Episode four eighty eight, Start Healing your money trauma with Shana Game.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life here your hosts, Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about money traumas, not just big ones, but small ones as well.
Yeah, big tea, little tea, How to even identify if you've experienced money trauma, how to heal from it? So really really great conversation that I think we'll all get a lot out of. But first, this episode is brought to you by people in your corner, the ones cheering you on, providing encouragement, creating a distraction so no one sees that embarrassing near fall. Need some more people like this.
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Yes, all right, So before I want to just preface this by saying like sometimes money trauma. Sometimes the word trauma can be like a heavy word, but this really does encompass all of our Shannas says it money icks. If trauma feels too heavy of a word, you can also describe it as an ick. And I think even like, I got to learn some language to talk about some of the things that I've felt about money in the past.
So I think this is a really good interview. If you are in coouraged by this episode and you want to queue up a couple others for later, We've got episode for eighty two, how our nervous system impacts our spending and episode four seventy three, how to become a better financial decision maker. That's with Jessica Morehouse. And those are two really really good ones to queue up for later, So let's get into it. Shawna is a financial planner.
She's a certified Trauma of Money specialist and author of the upcoming book Unraveling Your Relationship with Money, all about money traumas and the things she's talking about today. She has over twenty years of expertise in the industry, and she doesn't let that give her jargon. She really does have a relatable, non nonsense approach to money. So her book is already out, already available, and we just hope that if this is something that you feel like you
need more on, that is definitely where to go. So without further ado, let's get into it.
Let's talk to Shauna.
Shawna. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We're so excited to have you.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
This is a conversation I'm surprised we haven't really.
Had, especially with Jill on the show for almost five hundred episodes.
I mean, we touch on these types of conversations that we've never had an episode titled something like this, So it absolutely makes sense that we would have you on, Shauna to help us through this conversation as well. So glad that you're here.
Yes, okay, So let's start out with what kinds of life events or experiences can cause money trauma.
This is what's really interesting because I think a lot of times people think that it has to be something big, right, like that maybe you grew up in poverty or there was a lot of financial stress in your family, and those things, for sure are indicators of money trauma. But It could also be something that is seemingly small. For instance, let's say you forgot to pay a bill and then it went to collections or your credit score dropped right,
and it was just a complete accident. But every time you look at your bank statement or your phone app, you feel these somatic like inner body experiences, like your hands start, you know, your palms get sweaty, and your heart starts racing, and your shoulders get tight, and there's something going on, right, it's causing this traumatic response in you from this seemingly small event. So it could be, you know, both of those things on either spectrum and
anything in between. It could be maybe you were in a relationship with someone and maybe there was some level of financial abuse, or even they just made you feel really terrible, horrible for how you spent your money, or you know, debt you might have been, or your student loan, any of those things that caused this emotional kind of pain and distress inside of you. Is trauma money trauma
showing up. So it could be so many different situations, and that's why I think taking a moment of having awareness, so when you go to look at your app the next time of your bank or you're in a conversation with someone, or maybe you're out with your friends and you start to feel those bodily sensations or something going on inside that feels anxiety, shame, judgment, nervousness. That's your cue to go, huh, okay, what is actually going on here and where is this even coming from?
Yeah, money situations can cause a disruption to our sense of safety and security and put us in this kind of hyper vigilant mode of almost fight like freeze. I've experienced this at times with you know, unexpected really large bills of oh no, what is going to happen to me?
And you know, over time, you know that the bodily remembrance of that experience and you know what that then did to me and my way of thinking, and then what what kind of actions that caused and then kind of how we might end up living out of that place too, is you know, if we don't kind of recognize it as a trauma, which I think you're kind of helping us to identify, like, these are disruptive experiences and can yeah, really cause us a bit of chaos
inside of ourselves. And if we don't acknowledge that, then how what kinds of habits and behaviors then form as a result of that.
Yeah, this is also another really interesting one. We all talk about emergency funds and how important emergency funds are. A lot of people actually experience a sense of trauma around spending or needing to spend their emergency fund. They feel a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, and their brain goes into that fight or flight mode of
what if I need this money? Downline, what if another emergency comes up and it creates this trauma where it's in fact so difficult to even move money from emergency fund to checking account, And a lot of people will then just turn to credit cards. The idea of being in credit card debt actually feels better to them, is less of a traumatic response than spending money from a savings account. So there's all these really sneaky ways, which is I think what makes this so difficult to like
put a container around. And that's why I really suggest just paying attention to what's going on in your body and where you are and who you're around, and you know, kind of the whole environment of what's happening in those situations.
