Broken Piggy Banks

Why does money still make you feel like a child? Broken Piggy Banks: Childhood Messages that Still Run Your Finances explores the hidden financial rules we absorb long before we understand budgets, debt, saving, or income. An overheard argument, a parent saying "we can't afford that," money used as punishment, or a piggy bank emptied too soon can shape how we spend, save, avoid, give, and worry decades later. Through reflective guidance, practical financial exercises, journal prompts, memory-exploration activities, and affirmations, Matthew Petchinsky helps readers identify the childhood messages still influencing adult financial decisions. You will examine your earliest money memories, uncover patterns of scarcity and shame, recognize how old reactions replay in adulthood, build healthier financial boundaries, and create a safer foundation based on present-day facts rather than inherited fear. This book does not ask you to blame your family or erase your past. It asks you to understand what you learned, decide what still serves you, and replace outdated rules with deliberate adult choices. You are not required to keep living by financial lessons learned before you were old enough to question them. Break open the piggy bank, examine what remains, and begin writing a different money story.