Get the kettle on & let’s explore Rosie’s transformation from having no back up & no savings…

It’s fair to say that these case studies stem from real sessions with me, however, I have combined stories & tweaked details because I do NOT, talk about clients unless I have their express permission to do so.

Whilst there are many money stories, they do form patterns and it is these patterns I use to share with you. Self recognition in these stories is intrinsically linked to getting underneath your own heart & soul beliefs. This can gift you the words to use that otherwise feel impossible to reach. When you can say it, you can move through it.

It is only then, as you nod along, feeling it in your bones that you know you’re not alone. You can and will have a gorgeous relationship with money when you get to the root of how you’ve been feeling up to now, and how you want to feel & live from now.

Let me know please, in the comments, if this resonated so that we can gather around our Kitchen Table Money Club & I’ve got a ps at the end that is ripe for your input.

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CASE STUDY : ROSIE

1. How She Felt Coming Into the Session

Rosie arrived with a lot on her mind and a lot of courage to name it. She described herself plainly and honestly: ‘I’m not very good with money.’ And yet, as the session quickly revealed, this was far from the full picture. Beneath the self-criticism was a thoughtful, bookish, goal-oriented woman who had already done a great deal of thinking about where she wanted to go financially, she just hadn’t been able to find the bridge between knowing and doing.

There was a palpable emotional undertone to how she spoke about money: a quiet anxiety that arrived with the word ‘scary’, and a sense of vulnerability, almost nakedness when she described her situation. She spoke of feeling ‘stuck’, of not having savings, not having assets, not having family who could step in if things went wrong. This was not just financial stress. It was existential: a fear of being exposed and unsupported in the world.

She was also self-aware enough to name the pattern: she was strong in theory, weaker in application. ‘Aint that the truth for many of us?

She knew what she should do, but the gap between knowing and doing was vast, partly because of procrastination, partly because of overwhelm, and partly because she had never found a system that felt genuinely hers.

2. What Her Key Problems Were

• Credit card debt across multiple cards accumulated gradually through a habit of using credit for convenience rather than strategic borrowing, with interest quietly building over time.
• No emergency fund, a glaring gap that left her and her husband exposed to any unexpected cost.
• Living month-to-month despite a good household income, with the nagging sense that something was ‘missing’ in how she managed money but unable to identify what.
• Sporadic and inconsistent budget tracking. She had tried, had good tools (including an app & an elaborate spreadsheet she’d randomly downloaded) but she consistently fell off the wagon. She found all the data-gathering was demotivating, time consuming especially without visible progress & couldn’t really translate the data into daily actions. It wasn’t making sense.
• No travel fund so that holidays kept going on credit cards, which is one reason the balance never truly reduced.
• A gap between her many financial goals (which she had clearly defined) and a practical system to achieve them.

3. What She Had Already Tried

Rosie was already ahead of many clients in one important way: she knew her goals. She had a five-part financial vision.

1. Debt payoff in two to three years
2. A travel fund for this year
3. Stronger savings in the medium term
4. Eventual property investment
5. A more controlled day-to-day budget

She had mentally assigned rough timelines to each. She and her husband had opened ISA accounts (a Lifetime ISA for her, a cash ISA for him) and were saving small but consistent amounts. She had used budgeting tracker apps, checked her banking app more regularly, and had even tried the elaborate spreadsheet. She had attended the session with me deliberately and proactively, treating financial literacy as a project worth investing in.

We do all get to an age, a season, when we just KNOW that something’s gotta give.

4. What Would Happen If She Didn’t Change

The consequences of inaction were clear, even without spelling them out dramatically. A good income and clear goals mean nothing without a system to translate them into action.

The credit cards would keep accumulating interest quietly in the background so every purchase cost considerably more than she considered. When your interest on purchases is 29% APR (or any amount over zero) any bargains you bought are certainly not that any longer.

The emergency fund would stay absent, meaning the credit card balance will tiptoe ever closer to the limit with necessary unexpected spending. And perhaps most painfully: Rosie would continue watching years of solid earning produce no lasting financial security which was something she was already grieving.

There was also the intergenerational dimension. She had a 10-year-old daughter, and part of her motivation was explicitly about breaking the cycle: not passing on the same financial confusion she had inherited from her own parents.

“I’ve been earning my own money for 20 years now. My mum didn’t tell me much about how to manage money so I’ve bumbled along not making the best choices. Now I feel scared”

5. How She Recognised She Needed to Change

Rosie’s recognition came through a combination of fear and clarity. She’d reached a point in early January where she looked at her goals, the projects she wanted to pursue, the property she wanted to buy, the security she wanted to build, and felt frightened by how far away they seemed. That fear was the catalyst. She made a direct connection between her financial situation and her sense of being ‘stuck’, and she reached out. The very act of booking the session was itself an act of readiness.

6. How I Guided Her

I immediately reframed Rosie’s self-criticism ‘I’m not very good with money’ into something more accurate and more useful. I reflected back that she actually had a very healthy relationship with money, clear goals and genuine respect for it. What was missing was both the practical system to bring it all to life & evolving her habits that hadn’t changed much since she was in her twenties. This reframe was not flattery it was a coaching move that shifted Rosie from shame to agency.

