05: Financial Anxiety and Relationship Building
I am getting SO many questions about financial anxiety and how it shows up in relationships. In this episode, I answer questions about what to do if financial anxiety shows up differently for you than for your spouse, why you must talk about money with your partner, and the big myth I see touted about financial anxiety. If you can’t listen or want to read through the highlights, I’ve got them listed below:
Financial anxiety can be experienced by any person, regardless of income, net worth, or socioeconomic status. You cannot “cure” financial anxiety only by earning more money or “budgeting better.”
Money worries show up in many ways. In general, humans don’t like to feel uncomfortable. When it comes to money, we often make quick money actions to avoid the feeling of discomfort.
Recently (when I recorded this in April 2020) I’ve been hearing that people in romantic relationships struggle when one partner is more willing to take financial risks whereas the other person wants to financially hunker down. What I hear when I learn of scenarios like this is that each person is trying to quiet their financial anxiety. The person more willing to take risks is soothing their financial anxiety by saying “taking this risk will provide me with safety and security.” The other person’s financial anxiety is showing up by saying “what makes me feel safe and secure is seeing money in my bank account readily available.”
Before jumping to blame when your partner has a different idea of how to manage money, first ask yourselves what the common ground is so you can move forward in alignment with each other.
The common ground is often safety and security. Creating a compromise or collaboration is often the best choice when trying to deal with financial anxiety in a relationship.
When we experience financial anxiety, it’s important to come back to the basics, “How much do I need to earn to pay for the things I need to live?” For example, how much will it cost to pay rent, buy food, and keep on the utilities? Now is not a time to be proud: seek financial assistance if you need it, whether that’s seeking food assistance, delayed payment for utilities, or a mortgage forbearance.
If you’ve lost your job, file for unemployment ASAP. The best way is to google “your state” + “unemployment,” and make sure the website has a .gov domain to avoid scams
Get scrappy! If you’ve lost work, seek out freelance positions as a virtual assistant, use your existing skills and sell them (e.g. if you are a soccer coach, sell spots to Zoom training sessions to help kids stay active).
Be kind to yourself and to your spouse. Each of us responds differently to financial anxiety. The more you know about how you—and your partner—respond to financial anxiety the more you can hold space for one another emotionally and financially.
Missed the freebie I’d mentioned in the episode or in previous episodes? Grab 5 Ways to Start the Money talk here.
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[00:00:00] Let's just start right at the beginning. What the heck is anxiety and what is financial anxiety? So anxiety is a healthy temporary response to a stressor. Anxiety can show up in the way we think and the way we feel and and in the way we act. And it's normal. It's normal to feel worried or anxious or apprehensive when something stressful is happening.
[00:00:30] And right now in our world, there are a lot of unknowns and therefore, quite a bit of stress is going around so it makes sense that you'd be feeling an increase in anxiety, specifically financial anxiety. So what is financial anxiety? It is exactly what anxiety is, but in relationship to our money. So it's feeling on edge, worried or nervous about our money, and it shows up in the way that we think about money, the way we feel about money, and how we behave, what actions we take when it comes to our money.
[00:01:10] And money anxiety has been stressful for all of y'all for a very long time. According to a survey done in 2018 by Northwestern Mutual, financial anxiety was ranked number one in terms of what was stressing Americans out, so prior to our current world in which we live, I am recording this in April of 2020, money was a stressor for everybody. So this is not new. You know, that survey was done when our economy was really rocking and rolling and still it was stressing people out. And the reason I wanna point that out is because it leads into the biggest myth I hear about financial anxiety, and that is that you can only experience financial anxiety if you have a lack of money.
[00:02:03] If you have a lower income, if you are somehow stressed about making ends meet, That's when people think that you have financial anxiety in that. Therefore, the "cure for financial anxiety must be making more money or budgeting better," or something like that. And I am here to debunk that myth because you can have financial anxiety regardless of your income, regardless of your net worth, regardless of your socioeconomic status.
