How Money Stress Keeps You Stuck with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin

Tati: If you’ve ever felt guilty spending money or found yourself overworking over fear you won’t have enough, this episode is for you. Today I’m joined by Lindsey Bryan Potvin, a financial therapist and author of The Financial Anxiety Solution, to unpack the hidden ways financial anxiety shows up in high achievers, we talk about the emotional roots of money, stress, how overworking can become a coping strategy, and why just budgeting better.

Isn’t the solution, whether you’re somebody who avoids looking at your bank account or you obsessively track every dollar, this conversation will help you understand your money in a more compassionate, empowered way. Let’s dive in.

Hey everybody. I am excited to be here with Lindsay Brian Potvin, a financial therapist, to talk about things like financial anxiety, how that might show up and potentially keep us stuck or get in things like overworking, feeling like we’re never doing enough and all of the things that go along with that, especially when it comes to high functioning anxiety.

So I’m really excited to have you here, Lindsay. Yeah, Tati. I’m glad to be here and to chat with y’all about this. So can you tell us more about. You are a financial therapist. So what got you into specializing in kind of the intersection between money and mental health?

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s a good question and the short answer is that was never my plan, and now the longer answer.

So the longer answer is I am a licensed social worker and I was in the world of therapy specializing in helping people with depression and anxiety, and I got my first paycheck in that. First nonprofit job out of grad school. I’m sure Tati, you can relate. And I was making less than I was as a waitress.

And I started to experience not only the numbers based side effect of living paycheck to paycheck, but also really experiencing it physically and mentally. So I previously had really well managed depression and anxiety. All of a sudden my symptoms were flaring. I couldn’t sleep, I had racing thoughts. Um, my stomach was upset all the time, like all of these things that make sense in retrospect, but in that moment I just couldn’t figure it out.

And so I did what any other, you know, eldest daughter Virgo would do. And I took myself to the library, checked out armfuls of books on personal finances and. It helped a little in that it gave me some additional tips and tricks and you know, some of that knowledge was very helpful, but it actually made me feel worse because most of those books were telling me things like, you’re not working hard enough, you don’t have enough discipline.

You need to cut out, hanging out with your friends and drinking lattes and having toast and all this. Stuff. So that was what I was experiencing personally. And then professionally, a lot of my clients were stressed out about money. And as a social worker, my training really just told me, well, you can help advocate for them to make sure that their power stays on, or that their cell phone isn’t cut off.

But it didn’t go beyond that, and it just became. This insatiable quest to figure out how to talk about money, not just from the dollars in dollars out perspective, but really from the emotional and psychological perspective. And so I became, you know, very interested in trying to figure out how to intersect those two worlds because I knew I didn’t wanna go back to school and become a financial planner or financial advisor.

I really wanted to stay in my lane and help people in the area of mental health. But I really wanted to talk about how our emotions impact what we do or don’t do with our money. So it became this long journey to find my way to the world of financial therapy. I got certified in financial therapy, financial, social work, and the trauma of money.

And in 2020 took my private practice full time And um, now my practice is called Mind Money Balance. And in addition to having a small clinical practice helping people with financial therapy, um, I also provide financial wellbeing workshops. I have a partnership with the local university here where we’ve tested curriculum and rolled out curriculum and it’s.

Going so well, and so it’s been great to bring some of this financial therapy informed information to folks outside of my clinical practice.

Tati: Yeah, so I can hear that your personal experience really informed this shift. And I think that you’re really filling a gap where, like you were saying, when it comes to finances, people hear things about budgeting or, you know, you talked about the latte effect, like just stop buying your daily coffee and that will fix everything.

And the emotional piece I think is just so. Intertwine in finances and especially I think that when it comes to finances, that helps to give us a sense of security and safety. And I think when people don’t feel that it can throw other things off, it can result in, like you were sharing those symptoms of anxiety.

So can you speak more to that about how finances are so important or can be important for many people to feel that sense of safety, stability.

Lindsay: Yeah, you’re exactly right that when we think about kind of the, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, so for folks who remember from Psychology 1 0 1, it, it looks like a, a triangle and at the bottom of ensuring that you’re doing okay is making sure your basic needs are met.

