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In this video, podcast host and financial expert Joe Saul-Sehy shares insightful tips about money management.
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If your financial situation is keeping you up at night, you’re not alone. A recent survey conducted by BadCredit.org found that more than 3 million people who live in Florida have trouble sleeping due to financial worries.
And this makes sense. Inflation and the cost for almost everything – especially insurance – has risen significantly in Florida since 2020. Add that to student loan payments resuming for more than 2.7 million Floridians and you get a lot of sleepless nights.
The survey, conducted by BadCredit.org, found the cities in Florida where residents have the most trouble sleeping due to financial stress and how many adults are impacted in each city.
“Unsecured debt has been rising since 2004 and increasingly threatens the public’s health,” The American Public Health Association reported in 2021. “The adverse health impacts of unsecured debt include stress, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure.”
Here’s how money worries affect your sleep, which states have the most financial stress and some tips for calming financial anxiety.
Debt tips: Florida is 9th in the U.S. for most credit card debt. Here’s how to pay yours down.
How does money affect your sleep?
Income, education, employment status, environment and a person’s ability to network and access resources all affect their ability to get a good night of sleep. And conversely, poor sleep quality negatively affects your ability to perform at work.
If you’re not sleeping well, you could be too tired to keep up at work. If you’re falling behind at work, the stress of “playing catch-up” could compound with or feed into financial stress, which could keep you from sleeping. It’s a vicious cycle that’s difficult to break.
“Excellent sleepers tend to have more savings,” according to MoneyGeek. “Meanwhile, poor sleepers reported that they struggle with their finances.”
The grim irony of that reality is that those who are kept up at night by their financial woes are actually more likely to fall into more debt in the long-run. According to MoneyGeek, more than 13.6 million adults have sleep disorders nationwide, which contribute almost $95 billion to the country’s yearly healthcare costs.
“Over time, chronic stress can morph into physical ailments such as headaches, muscle tension, heart conditions and sleep disturbances,” BadCredit’s survey said. “This cycle of deteriorating mental and physical health makes climbing out of the financial pit even more daunting.”
Which states have the most financial stress?
Florida’s topped plenty of lists recently: most moved-to state, state with the highest inflation, best state for Pickleball, etc. But it also ranks in the top 10 on at least three lists that measure financial anxiety by state.
In August, Florida made Forbes’ list of the top 5 states that struggle with credit card debt based on average credit card debt, debt as a percentage of income and delinquency rates in each state. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York doesn’t have Florida in the top 5, but it still makes the top 10 list.
According to this USA TODAY list of the states with the most financial stress, Florida ranks sixth, following Mississippi, Nevada, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, respectively.
BadCredit.org’s survey found that 3,702,792 Floridians struggle to get enough sleep due to stress attached to finances. That figure is equal to around 17% of the state’s population.
How do you calm financial anxiety?
There are many things you can do to minimize your financial anxiety, and they all require facing your debt head-on.
Here are a few ways you can address financial insomnia, according to BadCredit.org:
- Be proactive about your debt: Ignoring your debt will only make you more stressed out for longer. Start with a baby step: Add up everything you owe, from interest rates to minimum payments.
- Prioritize your debts: Once you know how much you owe, find which debts are your highest priority. You can prioritize them by interest rate or balance, aiming to pay off the smallest balance first. “By at least paying the minimum on each debt and using extra funds to aggressively pay off one debt at a time, you can create a manageable plan,” according to BadCredit.org.
- Consult with a credit counselor: Reviewing your debt with a credit counselor can help you create a budget and debt prioritization plan if you feel you need help organizing the finances that are stressing you out. There are free services that help with money management and budgeting, like CreditKarma and Rocket Money, and you can also find a nonprofit credit counselor with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s “Get out of debt” guide.
- Consolidate your debt: Depending on where you stand financially, consolidating your debts into one loan payment might be the best option for you. If done correctly, consolidating your debt could lower the interest rates on what you owe. Ask a credit counselor if consolidating your debt is a good option for you.