In 2016, the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, UK (http://www.moneyandmentalhealth.org) issued a research paper titled ‘Money on Your Mind’. The research paper found that money management and mental health are intricately linked. Mental health problems tend to make it hard for people to manage their finances and that living in financial stress exacerbates mental health issues. One of the issues identified by the research is that people with mental health problems tend to spend more.
This higher spending is categorised as follows:
- Manic spending during a high or period of mania.
- Nihilistic spending where the spending itself is meaningless.
- Comfort spending to boost low mood.
- Social value spending to boost status or self worth by giving money or gifts to others.
- Impulsive spending where respondents couldn’t recollect or attribute purpose to the spend.
- Addictive spending to feed an addition – such as gambling.
If you want to know more about the relationship between mental health and money you can access the research study from the following url: http://www.moneyandmentalhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Money-on-your-mind-full-report.pdf