Financial Anxiety: What is it and How Can You Overcome it

Millions of people worldwide have been affected financially by a pandemic and increasing inflammation. As a result, many have good reason to feel scared about their expenses and develop anxiety. Financial anxiety can hold you back from making the choices you want in life. To live your best life financially, consider some techniques to help overcome your financial anxiety.

What is Financial Anxiety

Before considering the techniques to conquer financial anxiety, we need to have a clear idea of what it is. Financial anxiety is a consuming fear of anything money-related. This fear can overtake your life and become very debilitating. This type of anxiety can be temporary, especially if you have just recently had a tough time financially. Unfortunately, though, financial anxiety typically can last for a much more extended period of time, even years for some individuals.

Causes

There are many aspects which can cause financial anxiety, yet these are some of the main factors.
-Unemployment
-Unpaid bills and payments
-Excessive debt
-Medical Expense
-Increased Mortgage/rent

Although these factors can cause financial anxiety, differentiating this between general stress is essential. For example, losing a job can be highly stressful. This may not necessarily lead to financial anxiety, unless it causes a fear of money. Everyone faces stress with finances in their day to day life. If this stress turns into an unbearable worry about any decision with money, you can be sure that you have some financial anxiety.

Overcoming Financial Anxiety

Now that we know precisely what financial anxiety is, we can go over ways to conquer it.

Understanding The Cause

Although knowing that you have financial anxiety is a start, you need to dig further and figure out where exactly what the cause is coming from. Anxiety can be rooted deep inside you, and overcoming this will require you to determine what it is and figure out how to treat it. You may have already done this when examining the causes, yet there most certainly can be another cause that you are not consciously aware of. Some people have financial anxiety from past trauma in their life, which they buried away. An issue that you thought was previously resolved can come back up years later, if not resolved properly.

Make Attainable Goals

With every financial matter or obstacle, making goals is essential. Yet there should be a distinction between attainable and unattainable goals. When you have financial anxiety, the very thought of money may make you feel uneasy. One of the best ways to overcome your financial anxiety is by creating goals that are realistic and reachable. To do this, analyze your financial situation and brainstorm how you want to improve your financial life. From here, you can create a list of short and long term goals that you believe you can achieve.

Get Professional Help

This might be your first or last option, depending on how bad your financial anxiety has become. Facing your financial anxiety crisis by yourself may be too overwhelming and could take too much of a physical or mental toll on you. At this point, it would be recommended to seek professional help. Many financial professionals can work with you through your situation and assist you in getting back on your feet. Although some professionals may be costly, there are some alternative programs available at better prices.

In today’s society, prices and expenses are no doubt rising. If you think you have financial anxiety, make sure to deal with it sooner than later. The longer you leave it, the worse it can become and affect your financial life.

If you have any questions about financial anxiety, please reach out to us!

Sources

-Canning, Kristin. Taylor, Mia (2022). Stressed About Your Salary, Debt or Spending Habits? Here’s What to Know About Financial Anxiety. Health. Retrieved from https://www.health.com/money/financial-anxiety-money-stress

-Loconti, Christine (2021). How to Feel Less Anxious About Money. WebMD. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/the-debt-stress-connection

-Stieg, Cory (2021). Always Anxious About Money? Here Are Three Strategies to Cope, From a Physiotherapist. CNBC Make It. Retrieved fromhttps://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/how-to-cope-with-financial-anxiety-about-money-tips-from-expert.html#:~:text=People%20tend%20to%20respond%20to,focused%20setting%2C%E2%80%9D%20Clayman%20says.