Are You Stress-Saving?

The morning after the election, I got a frenzied urge to clean house. I scrubbed the toilet and attacked a pile of mail on the kitchen counter. I dealt with a medical bill for $1.64 that kept showing up even though I thought I’d paid it. I gave some of my son’s old toys to a neighbor and Zelled my mom some money I owed her. I shredded old tax documents, canceled a bunch of subscriptions, inspected my credit-card statement and paid it off early. I wanted a tight ship, clear decks.

The instinct to stress-save (or rage-save?) is familiar to me. I felt it for the first time, acutely, after the election in 2016. Before that, I’d never been particularly good with money; I paid my bills more or less on time, but I was hardly a super-saver. Then, that November eight years ago, something flipped inside me and I became obsessed with squirreling away everything I possibly could. I side-hustled and checked my bank balance every morning. I kept meticulous track of my spending to the point of compulsion. It wasn’t entirely healthy — my inner control freak was on steroids — but it was productive; I knew that money could give me more agency, more options, a better ability to take care of myself and support the people and things I cared about. As they say, the antidote to anxiety is action, and this was something I could do. That year, I saved more than 30 percent of my income.

That result isn’t possible for most people — including me anymore, now that I have a kid — but I know I’m not the only one who gets hoarder-y in times of anxiety. My friend Tara calls it “cockroach mode” — you scuttle for cover and stockpile your resources. Another friend told me she’s so nervous about the next administration’s economic policies that she’s putting off grad school because she’s scared she can’t afford it. Much has been said about doom-spending — the tendency to impulse-buy things as a distraction from your problems — but research finds that people actually tend to decrease their spending when they’re stressed. Which is logical, of course, and can be constructive if you go about it wisely.

This is where I should also say: If this is not your process, and you’ve been shopping, scrolling, and otherwise consuming your way through the past week, no judgment. An overhaul of your finances can only go so far; it is not going to fix corporate greed or price-gouging or the cost of housing or who’s in charge. But if you’re looking for a way to channel your feelings of anger and powerlessness into something more tangible, it’s not a bad idea.

Farnoosh Torabi, who hosts the podcast So Money and wrote an entire book on the upside of fear, A Healthy State of Panic, said that her inbox is full of people asking her what to do. “This is a very uncertain time for many people, and since money can be a tool to provide us with more certainty and security, it’s natural for people to reexamine their financial choices,” she says. “‘What now?’ is on repeat in my DMs, especially from women.”

She doesn’t know the answer, but she has a recommendation: Let your anxiety motivate you. “Understand that it’s your mind’s way of telling you to get moving,” she says. Start by taking inventory of your cash flow, if you haven’t in a while: “What’s coming in every month, and what’s going out? Get close to your numbers,” she says. Then decide if you want to do anything differently. “What do you have in savings, and will it be sufficient in case you lose your job or need to absorb some other financial shock beyond your control? If not, create a plan to get there even if it means saving a very small amount out of each paycheck. Next: What aspects of your budget are needlessly draining your bank account, and can you put at least a temporary stop to them?”

None of this advice is election-specific, of course, but sometimes it takes a moment like this to make a change you’ve been contemplating for a while. You may as well lean into it! Plus the flip side of fear is that it can be paralyzing. “When unexamined, it can run us over and keep us stuck,” says Torabi. “It can be all-consuming to the point where we can’t help ourselves.”

Be aware that you can take it too far, though. As I was combing through the recurring charges on my credit-card bill, I found myself wondering if I should cancel my monthly donation to the local food bank. I caught myself  — if anything, now is a time to give more. Georgia Lee Hussey, a certified financial planner and founder of Modernist Financial, says that she’s been talking to her clients about the main advantage of saving money: It enables you to share. “The fact is, the next administration will probably enrich my wealthiest clients through tax cuts,” she tells me. “So we’ve been having conversations about what responsibilities come with that. How do people make practical changes that can align with what they want our wealth to do, not just for them and their family, but for the broader community?”

You don’t have to be rich to go through the same thought process, she adds. You could cancel a subscription and, instead of pocketing that cash, put it toward a monthly gift to a cause you care about. Or you can look at your non-monetary resources — time, skills, social connections, and physical health, to name a few — and think about what and where you can contribute.

If saving really isn’t in the cards for you right now, you can also reconsider the way you spend money. “The impulse to hoard is natural, but ultimately, I don’t know that it’s very helpful in the long run,” says Katie Gatti Tassin, the financial educator behind the podcast and newsletter Money With Katie. “I’m less interested in recommending more individual responsibility and more attracted to finding community and solidarity, shifting behavior that will have power in numbers.” In other words, if you’re been thinking about boycotting certain businesses or companies that funded a certain person’s campaign, or joining a mutual-aid group, now’s the time.

That said, everyone I spoke to advised against making knee-jerk moves with any investments you might have. “A recurring question I’m answering right now is ‘Should I pull out of the stock market?’” says Farnoosh. The truth is financial markets have historically performed well regardless of which party is in office. “‘Timing’ the market based on who’s president and who’s not isn’t how savvy investors build wealth,” she explains. “Instead, they invest consistently, stay the course and rebalance their portfolios when necessary to have a diverse mix of stocks and bonds, which you can do automatically no matter where you invest.”

We have no idea what’s going to happen in the next four years and beyond. But don’t sink into helplessness. Make some changes, however small. In fact, small may be better! It’s impossible to be fully prepared for whatever’s coming, but there’s no point in making yourself feel worse about it, either.

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