Speaker 1: Episode four eighty eight, Start Healing your money trauma with
Speaker 1: Shana Game.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life here your hosts,
Speaker 2: Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking about
Speaker 1: money traumas, not just big ones, but small ones as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, big tea, little tea, How to even identify if
Speaker 3: you've experienced money trauma, how to heal from it? So
Speaker 3: really really great conversation that I think we'll all get
Speaker 3: a lot out of. But first, this episode is brought
Speaker 3: to you by people in your corner, the ones cheering
Speaker 3: you on, providing encouragement, creating a distraction so no one
Speaker 3: sees that embarrassing near fall. Need some more people like this.
Speaker 3: It us, it us Jen and Jill giving you the
Speaker 3: friend Letter to your inbox weekly with updates on freebies
Speaker 3: and deals, tips on how to spend better, ways to
Speaker 3: improve your relationship with money. So get us in your corner.
Speaker 3: Frugal Friends podcast dot com. Sign up for the Friend Letter.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, So before I want to just preface
Speaker 1: this by saying like sometimes money trauma. Sometimes the word
Speaker 1: trauma can be like a heavy word, but this really
Speaker 1: does encompass all of our Shannas says it money icks.
Speaker 1: If trauma feels too heavy of a word, you can
Speaker 1: also describe it as an ick. And I think even like,
Speaker 1: I got to learn some language to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the things that I've felt about money in the past.
Speaker 1: So I think this is a really good interview. If
Speaker 1: you are in coouraged by this episode and you want
Speaker 1: to queue up a couple others for later, We've got
Speaker 1: episode for eighty two, how our nervous system impacts our
Speaker 1: spending and episode four seventy three, how to become a
Speaker 1: better financial decision maker. That's with Jessica Morehouse. And those
Speaker 1: are two really really good ones to queue up for later,
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. Shawna is a financial planner.
Speaker 1: She's a certified Trauma of Money specialist and author of
Speaker 1: the upcoming book Unraveling Your Relationship with Money, all about
Speaker 1: money traumas and the things she's talking about today. She
Speaker 1: has over twenty years of expertise in the industry, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't let that give her jargon. She really does
Speaker 1: have a relatable, non nonsense approach to money. So her
Speaker 1: book is already out, already available, and we just hope
Speaker 1: that if this is something that you feel like you
Speaker 1: need more on, that is definitely where to go. So
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Let's talk to Shauna.
Speaker 1: Shawna. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We're so excited
Speaker 1: to have you.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3: This is a conversation I'm surprised we haven't really.
Speaker 1: Had, especially with Jill on the show for almost five
Speaker 1: hundred episodes.
Speaker 3: I mean, we touch on these types of conversations that
Speaker 3: we've never had an episode titled something like this, So
Speaker 3: it absolutely makes sense that we would have you on,
Speaker 3: Shauna to help us through this conversation as well. So
Speaker 3: glad that you're here.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So let's start out with what kinds of
Speaker 1: life events or experiences can cause money trauma.
Speaker 4: This is what's really interesting because I think a lot
Speaker 4: of times people think that it has to be something big, right,
Speaker 4: like that maybe you grew up in poverty or there
Speaker 4: was a lot of financial stress in your family, and
Speaker 4: those things, for sure are indicators of money trauma. But
Speaker 4: It could also be something that is seemingly small. For instance,
Speaker 4: let's say you forgot to pay a bill and then
Speaker 4: it went to collections or your credit score dropped right,
Speaker 4: and it was just a complete accident. But every time
Speaker 4: you look at your bank statement or your phone app,
Speaker 4: you feel these somatic like inner body experiences, like your
Speaker 4: hands start, you know, your palms get sweaty, and your
Speaker 4: heart starts racing, and your shoulders get tight, and there's
Speaker 4: something going on, right, it's causing this traumatic response in
Speaker 4: you from this seemingly small event. So it could be,
Speaker 4: you know, both of those things on either spectrum and
Speaker 4: anything in between. It could be maybe you were in
Speaker 4: a relationship with someone and maybe there was some level
Speaker 4: of financial abuse, or even they just made you feel
Speaker 4: really terrible, horrible for how you spent your money, or
Speaker 4: you know, debt you might have been, or your student loan,
Speaker 4: any of those things that caused this emotional kind of
Speaker 4: pain and distress inside of you. Is trauma money trauma
Speaker 4: showing up. So it could be so many different situations,
Speaker 4: and that's why I think taking a moment of having awareness,
Speaker 4: so when you go to look at your app the
Speaker 4: next time of your bank or you're in a conversation
Speaker 4: with someone, or maybe you're out with your friends and
Speaker 4: you start to feel those bodily sensations or something going
Speaker 4: on inside that feels anxiety, shame, judgment, nervousness. That's your
Speaker 4: cue to go, huh, okay, what is actually going on
Speaker 4: here and where is this even coming from?
Speaker 3: Yeah, money situations can cause a disruption to our sense
Speaker 3: of safety and security and put us in this kind
Speaker 3: of hyper vigilant mode of almost fight like freeze. I've
Speaker 3: experienced this at times with you know, unexpected really large
Speaker 3: bills of oh no, what is going to happen to me?
