Below are prompts to help you write about your relationship with money. Unlike a simple “Money Diary,” writing a memoir about money should reflect on your relationship with money and go deeper than a catalog of what you spent where.
Use these prompts to start writing a memoir about your relationship with money:
- What is your first specific memory of being aware of money. What happened? Reflect on why this event struck you at such an early age and reflect on your relationship with that experience about money now.
- What did your parents or caretakers say about money? Compare this with what they did with money. You might list five things you remember being said about money and five things about how money was handled. Use these lists of specifics to illustrate your personal essay.
- Did your parents or caretakers agree or disagree with each other about issues surrounding money? Were their messages about money consistent or not? Which values about money did you adapt or take in? Which values did you resist or rebel against? How have tensions regarding values or rebellion surrounding issues of money created tension in your life now? Remember to use a specific memory or event to focus your memoir.
- When you discuss money with someone you are close to and trust, what are your dominant emotions? Shame, anger, anxiety, comfort, elation, envy, power may be among some of what you feel. Choose the emotion that you feel most strongly and write a specific money memory from your life that illustrates that feeling.
- Write a letter to “Money.” Writing as if Money was a person, what would tell Money about the relationship you would like to have? Illustrate the letter with specific examples from your life.
The above prompts were drawn from prompts in this post below on the site “Writing Through Life”: