Financial Anxiety: The Holiday Pest That No One Invited, And Yet It Comes Every Year.
- Dr. Crystal Agyei
- Dec 12
- 3 min read
Let’s talk about Financial Anxiety during the Christmas season.
Every December, something strange happens.
We go from “everyday money worries” to holiday-induced frenzy.
We start buying gifts like it’s our job.
We avoid checking our bank accounts until the new year.
We rationalize everything through girl math:
“It’s basically free because it’s on sale.”
“If I return one thing, I can buy three more.”
“If future me pays for it, present me gets the joy.”
And then January arrives…and you’re wondering what the ___ did you do?
If this feels familiar, let’s talk. Because holiday financial anxiety isn’t a budgeting problem—it’s a nervous system problem camouflaged as generosity.
Financial Anxiety Isn’t About the Money—It’s About Meaning
Here’s the truth: Money doesn’t create chaos. Your relationship with money does.
Most people don’t overspend because they lack discipline. They overspend because they are:
trying to compensate for childhood lack,
trying to avoid feeling cheap or disappointing,
trying to recreate the magic they never had,
trying to soothe discomfort with “doing more,”
trying to prove they’re doing enough,
or living out the money rules their parents handed them without examination.
Financial anxiety isn’t about dollars—it’s about stories, survival strategies, and personal leadership.
And the holidays? They activate every single story at once.
How Our Parents’ Money Stories Hijack Christmas
If you grew up in a home where:
money meant instability
money was taboo
gifts equaled love
frugality equaled virtue
spending was labeled “dangerous,”
…then your adult nervous system isn’t thinking about your actual bank balance.
It’s reacting to their relationship with money. It wants to compensate.
And Here’s the Hard Truth: Financial Anxiety Creates More Financial Problems
This is the self-reinforcing loop:
Anxiety → Avoidance
You don’t check statements, you don’t track spending, you don’t confront reality.
Avoidance → Overspending
You emotionally overcompensate with gifts, décor, outings, matching pajamas, and Amazon carts of questionable necessity.
Overspending → Shame
January is a shame hangover with receipts.
Shame → More Anxiety
Which leads to more avoidance.
Rinse and repeat.
Your nervous system is trying to protect you. But it’s accidentally making your financial reality harder.
Financial Peace Requires Neutralizing Money
Before any budget, any spending plan, any cash envelope system—you need one thing: A regulated nervous system and a neutral relationship with money.
Money cannot be:
a villain
a savior
a threat
a source of identity,
a marker of success.
Money is a tool. A resource to steward—not fear, worship, or prove yourself with. When you neutralize money, you stop assigning it moral weight. You stop reenacting your parents’ patterns.You stop spending to soothe emotional wounds.
You finally start making decisions from grounded clarity rather than nervous system chaos.
A Grounded Approach to Christmas Spending
Let’s regulate the system before the spending:
Be open to asking yourself – are physical gifts necessary? Is there an opportunity to forego the accumulation of stuff from a Marshalls trip and gift something else instead?
Pause before any purchase. Ask, “Is this coming from joy or from pressure?”
Create a ‘Financial Safety Ritual.' A cup of tea.A deep breath.A grounding practice. Then open the app.
Rewrite an inherited money belief. Pick one from childhood and challenge it.(Your system can’t steward money wisely while following outdated rules.)
Decide what enough looks like before you shop. If you don’t define “enough,” your nervous system never finds the bottom.
What Healing Looks Like With Money
Imagine this relationship with money:
spending without panic
generosity without depletion
checking your accounts without bracing
separating your worth from your wallet
stewarding resources with clarity
giving from fullness instead of fear
That’s the real gift.
If This Hits Home… You Don’t Have to Navigate It Alone
Financial anxiety, especially during the holidays, can feel overwhelming.But it’s not a personal failing. It’s a nervous system pattern that can be healed.
At Route to Respite, we support individuals through:
lifestyle medicine tools
therapy
nervous-system regulation
emotional processing
retreats designed for grounding, clarity, and restoration
If you feel stuck in the overwhelm, reach out. Let’s help you build a healthier, calmer relationship with money so you can enter the next year with peace, not another spending hangover.
Email routetorespite@gmail.com today or fill out the form below.
Comments