Speaker 3: And you know, over time, you know that the bodily
Speaker 3: remembrance of that experience and you know what that then
Speaker 3: did to me and my way of thinking, and then
Speaker 3: what what kind of actions that caused and then kind
Speaker 3: of how we might end up living out of that
Speaker 3: place too, is you know, if we don't kind of
Speaker 3: recognize it as a trauma, which I think you're kind
Speaker 3: of helping us to identify, like, these are disruptive experiences
Speaker 3: and can yeah, really cause us a bit of chaos
Speaker 3: inside of ourselves. And if we don't acknowledge that, then
Speaker 3: how what kinds of habits and behaviors then form as
Speaker 3: a result of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is also another really interesting one. We all
Speaker 4: talk about emergency funds and how important emergency funds are.
Speaker 4: A lot of people actually experience a sense of trauma
Speaker 4: around spending or needing to spend their emergency fund. They
Speaker 4: feel a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, and
Speaker 4: their brain goes into that fight or flight mode of
Speaker 4: what if I need this money? Downline, what if another
Speaker 4: emergency comes up and it creates this trauma where it's
Speaker 4: in fact so difficult to even move money from emergency
Speaker 4: fund to checking account, And a lot of people will
Speaker 4: then just turn to credit cards. The idea of being
Speaker 4: in credit card debt actually feels better to them, is
Speaker 4: less of a traumatic response than spending money from a
Speaker 4: savings account. So there's all these really sneaky ways, which
Speaker 4: is I think what makes this so difficult to like
Speaker 4: put a container around. And that's why I really suggest
Speaker 4: just paying attention to what's going on in your body
Speaker 4: and where you are and who you're around, and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of the whole environment of what's happening in those situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaking of paying attention, what would you say, are
Speaker 3: some of the signs that someone might be struggling with
Speaker 3: some unresolved money trauma.
Speaker 4: Obviously avoidance, right, so if we're avoiding looking at our money,
Speaker 4: or we're avoiding doing some of the tasks around money
Speaker 4: that we know are are important. We've talked about the
Speaker 4: bodily sensation, so anxiety, stress, shame, judgment, fear, nervousness, any
Speaker 4: of those things. But then also something that you know
Speaker 4: kind of correlates with your show. Patterns of overspending or
Speaker 4: underspending could be signs that you know there's some sort
Speaker 4: of money trauma going on there that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 4: And then also a difficulty of setting and achieving money goals.
Speaker 4: So I haven't tell people that, you know, think of
Speaker 4: money trauma this way. You're on one side of a
Speaker 4: bridge and you really want to get to the other
Speaker 4: side of the bridge. You've got these things you want
Speaker 4: to do with money, but you just you can't figure
Speaker 4: out how to get there. Whether it's paying off debt
Speaker 4: or saving to buy a house or whatever it is,
Speaker 4: or it's you're spending or you know, relationship around money
Speaker 4: with your partner. There's something that's keeping you stuck on
Speaker 4: one side of the bridge. That's a good indication that
Speaker 4: there's some some sort of money trump, there's something underneath
Speaker 4: the onion layers there that's worth looking into, that is
Speaker 4: stopping you from being able to get to the place
Speaker 4: that you really want to get to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see this. I think even when people are
Speaker 1: financially successful, I see a lot of money trauma and
Speaker 1: sometimes the success is a result of it, and people
Speaker 1: don't think about that. Like even after we paid off
Speaker 1: our debt, we paid off my husband and I paid
Speaker 1: off seventy eight thousand dollars in two years, and afterwards
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, all of my problems are solved. My
Speaker 1: money is fine. I'm at like net zero, I own
Speaker 1: a house. I'm fine. And now when I go to spend,
Speaker 1: I feel guilty because for two years my money had
Speaker 1: this ultimate purpose and I had nothing else to focus
Speaker 1: on but this one financial goal. And now I have
Speaker 1: some like PTSD from not having from overvaluing that financial
Speaker 1: goal too much for those two years and not having
Speaker 1: a one to like fall back on as seriously. And
Speaker 1: so that's what led me to the fire movement. I
Speaker 1: wasn't dealing with that. I just transferred it to another
Speaker 1: good financial goal. And it wasn't till I got laid
Speaker 1: off that I actually was forced to deal with it,
Speaker 1: because then I can no longer afford to be quote
Speaker 1: unquote financially successful anymore. Like to me, that is, nobody
Speaker 1: was talking about that kind of trauma.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, How did you? I'm just curious, like, how did you?
Speaker 4: What did you do to work through it? Like once
Speaker 4: you had that kind of aha moment, this is what's
Speaker 4: happening well.
Speaker 5: And a lot of it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of that working through it is made
Speaker 1: it into our book, and it was I placed my
Speaker 1: value and my identity in how good I was at
Speaker 1: saving and before I didn't have a money identity. Before
Speaker 1: I was just spending and I was making budgets and
Speaker 1: not sticking to them. And then I succeeded at something financially,
Speaker 1: so then okay, I've succeeded in this, So now my
Speaker 1: identity is in this, so now I have to keep
Speaker 1: succeeding in it, and so then I couldn't have that
Speaker 1: as my identity anymore. So then I would love to
Speaker 1: say that I dealt with it, But then I just
Speaker 1: started freelance writing and being my own boss us and
Speaker 1: I put my identity and my success there, and it
Speaker 1: was when I got burnt out there very quickly with
Speaker 1: a newborn that I had to be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm just transferring my identity from success to success. I
Speaker 1: have to figure out who I truly am and what
Speaker 1: I truly value and what my enough is and put
Speaker 1: my identity there if I really want to use money
Speaker 1: as a tool and not an identity.