Yeah, speaking of paying attention, what would you say, are some of the signs that someone might be struggling with some unresolved money trauma.
Obviously avoidance, right, so if we're avoiding looking at our money, or we're avoiding doing some of the tasks around money that we know are are important. We've talked about the bodily sensation, so anxiety, stress, shame, judgment, fear, nervousness, any of those things. But then also something that you know kind of correlates with your show. Patterns of overspending or underspending could be signs that you know there's some sort of money trauma going on there that needs to be investigated.
And then also a difficulty of setting and achieving money goals. So I haven't tell people that, you know, think of money trauma this way. You're on one side of a bridge and you really want to get to the other side of the bridge. You've got these things you want to do with money, but you just you can't figure out how to get there. Whether it's paying off debt or saving to buy a house or whatever it is, or it's you're spending or you know, relationship around money
with your partner. There's something that's keeping you stuck on one side of the bridge. That's a good indication that there's some some sort of money trump, there's something underneath the onion layers there that's worth looking into, that is stopping you from being able to get to the place that you really want to get to.
Yeah, I see this. I think even when people are financially successful, I see a lot of money trauma and sometimes the success is a result of it, and people don't think about that. Like even after we paid off our debt, we paid off my husband and I paid off seventy eight thousand dollars in two years, and afterwards I thought, Okay, all of my problems are solved. My money is fine. I'm at like net zero, I own
a house. I'm fine. And now when I go to spend, I feel guilty because for two years my money had this ultimate purpose and I had nothing else to focus on but this one financial goal. And now I have some like PTSD from not having from overvaluing that financial goal too much for those two years and not having a one to like fall back on as seriously. And so that's what led me to the fire movement. I wasn't dealing with that. I just transferred it to another
good financial goal. And it wasn't till I got laid off that I actually was forced to deal with it, because then I can no longer afford to be quote unquote financially successful anymore. Like to me, that is, nobody was talking about that kind of trauma.
Absolutely, How did you? I'm just curious, like, how did you? What did you do to work through it? Like once you had that kind of aha moment, this is what's happening well.
And a lot of it.
So a lot of that working through it is made it into our book, and it was I placed my value and my identity in how good I was at saving and before I didn't have a money identity. Before I was just spending and I was making budgets and not sticking to them. And then I succeeded at something financially, so then okay, I've succeeded in this, So now my identity is in this, so now I have to keep succeeding in it, and so then I couldn't have that
as my identity anymore. So then I would love to say that I dealt with it, But then I just started freelance writing and being my own boss us and I put my identity and my success there, and it was when I got burnt out there very quickly with a newborn that I had to be like, oh my gosh,
I'm just transferring my identity from success to success. I have to figure out who I truly am and what I truly value and what my enough is and put my identity there if I really want to use money as a tool and not an identity.
I love that you shared that story, because that is the that is the whole package, right, And I think a real part of when we recognize these bodily sensations or these things that might be causing trauma, a really important piece is just the acknowledgment and the validation of these feelings that these exist, and that again, that doesn't make me a terrible, horrible person. It's just I experienced something or I you know, my money story from growing up.
These were beliefs and values that I've transferred over from my parents or that I saw and heard, and they're playing out in my money, in my interactions with money. So I think we tend to overlook that really important piece that you're talking about of acknowledging and validating how you're feeling, because that's the first place of going Okay, well, now what do we do from here?
Okay, so what do we do from here? Like, what can someone do to start healing from money traumas, whether they're successes or maybe quote unquote you know, failures or whatever you would define them as we've.
Talked about the piece of acknowledging what's going on my body, who I'm around, all of that. That is absolutely like ground zero step one here. Once we recognize that that's happening, I think then there is a what you're what you just describe your process is thinking about where does this come from? Can I identify any root, any foundation of.
What this is?
Is it a person? Is it a place? Is it a thing that happened to me?
Is it a belief?
