Money Stress Never Sleeps (And More Money Won’t Fix It) | Growing Money with Sean Trace

Money stress never sleeps.

Many people believe they'll finally relax once they earn more money, but the truth is that financial anxiety often follows us no matter how much we make.

In this video, I share some of the biggest reasons money stress keeps people awake at night, including lifestyle inflation, financial comparison, tying self-worth to income, avoiding money conversations, and the belief that happiness exists at some future income level.

I also share some of the lessons I'm learning in my own financial journey and practical ways to build something far more valuable than wealth alone: financial peace.

In this video:
 • Why making more money can create more stress
 • The danger of lifestyle inflation
 • How financial comparison steals happiness
 • Why your net worth is not your self-worth
 • The importance of financial clarity and automation
 • How open money conversations reduce anxiety
 • Why emotional regulation matters as much as financial growth
 • Defining your personal "enough"

Financial freedom isn't just about dollars and cents.

It's about creating a life that feels peaceful, sustainable, and aligned with what truly matters.

What does financial peace mean to you?

Leave a comment below and join the conversation.

Transcript

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Now, this is a topic that really resonated with me that I was thinking about because I couldn't sleep the other night. And I was sitting there in bed thinking about how money stress never sleeps, because my mind was spinning with all of this stuff that I had to get done. And it's really tough. And there's a lot of reason that money stress never sleeps. And I'm going to talk to you about some of them. And it's not going to be what you think it is. One of the ways that people start getting money stress and it never sleeps is that even when they start getting more money, they get more problems. You know, more money, more problems. And that's specifically due to one thing, something called lifestyle inflation. And if you see the people that they start making more money, what are the first things they do? They go get a nicer car. Though that nicer car is going to have more expensive car insurance. So their bills are going to go up. It's going to maybe be a little bit more take extra gas and big SUV type thing. Again, more expenses. And suddenly they are making more money, but they feel even more trapped. And they have more pressure coming in through the front door. And another thing is that sometimes people get more expectations. You start running your own business. Well, you got all this weight that you have to carry. You have all these salaries that you have to think about. And one of the things that I think is a solution for this is focusing on something very simple. Peace. Financial peace. Well, what does that look like to you? What does financial peace mean to you? Well, peace might be the realization that you don't need to spend more to be happy. That extra thing that you're buying is not actually the thing that's going to make you feel good inside. And that maybe there are other ways to define enough. Maybe enough is a night with your family. You know, I would love to buy some expensive fancy things, but last month I bought something very simple. It was a little projector, and it projects movies on any surface that you want. And it was about $75, but it's phenomenally good quality. And the crazy thing is now we're aiming that projector at the ceiling, hook it up to a Bluetooth speaker, and we're having movie nights in our house. That to me is way more important than travel to places than buying expensive things. Simple pleasures go a long way. Another thing that's really important is to avoid building a life that requires constant stress. Maybe the business that you were trying to build makes you feel nuts. Maybe it's not everything that you wanted it to be. And at that point in time, maybe you have to find another way to do something. Maybe the high-paying job is making you crazy. Well, freedom matters more than appearance, you know. That financial freedom, the ability to say no and walk away is a powerful, powerful thing. So even when you have more money, you don't always sleep. You don't always sleep well because that money anxiety and that money stress never sleeps. Another big common problem is constant financial anxiety. Now, some people check accounts obsessively. They're really, really, really overwhelmed and they don't necessarily want to look away. Well, then there's another type of overwhelm. That person can't look at their account at all. That was me for a long time. I was totally money avoidant. I am trying to do better at that, but both of those are stress responses. Both of them are due to the fact that someone is having a hard time facing their reality. And what's the solution to that? One of the things that I've been working on for myself is to create financial clarity. Knowing where my accounts are at, knowing what money is in each account, and having a very simple budgeting means. I'm working on using more cash for one and having a really simple envelope method where I set aside a certain amount of money for each day, certain amount of money for the month, certain amount of money for my daughter's classes, for the things I need to buy. And after that, I'm done. And then also my financial advisor is working with me on automating savings, making sure that a certain amount of money is going into different savings accounts and stays there untouched. Now, if you know your numbers, if you know how much is going to all of these different places, it reduces the uncertainty. And that clarity will lower your anxiety. That clarity will make you feel safer. And, you know, when you have that clarity, you know what you need to be setting aside, how much is going to be in that emergency fund so that you feel safe. There's another problem that I often see that creates a lot of anxiety for people and it doesn't let them sleep. And that's tying your money to your self-worth. I mean, we all kind of do this at times, whether it's the status symbol vehicle that you need to be driving, whether it's that new iPhone or that new watch or that new whatever it might be. And people will feel embarrassed if they don't have that. They'll feel behind, they'll feel ashamed, they'll feel like failures. I saw, I see that all the time when I go out and people pull out their phone. And I remember my friend said, I don't want to show people my phone. And I said, why? He's like, Well, because it's not the newest one. And I said, Who gives a crap? Does it take pictures? Yeah. All right. Can you have fun and check your email and get on socials? And