Daily Money - Issue #273: Now I'm getting emotional

February 19, 2025 • Issue #273

Hi y’all —

I'm writing to you from Florida, where over the weekend I got to see one of my best friends get married. It was an emotional couple of days: I laughed, I cried, I got the hiccups after one too many glasses of Champagne.

But can you blame me? Who doesn't get in their feelings at a wedding?

In between wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, I started thinking about a Dollar Scholar issue I wrote in 2022 about being emotional with money. Experts commonly recommend separating finances and feelings so you don't make rash decisions (which tend to have long-term impacts) based on emotions (which tend to be fleeting). Are there exceptions to that rule, though?

Let's revisit Issue #159.

Is it ever OK to be emotional with money?

According to Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and author of The Financial Anxiety Solution, the answer is yes. In an email interview, she confirmed that money and emotions don't necessarily need to be kept in separate spheres.

In fact, "taking stock of how your emotions show up in your relationship with money can help guide you to making more aligned and wiser financial decisions," she says.

When experts advise against mixing money and emotions, what they're really suggesting is to avoid making major long-term financial decisions based on short-term feelings that could later fade.

Say I check my 401(k), freak out about how much it dropped due to stock market volatility and impulsively pull all my money out, incurring a huge penalty/tax bill and jeopardizing my retirement. Deep down, I know that strategy doesn't make logical sense — but it doesn't register because I'm so scared.

Emotions impact all our choices, says Jorge Barraza, a consumer psychology professor at the University of Southern California. They're never absent, so characterizing something as an emotional decision does me no good.

The way he sees it, feelings are simply information our brain uses to make choices. And "getting emotional" isn't always a hindrance to making the right ones.

This is my emotional support online shopping cart

Imagine I read an article about how Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, was overturned by the Supreme Court. As a woman who values people's freedom to make choices about when to be pregnant, I get mad — and I channel that anger into a charitable donation to an organization like Planned Parenthood.

Without my rage, I probably wouldn't have reacted that way. My emotions were a "go signal" that let me confidently make the financial decision to donate to a cause I believe in, Barraza says.

Uncertainty, he adds, can be useful, too: a red flag that something else is going on. My hesitation before clicking "submit" on the UberEats checkout page where I've loaded $30 worth of Wendy's into my cart can be a warning bell of sorts.

"From a financial standpoint, when we feel anxious about making a decision, it may be because it's too risky," Barazza says. "Our emotions are influencing us to pump the brakes."

As such, Bryan-Podvin says she encourages clients to think about financial and emotional "alignment," or making sure that their savings, spending and investing habits match up with their values.

"While there's not much we can do to change inflation or stock prices, what we can do is use our understanding and awareness of our unique emotions around finances to find a sense of control," she says.

On that note, Buffie Purselle, author of Crawl Before You Ball: Breaking the Cycle of Generational Poverty, recommends building emotional expenses into my budget. Spending $7 on Starbucks or going to Target after a hard day helps me feel better, so there's no need to cut it out — but I should bake it into my emergency fund.

"We need to explain the term 'rainy day fund,'" she says. "People always think that means [you save for when] your car breaks down, but it could mean you're sad, someone dies in your family, you broke up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, or you didn't get that promotion at work."

The bottom line

(but please don't tell me you scrolled past all of my hard work)

Contrary to popular belief, it's actually OK to combine emotions and money. If I'm careful, I can use my feelings to inform my financial decisions.

"When we separate our emotions from finances, it can help curb anxious or impulsive decision-making, but we also erase the power of our emotions as a positive influence on our financial lives," Bryan-Podvin says.

via Giphy

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Receipt of the week

check out this wild celebrity purchase

via Instagram

Philadelphia Eagles player Saquon Barkley just won the Super Bowl — and he has the bling to prove it. At a party last week, the running back showed off a 200-carat diamond-encrusted pendant featuring his number, 26. The custom necklace is estimated to cost $100,000. What a catch.

Internet gold

five things I'm loving online right now

1

Congrats to Monty the giant schnauzer, who recently won the Best in Show title at the 149th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. He beat out whippet Bourbon, bichon frisé Neal, terrier Archer and shih tzu Comet to snag the title, which comes with no prize but bragging rights. "He always tries so hard, and I'm just proud of him," Monty's owner told Fox Sports. "Puppy did the damn thing."

2

Never not thinking about "Larry, I'm on DuckTales."

3

When there's a will, there's a subreddit. Today I've been scrolling through /r/CatsStandingUp, which features — you guessed it — a bunch of cats standing up like humans. Some are smol, some are tall, but they're all so cute it's bringing tears to my eyes.

4

If the U.S. goes through with President Donald Trump's directive to stop producing pennies, we won't be the first country to do so. Places like Australia, Sweden and Canada have nixed their 1-cent coins to… not much fanfare, actually.

5

This New York Times article made me feel a lot better about the bird flu situation and whether I'm at risk. Maybe it can help you, too? ("The bottom line is that if people are using good food-handling practices and fully cooking their eggs as recommended, then the risk is extremely low," one doctor said.)

401(k)ITTY CONTRIBUTION

send me cute pictures of your pets, please

via David Calhoun

This is Cookie, who lives in Malaysia and is purrfectly fine with combining felines — I mean, feelings — and finance.

See you next week.

P.S. How do you approach emotions and money? Where would you wear a $100K necklace? Have you ever seen a cat stand up like a human? Send feedback to @julia@money.com.

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Daily Money - Issue #273: Now I'm getting emotional

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