Like you know, I love journaling, so I think this might be a great if somebody listening is into journaling of just kind of free writing without without judging yourself, of thinking about you know, from that curiosity perspective you talked about that on my show of Investigating it almost if you were an outside person and you were kind of looking at these set of facts and trying to decipher where they came from, so doing that, and then I think, once you have this understanding of where this
came from, there's a lot of different exercises depending on the type of person that you are. There's an exercise I talk about in my book unraveling your relationship with money, which is financi forgiveness. So it's pretty simple, but it actually is pretty powerful, and there are scientific studies behind
exercises like this. But it's setting a timer on your phone five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, it doesn't matter, whatever feels good to you, and writing out all of the things that you feel really bad about money, maybe things that you spent money on, or mistakes that you made, or gosh, my parents did this around money, and now I'm doing the same thing, Like, just write it all
out without any judgment. Step away from that assignment when the timer goes off for twenty four hours, come back, reread this with a fresh brain perspective. And then the last step is we got to get rid of it. ShredIt, burn it, throw it in the trash. I don't care what you do with it, whatever feels cathotic to you. But there's a lot of scientific studies behind getting stuff that's in our brain that we just rumerate on getting it out into paper and letting some of these things go.
And then another thing I talk about is, you know, when we're dealing with money trauma, we're talking about events and situations that happened in the past, things that we have we have been through, so that stuff we cannot change, but going forward, we have a lot of self control over what we do going forward. And so if you are somebody who's a journaler, I love creating what I
call your money hero story. So this is writing the story for yourself of what it looks like in your relationship with money, what it looks like for you to define enoughness, to define wealth, to figure out what you value spending money on all of these things. Write that story and be your own hero of what this journey looks like going forward.
I so appreciate how you're acknowledging that in the midst of trauma, we can also come across shame and regret and maybe even mistakes or failure, although we don't view those things as negative things, but the weight that they can cause for us, that there's so much wrapped up here, but that they need to be acknowledged and ventilated and looked at and then dealt with whether by like we're going to we're going to turn a new leave, We're
going to move forward. But I think I realized this, you know, even in writing the book that we just put out, kind of some of the financial regret that I have. I don't know that with this particular piece
I would call it a money trauma. But sometimes I wish that I had chosen a career path that would have been a little bit more lucrative for me instead of the social work career that you know, paid me twenty four thousand dollars a year and yet also being able to I think it wasn't until I said that, like, ah, man, this this kind of stinks. Sometimes I wish I had chosen something different to then, like you're saying, give myself that space, come back to it and say, but what
did it provide? And almost this new gratitude to I was able to do work and engage with people and be a support and help truly help people in difficult
situations as a result of this. And so yes, there was sacrifice, but there was also a becoming that happened inside of me as part of that, and so I think I'm just kind of underscoring the process that you're describing to say that when this happens, new perspective can come and gratitude can even be paired with what we might have previously thought was poor decision making or financial
regret or things we were previously ashamed of. We can bring new lenses to that and a new narrative to it, and then have like a healthier foundation to be able to move forward from.
And I think that's such a great perspective because you know a couple of things to say. If money trauma feels for a lot of people, that feels like a very heavy word right when we're talking about trauma, feels like oh, so I tell people just think of it as like you know, financial ick, like when you get those ikeyk feelings, right, if the word trauma feels too
big for you. But I think the you know, we've been so trained, especially around money, to think negatively of ourselves, to think that we have many mistakes and that that's the worst thing ever. And our brain is really trained to act out every day in that perspective. So it takes some heavy lifting. It's like training for a marathon. We don't just go out and run, you know, twenty
six miles. The same thing with trying to reregulate our nervous system around money and also our brain around money and our interactions, our habits, all of those things, they're going to take time. So when we and we notice these areas, I think it's important to focus on tiny little winds. So when you're talking about, you know, renaming things, a way that money trauma shows up a lot of
times is debt. People have debt, and that obviously is a very traumatic, heavy experience, genuine sharing your story around debt, but I think we can get stuck in the trauma feeling of that. And Jill, you're talking about gratitude piece, like what if you know, and I know this is crazy for most people to think this way, but what if we looked at our debt and said, Okay, don't like it, I don't want it. I want to figure
out how to get away out of it. But look at what it actually has provided, Like maybe it provided a roof, or it started my business, or it paid for my kid's childcare or even though that's not how I wanted that to happen, it happened, right, So I can choose how I'm framing that, and that starts to take away some of that emotional just power and starts to change the narrative around things that feel really big and heavy around money.