Food, clothing, shelter. We live in a society. We’re having access to food, clothing, and shelter requires dollars. So unless we have enough money coming in to cover those basic needs, we will all feel pretty anxious. Dysregulated on edge, fill in the blank, and. It is imperative that we all have that kind of baseline level of financial stability, but, and for folks who trend toward having a bit more anxiety, what I often see happen is even after that first foundational safety net is full, say they have an emergency fund, they have enough money coming into pay their bills, they are.

Proactively making sure that they are filing their taxes. They still may experience a lot of that financial anxiety as though their basic needs are being met, right? Their body is firing on all cylinders, telling them danger, danger, danger. Something is wrong, and they haven’t been able to dial down that response.

Um, that may have been appropriate in the past or may have made. Sense when they get to a place of, of a little bit more financial stability. So it makes perfect sense to be anxious and on edge when you are not making ends meet. And you know, Tati, you know, my bias, I believe that it would be better for everyone if we had some of those basic needs.

Met, um, research shows. Anytime we look at other countries that provide a stronger social safety net, not only are people’s finances in a better position, but also they report lower levels of things like anxiety and depression. So it goes hand in hand to have your basic needs met. It makes perfect sense that then you would feel a little bit less anxious and on edge.

Tati: And can you speak to, from your experience, what do you think? And obviously it’s gonna be. Personal, different for everybody, but what is the cause? You know, is it childhood experiences or things that people have learned about money when it comes to experiencing that financial anxiety,

Lindsay: it could come from a number of place.

Research shows that by the time we’re about seven or eight years old, we have more or. Decided what we think about money. So absolutely those early childhood experiences shape us. So if you grew up in a household where money was taboo and it was hush hush and you never talked about it, you may internalize that money is private.

You need to do it on your own. You need to figure it out. Um, if you grew up in a household where money was tense and the adults in your household were arguing about it a lot, or there was a lot of tension. Or you were told, no, we can’t afford that. You may internalize some of those stories about scarcity or not having enough, um, or feeling like you weren’t able to advocate for yourself or ask for your specific needs or even wants to be met.

So of course, those early childhood experiences shape us and. Some of those first moments are also quite impactful. So the first time you got a job, were you being paid under the table? Um, did you have somewhere that, you know, you were on a payroll and you had your taxes taken out and that was the first time you kind of understood it?

Maybe the first time you had a job, you saved your money and you, you know, tucked it under your pillow and you. Your older sibling came in and stole it. Like what were some of those bigger first exposures to making your own money and how might those experiences have shaped you? Um, and then of course when we think about folks who maybe have a little bit more anxiety, they may have a tendency toward perfectionism.

And one of my favorite definitions of perfectionism is by Anton and Swenson. It’s an old book at this point in time, but they say that. Perfectionism is an attempt to control discomfort. And when I think about folks with high functioning anxiety and how that might show up in their relationship with money, it feels like I often see this pattern of people over consuming information about money, listening to all of the personal finance podcasts, following all of the personal finance talkers.

Um, buying every single budgeting book or journal or what have you, right? There is a lot of emphasis on consuming as much information as possible as a hedge against the possibility that it might feel a little bit uncomfortable, or God forbid you might make a mistake. So that’s how I often see it show up in high functioning anxiety.

Is this consuming of information and trying to do it exactly right. And then I can see it show up in some other ways after that. So for some people it is intense rigidity around, this is how I manage my money when I was 21. And so even though I’m 35 now, I’m going to continue doing it that same way, even if my finances aren’t the same.

Or I see people stuck in this cycle of consume but not implement they want to. As much information as humanly possible before they open up a savings account or before they negotiate for a raise. But this bar of I need to learn more, just keeps getting pushed higher and higher. So it’s like I consume all this information and then I freeze.

Um, so those are a couple of the ways that I see it show up in folks with anxiety.

Tati: Yeah. And I, I think those are great points that you bring up, like that tendency to want a sense of. Control, want more information because that kind of is a way of feeling like we’re protected against the bad things that can happen.

But of course, especially if you’re consuming all this information and not putting it into action or just. Continuing to overthink things and and feel stuck and paralyzed. That’s not going to actually create any change. So what would you suggest for somebody who’s in that place of perfectionism or rigidity when it comes to thinking about their finances?

Lindsay: There are a few different approaches if somebody is stuck in that rigidity or perfectionism. So the first thing I would invite somebody to do is to consider who they are getting information from and how it makes them feel. A lot of people in personal finance, especially more of your old school. Finance experts, they are very rigid.

