Your Emotions Around Money Matter More Than You Think
Episode 512 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Aja Evans
How to heal your relationship with money.
With the uncertain state of the economy right now, money is on a lot of people’s minds. There couldn’t be a better time to explore the way feelings and finances intertwine, so I’m so excited to share my conversation with Aja Evans, a board-certified therapist who specializes in financial therapy.
Aja studies the intersection of mental health and money, supporting her clients in their financial journeys, and she recently published her first book: Feel Good Finance: Untangle Your Relationship with Money for Better Mental, Emotional, and Financial Well-Being. Often in her therapy sessions, Aja noticed that people would breeze past their money stresses as though they weren’t impacting their mental health, so today, Aja seeks to remind everyone that money isn’t just numbers; it’s emotional. I know this one will resonate with you—Aja’s insights left me feeling like I’d just had a cathartic therapy session myself.
How does a psychodynamic approach play into financial therapy?
Aja acknowledges that a lot of people aren’t into the idea of talking about their childhood in therapy, but she stresses that this is an essential part of figuring out your relationship with money—your money story.
Where you’re at right now is important, but your emotional reactions to how your family handled and discussed money as you grew up have a significant impact on how you think about money today. Are those deeply ingrained beliefs still true?
From family dynamics to societal ones
In Feel Good Finance, Aja also gets into the more macro societal side of how we think about money. The expectations and structures around our national approach to finances are all tied up in sexism, ageism, and racism, not to mention consumerism. Every piece of it impacts how we make, ask for, and spend our money, and what we think qualifies as “enough”.
Especially when things feel uncertain—which seems to be the case all the time these days—if we pay attention, we can start to identify the little ways our money beliefs show up. Do we start spending willy-nilly when our company threatens layoffs, or do we begin to squirrel away every cent?
What to do when the money stress sets in
Today, Aja recommends a deceptively complex question when money stresses rise to the fore: What will keep you safe and stable right now? This can apply to yourself, your family finances, or your business. You can work toward the big, exciting expense you’ve had your eye on, but first, you need to know the bare bones you require to persist. Is that income coming in? If it’s not, what can you do to remedy that? The change might look like moving to a cheaper neighborhood, cutting some extraneous costs, or picking up a side hustle.
If you are in a dire financial situation, it’s likely that crunching the numbers is the last thing you want to do. But uncertainty is way worse than knowing, so Aja challenges everyone to do the work to get clear on the current reality. Even if it’s bad news, now you know, and you can start fixing the situation from a place of clarity.
If ends aren’t meeting, then it’s a matter of figuring out what to sacrifice. That needs to be based on your values—take time to dissect what’s currently important for you and your family. You can reassess later. Just focus on what lifestyle will make you feel safe right now.
Talking to our kids about money
Aja is a therapist and has two young children, so it’s no surprise she thinks a lot about how she can best set her little ones up for success. I was very curious how she suggests talking to our kids about finances, with the goal of not passing down any of the troublesome deep-held money beliefs many of us have.
It’s important to focus on age-appropriate aspects of money that your kids will be able to understand, Aja says. Diving into the topic of retirement with your six-year-old is only going to confuse them. You can start talking about the household budget earlier than that, but even those conversations need to be introduced gradually.
Little ones have a tendency to think that money is bottomless and anything they want they can have. So when Aja’s four or six-year-old requests something she isn’t keen to buy just then, she explains the concept of priorities. “That particular item isn’t a priority right now,” she says. Then, in the future, when they’re old enough to learn about what precisely the family’s priorities are, they’ll have a rudimentary understanding of the concept already.
Consciously align your financial priorities and values
So, how do you take action to find that balance between the bare minimum you need, the values you want to uphold, and your finances?
You take the time to get really honest, Aja says. Consider: Is this how I want to show up every day? Am I content with and proud of how my life looks? Millennials especially seem to be grappling with this a lot, and the age-old concept of keeping up with the Joneses is as alive as ever.
Whether or not your vacations, kitchens, and wardrobes are perfectly Instagrammable matters a whole lot less when you are clear on your values and know which financial priorities align with them. Only once that’s shored up can you take a step back and consider what needs to change to create that alignment. Are you ready—are you brave enough—to blow it all up and make a major change that matches those priorities, if that’s what it takes?
But Aja also reminds us that we don’t always need the perfect justification for something we decide to spend money on. Maybe your reason is that it would make your 16-year-old self squeal with unbridled joy. There’s nothing wrong with that, in moderation. Just make sure you’re being honest with yourself! At the end of the day, you want to create a life that expresses your values and gives you what you need to feel seen and validated, and if your salary went away tomorrow, hopefully you’d still have most of those factors in the choices you’ve made about the people and places important to you.
What do you make of Aja’s take on your money story, and how does yours impact how you approach finances today? I’d also love to hear how the parents out there are creating a thoughtful money narrative for your little ones. Weigh in on all this and more on the Courage Community on Facebook or our group on LinkedIn.
