I’ve been off the juice since 2016 and happy about it. But a few weeks ago (watch out; this story gets a bit wild…), I had a Smart Water that I later realized contained some caffeine. 🤪 I was surprised by my good mood all afternoon and realized it was the stimulant. At such a low dose, it let me focus and get through work but didn’t trigger the jitters, anxiety or dependence I used to get from coffee.

So I’m bringing caffeine back. Just a little, only every once in a while. I’ve tried it as an antidote to light depression, and that’s been nice. And it’s wonderful for a Sunday when I’m facing a long list of writing and business tasks I really want to do but couldn’t otherwise focus on.

This is no revelation, obviously! But it doesn’t have to be. I’m not here to give advice.1 This is a snapshot of my experience, and reintroducing a drug I’ve been off of for 10 years is having a significant impact on my mindset today. Also to say: After some recent mental health challenges, it’s nice to have this little tool to help steer the ship in the right direction once in a while.

💡 A money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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Onto my money date…

I’m looking back on my week and see a calendar filled with meetings and tasks — which feels pretty good! It’s been satisfying, about eight weeks into my new job, to get into a groove and dig into challenging tasks. After a stint in a job that was just about getting a paycheck, I’m happy to be in one that stretches my brain, connects me with cool people and fills my days with purpose.

Warmer, sunnier and longer days are helping a lot, too. Cheers for spring!

💡 A money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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Ren is a writer and artist from Northern England. They started their newsletter Wavy Thoughts in 2024, a day after a doctor told them they were experiencing autistic burnout. Substack surfaced the posts for me as I was most certainly in the midst of my own collapse. I devoured Ren’s writing about burnout and unmasking neurodivergence, queerness, sobriety and creativity.

What I love most is that Ren’s essays are not only validating and comforting — as so much writing about neurodivergence is when we’re out here diagnosing and treating ourselves — but it is also utterly entertaining. They write with a delightful sense of humor and wit that cut through the treacle and naval-gazing that can weigh down personal essays.

Ren also frequently illustrates their newsletter, which is a fun touch; and they recently released their first poetry zine on their Etsy shop.

I got to chat with Ren about neurodivergence and money, creating art without judgment and — something so very British and so very autistic at once — potatoes! Catch our conversation below.

Something we don’t talk about enough in the personal finance space (that we emphasize at Healthy Rich) is the intersection of money with various parts of our identities. At Wavy Thoughts, you write about your experience as autistic and ADHD (AuDHD) as well as things like sobriety and queerness. How do these various facets of your identity, and others, impact your work and finances?

I think my neurodivergence makes the most obvious impact on my work and finances. I’m an extremely all-or-nothing person. It can translate into being the world’s best saver of money and penny-pincher extraordinaire, or it can mean going through a period where I’m having a dopamine-heavy time buying things I like but don’t necessarily need. Striking a balance can be tricky, though I feel I’ve got a lot better at it in the last few years.

Same with my creative work. I go through peaks and troughs in my creativity, and also in the way I “run” my (very) small business as a content creator. Sometimes it is just not the center of my focus, and I neglect it for a bit until it becomes appealing to me again. I do sometimes wish for a bit more consistency in my own focus, but then I wouldn’t be me if I were any other way!

What’s the most joyful thing you’ve done with money in the past six(ish) months?

Nothing extravagant, but this was very meaningful to me. When I gave myself permission to create artwork, I went into my local bargain store and bought one of every single art supply they had. I came out with a basketful of amazing things, including pencils, a sketchbook, acrylic paints, charcoal, pastels and pens. I’d never owned paints as an adult, and giving myself permission to make any old art and not class it as “good” or “bad” art has been so freeing.

What messages did you get about money growing up? Which have you held onto and which have you let go?

I grew up in a low income household and I think I still hold some trauma relating to financial insecurity. It’s made me quite scared of both having and not having money. I’ve tried my best to unlearn a lot of those reactions and fears, but it’s been a slow process — I’m getting there!

What’s one financial decision that frequently causes you stress? How do you work through it?

As the old meme goes, the rent is too damn high. There’s no real way to work through it other than grinning through the pain and hope one day things will change. They’re bringing in a whole new set of rent regulations to the U.K. soon, maybe we’ll see rent control in England in my lifetime.

Besides yours, what newsletter do you most recommend and why? Who is it best for?

The one I always go back to is ’s.

His “10 things worth sharing” newsletters never fail to brighten my day and introduce me to something new. I also find him generally inspiring as another writer who likes to draw. If you like creating stuff, he is definitely worth subscribing to.

Instead of talking about the weather, what do you wish strangers would ask you about when you meet on the street?

Rank the best use of potatoes from first to last. This is very important to me as a person from Northern England — we are at pains to remind people that we do in fact eat vegetables as potatoes are a vegetable, actually.

My ranking, if you’re interested, is:

1. Chips (fries to my American friends)

2. Crisps (Chips to my American friends)

3. Mash

4. Roasts

5. Literally any other type of potato

6. Literally anything else

7. …

8. Boiled

✍️ Support diverse writers! I pay writers for their contributions to Healthy Rich, and I’m able to do that because of your subscriptions. This newsletter is reader-supported and ad-free, and I intend to keep it that way. If you appreciate these perspectives and want more of this, please consider supporting Healthy Rich with a paid subscription — a year is just $35. Thank you!!

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Want to be featured in a Healthy Rich Q&A? Tell us about yourself here!

To-dos and expectations weigh on me so heavily. And that weight becomes worse in the winter, when it’s a slog to get anything done and those to-dos pile even higher. With spring settling in around me and my new job bringing order back into my life, I’ve felt more focused and productive in the past couple of weeks than I’ve felt for months. I’m writing to-do lists and checking things off! It’s incredible!

This is the most mundane success, but it feels enormous. I know I’m not alone in experiencing this past winter as tougher to survive than most. Any regular seasonal depression was compounded by January’s especially oppressive weather and a political environment that keeps us in anxiety and despair.

Walking into the light at the end of that bleak tunnel has been an absolute salvation.

💡 A money date is an exercise from my book, You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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I’m writing from the cocoon of a winter storm in Wisconsin. Outside, it’s on-and-off blizzard conditions, something like 12 to 18 inches of snow falling… and absolute peaceful bliss.

We’ve known this storm was coming for about a week, so everyone canceled their plans and stocked up on food. Nonessential businesses are closed, Sunday church services were canceled. Traffic is down to nothing, and no one is revving up machines for yard work. My neighborhood is silent and blanketed in untouched, glittering white snow. I took a walk with my partner this morning in the snow, and it was beautiful. We tossed snowballs around the yard and hopped through the snow like puppies, and it was wonderful.

This storm — a typical late-winter sneak attack following a snap of warmer weather — could have felt unbearable. That last instance of cold and ice and snow removal after enduring nearly five months of winter. But my respite in New Mexico a couple of weeks ago gave me the refresh I needed to get through this final stretch. Instead of more cabin fever, I’m enjoying the day inside, and I delighted in a romp in the snow.

I worried a little before the trip about spending the money, but it was the right choice. Even when life throws me a layoff and a bunch of debt to manage, reducing my spending isn’t necessarily the right answer. The money spent on that trip was the necessary salve to get me through the rest of this winter with the strength to keep making progress on recovering my finances (and my life).

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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It’s easy to imagine entrepreneurship as the escape hatch from all the ways corporate employment stresses you out. In a lot of ways, it is. But working for yourself comes with its own host of stressors and challenges that impact your mental health, too. And — speaking from experience! — on top of the basic stressors of running a business, you also feel like a failure if you’re not basking in the freedom, autonomy and creativity of living the life you’ve chosen. There’s a lot of baggage to carry in self-employment.

Shulamit Ber Levtov, “The Entrepreneur’s Therapist,” recognized this lack of attention to entrepreneurs’ mental health as she struck out on her own and decided to turn her experience as a counselor and social worker into a practice dedicated to supporting women in entrepreneurship.

I invited Shula to talk about how she started her business and the challenges she’s faced — her journey to entrepreneurship out of necessity later in her career struck a nerve!

Name: Shulamit Ber Levtov

Business: The Entrepreneurs’ Therapist

About the business:

I provide mental health support for women business owners, because running a business is hard.

Business details

• Based in: Jasper, Ontario, Canada (near Ottawa)

• Year started: supporting women with their personal growth: 2000, as a therapist: 2012

• Profit structure: Traditional for-profit

• Legal structure: Sole proprietorship

• Who works in this business? Me, plus I have a few contractors: web designer, web maintenance, accountant, bookkeeper, VA

• Income contribution: My full-time job

• How much money does the business earn per year? $98,000 CAD gross. Profit on paper is about $50,000 CAD. I get paid around $40,000 CAD. It’s important to point out this is sustainable for me because I purposely have a very simple lifestyle with very low cost of living, and that my basic health care is paid for by my taxes.

• Hours worked per week: 24–32 hours

• Is your business profitable? Yes

Your experience doing this work

Have you run any other businesses in the past?

Yes. I’ve co-owned a Steadicam. I was a PR and media consultant and a freelance translator.

