#52: Reframing Financial Stress with Sarah Blanchfield

Sarah:
We hear about diet. So we hear calorie reduction. I got to reduce my calories, exercise a lot, no candy, no cookies, no pleasure, just this stuff. And then I will look like this and then I will be happy. And then I will have, I will reach the certain number and my life will be great. When you can see all the parallels in your finances, right? You read books that tell you, if you just give up your latte every morning, you'll be a millionaire. Someday. If you just give up everything, that's pleasant to you, you will hit this number someday, and then you will be happy.

Michelle:
It's time to stop being the victim of your over-scheduled life and become the most powerful version of yourself. Welcome. So she's got power.

Michelle:
No, that's saying how you do. One thing is how you do everything well today, we're going to talk about how you do your finances. Keeping in mind that this too is a form of self care. A very, very important part of self-care. And I'm joined by Sarah Blanchfield, who is the CEO and founder of my Bulletproof budget. She combines behavioral psychology with financial planning. How cool is that? I really love Sarah's more feminine approach to financial decision-making and I just cannot get over the parallels between financial health and our bodies, our physical health. You know, you can be earning a six figure salary, a seven figure salary, and be in a worse financial health state than someone who earns a fraction of that. So it's not about quantity of money. It really is about the energy surrounding

Michelle:
Our money. Let's dump it. Well, Hey Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Sarah:
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you. This

Michelle:
Is a topic I've been wanting to bring to the podcast because well, finances are a major stressor and I thought it was really interesting when we were just chatting before we hit record that you said, finances are a mirror. So I wanted to start there. Can you expand on this idea of finances being a mirror in

Sarah:
Our lives? Yeah, I think that so often, like how we approach our finances can just be kind of an example of how we approach so many other things in our lives. The way that we kind of think about how we receive things in our lives and how we feel comfortable spending money on ourselves or treating ourselves to things or, you know, talking about guilty pleasures or just the way we kind of allocate our time. And our energy is kind of mirrored in how we spend our money or save our money. And so it really just can be a mirror for how we are kind of managing our lives overall,

Michelle:
Right. How we manage our finances can reflect very much how we're managing other. That's a really good point. So sometimes we think we're just killing it. You know, we have a really productive day or whatever. Some things are going really great. And that's one measure of, you know, how life is going, but what an excellent barometer to kind of check in with our finances and what things would we want to check in with, by the way, specifically like credit card debt, or how would we know if our finances are healthy or not? I

Sarah:
Think there's lots of different ways to measure that, but I think the best way is to really start by thinking about what it is that you value most in your life. The thing that I start with with my clients is always talking to them about what they want, their emotional outcomes in their life to be what things are most important to you that you value? Is it safety? Is it security? Is it pleasure? You know, is it something to do with freedom? How is that reflected in your finances? And so that could be, if you value freedom, then you probably want to have, you know, very little or no credit card debt and you want security. You probably want that emergency fund. You want a good savings buffer. You want some retirement money being set aside, but really tying them into that kind of emotion that you want to feel in that really tying it into how you want to feel. And the outcome that you want at the end is really tapping into that motivation center in your brain that helps you really move towards that goal. And so when you think about what you really want to focus on first, I always start with values. That

Michelle:
Is really interesting because usually the financial advice we're given comes from like, you know, our father or, you know, so I'm just thinking of some boring financial advice. That's like, you gotta put this percentage of your salary into your 401k and it can feel like such a drag, but when you were saying, what do you want to feel? I kind of lit up. It's like, oh, how do I want to feel? Oh, I can feel that way. When I look in my bank account, I can actually structure my finances. I can feel the way I want to feel in my life. Like that starts to light me up, make me feel like this is something I actually want to keep talking about. So thank you. You're welcome.

Sarah:
And that's the thing that really lit the spark for me when I first started getting into finances was it is it's kind of finances become this kind of old boys club, sometimes just kind of dry numbers, Excel spreadsheets, kind of thing that can just feel very, it's hard to feel any kind of real deep internal motivation around because it's, it's just very bland. And, um, it's hard to get yourself real excited about some numbers on a spreadsheet. Um, and that's why we have so much struggle reaching our goals. And then we beat ourselves up about it. But it's because we're not tapping into things that are truly meaningful for us, but by approaching it from a different perspective and talking about what's meaningful and valuable to us and our emotions that we want to really have an outcome around, it makes it achieving those goals so much easier.

