226. How money impacts our mental health

course break down the psychology of our twenties. Today, we're going to talk about money, not how to make more of it, not how to invest it. We're not going to talk about get rich quick schemes or how to budget, but the ways in which money, our psychology, and our mental health are related in a lot of ways we

probably didn't even know. It's been a little over two years since I last ded a specific money episode, which honestly is way too long given how universal I think financial insecurity is during this decade, Given that it is a time when a lot of us are first becoming financially independent, trying our hardest to save living paycheck to paycheck, I think financial anxiety is something we can kind of

all relate to in one aspect or another. During this time it kind of really bleeds into every aspect of our lives, and especially during this generation, we are facing a pretty harsh, pretty ruthless economic reality that is making the mental health impacts of our finances even more pronounced. I would say I think at least in in Sydney and Australia in general, really inflation is outpacing earnings. We are paying half of our paycheck each week into rent.

Everyone wants to tell you that the next recession is coming. Groceries are so expensive, so there's no doubt that this is really contributing to a decline in overall life satisfaction, in mental well being across society, but especially for young people. In fact, I think the National Youth Mental Health Survey was released a couple weeks ago and it found that eighty percent of Australians, but I would actually say that this includes a lot of young people, people age seventeen

to twenty five. Eighty percent of them are experiencing financial anxiety. They're feeling pessimistic about the future, and they're constantly thinking about their finances and what our finances allow us to do or prevent us from doing. For this reason and many many others, money takes on such an emotional role in our lives, and I just think that that fact doesn't get enough airtime. So let's talk about it today. Let's talk about the interactions between money, our psychology, and

our mental health. We're going to break down where our specific money fears come from, the root of financial anxiety, our individual money archetypes, how to find out what your money archetype or money language is, what worrying about money can do. You have mental health, your physical health, your relationships, our bodies, but also how to really navigate those obsessive fears and anxieties that we typically have around financial certainty and stability even when we are doing okay, even when

we do have money. There is so much to discuss.

talk all things money and mental health. Like I said before, money is so much more emotional and psychological than we give it credit for anything that we care about or that is valuable in our lives, will have complicated emotions attached to it because it takes on this larger, more significant, important meaning. Money isn't just you know, a number on a screen that represents your bank balance. It's not like a twenty dollar bill in your pocket or the transactions

on your phone. It represents freedom, independence, security, status, a certain lifestyle, sometimes even our level of happiness depending on who you are, and we are really fine tuned to care about it, and so it's a pretty dominant presence in our lives. It also impacts I think some of the most fundamental life decisions that will make in our twenties and beyond. Like, honestly, it impacts who we're friends with,

It impacts who we date. It most certainly impacts where we live, not just in terms of neighborhood or suburb, but city country. It impacts what job we want to pursue, what career we would like to have. I think it possibly influence is all of those things almost as much as our personality or as our upbringing. And we'll get to see how upbringing and money are also very very

much so interlinked. That's why I think it's really important to see money as something that we have a relationship with, rather than as just this random resource, because in a way we do. We do have a relationship with money, just like a romantic partner, just like a friend. Money can impact our mood. Money can make us feel safe or insecure. Our relationship to money changes and evolves as we have more of it or less of it. It can

improve our lives or really bring it down. I could be describing money, or I could be describing a toxic relationship or a healthy relationship. And you know, the same way that our relationships can be influenced by things like childhood experiences, like parental attitudes, culture trauma, self esteem, so can our relationship with money, because it means more than

we think it does. The other thing to note is that just like your relationship with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, or your partner, or your friend or your parents, if you were to compare that relationship your closest relationships to you know, a coworker or to one of your own friends, each of us is going to have a different set of circumstances and a different kind of relationship pattern, and that pattern is going to control and impact our emotions

and our mental state. In different ways. Basically, what I'm saying is that this is actually a highly personal topic and it's highly nuanced. It's not just about how much money do I have and if I have more. If I have enough, I'm going to be fine, and if I don't have enough, I'm going to be stressed. I think it's really important to note here that when we're talking about financial anxiety and financial stress, it's actually not just one thing. It's two things up of two components.

