Financial frustration

How to calm financial stress

Financial stress is so common that certified financial planner Katie Lindquist says almost every client she has tells her they are feeling it.

Lindquist helps them get organized and take inventory of their financial accounts and goals.

To combat overwhelming feelings of money stress, financial experts have some suggestions:

1 Normalize the feeling

Knowing how common financial stress is can help people realize there isn’t something wrong with them when they feel it, says Bari Tessler, author of “The Art of Money” and a financial therapist in Boulder, Colorado.

“Increased financial anxiety has everything to do with interest rates, inflation, job challenges, life curveballs and world events,” Tessler says. Those stressors impact almost everybody. It can lead people to freeze and ignore their finances or to check them too obsessively, she says, neither of which is helpful.

2 Check in with your body

Sometimes, your body can alert you to financial stress first. Sonya Lutter, director of financial health and wellness in the School of Financial Planning at Texas Tech University, says when people experience financial stress, their fingers often get cold because they are experiencing a fight-or-flight response that affects blood flow.

“You can easily train yourself to notice when you are physiologically stressed,” Lutter says. Then, you can avoid making big financial decisions until you are in a calmer state.

3 Look for ways to reset

Tessler suggests slowing your mind down before a big decision, which could be done through activities like hiking, meditation, or listening to music. Sometimes, getting a snack, going outside or lowering your shoulders can go a long way toward resetting, she says.

“It’s OK to pause and come back” to the decision later, she adds.

4 Take the first step to regain control

Because stress can cause us to freeze in the face of financial decisions, Stacy Dervin, founder of Tailored Financial Planning in Eugene, Oregon, suggests tackling one thing at a time.

Lindquist says creating a spreadsheet to list all of your accounts, logging in to a workplace retirement savings plan, tracking spending or making a net worth statement to look at assets and liabilities are all great ways to regain a feeling of control over your finances.