I love how you're describing our relationship with money, and this is such an interesting concept to me because in typical relationships, if something is not healthy, we can kind of choose to opt out and remove ourselves from that situation and find relationships that are healthy and aren't traumatizing us. But when it comes to money, we still have to
engage in it. And so it's this reworking that I'm hearing you describe of here's how I used to relate to money, but how can I help to make this relationship more healthy the way that I view and engage with money. Can you describe a little bit kind of for yourself or maybe people that you've worked with, what that shift can look like, or what you've seen for people as they go from I had a toxic relationship with money. Money's still there, I have to inca with it,
but now I've got a healthy relationship with money. Like what that shift looks like?
Well, you know, as I talk about my book, Our relationship with money, I believe is the longest relationship you're going to have outside of your relationship with yourself, because our whole lives we're having to deal with this thing
called money. So just what you're saying, Joe, like, we would just opt out right if we were dating somebody and they said terrible things to us and they treated us horribly, we would just say bye bye, like this is not working hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, But we can't do that with money. So we owe ourselves a permission slip to try to do this thing differently. And a story I talk about in my book. This is a personal story.
I am a twenty year money expert, but just because I am does not mean that I don't have these hang ups around money that everyone else does. It's probably why I actually went into the career. To be honest with you, but I used to hate looking at ATM receipts because what would happen is I would look at the numbers and I would start my brain is one
of those just super analytical, overactive. I would start subtracting all of the things that I knew I needed to pay and in a nanosecond I had myself broke homeless, you know, everything was going to be a representsed like that's how irrational we can be around money. And because we don't walk around sharing this stuff with anyone else, right,
we think we're our own little container. And so I got divorced in my early thirties and as I left my house and the only thing I had to my name was a car with a really expensive car payment and a blue suitcase. That was all I had. I went to the ATM because I needed to take some money out. And it was that moment where I thought, Okay, instead of taking these ATM receipts and turning them into origami and shoving them into my wallet, I need to
actually look. And so I thought, well, what if I I'm a big, like bone timer person, Like, what if I set my timer for a minute and I looked at the receipt for a minute and that was that was the most exposure I could have, you know that I could humanly possibly handle at that time period. So I did that, and I thought, Okay, that wasn't so bad. What if I set the timer for five minutes next time?
And I tell myself, you only have five minutes where you can think whatever thoughts are running crazy in your brain. Once that timer's off, we're going to let this go. And so I started to then work on these little like incremental exposure habits around things that felt really scary about money. And I started them teaching those two clients like what if you did this, or what if it was you know, only this little time period, or you had a money date, but it was ten minutes and
that was it, you know. And I started noticing that when the human brain could say, Okay, this is my time frame for doing some of these things that feel really scary. And then on the other end, I would tell people give yourself a tiny little reward, something something really you know, inexpensive, but something that you super love,
because we love that aspect as humans. And so I started to see people like, oh, they're starting to cross the bridge now with just these little shifts and how they're interacting with these these big topics around money that feel super heavy, super traumatizing to them. And so everything that I talk about in the book, the book's super personal, and I have other people's stories comes from my experience and then me saying, okay, I have to change my
relationship with money. Let me try it on other people and see if it works for other people. And it you know, whether somebody was making a million dollars or somebody was just starting out, I would see, Oh, these same aha moments happen, and there has to be something here that we're not taught about when we're taught traditional personal finance.
Yeah, it is.
It is so crazy, Like because I also, having been like in personal finance writing for like eight years, still deal with a lot of these money traumas.
Like they don't just go away.
When you were like, I think I got into this because of them, and I was like, yeah, I think I did too, because I was miserable paying off debt, and so I started writing about it to help people that wanted to do what I was doing, which is pay off debt but not be as miserable. So like, they don't just go away. No matter how much you know about money, no matter how many podcasts you listen to or books you read, Knowing more does not solve the problem. It's actually like taking these steps to.
Learn about yourself.
