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Podcast Episode Notes: Making Money - ARCHIVE: How Do You Fix Your Money Issues?
Episode Overview In this episode of the Making Money podcast, hosts Damien Jordan and Timeyin Akerele revisit a discussion with financial psychotherapist Vicky Reynal. The conversation delves into the psychological aspects of money management, exploring topics such as overspending, financial anorexia, and the emotional ties we have with money. Vicky’s insights provide listeners with a deeper understanding of how their upbringing and experiences can shape their financial behaviors.
Key Guests
- Vicky Reynal: Financial psychotherapist and author of *Money on Your Mind*.
Key Concepts Discussed
Understanding Our Relationship with Money
- Emotional Connection: Money influences every aspect of our lives, and understanding our relationship with it can lead to greater financial well-being.
- Self-Sabotage: Many people destroy their wealth due to shame associated with having money. This can lead to reckless spending or withholding.
Financial Anorexia
- Definition: A term coined by Vicky to describe an extreme reluctance to spend money, similar to the behavior seen in eating disorders.
- Implications: Individuals suffering from financial anorexia may hoard wealth while denying themselves basic comforts, leading to emotional distress.
Cultural and Psychological Influences
- Childhood Impact: Early experiences play a significant role in shaping adult behaviors around money. For instance, a nurturing environment may lead to a healthier outlook on spending, while a critical or scarcity-oriented background can create anxiety around financial decisions.
- Social Expectations: Growing up in an environment that equates wealth with morality can lead to shame or guilt when one achieves financial success.
Discussion Highlights
Vicky’s Approach
- Vicky emphasizes the importance of exploring the *why* behind financial behaviors, suggesting that clients often know what to do but struggle emotionally with implementing changes.
- She discusses the therapeutic process, which involves unpacking emotional ties to money and examining relationships with family and partners.
Personal Stories and Insights
- Damien and Timeyin share their personal experiences, revealing their struggles with spending and saving, and how those stem from their backgrounds.
- The hosts discuss how societal pressures and personal relationships can complicate financial decisions.
Coping Strategies
- Identifying Patterns: Listeners are encouraged to recognize spending patterns and what triggers them—whether it’s emotions, social situations, or self-worth.
- Open Conversations: The episode advocates for having open discussions about money, both individually and within relationships, as a way to alleviate anxiety and foster understanding.
Practical Takeaways
- Reflection: Ask yourself why you make certain financial decisions and what emotions are tied to those choices.
- Awareness: Acknowledge that money does not inherently bring happiness and that it might not resolve deeper issues.
- Communication: Foster conversations about money with family and friends to normalize the discussion and reduce shame.
Conclusion This episode provides a deep dive into the psychological aspects of money management, encouraging listeners to examine their personal beliefs and behaviors. By understanding the emotional connections to money, individuals can begin to develop healthier financial habits and improve their overall relationship with wealth.
Contact Information For questions or personalized financial guidance, listeners can reach out via email: makingmoney@getmost.co.uk
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Important Disclaimer This podcast episode is intended for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Listeners should conduct their own research and consider seeking professional advice tailored to their individual circumstances.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01You know what I love, Damo? Things that save me time. You don't have YouTube Premium, mate, so I just don't believe that. Granted, I'll give you that one. However, I've got one for you. A great time saver in personal finance is Money Week magazine. They spend a lot of time distilling the biggest stories in personal finance down into consumable chunks, so you don't have to scroll and scroll. They give practical tips on savings, investments, pensions, the UK economy, the global economy. It's like your five a day, but for finance. If you want to give Money Week a try, you can get six issues in print and the app absolutely free by visiting moneyweek.com forward slash money.
0:34After your trial, you'll save an extra£5 a quarter on the subscription, which is exclusive to Making Money listeners. And that's moneyweek.com forward slash money. But there's a link in the description if you just want to click that.
0:48This week, we're taking a short break, but we'll be back with a new episode next week. Today, we've dipped into the archive and this is really one of my favorite episodes. I'll chat with financial psychotherapist, Vicky Raynor. Enjoy. There's a lot of illusions that get attached to money. We all feel we should be better with it, but it's not an innate skill and many people haven't been taught it. Vicky Raynell is a financial psychotherapist who deals with a wide range of issues, from overspending to money secrets and self-sabotage. Her book, Money on Your Mind, looks at how we develop a better relationship with money because it pervades everything we do.
1:25Just a warning, we do discuss some issues in this episode, such as anorexia, that some listeners might find it difficult to listen to. I've seen people self-sabotage and basically destroy the wealth they had because of that, because we're so ashamed of having it. Yeah, I like spending money on other people, but I won't spend money on myself. So what's your sense of where that comes from? I think I want to start really broad and say, you know, why does it matter, the relationship with money? Like, why do you think that that is something that people should think about? Because it's a part of everyone's life.
2:00I mean, we earn, we spend, it passes through our hands every day. And so being conscious of why we do what we do with it puts us in a better position so that we can have greater financial well-being, which means we feel more in control of the choices we make. We're not acting impulsively or out of a place within us that we don't understand. So within the book, at one point you draw like similarities between say physical anorexia, controlling how you eat and financial anorexia. And at first I found that line a bit jarring. Do you think it's as serious as that with money? Do you think that we should, we should hold those kinds of things together?
2:41you know? Well, what I was trying to say there is that sometimes it can be the same part of us that manifests in different aspects of our lives. So, you know, we could be quite controlling with food and quite controlling with money. And actually what they found is that sometimes when you're treating the symptoms and not the cause of something, people end up shifting. So And then they become financially anorexic because what you haven't dealt with is the underlying issue. Is that part of them that needs to control something? You know, why does it need to control? Where does that come from? And I think you're right.
3:22I mean, physical anorexia is life-threatening. But some people get themselves into such debt and into such a financially threatening situation that it does evoke almost primal fears because money is linked to our existence. And it ruins their life. It does. It might not kill them, but it stops them living. It does. And there's a lot of research that shows how debt or unemployment are linked to suicide rates. And it brings people, the lack of money or the threat of its lack, really brings people to very desperate places in their minds. And so that's dangerous too. Just for the listeners, what is financial anorexia?
4:03So it's a difficulty spending. it's when you can't allow yourself to have the good things that money can buy the same way that somebody with the eating disorder can't allow themselves to have food the good thing and so you become very controlling you know instead of calorie counting you might be opening your bank account a million times a day to check what's going on and you know look at those numbers over and over. And yeah, it becomes, it's restricting, it's withholding. Yeah. I think the way you hold those two things together and say food and money are not like separate things. They're just almost like ways that we almost represent our internal views of ourself.
4:44I thought that was really insightful. That's right. Because money is a symbol. It's an object that we can use or misuse to act out emotional issues. And we do that with food. And And so you can think if we take the overeater, sometimes people overeat because they're trying to fill an emotional gap. It's not hunger, right? And in that same way, we can use money. We might start hoarding it anxiously, build kind of piles of wealth because there's something within us that is uneasy. Maybe we're very deprived emotionally and it's left an emptiness. And it's really kind of a hole you're trying to fill.
5:19Some people do it with food. Other people do it with money. Yeah. Yeah. And you can swing from one to the other and sometimes they match. So I might go through these periods of like overspending and overeating. And then I go like militant exercise and I don't spend a penny. And it's like they go with each other. Yeah. And I think what you're talking about there is how there's some pervasive aspects of our personality that we can see acted out through money. So some people can be black or white, all or nothing. And that's what they do with everything. They either go to the gym every day or then they stop going for six months.
5:53And then they do that with money. They start, you know, they go through, you know, binge spending to then really withholding and, you know, watching every penny for months. And so that's maybe just an aspect of how they operate in life and they do the same with money. So you're described as a financial psychotherapist. What does that mean? And what kind of cases do you deal with? A financial psychotherapist is essentially a therapist that helps people unpack what's behind their financial behavior. So people often come to me having tried going to financial advisors or planners or maybe a coach, but they find that they know what they should be doing with money, but something is getting in the way of them acting the way they would like to.
