Your Financial Life Is Bigger Than Spending

Key Takeaways

• Because spending is so visible, it’s easy to accidentally view your entire financial identity through the lens of spending alone.

• You might assume being strong with money means spending less.

• The absence of a crisis is not the same as financial strength.

• If you feel tempted to conceal your own spending in an otherwise healthy marriage, don't brush it off as cute or quirky.

• Your rich, evolving financial life includes spending, but also much more.

If you see your spending more than other areas of your financial health, you are at risk.

For years, spending was the only aspect of my financial life that I saw.

Everything changed when I stopped seeing spending as the whole story.

Spending is the loudest part of your financial life. It demands your attention almost every day. Groceries. Gas. Birthday gifts. Shoes. Shampoo. The Costco run that magically turns into $353 every time.

There’s no opting out of spending. Adult life requires it.

Because spending is so visible, it’s easy to accidentally view your entire financial identity through the lens of spending alone.

You start to think personal finance is spending.

Your financial health is more expansive than checkout choices!

Just like physical health has multiple dimensions— strength, endurance, flexibility, sleep, nutrition, mobility, emotional health— your financial well-being also has many dimensions.

Spending is one of them— an important one, but just one.

Spending Is Not the Enemy

You might assume being strong with money means spending less.

I’ve spoken with so many clients who feel unclear and confused about their overall financial lives. Yet they're quick to say they need to tighten the belt.

They lack confidence about their overall money health, yet they don't question their diagnosis and prescription.

They blindly trust that the problem and solution must somehow relate to spending.

Then every purchase starts to feel morally loaded.

But strengthening your financial life doesn’t mean weakening your spending muscles. Spending is not a character flaw. Spending is part of living!

In fact, spending is part of every money-strong life.

Your time at the store doesn’t have to feel fraught. Your financial identity is bigger than spending alone, whether you realize it or not.

The reality is there is so much more to see in your relationship with money, if you just know where to look.

Once you see all the dimensions of a healthy financial life, you can't unsee them, and you take a step toward strengthening them.

Need to expand your awareness of your financial life? Take the Money Strength Assessment today

When I Only Saw Spending

It’s not that shopping consumed my life. Since I was unaware of other components of a money-strong life, spending just got outsized attention.

I was aware of spending— at least some of it. I knew when I swapped money for paper towels or birthday gifts or storage bins or kids’ shoes.

But I was disconnected from the larger landscape of our financial life.

When spending dominates your understanding of money, you feel self-conscious, vaguely guilty, and one-dimensional.

In relationships, it becomes especially easy to slip into roles like “the spender” and “the supervisor.”

When you view yourself primarily as the spender, it’s hard to feel capable, informed, or powerful with money.

You don't feel whole or strong. You put yourself in a box.

The Target Bags

I still remember the dissonance I felt during the season in my marriage where I only saw money from a lens of spending, and even that from a limited vantage point.

There were a few years where I wasn't working outside the home. I hadn't learned much about personal finance as a kid or young adult— but here I was with a husband, two kids, and a house.

I was aware of my Target runs and Amazon orders— but I was in the dark about how money related to preparing for the future, dreaming, communicating, collaborating, investing, teamwork, or learning.

Looking back, it felt terrible. But I didn't see an alternative.

And everything seemed to be working out. I could just keep the status quo, not understanding personal finance, and hope for the best.

I vividly recall one sad symptom of this status quo.

Sometimes when I came home from Target, I felt quite conscious of those bullseye bags, and their swishy plastic sounds that seemed to broadcast, "I spent money!"

I pulled into the back driveway and got right to work, popping off tags, ripping open packaging, and consolidating those little bags.

Then I walked in my back door and promptly began putting away the new items.

As soon as I stepped in, I shoved the bags in the trash can— not on top, but under other garbage!

I figured if I got the new stuff incorporated fast enough into the slush of our pre-existing possessions, my husband Nick wouldn't have to notice (and possibly inquire or worry about) the spending.

To be clear, I was pretty frugal. I didn't go on reckless shopping sprees.

Nick never shamed me for spending. He was just the one of us who happened to know the password to our joint checking account and occasionally peek at the balance.