We have objective financial difficulty, and then we have our subjective perceptions about our financial difficulties. Objective financial difficulty will start by talking about that first. It is when you just undoubtedly are struggling, no matter who you are. We kind of all know what it means to be in debt. We all know it's not great to be down to your last five dollars without any money coming in. We know that it's a bad sign if you don't have a steady income that can pay your bills. That is

when it's really time to start worrying. And in those moments, I think a lot of us feel justified in our financial worries. Not having money has a lot of run on consequences because this is not an enlightening thing to say, but we need money to live. We need it to access healthcare, to access food, to access housing, to access opportunity, to be quite honest, and when you don't have money,

it feels like you can't have a life. It becomes this constant stressor because it's threatening our core sense of survival, and that is normally all our brains can focus on

when in that situation. In fact, people who go a long time struggling with their finances, which is becoming more common, or people who have very little for a long time, even if they can meet their basic needs, if it's always this survival state, if it's always living paycheck to paycheck, they actually develop a lot of symptoms of chronic stress, insomnia, fatigue, even stomach ulcers, changes, an appetite, distorted thinking, because all of those survival systems we have that are meant to

be for moments of extreme danger are constantly being activated because money has become this important resource for which a lack of is indicative danger, and so they tend to stay in this heightened state of arousal that no living organism, no species, no human is meant to be in for an extended period of time, and that puts a lot

of pressure on our body. It damages our immune system, It compromises how our hormones are secreted, which is something that a lot of people don't talk about the impact of chronic stress on literally your DNA, on your ability to meet your basic needs for sleep, for rest, for connection.

I don't really think it's a surprise that this one paper in twenty twenty three concluded that having a lower income for an extended period of time, which they said was three months or more, that is strongly correlated with increased psychological distress and mental health concerns, specifically anxiety and depression. And the thing is, you just don't know when that situation is going to end. You just don't know when

you're finances will turn for you. No one can say, well, you know, on this date, you're finally going to get that windfall and it's all going to be okay. For so many other stressful situations that we go through in life, you know, whether it's like small things like exam season that might feel very big, or breakups or whatever it is. We can go to therapy, we can be mindful, we can remove ourselves from stressful relationships or situations. We can

change how we think about something. We can problem solve. When you're worrying about money, the problem and the solution are the same thing. You wouldn't be worrying about your income or your finances if you had money, if you knew how to make more. But you don't know how to make more, so that's why you're so stressed. There's really nothing else you can do. Again, money is the

problem and the solution. I think money just also makes life easier because it firstly eliminates the stress of not knowing if you're going to be able to provide for yourself, but it also just reduces I guess it just reduces the stress of everyday life, of things taking longer, of things being inconvenient. The phrase that always comes to mind to me when I think about this, of like money makes life easier, is the phrase money is time. And so if you have money, you can buy yourself time

in your day. And I give the example of you know being able to order in your groceries, therefore saving you time that you can then spend cleaning your house, relaxing, working, compared to not being able to afford that luxury and having to go to the store, which means extra stress, extra travel time, extra time not for yourself or not for other things that are important. And that is a small example, right, but I think it really shows how

having more money does make life easier. Unfortunately, the other reason that more money or a steady income or a stable income might also benefit our mental health is that money just gives you more options and freedom to you know, leave toxic workplaces which may have made you stressed, to pay for therapy that will give you peace of mind.

You know, there is this daying right, money can't buy happiness, and maybe you've heard of that famous study that after someone is making you know, one hundred and twenty eight more money doesn't exponentially make your life much better. But the thing that money can get you, if not happiness, are the secondary influences of happiness. And I'm talking security, freedom, independence, better services, and of course choice and choice gives you control over your life, all of which helps ease stress.

Ease anxiety is the sense that you actually don't have agency, that you actually can't choose for yourself the life that you want to live. Also, and you know not to add to this like a litany of things, but I do think it's important. You know, not making much money, not having the means, also creates limits to what we can do socially, especially if you have friends who are

at very different points in their life financially. You know, how do you keep up with the dinners where it's always going to cost you more than your groceries for the week. How do you keep up with going out and paying for drinks every Friday, or going on those holidays, or going shopping or buying all those concert tickets. It's like, with everything you're invited to, price is the first thing

you have to think of. And you face this dilemma, go and try and enjoy yourself, knowing you won't be able to say yes to everything because you're limited financially, and you'll probably end up worrying about money afterwards, or stay home and get that intense pomo that we all feel so much more intensely in our twenties, that not only are you missing out on this time in your life, but you're also missing out on the memories and the

