Hi and welcome to The Ladybird Purse, my weekly newsletter about women and money. I’m not a financial advisor and am in no way qualified to give financial advice. Or any other kind of advice, let’s face it.
I was scrolling Instagram the other day, as I do for an hour or six most days, when I happened on this post about "Financial Fawning". Oh no, I thought before I’d even read any further.
For years I’d only ever heard of the fight, flight, freeze stress responses and none of them resonated with me. Maybe freeze a bit? Flight, possibly, but not really? Definitely not fight (I’m a lover not a fighter). And then one day I read about the fourth: fawn. And… yeah.
When it feels safer to be submissive and obedient than fight or flee, people may turn to the fawn stress response. Most similar to the freeze response, "fawning" causes someone to please and appease the needs of someone else, instead of prioritizing their own well-being.1
I am terrible at confrontation, but often when I’ve managed it in the past, it ends with me backing down and apologising (and usually making weak jokes, sigh). It’s always been something I’ve disliked about myself. But I’d never connected it with finances.
So wtf is Financial Fawning?
Coined by the brilliant Trauma of Money, the term refers to “using money as a tool to seek security and attachment, often through people-pleasing behaviors.”
I’ve never fully identified as a people-pleaser, but I’m learning that it’s part of my perfectionism. Such fun.
The Insta post continues:
Financial Fawning can show up in many ways, such as:
▪️ Underearning
▪️ Overspending to seek external validation or safety
▪️Workaholism
▪️ Financial rejection (not feeling worthy of having money)It also appears as financial avoidance, because guess what, friends? Fawning is exhausting, so what usually falls to the wayside is our own financial management.
I don’t relate to all of these, but I relate to enough. And if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, I bet you’re nodding too.
According to Trauma of Money, Financial Fawning is a common trauma response. And while I always feel like I’m being dramatic when I think about my own financial history as traumatic, something else this week reminded me that it is indeed.
I was listening to a guided meditation about money and I think the very first line was “I know you grew up in a house where money was a scary word.” And I immediately started to cry.
So. You know. Something to look into.
In the meantime, here’s something that made me laugh this week. I cancelled a subscription to an automatic savings app because a) I do not currently have an spare money to save, and b) when I do, it’s going elsewhere. Before letting me cancel, it gave me a little Spotify Wrapped summary of our time together, including this:
Cool. Thanks for that.
More PSAs!
I ordered a Rooster card for my 15yo last week. He’s had a bank card for a while, but he couldn’t use it for contactless. I was planning to wait until January when he can get a Monzo account, but then a friend recommended Rooster. You can manage it via the app, there’s parental controls, and also the child’s app has pots to separate money into spend, save and give. You can also set up chores and assign payments for them. If you sign up with the code 6SNRQ-J I get £10. I might even share it with the 15yo (I won’t).
I know I’ve mentioned Too Good To Go before, but ages ago, and you probably know about it anyway, but just in case. We’ve had two bags in the past week and they were both great value. Paid £3 and got around £20 of stuff. So it’s definitely worth checking out. (We also had one that the shop cocked up, but it would have been ten packs of beef jerky, so it was not a problem.)
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An interview with Natalie Lue
Natalie Lue, 46, is a boundaries and relationship coach who‘s the creator of one of the longest running self-help blogs in the world, Baggage Reclaim, and The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast. She also writes the On Knowing Yourself newsletter.
The England-born, Ireland-raised author helps people understand how their emotional baggage is interfering with their ability to live their lives happily and authentically. Natalie’s authored five books, including Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl and The Joy of Saying No.
What is your relationship with money currently?
I’ve long noticed that regardless of circumstances, I always have low-level anxiety about money. It mirrors the relationship I had with each of my parents — don’t feel entirely safe with it, not trusting that it can have my back, feeling like when things are great money wise, pat on the back, but when they’re not (or there’s a sense of needing to hustle), then it’s feeling rejected, neglected and abandoned.
