Money and Mental Health
By: Kiana Blake-Chung
Last year, 2022, was one of the top three worst years of my life. It just so happens that it also takes the cake for the most financially stressful. (Considering I have been stressed about finances since kindergarten, that’s saying a lot.) The good news is that now that I transitioned to my first ever full-time job, my mental health has improved dramatically.
Now, the thing about last year is that what started as stress about my finances quickly morphed into desperation fueled by fear of becoming homeless. Because our worth as human beings is inextricably tied to our financial status under capitalism, my self-worth was also brought into question. During this time so many people were so kind as to support me. However, because I could not support myself for quite some time, I felt like I was a burden on my friends and family (financially, on top of feeling like a burden because I needed constant comforting).
Me after my work injury that prompted me to make a gofundme while I waited on worker’s compensation to come in.
Too often our capitalist hellscape of a society gets left out of the conversation of why people feel suicidal. If we lived in a more equitable world that didn’t force people to break their backs to earn the right to live comfortably, the number of deaths by suicide would almost certainly see a dramatic decrease.
A range of things, big and small, help us feel as though life is worth living. An occasional donut treat. A latte. A full fledged vacation to an all-inclusive beach resort. However, if you don’t even make enough money to cover your basic necessities, all of these luxuries are yanked off the table for you. When grabbing dinner with friends every couple weeks helps to ward off depression, guess who comes knocking at your door, busting it down, demanding to squat in your life when you no longer can afford the occasional night out? (It’s depression.) However, depression is not the only problematic factor in the relationship between money and mental health.
I’m a major fan of the occasional donut treat. Here is one of my faves from Donut Plant.
Mania and hypomania also affect your relationship with money because when you’re so high up that you feel as if nothing in your life has consequences, your wallet might as well contain Monopoly money. Suddenly the concepts of saving, budgeting, and prudent spending seem entirely fake–who are you to let something fake, like money, which isn’t even real, stop you from having everything you want? It can be hard to ground yourself to reality in those moments.
Ultimately, when you are constantly chasing the elusive feel-good neurochemicals, it becomes harder to resist impulse spending. Anything to bring you a little molecule of dopamine or serotonin! How can you focus on managing money for your future, let alone even think about the future, when you are so concerned with making yourself feel better in the here and now? Just the other day I thrifted $100 of clothes while online shopping from my bed, trapped in a funk that I could not escape for hours. Unfortunately, even the marginal delayed gratification of online shopping didn't help to make me feel better in the moment.
Me in one of my thrifted outfits. Bought from thredup.com
It can be hard to follow sage advice about money when wrestling with your mental health. Now that I have a full-time job I am trying my best to manage my money better, though budgeting is still extraordinarily hard. I do, however, have some tips to make it a little easier, many of which I learned from my good friend Cindy Zuniga-Sanchez, the owner of Zero-Based Budget Coaching LLC.
Here’s how to manage your money if you are prone to falling prey to your impulses:
Make a plan. The number one key to success… is making a plan for success. Here I don’t necessarily mean a plan for your money, but a safety plan that accounts for your bad days and includes coping mechanisms that are financially accessible to you, or even free. Having such a system in place may help prevent those impromptu shopping sprees. (But not always.) For more information about how to make a comprehensive safety plan, click here.
Define your goals. This year I have two major financial goals: to save $5,000 and to go to Paris for my 30th birthday. Last year I figured out how much I would need for my birthday trip and broke that figure down into how much I needed to save each paycheck. I followed that same process for the $5,000 saving goal as well.
Make a plan (for your money). I recently read my friend Cindy’s book Overcoming Debt, Achieving Financial Freedom and I found it very helpful for crafting a money plan that worked for me. While Cindy herself is a fan of the zero-based budget plan (which is evident from her instagram handle, @zerobasedbudget), I am more a fan of a budgeting style she refers to as reverse budgeting. With reverse budgeting, after necessities are accounted for, you put aside however much you want to allot to your financial goals first, and then you spend the rest. It works as a better option for people like me who don’t have the patience or the dedication to track every dollar, but who still want to budget in a way that prioritizes their goals.
Set up automatic transfers. One great way to make sure you are saving is to automatically transfer your money into a different bank account, preferably a high-yield savings account, which you can read all about in Cindy’s book. Automatic transfers make it easier to resist the temptation of dipping into your savings account when the money is kept in an entirely different bank from your checking account. Another perk is that your savings will earn interest!
Carry cash. Pull out cash when you get paid and make that cash last for all your impromptu treats. When you no longer have funds, you can no longer afford random donuts. (Pro level of this would be to remove your cards from your Apple Wallet if you know self control is a major struggle for you.)
Prioritize repaying debt in small amounts. I recently borrowed money from a friend to help with my moving costs and I am repaying them on a regular basis, in an amount I can afford that isn’t too noticeable. (Depending on how high the debt is and how much you make, this can be anywhere from $50 to $100 a week.) The goal is to pay people back timely and consistently.
Plan out your social events for the month. If you put dates down on the calendar with your friends in advance to do things (like visit museums or take walks around the park), it makes it easier to avoid splurging on last minute bottomless brunches. If bottomless brunches are something you enjoy and prioritize, then it helps you to budget for them when they are planned in advance.
Make lists for the grocery store. If you have a sweet tooth, include stuff to bake sweets so that you don’t have to splurge on buying several premade goodies.
We are all only human doing our best with a hard set of circumstances. Give yourself grace if you do make a misstep in your financial goals. Don’t beat yourself up for the occasional gold bracelet that you bought for no other reason than it looked pretty and reminded you of a souvenir that your high school bestie who no longer talks to you got for you on her family vacation 15 years ago. If you follow these tips even 10% of the time, you are making progress. Future You is worth taking care of (via saving) just as much as Present You is worth taking care of (via spending). Balance may not always be our strong suit but we can put these systems in place to honor all versions of ourselves with our money.
Picture of said bracelet.
S/O to Jonathan Chanin for editing this post.
Thank you to Cindy Zuniga-Sanchez for sharing her knowledge with underrepresented communities in the finance world, and for content editing this post. For more wisdom, you can buy Cindy’s book Overcoming Debt, Achieving Financial Freedom by clicking the button below.
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