connections that could have been made between you and your friends. And we know that social isolation or sense of disconnection is one of the biggest predictors of poor mental health outcomes, because we need community, we need those moments with friends, We need to belong somewhere. I think you kind of get my point here, right. I say all of this because I want you to know it's firstly, not just you. Secondly, it's not an overreaction. It's not greedy. It's not obsessive

or selfish to be worrying about money. Money has these impacts across all domains of wellbeing, even in very, very hidden ways, even in ways that the average person who isn't struggling with money would never suspect. Right. Something that really frustrates me is people who are like, oh, you know, money, every time I spend money, money comes back to me because I have an abundance mindset. And I totally respect that perspective because I think if it works for you,

it works for you. But there are actually just sometimes where it's like, no, I cannot just spend money and hope that it comes back to me. I actually have a life, and I have bills to pay, and I may not be in the same situation as you, and I think that also creates friction and relationships where it's

like money. Also, the way we spend money also comes down to values, and it's a really interesting touch point to see how the values between you and your friends differ, the privilege between you and your friends differ, and sometimes that can end up being a bit of a deal breaker in a lot of different relationships. I'm going to move on because I want to talk about subjective financial stress, because even when we have money, even when we can pay all of our expenses, you can still be worried

about money. And I think that's something that's often left out of the conversation, and a lot of people are like, Okay, I feel like I'm not justified in my concerns, but I'm so. I don't want to say obsessive because it makes it sound like this is a choice, but the thoughts around this just so obsessive and intrusive to me. That difference in perspective comes down to our subjective appraisals

about money. Maybe feeling like we don't have enough in comparison to others, even if we can afford everything we need. Maybe worrying about a future time when you won't have money, even though you have money, right now feeling insecure about your finances no matter what is objectively happening. That is the distinction between objective financial insecurity and subjective financial insecurity, and both equally damaging. You know, I get where the

sentiment comes from. Of like, well, obviously the person without money has it worse. But even if someone does is able to meet the basic needs and still is obsessing about money, it is quite I think demanding, and quite a burden. And it comes from a very I think intricate, interesting amalgamation of past experiences that aren't spoken about. If you have had times of financial insecurity in the past, if you know what it's like to be dead broke, that is not a feeling that goes away very easily.

The other example I give is if you had parents who were always worried about money, who you know, their incomes, their jobs meant that they could never give you what the other kids had. That is quite a powerful experience. Our brains are wired to remember those periods of stress, whether it's because of money or really anything, because if we've endured and survived these stressful periods, our brain obviously wants to ensure that if this situation comes up again

in the future. Our memory of the path out is crystal clear. That is, of course, our brains trying to do the helpful thing and create a bit of a guide book for us, a living guidebook, using stress as basically a sign to pay attention and to consolidate worthwhile memories. But it can also lead to a lot of rumination overthinking about the right way or the wrong way to

be spending, saving, investing. This chronic app apprehension and stress, even when objectively you might not have much to worry about. And crucially, this reaction is different for each of us. And this is where I really want to introduce you to this very fascinating concept of our money languages and our money archetypes. All of that and more. After this shortbreak, I think we all know the deal with love languages

by now. This is this idea introduced by doctor Gary Chapman, that each of us has a unique way of expressing and receiving love, whether that's acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, the list goes on. Well, it turns out that each of us also has a unique language when it comes to money. But in this instance, there are nine archetypes or nine languages instead of five, and they are the anxious, the saver, the spender, the investor, the giver,

the order, the void, the monk, and the greedy. That is a lot of different labels to take notice of, but the archetype or language that most represents us is basically determined by our emotional attachment to money and how it is mentally represented in our brains. Basically, what I'm saying and what I mean by this is when you think about money, is it with anxiety, is it with

longing to stain, apathy? Joy? And this will basically dictate how you end up going about well, you know, of course feeling about the money you have, but also your behaviors towards spending. Your behavior is towards saving, investing, all of the above, and it's really dictated by your childhood experiences with money, how your parents spoke about money, the culture you grew up in, and even elements of our

personality like impulsiveness, cautiousness, things like that. And once again I really want to express that this is really what influences is our level of anxiety, our level of stress, our level of arousal, even when it comes to dealing

with our finances. So let's go through these, and just while we're talking about them, see if one of these really draws you in more, or if you just find your ears kind of perking up, you find yourself relating to these different archetypes, or if you can see them reflected in maybe a parent or a partner or a friend.

