Money and Mental Illness: The Effect of Finances on Family Mental Health

We talk a lot about the emotional stress and shock of caring for someone with SMI, but what about the financial shock? Is debt an issue? How does your loved one handle money? How do you get services? Do the wealthy have better support? Do families have to go broke to have support, and what is the additional emotional effect of money on the family mental health?

Savannah Price, in the UK, is doing research on this - and today we turn the tables and let her interview us. 

Savannah is building a company to improve the mental and financial resilience of young people with mental health problems by targeting the vicious cycle between money management and poor mental health.

We talk about:

• financial shocks
•  the vicious cycle between poor mental health and dysregulated spending
•  financial literacy
• Family responsibility
• And look at another, international, health system of “care”

About Savannah:

Savannah is originally from South Africa, but moved to the UK for university. She started her career as a geologist before launching an Equestrian competition and sales business in Ireland. She most recently completed her MBA at the University of Oxford and is starting a company in Mental Health. 

She has a strong history of mental illness and disability in her family - she has a sister with schizophrenia, another with bipolar and her youngest sister has autism with significant learning disabilities.

Given her lived experience, she is currently doing research into how money and mental health are interrelated, and how having serious mental health problems impacts families financially and emotionally.

Not only do many mental health problems result in financial strain for young people and their families, but ultimately the breakdown of supporting relationships over time. 

To address these problems, we are working to develop personal “relapse signatures” for young people who suffer from dysregulated financial behaviours due to mental health problems such as personality disorders, bipolar, psychosis, depression, anxiety, gambling, substance use disorders and ADHD. 

We do this by overlaying spending patterns with other data you can get from a mobile phone, to track symptoms of poor mental health. 

This then allows us to tailor products and services according to their goals/needs, and improve wellbeing, both financial and otherwise. 

What it can also do, is give their loved ones insight into our users' mental and financial state in real-time, to flag risk and possibly intervene before there is a crisis - all the while advocating for agency and empowerment. Our mission is to blaze the trail for preventative healthcare through behavioural finance.

If anyone wants to learn more or to get involved with the research and product design - they are more than welcome to reach me on sav@price.mba, or my LinkedIn.

Want us to cover a topic? Facebook page @Schizophrenia3Moms

Randye Kaye -Broadcaster, Actress, Voice Talent, Speaker, and Author (“Ben Behind his Voices”,

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