Uncensored Money Season Three: Is Wellness Sending You Broke?

Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 30/08/2022

Show Notes

In this episode, Mel and Lawsie discuss why financial wellness is just as important as physical or emotional wellness and why you should include financial wellness in your self-care routine.

During this episode, Mel also mentions the Financial Self Care Challenge, which starts Monday, 5th September 2022 

If you know you need more help with your finances make sure you join the waitlist for the next round of the My Financial Adulting Plan. 

If you're not already, come play over at insta at MelBrowne.Money and make sure you are signed up to Mel's Money Musings and Monday Money Moments (yep, we love us some alliteration) for more tips, tricks and ideas on how to best work with your money.

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Transcript

Mel: You may not realise this but the global wellness economy is worth a whopping 4.4 trillion dollars.

Lawsie: That's a lot of zeros.

Mel: I feel like I need to be stroking a white cat when I say that, uh, which means you're probably indulging in some form of wellness throughout your life. Maybe it's practising yoga or meditation, listening to mindfulness apps, using jade rollers, buying scented candles, massages, face masks, or booking an annual health retreat, or maybe it's simply going to bed at the same time every night, drinking enough water and moving your body. Whatever you do often when it comes to self-care, it's about the physical and the emotional.

But what I'm often surprised by is that included in all this self-care isn't the one area that affects our emotional and physical states often through stress and worry. The one neglected area in all that wellness are finances. Now I liken not including your finances into your self-care routine to trying to meditate in a room full of mosquitos. You know, if the buzzing doesn't get you, the itchiness of the bite soon will.

Lawsie: It's a beautiful analogy.

Mel: Exactly. And according to a recent Ellevest survey, pre COVID, nearly two thirds of women counted money as their number one source of stress. Two thirds. While since COVID nearly half of all women surveyed said they believed that financial stress had taken a toll on their mental and emotional state, which absolutely does not surprise me. So mental and emotional health.

Mel: Now, given that it begs the question, are you really practicing self-care if you are not including your finances? And that's exactly what Lawsie and I are talking about today. And if this whole concept resonates with you, if you just from my introduction to going, uh, yes, then make sure you join us for the seven day Financial Self Care Challenge. It starts on Monday the 5th of September, and it includes daily tips, videos, downloads, live Q and A's and ebook and more. And it costs nine bucks. Like ridiculous, which I think

Lawsie: Less than two coffees especially if you're adding oat milk to your latte.

Mel: which I do. Um, or if you're in the UK listening, which I know a bunch of you are, I think that's like four quid. It's like tiny

Lawsie: Oh, you're so pommy now, aren't you? Four quid.

Mel: Six quid. Yeah.

Lawsie: Not pounds anymore. It's quid. You're so in the know.

Mel: I'm so in the know. If like most people, you suspect you've been leaving your finances out in the cold, when it comes to self-care, Lawsie and I were to discuss this concept more today, as well as talk about what we think you should do. So Ellevest, the Ellevest research, does it surprise you?

Lawsie: Um, oh, look, it does a little bit. I think just the size of that, like two thirds of women just view money as a source of their number one source. Like that's huge. I would expect it to be high, but I'm not expecting 66%. Like that is just staggering.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the thing for me as well is that more than half of people believe that financial stress has taken a toll on their mental and emotional health, but I can see that

Lawsie: Yes.

Mel: And we see with the people that we work with and how they speak. And I think if you are listening and you felt that, I guess I hope it gives you hope in that you're not alone.
A lot of people feel like this and they can feel it physically and emotionally. So by that I would be thinking, not sleeping. It just means you've perpetually agitated about it, or you're trying so hard to push it down and not think about it, that it can't help but bubble up into other areas.

Lawsie: Yes.

Mel: You're going, ah, at your kids or at a girlfriend, it might actually be the money stress rather than actually what you're stressed about.

Lawsie: Yes, but I think the interesting thing that we've definitely seen since COVID is as much as that survey was saying that 50% of women believe that it's taken that toll on them. I also think more people and more women in particular are now doing something about their finances. Like I think COVID was that first reality check to be oh, okay. I thought I was in a stable job. I thought I had this guaranteed income. Suddenly my wages are getting cut or my shifts have been reduced or I've lost my job or my entire industry's been shut down. Like there were all these big things. And even if it wasn't something that had affected you personally directly, you knew someone that it did

And I think that that was a real awakening. So as horrible as those stats, I think we've all had our own stories of COVID and our own experiences and thoughts on that. But I also think from a financial perspective, it's made people be a little or a lot more aware and start to actually take control with their finances. I think for others, it still obviously definitely cause them stress and they're not sure yet on how to. It's brought awareness to it and they haven't been able to take action from that yet, but I guess, been a positive in some regards outta COVID for actually being aware and taking action.