Speaker 4: I love that you shared that story, because that is
Speaker 4: the that is the whole package, right, And I think
Speaker 4: a real part of when we recognize these bodily sensations
Speaker 4: or these things that might be causing trauma, a really
Speaker 4: important piece is just the acknowledgment and the validation of
Speaker 4: these feelings that these exist, and that again, that doesn't
Speaker 4: make me a terrible, horrible person. It's just I experienced
Speaker 4: something or I you know, my money story from growing up.
Speaker 4: These were beliefs and values that I've transferred over from
Speaker 4: my parents or that I saw and heard, and they're
Speaker 4: playing out in my money, in my interactions with money.
Speaker 4: So I think we tend to overlook that really important
Speaker 4: piece that you're talking about of acknowledging and validating how
Speaker 4: you're feeling, because that's the first place of going Okay, well,
Speaker 4: now what do we do from here?
Speaker 1: Okay, so what do we do from here? Like, what
Speaker 1: can someone do to start healing from money traumas, whether
Speaker 1: they're successes or maybe quote unquote you know, failures or
Speaker 1: whatever you would define them as we've.
Speaker 4: Talked about the piece of acknowledging what's going on my body,
Speaker 4: who I'm around, all of that. That is absolutely like
Speaker 4: ground zero step one here. Once we recognize that that's happening,
Speaker 4: I think then there is a what you're what you
Speaker 4: just describe your process is thinking about where does this
Speaker 4: come from? Can I identify any root, any foundation of.
Speaker 5: What this is?
Speaker 4: Is it a person? Is it a place? Is it
Speaker 4: a thing that happened to me?
Speaker 5: Is it a belief?
Speaker 4: Like you know, I love journaling, so I think this
Speaker 4: might be a great if somebody listening is into journaling
Speaker 4: of just kind of free writing without without judging yourself,
Speaker 4: of thinking about you know, from that curiosity perspective you
Speaker 4: talked about that on my show of Investigating it almost
Speaker 4: if you were an outside person and you were kind
Speaker 4: of looking at these set of facts and trying to
Speaker 4: decipher where they came from, so doing that, and then
Speaker 4: I think, once you have this understanding of where this
Speaker 4: came from, there's a lot of different exercises depending on
Speaker 4: the type of person that you are. There's an exercise
Speaker 4: I talk about in my book unraveling your relationship with money,
Speaker 4: which is financi forgiveness. So it's pretty simple, but it
Speaker 4: actually is pretty powerful, and there are scientific studies behind
Speaker 4: exercises like this. But it's setting a timer on your
Speaker 4: phone five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 4: whatever feels good to you, and writing out all of
Speaker 4: the things that you feel really bad about money, maybe
Speaker 4: things that you spent money on, or mistakes that you made,
Speaker 4: or gosh, my parents did this around money, and now
Speaker 4: I'm doing the same thing, Like, just write it all
Speaker 4: out without any judgment. Step away from that assignment when
Speaker 4: the timer goes off for twenty four hours, come back,
Speaker 4: reread this with a fresh brain perspective. And then the
Speaker 4: last step is we got to get rid of it. ShredIt,
Speaker 4: burn it, throw it in the trash. I don't care
Speaker 4: what you do with it, whatever feels cathotic to you.
Speaker 4: But there's a lot of scientific studies behind getting stuff
Speaker 4: that's in our brain that we just rumerate on getting
Speaker 4: it out into paper and letting some of these things go.
Speaker 4: And then another thing I talk about is, you know,
Speaker 4: when we're dealing with money trauma, we're talking about events
Speaker 4: and situations that happened in the past, things that we
Speaker 4: have we have been through, so that stuff we cannot change,
Speaker 4: but going forward, we have a lot of self control
Speaker 4: over what we do going forward. And so if you
Speaker 4: are somebody who's a journaler, I love creating what I
Speaker 4: call your money hero story. So this is writing the
Speaker 4: story for yourself of what it looks like in your
Speaker 4: relationship with money, what it looks like for you to
Speaker 4: define enoughness, to define wealth, to figure out what you
Speaker 4: value spending money on all of these things. Write that
Speaker 4: story and be your own hero of what this journey
Speaker 4: looks like going forward.
Speaker 3: I so appreciate how you're acknowledging that in the midst
Speaker 3: of trauma, we can also come across shame and regret
Speaker 3: and maybe even mistakes or failure, although we don't view
Speaker 3: those things as negative things, but the weight that they
Speaker 3: can cause for us, that there's so much wrapped up here,
Speaker 3: but that they need to be acknowledged and ventilated and
Speaker 3: looked at and then dealt with whether by like we're
Speaker 3: going to we're going to turn a new leave, We're
Speaker 3: going to move forward. But I think I realized this,
Speaker 3: you know, even in writing the book that we just
Speaker 3: put out, kind of some of the financial regret that
Speaker 3: I have. I don't know that with this particular piece
Speaker 3: I would call it a money trauma. But sometimes I
Speaker 3: wish that I had chosen a career path that would
Speaker 3: have been a little bit more lucrative for me instead
Speaker 3: of the social work career that you know, paid me
Speaker 3: twenty four thousand dollars a year and yet also being
Speaker 3: able to I think it wasn't until I said that, like, ah, man,
Speaker 3: this this kind of stinks. Sometimes I wish I had
Speaker 3: chosen something different to then, like you're saying, give myself
Speaker 3: that space, come back to it and say, but what
Speaker 3: did it provide? And almost this new gratitude to I
Speaker 3: was able to do work and engage with people and
Speaker 3: be a support and help truly help people in difficult
Speaker 3: situations as a result of this. And so yes, there
Speaker 3: was sacrifice, but there was also a becoming that happened
Speaker 3: inside of me as part of that, and so I
Speaker 3: think I'm just kind of underscoring the process that you're
Speaker 3: describing to say that when this happens, new perspective can
Speaker 3: come and gratitude can even be paired with what we
Speaker 3: might have previously thought was poor decision making or financial
Speaker 3: regret or things we were previously ashamed of. We can
Speaker 3: bring new lenses to that and a new narrative to it,
Speaker 3: and then have like a healthier foundation to be able
Speaker 3: to move forward from.
