How to Change Your Money Mindset: 17 Tips for Financial Success

Table of Contents

“I’ll never get out of debt.” A common phrase I hear amongst family, friends, and colleagues on a regular basis.

It’s sad but too many people have a negative view of money and don’t realize that there’s hope for the future. All they have to do is start working toward it.

But it’s not their fault. Our culture has a lot to do with it. Many people are broke because our culture tells them that financial independence isn’t attainable, that the American dream is dead, or that they’ll never get out of debt.

That’s a LIE. I’ve gotten out of debt TWICE. And now my family is on a path toward building wealth. But it took me years to fully understand that you could do this and develop a strong money mindset. So that’s why I wanted to write this post.

I want you to understand that you can do anything you want with money. You CAN get out of debt for good. You CAN stop living paycheck to paycheck. You CAN win with money. But it’s all about your mindset. Your plan isn’t working so let’s try something different.

In this post, we’re going to talk about the following things:

What is money mindset?
How is money mindset formed?
3 reasons why you need to change your money mindset and…
How to change your money mindset: 17 tips for financial success.

What is money mindset?

A money mindset is your individual outlook and set of views, beliefs, and attitudes toward money. Whether positive or negative, this mindset will guide your actions when dealing with money.

A positive money mindset can help you achieve significant financial goals, get out of debt, and build wealth over time.

But a negative money mindset can destroy your finances and cause you to stay broke and in debt for your entire life.

The good news is that your mindset is up to YOU. You may have society, family, friends, colleagues, and other opinionated people tell you that you can’t win with money, but that decision is up to you. YOU get to choose whether you’re going to have a positive or a negative money mindset.

How is money mindset formed?

Money mindset is unique to each and every individual person. And there are a lot of factors that go into a person’s beliefs about money because everybody’s different. We all grew up in different areas with different experiences and different beliefs molding you into the person you are today.

So a money mindset is formed based on a person’s life including where you’ve lived, your experiences, how you were raised, what values you’ve been taught, and what beliefs you’ve accepted and thought deeply about up until now.

Like I said, there’s A LOT that goes into a person’s money mindset. So it’s easy to see how a person could view money in a negative light.

So if you have a positive money mindset already, check out the 17 tips below to further your views on money.

If you have a negative mindset about money, it’s time to change those beliefs for good.

3 reasons why you need to change your money mindset

Belief is powerful

Belief is a powerful thing. If you don’t believe it, you won’t achieve it. Simple words with a powerful meaning. But for real, belief shapes our thoughts and determines our actions. And if you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t have the confidence to take action.

So belief, when it comes to your finances, can be an extremely powerful force. If your money mindset is negative, you have to believe that you can change your mindset. But if you believe it, you can change it and you have the power to become wealthy and successful.

On top of that, what you believe to be true is true for you. You’ll listen to that inner voice, whether negative or positive. So if you want to change your money mindset and your finances, you’ve got to believe that you can do it.

As the great Shelby Parlow once said in the Justified TV show, “If you pretend to be something for long enough, you’re not really pretending.”

You can’t hate money

If you hate money or think it’s evil, you won’t ever be able to get past that. Then, you’ll wake up decades down the road with nothing but a continued belief that money is one of the worst things on earth. Change that mindset now so that you can start keeping some of that money.

You’ll never get out of debt or build wealth

If you don’t ever change your mindset from negative to positive, you won’t ever be able to get out of debt or build wealth. And you won’t have the belief, discipline, or courage to start and work your way through the process. I found out quickly how much mindset mattered when I paid off my debt both times.

Now, my wife and I are working to get the house paid off and my mindset has gone from “we can do it” to “we are going to SMASH this debt.” Mindset matters so change yours today and watch what happens!

How to change your money mindset: 17 tips for financial success

1. Decide that you’re going to be successful and wealthy

The first tip to help you develop a positive money mindset is to simply decide that you’re going to be successful. Remember, we talked about belief just a few paragraphs ago and how important it was to believe in yourself so that you can take action.

