This post is from our regular Wednesday contributor, Erin.
Money and jealousy go hand in hand, don’t they?
We often get caught up in what everyone else around us is doing with their money. What they’re spending on, what they can afford, and what we can’t afford.
It’s a large reason why “Keeping Up with the Joneses” is a thing.
If you’ve been struggling with feelings of jealousy regarding the financial matters of others, you’re not alone, but you should realize it’s not going to do anything for you.
Unless you’re using jealousy as motivation to get your finances in order, it’s a pretty useless emotion. It can lead to self-pity, alienating others, and destructive behavior.
If you’re guilty of comparing your financial situation to those of other people, it’s time to stop. Here are 4 ways to free yourself from jealousy when it comes to your finances.
Be Grateful For What You Have
Regular readers over at my blog know that over the past year, I’ve placed a huge emphasis on practicing gratitude. That’s because being grateful for what you already have gives you some much needed perspective, and puts the focus on you, instead of others.
I don’t exactly struggle with being jealous of what people buy/can afford, but I’ll admit to being jealous of the progress that some people make when it comes to paying off their debt, or saving.
My student loan debt is the only debt I have, and it’s been hanging over me like a cloud ever since I graduated. However, when I moved last year and started on my journey to self-employment, I went a few months without any income.
While my income has significantly increased since then (thankfully!), I wasn’t able to make the progress I wanted to on my debt last year.
The reality is, I can sit around and mope about it, or I can be grateful for where I am now. Never in my life did I think I’d be capable of working for myself, and if that had to come at the expense of not being able to pay as much toward my student loans, so be it.
If you’ve been in a rut with your financial situation, take a moment to stop and smell the roses. Be grateful for your family, for your friends, and for the good things ahead. No matter what’s going on in our lives, there’s always something to be grateful for.
Realize Everyone Experiences Ups and Downs
A month or so ago, I wrote about how social media distorts our views of others and how successful they are. We’re prone to showing the good parts of our lives – not the bad.
More often than not, we hear stories of success, but we don’t hear about the hard work and dedication it took to get to that point of success. This sometimes leads us to incorrectly assume other people have it easier than we do.
Behind every story of success, there are many untold stories of failure.
The next time you feel alone and down on your luck when it comes to money, remember that nearly everyone has faced a monetary struggle at some point in their life. The key is in how you handle it.
If you catch yourself complaining about how others (seemingly) have it easier, stop, because it’s pointless.
Instead, grow stronger from your failures and mistakes, and do what you can to ensure you succeed.
Be Aware of Comparing Apples and Oranges
Even though I’m trying to get you all away from making comparisons, let’s be honest – comparing is human nature, and it’s not bad if you’re seeking to improve yourself.
The issue arises when you compare apples and oranges. Are you comparing yourself to someone who is years older than you, who has had more time to save, or who has been working longer than you?
Then you’re doing yourself a disservice, because they’re probably going to have an advantage over you. You’re at two different stages of life, and it’s silly to compare your beginning to their middle.
Also keep in mind that we’ve all had different opportunities and experiences, and be accepting of that.
I know many people who were able to graduate college without debt for one reason or another. I can sit there and be jealous, or I can accept that we were dealt two different hands and move on.
There’s no use in wishing you were in their shoes. You’re not. The sooner you accept it, the better, because you can’t change the past!
Focus on making better financial decisions for the future instead.
Get Motivated and Take Action
As I said in the beginning of this post, jealousy is fairly useless unless it’s lighting a fire under your butt. Until you make a plan and take action, you’re going to find yourself stuck at square one.
I could tell you to simply stop caring about what other people are doing with their money, but emotions don’t tend to work that way.
So when you find yourself envious of others, harness your jealousy and get motivated to take action.
Wish you could afford to go on a nice vacation to Europe? Make a plan to start saving. Figure out what you have to do to make that a reality.
Tired of drowning in debt, and jealous of others when they announce they’re debt free? Create a plan of attack to pay that debt off, once and for all.
Find yourself wanting something someone else has? Critically evaluate whether or not you truly want what they have, or if you like the idea of it. For example, I could be totally jealous of someone that has a boat and can enjoy the ocean whenever they wish, but boats are super expensive and require a lot of maintenance. On second thought…no thanks!