Speaker 4: And I think that's such a great perspective because you
Speaker 4: know a couple of things to say. If money trauma
Speaker 4: feels for a lot of people, that feels like a
Speaker 4: very heavy word right when we're talking about trauma, feels
Speaker 4: like oh, so I tell people just think of it
Speaker 4: as like you know, financial ick, like when you get
Speaker 4: those ikeyk feelings, right, if the word trauma feels too
Speaker 4: big for you. But I think the you know, we've
Speaker 4: been so trained, especially around money, to think negatively of ourselves,
Speaker 4: to think that we have many mistakes and that that's
Speaker 4: the worst thing ever. And our brain is really trained
Speaker 4: to act out every day in that perspective. So it
Speaker 4: takes some heavy lifting. It's like training for a marathon.
Speaker 4: We don't just go out and run, you know, twenty
Speaker 4: six miles. The same thing with trying to reregulate our
Speaker 4: nervous system around money and also our brain around money
Speaker 4: and our interactions, our habits, all of those things, they're
Speaker 4: going to take time. So when we and we notice
Speaker 4: these areas, I think it's important to focus on tiny
Speaker 4: little winds. So when you're talking about, you know, renaming things,
Speaker 4: a way that money trauma shows up a lot of
Speaker 4: times is debt. People have debt, and that obviously is
Speaker 4: a very traumatic, heavy experience, genuine sharing your story around debt,
Speaker 4: but I think we can get stuck in the trauma
Speaker 4: feeling of that. And Jill, you're talking about gratitude piece,
Speaker 4: like what if you know, and I know this is
Speaker 4: crazy for most people to think this way, but what
Speaker 4: if we looked at our debt and said, Okay, don't
Speaker 4: like it, I don't want it. I want to figure
Speaker 4: out how to get away out of it. But look
Speaker 4: at what it actually has provided, Like maybe it provided
Speaker 4: a roof, or it started my business, or it paid
Speaker 4: for my kid's childcare or even though that's not how
Speaker 4: I wanted that to happen, it happened, right, So I
Speaker 4: can choose how I'm framing that, and that starts to
Speaker 4: take away some of that emotional just power and starts
Speaker 4: to change the narrative around things that feel really big
Speaker 4: and heavy around money.
Speaker 3: I love how you're describing our relationship with money, and
Speaker 3: this is such an interesting concept to me because in
Speaker 3: typical relationships, if something is not healthy, we can kind
Speaker 3: of choose to opt out and remove ourselves from that
Speaker 3: situation and find relationships that are healthy and aren't traumatizing us.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to money, we still have to
Speaker 3: engage in it. And so it's this reworking that I'm
Speaker 3: hearing you describe of here's how I used to relate
Speaker 3: to money, but how can I help to make this
Speaker 3: relationship more healthy the way that I view and engage
Speaker 3: with money. Can you describe a little bit kind of
Speaker 3: for yourself or maybe people that you've worked with, what
Speaker 3: that shift can look like, or what you've seen for
Speaker 3: people as they go from I had a toxic relationship
Speaker 3: with money. Money's still there, I have to inca with it,
Speaker 3: but now I've got a healthy relationship with money. Like
Speaker 3: what that shift looks like?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, as I talk about my book, Our
Speaker 4: relationship with money, I believe is the longest relationship you're
Speaker 4: going to have outside of your relationship with yourself, because
Speaker 4: our whole lives we're having to deal with this thing
Speaker 4: called money. So just what you're saying, Joe, like, we
Speaker 4: would just opt out right if we were dating somebody
Speaker 4: and they said terrible things to us and they treated
Speaker 4: us horribly, we would just say bye bye, like this
Speaker 4: is not working hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, But we can't do
Speaker 4: that with money. So we owe ourselves a permission slip
Speaker 4: to try to do this thing differently. And a story
Speaker 4: I talk about in my book. This is a personal story.
Speaker 4: I am a twenty year money expert, but just because
Speaker 4: I am does not mean that I don't have these
Speaker 4: hang ups around money that everyone else does. It's probably
Speaker 4: why I actually went into the career. To be honest
Speaker 4: with you, but I used to hate looking at ATM
Speaker 4: receipts because what would happen is I would look at
Speaker 4: the numbers and I would start my brain is one
Speaker 4: of those just super analytical, overactive. I would start subtracting
Speaker 4: all of the things that I knew I needed to
Speaker 4: pay and in a nanosecond I had myself broke homeless,
Speaker 4: you know, everything was going to be a representsed like
Speaker 4: that's how irrational we can be around money. And because
Speaker 4: we don't walk around sharing this stuff with anyone else, right,
Speaker 4: we think we're our own little container. And so I
Speaker 4: got divorced in my early thirties and as I left
Speaker 4: my house and the only thing I had to my
Speaker 4: name was a car with a really expensive car payment
Speaker 4: and a blue suitcase. That was all I had. I
Speaker 4: went to the ATM because I needed to take some
Speaker 4: money out. And it was that moment where I thought, Okay,
Speaker 4: instead of taking these ATM receipts and turning them into
Speaker 4: origami and shoving them into my wallet, I need to
Speaker 4: actually look. And so I thought, well, what if I
Speaker 4: I'm a big, like bone timer person, Like, what if
Speaker 4: I set my timer for a minute and I looked
Speaker 4: at the receipt for a minute and that was that
Speaker 4: was the most exposure I could have, you know that
Speaker 4: I could humanly possibly handle at that time period. So
Speaker 4: I did that, and I thought, Okay, that wasn't so bad.