[00:02:34] So I want for you to hear that really loudly and clearly, that if you're stressed out about your money, And on paper things look okay. That's okay. It's normal. You are human. And I'm here today to talk about how financial anxiety can show up in our relationships, right? So we can see money worries show up in a number of ways, but I wanted to talk about one of the, the ones that I've been hearing a lot of.
[00:03:02] Recently, before I even get into that, what it comes down to is when we are financially anxious, we often make unwise choices because we don't want to feel anxiety. We, we get uncomfortable with feeling uncomfortable. So instead of sitting with that discomfort and then feeling more neutral in making wise choices, we make these kind of knee-jerk reactions so that we don't have to deal with it. And sometimes this means we make financial choices that are not really thought out. Right? They might be a little bit irrational or not as wise as we wanted them to be, or we could have acted in if we had our financial anxiety under control.
[00:03:46] Okay, so back to a question that I have had come up a lot, which is like my partner is basically behaving in a way that leads me to think that they think money is never gonna run out and that money is not an issue and they, they don't seem to get it. They are still super, super interested in investing in the stock market cuz they're saying everything's on sale or they really want us to buy duplexes because they think that's the way to get out of this situation and not feel financially anxious.
[00:04:18] And then you've got the other person who's like, all I wanna do is kind of store all my nuts for winter. I just want to see as much money as physically possible piling up in my checking account. And what I can kind of read between the lines, cause I've been doing this for a while, is both of those people are behaving in ways to try and quiet their financial anxiety.
[00:04:43] That first person, by trying to invest in the stock market right now by looking at rental or investment properties. Right now they are feeling uncertain and by buying stocks, by buying properties, by doing something like that, that might look a little bit risky to somebody. That is their way of saying that is gonna provide me safety and security.
[00:05:10] And when we're anxious, that's what we want. We want to feel safe and we want to feel secure. We don't want to feel uncomfortable. And then you have that other person. Whose financial anxiety is showing up by saying, wow, I really need to save. What's gonna make me feel safe and secure is seeing money in my bank account that is readily accessible.
[00:05:35] So when these situations arise in a relationship with a couple, I think it's wise to just, before we jump to like blaming a person for the way that they're behaving or for the way that they're responding, to think about like what is a possible common ground here with the financial anxiety and how can we work together as a unit, as a couple?
[00:05:59] How can we lean on our strength that is there? So that we can move forward as a unit. And in this hypothetical example where one person wants to invest and one person wants to save, and that's each of their own ways of, of coping with this financial anxiety. You know, how can we find that common ground?
[00:06:24] The common ground is safety and security and what we can do. It's kind of meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe we'll consider purchasing a duplex and maybe we'll bulk up our emergency fund, but maybe we won't buy three duplexes, duplexes, and we won't save, you know, two years worth of an emergency fund.
[00:06:46] Now, I know there are people out there who are like, Lindsay, you are so disconnected from the real world. People right now aren't worried about investing. They're worried about making ends meet, and I hear you. I'm not discounting that at all. I know that job loss and job insecurity right now is incredibly real.
[00:07:08] The people that I'm working with have lost their jobs. Not everybody is remaining as above board as that hypothetical first example. So if you are feeling financially anxious, then I go back to what I said a couple of episodes ago, which is we gotta get back to the basics. The basics of what do I need, bare minimum, just to survive? How much money do I need so that I can pay my rent, buy groceries, and have my utilities turned on? What do I need to earn and how can I earn that? And right now, this is not a time to be proud if you are a small business owner, you really need to be looking into the small business association loans and grants that are being pumped out at the time of this recording.
[00:07:59] You need to be thinking about just using the resources that are available right now. The government, regardless of your political affiliation, does not want everybody to be unemployed and not be able to pay their bills. We want the economy to get back to a healthy and thriving place because that's what is best for all of us.
[00:08:23] If we have seen anything come out of what has been happening in our world lately, it's that we are all interconnected. And when one of us does well, we can contribute to our communities and lift up our community members. So I want for you to think if you're in that position of having just lost a job file for unemployment ASAP.