6:39And that's something in my experience are emotions. And that's what I help them unpick and figure out. And so I see people that struggle with all sorts of different problems with money. You know, maybe they're overly generous or overly greedy. They might overspend. Or there's a lot of kind of conflict in couples or in families around money. Inheritance is a big one. So there are kind of all sorts of different presentations that have to do with money. But, you know, I call myself a financial psychotherapist, but any psychotherapist would be able to help somebody unpick all that because we're trained to help people figure out what they do with anything.
7:20What is the meaning behind their use of all sorts of different objects like food, money, sex, all things. Why did you focus on money then? It was both a professional and a personal interest. So I had my own family had its complicated relationship with money and I really benefited in my own personal therapy. I'm picking all that and the impact that it had on me. But the professional interest is the fact that sandwiched between two psychology degrees, I have an MBA degree. And during the MBA, there are kind of behavioral finance classes in which you unpick kind of cognitive biases and things that kind of psychological factors that influence your relationship with money.
8:03But in the psychotherapy degree, money wasn't talked about very much at all. And so I thought, well, you know, we have the right skills and tools to help people understand the meaning of what they do and figure out what place within themselves it's coming from. Why are we not applying it to something that is so pervasive and part of our daily lives? And that's how I started kind of researching and writing about it. What are the most common issues or traits or the kind of problems that people bring to you with money? I would say there's a difference between the most common things that people bring to me versus the most common things out there.
8:43I would say maybe overspending is something that most people... That was my chapter. I really think, why do I spend so much? Yeah, I like that chapter. But you know, there's some things that everybody might talk to their friends about their overspending, maybe even in a joking way and so on. I think there are certain things that people come to see me about that carry a huge sense of shame and it might bring them to therapy because they really feel there's nobody else they can talk to about. So, you know, money secrets is an example or um you know really controlling dynamics and relationships about money and you know people feeling trapped in those so you know i see people that struggle with all sorts of different things but i wouldn't say it's representative of the most common money problems out there yeah because you said around the people who kind of um don't spend that first of all they're not going to spend on seeking out help are they because they don't spend and then And secondly, as well, sometimes these behaviors can be championed as virtuous when actually they're negative.
9:49You made an interesting observation around, say, the FIRE community. And that could be a place where FIRE, financial independence, retire early. It's about extreme frugality. People who have destructive behaviors could go to there and be welcomed, couldn't they? Absolutely. And then you can see how there's something that's being denied there when you work so hard to make a point so strongly and you insist so much on how right you are and how wrong everybody is. You know, I'd always question, you know, what are you not saying? What are you trying to hide behind this more extreme behavior? And you're right.
10:29It's represented as something good. but maybe there is something not so good lurking in the background that is being, what we say, defended against. Yeah. Go on. I was going to say, do you think a lot of this comes from your childhood, that these things that are like lurking behind this film? Often, yes. I mean, a lot of our personality and how we operate in the world, what we think about ourselves, all of these things really are established when we're young. And, you know, some people use the statistic, you know, before you're seven. But I think it's an ongoing process in life. But certainly a lot of it gets established early on.
11:11I think I felt like mine was a bit later. But I guess a lot of it's subconscious, so you don't really think about it. But when I was looking back, I was like, were my ideas of money formed before I was seven? I was like trying to, you can't really remember much before you were seven. Yeah. Kind of hard to tell. I think a lot of ideas about yourself in the world are formed before then or early in childhood, I would say. I think seven is a bit of an arbitrary number. So, you know, think about it. Your interaction with your parents will shape who you become. You know, if they look at you and smile and interact with you, you'll grow up with a sense that you're lovable, you're good enough.
11:48And so you'll approach the world that way. And if, on the other hand, you had parents who are really critical or maybe absent or always said no to you, then that will shape your sense of agency, right? So how are you going to walk into a salary negotiation as an adult with a sense that people say yes to you if your whole life you grew up hearing no, you can't have this, you can't have that? And so I think in that way, it's those experiences. What do we expect from others? What do we expect from the world? How will people respond to us that really shape what we do as adults? You know, how confidently we go out there and ask for money or start a business and so on.
12:29We also think that events later in life can shape our financial beliefs. It's not like seven and done. No, no doubt. Later as well. I mean, I've seen people who maybe have been bullied in secondary school and that left them with this, you know, it was a traumatic experience. It left them with a longing to fit in when they grow up in life. And so, you know, fast forward 20 years later, they buy all these clothes because in every group, in every circumstance, in every job, they have to dress the part. They have to feel that they belong. Otherwise, you know, the anxieties from back then, from those experiences, bubble up and feel unbearable.
13:08And that's their way of coping with that. I felt that my work life changed my perception of money. when I was I became I was a broker I think when I when I graduated my first university and I was working in Liverpool Street in the city as a commodity broker and they were all about carry money clip so you always have cash and then they want you to spend your cash and stretch yourself so that you do more deals you keep selling and then they would have a guy who came in every week and he would measure people for suits and so like the top brokers would always be getting suit like a new suit every week bring all the materials you're like oh when I joined I'm I want a custom made suit.
13:43So then I did some deals. I made some money. I was like, oh, broker, a suit guy, come to me, Taylor, come and do me a suit. So he did me a suit and they always expect you to spend money. And then also when you're talking to clients, you have to ask for money, which is very, in England, very taboo. We don't really talk about money, let alone say, how much do you have in your ISA? How much do you have in the stock market? Do you want to invest some in commodities? Our minimum is 10 ,000 pounds. And just the process of saying, I need, give me your money is like it took like a while to learn but then I feel like it changed my whole aspect of my outlook on money and it's like okay spend like you the more you spend the more the harder you work and then stretch yourself so that you always you know next month you'll be fine because you'll do another deal so it's always like they kind of institutionalize us to always be not broke but stretched stretch like get a bigger house get a bigger car buying more suits So I feel like, and that was quite late in my life.
14:39Well, and as you're talking about this and reflecting on the experience, you're aware of maybe both the pros and the cons of that experience. So it made you more comfortable talking about money, which is an important life skill, right? But the downside was that maybe, you know, it was an environment that felt really competitive when it came to spending and it pushed you in a direction that then became uncomfortable. Be on the tube and say, I bet you that person gets off at the next stop before that person, 20 quid, and they'd just be betting on like who's going to get off the train. It was ridiculous.
15:10Yeah, yeah. The competition everywhere, right? Let's talk about some of it then from our own personal perspectives, because I think it's interesting after reading the book to reflect on it and get a free therapy session. So I'm 100 % self-denying, I think. Well, in the sense of I'm very generous with other people, like you benefit from that. took me out to dinner the other night before the football was great yeah i like spending money on other people but i won't spend money on myself like i i feel guilty about it um i don't know and i i've got more money now than i've ever had and i still find it very difficult to spend on myself for sure so what's your sense of where that comes from i've always been obsessed with money one of my earliest memories was like hiding money under the sofa when i was about four i used to like hide it and then my mom would like try and borrow it off me like I remember that and I used to charge her interest on the money so she said she always used to say my dad was obsessed with money like me like everyone would say that but I didn't know my dad so um that and then I had like a lot of a lot of bad experiences with money in my 20s which probably moved it the other way you know so yeah it's always been a dominant theme money in my life and how was she with money your mom?
16:25She was pretty good. She didn't have much. It was just me and her. So she was like a spreadsheet person always doing, you know, like she didn't invest. She didn't really save, but I always never went without, you know, I always remember having nice clothes and things like this. Everyone where I lived was poor. So I didn't think that we didn't have much money. You know, it wasn't like I was consciously aware that we were skinned. I didn't realize people had lots of money until I went to uni and then I saw them. But your sense was that she had it under control. or did she leave you with any kind of anxiety about it?