Oh, got to do the work. Yeah. Speaking of relationships, and you talked about relationship our relationship with money. But I also imagine that money trauma impacts just our actual relationships with the people around us. What have you seen with that and what does healing look like in that regard When we do notice that these money traumas are impacting the way that we're relating with other people.
Almost every single couple that I've either coached or are in my life have you know, a very interesting dynamic around money. For a lot of people, there is a very very charged feelings around this. A lot of times people will say, well, we're just going to keep our accounts separate because that way we'll never argue about money, and I'm like, that doesn't work that way. There is stuff that's going to come up, or what happens if one of you are disabled or lose your job, Like,
we cannot avoid those situations. And I think that we feel so charged mainly because we don't understand our own money traumas, or our own relationship with money, or our own money story. We don't really want to think about those things because for a lot of us, that's scary. Money is already scary, so we do not want to hyper focus on those sorts of things. So if we don't know that about ourselves, or we're not willing to
be honest. And we've got two people involved. That's two people having the same kind of human response to money, and so that's what leads to you know, defensiveness, arguments, divorce, breaking up, all sorts of things around money. And I really think the way to heal this with couples is coming from a place of non judgment and coming from that place of curiosity and being super interested in Tell me about how many was talked about when you grew up.
Tell me about like some of those beliefs that you carried over from childhood. Tell me about the things that get you really nervous or you're scared about around money. And also I think it's you know, I talk in
the book about for money personalities. I think it's important to understand what your strengths are around money, what your partner strengths, and then what your blind spots are, because often we choose a partner that's different than us, and so we can actually borrow our strengths to help their blind spots and vice versa. But we can't do that if we're just stuck in judging the other person about
a myriad of things. So I think it's really got to come from this place of being curious, whether that's playing a game or just having casual conversations around money when it's not so stressed. Is really important because this shows up in how we sleep, it shows up in our intimacy with a partner, it shows I mean, it shows up in every area.
I am loving this exposure or looking into kind of understanding ourselves, our own relationship with money, our relationship with other people, how it's impacted, and I think just underscoring the need to give ourselves the time and space to know who we are better. And so yeah, so grateful for how you've highlighted all of that. And you know what else I'm grateful for and so curious about.
I borrow from frequently and it does strengthen me the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill clion.
This is the bill of the week, Shauna.
Every week we yell at our.
Listeners and our guests, and we invite them to share their bill with us, and we would love to hear yours today.
Mine actually isn't a bill, but it's a check that I received that is so fascinating. It was for thirty eight cents from a job I did five years ago that they forgot to pay me the extra thirty eight cents, and I thought it was so humorous that I actually just pasted it on the wall and thought, I am never going to bend this. I'm just going to look at it because it just it's like one of those
things that just makes me crack up about money. And so when I feel stressful, I love having those things that are just totally laughable.
Oh my gosh, how ridiculous. I mean, that's it's very justice oriented and very mathematical.
And what kind of job was it? Was it of like freelance or something.
It was, Yes, it was a freelance job where I was an on camera host for a couple of money teaching videos. And you know, what they paid me out was actually like a fairly large sum. And so with this thirty eight cent check was just a sorry we were doing our our records, and we realized that we
underpaid you. And so I thought reading the letter, like, oh, this is going to be like this is gonna be a big check, right, And then I get to open the check and I'm just, like I said to my husband, I'm like, it's thirty eight cents.
Man?
What a let down? No, that is crazy.
I actually wrote them a thank you for you know, thank you for making sure that I received that thirty eight cents.
Could you imagine? Yeah, if you were just fuming these last years they owe me.
I mean there's in finance, there's not a lot of ethics, and so what a what a dream?
It was such a dream. I'm like, can you actually look back in your records?
Is there more money than you potentially owe me?
Like if we're going on this treasure hunt, like can we really dig here?
Are you sure it was a thirty eight cents?
Yeah? Is the period in the wrong position?
Is?
I want to know?
Couldn't move it three dollars and eighty cents?
Could it be thirty eight dollars?
Could let's just keep moving it to the right.
Could be three million dollars? I'd be lovely. Wow, Well, if you all listening have a bill that you want to share, if it's about a bit a non bill, it's about just change that you have been owed for years. Or if your name is Bill Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill, leave it for us.
We can't wait, And now it's time for the all right, I don't know what the lightning war in question is.
