The Financial Upside of Peer Pressure

June 21, 2017

Have you ever contemplated how the people you hang out with or follow on social media actually affect your financial status? Think about the last time you went on a diet or tried a new fitness regimen — if your friends were on board, chances are that you stuck with it longer than if you tried to go it alone. The same thing applies when it comes to your money, so much so that some banks have been known to check Facebook friend lists before granting people credit for things like a mortgage or car loan.

A Harris poll conducted on behalf of the AICPA found that 39% of people looked into a purchase or vacation solely because they saw it on someone else’s social media, further proving the power of peer pressure. Guilty as charged – in the past couple months I’ve booked a yoga retreat, shopped a new brand of yoga pants and tried an all-natural, aluminum free deodorant cream solely because of something I saw on Instagram. (are you sensing the hippie theme of my life these days?)

What made me step up

When I first meet people and tell them I’m a financial planner, they typically assume that I’m “perfect” when it comes to money – that I must have a balanced budget, successful investments and a sizable savings account that grows according to my detailed financial plan. The funny thing is, before I joined the Planner team at Financial Finesse, I was far from perfect. I knew what made a perfect financial plan, but I didn’t have one in my life.

All that changed, I think, due to the healthy peer pressure of working with other planners who are making better financial decisions, but also because of my daily work – I get to help clients who are like me, something very rare in the financial planning industry.

Typically, in order for a financial planner to make a living in this industry, you have to work with pretty wealthy people who invest money with you. I’d like to be like that one day, but for now I’m pretty much your average working person who falls victim to Semi-Annual sales and has to put hacks in place in order to avoid over-spending. Having the opportunity to talk with others who have the same struggles has actually helped me to overcome those struggles.

Using peer pressure to get richer

Put the power of peer pressure to work for you in your financial life by trying some of the following:

  • Talk to your friends about your financial goals and challenge them to join you, kind of like a weight loss challenge – what about a challenge to save a thousand bucks over the summer? When you all achieve the goal, celebrate with a spa day.
  • Look at who you follow on social media and consider adding positive financial influences, like Feed the Pig, Budgets Are Sexy or Financial Finesse. If you suffer from FOMO, you might want to hide some of the bigger bragsters in your network – trust me, their lives are not as fabulous as you think or they wouldn’t have so much time to be posting on social media!
  • Become a role model for your friends and family by brushing up on good financial habits, then talking about them at gatherings. Before you know it, people will be calling you for guidance and you’ll feel the positive peer pressure to practice what you preach. It works for me…
  • Subscribe to blogs that address the questions you have. Shameless plug, but I also like Daily Worth and The Muse for the articles they deliver to my inbox.

The bottom line is, if you don’t like your current financial situation, take a look at what effect your interactions with friends and family may be having. There are some you can’t avoid, like a sister who is constantly coming to you for money when in a pinch, but you can neutralize the negative peer pressure by putting positive money peers more deliberately in your life.

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Here at Financial Finesse, we believe strongly in the importance of workplace culture and the power of doing well by doing good. This article is the third in our week-long series of posts where we highlight a specific part of our company culture that helps to make Financial Finesse one of America’s best places to work. This is just one part of our celebration of recent recognition by Inc., who listed us as one of the Best Workplaces in 2017 and Entrepreneur, who named us to the Small-Sized Companies: The Best Company Cultures in 2017 list.