Michelle:
I know for sure that I want to feel less stressed and I'm sure most of my listeners would say the same thing. So I think that is got to be an important piece of the pie. Like when I pay my credit card bill off in full every month, I know that makes me feel a lot less stressed. No one is going to be hunting me down for any payments. I'm not on the hook for anything. I feel complete. I feel safe. I feel like I'm like, we're all good here, you know? And that, and that's, that's where I like to sit in my finances. But, um, I'm curious, what do you see when you're working with your clients? Why do you think so many women in particular struggle with this topic? Like, is it a women's issue? Is it something that we're just not taught? Something that, you know, we're not taught to tap into our emotions? Like why does so many women struggled to find peace with finances?

Sarah:
Well, I think you really kind of started hitting the nail on the head there. I mean, we aren't taught about it from most sources. It's been kind of a taboo topic for most of us. So a lot of families don't talk about this stuff. We're not really taught about it in school, you know, and if we are, we're taught about it in a sense of math, right? Income minus bills minus savings equals equals number, but that doesn't really tap into any motivational or emotional components. We're taught this very kind of traditional economics version of financial management, which has historically been what financial management and financial planning has been all about. But there has been this newer movement around behavioral economics, which uses kind of the behavioral psychology component, which instead of just studying, like what numbers do, you know, the addition, the subtraction and that kind of thing, and studies what people actually do in their lives, how they actually respond, what happens in our brains when we see the word free, what happens when we are challenged with something in our lives around finances.

Sarah:
And what these scientists have found is that we don't respond in ways that are purely logical. We're not Mr. Spock from star Trek, but all the information that we may have ever received is this very linear, logical, traditionally probably more male information. And as women, that's really hard to kind of marry with the fact that we tap into our emotional brains far more easily. So it feels very disconnected for us. It doesn't feel natural and it's not, you know, we make more holistic and more thoughtful decisions when we use all the different components of our brain. And that includes tapping into the emotional centers of our brain as well. So learning how to make thoughtful decisions using our emotional brain with money is so important and people are not learning these things. It's no one's fault, but information has not been out there as readily as I would love it to be. So one, a little personal mission around that.

Michelle:
Maybe we can do an example scenario and you can walk us through what it would look like to try to process a financial decision based on boring old man economics. And then what it would be like to process the same, uh, to go through the same decision-making process with more of an eye towards how we want to feel and you know, the emotions around making the decision. Does that sound like something we can do? Absolutely. Okay. This will be fun. Can I have an example? That's like very top of mind. Okay. Sorry. We did not plan this in advance you guys. I am totally just throwing this on Sarah right now. So we're going to, and we're going to just roll with it though. So some of my listeners know I was in a big car accident a couple of months back and you know, I'm fine.

Michelle:
We were fine, but the car was totaled. And so I recently had to deal with all of that and buy a new car, which is one of the most intimidating things to do as a woman, especially a woman who is not married to walk into a car dealership and, you know, start haggling over prices and talking about engines and things that I don't really know about. Anyway, at the end of the day, it is a big financial decision. So how would you compare and contrast like the two ways of thinking about making that decision? Okay.

Sarah:
Well, it sounds like when you were thinking about making this position, you were thinking, oh gosh, you know, I gotta make, I have to make a good decision. I have to go in there. I have to present a smart image of someone who knows what they're talking about. Right? You want to come across as an intelligent, smart, capable woman, even though you're not married. You don't have a man next to you who knows maybe more about car engines. I know nothing really about car engines. My dad is that person for me, he used to rebuild those. And so that line of thinking is what we've been taught. Right. We need to go in there and be mental equals with the person that's trying to sell this to us so that we make a smart financial decision. What does a smart financial decision mean? It means that we have made a choice, right. That hopefully doesn't make us spend more money than we need to. Right. So what would that look like?

Michelle:
Yeah. I mean, I think what you're describing that what I was thinking in my head is I felt, and maybe other women have felt this way. I don't know. Almost like I had to show up like a man I had to show up and know what I was talking about and, and know about, you know, what alloy wheels are. I still don't know and, and talk about money and meal, push numbers on a piece of paper back and forth across the table. And that, that was very stressful to think that I had to be that way. And also like I had to get like the best deal I had to push on every factor and wrestle down the number because that's how a man would do it. Yeah. And that felt very uncomfortable for me.

