How I save, spend & live with purpose

Here’s where most financial coaches will tell you their origin story—how they paid off $60,000 in student loans in five years or overcame a credit card-fueled shopping addiction. My story is much simpler.

Who I am

Hi. I’m Erin. I live in Milwaukee with my two cats. 

I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who taught the importance of basic money management skills. When I got out into the wider world, I realized exactly how rare this was. 

Though I built up a decent career in business marketing, after a couple of layoffs, I didn’t have the heart to go back to an office job/work for someone else. Though my job description has changed, my goal remains the same—to provide people with the information they need to make their lives better.  As a content writer, I made complex ideas understandable, difficult issues relatable, and mundane topics more compelling. As a financial coach, I demystify money, spending and saving simpler, bad money habits relate to money differently/facilitate difficult conversations, reframe money from a necessary evil to a resource for achieving their goals.

What I know

As an Accredited Financial Counselor® (AFC) candidate, I have a comprehensive education in a variety of financial topics. Keeping up to date through continuing education, The AFC program is overseen by the Association for Financial Counseling Planning and Education® (AFCPE), requires four things: education and exam, ascribe to professional code of ethics, experience hours.  Basic money management, credit and debt, basics of taxes, insurance, retirement and investments, consumer education/protection, fraud. 

Accredited Financial Counselors are not salespeople. We don’t sell products or provide investment advice. Rather, we are counselors, coaches, and educators who provide strategies to empower all people, regardless of income or background, to achieve lasting financial well-being.

What I believe

WorthWhile Money is based on three guiding principles: empowerment, equity and abundance. For me, those things mean that:

The amount of money we have impacts the choices we have in life, but it shouldn’t control the choices we make. You’re doing the best you can with the knowledge and resources you have. With more knowledge, resources and encouragement, you can do better. 

Capitalism is not inevitable, ideal or equitable. By prioritizing profit, private ownership and wage labor, it encourages resource extraction and discourages stewardship, overvalues hard capital while undervaluing human capital, and rewards exploitation while punishing reciprocity. 

Money is a mode of exchange, not a measure of virtue. You are not your job, your net worth is not a measure of your self-worth. Meritocracy is a myth and the Protestant work ethic is bullshit (According to the Economic Policy Institute, worker productivity has increased 86% since 1979, while hourly pay has only increased 32%). Oh, and the prosperity gospel is poison (Don’t take my word for it, go right to the source: “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” - Timothy 6:10). 

Money isn’t our only resource. We’ve been programmed to try and solve every problem with money. Instacart instead of asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar. Let’s look to our community first before buying ourselves out of a jam. Money can buy happiness, but only up to a point (and that point is an income somewhere between $70,000 and $150,000 a year). Experiences, not things, are what makes us happy. 

Abundance is a mindset. It’s quieting the wanting mind, it’s being satisfied with enough. Basic human needs should not be commodified. There is enough to go around; anyone who says differently is trying to sell you something. (The World Health Organisation estimates that around 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. Meanwhile, global agricultural systems produce 4 million metric tonnes of food each year. If the food were equitably distributed, this would feed an extra one billion people.)