Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Maggie Baker Ph.D Explains The Need For and Benefits Of Financial Therapy
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Maggie Baker Ph.D. Explains The Need For and Benefits Of Financial Therapy
Money problems don’t stay in your wallet. They show up in your mood, your relationships, your sleep and that tense feeling you get when you open a statement you’ve been avoiding is explained in this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Host Bob Blaisse sits down with Dr. Maggie Baker, PhD, veteran psychologist and author of: Crazy About Money: How Emotions Confuse Our Money Choices and What To Do About It. You'll hear talk about "Financial Therapy," and Dr. Baker explains why the hardest part of “getting your finances together” is often due to emotional spending, shame and memories related to money from long before you earned it.
Dr. Baker shares how a major loss during the year 2000 stock market spiral sent her into a year-long depression with deep emotional pain over having money and then not having it. Being a researcher and psychologist, Dr. Baker's own healing also came with a new mission to help others with "Financial Therapy," which Dr. Maggie Baker, Ph.D., developed into her practice. Listen and learn what financial therapy looks like: not investment picking, but understanding why smart, capable people still end up stuck in the same bad money habits. That door swings open with talk about the taboo of honest money conversations, how secrecy fuels stress and why compassion is the fastest way to create breathing room for change.
In this episode, you’ll also hear an example of a married couple with good jobs, and how they couldn’t figure out where their money was going until Dr. Baker's simple tracking exercise exposed a habit that didn’t match their goals, which required values-based budgeting when spending turns compulsive and begins to look like a shopping addiction. But fear not, Dr. Baker also shares how quickly progress can be made, when it starts with talking it out, without judgment.
If you are experiencing stress and emotional drivers behind your financial anxiety due to spending choices that you or someone you care about can’t seem to make on their own, this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast with Maggie Baker, Ph.D., can truly become a financial win.
Dr. Maggie Baker, Ph.D.
MaggieBakerPhD.com
facebook.com/MaggieBakerPhD
instagram.com/maggiebakerphd
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Welcome To Delco And Beyond
SPEAKER_01Hello, DoubleCo. This is Michael Barcan. Welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host, Bob Blacey.
Meet Dr. Maggie Baker
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Michael Barcan, for that introduction. It's always great to hear your voice. And everybody, welcome again to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Now, this podcast is really coming to you from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, but it can be heard all over the world as the internet is that blessing to us. Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where's that? In the southeast corner of Pennsylvania, one of 67 Pennsylvania counties, really the southeastmost county, just north of the state of Delaware and just west of the state of New Jersey. We're right below the city of Philadelphia. I guess we're named for the Delaware Indians, or the even the state of Delaware got that name. But Delaware County is lovingly referred to here locally as Delco. Look that up on the internet. You'll be surprised. Delco, Pennsylvania, and what a vibe we have here. One of the vibes is the Good Neighbor Podcast, where we aim to find businesses and businesses get nominated to be a guest on this podcast because they have a neighborly way about them, and they are helping the uh people that live in the area of their business, Delco and beyond. The last podcast, if you're listening to every one that comes out, our last episode was uh we had the doctor in the house, and we have the doctor in the house again. This is a first for us on the Good Neighbor podcast, two doctors in a row, and both cases, it was different. I know you're thinking, medical, some kind of, you know, chiropractor even or you know, some kind of a specialist. Yes, a specialist, but a different kind of doctor again. And this one is different. First, it's gonna sound normal, and then we're gonna have a special practice of that doctor. Let me bring to the stage our guest, Dr. Maggie Baker. Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast, Dr. Baker.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Bob. I'm really excited to be here and share my knowledge of how your brain works.
SPEAKER_00How your brain works. I love that. And I think we're gonna hear a little bit because when you were nominated, Maggie, it was because you you're you're not just a uh doctor, you're you're an author, um, but you are a 40-plus year what psychologist that you have had a practice in psychology as a psychologist, helping people for years. And in the later part of your years of practice here, you've kind of wandered into a new kind of practice that is uh becoming a specialty of yours, has and maybe there's not even a lot of them out there, but when people hear this, they're gonna kind of get it halfway, and we're gonna help them get around third base, learning the other half. Your specialty uh now is financial therapy, correct? That is correct. And so we're letting people take that in, Maggie. Financial therapy. But it now we need you, the doctor, please explain to us. I think we can imagine it, but help us. Is it really sometimes that finances lead to a situation of our psychological well-being and maybe those around us that we actually need therapy over it?
SPEAKER_02Uh yes, I'm afraid so. And what shows that is the American Psychological Association has done national studies to show that money stress is one of the foremost ways of people having real trouble mentally, in a way of saying that people feel overwhelmed by the stress of money, particularly if they don't have enough for just putting food on the table for their kids.
SPEAKER_00Well, that can be stressful, no doubt. And we hear of couples, you know, who children and sex and money, you know, is really where a lot of stress is in a marriage.
