Hey friend,
Can we talk about the thing nobody's saying out loud?
You check your accounts. The numbers are... fine. Bills are paid. You're not drowning. And yet you're standing in the cereal aisle doing mental math like you're back in a final exam you didn't study for, and there's this low hum in your chest that won't quite turn off.
That hum has a name. It's just anxiety wearing a really convincing disguise.
Here's what's real: total U.S. credit card debt hit $1.26 trillion this year, sitting right up against the record set at the end of last year. The average person's carrying close to $6,600 in card balances. And grocery prices? Depending who you ask, they're up somewhere between 2.5% and, if things stay bumpy, closer to 4.5% this year - with sugar, beef, and your beloved morning coffee leading the charge. (Eggs are actually supposed to get cheaper, so, small mercies.)
So no, you're not imagining it. And no, it's not just you. If your nervous system is quietly bracing every time you swipe your card, that's not a character flaw - that's a completely reasonable response to a very real environment.
But here's where I want to gently pump the brakes: feeling this anxiety is different from being in financial trouble. A lot of my clients come to me with healthy savings, no missed payments, a real plan -and still feel like they're one Target run away from disaster. That gap between "my numbers are okay" and "my nervous system doesn't believe it" is where we're going to work today.
One practical move: shop online, pick up curbside.
This is one of my favorite tools with clients, and I'll be honest, it sounds almost too simple to work. It works anyway.
I had a client - we'll call her Dana - who swore she was "bad at budgeting." Turned out she wasn't bad at budgeting. She was bad at walking past the bakery display while hungry and distracted with three kids in tow. Every single trip, the $80 grocery run became $240, and she couldn't explain how. (We've all been there. The rotisserie chicken smell is not an accident, friends. That's a whole marketing department at work.)
We switched her to online ordering with curbside pickup. Same store, same list. Here's what changed: she could see her running total the entire time, no impulse aisle-end display ambushing her at checkout, and - this is the sneaky good part - she could put things in her cart, walk away, come back an hour later, and cut it down to what she actually needed before she paid. Her grocery spending dropped by about 20% in the first month. Not because she suddenly developed superhuman willpower. Because she removed the environment that was working against her.
Another client, Marcus, used it differently - he treated the cart total like a game. Add an item, watch the number creep up, decide if it was worth it before it ever hit his card. He told me it was the first time grocery shopping didn't feel like "damage control after the fact."
You don't need more willpower. You need less exposure to the stuff engineered to break your willpower. Let the store do what it does - that's its job - and just don't play on its home turf this week.
One grounding practice: name it before you carry it.
Financial anxiety loves to stay vague, because vague feelings are exhausting and specific feelings are manageable. So before you walk into the store, or before you open the banking app, try this:
Take a breath and say it plainly - even out loud, even if it feels silly - "God, I'm anxious about money right now, even though my numbers are actually okay. I'm handing You the part I can't control." That's it. That's the whole practice.
Philippians 4:6-7 says not to be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer, to let your requests be made known - and that the peace that follows will guard your heart and mind. Notice it doesn't say "have zero valid reasons to worry." It says bring the anxious thing to the surface, on purpose, instead of letting it hum quietly in the background all day. Anxiety shrinks when you name it. It grows when you let it stay foggy and formless, showing up as a tight jaw at checkout instead of an actual thought you can examine.
You're allowed to feel the hum. You're also allowed to hand it off instead of white-knuckling it through the checkout line.
Your one thing this week: pick one grocery trip and do it online with pickup. Watch the total the whole time. Notice how different "informed" feels from "anxious." That's the goal - not perfection, just peace with your eyes open.
Cheering for you,
Jenny
See you next week!
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