"Personal finance advice relies on shame". Saw this CNBC article and it really resonated with me...What are your thoughts?

The article is very narrowly framed... Yes a number of personal finance shows / famous people tend to use shame, but partly that's just television and marketing. Shaming people creates drama and attracts viewers (FOMO and kiasu does make people scared and hence more likely to listen to what you have to "sell") , and therefore advertising income.

Coming back to people, personal finance shouldn't be about comparing yourself to other people and whether you are doing as well. But it is true a number of seedly articles (how to get 100k by age 30, etc) and other finance communities may be framed with setting a certain benchmark. I always thought that was not too healthy. Kinda of along the lines like you should get xxx score for psle. It's not right to set the same benchmark for everyone.

Setting benchmarks does however drive people towards at least the benchmark, so it isn't exactly bad, but it can make have some demotivational effects or make people feel bad.

There's one point that Gail once said, and I find that very useful... That it's not about whether you are as good as someone else etc, but the most important point is 6 months from now, are you in a better place / position? would you have net less debt or more assets than you did 6 months before?

If you are better off, that's at least in the right direction. And usually when you are better off, you will be less stress and happier. And that is important.

Firstly, you are stressed about your own situation, please don't everybody runs their own race. Ray Kroc was 52 years old when he started Mcdonalds, Soichiro Honda started Honda Motor Company at 42 after working 22 years as a car mechanic. We will all make it!!

After reading this article, I feel like times has changed compared to the past, I think people are more financially woke than before. Example being, I have seen articles writing about how you can leverage loans to invest with more money than you will ever have. Which is why in today's context, I think the second part of the article is more relevant to today if you read financial blogs.

The situation there similar to a certain extent to Singapore because Asians in general have this view of 'Family as the basic unit of society.' The magnitude of stress that the writer, June has gone through is something that majority of us wouldn't have experienced because compared to western societies, we do indeed get some help from our parents during our schooling years.

The main point is that keep reading new personal finance articles and keep an open mind. SUCCESS for other people might mean differently than success to you. Good luck!!!