Season 3, Episode 4: “The More Money I Save, the More I’m Scared To Lose It. Can I Break the Cycle of Financial Anxiety?”

Kitty 0:00

This episode, like all episodes, is brought to you by our Patreon donors. So this time, we want to give thanks to Maximillian, ShapeOfLobster, Becca, Mary, Imogen, Clare, Hayle, Malinwaffle, Corey, Pete, Caitlin, and Cadence. And an extra-special thanks to Karen, Christina, and Courtney. If Karen, Christina, and Courtney were ice cream flavors, they would respectively be: Butter Pecan, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Vanilla. And no, I know what you’re thinking, Courtney! It’s not lame. We are talking about the kind of vanilla ice cream that is so scrumptious that you remember why it’s been the default flavor for 250 years, because it really is that good. Thanks for being Patrons, you delicious frozen treats.

Piggy 0:53

At the beginning of quarantine, I joined a D&D campaign.

Kitty 0:57

Nerd.

Piggy 0:58

And I was playing—yeah, you know what, shut the fuck up, you’ve played far more D&D than I have in your entire lifetime.

Kitty 1:03

This is true.

Piggy 1:04

Yeah.

Kitty 1:04

This is true.

Piggy 1:05

So, uh, glass houses, bitch! I played a Tiefling bard named Boudicca the Badass and Bodacious. So I had to leave the campaign and for my exit I was possessed by a demon child and then sent to a hell dimension. That was like the greatest “exit stage left, pursued by a bear” ever, as far as I’m concerned.

Kitty 1:26

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to resurrect one of my favorite lines from the Venture Bros, which is “you were possessed by a forsaken child?! You are haunted by—a haunted orphan heart?!”

Piggy 1:40

Any time I need outerwear handed to me, I quote him in his immortal line: “Fetch me my blue windbreaker!”

Kitty 1:49

“Who wants pizza rolls?!” It really is an instance of the absolute best one-joke character who never gets old.

Piggy 2:01

Never gets old.

Theme Song 2:02

If you need some dough
You don’t know where to go
In this patriarchal capitalist hellscape

Well here’s the ‘sitch
We’re gonna help you, sis
Because bitches get riches

Bitches get riches
Bitches get riches
Bitches get riches
And so can you

Kitty 2:34

Anyway, so basically I think all of our listeners should probably stop listening to this and go watch Venture Bros. And you’ll learn a lot about, I don’t know about money so much as just failure in general. You’ll learn everything you need to know about failure. Regardless, I’m Kitty.

Piggy 2:49

I’m Piggy.

Kitty 2:50

We are the Bitches in Bitches Get Riches.

Piggy 2:52

We’re a couple of terrifying banshees with leaves and twigs stuck in our voluminous hair!

Kitty 2:58

And we let forth a terrifying screech every time a man says “well, actually…” [screeches]

Piggy 3:04

Our time on this planet is limited.

Kitty 3:07

So let’s get started.

Piggy 3:08

Today’s letter comes to us from Patreon donor Zoe. Zoe asks: How do I stop feeling scared about money all the time? I’m objectively in a great financial situation. I’m 29. I’ve paid off all my student loans, recently I got a new job that pays me 30% more, I’m closing in on a 1-year emergency fund, and I have both a 401K and IRA that I’ve been contributing to for years.

Despite that, every time I hit a new financial milestone, the goalpost just moves. It went from “I’ll feel less worried about money with a 3-month emergency fund” to 6 months to 9 months to 12 months to 12 months assuming my expenses were higher than they currently are. Due to some recent implosions in my life and working remotely, I also have the opportunity to stay with my dad for a while. Even though I think I’ll be much happier long term in my own place, I can’t silence the voice that says “save the rent money while you still can!” and “paying rent if you don’t have to is stupid!” 

I feel like a dragon compulsively trying to build a pile of gold that will never be enough. I never feel comfortable. I never feel secure. I’m hyper aware that one medical emergency could drain that emergency fund and put me right back where I started. I know this comes from childhood experiences where my family went from comfortably wealthy to “lol what retirement fund?” mainly due to bad money management. 

