Well, Hello, healthy ish listeners. How are you Hope you're having an awesome day? This is the daily podcast and Body in Soul. Of course, I am the host for listening Halle. Are you stressed about money? Well, a lot of us are right now, and to help us out, I'm joined by Lacy Philipitch. She is a financial educator, chemical engineer, ted X speaker and head of financial Wellness at Maslow and she joins me from wa to share
her tips. If you do like what you hear from Lacey listening to extra Healthy Issue, where she'll help you discover whether you have a healthy relationship with money, you can catch that one wherever you get podcasts. Lacey, nice to should I say, have you back on after three years? Listeners? We were working out that was about three years since we spoke to each other.
Yeah, wonderful to be back and it feels like it's been not that long. Incredible.
I know, I don't know why we took so long, but thank you for joining us now. I saw this new study pop up last week. It was in the US and it found forty seven percent of Americans say money is affecting their mental health. I mean, I actually thought, wow, what's it like in Australia. I did a bit of digging last year. Beyond Blue study found thirty seven percent of Aussies were affected, with women most at risk.
What are you hearing? You know you are at the coal face? What are you seeing?
That absolutely resonates with what I'm saying. People are extremely stressed about money. And it is actually kind of like a two stream thing. There's a group of people who are fine and comfortable and they've got job security and they've got housing security, and they seem okay. But there is a really large chunk of the population and it's growing. You know, I'm not surprised to hear it was a
third last year. It's probably more now. And they're worried about a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, like real basic stuff, and it permeates every moment of their day.
I mean, when you strip all back, they are the basics to living. I mean, this is how we have to survive as a human. It's a roof over our head, food to eat in some ways. You know, I was going to ask you why does money make us so stressed? But perhaps I've already answered that question. But can you.
Answer that, well, yes, there's this fascinating study and I talk about it at every opportunity I get, And if you want to google it, look up Princeton Poverty Brain Study and it was conducted in twenty thirteen, and what it found was when you're under financial stress, it actually lowers your IQ by thirteen points.
Goodness, that's huge.
And the reason that happens is in the back of your brain, You've got this script running all the time, and it's going can I afford my rent? Is my mortgage going to go up too much? Can I afford to eat this week? Do I need to go without meals? And that script is actually taking up some of your brain space, Like if you think about your computer's CPU, it's doing that to your brain, and it leaves less space available to metions and not just about money, about
your health, about your relationship, about your job. And so that IQ drop actually affects everything and it can become this downward spiral. And that's why financial stress has such a marked experience for people in all parts of their lives.
I mean, as you said before, it permeates in everything, like it's just it can just stay there and it just hums along forever, and then it affects everything you do, Like whether you want to go out with friends for dinner, I can't afford that. I mean you barely able to afford dinner for yourself. It affects if you want to exercise, go to the gym.
It just it.
Impacts every single thread of life, doesn't it when you're stressed about money.
It really does. And I think that's the thing. You can't escape it when you're in it.
It's there all the time, and it actually costs us in our health in terms of mental stress, but also in preventative health care things like that. It's enormous, the spiraling impact we see.
Yeah, that's a good that's actually a really important point because you know, people of this podcast want to stay healthy. You want to I mean not just go to the gym, but even just you know, whether you're paying for private health insurance, so going to the doctor. I mean sometimes you can go well I can't afford to go to the doctor because going to the doctor is actually not that cheap in some parts of Australia these days, when
there's not much rebate involved. So it can affect not just every aira of your life, but your health as.
Well, exactly, And I often think about like dental is a really good example of this. You know, you've got a slightly saw tooth and you go, oh, I don't have enough money for that, you know, visit to the dentist. And I don't want to know how bad it is really because I don't want to be up for several thousand dollars if it needs a replacement. I'll just ignore
it until it gets really bad. And then you have no choice but to spend all that money, and you didn't do the preventative thing that might have been, you know, a small filling or you know, something to do with wearing a plate at night. Like I cracked my back molars because I could afford crowns, and then I got to keep my teeth. If you leave it for too long, I would have had to pay for a root canal, which probably three times as much. And that kind of
thing happens. We ignore these early signs because we can't afford the maintenance cost or the preventative cost, and then it ends up really costing.