16:59No, I was just aware that people had... I could see on TV that maybe people had lots of money. I just liked money. I just liked it. I don't know. I like the feel of it. I like cash. I think it looked beautiful. I liked collecting it and lining it all up and counting it. And my nan would have this massive penny jar and I'd just count it every day, like tip it all out and line it all up and bag it up and take it to the bank. I just loved that. It's quite common in children kind of pre-puberty, kind of that sort of age to play with money in that way, to organize and stack it. But obviously for you, it became an interest to that, you know, in your whole life.
17:37Yeah. And I know you've spoken in other episodes about the kind of the debt and those experiences. That's much appreciated. Binge-watched them. Yeah, yeah. and uh no so and that had an impact you said on on why you're here today and why what you do what you do and i guess the question that i had for you was you know do you feel that maybe you've kind of over corrected 100 i save more money a month than anyone i know and i still feel like it's not enough every night i look at my spreadsheets before i go to bed to make myself feel comfortable i check my bank accounts constantly you know like every like it's just constantly checking how much money i'm earning so it's all it's almost as if there's a part of you that is afraid that that could actually happen again yeah it's all going to go away yeah another part of you is conscious that that's kind of unlikely considering how you've set yourself up and all these measures you put in place but it's hard to get in touch with that and reassure yourself i also exist in a career where it can disappear in an instant you get cancelled or you say the wrong thing it's kind of like being a footballer like you get injured socially that can disappear and there's also this thing of potentially this can set my life up forever and i don't want to like drop the ball you know so it's the weight of the responsibility that this this is you yeah yeah i guess so yeah i mean i it's a blessing though because it's all led me to the point where i sit here and i help other people but yeah i definitely it's kind of crazy to think that like i have an unhealthy relationship with money behind the scenes but i do like it's an obsession well i think you were talking one of the episodes about um every time you spend a hundred You go and put away a hundred and it's kind of an atonement, you know, and addressing that guilt.
19:39So it sounds like that's the biggest issue that you need to unpack. You know, where is that guilt coming from? And I would suspect it's not just about money and I'd go and investigate there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a big sense of feeling behind, which is ridiculous. That's actually ridiculous. Because I don't have a sense of being behind and I am behind. So I just don't understand how your brain works, mate. Behind what? Behind. Behind like other people. Behind where I should be. Like I wasted my 20s and now I've got to catch up. I think a lot of people wasted their 20s. Yeah. So it's about mourning the loss of those years.
20:20Maybe. And accepting that that's gone and that you can only change what you do from here on. so it's almost as if a part of you is kind of stuck in that uh trying to process the the guilt that have to do with the debt and not using those years to get ahead yeah and there's like all the guilt of like earning a good amount of money now and what comes with that and like worrying that i'll alienate my friends and people from where i'm from and my family you know working class guilt kind of vibe, which sounds so worries me. It's like a silly thing. It's a real first world problem, right? It's a real first world.
20:59And to sit here and be like, oh, you know, my wallet's so heavy. My friends wouldn't be able to relate to me anymore because I'm making too much bank. My wrists, yeah. I mean, I'm not flashy like that. So I don't have anything. But, you know, I earn a good amount of money. Well, it's not easy. You're certainly not the only one to feel that it's difficult to spend and to enjoy money when our family didn't have enough or when our friends still don't have enough. And there's guilt or shame in that too. And I say shame, which is different from guilt, because a lot of people might have grown up in an environment where there wasn't a lot of money.
21:42And how were the people who did have money talked about? Were they the greedy rich? Were they morally corrupt? And when you become one of them, one of the people with money, then there might be shame because there's a part of you thinking, well, what does that say about me? You know, what will people think that makes me? And so there's kind of an internal conflict because a part of you, you know, knows that you worked hard and you deserve the money you have. But maybe there's a part of you that is, you know, ashamed because of those messages that you took in or internalized about what being somebody with money makes you in a way.
22:22last time we recorded to me and you were having some real dramas with your accountant so how's that been going mate that's sacked so drama sorted um they're a big corporate firm um they didn't reply to my emails very quickly like took a week or two at times um and they charged me way too much i mean i've got pretty simple taxes and yeah they were charging me thousands they saved me some money but yeah um i had to move on slow and expensive pretty much yeah this is one of the reasons that we're really happy to be partnering with tax app it's a tech platform that makes self-assessment simple. Whether you're self-employed like me, a freelancer or a director like Damo, big dog.
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23:27That code is MONEY, M-O-N-E-Y 1-0. So Mr. O 'Carolet, I hear you are a salesman. Elite salesman, yes. One of the best, they say? I've got a little bit of experience in the game, yeah, I could say. I've done a few deals. A bill, a bill. What would your compliance team say about you? They will say that I am always nagging them and that essentially I just have beef with compliance. I love the team. Compliance slows down all my deals because every time I get to the finish line, they've got to check documents, KYC, GDPR, and it's just a nightmare. It slows the deal down by like two, three weeks. It's always on both sides as well, isn't it?
24:05Yeah, definitely. Sometimes it can be blocked on the other side. Well, that's where today's sponsor can help. Indeed. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get secure and compliant fast. And they stay that way. They do it by automating compliance with over 35 security and privacy frameworks like SOC2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA. Yeah, all of them. And this saves businesses so much time and money. According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers save over half a million dollars a year in costs. Not bad. And they also help you complete security questionnaires up to five times faster, which is great because everybody hates filling out forms.
24:40If you're a business that needs to prove security and compliance, visit Vanta.com forward slash making money to sign up for a completely free demo today. That's Vanta.com forward slash making money. There's a link in the description though, so you can just click that. Yeah, I see it with my audience where they're say from a working class background or they're from a place that doesn't have much money. And then they get an okay job and they start to invest. And then they say that like people think that they're, they think that they're better than their people, the people around them. Do you know what I mean?
25:12It's like, oh, you're one of them now. You invest or you save. And they have this, they say in my comments, it's like, I can't, I try and speak to my family about it. And they say, oh no, that's not for us. You know? Well, it's a dangerous thing not to kind of recognize those feelings and manage them because I've seen people self-sabotage and basically destroy the wealth they had because of that, because they were so ashamed of having it. and they just didn't want to, at some level, cope with the consequences. Of course, this happens unconsciously. They're not doing it on purpose, but, you know, making kind of a reckless investment or, you know, giving money to somebody without doing any due diligence as to what the opportunity is about.
25:51And it's all lost. And then, you know, you find that actually what was difficult was having money. And so they unconsciously found a way to rid themselves of it. I definitely find it hard to have money. to hold on to it. Yeah, honestly, I've got to, I'm like, what do I do with it? I better buy this. I better spend this. I better go on holiday. It's got to do something. It's got to do something. It can't just be sitting there like, yeah. Yeah, whereas I'm like, it's got to work for me and I can only live off what the money makes for me. Do you know what I mean? Like every penny has to be invested.
26:17So go on, T, let's go at you a bit. When you said people waste their 20s, like I spent my whole 20s just traveling the world. Like I didn't have a kid. I just had, anytime I had a good month, I just got on holiday. I was going on holiday like every two months
26:33So for me, I want to be like unbiased. So I asked my partner, how do you think my approach to money is? And she said, terrible. You don't know how to save. It comes and goes. And in the back of your head, you act as if you have a trust fund that will bail you out. You spend like a millionaire. Word for word, I spend like a millionaire. You're our badian missus. You get the most honest replies. Yeah, she's just straight, straight to life. I saw her the other day, she's like, you've lost weight. It looks good on you. Don't get fat again. He's like, yeah, if I put on weight, she would have told me you put on weight.
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27:09Yeah, she's like, you put on weight, you don't look good. Yeah, I think it's part of the therapy thing. Yeah, I know, it's amazing though. Yeah, it's really good. But I mean, for me, when I get money, I don't waste money. So like, well, I don't think I waste money. Some others might think I do, but I like to stop looking at my watch. I know, but like, for example, if I'm going to go and spend lots of money shopping, I will just go to like Selfridges or Howard's. I'll go to Bista Village where it's 40 % off and I'll buy like five pairs of shoes and like buy loads of stuff. So I'll splurge out, but I'm not going to waste money on like an Alexander McQueen jacket for like 10 grand.