I know this is a privileged problem to have when so many people are in such bad financial situations, but it’s a problem nonetheless. Since I’ve gotten my finances under control, I feel like I should be able to relax a little bit and leave things on autopilot and just… enjoy being alive and able to pay my rent? But instead I constantly feel anxious about money and I don’t know how to break out of the cycle. Do you have any advice?

Kitty 4:51

You know, this is probably the first question that we got that my gut instinct was like, I must recuse myself from this case, Your Honor, because it’s a little bit too close to home for me right now. I definitely relate to these feelings quite a lot.

Piggy 5:08

See I feel the opposite. I feel like as somebody who is so clinically anxious that I literally got trapped in the closet when we started this recording and had to yell and scream for my husband to come save me and he had to jimmy the door open with a knife, like panic is just constantly simmering just under the surface.

Kitty 5:29

Listeners! Do you know what we go through for you? We self-induce panic attacks by sitting in hot, dark closets.

Piggy 5:35

The sacrifices! Give us a dollar a month so I can replace the antique doorknobs in my fucking old-ass house so that I don’t get stuck in my hall closet recording studio.

Kitty 5:48

That’s definitely our next business investment.

Piggy 5:51

No, I’m constantly someone who has anxiety simmering just below the surface but recently, spoiler alert, I have a new full-time job and I’m making more money than ever before and I have felt the financial anxiety sloughing away from me like I’m a snake shedding my second skin, and it’s amazing.

Kitty 6:13

I think that’s really interesting because to me the causes of anxiety and stress and that feeling of a lack of security are so complicated and they really vary by person to person.

Piggy 6:26

Totes.

Kitty 6:27

I think the obvious first recommendation is, sounds like therapy might be a really good idea. That said, that can be kind of a simplistic, even reductive answer, cause therapy is hard work and not everyone can afford it. Not everyone has the mental space that they need to do that hard work. There are a lot of barriers to being successful in therapy, so it’s not just that. So I want to offer other things.

I think for me, I really resonate with Zoe’s question. And one of the things that’s actually been helpful to me is exploring the facets of my own personality outside of a therapy setting. One of my friends turned me on to the personality typing system of Enneagrams.

Piggy 7:09

Oooh.

Kitty 7:10

Now if you’re not into Enneagrams and you think they’re kind of junk science, whatever, spoiler alert, it doesn’t matter if it’s junk science or not. All that matters is that it can give you a new perspective and new tools to think about yourself and your own behavior and how you relate to other people, and that’s valuable in and of itself. It doesn’t have to be true for everyone. So, she was talking me through what my personality would be like as a, I would be a type 8 in this system. And she was describing me and I was like yeah, yeah that sounds like me. I’m not that interested but sure. My attention was not captured until she talked about what my core fear as this type would be. As a type 8, my core fear is being weak, being powerless, being harmed, controlled, made vulnerable, manipulated, and left at the mercy of injustice. So my core desire to protect myself from that core fear is to protect myself and those in my inner circle and I do that, unfortunately, by seeking power. Seeking control, being way inappropriately intense about everything and pushing myself to have as much control and power as I can so that I will never be in a position where I am so vulnerable that someone could hurt me. When really all I want is to not be betrayed.

So I think maybe if therapy isn’t in the cards right now, or if other listeners who are vibing on this question are listening and it’s not a good choice for them. I think any work that you could do that can help get you in touch with what is the nature of this core fear of yours, and following that fear through to its thread may help you uncover what its real basis is. Asking yourself what if. Like okay, if I lose every red cent in my bank account, and I lose my job, what do I do then? Really ask yourself. And I think that’s when you start to see, actually I have more security than I have given myself credit for. I have a dad who will let me move in with him, I had the skills to get a new job recently, which means I still have those skills and that’s still an option for me. I am a marketable, employable individual and I don’t need to fret about this stuff. And hey, actually how much would it take to run through a 12 plus month emergency fund. Like that’s massive. So I think the root here is that more money is never going to solve your anxieties about money. Because the more money you get, that money is power. That money is control over your life. And the more you have, the more power and control that you have, but it also is ramping up your anxieties about losing that control. It’s getting higher and higher stakes the more money that you have. So I think the right thing to do here is not to seek more money, you are doing just fine and it sounds like intellectually you know it, it’s just that you’ve got to work through the emotional part of it.

