Understanding money psychology with Ally Bank’s new course

Ally Bank (ALLY) is rolling out a new course, titled Money Roots, that aides customers in examining their psychological relationship with money to better aid in building wealth. Ally Bank’s Head of Money Wellness Jack Howard joins Wealth! to break down how investors can examine their “emotions around money.”

“The things you learned from childhood. And that’s what we’re doing in Money Roots,” Howard says, then breaking down the four parts of her course.

“We’re finding that our young generations are becoming more open to understanding what is financial wellness compared to our older generations, where it’s more of the skills. So it’s becoming a more holistic approach as we think about money. It’s not this separate silo that we can keep in a box and only come to occasionally, but it’s holistic. It’s how you feel about it, it’s your wellness…” Howard explains.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth!

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

Ally Bank, rolling out a money Wellness curriculum to teach people how to work on the emotional relationship with money, to discuss how you can use psychology to get your wealth goals and hit them.

Jack.

Howard.

Ally Bank’s Head of Money Wellness is here with us in studio.

Jack.

Thanks so much for taking the time here.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely, le let’s dive right in here.

What exactly is this program designed to do?

Well, it’s designed when we think of money, everybody thinks about the skills.

So it’s understanding your budget and your credit.

Those are the things that we typically learn with personal finance.

However, for most people implementing those skills can be hard because you do not have an understanding of the behaviors that may stop you from doing that.

So your subconscious beliefs, things you may have learned from your parents or society all impact your ability to actually implement those skills.

And that’s what we’re doing with money groups.

I mean, there’s so much psychology that plays into your financial status and how you’re kind of bettering some of the smart spending habits that you have.

So how do you kind of go step by step in breaking down the psychology as well around money decisions.

Really, it’s your emotions around money, the things you learned from childhood.

And that’s what we’re doing in money routes.

So we have a four part curriculum.

The first is diving into your money and emotions.

Are you feeling anxiety?

If so how do we deal with it?

The second one is your money story going deep into your early money memories, really charting out your relationship with money from, you know, beginning to now and how that impacts your financial decisions.

Today.

The third one is your money and values, which is one of my favorites going deep on.

What are your core values and how does that show up in your spending and saving decisions?

And then finally, money and love, which is one I think we all need, right?

Step on toes when we need it.

Really going deep on.

How does the money story show up in your romantic partnerships?

What are the beliefs that you and your partner have and you’re bringing into your relationship?

And then how do we move forward?

So we’re going deep into understanding your mindset with money and how we now chart a better path with your wealth.

I’m always interested in knowing how financial institutions are really tracking the perhaps perceptions of money and saving across generations as well because we’ve all gone through different events over the course of our financial planning and financial future outlooks.

So, how does that look?

I mean, across generations from what you’re seeing too.

Yeah, definitely.

We’re finding that our younger generations are becoming more open to understanding what is financial wellness compared to our older generations where it’s more of the skills.

So it’s becoming a more holistic approach as we think about money of, it’s not this separate silo that we can keep in a box and only come to occasionally.

But it’s holistic.

It’s how you feel about it.

It’s your wellness and we gotta make sure we’re bringing all of that with money roots.

How do people especially given some of the recent market undulations that we’ve been tracking and slippage, how do people best manage a money mindset and, and the psychology that they could perhaps implore during a market slip?

Yeah, we actually did a study and found that nearly half of Americans are using their emotions and it comes up with their spending.

So when you look at the market, everything that deals with money, we’re having anxiety, we’re having, we’re having all of these emotions and not acknowledging it.

One of the first things we do in the Money Story workshop is we just have a set of how are you feeling about money right now?

If I ask you quickly, money is what comes up for you and for a lot of people, you’ll hear a range of answers.

I’m feeling anxious.

I’m feeling confident, but we need to create space to where we can talk about those emotions, honor them and decide what are the tools that we can use to move forward to navigate it better?

OK. All right.

I’m gonna ask the question even though I know there are gonna be a lot of people out there that could benefit from this, but don’t wanna hear about it immediately or perhaps it’s just a sensitive topic but how future spouses should be talking about money?

Thank you for asking.

I know.

Exasperated.

Everybody just get it out.

No, let’s, let’s talk about it first.

We gotta talk about it.

It’s a conversation that needs to be had beyond pulling your credit report.

So one of the first things I want you to ask your spouse, what is your first memory of money?

What were the beliefs that you learned from your parents and society about money that now impact you?

Let’s have that be the first conversation and it creates so much empathy in your partnership because you may have and opposites tend to attract.

You may have one person that’s more frugal, one person that’s more of a spender and you can bump heads.

There can be a lot of judgment and a lack of empathy.

I want you to come into the conversation being vulnerable, talking about your past and now we can understand, oh, you’re a spender because of this from your past or you are more frugal because of this.

It creates that empathy and now we can come to a place of creating a plan moving forward as a couple without judgment.

Right?

So on the other side of that, how can and I guess in tandem with it, how can couples move through money trauma that they may have experienced in the past as well?

Insecurity with money?

Yeah.

So we first go through that money story question.

Next, we wanna go into what are those topics that are hot topics for you as a couple?

So it may be, should we have shared bank accounts?

What are your views on um spending and saving with family?

Do we give money to family members who need help?

So you wanna come to bring that to the forefront?

And then from there, let’s create a money motto together as a couple where we can look at what are our goals for our family financially?

What are the values that we want to have that comes with money and create that to move forward?

But you gotta have the conversation.

You gotta have the conversation, Jack Howard Allied Banks, head of Money Wellness here.