Mel: And I also think it's been, um, not just COVID, but what's come out of COVID. So one of the things that's come out of COVID is so many divorces and separations. So many. So there was a spike and research has shown this, that there's been a spike since lockdown of people that are like, ah, I all kind of knew that I didn't like you, or we didn't get on, or I want a different life or what have you.

And there's been a spike in separations, in divorces. And some of was kind of known and it was quickened and some of that has come as an absolute shock to people. And I think then the money stress is one, from the person that that has happened to where it's oh, crap. I didn't expect that. And what we know is that often a couple's financial situation can be better than if they were singles, but it also has trickled through to friends for them to go, oh crap. If that were to happen to me, would I actually be financially okay? And I know you and I have had these conversations where we've seen that happen to friends during COVID where we both went oh, maybe we might need a little more income

Lawsie: Yeah.

Mel: Because if that was to happen actually we'd be okay. But we'd like to be more than okay. So I guess there's this level of tension that can trickle out, even if it doesn't happen to you.

Lawsie: Yes. I would agree with that. And it, I think you're absolutely right cause I know when we've had those conversations, I'm like, oh yeah, like I know where I'm going with my finances. I know what the goals and everything are. But if suddenly it's no longer two of you working towards those goals and suddenly you do need more dollars.

Well, I definitely do. I would have a very expensive habit travel habit to fulfil and a lifestyle that I would like to have. So yeah, I think it is, but it is being aware of that as well. And then if you suddenly look and go, oh my God, like if you're already feeling stressed, that there's not enough between two of you, and then you're seeing that then of course, that's gonna give you that heightened anxiety around it.

Mel: Absolutely. So that's that Elvis re Ellevest research. And I know we've talked about this before, but the whole wellness industry. So this is an artificial industry that is now worth $4.4 trillion. And I wanna say from the outset that there are some amazing people and brands in this wellness space, including ones that we know and love like The Broad Place where they're doing incredible things. And certainly I've used some of them and been very grateful for them, but there's also a lot of things that are piggybacking on that and are manufacturing issues so that we are going to spend dollars to sort it. And it's kind of that thing where, because you're spending dollars on wellness, you can justify it. And it's, it's actually okay to not just spend, but overspend. And as someone who has gone through perimenopause, the dollars that are being spent there to get women who are cashed up to spend on things that, where that are shameful and that we don't wanna talk about, is such BS. So I see a lot of wellness as being snake oil salesman that are trying to con women particularly, cause let's be honest, women are spending far more money on wellness than men, that are trying to con women into splurging out with cash for often bandaid solutions, or often where it's quite literally something that's gonna make you pee a different colour. So I know, and as I said, there are some incredible brands and people in the wellness space. Dr. Libby Weaver, someone who I'm incredibly grateful for, as I mentioned, The Broad Place and others. However, there is a lot of BS. And there is a lot of smoke and mirrors and part of what makes me angry, and it does, it makes me angry about that 4.4 trillion, is that I know brands are trying to get me to part with a lot of cash to deal with issues that I'm currently trying to deal with, where it is quite literally just gonna make my pee green.

Whereas wanting financial and it's like, that's your ultimate greenwashing making your pee green, right? And I've gotta be honest. I see it in the financial space as well. So I believe we need to add financial self-care into the wellness space, but I'm seeing a lot of people talking about mindset and stopping there. And my concern is people are spending money on money mindset courses, or money mindset things, and thinking, oh, I'm doing something about finances, but that's just playing around the edges. That's for me again taking a step and saying, oh, I've run a marathon. No, you haven't. Or, you know, you've registered for the marathon, but then done nothing. Yes. You've taken a step, but it's not enough. Uh, rant over.