Even so, let's start with the anxious. This is often the money language of those of us who grew up with very little, and so all of our interactions with budgeting, saving, financing are centered around these very prominent anxious thoughts, such as, what happens when I don't have money? Will it all be taken away at some point? What happens when the tap dries out?

lot of apprehension when it comes to this language. Thinking about money a lot, checking a bank account, frequently seeing everything in terms of a dollar value and what the opportunity cost of that is, basically meaning what could that money have brought you and would it have been better. Some people might call this a fixation, which in some ways it is, but it's not a fixation with accumulating

as much wealth as possible. It's a fixation with worrying about your survival when it comes to money, and it really comes from a permanent scarcity mindset in psychology but also in economics. Actually, scarcity mindset is a pattern of thinking that really focuses on what you don't have and an underlying belief that you could never possibly have enough

of the things that you want to need. Can you see what kind of cycle this creates for else mentally and emotionally, where at no point are you ever at peace, Even when you have money to spare or to spend, you're always in your mind kind of facing a reality of having nothing. There's no reprieve, there's no kind of break from it. So that's the first money language. Next up we have the saver. Now, the saver is also known as the stressor, so this person is very cautious

when handling their money. They derive a lot of satisfaction from seeing their savings grow because it feels like they're doing something with it that is safe and practical. Brings a sense of security, but also because they might not be sure what really to do with their money, or like the anxious, they're really worried about a time when they won't have money, But instead of that making them behave right, maybe irrationally or just fixate on the on the fear, the way that they approach it is just

by saving as much as they can. And whilst this can mean that they're very good at avoiding frivolous spending, sometimes they also miss out on opportunities. They miss out on instances in which they could change jobs and men make more money because there may be this, you know, concern that if they were to do that, that might impact their primary inclination, their primary behavior, which is to save and to save as much as they can and to make this little ness for themselves so they never

have to worry. This is similar to the hoarder, but the distinction is that the stressor or the saver, their primary kind of impulse is to save, but they will spend when they need to. The hoarder takes it to the extreme. If you've ever met someone who will literally not spend a cent on going out for dinner or buying groceries or buying the essentials that they need, that is a hoarder. It can make them really isolated and obsessive.

And specifically, they are hoarding money not with the intention to spend it, sometimes not with the intention to even allow it to have a better life in the future. It's just almost like, I don't even know how to explain it. I'm trying to remember how someone explained it to me once. But it's basically just like a comfort thing. If I hold this money, it's just comfortable to know that I have it, even if I really have no

intention of ever spending it. Next, we have the spender. Now, this person, actually, the spender is one of my favorite profiles to really talk about, because this person derives a lot of joy and satisfaction from seeing their money in experiences or material goods. Now, I said it's my favorite, not because it's the best, but because I just find it the most interesting and the most unique out of

all of these. They really tend to live in the moment, and they may prioritize immediate gratification over long term savings, even when that is costly to them or impulsive, And the spender is often impulsive because money becomes a mean through which to manage their emotions. I'm feeling sad, I

spend to soothe. Feeling happy, I spend to celebrate. So their spending habits are chronic, but they're also tied to what they're going through, So no matter where they're at on that emotional spectrum, there's always a need, there's always

a reason to buy something. To note, a twenty twenty one paper actually suggests that the spender is on the rise because so many of us no longer see the value in saving for things like a house, like big financial goals, because we kind of believe that we'll never be able to get them anyways, So why bother when we can really lean into our hedonistic tendencies and we can kind of prioritize pleasure over everything else. The pleasure of a new outfit, the pleasure of a nice wine,

of a fancy dinner, of a new couch. I don't know why I said couch. I'm thinking about buying a new couch, so that's probably where it comes from. But you kind of get what I mean, lavish trips, but it's not so much for looks. It's not for status. It's because I just kind of want to. Very counter to the spender, we have the investor. They are very

focused on growing wealth through investments. They kind of sometimes see money as something to play with or something to make work for them, and they get really excited, maybe obsessed with knowing more about the stock market, financial fluctuations, when to buy, when to sell, but that can really make them overly focused on financial returns. Sometimes they can also become gamblers because they see gambling as an investment,

