THE MONEY WE INHERIT

What if the most important financial inheritance is not money, but the way we think about it?

Two families can earn similar incomes and yet arrive at completely different financial futures. One may save, invest and build assets across generations, while another may remain trapped in debt, status spending and financial anxiety even as its income improves.

Why?

The Money We Inherit explores the hidden forces that shape our financial lives: the habits we absorb from our parents, the scarcity we experience as children, cultural expectations surrounding money, and the behavioural biases that influence our decisions as adults.

Drawing on behavioural economics, psychology, Indian economic data and cultural observation, Vishesh Agarwal examines a question that conventional discussions of poverty and wealth often overlook: How much of our financial future is shaped by what we inherit psychologically rather than financially?

From the difference between literacy and financial capability to the psychology of debt, status spending, risk and saving, this book explores why earning more does not always translate into building lasting wealth.

The book also examines where structural realities end and personal financial behaviour begins. It does not argue that poverty is simply a mindset problem. Instead, it focuses on households that have already achieved a degree of economic stability and asks whether inherited attitudes, financial capability and behavioural patterns can influence how effectively income becomes long term financial security.

If financial behaviour can be inherited, perhaps it can also be changed.

You may not be able to choose what your family gives you.

But you can choose what you pass on.