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Between Tables is where I explore the emotional, psychological, and practical sides of money, especially for women carrying a lot.
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I’ve been staring at a blank screen for three days.
Not because I don’t know what I want to say, but because I’m trying to figure out how to say it in a way that doesn’t oversimplify something inherently complex.
Here’s what I know: The world feels heavy right now. It always seems to feel heavy, doesn’t it? Climate disasters. Political upheaval. Social injustice playing out in real time on our screens. Pick your issue: there’s no shortage of things demanding our attention, our outrage, our action, our money.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we’re just trying to live our lives. Raise our kids. Do our jobs. Pay our bills.
As a financial advisor, I spend my days helping people align their money with their goals. But lately, I’ve been thinking about a different kind of alignment: what it costs us—psychologically, emotionally, and yes, financially—when our values and our actions don’t match up.
The Both/And of Being Human
If you’ve been reading Between Tables, you know I don’t fit neatly into boxes.
I’m for women’s rights. LGBTQIA+ rights. Immigrant rights. I believe Black lives matter. I’m also a proud former military spouse whose husband served a decade in the Navy. I live in a military community and have friends and family who serve our country as military, border patrol and police officers.
I can hold multiple truths at once: I can love my military community AND oppose policies I find unjust. I can have dear friends in law enforcement AND advocate for systemic reform. I can believe in the goodness of individuals while recognizing the harm of certain systems.
This isn’t contradictory. This is just being human.
I also believe that life occurs in shades of grey across many spectrums and issues. That there are systemic problems at play across most industries and governments. And that despite all of this (or maybe because of it) I still believe in the goodness of people. In balance and love and joy and using our voices to stand up for those who cannot use theirs.
But holding all of this complexity is exhausting. And expensive in ways we don’t often acknowledge.
The Algorithm Is Eating Us Alive
The onslaught is just too much for one person to absorb. We’re all scrolling through it. At 11 PM. At 6 AM. During our kids’ taekwondo lesson. In the bathroom at work.
Research published in Applied Research in Quality of Life analyzed three separate studies involving about 1,200 adults and found doomscrolling is linked to worse mental well-being and life satisfaction. An August 2024 study of 800 adults found that doomscrolling evokes greater levels of existential anxiety (that feeling of dread or panic that arises when we confront the limitations of our existence). Another study found that employees who doomscroll while at work become less engaged with their professional tasks.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, explains it this way: “Our brains and bodies are expertly designed to handle short bursts of stress. But over the past several years, the stress just doesn’t seem to end. Doomscrolling is our response to that.”
And doomscrolling has a price tag.
The Hidden Cost of Bearing Witness
When we spend hours scrolling through news that makes our nervous system buzz with low-grade panic, we’re not just draining our mental health. We’re draining our capacity to make good financial decisions.
I’ve seen it in my own life. I’ve seen it across the table from my clients.
Not being able to make financial decisions because the morning was spent reading news that breaks your heart.
Fighting with your partner about money, not because you disagree on goals, but because you’re both exhausted and running on empty from bearing witness to trauma that’s not even happening to you directly.
Impulse-buying things you don’t need because clicking “add to cart” gives you a brief hit of control in a world that feels increasingly uncontrollable.
Eating a half a dozen Trader Joe’s cookies in your pantry while refreshing your news feed for the fourteenth time today, as if somehow this time the news will be different (this one is me).
Staying silent in the face of injustice or suppressing emotions can lead to increased stress, anxiety, reduced self-worth, and even physical health problems.
This is what it looks like when your values and your actions don’t align. Your nervous system and your finances can pay the price.
“Just Use Your Voice” (But Make It Sustainable)
Many say that using your voice is not enough. That there has to be tactics. Strategy. Boycott this company. Delete that app. Stop shopping here.
And I get it. I do. Because when you feel powerless, controlling where your dollars go feels like the one thing you can actually do.
What nobody talks about, though: what if you don’t have the bandwidth?
What if you need the convenience of Amazon because you’re a working parent who’s already stretched too thin?
What if you’ve spent years curating playlists on Spotify that would take you hours to reproduce, and right now, music is one of the few things keeping you sane?