I’m currently in the process of digging back into doing some work around money after feeling like money and I have regressed a bit. Let’s say we’re in couples therapy!
What’s your earliest money memory?
This is tricky, and I suspect it contributed to why I sat with these questions for a while. There are always two that spring to mind as the answer, and I’m not sure which is first. I’m around three/four, and sometimes bill collectors come to the door. If myself and my little bro aren’t made to hide behind the sofa with my mother and pretend no one’s home, it’s my job to go to the door and explain she’s not there.
The other is, how shall we say, my mother being very vocal about the fact that our father wasn’t paying child support and feeling burdensome.
What advice would you give your younger self about money?
Connect with your feelings before sudden urges to spend and connect with your ‘why’. Yes, you’re not that kid anymore and you have more freedom, flexibility and money than you grew up with, and it’s also okay to say no to yourself sometimes.
What’s the biggest money mistake you’ve made?
When I was mid-twenties and in a dark place, I built up credit card debt avoiding my feelings. Never missed any payments, but was mostly paying the minimum and burying my head in the sand. Then there were some big expenses mid-thirties around house move and wedding, so I added more to the debt and managed it in the same manner, while also grappling with feelings of shame around it.
I no longer have any debt after paying it all off in autumn 2021.
Could you talk more about that? How did you pay it off? How did you feel once it was gone? Do you have debt again now or are you against it?
After receiving the first payment from my book deal for The Joy of Saying No, I cleared my and my husband’s debt in September 2021 just one week shy of a five-year deadline I’d given myself (and then forgotten about). It felt really good to do it for us both and also daunting. I let the money sit in my account for a few days and then quite enjoyed making the payments. It did feel like a weight had been lifted. I made sure to thank myself for being able to do it.
I have one of those British Airways AMEX that I use for pretty much everything and pay it off in full most months. I’m not against debt. I think the general conversation around it has tended to be quite shaming and privileged. When we judge our or other people’s debt, we need to check in with our biases and stories, particularly around who’s “lazy”, good (or not good) with money” and what we think it means about people, especially minority groups and those who aren’t born into money or don’t have a safety net.
What I’ve learned from using AMEX for a couple of years or so is that I can and want to make bigger payments or pay off in full wherever possible.
What’s the best thing you’ve ever spent money on?
I’d say it’s my studio space at the end of our garden. On the day we moved in almost ten years ago, I remember us going out to the almost barn-looking space that was built as a garage in the 60s/70s and being shocked at how big it was now that it was empty. For years, we couldn’t quite work out what to do, and we were quoted some costly options. My little brother then attempted his own refurb.
After a large windfall from royalties I didn’t realise I’d accrued, I decided to go all in and refurbish the existing structure. I’ve been in it for five years, and it’s played a significant role in my creative expression, particularly realising that I needed to return to my artist self. A couple of summers back, I splashed out on custom-built storage too.
My alternative answer to this was sending my daughters to private school for the last few years of primary when my eldest had been struggling at her local state school. Rebuilt her confidence and both benefitted hugely from being in a small class environment for that period.
Do you have a pension? If not, do you have a plan?
No. I’m investigating what’s in my pension pot from previous jobs. Apparently, I also need to check back home in Ireland, too. I have a semi plan. Will sort pension this year, but also looking at what options I have.
What would you do with £10,000?
At the moment, I’d refurb our two upstairs bathrooms, which we’ve kept putting off and had the money to do a number of times but just haven’t got around to it because we hadn’t settled on our vision.
What little luxury could you get with a tenner?
Book!
If you were me, what would you want to ask women about money?
How did their parents’ relationship with money, particularly their mother’s, impact their attitude toward money?
RELATED POSTS:
What Is the Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn Response? (health.com)
What a beautiful and important post Keris! Thanks to Natalie for her brilliant honestly too.
I love that question you ask about earliest memories. Always fascinating to see how the links are revealed between the past and the present. And I’m definitely going to have to learn more about fawning (financial & otherwise).