They are people who tell you do these five steps. You can’t do anything until you’ve done these 10 things. Um, you’re not allowed to enjoy your life if you have debt or if you, um, don’t have enough saved in an emergency fund. So a lot of those really rigid rule-based folks may initially appeal to a person who has anxiety because they go, cool, I’ve got this roadmap, I’ve got this checklist.

I can just follow it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I want folks to also think about, does that still feel good to me? Is somebody who doesn’t know me telling me I have to do these eight things before I can do anything else? Does that really feel good for me? Does it quiet my anxiety? Do I feel calm?

Do I feel competent? Do I feel capable? Or is it making me feel behind and bad and like I need to work harder? And if the answer is more in that. Second bucket, I would invite you to peek around and find somebody else to get your personal finance information from, because there are so many different approaches that you can find that will resonate with you.

So that’s one is who are you getting this information from and how does it help you, if at all. Then the second thing I would invite you to think about is what really matters to you? So there are a lot of people, again, who say, you need to do this before you do this, before you do this, which feels so good for an anxious brain and.

The key thing about personal finance is exactly that, Tati, it’s personal. So for somebody, they may feel very safe having $1,000 saved in a savings account as an emergency fund, and that may feel like enough. And for somebody else, they say, no way. I need at. $5,000 or three months of expenses or whatever it is.

And that’s where I need to focus my energy and effort before I can think about other things like improving my credit score or paying down debt, but giving yourself the moment to kind of check in and do a little values check of what matters most to me, and focusing on that one thing versus trying to do everything all at once, which often happens with anxious folks.

And then the third thing I would say is to practice. Making mistakes and tolerating discomfort. There is nobody out there who has pay. Oh, I’m gonna say that again. Nobody out there is mistake free when it comes to personal finances. We give ourselves a lot of permission to make mistakes when we’re learning other things.

Um, an example I often give is, you know, when you were a kid and, and learning how to swim or learning how to ride a bike, you probably, you know, tumbled a little bit on that bike. Or you probably found yourself coughing up a little bit of water when you were learning how to swim. But if you don’t go through that wobble.

You won’t get to a place where you feel comfortable and confident. So giving yourself permission to make mistakes. You know, we don’t intend to go out and like, you know, just break things. That’s not the advice I’m giving, but give yourself, um, a bit of compassion to say, making a mistake with my money means that I was willing to try and I am trusting myself to learn the process.

I’m trusting myself to try.

Tati: Yeah, I think that’s really powerful advice to open up to making mistakes, especially when it comes to perfectionism. And so I wanna talk about the two different ends. So first, what would you say to somebody who they are legitimately struggling financially and. Maybe not able to build up an emergency fund or, you know, meet any, meet certain needs, uh, and they’re experiencing anxiety because of that.

What would your recommendations be for somebody in that kind of situation?

Lindsay: For somebody who is in a financial situation where they’re struggling to make ends meet, first of all, I just wanna name for you that I’m so sorry that’s happening, and I can empathize with that frustration of feeling really anxious, and also for a lot of the advice that’s out there to not really resonate with you.

Right? So if you are struggling to make ends meet and somebody says, don’t get the latte. You might wanna give them the middle finger because you haven’t had a latte in over a year. So just know that. Uh, it, the, the advice that’s often out there isn’t for folks who are in that paycheck to paycheck situation.

So first and foremost, I would encourage you, if you’re in the US or in Canada, to visit 2 1 1. It’s a database that connects you with local resources that can help you with things like making sure your bills stay on, providing you with some financial counseling education. Potentially even things like debt reconsolidation or connecting you to tangible resources such as food or maybe a new cell phone or things like that.

So one is just reaching out to the resources in your community and getting help. There is nothing wrong with getting help, and in fact, I encourage everybody who is. Kind of on that fringe area to make sure that they are receiving those services. As a person who used to work in a nonprofit, the more people we can say that we serve, the more likely it is that we are going to continue to get our funding.

So if that helps you to feel like, okay, I’m asking for a bag of groceries, or I’m asking to make sure that my, uh, electricity doesn’t get shut off, know that that actually serves that nonprofit as well so they can continue to do the work. So one is find local resources in your community. Two is lean on your network to figure out if there are other sorts of trades or swaps that can enable you to focus on.

