November was Financial Literacy Month! To celebrate, we are posting this series of blogs to help you understand more about your money! If you’ve ever lived on a low income, you know how that can affect many areas of our lives! Let’s start with mental health!

What is Mental Health?

• Mental health is a term that basically means how your mind is doing, how we think and what we are feeling. 
• Our brain puts our mind in charge of the emotions we feel, like happiness, anger, or sadness. (Both the brain and mind are connected. Our brain is an organ in our physical body. Our mind is not physical. You cannot touch a mind.)
• Our mind also makes choices. Sometimes we make choices that work well. We might decide to leave early to make it to an appointment on time. 
• Other times, our choices don’t work out so well. We may choose to say something unkind, which can hurt other people’s feelings.

Our mental health can be affected in positive and negative ways. What can affect our mental health? 

• Relationships with family and friends
• Where we live, go to work, or school – We may feel happy or unhappy to be there
• Different situations like losing a job, moving to a new neighborhood, or making a new friend
• Our financial situation has important effects on mental health – Finance is another word we can use instead of money

Let’s look at how living on a low income impacts mental health!