Sarah:
Right. Yeah. I would imagine it would, I, uh, haggling and bargaining are not in my skillset either. And so, but you're right. We've been conditioned to think that that's the way it's done. Right. You know, and I'm using little air quotes. You can see it through my microphone, but right. But another way to think about approaching this is, you know, you were the one that had the money you were going to purchase the car. So you're the person that has all of the power in the scenario. Right. They're trying to convince you that the car is worth it because you're the one that has the money in the scenario. You don't have to buy the car if you don't like the car. Right. That's

Michelle:
True. I could just walk away and go to the next dealership. You could walk

Sarah:
Away and go to the next dealership. The only thing that you need to know is whether you think the car is worth it to you and a way of helping you feel that power in that situation. What I do as a person who has largely been a single woman in my life, buying cars on my own is, is there a warranty that gives me a decent period of time on this vehicle? That if it craps out in the first couple of months, they're going to repair it for me. And do I have enough money in my savings budget for car maintenance, that if something happens after that, I can just get it repaired.

Michelle:
Right? Important things to think about. If you don't know how to do anything on your car yourself, I mean, I just put in gas and that's about

Sarah:
Right. So my mindset is, is do I have, I have the power because I have the money. So they're trying to convince me and whatever I purchase, do I have the financial wherewithal to fix it? If it needs fixing, because that's all that really matters. It doesn't matter if I know what alloy wheels are. And it doesn't matter if I know if the engine runs, the only thing that matters is can I financially keep the car running?

Michelle:
Yeah. And also, wouldn't you say part of it is like you said, we buy from our emotions. So part of it is how does this car make me feel,

Sarah:
Right. I mean, I've forgot a mini Cooper because it was adorable.

Michelle:
Yeah. Yes. And then you get excited about driving it and you're happier in your life rather than getting into a car that makes you go, uh, I settled for the right. Yeah. That's funny. I buy, I bought a Prius. This is the third Prius that I've owned. And people will say, Paris doesn't make sense because you spend more money on the car, even though you don't have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you're not spending money on the gas, but I love driving a Prius. It is what I want to do. I feel like I'm doing something better for the environment. I feel good about it. I enjoy the cars themselves are not too big. And anyway, um, so yes, I understand this idea of approaching it from both a logical place and this idea of my emotional state.

Sarah:
Yeah. Because we, we make all the decisions that we make, we make from our emotional center first. And then we justify with our logic brain second. So that's partially why, when I work with my clients, we start by talking about emotional outcomes because that's the part of your brain that fires first,

Michelle:
Right? Yes. For sure. And the car means so much more and you know, we're just talking about a car right now, but it could be any house. It could be anything savings for your kid's college funds or whatever this idea like, how do you want to feel honestly, like I'm at a point in my life where it was like time to glow up a little bit. And it made me feel really happy to drive out of there. This car that was right off the truck, shiny and new, it was like exactly where I want it to be right now in my life. Even though I'm sure someone could have argued for why I should have bought something, you know, pre-owned used half the price, et cetera. Um, I feel really good about this decision. So anyway, that's something for everybody to consider, like with the next decisions that are coming up for you, even if it's as mundane as paying your credit card bill, how do I want to feel at the end of this? Yep. Okay, cool. Can we talk a little bit about the connection between the health of our finances and the health of our bodies and minds?

Sarah:
Yes. So there are intricately linked, you know, as, as with anything, you know, when we experience any kind of stressor in our life, you know, our body has a response and financial stress is one of the top stresses that most people report in their life. I mean, in 2020, particularly, you know, we've experienced a lot of different kinds of stresses and financial stresses. You've been a big component of that. You know, people feel financial stress in their lives most of the time if they have it, but it contributes to different processes in your body, right? You feel stress and your cortisol production increases. You get that fight or flight response. And if you live in that space too long with that sustained level of stress, you know, I'm sure your listeners know it leads to long-term health conditions. You know, you get immune response goes down and you can lead to chronic health conditions like depression and anxiety and heart disease. And it just, it creates this vicious cycle. And the other component of living in a state of long-term stress is it affects your ability to make good decisions. And so, unfortunately we can very easily find ourselves in a situation where you have created a cycle inadvertently, no, one's doing this on purpose, but you get your, you find yourself in a plaintiff's place of stress. You remain in that place of long-term stress. And then you continue to be in a place of long-term stress because you are so stressed, you can't make good decisions anymore.

Michelle:
Sure. Everybody can relate to being stuck in that cycle.