Speaker 4: What if I set the timer for five minutes next time?
Speaker 4: And I tell myself, you only have five minutes where
Speaker 4: you can think whatever thoughts are running crazy in your brain.
Speaker 4: Once that timer's off, we're going to let this go.
Speaker 4: And so I started to then work on these little
Speaker 4: like incremental exposure habits around things that felt really scary
Speaker 4: about money. And I started them teaching those two clients
Speaker 4: like what if you did this, or what if it
Speaker 4: was you know, only this little time period, or you
Speaker 4: had a money date, but it was ten minutes and
Speaker 4: that was it, you know. And I started noticing that
Speaker 4: when the human brain could say, Okay, this is my
Speaker 4: time frame for doing some of these things that feel
Speaker 4: really scary. And then on the other end, I would
Speaker 4: tell people give yourself a tiny little reward, something something
Speaker 4: really you know, inexpensive, but something that you super love,
Speaker 4: because we love that aspect as humans. And so I
Speaker 4: started to see people like, oh, they're starting to cross
Speaker 4: the bridge now with just these little shifts and how
Speaker 4: they're interacting with these these big topics around money that
Speaker 4: feel super heavy, super traumatizing to them. And so everything
Speaker 4: that I talk about in the book, the book's super personal,
Speaker 4: and I have other people's stories comes from my experience
Speaker 4: and then me saying, okay, I have to change my
Speaker 4: relationship with money. Let me try it on other people
Speaker 4: and see if it works for other people. And it
Speaker 4: you know, whether somebody was making a million dollars or
Speaker 4: somebody was just starting out, I would see, Oh, these
Speaker 4: same aha moments happen, and there has to be something
Speaker 4: here that we're not taught about when we're taught traditional
Speaker 4: personal finance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is so crazy, Like because I also, having been
Speaker 1: like in personal finance writing for like eight years, still
Speaker 1: deal with a lot of these money traumas.
Speaker 5: Like they don't just go away.
Speaker 1: When you were like, I think I got into this
Speaker 1: because of them, and I was like, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I did too, because I was miserable paying off debt,
Speaker 1: and so I started writing about it to help people
Speaker 1: that wanted to do what I was doing, which is
Speaker 1: pay off debt but not be as miserable. So like,
Speaker 1: they don't just go away. No matter how much you
Speaker 1: know about money, no matter how many podcasts you listen
Speaker 1: to or books you read, Knowing more does not solve
Speaker 1: the problem. It's actually like taking these steps to.
Speaker 5: Learn about yourself.
Speaker 3: Oh, got to do the work. Yeah. Speaking of relationships,
Speaker 3: and you talked about relationship our relationship with money. But
Speaker 3: I also imagine that money trauma impacts just our actual
Speaker 3: relationships with the people around us. What have you seen
Speaker 3: with that and what does healing look like in that
Speaker 3: regard When we do notice that these money traumas are
Speaker 3: impacting the way that we're relating with other people.
Speaker 4: Almost every single couple that I've either coached or are
Speaker 4: in my life have you know, a very interesting dynamic
Speaker 4: around money. For a lot of people, there is a
Speaker 4: very very charged feelings around this. A lot of times
Speaker 4: people will say, well, we're just going to keep our
Speaker 4: accounts separate because that way we'll never argue about money,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, that doesn't work that way. There is
Speaker 4: stuff that's going to come up, or what happens if
Speaker 4: one of you are disabled or lose your job, Like,
Speaker 4: we cannot avoid those situations. And I think that we
Speaker 4: feel so charged mainly because we don't understand our own
Speaker 4: money traumas, or our own relationship with money, or our
Speaker 4: own money story. We don't really want to think about
Speaker 4: those things because for a lot of us, that's scary.
Speaker 4: Money is already scary, so we do not want to
Speaker 4: hyper focus on those sorts of things. So if we
Speaker 4: don't know that about ourselves, or we're not willing to
Speaker 4: be honest. And we've got two people involved. That's two
Speaker 4: people having the same kind of human response to money,
Speaker 4: and so that's what leads to you know, defensiveness, arguments, divorce,
Speaker 4: breaking up, all sorts of things around money. And I
Speaker 4: really think the way to heal this with couples is
Speaker 4: coming from a place of non judgment and coming from
Speaker 4: that place of curiosity and being super interested in Tell
Speaker 4: me about how many was talked about when you grew up.
Speaker 4: Tell me about like some of those beliefs that you
Speaker 4: carried over from childhood. Tell me about the things that
Speaker 4: get you really nervous or you're scared about around money.