27:40Vicky's seeing through your bullshit here. I'm looking at Vicky's eyes thinking, oh, okay. I'll buy five pairs of shoes. I don't waste money. They were on sale. They were all on sale, 40 % off. So I'm saving. That addresses some of the guilt. But then like on holiday, if I go on holiday, I spend like, I'm not coming back from holiday. I'm like, okay, I'm here for 10 days. I will come back with an empty bank account. Obviously I've got like investments, but I will spend everything in my current account on holiday. Cause I'm like, I've flown all the way to Bali or to like wherever it is, like Thailand, I'm going to have fun here.
28:09I'm not going to be like, oh, let's not get an Uber because I want to save money. I'm on holiday. So I spend money on experiences and like having a night, like nice meals and holidays. And so that if I die tomorrow, I'd be like, well, I had a great life. I've been to all these countries. I've got all these experiences, but then it's not really planning for the future as much as someone like Damo or probably the average person. Well it's about scale isn't it and in a way you know I don't think people should always be measured about everything in life because then maybe you miss out on living and really enjoying life but it's about okay I know I enjoy going on holiday and not really thinking about how much I'm spending and I'm going to allow myself to do that but I'm going to cut somewhere else right so i think what you're telling me is that for you that thinking kind of tends to apply in a lot of areas so you might you know go shopping and spend a lot and go on holiday and spend a lot and you know and then i'll ride a bicycle around london because i'm like okay i don't want to spend money on like fixing my car or petrol because i spent loads on this so i'll take the money from somewhere else so i don't mind like riding a bicycle or you know saving money like okay i'm not going to have any takeaways for two weeks because i spent loads on holiday so you do compromise so I compromise yeah well so I can speak from someone who knew you at Union and I think you're better now but he would be like popping a bottle of champagne one day and then the next day would be pushing his car into a petrol station because he's run out of petrol I've put like£1.30 I've put like 70p in my car tank before in my Mercedes like put 70p and then the guy the counter's like but he's popping a bottle of Moet the night before putting it on Instagram like it's like swings or roundabouts yeah yeah it's more swings than roundabouts But I think Tomein has this kind of like, there'll always be more money.
29:55Like I've got this right now, let's get rid of it. You know, it's the more we'll come. Yeah, I'm very optimistic in life. So I'm always like, I'll get more money. It leads you to buy like things like cryptocurrencies and investment because you're like, yeah, why wouldn't I get rich? You know, it's coming. And you're the pessimist, right? Always thinking about worst case scenario and so on. That's why we're a good balance. I am. I'm trying to get him to spend more and it's working a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's working a little bit. when he's getting me to save more. And like the other day, we were talking about like, what should he do with his money?
30:24And I was like, rather than like buying a gold watch, why don't you like elevate your bottom standard of living? Get a robot vacuum so that it does the house. So you save a bit of time. Because this is how I think about money. I'm like, how do I drag up the bottom? Like the worst case scenarios and the stuff that I, like how do I get rid of those things? Not how do I fly private? I'm not interested in that. Or get a bigger house. Or yeah, all these things. Yeah, clean and get a gardener. And it made sense because I got a robot vacuum, Guffey. Yeah, Guffey. and he like goes around and my son likes to jump on him and press the button i'm like stop that cost 200 pounds but um the vacuum just goes around and like clean zoom so now my missus doesn't have to vacuum as like once a week like a heavy vacuum but it's it saves a lot of time so you get the damien's like time is money and you want to do things like get a cleaner get a vacuum bring up the lower level of your life so that your life is easy and you have more time to do other things and like i think that was one of some of the best advice he's ever given me yeah we need a lot of help and we're just talking to each other and driving each other into brick walls clearly but i guess for like your natural tendency would be to spend more on items that are um well that create an image luxury wealth like shows of wealth yeah definitely if you didn't like that we got shells in my hair and he's shaking them in my face I had brain, yeah.
31:42If you walk into a club, he flips out his chains. He flips out the Jesus piece. He's out like... You're a funny guy. It's true. Yeah, I'm very optimistic and I do like to spend... But I don't mind not having money. Like, that's the thing. Like, Damien seems to be scared of not having money. I'm like, if I don't have money for like a week or two, I'm like, I'm going to get paid. I'm going to... I've got like lots of different sorts of income. I'm like, it'll be fine. Like, I'll just be broke for a week and then I'll just eat like baked beans on toast and sausages and I'll be fine. so like for me it's not like the fear of losing it isn't really there which i need to have because you know now i have a kid and i'm getting older so i need to have a bit of fear but i just don't have any fear of not making money so i wonder if uh your partner carries all the fear oh definitely oh definitely you said that you're like i'm never stressed she's always stressed well and sometimes people kind of polarize in relationships and so even you know somebody who might have a natural tendency to maybe be a little bit more reckless with money.
32:42If they find a partner who is quite responsible with money, what ends up happening, they become more reckless and she becomes even more responsible and she holds all the anxieties for the two of them and all the, you know, being sensible and all of that. And the other person kind of uses the dynamic unconsciously to, yeah, to give that freedom to indulge in a way. how do how do people how do you go about fixing these problems because one thing that was clear from you're almost like a point of last resort for some people where they've tried to go through all of like the quick hacks and tips and the things that it's like you know look at the sun in the morning and that'll fix your life yeah and then they come to you and it's none of that's work so how do you go about addressing these problems well it's about trying to figure out what is behind it.
33:31So, and there's many examples in the book about people who, you know, might have shown up with, for example, an overspending problem or what seemed like an overspending problem. They're like, you know, I ran out of money in the first week of every month. You know, my parents give me this allowance and it's gone after a week. And okay, so you start investigating, you know, What have you tried in the past? And they've tried everything on. I downloaded a budgeting app. I tried to go out with only cash. I tried all the tips and advice that they know them. So it's not not knowing. So what is it? And we try to unpick what they're spending on.
34:12Is it luxury items? Is it this, that? And it turned out for this particular person, it had nothing to do with what they were buying. But it was about getting rid of the money. Why? because when they run out of money, they would call their father. And how's the relationship with a father? Well, actually, since the parents got divorced, the only time they ever talked to their father is to ask for money. And so you see how, for them, fixing the money problem, becoming a more responsible spender would have ruined a relationship. At least that's what they thought. They would have lost a relationship with a parent.
34:49And so kind of understanding that and saying, well how else can you build that relationship so that you're not you know self-destructing financially to do that that's what unlocked it it wasn't about budgeting tips at all and the father probably on the other side of it is like they only ever call me for money they probably resent the relationship as well like as a parent like i hate it when my son calls me hi dad uh can i have five pound for v-box i'm like you little like ask me how my day was take me off the dinner before Oh, you're like, try and get me into bed. Do you know what I mean? It's funny that it can manifest in that way, though it seems almost a bit abstract, doesn't it?
35:33Well, and that's why it takes a little bit of time to uncover. Like you see people that keep themselves tied to others financially and kind of orchestrating these financial rescues. You see it in couples, but also in families, because there's a part of them that is afraid of growing up or they're afraid of being left or abandoned in the relationship. And so having a partner that always saves you in some way or another makes you feel calm. It kind of calms that anxiety. It makes you feel looked after. Look, they're looking after me. They're looking after finances. And they're a good partner and they won't leave me.
36:17Do you find that like some people need to be looked after and some people need to look after? Is there that kind of? Yes. So it always takes two to create a dynamic. And so you'll see that, you know, we'll be attracted to a person that brings out a dynamic that suits our narrative. so as i was saying before you know the person that maybe is afraid of the part of them that is a bit out of control might find a partner who feels very in control who feels you know gives them that ease that you know with this person i'll be fine they're going to keep me in check yeah she my partner told me like a week before she's like you know we've got rent next thursday we've got like electricity this day i'm like cool i just send her the money like i'm like Because she knows I'll just forget or just be late or something.
