A financial planner explains why even rich people are stressed about money

Carl Richards / Behavior Gap

There's one painfully obvious reason to be stressed about money: if you don't have enough to cover your expenses.

But what if you have enough? What if you have more than enough, and you're still anxious about your finances?

Financial planner Carl Richards boils this down to the reason shown in his sketch above. When your spending doesn't align with your values, he explains, it doesn't bring you happiness.

Richards, author of "The One-Page Financial Plan," writes:

If we start weighing our buying decisions, we may begin to see some gaps. We may have to ask ourselves uncomfortable questions, like why we spend money on things we don't value.

But asking these questions and understanding our buying decisions is the only way we can plug the holes in our financial lives. If not, we'll continue to behave in a way that causes us pain and stops us from reaching our financial goals.