____________________
I think it’s safe to say we all feel jealous from time to time. The key is to feel it, and then let it go. Focus on bettering yourself instead, and don’t forget to be grateful for everything you do have. Chances are, people out there are jealous of what you have, too. It’s all relative.
I hope these tips help you free yourself from jealousy when it comes to money. We only have so much energy and time – don’t make room for jealousy.
Do you ever struggle with feelings of jealousy? How do you handle it?
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I think it’s inevitable, to a certain extent, that you’ll feel envious of someone especially if you like to compare yourself against others. But, that’s why a healthy dose of reality is important to have in my opinion and realize when you do have things to be thankful for and to use instances as motivation.
I think you make a good point about comparing apples to oranges. Everyone’s situation is different. I may be comparing myself to someone who I have nothing in common with. And that distorts my own reality.
Another great article Erin! I always try to remain as positive as I can, and I always make sure that I remain grateful for what I have, because it could always be worse!
I love how you touched on the failures behind success stories.
“Behind every story of success, there are many untold stories of failure.”
You almost never hear about this, however it is all around us. I always say that it’s most important to accept failure, but learn from it. Then you will know how to avoid these failures in the future, and you WILL succeed.
Thanks for another great read Erin! Keep it up! :)
I definitely catch myself feeling jealous from time to time and I try to rein it in and redirect it into motivation (sometimes I’m successful, sometimes not ;) ). I think it can be a good thing to aspire to live like someone you respect, but it’s important to keep that aspiration from making you feel badly about your own life. Thanks for these insights, Erin!
FrugalRules A healthy dose of reality is good! Comparisons can definitely spark wakeup calls, too, which aren’t always a bad thing.
Brian @ Luke1428 Exactly, Brian. It can be dangerous to compare for that reason. I know I tend to feel “behind” when I see bloggers accomplishing so much with their savings, but they’re usually also 10+ years older than I am!
KerstinStokes Thanks! That’s the mentality I try to have as well. As long as we aren’t struggling to make ends meet, we still have it pretty good.
Brandi_P Agreed, Brandi – failure usually leads to great learning experiences, and we shouldn’t shy away from it or be ashamed of it. There are so many successful people out there who failed plenty of times before seeing that success, we just don’t hear about it since they haven’t “made it big” yet.
Mrs. Frugalwoods I love how you phrased that at the end! Definitely agree. In the end, you’re still living your own life, too, and what’s right for others might not be right for you. The grass is always greener…
Erin @ Journey to Saving Very well said!
Sure I still struggle with it. My biggest thing is comparing my freelance success with another freelancer’s. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing “so wrong” and they re doing “so right.” But as you mentioned I may not be seeing the whole picture. Anyway, somewhere out there someone (not sure who- lol) might be wondering how they can be more like me? But we often have a distorted view of ourselves and our own successes because we spend 24/7 with ourselves. But, it all comes back to gratitude, which is a big help when trying to find silver linings.
Beachbudget Agreed, and I’m with you there, too! When I first started out with freelancing, it was much worse than it is now, but it can be difficult to come to terms with others getting work over you.
Oh shush, you’re awesome, and I always wonder how I can be more like you in regards to fitness. =P
Jealousy is a common feeling but I believe that gratitude and the motivation to do better for yourself can cancel it out once start spending more time focusing on yourself instead of other people. Whenever I feel jealous I quickly harness the feeling into motivation to do better for myself, and I realize that people work extremely hard and go through plenty of ups and downs before they reach certain levels of success and that’s the realistic way to see things
Chonce That’s a great perspective to have, Chonce! I think it’s too easy to jump to conclusions about people’s success when we don’t have the whole story. We automatically think they had an easy time of it, when that’s probably not true. Everyone goes through some struggles at some point.
Jealously and money do seem to go hand-in-hand these days and it’s really unfortunate. I see so many people play keep up and spend money on things that ultimately mean so little to them while not having the money to spend on the things that do. That’s crazy to me! I practice gratitude daily and make an effort to do it regularly in front of the girls too. I want them to appreciate and feel grateful for our great life, not entitled to it or let it be diminished because some else has more. Someone else will always have more. We cant compare our value or worth by money or things.
