Courtesy of Alejandra Rojas
When Alejandra Rojas found herself in $10,000 worth of credit card debt in her early 20s, she couldn't make sense of it.
Raised by two accountants in Cali, Colombia, "I knew what a budget was since I was eight years old," she told Business Insider. She continued her financial education as a university student.
"I graduated as a finance professional, so I knew every strategy in the book on how to save, how to get out of debt," said Rojas. That's why she was confused about her overspending habits, which started after landing her first job in Washington DC. "If I have spent the last decade studying and growing up knowing about money, why am I acting this way?"
Seeking answers, she turned to Google and fell into a rabbit hole of money and psychology. The first resource she found, Morgan Housel's "The Psychology of Money," turned out to be one of her favorites.
It forces you to look at money through a different lens and consider the human behavior element — something that she felt was missing in traditional financial advice: "Many finance gurus that are out there tell you, 'This is very simple: Don't spend and increase your revenues.'"
Housel, on the other hand, "helps you understand how your emotions play out in things like the stock market, how you manage finances, and how you make financial decisions," she said. "He does a really good job of explaining that money is not just this plain and simple thing; it's complicated because there is a psychology behind it."
Rojas, who has since paid off her debt, earned her Trauma of Money certification and started her own financial education company, generally cautions against overly simplified or polarizing money advice.
"It's not black and white. It never is with money. It's understanding what works for you and what doesn't," she said. "It's the same with money beliefs or money habits. There is not a perfect money habit or the worst money habit to have. There are money habits that work for you and your vision, and there are money habits that don't."
In the same vein, just because one strategy or behavioral change worked for someone else, doesn't mean it'll work for you.
"The idea, 'If I did it, you can do it' doesn't work with money, because you leave the context out," she said. "When you leave the context out, then you leave the human out — and all the emotions and psychology out."
There are a lot of excellent personal finance resources out there that will break down savings and investment strategies but, at the end of the day, being good with money doesn't necessarily come down to what you know. Rojas knew every strategy in the book and still wound up in consumer debt. What matters is how you behave and how you think about money.
Beyond understanding the nuts and bolts, "there is a psychology of money that you also need to understand so that you can master the tools that they are giving you," she said.
