Money and emotions are a messy tangle for many people.

That’s why for Mary Clements Evans, a certified financial planner, financial therapy is the linchpin of the work she does with her clients.

In her new book, “Emotionally Invested: Outsmart Your Anxiety for Fearless Retirement Planning,” Evans dissects the fear, anxiety, and guilt that money decisions can stir up and offers advice on how to calm down and find financial happiness now and in retirement.

I sat down with Evans to learn more about what folks can do to take control of their money lives and make choices they won’t regret. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Kerry Hannon: Why is it so important to understand our “money why"?

Mary Clements Evans: Our money why is what drives our decisions — the underlying reasons behind our financial actions..

It’s how you feel about money. It's your relationship with money. I liken it to my relationship with brownies. I know how many calories are in a brownie. Guess what? I am going to eat brownies because it makes me feel good even if there are lots of calories.

The same thing happens with money. The smartest, most well-educated people make poor financial decisions because their money why is not in a good spot.

There are two primary money whys: FOMO (fear of missing out) and FORO (fear of running out).

Can you dig into what is FOMO versus FORO in terms of our money decisions?

People who have FOMO are hyper-focused on today. These are the people who want to buy the car, take the vacation, redo the bathroom.

FORO ones are hyper-focused on the future. They're always afraid they're not going to have enough money to retire. They're not going to have enough money if something bad happens. They're all about safety and security.

There are shades of those in many people, of course.

Let's talk about the title of the book. What do you mean by emotionally invested?

We all like to think that we make rational decisions. We don't. We make emotional decisions, then we back them up with a series of facts that make us feel like we made a factual decision.

If we acted completely on facts, nobody would have borrowed money that they shouldn't have. Nobody would be hoarding money that they could spend.

How has saving for retirement profoundly changed for Americans?

For a long time, many people had pensions. Corporations had them because they wanted to attract employees. But after the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, became law in 1974 that slowly changed. Retirement saving was turned over to the individual worker. The worst thing that happened is we told everybody, “This is so easy, you can do it yourself,” which is crazy.