What Financial Therapy Means
SPEAKER_02Well, the other thing is that there's for a long time there's been a taboo about talking about money. Authentically, everybody jokes about it, but who is who goes around with a sign on their on their chest saying what their net worth is?
SPEAKER_00Maggie, did you find this happening, rearing its head in your in your practice before financial therapy? What were your specialties and and and are they still part of your practice?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Anxiety, depression, relationship issues, self-esteem issues, those are things I've been working with for years. But actually what happened was I ran into my own uh vulnerability about money when the stock market crashed in 2000 and I lost a great deal of money, which sent me into a depression for about a year. And I was shocked that you know, I'm supposed to know my own mind, I'm supposed to be able to keep myself afloat, and all of a sudden I was sinking. And it took me about a year to get over that loss. It was so painful. And I had to make a lot of changes and go through a lot of revisions of myself. And long story short, I decided that I had to learn about money, you know, how it worked, um, stocks, bonds, how people felt about it. And I got myself educated uh in a new area called financial therapy. I'm kind of a second generation. I went to, I had to go nationally to find people that could teach me about how to deal with people when they were really overwhelmed with money and were so ashamed or embarrassed about it, they couldn't talk to anybody about it.
Her Money Crash And Turning Point
SPEAKER_00And you knew from your profession how much talking out things, therapy, is able to kind of bring closure on mistakes or bring a future towards you know, a new beginning that's needed to kind of get through and get past and get beyond a circumstance. Interesting, you were in the lab of your own mind, you know, with great training in the psychological understandings of how the mind works, but with great, you know, hurt in a way, harm, current social event in your life happening, which shows a financial burden. Um, in that regard, I would think that uh you you you you kind of brought yourself through therapy because you knew how to do it, but then coming through it, just like someone that might, you know, need a counselor, a therapist for drug addiction, and then they come through it wonderfully and they decide, like, oh, I'm gonna get into this, I'm actually gonna help others. Um, and they go to school and they become a therapist for for drug counseling. You kind of did that, except it was the school of Maggie Baker PhD, and you were able to kind of uh I guess help yourself and then saw if I had this problem, there must be a lot of people that that do. So let's talk about it now, uh, years later, where you're you're you're you're an expert really on financial therapy. And did I understand from looking at your website that it actually led you to kind of share your knowledge even with people, aren't your clients? Like you you authored a book on the subject.
SPEAKER_02I did. I got so inspired by this. Once I got out of my own self-absorption, and I I understood that other people suffered too. I was so caught up with my own suffering for a long time. I couldn't do that. But once I got released from that, then I thought, I've got I've got to share what I learned myself and what I know from all the tutoring that I got, that I've got to get the word out, that there's real help for people who are struggling with money and are feeling so embarrassed about it. They they can't uh they can't excuse me.
SPEAKER_00It's somebody looking for some money, I think, there on the phone. Maggie, where do what is the name of your book and where can we find that?
SPEAKER_02It's called uh Crazy About Money, How Emotions Confuse Our Money Choices and What to Do About It. You can find it on Amazon, in paperback, in Kindle form. And I just narrated and and uh uh an audible edition of it that you can get there too, or you can go to my website and you can get it from my website. And if you go to my website, I'll autograph it and send you a couple of other things like a a really snazzy little bookmark and stuff.
Values Based Spending Fixes
SPEAKER_00Oh, wonderful. Well, so that so the book is called Crazy About Money. It's written by Dr. Um Maggie Baker, PhD, and you know that's easy to remember. So go to her website, which is the same, Maggie Baker PhD.com. And you can take you can see Maggie, you can take a look at her uh information about her book and her practice. Maggie, if we were to say financial therapy now to the listeners, they've kind of been guided a bit, they had an idea what financial therapy meant from the beginning when they heard it. Now they understand a little bit more. But how about a couple real practical areas where, oh, I get it, like that would be a problem, or I can see where someone would be sucked down and and it would become this and it would do that. Tell us from your practice, without giving away private matter, what would be an example of how you see this in in men or women or children or families? You know, where is it, what strings is it pulling and really damaging?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'll give you a case example, a story of a young couple in their 30s, both had good jobs, um, living a good life. And at the end of the month, they had no dis no income left, and they couldn't figure out where all their money was going. They come in, I get them to do some exercises, like write down everything that they're spending. They come back, they've done that, and what they find is that they've been eating out five and six times uh a week, and that the amount of money that they're spending on something that they don't really value that highly is eating up their money. And once they saw that, they said, okay, we're gonna make a commitment. We're much more interested in education, in in uh philanthropy as our values, we want to live our valued life. So they cut back and only went out once, maybe twice a week, and it made such a difference. I only saw them for three sessions, and they got what they needed.
