These questions are sourced from Maria Nemeth’s book The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment*

Contemplate the following questions. Writing down your reflections will help you better understand your relationship with money.

1. What were your family’s financial circumstances when you were born?
2. When did you first learn about money? Was it from your father or your mother? How old were you? What were the circumstances?
3. Did you have an allowance? Did you have to work for it, or was it given to you even if you didn’t do chores to earn it? If you have children, does this affect how you handle allowances with them?
4. When was the first time you bought something with money you had saved? Where were you? What did you buy? Was it money you earned or money someone gave you?
5. Do you remember your first paycheck? How did you earn it? How much was in it? What did you do with it?
6. Do you remember ever losing money? When was the earliest time? What happened? Has this happened to your children? How did you handle it?
7. Did you dream of one day having a particular job or career? Have you achieved this? Why or why not? Was the amount of money you could earn a factor in your choice of careers?
8. If your relationship with money were a personal relationship, how would you describe it? Do you fear, love, hate, depend upon, feel possessive of, or feel generous with money? Just write whatever comes to mind in this area.
9. How do you relate to people who have more money than you? Less money?
10. Do you recall your mother’s or father’s relationship with money? If you didn’t live with them, then pick people who were your primary caregivers for this question.
11. How did the above people’s relationship with money affect you? Did they have expectations of you? What were they? Were there some aspects of money that were not discussed? Even though they were not discussed, you may have known what they were. If you have children, do you have similar expectations of them? Do you treat them the same way you were treated? If you are married or in a committed relationship, do these expectations affect your partner?
12. Have you ever accomplished an important task or project involving money? What was it? What did you do that made you successful?
13. Was there a time when you tried but did not accomplish a task or project regarding money? What was it? What did you do that made you unsuccessful?
14. Have you ever given or received gifts of money? If yes, how much? For what reason(s)? How did you feel about this?
15. If you were to characterize your own brand of “money craziness,” how would you describe it?
16. Where do you want to see yourself ten years from now regarding money? How much in savings? How much in investments? How much do you see yourself making ten years from now?
17. Regarding money, for what do you want to be known? If people were to talk about you and your relationship with money, what would you want them to say?
18. Are you afraid that money is not spiritual enough for you or that your spiritual path isn’t compatible with financial success?
19. What do you spend money on?
20. What do you not spend money on?