What Keeps Women Awake at Night?

Insomnia is the worst. Why is it that everything seems way scarier and more stressful in the middle of the night? Trying to turn those thoughts off can be impossible when you’re tossing and turning, viciously aware of the dwindling hours between you and the sound of the morning alarm.
According to a survey by website Manilla.com, the number one answer among women of “what keeps you up at night?” is financial worries. That’s right—30 percent of women said money stress is keeping them up at night.

Next to money, work stress and ‘to-do lists’ are the second-most common reasons for insomnia among women; 18 percent of women blamed these for keeping them awake.

Nothing keeps men awake
Interestingly (or perhaps frighteningly), the number one factor keeping men up at night is ‘nothing’—as cited by 35 percent of men. We presume this means these men are enjoying peaceful and untroubled sleep. Or perhaps ‘nothing’ means: “As if I would tell a survey what keeps me awake at night! Nothing scares me, of course!”

Organizing makes us happy
According to the survey, disorganization and clutter are driving more women crazy than men (surprise, surprise—not). In fact, 73 percent of women claim they are frustrated by household disorganization, 38 percent of women complain about the waste of paper mail and 32 percent complain of the clutter. By comparison, fewer men (59 percent) complain that they are similarly frustrated.

Apparently, 50 percent of women and 41 percent of men feel relaxed when they are organized. Indeed, 41 percent and 37 percent feel downright happy as a result. (We concur!)

Gender parity
Whether you are extremely organized…or not, one survey finding is none too surprising: half of women and half of men surveyed say they forgot to pay at least one bill over the past year. Uh oh…

Tips to quell the chaos
Here are a few ways you can get your household finances more organized:

• Pay bills by credit card – Most utility companies and service providers are all-too happy to take down your credit card information so they can automatically bill you each month. This means you don’t have to remember to pay them, but you must check your statements once a month to make sure nothing is amiss. (And don’t forget to pay your credit card bill on time and in full please!)
• Everything in its place – If you receive statements and bills via snail mail, make sure you immediately plop them into one consolidated filing spot—a drawer or folder solely for current bills. As you pay each bill, move it into a different folder specifically for paid bills and receipts—or recycle, or shred.
• Take a meeting – In a busy household, it’s important to sit down together once a month and compare notes on what got paid and what was owed on each bill. This helps a couple to communicate about money so you can both feel comfortable that the financial situation is under control. (It also helps you find out quickly if you both paid the phone bill this month!)
• Track it – Spreadsheets: you either love them or hate them, but they can simplify your life. Each month, jot down how much you paid for each bill in an ongoing spreadsheet. This helps you to compare month to month costs, so you can readily spot whether your phone bill is incrementally rising with the age of your teenage daughters.

Yoda and sleep
As Yoda said, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” It’s usually an element of fear (and avoidance of fear) that leads you to toss unopened bills aside and not make them a priority. And then you get angry with yourself when you can’t find the bills, or forget to pay them and you end up paying more in late fees and credit card interest. Which in turn makes you hate the service provider. And you suffer by not sleeping at night, wondering which utility you forgot to pay. (It’s all so complicated!)

The solution: by keeping your finances organized and up to date, not only will you avoid the dark side (i.e. chaos and disorganization), you will have a much better chance of sleeping at night.

And with that—sleep tight!