The article examines everyday ideas of Russians about money and finance that emerged in different periods of XX–XXI centuries. The sources include 95 anecdotes, Internet mems, demotivators of different years, selected on the basis of their references to money and finance, classified into three thematic blocks: 1) general ideas about money and their place in one’s life and society; 2) reaction to state financial policy; 3) current financial practices and recommendations for their optimization. Everyday spontaneous laughter discourse is seen as a form of countersuppression and resistance to mythologizations of social reality. An assumption is confirmed that in the Soviet period the laughter discourse had asserted significance of money and monetary universalism. In the post-Soviet period of the spreading market myth of monetary universalism it asserting importance of non-monetary values and relations. Performing a differentiating function, humor opposes laughing people and the object of ridicule, reduces tension and fear. In the laughter discourse of financial practices there can be determined actors that are perceived as a source of threat to well-being. Laughter discourse as a form of everyday common sense knowledge offers «recipes» for optimizing financial practices in conditions of market instability and public policy.