The biggest stressor for individuals is money matters. If you don’t feel in control of your finances, your finances can control you and take over.

There is nothing worse than trying to get through the day or trying to get to sleep and feeling stressed about money matters. Surprisingly if this sounds familiar you are not alone. Most of us do spend a large part of our day thinking about financial matters, in fact studies show we spend 3-4 hours of our working week thinking about money.

When money matters begin to affect your mental health, the easy option is to ignore it or pretend it isn’t happening. Leaving your mail unopened or carrying on spending and/or borrowing won’t solve anything. They’ll just make things worse. If cash is a concern and is making your days difficult, impacting your relationships confronting the reality can help lift the burden.

Here are four ways that can address your money worries:

  • Talk to someone
    • Suffering alone adds to the pressure. Share the situation with friends or family if you can
      独自承受烦恼会增加压力。如果有机会，与朋友或家人分享您的困扰
    • Get a clear view on your situation
    • If you’ve completely lost track of your spending, and you are feeling lost it’s even harder to find a way out. Though it could be scary to see the true extent of your problems, a simple budget will clearly show you how much you spend and where. There could be some simple ‘quick wins’; areas where you can instantly find places to save or cut back on. A proper perspective on the situation may leave you thinking the situation is not as bad as you thought it was.
  • Take it one step at a time
    • If there are so many outstanding bills and you feel overwhelmed by what to do next, take a deep breath and stop. Address one thing at a time, break your money matters into bite size pieces. You can address one bill at time, then move on to the next, and so on until you feel able to look at the bigger picture. Focus first on the priority expenses such as rent, food and utilities.
  • Make some simple changes
  • Though some of your money worries might be big, you might ease the pressure with some small and simple changes. You could free up extra cash by switching your phone company or changing to a discount supermarket or shopping online and limit yourself to buying the necessary.

You might be able to raise some money by selling things on online or at garage sales.

Money worries concerns all of us, some more than others. It’s important to acknowledge you have these and start taking small, positive steps to turn your situation around.

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