Lawsie: The other thing though, that I would say with the wellness is to your point about being encouraged to spend money and things, but I think it's also just people realising you don't have to have everything as well. And I think that's where part of this comes into it cause I think people go, oh, it's wellness. I can do it as opposed to thinking a little bit more critically around: are all of these wellness things that I'm doing actually serving me, or am I doing them cause I feel like I have to? And is there some that you can step out of for a bit or on pause or do you know, just different things like that to make sure that you're not spending more than what you need to or want to, and that your dollars aren't getting wasted. I mean, it's like, I go to probably the world's cheapest gym and I put it on hold when we went on holidays and then I've come back and gone no, actually I don't feel like going to the gym at the moment. I'm actually just really enjoying doing, you know, riding, hiking, running. And so I'm like, I don't also want that stress there of going, oh, I've got this damn gym membership and I've gotta make sure I go at least twice a week cause I go, I'm not doing anything for my physical wellness when I'm there cause I'm like half arsing it. And my emotional wellness is like that guilt of hanging around as well. So I think also with that is just being a little bit more conscious of what they're actually spending on in wellness to make sure that yes, it is working whatever they are doing or can you switch and turn different dials and stuff to make sure that it is actually the right combo for you at this point in time and know that you can change things.

Mel: I love the critical nature of that is turning, like dialling the stuff down and dialling the stuff up for seasonally that you know, is actually working. I took myself on the weekend for a lymphatic massage and it's something where I'm working with Dr. Libby Weaver's team for perimenopause. Actually it's science, right? Science and research and that are part of the collection of things that they have me doing for my hormones. But again, I don't have gym membership and that's something that I had that I paid for during COVID because I really wanted to be able to turn up to something I wanted. I just wanted to turn up and have someone tell me what to do.

Lawsie: Yeah

Mel: It’s just that mental load. It was just easy. But like you, I've dialled that down and turned it off, cause I just don't need it at the moment. I'm loving going for walks and really long walks since our holidays, it's really good for my mental health and my physical health. I'm loving going to the gym that I have in the apartment that I'm in and getting any extra there. So I just don't need it. So there's no need to be spending on that cause I would be exactly like you. It would be the guilt of but I best do this. And then when I'm doing it going, Ooh, I hate this which is madness.

Lawsie: Your chin ups might suffer. But aside from that, you'll be okay.

Mel: Oh no, that's what the apartment gym. We're all good. But it's also understanding resilience versus wellness. And I think it's really important to understand the difference between the two, you know, when times are hard, when times are uncertain, and we are in that at the moment, times are rising interest rate, times of rising inflation, declining global financial literacy.

Plus if you are in Australia or in the Southern Hemisphere, we've just had winter, which means we've had rising COVID cases. Northern Hemisphere, I know you had that six months ago and chances are you'll have that again coming into your winter. But we've also got rising in COVID cases and that brings its all its own special brand of stress where you just look around. You know, I've got a very good friend who's just in the middle of this at the moment where he is like, business is hard. Finances are hard. My relationship's hard. There's not an area where I'm looking at where I don't feel like it's hard. So he's in the land of resilience. He's like, I just wanna grip on and have it be okay.

And resilience is important, you know, that's that gritty thing of having enough self-care that we are, that we are able to get through the storms. And I know for me personally, I know in my past when people have found out things that I've lived through, they've said to me, oh, wow, Mel, you're really strong. You're really resilient, but that's never a place that I wanna live. You know, you never wanna live in a place where you feel like you're gripping on with your fingertips. And I feel like in that mosquito analogy I gave, if you are just doing wellness for the sake of wellness, or if you are doing wellness and not including financial wellness, that's resilience, that's not wellness.

And for me, it's gotta be about including financial wellness. It's gotta be getting beyond that place of resilience to a place where you actually feel like you can breathe deeply. Where you feel like you can sleep through the night and be okay. Yes, you might have those short-term buffets, but long term, you actually know when your gut that it's okay.

Lawsie: Full stop. That's very good. And I do think that that is super important. And like, we've all been, I shouldn't say all, but I feel like so many people did go through that resilience thing at particularly with COVID and like we said before, you know, drop in wages, loss of shifts, shut down of industries, like all of those things. And so now it is just making sure that we're consciously doing things to get ourselves where we don't have to be living in that horrible state of feeling stressed or be those ones in the Ellevest surveys where that stress is taking a toll on you mentally and physically.

Mel: Yeah. And there's research behind this. So there's a research professor called Professor Elaine Kempson. She was an Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol. And I've talked about her work before when it comes to diets and budgets. But she talked about, she actually says that policy, so whether it's corporations, whether it's governments, whether it's schools, should concentrate on financial resilience as well as the end goal of financial wellness. So she's actually come out and said, this really incredible professor has said, policy needs to have both as its end goal and they need to have financial wellbeing as their primary goal. And she came out and said, well, how do you have this?

