Why High Earners in the UAE Suffer from Financial Anxiety

Tim Elliott (0:00)

It's the Morning Drive. This time in personal finance, in the personal finance world, we're going to be looking at dismantling the myth that financial anxiety is purely about how much you earn. And we're also going to look at why even high-income professionals here in the UAE, everywhere really, suffer from background money stress just as much as the poor people like me.

James Thomas, nice to see you.

James Thomas (0:25)

And you, good morning.

Tim Elliott (0:26)

The poor people like me. Who am I to say? Who am I talking about? Nice to see you, UAE Licensed Independent Financial Consultant. Here is the story. Dealing with financial stress today. Slightly ethereal, almost out of range topic, but we all go through it. It's important, I think, to talk about, isn't it?

A lot of people are skilled or can become skilled at earning money. Very few of us are taught anything about money and money management and understanding how to manage money. Saving and managing and investing money is a huge life skill, I think. I would put it to you, 99% of us need to learn it.

James Thomas (1:08)

Very much so.

Tim Elliott (1:08)

Not many people have looked after it.

James Thomas (1:10)

Not many people do, as we've discussed previously. It's one of those subject matters that I really think should be part of school curriculum.

Tim Elliott (1:18)

Yeah, I'm with you on that.

James Thomas (1:19)

I'm with you. It's a life skill, something that is just so, so vitally important to one's well-being. And as you rightly said, and it creates so much stress and so much anxiety that it's completely unnecessary. Because, again, as we've discussed, once you've got a plan in place and once you've organized yourself, most of those stresses and anxieties disappear.

Tim Elliott (1:47)

Well, talk about that. Why is it not taught in schools? I mean, there is a little, but not much. I wasn't taught anything to do with money. I was a complete money moron.

You would argue still am, but that's another deal.

James Thomas (2:02)

Moron is a very strong word.

Tim Elliott (2:03)

But I just, yeah. I had no idea.

James Thomas (2:06)

But only because you know better.

Tim Elliott (2:08)

Well, yeah.

James Thomas (2:10)

And because it's also, I almost call it the last subject, the last frontier, as it were. There's not disgust. Even health now, those thankfully borders or personal concerns have been removed.

We're more happy to open up.

Tim Elliott (2:33)

We can talk about how we feel now. Yeah, that's right.

James Thomas (2:35)

But also even just physical issues, things like this month with breast cancer awareness, next month, Movember for men's health, it just helps to remove those. And yet, something as simple, and again, maybe I'm saying that from a bias point of view, having worked in finance for 25 plus years, there's nothing to be scared about or concerned about talking. We should be able to talk to our friends, colleagues, family about money. And yet, it just often is such a taboo.

Tim Elliott (3:13)

It's still a taboo area, you're absolutely right. You just mentioned Movember there. Are you going to participate in Movember?

There's a challenge.

James Thomas (3:22)

I was going to say to you, given the Hachute men around me, maybe I should, yes.

Tim Elliott (3:26)

I just thought, it's funny, I looked at you then, and I saw, first thing I see when I look at you, as you well know, is I see Jason Statham.

That's actually how we refer to you in the office. Jason's in on Thursday.

James Thomas (3:39)

I'll take that as a compliment.

Tim Elliott (3:41)

Oh, that is a compliment. It's not demeaning in any way.

James Thomas (3:43)

No.

Tim Elliott (3:45)

But I was thinking, I could see you with the Jason Statham sort of handlebar moustache. So I thought, maybe I'd issue a...

James Thomas (3:50)

There we go. There's a little challenge.

Tim Elliott (3:53)

A polite challenge to you to do it. We can then, a bit of a sponsorship.

James Thomas (3:58)

You've got to shave then and start again.

Tim Elliott (4:00)

Well, that's what I mean. I mean, I would maybe do that. I mean, for ours, not much chance. It would take a month to shave for ours, probably, judging by that beard. But we should get the camera on you, for us.

But anyway, that's it. There we go. We'll talk about that next week. Yes. But again, a good cause. And if you can raise some funds for that, that's a good thing.

James Thomas (4:21)