Money, Mental Health, and Freedom: Why Financial Coaching Is Essential for Women
- Meagan Clark, MA LPC NCC BC-TMH
- 5 days ago
- 8 min read
For many women, money is a constant background stressor—always there, quietly shaping decisions, relationships, health, and sense of self-worth.
Some women come to therapy knowing money, and their relationship with it, is a problem. Others come in for anxiety, burnout, trauma, or relationship issues, only to realize later that financial stress is woven through all of it.
The fear of not having enough. The guilt after spending. The exhaustion of trying to make everything work on such limited resources. The knowing that one unexpected expense could unravel everything.
At Her Time Therapy, we see this every day.
We work with women who make decent money and still feel unsafe. We work with women living paycheck to paycheck due to generational trauma and systemic barriers. We work with women who are “just above water” but feel like stability is an illusion—one accident, one medical issue, one job loss away from crisis.
And here’s the truth we believe needs to be said clearly:
Money is not separate from mental health. Financial safety, autonomy, and the choices money makes possible are essential to emotional well-being—especially for women.
This is why we offer financial coaching as a supplemental service to therapy. Financial coaching helps women turn the insights they gain in therapy into action.
Psychotherapy sessions are the place where women learn skills to reduce money anxiety and heal from past financial traumas.
Financial coaching is where women gain access to the specific resources, accountability, and individualized support needed to improve their current financial situation.
Women do not need to be in therapy to benefit from financial coaching—but the combination of therapy and financial coaching is where the fastest, most sustainable progress often happens.
Why Money Stress Is a Core Mental Health Issue for Women
Financial stress is one of the most persistent forms of chronic stress. When money feels unstable and inconsistent, your nervous system does not experience safety.
This can show up as:
Ongoing anxiety or rumination
Difficulty sleeping or relaxing
Irritability or emotional overwhelm
Avoidance of bills or bank accounts
Shame or self-criticism around spending
Feeling trapped in unhealthy situations
Pressure to overwork to the point of burnout
From a mental health perspective, financial insecurity keeps the body in a prolonged state of fight, flight, or freeze. Over time, this impacts mood, cognition, relationships, and physical health.
For women, this stress is often intensified by systemic realities, including:
Gender wage gaps
Higher healthcare and reproductive health costs
Greater risk of financial dependence in relationships
Socialization that discourages women from prioritizing money or career advancement
When women lack financial freedom, their choices shrink—and mental health suffers.
Therapy helps women process the emotional impact of these realities. Financial coaching helps change the conditions that keep the stress alive.
Financial Trauma: More Common, More Invisible, More Impactful Than Most Women Realize
Financial trauma is not rare—and it is not limited to extreme circumstances.
Financial trauma can develop from:
Growing up in poverty or chronic scarcity
Witnessing caregivers constantly stressed about money
Experiencing eviction or frequent moves
Being shamed, punished, or controlled around spending
Financial abuse or manipulation in relationships
Medical debt, student loans, or sudden financial crises
Being taught that “good women” should not want money or prioritize their career
These experiences shape your relationship with money. Even years later, women may experience intense emotional reactions that feel confusing or disproportionate to their current financial reality.
Common signs of financial trauma include:
Guilt or panic when spending, even on necessities
Avoiding looking at accounts or bills
Over-restricting spending, followed by impulsive purchases
Feeling unsafe no matter how much is saved
Believing you don’t deserve financial ease
Difficulty seeking financial help or education
Feeling ashamed for wanting more
Therapy helps women understand where these patterns came from and how they connect to identity, relationships, and trauma history.
Financial coaching helps women practice new behaviors in real time—safely, intentionally, and with support.
Why Traditional Budgeting Often Fails Women
Most women have tried budgeting. Many have failed at it—over and over again.
This is not because women lack discipline or intelligence.
Traditional budgets are often built on restriction, deprivation, and control. Much like diet culture, they emphasize cutting back, denying needs, and “being good.” For women already carrying financial trauma, scarcity, or shame, this approach often backfires.
Restriction-based budgeting can:
Increase guilt and self-criticism
Trigger trauma responses
Ignore emotional drivers of spending
Reinforce the belief that there is never enough
At Her Time Therapy, we intentionally use the term spending plan instead of budget.
A spending plan is not about limitation. It is about choice, values alignment, and sustainability.
A spending plan asks:
What do I value most right now?
What actually improves my quality of life?
Where do I need my money to be to best support my health, safety, and future?
This shift alone can significantly reduce money anxiety and avoidance.
Why Our Financial Coaching Focuses on Earning More—Not Just Saving or Spending Less
Women are constantly told that the solution to financial stress is cutting back.
Skip the coffee. Avocado toast is too expensive. Stop spending on yourself.
This message is not neutral.
It reflects systems that benefit when women are under-resourced, overextended, and conditioned to believe that wanting more is irresponsible or selfish.
At Her Time Therapy, our financial coaching approach rejects this narrative. Instead of asking women to shrink their lives, we help them expand their options.
Our coaching focuses on:
Increasing income where possible
Building healthy emergency savings accounts
Investing consistently and in alignment with your goals and values
Building confidence around earning more
Spending intentionally on what matters to you
Letting go of shame around investing in oneself
Increasing self-worth and advocacy skills
Money is not evil. It is a tool. When used intentionally, it can support:
Leaving unsafe or unhealthy relationships
Leaving toxic or exploitative jobs
Paying for therapy and medical care
Buying nourishing food
Accessing movement, rest, childcare, and support
Creating safety and stability over time
Providing access to periods of rest and rejuvenation
Money does not guarantee happiness—but it creates choice. And choice is foundational to mental health
Financial Coaching as a Powerful Companion to Therapy
Women do not need to be in therapy to benefit from financial coaching. Financial coaching is valuable on its own.