What if you’re already carrying so much—the mental load, the emotional labor, the actual work of keeping your household running—that adding “research every company I buy from” to your to-do list feels like the thing that might finally break you?
The guilt around this is real. I feel it. My clients feel it. We’re told that our dollars are our votes, and if we’re not voting correctly with every single purchase, we’re complicit.
You can’t pour from an empty cup, though. And right now, a lot of our cups are bone dry.
What Financial Activism Looks Like (and Permission to Not Do It All)
So what do we do? How do we align our money with our values without completely depleting ourselves in the process?
Financial activism doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be something.
It’s direct donations to organizations doing work you believe in.
It’s recurring small donations over one-time large ones to create predictable revenue streams for organizations, which allows them to plan long-term rather than constantly scrambling for funding.
It’s supporting independent journalism and media when official narratives don’t match lived experiences.
It’s moving your money to institutions that align with your values such as community development credit unions, B Corporations, banks with strong ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) commitments.
It’s investing in mutual aid networks to have a direct impact on helping your actual neighbors.
It’s supporting businesses owned by impacted communities and when you have the choice and the capacity, prioritizing Black-owned businesses, immigrant-owned businesses, LGBTQIA+-owned businesses and women-owned businesses to build economic resilience in communities that face systemic barriers.
But just as important as this list is the knowledge that you don’t have to do every one of these things. If you can, that’s wonderful. But if you can’t, you’re not alone. In fact, I’m giving you permission (and I’m giving myself permission) to not do it all.
You don’t have to donate to every organization. You don’t have to boycott every problematic company. You don’t have to attend every protest or sign every petition or make every phone call.
You can choose one thing. One organization to support monthly. One local business to prioritize. One topic that you’ll make calls on. One way to vote with your dollars that feels aligned and sustainable.
A Moment That Matters
I was driving with both of my kids recently when we saw people living out their values in real time. I burst into tears at the beauty and complexity and ache of it. Tears streaming down my face while I was trying to drive.
My daughter, who’s ten, reached over and put her hand on my leg. She didn’t say anything. She just rested it there.
I haven’t told my kids all the details of everything happening in the world. They don’t need to carry that weight yet. But I do share pieces of it. And I continue to show them how we can help. How we use our voices. Where we give to. How to be a leader. How to be of service.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. Not in ways that deplete us completely.
But in ways that say: when something matters to you, you show up for it. Even in small ways. Even when it’s hard. Even when you’re tired.
I think about what world I’m helping to build for both of them.
I think about the families struggling right now. About the communities facing barriers I’ll never fully understand. About the people doing the hard, unglamorous work of organizing and advocating and showing up day after day even when it feels hopeless.
And I think about what I can actually do from my corner of the internet, from my kitchen table, from my life as a financial advisor and a mother and a woman who believes in something better.
I can’t fix it all. Neither can you. But we can do something. We can align our money with our values in whatever way is sustainable for us. We can stop doomscrolling long enough to take one intentional action. We can model for our children that when the world feels heavy, you don’t just watch—you find your bucket, even if it’s small, and you carry water.
Maybe your bucket looks like $25 a month to an organization doing work you believe in. Maybe it looks like switching your checking account to a credit union that invests in your community. Maybe it looks like showing up at a city council meeting. Maybe it looks like just... saying something. Writing something. Breaking your own silence in your own small way.
The point is not perfection. The point is not doing everything. The point is recognizing that how we spend our money is how we spend our lives, and our lives are asking us to pay attention. To care. To act in ways that feel true.
The Work Ahead
I don’t know what’s going to happen next. None of us do. The news will keep coming. The algorithm will keep serving up trauma. The world will keep asking us to bear witness to things that break our hearts.
But we get to choose how we respond. Not just emotionally, not just politically, but financially. Because money is not separate from values. It never has been.
So what actually matters to you? What are you willing to show up for, even imperfectly? What do you want your money, and by extension, your life, to say about who you are and what you believe in?
Those are the questions worth sitting with. And whatever answers you find, even if they're messy and incomplete and change over time, they're enough.
Related: You Don’t Need a Better Plan. You Need Permission To Trust the One You Have.