“It’s My Treat”: How using money to earn validation is a dangerous game

Kayus Fernander
6 min readDec 1, 2020

It almost never works out well.

Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

I sat across the dinner table from two people who I knew casually from work. “Don’t worry guys, it’s my treat”, I blurted out. The bill arrived, between the 3 of us, it was $75. Without any hesitation, I reached for my wallet, and pulled out the new Capital One credit card that I got in the mail 2 weeks before.

“Oh, OK” they responded awkwardly. We’d just finished a meal at a new restaurant nearby, situated in the Chicago suburb where we worked for the same logistics company. I’d convinced myself that I was working towards a career in corporate America like I’d always wanted, but the truth was that I hated my job and I was really struggling with the daily commute from downtown Chicago.

Truth is, I was struggling with a number of things, money being near the top of that list, and I really couldn’t afford to pay for dinner. But this wasn’t the first time I’d done something like this, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Here, take my card, I’m happy to impress you while this interest rate kills me” Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Time after time, I used money to seek validation. Whether it was dinners, jewellery, small loans, clothing or gifts, I spent tens of…

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Kayus Fernander

I love teaching people about money, using my mistakes as what not to do. I want to help 1,000 people get one step closer to better personal finances!