How Attachment Styles Shape Your Relationship with Money

In a time of growing financial pressure, economic anxiety, and social unrest, our relationship with money is under more strain than ever. And yet, for many people, particularly in BIPOC communities, the challenges we face with money aren’t just about numbers—they’re about safety, survival, and emotional patterns we’ve carried for generations.

As a trauma therapist, I’ve seen how attachment theory—typically used to understand our relationships with people, can just as easily explain our relationship with money. If you’ve ever felt anxious checking your bank account, avoided budgeting, or sabotaged financial progress the moment you got it, there may be something deeper at play than poor money management.

What Are Attachment Styles, and What Do They Have to Do with Money?

Attachment theory tells us that the way we connect to others is formed by early caregiving experiences. These patterns—secure, anxious, dismissive avoidant, and fearful avoidant (disorganized)—don’t only affect our intimate relationships. They show up in how we relate to ourselves, our work, our sense of stability, and yes, our finances.

Money, like relationships, triggers feelings of safety, control, and worth. So when our early experiences were marked by emotional inconsistency, abandonment, or survival stress, we often project those wounds onto how we earn, spend, save, or invest.

Anxious Attachment and Money

If you have an anxious attachment style, you may tie your worth to how much you can give to others. You might spend impulsively, especially to feel liked or accepted. You may also hoard money—not out of discipline, but fear. The idea of financial loss might feel unbearable, so you obsess over it, yet never feel secure no matter how much you save.

You may also undercharge, overwork, or say “yes” to financial commitments you can’t sustain—because the discomfort of saying no feels like rejection.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment and Money

Avoidantly attached individuals often push intimacy away in relationships, and they do the same with money. Budgeting feels suffocating. Looking at your bank statements might bring shame. So instead, you avoid. You tell yourself you don’t need help, that it’s not that serious, or that you’ll “figure it out eventually.”

Money becomes a tool for maintaining independence. You spend on things that signal control, yet struggle to open up about financial struggles, even to yourself.

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment and Money

Disorganized attachment is often the result of trauma, especially in environments where love and fear coexisted. This creates a push-pull dynamic not only in relationships but in money too.

You might fluctuate between splurging and scarcity. You might feel energized when spending, then overwhelmed with shame. You crave financial stability but fear what it might require—consistency, vulnerability, self-trust.

Money feels like chaos because it mirrors the unpredictability you once survived.

Secure Attachment and Financial Wellness

A secure attachment style allows you to approach money with flexibility and emotional regulation. You can ask for support when needed, set boundaries, invest in yourself without guilt, and recover from financial setbacks without spiraling.

This doesn’t mean perfection. It means resilience. It means trusting yourself to navigate both abundance and lack with a grounded sense of who you are.

Financial Trauma Is Real

For many BIPOC individuals, financial trauma is both personal and collective. The legacy of systemic oppression, economic exclusion, and generational scarcity is not just theoretical, it’s embodied. It's felt in our nervous systems, our family narratives, our daily decisions.

Healing your relationship with money isn't just about budgeting or saving. It's about making peace with what money has meant to you, and learning how to rewrite that story.

Where to Begin

Start with curiosity. What do you believe money says about you? What feelings come up when you think about debt, savings, or asking for help? How do you respond to financial stress—do you shut down, over-function, or try to ignore it?

These patterns are entry points, not problems to fix overnight.

In therapy, we explore these questions with compassion and intention. We work to identify not just the behavior, but the belief behind it. And then, slowly, we shift toward a more secure, empowered relationship with money, and with yourself.

If you’re ready to begin that work, I offer virtual therapy in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Connecticut, Vermont, Idaho, and Delaware. You can schedule a consultation here.

And if this resonates with you, share it with someone you love. We all deserve to feel safe—emotionally, relationally, and financially.