Hey Reader!
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It’s been a wild week, and this email is a little different, but it needs to be said.
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With so much conversation happening around the economy, affordability, and how expensive everyday life has become, I wanted to write about something I actually feel very prepared to talk about.

I’ve been here before.
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​At the end of 2007, our household income dropped by 25%. We didn’t know how long it would last, and our bills certainly didn’t drop by 25% to match it. We still had children to raise, groceries to buy, a home to maintain, two car payments, a mortgage, and a life that kept moving whether the numbers worked nicely or not.
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In 2008, we were living in a very different financial reality than the one we expected in 2007!
I’ve thought about that season more recently than I have in years.

Some interesting things are happening right now.
Median household income in America recently reached a record high, while at the same time more people are taking hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts, vehicle repossessions have increased, and nearly 3 in 10 people who use buy-now-pay-later have used it to buy groceries.

All of those things can be true at the same time.

You can make more money than you ever have and still feel like your money doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.
You can have a good career, a nice home, and a solid income and still look at the credit card balance and wonder how it got there again.
You can be doing a lot right financially and still feel the squeeze of higher groceries, insurance, utilities, travel, vehicles, and the cost of simply living your normal life.

I understand that feeling differently because of what happened to us.

When our income dropped, I couldn’t change the economy.
I couldn’t change what things cost, and I couldn’t magically replace the income we had lost.

What we could do was start looking very carefully at what was still within our control.

We looked at where our money was going, what we were paying for automatically, what mattered enough to keep, what didn’t, and what we wanted our money to accomplish. We had to make decisions based on the life we actually had, not the one we had expected to have. We had to make adjustments that mattered to our family in that season.

Over the next 26 months, we paid off $65,000 in debt.

That is part of the story, but I don’t think it is the most important part anymore.

That season taught me the difference between what is happening around your household and what you decide to do inside it.

I see a version of that with women I work with today.
They are not necessarily facing a 25% income cut. In fact, many are making more money than they ever have.

But their margin has contracted.

It happens quietly -
Groceries cost more, insurance goes up, a subscription gets added here, and another one there.
A vehicle payment is higher than the last one. Eating out becomes a little more frequent because life is busier.
A credit card starts carrying expenses from one month into the next.

None of those things alone necessarily creates a crisis, but together they can slowly create a life that feels much tighter than the income suggests it should.

I want to be careful here, because I am not going to tell you that higher prices don’t matter.
They do.

I’m also not going to tell you that the answer is to stop enjoying your money, cancel everything fun, and feel guilty every time you spend money on something you enjoy.

That isn’t how I believe money should work!

I want you taking the trip, buying the things you genuinely enjoy, taking care of your family, giving generously, and building the home and life you work hard for.

But I want those things funded because you decided they matter more than all the money quietly disappearing somewhere else.

There are economic conditions we cannot control, and there always will be.
But there are usually more decisions available inside our own households than it feels like when everything starts getting expensive at once.

I learned that in 2008, and I think that lesson may be more relevant now than at any point since I started coaching.

So this weekend, I want you to think about one question:

Has your income changed, or has your margin changed?

Those are not always the same problem, and knowing which one you are dealing with changes what you do next.

Cheering you on,

Chapman Financial Coaching​
​www.melindachapman.com​

Helping you find calm, confidence, and margin with your money

P.S. If you’re making good money but keep thinking, We should have more left than this, that is exactly the kind of thing I help women untangle. We look at where your money is actually going, what is negotiable, and what you want those dollars doing instead. You can book a Financial Q&A with me here: Book your Q&A call now​

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