You need to take action in your mind. Take action and tell yourself that you’re going to be successful and wealthy. I wholeheartedly believe that my wife and I are going to be millionaires. It’s a grind, but we’re slowly headed that way. And now we have over a $300,000 dollar net worth at 30 years old.

Simply deciding that you’re going to be successful with your finances is the first step. That’s the easy part. Actually doing it is a lot tougher. But you’ll get there if you start RIGHT NOW.

2. Money myths

Before we go on, I want to dispel a couple of ridiculous money myths.

Wealthy people are rich and greedy: this is just false. Wealthy individuals are some of the most generous people on earth. According to philanthropyroundtable.org’s post here, 97% percent of wealthy families donated to charity and in 2015, the top 1% percent accounted for 33% percent of charitable donations.

Wealthy people inherited all their money: according to Dave Ramsey’s National Study of Millionaires found here, 79% percent of millionaires inherited nothing at all.

Wealthy people don’t work hard: remember when I said that 79% percent of millionaires didn’t inherit anything at all? Yep, that means they worked their butt off for decades to build wealth.

Wealthy people are wealthy because they got lucky: luck has nothing to do with it. Inheritance has nothing to do with it. Just average, working class people grinding it out everyday to provide for their family and build up their net worth over time. Luck won’t make you rich, but working hard can get you there.

Wealthy people live extravagant lifestyles: according to the National Study of Millionaires, about a third of their millionaires only averaged $100,000 dollars per year over the course of their career. Another third never made $100,000 dollars over their career. So I can promise you that these folks, making $100,000 or less, weren’t living extravagant lives.

You also have to recognize that just because you have a net worth of $1,000,000 dollars, that doesn’t mean you have unlimited money to blow on anything and everything. A millionaire has a million dollar net worth. And a millionaire isn’t a billionaire. Most millionaires are working class people and live frugal, high-quality lives with their family. Nothing extravagant here.

Money is the root of all evil: money isn’t the root of all evil. Poverty is the root of all evil. Money is simply an object and a tool that we use to trade for goods and services. It’s what we choose to do with it that can make it good or bad. You need to change your mindset around to think about money as a tool that can help you build wealth and live the life of your dreams.

Investing is only for rich people: wrong. Anybody can invest with $50 dollars per month and have hundreds of thousands of dollars after a few decades. If you amped that investing up to just $100 dollars per month and invested that from age 20 to 60, with a 10% return, you’d have $584,000 dollars. 20 to 65 would net you almost a million dollars. I promise you, you CAN do this. You CAN build wealth.

I’m so young, I don’t need to think about retirement: look at the example above. Just adding 5 more years onto your investing time adds almost another $500,000 bucks into your investment. This is called compound interest and the longer you can keep your money invested, the larger it will grow and compound. You need A LOT of time for this…like at least 25-30 years or more. So just because you’re young, don’t skip out on investing because it can cost you a lot of money in the long run.

For more money myths, check out this awesome post here on businessinsider.com.

3. Find your BIG reason WHY

Having a BIG reason WHY you’re doing any of this is insanely important. If you’re trying to improve your money mindset, finding your reason WHY you’re trying to do better with money can give you more motivation to keep going when times get tough. But if you don’t have a BIG reason WHY, you’ll eventually fall back into bad habits.

This is exactly what happened to me. I got out of debt just to get out debt. I had a reason why, but it wasn’t BIG enough. Eventually, I fell back into debt again. I soon realized that I needed a BIGGER reason WHY I was trying to get out of debt. So when I started to get out of debt the second time, I found my BIG reason WHY.

Here’s my BIG reason WHY: I’m sick of debt, tired of being broke and having nothing, sick of not being able to afford anything, sick of a negative net worth, my wife and I want to travel one day, I want to help my son go to college without loans, and my wife and I want to be a millionaires.

My why is deep. It represents everything that I’m going to be working toward for the next few decades of my life. It’s a HUGE reason WHY I’m doing what I’m doing.