So she said, you need to focus on modifying your behaviour, not simply imparting knowledge and developing skills, which will only have a very limited effect on the financial wellbeing of adults. So I think then I think that for me really resonates because it's one thing to modify. So it's one thing to impart knowledge and develop skills.

And I've said for a long time, I can give you seven steps to do something different with your finances. But I've always said it's only gonna last so long. Cause ultimately if you are not getting to the root of why you behave the way that you do. If you can't figure out the financial habits that are right for you and how you uniquely behave, then it's not gonna be long-lasting. So there's actually science behind not just aiming for financial resilience, but aiming for financial wellness and to aim for financial wellness in the first place.

So what do we reckon Lawsie that, it's one thing to hear that it's one thing to talk about the research and wellness and to say yes, there's actually science behind this. But what are some things you could do to include some financial self-care? If someone's nodding along going well, okay you've sold me ladies. What are some things that you could, you could take away this week and start doing to include some financial self-care in your life?

Lawsie: Such. Oh, I think there's so many things that you could be doing here and I think part of it needs to actually be thinking about what is it that you actually want, and your goals and things. Cause I think, kind of almost add on to what you were saying before, if you are aimlessly going along and you don't have those goals or that inner purpose of what you're actually wanting to work towards and what you're wanting to achieve, then you can't, you've got nothing to apply the magical seven steps to if they existed.

And you're also not in a place to be able to make sure that you're digging deep, to set yourselves up to have great financial habits and all those things to be working towards. So I think part of it is just giving yourself some time to really think about, well, what is it that you want kind of now, and three years, five years, 10 years time, and then being able to look at what are you actually doing now and is what you're doing in line with what those goals are?

And then if not, then being able to make some proactive changes around that which can be spending, but it can be a whole lot of things. Wellness isn't about cutting down your spending. It's just making sure that whatever spending you're doing is conscious I think as part of the wellness space there.

Mel: And it's so important for them to be your goals. I know we've talked about this before. I think too many people create goals that they think they should have, not the ones that they actually want. So, Brene Brown who's a research professor at the University of Houston. She's a shame professor, um, talks about the fact that the first time you do something like this, it'll be your shitty first draft.

And when I've done it in the past and I reread it, it didn't excite me. You know, I remember doing this exercise when I was probably late thirties for what if a decade time looking ahead and it was all the things I thought I should have. And so what I had to do is rip that up and then write again.

And I think it took about three goes before I got to the place where I was like, ha, now that would excite me. And it was really interesting cause I found it this year and I read it over. And so much of it happened because I was excited about it. Interestingly, there was one thing in it, which was about the accounting firm and what I wanted that to be, and it didn't ring true.

And I think that was the only dishonest thing in it because I didn't want to, cause I was too fearful of what if it didn't include the accounting firm? And I wished someone had said write that as if it didn't have that, but it was just that thing for me, where would, of course it was gonna include that.

So that's the only thing that I would've changed in it. So my challenge to you when, as you are doing this, as you're writing out that thing that you want, if you could see yourself in five or 10 years time, is a) do it as if no one was ever going to see it. So no one's gonna judge you. No one's gonna say no, but this is this can't possibly be right. Get rid of all the shoulds. So all the stuff that society says you should have and write it, write it as if fear wasn't a thing like, we know it is, but you know what if you could have a blank slate, what would you want? We can't win lotto. We can't just, it can't come into it inheritance, but what would it look like? And I think that's gotta be part of the key for this is if it's not what you want, then you're gonna live someone else's life. And that's just that sucks.

Lawsie: Mm. Oh, it doesn't make sense. And then I think once you've done that, then it is about being out like it's all well and good to dream, but then it has to be about then taking the next steps to really then go well, is what I'm doing now helping me get there? And if not, then what things am I gonna change? And then actually changing those things. I think that, I mean, even if you just did that, that in itself, I think is a huge thing to do and can take a while, like this isn't something that, you know, it's like training for anything or wanting to improve your yoga or anything that falls into any form of wellness or improvement. It's not gonna be an instant fix, but it is just about starting to do that and then making sure that it's not just the, oh, that was a nice thing to sit down over a glass of wine and map out and then do nothing with so.

Mel: And for some people it's going to involve huge changes. You know, I had a friend that was diagnosed with type two diabetes last year. And for them, they had to one, understand food cause they realised that how they ate was so unhealthy that they actually needed to learn about nutrition and food and sugar and all of that sort of stuff. And then they had to make massive lifestyle changes and they had to understand what would they swap for and ugh, no, well, that doesn't work for me. Ooh. But hang on, I love that. And I never thought that I would. And it's no different to money.