kind of like this saver. Sometimes they don't actually spend when they need to because either they don't have any money because they've invested it all, or because they really like to see money as this thing to play with that can make more money. This kind of financial alchemy that they can perform. This is very similar to the amassa our six archetype. This is also known as the

greed archetype. Some people often confuse this with the with the saver, but this individual isn't accumulating wealth for a sense of security, but as a measure of success and status. They are highly motivated to put money away and gain as much as possible to eventually convert into highly coveted possessions or to appear impressive to have a really cool portfolio.

In that way, the mass is often driven I would say, my ego and can become really obsessed with money as a resource for maintaining their image rather than as a resource to make their day to day life better. And you can see how that really ties into mental health, where the only way they feel good about themselves and about their lives is when they are growing this portfolio of what they're worth and what they have something that you'll quickly realize we've only got a few more to go.

But with these archetypes, with these languages, they often come in pairs, and these pairs sit in opposition, so opposite pairs. I guess they kind of sit in our position with each other. And that's the case with the amassa and the giver. So the amassa is really looking to stock up, but the giver sees money is something to donate, to share,

to be generous with, to use to help others. Think about your friend who is kind of always donating to those random growthundmes that like pop up on their TikTok. The friend who will shower you in gifts on your birthday despite the fact that her rent is late, who was very selfs us with their money. Often these people have been raised to be very generous, but they can also be very financially negligent and mismanaged, and they lack boundaries around money that can get them in a lot

of trouble. They're lending money to friends, to family, pay me back whenever, and it's kind of like, well, eventually you do kind of need a system around where your money's going to who it's going to. So we have two more. Hopefully I'm not going too fast few, but you can always listen back and hopefully it's clear what the distinctions are. I think when you really start to think about them, it becomes a lot more apparent. But the last do we have are the avoid and the Monk.

Let's start with the monk first, because I really want to hone in on the avoid as one of as our last archetypes so it stays with you. The monk is actually super rare, but they believe that money is essentially the root of all evil. And it makes us unfulfilled to the point where they are happy to accept poverty over sometimes even meeting their basic needs. They're very content with a minimalist life, but they can also overlook the practical necessity of money. Like I said, not very common.

I honestly don't think I've met anyone like this. In my mind and in my circles. It's much more common to meet a giver who kind of unintentionally rids themselves of their financial possessions, not because they think it's evil, because they think of all the good that it can do for their friends and family, and they just kind

of are quite blase about it. But the final archetype is the avoid And let me say there as loud and clear, as far as us twenty somethings go, the avoid is the one that I see the most of in my own life. For sure. They don't want to know. They don't want to know what's in their bank account. They don't want to know how much they're saving or investing or spending, or what bills they have coming up,

what they spend on the weekend. And it's often because we experience a lot of emotional distress even thinking about money, even thinking about our finances. A lot of this comes from fear, either from struggling in the past, feeling like no matter what, you won't you're not educated or capable of really treating your money healthily or in a way

that's going to work for you. And it's really based on some simple psychological principles avoid bad feelings, and we feel better avoid thinking about money, and we don't feel stressed about money. But this can get us in a lot of trouble. I feel like that goes without saying, and it can end up getting us into an even worse place than we were when we began this habit, because the money is still being spent, The money is still going somewhere, even if we're not thinking about it,

even if we are consciously or unconsciously ignoring it. And all that we're doing there is trying to navigate mediate mitigate our emotional response to money by just pretending that whatever's going on in our finances doesn't exist, turning a

blind eye. And I also want to say, I think this is really common in our twenties because we don't feel like we're very financially literate and because there are just like so many There's just so many times when like hidden expenses come up, we feel like we're stupid or silly for not noticing them. We feel kind of ridiculous or really quite i don't know, impulsive, or just

dumb for like spending money on certain things. And I think it's just this whole environment of a lot of us are just confused and not educated around how to spend money, and we're really learning a lot of those financial consequences of money mismanagement for the first time, and it's embarrassing and kind of gives us an ego check. It makes us feel quite negatively about ourselves. And of