he's like, Yeah. So then what's the problem? It's like, well, it's not the newest one. Well, let that go. Your money is not your self-worth. I'm not super wealthy, but I know I'm a wonderful human being. I'm a great dad. I'm an exceptional teacher, and I love podcasting and sharing with people. My money's not that great, but you know, that doesn't mean that I'm not a great person. So if you can separate identity from income, it goes a long way. And if you're successful, great. But that doesn't mean that you're a great dad or a great husband or anything else. You might just have a lot of money. So your bank account is a financial score, not a human value score. Like maybe, yay, I'm getting ahead in financial the part of my life. But that doesn't mean that you're winning at the game of life. So separate those two out and look at how they can both be great metrics for your life and for things that you're trying to accomplish. But they are not the same thing. Another major problem for people is keeping up with the Joneses. You know, a big problem is financial comparison. I have a hard time with this too. I like the new stuff. When I'm going out and seeing people and they're on video shoots and I see the new camera they have, I'm like, man, I want that camera. You know, and one of the biggest challenges is social media creates fake financial realities. Like people are showing all this, I'm crushing it, and this is how I'm crushing it. I've seen some of those videos where the influencers are doing these videos, and then you look behind the scene, and what you're seeing is not the reality. And people compare themselves to these leased lifestyles, these debt-funded luxury that people will flex all over social media, and these highlight reels that are not the truth. So, what could be a solution? Maybe build a life that actually feels peaceful. You know, for me and my daughter and wife, that simple projector on the ceiling is one of the most amazing things we do. We've got a streaming service that we we plugged in on there and we watch fun movies together. And that's a win. I'm not flexing about that. I did flex to one person, my sister-in-law. I was like, check this out. And she's like, that's so cool. And they came up and watched a movie with us. You can maybe think about sustainable living. Like, what is it that's your enough score? What's enough for you? I recently was finding myself trying to figure out how I could make more and more and more. And then I got to the point of figuring out, well, what's my enough? What's the amount of money that I actually need to build and to grow and do what I want to be doing? And that's a powerful thing because when you know you're enough, you're not gonna be chasing endless goals that leave you feeling empty. And that's the last thing that you have to look at. It was like, what's real wealth versus performative wealth? Real wealth maybe is the ability to say no when a person says something to you, hey, I you're gonna do this at your job. No, I'm gonna find a new job. I don't want to make that choice. I don't want to do that thing. And you can walk away. Real wealth might be that you've invested in a place that is something that's really important to you instead of having the 25 different Rolexes that you're flexing. And maybe that is real wealth to you too. My point is, is it's different for everyone. But don't get caught up in the comparison game because it's not going to be a good game to play. Problem number five, avoiding money conversations. This is another reason people can't sleep and money, problems never sleep. People often avoid talking about money. People avoid talking about debt. And this can be especially compounded when you're in a relationship and you don't talk about your debt. Or you're in a relationship, you don't talk about the spending that you have together or alone. Maybe you're not talking about your goals or some of your financial fears. And that stress quietly grows. It begins to eat you up from inside to a point that you can't do anything but notice it. And then sometimes it will explode in your face. So, what can we do about that? We have to normalize money conversations. And I'm talking to people everywhere. Call up your friend and say, hey, this is what I'm stressed about with money. And see what they say, see what advice they have. Maybe finding a community group or a peer group that you can have weekly money check-ins, maybe with your spouse, maybe with your friends. The goal here is to reduce shame. The goal here is to get you out of the place where you feel bad about talking about this. My finances are getting into a better place, but they are not great. But one of the things that I have to do every day is to reduce shame. Talking to you guys helps me reduce some of my shame. And one of the other things that's really important is to try to find teamwork over blame. And transparency with your partner, with your friends, with your family builds trust. And when you have that foundation of trust, you can start making bigger and better goals that you can move towards. But you can't do that without trust. Now, there's another problem that I find people deal with a lot. This is a big one. And this is the fact that people believe money stress ends at a certain number. Lao Tze, the Taoist philosopher, had a statement that whether you go up the ladder or down the ladder, there's always instability. Whether you're super, super rich or whether you are extremely poor, there's always instability. And I think a lot of people think, well, if I just keep climbing that ladder, it's going to get stable at some point. I'll finally relax when I hit X amount of income. But stress often scales upwards. So what can we do? What's the solution? One of the best things is to learn emotional regulation alongside financial growth, gratitude, ways to keep your nervous system under regulation. For me, that was meditation. That's yoga, that's going to the gym. That's turning off work at a certain point in time in the day and knowing that I'll come back to it the next day. And it's also about having realistic expectations. Now, the thing to remember is financial peace is a skill. It is a skill that you can develop and work with. This is something that's really important to remember. Money problems are real. They very much are. But learning how to emotionally relate to money may be even more important than the money itself. So get out and start working on some of these money beliefs that might be holding you back. And remember that money problems never sleep, but that doesn't mean that you can't sleep. If you find ways to work with this, you'll sleep like a baby. Hope you guys have a beautiful day, and I'll see you next time.

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Bye.