Personal Finance Is Rife with Anxiety - Here’s How a Financial Advisor Can Help
Photo: Unsplash
Diana Yanez, an investment manager with Natural Investments and money coach, wants to remind you of one thing: “We’ve all had overdraft fees, forgotten we signed up for a recurring charge, loaned money to a friend that didn’t get paid back.”
This is part of anyone’s financial path—little mistakes and decisions that can cause anxiety and shame to spiral. Financial health is a critical concern of mental health, especially in the current economy.
According to a Gallup survey from April, a record 55% of Americans say their financial situation is worsening. This is the fifth consecutive year that most adults said their finances are deteriorating, rather than improving. It is also affecting people of all ages. From 2025 to 2026, students who cited financial costs as a major concern for attending college rose by 16 points.
“When we find ourselves under deep internal pressure and a spiral of self-doubt, our cognitive cortex goes offline,” Yanez explains. “We’re in fight or flight mode.”
Taking the time to better your financial literacy, work with a financial advisor, and look at your situation holistically is worth it in the long run. In this article, Yanez outlines the steps and questions to get you started on a healthier financial future.
Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisor
Throughout her years in the financial industry, Yanez has heard similar questions and concerns from clients across the spectrum:
Will I be able to earn enough money to reach my goals? Can I earn money while staying true to my values of environmental care and social justice?
I feel ashamed of how little I’ve managed to save for myself at my age, especially given my formal training and job position. Getting through the day to day has been all I can manage.
I’ve reached my retirement age and my retirement goal! Will it work out, though? What needs to be done to manage all of this well?
I don’t understand any of this financial jargon and honestly, I don’t want to. I feel intimidated and so far behind.
“All of these situations are wildly different, yet I always recommend people start with the same step: What is your ideal goal for this issue?”
Diana Yanez. Photo: Provided
Yanez gives an example of a common financial anxiety: managing tight cash flow. There is plenty of advice around safety nets and savings, like having enough to cover bills, 10-15% saved for the future or emergencies, and fun money.
The next step is gathering data. Yanez says it’s important to look at everything, from your current expenses to how much you’re saving, what expenses are coming up, and beyond. She calls this “getting clear on your starting point.” It gets you situated in the present to understand how far you are from your goal and what a manageable next step could look like.
“The next step is going to depend on your situation but regardless, keep breaking down the next step into its smallest component.”
If you want to try out a budgeting app, it might sound like simply downloading and beginning. Yanez lays out what this looks like in steps: see what apps are available → research the apps for their features, pros, and cons → test a few out → make it a habit to use the one you decide on, or try again if it doesn’t work.
Finance is daunting and complex. It’s why so many of us would rather talk about anything else. Breaking up your goals into tiny steps makes it much more manageable. The first step is hard, but there are a lot of tools and professionals out there to help.
Undoing the Shame of Personal Finance
Most people will face financial anxiety or shame at some point in their life. To help face these challenges, Yanez recommends not just an ethical financial advisor, but a financial therapist. The Financial Therapy Association is an organization with mental health professionals dedicated to matters of finance.
Determining your end goal will help you prioritize what is truly important, whether that’s reaching a certain threshold of your savings, switching to ethical investing, or anything else.
“Sometimes we have fifteen vague criteria in our head that define success, but when we get down to the true kernel, there are only three important things, only two of which are within our control.”
Yanez compares a person’s financial journey to a flight. “Because of earth’s rotating and wind currents, many one-degree adjustments will be needed.” Just like evolving life circumstances, financial health is not one-size-fits-all—not even for the same person at every point in their life.
It is a difficult time financially, to be sure. Inflation continues to rise, while wages have remained stagnant for decades. A financial plan, with the aid of a professional advisor, app, or something else, goes a long way in easing financial anxiety for today and tomorrow.