Why High Earners Still Feel Financially Stressed (Even With More Money)

In this episode, I’m joined by therapist Ginger Houghton to dive into something that doesn’t get talked about enough: the psychology of money—especially for high earners.

Because here’s the truth…
 Making great money doesn’t automatically mean you feel confident, secure, or at peace with your finances.

We talk about:

•  How your money story growing up shapes your financial behavior today 
•  Why high earners still experience scarcity mindset (even when they’re financially secure) 
•  How lifestyle inflation and social comparison quietly creep in—especially in today’s social media world 
•  Why some people overspend… while others are overly frugal 
•  And one of the biggest (and most misunderstood) patterns: avoidance

If you’ve ever:

•  Felt anxious about money despite earning a high income 
•  Found yourself comparing your lifestyle to others 
•  Or avoided looking at your finances altogether 

…this episode will likely resonate.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. In the next episode, we’ll focus on how to actually start making changes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In today's episode, I am really excited to have our guest with us, Ginger Houghton, who is a therapist and the founder of Bright Spot Counseling in Farmington Hills, Michigan. And we are actually really lucky we're gonna have her for these next two episodes. And we're gonna be talking all about a lot of the psychology that we as high earners have when it comes to money, how all of these things in our past can impact our current feelings and behaviors, and that even earning a lot of money doesn't mean that you don't have all of these kind of issues going on in your mind. We we all do. So I'm going to hand it over to Ginger to introduce herself and please give us some background on yourself and your practice.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Thanks so much for having me, Carla. I cannot wait for this episode because we've had conversations in the past, right? And you're absolutely right that some of the same money hangups that folks have across the money spectrum definitely apply to high earners. We just don't always realize it. My practice, Bright Spot Counseling, we specialize in any of the therapy modalities that are not specifically talk therapy. So we really want to help folks who have not benefited from traditional talk therapy, where they're like, my therapist was lovely and I liked her a lot, but I didn't really make progress. I don't feel like much changed. So we do EMDR and we do brain spotting and we do equine assisted therapy, we do clinical hypnosis, we do medication, we do lots of things that are kind of outside of traditional talk therapy because just like with money stuff, sometimes just talking about it doesn't solve the problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So that's that's what we do. That's our bread and butter. Great. Thanks, Ginger. I love all the cool different things that you incorporate at your practice. So to get the conversation going, you know, one thing that I often do, and I've been doing it more and more when I'm meeting with a prospective client or just a new client that I'm trying to get to know better, I'll often ask them what money was like for them growing up, which is number one, just a really great way to for me to learn more about the client and for them to share more about themselves as I'm getting to know them. But it's also really helpful for me as an advisor to understand their money story, what their past is, and kind of think about how this may impact how they think and feel about money as we're working together. So could you please talk a little bit more about that, about our money past and how that might influence us and today?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, absolutely. When we talk about financial health, most people really think of numbers: income, savings, debt. But from a therapist's perspective, financial health is just as much psychological as it is practical. Because the reality is that your relationship with money didn't start when you opened your first bank account or when you were in junior achievement or whatever the equivalent of that is now. It started much earlier. It started through what you experienced, observed, and felt growing up. If money was a source of stress in your household, think arguments, instability, unpredictability, your nervous system learned to associate money with pressure or even fear. If money, however, wasn't really talked about at all in your household, you probably learned to avoid it. If money was tied to achievement or control, it was used as a mechanism for control, you might connect money with self-worth. The way that money comes out for us as an adult is a direct reflection of what we experienced growing up. These patterns don't just disappear, they become the lens, whether we realize it or not, through which all of us interpret financial life as an adult. I think that's oftentimes combined, right? The the story of money with the nervous system experience of money. And then there are a few other concepts that we'll explore, like scarcity mindset, or cognitive load. There are things that tack on to that. And all three of those things really change how we interact with money or don't interact with money, right? How much we avoid, how much we neglect. All of those things kind of create a perfect storm situation or like a really lovely sailing experience where things are clear and easy.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, it's super, super interesting. So yeah, let's expand a little bit more on scarcity mindset because Ginger, I remember you, I can't even remember the context, but a few months ago we were talking and you brought up scarcity mindset, which I think is actually a very interesting concept when we are talking about high earners who are usually not living in an actual environment of money scarcity, but how our brains are just wired from our caveman days. It's, anyways, I would love for you to please explain all this to our audience.