Speaker 4: And also I think it's you know, I talk in
Speaker 4: the book about for money personalities. I think it's important
Speaker 4: to understand what your strengths are around money, what your
Speaker 4: partner strengths, and then what your blind spots are, because
Speaker 4: often we choose a partner that's different than us, and
Speaker 4: so we can actually borrow our strengths to help their
Speaker 4: blind spots and vice versa. But we can't do that
Speaker 4: if we're just stuck in judging the other person about
Speaker 4: a myriad of things. So I think it's really got
Speaker 4: to come from this place of being curious, whether that's
Speaker 4: playing a game or just having casual conversations around money
Speaker 4: when it's not so stressed. Is really important because this
Speaker 4: shows up in how we sleep, it shows up in
Speaker 4: our intimacy with a partner, it shows I mean, it
Speaker 4: shows up in every area.
Speaker 3: I am loving this exposure or looking into kind of
Speaker 3: understanding ourselves, our own relationship with money, our relationship with
Speaker 3: other people, how it's impacted, and I think just underscoring
Speaker 3: the need to give ourselves the time and space to
Speaker 3: know who we are better. And so yeah, so grateful
Speaker 3: for how you've highlighted all of that. And you know
Speaker 3: what else I'm grateful for and so curious about.
Speaker 1: I borrow from frequently and it does strengthen me the week.
Speaker 6: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 6: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 6: is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your
Speaker 6: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 6: that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill clion.
Speaker 1: This is the bill of the week, Shauna.
Speaker 5: Every week we yell at our.
Speaker 1: Listeners and our guests, and we invite them to share
Speaker 1: their bill with us, and we would love to hear
Speaker 1: yours today.
Speaker 4: Mine actually isn't a bill, but it's a check that
Speaker 4: I received that is so fascinating. It was for thirty
Speaker 4: eight cents from a job I did five years ago
Speaker 4: that they forgot to pay me the extra thirty eight cents,
Speaker 4: and I thought it was so humorous that I actually
Speaker 4: just pasted it on the wall and thought, I am
Speaker 4: never going to bend this. I'm just going to look
Speaker 4: at it because it just it's like one of those
Speaker 4: things that just makes me crack up about money. And
Speaker 4: so when I feel stressful, I love having those things
Speaker 4: that are just totally laughable.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, how ridiculous. I mean, that's it's very
Speaker 3: justice oriented and very mathematical.
Speaker 5: And what kind of job was it? Was it of
Speaker 5: like freelance or something.
Speaker 4: It was, Yes, it was a freelance job where I
Speaker 4: was an on camera host for a couple of money
Speaker 4: teaching videos. And you know, what they paid me out
Speaker 4: was actually like a fairly large sum. And so with
Speaker 4: this thirty eight cent check was just a sorry we
Speaker 4: were doing our our records, and we realized that we
Speaker 4: underpaid you. And so I thought reading the letter, like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is going to be like this is gonna be
Speaker 4: a big check, right, And then I get to open
Speaker 4: the check and I'm just, like I said to my husband,
Speaker 4: I'm like, it's thirty eight cents.
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 3: What a let down? No, that is crazy.
Speaker 4: I actually wrote them a thank you for you know,
Speaker 4: thank you for making sure that I received that thirty
Speaker 4: eight cents.
Speaker 3: Could you imagine? Yeah, if you were just fuming these
Speaker 3: last years they owe me.
Speaker 1: I mean there's in finance, there's not a lot of ethics,
Speaker 1: and so what a what a dream?
Speaker 4: It was such a dream. I'm like, can you actually
Speaker 4: look back in your records?
Speaker 5: Is there more money than you potentially owe me?
Speaker 4: Like if we're going on this treasure hunt, like can
Speaker 4: we really dig here?
Speaker 3: Are you sure it was a thirty eight cents?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Is the period in the wrong position?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 3: I want to know?
Speaker 5: Couldn't move it three dollars and eighty cents?
Speaker 1: Could it be thirty eight dollars?
Speaker 4: Could let's just keep moving it to the right.
Speaker 3: Could be three million dollars? I'd be lovely. Wow, Well,
Speaker 3: if you all listening have a bill that you want
Speaker 3: to share, if it's about a bit a non bill,
Speaker 3: it's about just change that you have been owed for years.
Speaker 3: Or if your name is Bill Frugal Friends podcast dot
Speaker 3: com slash Bill, leave it for us.
Speaker 7: We can't wait, And now it's time for the all right,
Speaker 7: I don't know what the lightning war in question is.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to read it. Here we go. We're
Speaker 3: all going to answer on this vulnerability round. What's a
Speaker 3: money decision you've made recently that your younger self would
Speaker 3: have felt bad about or ashamed of. Let you go first, SHAWNA.
Speaker 4: So many choices here to go with. If I'm going
Speaker 4: to be super honest, I had a certain amount of
Speaker 4: money that I could have put in investing, but instea,
Speaker 4: I took that check and I went out and spent
Speaker 4: it on all sorts of things that I probably didn't need.
Speaker 4: But I'm in this process of putting out my book
Speaker 4: right now, and there was something so cathartic outspending an
Speaker 4: amount of money that I probably should have invested and
Speaker 4: done something much better for and spent it on a
Speaker 4: myriad of things that I'm sure in a week I
Speaker 4: will recognize that I don't need, but I'll probably keep
Speaker 4: them because I hate the process of actually going out
Speaker 4: returning things.
Speaker 3: But now are you ashamed of it now, like or
Speaker 3: do you feel a sense of freedom because of the
Speaker 3: healing you've experienced.