Why did you start this business?

I was injured at work and needed to do my own occupational rehab so I could change careers, because I could no longer do my job. I was an older woman starting at the bottom of a new career and wanted to be sure I had a job that enabled me to work until I died.

What surprised you most about starting a business?

How stressful it was.

What are some of the challenges you faced starting your business (and how did you overcome them)?

The entrepreneurial community’s total lack of understanding or even valuing a therapy practice and/or consulting as an actual business. The lack (at the time) of business coaching for therapists and therapy practices. The lack of bank financing for new businesses. Lack of affordable commercial space. The need to ensure a consistent and stable income without having personal wealth or investors to rely on. Fears of indebtedness and fears of being unable to pay back the debt. Total alone-ness in taking big risks like that.

I wasn’t able to surmount most of those barriers when I was running the first iteration of my therapy businesses, which was a group practice. That’s why I do the work I do now as The Entrepreneurs’ Therapist, so no one has to go through what I did as a woman business owner.

What’s the most rewarding thing about the work you do?

Being a witness to the transformations that take place both in businesses of my clients and in their peace of mind. The deeply intimate moments of change that occur with therapeutic processes can feel as intimate as physically intimate moments but on an entirely energetic level (and not sexual at all), but just as emotionally moving and connected.

These experiences connect me with a sense of meaning, and a sense that there are greater forces at work in the world that are helping us all meet our needs.

I’m so grateful to be able to do such meaningful work and have it support my financial sustainability. It challenges the notion that meaningful work and sustainability stand in opposition to one another.

In what ways do you take care of people in your business?

I carry my relationship and communication skills as well as my skills for having difficult conversations into all facets of my business and life. My presence is the most valuable thing I have to offer, so I bring it to all my interactions. In order to be sustainable in that, I have a fierce self-care practice.

One of my ongoing concerns is money conversations and empowering clients in our money relationship. I’ve recently moved to a fee range for everyone instead of a fixed fee or a sliding scale, and I invite clients to choose their own fee. In an extension of this, I also invited clients to choose the amount of their annual fee increase. I wrote a blog post about it here.

Learn more about this business

• Shula’s website

• Shula on LinkedIn

✍️ Support diverse business owners! I pay interviewees for their contributions to Healthy Rich, and I’m able to do that because of your subscriptions. This newsletter is reader-supported and ad-free, and I intend to keep it that way. If you appreciate these perspectives and want more of this, please consider supporting Healthy Rich with a paid subscription — a year is just $35. Thank you!!

Subscribe now

Want to see your business featured at Healthy Rich? Tell us about your business here!

In case you’re curious: The federal government (which designates holidays for federal employees that are often mirrored by state governments and private companies) officially calls this Washington’s Birthday and added it in 1879 to honor George Washington. Most states also designate this a state holiday, many under the name Presidents’ Day, and officially honor some combination of past U.S. presidents — some just name Washington, or Washington and Abraham Lincoln; some also include Thomas Jefferson; and some honor all the presidents.

As always, I’m grateful for the perspective of a child for inspiring this deep dive! I love when they pose a question that exposes my ignorance, especially about something that feels so commonplace I never think to look it up.

And I’m happy for the day off, because it gives me a little extra time to rest and digest my first week of work at my new job. It was a wonderful experience, and I’m tired in the very good way that makes me excited to recharge and get back at it tomorrow.

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

Read more

Regardless of your financial circumstances, building a store of money is the simplest way to create financial ease and approach life from a place of abundance.

Setting that money aside isn’t the easiest task for everyone. But it’s simple and powerful for those who do it, so let’s talk about how to make it happen (and how to take care of yourself when you can’t).

There’s no such thing as a financial ‘emergency’

Setting aside some money that’s not earmarked for anything and is always there when you need it lets you live life without money calling the shots. That’s what financial independence looks like to me.

I call this store of money a comfort fund. I deliberately use that label instead of the popular term emergency fund to help you make an important shift in your relationship with money.

Building an “emergency fund” implies that a change in your financial circumstances constitutes an emergency in your life. I reject that narrative. The most financial fluctuations can do is make you uncomfortable — they don’t control you. Money is one of many realities in your life; it’s not the defining force.

Calling your store of money a comfort fund is an ongoing reminder of that fact. It’s also a small step to ease your money stress that can make money management challenges feel more severe than they are.

Dropping the word emergency from your financial plan is a way to remind yourself that an unexpected change to your financial circumstances is not only not an emergency — but also not even necessarily a bad thing. Losing or leaving behind what feels like financial security might be a challenge, especially if it happens unexpectedly. But choosing that change could also be the first step to a more joyful life!

A comfort fund, like an emergency fund, can protect you from disaster, but, unlike an emergency fund, it can also help you take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

You deserve the freedom to choose the life that’s right for you, and you have the right to pursue it regardless of your financial circumstances or plans. A comfort fund, if you’re able to build it, is a way to help soften your landing when you take that leap.

Money is meant to be spent

You can use the money in a comfort fund for anything that contributes to your comfort; it’s not only reserved for moments of desperation.

You can use comfort fund money to move across the country or buy a new car. You can use it to transition to self-employment or look for a new job. You can use it to file for divorce, weather a layoff or avoid depriving yourself if your income slows down. A comfort fund ensures that money isn’t the deciding factor in your day-to-day or major life decisions, like where you live, where you work, when you have children or who you’re in a relationship with.

We call this a comfort fund because its purpose is to add comfort — ease, joy and dignity — to your life.

I chose this language to remind you to give yourself permission to use the money for anything that contributes to your comfort. The thread of greed that runs through budget culture encourages a habit of hoarding under the guise of good money management, and it threatens you with a fear of scarcity to discourage spending. That fear can keep you always worried about the next thing that’ll come along. What if you spend funds on something you deem less severe now, and you don’t have them when you might really need it?

Too many people suffer through untenable situations while sitting on a well-endowed “emergency fund” because their needs don’t feel like an emergency. Using the term comfort fund reminds you you’re worthy of the comfort money can buy, no matter your income, how you work or how you spend. And you get to decide what those comforts are; don’t let budget culture set your standards for you.

How much money should be in your comfort fund?

The amount you need in a comfort fund is completely up to you; choose the number that makes you comfortable right now.

The right amount is different for everyone, so I can’t offer a convenient formula. Set a target amount for now that lets you breathe easy and make life decisions without money weighing in. If that’s a big, meaty, FIRE amount, then build toward that number. If a $1,000 cushion helps you breathe easy and live your life, work toward that. And if the number that’s comfortable for you now is $0? Let it be $0. Only you can say what’s comfortable for you in this moment.

At some point, you’ll probably have an opportunity to spend from your comfort fund. Don’t forget that’s what it’s for! Deciding to use your comfort fund in a moment when you might not be able to immediately replenishing it might mean adjusting your barometer for comfort to accommodate what you need at the time. This fund can afford you comfort when you need it, but only if you allow yourself to use it and trust in your ability to continue to feed it.

Listening to your intuition and being in flux with the seasons of your life might make it seem like you don’t have to think about the amount in your comfort fund. The number you set isn’t important — but it’s important that you set a target amount, so you can avoid the too-common trap of oversaving and hoarding money without a purpose.

Set a target amount for your comfort fund, and stop feeding it once you hit the target. Redirect your resources to other goals, spending or giving until you use the funds and need to replenish them.

To find your number, you could tie your comfort fund target to your income or expenses, as many experts recommend for an emergency fund, but be careful not to get caught up in the idea that you can only touch this fund if you lose your income.

You could instead tie it to a goal that’ll be easier with a financial cushion, like working for yourself, moving to a new town or adopting a child. Or you could base it on past experiences of life changes or major decisions.

You can simply commit to contributing an amount that feels feasible for you each month for a set number of months. Or you can set a goal based on what your gut tells you is a comfortable number for where you are in life right now.

Continue to listen to your gut and adjust that amount as your circumstances change.

How to build your comfort fund

When you have resources to direct to savings, building a comfort fund is as simple as setting the money aside in an easy-to-access checking or savings account.

Step 1: Use your money map to set a comfort fund target, achievable contribution plan and desired timeline. Adjust those as needed.

Step 2: Set aside savings when you’re able. You could do that by:

• Automatically directing a portion of your income into a comfort fund savings account.

• Setting aside mini windfalls, like holiday gifts and tax refunds.

• Maintaining your commitments after your next raise and directing the surplus into savings.

• Working a side gig temporarily to bank the target amount faster.

• Deprioritizing commitments or debt-payoff goals to redirect money toward your comfort fund.

Your comfort fund is a living creature. Use the financial cushion when you need it, and continue to contribute to the fund to maintain your target amount as you go. Adjust according to changes in your life; you don’t have to contribute the same amount every month, and some months you might not contribute anything at all.

Keep your comfort fund goal and progress up to date on your money map so this is always part of your financial plan and you can easily rebuild after dipping into the funds.

Taking care of yourself in the meantime

Here’s where we address what typical financial advice somehow, annoyingly, fails to mention: You might already experience the kinds of challenges or opportunities comfort funds are meant to address. So what if you don’t already have a comfort fund stashed way?

