How to Train Your Personal Finances Dragon
Control your financial fears during unemployment and train your brain to re-write your money scripts.
If you’ve been laid off or blindsided by financial stress, you may find yourself hoarding beans, impulse-buying online courses, or quietly ignoring your bank account.
That’s okay. In fact, that’s normal.
What you’re experiencing isn’t just poor planning or bad habits. It’s your nervous system doing exactly what it was wired to do when it senses threat.
The erratic behavior—the spending, the hoarding, the shutdown—is not irrational. It’s biological. And it’s probably rooted in an old money story you didn’t even know you were still living out.
I am Mel Lloyd and I want to talk about why job loss triggers survival behavior (not just budgeting chaos).
The 5 most common unconscious money scripts—and how they show up when stressed.
How to interrupt those patterns without shame, guilt, or spreadsheets you’ll never open.
A simple, no-judgment tool to help you reset your money behavior and your nervous system at the same time.
I want to help you understand that your reaction isn’t a failure—it’s a script. And scripts can be rewritten.
Spending, hoarding, panicking: What is going on?
First, if you’re spending erratically after a job loss—congratulations, your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. That layoff didn’t just hit your income. It hits your sense of safety.
Your brain doesn’t distinguish between a missing paycheck and a predator in the woods. It just registers danger—and pulls the emergency lever. Hoard, overspend, freeze, fantasize—these aren’t bad decisions. They’re survival responses.
Neuroscientists call it amygdala hijack—when your thinking brain goes offline and your body takes the wheel. What looks irrational on your bank statement is often just biology trying to keep you afloat.
In Crisis, You Don’t Think. You Reenact.
Most people think job loss triggers a money problem. It is bigger than that.
A loss like this kicks the hornet’s nest of an identity narrative around money—one you probably started writing when you were eight years old.
The term for this phenomenon was coined by financial psychologist Brad Klontz: money scripts. The unconscious beliefs that dictate how we react to money, especially under financial stress.
These scripts emerge from old stuff—childhood chaos, family patterns, how your grandma hid money, or the silence around what “success” was supposed to look like. Our scripts are passed down like family furniture. Only instead of a coffee table, we got a belief system about scarcity, worth, and what it means to deserve comfort.
Here is how the money scripts interacts with your nervous system:
You just internalized the story.
Your nervous system stores stories.
Scarcity warps your thinking.
And when safety feels uncertain, your money behavior becomes an old play on a new stage.
5 Common Layoff Money Scripts
Money is safety. Hoard everything: You stop spending—even on groceries. You cancel joy. You clutch every dime like it’s oxygen. But this isn’t prudence—it’s panic in a mask.
Money disappears anyway. Spend while you can: You binge on Amazon, self-help courses, or wellness gear. You tell yourself it’s “investing in yourself.” It’s actually damage control against anticipatory grief for living in scarcity.
If I just buy the right thing, I’ll feel in control again: Planners, courses, productivity tech—anything to restore order. But you’re not planning. You’re self-soothing.
If I don’t work, I don’t deserve comfort: You punish yourself with deprivation. No joy spending, no takeout, no help. This isn’t budgeting—it’s self-denial as penance.
Someone else will rescue me eventually: You ghost your bills. Avoid your account. Wait for a miracle. Avoidance isn’t laziness—it’s shut down.
4 Steps to Rewrite the Money Script
1. Regulate before tackling anything with money.
No one makes smart decisions when wound up. Move your body, breathe cold air, walk, punch a pillow—whatever grounds your system first. Do a one minute strategic pause exercise.
2. Name your money script.
Ask yourself and if you can, journal about it. Pick an item and imagine buying it, say a meal at a restaurant you love. When you think about that bill you will get at the end of the meal what do you feel?
Do you deserve the indulgence?
Do you not want to worry about it?
Do you feel guilty for that meal?
Not saying going out for the meal was a good idea or not, it is just a way to see what your money script is. Take Klontz's money script quiz if that helps.
Interrupt the pattern once...Then do it again.
If you hoard money, buy one small thing you enjoy. Even gum. If you overspend, empty the online cart and pause for 24 hours. Micro-defiance rewires the script.
Not perfection—just interruption.
Reinforce the idea that change starts not with budgeting, but with recognizing what emotional need your behavior is serving. Remember the nervous system doesn't recognize English, only patterns. This needs to be repeated.
Replace the autopilot around money with a map.
You don’t need a 12-tab spreadsheet, that is for later when your thinking brain is fully online - this is about getting out of panic mode. You need rhythm. Structure. Keep it simple.
One daily grounding habit.
One weekly financial check-in.
The Next Step: Create a Money Map
If your brain’s fogged and your fingers are twitching over a panic purchase use a Money Map Template instead.
Let me emphasize the importance of keeping it simple.
Yes, you Type-A people. Especially you. Keep it simple.
It has to be simple to not become a stressful chore so you will repeat the action to teach your nervous system your thinking brain is in charge and you can make better informed decisions around money.
Simple. Non-shaming. Just clarity on paper.
Because the goal isn’t to “fix your finances” right now. It’s to stop letting fear run your operating system.
We’ve Got This
I know this stuff isn’t easy. But being fully in charge of the script is the first act of power.
I’d love to hear from you—what you’ve noticed, what you’ve questioned, what small steps you’re trying.
Even sharing one little shift helps someone else feel less alone in the mess of it all.
RSVP Now: Personal Finances AMA
Unemployment is tough on the bank account. Bills keep coming in and money keeps flowing out. How to manage daily expenses while you job search?
Paid subscribers can RSVP for an Ask Me Anything session on Wednesday Noon EST to find answers to pressing questions about personal finances, including:
Should I raid my 401(k) to cover living expenses?
What about HELOC withdrawals for health insurance?
Is selling my house an option if I have over $100K in equity?
What about renting out a room or my basement?
Could I strategically use credit card balance transfers?
Will any of this impact my unemployment benefits?
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