Can we ever get rid of money worries?

A good friend gifted me this tiny journal more than ten years ago:

Every day you answer a different question. The next year you answer the same question on the same day. It’s a fun time capsule.

Unlike my Duolingo streak (401 days and counting baby) I wasn’t consistent with it. Most of my entries were from the year I received it (2015) and the early days of quarantine in 2020.

Recently, I looked back at a entry from June 2015:

“Money” and my money “habits” worried me that day. A shopping trip tipped me into those worries.

What’s strange is that even though I’m in a more established place in my life, and I’m no longer worried about my money habits, I wouldn’t say I have rid myself of money worries.

The thing is, I’m not convinced money worries ever completely go away.¹

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I was listening to a recent episode of Death, Sex and Money² called “How the Ultra-Rich Think…And What They Fear.” Host Anna Sale interviews a New Yorker reporter named Evan Osnos about his book, “The Haves and the Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultra-Rich.” At one point Evan talks about the fact that some “have-yachts” build underground bunkers to ready themselves for potential societal collapse.

Even some of those with the resources to last them several lifetimes worry about the things that money represents: Security. Survival. The ability to alleviate future suffering for themselves and those they love.

When are we sure we have enough of all that?

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“Human life is inherently insecure”

I subscribe to a newsletter by Paco De Leon called The Nerdletter. I often think of this one quote she wrote in a post called “Financial Paradoxes”:

“The idea of security, financial or otherwise, is an illusion; human life is inherently insecure.”

(This reminds me of something called The Five Remembrances in Buddhism:

1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.

3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.)

Paco goes on:

“This doesn't mean we shouldn't be prudent with risk and diligent planners with strategies like saving and investing. However, seeking security is like many things; the more you try to grasp and obsess about security, the more quickly you will reach a point of diminishing returns. You will feel increasingly less secure at a certain point.” -Paco De Leon

We can financially plan our way toward lives that are filled with fewer run ins with material suffering. But I think we’re all stuck with money worries because we’re all stuck with existential worries. (It is perhaps the most insecure among us who wind up worrying the most).

And crucially, unlike the ultra-rich, I still worry about the regular, non-apocalyptic events that could throw me into a financially unstable place. I’m only human and I live in a country where insured people and uninsured people are both as likely to fall into medical debt. Where lobbyists have prevented the CFPB from keeping medical debt off of credit reports. Where the already fragile social safety net thins by the day.

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What can end

The thing that has changed in the last ten years is that I can confidently say that I am no longer worried about my money habits. I’m no longer plagued with the worry that comes out of the ignorance of my overall financial picture and behavior. I’m no longer worried about the impact of my actions, like a single shopping trip. I have a grip on all of that stuff now and it is trippy to see, in writing, that that wasn’t always true.

I don’t relate to that past self anymore.

Of course that process took years and missteps and grief and therapy and a commitment to stop running from reality. Not an easy road!

In my work as a financial coach (which I dreamed about in that very same journal in 2020)…

…I try to accelerate that process for people so it takes them three months instead of three years to walk that road. To help people eliminate the fear of their own money habits from their list of worries, even if worry about money in general is here to stay.

Not everyone is ready for that kind of change, or that pace of change (and there could be really good reasons for the procrastination).

But I’m happy to help the people willing to try.³

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ETC.

• “The Social Security Act established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

  The driving force behind the law was FDR’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she served from 1933 to 1945.

  …Perkins met FDR through her Tammany connections, and when he asked her to be his secretary of labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’” - Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

• “What do families with $5M+ in net worth in their 40s and early 50s really worry about?” - Roger Ma, CFP, EA

• On handstands

• “We’re not omniscient, and we don't have a time machine, so how can we still make good decisions under those circumstances?” — Annie Duke, How to Make Winning Decisions: Luck and Uncertainty - Psychology Today

• “In my work in anti-poverty in that role people will often say to me, ‘Well, you know Saundra, you’re not going to financially coach somebody out of a financially oppressive system.’ And they’re right. I’m not. What I can’t do is stand by hoping that the external system changes sufficiently for these people to be able to thrive…you are a system, within a system, within a system. There’s you, there’s your family, there’s your community and then there’s the larger ecosystem that we all live in that can be oppressive for many people. I can teach and support people in navigating their system so that they can navigate that external system.” - Saundra Davis, Financial Therapy - The Podcast with Rick Kahler

• “The vast majority of people move through their lives with an incomplete definition of risk, and the consequences of this cannot be overstated.

  Sure, risk is about...

  - Investment losses

  - Running out of money in retirement

  - Not having enough insurance

  - Etc, etc, etc.

  But risk is ALSO about...

  - Spending your best years doing work that drains you.

  - Underinvesting in important relationships.

  - Underinvesting in yourself.

  - Accumulating regrets.

  - Looking back and wondering, “What was it all for?”

  Living a life that’s out of sync with your values. That's the risk that should keep you up at night.” - Andy Baxley

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1. Ok, maybe the Woz is truly not worried.

2. I, too, was on an episode of Death, Sex and Money just a few months ago! You can check it out here.

3. I’m less than 200 experience hours away from becoming an Accredited Financial Counselor! (I passed the exam in November 2024 but need a total of 1000 experience hours to make it official). I’m offering discounted rates on packages until the end of my training period if you’d like to work together.