Okay, I'm going to read it. Here we go. We're all going to answer on this vulnerability round. What's a money decision you've made recently that your younger self would have felt bad about or ashamed of. Let you go first, SHAWNA.
So many choices here to go with. If I'm going to be super honest, I had a certain amount of money that I could have put in investing, but instea, I took that check and I went out and spent it on all sorts of things that I probably didn't need.
But I'm in this process of putting out my book right now, and there was something so cathartic outspending an amount of money that I probably should have invested and done something much better for and spent it on a myriad of things that I'm sure in a week I will recognize that I don't need, but I'll probably keep them because I hate the process of actually going out returning things.
But now are you ashamed of it now, like or do you feel a sense of freedom because of the healing you've experienced.
There's still like a little bit of a shame there, like, oh, don't plug that number into a compound interest calculator and see what that could turn into in five or ten years. So yeah, there's there's a little shame there. I mean, that's the tough part of it being a money expert, is you know what you should do, and when you don't do what you know you should do, you really have to talk yourself off the little ledge.
When you're a financial expert, you're always plugging in an amount of money into a compound interest calculator that I did that yesterday.
I think that's the double edged sword of knowing so much about money, or even if you're not talking about money every day, if you're getting better with your money and recognizing opportunity costs. But I think we also need to have some freedom and permission to not do the most optimized, efficient right thing with our money, because we are human and sometimes we also need to just enjoy life in the here and now. We can't invest every single dollar or always get the best possible deal, or
hold out until it drops to its lowest price. There are just real needs in the here and now, and yeah, I think there's room for that if I can help to deshame some of this for you, Shawna, I'm here, thank you.
I'm I'm gonna accept it. Take me off that ledge.
Yes, what about you? John?
Okay?
So for me, we are not going to max out our twenty twenty four rath iiras. I don't know if we will invest at all in our twenty twenty four rath ira. And what shame that I am getting over it? I for somebody who has maxed out their roth ira
two roth iras every year for a while. Not well because my husband took a lower paying job at the end of twenty twenty three because he was overworking himself and he was miserable, and we decided, hey, we made a lot of good financial decisions before we had kids and in our early years with kids, so that we could spend more time with our kids, so that we could live full lives now and not once they are in college and out of our house, and so that was the decision we made.
We made a.
Literal like a fourteen thousand dollars a year cut, which is what we were basically putting into retirement, and we didn't invest last year, and compound interest is still working for us. Definitely, I will have to invest again. This is not a long term solution, but we gave ourselves a year to figure it out and we'll see what twenty twenty five holds.
But gosh, a.
Few years ago, I would, oh man, I would have been a lot more scared.
About what the future would hold.
Yeah. Yeah, I have a similar answer to all of you, It just in the way that it's going to sound. But we spent money on a European vacation recently within the like a couple months ago. We went away and bought some lodging and some activities that actually I will say I truly felt guilt free about. And part of that was because I did have money set aside for this very thing. But I think even to that that thing of but is this as optimized as I could
have been with my money? I think I was truly able to let go of that and say I have this money set aside for this purpose. It is to spend on this thing, and I'm going to do it and I'm going to enjoy it. And it was so fun.
Where did you go? I mean, now I have to ask.
We went to London, Switzerland and Portugal.
Please tell me you ate some good food and of course some delicious chocolate and indulged course.
Oh and so much sangria in Portugal, babes, some good sangria. Yeah, that was awesome. Well, thanks so much, Shno for being here. If people want more from you, they want to dig a little bit deeper into healing from money trauma, understanding this a little bit better, where can they get that from you?
You can get my book Unraveling Your Relationship with Money absolutely everywhere books are sold. You can also check out my podcast. I have over twelve hundred episodes. Everyone's Talkinmoney dot com.
Yes, another og very podcaster.
Yeah, it's and you've got us beat like we've got almost five hundred that is and you Yeah.
Amazing, so much wisdom to dig in on with you. Awesome, thanks for being here with us.
Thanks for having me.
I really I really like that.
I always say that I have budget PTSD and it's a little bit of a joke, but it's also kind of what Shauna describes as one of these icks, Like it's it does cause avoidance in me. I have a natural propensity to avoid keeping track of my money because of this dick that I have with budgeting and the past like ix that I've had with finding my identity or finding my value and my identity in my success
with money and business. I still struggle with all of that, but it is definitely to a lesser extent, and when I see it, I recognize it earlier, I can catch it earlier. And I think that's the difference. As we're going down this journey with money traumas, it's not necessarily possible to get rid of all of them, but it is possible to quickly identify and like we're you know, make a shift.