37:08So she gives me notice. But they said, I think in your book, you said half, there was a global study, half the people in the world worry about money. But in the UK and US, it's probably higher. So like this is a - Even though we're richer. Even though we're richer, but we have more money concerns and stress and worries. Isn't that, like, do you feel that when you see these people? And like, how many people are not coming to seek help if the majority of people are worried about stress? Like, what's the solution for all these people worried about stressing about money? Look, one easy solution is financial education.
37:41So a lot of the anxiety often is down to not understanding money, not knowing enough about it. You know, we all feel we should be better with it, but it's not an innate skill and many people haven't been taught it. So we're anxious because we don't understand. We don't know what to do. We're too ashamed to ask and we don't talk about it to other people. And they've done studies that show that when they teach people more about money, they become less anxious about it. So that's in one way an easy way to address it. I feel guilty about my position in the world because I teach people those basics.
38:20And I know that it changes their life because it turns them, it's like zero to one in terms of they don't invest, now they can. And through that process, if they do that for 20, 30 years, it will change their life. But then I still carry all these kind of things behind the scenes with my own financial situation of like, you know, the issues that I have. And it's like I feel like an imposter almost. Like I haven't figured out the money problem. I invest and I've got plenty of it. But that sounds like the money problem. Yeah, and it is. I solved one problem, but then I've got like, I still feel the same.
38:51I still feel like, oh, God, I've not got enough. like you know but does that kind of deny the fact that you're helping people or is it exactly what informed your passion what fueled your passion for helping people you know in a way if you hadn't had those experiences in your past you probably wouldn't be here talking so passionately about this and teaching people yeah no 100 but you do feel like you should have the answers i guess you you like you probably like people look to you like you've got the answers and you might go home sometimes and think you've got situations in your life that you wish you dealt with better but yeah it's you almost feel like you have to be perfect and that you want to say at the end of the yellow brick road where i am life is great and everything around the the concerns is goes away but yeah it doesn't i will say like where i am now financially is much better than where i was and like there's the the i can pay for things i can provide things and that's an amazing feeling but i still i still refreshing the spreadsheet all the time which i don't need to do that well but i think what you're telling people is that it's always work in progress we can always get better at it and we can't stop trying and we can't beat ourselves up for the things we don't do well we can only learn from them and try to do better people people say to like they say to us but like we see in the comments as well that i oh thank you so much the podcast has like changed my family's life we're now investing, it's made such a difference.
40:21And I bump into people and she's like, oh, they say the same to me. And I'm like, to be honest, it's changing my life too, because I'm learning the same things you guys are learning. It's changing mine. It's like, yeah, the journey, like you said, going from zero to one, I was pretty much only investing in crypto and like a few stocks and shares. And now I've like got my SunSip, ISA, my ISA, like everything's like moving in the right direction. So it's, I think it's a journey. And when you said your friends said, or your family said, oh, it's not for me. This whole investing thing, it's not for me.
40:47Is that from, like you said, people, it's a lack of knowledge or like insecurity and they're like, oh, I don't know it. So it's not for me. It's too risky. I'm not involved. Yeah, I think people avoid it because it's an easy defense to avoid it, right? To say it's not for me. I'm not good at it. I'm bad with money. Yeah, I'm bad with money. I'm not good at it. Yeah, you hear that all the time. But actually, I challenge that, you know, and I say, OK, when you say you're, what do you mean that you're bad? Well, you know, I don't really understand the whole kind of pension thing. Oh, okay. So you feel you don't understand pensions and what else?
41:23And they're like, well, you know, I'm good at budgeting, but, you know, I just don't understand investments. And I'm like, okay. So as you kind of try to unpick that, you get to a point where you're like, this person isn't bad with money. They actually don't know enough about investments and would like to learn a bit more, you know, go and find out more about it. And that eases the anxiety. You can make it specific. It's not all vague and in the childhood. Some of it is quite simple. If you allow yourself to ask some questions to yourself, you can do that in conversation with somebody. But it's about investigating what's behind this fear.
42:02What is it? Is it a fear that I'll lose everything? Is it a fear that I don't know enough about it? Where can I get that help? Who can I ask? Yeah. I think like what your book like made me realize was I can sit here and say to people buy a global index fund inside of an ISA and do that for 20 to 30 years and you won't you won't die poor and you won't have the decision in retirement of should I eat or should I turn the heating on but it won't take away the underlying issues that you manifest through money that are nothing about money they're more about how you've been bought up who you are your own insecurities and what's happened to you in life and maybe I was thinking like more money would fit.
42:39fix those things in me. But actually, I probably need to have a conversation with myself or with someone like you to dig that out. Well, and that is a common belief for people that money will fix whatever it is, you know, the conflict in the family, or it will make me feel more worthy, or finally, my dad will take me seriously or whatever it is. And then they find out that actually money didn't fulfill those promises and they come to therapy to find out what will give them those things. How can those problems be addressed? But yeah, there's a lot of illusions that get attached to money and it's quite disappointing to find out.
43:25And there's cases in the book of clients that come because they have no more space on the wall for their achievements And actually, despite all the wealth, they're still unhappy. And that's a difficult place to be in because it carries a lot of shame. So there's a lot of kind of wealthy people who might struggle with money issues and not feel like they can talk about them because aren't you supposed to be happy? Everyone's telling them they're living the dream. I always look at like the royal family and billionaires and think they're probably pretty miserable people these. because to get to that level, like the royal family especially are in a golden cage, right?
44:04And then like Elon Musk and these people are just working to the bone, everyone looking at them, everyone judging everything they say, but everyone's like, oh, they live in the dream. Even like a celebrity, say like a Justin Bieber, can't leave the house. Like imagine not being able to leave your house. That's a crazy thing, right? Yet we don't think about that, do we? Their worlds are tiny. We think they live in these massive mansions, but we can roam. they're in a compound yeah but somehow we still believe that money will buy you know will make us more lovable we'll buy us friends we'll buy us all these things that we're missing or we're longing for everyone everyone knows money won't make them happy but they want to find that out for themselves but you mentioned there was a correlation to wealth and happiness but is it is it like a vague correlation or is it like up to a certain level well i'm always suspicious of kind of studies that try to measure happiness on a scale, right, or through a questionnaire.
45:04And there's a lot of contradicting studies around this. But overall, they find that once you have enough money to cover your basic expenses, there's a difference in how happy you feel about your life. So wealthier people will overall feel happier about their lives. But when you look at their day-to-day happiness, they struggle just as much as everybody else. So we all have our ups and downs, our mood swings, our emotional struggles, and that's universal. Money won't fix that. I do think having money in a bank account, like an emergency fund, having a well-funded pension and investments. There's like a sense of security that comes with that, that just makes you walk around the day to day a little bit easier.
45:56The feeling of instability when you've got nothing, when I used to get paid when I was in debt and all my money was gone, that is like your back's against the wall. You feel horrible. It's there all the time. And that's why kind of the, I think it was 70 or 80 ,000 pounds or dollars, depending what study you look at, like above that level, that's when they say that, you know, people overall feel happy. But it's below that level, you're struggling with, you know, you don't have enough savings and you might not be meeting your needs adequately and so on. I can't remember Fitzgerald for Wall Street because as a broker, they made us watch all the like sales films, but there's one film and they're like, yeah, they say money doesn't make you happy, but if I had to Look at the smile on my face.
46:42That's another one. Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck, that's a great film. Ferrari. Not that one. Yeah, he's like, if I have to turn up to court, I'd rather turn up in a tailor-made suit in a Ferrari than like on the bus, like home, like, yeah, or being homeless. So it's like, it doesn't bring you happiness, but it, like David said, brings you comfort and security and it makes things a little bit easier. Do you think a lot of this is to do with money being a taboo? Because I think you said in your book, I like the quote, people would rather talk about what's in their pants than in their pants pocket. So like people rather talk about sex with their friends and family than money, which seems like a bit.