That’s a tricky situation to be in.

Sure, you might be able to save $1,000 or $10,000 by the end of the year — but what if you need extra funds in the meantime? How are you supposed to build a comfort fund while dealing with financial triage? And how do you deal with financial needs before the comfort fund is there to back you up?

You have a lot of options, but what’s best for you depends on your circumstances.

First and foremost: Don’t let money be the thing that keeps you in a dangerous or intolerable situation. Lean on every community and debt resource you can find to get out, and balance your financial plan later.

Letting your finances fall into chaos in order to remove yourself from an unsafe situation or an uncertain future is not irresponsible by any measure. Take care of yourself first, and worry about the money later. Leaving a financial disaster in your wake as you escape a situation that does you direct harm makes sense. If money is the thing holding you back from making that move, that’s budget culture overriding your gut instinct. Quiet the noise, and listen to your intuition to find your next move.

If your situation is annoying, vexing or unsustainable, but not dangerous or urgent, you have a little more leeway to make adjustments without a financial typhoon you have to address later. Don’t let the tolerable nature of a bad situation lull you into doing nothing to change it, but determine what you can handle temporarily while you make strides in other areas. For example, can you handle an unpleasant job in the short term if you pull back and perform at the bare minimum? Could you live with nitpicking parents rent-free if you chip in a few chores you wouldn’t otherwise care about?

Again, listen to your intuition. You know the difference between an annoying situation and an intolerable one.

A job where a boss harasses you on the regular and has faced no consequences is intolerable. Claim unemployment benefits, use credit cards, cut your rent commitment and move in with a friend, so you can leave the situation immediately. A job where a boss is disorganized and egotistical and won’t listen to feedback is unsustainable, but you might live with it in the short term so you can direct money into a comfort fund and search for other options.

Once you set yourself up to weather a bad situation in the short term, you can turn your energy reserves to making a plan to leave it in the longer term. Some steps that might help you move into a better situation faster:

• Research any available community and government resources (like unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies) so you’re prepared to use them as soon as you need them.

• Bolster your options for debt resources. For example, you might open a new credit card while you have a stable income and are paying bills on time, in case you don’t have access to that additional credit after deprioritizing debt payoff to transition from one income to another.

• Eliminate or pause commitments to reduce the amount of resources you need to get by month to month.

These are generally short-term fixes and aren’t sustainable if you have long-term financial goals, especially any that require a high credit rating. But they are options to remove financial barriers that might be holding you back from making the kinds of changes your life needs. A well-tended comfort fund is the long-term fix that can stop money from dictating your options.

⭐️ Transform the way you approach money!

My Budget-Free Fundamentals series gives you everything you need to gain a fresh perspective on your relationship with money. In a few short lessons, you’ll gain tools to use money the way you want without relying on restriction, succumbing to shame or following advice rooted in greed. Paid subscribers have full access to this and all Healthy Rich classes.

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It’ll still be winter for several more weeks (or, I don’t know, check with a groundhog near you), but we’ve got a long stretch of above-20-degree days with sunshine in Wisconsin, and WOW, does that change the mood around here.

Oh, and I got a job. 😁

Yeah, that’s a mood-booster, too.

After three months of unemployment following a layoff, I got an offer last week for my top-choice job, and I’ll start next week.

Three months is… a long time. My household hasn’t gone this long without consistent income in more than a decade. I’m proud to know we were able to weather it because of a well-tended comfort fund, access to credit and a broad network for freelance work. Those cushions let me keep my holiday plans, and take space between jobs to try new skills and refocus creative projects. I’ve gone through times when that wouldn’t have been possible, and I’m always grateful to notice I’m not panicking over money.

I’ve got a little financial rebuilding to do once I start working again — but that’s not a failure! Savings and credit are meant to be used in moments like this! I’m so glad I had them, and I’m relieved to be moving forward again.

Details on the job (and other financial happenings) are in my money date below :)

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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Why are women’s lives like this? Even in my household, with no children and a feminist partner, my brain defaults to caretaker mode so strongly that I have to leave town to (kind of) turn it off.

This is why I found myself nodding along fervently while reading a new book by Laura Danger, an author, educator and domestic equity expert. Laura’s work focuses on care work, household labor and building more equitable relationships. Her book, No More Mediocre: A Call to Reimagine Our Relationships and Demand More, looks into how we’ve gotten where we are and sets out to unpack the erasure of domestic labor and care to guide readers toward a healthier and more balanced life.

I invited Laura to talk about how we can make domestic and care work more visible and how to work toward relationships and communities and that value it more fairly — plus a look at her personal relationship with work and money.

You note that a 2019 study found if stay-at-home mothers were compensated for their labor, they’d command a median annual salary of $178,201. Putting a dollar amount to domestic labor is an imperfect science and an imperfect argument, but, as you point out, “money is what speaks in our society.”

Why do you think it’s important to measure domestic labor with the same metrics as paid labor — and where do you think that comparison breaks down and keeps us from truly understanding domestic labor as equally valuable to capitalist production?

Domestic labor is the most essential labor. Nothing runs without it. In a productivity-obsessed system, the more productivity companies can squeeze out of their employees, the better. As long as domestic labor is downgraded, lumped into “just what women do,” expected as an effort of love, or otherwise separated from paid work, it remains exploitable. The bosses don’t get held accountable for it.

Theorists like Silvia Federici and others who dig into social reproduction theory have articulated this powerfully, but the reality is that when wages are low, when landlords fail to maintain properties while hiking rent and when politicians write policies that stretch families thin, domestic labor is what makes up the difference. It’s creative meal planning, home repairs, mending clothes, coupon cutting, stain-treating so garments can be handed down. Domestic workers are tasked with turning what little they’re given by their bosses into a life.

If we truly valued that work that sustained our lives and recognized how much effort and energy it requires, especially when it’s expected of all people and not just women, it would become clear how distorted our priorities are. Valuing care pokes holes in dominant cultural narratives about what makes a good life, particularly the idea that we should always be earning more so we can buy and consume more, with our eyes fixed on a prize tied solely to paid work.

For people who align with traditional roles and may not fully grasp the weight of domestic and care work, simply saying “this work matters” can feel like too big a leap. Using a familiar metric like money can help bridge that gap. Saying “This work adds nearly $200,000 of value to a household” makes the point in terms people already understand. Any incremental shift toward seeing the work clearly is worthwhile — even as we hold the nuance that, ideally, money should not be our primary measure of value.

What’s the most joyful thing you’ve done with money in the past six(ish) months?

I’ve been making intentional financial shifts to better align my spending with my values. I unsubscribed from streaming platforms and service subscriptions and added a 24– to 48-hour waiting period before making purchases to curb impulse buying. The result has been more room in our budget to contribute to hyper-local resource redistribution in my neighborhood. Rather than spending money frivolously, I’ve kept it in my community, through direct financial support, shopping local whenever possible and eating at restaurants we can walk to [in Chicago].

What messages did you get about money growing up? Which have you held onto and which have you let go?

I’m grateful to have received a strong financial education from a young age. My parents taught me how to spend, save, manage credit and make informed decisions about debt. I still closely monitor my income and debt and adjust my lifestyle to make sure my spending aligns with my values and feels sustainable in the long term. I absolutely cannot stand the idea of wasting money. I want it to be useful. I’m always willing to carve out time to negotiate utility bills, review medical invoices line by line and shop around for better prices. That time feels well spent to me, keeps our costs down and stretches our dollars so we can spend them more intentionally.

How do various facets of your identity impact your work and finances?

Money is deeply wrapped up with identity. In the U.S., my whiteness has significantly shaped my financial reality. I come from parents who attended college, owned their home and came from families who also owned homes. As a white woman, I’ve benefited from generational wealth and countless forms of protection — from positive assumptions to access to education. As a woman, I was encouraged into a caring profession (teaching), which is female-dominated and notoriously underpaid. Many care-centered fields follow that same pattern.

As a mother, the cost of child care has been astronomical and has influenced where we live, the jobs we’ve taken and how we negotiate our schedules. Being two working parents with two kids under four was incredibly challenging and expensive. When COVID hit, our kids were 9 months and 3 years old, and the pressure eventually led my husband to leave self-employment for a full-time job, and me to leave my full-time role to pivot professionally.

Child care and health insurance costs have been some of the most influential forces shaping our family’s financial decisions.

What’s one financial decision that frequently causes you stress? How do you work through it?

Our home seems to constantly need major, expensive repairs. We own an old Chicago house that we absolutely love, but we’ve learned that our savings can’t reliably cover “fun” things like vacations. After being blindsided more than once (for example, a recent $18,000 boiler and chimney replacement), we now earmark a large portion of our savings specifically for maintenance and repairs. I get anxious when savings are depleted faster than expected and take time to recover. We’ve adjusted our day-to-day lifestyle costs to make sure we’re rebuilding consistently, but it’s a lingering stress as I wonder what large unexpected cost could be lurking around any corner.