Piggy 10:17

Totally. There’s so much emotion involved in money management and in personal finances. That’s why we call it PERSONAL finance, because it’s personal. And I think that Zoe is absolutely right to be thinking of this as an emotional problem rather than a money-based problem. I want to talk about some more of the concrete things Zoe can do. So she talks about in her childhood, her family went from comfortably wealthy quote unquote “lol, what retirement fund?” due to bad money management. And that is some deep-seated childhood trauma, that again, we recommend therapy for. We are not psychiatric professionals but we respect those individuals quite a bit and what they can do to really drill down to the meat of problems like this.

But what I’m seeing of a lot of in this question from Zoe is the lack of a) data and b) goals. So this data-less, goal-less-ness that Zoe has I think is fueling some of this anxiety. And if I can loop this back to my personal experience, I spend a good portion of my teens and early twenties being blissfully ignorant about money in a way that was hiding…it was avoidance, frankly. I didn’t know the worth of a car, or a home, or an education. And I didn’t know those things because to know those things was to take responsibility for those things and responsibility is fucking scary. What helped me through that time was gaining the data to understand the value of money and the value of the things I wanted in my life, and b) knowing what I wanted in life. Figuring out what my goals were, what I wanted to get out of money. So I really recommend for Zoe, like you’re hoarding all this money like a dragon, in your own words, figure out the why. Maybe it’s oh well, someday I want to start my own business. Or someday I want to retire early, or just own my own home, or live a debt-free life. Having a concrete goal to shoot for, and then a goal after that for what’s next, and a goal after that for what’s next—mapping out your life in financial goals, that can be really encouraging and relaxing just to know what it all means and what you’re all heading for.

Kitty 12:55

Yeah. I suspect that overall her lack of awareness about what her long-term goals are is a big component in  her anxiety about how much money she needs. If she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, then no amount of money is going to lead her to those answers.

Piggy 13:12

Take the mental exercise of thinking about what comes next. Like do it again and again and again. And what you might want today, what you’re saving for today might not be what you’re saving for tomorrow. Might not be a motivating factor for you tomorrow. Constantly re-evaluate that shit. And keep in mind, once you reach a financial goal, you need to have a next one. You need to constantly be looking forward. Zoe sounds like someone who would really be comforted by a plan and by going through these mental exercises of figuring out what she wants, what’s going to make her happy, and how she can operate financially to get there.

Kitty 13:53

Yeah I mean, it’s almost a cliché to say that mo’ money mo’ problems. Like obviously there are a lot of problems that can be solved by money, but money past a certain point cannot buy you happiness. It can buy you a reduction in the number and quality of things that stress you out, but if you don’t know what brings you personal enjoyment and you don’t have the courage to seek those things out, having money will not make that manifest.

Piggy 14:21

Again, I have a new job, I’m making a very comfortable income that has reduced a lot of my stress. One of my goals is to be more environmentally friendly, right. I have the emergency funds saved so that I can go out and buy an energy star rated refrigerator. That’s great. What my money can’t do for me is give me more time. And as someone who has a full-time job, plus an independent business, plus bitchesgetriches.com, maybe you’ve heard of it, time is at a premium for me. There is nothing that all of my money can do to buy me more time, past a certain level. We just hired a community manager and podcast editor (hello Ducky!) to help us with Bitches Get Riches, to lessen the amount of administration work that we’re doing here, and that’s great, but it doesn’t completely put time back into my day. So again, you’re absolutely right, money frees you from some levels of anxieties but it can’t free you from all.

Kitty 15:22

Basically what I think Zoe is describing is kind of the beginning of an addiction.

Piggy 15:28

Ooh yeah.

