Welcome To Therapy Informed Financial Planning

Welcome to Therapy Informed Financial Planning,

It is my honor to welcome you into a new way of thinking about and experiencing fee-only financial planning. You may have been studying money from many different vangate points for some time, or you are just trying to keep the house of cards up and hoping this will be different. 

You are welcome no matter where you are on your financial journey. 

Therapy Informed Financial Planning is for all people with ongoing mental and relational health challenges who want a financial planner who gets it and can talk openly and honestly about how mental and relational health impacts their financial life. 

Therapy Informed Financial Planning is for all the people out there that are on a journey of healing from a variety of trauma, abuse, neglect, and dysfunctional family experiences. They want a financial planner who gets the journey and can be a part of the community of people helping them along their path to wholeness and loving relationships. 

The truth is we all have a very personal relationship with money that is profoundly impacted by our lived experiences. 

As wonderful, dynamic, and, yes, sometimes hurt humans, we can have a conflicted relationship with money and the people we love. We all function along a continuum in the love and money department, and most of the people I work with would like things to improve. 

Therapy Informed Financial Planning will provide a safe, nurturing, supportive and explorative environment to work on your financial goals with your partner. 

Why do we choose a safe, nurturing, supportive and explorative environment for financial planning? Instead of an advice-driven, goal-driven, tough love, or in worst case scenarios an, I am the expert, and you are the incompetent financial planning client experience? 

Simply stated, counseling psychology has shown me a different path.  I have experienced both styles of financial planning, and the safe, nurturing, supportive and explorative one has been the one that has helped me develop a far more balanced and healthy relationship with myself, my wife, my family, and money.  

Here’s the thing, I love goals, I love advice, and I love learning. You probably do too. Yet sometimes, that is not what we need. Sometimes this is not what our partners need. At times we need love and connection before financial planning and goal-setting and help. We see love and connection as foundational to financial well-being.

Therapy Informed Financial Planning is about finding the middle zone between what the financial information says and what your mind/brain/body, story, intuition, family, and culture say. Financial planning can help us understand the math and likely outcomes of different financial decisions. What financial planning can’t do is tell us what is essential in our life, what we need help healing from, and when we need to make small or big changes.

Going Deeper Into Relationship and Mental Health

The study of relationship and mental health is deep and wide. We can learn countless lessons from this field and apply them to ourselves and our experiences with money and others. Healthy Love and Money specializes in understanding how our attachment styles, family systems, and interpersonal neurobiology impact our sense of self, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and relationships in general and specifically to the totality of our financial life. 

Connecting With The Parts and Whole Of Your Financial Life

Your personal finances matter to you and the people you are connected with. None of us are born with the knowledge of how money works or the many different elements of our financial life. Seeing how all the pieces are connected is another step along the money maturity process. 

Financial Planning helps us review and make decisions about the different parts of our financial life and also allows us to see how decisions in one area impact another. 

The six major areas of your personal finances. 

1. Cash Flow and Spending
2. Investing/Saving/Retirement
3. Taxes
4. Insurance
5. Estate Planning
6. Education Funding

Because each of the parts is connected like a children’s mobile, change in one area can impact other areas in expected and unexpected ways. Financial planning helps to predict what will happen. 

As living, breathing humans, it would be easy if this information was all taken in and processed as just facts. But that’s not it. We are humans with our own sense of self, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and beliefs about others that color how we want to organize our financial lives. 

Financial planning can feel like stepping on the dreaded scale for many people and couples. What the numbers reveal can evoke anxiety, anger, regret, shame, or any other combination of uncomfortable emotions and bodily reactions. 

Working with complex combinations of reactions to your financial life is why Therapy Informed Financial Planning is so important. Knowing how to help people and couples with their responses to their financial information is helpful for crafting a financial plan that works for all interested people. 

Bringing It All Together 

               Fee-Only Financial Planning + Financial Therapy + Couples Therapy 

                                        = Therapy Informed Financial Planning

I have built Healthy Love and Money out of my journey to understand myself, my wife, our family, and the culture that has shaped all of our financial lives. This journey has turned into my life’s work to create a new legacy for my children where we can all talk openly and honestly about our financial reality, what it means to each of us and how we can use money to live a meaningful life. 

Working with countless people, couples, and families in various contexts have helped me understand the subtitles and complexities of life and money. In no way do I know every contour and subtly, but much like a brain surgeon becomes a master student of the brain, I have become a master student of people and money. 

With deep knowledge of financial planning, financial therapy, and couples therapy, I combine them in a way that helps clients learn, heal, and grow toward the life they desire to live. Please remember this is an evolving and dynamic process.  One I continue to be on and one I love helping other clients be on. 

Common Types of Clients Who Benefit From Therapy Informed Financial Planning.

