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5/23/2023 How Finances Affect Your Mental Health The complex relationship we have with money and the stress of being financially strained can lead to a vicious cycle that can make us feel completely out of control. This is a universal experience, felt strongest by Black LGBTQ+ womxn and non-binary people who begin their financial journies on the back foot due to layered disparities in pay gaps and historical mistreatment by financial institutions.
Just as money impacts our behaviour, our mental health can impact how we handle our finances, creating the vicious cycle we mentioned earlier. While the cause may look different for all of us, some mental health conditions cause a spike in impulsive behaviour and can influence how we spend our money and our ability to plan for financial obligations rationally, it can also create spending shame cycles that seem impossible to break out of. Financial wellbeing affects everyone, as shown in the Cost of Living Crisis: Financial Stress and Employee Wellbeing report, in which 37% of employees stated that financial pressure is the top cause of stress outside of work. The same report shows that Womxn-identifying employees are 33% more likely to experience stress than their male-identifying colleagues. Research conducted by Money and Mental Health Policy Institute shows that of the 5,500 people surveyed across the UK, 86% stated that their financial situation has worsened their mental health and that those experiencing mental health problems were three and half times more likely to be in debt than those without. 4/20/2023 Ask for that raise! Here at My Moon Landing, we were pleased to host the second cohort of our Financial Fundamentals Programme in January-February 2023. As our core skills workshops ended, we were left to ponder the many lessons learnt about the debt/credit system, wage gaps and money mindset in March.
One discussion that stuck with our participants was around the pay raise disparity. We began the session with a short game organised by our Finance Expert in Residence, Fi Titus. Participants were told they would be taken to 1:1 breakout rooms and asked a quiz question, with a chance to be paid between £1 - £5 if they answered correctly.  For many of us, managing personal finances and planning for long-term financial goals can be the cause of many sleepless nights. Whether you’re building an emergency fund, planning for a large purchase or looking to gain financial freedom, access to a financial advisor can help you get closer to these goals.
Financial advisors are financial professionals who are able to guide us in making the best financial decisions for the goals we are wanting to reach. But with this decision-making comes sharing confidential and often sensitive information. For Black LGBTQ+ womxn and non-binary people, finding a financial advisor becomes a more complicated task in that the advisor not only needs to be able to provide financial advice but also need to be an ally to the community to help create a space in which we feel comfortable in sharing the type of information needed to gain the most benefits from their services. That’s why we’ve put together four tips to consider when looking for your own financial advisor:  Some of the best novels were written by artistic and gifted Black women. Books like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)” by Maya Angelou and “The Color Purple (1944)” by Alice Walker paved the way for Black female writers everywhere. Being able to depict unsettling and gripping retelling of their personal stories and fictional ones so intensely and vividly is one of the many reasons why books written by Black women have become the literary landscape of the 21st Century. We get to experience and explore dialogues on class, capitalism, race, family, love, and more.
We believe Black writers have some of the strongest and most vivid voices in literature so it is only right that we share with you some of our favourite reads by Black women so you can expand your library and immerse yourself in their stories.  As the year comes to a close, so does the very first run of our Financial Inclusion programme here at My Moon Landing. Over the past two months, we had the pleasure of interacting with our participants from London and Glasgow, as well as being a part of the incredible learning process that took place over the course of the programme.
My Moon Landing’s Financial Inclusion programme aims to provide Black women with the indispensable support and advice they need to kick-start planning for their personal financial future. In our final session in the month of November, titled “Financial Analysis”, we discussed the difference between income and wealth, and how to slowly but steadily improve your financial habits to increase both. With the help of our Financial Expert Fi Titus, participants went through the details of comprehensive personal budgeting tools, to keep track of day-to-day expenses while also planning for the future. |