Welcome back to another Sci -Fi episode where
psychology and finances intersect. Today we're
going to examine how we think, feel, and behave
with money as it revolves around financial stress
and what it can lead to. September is Suicide
Awareness and Prevention Month, so I thought
it was... timely to present some statistics that
we received. And this is not just important for
military, but it's also important for all civilian
populations. And I'll explain why in just a moment.
But where I got this data, I got this data from
two different sources. One is an article by the
University of Georgia. There was an article written
by Jane Roberts on how financial stress affects
mental health. And this covers all of the civilian
population, but namely students and what they
have seen and a particular social worker has
seen in the student population. But I will tell
you that both as a licensed professional counselor
and as an accredited financial counselor, financial
stress impacts all. age groups. So I want you
to be sure that you are definitely the right
listener for today's episode. The other source
of information is going to be coming from the
Defense Suicide Prevention Office. There were
two epidemiologists that spoke at a one -op.
continuing education seminar. And I thought to
myself as I was listening, this is definitely
something I need to share with the masses because
the information is just something that will get
us to think differently about how we are approaching
our finances and why understanding finances,
why Building financial knowledge, building financial
literacy, and building financial skill serves
as a huge buffer to not only mental health issues,
but also to suicide. All right, so let me first
talk about this article with the University of
Georgia today. So a famous social worker, I guess,
at the University of Georgia, his name is Gadov
Sina or Sina. And he stated that there are several
young adults where financial stressors are not
just about repayment plans and interest rates.
It starts with very simple things before you
even become. a full -fledged adult. And it can
lead to, if unchecked, to mental health challenges.
And some of the examples that he provided are
things that I talk about at length in the sci
-fi classes that I present, but also in these
episodes on the podcast. And one of them is the
burden And he talks specifically about the age
range between 18 and 34. And he talks about it
triggering a spectrum, not just one singular,
but a spectrum of mental health issues. And in
a couple episodes down the line, I have for you
some information on economic abuse. and the outcome
of financial abuse or economic abuse, which is
depression, just to give it away. But for this
age group with debt specifically, ages 18 to
34, sight, stress, anxiety, and severe depression
as some of the outcomes of these over -indebtedness
issues, or even if it's not over -indebtedness,
indebtedness, just the burden of debt alone.
And he talks about some of the ways that this
age group are incurring debt. And one of those
is through credit cards, car loans, student loans.
But let me speak specifically about student loans
just to start off. I do understand that there
are going to be first -generation students who
did not have parents or anyone within their immediate
family who attended college. I was that person.
I was a college student. I didn't know the difference
between a quarter hour or a semester hour. I
struggled when I filled out college applications.
It was very difficult for me. And along the same
lines, I did not know much about student loans.
I did know that there were resources that were
available for books and certain types of tuition
assistance and even the work program. But I didn't
have a lot of knowledge about the actual student
loan program. And this is where I really feel
for this generation or these younger. Adults
that are just coming in and don't know much about
responsible borrowing. A lot of times they have
a carrot dangled right in front of them. There's
a financial stressor that presented itself. Oh,
I don't have enough to meet my car note or I
don't have enough for food. But there's this
beautiful dangling carrot. Where all the students
are talking about, oh, well, student loans isn't
just for tuition, isn't just for books. It's
for everything that you might need while on campus
or off campus, anything that's going to help
you be successful in achieving your degree. Oh,
that's the wrong way to look at student loans.
It becomes irresponsible borrowing. When you're
putting more things on there that are now allowing
for you to live a particular lifestyle that you
prefer and want rather than the lifestyle that
could have just satisfied or what you needed.
So he talks about how this student loan stress
is really impacting this age group. Not only
that, but credit cards. At this age, particularly
from age 18 to around 22, there are these credit
card companies that are consistently sending
mail offers for credit cards, 0%. And if these
consumers at this young age do not fully understand
credit, they're likely to really get themselves
into a financial pickle pretty quickly, which
will lead to undue financial stress, which could
also lead to these mental health issues that
he's talking about. So what's driving this crisis?
Again, credit cards, student loans, and now let's
talk about car loans. It's hard enough for an
adult. with a fully developed brain to go in
to a car dealership and feel confident and comfortable
to make a deal. Oh, I know I have so many clients
that just brings a lot of undue stress in and
of itself. If only our 18 -year -olds, our 19
-year -olds, our 20 -year -olds If only they
knew all the tips and tricks of making that deal
and making an honest deal where they're not taken
to the cleaners and given a higher interest rate
than they really needed, or they promised other
things and rolled in some debt that they already
had and rolled that into long -term debt for
now a secure... creating or turning an unsecured
debt into secured debt. If you don't understand
all those terms, yeah, that's what these 18 to
34 -year -olds are experiencing as well. So there's
just this lack of financial knowledge, and this
is what this social worker was driving home.
The crisis is not the credit card. The crisis
is not the car loan. The crisis is not the student
loan. When used responsibly, all three of those
vehicles towards independent living and freedom,
financial freedom, they can be used as tools
to get there. But if not used responsibly, then
it leads to financial distress. So there's a
difference between stress and distress. Stress
is your run of the mill. Everyone knows you're
going to experience those stressors. We all have
financial stressors. But when we start to experience
financial distress, now all of our normal coping
strategies and things that have helped us to
overcome consistent negative thinking or looping
that causes depression where we get to actually
intercept the anxiety and the looping instead
of it becoming a full -fledged episode. Now we're
moving towards that full -fledged episode. So
those are the things that the author and this
social worker were talking about. Now, here is
something really interesting that I saw in this
article. I love that the social worker brings
to our attention that the crisis is the lack
of financial knowledge. And a survey is cited,
the TIAA, excuse me, let me start over. The TIAA
Institute in 2023 completed a survey with Americans.