Financial Planners and money professionals who have a hard time working with their spouses to create a financial plan that works for their family. At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive, that financial planners and money professionals would have additional challenges with their family finances, and yet I have seen it countless times. There are very understandable psychological explanations for the added challenges that money professionals have in navigating their family finances. 

Busy entrepreneurs and professionals who are experts in what they do but do not have the time or energy to sort through all the moving pieces of their finances. They often struggle to communicate the impacts of what happens in their business and how it impacts their home life. I commonly hear it’s just easier to try and make more money, then try to get my partner to change. 

Mental Health professionals who have dedicated themselves to understanding the human condition and experience and yet know they know they need to understand and improve their relationship with money. Allowing someone to care for you and extend trust with your finances can be major part of your own self of the therapist work.  

First-generation professionals who have crossed many visible and invisible barriers to achieve some version of success, that once they achieved it leaves them disillusioned or alienated from themselves, their family and their community of origin. They often also feel uncomfortable with their level or income or wealth. 

People and couples that have benefited from counseling and therapy throughout their life, and they realize they need help tackling their financial life. They have experienced the positive impacts of therapy and counseling and want that to help them develop a financial plan that works for them. 

There are many other people groups and identities not represented in these examples. Please know I am aware of this, and I invite you to reach out if you want to talk about your particular needs. If I am not the right fit, I will gladly try to help you find someone that is. 

5 Frequently Asked Questions?

1. Can Therapy Informed Financial Planning Replace Therapy?

Therapy Informed Financial Planning is not intended to replace mental health care and therapy. If a need for deeper, long-term therapy emerges during the time of working together, a referral will be made. We believe in the value of depth-based long-term therapy as part of a more extensive healing journey when needed. 

We will gladly remain your therapy-informed financial planner and help advocate for you in maintaining your financial well-being while pursuing therapy.

2. What does Therapy Informed Financial Planning Cost?

Therapy Informed Financial Planning with Healthy Love and Money is currently determined based on common fee-only pricing models. This is a financial planning service. Please see the current fee disclosure for Healthy Love and Money. 

3. How Often Do I Meet With My Therapy Informed Financial Planner?

The Healthy Love and Money view of Therapy Informed Financial Planning seeks to foster a long-term collaborative working relationship with their clients. 

Therapy Informed Financial Planning is offered on an annual basis and ongoing. We know that working with our clients is an in-depth process to ensure that we accurately advise and counsel our clients. 

During the first year of working together, we will likely meet between 8 - 12 times, depending on many variables. There is flexibility in meeting frequency to meet the needs of each couple and client. 

After the first year of working together, most clients will meet four times a year to review progress and receive support around specific topics relevant to their current needs. Again there is flexibility to meet more or less frequently as needed. 

4. What Topics Are Covered In Therapy Informed Financial Planning?

In financial therapy, we commonly talk about exterior and interior personal finances.  I like to think of each of them as an ingredient in a delicious recipe. Each ingredient can be combined with others and come out with a completely different meal. 

Exterior Therapy Informed Financial Planning will look at the six major areas of personal finances. 1. Cashflow/Spending 2. Investments/Retirement 3. Taxes 4. Insurance 5. Estate Planning 6. Education Funding

Interior Therapy Informed Financial Planning will look at 1. Great Communication 2. Attachment Styles 3. Brain and Money 4. Navigating Emotions 5. Families & Money 6. Stages of Life 7. Social Class 8. Mental Health & Trauma Healing 9. Past, Present, and Future Money Experiences.

5. Will You Manage My Investments? 

Yes, we can help you manage your investments, or we can offer you guidance on your investments as you manage them. Investment management services are part of our comprehensive, Therapy Informed Financial Planning work. 

Therapy Informed Financial Planning loves helping clients to navigate the market and investor psychology. Being a successful long-term investor involves having a solid investment philosophy and the ability to navigate your emotional reactions to the market and your life. 

We will also work on your financial identity and how you see yourself as it relates to investing. If you tend to either spend very large amounts of time on your investments or you would rather not think about it all, we will explore the origins of this and help you find a middle ground that works for you and your family. 

Time For Self Reflection

I invite you to stop and take a deep breath. Notice what is happening in your body. 

How has the idea of Therapy Informed Financial Planning resonated for you?

Notice particular places of fear, anxiety and shame.

Notice particular places of hope, excitement and encouragement.

Let’s Talk About Therapy Informed Financial Planning

If you are ready to explore Therapy Informed Financial Planning and if it is right for you let’s schedule a time to talk.

Please use this link to schedule a free 30-minute discovery call. 

Wishing You Healthy Love and Money,

Ed Coambs -

MBA, MA, MS, CFP®, CFT-I™, LMFT