For some of you, it's gonna be learning about money cause you've never bothered before. And how you might do that is to come and join the waitlist for the My Financial Adulting Plan so that you actually learn about money and create your own plan.

For some of you, it will involve swapping what you doing now. So that might involve swapping, pausing and cancelling how you're currently spending. It might mean creating a money environment that's right for you. Because the one that you've created at the moment is toxic and unhelpful. You know, if every time you're jumping on social media, there's an influencer and a brand causing you to spend, you need to go and unfollow, unsubscribe and unfriend half of who you are following. And then it's about doing it. It's just like my friend had to create meal plans, for you it might be right. What am I doing with my finances this week to move me ahead? Exactly like what you talked about, Lawsie. What's the action that I need to take this week? Maybe it's setting up bank accounts, maybe it's downloading apps. Maybe it's no spend challenges, but it's working out what's the physical actions that I need to take.

Lawsie: Yeah. And I think too, to the other side of that, cause I know we've sort of spoken about stop, pause and whatever with some subscriptions or things that you're paying for as well. But I think for some people they're actually financially well off, but they believe that they're in that resilience space and for them wellness might actually be getting used to spending some money, which might sound a little counterintuitive, but being like wellness in terms of going, I can actually spend some money and not then feel that guilt and everything else that comes with it from spending it. And so their challenge might be around I'm gonna allocate a certain amount each month to buy my coffee out or to go and have lunch with a friend or to do something and actually enjoy it instead of that buyer's remorse and regret that they shouldn't be having, because they're actually quite financially well, not saying that they're, you know, whatever loaded or there's a particular dollar base with that, but for the life that they want, they're actually financially well, but they're still hanging on for grim death and thinking, oh no, I can't spend anything. I can't do anything. But the negative side of that is obviously that they're not enjoying now and being able to do those things and not, you know, you're working so damn hard for your money. It's nice to actually be able to spend some of it and for that to be guilt free and to enjoy it and use that as a recognition oh, yeah. Like this is actually okay. So that would just be the other side of wellness, I think too. So if you're someone that deep down you know that everything's gonna be okay, but you're still hanging on and all your actions are sort of coming from that place of resilience and, oh, something's, bad's gonna happen. Maybe challenging yourself to be able to spend something guilt-free and then enjoy it and not have that hangover from it.

Mel: And I remember having a client back when we had the financial planning firm where we ended up setting a fun account for her and her challenge, I challenged her every month, she had to empty that account and she found it really, really hard, but we'd done the work. We'd created a plan. We knew she was gonna be financially okay not just now, but in retirement. So she had, what she'd done was enough. And her only challenge was spending the money in that fun account. And it couldn't be on her kids. It had to be on her. And she ended up coming up and saying coming to me and saying, could it be on experiences where my kids came along? I went sure. But you have to be there as well. And you have to wanna do them. You can't be going, oh, my kids would love to do this and I'll tag along. It would be, I'd love to do this. And I think the kids would enjoy it too. Like, it's gotta be the reverse.

Lawsie: Yes.

Mel: I love that you brought this up. And if that's you, maybe your challenge is to set up a fun account, automate money to it every month, and you have to spend that your challenge is to spend that every single month. And if you are thinking a) I don't know how to allocate, how much to allocate and b) I think they're talking about me, but actually I'm so worried that I'm not sure. Then again, inside the My Financial Adulting Plan, you create your very own plan. There's a tab in that plan that actually looks at, do I have enough? Will I have enough? So you can answer that for yourself so you can relax into this going, oh, asked and answered. I've looked at how much do I need? I know that I'm gonna have enough. Yes, I can start relaxing and doing it.

Lawsie: Yeah.

Mel: Yeah. And the final thing, we've talked about, lots of different ways, some things, some easy things you could do. But the final thing to do is, and I said it at the top is, to join the Financial Self Care Challenge. You know, it's seven days where we are going to give you a tip every single day. There's gonna be lives. There's gonna be some motivational bits and bobs, and you're gonna have an e-book at the end. And that could be, it doesn't matter if you've got great finances and you just wanna tune up, or if you've got terrible finances and you just need a boost, this could be a great way to a) decide what we're like to work with if you were tempted by the Financial Adulting Plan, but also just give you that financial boost that you might need to actually push you into doing something regularly for yourself, and focus on financial self care. We'll put the link in the show notes so you can come and join us. But Monday, 5th of September, that kicks off.

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