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah. So I love this part of the conversation because you're absolutely right. High earners are not exempt from scarcity mindset. And it's not just with money. This can happen in many ways in our lives. Scarcity mindset is not about an actual lack, it's about the feeling of not having enough. That's connected to how we grew up, right? That's connected to that story of money. Research shows that when people feel scarcity, it actually changes the way that all of our brains function. This could be with food, right? If you go out to a party and you say there's nothing here that I can eat because of dietary restrictions, or there's not enough food here for the 50 people. This pops up as much with money, or if you've ever been at the airport and you know that there are your flight was canceled, and you see the window closing for you to be able to get on the next flight. That's scarcity mindset, too, right? Where we say there's not enough for everyone. This is very mammal behavior. This is really connected to how we evolved as humans and as mammals. There are two main researchers for scarcity mindset. Their work really laid the foundation for how scarcity mindset reduces our available mental capacity. They call this bandwidth tax. What they know from really extensive research is that when you're preoccupied with not having enough, part of your brain is really, really engaged with that concern, which leaves you fewer resources for planning, decision making, or self-control. Which, as a financial planner, that's like those are really crucial pieces of what is necessary, right? To make long-term wealth happen. One of the findings from one of these studies really talks about people under financial strain performed worse on cognitive tests, not because they're not bright people. This has no connection to intelligence, but because their mental load was heavier. So it's not that people are being bad with money or irresponsible. It's literally that scarcity makes it harder to think clearly about money and to tap into decision-making, planning, and self-control. One of the things that I talk to a lot with clients when scarcity mindset is coming up in session is thinking about this in terms of how do we survive in the wilderness. If you've ever watched, I don't even know what the show is with bare grills on it, any of the survivalist shows, they talk a lot about lots of times people die in the wilderness, not because they couldn't find their way, not because they were so far away, or not because there weren't resources, but because a literally scarcity mindset blocked them from saying, okay, let me take a minute and resettle back in, right? Instead of living in panic and making decisions based on reactivity. I need to be strategic. When we are in scarcity mindset, that is not available to us. Yeah. Scarcity mindset's also connected to a few other concepts that I think are really helpful. One is tunneling, where your actual focus narrows. This happens in survival situations. This happens with money. This also happens if you have a job interview that you really need to get to and you can't find your keys. When people are like, the keys were right in front of me the whole time. It's because your vision has quite literally narrowed as a trauma response. So you're not able to see the breadth of your environment. You're not able to make good choices, you're not able to pick up on clues, you're not able to pause and say, What was I doing yesterday before I lost my keys? So those two concepts are really closely linked. And they're really, if you think about financial planning, that tunneling really forces us to say, I need to pay my bill today, or I need to buy this thing today, instead of focusing on long-term expenses and long-term prerogatives. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, for sure. And I'm kind of in my head going through some client conversations that I've had that show up that I think resonate with this scarcity mindset. So, you know, I have a client who is self-employed and makes a lot of money, and she'll go through periods and say, Carla, I don't think I'm going to make as much money this year. I'm really worried. And I keep telling her, you're that's fine. You're, I've told you many times, you're actually able to retire anytime you want. She's close to retirement age and has done an amazing job saving. I also see really wealthy clients, not surprisingly, when the market tanks, that they start to, of course, panic, the sort of lack of making good decisions that I mean, I think I even feel it as a human being when the market is tanking, right? My brain can go, sell, sell, sell. And I have to put my financial advisor cap on and um and not freak out and not make short-sighted decisions, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, I think those are such valid points. And I think especially when you're working with people that run their own businesses, there are oftentimes these periods of like plentifulness and abundance. People feel really good and make lots of decisions, right? Based on that feeling really good. And then one or two things happen. And most business owners say, Whoa, I need to cut back on everything. I don't know what I'm doing. I need to retire. I need to sell my business, I need to do all these things. And it's lacking the kind of historical context and the historical financial context of their business of their life, just like this client that you're describing. It sounds lovely. And just like a lot of us, where once that scarcity stuff is poked at, it's someone, ideally a financial advisor, needs to be kind of the voice of reason to say, your stuff got poked at.