Related links from today’s episode:
Get a copy of “Feel Good Finance”
Listen to Hidden Brain, “Rewrite Your Money Story”
Advocate for policies that drive financial equity:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 512. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I'm so excited to dive into the topic of money and feelings and why how you feel about money really matters. Joining me to break all of this down is Aja Evans. Aja is a board certified therapist, speaker, and consultant specializing in financial therapy. With over a decade of experience in mental health, Aja has made it a pillar in her work to help others feel supported in their financial journeys. With a commitment to assisting people navigating the intersection of mental health and all things money, Aja recently came out with her debut book, Feel Good Finance. In addition to her practice, Aja consults with financial services and fine tech companies looking to integrate the emotional side of money. She's been featured in major media outlets like the New York Times and the Today show as their “feel good” financial therapist. Aja's on a mission to get more people engaged and living their best life while attuning to their thoughts, feelings and behaviors around money. Aja, welcome to the Bossed Up Podcast.
AJA: Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and to dive in.
EMILIE: I'm so excited to have you here. And congratulations. Feel Good Finance: Untangle Your Relationship with Money for Better Mental, Emotional, and Financial Well-Being is such a great read. Congratulations.
AJA: Thanks. It's such a big deal. Sometimes I forget that I did this massive accomplishment and wrote a whole book, but I really appreciate it. Thank you.
EMILIE: Well, I found what was so interesting about your book and about your take on money matters is your perspective as a therapist. So tell us a little bit about how you came to this work and to this book and. And where you see therapy and personal finance intersecting.
AJA: Yeah, so everywhere. So I started my career off in mental health. So I am clinically trained as a therapist. Have been doing this work for about 15 years at this point. Yep, 15. And have worked all over mental health. And it wasn't until I was going through my own financial awakening, if you will, that I started thinking about money. And that was probably in my mid-20s. I was, you know, living life, living in a major city, spending all of my money and really not understanding what was happening or where it was going. And I dove in to learn for myself and just figure out, what can I do for my money? What can I, I feel like I could just do this better. And I really fell in love with personal finance and was thinking to myself, hey, maybe I should become a financial planner, is that what I want to do? But it just didn't feel right.
And what I realized is I really wanted to talk about my own experience in relation to how other people relate to money, too. And for me, that was living in New York and wondering why nobody was talking about money, but we're all spending a ton of money and where the h*** is this money coming from? Like, I was just so curious about how people were making it work. And that really led me to financial therapy and a few different certification programs that I did, getting involved with the Financial Therapy Association. So it was definitely an evolution for me to get here, but it really was built out of personal experience and just realizing that my clients would come in and sit with me and talk about what was going on in their life, and they would just breeze past the money. They'd, I'm stressed about money, next thing. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, what's going on? What's happening? What are you doing with your money? What's coming up emotionally for you? And that's when I really was like, wait, there's something here, I want to talk more about this.
EMILIE: So much of your book in the opening few chapters, especially hammers home, this idea that money is emotional, right? If you're going to be talking with folks about their emotions and about their behaviors and their underlying beliefs that drive those behaviors, money is right there next to some of our core beliefs and foundational elements of our upbringing, right? And if we try to pretend like money is something rational and black and white and numerical only, then we're just denying the emotional reality behind it, right?
AJA: 100%. You nailed it. And I think it is by way of, you know, the old school, old train of thought of financial gurus just telling you, like you said, it's rational. Just look at the numbers. It's not emotional. Human beings are emotional. Anything that we come into contact with or care about is, is going to be emotional. So to think that we can just pull those two things apart is really wild to me because it just doesn't make sense when you think about how can I take care of myself? How can I take care of my loved ones? How can I make sure that everybody's okay and are content and hopefully maybe aiming for happiness and whatever that looks like, you do need money to function in that way. So to pretend that it's just about the numbers just really discounts a huge part of how we function as humans.
EMILIE: Totally. And it also, I think, discounts the chronic nature of the stress that comes from not having enough money, which is the reality for most of us in this country, living paycheck to paycheck, right? And so I'm interested in what you describe in the book as your psychodynamic approach and how that relates. Can you give us a little history lesson here on, like, what is a psychodynamic element of therapy and how does that relate to CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy? And what does that look like when it comes to uncovering the stories that were underlying our money behaviors?
AJA: Yeah, so it is a psychological theory. So for me, I really dance between multiple theories. The way that I like to sit down and do therapy is very relational, but it also is important to go back, and that's where that psychodynamic approach really comes in for me, because I do want to talk about how you grew up. I do want to talk about what was going on with the, how was money talked about? What was the tone? What did you feel when you were living through whatever financial circumstances you were living through as a child, a teen, a young adult, and an adult now. So really taking the time to go back and dissect parts of your experience that you may not have been paying attention to specifically around money. I think a lot of times, you know, people hear about therapy, and they're like, oh, god, I don't want to talk about my parents. But I'm like, well, you need to. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: Yeah, that's so true.
