick Answer: A money block is a recurring pattern, like guilt about spending or avoiding your balance, that keeps you from the financial life you want.

Money blocks don't show up on a spreadsheet. Money blocks show up as hesitation, avoidance, or a feeling that you shouldn't want more. A block is a pattern, which means it can change.

Where Do Money Blocks Come From?

Quick Answer: Researchers who study money beliefs propose that many start in childhood, but that origin is a hypothesis, not a proven cause.

Brad Klontz and colleagues call these beliefs "money scripts." They surveyed 422 adults on 72 money-related beliefs and found four belief patterns. Three of the four were significantly correlated with income and net worth (Klontz et al., 2011). The study was a snapshot, so it can't say which came first.

Other research looks at parents. Dutch panel data showed that parental behavior, such as discussing financial matters with children, had a weak but clear link to those children's economic behavior, including in adulthood (Webley & Nyhus, 2006). Parents are one influence among several. Beyond the research, these five patterns are the ones people describe to me most often in coaching.

Does Spending Money on Yourself Trigger Guilt?

Quick Answer: Guilt about spending on yourself is a common money block, and it often has more to do with what you believe you deserve than with your budget.

You can afford it. You've worked hard. But when you buy a nice dinner, new clothes, or that course you want to take, guilt shows up right away.

The spending isn't the problem. The belief underneath it might be: that taking care of yourself is selfish, or that you're not worth investing in.

What helps: Notice the guilt and ask where the belief came from. Maybe you watched a parent sacrifice endlessly, or heard that wanting things was selfish. Then practice anyway. Start with small purchases and work up. The goal isn't to erase guilt overnight. It's to stop letting it make your financial decisions.

Do You Avoid Looking at Your Bank Statements?

Quick Answer: Avoiding your accounts is common, and it is not laziness. Research links financial anxiety to avoiding financial information.

You open your bank app, see the balance for half a second, and close it. Or you don't check for weeks. You know you should look, but the anxiety stops you.

Two researchers who studied financial anxiety found it was a separate construct from depression and general anxiety, and that anxious people tended to avoid financial information (Shapiro & Burchell, 2012). Behavioral economists call a similar habit the ostrich effect, where investors check their portfolios less often when markets are down (Karlsson et al., 2009). Shame can play a part too. A set of six studies linked shame about money to withdrawing from financial matters (Gladstone et al., 2021).

The cost is real. When you don't look, you can't decide well, and small problems get bigger.

What helps: Schedule a "money date" with yourself for just 5 minutes. Look like a curious observer, not a judge. You're not fixing everything. You're getting used to looking.

Do You Believe Wanting Money Makes You Greedy?

Quick Answer: Seeing money as bad or greedy is a classic money block, because it's hard to pursue something you've labeled as wrong.

You might have thoughts like "Money is bad," "Rich people are selfish," or "Wanting more makes me materialistic."

Messages like these often come from family or religious teaching. A familiar line from 1 Timothy is about the love of money being a root of evil, not money itself.

If you believe money is bad, having less of it can feel like staying true to your values. The belief also keeps you stuck.

What helps: Treat money as a tool. List what more money would let you do for the people and causes you care about. When money connects to your values instead of opposing them, the resistance often drops.

Do You Self-Sabotage Right When Things Go Well?

Quick Answer: Pulling back right when you start getting ahead is a pattern many people describe, and noticing it is the first step to changing it.

You're getting ahead. Bills are paid and savings are building. Then you make an impulsive purchase, ignore a bill, or make a call that sets you back to where you started.

I can't tell you the mechanism, and no study I know of explains this one. What people describe in coaching is a familiar income level that feels normal, and getting past it feels strange. Some say their parents struggled and they feel guilty doing better. Some grew up where money was tied to overwork or pressure. Some learned that having a lot of money changes people for the worse.

What helps: Notice the pattern without judging yourself. When things are going well, expect some discomfort and keep going anyway. Getting used to "more than enough" happens slowly, and it's easier with support.

Do You Constantly Feel Like There's Never Enough?

Quick Answer: Feeling like you never have enough, even when your numbers say otherwise, is common, and you can check the feeling against the facts.

No matter how much you have, you feel broke. You got a raise and it still doesn't feel like enough. You have savings and they never feel sufficient.

Plenty of people carry the feeling of never having enough. You may have grown up around money scarcity, or watched your parents stress about it despite working hard. Constant worry makes it harder to think clearly about money, and the cycle feeds itself.

What helps: Ask yourself, "Am I responding to what's happening now, or to what I learned about money earlier?" Then look at your actual numbers. That pause between the feeling and the facts is where change starts.

Money Blocks Aren't Character Flaws

If you recognize yourself in these signs, you're not broken. Each sign is a pattern, and patterns can change.

Change isn't about willpower or positive thinking. Change takes repeated practice, and habits take time to build. In one 12-week study of everyday habits, the time it took to reach a stable habit ranged from 18 to 254 days (Lally et al., 2010). It helps to have someone in your corner while you do it.

Sources

• American Psychological Association, Stress in America: Paying With Our Health (survey fielded August 2014, released February 2015). Source of the 72% figure.
• Klontz, B., Britt, S. L., Mentzer, J., & Klontz, T. (2011). Money beliefs and financial behaviors: Development of the Klontz Money Script Inventory. Journal of Financial Therapy, 2(1).
• Webley, P., & Nyhus, E. K. (2006). Parents' influence on children's future orientation and saving. Journal of Economic Psychology, 27, 140-164.
• Shapiro, G. K., & Burchell, B. J. (2012). Measuring financial anxiety. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 5(2), 92-103.
• Karlsson, N., Loewenstein, G., & Seppi, D. (2009). The ostrich effect: Selective attention to information. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 38, 95-115.
• Gladstone, J. J., Jachimowicz, J. M., Greenberg, A. E., & Galinsky, A. D. (2021). Financial shame spirals: How shame intensifies financial hardship. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 167, 42-56.
• Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.

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