Is Money an Anxiety Trigger for you?

Anxiety is a serious issue with about 12% of the population suffering from this debilitating condition. That in itself is alarming. Anxiety sufferers struggle to learn how to cope with the many day-to-day triggers in their lives. It’s a great challenge for many of them. These triggers can come from anywhere, but one big trigger for independent adults is money. “Do I have enough, should I buy that, I’ve just spent too much, which bill shouldn’t I pay this month, have I actually saved any money this month?” Even for those that do not ‘technically’ suffer from anxiety, these questions can still raise their ugly head.

So how can you learn to cope with your money? To do so you need to organise your money and realise that putting a system in place will clearly show you what’s happening to your money. Is it coming in or is it going out? To simplify it, your money is pretty much a bunch of numbers, some positive and some negative. So to exist, you need to have a positive number at the end of the month.

OK, so how do you get to this positive number at the end of the month? Having a system of recording with regular checking will show you the flow of your money. It’s called a cash-flow. If you’ve got $100 coming in and $110 going out, then you are $10 cash-flow negative. To turn this around you need to stop spending at $100, or even better, at $90 so you’re now $10 cash-flow positive. How does one stop spending? By tracking where your money is going; watching your cash-flow. If you note and track your cash-flow each month you will soon see a trend of what’s happening and only then be in a position to work out how to change that.

Simplistically put: Record your money-in and money-out, review what’s happening to your cash-flow, and spend less than you make. That really is the mountain top view but it’s a good start to becoming more comfortable with, and less fearful of your money.

By managing the flow of your money you are in control and to an anxiety sufferer, control is a godsend.

A good start to this process is by downloading our Free Your Money Sense e-Book: “6-steps to Financial Security”.

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