47:14So true. Yeah. Women will talk about like, oh, how was he in this? They won't talk about their wages. Yeah, exactly. So like, why is it such a taboo? I mean, I get it in England because, you know, we're very like proper and traditional. But in America, it's a taboo as well. It says. And like, yeah, you think it's such an important topic. Why is it such a taboo when it's so important to all of our lives? Well, I think it's because it means different things to different people and the parameters that we each set around, you know, what's frugal, what's excessive, what's risky, what's not. They're different for everyone.
47:47And so if we don't know what's going on in the other person's mind when we bring up money, then there can be a lot of fear of judgment, of criticism. And so it's safer to not bring it up and not mention it. But I think it's because of the differences and the less they're talked about and the less it's normalized, the less we understand. And so you see, it becomes kind of a vicious cycle. It's like politics, isn't it? You don't know what the other person's beliefs are. So it's probably best just not to talk about it because you don't want to rub someone up the wrong way or say something that, you know, makes you look bad or makes them feel bad about themselves.
48:26True. Do you think the goal is to be emotionless about money then? No, not at all. I think it's about understanding the emotions that drive your money behavior. So, you know, when you're about to sign papers for a mortgage, you can't not feel emotional about it. And you should feel emotional, but you should feel a tiny bit scared. But it's, you know, you're about to take a big responsibility. But I think it's understanding the emotions that is helpful so that, you know, if you're putting all your money into one stock because actually you feel, you know, a bit uneducated when it comes to money and you feel a bit ashamed of admitting that you don't understand much about other stocks, but everyone's investing in that one stock.
49:16It's kind of trendy. So you're going to put all your money there. Well, that's important knowledge to have, because if you know that it's your shame about not knowing that is making you invest all your money in one place and not diversify, then you can step back and say, wait a minute. Am I doing what's best for my money or am I just acting out of this feeling of shame? And so whatever the situation is, knowing that there are feelings that are driving it, it gives you a choice about whether you are going to listen to those feelings or not. You have some questions that people can ask themselves.
49:51You kind of alluded to one there. Are there others that you think people that might even not think that they have an issue can ask? Hmm. Well, for example, if you're struggling with a money behavior you're unhappy about, you know, try to spot patterns. You know, when is it that you do this? Let's say it's overspending. You know, is it when you're out with friends and you're always the one buying an extra round? Well, you know, what about being with friends? Or what about that particular group of friends makes you want to spend more? yeah tea yeah well every time i go with you i'm like he didn't buy a thing i'm helping you
50:32another therapy session for today yeah sorry to interrupt no no no no um but you know depending on what it is try to to think well what if i don't do it you know what if i don't spend in that occasion what feelings come up for me do i start feeling bored is it lonely and then you start identifying what are the feelings that are driving you to do that. And I think, you know, in your case, you were saying, well, if I don't check my bank account, I start feeling anxious. I start being afraid that, you know, I'm going to find out something bad, bad news or whatever it is. And so kind of unpacking the feelings that are driving you to that behavior, I think is helpful.
51:14And also, what would you lose if you were to give that up? So in some cases, for example, you know okay if i weren't overly generous if i didn't kind of bring two bottles of wine every time i went to a friend's house uh then i would feel inadequate i would feel you know that people my presence is not good enough and so i always feel like i have to complement it with something and that's why i'm generous so i think asking you know what would you have to give up uh emotionally to change this behavior, I think is also helpful. Yeah, it's like you maybe don't feel like you're good enough and that's why you want to provide like this value that's like I'll pay for dinner or I'll bring the two bottles.
52:00Yeah, you're compensating for something. He says I love champagne. He brought two bottles of champagne. We're having a meal after this to celebrate buying the podcast because me and Will, the co-founder at the back, bought the podcast. and I bought two bottles of champagne to celebrate it. He said that, I was like, damn, she's good. I was like, one for me and one for everyone else. Cheers, Demo. Then he leaves, ah, yeah, then buy a bin. I bought some IPAs. Okay. Two IPAs, he bought two bottles of champagne. He bought two tinnies. Mr. Overspender. Yeah, I know when to overspend though, you see.
52:37But I love, I love spending money on other people. That makes me feel good about myself. it doesn't feel like it's wasted the same with my son but then I do worry about that um this is one thing I wanted to talk to you about children because I think it resonates with a lot of people one answer I don't have like people always say to me you should create content for kids I'm like I have no idea how to be a good parent in terms of money habits my nature is to provide my son with everything and because I might not have had everything and I think that that's the wrong thing to do it's a natural response to want to give our children a different experience from the one we had.
53:14But sometimes we end up kind of overcorrecting and doing the opposite, as you've said. And so I think we teach children about money in many different ways. I do think it's good to teach them about the value of money and so give them that experience, you know, the allowance early on so that they can have the experience of managing their money, making those choices you know do i spend do i save do i um you know put it away give it to a friend you know all of those things so that they can start to um really understand also all the feelings that come with you know the joy of giving it to a friend but then maybe the regret that you've given too much away and there's not enough for you and so on um but i guess what you're saying is that you're not teaching the limits around money that you find so helpful and that you had to learn the hard way and so you need to be mindful of that i also love going to like a wacky warehouse or like you know have you been to a water park they're amazing you can't go as a 35 year old man by yourself so i'm like in there i'm like this place is great let's go you know every weekend we'll go do something.
54:26Well, that's great. And I guess you can do that. But it probably teaches him that that's normal and it's not. When I was a kid, we went to cinema once a year and that felt like a big deal. And I appreciated it. The cinema to him is like standard Friday night. Just basic. Get me an ice blast and I'll have the usual. Literally, that's like Terry. You're right, Terry. The usual, usual for me. Throw me M &M's in, yeah. But I think what could be helpful is a lot of times we make decision in our minds and, you know, that children don't see. And so maybe doing a little bit of that out loud. So saying, look, you know, we came to Wacky Warehouse again, which is quite an expense.
55:06So maybe we'll save on the whatever it is, the popcorn or the ice cream this time. Or, you know, even in the supermarket, you know, if you bring them along, kind of talk them through kind of the process that you go through in order to make the choices. So, you know, if you reach out for one cereal, say, actually, I'll go for this one because it's a bit cheaper. And then they can start learning from you that, you know, you are making money choices in a kind of mindful way. And so you can, in a way, teach them that you can enjoy money and go to Wacky Warehouse, but that somewhere else you're going to have to save.
55:42So maybe, you know, we'll buy the cheaper bike and rather than the, you know, top end one. but it does work because i had the other day i was i was had a business expense and i took a picture of a receipt and my son was like what are you doing and i was like oh i'm i'm taking a picture because i can get the vat back on this because it's a business expense it's definitely a business expense and then um now everywhere we go he's like he's getting the receipts he's like you get six pound vat back on this and he became i was like no that's not a business expense it's a meal out but he became so aware of it and he's like can i check your vat check your vat and every receipt he's getting he's like looking so he really took that yeah and there's some clever books out there that can teach kids about uh money in kind of a simple age-appropriate way and that's the other thing you need to do things in an age-appropriate way you don't want to kind of overshare about your financial anxieties with a child because that will you know only overwhelm them and it's just about giving giving them experience with the thing itself but the one One of the points that I make in the book is that we're teaching children about money in many other ways.
56:48You know, you're teaching him about giving and receiving when you're giving and receiving in other ways, you know, when you're giving a compliment or whatever it is. And so they learn a lot about sharing with siblings, about, you know, equality, about fairness in all these other areas of life. and that's useful for how they'll behave with money later on as adults. When you said that it's natural for people to want to give kids a better childhood than they had, or I had a great childhood, so I'd be like Damo. I'm like Damo. I want to give my son everything, like anything. He's almost two, so he can't really speak very much.