The rare times he would ask about a purchase, I felt an array of emotions I didn't fully understand.

My heart sank.

Guilt. Do I really need this? Is it "materialistic" of me to want this?

Uncertainty. Are we alright letting go of the money this costs?

Defensive indignation. It's not like I'm spending lavishly! I'm just a normal person buying a normal thing! Why should I feel deprived?

Fear. Do we have enough money? How can I even begin to know?

Limiting beliefs. If I dive into learning about money, does that mean I'm the type of person who cares about money Does that make me greedy? Consumeristic?

Irrational resolve. It’s no good to feel anxious. Certainly we are the type of family who can buy stuff like this. We have to be!

With my complicated internal thoughts and feelings at play, it’s no wonder the external conversations never got far.

If Nick showed curiosity about a purchase, I offered a quick justification, and that was the end of discussion.

I look back at my former self with empathy for my dilemma— and so much gratitude for having found a way out of that.

​By learning how to assess and grow our overall financial strength, we’ve broken into a new era in our financial teamwork together.

If you can relate to feeling stuck, take the Money Strength Assessment today. In just a few minutes, you’ll get a glimpse of the path forward, and you’ll never want to look back.

Comfort Can Hide Financial Weakness

For years, I had enough security around me that I could comfortably avoid engaging deeply with money. Stability and privilege can sometimes conceal financial underdevelopment.

In 2016, Nick and I enjoyed a beautiful trip camping in Michigan (before we learned to see and discuss our big-picture financial health).

Nothing forced me to learn, to participate more fully, or to confront how little I actually understood about our broader financial life.

I stayed disconnected longer than I otherwise might have.

But the absence of a crisis is not the same as financial strength.

You might be functioning while still underdeveloped.

Privilege and resources allowed me to live comfortably enough not to take more ownership of my financial life.

At the same time, I was trapped by false impressions of what it meant for my identity to care about, let alone study, personal finance.

Which led to the unflattering reality of standing in the middle of my kitchen shoving Target bags to the bottom of the trash can, in the midst of an otherwise harmonious, honest, joyful, 20-year marriage.

The aforementioned kitchen and trash can

Avoiding financial understanding didn’t make me freer or superior. It really made me feel smaller.

Things are so different now.

Now we’ve implemented habits and systems for planning and transparency— much more fun, exciting, unifying!

​I can’t imagine ever reverting back to the old mode of hiding, uncertainty, and perpetually unfinished conversations.

No joke: As I sit writing this, Nick pulls a box in from the porch and says, "This must be for you." No questions, no justification, no shame. Growing our money strength together feels so freeing!

If you feel tempted to conceal your own spending in an otherwise healthy marriage, don't brush it off as cute or quirky.

​It makes for a funny meme, but it also signals an underlying problem, one that might be surprisingly easy to fix!

It means that you've identified an area to upgrade your relationship dynamic and strengthen your financial teamwork. Take a step toward improvement by taking the free Money Strength Assessment now!

Don’t Put Yourself in a Box

If your life with money seems overly defined by spending, I want you to know there is so much more available to you!

You don’t have to become anti-spending to become financially healthy. You don’t need to shame yourself into growth.

You may simply need to widen the frame.

Your relationship with money contains many dimensions that deserve attention alongside spending.

Here’s your action step: use this quick, free, and reliable tool to check on your financial health.

In just minutes, you’ll see your financial strength— overall, not skewed toward spending.

Beyond spending, what matters?

Saving, investing, communication, and learning matter. Your beliefs about money matter. Collaborating with your partner and planning for the future matter.

Some of the most consequential dimensions of financial health are the ones that don’t constantly demand your attention.

The Bottom Line

If spending becomes the only thing you see, you risk growing financially lopsided without even realizing it.

Once you see the fuller picture, spending feels less emotionally charged, less destabilizing.

You stop seeing yourself merely as “the spender.” You see yourself as a whole person.

You see your rich, evolving financial life— a life that includes spending, but also much more.

You refocus your perspective to see how money connects to everything that matters more than money.

You grow money-strong in order to strengthen what matters!