So take some time to think about yours now.

If you’re having trouble, try to think of why you’re doing this. I mean, what do you want in your finances? Finding your BIG reason WHY can help you achieve success in your finances.

4. Set financial goals

Setting goals in your finances is extremely important. And if you want to find success and improve your money mindset, you NEED to have financial goals.

First, write out these goals so you can hold yourself accountable. You want them to be specific and in writing so that you can see them every day.

Next, start setting the following – short-term goals, medium-term goals, long-term goals, and legacy goals.

Short-term goals: these goals are not overly difficult to achieve and can be completed in as little as a day or a week on up to 36 months (3 years).

“In the next 12 months, I want to increase my income from $80,000 dollars per year to $100,000 dollars per year.”
“I want to pay my consumer debt off in the next 24 months.”

Medium term goals: these goals are a little bit harder to achieve than short-term goals and can be completed between 36 months (3 years) and up to 10 years.

“I would like to go to my 4-year college without debt or any student loans.”
“I want to pay off my home in 5 years.”

Long term goals: these goals are incredibly difficult to achieve because they require patience and hard work often over a long period of time – anywhere between 10 years and possibly over the course of multiple decades or your entire life.

“I want to pay off my 30-year mortgage in only 15 years.
“I want to become a millionaire by the time I retire in 25 years.”

Legacy goals: these goals can be the most fun to work towards and include those goals that you wish to achieve upon changing your family tree or leaving a legacy behind.

“I want to leave my son an inheritance of a million dollars or more.”
“I want to create a perpetual debt-free college scholarship that pays out one single $2,000 dollar scholarship every year for the next 50-100 years.”

Lastly, the beautiful thing about goals is that even if you don’t achieve them exactly how and when you wanted to, you’ll still be that much farther along in your progress toward them. Goals can be tough to achieve, but if you keep making small steps forward in the right direction, you’ll eventually reach those goals.

Just like the great speaker Zig Ziglar once said, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

For more on how to set financial goals, check out this post here: “How to Make More Realistic Financial Goals”

5. Don’t hang onto past financial mistakes

The next tip on this list is very important to recognize and remember: don’t hang on to the financial mistakes that you’ve made in the past.

Because we’ve all done stupid. I’ve done it many times and I’ve even had to get out of debt twice now. But I don’t plan on going back and I don’t plan on making those mistakes anymore. I look at those past mistakes as true learning experiences and will keep those in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. Why? Because I want to remember that they screwed up my finances.

But I’m not going to hang onto them and keep them around. Because if you hang onto past mistakes, you won’t make progress with your current finances. So it’s important to remember the mistakes but not let them hang around and ruin your finances going forward.

Lastly, It really doesn’t matter how badly you screwed up in the past. It might take you some time to fix those mistakes, but if you completely commit to changing and correcting those financial errors, you can fix your situation and come out much better than before.

For more on money mistakes and how to fix them, check out this post: “37 Common Money Mistakes That We’ve All Made (and How to Fix Them)“

6. Don’t be a victim

To me, there’s almost nothing worse than having a victim mindset. The victim mindset is when a person feels helpless and believes that they’re a victim of the negative actions of others or the society they live in. This kind of behavior is very restricting because there is no room for progress or improvement in the person’s mind. Basically, “the system is holding me down.”

This mindset can be extremely dangerous in your life, especially for your finances. Most people who can’t get over the fact that they aren’t victims normally won’t be successful or wealthy. They blame everything but themselves and then wonder why they’ve ended up with nothing.

Here’s the answer: YOU are responsible for your success or failure. If you succeed, YOU did it. If you fail, only YOU are responsible. So get your crap together and start working to fix your money mindset and improve your finances. Here are three ways to overcome this ridiculous mindset.

3 ways to overcome and transform your victim mindset

Realize that YOU are the problem: just like I said in the last section, YOU are the reason why you’re in whatever position you’re in – good, bad, or indifferent. That’s the first step to overcoming the victim mindset.