It's a big time later on.
Absolutely, So how can we stop stressing about money? I mean, how can we do the little bits if we feel like we can't afford it.
Yeah, that's a really tough one, I think for people who are in it. If you are feeling financially stressed, if you're listening to this and going, oh my gosh, you're deep in it at the moment. What I would love you to do is try and make an appointment with a financial counselor. And you find financial counselors via National Debt Helpline and financial counselors are incredible.
Resources in Australia.
They are the unsung heroes I think of Australia's finance scene. There's not enough of them to go around yet, but they've just been funded, which is good news. A financial counselor can't sell you anything, there just to help you. They can help you negotiate with people who are your service providers, so you know your power company, your mortgages, that kind of thing. If you're struggling to make ends meet, they can help you with planning your spending.
They can help you.
Access resources things that you might not have been aware of. So I'd strongly encourage you to talk to a financial accounts so if you can, and also to have a look at center Links financial information service if you are a senti Link customer, because they do a similar thing where you can chat to them on the phone. So that's if you're deep in it at the moment, please reach out take advantage of as many of those supports
as you can. And even if that means that you're going to feel a little bit embarrassed, please go and sign up for food bank, Go sign up for whatever service you can get, because you're the only one who loses if you don't take advantage of those services when you need it. So that's for the people who really stressing.
For everybody else, the best recipe for reducing stress is a buffer fund, some savings set aside that you know that you can tap into when you need them when an emergency arises, so that you can get through any stressful period. So I think of that as sleep well money. That's the money that lets I sleep well at night.
I can relax knowing that I've got it.
Yeah, what I mean, it's hard at the moment. I mean, I'm probably speaking a bit personal experience because we're trying to build up our buffer fund at the moment. But I'll tell you what it's very hard to find that money each month when you're feeding three maut like three kids mouths and you go to the do the groceries and suddenly what used to cost me, you know, a basket load used to cost me like one hundred bucks. It's now like a tiny little bit of the basket
is one hundred dollars. How you taught us about this sleep well fund? Like how much? What should it look like? How much should you have in there? And how do you go about putting money in there when you feel like you actually just can't afford day to day living.
So of preface this with there will be times in your life where you just can't save and you can't build that buffer fund. So please, if that's you, don't beat yourself up, okay, because there are times when you can't do it. But I think what's really important for everyone to understand is that buffer fund is really up to you and what makes you feel comfortable. And often
people will think about their obligations. So if you're the person who's the main income earner in the family and you've got dependence and a mortgage, you might want to have several months worth of living costs to feel really comfortable and that it can be a big goal for
some people. Now, when I say living costs, I'm talking about the bare minimum roof over your head, food in your belly, transport, that kind of thing, Not holidays, not maybe your normal monthly spending with all the other stuff in enough to basically survive if you live at home with your parents, if you're not supporting anyone else, it might only be like a month or two of living costs. So you've got to decide what works for you. And look, I think the best way to build up a buffer
fund is always to pay yourself first. So set up that direct transfer or get your payroll to send money straight into a savings account, and then learn to live.
On what's left.
If you find you need more, so you're all eating baked beans for a week, then you can go and get some money out of savings.
You've tried too hard, but.
Once you've spent it, it's gone, So try ambitiously to start with. And then if you decide you're trying to save too much and it's causing too much stress, then you can ramp it back.
But you'll never know what you can achieve till you try.
Yeah, absolutely, and hey, baked beans once a week is actually quite tasty. I used to do that. I actually do that actually a lot back in yearly days. But I'm not sure. If I serve baked up to the kids now, they'd be like, mom, what the hell is going on? Lazy?
Thank you for coming on healthy Ish. Thanks so much for having me.
I hope this chat with Lazy gave you a few tips and tricks on well how to help yourself if you are stressed about money. If you did enjoy it, jump on rate and review it, or you can subscribe to this podcast. Share this it with a friend or your partner, someone who is with you on your money. Dare I say journey anything else? Head to Body and Soul dot com dot you follow us on socials, Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow, stay healthy Ish