Earning more and or spending less. And I know telling you to spend less right now feels like an eye roll or whatever, so, so bear with me when I say reach out to your community. I mean, do you have a neighbor? If you have kids, do you have a neighbor who can come over and like entertain your child or help them with their homework for an hour?

So then you can dust up your resume and apply to jobs that pay a little bit more during that hour. Can you double check that you aren’t paying for two Netflix subscriptions under two different emails? I know. Um, I will raise my hand and say I’ve been guilty of that too, of like, Ooh, I’m gonna get my free seven day trial with this email address and I just completely forgot to turn it off.

Um, or that. You know that Bill was going to a different email address. So give yourself permission to ask for a little bit of guidance, um, or a little bit of support from your community to do things like find ways to earn more and or spend less. Um, also on that community front I mentioned swapping.

Think about what else you can offer in return. So if somebody’s gonna watch your kiddo for an hour or two hours, so you can do that thing, maybe you just got your car tuned up and your neighbor’s car. Um. Hasn’t been working, you can lend it to them. Or if that feels like a big ask, you can say, why don’t you hop in with me the next time we go grocery shopping?

I think there’s such an emphasis in our country and in our culture on this rugged individualism, especially in personal finance. So I want you to push back against that. Um. Kind of tendency to want to just do it all yourself. Um, so those are the two big things that I would say and, and I hinted at this earlier, but I’ll be really explicit when it comes down to having a, a monthly budget, which is managing your cash flow.

The math problem is this, it is how much money is coming in. Minus how much money is going out. And when you subtract your expenses from your income, you should have money left over it. If it is at zero, if all of the money you’re bringing in is all going out, we need to do some tweaking. And the ways to tweak is to earn more, to spend less.

Ideally both. And again, I’ll name that the spending less. Could be something where you didn’t even know you were spending it. It was a duplicate purchase. Um, and it can also be temporary. Maybe you temporarily stop your streaming services until you get a better paying job or until your tax refund comes back or until your ex pays you that child support, they owe you.

Right. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Tati: Yeah. I think that’s such excellent, practical advice and especially seeking out. Resources that I think a lot of people aren’t even aware exist. So I, I love that recommendation of 2 1 1 and then to go to the other side of things. So maybe somebody who, they’re able to pay their bills, they’re having their needs met, maybe even doing really well, but they’re still experiencing this.

Financial anxiety, and a lot of the things that I’ve heard are, let’s say, you know, you decide you want 5,000 in emergency fund, but then you reach that point and it’s like, well, it still feels like it’s not enough, and you feel like you need more to feel secure, or you may have enough money left over, but you still feel like, okay, I, I am still feel like I’m struggling or feeling anxious.

What, what would your recommendations be for that?

Lindsay: This is the person who says, I need more money because I need more money. But they have not gone and taken a moment to get curious with why. When you say, okay, if I had $5,000 in an emergency fund, I would hit that goal. Great. And why did you set that goal of $5,000?

What did that $5,000 signify for you? And so many people, especially folks who have that anxiety, they’re following someone else’s rules. They’re following someone else’s guidebook. Instead of getting curious about what an emergency fund looks like for them and how and why it would provide them with a, a type of peace of mind.

So for the person who. Has hit their emergency fund goal, but they still feel really anxious. This would be an opportunity to check in and say, okay, of that emergency fund goal, how many months could I survive off of that money in the event that something happened to my income? Ma And and I would invite you to think about what’s the most.

Likely scenario everyone jumps to if you lost a job. And that can happen, especially, you know, you and I are talking in 2025 when the economy feels really uncertain and, and job security feels a little bit up in the air. Um, but typically what we tend to see are, are things like. You didn’t get that raise that you were expecting or your hours at work got cut back, or, um, maybe a promotion that you were promised isn’t going to happen for a little while.

So how much, um, how long can that money sustain you if your income were to change, um, and run through the most? Likely scenario, if you’re a two income household, what if, is it true that both of you would lose your jobs? Or is it likely that one of you is maybe in a more stable job and one of you is in an industry that has more peaks and valleys?

So then run the numbers with what might happen if one of us lost a job. So getting really comfortable with data informed, just like we do in cognitive behavioral therapy, using that data. To inform and to kind of lovingly challenge that thought that says it’s not enough for the person who. Is experiencing a lot of financial anxiety.

