What should you spend your money on? How effective is therapy at increasing happiness? The latest research from the Journal of Health Economics, Policy and Law ( Boyce and Wood) has an article entitled Money or Mental Health: Alleviating Psychological Distress with Monetary Compensation versus Psychological Therapy. This research analyzed data sets where thousands of people gave reports on their well-being. They compared well-being ratings for subjects who got a 4 month course of psychotherapy to the ratings of those who had a sudden increase in income through winnings and pay raises. The...

Last Friday night the Healing Money Issues program was featured on ABC’s 20/20. This is a 5 day live-in program at a retreat center in Tennessee that works with clients on money issues. I worked in this program as an assistant last november and learned a lot . Here is a link to the video if you would like to see it.  Healing Money Issues On another note, I am starting my women and money ongoing group this fall. This is a group for women only as all the research and my personal experience leads me to believe that women work best on subjects that are considered “Male-expert” (math,...

This is a particularly difficult time for teens whose families have been hit hard with the economic changes. Why especially hard for teens? This is a time when teens want to break away from their families more and turn to the peer group. Yet if the family is in crisis, it becomes very hard to break away just when everyone needs to pull together. So the changes work against the developmental task of the teen years. It is also possible that being with the peer group would involve money that is no longer available .To go out to eat or on field trips or other youth activities requires money that the...

This is a strange and frightening time for so many of my patients, colleagues and friends. Those of us who have not yet been hit by the downturn are waiting to see when it will happen to us as well. Most of us have already experienced significant losses in our feelings of security and well-being. The money losses we point to in the stock market symbolize this for us, even if we have not yet sold anything at a loss; we are concerned about the futures we had planned. Money losses are very painful. In fact the money research shows that we feel significantly more pain ( about twice as much) over money...

If you are one of the many Americans currently facing a downward turn in your lifestyle, you may be concerned about the impact on your children. Whether the changes are due to the high costs of living, a job or business loss or an unsustainable mortgage, your life and therefore your children’s lives will be changing. Recent research in the field of behavioral economics tells us that losses are twice as painful as gains are pleasurable. Learning how to cope with loss is a major life skill and challenge and your children will be watching to see how you handle it. This is how they will learn...

It is important to be able to talk openly with your children about money and the money in the family. Sometimes the only time children hear the word is in the context of conflict, as when parents are arguing or they are being denied a treat. Having open talks begins to break the money taboo and teaches them that this an acceptable subject for a conversation, not just for an argument. The concepts important to teach include how to spend wisely, how to save, how to invest and to accept that there are others in the world who have a different amount of money, both more and less than they do. Discussing...

I have noticed a huge increase in the number of Gen X and Y bloggers who are blogging to get out of debt. Here are just a few of the sites I have visited in the past week: www.lazymandmoney.com www.mymint.com www.stopbuyingcrap.com www.poorerthanyou.com www.bostongalsopenwallet.com www.bloggingawaydebt.com The last one also connects you to ncnnetwork.com where you can set up a chart to show and tell your progress as you pay down your debts. It’s great that the internet is being used for this kind of sharing and accountability. It increases your motivation as you imagine your “public”...

Well Suze O’s theory is that women are so busy nurturing others that they have little left over to care for themselves. That is true some of the time. But there are also lots of young single women who do have enough time and energy but do not spend it on learning about money managment. Where does the resistance come from? I think from my own analysis that many women are willing to trade competence for the feeling of “being taken care of” and loved by having their money managed by someone else…and if no one else is there to do it, they would prefer not to be reminded of that....

The most recent research shows that both men and women are now equally likely to become compulsive spenders..about 5% of our US population seems to have difficulty in this area. Men and women tend to overspend on different things with men likely to overspend on electronics, autos, tools,etc and women likely to spend on clothing, gifts, make-up and items for their children. One factor that has increased compulsive spending is that there are no longer the kinds of external limits imposed on debt that once were in place. Easy credit has made it possible to get into deeper debt holes than used to be...

Many people who have money have not really thought out how to be responsibly generous to their family and friends who may have work and/or money dysfunctions. Because women often are the caretakers of the less functional members of their families, this is an issue especially but not exclusively for women. Being responsibly generous means not allowing dysfunctions to continue unaddressed. The feelings surrounding poorly executed giving tend to sound like the following: I resent giving but feel obligated because if I have it, I should give it;I feel as though I am throwing my money down a black hole...