How to Consciously Use Money

As I often remind people, money is a tool.

It’s not evil or bad. Money is a way to trade for resources like food, shelter, clothing, and so forth.

Obviously, plenty of people use their money poorly and unconsciously, and there are more than a few examples we could all go into of seeing money wasted in gluttony, war, rockets shot up into space, and many other ways.

But for the sake of this spiritual awakening blog post, I am interested in how we can all learn to consciously use money. By “consciously use,” I mean to understand the reality of what you are buying/supporting and why you are choosing to buy/support something.

Even for something as simple as buying oatmeal raisin cookies, you are making a very important decision that influences hundreds of people in a myriad of ways. Where you buy the cookies is a vote of confidence for that store or baker. But you are also buying packaging and supporting the package-making company. You are supporting the farmers and growers who produced the oats, raisins, cinnamon, sugar, milk, and so forth. You are supporting whatever means of transportation that shipped the cookies from where they were made to where you are now buying them. There’s probably dozens of other influences going on here, but it should be clear that your money impacts a lot of people.

And this is just talking about a batch of cookies!

There are many other things we can look at, but as always, our first step to making any kind of conscious decision is to do our INNER WORK. As we find ourselves clearer about what our motivations are, then we can take steps to make to be conscious in our decisions regarding money.

If you are new to this concept and early in your inner work, here are two blog posts to help you out. The second is particularly important for my young adult friends.

How to Start Your Spiritual Journey

How to Grow up Smart and Live Your Dreams

Changing Your Buying Patterns

As people release old issues and discover the truth about themselves, they then can more easily see the truth about what is going on in the world. While more than a few people blame others for being wrong, bad, stupid, or evil, we do this less the more at peace we are.

Blaming and judging are the voices of unconsciousness, itself.

Collective human pain is created by billions of humans living in pain and making unconscious choices. That creates more suffering.

But people won’t change until they see examples of conscious decisions. Thus, the way we help break down communal suffering is by doing our part, such as spending our money more consciously.

As you look at reality, you become responsible and obligated to change your behavior patterns. This noticing is simply discernment, not judgment. It’s not a judgment to notice that a car is on fire. It’s on fire. That’s the state of things. It’s a judgment to say that the car shouldn’t be on fire or the driver was stupid for letting the car catch on fire.

The more you do your inner work, the more obvious the distinction between discernment and judgment becomes.

The Difference Between Discernment and Judgment

If you discern a problem with how palm oil is being harvest and are aware of the socio-economic impacts, then you have to change.

You can’t keep buying products with palm oil in it.

There are many examples of things that do not align with a healthy world and are otherwise bad for people, animals, and the environment. The more you look into these issues, the more responsible you become. Even when we’re ignorant, we’re still responsible.

Ignorance causes endless suffering.

When we are aware of things, we can make conscious choices because we don’t want to continue suffering.

However, to really make a conscious choice and use our discernment also require us to make an informed choice. To do that, we need to educate ourselves on issues to more deeply understand the choices we may make.

Developing Conscious Relationships

Education, Education, Education

When I say, “education,” I don’t mean going back to school for a degree, but that is not excluded.

I mean that you learn about things that you care about.

It’s important to understand issues from multiple sides and not just the side you immediately prefer.

It’s easy for people to say that killing animals for their meat is wrong without trying to understand the farmers, organizations, meat-consumers, and all the other aspects involved in that industry. There are a lot of forces at work, and you want to really understand them.

Leave no belief within you unexamined.

That’s how inner work works.

What Is Spiritual Inner Work?

It’s very easy for these beliefs to hide and escape our scrutiny because there are plenty of aspects of our unconscious ego that doesn’t like the intensity of our own awareness.

Additionally, false information is everywhere on the Internet.

I feel like everyone who uses the Internet now needs a course in evaluating sources, particularly with the rise of consumer-facing AI programs.

There are so many places with misinformation and outright lies on every side of an issue that it makes it hard to discern the truth. And AI doesn’t discern well at this phase of its development.

Who will program AI with how to discern? The biases of the programmers will impact you.

You can’t know about everything, but do the best you can. Look at who the publisher of a website is and if any studies are being cited in any claims. You may also want to look into the studies that are getting cited. Scientific studies are not all created equal, and unfortunately, certain organizations are created by different industries to produce false science.

I know. It sucks.

It’s gotten so muddied up out there that it’s difficult to know who and what to trust. This tends to drive people towards their old ego preferences, believing whatever it is they want to believe.

You mustn’t give in to that tendency.

Take the time to learn about a couple things that matter most to you–even if it is just the oatmeal cookie industry.

Drawing Your Money Out of Wasteful Activities

With all that said, some things are not difficult to realize.

For instance, alcohol is a way people avoid their issues.

Do You Have Money Problems? (newsletter)

The less you drink, the more you feel. The clearer you are, the less inclination you have to drink because you feel good being you when you have healed a lot of issues.

