You’re Not Bad With Money, You Were Taught to Live Without It

There’s a version of financial struggle that doesn’t come from not getting income, but from not managing to keep money in your bank account.

If you have a job, a decent salary, and yet found yourself at the end of the month wondering, “Where did all my money go?” you’re not alone. And more importantly, you’re not “bad with money.”

It might be related to what “normal” felt like when you first learned what money is.

The Inherited Relationship with Money

We often think of of inheritance as something material: property, character, or eye color. But one of the most powerful things we inherit, and one that is far less discussed, is our relationship with money.

Some women of my generation (millennials) grow up not just in financial difficulty, but in systems that one way or the other normalised it. Where “making ends meet” is a skill. Where stretching the last euros of the month was a badge of honor. Where dreaming of being wealthy feels… suspicious.

I grew up in the Soviet Union, where money wasn’t something you aspired to have. In fact it was something associated with “the West,” and that, by itself, was associated with everything we were taught to avoid. Capitalism. Excess. Fake smiles. Low morals.

My parents, like most people around them, became incredibly skilled at living in a constant deficiency. My mom knew how to stretch, how to manage, how to survive the month. What they didn’t learn (because nobody around them did) was how to build, keep, or grow money. They didn’t dream of wealth. They became comfortable with limitations.

So when Lithuania regained independence and opportunities opened up, they started making money. But it didn’t stay. It moved through our lives like water through open fingers. It wasn’t mismanagement in the obvious sense. It was more like… evaporation. As if having money for too long created a discomfort that needed to be resolved.

And without anyone directly teaching it, I learned that money is unpredictable, it doesn’t belong to you for long, that working hard is the only acceptable way to earn it, and that even working hard, you might not be enough of it.

When Hard Work Doesn’t Bring Financial Progress

So I did what I thought was right. I worked. Hard.

I built projects. I carried teams. I cared deeply about the outcomes. I brought work home, solved problems late at night, motivated people when things got tough. I helped grow ideas into something that actually made an impact, and real money, for the companies I worked for.

And yet, at times at the end of the month, after rent, I had around 400 euros left for me and my daughter. I didn’t question it. I didn’t see it as unfair or unsustainable. It felt… normal. At least I have this much.

I didn’t know how to price my value. I didn’t ask for raises. I didn’t negotiate. I didn’t even consider that I should. I believed they would see my value and come offering a bigger salary. And while waiting, I would reach a breaking point, overworked, underpaid, exhausted, and I’d leave.

Because no one had ever taught me to connect the value I bring every day with the compensation that I should receive. Not in praise or titles, but in euros in my account. I was only taught to connect hard work with how valuable I am to others. And that doesn’t pay bills, as we know now.

The Comfort of “Just Enough” and the Invisible Ceiling That Benefits Your Employer

Here’s another thing. For some of us, living on the edge of “just enough” feels familiar. Predictable. Even safe. Excess, on the other hand, can feel unfamiliar and even stressful. And unfamiliar things, even if they’re good, create tension.

So what do we do? We resolve the tension. We unconsciously get rid of it.
We spend. We give. We make impulsive decisions.
We somehow return ourselves to the level that feels “right”, which often means close to zero, because zero is what we understand. Zero is what are skilled of managing.

Very Uncomfortable Financial Questions My Fiancé Dared to Ask

For me, change didn’t come from a book or a course. It came from a person. Everything started changing when I met my now fiancé. He grew up in a completely different environment. Money, to him, was not emotional. It was practical. Neutral. A tool.

And he asked questions that, at first, felt very uncomfortable to me.
When I talked about dreams, travel, experiences, the life I imagined, he’d boldly asked:
“What’s your plan to improve your financial situation?”
“How are you going to afford the life you dream about?”
“When will you start saving?”
“When will you invest?”

I had no answers, because I had never been asked to think that way. I had built a vision of a beautiful life in my head… without ever connecting it to the reality of my income. Again, avoiding the uncomfortable topic. I thought money would ruin the dream. I didn’t realise it could be the thing that actually makes it real!

My Uncomfortable Financial Decisions That Worked

What followed wasn’t an overnight transformation. It took years, about five, if I’m being honest. I had to learn to see money and my value differently. To understand that my bosses were not doing me a favour by employing me. To identify the actual value I was bringing to the company. And to put a price on my time that reflected that value. Oh, that part was uncomfortable. Asking for more money felt wrong. Like I was stealing from them.