Besides yours, what work or culture books or other media do you most recommend and why? Who is it best for?

When it comes to money, I’ve gotten a lot out of Ellyce Fulmore’s Keeping Finances Personal, and I love Alyssa Davies of Mixed Up Money. But some of the most impactful shifts for me have come from reframing how I think about wealth itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work has completely transformed how I understand consumption and connection. Braiding Sweetgrass is a powerful, transformative read, and her more recent book, The Serviceberry, is shorter and more accessible while covering many of the same themes. Reading about social and political systems, global economies, and historical and ongoing oppression has shaped not just how I spend money, but how I spend my time and energy.

Instead of talking about the weather, what do you wish strangers would ask you about when you meet on the street?

One of my favorite conversation starters is asking people to imagine where they were on a Friday night when they were 16. Who were they with? Were they at home, at a party, driving around listening to music?

It’s a playful way to get to know someone as they reflect on who they were when they were just starting to figure themselves out. Those conversations often lead to what has or hasn’t changed, spark ideas about revisiting old hobbies, or turn into nerding out about a longtime favorite band. I’d much rather talk about what makes us who we are than the weather or even what we do for a living.

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✍️ Support diverse writers! I pay interviewees for their contributions to Healthy Rich, and I’m able to do that because of your subscriptions. This newsletter is reader-supported and ad-free, and I intend to keep it that way. If you appreciate these perspectives and want more of this, please consider supporting Healthy Rich with a paid subscription — it’s just $35 for the year. Thank you!!

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To be fair, it’s sort of a putter-y time of year in general. It’s that part of winter in Wisconsin, post-holidays, sub-zero, when we all hunker down and start waiting for spring. I’m not carrying any holiday spending guilt, but I’ve been swept up in the blunt quiet of this season and slowed activities that involve spending. It’s hard to harness fresh-start energy when the world around me is at its most dead. (You might call it seasonal depression…)

And, of course, I’m extra weighed down this year by the addition of our fascist federal government going off the rails. I’m not burying my head in the sand, but I’m not doomscrolling, either. And I’m staying hopeful for the strength of our democracy. I joined my friend recently on her podcast, , to share why I’m (honestly!) optimistic in this moment, and how rejecting budget culture can help us get through the financial uncertainty that awaits us for the remainder of this administration. Catch our conversation here.

Where I live, we’re in the darkest, coldest time of the year. And we no longer have decorative lights and roasted meats to get us through. But each day brings a little more light than the last, and we’re just reminding ourselves: Spring will come, as it does every year. Whether you need this message literally or metaphorically, take it in, and hold on — we can make it!

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

What’s the most joyful thing you did with money this week?

Read more

Today, I’m featuring Delilah Gray, a journalist and early contributor to Healthy Rich. Delilah is an editor with SHE Media who unexpectedly had to transition from her full-time job there to an independent contractor. The news prompted Delilah to think about what she really wanted to focus on, and it turned out, she wanted to help people. In December, she founded Survivor Sparks, a nonprofit that provides a safe space and artistic opportunities for sexual abuse survivors. Here’s how she did it!

Want to help amplify Delilah’s work? Consider joining me in donating to Survivor Sparks!

Name: Delilah Gray

Business: Survivor Sparks

About the business:

My nonprofit is called Survivor Sparks, which is all about helping sexual abuse survivors by providing a safe space and artistic opportunities. I created something that I wish I had early in my journey, something educational and safe.

Business details

• Based in: Columbus, Ohio, but much of what we offer can help those across the U.S.!

• Year started: 2025

• Profit structure: Nonprofit

• Legal structure: Corporation

• Who works in this business? We’re still early in the process, but as of December 2025, we have my job as the Executive Director, as well as a 1099 part-time Associate Director. We also have multiple professionals willing to help on a volunteer basis as we get off the ground.

• Income contribution: My full-time job

• How much money does the business earn per year? $0–$6,000; Since the idea was created in September 2025 and I was working full-time at another job until recently, we haven’t generated much revenue. However, we recently received our tax-exempt status (yay!) and have an extensive plan to secure the funds we need for 2026.

• Hours worked per week: In 2026, it’ll be full speed ahead with 40+-hour weeks! Right now, in the holiday season and with me transitioning away from journalism, it’s mostly been planning this month (around 20 hours).

Your experience doing this work

Have you run any other businesses in the past?

I always wanted to start a business but felt like I couldn’t do it on my own. It was when I found out I was losing my job as a journalist that I really thought about what I wanted to do, and decided it was time to help people. I’m proud to say this is my first business!

Why did you start this business?

I wanted to help people. As a survivor myself, I know what so many are missing: the facts, the resources, the community. Now more than ever, survivors need to be armed with knowledge and hope, and I wanted to be a part of something that could help others like me.

What surprised you most about starting a business?

How you can find different ways to get to a solution. Things take so much time (even more than you originally may think), and you gotta get creative while waiting between the gaps! Starting a business teaches you quickly how to be resourceful.

What are some of the challenges you faced starting your business (and how did you overcome them)?

I had to learn how to do everything from scratch. I can’t stress enough, I had to learn everything quickly, and it was daunting at times. “Do I have the right forms?” “What’s a fiscal sponsor?” There were many so questions, but I addressed them by researching thoroughly and developing a detailed plan for everything I needed. I tried to complete tasks I knew how to do, like building a website and filing certain forms, and used the internet to help me navigate what I didn’t know. We’re in the technological age; don’t forget to use it!

What’s the most rewarding thing about the work you do?

We’re still new, but many survivors have already come forward to thank me for creating this. It’s all for survivors, and if they’re happy and feel safe, then it’s all worth it.

In what ways do you take care of people in your business?

With whatever we do, and plan to do, it’s with transparency! Everyone is at a different point in their life, whether they’re a survivor, a friend of one or even a partner of one, and what we want is for everyone, in and out of our immediate community, to feel like they have a safe space.

As for our team, I also want everything to be open. I want people who are passionate about Survivor Sparks to feel comfortable to speak about ideas, and feel open to discuss anything they may need.

Learn more about this business

• Survivor Sparks website

• Survivor Sparks on LinkedIn

Want to see your business featured at Healthy Rich? Tell us about your business here!

✍️ Support diverse business owners! I pay interviewees for their contributions to Healthy Rich, and I’m able to do that because of your subscriptions. This newsletter is reader-supported and ad-free, and I intend to keep it that way. If you appreciate these perspectives and want more of this, please consider supporting Healthy Rich with a paid subscription — one year is just $35. Thank you!!

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This splurge-and-restrict pattern in spending is similar to what we see with post-holiday dieting — and it’s not healthy or effective in either case.

Instead of responding to December’s extravagance with self-shaming and restriction, try these steps to recover from the holidays with a sense of peace and joy to carry you into the new year.

Reflect on your holiday spending

Start by thinking about how you used money this past holiday season. Don’t bring judgment to this reflection; just take note of where your money went.

Did you buy lots of presents or opt for a low- or no-gift holiday? Did you DIY food and decor for holiday parties or order catering? Did you rack up travel costs or stay close to home?

Then note how you feel about the ways you spent (or saved) money. Does gift-giving feel like an undue burden that doesn’t give you any joy? Does opting for no gifts leave you feeling like you missed out on a vital tradition? Do you revel in the opportunity to get out of town or is travel an expensive hassle for your family?

Noticing the impact of spending or not spending in certain ways can help you appreciate what money brings you, instead of feeling guilty for the price tag. You can notice which kinds of spending didn’t serve you and adjust those for the future, but there’s no need to feel guilty now; this year’s experience gives you information to make more aligned decisions next year. This is how you learn!

Check in on your debt

One of the biggest impacts of holiday spending might be a big credit card bill that hits in January or February. This can derail your financial plans for months or more if you’re not expecting it.

So don’t ignore your debt — even if you’re worried about how you’ll handle it.

Before the surprise bill comes, log into your online credit card account(s) to check your balance. Note how much you owe in total on each, plus how much you’ll likely owe each month in minimum payments (which are typically around 2% of your total balance).

Just as with spending, don’t bring judgment to this task. Using debt and carrying a balance is a neutral financial choice, not a moral or ethical one. As much as our culture wants you to believe otherwise, your debt balance isn’t a reflection of your financial responsibility or your overall worthiness as a human being. Uncover your eyes, and take in this information without guilt.

Make a plan for your debt

Once you know where your debt stands, you can work through your options to deal with it.

Maybe you don’t want that lingering burden and you have the resources to eliminate it — go ahead and pay off your balances in full before they start to accrue interest.

If that’s not an option, you’ll have to make a plan for how to deal with this debt in your life for the foreseeable future.

Start by understanding the products you’re using.

What’s the interest rate on each of your credit cards? How close are you to reaching your credit limit? When are your payments due throughout the month? What is your minimum monthly payment? Under which circumstances will you be charged extra fees or penalties? Most of this information is required to be included on your monthly statement, per CFPB regulation.