Sarah:
Yeah. I mean, we've all been there, right? And it's, it can feel very frustrating to attempt to try to break free from that because you feel trapped and it's hard.

Michelle:
We talk on the show, we talk a lot about all the different symptoms that women can experience as a result of stress. And I think this may be one of the first shows where were really, really zeroing in, on the stress, sore itself. You know, when money is the thing causing you stress, um, it's one thing to say, well, I'm going to meditate or, well, I'm going to do like deep breathing or yoga or something to like relieve stress, but to actually like, look at the stress or some things you can't change, right. An illness or something going on in your family, but like your finances. I mean, what percent of our financial state do you think we can actually influence more than you think more than you think that's great. Yes.

Sarah:
More than you think. I think the area of your finances that you choose to focus is the important piece, because sometimes we feel as though we're powerless, but what happens is we've accidentally focused on the wrong part. So what I frequently hear from my clients is, well, I just need to make more money. I just had more money. My, my, my finances would be okay. But the problem with that line of thinking is that lots of times the income we're bringing in is, is an element that's outside to a degree outside our control. If we're working for a company or a job where we pull a paycheck, we only have a certain element of control over that. And so we feel as though we don't have a lot that we can influence there, you know, yes, you can get a new job, but that's hard, you know?

Sarah:
Yes. We can try to ask for a raise, but let's face it. It's 20, 21. So prospects, there are not super awesome right now, but what we can influence to a great degree is how we use what we have, what we spend, how much we save, how we're looking at, what we, and how we manage what we have, that's all within our control. So even, even in areas we might not expect. And that's why with my clients, that's the first thing that we do. For example, I had, uh, a gal named Marie who's allowed me and given me permission to share her story. She came to me, her house, she and her husband had experienced a job loss. And they were paying, you know, bills with credit cards and credit cards with credit cards. And, you know, it took us quite a while to sift through what they were paying because there was, it was across so many different accounts and they were just trying to keep their head above water.

Sarah:
And, and they just felt like they had no options. There were no options. They were pulling pennies out of rocks. And they were borrowing money from family. And they just, there was no way they were going to get through this. And they just moved into a new apartment. They didn't feel like there was any options there to move to a place that was cheaper. And we really, we really just kind of got down to the nitty-gritty. We organized what they had. We went through all of the bills, all of the credit cards. We kind of have this four prong system that we do. We organize and we optimize it. And then we work to see how we can use automation and see what things they haven't tapped into yet. And one of the things they had that they didn't realize they had to leverage was space.

Sarah:
They had a two bedroom apartment, they were a married couple, no children. They had a second bedroom where they kept their desks. They, you know, they liked just to have a second space for their desks, through talking with them about their emotional state and how stressed they were about the prospect of trying to find another job, trying to keep a float. They determined that they would rather leverage that space than try to rush out and get a job that may not be the right fit. So they found a roommate, they split their rent and half they splint all their bills in half. This was two and a half years ago. Her husband never found another job and they're still fine. Oh, well, they were able to manage all of their finances. The roommate's still living with them. They're doing great. But they went from a situation where they felt like they had no options to not only relieving the stress of her husband, having to find a position while dealing with some health consequences that would have made that quite challenging, which is part of partially why he hasn't found another position.

Sarah:
But to being able, she texted me a couple of weeks later, Sarah, we paid all of our own bills on time this month. Yay. What a great, what a win, you know? And they've been able to sustain, they made it through COVID so far, they're still doing great. I talk to them all the time, but we have more options than we think it's in how you look at it. And sometimes you need an outside person to help you see those things. And that's exactly what I do for my clients. I am that outside set of eyes to help them see the things that they can't quite see. They're too close to the project. Yeah,

Michelle:
Of course. And as you described that, it reminded me quite a bit of, um, that idea of like, well, if I just, if I just had, if I just could make this much money, if I just had more coming in, when I have that, I'll be happy when you know, it's all in the future, it's all in the future. It reminded me a lot of when women talk about their weight, their bodies, you know, I'm not going to buy that dress until I'm down to that size. Or I'm not even going to think about going to the beach until, you know, I can fit into this bathing suit or, you know, when this happens, then I'll be happy. And in so many ways, our finances and how we treat our money can be like how we treat our, um, our bodies and then our diets. And, ah, it's just that whole, again, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So just to kind of come full circle on this idea of our health and our finances going together, like what other connections do you see between women and their finances and women and their bodies?