Only, let's see, only certain Americans were
able to answer 48 % of the survey questions.
So many Americans are suffering from low financial
literacy. So let me just state what they said
here. I'll give the quote. On average, adults
could only answer 48 % of the survey questions.
What that tells me. is that simple personal financial
topics could not be explained, could not be defined,
and they simply could not answer the questions
correctly. You know, I would expect that with
investor or investment type questions, but for
personal finance, boy, we would want... folks
to have a firm grasp or understanding what kind
of consequence is involved with a cash advance
if you were to pull a cash advance on a credit
card is it a monthly interest rate or is it a
daily interest rate well let me go ahead and
put you out of your misery it is a daily interest
rate. And so that's the type of financial education
that we need to provide these folks. Just because
you have access to a credit card and therefore
have access to an ATM where you can pull a cash
advance doesn't necessarily mean it's a good
idea to do that. So this knowledge gap makes
every financial decision, and as the author stated,
feel overwhelming. It doesn't have to be overwhelming.
But there are these cognitive and affective burdens
and cognitive and affective just being fancy
words for thinking and feelings. So we put upon
ourselves all these burdens within our thought
processes and in our emotional state where we've
become overburdened and no longer have the mental
bandwidth to actually understand. our personal
finances because we are consumed by constant
worry and confusion. And so I'm sure there are
folks in the audience who are thinking, wow,
forget the 18 to 34 year old group. I'm 46 years
old and this is actually resounding with me.
I still struggle with understanding personal
finances. Well, you're not alone. So one of the
things this social worker stated is that preventing
financial stress begins with education. And he's
advocating for tailored financial literacy programs.
And lucky you, especially if you are a soldier
or a spouse tied to the military, an airman,
a sailor, a marine, you have access to these
financial literacy programs. So the military
has found this well before college campuses.
And it is now codified. It is. By -law training
that is available, not just available, but mandated
for the service members to have during each developmental
financial milestone. Entering the military. Vesting
and TSP or their thrift savings plan, the military's
401k, but it's truly a 403b. First marriage.
I shouldn't say first marriage. It's first, it's
marriage and then first child. So different financial
trainings for each developmental stage as these
military members and family members move throughout
their careers. Another thing that we want to
discuss when it comes to financial stress is
how we can acknowledge where we are. So it's
the same principle when someone finally picks
up the phone to call for a mental health appointment.
It's the same process where someone picks up
the phone to call for a financial appointment.
And let me explain that. So usually, Someone
will try their very best to learn on their own
or do on their own or experiment on their own
ad nauseum before introducing a complete stranger
into their life to help them. So usually what
happens is by the time they really needed help,
a full year or two years have gone by before
they actually set foot in your office. And this
is something good to know as a parent or an onlooker
who wants to help folks with their personal finances.
They're not coming in until all of their coping
strategies have completely failed them. But we
want to get you in. Before that happens, we want
you to talk to someone on campus or someone at
your installation, whether it's a military family
life counselor or someone like me, a financial
readiness program manager who can help you. untangle
all of that confusion that is surrounding your
finances so that you can actually start doing
something different. And if you don't have access
to someone like me, many banks provide free financial
education. Now, sure, banks will want to sell
you some of their products, but you just keep
gently reminding them that, hey, you're just
here for the free education. You want to learn
how to safely and responsibly use a credit card.
You want to learn how to safely and responsibly
purchase a car and not be taken to the cleaners.
And you want to learn how to safely and responsibly
apply for a student loan and what to put on.
a student loan. Even your cashiers at the college
campus can help you with that information as
well. So acknowledge that the debt is there,
acknowledge that there's an issue, and then seek
the help. seeking help as the author states is
not a sign of weakness. And I've been saying
that in all of these episodes. So let's continue
to help each other and make sure we're doing
that. So moving forward to the next topic. Financial
stressors. Why is this important? Why do we help
each other with understanding finances? What
does financial literacy have to do with mental
health? Well, we kind of talked about it just
a little bit from that article. But once financial
stress reaches a state of financial distress,
there are other powers at play. And there are
other things that start to fester. That can turn
into a mental health crisis so much so to where
someone starts having thoughts of suicide or
what we call suicidal ideation. And what these
epidemiologists at the Defense Suicide Prevention
Office found is that the service member suicide
rates. And the U .S. population rates for this
period of time that we're going to be talking
about are pretty similar. And that makes sense
because the military is just a subgroup or sampling
of the larger population, right? So it makes
sense that a lot of the things that were found
in this military study as it pertains to financial
stressors. It impacts us all, whether we're wearing
a uniform or not. So the next one is from 2011
to 2023, active component rates show a clear
upward trend. So this is interesting because
the next couple of statistics that I'm going
to give to you clearly show an increase in suicide.
And in the next episode, we're going to talk
about what percentage were having issues with
finances before the completion. So here's another
stat for you. In 2023, total service member suicides
rose from 523 from 493 in 2022. And here's another
statistic. Active component suicides increased
from 331 to 363 with a rate jump from 25 .1 to
28 .2 per 100 ,000. And reservist suicide rates
edged up as well. And here's another statistic.
Military family member suicide rates have also
increased. from 2011 to 2022. So again, these
are stats or points of evidence that remind us
when we experience a financial stressor, let's
take it seriously. If we see a child struggling
with it, if we see a parent struggling with it,
if we see a co -worker struggling with it, let's
help them find the resource. so that they do
not end up being a statistic themselves. I know
this is a somber month and wait till next month.
It's even more somber, but it's information that
we need to know and absorb so that we can help
ourselves, so that we can help the people that
we love and work with. And if you found this
podcast episode helpful, please rate and review
us wherever you listen. I look forward to providing
you further information. on financial stress
and suicide risk, but also the protective factors
that can assist.