“No one suggests cheap restaurants anymore,” a friend said to me recently. I thought I was the only one who’d noticed. Instead of wondering why this was, I’d attributed the problem to myself (wasn’t it just my own reluctance to cook that was the issue?) or maybe inflation (I guess everything is just more expensive these days!). The endless stream of TikTok restaurants everyone in the city says I just haaaave to try seemed to carry over to my social groups. Everyone else seemed comfortable spending on expensive dinners out multiple times a week, so shouldn’t I be, too? I was keeping up with the Joneses — or the Kardashians, as it were — until it started to feel like I couldn’t keep up any longer.

“Everyone else seemed comfortable spending on expensive dinners out multiple times a week, so shouldn’t I be, too?”

Financial experts often warn of lifestyle inflation or the more insidious lifestyle creep — where, as you make more money, you unconsciously develop more expensive habits that keep you stuck in the same place. This is not a new phenomenon. It’s the premise of advertising for decades and, to some extent, the foundation of the American Dream. Make more, buy more. Many are stuck in a loop waiting to strike gold, a promise that doesn’t always come.

With the advent of social media, we see more than ever about the spending habits of others. Many of whom we know very little about. We might have a parasocial relationship with an influencer, whose life is totally different than ours, and still find ourselves comparing our closets, vacations, and so on. 

Does anyone else feel like their whole feed was on an extravagant European trip the past few summers? Or that everyone now carries a designer bag everywhere they go? Many questions follow: Was the trip gifted? Was the bag rented? The truth is that we rarely know. The line between different lifestyles feels less defined yet more difficult to traverse — on and offline. 

“The line between different lifestyles feels less defined yet more difficult to traverse — on and offline.”

When life starts to feel like a game of catch-up, the tried-and-true advice is to hit unfollow. The attention economy can only survive as long as we pay attention. Except, those with unattainable lifestyles aren’t just celebrities or influencers — it’s also people in our own lives. How are they affording this? I can’t help but think. But for many of us, the question quickly turns inward and becomes: Should I be able to afford this, too?

With all this confusing stimulus in the background, it’s easy to develop a warped sense about how much we actually have and what we can afford. If that speaks to you, you might experience money dysmorphia.

What is money dysmorphia — and what makes it distinct?

“Money dysmorphia is the distance between a person’s perceived financial status and their actual financial reality,” says Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, LMSW and Certified Financial Therapist of Mind Money Balance. It isn’t a diagnosis in the DSM but it can have a very real impact on our lives, in at least two ways. According to Bryan-Podvin, “Money dysmorphia can manifest both ways: It can be the person who has lots of money saved but doesn’t believe it’s enough and can’t use it meaningfully, or it can be the person who overspends but doesn’t believe the reality of their financial distress.”

“Money dysmorphia is the distance between a person’s perceived financial status and their actual financial reality.”

– Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, LMSW and Certified Financial Therapist

According to a study by Credit Karma, 43% of millennials and Gen Z-ers suffer from money dysmorphia. Unlike financial anxiety, which is the fear of not having or doing enough, money dysmorphia is shaped by a distorted sense of reality about how much everyone else seems to have and where you fall in comparison.

“Financial anxiety is more about being fearful of a financial task and experiencing anxious thoughts, feelings, or behaviors when engaging with a financial task (or procrastinating because of the fear of the task),” says Bryan-Podvin. “With financial anxiety, there may be a fear that their finances are worse than they are, but they aren’t distorted about the reality of their finances.”

This distortion is what makes money dysmorphia so distinct. No matter how much you make, you can still feel like you’re falling behind if your financial perspective is distorted. About 51% of people earning more than six figures reported living paycheck-to-paycheck in a recent survey — despite making well over the median household income. This is because money, despite what we like to think (and what many shame-mongering finance teachers would have you believe), isn’t rational. It’s emotional.

Money dysmorphia is about distance

When it comes to money, how much you’re making and how much you feel you’re making are two different things. I’ve set income goals and asked for promotions only to reach them and realize that a number wouldn’t change my life. Of course, there is a baseline to this. The difference between being comfortable and scraping by to pay your bills is a real, material one — and it can have real consequences for your mental health. But this kind of stress is more in line with financial anxiety.

