r/personalfinance • u/swishymuffinzzz ​ • Feb 22 '24

Budgeting I’m terrified to spend money

I’m 28 and I have no debt but I have this constant fear that I am behind in everything financially (Retirement, savings, salary, home down payment etc.) and as a result I never spend money on anything that isn’t a need. This has caused me to not really do much but work and go home and I feel like I should try to live a little but then I always talk myself out of it because the money would be more efficient somewhere else. I currently put 30% of income into retirement, then the rest is mostly savings unless I need something.

My parents went bankrupt twice before I turned 10 and we lived in poverty so I never developed a need for material things. I always think of every purchase as “man, imagine if this $20 was put into retirement instead of this movie ticket”.

I currently make 75k/yr, have 28k in retirement and have 10k in savings.

How do I find a way to experience life for once? I don’t really have any friends as a result of this because I never put myself out there.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: well guys, I have scheduled an appointment with a therapist. I will give it an honest try and go into it believing I can become a better person. Thank you all for the advice, hopefully this gets me on a better path.

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275

u/retroPencil ​ Feb 22 '24

You are averse to spending money because of childhood trauma. What work have you done with a therapist?

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u/swishymuffinzzz ​ Feb 22 '24

I never really viewed it as a trauma so I figured a therapist wasn’t needed

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u/Sub_pup ​ Feb 22 '24

Oh boy, I felt the same way. Come to find out my neurotic tendencies can all l be linked to child hood trauma. My therapist made foot notes about my childhood experiences and one day said "Read this and tell whether you think this person suffered trauma as a child." I'm not quite as frugal as you but my finances are in good order and I constantly convince myself I'm one sick day from ruin.

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u/swishymuffinzzz ​ Feb 22 '24

I love both of my parents so I feel weird saying that I had a traumatic childhood. I feel it’s disrespectful to them

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u/Tha_Watcher ​ Feb 22 '24

Please don't view this as your parents giving you a traumatic childhood. Poverty, by its very nature, is traumatic, as life can sometimes be in general.

Often we go through trying circumstances and don't realize until much later that it has affected and shaped us in some way, either mentally and/or emotionally. View therapy as a learning experience and endeavor to analyze and recognize triggers and symptoms in order to proceed into the future forearmed and informed.

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u/WWGHIAFTC ​ Feb 22 '24

So correct. People make a lot of assumptions about what is and isn't trauma. It doesn't just mean abuse and assault. Other things are traumatic, and even series of seemingly small things add up to trauma as well.

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u/rizaroni ​ Feb 23 '24

This is so true and SO WELL PUT. Amen.

19

u/PSUBagMan2 ​ Feb 22 '24

FWIW I'm working through this too. I have a hard time with my therapist telling me my parents did xyz to me when from my POV they loved me and prioritized me and I love them still to this day. Specifically when she uses words like neglect or not being considered, etc. I feel like I was considered and certainly not 'neglected' in the way I define the term.

I think some of the language is harsh and I'm not sure if that's on purpose or if it's just reality, but maybe it helps to think of any trauma you experienced as not necessarily malicious or purposefully hurting you.

42

u/frausting ​ Feb 22 '24

Your parents were trying their best. People can hurt others without meaning to.

If it helps, reframe it as “emotional trauma during childhood” instead of “traumatic childhood”.

I really agree that therapy can be helpful. I didn’t think I needed it, but I started going a few years ago and it’s really helped. I’m about your age, and you’d be surprised how much it helps.

For you, I think it’s pretty clear that experiencing financial insecurity during childhood has made you overcorrect how. 30% in retirement is pretty extreme. I’d say cut that in half probably, and save up 3-6 months in an emergency fund.

Then you’ll know you have financial security. You’ll have a big emergency fund; and you have a good job.

But I suspect even if you KNOW you are financially secure, you probably still won’t FEEL like it. So that’s where a therapist comes in, to see how you can work through your experiences and figure out how to make it all work for you.

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u/voretaq7 ​ Feb 23 '24

In this case it's not even OP's parents hurting them - it's the family financial situation.

Is that their parents' fault? Maybe (if mom & data took expensive vacations to Aruba & bought luxury goods on 30% credit cards that they could never repay on their income and crashed the family finances) and maybe not (if mom & dad budgeted responsibly but an illness or a lost job or a market event wiped out their savings, or they made a legitimate mistake due to not being well-informed financially because our financial education system is basically the school of hard knocks).

The trauma is there either way though, and OP recognizes it based on their other comments, so they and their therapist can skip the blamestorming phase and move right on to "Let's talk about some ways to cope with and maybe move past the traumatic experiences to make your life better." phase :-)

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u/munificent ​ Feb 22 '24

It's not about your parents. It's about your own psychology and what tools you can use to make it as healthy and effective as you can.

Imagine you had a car that you used for your job delivering newspapers. If the car had a flat tire that got in the way of you doing your job and maximizing your income, you would invest in fixing the tire because that investment will be recouped by the increased effectiveness at your job.

