‘Shame is the number one feeling people associate with money’

Can we agree that telling people to spend less and save/invest more isn’t enough to create better money habits? Many people know what to do, but for a variety of reasons they can’t get there. Personal finance expert Jessica Moorhouse looks into some of those reasons in her new book, Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom. Here’s an e-mail Q&A I did recently with Ms. Moorhouse about her book:

Q: Jessica, let me start by giving you an opportunity to introduce yourself to readers who don’t already know you

A: It all started when I hit publish on my first personal finance blog in 2011. After graduating with a film degree during the Great Recession, I was desperate to learn how to pay off my student loans and stop living like a broke college student. That’s when I discovered personal finance books and blogs and from that moment on I was hooked. I had no idea it would eventually lead me to quit my corporate career in marketing in 2017 so I could launch my own financial education company. I’m now entering my eighth year as a full-time financial content creator, media commentator, public speaker, financial counsellor and now author and have never been more passionate about educating Canadians about money.

Q: Congrats on the new book, which is something fresh in a field full of people saying a lot of the same things over and over. Can you tell us how you came to write a book about the emotions that drive money behaviour?

A: Having interviewed hundreds of authors on the More Money Podcast, I’ve read countless personal finance books over the past decade. And you’re right. Often they are just saying the same thing in a slightly different way. But what almost none of them explore is why some people still struggle with their finances when it’s not a lack of money or financial literacy.

As a financial counsellor, what I started noticing early on was that most people’s struggles with money aren’t actually about money. They’re about everything but money (hence the book title). There are a ton of internal and external barriers, including trauma, attachment style, human behaviour and unjust social systems that are holding people back from achieving financial freedom. Yet these barriers are often invisible to the naked eye or ignored in mainstream financial advice. I wanted to write a book that addressed these barriers head-on and allowed the reader to finally feel seen.

Q: You write a lot about the feelings of shame people have about money. The thing about personal finance is that you can never be perfect – there is always more to do and improve. How do you convince people to be easier on themselves, to celebrate the wins more than they regret the mistakes?

A: Based on my research, shame is the number one feeling people associate with money. And it can be incredibly destructive. Shame can keep you frozen in time, fearful of making another wrong move. It can also prevent you from ever feeling satisfied with your finances no matter how much you achieve. When shame plays a major role in your money story, you’ll never feel good enough. Who wants to live like that?

My book helps readers discover where this feeling of shame comes from so they can learn how to detach it from their money. After all, your self-worth shouldn’t be determined by how much you earn or how much money you have (despite what society may say). You are more than your money, and that’s one of the biggest takeaways I hope to leave readers with.

Q: I see the term FOMO – fear of missing out – being used a lot to explain over-spending. What can you tell people to help them resist the idea that they have to spend to keep up and be their best selves?

A: FOMO is a short and sweet way to “explain” why people over-spend, but my research shows it’s deeper than that. When people over-spend, it’s usually because they are trying to solve a problem. For instance, something might trigger them into becoming emotionally dysregulated, and their go-to way to self-soothe is to buy something for that dopamine hit. Or maybe they have a big need for attention because they experienced neglect growing up, so booking a last-minute trip to Mexico and blasting it all over social media is their way of filling that void by garnering “Likes.” Or maybe they grew up in a very financially restrictive household, so their way of breaking free is by having no boundaries with their money in adulthood. So I’d ask readers to look beyond FOMO, as catchy as the acronym is, if they really want to know what’s causing them to consistently over-spend.

Q: You talk in the book about trauma and how it can influence feelings about money. It got me thinking that, more than I’ve ever seen before, there’s a divide between people who are financially thriving and those who are struggling with the high cost of living. How traumatizing is it to live through a period where you may not be able to buy all the food you need and pay the mortgage?

A: It can be incredibly traumatizing living in a state of not having enough to meet your needs. There’s a section in the book that addresses how financial traumas (traumas caused by a financial event like being laid off, being underemployed or getting evicted) can have a lasting impact on you afterwards. You may even be carrying the financial traumas of your parents from childhood if you were there to witness them. We may think the only way to overcome these financial traumas is to simply rise out of that financial state by increasing your income, decreasing your expenses or both. But that only solves the money part. Money can’t heal your psychological wounds. Only therapy can help you process these traumas so you can move past them once and for all.

Q: You mention in the book, as others have before, that people are uncomfortable talking about money. And yet, we have more personal finance voices – influencers, bloggers, writers – than ever before. What’s missing? Why is money still such a difficult subject?

A: I love that there are more voices in the personal finance space now compared to when I got started in my 20s. But you can’t forget, these voices still exist in a bubble. The majority of Canadians have no idea about things like FinTok and aren’t running to the bookstore to grab the latest personal finance book. In most circles, money is still taboo and only discussed in hushed voices. This is because, as I mentioned before, too often we connect money with things like shame and self-worth, so to talk about money openly is an incredibly vulnerable and uncomfortable thing to do.

But these are the people I wanted to connect with. There’s a reason I told my publisher I didn’t want anything too obviously “money” on the cover of my book (no coins, bills or piggy banks!). I wanted my book to attract those readers looking for a self-help book who were curious about their relationship with money, but might also be intimidated by it.

Q: I’d like to hear about your work as an Accredited Financial Counsellor. Can you start by telling us what the designation involves?

A: I got my Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada designation at the start of 2018 and what drew me to the program was its emphasis on counselling and human connection. I didn’t just want to learn about financial planning, I wanted to learn how to create lasting change in my clients’ financial lives by listening to what they weren’t saying and helping them beyond just setting up a budget. Although since then I’ve been working to obtain my Qualified Associate Financial Planner (QAFP) designation, which I hope to complete this spring, the programs are completely different. The QAFP and CFP programs focus on the numbers. The AFCC focuses on the human behind the numbers.

Q: Who are your clients, and what have you learned about money from talking to them?

A: In general, my biggest demographic is women between 30 to 50 years old. Although I aim to be a safe space for anyone at any age or background, that’s the demographic I’ve naturally attracted over the years. What have I learned from talking to them? Everyone has a money story that started at a very young age. In the book, I walk readers through an exercise to elicit their first money memory because the only way to build a healthier relationship with money moving forward is to deconstruct the old one. We need to know where it all started so we can see what things we need to leave in the past, what things we need to heal from and what things we should bring with us into the future.

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