The Dollars and Cents of Financial Stress
You've checked your bank account and found you have only $42
left in your savings account. You've received at least three
phone calls this morning from creditors who are wondering why
your payments are late. Your car payment is due in three days
and you're not sure how you'll pay the bill. Last month, your
landlord threatened to evict you when your rent check did not
arrive on the first of the month.
If this scenario sounds familiar, you may be experiencing
finance-induced stress. From time to time, all of us suffer from
it, to one degree or another. Financial stress is simply a fact
of modern life. No matter how hard we work, no matter how
diligent we are at trying to save our money, we may find that we
have great difficulty paying all of our bills. This can be
particularly true if we've been hit with a major traumatic
event, such as the death of a spouse, a divorce, or a serious
illness.
Financial stress can be felt in a number of ways. For example,
you might have difficulty sleeping at night because you are
worrying about your finances. You might find yourself
short-tempered and, as a result, you might be experiencing
conflict with your spouse. You may find yourself yelling at your
children for minor infractions, or you may even be hit with
panic attacks at work.
The fact is, financial stress can cause you tremendous physical
and psychological discomfort. It can lead to anxiety,
depression, high blood pressure--even stroke. As a result,
financial stress is actually a serious, though often
unrecognized, health concern. In essence, your financial
problems may be making you sick.
But how do you address what can seem to be an insurmountable
problem? To begin with, it is important that you go to your
doctor and have a complete physical. State your symptoms, and
note that you believe that financial stress may be the cause.
Your doctor might then refer you to a psychiatrist for
anti-anxiety medication, or to a therapist who can help you work
through your problems.
Next, consider consulting a certified financial planner. He or
she can help you to realize your short-term and long-term
financial goals. Don't be embarrassed to let the planner know
the extent of your financial problems. Remember that the only
way to really attack finance-induced stress is to meet the
difficulty head-on. Trying to dodge the problem...pretending
that things are not as bad as they are...will only exacerbate
your troubles in the end.
Your financial planner will probably want you to come up with a
workable budget. It is important to be realistic when crunching
numbers. It does little good for you to come up with a budget
that looks fine on paper, but that doesn't work in the real
world. Make sure that you budget for all the essentials--food,
shelter, clothing, medical care. And also try to budget for
long-term priorities, such as college savings or retirement.
Also, don't forget to allot at least a small portion of your
budget to recreation and entertainment. You'll need a few
diversions in order to be a less stressed individual.
In the beginning, you might want to track every single
expenditure that you make. This can be difficult, especially if
you're not used to that kind of record-keeping. But it can be
quite instructive. You might not realize, for instance, just how
much money you're spending each month on lattes, or how much
you're devoting to the daily lottery drawing. By doing the
record-keeping, you might discover ways that you can trim your
budget without really feeling the pinch.
It is also highly important that you save a portion of your
money in order to pay for the unexpected. From time to time, all
of us are hit with bills that seem to come out of the blue. Your
savings will act as a kind of insurance policy against disaster.
With some money in the bank--even if it is a small amount in the
beginning--you'll be better able to weather the financial storms
that come your way. And you might find those middle-of-the-night
worries disappearing, knowing that you are doing all you can to
get your finances under control.