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What is the Biggest Thing People Stress About When It Comes to Finance?

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financial stress

Money is commonly the center of stress for many people and families. In fact, 73% of Americans rank finances as the number one stress in life. Younger generations are even more stressed about money. Unfortunately, this is usually because they don’t have good financial practices in place. They may overspend, carry debt, lack savings, or simply struggle to communicate about money properly. But what is the biggest thing people stress about when it comes to finance?

Money Stressors

If you run in the debt-free circles on the internet, you may think most people are stressing about the amount of debt they carry. While that is one stressor when it comes to finances, it isn’t the biggest thing people stress about (surprisingly). The biggest money stressor people deal with centers around major life changes, such as buying a home, having a baby, or other big changes.

Around 62% of Americans say the majority of their financial stress comes from attempting to buy a home. That makes sense. Moving is a stressful thing to do. Sixty-one percent of Americans have stress centered around the purchase of a car, another big buying decision.

As you know, I’m prepping for a new arrival in our home. While it has taken a lot of preparation, we haven’t had to stress about our finances too much because we got ahead. We were able to trim things back and focus on preparing for our baby. There are some things you can do to help you minimize your financial stress though. For instance, we placed a focus on saving and material preparation.

How to Cope

Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to cope with financial stress, no matter what you are dealing with. Here are a few quick things you can do to reduce your money stressors.

  1. Communicate. Communication is key when it comes to relieving financial stress. You need to communicate with your household family members, communicate with loan companies and businesses, and with your partners.
  2. Set up a budget. If you don’t have one set up, putting together a budget will help you relieve some of your financial stress as well. Having a concrete plan for where your money is going will settle some of your anxiety.
  3. Look at all your options. If you are struggling to make all of your payments, research what your options are. Some creditors will establish repayment plans to help you. Many utility companies will do the same. In some cases, consolidating your debt payments with a loan might be a good option. Consider what moves you might make to help relieve some stress.
  4. Don’t stay quiet about problems. The worst thing you can do is keep your financial stress to yourself. While people can be awkward when it comes to talking about money, it is important to be open about it. Just talking about your problems can help you feel better.
  5. Save as much as you can. Having money stashed away for emergencies will make you feel more at ease when it comes to your finances, period.

Readers, what are some of your major money stressors? How do you cope? 

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What is the Best Way to Manage Financial Stress?

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financial stress

Throughout my pregnancy, I have been attending yoga classes. Since I started attending these classes a lot of my stress levels are just lower, in general. On top of being good for my physical health, each class has helped improve my mental health as well. I’m less likely to freak out if I can remember the most important part of yoga: to breathe. That got me thinking about how people manage their financial stress and what we do to cope in our own family.

How We Deal With Financial Stress

This isn’t to say you can breathe your way through your financial hardships (though a yoga class or two may help you refocus). However, you can use some things from yoga to help yourself deal with financial stress.

  • Breathe: Sometimes you need to just step back and take a breath. This isn’t the end of the world and a nice cleansing breath can help with your stress levels.
  • Balance: Search for a way to balance out your finances and bring your stress down. Planning helps me a ton!
  • Set your gaze: Consider your goals. Is what you are stressing about really going to hold you back?
  • Drown out distractions: What things are distracting you from reaching your goals? Find a way to drown those things out.
  • Just unplug: Every once in a while, you need to just unplug. Cut off social media, emails, and maybe even your phone for the day. Recenter and come back with a fresh attitude.

Now, my husband doesn’t do yoga. He is more of a jiu-jitsu guy. Thankfully, we have ways of working through our own financial stress together. Normally, he is the calm and collected one. He makes phone calls, mends things when they are broken, and makes the problem (even if temporarily) go away. I am the planner. I sit down and figure out how we can avoid finding ourselves in that situation again.

For many couples and families, this is a great way to manage financial stress. You assign “jobs” to the people in charge of finance. My husband isn’t the best with planning, so bill pay and mapping out our finances each month is my job. He’s a better spender. So, when there is a big purchase to be made, he does the research. It works for us. For the most part, it is about what works for you.