On the other hand, there may also be a ceiling to the impact finances can have on your mental health. In a famous 2010 study out of Princeton University, it was found that money can only increase happiness up to around $75,000 per year until it levels off. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $107,844.32 in 2024. Yet, that’s not the number young people feel they need to be happy. In a study by Empower, Gen Z said they need a salary of around $128,000 to be happy— while millennials say they need $525,000.

Likely, these numbers aren’t just the sticker price we expect to find on happiness — they’re numbers we expect a certain lifestyle to cost. It accounts for the distance between our lives and the lives we feel we should be living based on the people around us. 

When I lived in New York, I dreamed of a $5,000-a-month, 1-bedroom apartment and thought my ideal life was being able to afford nightly dinners, frequent vacations, and a closet big enough to hold all the outfits such a life required. And don’t get me wrong, that sounds amazing — but my was dream based on a life I thought everyone else had or was on their way to getting, not my individual desires. When this feeling becomes debilitating, that’s when it becomes money dysmorphia.

“My dream was based on a life I thought everyone else had or was on their way to getting, not my individual desires.”

“There are lots of hypotheses for [what causes] money dysmorphia,” according to Bryan-Podvin. “Perfectionism, depression, anxiety, low self-worth, or self-esteem are common reasons [that contribute.]” I’ve found that in my own life, these attributes have always been dominant when I am seeking connection the most. The fact that our feelings about ourselves are bound up with money can lead us to assigning outsized or lofty ideas to our finances. Instead of using money as the tool that it is, we mistake it as having to do with our character. We might even begin to think of money as the end goal — but this only leads to accumulation, and to what end?

So, with the concept of money dysmorphia in hand, how might we untangle this game of catch-up from our relationships, our lives, and our definitions of success?

How to downsize your money dysmorphia

Think of something you wouldn’t trade for any amount of money in the world. Your loved ones. An old family heirloom. A treasured memory. If you wouldn’t give them up for millions of dollars — congratulations, you now have millions of dollars.

I came across this thought exercise on social media and it stopped me in my tracks. (I haven’t been able to track it down since! Let us know in the comments if you know the post I’m talking about.) 

“If you wouldn’t give them up for millions of dollars — congratulations, you now have millions of dollars.”

The impact had to do with the fact that this sentiment is so at odds with most of the content on my feed. I’m usually spoonfed ad after ad — or, these days, business coach after business coach — telling me I don’t have enough, don’t make enough, and don’t do enough. Would my life be more enriched by a new product? Or maybe luxurious travel and once-in-a-lifetime experiences? Either way, the message is clear: My life would be better if I had more money.

Instead, this exercise cued a shift in my thinking. The things that came to mind weren’t only the things I wouldn’t trade, but also the things I would actually want to spend on. And when I thought about my financial reality in those terms, I didn’t feel so far behind. I have enough money to buy gifts for my family on birthdays and holidays, to pay my rent, and to pursue my hobbies. And that’s important to me.

Bryan-Podvin suggests a similar framework shift. “Take money one step at a time and practice gratitude; instead of setting a million competing financial goals, set 1–3 values-aligned, meaningful goals.” And above all, since money dysmorphia is about distortion, getting past it is about seeing your reality. “Get comfortable facing the facts without adding in disclaimers. Get in the habit of looking at and engaging with money regularly.” Stick to the small everyday things that enrich your life.

“Since money dysmorphia is about distortion, getting past it is about seeing your reality.”

Now, that’s the practical advice. But, as we established, so much of money is emotional. This stems from our deep beliefs about ourselves and how we see the world. That isn’t always so easy to change. 

“Get comfortable challenging unhelpful beliefs about money,” Bryan-Podvin advises. And remember, the things you’re seeking to heal with money often need to be healed emotionally first. With money dysmorphia, that often looks like closing the gap between who you are and who you think you need to be.

Langa Chinyoka is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer and strategist based in Los Angeles.