Do you avoid dealing with money?
Ramit Sethi who wrote the book, I Can Teach You to be Rich, shared in a newsletter the four money types he believes everyone falls into. Here’s what he wrote about THE AVOIDER:
Rebecca and Joe from podcast episode #57 have two little kids and a third on the way. Joe handles the family finances on his own, just like his dad did (red flag #1). They’re overspending on rent (red flag #2), and they both feel frustrated by money. Rebecca ignores money issues (red flag #3), but gets stressed out, then sends panicked texts. Joe explains: “Usually, I’ll get a text during the day about how insufferable our current living situation is, because we can’t just open a door and let our children run outside.” Rebecca admits these messages are pointless and damaging: “I’ll send him texts like, ‘This is miserable. I can’t do this.’”
Joe is ready to work on their finances together, but Rebecca won’t come to the table. She doesn’t look at bank balances or credit card bills. She won’t even look at a printout of a worksheet. When she and Joe are scheduled to talk to me, she nearly sabotages the session.
Early in our meeting, I ask, “How much money do you think you have?” Rebecca’s answer: “I honestly don’t know. I have no idea. I would literally be making up a number.” Later, I spend two hours trying to get Rebecca to enter a single number into a spreadsheet while she avoids, stalls, and distracts. One number!
Rebecca is a classic Avoider. Of the four Money Types, Avoider is the most common.
The Avoider uses a variety of conscious and unconscious strategies to deflect and procrastinate when it comes to money. Sometimes they know exactly what they’re doing. Other times, they’re genuinely oblivious to the motivation behind their tactics. Deep down, they’re afraid of confronting the reality of their situation. That fear may come from ignorance (“I should already know about money”); from a sense that it’s too late (“I’m 50 and I haven’t even started saving”); from embarrassment (“I don’t want to look stupid in front of my partner/kids/friends”); or from a general sense that if they find out the truth, it just might be as bad as they imagine.
Common behaviors: dodging conversations, not opening mail, refusing to look at online accounts or automatic payments, ignoring parking tickets, playing innocent, reframing avoidance as a virtue (“money just isn’t important to me”). Also: overspending.
Favorite phrases:
“You’re so much better at money than I am. I’m not good at math.”
“Fine, we can talk about our bills, but first, why did you spend so much last weekend? I thought I told you…”
“Ugh, not this again. Let’s talk about it next week. I’m tired from work.”
What you’re losing by being an Avoider: By refusing to deal with money, you’re simply kicking the can down the road, where the problems become worse. If you don’t confront reality and make decisions today, you’ll end up with your back against the wall tomorrow, forced to make difficult financial decisions with few good options.
What it’s like being married to an Avoider: Avoiders can drive their partners crazy. Sometimes they behave like sulky children, giving one-word answers or sabotaging conversations with petty fights (“Why are you so obsessed about money?” “Don’t you trust me?” “Can’t we just relax for once?”). These are all strategies — conscious and unconscious — to avoid getting real about money. Notably, I find that partners of Avoiders have often entered into a dynamic where they “rescue” Avoiders, cementing each other’s roles.
My advice for the Avoider
Ask yourself: What do you get out of being an Avoider? (Please avoid saying “I don’t know.” You get something out of avoiding or you wouldn’t do it.) The most common response is, “I get to ignore my money so I don’t feel bad.” Then ask yourself: What if I keep denying? What if I could become good with money? Would I tell my children to avoid something important because it makes them feel bad?
Play out the future: In ten years, if you continue avoiding, where will you be? (Don’t avoid this question!) Get specific: What will your living situation be? How will you choose vacations? How might your children experience money after watching your habits day by day?
What effect are you having on the people around you now? Especially your spouse and children. Avoiders rarely think about the collateral damage they’re causing. I want you to think about it deeply.
Consider this phrase: “We don’t need a crisis to take control.”
My advice for partners of Avoiders
Avoiders need specific expectations, skin in the game, and clear boundaries. For example, if your partner is an Avoider, it wouldn’t work to say, “I want you to help out with our finances!” Much better: “We’ve agreed to spend less than $700 per month on groceries. I’d like you to be in charge of that number and to update us every two weeks.”
Start off with gradual ownership. Work together to give the Avoider partner a couple things to manage, but paint the picture of the kind of partnership you have in mind. For example, they might begin by tracking two categories in your Conscious Spending Plan (coming later in the book), but eventually they’ll be in charge of planning the financial side of vacations and managing insurance.
Finally, establish boundaries. This is a difficult topic to talk about, but boundaries are important for everyone involved. For example, if your partner forgot to pick up your kids from school, I’m sure there would be swift consequences — from the school and from you — including setting crystal-clear expectations going forward. With money, it’s important to outline what continued avoiding will mean: Maybe your family won’t be able to go on vacation this holiday. Or you won’t be able to eat out on the weekend. On the other hand, if your partner upholds their end of the agreement, also lay out what positive things will happen for your relationship. Set clear boundaries, then stick to what you said.
Do you find yourself to be an Avoider? I definitely have Avoider clients. Sometimes, they avoid having the conversation with me in the session! They’ll tell me about their day. They’ll tell me about a co-worker situation. They’ll tell me about their parents, their kids, or anything else to avoid talking about money, especially if it’s a day we were supposed to “look at their numbers.” And yes, sometimes in our sessions, we’re not always working on actual practical money issues. However, if it’s every session, I have to say to them that they’re avoiding the money conversation.
However, as a trauma informed financial wellness coach, my approach is slightly different from Ramit Sethi (although I do like his book and approaches, for the most part) because sometimes the Avoider doesn’t feel safe to look at the numbers, put numbers in a spreadsheet, or “take charge of a number.”
In that case, we have to first understand what we’ve experienced that has created a fear.
Then, we must work with that part of ourselves that may be paralyzed by fear and causing us to avoid financial stuff.
We work with it, not by shaming ourselves or trying harder to “just do it.”
Instead, we must start by being compassionate and understanding, like you do with a child or a puppy.
If a child is afraid to climb up the monkey bars, how effective would it be to shame that child or just tell that child, “just do it!”?
Probably not very effective.
Even if the child does it, that shame and judgment may live with them for a long time.
After being really compassionate and understanding and acknowledging the fear, the next step is doing something in our bodies to signal to our minds that we’re releasing the fear or “shaking it off.”
If you notice animals in the wild, after a traumatic event, they will spend a few minutes just shaking. That’s our bodies’ response to releasing the trauma.
Once we’re able to release or “shake it off,” then we can take the tiniest action step towards the goal.
After taking the tiniest action step towards the goal, we need to celebrate ourselves doing it! If we don’t celebrate even the tiniest action step, then our mind tells us stories about how much farther we need to go, so it creates a cycle that gets you back into overwhelm and fear. It’s going to stop you from achieving the next step and the next step, so it puts you back to being paralyzed by fear.
Does this all make sense? Do you want to see how this works with your own fears? If so, I’d love to invite you to a Releasing Money Blocks Workshop, happening June 27th. It’s $38. However, the ripple effects of working through those blocks will be priceless.
With Love & Gratitude,
You can also subscribe below to get more details about the money block workshop or my in-person retreat, where we’re really going to get into our bodies and release anything keeping us stuck.