They have enough money, but there’s this intense guilt around saying yes to buying, um, tickets, to go see a concert with a friend, or going out to brunch with, um, some friends or taking yourself on that vacation that’s been on your dream board forever. I would invite you to think through where that anxiety is coming from and see if you can do a little both.

And so in this instance, I would invite a person to acknowledge why they may feel that way and honor that it makes sense and get curious kind of pushing back against that. So in the instance of a person who worked really hard to save up money for a vacation, now it’s time to book that vacation and they’re freaking out because they don’t wanna spend the money.

I would invite them to do something like this. It makes sense that I don’t want to spend that money. It took me six, seven months to save it up. I was really intentional and pulled back in certain areas and it was a lot of hard work and I made that goal of going on a vacation because I am a teacher and I am so burnt out and I cannot wait for summer vacation to include me going to a little tiny cottage.

Bringing a stack of books, not having the internet and just resetting my nervous system. I was intentional about saving this money and I’m going to use this money to nurture myself and to finalize that goal that I had set for myself. So it’s acknowledging why you might feel a certain way and getting curious about how true it is now.

Tati: Yeah, I, I think that’s really valid advice and I think a lot of times they can. Maybe you want to avoid looking at their finances, like you’re talking about looking at the data and getting clear on things. I think that in of itself can sometimes feel overwhelming and anxiety provoking for people. Like, what am I gonna.

End up finding out when I actually start looking at my bank account. Like I think there can be the two extremes, like you were saying, of somebody who is really seeking out information. So maybe they’re like obsessively checking their numbers and, and um, like really hyper aware. But then there can be the other people who are really avoidant and like don’t even want to look at it.

Lindsay: Yeah, I would love to share a tip that I give for folks who are avoidant of looking at their bank accounts or their paychecks or, or whatever that money related data is that they are avoiding. One is before you even think about opening up that app or logging in on your laptop, literally write down either in your phone on a sticky note somewhere.

It doesn’t matter. What is the worst case scenario that you expect to see when you log in? Now you have to know yourself. If you are a super spiraler, this may not work for you, but if you’re like, okay, I, I trust that I have enough skills to play Lindsay’s game, what is the worst case scenario that I expect to see?

Write that down and then answer. What would I do? What would I do if my bank account balance was lower than I wanted it to be? What would I do if that tax refund hadn’t hit my account? What would I do if I never turned off that? Rent the runway subscription, right? And write down the answer. What would you do?

Oh, I might dot, dot, dot. I might call and cancel that subscription. I might move some money from savings to checking. I might call the IRS. Right. What are the things that you might do if that? Worst case scenario were there because so often with anxiety is we spiral through jumping to the worst case scenario and catastrophizing without trusting ourselves that we actually are probably competent enough to cope with that situation.

If we. Are faced with it, right? So, so often the, the anxiety spiral looks like, oh my gosh, the IRS never deposited that money in my account. That means that they must not have received my taxes. That means the next thing I know, my wages are gonna be garnished. I won’t know my wages are being garnished, and then somebody’s gonna show up at my work, and then I’m gonna be hauled out in front of my colleagues and the IRS is gonna take me downtown, right?

Like it goes to that before going, okay, if the IRS hasn’t deposited your refund. What’s the first next step you’ll take, right? Giving ourselves permission to trust ourselves, to have that strength to cope with that thing. So write down like how would I deal with that worst case scenario? And then on the opposite side of that, how would you deal with that best case scenario, right?

If you had, if that money was deposited, if you did remember to cancel that subscription, whatever the thing is, write what you would do. Because we also want to start associating those kind of scary things with. If not something positive, at least something neutral, right? So if I saw that I canceled that subscription before I thought, and I had an extra 160 bucks sitting there that I thought was going to be gone, well, I’ll move a hundred of it to, um, an emergency fund and I’ll use that 60 bucks to take myself out to a nice dinner in a movie, right?

Like we can also think through some of those positive things. So that’s one is like how to kind of prepare for it. And then two is. If and when you’re getting ready to look at your data, you know your body best, you know how you typically deal with anxiety best, make sure that you set up that data check-in to be when you are emotionally at your best.

