I’ve noticed something in the past few weeks:
There is a lot of financial anxiety in the air right now.
What the f is financial anxiety?
“Financial anxiety can be described as a fear-based response or attitude towards one’s personal finances that is often connected to (or leads to) ineffective money management and suboptimal financial decision-making”
Megan Ford, MS.
I’ve definitely had financial anxiety, I know we all have at one point or another. Especially now with increasing inflation rates, whispers of looming recessions, increasing interest rates, etc, etc.
Anxiety can manifest due to fear of the unknown, excessive change, feeling out of control, as well as a handful of other reasons. During these times, and frankly, any time you feel your financial anxiety sneaking up on ya… Take some time to reflect and let your thoughts guide you on what keeps replaying in your head.
I’ll be addressing financial anxiety in three parts:
- Fear
- Comparison
- Shame & Guilt
- What is causing you this fear?
- Are you scared of losing your job?
- Are you feeling out of control because you may be excessively spending?
- Do you feel uneasy because you don’t know where your money is going?
- Do you keep going over budget and need a system that works?
- Is an emergency causing financial hardship?
Get over your financial anxiety by addressing your fears and acknowledging your thoughts.
Upon doing this:
- You can start working towards a solution or a plan to ease the anxiety.
- You make room in your head because you’ve addressed that though. Do not let thoughts linger there and take up room… It’s like having a million tabs open and your mental capacity isn’t the same.
If you’re currently feeling any anxieties, try this:
Take a deep breath and say out loud what your biggest money fears are. Most of these will feel silly as you say them out loud, some others will be realistic fears, but after you’ve done this, you will feel lighter.
Now that you know what you’re scared of, DIG DEEP into your personal finances and closely look at what’s coming in and what’s going out. Was one of your fears of job loss? Then one of your money goals could be to save up an emergency fund that will give you peace of mind.
Give yourself actionable steps to address these fears. The moment you do that, your fear won’t feel as enormous but manageable instead.
Nothing is written in stone, so if something that was working for you a few months ago isn’t working now, change it. The only constant in life is change. Align your budget with your goals.