When you have all of this information about the financial products you’re using, you understand the consequences of carrying debt. That lets you make an informed plan that’s not driven solely by fear or shame about carrying debt. You don’t have to strive to pay it off as quickly as possible if you don’t want to; you can make the debt fit into your life instead of the other way around.

Plan for next year… now

Now look ahead to the next holiday season. Based on your reflections this year, what do you want to keep, and what do you want to let go?

Are there pricy holiday traditions you’d like to eschew in the future? Start talking to your family and friends about those changes now. Plan ahead for new traditions.

Are there pricy holiday traditions you can’t imagine living without? Create a spending fund to set aside money over the next 12 months, so you have what you need by the next holiday season. Or start looking for cheaper alternatives.

Knowing what you want and planning ahead can stop you getting swept up in the waves of obligation that come with holidays. Letting go of that obligation can help you create the holiday experience you want to have — and it can help you avoid suffering financial stress over traditions you don’t even want in your life.

This article was originally published by Salon.

💝 Want more guidance on dealing with debt without shame?

I made a class for that! This self-guided class introduces you to a new way of understanding debt. You’ll explore how to grapple with debt emotionally without the shame our culture puts on it, and you’ll learn how various financial products work so you can make a plan to deal with any debt you hold. Paid subscribers have full access to this and all Healthy Rich classes.

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For me, the break has been less than restful because of the uncertainty of unemployment since my layoff in October.

This time of year asks us to reflect on the past 12 months and plan for what will be different and better in the next 12. From the limbo of unemployment, I can’t do any of that. I can look back on a year in which I started a job that was so short-lived it’s rendered meaningless. When I look ahead to 2026, all I see is a void where plans and ambitions would normally live.

While I hang in the uncertainty of a job offer that might be around the corner, client work I might want to expand, travel I might do, where I might want to take this newsletter, I can’t form a single useful goal. A new year won’t start for me until I have more answers. I’ve been floating since the layoff, and I’ll continue to float until I find a solid foundation on which to put my next era of work. (This, I guess, is a major drawback of workcentrism; when work is my anchor, losing it sets me adrift.)

Uncertainty aside, though, I’m not all gloomy right now. One amazing thing happened this year that I can cherish forever: my book launch! I released You Don’t Need a Budget with Little, Brown Spark on Dec. 24, 2024, so the first quarter of my 2025 was filled with exciting book launch activity. It was, honestly, likely that the rest of the year would have felt like a real come-down after that high no matter what happened — so maybe it was a good year for unfortunate events.

I thought I’d take this final money date of 2025 to reflect on my relationship with money this year… but that doesn’t feel useful to me now. 2026 is likely to look so different, and 2025 was so unusual, I don’t know if there are any lessons to take forward. I think I need to wipe the slate clean of everything but the book launch and start fresh whenever I can start again. If you want to join to share your money date in the comments, feel free to look back on your whole year or just the past couple of weeks — whatever feels useful for you!

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

Read more

The winter link flurry is an opportunity to highlight and celebrate all the places that have welcomed our anti-budget message throughout the past year — articles I’ve written, writers who’ve quoted me, publications that have featured You Don’t Need a Budget and podcasts I got to join.

I love to hold space for this little celebration each year, not to brag about all the press I’ve gotten (though, that’s worthy of space too!), but to extend a huge thank you to everyone who’s been willing to have a weird conversation about money in the midst of so many things weighing on people’s minds this year. And for all of you who are here because you don’t feel represented anywhere else in personal finance media, this annual list is proof that this message is spreading — and that’s happening because you’ve been here, showing up in this community every week.

So thank you for being here, and thank you for checking out these folks below who took on this conversation.

And, just for you, an addition this year: Scroll to the end for some of Healthy Rich readers’ favorite posts from the newsletter from 2025 (I guarantee you’ve forgotten about some of these gems!)

Add to your podcast queue

Releasing a book connected me with some amazing hosts and audiences this year.

🎧 I joined my fave, , for Money With Katie to introduce some very traditional-minded finance folks to the idea of budget culture.

🎧 I got to return to my hometown radio, WORT FM in Madison, Wisconsin, to talk with host Richelle Wilson about how to leave budget culture behind.

🎧 I blew my partner’s mind when I sat down with his TikTok auntie, KC Davis, to talk about our relationships with debt for Struggle Care.

🎧 I about melted into my chair when I got the opportunity to join Anne and Melody for the Culture Study Podcast! We talked about the enduring myths of budget culture — and how people get so taken with Dave Ramsey and a debt-free scream.

🎧 I joined money mindset coach Meghan Dwyer for her pod, Money Isn’t Scary, to talk about the three dimensions of financial wellness and how to look past social media posts about consumption and use money the way you want to.

🎧 One for the other Substackers and authors out there: interviewed me about my journey in the personal finance industry and how a viral essay led to my first book deal.

🎧 Personal finance OG Jean Chatzky had me on HerMoney — and my episode about why you don’t need a budget was their most-listened episode of the year!

🎧 Felt like one of the cool girlies when I was invited to chat with Elise and Doree on Forever35… though I might have made the cool kids uncomfortable with my anti-budget talk?

🎧 NerdWallet featured YDNAB in its Smart Money Book Club podcast segment. Pretty cool to get this counter-cultural message on such a mainstay in personal finance.

🎧 I was back with my friend Kathy Oneto for her podcast Sustainable Ambition. For a quick listen, you can catch a snippet of our conversation, where we answered a question from a Healthy Rich reader, here.

I was on TV!

This was a first :)

📺 Hey Chicago! I was on WGN Morning News to talk about intuitive spending, and it gave me my favorite clip from the book tour:

📺 In Portland, I stopped by KATU’s AM Northwest to share why old advice about how to manage your money is unrealistic.

📺 Also in PDX! I hopped on Hello! Rose City to talk about rethinking financial norms (same day, same outfit!).

Substack friends

Thank these folks by following and subscribing to their newsletters!

🧡 I chatted with my friend at about how I got started in personal finance journalism and what got me thinking about budget culture.

🧡 I joined ’s inaugural “group chat” at alongside other personal finance writers to discuss what folks should be doing with their money in light of the incoming Trump administration.

🧡 invited me for a Q&A at Culture Study to make the case against budget culture.

🧡 I talked with ’s about money and parenting — and she generously called YDNAB “a salve for my financial anxiety.” Thank you, Melinda!

🧡 I did a follow-up Q&A with at about how my financial habits have changed (or not) in the two years since we last talked.

🧡 I stopped by ’s to do Le Questionnaire about how I think, feel and act around money — fun read!

Amazing people who explored budget-free money management

Huge thanks to these journalists who interviewed me or featured my book in their articles.

💖 Brittany Miller featured YDNAB at The Independent in an article on why you shouldn’t bother budgeting.

💖 YDNAB made the Woman’s World December book club!

💖 Preston Fore let me freak out Fortune readers by telling them you don’t need a budget, don’t pay all your bills and pay less attention to that investment account…

💖 Kimberly Palmer at NerdWallet invited me into a conversation I’m obsessed with: Gen Z’s underconsumption trend.

💖 This was cool: Fellow personal finance reporter Nicole Dieker Finley had me in conversation with our friends Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni about budgeting trends for Vox.

💖 By the time NerdWallet quoted me in this piece about “intuitive budgeting,” I’d given up on using my original phrase “conscious spending,” because SO MANY writers game-of-telephoned that into “intuitive spending” that I decided to let the people have it and just rename the practice.

💖 Jeanine Skowronski interviewed me for her newsletter, Money As If, for a piece about how to unlock guilt-free spending.

💖 GOBankingRates was kind to me this year! They named me among their Top 100 Money Experts of 2025 and subsequently featured me in a bunch of content — about why budget culture is as bad as diet culture, how to manage your money without a budget and how to handle holiday money stress. Glad to be a go-to expert for a traditional staple in personal finance media!

For your TBR list

Revisiting some of your (and my!) favorite Healthy Rich posts of 2025.

My essays

🥑 Money is mostly vibes

🥑 Using debt is not ‘living beyond your means’

🥑 Are we still just saving for retirement like it’s going to work?

🥑 Is freelancing just exploitation dressed up as independence?

Q&As

🥑 ‘When I say “I understand,” I truly do because I have been in financial situations that made me uncomfortable, anxious or avoidant’ with Aja Evans

🥑 ‘The data told my own story back to me’ with Corinne Low

🥑 Getting ‘good at spending’ with Jen Smith & Jill Sirianni

Contributor essays

🥑 We believed the lie that we could bootstrap our way out by Heather Bursch

🥑 Debt gave me freedom from toxic deprivation culture by Gemma Hartley

🥑 The priceless debt that got me to Paris by Kristi Evans

Budget-Free Basics

🥑 How to create a money map to manage your money without a budget

🥑 A happier way to manage money: Saying ‘yes’ to you

🥑 Set a regular ‘money date’ to get money off your mind

Share yours!

What’s something you want to celebrate this year? Leave a comment for the community to shout out to something you’re proud of — or something from someone else you think we need to know about.