So if you have a very taxing, tiring job. Probably coming home after work, before you eat dinner and you’re hangry and tired is not going to be the time or place to log into your bank account. It’ll probably be more advantageous for you to do it on a Sunday morning when you’ve slept in, you’ve had your coffee, maybe you moved your body, you went on a walk, or you went to the gym and you’re really in your best version of yourself.

Then look at your finances there. So those are the tips that I would give to somebody who is avoiding it.

Tati: Great. And, and another pattern that I notice is when financial anxiety affects behavior specifically with work. And so maybe that looks like overworking because you. Feel as though you need to like get ahead or you need to make more money in order to.

Battle this anxiety you’re experiencing. Another pattern could be overworking maybe because there is guilt about, okay, I’m making all of this money and I need to work many hours in order to justify making this amount of money. Um, so can you speak to, and maybe there’s other patterns you’ve noticed when financial anxiety really starts to affect behaviors when it comes to, to work and potentially leading to burnout.

Lindsay: So in that first scenario of kind of overworking and potentially not having a why behind it, just I think I need to work so I can stay in this job so I can earn more money. I would go back to some of those tips from earlier. How much do you need to hit your next goal? Maybe it’s a temporary thing where you say, you know what?

For the rest of this quarter, I’m gonna keep my nose down. You know, kind of push through it so I can hit that bonus and that bonus will do X, Y, Z, great, whatever. But if it is more of, I feel like I have to work this hard so I can earn more money, but I don’t know why. That’s where I think you can get curious again about what may happen if you tell your boss, you know what?

I’m really working on my work life boundaries. I’m gonna be out of my inbox after 5:00 PM Like, what might happen for you if you started setting up? Some of those boundaries, um, and. You know that that phrase, if you need to get something done, ask a busy person to do it. The busy person is all often a person with high functioning anxiety, right?

So my guess is for a lot of these folks, you have kind of been pinpointed as the person who will just say yes. And so it may take a little bit of time for you to get comfortable saying, no, my plate. Full, or, you know what? I, I really have to focus on this project that was delegated to me. You can see if somebody else on the team can do it.

Just get comfortable practicing saying no deferring and, um, asking for some additional support. Um, especially when you know you name things like burnout. If you have a good manager at work, it can be worth bringing up. You know, hey, the next time we have our one-on-one, here’s what I need to talk about. I need to talk about my current workload compared to my job description and just see whether or not I can keep going at this pace or if we can have somebody else take on this aspect of my role.

Um, and you can also do that in a way that really frames it as you doing your best work. Nobody wants an employee who’s there. Taking three times as long to do something because they’re not working in an area or on a task that they’re best suited for. Right? So you can come to your boss and say, look, I know we all have to do grunt work, but like, really, I shine when I do X, Y, Z.

I really shine at networking events, or I really shine at um. Compiling data, whatever the thing is, and then name the things that maybe you aren’t so good at. You know what, I don’t love doing these, um, I don’t know, budget reports. It takes me so long and honestly, so and so in our office is so much better at it.

I would love to like, take on some of their networking events if they could take on this budgeting report, right? Like you wanna come with some sort of solution. Um. And then now this is just me to you, Tati. What was the second scenario? I cannot remember it. Yeah, no, that’s

Tati: okay. Um, yeah, so it was about somebody who maybe has financial guilt and then because of that they overwork as a way of kind of like proving to themselves, I am, it’s justified for me to make this amount of money.

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. So for the person who overworks out of guilt, I want to lovingly remind you that we were again raised in a society that has told us that hard work equals money, and that hard work equals success even if we know that that is not actually true. I know plenty of people who work really hard and are in minimum or almost minimum wage jobs, the amount of effort that you put into a job.

Does not mean that you will automatically be rewarded financially and you might be going, well, Lindsay, that’s not the deal. I feel like I don’t work hard enough to justify what I earn. So then my loving pushback to you is you were hired for some reason, you were given this compensation package because of the skills that you bring to the role and.

People’s entire jobs are figuring out compensation structures and compensation packages. If you are given a job description and a role, and it comes with a certain compensation package, good news, there’s a reason for it. And. I would invite you to just like maybe pull up that old job description. Does it say, in order to keep this job, you actually need to work 65 hours instead of 40 or 55 hours instead of 32?