AJA: Right. That's the part that is hard for people, especially in this work around money, because a lot of times people aren't specifically thinking, hey, what money beliefs did I take from my parents that are now impacting my life today, but I need them to. And that is where the psychodynamic approach really comes in, so that we can take the time to dive into your past and really understand what was going on at that time and how it might be impacting what you do with your money now.
EMILIE: Right, whether we believe it is or not.
AJA: A hundred percent. Yeah.
EMILIE: Yeah, I love that. I was listening to a recent episode of Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam, all about your money story, which comes up in your book as this concept of, like, our underlying unconscious beliefs around money. What is your take on like, what a money story is and how it shapes our behavior?
AJA: So when I think about people and talking about their money narratives or their money story, it really is almost like an autobiography, but looking at it specifically around your finances. So, again, the psychodynamic approach is like, hey, let's go back, what's your first money memory? What was coming up? Does anything come up in your body? Were you anxious? Were you happy? Did you not even think about it? How old were you? So really walking people through the different stories that related to money and finances, even if they were not the person kind of exchanging the money, it could have been, hey, my parents were arguing, or we were always going on lavish vacations, but I didn't realize that until I went on vacation with somebody else and it looked so different.
So just thinking about all these different instances in your life where money touched your life, where money kind of impacted you in some way, but you didn't really know what was going on, from as early as you can to now as an adulthood. And then thinking back, like, oh, what did I start believing about money after that experience? What kind of money belief did I then kind of imprint in my life that I may be living with today? And does it suit me? Do I like that? Do I want to live differently?
EMILIE: Right. Oh, man, that's, those are some powerful questions. And I loved how in your book, you talk about your upbringing in Albany, but also not just your household dynamics, right? You're also operating within society's broader dynamics. You talk about things like patriarchy and the racial wealth gap in our country. You talk about things like gay marriage, right, and finance as it relates to queer folks. How are we to integrate that sort of public narrative or that societal story that we also inherit around our identity or our relationship to finances? And where does that live alongside our sort of personal narrative?
AJA: Yeah. So I like to look at it almost like the micro and the macro. And if we're thinking about the micro, we're thinking about our individual household. We're thinking about our family. A little bit bigger, we might be thinking about extended family. We might be thinking about school dynamics that come up then bigger from that. Now we're getting to the macro level. And it's, hey, what is society telling me? What are the systems that I need to operate within that are now impacting either what's expected of me, how I earn, how much I'm able to earn, and that touches everybody, right? So that's when we can get into all of the isms, whether it's sexism, or ageism, or racism, or patriotism. Like, it's just like all of it, right?
So we have to look at, okay, my family wanted me to do this, and this is what was expected of me in my household. But then I got out in the world and realized, hey, this is a lot harder. What's going on? Why does it feel this way, why aren't people reacting to me the same way that I thought they would, or the same way people reacted to me in school? And as you can imagine, this gets really individual because nobody else has lived your exact life but you, not even your siblings. And that colors how we see the perspective of what we're doing. And it goes into the gender pay gaps, and it goes into how do we negotiate for money and how do I feel strong to ask for more money for in certain instances, it just all impacts what we believe we can do in the systems that we operate within, as well as what we do with our money when we do have it.
EMILIE: Yeah. And I can see how appreciating and understanding your money story, including the systemic artifacts, right, that you've inherited from injustices of any kind, that can be both enlightening and also empowering, I would hope, but maybe, like, hard to figure out. You know, making the unconscious conscious is only that first part. You know, as we start to navigate kind of a dicey year of financial uncertainty, you know, we're recording this in late May of 2025, and this year has just got a lot of folks on edge and a lot of people feeling fearful around their financial standing and just our ability as households to make ends meet. How does understanding your money story equip you to take ownership or have more agency of the choices you make?
AJA: What a great question. Because it all is connected and people don't like change. In general, we don't handle change well, and that's okay. But we handle uncertainty worse than we handle change. If you know that change is coming, okay, that's one thing. But the ups and downs of the economy and the markets and are we in a recession? Are we not? Are we going into one? What's going on? There are layoffs. Now they're hiring. All of that uncertainty makes people very uncomfortable. But what happens during that time is when you are, we'll say, triggered, if you will, that is, you're stressed out, something happened, your friend got laid off, or you're realizing that your company may be doing layoffs themselves. That is going to send a signal like, what's going on? Are we okay? Are we safe? What's happening? And that's when we start to think about how our money beliefs then show up for us. What do you do when you're stressed? Where do you spend money, more or less, if you're worried about something, and those money beliefs then come up in our spending?