Take responsibility for your past financial mistakes: once you can understand that you are the problem, not everybody else, you can take responsibility for the problems of your life. You can also begin the process of fixing all of the past mistakes that your once prominent victim mindset has caused.

Take action: the last step in your victim mindset transformation takes place after you recognize that you’re the problem and take responsibility. Once you do that, you can begin to take action that will help you fix everything you’ve done up to this point. If you do just those three things, you can transform your mindset from victim to victor almost instantaneously.

If you’d like to see a great video on how to overcome the victim mindset, check out this one here with Ben Shapiro and Dave Ramsey on YouTube.

7. Stop trying to impress others

The next tip in changing your money mindset is to stop trying to impress other people with anything. Because other people don’t care about you and what you have. Seriously, if this is you, get over yourself. When you stop worrying about what other people think of you, you can actually start your journey toward success with money and wealth building. With all that being said…

Don’t keep up with the Joneses

You know the Joneses. They’re the family that seems to have it all. Fancy cars, a big house, nice stuff, and a HUGE TV. They look like the perfect family that has a lot of money to blow.

But the Joneses have a secret. You know what it is? They’re completely broke. They look like they’ve got money but they don’t. They make good money but they spend everything they have and are in the business of always impressing others.

Sure, you might want some of the things they have. But do you really want to pay the price that the Joneses are paying? I’m not talking about the cost of that stuff. I’m talking about the cost of their future because all they do is spend everything they make buying fancy stuff.

Don’t aspire to be like the Joneses. They’re going to end up broke one day and they’ll have to keep working well into retirement. Plus, they could be one job loss or emergency away from losing all of it.

There’s nothing wrong with buying nice stuff. But you have to be able to afford it. Changing your money mindset and doing everything right with money will help you get to that point. But impressing others just got taken off your list.

To stop living like the Joneses, check out this post: “21 Ridiculous Things That Frugal People Never Ever Buy”

8. Grow your self-confidence

If you can start building up your self-confidence, your money mindset will grow as well. With more confidence in yourself comes more belief that you can not just get out of debt, but be financially successful and wealthy, too.

So here are 3 huge ways to grow self-confidence with your finances

Think positively: whether you’re dealing with everyday life or your personal finances, being positive and optimistic are two really great character traits to possess.

Don’t stress the small stuff: there are a lot of small emergencies and things that will screw up your budget every month. But you can’t let that affect your confidence in your self. If something comes up, don’t stress it. Just handle business and move on.

Understand you’re not perfect: you’re not a perfect person. You’re going to have bad months where you eat out too much or buy something you shouldn’t have. Just learn from mistakes and move forward.

9. Read books

The next way to change and continue improving your money mindset is to read as many books on money as you possibly can. And there are a lot of great books on money. Here are some of the best personal finance books out there:

Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Baby Steps Millionaires by Dave Ramsey
Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan
Retire Inspired by Chris Hogan
The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach
I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins

And hundreds more. Just find a few good ones and learn everything you can about personal finance!

10. Find mentors and positive friends

The next step in changing and improving your money mindset is to get awesome people around you to help with the learning and understanding of personal finance. Having those people in your corner while you figure out your finances can be really important and can actually cause your success or failure.

Get help with any learning and understanding that you do because this can expedite the process and help you become successful with money. Also, if you find friends who are on board with your journey, try to always keep them there. Because they’re not as common as you may think.

11. Eliminate the negativity

This is one thing that can absolutely crush your money mindset. It’s something my wife and I are battling constantly while going through our wealth building journey. If you can simply eliminate the negativity coming at you, you will crush it in your finances. I say this because you’re going to have negativity hitting you from all directions. Here are a few negative things that we battle with on a daily basis.

Eliminate the negativity

Family: obviously you can’t get rid of family but most people are going to have family that are not on board with your financial plan. My wife and I have a lot of family and almost none of them believe in what we’re doing. If your family is toxic, it might be time to cut ties. But if not, just exclude them from any money conversations with your spouse and don’t join in to theirs at the dinner table. Remember, they may be important in your life, but they don’t get a vote in your household.