Speaker 4: There's still like a little bit of a shame there, like, oh,
Speaker 4: don't plug that number into a compound interest calculator and
Speaker 4: see what that could turn into in five or ten years.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there's there's a little shame there. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's the tough part of it being a money expert,
Speaker 4: is you know what you should do, and when you
Speaker 4: don't do what you know you should do, you really
Speaker 4: have to talk yourself off the little ledge.
Speaker 1: When you're a financial expert, you're always plugging in an
Speaker 1: amount of money into a compound interest calculator that I
Speaker 1: did that yesterday.
Speaker 3: I think that's the double edged sword of knowing so
Speaker 3: much about money, or even if you're not talking about
Speaker 3: money every day, if you're getting better with your money
Speaker 3: and recognizing opportunity costs. But I think we also need
Speaker 3: to have some freedom and permission to not do the
Speaker 3: most optimized, efficient right thing with our money, because we
Speaker 3: are human and sometimes we also need to just enjoy
Speaker 3: life in the here and now. We can't invest every
Speaker 3: single dollar or always get the best possible deal, or
Speaker 3: hold out until it drops to its lowest price. There
Speaker 3: are just real needs in the here and now, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I think there's room for that if I can help
Speaker 3: to deshame some of this for you, Shawna, I'm here,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm gonna accept it. Take me off that ledge.
Speaker 3: Yes, what about you? John?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 1: So for me, we are not going to max out
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty four rath iiras. I don't know if
Speaker 1: we will invest at all in our twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: rath ira. And what shame that I am getting over it?
Speaker 1: I for somebody who has maxed out their roth ira
Speaker 1: two roth iras every year for a while. Not well
Speaker 1: because my husband took a lower paying job at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty three because he was overworking himself
Speaker 1: and he was miserable, and we decided, hey, we made
Speaker 1: a lot of good financial decisions before we had kids
Speaker 1: and in our early years with kids, so that we
Speaker 1: could spend more time with our kids, so that we
Speaker 1: could live full lives now and not once they are
Speaker 1: in college and out of our house, and so that
Speaker 1: was the decision we made.
Speaker 5: We made a.
Speaker 1: Literal like a fourteen thousand dollars a year cut, which
Speaker 1: is what we were basically putting into retirement, and we
Speaker 1: didn't invest last year, and compound interest is still working
Speaker 1: for us. Definitely, I will have to invest again. This
Speaker 1: is not a long term solution, but we gave ourselves
Speaker 1: a year to figure it out and we'll see what
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five holds.
Speaker 5: But gosh, a.
Speaker 1: Few years ago, I would, oh man, I would have
Speaker 1: been a lot more scared.
Speaker 5: About what the future would hold.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I have a similar answer to all of you,
Speaker 3: It just in the way that it's going to sound.
Speaker 3: But we spent money on a European vacation recently within
Speaker 3: the like a couple months ago. We went away and
Speaker 3: bought some lodging and some activities that actually I will
Speaker 3: say I truly felt guilt free about. And part of
Speaker 3: that was because I did have money set aside for
Speaker 3: this very thing. But I think even to that that
Speaker 3: thing of but is this as optimized as I could
Speaker 3: have been with my money? I think I was truly
Speaker 3: able to let go of that and say I have
Speaker 3: this money set aside for this purpose. It is to
Speaker 3: spend on this thing, and I'm going to do it
Speaker 3: and I'm going to enjoy it. And it was so fun.
Speaker 4: Where did you go? I mean, now I have to ask.
Speaker 3: We went to London, Switzerland and Portugal.
Speaker 4: Please tell me you ate some good food and of
Speaker 4: course some delicious chocolate and indulged course.
Speaker 3: Oh and so much sangria in Portugal, babes, some good sangria. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was awesome. Well, thanks so much, Shno for being here.
Speaker 3: If people want more from you, they want to dig
Speaker 3: a little bit deeper into healing from money trauma, understanding
Speaker 3: this a little bit better, where can they get that
Speaker 3: from you?
Speaker 4: You can get my book Unraveling Your Relationship with Money
Speaker 4: absolutely everywhere books are sold. You can also check out
Speaker 4: my podcast. I have over twelve hundred episodes. Everyone's Talkinmoney
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 5: Yes, another og very podcaster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and you've got us beat like we've got
Speaker 1: almost five hundred that is and you Yeah.
Speaker 3: Amazing, so much wisdom to dig in on with you. Awesome,
Speaker 3: thanks for being here with us.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: I really I really like that.
