The Best Personal Finance Advice for When You’re Broke & Anxious

How to Break Free From Financial “Flight Mode”, Face Your Finances, and Permanently Reduce Financial Stress

Matt Gangloff
8 min readNov 19, 2022
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

32% of Americans say money is their biggest source of stress. That’s 3x more than work and 6x more than the pandemic. But what are we so worried about? It’s just money, after all. And money doesn’t matter, right?

Wrong.

When it comes to stress and anxiety, money matters a lot.

What I learned going from 6-figures in the black, to 6-figures in the red, to 6-figures in the black again was that money won’t change everything…but it can sure as hell reduce your anxiety.

To reduce financial stress, you have to do precisely what you don’t want to do: you have to stop avoiding it and face it head-on.

Here’s how…

How Financial Stress Affects Mental Health

According to Dr. Linda Gallo, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who studies financial stress:

“Humans are actually equipped to deal with stress and stress can be beneficial, at least initially, because it allows us to avoid danger and face challenges.

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Matt Gangloff

I teach the how-to’s of Post-Traumatic Growth: How to heal and grow, find a new mission, become your best self and build a meaningful life. www.mattgangloff.com