Oftentimes, we think we’re terrible at something because we are our own biggest critics. When I listen to you, I hear a different story, a different set of skills you didn’t credit yourself with.

I listened carefully enough to hear what Rosie needed: not a rigid formula, but a personalised framework. She asked about learning styles, we talked about making things visual which she loved. We discussed their income structure (salary plus bonus 13th-month payments), about the relationship dynamics around money (one joint household pot, which simplified things), and about what tools had and hadn’t worked before. Each answer shaped the next move.

7. Solutions Matched to Problems

A visual, timeline-based financial map – can open up your world

Problem addressed: The gap between goals and action.

I suggested starting with a large-scale visual, a wall calendar or equivalent, with goals placed along a timeline in rough increments. Debt payoff at two to three years. Travel fund now. Longer-term savings in the medium term. Seeing these plotted out gives the brain something concrete to work toward, and converts abstract wishes into a visible plan.

The Three-Pot System

Problem addressed: Living month-to-month; no structure for savings or spending. I recommended organising household income into three clear streams: an essential needs account (bills, mortgage, non-negotiables), a savings account funded first before spending, and a spending account for everything else. This simple architecture changes the psychology, savings stops being the leftover and becomes the given.

Using the 13th-Month Bonus Strategically

Problem addressed: No travel fund; credit cards being used for holidays. I immediately identified the 13th-month salary payment as an ideal foundation for either an emergency fund or a dedicated travel fund, breaking the cycle of holidays going on credit. Not everyone is fortunate enough to get annual or seasonal bonuses anymore, so let’s make this work brilliantly.

Stop Using Credit Cards for Living

Problem addressed: Persistent credit card balances and accumulated interest. Gently but directly I suggested moving to debit cards for day-to-day spending while setting up a structured repayment plan for existing balances. The ‘coming downstairs to yesterday’s washing-up before the new day even got started’ metaphor I used made the logic visceral and memorable.

Changing this habit takes time. If you’re getting something special out of using your credit cards, like air miles that you use, and you’re paying them off in full each month so you have a strategic cashflow system built in, that’s a different story.

Emergency Fund as Immediate Priority

Problem addressed: No financial safety net. I repositioned the emergency fund not as a nice-to-have but as a prerequisite for financial wellbeing and investing. Even £1,000 to start, built up incrementally will settle your nervous system & ensure you feel less exposed.

Children’s Financial Education

Problem addressed: The intergenerational concern. I pointed Rosie towards age-appropriate children’s finance resources, including a book by one of my colleagues, to help her begin those conversations with her 10-year-old now at exactly the right age.

8. How She Felt at the End

There was a marked lightening in Rosie’s energy by the close of the session. She said the conversation had helped her see that she was ‘already on the right track’ and not ‘doing the wrong things’. The self-blame that had opened the session, ‘I’m really bad with money’ had transformed into something far more useful: clarity about what the next steps were and confidence that they were achievable. She finished with characteristic self-awareness and warmth: ‘I just needed to meet you’ which made my day!

9. Additional Insights

Rosie’s story is a powerful illustration of the difference between financial intelligence and financial systems. She had plenty of the former and almost none of the latter. Her case is also a reminder that self-awareness is not the same as self-help. Knowing what you should do is entirely different from having the architecture to do it.

Financial paralysis is what happens when capable, thoughtful people are overwhelmed not by ignorance but by too many options and too little structure.

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If you would love to work through your story with me in confidence, with plenty of comforting support with emphasis being on the structural side that changes you, you can book in for a short conversation to see if we can fit together beautifully.

Then you can go ahead & book either a one hour Foundation Session or a 3 part Fairy Godmother Experience…

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Finished your cuppa? What are your thoughts on this, please share in the comments.

Love from

Lucy x

ps. I’m on the edge of starting The Kitchen Table Money Club as a lovely low cost community on Substack where I can share with you eGuides, templates, monthly live tutorials …

I’d love to know, IF you were to join this (I’m not holding you to it don’t worry) what would you love to experience?

Live chats with guest experts? Monthly live tutorials? Discounts for my one to one services?

Let’s build this together.

pps.

1. I have fortnightly (‘ish) emails that tell the very short story to help you start to resolve a particular financial element & point you towards several resources in a summarised way if that is your preference: Free Resources
2. And I write a long form Substack publication fortnightly (‘ish) from where The Kitchen Table Money Club is starting in the coming several weeks.
3. These blogs are usually a more How To version rather than a full on perspective shifter
4. Linkedin Newsletter is similar to this blog: Subscribe on LinkedIn
5. YouTube channel that I do try to do a new video fortnightly as well but not doing that great with those, if you are on the email list you’ll get a link to the new one or of course subscribe and you’ll get a notification.
   
   So there should be something to suit your preference & made as simple as possible to access.
   
   Thanks for reading and do pop your thoughts & questions in the comments.
   
   Lucy x