Yeah, I think it's recognizing that our money experiences can cause a negative association and degrees of hypervigilance and degrees of experiencing kind of threat to our livelihood and our lives and our stability and security, and so you know, I think that there can be a way to use
the word trauma lightly. But then there's also a way to use it correctly, and so I think, you know, there's definitely a spectrum of what it means to have experienced trauma, but then there's also just non beneficial experiences, scary experiences, difficult experiences, and so kind of wherever we find ourselves on the spectrum there, I think what Shauna has talked about can be helpful in naming it, validating it, and then being able to move forward and heal from it,
which in many way is just experiencing the opposite. What can we do now that is different from the difficult experience that I've had in the past. So really really appreciate these kind of deeper conversations that recognize, yeah, money is more than just pieces of paper in our pocket or numbers in our bank accounts, but yeah, there's so many other layers.
Absolutely, So thank you so much for listening. As you know, we have a book called by What You Love Without Going Broke that is available now, and we love reading your kind reviews about the podcast, but we've loved getting to read them about the book as well. We especially loved this one from Adam Harding says practical, simple and realistic financial advice. Five stars. This book is a wonderful guide on how to tailor your finances to fit your
ideal life. It provides easy to follow tips, a customizable framework, and helpful personal stories from the authors. Their concept of the radical middle is so helpful for your finance and so many other matters in life. Definitely recommend this book for people who don't like budgets or constantly overspend and stress over the small expenses of life. This book proves finances don't have to be a painful slog to avoid, but can be a fun, easy to implement way to
empower the life you want to lead with confidence. Oh that's awesome, wo you adam great review of the book.
A good summary. I really appreciate that. If you've read the book and you haven't reviewed it yet, please do so wherever you purchased it. Amazon is a great place to be able to review the book. If you don't have the book yet, go get it wherever you buy books or buy what youlovebook dot com.
Until then, see you next time.
They Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So I did my nails, and I don't typically do my nails. I typically just let them be free.
But Oh, are you going to tell the story again? You just have to prepare myself, prepare, repair the audience, the pair a story. Yeah, for like why you decided to do your nails?
Oh yeah, okay, well okay, maybe all right. I can see that it's not weird, but I was I have been enjoying kind of longer nails. Usually I don't keep them long because I'm writing so much. I saw this one of my friends, who was one of my old editors. She was letting her nails grow out and broke one and she then cut all her nails, which is typically what I do. And she's like, I'll be typing at least forty words per minute faster now without I was like, oh.
Man, yes, that's it.
That is that is the struggle, right, But I'm not doing as much writing now, and so I was like, oh, I'd like to keep my nails a little long. But so I was grabbing Kai's backpack and one of my nails like flipped back and like really hurt. And I was like, oh, well, I'm not going to keep my not gonna be able to have long nails and natural at the same time, but I'm also not going to go to the salon. So I actually have had this powder dip system for like three years. Yeah, you never
tried it. I had tried it once and I wasn't great at it. It does have a learning curve, and I'm still not great at it. But I've picked a very neutral color, so you can't really tell that is the secret, right, But my nails now are very hard and still long, and I think I'm going to practice it and try to get better. I think part of it comes down to having the right tools, Like I think I need like a battery, opera rated file, like one of those things. I believe that that is the
key to really getting it. But I'm going to try it a few more times and see if that is the solution.
So that your nail doesn't flip back.
Right.
If I, and this is just if I want to have longer nails. If I don't want to have longer nails, then I won't keep trying this.
But yeah, I just I don't want.
Alpha but nails good but like something in the middle.
Yeah, they look nice. I can't tell that you're not good at the dip system, thank you.
Yeah they're from Afar.
They look good.
It looks like I don't have nails actually because.
I chose a new color.
Color. Yeah.
So it is uh super neutral Yeah almost too neutral.
Be too much. It's like putting makeup over your eyebrows.
Hand is what it is. It's a sad beige.
Hand, but hard long mail, but hard long nail. Well that was fun.
M