My guess is it doesn’t because that’s, um, illegal, but I just want you to again, come back to like this data piece. And then the other thing is with that guilt, especially for. Women, women are conditioned when it comes to money as recently as 2017, to think about money from a saving perspective and a budgetary perspective.

So in 2017 there was research that found that boys and girls, unfortunately, they didn’t, um, check for trans or non-binary kids. But boys and girls were taught different messages about money from their parents. Girls were taught the importance of saving money. Here’s how we save when we go to the grocery store.

Here’s how to manage a, a household budget to make sure that you can send your kid to soccer camp. Right? They were taught the importance of cutting back, of restricting, and of taking away. Little boys were taught, on the other hand, the importance of earning. They were taught the importance of taking risks and entrepreneurship.

Things like get that lawnmower out and go mow your neighbor’s lawn for 20 bucks. Or things like, Hey, let me teach you how the stock market works. Let’s put $20 in this stock and watch it together. So if you are, um, a woman, um. I would invite you, uh, if you believe in equity and equality, which I imagine you do to lovingly challenge this idea that somehow you’re only valuable if you scrimp and save and restrict.

I would invite you to remind yourself that you have value to give and that you are worthy of the value. Of money, um, that you, uh, that you earn based on the type of work that you provide. And I, I really try to put some space in there between self-worth and income or self-worth and, and net worth. There’s, um, you know, those little phrases out there like, oh, charge your worth, charge your worth.

Um. As humans, we, we don’t have a worth, we we, a monetary worth. We are, we have so much worth. We have so much to offer. We have so much value, but we are not better because we have a higher salary. We are not less worthy if we have a lower salary. So I always try to remind people to frame their income through.

I am paid based on the value of the work that I provide, versus I am compensated because I know my worth and I charge my worth. Well, if we were all charging our worth, it would be infinite and, and limitless. So those are a few ideas I would have for somebody who’s in, in that frame of mind.

Tati: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

And I, I like how you added that piece of, ’cause I think that can be something that’s, that’s commonly said that like. You know, charge your worth. And then it’s like, well, what does that even mean? And, and speaking to that, let’s say with somebody who is maybe self-employed or a gig worker or works for, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Um. When somebody earns money. Like a contractor, not contractor, um, freelance, no, I can’t think of the word. Okay. It’s like when you sell a certain amount and then you make money off of that, like an affiliate. Uh. Not an affiliate or commission based commission, that’s what, okay. Okay, okay, okay. Or somebody who works for commission, what would your recommendations be for somebody who may be the, the work that they’re doing is inherently like uncertain or, or based upon, you know, how much work they’re doing or how many clients they’re getting, or sales they’re making.

Um,

Lindsay: so in a situation like that, well actually let me ask you for some clarity. So for, um, we’ll just use like gig worker, which I know is not. All correct, but, but for somebody like this, are you saying. Um, what’s your recommendation to make sure they’re charging enough or to make sure they’re not overworking?

Help me understand, like, the framing of the question.

Tati: Yeah. I guess to manage maybe the, uh, ups and downs that might come with it. Mm-hmm. Like the uncertainty that goes along with, maybe this month you have more work, but next month you don’t, or, or kind of handling the anxiety that can come from that.

Lindsay: Yeah, so, um, being a small business owner, I can definitely empathize with those months where you have more revenue come in and those months that are just a little bit more quiet.

So one thing I recommend, just like logistically, is to take a look at your monthly expenses and figure out how much you need to earn to make sure to cover those monthly expenses every single month. And that. Can and should kind of be the baseline for how much you need to earn each month. And for those months when you make more than that, then I would invite you to take some of that additional earnings and put it into a savings account instead of let it sit in your checking account because it’s really easy to spend that money when we have it versus saving it for those months that are a little bit slower or a little bit quieter.

So I would say make sure you have, um. You know, a little bit more of a robust emergency fund and then when you are earning more than your monthly expenses, make sure to kind of siphon some off for those other months. Um, then in terms of another kind of logistical or practical strategy, most people just straight up are undercharging for their services.

So, um, for the gig worker, for the contractor, um, if you have long-term clients, let them know, Hey, my rates are going to be going up at the start of the month or at the start of the year. Um. It is much easier to retain a current client than it is to find a new client. And I think so many of us get anxious about telling our, our loyal clients or our loyal customers that we have to increase our rates and we’re like, I’ll, I’ll just try and find someone new.

