When I met Rebecca, she was in her early forties.

She was a well-respected marketing manager in the technology industry. And she was working an insane number of hours every week. 

At our first meeting she told me, “I’ve never made this much money in my life.”

The crunch

While she was surprised and delighted by her income, she was also becoming increasingly concerned and stressed about her work-life balance. She felt as if she was wearing golden handcuffs. The high salary, benefits, and stock options made her feel she would be crazy to leave the position for something that paid less. 

She didn’t have time to work out or unwind. She had been missing many important events for her friends and family because she was working or recovering from working too much. When she did make it out with friends, or find a way to take a few days off for a vacation, she felt too stressed to enjoy it. 

In the back of her mind, she always wondered if she should find a less stressful job. She yearned for a job where she could spend more time on the weekends with friends and family. She wanted a job that didn’t require her to be on her email every waking moment. She wanted a job that ended before 8:00 p.m. every night.

The fog

She was in a fog about her money. In fact, she had never really looked at her money. She was anxious to really see where she was spending her money. She was worried about what she might find.

What if she found that all this hard work, all this time, wasn’t really helping her save money? What if she wasn’t “making this count”? 

Sometimes she even carried credit card debt. She felt embarrassed. She made “made enough,” so how could she let this happen?

As a money coach, I helped Rebecca look at her expenses and savings for the first time in a long time. 

What she saw

Many things become apparent very quickly. There were “money leaks”—money going to subscriptions and services she no longer cared about. And she saw that she was doing a fair amount of “stress spending” to cope with her crazy schedule.

She felt she was on a money hamster wheel—she needed to make enough to spend on big vacations where she could de-stress from her hard work, only to start the cycle over again when she returned. She was shocked at some of the totals we saw.

However, when she looked at how she wanted to live her life, she also began to see that she did not need to make her current salary. Yes, it was nice, but a fair amount of it was going to support her stress spending, or simply leaking out to unimportant things.

And when we looked at her net worth, we saw that the picture was better than she feared.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Her money fears quickly calmed down as she exited the “money fog”. We dove into what she truly needed and wanted in her life, and this brought more clarity. She began to feel in control of her money for the first time. 

A job opened up at a non-profit she kept her eyes on. Lo and behold, she felt she could make the leap. She knew now that it would pay more than enough for her to enjoy her life and keep her on track for the future. 

The golden handcuffs unlocked and fell to the floor.

Her new schedule gave her time to attend a regular yoga class. She re-connected with friends she loved dearly. She started sleeping better, too.

This is the power of financial clarity and creating a nourishing spending plan. The door to your ideal life unlocks and opens for you.