On the one hand, the danger is real: It can be wildly expensive to buy a home, raise a family, and retire, especially in a place like New York City. And I can understand why you’re confused and dissatisfied by the answers. You are already taking the first step of asking those questions - you’re reality-testing the signal. The questions we need to ask are, ‘Does it need attention? Or is it emotional noise?’” “But just because the detector goes off doesn’t mean the danger is real. “It’s the feeling we get when something’s not right, and it’s part of human instinct - we are wired to detect danger,” says Amanda Clayman, a financial therapist based in L.A. To start, it’s worth looking at the role of anxiety more generally. You need two things: 1) To understand that your anxiety is valid, even though you are objectively doing fine, and 2) A plan for managing that anxiety moving forward. But you shouldn’t have to live in such a state of panic, or feel so isolated. So I can understand why you’re freaking out, even though it’s obviously true that many people have it much worse than you. There’s a lot of noise about the economy and where it’s going. Inflation has literally changed the value of what we have. I think it’s normal to have some anxiety about money, especially at a time like this, when it feels so abstract and uncertain. I’m sorry you feel so alone in your fears, especially because so many people share them. How can I start to address my money anxiety in a real way? I know some of my fears aren’t rational, but some of them are. Even therapists I’ve talked to don’t seem to understand how intense the anxiety is, because it’s disproportionate to the actual picture of my finances. My fiancé says we’re doing the best we can do. That leaves me with no one to have a real conversation with about everyday money anxiety. And I feel a sick, sinking feeling when I see people my age buying houses, because it just feels so impossible and permanently out of reach. I feel like an asshole when I complain about money to my friends who are on food stamps. My family says, “Don’t worry, it’ll all work out.” My friends and I are all in different places financially, so I end up comparing myself to them and feeling worse. I don’t have a good way to talk about these fears without sounding like a privileged broken record. Now I feel like if I don’t think about it constantly, it will all fall apart. I got into over $20,000 in credit-card debt right after college, which I fully paid off three years ago (with some help). ![]() But because I never had to think about money, I was really, really bad with it when I first lived on my own. The attitude from my parents was basically that money didn’t exist. My dad is a doctor and we were always taken care of - nothing fancy, but my siblings and I had everything we wanted, and we all graduated college debt-free. I obsess daily over not being able to afford a home, afford to retire, afford a child, afford a life, despite our high incomes and the resources available to us (like support from my family, if we were really in a bind). Our financial goals are the same, and we’re good at talking about money. We don’t have a ton of wealth, but we’re building our savings and 401(k)s and have minimal debt. My fiancé and I are young and don’t own a home yet, but we both make over six figures. Photo-Illustration: by The Cut Photos: Getty Images
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