It becomes natural to stop buying alcohol and wasting money on something to cover up and repress your feelings. Because alcohol is expensive, you are going to get back quite a bit of money to repurpose, pay off debts, or to save. A Bureau of Labor Statistics study in 2012 found that on average $1 out of $100 is spent on alcohol by Americans. You can imagine that this can add up to hundreds of dollars for an individual, even thousands. Undoubtedly, some people spend more on alcohol than others, and that’s a lot of wasted money to numb one’s self.

Numbing Yourself to Life and Over-stimulation

There are plenty of other ways we waste money on substances, foods, trips, and more to hide how we feel or who we are.

This supports huge industries that are dedicated to reminding you that you are not good enough without their particular product, item, service, hotel room, or something else. Most of marketing is about telling you that you are not okay in a bazillion different ways.

If we want industries to sing a different tune, then we have to redirect our money away from the ones that are part of this system of not being okay to those who generally support us (and they are out there; that’s part of educating yourself).

While life is an imperfect place full of compromises and trade-offs (like buying your electricity from the local energy company that is producing electricity primarily from natural gas), there are plenty of parts of society you do not have to support.

You will be better off for not wasting your money, and you’ll have a little more money in your pocket for things that matter.

Sugar Is a Major Health Concern

No Longer Fooled by Brands

Your inner clarity opens your eyes to the manipulation directed at you by marketing, politics, and society in general. The more you see how they are attempting to manipulate you, the more you can make different choices.

For instance, branding is creating a perception–an ego identity–around a product. I am sure you can think of countless brands for food and other products. It’s probably easy for you to think of brand names because they’ve spent so much money raising awareness about their stuff. But when a brand is making a t-shirt look glamorous, you may now realize the truth:

Brands are actually selling you a feeling to make you feel better about yourself.

Jim Tolles (Yeah, it’s silly to quote myself, but I liked the formatting.)

That’s really what successful brands do.

Brands sell feelings, not products.

That’s predicated on you not liking yourself. So you’ll pay for the $200 t-shirt made in a sweat-shop because you want the feeling, not the shirt.

How long does that good feeling last?

How quickly does that good feeling in you get destroyed if someone doesn’t like your shirt?

When we are unconscious to our pain and issues, we can be manipulated in so many ways, and that drains us of our money.

But the more aware you are, the more you pay attention to how a company talks to you and what they are actually selling. Then you can make a choice whether or not you really want that t-shirt from a cruel sweat-shop or not and that will probably just end up getting lost in your closet in a couple of months.

Dissolving Issues With Awareness

Donating to Causes

Some of you may find that not wasting your money on things to give you feelings will suddenly give you quite a bit of extra cash hanging around. Or maybe you’ll finally be able to dig out from under a whole load of debt. A PEW Charitable Trusts study released in July 2015 found that “8 in 10 Americans are in debt.”

While not all debt is considered bad (such as paying off a mortgage), this is quite an interesting statistic in terms of buying more than we can pay for–a sign of unconscious behavior.

Credit card debt is more concerning. U.S. citizens hold an average of $5700 in debt, according to an article at Motley Fool.

Putting aside a lot of factors, this indebtedness strikes me as a lot of people in the U.S. trying to buy things to feel good about themselves and mask issues.

Obviously, there’s more.

Since 2020, we’ve are going through massive inflation as well as a consolidation of wealth in the richest of the rich. This forces a lot of people to rely on these debt tools.

Predatory lending is likely to grow in my opinion.

That makes it even more critical to not buy stuff you don’t need.

Conversely, you now have more money to donate to causes and important social issues.

There are so many causes that need money here in the U.S., thanks to all the cuts the current administration (Trump in 2025) has made/is making.

There are real issues going on on such as hunger (which I posted about in Dec 2016), homelessness, and so forth.

As you understand what really matters to you and your community, donating to causes becomes a obvious choice as a means of consciously using money. It’s conscious because you are addressing a real problem that needs money and not supporting a system that requires you to be wounded. It’s a way to help heal wounds, not medicate and hide from them.

Sure, non-profits and other organizations have their issues.

They are run by human beings. We carry our issues everywhere.

So education is key once again so that you can be clear about he quality of organization to which you are donating.

I recommend Charity Navigator’s website; they are a rating agency that seems to be legitimate. And if you need a specific charity, I’m a fan of The Center for Victims of Torture and the work they do to stop torture in the U.S. and other places as well as to help victims heals.

Here’s their website:

The Center for Victims of Torture

Challenging Your Scarcity Fears

Now let’s talk about scarcity fears. Scarcity fears distort when and how people use their money. If enough rich people get scared enough, they cause recessions and global economic depressions.

A lot of people feel that they don’t have enough. This fear impacts how their ego decides it can and can’t do certain things, and it shuts a person out from possibility.

People believe their fear is the truth.

But fear is just one ego reaction out of many responses to the moment.

