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A12 BUSINESS
Wednesday 17 august 2022

Millennial Money: A scarcity money

mindset can cost you

anxious about the short
term, it’s hard to plan a
few years or even months
ahead.
You may even make inef-
fective or risky moves to try
to lock in some wins. “Every
product you see out there
is a potential solution for
you,” says George Blount,
founder of nBalance Finan-
cial, a financial therapy
and wellness practice in
Boston. “The lottery’s going
U.S. $100 bills are seen, Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Marple Town- to look a lot better. Crypto-
ship, Pa. currency is going to look a
Associated Press lot better.” But cryptocur-
rency may or may not be
By SARA RATHNER of Nerd- the private testing phase. a good fit for your overall
Wallet “Everyone who’s here had financial picture, and only
We all saw it at grocery an ancestor who benefited one lucky person won that
stores in 2020. The shelves, from a scarcity mindset.” billion-dollar payout. Unless
once brimming with toi- But when a scarcity mind- you’re reading this from a
let paper and hand soap, set isn’t rooted in a real lounge chair on your new
were bare. We hid in our need to avoid hungry li- superyacht, it probably
homes, deep-cleaning ons or preserve a season’s wasn’t you.
every surface, occasion- worth of food without refrig- HOW TO PUT YOUR FEAR TO
ally braving the threat of eration, it can work against WORK
COVID-19 to hunt down you, persuading you to Though anxiety feels aw-
the last remaining bottle of make financial choices ful, it can be a productive
hand sanitizer in a 50-mile that aren’t actually in your emotion that spurs you into
radius. We felt out of con- best interest. action. Reading through
trol, so we controlled what THE EMOTIONAL AND FI- some recent bank and
we could: the contents of NANCIAL EFFECTS OF A credit card statements, for
our kitchens and bathroom SCARCITY MINDSET example, can give you a
cabinets. Factors beyond your con- better sense of where your
Today, this fear of scarcity trol, like inflation or supply money goes each month
plays out differently, due chain shortages, can limit and where you might be
to rising prices, a volatile your access to the things able to cut back on spend-
stock market and whispers you need and make it ing. Setting up automatic
of a looming recession. harder to achieve your fi- money transfers into an
We’ve simply rolled one nancial goals. “You can emergency savings ac-
set of worries into another, imagine it’s not a very count can help you feel
continuing to assume all pleasant place to be, to more confident that you’ll
our resources are scarce, be kind of on guard, think- be able to handle an un-
whether that’s true for us ing that you’ve got to keep expected expense. Or per-
or not. If the current situa- everything that you have, haps you update your re-
tion has you avoiding any that you’re going to lose it sume because you’re wor-
long-term planning or fear- in some way,” says Susan ried about layoffs at your
ing spending any money, Greenhalgh, an accred- company. Whether or not
even on things you need, ited financial counselor that ends up happening,
you’re experiencing a and founder of Mind Your you’ll be prepared to job
scarcity mindset. This basi- Money LLC in Providence, hunt at a moment’s notice.
cally means you view your Rhode Island. “That’s kind What’s not productive is
resources like money, food of a vigilant standpoint, obsessively tracking stock
and employment opportu- and that’s a very difficult prices, falling for get-rich-
nities as limited. And when standpoint to enjoy life quick schemes or constant-
you’re concerned about from.” The ongoing stress ly monitoring the news.
access to these things, it’s can cause you to hold onto There’s a lot of yelling, of-
natural to want to grab cash in a savings account ten by people who don’t
onto whatever you can. because you’re afraid to totally understand what’s
At times, this impulse is use- invest, potentially limiting going on but have opin-
ful. “It helped humans sur- your ability to grow your ions about it anyway.
vive back in the day when net worth over time. Or you Give yourself the time and
we faced existential threats could take the opposite space to determine what
from nature,” says Court- approach, spending mon- you truly need and value,
ney Cardin, co-founder of ey like there’s no tomorrow so you can set appropriate
Aura Finance, a financial because you worry items money goals and make a
wellness and investment you need will disappear plan if things don’t go the
platform that’s currently in from stores. When you’re way you hope they will.q