So for me, I will say, and I'll use myself as an example. And I do that a lot in the book, too, because I think sometimes it's hard to understand. Like, wait, what is she even talking about? What does this look like in real life? So for me, when I know that I'm like, heads down, working really hard, it becomes more difficult to manage some of the house things. So I have a long day. All I want to do is get takeout. All I want is the convenience of eating something delicious that's going to send signals out of, like, Aja, you're okay, you're eating something great with your family. You feel better, and you didn't have to cook it. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: So that's the New York City girl in you.
AJA: Really! And you know what? I did not grow up getting delivery. So when I moved into the city, being able to get delivery felt so novel, right?
EMILIE: Yeah. I feel like in the city, I have more friends in New York who use their ovens as, like, where they keep their sweaters than to cook. [LAUGHTER]
AJA: Right. And I'm somebody who loves to cook. Like, I cook very frequently, so there were never any sweaters in my oven. Because I'm like, that will be used. [LAUGHTER] That's what comes up for me. And this is a perfect example within my example to say, hey, I didn't grow up with delivery, so getting delivery still feels like a luxury to me. That part of my money story, my mom was like, it just, like, wasn't even a thing she thought about. She was just like, no, I'm gonna cook the food, it's fine. Like, not even a big deal. But within that. So that's a perfect example of the layers that start coming up. Oh, it was about convenience. Oh, it's also about, I never got delivery. So this feels special to me when I do get it, even though I've been getting delivery at this point for years, so.
EMILIE: But still, you're right. It totally hits different and based on comparing to your childhood. And it's so funny. I have to go on a little tangent here, because you're a parent of two littles, right? And I am new to the mom of two club myself, and my husband and I talk a lot about this. It's so funny you mentioned delivery, because this looms really large in our two family space stories that we've inherited. Brad's parents never ate out because it was, like, such a exorbitant expense that it was seen as, like, wasteful, right? And still to this day, his mom, who's, like, very frugal and super on top of their finances, to them eating out is just like not their first option.
Similar but different. My parents never ate out because they were very strong strapped for cash, not because they were being good fiduciaries financially, but they overbought groceries on a regular basis, planning to only cook in. And then when life inevitably happens and you have to order a pizza for your family of six, in my case, growing up, you kind of like, waste food. And for me, wasting store bought groceries is like, worse than eating out, you know, like, those are our triggers. And so as a family, Brad and I, when we look at our budget, we plan for certain nights of the week, our takeout nights, but we're not doing fancy takeout, we're doing Sweet Green. We're doing like Cava, where you can get a kid's meal for seven bucks, you know, and we're like. And when my parents are around, they think that's so wild that we project. His parents too, that we like plan to eat out and that it's part of our budget. But it's been such a huge value for our family to say that's how we're going to be.
What I wonder is, especially in your vantage point, Aja, what is the family narrative that we're creating for our children? Like, how do you think about that, passing down or creating a financial culture within your household if we're all just reacting to our parents’ stories that we inherited, how do you deal with this as a parent yourself?
AJA: It's so much. And I think because I'm a therapist, I'm always thinking about how the things I do are going to impact my kids in the future, if you will. I have like, the foresight to be like, please don't hold on to that, please.
EMILIE: You're like, oh, this will be a good story for your therapy session in 10, 20 years, you know. [LAUGHTER]
AJA: 100%. So I think about it frequently, I must admit. But I think right now, the thing about when you're talking about kids about money is that you need to kind of build on the foundation of what they understand. You cannot dive straight into retirement, right? That would make no sense. They don't even know what's going on. Like, what are you talking about? But you can say, like, listen, this is how our household works. We budget for this. This is what money is. This is what's important. That they're budgeting for the convenience at this time. But your kids have to age into those kinds of conversations, and it cannot be the first conversation. So right now, because my kids are gonna be 4 and 6 this summer, a lot of times it's, oh, Mommy, just buy it.
EMILIE: I want this. Yes.
AJA: Yep. And I have to tell them, I'm like, hey, well, listen, we could do that, but it's not a priority for us. And that's how I choose to talk to my kids in terms of, is this in the budget? Is it not? Because I do believe budgets need a new PR campaign. I think we hear the dreaded B word and assume, like, restrictive, restrictive. I can't get it. No, it's just not a priority for us. What are the other priorities? Now, I'm not telling my kids right now what our financial priorities are in the future, I would like to. So I don't mind telling them, like, yeah, convenience right now is really nice because you two are a lot. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: Yeah.
AJA: I love you, but I want easy convenience. So we build it into the budget. But yeah, our kids are going to grow up realizing that takeout isn't a super fancy thing or different or special because they do get it.
EMILIE: I just feel like I am creating a little consumer, so big time. So my eldest is three and a half, and I've really tried to rein this in, in recent months because I recognized it was becoming a problem. But I introduced him to the concept of Amazon, and he knows when packages come, he's like, oh, Amazon's here. [LAUGHTER] And I am, like, embarrassed by this, but he'll be like, we need to buy this. And for a while I would just pull up Amazon, be like, this one? Sure, buy. And it was just my instinct was like, sure, we need to get that. Let's just immediately do that. And then I recognized that his pattern was just instant gratification, was the expectation. I was like, oh, boy, I gotta reign this in somehow. And I, you know, we've started talking more about it, but even the concept that this costs money and money is even remotely limited was like a baseline we had to start from. And I still feel like we're not quite doing it right.