Other Ways to Cope

What works for us won’t necessarily work for you. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to cope with financial stress. Here are three ways I’ve seen be beneficial for other families.

  1. Have a true understanding of your financial situation. Oftentimes, stress stems from not knowing exactly where you stand financially. Take time to get to know your money and where you stand with your debt and long-term financial goals.
  2. Take a social media detox. Social media can be great, but it can also leave us looking at everyone else’s lives and saying, “That could be me.” People start envying one another and, sometimes, overspend trying to keep up with the Joneses. Turn your social media notifications off for a week (or more). It can do wonders!
  3. Consider counseling. Financial counseling can be a great tool if you are really struggling with managing your stress. Look into low-cost and even free options in your area.

Dealing with financial stress can be a killer. Once you find a way to manage your own stress, it can make a world of difference. You may even find you are meeting more of your goals and seeing more progress in your finances.

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How to Handle Financial Stress in a Relationship

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Handling financial stress with a loved one, in many ways, is far better than suffering through it alone. However, stressing out about money can have a heavy impact on a relationship, whether it be romantic or platonic. So, how do you go about handling financial stress without adding stress to your relationship? 

There’s no 1-2-3 answer to this really. In many cases, the dynamic of the relationship will determine how financial stress is handled. However, there are some steps you can take to ease the stress on your relationship and place it where it belongs: on fixing your finances.

How to Deal With Financial Stress in a Relationship

My significant other and I have been living together for about a year and a half. Up until recently though, we were pretty strapped financially. It took a lot of discipline and hard work. We paid off debts, saved money, and made things happen quickly. One of the main contributors to our success in doing so was not allowing the financial stress to damage our relationship. Here’s how we did it:

  1. Be open and honest about money. One key step in our success to overcoming our financial stress was communication, and it will be on your journey as well. If you are sharing finances with this person, and plan to do so the rest of your life, you can’t be afraid to talk to them about it. A huge thing for us and many other couples is being able to find a tool that we could use to monitor all of the finances in the house. We did this by sharing a Mint budgeting account. We added all of our accounts and reminded one another of due dates, savings goals, and had a good idea of where we were financially at all times.
  2. Talk about areas you messed up and discuss your losses. Before we got to that great place where we were communicating about our finances well, we messed up. A lot. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’ve messed up, but also work with your partner on ways to prevent it from happening again. Talking about where you messed up and how it happened can prevent financial stress down the road. For instance, we went over budget at Christmas time and, subsequently, had a really tight budget at the beginning of the year. We discussed having additional savings this year for Christmas (because we both love the holiday). Discussing it took the stress out of the relationship and placed it back on the finances like it should be.
  3. Always appreciate the little things. When you are broke or seriously working on your finances, you don’t have money to spend on spoiling your significant other, and that sucks. You can still do a lot of little things that will make a world of difference though. When dealing with financial stress in a relationship, focusing on the little things can make-or-break it. While we were experiencing hard times, my other half brought home $1 coffee mugs (I love coffee), or he would bring home my favorite snack. Although these things didn’t cost much, they meant a lot.

Don’t Be Afraid to Get Help

Whether it is relationship counseling or financial counseling, always remember that reaching out for help is a possibility. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a financial advisor or relationship counselor to help you navigate these tough times. There are many affordable counseling services available.

Dealing with financial stress in a relationship can be tough but as long as you keep communication open, work together, and reach out for help when you need it, you and your partner will be on your way to financial success in no time!

Read about how to maintain your financial momentum. 

The Effects of Financial Stress on Marriage and Other Relationships

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Effects of Financial Stress on Marriage
You really don’t release the effect stress has on your mind, body, soul and even your relationships until it is too late. Similarly, financial stress can greatly effect your life but what are the effects of financial stress on marriage and your other relationships?

What is Financial Stress?

There is no doubt that money causes a lot of stress in this world. Financial stress (when you are unable to be financially stable) is something that effects many people but is seldom spoken about. Seven out of 10 Americans would say that finances are one of their number one concerns. Only 1 in 10 seem “carefree” about their financial situation.