Kitty 15:29

It’s not a full-blown addiction yet but I think there could be models of thinking about addictions that might be helpful to her, because one of the key benchmarks there is, is the use of this substance or is the following of this behavior harming your enjoyment of life? Is it hurting your relationship with the people in your life, is it making you fall behind on important tasks that you have to get done, is it damaging your daily quality of life? And it sounds like maybe it hasn’t yet, outside of your own sense of well-being, but I certainly see how it could be. When she mentions that she has this offer to live with her father, and she knows that she doesn’t want to do it but she might do it anyway basically, sorry Zoe, out of cheapness, out of fear because she wants to keep that extra money to give her the greater sense of security. I can easily see how that is setting Zoe up to start to damage that relationship with her father, because if she takes him up on this offer only driven by her fears of losing money I can see that becoming a point of contention where it starts to erode the relationship that you have as father and daughter in a way that I think then is starting to meander into really harmful territory.

Piggy 16:48

Totally.

Kitty 16:49

So thinking about it in that kind of model might be kind of helpful to her.

Piggy 16:55

Yeah. It’s really dark to bring up addiction here but addiction to money is a thing.

Kitty 17:01

Yeah.

Piggy 17:02

Just real quick, I want to bring up one last concrete thing that Zoe can do to kind of break the cycle for herself, which is to give money away. Find a charitable cause that you support and just experiment with giving a lump sum away. Maybe it’s $10, maybe it’s a $100. And see how that feels for you. It feels good to do good, like this is not a completely selfless practice, but it is something that could release you from a little bit of that fear and anxiety, and do some good while you’re at it.

Kitty 17:37

I love that, and it’s so noble and pure, I’m gonna offer the gutter option as well. Which is, give yourself a budget and tell yourself I must go out and spend this money frivolously on myself doing things that bring no benefit to anyone other than myself.

Piggy 17:52

Oooh.

Kitty 17:59

Because I think sometimes, especially for women, we tend to be trained to think if we spend money on others it’s fine, it’s good, but if we spend it on ourselves it’s bad and evil.

Piggy 18:12

Mmhm, mmhm.

Kitty 18:13

And you know what, Zoe, what if you took a scary amount of your money, like an amount that makes you uncomfortable—what if you took like $500 and I said you have to go out and spend $500 buying crap that makes you happy or pursuing experiences that make you happy.

Piggy 18:35

Yes.

Kitty 18:35

Doing things that you have told yourself I don’t have enough money to do this frivolous thing.

Piggy 18:41

Get your eyebrows threaded. I don’t even know what that means—

Kitty 18:44

Get them threaded!

Piggy 18:45

—but get your eyebrows, like what even is that? But do it.

Kitty 18:46

They’re going to do it so much better than you do. My guess is that you’re going to panic when you’re thinking about doing it, when you’re planning doing it, and then when you’re actually doing it or enjoying the dumb thing that you bought afterwards, I bet you’ll go wow, you know, I’m surprised by how happy I feel enjoying this thing that I bought for myself or eating this fine meal that could have cost ten times less but I decided hey, I’m going to live while I’m alive. And that kind of challenge, I think will help you kind of reprogram this part of your brain that has learned, unfortunately through it sounds like  childhood trauma, that financial instability means happiness is going away forever, love is going away forever, security is going away forever, and really it’s not. Money does come and go, and the more you can learn to think about it as what it is, a tool, the better you’re going to be able to use it. Because I guarantee you’re also not investing or using your money very wisely if you have this hoarding mentality. I have a feeling I could take a red pen to your investment strategy.

Alright, are you good with that?

Piggy 20:01

I’m good with that.

Kitty 20:03

Listeners, if you want us to answer your question, go to BitchesGetRiches.com and click “Ask the Bitches.” Production of this podcast is directly tied to our total number of Patreon supporters, so if you want to hear more, join us at patreon.com/bitchesgetriches. And if you need a little more Bitches in your life (and who could blame you?), you can read our articles and follow us on social media at BitchesGetRiches.com.

Piggy 20:25

Hey, is there anything else they should know?

Kitty 20:28

Yeah, I want to tell you what my favorite episode of television is, of all time.

Piggy 20:34

I want to hear this.

Kitty 20:35

This was a tough call. But I think it’s “Who Pooped the Bed?” from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It is a murder mystery bottle episode to determine who—

Piggy 20:51

Who pooped the bed?

Kitty 20:53

—pooped in the bed. And the answer may surprise you.

Piggy 20:58

Good to know!

Kitty & Piggy 20:59

Bitches out!