For many families of color, the holidays are meant to be a time of connection, culture, and care. But in a year where prices are high, wages haven’t caught up, and programs like SNAP have been slashed, joy can quickly be overshadowed by pressure. Especially when you’re already living on the edge, trying to make the holidays “magical” can start to feel like a financial and emotional minefield.
Let’s talk about financial stress: what it really feels like, how it shows up in our bodies and minds, and how to survive the season without breaking yourself in the process.
Why Am I Always Struggling Financially?
If you’ve ever felt like no matter how hard you work, you can’t seem to get ahead, you’re not imagining things. Financial struggle is often framed as a personal failure, but for families of color, it’s usually the result of:
- Systemic inequities in employment, housing, healthcare, and education
- Generational wealth gaps rooted in colonization, redlining, and discrimination
- Single-income households, caregiving burdens, and underpaid labor
- Limited access to safety nets, especially with recent reductions in programs like SNAP
- High expectations from family or community, especially during cultural celebrations
It’s not about poor budgeting. It’s about structural barriers that keep you hustling just to survive.
What to Do If I’m Struggling for Money
First: breathe. If you’re reading this with a tight chest and a sinking feeling in your stomach, you’re not alone, and you’re not failing.
Here are some steps to consider if you’re struggling financially right now:
1. Pause the pressure to “perform” the holidays
You are not obligated to go broke proving your love. Love isn’t measured by gifts, matching pajamas, or travel plans. Scaling back doesn’t make you less worthy, it makes you honest and self-aware.
- Access support that is available
- SNAP and EBT emergency allotments ended for millions of families this year, but some states and local orgs offer holiday food assistance, mutual aid, and relief funds.
- Utility and rent assistance may be available through local government or nonprofit agencies.
- Religious and cultural centers often provide groceries, gifts, or help without judgment.
3. Let go of shame
Financial stress thrives in silence. It tells you you’re alone, when in reality, millions are struggling right alongside you. Talking about it (with a friend, a partner, or a therapist) can lighten the weight.
How Do You Deal With Financial Stress?
Financial stress isn’t just about numbers. It impacts your entire nervous system. And for people of color, it often gets tangled with identity, family expectations, and survival guilt.
Here’s how you can start dealing with financial stress:
Acknowledge what it’s doing to you
Financial stress can show up as:
- Trouble sleeping
- Snapping at loved ones
- Feeling hopeless or stuck
- Headaches, tight shoulders, or fatigue
- Overthinking, shame, or avoidance
You’re not “being dramatic.” Your brain and body are doing what they can to cope.
Give yourself permission to say no
You can say no to group trips. No to Secret Santa. No to “just chipping in a little.” You can honor your boundaries without explaining yourself.
Talk to your kids honestly (in age-appropriate ways)
You don’t have to pretend everything’s fine. Children can understand more than we give them credit for. Learning to navigate hard times together builds resilience.
Let therapy be a tool
You can’t budget your way out of structural injustice. But you can learn how to hold compassion for yourself, work through guilt, and build emotional strategies to manage anxiety. Therapy can help you feel less alone and more equipped to survive moments like this.
Where Is Financial Stress Stored in the Body?
When you’re under constant financial pressure, your body absorbs it. Financial stress can live in the body as:
- Jaw tension or teeth grinding
- Headaches or migraines
- Digestive issues like nausea, cramps, or IBS
- Tightness in your chest or racing heartbeat
- Back and shoulder pain from clenching or poor sleep
- Exhaustion, even when you’re technically getting rest
Many people don’t realize they’re carrying financial stress physically until the symptoms show up at the doctor’s office. In therapy, we help you build awareness of how your body is trying to cope — and how to give it some relief.
The Holiday Season Isn’t Just “Hard” — It’s Harmful When Systems Fail Us
This year, millions of households lost their emergency SNAP benefits. That change hit hardest during a time when food costs are up, utilities rise with colder weather, and families are expected to stretch what little they have even further. In fact, research found that when the extra SNAP emergency allotments ended, food insufficiency among households receiving SNAP rose by 21%.
For many, this is more than financial stress — it’s survival stress.
And when you come from a culture that says you should always show up, give your all, and never complain, the emotional weight can be overwhelming. Especially if you’re the “strong one” in your family, the one everyone relies on, the one who knows how to stretch a dollar and still make it look good.
You deserve better. And you deserve care — not just when things are good, but especially when they aren’t.
You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone
Therapy won’t fix capitalism. It won’t replace your SNAP benefits. But it can give you:
- A space to speak honestly without shame
- Tools to regulate anxiety and prevent burnout
- Help navigating hard family conversations
- Support in rewriting generational narratives around worth, money, and survival
- Room to process grief, fear, and anger without being told to “just be grateful”
At Melanated Women’s Health, we understand how financial stress hits differently for families of color. We know the exhaustion of always being “resilient.” And we’re here to support you through it with compassion, not judgment.
If financial stress is weighing on your mental health this holiday season, you are not weak. You are human. And you deserve support.
Book a session with one of our culturally affirming therapists at Melanated Women’s Health. Let this be the year you stop carrying everything in silence.
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