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Showing posts from October, 2013

The 3 Types of Responses to Financial Stress

By Matt W. Sandford, LMHC Financial stress is about as common as Geico commercials, just much more annoying. The commercials are short and sometimes funny. Not so with most financial challenges and the stress they produce. However, I’d like to propose that there are three types of stress responses associated with financial difficulty, based not on someone’s situation as much as on their perceptions about their situation. I’m going to break down these three types and then offer my take on how to address each one. The first type looks over the basic situation of amounts coming in and going out. They tally up the numbers and see the shortfall. They also look around at all the things that are missing from their homes or lives or environment and they compare to what the other families around them have. “Wow, my kids don’t have those new phones, or that new thing that they’ve been bugging me about. They say everyone has one. And it probably would help them with their school

Doggone Tired of Worrying About Money? Here's 4 Things You Can Do

    By Laura Hull, LMFT Coping Coach   Disillusioned? Disgruntled? Doggone tired of worrying about financial issues, both of a personal nature and for the country as a whole?   You are not alone…. There’s a choir of worrying handwringers waiting to join hands with you, while singing of the plight of “Gina and Tommy” in a verse of “Living on a Prayer” (80’s hair and all).   As much as songwriters like to write songs about the romantic notion of “all you need is love” and “we’ll live on love”, the rest of us who live in the real world know all too well about the financial pain many are experiencing and the worry and fear that go along with it.   A government shutdown created by the bickering of those some would argue are fat cat politicians does not conjure up positive feelings or hopeful sentiment from a large population of people who are struggling financially in their day to day lives.   While 800,000 government workers are seeing their pay cut or eliminated, the lawmak