AJA: Yeah well, the beauty is you're starting early and this is very important, right? To then have these conversations and build on that. But I'm also going to say, like, you are freshly into the parent of two. Like you are just coming out and seeing a hint of light, like, okay, we can slow this down versus like, oh, my goodness, the baby's up in the middle of the night. We need this. I'm ordering because it feels like such a huge priority. And I don't think we give families enough credit who are in the postpartum time of what it's like when you need something and it feels like such a need.
EMILIE: Yeah.
AJA: And sometimes it is, right? That you need to get it instantly. And when you make the jump from one kid to two kids that you need to kind of figure out, like, how do we operate in this new family? And sometimes that means that convenience is king.
EMILIE: My mom constantly reminds me she had four kids. I was number two. And so my parents had a baby, my older brother a year later, me a decade later, another baby. A year later, another baby. So I remember being like a young teenager preteen when my siblings were little. And my mom was like, did you know that back then the grocery stores all closed at 9pm or like 6pm and what a big deal it was when they started staying open late till 9pm. Like, I had to go out to get diapers. I was like, wow, I cannot fathom, given the juggle that we're very much still in. I haven't slept through the night in eight and a half months. So, you know, I'm right there.
AJA: You're in it. And also, too, we are marketed to this, to these things, right?. Like, people know, hey, let's grab up the new parents in our marketing. Because telling them they need this for their family, or their kids, or you’ll sleep better, or they'll eat or whatever it is at that time, we're pretty. We're like sitting duck targets, like, prime in that moment. And I get it. But what I keep telling friends is that around 18 months, which sounds so far away with two kids, you start to see the light and you're like, okay, let's rearrange how we're talking about this. Let's rearrange about our instant gratification and what do we want this to look like? And you can tell that to your children, too. And be there with them as they grow up to say, hey, yeah, listen, I'm going to be there for you if you choose to have kids and you have multiple. And I'll be there for you too, to just walk you through, but it's wild. So we have to be kind to ourselves and give ourselves grace. When we're like, am I doing all the right things? Because there's so much pressure. You're just trying to survive right now and get some sleep and eat. [LAUGHTER] That's okay.
EMILIE: But I am an easy target. You're like, will this vibrating, colicky pillow help my child sleep through the night? I'm like, sold, you know?
AJA: I will because I so sleep deprived that I'll do anything at this cart?
EMILIE: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love that advice. I do think the way you're talking about kind of creating your family operating system almost is such a great visual because to me, like, the personal finance at the household level becomes like, very similar to how I plan finances for my business, right? It's like, what are the inputs, what are the outputs? Like, what are the investments that we're making? What is important to us? What's going to help our family grow? What's going to help my business grow? How do you think people should be conceiving of all of that right now, given the state of uncertainty that so many households find themselves in?
AJA: What keeps you safe? Like, honestly, what keeps you, your family, your business safe and stable? And I think really taking a hard look, not the big shiny thing that says, hey, I'm super excited about this, you can get there. But first we need to make sure that, like, income is secure and stable and that you can take care of yourself and take care of your family if you need to. So thinking about, like, what is your bare bones budget? Like, what does your family, household, whatever you're dealing with, need to run? And that doesn't matter if you have kids or not. Like, what do you need to survive the bare minimum. Knowing that, okay, is that income coming in and if it's not, how do I make sure that it is? So for some people, is that a side hustle? It could be. For some people, it might be, hey, I didn't realize I am paying for all these subscriptions and I don't need them or use them. So I'm looking at what's going out, I'm cutting my budget. Or it can be, hey, we're going to move because this is really expensive area and we don't need to be here. We want to make sure that we're safe, and that's the priority too. So sometimes it means making really, really hard decisions for what's going to keep you safe, what's going to keep you secure and stable for your family. And then from there you can build.
So making sure that you're either living below your means or that you have enough money to just get there, right? To pay all your bills and eat and have clothes and shelter and whatnot. And then you can add from that. So I think for a lot of people it feels like like they are in dire situations, but they haven't looked. And I think that's really, really important. You still might be in a dire situation, but I want you to know what your numbers are. I Want you to take the time to do the stressful thing, the hard thing. And look, what debt do you owe? If you have debt, how much are your bills? How much money do you need to survive? And then we can go from there.
EMILIE: Totally. That sort of fear in the abstract can create such avoidance that that only blooms, right? That fear only grows with that avoidance. It's, you're basically saying, like, if we look fear straight in the eye, if we look at the numbers, even though it's scary and uncomfortable and stressful, at least you know what you're working with, right?