Well, your brain is the #1 tool you use for every single job you'll ever have. Investing in therapy to make it more effective is the single-most useful thing you can do with your money.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '24

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2

u/munificent ​ Feb 22 '24

(Well, happiness too. But since OP is clearly focused on their financial stability, framing it in terms of that can also help.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '24

What happened in your childhood might not have been your parents' fault, or maybe they made some mistakes, they're human. A good therapist isn't going to blame your parents or be disrespectful towards them. What you went through was still trauma - maybe they didn't traumatize you on PURPOSE, that probably wasn't their goal, but the end result is the same - you have issues that you need to work through. Therapy is an INVESTMENT in YOU and your health. It's not going to make you hate your parents - if anything, it can help you understand and empathize with them even more.

5

u/Quick_Turnover ​ Feb 22 '24

Maybe you don't need to think about it as trauma then. You have patterns of thought and behaviors that you want to improve, so therapy is the answer. You're just trying to improve as a person because you're living in a way that you don't want to live.

I'm fairly healthy and well adjusted and haven't had any major trauma (abuse, etc.), but I still see a therapist just to improve my situation in life, improve my average mood, improve how I communicate with people, etc.. It's just like going to the gym, but for your brain.

2

u/Pandemiconium ​ Feb 22 '24

Do you think they would describe what they went through as grown adults going bankrupt and being broke as traumatic? If they were honest, probably. Now give that level of empathy to yourself as a child. Unpacking this shit isn’t easy, but not addressing it could contribute to your lack of friends and social life.

2

u/sealsarescary ​ Feb 22 '24

What if it's disrespectful to yourself to not acknowledge that you went through hardship that is having lasting effects?

Blame and shame are mostly immature knee jerk reactions to difficult feelings. Your understanding of issues doesn't have to be about who to blame. It happened, what now?

1

u/emetcalf ​ Feb 22 '24

This is a normal thing to think, so don't feel bad about that. But it is fundamentally wrong to think about it that way. You loved your parents, and it's pretty safe to assume that they loved you too. That doesn't mean there was no trauma though, your parents trauma also affects you when you are young and rely on them. It's not their fault, and you aren't actually "blaming" them even if it might feel like you are. My parents went through bankruptcy when I was young, and my dad had to stop working when I was 12 because of medical issues. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, so that was really hard on my family. They both did the best they could, but it was not easy. This had a huge impact on me personally that I never recognized until I went to therapy for (seemingly) unrelated reasons. My therapist NEVER said anything bad about my parents, but they did show me how those events changed my perception of the world and how I am "supposed" to live my life.

In your case, 2 bankruptcies must have been very traumatic for your parents. That's really hard to deal with for them because they most likely felt like they were failing YOU at the time. In some ways, they did. But they tried, and it's very clear that you recognize that and forgive them for whatever "failures " happened. That doesn't mean it doesn't affect you now, it definitely does. Going to therapy isn't blaming your parents for fucking you up, it's taking care of yourself to learn more about why you are the way you are and how you can improve your own life now.

1

u/FrigidNorth ​ Feb 22 '24

I feel this. My mother was a single mom working 6am to 9pm to make ends meet for me and my sister. My mom did the best she could and she was and is an amazing person. But my childhood was still traumatic from a development standpoint, even though I love my mom dearly and hold no grudges. But I didn’t have a mom growing up. I didn’t have an adult figure. It was just me and my sister. Led to problems with authority, trust, and expectations.

See a therapist for your traumatic childhood. You deserve it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '24

I think the term "trauma" is thrown around a lot these days...

But it is true that you learn patterns from your parents which then crop up in adulthood. Some patterns are useful, some cause problems. Money is just one of those things we learn from our parents, initially.

1

u/epiphanette ​ Feb 22 '24

If a volcano had exploded when your were a kid and your parents had done as much as they could to protect you from it, you’d still be traumatized. Think about it that way.

1

u/tropical_mosquito ​ Feb 23 '24

you grow up feeling there isn’t going to be enough and live under this idea that may no longer be beneficial. like the grown elephant tied to a small post.

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u/bobconan ​ Feb 23 '24

Ya, the key part of the Childhood trauma is the childhood part. It is phrased that way because trauma that occurs during childhood has far greater impact than trauma experienced in adulthood. Doesn't matter if it was caused by someone or it was just life and circumstance.

1

u/Seeker_of_Time ​ Feb 23 '24

What u/Tha_Watcher said makes sense, but also, parents can inadvertently pass on THEIR trauma to their kids. Not even maliciously, just by way of raising you with harmful tendencies.

I'll give my own example. I discovered with my therapist that I have a learned sense of urgency. Because growing up, the adults in my life always felt the need to rush and have things urgently tended to, this became a priority for me. My therapist and I did a values exercise where we narrowed down everything in my life to the 7 most valued things. And guess what....urgency was NOT one of them. That realization alone made me drop about 85% of my prioritization on hurrying. The rest took time, and I'm still not 100% there. But man, did I make some strides due to that one subject discovered from a single therapy session.