Leave a comment

This school is in my tiny Wisconsin town of 780 people, in a county whose median income is about $65,000 — 17% below the national average and 14% below our state average. 50% of students come from economically disadvantaged households. We’re in a deep red district politically.1

I grew up in a place like this in rural Wisconsin, and I know what it’s like to a be a teenage weirdo in a small, working class town. I know what it’s like to want to get out and find your people, an affirming community, a place where the things you love are celebrated, a place where the work you dream of doing isn’t dismissed as an impossibility.

And I know how hard it is to get from here to anywhere else.

As a child-free adult (and a misfit in my own right) in this town, the mark I want my presence to make is to help those kids be seen, celebrated and validated. The theater kids. The band geeks. The ones who read through class. The kids who are better than their teachers at math by the fourth grade. The queer kids. The children of immigrants. The neurodivergent kids.

One tiny way I can do that is to offer this scholarship. And what I’m really excited about is the scholarship doesn’t require recipients to enroll in college after high school. It’s one of just two scholarships in this community that doesn’t carry that prerequisite. This money is explicitly available to use however a graduate wants to use it after high school — to help with moving expenses, certifications, travel, housing, work or business expenses, everyday needs or anything else. It’s there to offer a tiny leg up that can be hard to come by when you’re trying to forge your own path in a community where “different” is an insult.

I’m offering at least one scholarship for $1,000 for any public or home-schooled graduate in this school district. The first scholarship will be awarded in May 2026 at the end of this academic year, and I hope to make it an annual award.

I’d love your help making this happen!

I’ve already set aside $1,000 of Healthy Rich proceeds to guarantee this year’s scholarship. I’d love your help building the fund to ensure it’s available for future years and maybe even choose multiple recipients some years.

If you want to help, you can donate money right here.

100% of the money collected through that link goes into the scholarship fund; none of it stays in my business, and there are no costs to administering this scholarship (except Stripe fees, which I’m covering). I’ll keep you all up to date on the progress of the scholarship fund and the awards that go out in May.

A few more details about how I’m awarding this scholarship and how I’m thinking about making it useful and accessible to the students I want to reach…

• In addition to not considering plans for higher education, selection does not consider GPA, academic achievement, ACT scores or extracurricular involvement. Most scholarships have requirements for these criteria — even those that exist to help marginalized students or those from low-income families, who are well known to have a disadvantage in these areas. That made me mad, so I made my scholarship different.

• Selection doesn’t consider family income or other markers of financial need. I struggled with this decision, but here’s why: A lot of queer and other misfit kids get cut off from family financial support when they come out or pursue any kind of authenticity. Maybe this money could be the safety net they need to make that choice. (The question of “family income” is also complicated for kids in foster care or other alloparent situation.)

• Applications can be submitted in English or Spanish, because we have a large population of Spanish-speaking immigrant families in this area.

• Applicants can submit their answers to short essay questions in written, audio or video form, to make it accessible for students who don’t feel confident expressing themselves in writing (also because of the multi-media creativity of Gen Z and Alpha!).

• Money will go directly to the recipient once they’re at least 18 years old — so it can’t be intercepted by parents or guardians.

• Selection is solely based on answers to essay questions, which ask about a time the student felt like they didn’t fit in, their post-graduation plans and how they’d use the money.

• I originally conceived of this scholarship explicitly for LGBTQ+ graduates, but I broadened the criteria to anyone who’s ever been told they’re “different” to avoid making applicants out themselves to apply. (I was also a queer kid in a small town who didn’t know I was queer until my early 20s, so I want to reach those folks, too!)

• Scholarship funds that are used for anything other than qualified education expenses are taxable for the recipient, and — because I’m a financial educator :) — I’ll include resources with that information when I make the award.

• There’s no nonprofit here, so your donations aren’t tax-deductible (and Healthy Rich doesn’t get any tax break, either). Because it’s small scale and hyper-local, this is strictly a mutual aid effort.

Donate to the scholarship fund

Want to start something like this in your town?

It was surprisingly simple to set up this scholarship and connect with the local high school. I’d love to see scholarships like this in communities all over the country, but I’m not equipped for (or interested in) managing something that complex.

And, anyway, this works better as a localized effort.

If you live in a rural area and want to set up a “misfits” scholarship of your own, reach out! I’d be happy to offer anything I can to help you get it going. If a few of us are doing it, maybe we can work together on fundraising and fund management, too! Reply to this email if you want to chat.

Do you have other questions?

This is the first mutual aid effort I’ve spearheaded, so I don’t know what I don’t know. Before you contribute, do you have questions I haven’t answered? Any issues it looks like I haven’t thought of? Have you learned lessons from running similar efforts? Share them in the comments or reply to this email!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s supported the book this year — whether you told a friend about it, bought a copy, checked it out from the library, asked your favorite librarian or bookseller to stock it, or simply continued to read this newsletter so I didn’t feel alone after the noise of the book launch quieted down. YDNAB continues to connect me with incredible people and let me hear new stories and perspectives on money, and I expect it to have a long life of changing the way people think and talk about money. Thank you for being here for that!

Read a free chapter

In 2015, I was hired for my first professional job: a staff-writer position with a fast-growing digital media start-up. I was stunned at the opportunity. I’d been toiling away for almost five years as sort of a freelance writer, rarely securing stable work and barely cracking $12,000 a year in income from writing and occasional stints in food service.

When I entered the personal finance industry, I was a veritable poster child for the millennial in need of an injection of adulting, the cute word my cohorts coined for coping with the crushing reality of coming of age into an historic economic recession. I quickly became comfortable being the dumbest person in the room, and I wasn’t shy about asking stupid questions — all in the name of serving readers facing similar circumstances.

Around six months into the job, I joined our nascent editorial team for our daily stand-up to pitch stories. Someone had found a Washington Post article about a study out of the University of Michigan about “why poor people pay more for toilet paper,” and we pondered covering the study ourselves.

For the study, Professor Yesim Orhun and Ph.D. student Mike Palazzolo analyzed panel data from more than 100,000 American households to track purchases of toilet paper over seven years. They chose this sundry because it’s a reliable measure for spending across economic circumstances: Toilet paper is nonperishable, and we consume it pretty consistently. We don’t go without it just because we’re strapped for cash, like we might go without new clothes or haircuts. And we don’t buy more when we have extra money, like we might with food or entertainment.

The study found that people with less money pay more for toilet paper, because it’s technically cheaper in bulk. When you have a cushion of money (i.e., your expenses won’t drain your account before next payday), you buy the 24-roll pack. But the 24-pack costs more in the moment than the four-pack. When you have only enough in your pocket for the four-pack, and your bathroom needs toilet paper, you’re not going to wait just because the math says the 24-pack is the smarter choice.

“Having more money gives people the luxury of paying less for things,” as the Washington Post puts it.

I was excited to cover this study. We didn’t talk about this phenomenon in personal finance, and I was delighted to see science behind the experience I’d had for years. I’d bought the four-roll pack. Honestly? Sometimes I’d bought single rolls of toilet paper at a corner store because I didn’t have a car to get to the grocery store where I could buy the four-pack. And in my city apartment, I hadn’t exactly had the ample storage space bulk buying requires. I wanted to plant a flag in the personal finance space for those of us who weren’t doing all the right money things all the time.

My coworkers wanted a different tack, though. They thought the story should be about how to avoid spending more on toilet paper, even when you’re broke. That’s what we did in the personal finance industry.

“We could suggest using a credit card to buy in bulk, then paying off the balance with your next paycheck,” one writer suggested. “We can explain how to figure out when it’s worth it to pay a little interest if it’ll save you money in the long run.”

“But what if you can’t get a credit card?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. What was missing from my question? I reworded it. “What if you don’t qualify for a credit card, so you have to buy everything with cash?” Then, considering my own 520-something credit score, I added more bluntly, “People who can’t afford 25 bucks for bulk toilet paper probably don’t have a great credit score.”

“Oh,” she replied, with empathy but genuinely surprised. “You really think so?”

I scanned the circle for others to back me up, but their faces all registered surprise, too. No one else had thought of this possibility.

My coworkers weren’t stupid or unsympathetic. They were brilliant thinkers who shared knowledge generously and made me smarter with gentle prodding and an eye for the questions readers would want answered. They were college-educated and experienced. They’d traveled to far reaches of the world and met diverse communities of people. They volunteered more than I did, donated to causes they cared about, got out the vote, and made fair-trade, eco-conscious choices whenever possible. We were the same in so many ways: ambitious women in our 30s obsessed with the written word and concerned with equality and the environment and other social causes. Until that day’s stand-up, I hadn’t noticed I was different from all of them in one stark way: They’d all been raised in middle-class1 families.

What did it mean for our readers that the bulk of our advice came from a middle-class perspective? For that matter, what did it mean for the readers of almost every publication that a vast majority of journalists are white men from the middle class?

The industry, I realized, isn’t serving most people well.

For most of our readers in personal finance media, their relationship with money is, at best, complicated. Far too few Americans have access to enough resources to feel secure in their options for food or housing. Others have more than enough but hoard it without a plan because of scarcity anxiety. Still others live a spendthrift life and get by fine, but are constantly nagged by a worry that there’s something they should be doing differently. Or their tenuous financial plans crumble at the slightest suggestion of trouble.