course our mind loves to protect our ego. It wants to protect our sense of self, and so in order to do that, it stops us from thinking about how we've messed up, stop something thinking about our mistakes. This is a great example really of why we need to start interrogating this relationship that we have with money that comes from our psychology, because I think in all of those instances, something is not quite right, something is a

little bit off balance. And when we don't figure out what the emotional and cognitive reactions to money are, or we don't really start thinking about what's influencing our behavior. We keep getting an outcome that intensifies that initial need to be very one tracked minded when it comes to money, to avoid, to splurge, to a mass, to save intensely. In every instance, though, although you might feel more positively about one of those languages or archetypes in the other,

we are still controlled by money. Our money language is still in response to an underlying sense or lack of control, or anxiety or stress. So what I want to talk about next is how we can approach our finances, whatever they may be, with a healthy attitude, with the best mindset we can possibly muster, so that A we can actually do the best we can with what we have

in our twenties, with what we're making. B we can reduce some of the subjective stress and see we can actually start to put in place helpful, productive strategies when it comes to thinking about money. So it's not always the news around our next, so it's not always controlling that controlling us. So all of that and more after this shortbreak. Okay, I do want to say one more time than I'm not a financial coach. That is not

my specialty. So I'm not going to give you specific financial tips about where to invest what to do with your money, because I do believe that's up to you, and obviously I don't know your individual circumstances. But what I can help you with is the mental side of things, and for that I have a number of tips for you that I've learned from therapist who specialize in financial anxiety, from academic papers, and even some of my own experiences

as well. Firstly, I really just want you to notice whether your financial anxiety and financial distress is objective or subjective. Are you objectively unable to meet your needs, pay your bills, have a bit left over for you and your interests? Or is this more of a subjective appraisal stemming from a scarcity mindset or an ingrained anxious attitude towards your finances. Here are really three questions to ask yourself in order

to tell which of these you're experiencing. Are you consistently worried about your finances even when you have a stable income and stable savings. If yes, that indicates subjective financial anxiety. If no, objective when you think about your financial future, do you worry more about unlikely scenarios like you know, losing your savings all of a sudden, or do you worry more about real and current changes. Real and current

changes is objective. Financial future hypotheticals are subjective. Have you reviewed your budget and found that your expenses exceeded your income and that you can't afford basic necessities? Yes, indicate its objective. No equals subjective. The thing is you may still be feeling stressed regardless of whether it's subjective or objective. I don't think that there's like a competition, but as you just think that there are going to be different

strategy is depending on where you sit. If it's objective financial difficulties that you're managing, you're going to need a more practical based strategy. I would really encourage you to really just get into your financial basics. Do you have a budget? Who can you talk to professionally to help you manage your money? Can you ask friends or family to help? What needs or ways of spending need to change to make your situation more secure? What do you

know about your bank account? What do you know about even your daily spending. It's crazy how many people, I think have a lot of problems with money in this generation when they are making enough money to survive, but they just never really look they never really look at what they're spending and what that's on. I also really recommend that if it's not a case of like you actually have the money there, you're just not spending it, well, go and talk to a financial counselor who can help

you with managing debt, with managing bills. There is literally no shame in it. There is no shame. The amount of people who have struggles with money or who just don't really know what to do is just in the millions, probably in the billions, because it's not a system that was created to be understandable by everyone. So there are so many, so many services. A lot of them are from the not for profit sector that offer this service for free, that will let you come in and will

help you through whatever it is you're experiencing money wise. Also, you know, financial literacy is a huge asset if you're experiencing a lot of objective financial stress. The lack of financial literacy we have in the lack of financial education that we receive is abysmal, like it's genuinely criminal. The fact that you go through decades of school learning about

calculus and history. No one's going to tell you how to ask for a raise, No one's going to tell you how to apply for a home loan, how to set up a household budget, how to find deals for your expenses, where to go for help. But when we have more knowledge, we feel more empowered to really not

live under the thumb of money. Again, I'm not a financial advisor, keiping my advice on the rather brief side of this, but I do think that there are a lot of options out there, and if this is something that is gravely impacting your mental health, there is a way to find a solution that is going to leave you being able to just have the money you need to survive, but also the money that you need to not constantly be worried about it, to not constantly be

hung up on things, to find an avenue out, to find a better opportunity that's going to kind of elevate your financial situation. And let's move on to subjective financial anxiety here, because whereby objective financial difficulty really requires a practical approach, subjective financial stress requires a more psychological and emotional plan of attack. To begin with, I really want you to understand your money behaviors and your money archetype.