Shopping Addiction And Money Shame
SPEAKER_00They got what they needed, you know. Maggie, I gotta think until they met you, until they had kind of a mediation that was happening to draw out the truth. Up to that point, it was you're spending more than I am, and you know, this finger pointing uh in couples that can be a problem. I'm sure also sometimes in in the relationships that parents have with their adult children, it can be a problem because parents want to support their children and when they're adults and they should be supporting themselves, but they're financially not, and you know, to get to the bottom of this. But there are other kinds of psychological addictions that can drive people's behavior towards um uh having less money. Obviously, something like gambling would be there, a problem. But you know, when you run into the the source of the problem, I mean it's financial therapy, but are you able to kind of pull that out too and and guide them if it's if it's you know you've got this destructive behavior that's causing this spending, or you've got a gambling or even drugs or that as well.
SPEAKER_02I gave you uh a very cut and dry story, but I also work with people who are addicted primarily to shopping. So they'll say, Oh, at the end of the month, when they get the bill, they're really upset. They're upset with themselves, but a week later they're going out and doing the same thing. That's what you call an addiction.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02So I work with that, which obviously takes a lot longer to unwind.
SPEAKER_00But no doubt, no doubt. And Maggie, I gotta think too, that your your um clients might be even more open to some of this than than in other cases. Like, like when when when you said earlier that your practice for years was um other areas, uh, you know, I know that you're a specialist in ADHD and ADD behaviors and helping uh individuals, young adults, families cope. You know, the some of the maladies that people have psychologically, they're tough to crack because uh they don't want to admit it. They're not seeing it or they even they kind of suspect it, but you know, they know that if you crack that open, what else are we gonna find? And they don't want to kind of admit it to themselves. But not having money is pretty easy. I mean, I we know, like I just wish I had more money, but the reality is um you're advising them on their their their finances without worrying about how they're investing. Like, in other words, it's not that kind of financial management, it's finances of the mind, really, that says, what are your values? What are your ideals? What should your money be used for? And why are you not saving for those? What are your practices and habits? And what's driving those behaviors? It's causing you to not do the things you want to do and do more of the things you you you know you don't want to do. Why what's driving that behavior? You're in the business of unpacking that, right? You hit the bullseye.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And it's really important that people understand that. And what happens is if you're not living your values, there's a shame involved, which makes you withdraw. And that's one of the things that makes it hard for people to come to therapy, uh, financial therapy. And what I want to offer is compassion and empathy. I'm not a judgmental person, and what I want to do is give them the breathing room to deal with the pain that they're having that they're trying to hide. And I say to them, come talk to me. You know, I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to help you get over that pain.
SPEAKER_00Talking it out is really what gets it all started. And we're talking to a doctor, a psychologist for many years with lots of experience with all kinds of age groups and genders and different people that have different problems. Dr. Maggie Baker, PhD. And and uh, you know, that's when you say PhD, that's different than these psychological counselors that can get a master's degree and go into practice here. Maggie is a highly educated uh research type doctor, as well as being a psychologist. And she has researched really what is a relatively new, still new area of psych psychological practice, financial therapy. And, you know, as a practice, Maggie's been a businesswoman for many years. Um, and um man, it's it's a it's a mightily good business. It's the first time we've had something like this. I think we've had counselors on the Good Neighbor podcast, but and we've had financial wealth managers and advisors, but this is really a crossroad here. Very unique practice that you have, Maggie, and uh a mission work. I think that probably in your practice you've got many wonderful successes where lives are changed.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's the goal. And sometimes I hit that bullseye, and sometimes it's a little outside that, but there's always progress and change.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful to get a chance to hear about it. And Maggie, I I would imagine, as a lot of psychologists do these days, you have uh clients that come to you for sessions in person, but also a lot of Zoom meetings too, where you counsel folks online, correct?
SPEAKER_02That's very correct. I can go anywhere. And as a matter of fact, I've had a patient, I've had a patient in Israel, I've had a patient in London, in Romania, California.
SPEAKER_00Not to mention, not to mention the U.S. Well, it's wonderful that you're doing this podcast because while we call it the Good Neighbor Podcast Delco and Beyond, the beyond really is the world. So if you're listening to this podcast, if you stumbled upon it and and you know, could be Providence involved here, that you've listened to this and you're starting to open your eyes a bit, that maybe I just need to talk this out with somebody that's not too close to me in life, but a professional in this area, it's Dr. Maggie Baker. And you can find her at her website first, where her phone number is, and uh uh an ability to email her at MaggieBaker PhD.com for her uh practice of financial therapy. Everybody, take a look at it because uh we've learned something here today. I think I'm gonna spend less money today, Maggie, just because you've given me a little bit of therapy to have my mind open to what my spending habits are. Thank you for being a guest on the Good Neighbor Podcast today.
SPEAKER_02This was fun.
SPEAKER_01This was great. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan, inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gnpdelco.com or by following Bob at 610 557 3745.