Speaker 1: I always say that I have budget PTSD and it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a joke, but it's also kind
Speaker 1: of what Shauna describes as one of these icks, Like
Speaker 1: it's it does cause avoidance in me. I have a
Speaker 1: natural propensity to avoid keeping track of my money because
Speaker 1: of this dick that I have with budgeting and the
Speaker 1: past like ix that I've had with finding my identity
Speaker 1: or finding my value and my identity in my success
Speaker 1: with money and business. I still struggle with all of that,
Speaker 1: but it is definitely to a lesser extent, and when
Speaker 1: I see it, I recognize it earlier, I can catch
Speaker 1: it earlier. And I think that's the difference. As we're
Speaker 1: going down this journey with money traumas, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: possible to get rid of all of them, but it
Speaker 1: is possible to quickly identify and like we're you know,
Speaker 1: make a shift.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's recognizing that our money experiences can
Speaker 3: cause a negative association and degrees of hypervigilance and degrees
Speaker 3: of experiencing kind of threat to our livelihood and our
Speaker 3: lives and our stability and security, and so you know,
Speaker 3: I think that there can be a way to use
Speaker 3: the word trauma lightly. But then there's also a way
Speaker 3: to use it correctly, and so I think, you know,
Speaker 3: there's definitely a spectrum of what it means to have
Speaker 3: experienced trauma, but then there's also just non beneficial experiences,
Speaker 3: scary experiences, difficult experiences, and so kind of wherever we
Speaker 3: find ourselves on the spectrum there, I think what Shauna
Speaker 3: has talked about can be helpful in naming it, validating it,
Speaker 3: and then being able to move forward and heal from it,
Speaker 3: which in many way is just experiencing the opposite. What
Speaker 3: can we do now that is different from the difficult
Speaker 3: experience that I've had in the past. So really really
Speaker 3: appreciate these kind of deeper conversations that recognize, yeah, money
Speaker 3: is more than just pieces of paper in our pocket
Speaker 3: or numbers in our bank accounts, but yeah, there's so
Speaker 3: many other layers.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So thank you so much for listening. As you know,
Speaker 1: we have a book called by What You Love Without
Speaker 1: Going Broke that is available now, and we love reading
Speaker 1: your kind reviews about the podcast, but we've loved getting
Speaker 1: to read them about the book as well. We especially
Speaker 1: loved this one from Adam Harding says practical, simple and
Speaker 1: realistic financial advice. Five stars. This book is a wonderful
Speaker 1: guide on how to tailor your finances to fit your
Speaker 1: ideal life. It provides easy to follow tips, a customizable framework,
Speaker 1: and helpful personal stories from the authors. Their concept of
Speaker 1: the radical middle is so helpful for your finance and
Speaker 1: so many other matters in life. Definitely recommend this book
Speaker 1: for people who don't like budgets or constantly overspend and
Speaker 1: stress over the small expenses of life. This book proves
Speaker 1: finances don't have to be a painful slog to avoid,
Speaker 1: but can be a fun, easy to implement way to
Speaker 1: empower the life you want to lead with confidence. Oh
Speaker 1: that's awesome, wo you adam great review of the book.
Speaker 3: A good summary. I really appreciate that. If you've read
Speaker 3: the book and you haven't reviewed it yet, please do
Speaker 3: so wherever you purchased it. Amazon is a great place
Speaker 3: to be able to review the book. If you don't
Speaker 3: have the book yet, go get it wherever you buy
Speaker 3: books or buy what youlovebook dot com.
Speaker 5: Until then, see you next time.
Speaker 1: They Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So I
Speaker 1: did my nails, and I don't typically do my nails.
Speaker 1: I typically just let them be free.
Speaker 3: But Oh, are you going to tell the story again?
Speaker 3: You just have to prepare myself, prepare, repair the audience,
Speaker 3: the pair a story. Yeah, for like why you decided
Speaker 3: to do your nails?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, well okay, maybe all right. I can
Speaker 1: see that it's not weird, but I was I have
Speaker 1: been enjoying kind of longer nails. Usually I don't keep
Speaker 1: them long because I'm writing so much. I saw this
Speaker 1: one of my friends, who was one of my old editors.
Speaker 1: She was letting her nails grow out and broke one
Speaker 1: and she then cut all her nails, which is typically
Speaker 1: what I do. And she's like, I'll be typing at
Speaker 1: least forty words per minute faster now without I was like, oh.
Speaker 5: Man, yes, that's it.
Speaker 1: That is that is the struggle, right, But I'm not
Speaker 1: doing as much writing now, and so I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd like to keep my nails a little long. But
Speaker 1: so I was grabbing Kai's backpack and one of my
Speaker 1: nails like flipped back and like really hurt. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, I'm not going to keep my
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to have long nails and natural
Speaker 1: at the same time, but I'm also not going to
Speaker 1: go to the salon. So I actually have had this
Speaker 1: powder dip system for like three years. Yeah, you never
Speaker 1: tried it. I had tried it once and I wasn't
Speaker 1: great at it. It does have a learning curve, and
Speaker 1: I'm still not great at it. But I've picked a
Speaker 1: very neutral color, so you can't really tell that is
Speaker 1: the secret, right, But my nails now are very hard
Speaker 1: and still long, and I think I'm going to practice
Speaker 1: it and try to get better. I think part of
Speaker 1: it comes down to having the right tools, Like I
Speaker 1: think I need like a battery, opera rated file, like
Speaker 1: one of those things. I believe that that is the
Speaker 1: key to really getting it. But I'm going to try
Speaker 1: it a few more times and see if that is
Speaker 1: the solution.
Speaker 3: So that your nail doesn't flip back.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: If I, and this is just if I want to
Speaker 1: have longer nails. If I don't want to have longer nails,
Speaker 1: then I won't keep trying this.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I just I don't want.
Speaker 1: Alpha but nails good but like something in the middle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they look nice. I can't tell that you're not
Speaker 3: good at the dip system, thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah they're from Afar.
Speaker 3: They look good.
Speaker 1: It looks like I don't have nails actually because.
Speaker 3: I chose a new color.
Speaker 5: Color. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it is uh super neutral Yeah almost too neutral.
Speaker 3: Be too much. It's like putting makeup over your eyebrows.
Speaker 5: Hand is what it is. It's a sad beige.
Speaker 3: Hand, but hard long mail, but hard long nail. Well
Speaker 3: that was fun.
Speaker 2: M