Do you check your retirement balance daily? I have a friend who did that. She looked really tired… not a good look for someone in their mid-fifties.
Maybe you go to bed feeling a bit uneasy. You wake up in the middle of the night, wet with sweat, because you have BAD anxiety. You wonder how you're going to pay for your kid's college or their wedding — or how you're ALSO going to take care of your aging parents AND keep this ship called LIFE afloat.
Or perhaps you listen to financial news obsessively because you want to hit the market "on the nose" and take your money out before it takes a nosedive. But no one has a crystal ball. No one can know for sure when it will happen or how much you could gain…or lose.
What about feeling more and more financially out of control because you have too much debt? You're paying way too much in interest every month, but you're not sure how to get it all under control.
Then there's the feeling of never being financially stable, no matter how hard you try. You think about taking early Social Security, but you really don't want to — or it looks like you're going to have to work far into your seventies because no one ever showed you how to live a decent life after retirement.
All of these are signs that you're in Financial Menopause™. It's not a fun place to be.
Financial Menopause™ is about feeling unstable about your money — and that gives you a BIG headache.
So let's break down these five signs and see what's really going on.
Sign 1: You Check Your Retirement Balance Constantly
One of the best ways to get wrinkles is to worry. We don't need that!
But people check their balance constantly because they are worried. It's the age-old question: Am I going to have enough?
"Enough" looks different for each person. Sure, we all have bills — mortgage payments, car payments, insurance, utilities, and groceries. But what about the other non-negotiables — like manis and pedis, or going out for a meal, or getting a coffee? That last one can rack up the dollars more than almost any other daily expense, by the way.
This is one of the main reasons I realized we go through Financial Menopause™. It's the Budgetary Hot Flashes — and let me tell you, these hot flashes can be FAR worse than the hormonal kind. They are also curable…and you don't have to take anything for it. You just need some help getting control over your money.
Sign 2: You're Losing Sleep Over Your Financial Future
This is the one where you wake up with the night sweats. You wonder and worry, and sometimes have all-out night terrors, because you're not sure whether the money you have will last through everything life is throwing at you.
And what IS life throwing at you? Let's count.
Putting a kid through school is expensive — and it's not just college. It's high school, too, with the homecomings, the proms, and the movie nights; they somehow can't pay for themselves. Not to mention hundreds of dollars in fees. I paid all of this for my daughter. It was her education, after all — but that was money I was spending, not putting away for later.
Then there's taking care of your parents. I brought my mom home during the COVID pandemic when it became clear that quarantining her in her assisted living facility would have been the end of her. So at 11 pm on a weeknight, my daughter and I picked her up from the hospital, grabbed her things, and brought her home. She couldn't get out of bed, dress herself, or take her medicine alone. I was divorced, so there was no leaning on anyone. I was a sandwich mom — taking care of my daughter and my mother at the same time while trying to keep my business alive. My mom passed peacefully in August of 2023 at 89 years old, and I am so grateful we had that time together.
But I won't pretend it wasn't hard. There were plenty of middle-of-the-night moments when I woke from a dead sleep, not at all sure how I was going to make it all work. Sometimes it didn't, and we had to regroup. Most of the time it did — because what other choice did I have?
Sign 3: You're Obsessively Trying to Time the Market
This symptom is a close cousin to the night sweats. You listen to financial news constantly, convinced that if you just pay close enough attention, you'll know exactly when to pull your money out before the market drops.
That may work for some people. But I find it personally exhausting to have ALL my money in the stock market. It's too uncertain — and the anxiety it creates is its own kind of Financial Menopause™ symptom. These two signs together — the sleeplessness and the market obsession — are perhaps the most insidious, because they creep up on you gradually. You don't always know if it's hormones, your mattress, the warm summer air, or genuine financial anxiety keeping you up. But the worry is real, and it deserves a real solution.
Sign 4: Debt Is Eating You Alive
There is so much to say about debt — and I will in another post coming soon. For now, let's look at the facts: we all have it. Most of us are paying FAR too much in interest every month, and that interest is quietly eating away at our income. We only have so much coming in. It has to be handled — but why make yourself poor in the process?
There are smarter ways to tackle debt, and getting a handle on it is one of the most powerful steps you can take toward financial stability. More on that soon.
Sign 5: You Can't Seem to Get Financially Stable No Matter What You Do
Financial stability is really what we're all looking for, if you think about it. It means having it covered — "it" being the gap between how much you need and how much you spend every month. It's about knowing what "enough" really is.
The word "stability" itself comes from the idea of "standing." It's the strong pole that doesn't bend when things get tough. It's the tree that gives us air and life, and that we can lean on when we need a little extra support.
Financial stability is the opposite of Financial Menopause™. And here's the thing — it's not out of reach.
You Don't Have to Just Endure This
Financial Menopause™ is our reminder that things are changing. Our bodies change. Our bank accounts change. We get older. We stop working. We can't replenish our savings the way we once could. But this is something to prepare for — not something to endure because we don't think there's another way.
There are ways to handle this. Problems are only problems if we let them stay that way. It takes courage to say, "I'm going to do something about this." It takes courage to keep going in spite of all the changes happening to our bodies — so why should the way we handle our money be any different?
You've already got the courage. Let's put it to work.