New parents often face one of the most financially strained phases of adulthood, with rising expenses arriving before they reach their peak earning years.ArtistGNDphotography
Just after her daughter’s first birthday, Alyssa Davies bought her first house – a double whammy of major life changes that left her reeling. New parenthood and homeownership each come with their own financial curveballs, but facing both at once? That was a crash course nobody warned her about.
“I remember feeling almost stunned. There was this sense of, ‘How is this my home? How is this my child?’,” says Davies, now 35, who lives in Calgary. “It reminded me of the day you’re sent home from the hospital, where you’re holding your baby thinking, ‘Are you sure I’m ready for this?’ That same shock hit me when we got the house keys. Suddenly, I was responsible not only for this tiny human but also for the biggest financial asset of my life.”
In the trenches of early parenthood, Davies remembers the weight of new responsibility piling up quickly, overwhelming her in ways that were both existential and painfully practical. It’s still vivid for her, even over five years later.
“It wasn’t just about paying bills or sleepless nights,” she says. “It was about reconciling who I was becoming under the pressure of these roles I had stepped into all at once.”
And Davies wasn’t exactly flying blind: She’s the founder of personal finance blog Mixed Up Money and the co-host of the Money Feels podcast, with years of financial know-how under her belt.
“I’ve seen it both in my own life and with clients. That combination of sleepless nights and financial strain doesn’t just drain your bank account – it also drains your emotional reserves and bandwidth to make financial decisions,” says Davies, who is also currently training to be a financial therapist. “In fact, from a psychological perspective, sleep deprivation actually makes financial stress feel heavier because our ability to regulate emotions and make clear decisions is compromised. So you’re not just ‘tired.’ You’re also more anxious, more irritable and less confident in your money choices. It becomes a cycle that feeds itself.”
This “stacking of stressors,” as Davies describes, can be particularly confusing because people are often anxious about two things that she says are generally symbols of stability: Home and family.
“In reality, they come with identity shifts and financial pressure,” she says. “It’s easy for people to internalize the stress as ‘I’m failing,’ when in fact, it’s the sheer volume of life transitions happening at once that makes it feel overwhelming.”
It’s also very common. This stretch of adulthood – when you might partner up, buy a home and start a family – is what money expert and bestselling author Jessica Moorhouse calls “phase two” of the five stages of our adult financial lives. Phase one is when you’ve just started your professional life but likely don’t have huge financial responsibilities, while phase two is when things start ramping up. This is when those big life expenses tend to happen – and when people tend to start thinking about the future, whether that’s saving for their kids’ education or their own retirement. At the same time, their peak earning years still lie ahead of them.
“This is the phase of life that will feel likely the most overwhelming because you’ve got a number of different financial responsibilities all at once,” Moorhouse says. “It can feel like financially, things are very tight and [it’s] difficult to see an end in sight. But with proper financial planning, this will just be a short period in a long life and calmer times are ahead.”
(There’s still phase three, where you’re hopefully closer to paying off that mortgage and your kids are leaving the nest, and phase four, where you’re at your earning peak and hopefully debt-free and building your nest egg. Then you’ll finally hit phase five, “in which if you’ve planned right, you can finally relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour,” says Moorhouse.)
But what to do when you’re in the thick of the stress? You may want to start out by checking in on your own body, not your bank balance.
“Before we can problem solve, the body needs to be calm. One solution is to do a grounding exercise, such as deep breathing,” suggests Juli Fraga, a psychologist and co-author of Parents Have Feelings Too. “Simply take a deep inhale and on the exhale, do so slowly through pursed lips like you’re blowing on hot soup. This exercise gives the vagus nerve in the body a tight hug, which calms down the body’s nervous system, helping you feel calmer.”
According to Fraga, “emotions start in the body, not the brain,” which is why she begins with these sorts of exercises when she’s working with folks who might be in the sleepless-and-house-poor phase of life.
“Knowing how to work with the emotions that travel with stress prevents [those] emotions from coming out sideways in defenses, such as self-blame or snapping at our partners, or with emotions such as guilt, shame, and anxiety, which can block access to our ‘core emotions,’ such as anger, sadness and fear,” she says. “When we can name, validate, and work through our core emotions, we can make decisions and take action that serve us well.”
It’s an approach echoed by Davies, who doesn’t want her clients to think about the specifics of their financials until they feel more grounded.
“Numbers aren’t going to help in this situation. Why? Because they’ve already run them. They were approved for a mortgage, they got the house, and they knew they could manage the bills. However, the nervous system wasn’t given the same time,” she says. “And as humans, we need to feel safe before money decisions can feel clear. That might mean helping them notice where they actually do have stability – a roof overhead, a steady income, supportive relationships – so they can counterbalance the scarcity mindset.”
It’s only after this “emotional groundwork” has been laid that Davies focuses on practical strategies, like normalizing asking for help if you need it (“community care is a financial resource,” she says), communicating with your partner so you’re not carrying money anxieties alone and treating rest as a financial strategy. “Truly — better sleep leads to better decisions,” she says.
Feeling overwhelmed can easily lead to poor financial decisions – which is why it’s crucial to slow down, get informed and make choices with intention, Moorhouse says.
“Don’t throw your hands up and give up because it’s too hard. Yes, this is a difficult phase to live in, but you’ve got to remember it’s temporary and the actions you take today will have a huge impact on your future,” she says. “You’ll blink and five or 10 years will have passed. So don’t wait – get started now. Future You will thank you.”