That takes a lot of energy and effort. Nothing wrong with it, trying to find a new client or a new customer, but really nurturing those relationships that you already have. I remember the very first time I raised my rates as a therapist. I was hemming and hawing. I needed a lot of like supervision and consultation.

I was so anxious about doing it, and when I finally. Raised my rates and I said it to them in person, FYI, you know, my rates are gonna be going up in 30 days. Uh, here’s like the, the physical letter so you have it in writing. One of my clients just looked at me and said, you should have done that a long time ago.

And I share that story, not because I’m like, oh, I’m such an amazing therapist. Look at how good I am. But because the people who have been with us for a long time are happy to continue supporting us, whether we are providing, um, a product or a service, um, or help in some way, shape or form. So I would say make sure you can raise your rates.

Same thing with like contractors. Um. And for folks who are commission based, ask your boss about a different kind of compensation package. Um, that maybe helps you get to where you need to go a little bit quicker. You know, again, bring your data, say, say what numbers you’ve hit, share the, the benchmarks that you’re exceeding and see if you can dial up that percentage compensation that you get.

Or if you can potentially, um. Start like for a lot of different things, it’ll be like, you know when you hit this tier, you get this percent of a commission. When you hit tier two, you get this percent of a commission. And those kind of commission percentages keep going up. See if you can tweak those tiers so that you can be compensated.

So you’ll notice that I spent a lot of time talking about earning more rather than. Cutting. Cutting, cutting and earning more without overworking is the key.

Tati: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And just to say for me personally, Lindsay, you helped me in, in your, I think it was like build a profitable practice Yes. Program to Yes.

Personally raise my therapy rates. And I felt super anxious before doing that. And I actually, in your program, I. Transitioned from being in network to out of network so that I could be fairly compensated. ’cause unfortunately, you know, insurance companies don’t compensate what they should be for, for the work that many therapists are providing.

And, and so. Your support in that was, was very helpful for me in kind of like navigating the, the uncertainty and the fear

Lindsay: in inheriting that. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And you know, I hope viewers and listeners can hear that, you know, Tati and I are also mental healthcare professionals.

It doesn’t mean that we have everything figured out. We are humans. We experience anxiety, we experience uncertainty, and and I appreciate you naming that and sharing that too. And, and what I also heard in your story and in my story of raising our rates is that. We didn’t just barrel in and do it on our own, like I shared ahead to talk to my supervisor and kind of talk it out.

You know, you were in a group program kind of, you know, airing these things out with other people. So again, I would just plug that having other people around and talking about it actually helps to maybe not dial down that anxiety, but certainly have other people in your corner so that you can take that action.

So I, I appreciate that and I’m glad that you were able to do that too.

Tati: Yeah, absolutely. And this was a really. Powerful, like information packed conversation. I tried to cover all of the different areas. I’ve, I’ve been thinking about having you on the podcast for a while, but I finally, uh, you know, reached out.

’cause I was like, yeah, I could talk about financial anxiety, but I’d really rather have somebody who is an expert and, and I really looked to you for that. So I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Is there any. Anything else that you’d like to share with listeners, whether it’s a final tip where they can find you or how they can connect with you?

Yeah.

Lindsay: Well, first it was my pleasure to be here. So fun this time. Just like completely flew by. Um, so as I mentioned earlier, my business is called Mind Money Balance. You can find me on my website, my YouTube channel, my my podcast. Um, I send a newsletter every single Monday with financial, um, therapy informed tips and insights.

So you can get that by going to mindmoneybalance.com/newsletter. If you wanna learn a little bit more about your personality with money, you can go to mindmoneybalance.com/quiz to find out which financial archetype you are. Um, and if you’re listening to this and it felt helpful for you and you’re like, Ooh, I, I could like.

Totally see going a little bit deeper with Lindsay. Um, my invitation to you would be to see if your organization can bring me in to speak. My private practice is full, which is a great gift, but that’s the best way to work together is through bringing me into facilitate a financial wellbeing workshop.

So if that resonated with you, you know how to find me.

Tati: Awesome. Thank you so much, and I will leave all those links in the description, the show notes for whoever’s checking this out. And thanks again for being on the podcast, Lindsay. Thank you. My pleasure.