I was recently talking to a prospective client who felt like they were behind in terms of their age and career. They were struggling to feel good about their financial situation because they didn’t have a solid financial plan, which is something that’s very fixable, right? But they also talked about what all their friends had that they didn’t, like owning a large home, pursuing a more exciting career, taking multiple vacations a year. And after spending more time with them, I learned that they were actually in a very good financial situation that gave them many of the same options as their friends had. The problem was that they felt like they didn’t have enough.

And it made me wonder, is social comparison driving most of our dissatisfaction with money? Comparing ourselves to other people is a very human thing to do, and we do it so often we’re not even aware of it. I don’t think the topic gets enough attention in the area of personal finance, though. Morgan Housel talks a lot about this in his recent book, The Art of Spending. I really appreciated that he talked about comparison as one of those most potentially corrosive forces in the financial decision-making process. Not necessarily because it makes us spend more, but because it can make us feel like what we have isn’t enough, even though we’re probably working really hard for what we do have.

I’m sure at some point you’ve heard the familiar phrase, keeping up with the Joneses. Your neighbor buys a new car and suddenly yours starts to look kind of old and shabby. A friend invites you over for dinner in their newly renovated kitchen, and suddenly your kitchen feels like it’s outdated and from the 1970s. And these are obvious versions of comparison that feel pretty normal, right? However, we can easily start to question if what we have is enough and if we’re really content in our own lives. One moment we’re feeling good, like we’re doing all the right things with our money, and then all of a sudden we see what someone else has and we start to feel like we should be doing something differently. We start thinking that we should have a higher paying job instead of the one that fits our lifestyle, or that we should start to save to buy a house even though renting an apartment long term was an intentional decision.

Comparison is tricky like that. It can be useful, like when it helps us to learn something about what we like or don’t like, or inspires us to make a change we’ve been putting off. But I’ve seen social comparison rob people of contentment and confidence in their choices, which weren’t easy things for them to attain in the first place.

I remember a former client who really needed to create a sense of safety and stability in their financial life. The focus was on building a solid savings cushion and putting a plan in place to develop a much needed financial resilience in their lives. After working hard to get on firmer footing, they then made the decision to splurge on a second home they really couldn’t afford. And as a result, they couldn’t save, which kept them stuck in the same old pattern. While I was happy for them to have something that they wanted, I wondered if their decision was actually driven by the temptation to keep up with some idea of how their life should be.

I talk about how we use money to create a life that feels good for us, one that uses money to help ground and align us with our values instead of focusing on accumulation and external approval. But we also talk about how the noise of social comparison seems to constantly get in our way. Everywhere we turn is some new reality TV show about the ultra-wealthy and how all their things mean they’re successful, but obviously miserable in the process, or a slew of content creators who promise they can help us get rich quick so we can have a better life. Somebody you know could try and convince you to buy a certain stock or a private investment because they made a ton of money on it, and all of a sudden your solid investment plan feels inadequate, even though it’s completely aligned with your goals. We’re constantly fed curated versions of others’ lives, and even though we know that they’re not real, the urge to want what they have can still creep in, and it can influence our financial mindset and decisions.

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