The thinking
behind it.
This course didn't emerge from a productivity trend or a financial wellness fad. It grew from a sustained engagement with research across several disciplines.
Social comparison theory
The formal study of social comparison dates to Leon Festinger's work in the 1950s, which proposed that humans have a fundamental drive to evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing them to others. What's striking about this original framework is how little it has to say about money directly, and yet how completely it describes the dynamics that shape financial behaviour.
The course takes this theoretical foundation seriously. Rather than presenting simplified pop-psychology versions of comparison dynamics, we engage with the actual research and its genuine complexity, including the conditions under which comparison drives behaviour and the conditions under which it doesn't.
Behavioural economics
The behavioural economics literature has produced a rich body of work on how people actually make financial decisions as opposed to how they're assumed to make them. The research on reference dependence, loss aversion, and the role of social norms in shaping what feels like a reasonable expenditure is directly relevant to understanding comparison-driven spending.
We draw on this research not to pathologise spending behaviour but to make it more legible. Understanding why a particular choice felt obvious in the moment, when it wasn't actually serving your interests, is a different kind of knowledge than understanding what you should have done instead.
Consumer culture research
Consumer research asks different questions than behavioural economics. Where behavioural economics tends to focus on decision processes, consumer culture research examines the meaning that goods carry, how that meaning is constructed socially, and how it functions within different communities and identity projects.
This lens is important for understanding why spending on certain categories feels different from spending on others, why some purchases feel like expressions of self while others feel like concessions to social pressure, and why these distinctions are often unclear at the moment of purchase.
Not prescriptive.
Illuminating.
The course doesn't tell you what to spend or how much. It helps you see the forces at work in your own decisions so you can engage with them more deliberately.
See the sessions
Design principles
How these ideas are translated into course material.
Complexity without jargon
The research this course draws on is genuinely complex. We don't simplify it into three-step frameworks or catchy principles. We present it in language that's accessible without being reductive, because the nuance is where the useful understanding lives.
Recognition before prescription
The course is structured to move from recognition to understanding before it moves toward application. You can't work with a pattern you haven't seen clearly. We spend significant time on the recognition phase because it's where most courses rush past.
Personal rather than universal
The outcome of the course is a personal framework, not a universal rule. What counts as enough, what comparisons are relevant, what signals matter: these differ between people and between life stages. The course helps you build something that fits your situation rather than applying someone else's answer.
No financial advice
This course is educational content only. Nothing in the sessions constitutes financial advice, investment guidance, or personalised recommendations. Participants are encouraged to consult qualified financial professionals for decisions specific to their circumstances.