However, for women healing from years of financial trauma and money anxiety, the combination of therapy and financial coaching often creates the most rapid and lasting change.
Here’s why this combination works so well.
Therapy helps women understand and heal from the “why”
Therapy addresses:
Impact of years of financial trauma and deprivation
Emotional and behavioral patterns tied to money
Trauma responses and nervous system activation
Negative core beliefs about worth, safety, and control
Relationship dynamics involving finances
Systemic behavioral conditioning and gender role dynamics
Financial coaching helps women change the “how”
Financial coaching focuses on:
Practical financial education
Development of individualized spending plans aligned with your values
Providing actionable resources and direction to make better financial decisions now
Building confidence and competence
Increasing income and long-term stability
Providing 1:1 and group support and accountability
When these two services work together, women are able to:
Reduce money-related anxiety more quickly
Practice new behaviors with support
Build trust in themselves around money
See tangible results that reinforce emotional healing
Financial coaching does not replace therapy, and therapy does not replace coaching. They amplify each other!
Financial Insecurity Isn’t Always About Income
One of the most important things we normalize in financial coaching is this:
It is not your fault. You were never taught how to have a good relationship with money or how to manage it well.
You do not have to be “bad with money” or living in poverty to feel financially unsafe.
Many women we work with:
Live paycheck to paycheck due to systemic barriers
Are just barely above water
Earn a decent income but are one emergency away from crisis
That constant edge—What if something happens?—keeps the nervous system activated and makes it difficult to feel grounded or present.
Financial coaching helps women:
Replace avoidance with clarity
Build realistic, supportive spending plans
Identify opportunities to increase income
Strengthen a sense of agency and preparedness
The goal is not perfection. The goal is felt safety and a calm, regulated nervous system.
What Financial Coaching Is—and What It Is Not
Financial coaching is often misunderstood.
Financial coaching is:
Educational and skill-based
Supportive and collaborative
Values-driven and trauma-informed
Focused on empowerment, not shame
Financial coaching is not:
Therapy
Investment advising
Judgmental or restrictive
A one-size-fits-all solution
At Her Time Therapy, financial coaching is grounded in the same values as our therapy services: empowerment, compassion, autonomy, and respect for each woman’s lived experience.
Why a Guilt-Free Spending Plan Is Essential for Mental Health
Chronic guilt around spending is not a sign of responsibility—it is often a sign of unresolved financial trauma.
Many women feel guilty spending money on:
Therapy
Medical care
Rest
Movement
Pleasure
Support
This guilt keeps women trapped in survival mode.
Guilt-free spending does not mean reckless spending. It means intentional spending—spending that aligns with values and supports well-being.
When women learn to use money as a tool and spend it without guilt, they often experience:
Reduced anxiety
Greater clarity and confidence
Increased satisfaction with their money
More motivation to earn and plan
This is why guilt-free spending is a core focus of our financial coaching work.
Introducing Financial Coaching at Her Time Therapy
Financial coaching at Her Time Therapy is designed for women who want to:
Reduce money anxiety and shame
Heal their relationship with money
Build financial literacy and confidence
Increase their income and financial security
Align spending with their values and mental health
Create more choice and freedom in their lives
Our approach is:
Feminist
Trauma-informed
Non-judgmental
Focused on earning more, not shrinking your life
Designed to be effective on its own or as a complement to therapy
It is about removing the financial barriers that keep them stuck and creating more freedom in their lives.
Free Download: Financial Trauma Patterns Checklist
Which Money Survival Mode Are You In?
To help women build awareness and compassion around their financial patterns, we created a free downloadable resource:
The Financial Trauma Patterns Checklist
This checklist helps you:
Identify your dominant money survival mode
Understand how past experiences shape current behaviors
Normalize patterns without shame
Build awareness before making changes
Awareness is the first step toward freedom.
Money, Choice, and Freedom
Money alone does not create happiness.
But money can create the ingredients required for happiness:
Safety
Autonomy
Access to care
The ability to leave what no longer serves you
The ability to add more rest and joy to your life
For women, financial empowerment is not about excess or greed. It is about having the resources to live in alignment with your values, health, and well-being.
Financial coaching is one way we support women in moving toward that freedom—faster, more sustainably, and with less shame.
You deserve more than survival.
You deserve choice.
What Comes Next
You don’t need to “fix” yourself to move forward.
Healing your relationship with money involves:
Compassion
Education
Skill-building
Support
Action
Financial coaching helps translate awareness into action—especially when paired with therapy.
Ready for Support?
If this blog post and the Financial Trauma Patterns checklist resonated with you, you’re not broken—and you’re not behind.
You’re responding exactly how someone would when money has felt unsafe.
You deserve more than survival. You deserve choice, safety, and financial freedom.
Call/Text (303) 900-8225 | info@hertimetherapy.com | www.hertimetherapy.com
About the Author
Meagan Clark, MA LPC NCC BC-TMH, is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the Founder of Her Time Therapy, PLLC, specializing in teletherapy and coaching for women. Meagan earned her MA in School and Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Adams State University. She is a Board Certified Telemental Health Provider and Nationally Certified Counselor. Specializing in trauma, relationship issues, anxiety, and grief, Meagan also supports cancer patients and caregivers struggling with compassion fatigue. She believes in empowering women to navigate oppression and increase resilience.
Disclaimer: This blog does not provide medical advice; the information contained herein is for informational purposes only. Always seek the advice of a licensed health provider before starting a new treatment regimen.
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