AJA: Yeah. And you'll feel a lot less financially anxious. And I don't think, I think it sounds really counterintuitive to people like, you want me to do the scary thing? Like, yes, please do. Because you'll actually feel better because you know what's going on, you know what you're working with. And that's a better place to start from than not knowing.
EMILIE: Totally. I'm interested in this fear around money concept because you talk about financial trauma in the book, too. What rises to that level of trauma and how might that influence our money stories or narratives?
AJA: Yeah. So, I mean, financial trauma could literally be anything. I think people have this misguided notion that if you grew up with money or grew up wealthy, that you don't have any financial trauma. So I'm going to give two examples of people who may have grown up in a situation where there wasn't enough and people who grew up in a situation where there's more than enough. So in the situation where there may not have been enough, it could be, hey, I didn't always know if the lights were going to turn on or if the bill was paid. I wasn't always certain that there was going to be lunch tomorrow, so I split my meals in half. And I'm still doing that as an adult, even though I have the money to buy whatever food I may need.
So little things like that can be financially traumatic. And I don't think we give that enough credit to be like, oh, I didn't have the cool, I'll never forget growing up, so I'm gonna age myself. I'm an elder millennial with pride. But growing up, buying clothes or getting things from, what was it? Payless. Getting sneakers from Payless was not cool. Going thrifting was not cool. People were making fun of you if you had, like, goodwill sneakers like that, what it was like growing up for some people, that could be traumatic. Oh, I got new to me sneakers coming to school and people were then making fun of me because they weren't new Nikes or making fun of that. And that's not necessarily my story, but it's such a story of, that we all can understand it, that age group, because we were all going through similar things. I dive in, in the book about my story, which was about Abercrombie and Finch and what that meant for me, and like, ah.
EMILIE: That traumatized an entire generation. Okay, thank you, Abercrombie. They're having quite the revival. But my god, I still feel bullied and personally bullied by Abercrombie employees.
AJA: Right. But that's what I mean. That's such a ubiquitous universal experience. Even if it wasn't your specific experience, we all know what that felt like. So that can lead to scarcity in adulthood. And like, oh, I have tons of money, but I still don't know if I can treat myself to something that expensive. I don't know if I can not finish my meal or not take home the leftovers. Now, the other side, when you grew up with potentially abundance or very wealthy, is that there can be a lot of shame in having that level of wealth. It can be very hard to be like, I don't know if people really want to be my friend or they just kind of want close proximity to what's going on financially in my family.
Or maybe there's a level of manipulation. If you don't go to this school, if you don't study this one thing, I'm cutting you off. That's scary. And that can also be financially traumatic and lead people down lives and careers that they didn't necessarily want, but they don't, they're financially kind of trapped to be like, well, what am I going to do? Because they may not have been taught those skills. Frightening.
EMILIE: Yeah. I mean, talk about like, coercion in your most close relationships. Yikes.
AJA: Correct. And these are just like a few examples, right? Like, there's a ton of middle ground. There's a lot of black and white in there too. So, it's a scale to spectrum. But I think we all need to just be real with ourselves and get honest. And that's what I really wanted Feel Good Finance to be about, is let's sit down and have the hard conversation about, you built these beliefs around money, what you're doing with them, and do you want to do something different with your money now? And how do you start?
EMILIE: Totally. You know, it's so interesting because I see around me in our friend group who, and we are all, first of all, shout out elder millennials here. A lot of my peers are in the thick of paying 60 grand a year for childcare…
AJA: True girl. I know about it.
EMILIE: …like myself.
AJA: Wow. Yeah.
EMILIE: And so we are just like in that era, which is very financially stressful and yet a lot of our peers are very high income earners. And I'm always kind of amazed at the amount of these urban dwelling, high income earning, high spenders because we're spending a lot of money on childcare, and housing, and necessities like that right now, but who feel scarcity and having grown up in financial scarcity and being like very proud and pleased to be where we're at financially, but also living well below our means, diversifying all of our income streams, like, having more of a sense of wealth, quite frankly, than some of my high income earner friends have.
I remember one of our friends upon the arrival of his second child, I said, isn't it great? Colorado has now a paid family and medical leave program that you're entitled to, all of us are, that we didn't have with the arrival of our first children, respectively. So you can get the state to pay you for up to 12 weeks. It's not, you know, it's capped at a certain level. It's not going to be on par with what I'm sure he's pulling home in terms of salary. And his response was, I can't do that. I can't afford to take 12 weeks of less pay. And this is like, I imagine a lot less than what he's making. But it's still a lot of money from the state that's just going to go away. It's coming out of your paycheck and you're, if you just pass on that money, it's just gone. You're just not getting it. And his response was, yeah, I can't afford to take that kind of a 12 week pay cut. And I was like, d***, that is stressful if you are making boku bucks. And yet you feel like I am so on the hamster wheel that I can't take 12 weeks of $1200 a week from the state. I would rather pass that up completely than, than get that, it just like, shocked me. And it also, as a feminist, really saddened me that this opportunity for a father to be home full time with his new baby was like not being realized when that was the whole point of the public policy.