57:27So he can't tell me what he wants, but I know when he wants an ice cream or like whatever, I take him to the park a lot. but isn't it natural for people like to not want to save on your kids like you work hard for your family so if they want to go to the amusement park like every day and you can take them every day wouldn't you want to isn't natural to be like not show them restraints because the rest of their life they're going to have restraints you can't do this you can't go there you can't do this like you need more money for this you need more followers for whatever it is but like shouldn't you want to just spoil them when they're kids if you can because that's why we work so they can have a good life well i think that you've you said it i think the word spoil says everything you know uh it's great to give to children and in a way we experience joy when we give them and see it through their eyes and it makes us feel good but i'd rather spend something paying them myself it feels better yeah yeah and also we kind of live vicariously through them you know if your parents never took you to disney and you take your own children to disney it's almost as if you know, the child in you is going to Disney.
58:28And that's a great feeling. And I don't think people shouldn't do that. But I think you need to overall, as a parent, think, you know, am I just saying yes to everything? And so I'm not teaching this child any limits. And how is that setting them up for life? Because then they'll grow up and feel that, you know, money will always be there. It's, you know, unlimited. And they want to learn. Everyone will give them stuff. Everyone will give them. They'll always get what they want. And are you being the best parent for them by modeling that? It's a hard thing to do, though, isn't it? To deny a child when you just want them to be happy and love you.
59:07You know, sometimes there is kind of nice ways to do it. You know, if a child wants, you know, three scoops of ice cream, you don't say you don't have ice cream. I mean, you can just say, you know, we'll get the small one today because, you know, three scoops is, I don't know, six pounds. And, you know, it's. Then I can't have three scoops. I'm there with ten scoops. You can have the little cone, right? How do you feel about giving allowance, though? Because you said great points on like it shows teaching them how to share and like the value of it and looking forward to allowance and how to spend.
59:40But and like budgeting. But doesn't it seem like giving them free money? I said in another episode my parents made me do some chores for allowance and then everyone was like, what? You shouldn't make your children work for money? And I'm like, what? It's a slippery slope because then where do you draw the line around what are they responsible for at home? I was responsible for loading and unloading the dishwasher and setting the table. And if I wanted extra money, I could wash my parents' car and I did a terrible job every time. And then they took it to the car wash after because I was not very good at washing the car.
1:00:12But yeah, it was things like that. But I think that's a good way to do it. Like there's things that we're all expected to help with at home. And then there's things that are exceptional that we can get paid for. So, you know, washing the car or, you know, whatever, a gardening job or something like that. But not making it conditional. Otherwise, I guess you'll create really lazy children that won't want to do anything. Unless they get paid. It will blackmail you. What about, so in a relationship then, I want to flip it on the other side, rather than looking internally, what happens if someone's got a relationship with someone that they think has money issues, like that's dragging down the relationship, say, and how do they address that?
1:00:53So, well, talking about it would be a good start. I think it's, people argue about money. They don't talk about money very often. So it ends up being a dynamic in which you're kind of pointing at the other and telling them that they're doing it all wrong and that doesn't lead couples anywhere. What's more helpful is try to help the other person understand why they're doing what they're doing. You know, do you see what you're doing? Do you see the cost of it? Where do you think it's coming from? Why do you think you behave in this way? And in a way, what I've seen a lot is that there's pluses and minuses to everyone's approach to money, as we were talking about your approaches, right?
1:01:44So maybe the downside of your approach is that you might not enjoy money as much as T does, but the downside to your approach is that maybe you're not kind of building those reserves and planning for the long term in the way. And what ends up happening in relationships is that we point at the negative thing of one person's behavior without acknowledging that there is a downside to our own as well. And so I think getting into a place in which we're both talking about there's pros and cons, but let's try to find a compromise in which our approaches become complementary instead of thinking of ourselves as incompatible when it comes to money, I think it's helpful.
1:02:29Looking at the book and some of the more extreme examples that are quite fascinating, you know, like the edges of like the financial personality in a way. Yeah, you mentioned some of the cases that you deal with in the book, some of the more extreme ones like FINDOM or financial domination. Well, that's an extreme form of financial self-sabotage. It's basically people that go online and find somebody to dominate them financially. So what they're doing is they're giving financial control to this other person, the dominatrix, who makes financial requests, and they obey. So this can be, you know, go to the ATM and take out this money and give it to me or buy me this thing.
1:03:13And it's, it's tricky, can become quite addictive. There's a lot of people that do this under the influence of drugs and when they're not thinking clearly, who can lose fortunes? And so they get some kind of psychological release by feeling powerless in that dynamic. And when you start working with people who struggle with that, it links back to early experiences, usually of abuse, in which they felt powerless back then. And so they recreate that experience of feeling powerless. But this time they have the power to say when it's going to stop, right, by ending that conversation. And so they kind of triumph over the trauma back then.
1:04:00So you can see how something so unrelated to a money experience can manifest itself as a money problem. Who's on the other side of that? And how are they comfortable dominating someone where they just extract money from them? Because they're kind of like scamming the person in a way, aren't they? We're scamming with consent. Yeah, but it's still like you would feel uncomfortable probably. You'd be like, I don't want to do that to someone. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. And like if that's where people get their kicks, then okay. Well, you know, I think there's a lot of ethical issues with that because you're essentially exploiting people who are very vulnerable emotionally.
1:04:36And most times they don't have a clear mind when they're making those choices. And so there's, you know, there's different ways to help these people. And fortunately, you know, banks are becoming better at dealing with mental health issues and, you know, trying to help people who get into models because of those. And so, you know, I have the case of a client who called their bank and said, look, I'm addicted to Fendom and I've spent all this money there and I'm working on it with a therapist. I'm trying to beat this habit, but can you help me with this debt of accumulating? And so the bank forgave some of the debt and put in place measures so that any time he went online and created a transaction, there would be a 24 hour period in which he could regret and could go back and undo what he did, which was really helpful for this person.
1:05:31It's quite nice for the banks. Banks aren't normally so friendly and responsive. Yeah, but there's different organizations kind of lobbying in favor of people who struggle with mental health issues and that get in the way of their making sensible financial choices. Yeah, my auntie's was bipolar and she would just throw all the money away basically in 24 hours when she'd have like a manic episode. She would just get rid of it all. Yeah, so there's very strong links there. Now there's more research coming out showing that people with ADHD have more money problems because, of course, part of having ADHD is being quite impulsive.
1:06:11And so that comes out in your financial behavior as well. Do you see any other forms of extreme, you know, like the Fyndam? Is there other ones that are like that? Well, I think there's extreme in all of our money behavior. So I've seen extreme generosity. You know, people who become in a way masochistic by giving everything to others and being left with nothing. Or with financial anorexia, there's, you know, the example of somebody in the book who, despite having millions in the bank account, can buy themselves a coat. And so you see... Yeah, he would walk in Milan, like freezing cold in Milan, and said that he felt strong because he didn't need the coat.
1:06:54Yeah. So if you grow up in a family in which there's pride and deprivation, you know, maybe parents were, you know, martyrs in some ways and they showed that, you know, it's a good thing to do to give everything to others. And then, you know, that's what you might do when you grow up. It made me also like think about friendships in the past that where I've like kind of moved away from them because I thought the individual was like a bit of a dick. But actually I was probably being, I wasn't understanding their side. So everyone's knows someone who's like really tight, tries to get out of paying for their share of the bill.
1:07:31Stop looking at me. I was like looking for agreement, not saying it's you. No, he's a generous guy. I'm too generous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That's not what I meant. I was like, you know, like, I had a friend once who bought my son an ice cream. Was like, I'll buy him an ice cream. Was like, oh, that's nice. And then when we got back to the house, he was like, can you have that£1.20 back for the ice cream? And I was like, oh, that's a bit, I was like, that's a bit out of pocket. I heard about that, yeah. I heard about that recently. Someone had a play date and then afterwards the mum sent an invoice.