If there was ever a definition of financial stress it is the last seven months (or so) of my life. I was put out of a place to stay, lived in a hotel and somehow managed to pay off $2,000 in debt and save money to move into an apartment. That being said, those seven months were some of the most trying times of my life and the financial stress definitely impacted my life in ways I didn’t even realize.

How Financial Stress Can Effect Your Life

Financial stress can impact your life in many different ways. Personally, financial stress impacted my health mostly. I was unable to eat normally and got sick every few weeks. There are many other effects of financial stress that you may not realize.

  • Health: Stress of any kind can be detrimental to your health. Stress can cause anxiety attacks, heart issues, blood pressure problems, ulcers as well as a number of other health issues. If you feel like your financial stress is getting the best of you, seek professional help.
  • Credit Scores: Of course your financial stress is likely to effect your credit score over time. If you’re unable to pay bills, etc your score will start to slip. The thought of this, though, is likely to cause more stress.
  • Loss: You can lose a lot when you’re going through financial stress. If you’re not able to pay bills (as mentioned above) you may start to lose things. For example, if you’re unable to pay your car note it may get repossessed.
  • Mood (Depression): Financial stress can also have a huge impact on your overall mood and can even cause depression. When you become depressed you begin to let other parts of your life slip too (usually). Your job and even relationships may begin to feel the impact of your stress.
  • Relationships: Your relationships may also suffer when you’re going through financial stress. Friends and family may not understand the stress you’re going through or you may not want to talk about it. You’ll also be less likely to be social because of your financial situation.

Outside of personal relationships (friendships, family, etc) financial stress is also known to have a huge impact on marriage. In fact, money is one of the number one things couples fight about.

What are the Effects of Financial Stress on Marriage?

Your spouse is someone you share everything with, which means that sometimes you’ll both have to bear some stress for one another. Financial stress can really put a strain on a marriage though. Some of the effects of financial stress are (but not limited to) anxiety, depression, alcoholism, sever health issues, eating disorders and even the inability to sleep. Each of these things can greatly effect a marriage.

All of that and you and your partner are both suffering. You both have to deal with the thought of having absolutely “nothing” or having to change your lives as you know it to better your financial future. This can lead to fights and even a feeling of loneliness (if you feel your partner isn’t communicating enough). There is good news though. You can always overcome your financial stress.

As a side note, if you are having marital problems, it makes sense to figure out how to solve them fast.  I recommend John Gottman’s book The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work.  It is a really solid handbook for improving your marriage and handling stress.

How to Overcome Financial Stress

Overcoming your financial stress won’t be a cake walk but there are things you can do to relieve and even overcome your financial stress. Here’s how I did it:

  1. Figure out what has you stressed. If there is a credit card payment keeping you stressed out, looming debt or whatever it may be, identify the problem. Once you’ve done that you’ll be able to start to overcoming financial stress.
  2. Try and think positively. One of the things that pulled me through my time of financial stress was focusing and how great life was going to be once the stress was gone. Keep your head up! It will help you overcome your financial stress.
  3. Set realistic goals. It is easy to say “I want to pay off all my debt” but without realistic, smaller goals you won’t ever get anything done. Sit down and set some realistic goals for your financial future. Oftentimes writing these things down can help you reduce your stress tremendously.You can use this FREE tool from Undebt.it. They provide a mobile-friendly snowball/avalanche calculator app to help you live debt free. The payment is easy-to-follow so you can finally eliminate your debt!
  4. Make your dollar count. When I was working on overcoming my personal financial stress I focused on trimming my budget. Everywhere I could cut something I did. Be sure you’re getting the best deals possible and trimming your budget to the best of your ability.
  5. Lean on someone. You don’t have to overcome your financial stress alone. Find a family member or friend you can confide in and don’t be afraid to share your goals with them and lean on them when you need to. Overcoming financial stress is difficult.

Do you have a personal story on how financial stress effected your life? We’d love to hear from you. 

Photo: Health Magazine

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