Friends: this is tough. Because friends will either be on board with the plan or not. There’s not a lot of in between here. Unfortunately, I have a ton of really great friends who just aren’t good with money. They’re terrific people but poor financial managers. They spend everything they have and always have to try to make more money for this reason. So I’ve simply had to distance myself some. Either cut them out, distance yourself, or don’t bring up the topic of money at all.

Colleagues: colleagues are tough. I work with a lot of great people that are absolutely terrible with money. If you can find some that are supportive, that’s great. If not, just stick to talking about work and keep money out of it.

Emergencies: emergencies are always negative things that crush progress and make you think the worst of what’s going on. Emergencies ARE going to happen so it’s important to have some kind of emergency fund to help you when these things pop up. If you’re in debt, you need a $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund. If you’re out of debt, build up a 3-6 month fully funded emergency fund. Having that emergency fund has been a lifesaver for us over the last couple of years.

Expenses going up: having your expenses go up sucks. But we’re living in a world where inflation is crushing a lot of people. So we have to choose not to let that get to us as much as it normally does. You can also work on fixing your finances so that higher expenses is just an annoying, rather than a full blown crisis.

Negative thoughts: because of all of the other negative things and people in your life, it might be easy to have negative thoughts about your finances. You might also have those days like I’ve had where you just don’t think that you can do it. We all have those. Just do your best to eliminate the negativity and continue your journey toward building wealth.

12. Gratitude for what you have

When you don’t have a lot, and you’re finances aren’t perfect, it’s sometimes hard to be grateful. But that’s exactly why you should be. Because you’re working toward financial success and you’ll be there soon. If nothing else, just be grateful for the fact that you’re improving your finances. I know that might sound ridiculous but many people have no clue that their finances are suffering. And you’re working to fix yours. So that’s awesome. Be thankful for what you have!

Here are 6 other ways that practicing gratitude can transform your money mindset.

13. Abundance mindset and giving

Having an abundance mindset can truly help to change your money mindset for the better. This mindset is simply a belief that there are basically unlimited resources and enough money for everyone to become successful and wealthy.

Instead of there being only 1 single cake and certain people taking most of the slices, think about wealth like this – wealth is a candle. Yours can be lit while others may not be. But you can help others light theirs while they can do the same to help you keep yours lit. Wealth isn’t limited or finite, but unlimited and infinite. Just because people have billions of dollars doesn’t mean that there are millions or billions more for anyone to earn. And just because other people are rich, doesn’t mean that you can’t be rich, too! All it takes is the right money mindset.

Giving can also be a great way to force yourself to think about abundance. Don’t be so stingy that every single cent is allocated only to your personal goals. Try giving a little bit of that money away to good causes. That will help you live a more generous, abundant life and improve your money mindset.

14. Work a plan

The next step to changing and improving your money mindset is to make sure that you’re working a solid financial plan that is helping you fix your finances so that you can build wealth. If you really want to become financially successful, you have to be working a plan. Because just like having goals, a financial plan gives you a path toward wherever you would like to be financially when you get closer to retirement age.

My wife and I are personally working the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover financial plan. It’s a great way to get out of debt and work toward building wealth. You can check out the Total Money Makeover plan and the Baby Steps in this post here: “I’m Debt Free! The 7 Dave Ramsey Baby Steps Explained.”

You can also check out my Bulletproof Financial Plan here in this post: “Living Paycheck to Paycheck? 10 Steps to Break the Cycle!”

Whether you pick those two, or follow the plan of another financial planner, just make sure you are working some kind of plan to make progress toward improving your finances, wealth building, and strengthening your money mindset.

