Getting Boring With Money Changed Everything

There’s a version of empowerment that looks aesthetic. Travel. Freedom. Soft mornings. Flexible schedules. It photographs well and it sells well. Then there’s the quieter version. The kind that doesn’t trend, doesn’t get applause, and doesn’t need to.

This week’s Wellness Rewind is about money. It’s a subject people avoid publicly but stress over privately. Not manifesting it. Not obsessing over it. Just building enough stability that your nervous system can finally exhale.

I’m sharing what rebuilding taught me about the quiet power of financial literacy. I’m not a financial expert. This is simply my personal experience, the lessons I learned the hard way, and the resources that helped me.

In my early thirties, money felt emotional. It felt tied to identity, relationships, and what I thought my life was supposed to look like. Then everything changed. I got divorced. The world shut down. I had to rebuild from scratch. I moved countries. I launched a new business in my late thirties. There wasn’t room for aesthetic chaos anymore.

What shifted wasn’t my ambition. It was my relationship to stability. I stopped trying to make money feel exciting. I stopped tying it to validation. I stopped treating financial growth like a personality trait. Instead, I built systems. I tracked my numbers. I saved consistently. I made conservative decisions when I needed to. I learned my actual baseline cost of living and prioritized margin.

It wasn’t glamorous. It was freeing.

Divorce was hard, especially after putting parts of my life on pause in my 20s and being financially supported by someone else. I had grown used to shared responsibility, to dependence in ways I didn’t fully understand until it was gone after divorce. When that foundation disappeared, it left me in one of the most uncertain and darkest periods of my life. I might have walked away with half of what was rightfully mine by law, but I wasn’t prepared for what the future held and the financial decisions I would be faced with.

The instability wasn’t just emotional, it was practical. It forced me to confront how financially exposed I had allowed myself to become. Growing up, my mom was clear about one thing: never rely entirely on a partner for your livelihood.

Not from fear, but from reality. Life is uncertain. You need to be capable of supporting yourself. What if a marriage ends? What if a partner becomes ill? What if you suddenly carry the financial responsibility alone? Her message wasn’t cynical. It was protective. And I understood it in a completely different way once I had to rebuild on my own.

And just as I felt like I was finding my footing again, the world shut down. A global pandemic made it painfully clear that nothing external is guaranteed. Industries stalled. Plans evaporated. Predictability vanished. Those two seasons, divorce and the global shutdown, stripped away any illusion of permanence. They also changed me.

I became sharper about money. More intentional. I stopped outsourcing my financial awareness. I learned my numbers. I prioritized literacy over lifestyle. I made stability a non-negotiable. Not because I became fearful, but because I became clear. Clear about what independence actually requires. Clear about what peace actually costs.

Getting “boring” with money didn’t make me smaller. It made me steady. And steady changes how you move through everything.

We talk about nervous system regulation constantly in wellness. Breathwork. Morning light. Cold exposure. Supplements. All helpful. But financial unpredictability keeps your body in fight-or-flight whether you acknowledge it or not. When you don’t know what’s coming in, when expenses feel ambiguous, when you’re one unexpected bill away from stress, your system stays on edge.

When you know your bills are covered, when you have runway, when you’re not one emergency away from panic, your nervous system softens. You sleep differently. You negotiate differently. You stop overcommitting out of fear. You stop saying yes just because you need security. You start choosing from alignment instead of urgency.

Financial stability doesn’t eliminate ambition. It eliminates desperation. And desperation is loud. It leaks into your work, your relationships, your boundaries, even your health.

Money isn’t the end goal. Stability is. Stability gives you the space to make decisions intentionally instead of reactively, to build instead of scramble.

It’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned, and I wish financial literacy were taught early and clearly in the U.S., instead of being something most of us have to figure out the hard way.

If you’ve been feeling reactive lately, it might not be about productivity or discipline. It might be about safety and financial security.

Boring is underrated. Boring is powerful.

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These aren’t hustle tools. They’re clarity tools. A simple expense tracker, even if it’s just your Notes app (but really, don’t just use your Notes apps!). A separate savings account you don’t emotionally touch. A weekly 20-minute money check-in with zero drama. Automating investments so decision fatigue doesn’t interfere. Knowing your true monthly baseline cost of living. Nothing flashy, just foundations.

Books that share the most practical, no-drama entry point into personal finance. It’s not about cutting lattes. It’s about building a system and habits that runs in the background of your life.

Prof G Markets – “How to Build a Rich Life” ft. Ramit Sethi
A grounded podcast conversation on what wealth actually means and how to define it for yourself. Less hype, more clarity.

Uncut & Uncensored with Caroline Stanbury – “How to Survive Divorce Without Losing Yourself or Your Money”
An honest discussion about rebuilding after divorce and protecting both identity and finances from someone who divorced in the public eye and rebuilt. Practical and sobering in the best way.

A separate high-yield savings account
Not sexy, but essential. Create distance between you and your emergency fund so it stops feeling optional and create automatic transfers, monthly. This distance is also keeping separate banks or bank accounts.

A 20-minute weekly “money check-in”
No spreadsheets required. Just review spending, upcoming expenses, and cash flow. Consistency beats avoidance.

FemaleInvest
Best thing you can do for yourself is get financially literate. Female Invest is made for women and helps us understand: Knowing your baseline monthly cost of living, having 6–12 months of runway, automating investing, protecting your downside, growing your earning power, and that everything else is interface. Nothing flashy. Just foundations that make your independence feel real.

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Rebuilding my life in my thirties taught me something I wish more women talked about openly: independence feels better than intensity.

Getting boring with money didn’t make my life smaller. It made it stronger and more stable enough to grow. Next week, we’ll talk about identity shifts before 40 that apply to any significant birthday, and the versions of ourselves we quietly outgrow.

Valerie

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