Sarah:
Uh, well, the, the diet analogy is a good one because, you know, we hear about diet. So we hear, you know, we think calorie reduction, I got to reduce my calories, exercise a lot, you know, no candy, no cookies, no pleasure, just this stuff. And then, and then I will look like this and then I will be happy. And then I will have this. I will reach this certain number and my life will be great. When you can see all the parallels in your finances, right. You know, you read books that tell you don't, if you just give up your latte every morning, you'll be a millionaire someday. Yeah. A whole book on that. If you just give up everything, that's pleasant to you, you will hit this number someday, and then you will be happy, right? We don't need to treat our bodies that way.

Sarah:
We know that's not sustainable. I'm sure that you've done loads of episodes about that in your listeners know about that really well, that we need to be kinder to our bodies than that. And we need to be kinder to our finances then that too, we need to create a system, you know, for how we treat our bodies and how we feed our bodies and how we behave with our finances. That is more balanced, where we have responsible things that we do. We eat our vegetables, we save for retirement and we also, you know, get a pedicure and we also eat cake. So the balance of it is important for sustainability. And ultimately we reach our goals better. When we have balance.

Michelle:
When you were speaking about the couple who, you know, then realized I had this second bedroom, they could rent out, you know, I really felt like this idea of, okay. Yes. Do you have goals? And that's fine, but what you can do, the best thing you can do is take care of what you have now, right? Like, you know, the woman who eats a slice of pizza and that says, oh, screw it. It needs the rest of the pizza and drinks, two bottles of wine. And you know, it's like the slippery slope downhill, I think spending can be like that. And when we instead step back and go, okay, well, like what do I have going for me? Oh, I have, I have, sometimes it's a stretch for women because sometimes we have spent years hating on our bodies, but it can be like, I have two legs that walk me around.

Michelle:
That's amazing. I have a belly that digests my food for me. And Hey, it does a pretty good job. Like, I'm so grateful for this. And suddenly you realize you have these assets that you didn't realize you had before. So I think there are so many parallels there, but just bringing it back right around to what you said in the beginning. I think when we think about our finances, when we think about our health, our bodies and how we're taking care of how we're managing these things, it can come back to how do I want to feel? Yes. Right. It's never about like, oh, I have to be this number on the scale. Or I have to whatever these different goals that we have, but how do we want to feel along the way? And we can make decisions from that place, what a healthier approach.

Sarah:
And it's ultimately more satisfying because it really gets rid of all those sheds, these expectations that come from external sources, you know, that we get both with our health and our body, but also with our finances, we, you should retain saving 10 to 15% for retirement, or you're going to end up some destitute, old lady in retirement. Like, I mean, we, we, there's more stories with finances just like there are with health, we take in these sheds and then we feel guilty if we're not doing them, but we don't need to do that to ourselves. We can be more gracious and say, no, I'm going to do my best with exactly what I have now. And then when I have more, I will do my best with that. And it's practice, right? If you do your best with what you have now, you will do your best with what you have when you have more.

Michelle:
And that is, self-care everything we've been talking about today. People think of, self-care like, it's a, it's a bubble bath and maybe it's a bubble bath sometimes, but all of this is truly self care. And, um, I just love this discussion. I know you have a free gift for our listeners. Can you tell us about that?

Sarah:
I do. So, um, one of the things that people struggle with sometimes is just knowing where to start when it comes to kind of creating a financial plan, creating a budget in and of itself is kind of like, okay, how do I even get started with this? Um, I have a free budget template, really nice and simple. Couple of pages walks you through how to kind of go through the process in a way that will really set you up for success. Um, and I will give the link to Michelle. It's yours absolutely free, and you can use it as many times as you want. Um, and it's really helpful for the people in my community and I'm excited to give it to you.

Michelle:
Okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. We'll put a link to that in the show notes and Sarah, where else can our listeners find you if they want to learn more about your services? Thank

Sarah:
You. I am. I'm on Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook at my Bulletproof budget. Um, and I also have my own website@mybulletproofbudget.com and I have several different programs and services that you can find out about on there. That's awesome. All right.

Michelle:
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today, Sarah, I appreciate you. It

Sarah:
Was great talking with you today. Thank you for having me. Doesn't that just feel

Michelle:
Better knowing that you can make good sound financial decisions coming from a place of

Michelle:
How do I want to feel? I think it's brilliant and there's no time like the present, right? You can get Sarah's free gift to help you find financial freedom in the show notes for this episode at she's got power.com/podcast.