ShannonRyan I think it’s great you include your daughters when you practice gratitude! I’ve been doing it over the past year, and it’s stuck – I imagine it’s quite impactful when learned early. Very much agree that our value isn’t determined by how much money or stuff we have.
I use to have jealous thoughts about people and money when I was younger. Then I realized that wasn’t the attitude to have. Everyone has a season. It just wasn’t mine yet!
Such a relevant post. We only see such a small part of the lives of others. If we saw everything, I’m sure there would be much less envy. Attitude is really everything.
Wow really cool article here Erin, agree with focusing on yourself usually makes you much likely to avoid having to keep up with the Jones’, create greater happiness and practising gratitude is a great but challenging thing to do!
You’ve summed it up perfectly here “That’s because being grateful for what you already have gives you some much needed perspective, and puts the focus on you, instead of others.”
Well said! :)
I think we all get a little jealous from time to time. My trigger is when I feel that people who haven’t worked as hard as me seem to be doing better. In reality, I have no idea how people are doing other than what shows on the surface, which may or may not be a good representation of what their lives are really like. Being grateful is something we should remind ourselves to do every day.
Jason @ The Butler Journal That’s a good way of putting it, Jason!
Mark@BareBudgetGuy If we had the whole story I think we’d be much less envious as well, Mark.
mycareercrusade Thanks! It sounds self-centered, but focusing too much on others causes you to lose perspective so easily.
Eyesonthedollar I think that’s a trigger a lot of people deal with, but you’re right – we can only make assumptions, and those assumptions may be way off base in regards to how much people are truly succeeding or how happy they are.
This! This is part of the reason I struggle with FB and Instagram – there are certain people in my feeds that are too flashy and show off a little too much. I would get jealous of their amazing lifestyle and question what am I doing wrong with my life! But it’s really not fair for me to compare myself to others – I don’t know their story. I just have to keep myself in check and be thankful for what I have! If I take a step back, life is pretty good and I am pretty content!
Yep, it’s a pretty constant struggle. I get jealous about how much progress people are able to make compared to us. And how much longer most of them have been able to put away money. Years of not being able to work and now as a more or less single-income family… We’re way behind where I’d like to be.
We still have three decades (hopefully) before I’d even consider retirement but… it’s hard not to be envious.
believeinabudget This is a big reason I can’t stand income/expense updates on blogs. It provides zero value at best and at worst it makes people jealous.
I don’t mind the updates if it provides value or references exactly what they did- like side hustle, earn extra income or discusses how they made money blogging. That’s motivational for me. When I see generic updates of a blogger bragging about their income with no explanation of how they got there, it’s a turnoff for me because it’s not helpful or useful.
believeinabudget I mostly avoid social media in my personal life for that reason. If I need to know what someone’s been up to, I can just ask! As you said, simply taking a step back usually gives you the perspective you need to get back on track with things.
AbigailP I hear you on feeling behind, as I graduated college and went into administrative work because there wasn’t much else to do with my major. The pay was low and while I cut expenses as much as possible, I just didn’t have the money others did to throw at my debt. However, looking at my progress, I think I did pretty well for what I had to work with!
Reflecting on our own situation has really helped me with those feelings of jealousy. From the outside, we probably look very sucessful. But the truth is that we are struggling with a lot of debt. You just don’t know the whole story.
Harmony@CreatingMyKaleidoscope Exactly. I’m willing to bet a lot of us look pretty successful from the outside, as a majority of people like to appear that way. But just from reading the comments, it’s clear we all have things we’re struggling with!
believeinabudget Fair enough. For me even the “I made x dollars blogging!” really provides no value or motivation. I don’t need to be reminded that it’s possible to make a lot of money blogging. If they went into detail about HOW they made money blogging, that’s great, but I’ve only seen 1 blogger (yes, 1!) that actually goes into detail about it in their monthly updates (Anne from Money Propeller, btw).
I think everyone struggles sometimes with bad feelings in making comparisons to others. Sometimes it’s jealousy, other times it’s feelings of pride or inadequacy. But I always try to remind myself that their situation is not my situation (and I probably don’t even know their whole situation). Staying grateful for what you have and where you are is really important. Thanks for a great post.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips That summarizes it pretty well, Gary!