She Inherited Money but Still Felt Scarcity—How Jeanie Broke Free

Monday Money Missive

My dear Kindred Spirit,

Jeanie* prided herself on being able to make do with very little and, at the same time, she would lament that there was never enough.

She was a single mom in her 40’s with two pre-teen kids, who frequently ignored her her own needs in order to provide for her kids. She was constantly working, and if she managed to bring in any extra, something would happen: the dog would get sick, the catalytic converter would die, the kids would need expensive sports equipment… you get the picture.

The second she got ahead on a bill or put some money in the bank, she was holding her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always, always did.  

And then one day, the news she’d been praying for came. She found out she was inheriting money from an aunt she barely knew. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it was more than she had ever made in a year.

Fairy tale ending, right?

Not exactly.

If it had been about the numbers, receiving that windfall would have changed everything. Jeanie could have stopped living “paycheck to prayer to paycheck” as she called it, set up a healthy emergency fund, paid off her credit cards, invested the remaining money, and breathed a sigh of relief. 

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, she became fearful of mishandling the money. She plopped it in a low-interest savings account and didn’t touch it. She didn’t upgrade her life in any way. In fact, having the money only added to her anxiety.

I give Jeanie a ton of credit. She didn’t get rid of the money in order to go back to what was comfortable, as mega-lottery winners often do.

She realized she had a scarcity mindset and set out to change it.

She tried affirmations.

She tried listening to financial podcasts, which she found boring.

She tried to read a couple of personal finance books, which only served to confuse her more and reinforce the feeling that the money was a burden.

Of all of these things, she found the affirmations most helpful, because they were soothing. But, if she was honest, she would have to admit that nothing really changed. She still didn’t know what to do.

And she didn’t feel like she could talk to anyone about this, either. It was all one big shameful secret.

Finally, she shared her worries with a coworker whom she noticed had stopped complaining about money some time ago, and generally seemed more relaxed. That coworker happened to be my client, and she sent Jeanie to me.

I asked Jeanie to start paying attention to the stories she was telling herself about the inheritance, and her ability to handle the windfall. For a week, she wrote down every negative belief.

When she saw them all on paper, she said, “With all of this running through my head, every hour of every day, how could I have expected things to be any different!?!” She agreed to start cutting herself some slack.

For us as women, money is often an emotional subject. It’s not just math. It’s tied up in our self-worth, in our relationship to power, in our ability to care for our children, and our sense of safety.

Our belief that we don’t have enough is intertwined with our belief that we aren’t enough.

The result is that we feel like we’re living on the edge no matter how much we have in our bank account (like Jeanie did, even after the inheritance), and feel powerless to create change. Our nervous systems take a huge hit on the daily when life feels that way. And when that happens, we’re deepening those scarcity grooves in our brains, and reinforcing the neural pathways that scream “danger!” to us when they are activated.

This can feel overwhelming to tackle. So we start like Jeanie did, and we take small steps. If you’re struggling with a scarcity mindset, start with observing your self-talk. Do you tell yourself over and over again that there’s never enough?  

Ask yourself: What’s the truth here? Am I truly on the verge of homelessness? Is it true that I’m hopeless with money?

If you have enough to eat, and enough to pay for rent, heat and lights, and for decent transportation, then you’re doing quite well at meeting your basic needs. Start by noticing that and celebrating it.

Celebrate every single bill you pay on time.

Write down every resource you have (including relationships) and celebrate those. If the list is short, invest some time and effort in adding to it.

Set a small goal, something that’s a tiny stretch, and once you meet it, celebrate that!

Notice every shred of evidence that you’re resourceful and good with money, and use that reality to change the story you’re telling yourself. When you can internalize this, the story upgrades and so does your life. 

Just ask Jeanie. She now owns a successful business, a cozy home, and a rental property. She has no credit card debt, and when I checked in with her last week, she reported that what she currently feels around money is “ease.”

Was the journey easy? No. It took nearly five years of one-on-one coaching and dedicated effort. It took slowly upgrading her beliefs and her skills and her network in order to grow her net worth.

Was it worth it? I asked her this, too, and she said, “Absolutely!”

wishing us all freedom from money anxiety,

Laura

 *Jeanie is not her real name.