“A sage and caring guide to facing one’s fears about money.”
See what readers are saying about The Emotional Side of Money
Wave photo: © Troy Murphey Photography
“With warmth and compassion, Tari Vickery invites us to gently explore the emotions and stories that shape our relationship with money. The Emotional Side of Money is a wise and reassuring guide, leading us from fear or shame into peace, freedom, and alignment with what matters most. It is more than a book about money—it is a path to financial well-being.”
— Lynne Twist, Author of The Soul of Money
“Years ago, Tari visualized this book into being—literally wrapping a handmade cover around her dream. Now it's real! And so is her gift: Tari shows us that our stories about money can transform for the better. With passion, heart, and hard-won wisdom, Tari proves abundance starts with belief.”
— Elle Luna, Author of The Crossroads of Should and Must
“Vickery unpacks our dysfunctional relationship with money in this empowering roadmap toward “financial wellness.” From the start, she acknowledges that very few topics elicit more passion—and distress—than money, noting that untangling our emotions around finances can be a challenging journey, to say the least. Her mission is to help readers understand how their family history, social interactions, personal values, geographical location, and more contribute to their financial ideas and behaviors, as she notes that “mak[ing] peace” with our finances comes only after clarifying “our general thinking about money and choices about how we spend it.”
In Vickery’s world, financial wisdom is less about accumulating wealth and more about purposeful self-reflection. She details her own emergence from a scarcity mindset—“where life is one big pie, and if others take a slice, that leaves less pie for me”—into a position of experiencing abundance in every area of her life, while providing readers with thoughtful prompts to undertake that quest themselves. Whether examining our ancestors’ experiences and how those impacted their generational viewpoints on money or analyzing income inequality for women, Vickery’s approach opens crucial discussion around a range of financial topics: mortgages, wills versus trusts, intra-family loans, financial communication skills, and more.
Vickery’s precise guidance and engaging examples—such as the story of her mother growing up in rural Oklahoma during the Great Depression, watching their family refrigerator be repossessed—leave readers with striking imagery and vivid impressions. She emphasizes throughout that many adults are not taught nuts-and-bolts financial skills, such as balancing a checkbook or understanding how to responsibly use credit cards, and she notes that improving those skills could help relieve financial anxiety. By tackling a topic that is often taboo, Vickery opens communication lines between generations, nudges readers toward self-compassion, and paves the way toward a “powerful, peaceful relationship with money.”
Takeaway: Empowering study of the patterns and emotions that shape money perspectives.
Comparable Titles: Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money, Kate Northrup’s Money, a Love Story.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A.”
“Sociologist, entrepreneur, and financial wellness coach Vickery offers a timely volume of financial advice and sound, positive encouragement.
The author makes a strong case for understanding financial trauma as something that one must work through, despite the hardships of daily living. Drawing on wisdom from other self-help titles, such as Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), Vickery builds trust with readers by tactfully using terms of therapy to reconfigure misconceptions about money and its emotional responses. Her compassionate voice makes the text appealingly readable as she empathizes with people with a wide range of money worries. Above all, Vickery values communication as a key method to find new ways to understand financial matters, whether one is communicating with parents, spouses, children, or, above all, oneself. The author illustrates several scenarios from her clients, bringing real-life resonance to various lessons; some focus on couples’ financial dynamics in particular. These slice-of-life chapters are where the book truly shines, and its reflective questions to help readers carry on with further work are a bonus. Some readers may balk at talk of “abundance,” but it’s important to note that Vickery doesn’t stray into ideas of manifestation; instead, she stays grounded in here-and-now money matters. Helpful topics include budgeting, gender inequality, travel, scarcity mindsets, debt, and unemployment. Readers will find themselves in good hands when later chapters discuss advertising and consumerism, and their effect on the collective psyche; Vickery’s takeaways feel notably helpful regarding such fraught topics. She effectively reminds readers that financial wellness is never out of reach and must be viewed as a dialogue between one’s framing of a situation and one’s material needs and wants. By the conclusion, readers will agree that one should discuss financial matters in such an open and emotionally healthy manner more often.
A sage and caring guide to facing one’s fears about money.
— Kirkus Review
“In The Emotional Side of Money, Tari Vickery feels like a wise, compassionate friend, helping us discover why money so often brings stress. With warmth and clarity, she guides us through uncovering lifelong patterns and experiences, transforming anxiety into confidence, peace, and even joy.”
— Julie Lythcott-Haims, Author of How to Raise an Adult, Your Turn: How to Be An Adult, & Real American: A Memoir