I used to tell people I was grateful to work in personal finance because what I’ve learned has helped me get my own money under control. Throughout my time as a staffer and freelancer in financial media, I grew a small IRA, built a $20,000 comfort fund, set up automatic bill payment, finally got a credit card and raised my credit score to above 750. But I’ve stopped giving financial literacy the credit, because I know the real reason my finances got “healthier” after I got that first job: I had more money. I took a job with a salary that quadrupled my income, and voila — I became a lot more “responsible” with money.

I didn’t conquer budgeting or eliminate debt with extra fervor. I opened a secured credit card because I had the $200 to spare for a deposit, and my credit score shot up 100 points, opening a ton of doors. My income kept rising, tipping over $100,000 after I returned to freelancing, and the financial anxiety I’d experienced throughout my 20s miraculously vanished.

My colleagues in financial media and education often talk about the paradox that the people who need financial education most are the least likely to have access to it. But there’s an inherent condescension to that idea. It’s based on an assumption that poor people have a greater need for financial education, feeding a narrative that knowing the right set of rules unlocks the key to wealth.

That assumption isn’t borne out in the data, though. Increased access to financial education doesn’t necessarily mean improved financial circumstances later in life. Racial and class disparities in financial knowledge and wealth persist even among adults who had equal requirements for financial education in high school, and parental income remains the greatest predictor of a child’s income mobility later in life.

Financial education can’t overcome the systems and policies that create and maintain disparities — especially when that education is created within those systems.

The reality is that wealth begets wealth, and we exist in a system that perpetuates that truth.

A reflection, one year later

I wrote You Don’t Need a Budget to bring that truth into the conversation about personal finance, because we so rarely acknowledge it in this industry.

Yes, people are aware of the forces of capitalism and the inequalities in our society — but those macro realities don’t often trickle down into our micro conversations about personal money management.

Instead, personal finance media and education focus, as my early colleagues did, on helping us do the math to make the most fiscally optimal decisions. We ask when does it make sense to use a credit card?, but we don’t ponder whether the reader has access to credit or whether they have to use credit regardless of the math because they don’t have access to other resources. We pass on one-size-fits-all advice that ends up working for almost no one — ignoring what it really looks like to save for retirement or pay off debt in a society that doesn’t provide the support we need.

You Don’t Need a Budget and the ongoing conversations we have through this newsletter are my attempt to counter those failings of the personal finance industry.

We have to stop offering optimized advice that doesn’t work in real life and start hearing from real people about the real relationships they have with money. Though I like to share others’ stories and experiences, and I love encouraging experiments and trying new things, I didn’t use YDNAB to offer an alternative “better” way to approach your finances. This is what keeps happening in the personal finance industry, and it keeps missing the point.

We have to acknowledge the system we’re all living in and understand that the way each person survives this system is unique to them. As a financial educator, the best I can do is make the system visible for readers and help you understand your options within it. That’s what I aimed to do in writing YDNAB, and I hope the book offers that for readers who for so long have felt — like I did in that conversation about toilet paper — excluded from our cultural conversation about money.

This post contains affiliate links for Bookshop.org, so if you buy a book mentioned here, you support the author, local bookstores and Healthy Rich!

Journalist Anne Helen Petersen called out this question on a recent episode of the Culture Study Podcast, posing it as one millennials at large are facing as we age, as we navigate post-pandemic life, as we learn from Gen Z’s anti-work and quiet-quitting culture.

Asking who we are outside of work has always been an important question for life under capitalism. This culture measures our worthiness by our ability to produce or labor for profit, and we internalize that gauge in our innate self-judgment. As more and more of the fruits of our labor are captured by fewer and fewer corporations and less are distributed to us, our families, our cities and our communities, the cry to identify with anything other than work seems to be growing louder and louder.

The cry is especially persistent for millennials in this moment, as we’re in about mid-life, mid-career, mid–child rearing. Our 20s were consumed by a hustle culture prompted by recession-era fears about money and our ability to succeed (read: advance) at work. The early pandemic years brought much of that hustle to a screeching halt and encouraged many of those who could to step back, rest, recover and re-evaluate how we were using our time.

For many of you, this shift probably meant deprioritizing work, valuing time with friends and family, enjoying moments with your children (while rejecting the optimization of parenting), accumulating less stuff and more experiences, or getting off of social media. You were called to slow down.

My early pandemic years? I worked more and earned more money than I have at any point before or since.

I launched my freelance writing business in 2020 and enjoyed long, uninterrupted days of writing at home. I spent my evenings and weekends consuming audiobooks and podcasts that shaped my approach to money and everything I was writing. In 2021, I launched this newsletter, and I built out a (short-lived) version of my business that employed a network of freelance writers. In 2022, I defined the concept of budget culture and landed my first book deal.

The pandemic didn’t call me to slow down.

I didn’t slow down after my most recent layoff, either. After being laid off from my staff writing job in October, I spun up a new side hustle as a VA and kept working. (I made a logo, a brand and a draft of a website and everything, but I’ve learned enough from 15 years doing online business to rein it in and not publicize half-baked ideas too quickly. Especially during moments of crisis, when I cling to new ideas for sanity.)

When I ponder “Who am I outside of work?”, I sort of come up short.

I mean — I’m a partner and a daughter and an auntie and a reader and a political volunteer and obsessed with The Office and I still play the flute I kept from high school. My life isn’t empty outside of work.

But I don’t feel the pull I sense from other people to elevate some other part of my life above work. Work for myself or for someone else or for a company, work on a book or an article or a piece of marketing collateral — they add different things to my life, but work in any form tends to be my favorite thing.

I feel like I should be ashamed to say that.

In the course of working alongside other humans, I’m often asked about my hobbies. Any big plans for the weekend? What did you do with your holiday break? I’ve always dreaded these questions, because what I do in my free time is write. I write for my job, and I write other things outside of my job. When I’m not writing, I do rest and take care of myself — but no one wants to hear that I spent my weekend taking walks and watching The Office, when their stories are about the cute new thing their toddler learned to do or the trip they took to visit family.

(I take trips, too! My favorite thing to do is be in a hotel or a coffee shop in a new city and… write.)

This feels crazy.

I’m getting images of women in shoulder-padded suits from movies of the 1980s and ‘90s, usually the evil stepmom from the city who just doesn’t get why her chill new husband and his sticky children are always laughing; she wants to ship the kids off to boarding school to get their messiness out of the way so she can focus on making partner at the firm or something.

But I’m not that ambitious. I wouldn’t know what to do with power. And, if you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m hardly motivated by money.

I just like to do the work.

This is my happy place. When I’m stressed, I design businesses and plan projects. That’s my version of doodling or knitting or watercolors. A nice outline calms my nervous system. I’m much more likely to impulse buy a domain than a pair of boots.

Am I a broken person?

All the messages I get from our culture tell me workaholism is something I’m supposed to fix about myself. That work is eating away at my soul and I have to discover what truly makes me happy to counteract that effect. That over-identifying with work is some kind of Type-A, Enneagram 1, INTJ, eldest daughter, hustle culture symptom to be treated.

But I cannot imagine what a cured version of me would be. I don’t want something else.

Maybe I am broken. Maybe the Great Recession and the 2010s millennial hustle snapped something in my brain. Maybe a working class upbringing twisted my sense of self to rely too heavily on work. Maybe my parents implanted a fear of scarcity or failure in my soul. Maybe autism prompts me to turn every special interest into work — and to find my special interest in any work I do.

Maybe there are 39 years of unrealized gardening, birdwatching and Galentine’s Days boring ulcers into my stomach.

But I don’t think so. I feel fine. I’ve been like this my whole life — whether I was serving coffee or giving lectures about money. I haven’t found myself chugging antacids so far.

It’s kind of a weird position to take, to be an anti-capitalist who’s obsessed with work. I enjoy doing my job well, for my own sake, but that also makes me inadvertently good at helping companies make money. (I should submit this essay with my next job application!)

I don’t actually think I’m a workaholic. That would require overwork to be detrimental to my life. I get plenty of rest and relief (note two references to watching The Office already in this essay). I’ve never dealt with extended overwork or work-related stress, and I’ve never experienced burnout from too much work. Quite the opposite; good work generally energizes and rejuvenates me.

My Values Bridge summary names my No. 1 top value as “workcentrism,” which means wanting work to be the organizing principle of your life. It also says “eudemonia” — wanting a life organized around pleasure — is among my top values, and it tells me, “For most people, true balance between these values is elusive.” It seems to assume work is at odds with pleasure and leisure. But what if work is fun and leisurely itself?

I think about work in the way author describes in her (fantastic) book, Today Was Fun:

“All I want is to spend my days with funny, creative, inspiring people who are lovely to hang around. And while we’re hanging out, a fun thing to do is create value for others and money for ourselves.”

There are lovely ways to have work in your life that don’t allow it to chew up your soul.