AJA: Right. And it's just there's so much to say about that because it's so layered, right? And it's not, there's no one answer. So it could be the money, right? I'm sure part of it is like, hey, we, we just cannot afford only having an income of $1200, during that time for that long of a period of time. And there's could be levels of lifestyle inflation in there. There could also be like, his own mentality about what it means for him to be working and earning and what that feels like for him. There's so many different layers in that story that we can't even comprehend what was going on for him in moment.
But I also think that there is a very large assumption that because people are making really good money, why can't you afford your lifestyle? And I am in a very large, very expensive city. So my practice is in New York City. So majority of my clients are New Yorkers. They do make good money, they make great money. And by national standards they are above. However, a lot of people are paying 50% of their income to rent, to rent shoeboxes, to just be in the city, to be closer to work, which allows them that salary. So it is this very catch 22 of okay, well now my job is here, perfect example. We used to live in the city, now we live outside of the city. Less expensive, of course, but by national standards, astronomically expensive.
Like I'm paying five figures in taxes. Like, I don't think people are like, oh, that's normal. I'm like, yeah. I mean, it's really insane. It's really crazy. But it's hard to figure out what you're willing to sacrifice. Do you want to live somewhere else? What does it look like? What does education look like? What does diversity look like? Where our family's located? What about our friend? Like the layers that all of us have to navigate when we're making and building these lives. We are picking and choosing our priorities. And sometimes that comes with a huge cost.
And I'm so glad that you talked about me, the book around queer communities, because I think that's a great example of what people may not be thinking about. Not every queer person is going to feel safe in a smaller town that may be less expensive. They just may not feel safe. And you know, sometimes they aren't. So I think that we have to take the time to just really dissect what's important for us, our families. What do we want? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? Sometimes that means you lived it for a while, then you want to blow it all up and change it. And I'm okay with that, too. Like, nothing has to be permanent. You can make changes.
EMILIE: Yeah, I love that. I just think it's an interesting concept of, like, okay, what is the process to arrive at consciously aligning your finances or your financial priorities with your values? Because if you are a high income earner and you still feel trapped, or if you're a lower income earner but you feel freedom because you live in a place that's lower cost and you've made those trade offs consciously, like, how does any one of us get out of the rat race and actually feel some sense of wealth? Because I have a feeling it's not just, you know, you talk about savings, it's not just about what you're spending or what you're earning, right? It's like, how do we create space for us to all feel aligned in that way?
AJA: Yeah. Well, I think, honestly, in this society, I think it takes a level of bravery, and I don't think we always look at it that way. We think, oh I did it, right, I did this. I made these life milestones and did it. And this is just what life is. And maybe that was the case for our parents or our grandparents, but we live in a very different time now. So really taking the time to get honest with yourself, is this what I want to be doing? Is this how I want my life to look? Is this how I want to show up every day? Am I okay? [LAUGHTER] Am I content? Do I feel happiness sometimes? Am I proud of the way my life looks? And I think this is, these are real issues that, like, our age group is really thinking about and grappling with in this time. And I keep joking around about the millennial midlife crisis is not buying more, it's having less. Like, we all want gardens. We want to be unbothered. We want to work in different industries.
EMILIE: We're like, maybe I should become a homesteader. We're like, huh, really?
AJA: Truly, it's all of us. I'm out here, like, with my little urban garden. I'm like, I need these raised beds. This is important. So I think all of us are just taking this time to, especially after COVID, re-evaluate, what does our life look like? How are we spending our time and where our values? So when you know what your priorities are, what your values are, then you can decide, am I brave enough to potentially take the jump to blow it all up and make a change? And that might mean leaving the big city to go live on a farm. Or start homesteading or, hey, really important for me to be close to family, so I'm moving closer to home. And this is what we're doing. So people really have to get honest about what your values are, what your priorities are, and then feel okay with saying, like, people are not going to understand this, and that's okay. That's all right. They don't need to.
EMILIE: Totally. I love that, you talk about keeping up with the Joneses, and I just think about how very acute that feels now in the age of social media that we've been in for so long, and especially as millennials who've come of age on Instagram. It's like, that is such a trap of consumerism. You're like, if my life doesn't look Instagramable, am I a failure somehow? Do I need the big house? Do I need the, you know, the best background for this Instagram photo? You know, it's just. It can really lead you down this trap of what feels like success to you and what you actually value versus the optics of success.
AJA: And I always think about, like, who's that for? Like, who's it for? And I have asked myself this question too. Like, who is this for? And sometimes the answer is, this is for the high school version of me who didn't feel cool and now wants to feel cool, but from their peers. But take the time to. And then once, if you're like, hey, Aja, I did this for that person, I'm like, go ahead. Like, I get it. I just want you to know why you're doing it and then also know the ramifications in your finances when you do that. So it could be. It could be bad, like, just taking the time. But I think a lot of us are not asking ourselves those deeper questions of who is this for? And that, it's hard to go back and be like, oh, wow, baby, me was so upset. That was hard. I was uncomfortable. I was sad. I didn't, my self esteem was tanked. What would people think?
