Milk and money lenses

As a child, I was always eager to ensure that milk and cookies were left out for Santa. Every year I observed my parents setting out the milk and cookies. Sometimes the cookies were Oreos, sometimes chocolate chip, sometimes homemade, but the milk was always prepared the same way – a dash of milk topped off with water.

Fast forward to my college years. I was home for the holidays and had just made cookies with my mom. Before eating a cookie hot out of the oven, I prepared myself a glass of milk – a dash of milk topped off with water. My mom immediately exclaimed something along the lines of, “Ew! What are you doing?”. I was confused because I didn’t drink milk often, but when I did, it was always half water. After some back and forth, we realized that after seeing my mom add water to Santa’s milk every year, I believed this was how she drank milk. In actuality, she was trying not to waste milk. Needless to say, we both had tears in our eyes as we laughed over the fact that I had been drinking glasses of half milk/half water until age 21.

Hopefully, no one else is drinking glasses of milk water, but I am willing to bet that everyone reading this article has a peculiar behavior that stems from childhood observations. Money lenses are a perfect example of this. A “money lens” is how you view anything related to money. When I started working in finance, I was surprised to see how significantly money lenses impact financial behavior. Over six years later, I have come to see money lenses as a part of getting to know people. If I’m going to help people align their use of money with what is most important to them, I will inevitably learn about how they see money.

Let’s look at a few examples of money lenses before you write them off as something weird like milk water. An example of a money lens is, “I am good because I am frugal with my money.” I naturally see the world through this money lens. I grew up hearing, “Give some, save some, spend some,” which I still live by. But it’s as if I have a little gremlin on my shoulder whispering: “as long as it makes sense.” Buy a plane ticket immediately without trying to purchase it at the optimum time for a deal? Preposterous! Strawberries are selling for $12 instead of $6? What a waste it would be to buy those expensive strawberries! You get the idea. Unchecked, this money lens can impact much more than my purchasing habits. One of the most important things to me is sharing experiences (trips, meals, etc.) with people I love. To play by my own rules, my money should support this. In many ways, it does – I save/invest for the long and short term. But at some point, I have to let myself live out these experiences. And the flight tickets won’t always be selling at a discount, and the strawberries for the meal I will share with friends will not always be a reasonable price.

Understanding that I naturally see through this money lens helps me as I make financial decisions and relate with others. I may associate frugality with goodness, but I do not let this rule my choices. This is one money lens out of countless others. Money lenses may look more like the person who sees money as bad or the multi-millionaire who feels that once they have a little bit more money, they will have enough. We all have our money lenses. We do not need to be ashamed or try to get rid of them. But understanding they exist may help you avoid a lifetime of drinking milk water.