[00:08:43] Okay? Go to look. Just Google your state + unemployment. Hit enter and the website information should come up that will guide you on how to file for unemployment benefits. Okay, so file for your unemployment, see if you are eligible for a stimulus check if you're a small business owner in any way, shape or form, make sure you're checking out the small business association loans and grants that are available.
[00:09:11] And then it's time to get a little bit scrappy. You know? Right now there are places that are hiring. Yes. Not food service. Probably. Yes. Not hair salons, but are there people who are hiring and need help? Yep. Amazon certainly has been hiring like crazy. I know that various food delivery services have been hiring a lot, so if you are able, you can do that.
[00:09:36] And if you are bound to your home, what are some skills that you might be able to market and sell quickly to inject a little bit of cash? I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with an online marketing person Amy Porterfield, but she was just sharing on her podcast. One of her students had created like a quick, I think it was 20 bucks for a week.
[00:10:02] And it was a course to help kids move their bodies so that they could kind of regulate their emotions and people were lining up virtually to get their hands on that because their kids are going stir crazy. Parents are trying to work from home and homeschool, and they were hungry and happy to pay that 20 bucks to have a problem solved for them.
[00:10:26] So think about what are some skills that might be of use to other people at this point in time, and how can you offer those services in exchange for money. There's no shame in that right now. Well, there's no shame in that ever, but certainly not right now that that kind of covers the overview of how financial anxiety might be showing up and how to tackle it, particularly if it's showing up differently for you than for your spouse, and it just, keeps highlighting, for me, the importance of why you have to talk about money with your partner, because the problem is if you aren't talking about money with your partner regularly and safely and in a, a way that works for you.
[00:11:17] Then what you're doing is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that talking about money is going to be boring at best and end in an argument at worst. Because what's going to happen is you don't talk about money cuz you think it's awkward or uncomfortable. And then when you finally talk about money, you're only talking about it because things are big and stressful, so you're only talking about it because one of you has lost your job. You're only talking about it because you logged into your retirement accounts, and then emotions are high. Anxiety is high, tension is high. And it creates an environment where talking about money is not fun and does result in some tension or discomfort or an argument, and then it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy of, see, this is why we don't talk about money, because when we talk about money, it becomes an argument.
[00:12:10] So this is why you have to include it regularly. In a structured way, and you can go back to my earlier episode about how to start that money conversation with your partner. And I will include in my show notes a link to that episode and also a link to the free downloadable Five Ways to Start the Money Talk with your partner if you're in need of some guidance around initiating that conversation. So back to financial anxiety and relationship building. Once you can first start to identify the way financial anxiety is showing up for you, both as individuals and as a couple. Then you can start to work through it together, and that's really where the relationship deepens and strengthens and gets built out because you are connecting on a deeper and stronger level when you are being vulnerable about how you are feeling about your financial anxiety and about your money.
[00:13:12] So I want to let you know that I get that this is a stressful time and I want for you to be able to invest in your relationship by including money in it, but also just. You know, deepening your relationship in general right now, it's a really tricky time to be cooped up and to feel like there isn't a lot to do.
[00:13:39] So I'm gonna be hosting a free seven day email challenge for couples from April 14th to the 21st, so April 14th through the 21st of 2020. All you have to do is be on my email list and each day you will get a little prompt that is going to only take you and your partner five minutes or less, so it's not gonna take up a bunch of time.
[00:14:04] All these people talking about having more time and being more productive in our current season, I'm like, I don't know who you are. Everyone I know has less and less time, which is why I wanted to create something that was really, really mindful of how valuable time is and also how valuable it is to invest in your relationship by only taking a few minutes a day.
[00:14:29] So all you have to do is be on my email list. So if you're already on my email list, congrats, you are already ready to go. And if you aren't, just head to my website, mind money balance.com, and you can get on my email list there if you have signed up. To get my five ways to start the money talk with your partner.
[00:14:50] You'll have signed up for my email list there. So that is something that's coming up soon and I'm so excited to be able to take you guys through something that's a little bit fun in light and a way to deepen and build on your relationship in this very strange season that we find ourselves in.