Financial One Upmanship

When I was in my last year of high school, people were getting kind of antsy and less helpful with one another. Everybody was stressed about what school they would get into for next year. Nobody wanted to help anybody out because they saw everyone else as competition, and helping others would mean helping the enemy!

I hoped that would change after everyone got into university or college; that this competitiveness would end. But after everyone got into university, there was a change in attitudes. People in more “elite” programs, like engineering, felt like they had the right to degrade other people. They thought that since their program was harder to get into, they were automatically smarter and had more say than people in inferior programs, like arts. We moved from one social hierarchy to another; we were no longer high school seniors. Everybody found a new way to feel better about themselves by talking down to people in “easier” programs. It never occurred to anybody that maybe people went into different programs because that’s where their interests were.

I feel like that same kind of superiority complex exists in the personal finance world. People become so concerned about money and learning how to be smart with their money. Don’t pay just the minimums on your cards, make sure you pay yourself first, retirement is not as far away as you think, etc., etc… Sometimes I see people blogging that so-and-so only pays the minimum on her cards and how stupid that is. I’m guilty of it myself with one of my best friends, just cause he spent more money than I would have myself. That’s the downside of personal finance—the one upmanship that I know more about money than you do, and that makes me smarter.

The other thing I see about personal finance that’s interesting is that people in debt tend to come together. They understand what other people are doing and push each other to do better. That’s a lot more interesting. Like Leigh Ann at Save Leigh Ann, who was supported by so many other bloggers when she realized that she had a lot more debt than she previously thought. That’s what makes the personal finance blogging world so incredible. People don’t even know each other, but encourage each other to pay off that debt! I wish things were always like that.