We’d all love to be on top of our finances, but we are not always in the right headspace to do that—especially if we’re facing mental health challenges. Mental health and financial health are so intertwined. Financial stress can be the source of mental health challenges and mental health challenges can cause financial stress. Either way, you need to focus on what is causing the stress first.
Prioritize getting help for your mental health
If you need to pay for therapy or other forms of professional help with your mental health, do it. Adding an expense to your budget when you’re under financial stress can feel like a big ask, but the money is worth it if it’s going to help you function better. If you can, mitigate the cost by seeing a mental health professional who is covered by your insurance or offers a sliding scale. Asking friends or family to help do some of the research for you if possible can help lower the barrier to entry.
Learn about how your diagnosis affects your finances
Mental health challenges affect your ability to handle your finances in different ways. For example, if you have ADHD you may struggle with focusing on reviewing your spending and putting together a budget. If you have anxiety, you may avoid opening bills, checking your credit card balances, or calling your financial institutions on the phone. If you’re dealing with depression, you may spend more on takeout or other comforts. The knowledge of how your particular diagnosis affects your ability to handle your finances can reassure you that you are not the issue and point you toward strategies for handling them better.
Narrow your focus
Depending on what type of mental health challenges you face, your level of functioning may ebb and flow. Narrow the scope of your expectations for yourself accordingly. When you are feeling low-functioning, keeping yourself fed, clothed, and housed is a success. When you’re feeling higher functioning, you can make sure your bills are paid and maybe prep some meals and stick them in the freezer for those more difficult times.
Know that everything financial is fixable
Whatever financial hole you feel like you’re in, there will be a way out once you have the capacity to work on it. If you miss a loan payment because you aren’t on top of paying your bills and your credit score drops, there is a fix for that. If you rack up credit card debt ordering takeout because you don’t have the capacity to cook, there is a fix for that. Once your mental health is in a place to start working on your financial health, you can find the right help for that too.
Final Thoughts
When you are going through a challenging time with your mental health and it’s affecting your finances, always focus on your mental health first—financial health will follow.