I’ve always taken that idea as a given, or even a requirement. I’m not immune to taking on less-than-perfect work to make a living, but I never extend that kind of work beyond its usefulness. I have no tolerance for bad work just for the sake of working (that would be workaholism, maybe?).

I think this is why I don’t feel the need to find out who I am outside of work. I’m completely happy with who I am inside of work. That person rocks. I want to be her more. I want to learn from her and bring her into other parts of my life. I want to be better at showing friends, family and neighbors who I am among colleagues, coworkers and rough drafts, not the other way around.

I know who my authentic self is; she’s the one who shows up at work.

I am, indeed, Type-A, Enneagram 1, INTJ and an eldest daughter. I am a grumpy stepmom who prefers the city and will never understand how children can be so sticky all the time.

Galentine’s Day looks like a sensory nightmare, and birdwatching sounds like a lot of chores. I can tolerate a couple of hours of planting annuals to keep my hands from forming into claws at the keyboard, but I don’t know what the flowers are called and I cannot stress enough how little I care. But I made it through a bookkeeping course no one asked me to take, I got a self-guided certification as a financial educator, I show up to group coaching calls every week, I publish this newsletter regularly and I wrote an entire book by deadline with no guidance from an editor.

These are my hobbies. These are the things that fill the time around my job. (That is, when I’m not — here it comes again — watching The Office.)

My life feels full, and my days are satisfying. Is it OK that I get that from work?

This post contains affiliate links for Bookshop.org, so if you buy a book mentioned here, you support the author, local bookstores and Healthy Rich!

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In my class, How to Start Freelancing, I walk through the exact steps to set yourself up financially, professionally and emotionally to start freelancing — whether you want a career change or a side gig to make a little extra money. You’ll learn how to add ease and joy to your life by designing the job or career that’s just right for you. Paid subscribers have full access to this and all Healthy Rich classes.

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If you want to continue to support GiveDirectly, they asked me to share this link for their Giving Tuesday campaign to raise funds for three villages in northern Rwanda. The goal is to give 800 families $1,100 each in direct cash, no strings attached.

Donate to GiveDirectly

I went to my niece’s 10th birthday party over the holiday weekend, along with a gaggle of her 10-year-old friends. One delightful moment is sticking with me: A friend gifted her some kind of birthday-special Barbie doll (I’m out of the loop of these things as a non-parent, but maybe you know what this is?).

As my niece unwrapped the box, she said, “Wow! That’s a fancy Barbie!”

Without skipping a beat, her friend replied, “Yeah, it was $32!”

The whole gaggle responded with awe, murmuring, “Wow. What a fancy Barbie…” before turning their attention the next gift.

The adults all cringed for a second at the mention of money, then laughed it off as a cute gaffe, then forgot about it as the girls moved on. I loved it. The girls were totally unfazed that someone had revealed how much they (their parents) spent on a gift. The price was a characteristic of the doll, and that’s it.

I’m sure there’s a lot to dig into behind the cute declaration — the fact that these kids go to dozens of birthday parties each year and (their parents) feel obligated to spend money on gifts every time, the reality that the girl knew the price in the first place because her mom was probably fretting over it when she bought the doll, the whole consumerism of it all…

But in that moment, I enjoyed seeing the kids talk openly about money without judgment or shame. No one scolded her for talking about money, no one spoke up to compare spending, no one asked whether their family could “afford” that kind of spending. It was just a fact in their day. I appreciate seeing money fit into our lives this way.

A little lesson from some fourth graders as we head into the holiday season :)

P.S. Since I’m in an Auntie mood, it was a delight to see Lisa Sibbett resurface my Q&A at The Auntie Bulletin from this time last year. A lovely reflection on my experience as an auntie.

The Auntie Bulletin

10 Questions about Auntiehood for Dana Miranda of Healthy Rich

I’ve been a fan of Dana Miranda’s Healthy Rich newsletter ever since she wrote a guest post for Anne Helen Petersen in 2022. Dana writes about how capitalism impacts the ways we think, teach, and talk about money, and in that Culture Study post, she made an essential point that I still think about all the time…

Read more

a year ago · 42 likes · 3 comments · Lisa Sibbett

💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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To celebrate this day with Rahkim and to help you identify and address your own financial trauma, I’m giving away two hardcover copies of Overcoming Financial Trauma to Healthy Rich readers!

I’m re-running a Q&A below that I did with Rahkim last year, so you can get to know him better. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment for us on this post by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 25. I’ll randomly choose two commenters before Friday, Nov. 28, and reach out to you via email to get you your copies.

‘Money will find its way back to me’

Originally published Dec. 2024.

Rahkim Sabree talks about a subject we rarely see in personal finance media: financial trauma. Rahkim is an award-winning financial therapist, Accredited Financial Counselor with AFCPE, speaker and author with a background in banking. He’s dedicated to helping underserved communities challenge traditional views of financial freedom and personal growth.

What role does trauma play in our relationships with money that we don’t often acknowledge? What do you see financial experts and educators getting wrong when it comes to talking about financial trauma?

Depending on how we define trauma, it plays a huge role in our relationship with money. Attachment issues, scarcity, perceptions on power, authority and safety can all be tied into our relationship with money. When we can grasp that around 80% of our financial decisions come from an emotional base and that those emotions can be skewed by our everyday traumas, there is almost no line of separation.

Many financial educators and experts might talk about financial trauma from a lens that is not trauma informed. What that looks like is taking the very real pain someone may have navigated and turning it into a buzz word to market and sell to them, which perpetuates the cycle of trauma. I believe it’s important to discuss financial trauma as financial educators, but not to weaponize that trauma in a way that further traumatizes the subject.

Additionally, I believe some educators minimize the impact and validity of financial trauma in their work because they don’t feel they have experienced it or haven’t experienced it to the degree of someone in their audience. Again, this points to the need for trauma informed education and not just using the buzz words.

What’s the most joyful thing you’ve done with money in the past six(ish) months?

I recently purchased a new-to-me iPad Pro with the magic keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro. I’ll be honest, I felt a bit of guilt on the splurge, but I felt so fortunate to be in a place where I could do it. I was celebrating multiple wins in my business and personal brand, and I legitimately needed the iPad for my work — a win-win. It is by far my favorite piece of tech right now and gives me so much joy in creating, writing and entertaining myself. I also plan to use it with clients for workshops and surveys.

What messages did you get about money growing up? Which have you held onto and which have you let go?

I was always told to save and be responsible with money, but I witnessed patch jobs and band-aid solutions to issues that required spending money. Subconsciously I still struggle with being OK with paying the full price for something or getting it done right the first time instead of getting it right right now. Although I’ve made progress with that mentality and rely on it as a survival mechanism, I can feel how easy it is to revert to penny pinching when I feel a bit of financial stress.

I’ve heard things like “money doesn’t grow on trees” or “do you have (insert object of desire) money?!” which signals that money is scarce and limited to me. I’ve released those messages and have embraced an abundance mindset that says money will find its way back to me and that it’s plentiful if I know where to look.

How do various facets of your identity impact your work and finances?

I grew up on the poverty line with multiple interests and talents I was not able to pursue because of a lack of money. I believe those experiences have forged in me a bit of a financial activist in a sense, advocating first for myself but also for others who may have similar experiences to my own.

As I’ve grown both personally and professionally, I believe my values and integrity show up in the way I run my business and pursue opportunities. I don’t view myself as being a victim or at the mercy of anyone’s will or kindness, but I can acknowledge where systemic barriers exist and how I may have to learn to navigate those obstacles either head-on or in a roundabout way.

What’s one financial decision that frequently causes you stress? How do you work through it?

Paying my mortgage. Of course, so much of my idea about security is tied into where I live. As an entrepreneur who started my journey during the pandemic, nothing is guaranteed. Some months I know I’m going to be alright, and others might have me sweating a bit. One of the things I remind myself is to express gratitude in the moments I can pay my mortgage with ease and to remember that I’ve been here before in the moments where I feel stress. I’ve been able to make it work for almost four years now.

Besides yours, what newsletter do you most recommend and why? Who is it best for?

The Scott Scheper Letter! It is one that I read in fine detail, because I pay almost $100 a month for it! This newsletter is analog in a sea of digital newsletters, so it is shipped directly to my door once a month. The author talks about copywriting and marketing strategies for people who want to be better readers, researchers and writers. It has absolutely nothing to do with money and I SWORE to myself when I saw the price that I would not subscribe or that I would immediately cancel my subscription, but here I am probably five or six letters in and still loving it!

Instead of talking about the weather, what do you wish strangers would ask you about when you meet on the street?

I wish more strangers would ask me what I do for work! I get a thrill when I tell people I’m a financial therapist and their eyes get big as they ask, “What is that?!” I think having that conversation will normalize not only the profession but also the work involved, opening people up to dialogue around their own relationships with money and who they might see if they wanted to improve it.

Show your support and enter to win a free book!

Have you heard of financial therapy before? What about financial trauma? What are you interested in learning more about in your relationship with money? Leave your comment for Rahkim and me below, and be entered to win a free copy of Rahkim’s new book, Overcoming Financial Trauma.

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