So think back to that list we gave, and I want you to have having ideas to find where you sat, understand where that language or archetype may have come from, and the habit loop that is associated with it. Remember, subjective financial anxiety is having money and still feeling worried despite all of your needs being secured. I really want you to notice, and this is a really good exercise, how you feel when you get paid, because that is obviously a time when money is quite prominent. It's on

our minds. We're very flushed with cash. What is your first instinct? Is it to go out and spend it all? Is it to avoid looking at what needs to be paid? Is it to invest it immediately or to just immediately put it all away? Just notice what your first instinct

is to do. I will say, if you are obviously in a period where you're trying to say for a house, you're trying to save for a car and overseas holiday, trying to pay off debt, and you have a strategy that is balanced, that is not your own money archetype, you have consciously overridden your archetype to meet your daily needs and what's actually happening in your current reality. But you still may have an underlying urge to treat something

as emotional rather than practical. So even if you have an overarching strategy, what I want you to notice is the initial impulse. Like you know you should be putting twenty percent into a savings account, but what if as soon as you get paid, your impulses to go out and buy. Then your money archetype is probably that of the spender. So when you kind of know where you sit, secondly, think back to when you first started thinking about money

this way. Was it those hard times in childhood? Was it not being taught financial literacy when you got your first job. Because just being able to identify that route, that origin, therefore allows you to notice situations that feel similar and which may be confronting for you, and which may be triggering you to rely on your money archetype even when it's not working. So some really common triggers that I tend to see are periods of stress. Is

when I'm spending too much time on social media. When we're upset, grumpy, agitated, going through a big life change, we just don't have the mental energy to think about money in a way that is rational and helpfuls do we revert to that very instinctual and emotional approach. Remember often that instinctual approach, that money archetype is defensive and it's protective based on what you felt you liked or what you couldn't control, maybe at an earlier point in

your life. And so you're applying this approach of hoarding, avoiding, splurging, saving, whatever it is, maybe to self soothes, maybe because it brings things back into control, maybe because you just don't know how else to do it. So take note of your triggers because that helps us understand our habit loop.

Now I've been kind of teasing you with this habit loop idea, but this is a concept that was created by this man, doctor Judd, and he's actually a neuroscientist specializing an addiction, but his idea of a habit loop also applies to money. Basically, a habit loop contains three things,

a trigger, a behavior, and a result. The trigger could be really anything that causes you to think about money in a way that is irrational or distressing, and it contributes to the behaviors aligned with your money archetype, and that results in the same thing happening, the same outcome occurring again and again and again. You revert to spending because you're feeling upset. That's the trigger. You don't have enough money available to you to last you till your

next get paid. You feel very judged for not having as much as other people. That's going to make you feel like you need to amass more money now. To break the habit loop, we need to interrupt the cycle at the behavior, the moment you feel the compulsion to just immediately fall back into what's instinctual pause and really start to focus on what you actually want from your money.

An amazing tip for doing this that I got from someone I was interviewing for this episode was to imagine the next two months, then one year, and then five years. What are your long term goals within each of those periods. What is the lifestyle you want in two months, in one year, then five will that make you happy? Is that possible? And what do you need to get there?

Focus on making this goal or vision realistic. Firstly, so scale it back to match what you actually have coming in, what your expenses are actually like, and then start to plan and start to really sew down for a second and think about whether the way we're spending money now is going to let us meet that vision we have

for two months, one year, and five years. When you go to spend, save, invest, whatever it is, think about what period this best suits, and make sure that you are equally distributing your financial choices across these three periods. So when she first explained to me, I was a little bit confused. I was like, what are you talking about? But this is what she told me. She said, you know, for example, when you buy and your outfit, that is

something that your two month self really really wants. That's the lifestyle your two month self will enjoy having cool clothes, having great clothes that maybe they don't really need but they want. So you can still spend the money, but when you do, you also need to be thinking about

your one year self. For all that money that you are spending on your two month self, are you also putting money into an emergency fund so that in one year, when your car breaks down you need to get a tooth removed, you can still be able to afford that. And then there is the five year self, your long