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. So, you know, on these sort of psychological phenomenons that we see, I'd love to dig deeper into talking about lifestyle, inflation, social comparison that high earners have. And it's really great. I mean, I know when I started off in this industry in my early 20s, living in Chicago, I was making peanuts and I lived a nice life. I was frugal, but I still went out and had fun. And I've experienced it myself that as you start to make more money, oh my gosh, finally I can afford this and that. And I am a big believer that as you're making more money, you should enjoy it. You don't have to save every penny. But sometimes that lifestyle inflation goes too far, right? Because we also have to make sure that we're saving for the future. And of course, oh my gosh, especially in the days of social media, comparing ourselves to others. In fact, Ginger, you'll laugh. My husband sometimes will say, you know, oh, our neighbors are our friends. Like they probably make the same as us, but they're driving even nicer cars. So we should be too. When when in fact we have no idea what their financial situation is, and if those are even smart decisions for them, right? So I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on these topics.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, I think we are living at a really interesting point in history where lifestyle inflation and social comparison just kind of get layered on to scarcity. So it's very easy to go through TikTok or stream any show, like quite literally any show, or have anything come up on Facebook and to have zero context for what's happening in that person's life. And to say, Did you see their kitchen? My kitchen doesn't look like that. Did you see what they were wearing? I don't look like did you see that they were just at the head spa? I've never been to the head spa. That's the thing that we're doing now. It's very common for us to say, like, to get all these images of what our life should be like that are very disconnected from the reality of maybe what our bank account says. Watching an episode of The Housewives or like Secret Wives of Mormon Lives, any of these shows, you also see this play out for them, where you see that they have deep financial problems, but they're projecting an image on screen, right? Because they have to. They're wearing like incredibly expensive clothes, incredibly expensive cars, incredibly expensive vacations. And they've kind of normalized not them, but like social media and streaming and reality TV, which I love, all of them, but they've all really normalized things that are not normal for most of us and push you outside of maybe what you would do without those influences. It's the same thing I feel like I'm in my 40s. I feel like the last few years has been when you start seeing people get their vacation homes, or you start seeing people take their like month and a half long vacations to Europe. What you don't see are the sacrifices they've maybe made to make that a really sound financial decision. Or what you might not see are the crazy credit card bills that they have. But how we experience that as people who are scrolling, right, is I need to do something about this now. I need to also level up, which can be incredibly stressful and unhealthy long term and put us in a situation where we're at a deficit and that our spending doesn't really align with our values, which is really important. That not enough feeling really is scarcity, that I don't have this or I don't have that. It's the same reason why for anyone who's on TikTok or Facebook or any social media, it's very easy to see something that you had no idea existed until that very swipe, and then immediately purchase it, right? This is all part of scarcity that you're like, oh, I definitely need this thing. And I'm like, I didn't even know that that thing existed. I definitely did not need that thing. I think this is all culminating for a lot of people in saying, like, what are your values financially and as a human? How do you stay more connected to those? And does our phone, does social media, does it help us stay more connected or less connected to that? Because social media will always inspire in us that social comparison and lifestyle inflation. That there's really very few ways to disconnect that other than limiting our exposure to those things because they're so instant. Um, but there are some nice tools to stop scrolling as much or to put limits to do some things. There are some nice things that make that a little bit easier than it was even three years ago.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah, very true. And, you know, it's it's interesting too, because, and I think this is something that a lot of people may not even realize that financial advisors do, is I really talk to my clients about what their values are, right? And it's not for me to judge, just giving them that time and space to think about what their values are, discuss it with their spouse and understanding, you know, having this discussion, is your spending in line with your values? But also really importantly, is with all the financial planning work that I do with my clients, is helping them really understand what that balance is in dollar numbers of how much they can spend versus how much they need to save, right? Because I definitely get so much of both extremes of people that are making really big money and are doing a great job building wealth, and they are so incredibly frugal. And then on the flip side, people that are making tons of money and spending almost all of it, right? And I think it's so hard in this day and age where we do have to save for the future. We don't have those pensions like our parents or grandparents did. We are responsible for saving for our own future. How do we figure out what that balance is? And honestly, I don't even know how people do it without the tools that I have or working with a financial advisor. So I think that's something that I really enjoy doing with my clients is the analysis and helping them figure out what that balance is so that they're enjoying their money now while also saving for the future. Like sometimes like literally giving them permission to spend and, you know, again, leading those conversations with okay, you can spend X amount more per year and still be fine. Where are those dollars going? Because it should be what's important to you and not necessarily what the Joneses are doing.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