1:07:58They're like, your kid sat on my couch. That's like wear and tear, like 50p. They had like two juice boxes from the fridge. That's like one pound each. Like I cooked them lunch and I'm like, whoa, you send your kid for a play date? You get an invoice afterwards. They're like, I would obviously do the same if my kid went to yours. So can we just like, and then they paid it. Then I was just like 16 quid or whatever. But like, you don't expect that. But I guess that's probably from the past issues. We carry a blueprint of what relationships are like, right, from the past. And so if you grew up, let's say, in a family where people were rapacious around things, it was all about, you know, survival of the fittest in a way.
1:08:36And then you bring that to your adult relationships and you might, you know, be counting every penny. But for others, you know, it's really hard to give because they feel depleted internally. So if you don't feel you have very much in you, then giving is very difficult. You're left feeling kind of impoverished or maybe exposed because you're afraid it makes you vulnerable to have given. How could, if you encounter that kind of person in your life and you like that person, but you find that part of their personality really hard to be around, it makes it hard to go out socially if they're like trying to shirk on the bill or like trying to get the best deal.
1:09:19How can you manage that as an individual?
1:09:25Well, I'd say I think talking about it sometimes can be helpful. And, you know, there's different ways to do it. It's not like you're going to sit down your friend and be like, we need to talk about how stingy you are. But, you know, sometimes, you know, we hear things through jokes, for example, are you being tight again? Or, you know, so you can help them see what they're doing in a way that isn't too kind of critical or judgmental. I think that that's helpful. And then you expressed something, you got it off your chest and they might have heard it or might not. You know, some people don't want to hear what we tell them.
1:10:03But I think, you know, as you said a minute ago, sometimes we need to understand and empathize with the fact that this isn't coming out of malice or, you know, trying to be a bad person. Sometimes it's coming out of an insecurity or maybe that's what people did to us. They never gave. And so we grow up and we're not giving. So maybe keeping that in mind that maybe your friend didn't receive very much. you know holding those you know what Ollie would say my mate Ollie would say you've got short arms and deep pockets anytime you don't pay for a round he's like he's got short arms and deep pockets so like he was every single round so but you're going to get around because he's going to keep making the same joke and get it again I've got long arms so I can't even get away with that you've got long arms Ollie's a legend he's funny how long does it take people to work out these issues on average I mean I know like it's a big question but is it like one and done or I'm weighing up the cost here thinking can i spend this money on myself to fix these issues yeah so you know if you've spent whatever it is 20 30 40 years being one way you're not going to change in a week so two sessions discount mobile yeah i think sometimes just figuring something out about yourself can have a powerful effect right and then yeah exactly uh now that doesn't mean that the next day the relationship was fixed but you know it already set her down the right track um but we're all different uh which is wonderful but also frustrating and in therapy some people make amazing progress in a few months and other people are there 10 years later and what does it like just because therapy we all i mean you've got the couch on the front of the book right so it's like we have this like stereotype maybe like the sopranos or something lying on the couch and confessing what what is what do you do what does the session look like um so with my clients they sit in a chair across from me they're not lying down um and um the session starts with what's on your mind or in the very first session i would ask them what brings you here and and we take it from there.
1:12:21You know, there isn't a formula. I don't say right now, tell me everything about your childhood or anything like that. But think of it like pulling a thread, right? So the money problem is sometimes the tip of the iceberg, you know, it's just what they present with. And then you start going into, well, why and how and how are you feeling in that moment? Who do you do this around? And what do you think they're thinking and kind of chipping away at it from different angles is what helps you get to what this is really about. You said something really interesting off camera that I'd like to repeat because I thought it was quite interesting where you said, I have to be a blank canvas so that people can project their views on me.
1:13:02Can you just explain that again, please? Yeah, so you were asking me before about why do therapists not talk so much about themselves? And there's something called a blank screen. It's a concept in psychotherapy in which basically we try to be as neutral as possible so that people can show us what they project on us. And that tells us something about them. So for example, you know, I have a bit of a mixed accent. People always ask me or often ask me, you know, where are you from? And I try not to answer that because that, when I ask people back, you know, where do you think I'm from? I'll have some people say, well, you know, you're so warm and giving.
1:13:45You must be from a Latin country or a Mediterranean country. And that tells me something about kind of the blueprint of relationships they carry. You know, they expect to find somebody who's warm and giving. And then I have other people who say, well, you must be maybe a Russian or, you know, Eastern European because you're kind of cold and stern and ungiving. And, of course, I'm the same person to all my clients. But, you know, what they expect to find in the other is different because we're all different and we all have an internal world that is shaped in different ways and expects something different.
1:14:20So it tells you something about them the way they view you. Yes, it's really interesting. Where are you from? I was literally, I wouldn't ask when I met you. I was like. What do you think? Italy. What do you think? I've got no idea. which I don't know if that's very telling but honestly I would have absolutely no idea but that's good you've got to keep that secret though you can tell us off the air it's kind of cool that like it's hard to pin you know like that's interesting that you could be Middle Eastern you could be European yeah maybe not Japanese no and of course there's you know there's the external kind of stereotypes that give clues but I think often there's a lot in when I ask people back well why do you think that I think that's when you get the good insight.
1:15:08Yeah. Yeah, my partner's a therapist and she says that when people are talking about relationship stuff or like talking about things, they're like, you wouldn't understand. And she wants to be like, I literally went through exactly the same thing as you, but she can't because you've got to, like people judge you and they kind of, not judge, but they, people make their own idea of you and like they get very biased very quickly. So they're going to assume, make assumptions that may or may or may not be right. So it must be how sometimes you might want to be like, that happened to me, or I know exactly what you mean.
1:15:38But you're like, no, can't bring anything away. Just got to be like a blank canvas the whole time. I'll give you an example. I worked many years ago with a client who always felt misunderstood. He always felt like the different one, the odd one out. And he couldn't imagine that other people could have similar experiences to him. And he was convinced that I had no idea about the culture he comes from and what that culture is like and so on and the interesting thing is that I grew up not even in the same village as him but in the same neighborhood but he could not possibly consider that oh I wasn't I spent years dying to tell him no I never but you know it was always like well you know it's so what I would say back is it's so interesting to me that you'd think I'm yet another person that cannot possibly relate to you or understand you you know and left it there but yeah wow so to bring this back to the audience or to finish on something for the audience a lot of people watch my content because they want answers around money and I tend to focus on the practical of like put money here do this here and it will sort your life out do you have any kind of like something that people can take away to think about for their for the other side, which is the emotional attachment to money.
1:17:01Well, always ask yourself why, you know, why are you making the choices you're making? What are you trying to say through money? What are you hoping money will get you? And are you maybe idealizing money too much and, you know, hoping it will resolve all your problems? Or is, you know, are you coming at it from a sense of feeling kind of conscious of its limitations, but also hopeful about how it can enable happiness or some good experiences. Please remember, this is not financial advice. Like we say a lot on the podcast, investments can fall and rise. In fact, it's pretty much a guarantee. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
1:17:46So your money is at risk with investing and other fees may apply. As with everything financial, please do your own research. We really encourage that because no one cares more about your money than you. I'm Damo. Fenty. This was an episode of Making Money from Our Company Most. It was filmed and edited by the team at Flowspire.
From the publisher
Vicky Reynal is a financial psychotherapist who deals with a wide range of issues, from overspending to money secrets and self-sabotage. Her book, Money on Your Mind looks at how we can develop a better relationship with money, because it pervades everything we do.
*Warning: We discuss some issues in the episode such as anorexia that some listeners might find it difficult listening to*
This episode was first published in September 2024
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This is not financial advice. The reason it’s not financial advice is because it’s not tailored to you. We explain the principles of building wealth but if you want personalised advice, it’s worth speaking to a financial advisor. As with everything financial, please do your own research. We really encourage that because no one cares more about your money than you and if you learn the basics then it will change your life.