EMILIE: Well, I can see how being in a therapist's office would help to navigate that. You know, I wanted to sort of land this conversation around what we've been talking around, which is identity and money, right? Because when we think about the optics or who this is for, I can't help but think about sort of the many different identities that we carry within us and how it can feel really uncomfortable to be living out of alignment with who you see yourself as. And so what is your take on how we conceive of our sense of self based on status, wealth, income, job, whatever it might be. And how should we be conceiving of ourselves as it relates to money.
AJA: Yeah, so I would say first you have to go back to what your values are, right? Like what are your values and does your life reflect that? And for some people it could be, you know what, I wanted my kids to have a backyard. That felt really important. Okay, they have the backyard. Could it be bigger? Sure. Does it need to be bigger? Are they enjoying the backyard? And that leads me to the second question after values is, is it enough? And I don't think we take enough time to really define what enough is because there's always going to be more.
There's always going to be new, bigger, better, different, greener, whatever it is, there's always going to be more. So really taking the time to be like, hey, you know what, this would be enough for me and not move the goal post, do not move it. It's not, this would be enough and now we're shifting and now we need more. No, no, no, no, no. Because that does, uh, not fill you, right? What's filling you? You are being filled by your values, being expressed in your life by the people that you either love spending time with or who can see you. And that's when we get to the identity work. I feel seen in my life. I feel validated and appreciated and I know that people care about me and that helps our self esteem.
But I think because our society really loves money, right? And we need it, it's very important. But you know, late stage capitalism really has us all believing that we are flawed unless we have certain things in our life. And I want people to remember that. If your job went away, if your salary went away, who are going to be the people around you that are building you up and lifting you up? Why? Why are they building you up and lifting you up? Because that's going to feed you, metaphorically, more than your, you know, high salary would. And then if you're feeling like, hey, I can't get away from that high salary, then we need to sit and do some identity work around who are you outside of your fancy job and why does it feel so important to have that title? I still want you to have it. Please make the money, please live the life you've always wanted. I love that for you, but is it really making you happy?
EMILIE: Yeah. Because being attached to that externality, right? Like being, feeling your, like your identity is attached, is absolutely foundationally built upon something that someone else could take away from you.
AJA: Yes. In a heartbeat, In a second.
EMILIE: Right. It's a very vulnerable position for your sense of self to be in. And it's one of those things where you don't really know how vulnerable it is until it's gone. And then you have to rebuild your entire sense of who you are.
AJA: Right. And that is painful. And I've done it with some of my clients. Like, I have had lawyers or HR execs leave their huge jobs, and then they're like, Aja, what do I even do? Who am I? And it was honestly probably a year of figuring it out together. Them showing up for themselves, of coming to therapy, of working on themselves, reflecting, like, oh, this is what, this, this is who I am, I forgot. And that is hard work. Because nobody wants to say. It doesn't feel good to say that out loud. It's so vulnerable.
EMILIE: Well, thank you for giving us this little snippet of therapy. I feel like I've been in your chair for the past 40 minutes. This is so wonderful. I'm so excited for my listeners to learn more about you and your book. Where can they get their hands on a copy of Feel Good Finance and learn more about all the great things that you offer?
AJA: So Feel Good Finance is available wherever you get your books. So I love a support local moment. So if you have your bookstore, you can get it there. If they don't have it in stock, ask them and they can order it because it is very far and wide distributed, which I'm very lucky to have that. And you can follow me on Instagram @ajaetherapy. So, Aja E therapy. Or at my website, which is AjaEvansCounseling.com.
EMILIE: Amazing. I will drop links to all of those resources in today's show notes. And do you work with folks beyond New York City or are you just focused on a New York City practice?
AJA: I do some coaching outside of New York. So if you don't live in the state of New York, which is where I'm licensed, we would be doing a more financially therapeutic coaching model, which may not, you know, I'm not treating your mental health, but we can scratch it. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: I love it. Aja, thank you so much for joining us today.
AJA: Thank you so much for having me. This was a pleasure.
EMILIE: For links to everything we just talked about, head to bossedup.org/episode512, that's bossedup.org/episode512. And now I want to hear from you. What do you make of Aja's description of your money story? And what kind of money story did you inherit from your upbringing and how is it impacting your behaviors today? And if you're a parent too, I'd love to hear how you're thinking about creating the money narrative for your little ones at ah, home.
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Let's keep the conversation going as always in the Bossed Up Courage community on Facebook or in the Bossed Up Group on LinkedIn. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose. And as the original motto of America's first black women's clubs went way back in 1896, let's lift as we climb.
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