Financial Therapy: Minding Your Money

Hey everyone--welcome back to your Financial Therapy for the week!
Have you ever wondered how sound your financial decision-making is? Do you ever catch yourself behaving or spending overconfidently?
Data from an August 2025 Logica Future of Money Study indicate that 54% of Americans' outlook on their personal finances was optimistic, even as 50% believed the national economy was worse than a year prior. Why the disconnect?
Today we're replaying another popular episode in the Four Horsemen series: a deep dive about addressing feelings of financial pride...which can actually undercut your overall financial wellness and well-being.
We'll talk about three questions to ask to spot-check your feelings of pride around money. The goal here in Financial Therapy is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall.
Originally aired: December 9, 2025
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
#budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy #personalfinance

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome back to Financial Therapy! Today we're replaying another popular episode in the Four Horsemen series: a deep dive about confronting financial guilt and shame.
We'll talk about three questions to ask to spot-check your feelings of guilt and shame around money--on the road to being more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to having a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
Originally aired: December 2, 2025
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Welcome back to Financial Therapy, everyone! Today we're replaying a popular episode, that also happens to be the next in the Four Horsemen series: a deep dive about financial fear and denial.
For 49% of us, just looking at our bank accounts can trigger negative feelings. Fear can be defined as an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger; it goes hand in hand with denial--a defense mechanism where someone avoids a difficult truth by denying its existence. Have you ever wondered why you avoid or sidestep even looking at your finances? Do you want to make, spend, or give away your money with more confidence? How can you distinguish between 'real' financial concerns, and what's really just anxiety at work in your financial life?
In this episode, we'll talk about three questions to ask to spot-check your feelings of fear and denial around money. The goal here in Financial Therapy is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
Originally aired: November 25, 2025
#personalfinance #budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy!
Today we're replaying a deep dive episode about financial obligation. Obligation is the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something; it can also be a debt of gratitude for a service or favor. Have you ever wondered why you feel so financially obligated to make, spend, or give away your money? Is it really your values at play, or are you captive to others' needs? How can you distinguish between obligations you need to follow through on vs. those you need to set boundaries to address?
Today we'll talk about three questions to ask yourself to check your feelings of obligation. The goal here in Financial Therapy is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
Originally aired: November 18, 2025
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Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional, small business coach, and investor. Welcome back to your Financial Therapy for the week!
Today we're asking a deep question: Who are you in your financial life? If you're struggling financially, or just can't seem to find your financial groove, it may be because you haven't come to terms with doing one of two things (or both) when it comes to your finances. We'll talk about those today--as always, with the goal of becoming more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and having a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
#budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy #personalfinance

If we believe longstanding scientific studies, money doesn't bring you happiness, but interestingly, it can have a huge effect on whether you can maintain it. Today in Financial Therapy, we're talking a bit about how money, happiness, and relationships intersect in our lives, and how our ability to maintain financial wellness may be the key to finding success in other areas.
The goal for the show is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
#budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy #personalfinance

Hey everyone, Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week!
Today we're replaying a real downer of an episode... as in 7 ways dealing with money can bring us down. But the good news is that for each one of these aspects of personal finance, you'll hear some ideas on how to counteract any negative emotions that come up while managing them, in order to adjust your mindset for the future.
No matter your income level, basic interactions with money might make you anxious or get you down. So the goal here is to help us identify the very real effects that dealing with personal finance can have on our mental health, give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and hopefully, help us understand we're not alone--so we can walk away with a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
Originally aired: September 17, 2025
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Hey everyone, welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! Today we’re replaying an episode about money dysmorphia: a psychological disconnect between your actual financial status and your perceptions of it. People can suffer from money dysmorphia regardless of whether they over- or underestimate their financial resources.
Crystal Zuzek is with us to have the conversation; she first heard about this concept via an episode from the Glamorous Trash podcast, which discussed how social media is fueling financial anxiety, and asked the question: who’s really broke vs. just unnecessarily worried about being so?
Based on her own experience, money dysmorphia can be characterized by feelings of financial insecurity or anxiety, even when objectively one's finances are stable or healthy. Alternatively, it can look like denying the limitations of your finances, or ignoring the consequences of your spending--whether because of overconfidence, 'keeping up with the Jones', nihilism, etc. It can manifest as overspending, excessive worrying about money, or avoiding spending altogether--all because you feel wealthier or poorer than you actually are.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
Originally aired: September 23, 2025
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Hey everyone, welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week!
When financial losses are staring us down--whether we've already endured them, or they're just over the horizon--it can be a painful emotional experience. Today we're talking about what financial losses can do to us mentally, and the biases that can lead to emotions like fear, denial, guilt, and shame. We'll also discuss how we can better accept losses by reframing situations into opportunities to grow in our financial lives.
The goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making--even when we stand to lose--so we'll have a greater sense of well-being overall.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
#budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy #personalfinance

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week!
Optimism bias is a psychological phenomenon where people in part believe they are more likely to experience positive outcomes in the future. In personal finance, this can mean overestimating future income, underestimating future expenses, and spending unnecessarily today, without a clear plan for tomorrow.
If you're one of the millions of Americans expecting to receive some of the more than $100 trillion on the line in the "Great Wealth Transfer", optimism bias may be affecting you. If so, the historic, multi-decade transition of assets from Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation to younger generations--primarily Millennials and Gen X--requires some perspective. So today we're highlighting four things about inheritances that you should keep in mind.
Call or text to submit your feedback and questions for the show: 1-844-4FINPOD (1-844-434-6763)
#budgetsareboundaries #financialtherapy #personalfinance