term investments, your long term high interest savings account. Are you only thinking about money that you'll need for that trip in a year, and not the money you'll need for life or the money that you'll need for long term financial independence. Kind of be thinking about that as well, and balance your financial decisions across these three time periods. Now, I will say the five year time period, I'm not the best at putting money towards my five year lifestyle,

my five year goal, my five year vision. Think I am leaning more towards like the one to two year period and definitely like what my two month self wants, Like my two month self wants the memories of going out for dinner with my friends, and my two month self wants to go to this new restaurant and wants to buy these new clothes and buy these new books and whatever. But really, I think that shows that I am maybe an avoid myself. HI sometimes don't really think

about money because it stresses me out. So the real thing here is that balance is key. This really helps us, I think, clear out the maze around money and align our behavior to a broader goal without feeling overwhelmed by our current circumstances or feeling overwhelmed by the potential hypotheticals for the future. This is like a great system to be like, Okay, I know where my money is going. I know that it is balanced. I know that one

slice of the pie is not overtaking the others. I also really want you to be realistic about your finances, which means swapping out irrational appraisals of your situation with logic and truth. I heard from this listener the other day. He was like, no matter what, I'm constantly stressed about money. She was telling me about how she had a relative pass away. She got something like twenty thousand dollars. Obviously I'm keeping her anonymous, but yeah, she got this huge

windfall of cash. And she was like, all throughout my life I thought that once that would happen, I would be okay, And yet I'm still stressed. So when you start to get paralyzed, when you start to feel overwhelmed, I have a checklist for you to basically determine whether your current worries are based on circumstances that are actually happening or their future fears. And if it's based on something that's currently happening, you can problem solve it. If

it's based on future fears. Then you need to manage not actually your money, but your anxiety towards your money. So if you check all these boxes, that really gives you permission to worry about money another day when something changes. So I have a steady income that covers my basic needs, yes or no. I can pay my bills on time, yes or no. My debt is under control. I have an emergency fund that could cover me if things drastically changed.

There are no immediate financial crises like a redundancy or unexpected large expenses that I need to address right now. If you answered yes, you can take a pause for a second. The reality of your situation is that you don't need to be worrying right now. If one of those is a no, then you can start to think about it solution because you are now experiencing objective financial stress, and we already really spoke about some of the strategies for that. But there really is a way through. I

promise you. I promise you. I've seen people in serious debt pull it together, pull themselves out of it, still find help, find success. I know that money is so uniquely stressful during this decade because it never feels like we have enough because we are just getting our financial footing. But I also know that many of us are in the same boat. About seventy two percent of us, based on recent estimates by the American Psychological Association, are thinking

and worrying about money. So take solace that you are not alone. You're definitely not behind, you are definitely not isolated in your fears. Please try and prioritize your mental health throughout this all because money comes and goes. I know, I say, I know, I said that. I don't like when people say that, but it's true. There will be times when you're doing better in times when things aren't

going as well. But your mental state, your psychological well being, is not always something that you can recover as easily as money. It is a much more fruitful investment to invest in your mental health than anything that money can buy. Because once your mental health, I think, really slips, it does take so much time, I think, to help yourself get back on track. So talk to your friends about it, connect with others over their own worries, find people in

the same situation. Don't neglect your self care because there is a lot that is free and affordable that is going to still help you feel great without making you even more financially stressed. You know, a walk in the park, a swim in the ocean, a guided meditation that's all free, a yoga video on YouTube, some deep breaths. You know, breathing is free, a glass of water is free. Money

and mental health don't always mix that well. But also, if you're in your twenties, you are just at the beginning, and I think the most crucial thing for you to do is to get an understanding of the ways that you emotionally relate to money during this decade. That is one of the best tips and steps that you need for a financially independent future, and I really hope that you find it. So thank you so much for listening

to today's episode. Although it is close to an hour long, I do feel like I missed some things because you just get so wrapped up sometimes in the topic and in your approach to it. So if there is something else that you want to talk about that you think could be added to this conversation, please shoot me a damn. I'd love to do a follow up episode based on your stories, based on your thoughts. Make sure that you are following along on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are

listening right now, give us a five star review. If you enjoyed this episode, send it to someone that you love that you think could benefit from it, and, as always, until next time, stay safe, stay kind, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk very very soon,