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To lower financial stress, set a budget for each day and reward yourself, suggests Alvin Hall, a financial commentator on BBC TV and radio and author of You and Your Money: Mastering the Emotions Behind the Numbers. "Ask yourself: 'What is the one thing I can do that will give me the longest-lasting uplift for the least amount of money?'" During the economic downturn of 1987, Hall's treat was blackberry pie. "I'd think about it all day, and if I came in under my budget," he says, "I'd go order a slice. When I couldn't afford that, I'd visit the museum and look at Van Gogh paintings."