Challenging a scarcity fear means doing and trying things outside of one’s comfort zone. This often challenges the fear of the unknown.

Transcending Fear

You can see why so many people stay trapped in the mental bubble of scarcity. Those are two big fears. Add in a lack of self-worth issue, and the person stays trapped in low-paying jobs. Or a rich person is the proverbial Scrooge who won’t spend an extra penny to help a beggar. Or some people give away all money in reaction to these issues and leave themselves impoverished.

These ego fears and issues distort a person’s perception of reality, leading to all kinds of unconscious decisions.

There are many ways this causes more suffering.

For example, I have watched people say, “No” to even starting a job search when they’re qualified. I’ve watched people sandbag themselves with statements that something “isn’t conscious” or “doesn’t align with their purpose.”

This sort of spiritual nonsense limits and imprisons a person. Very rarely is a person talking about working at a chemical weapons manufacturer. Most jobs are just…jobs. This person will struggle financially for no good purpose.

Seeing where the ego stops you, says you’re not worthy of earning a certain amount of money, can’t do it, and so forth is your spiritual work.

Whatever structural situations and prejudices that exist are not the point. The self-defeating ego will find a million reasons to stay impoverished where impoverishment truly is your own doing and not the work of society. Others will hold on to finances when they need to let go.

Surrender.

Money is a tool to be used. Nothing more.

Spending Consciously the Best You Can

You can’t know everything about everything, and heck, we’re all still learning about ourselves, right? The more you know, the more consciously you can use your money like donating to causes. You can spend it on things that truly support you and your loved ones (like saving for college for your kids). You can spend your money on items that are produced and transported by ethical organizations. You can buy things you actually need, and you will stop buying things just to achieve feelings.

If money is tight in your household, then consciously using money is particularly important to conserve what you need for actual needs–not a satellite dish for cable TV.

As I said earlier, it is an imperfect world.

Sometimes things being “cheap” is more important to people than being ethical, but for those of you who have discretionary buying power, use it!

Encouraging businesses to be more ethical needs to be driven by those with money to help benefit those without and who are in vulnerable economic situations.

Lots of people want to buy local, organic food and products. But they can’t if organic food is more expensive than the standardized food that’s being produced. The more people who buy organic (aka the way food has basically always been until the 20th century), the more businesses can build up their organizations and scale around that, which can potentially lower prices (Yes, I know it is more complicated than that). That can make organic food more accessible to everyone and give lower-income people the realistic choice to buy organic.

This is one example of many of how we collectively can change systems by consciously using money, but it all starts with each one of us.

We can change a lot of the world, and we can do it one consciously spent dollar/pound/euro/etc. at time.

How to Handle an Unconscious Society

Reciprocity and Paying for Spiritual Services

Everything that lives and thrives is in a state of reciprocity. It gives and receives.

If something is not regularly replenished in some way, it decays or dies.

If you want spiritual services, teachers, and organizations to exist, they have to be replenished with resources.

Money is that vehicle.

Tithing, dana, and other forms of giving have been part of supporting churches, Buddhist gatherings, and other spiritual groups for millennia.

This is a fact of reality.

Yet, money has been abused and money beliefs have been profoundly distorted in the spiritual world.

From faith-based healing quacks to nonsensical psychic vampire hunters, spiritual practitioners and organizations have extorted enormous amounts of money from people.

On the other side, expecting your spiritual teachers to financially martyr themselves is a complete denial of how to support people in the modern world. Let’s be honest, you’re not giving me food or a roof over my head.

As such, people like myself ask for money.

But let’s go back to an earlier point: educate yourself.

Ask questions of any spiritual teacher, practitioner, or organization. See who they are over the long-term.

I’ve offered sessions since 2010, and you can read my blog posts going back to that time. I’ve been here for more than a minute. You can also read testimonials and my ebook reviews.

Everyday Spirituality: Cultivating an Awakening (ebook)

I can handle the light of your curiosity.

The fakes can’t.

Where you direct your money impacts how many spiritual frauds exist and how many true teachers can continue to do what we are passionate about.

Claiming Your Conscious Understanding of Money

In claiming your awareness to see the reality of money, you come to a different appreciation of the tool.

For example, if you’ve worked hard to let go of ego to earn more money, then you want it to be used well. Putting your money to work in places and with people who want to use it well becomes a greater priority.

Maybe you study the organizations you donate to more.

Maybe you look into responsible investing.

Maybe you use your money to build a cohousing community.

How about building a community center?

A school?

A car-free zone in a housing development you’re building?

Or maybe you donate more regularly to a food bank.

They need it.

40 Million people face food insecurity just in the U.S.

Your whole view of what is possible for money and for you changes when you let go of scarcity fears and fears that you do not deserve to have money.

And what’s more.

Your community around will be better supported by you.

Everyone wins.

If you need help with your ego limiting you around finances, you can reach out for a session.

Updated 9/15/2025