How to Spend Happier
An excerpt from last week’s edition of Really Good Work Advice,
a digestible deep dive into what makes a good work-life.
For a long time, I noticed something strange happening in the Ladies Get Paid Slack group. 55,000 women, exchanging millions of messages, all of them excited to learn how to make more money. And yet, no matter how much information they received, many of them took no action, especially when it came to investing.
Then I realized, it was me too.
Even though I “knew” all the reasons why investing wasn’t gambling it still felt too risky and I felt too “uneducated.” (Yes, me – the founder of Ladies Get Paid!)
That’s when it struck me: information wasn’t enough to make change. Emotions were. How I felt about the information was the final arbiter of whether or not I would take action.
I immediately signed up to get a Master’s Certificate in Financial Psychology & Behavioral Finance and it completely changed both my content and how I delivered it.
What I learned was this: no matter the amount in your account, you can change your feelings towards it. I also learned that no matter how ingrained your “bad” money habits are, you can also change your behavior around them.
Let me be clear: I’ll never say that money anxiety is just in your head. Money makes things easier. It buys you time. Space. But also, “more money, more problems.” (Or the same problems…)
I know this because I’ve been in a place where I’ve made a lot and still felt super financially anxious. I’ve also been in a place where I’ve been on food stamps and felt hopeful and grounded (not all of the time, but much of it.)
That’s because money isn’t as straightforward as numbers in your account. It’s what those numbers represent. And not just that, if you live in a Capitalist society, the act of making and spending money informs who you are – or at least the perception anyway. Net worth gets confused with self-worth and we see our market value as our human value. It’s tough to not take a denied promotion personally.
This is the first newsletter in a 2-part series on tangible ways you can improve your relationship with money and feel less financial anxiety, no matter what’s in your account.
✅ Part One: How to spend happier
✅ Part Two: How to heal core money wounds
I’m starting this financial anxiety series with spending because it’s one of our biggest triggers and the quickest area to impact when it comes to improving your relationship with money.
As always, at the bottom of this newsletter, I include a daily plan you can implement beginning this week 🙂