15. Find motivation along the way

While you’re continuing to improve your money mindset, it’s EXTREMELY important to continually stay motivated along the way. Without motivation, you’ll fall short and you won’t keep working on your finances. In short, you’ll quit. So you have to do anything and everything you can to stay motivated along the way. Here are a few things that you can do:

Listening to financial shows, YouTube videos, or podcasts.
Listening to the Dave Ramsey show.
Attending Financial Peace University classes.
Have an accountability partner or friend (someone that’s cheering you on).
Keep a colored picture to color off blocks as you pay a certain amount off (when in debt). You can also do this as you work toward different goals.
Reward yourself with something small when you pay off a certain amount and give yourself a big reward at the end of each goal that you’ve achieved.

Find ways that will help motivate you to strengthen your money mindset and help you achieve all of your financial goals.

16. Dream about your future

One of the last tips we have on this list is to start dreaming about your future. This can be insanely fun and super productive when changing and growing a positive money mindset.

Like I mentioned earlier in the BIG reason WHY section, what do you want? What do you want in your life and in your future? This is where you start dreaming in high definition. I want you to identify your high definition future financial dreams and start working toward them. You can identify your dreams and turn them into goals. Then try to hit those financial goals.

17. The Millionaire Mindset

The last tip on this list is meant for you to take your positive money mindset to a whole new level. I want you to start working on developing a millionaire mindset.

So what is the millionaire mindset? The millionaire mindset is simple – a belief in the idea that you can, and will be, a millionaire with the right financial plan and steps taken. For example, I have the millionaire mindset. Why? Because I have fully committed to becoming a millionaire. I understand what I have to do to become one and my wife and I are actively working a financial plan in that direction. We aren’t there yet. But have a net worth just north of $300k at age 30 years old.

If you want to be wealth, you have to believe it, too. But it’s not only about belief. Belief can only get you so far. Belief is powerful, as you read earlier, but it also requires action to get things done. So you’re going to have to do what rich people do.

The average, everyday millionaire

Here are the couple of things that the average, everyday person has done to become a real, net worth millionaire.

Paid off debt: millionaires have paid off their debt so that they could take advantage of their greatest wealth building tool – their income.
Stayed out of debt: once they got out of debt, they stayed out of debt. No more borrowing money.
Budgeted their money: the average millionaire has used a budget to help themselves save money and…
Live below their means: the average millionaire lives below their means, or lives on less than they make.
Have an emergency fund: millionaires don’t just make money, spend some, and invest the rest. They also make sure that they have a rainy day fund for when emergencies hit. If you don’t, you may end up having to borrow money. And then the debt cycle starts all over again. So get your emergency fund in place!
Invested steadily over many years: the average millionaire has steadily invested into their employee retirement plan for decades and has seen tremendous compounded growth because of it. This is usually a majority of a millionaire’s net worth (unless they are involved with real estate).
Paid off their home early: the average millionaire has paid off their personal residence in 10.2 years.
Continued to live a frugal, yet high-quality life: millionaires don’t just hoard their money and live a stingy life. They go on vacation, buy nice things, and go out to eat, all while still being intentional with money (i.e. they know where it all goes).
Got their spouse on board: if you’re single, that’s fine. No need to worry about this now. But the average millionaire is not just a millionaire with a family on the side. Often, millionaires are a strong, financially savvy couple who are both on the same page with their finances.

Those are just a few of the things that real millionaires do. I’m not talking about billionaires or uber wealthy people. No, just average people like me and you. People that worked hard everyday and did the right things with their finances. They believed they could get to millionaire status so they took action and eventually got there. They not only developed a strong money mindset, but a millionaire mindset as well. Because of that, they built wealth and became millionaires. No matter where you are right now, you can do that, too. You just have to work for it.

Finally

A positive money mindset isn’t something that usually happens overnight. For a few lucky people, that switch flips and it’s game on toward wealth and success. But for most people, myself included, it’s a gradual process and slow grind into having a positive mindset toward money. Because personal finance is tough, but if you work at it enough, you’re going to crush your goals, build wealth, and grow your money mindset beyond anything you’ve ever experienced before. So take action and do it. I promise you that it’ll be worth it!