A hundred percent. And I think it's one of the things that immediately drew me to was like your connection to what what someone's values were. In therapy, there's one specific type of therapy called ACT that we do, where it's deeply aligning your everyday actions with your values. And ACT really tells us that you can't have 20 values that you live by. You can probably have one to three, right? And there's a really interesting activity where you go through, it's called the Act Value Sort. You can get a digital version. It takes maybe half an hour if you're you're really into it, maybe 20 minutes if you're like doing it, but maybe not fully committing, or if you're just very decisive, it goes faster too. But when you go from 200 values down to 100, down to 50, down to 10, it starts feeling really intense. And you say, This is important to me, this is also important to me. I think the work that you do with folks to move them along closer to their values through their financial decisions every day is so crucial to long-term happiness, right? That I think that that would be a nice complement to the work that you do because you do such a nice job facilitating that conversation. I also think, Carla, one of the things that I appreciate about you is that you're really helpful in connecting that value to the reality of finances. For example, it's really important for me to pay down my mortgage. Because for me, it's connected to safety and stability. When I've heard you say multiple times to me directly, and also in in other ways, that that's actually not the best long-term, that having savings in case of an emergency is actually more important than not paying the interest on your mortgage, which feels really important to me. And figuring out, I think you're good at helping people figure out how do you meet both of those needs in a realistic way. Because I think a lot of us have values and our financial decisions just are not connected to that value, even though we think that they are.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, yeah, certainly. Gosh, there's just so much that we could unpack in all this that, you know, to some people, money means safety. To some people, money means means power. For the last question in this episode, I'd like to shift to talking a little bit more about avoidance behaviors, which you mentioned a little bit in the beginning, of people that are, I mean, this can manifest in so many different ways of people knowing they need to save and invest, but just sticking their head in the sand and not budgeting or avoiding investing in the stock market because they don't understand it. Lots of ways it could show up. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Yeah, I think avoidance is one of the most misunderstood pieces. Of financial behavior. When people are avoiding budgeting, investing, or even on a really granular level, looking at their bank account, because that that's usually like the tip-off, there's deep avoidance. It's really easy to label that is as irresponsible. From a trauma-informed perspective, avoidance is really a protective response. If engaging with money triggers anxiety, shame, or overwhelm, your central nervous system is really trying to do you a favor in protecting you by saying avoid that altogether. Don't get upset, don't disrupt homeostasis, stay here where it's safe is really what your nervous system is saying. It's connected to survival again, right? The challenges, the more you avoid it, the more stressful it becomes, the more triggering it becomes. And that creates the cycle that's hard to break. Avoidance, avoidance in this respect. There are a lot of things that you can do from a central nervous system perspective to say, I don't have to experience fight, flight, freeze when I check my balance. There are really amazing tools. We have one on our website, a free one, to teach you lots of skills. There are so many things that you can do to have your biology be on board with addressing your finances. So your biology is not holding you back through avoidance, that your biology is not trying to protect you. I think that's the thing that people judge themselves really harshly for. And probably one of the main reasons why people don't connect with a financial advisor is like they're afraid of shame. They're saying, like, I make this amount of money and I don't have a bank account that reflects that, right? Or I've done these things, or I have filed for bankruptcy, or these things, it's that deep shame. It's the fear that is really pushing people's avoidance response. And there are really nice ways to have our biology say this is not a life or death threat. This is a long-term survival strategy, but our brains don't recognize that survival piece unless we help our biology calm down so that we're working in the front of our brain, not in our brainstem.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Great. Love it. Well, thank you so much, Ginger, for this wealth of knowledge. We are going to have Ginger back for our next episode. And so I'm hoping that you listeners can maybe think about what might be going on in your mind if anything that we talked about today resonates with you. And when we bring Ginger back, we're gonna talk more about how we can actually get change going. Cause change is really hard. So thank you so much, Ginger, and we'll be talking to you again soon. It's been a delight. Thanks, Carla.