But I kept pushing. And slowly, at first scary, things started changing.

I left a company that couldn’t match my contribution with fair pay. My fiancé and I built a business that supported our family. Eventually, we grew it to the point where we sold it to an international brand.

And somewhere along those five years, something very new to me happened:
1. I started earning more.
2. I could keep money without urgency to spend it
3. I could start saving and investing

And perhaps most importantly, I stopped believing that effort alone brings financial stability. Effort matters. But value is what gets paid. So instead of praising overtime, I started investing in my skills, my knowledge, my expertise, my depth. Because that, not the endless hours, is what actually scales.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m far not rich, and the real change wasn’t the amount in my account. It was the feeling when I see that positive number (whatever that number was, as long as it’s not a minus) at the end of the month and… nothing happens. No anxiety. No need to “zero” it. Just calm.
That’s when I started thinking that I’m going to the right direction.

For Mothers Raising Financially Stable Children

If you grew up with insufficiency, you may have taught your children how to manage with little. At least I know I did.
In life many patterns, including financial are not taught directly. They are absorbed through how we talk about money, how we react to bills (whether we are surprised and upset every month when they come, as if we expected not to receive them at all, or we plan and project how much it should be with no emotions involved), expenses, or opportunities, and how we handle excess, when it happens.

Quite often, without any bad intentions, we pass on a subtle but long lasting message to our children: “This is how life is. You manage. You cope. You don’t expect more.”

If that’s what they see growing up, they can easily become adults who undervalue themselves, work without financial progress (bigger title will cover it), feel strangely uncomfortable when they finally start earning more, and don’t quite know how to just let money sit in their account without a hint of mixed emotions.

We end up raising people who only know how to live with little, and that’s not humbleness, don’t get confused, more often, it’s a constant, low-level stress that just feels normal.

But the good news is that patterns can be seen. And what can be seen can be changed. If you recognise parts of your story in this, here’s where you can begin, with yourself and with your children:

1. Name the Pattern. Gently acknowledge and understand it: “This is how I learned to live, but it’s not the way that benefits me.”
2. Neutralise Money as a concept. Talk openly about money from a rational, not emotional, point. Money can be learned, savings can start small, investing only sounds fancy or risky, in truth, it’s just numbers and time.
3. Invite your children (even adult ones) to think rationally:
   • What do you want your life to look like in 5–10–20 years?
   • How will you manage that financially?
   • What would it look like to not just earn money, but keep and grow it? And maybe the most important one: “Does having money feel comfortable to you?”
4. Redefine Worth. Help them understand early what many of us had to learn the hard way: your value, and your salary is not measured by how many hours you work or how exhausted you feel at the end of the day. It’s measured by the impact you create, the problems you solve, and the skills you bring to the table.
   
   At the beginning, yes, focus on building those skills. Not to prove something to an employer, but to become someone who actually has value to offer. That part matters. But later, the shift needs to happen.
   
   It’s no longer about how devoted you are, how late you stay, or how much your colleagues rely on you because “no one else can do it as well.” It’s about understanding your output: the quality of your work, the efficiency, the results, the difference you make. That’s what should define your worth, not loyalty, not overextension, not being the emotional backbone of a workplace.
   
   Because that’s where many of us got it wrong. We brought qualities into work that were meant for home, care, sacrifice, emotional responsibility, the need to hold everything together. Beautiful qualities, just… misplaced. And workplaces, intensionally or not, often boost this confusion. Phrases like “we’re like a family here” sound comforting, but they are false. Family is where you give without counting. Work is where value is exchanged with money.

So if you’ve ever felt like money slips through your hands no matter how much you earn, it might not be a discipline problem. It might simply be that you’re not used to having it. You weren’t taught how to keep it. And you may have learned that life is more comfortable with no money in your account to manage.

What ever the reason is it doesn’t have to be that way. Financial stability is not something you manifest, dream about, or hope for. It’s something you teach yourself. You can start by cutting the emotional part and building a healthy, pragmatic relationship with it. Identifying the right value of your input at work, and then, later, learning how to hold money in your account without the itch to spend it all.

Financial stability is something you can teach yourself and your kids at any stage of life.

Even now.