How to Money · Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Aja Evans defines financial trauma as a negative feeling stemming from hardships like job loss, eviction, or overwhelming debt. She clarifies that financial trauma can affect individuals regardless of their wealth, emphasizing that the experience's impact is personal. Evans highlights that trauma can stem from various situations, including growing up in poverty or experiencing sudden financial setbacks.
“So financial trauma to me is a negative feeling that you have because of a hardship that you lived through.”
“So a financial trauma, I mean, the definition kind of fluctuates. In my own definition fluctuates, so I'll give that disclaimer as well. But it's pretty much if you live through somebody one of your parents, lost a job, or you had to move abruptly because you were being evicted, or you are twenty something and are up to debt, like in debt up to your eyeballs and you don't know what to do with it, and you're anxious and you can't sleep anymore.”
“It's feeling like you can't compare to anybody else or your peers because you don't have enough money to quote unquote keep up. All of those things, no matter how big or small, can be traumatic and can take root inside of you that start to kind of influence how you think about yourself in the world.”
“And I want to just say, I think we have this idea that people who are wealthy or rich or have a lot of money don't have any financial traumas, and that's not the case. A lot of times we talk about it from the other side, where people grew up in a situation where there wasn't enough means to kind of cover. But financial trauma really doesn't care how much money you have. It's just that it was traumatic. It's about the experience of the person, and just because it was traumatic to you doesn't mean it was traumatic for somebody else who went through the same exact experience as you.”