{"id":106,"date":"2024-01-29T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/financial-mindset-seven-year-lag\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:52:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:52:29","slug":"financial-mindset-seven-year-lag","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/financial-mindset-seven-year-lag\/","title":{"rendered":"My Financial Mindset is on a Seven-Year Lag"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I\u2019ve written at length (both last week<\/span><\/a> and at the end of 2022<\/span><\/a>) about the realizations that helped me become financially savvy. But I\u2019ve never shared the experience that occurred before<\/em> those initial W-2 paychecks started coming. <\/p>\n

I faced a post-grad experience that will be familiar to most young people: Securing an internship after graduation\u2014rather than a full-time job\u2014pressed \u201cstart\u201d on a punishing, ticking clock. I was officially on my own, which meant paying my own bills. But on $12\/hour, that necessarily meant finding a generous, empty-nesting family friend who would let me crash until I could afford rent. <\/p>\n

I was fortunate not to sweat the crushing pressure of student loan payments that many in my generation do, but I still felt that giant internship timer ticking down in my chest with each passing pay period. <\/p>\n

While I knew I had the safety net of parents who would allow me to move home and charge cheap rent if I couldn\u2019t find a full-time job, the thought of working hard to graduate with a 4.0 and still<\/em> returning to my hometown with my wilted grad cap tassel tucked between my legs was unbearable. I applied feverishly for full-time roles all summer, rarely received calls back, and politicked within an inch of my life, politely circling back and barking<\/span> following up the tree of any person who would take the meeting. If August rolled around without an offer, I\u2019d be officially unemployed\u2014a fate that, at the time, seemed worse than just about everything but death. <\/p>\n

I desperately wanted to get hired full-time at the company where I had worked for two summers already, but their program was notorious for hiring very few interns. We were told our fate was decided as much by headcount availability as by our performance, and the entire ordeal felt precarious and mostly out of my control. <\/p>\n

Miraculously, by the grace of the corporate gods, a huge game of organizational musical chairs in the marketing department was announced in the last weeks of August, and it shook loose a few open seats at the bottom of the food chain. One week before the internship ended, I got my job offer, meaning I\u2019d only need to go a couple of weeks without income. <\/p>\n

But the stress and desperation of that summer did a number on my psyche. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the first time in my privileged life that I had experienced the taut, perilous risk of being without income or meaningful savings indefinitely. I perceived my struggling as a failure to achieve the most basic precondition of adulthood. (As I\u2019ve previously shared, my parents were ultra-frugal savers employed for the entirety of my adolescence.) <\/p>\n

The initial relief of having a W-2 paycheck quickly subsided to make way for the realization that the rest of my life<\/em> was going to feel like a muted version of that summer if I kept spending every cent: suspended over the edge, with my weight supported by the rope of corporate beneficence. It deeply affected my subconscious relationship with money, work, and security. <\/p>\n

In hindsight, I know it wasn\u2019t actually<\/em> that serious. <\/strong>But it doesn\u2019t matter if 2024 Katie is aware that 2017 Katie was panicking over a very common, lowish-stakes experience. 2017 Katie\u2019s psyche spent four months in earnest, professional fight-or-flight. It doesn\u2019t matter whether she was actually<\/em> being chased by the metaphoric lion or not; her careerist nervous system experienced life as though she were. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The other day, I was meeting with my coach, Elizabeth. I had been droning on about some financial fantasy I had for \u201cwhen money was no object,\u201d and she stopped me: \u201cCan I pause and ask a question here?\u201d she interjected, probably interrupting a sentence about safe withdrawal rates. <\/p>\n

\u201cSure, please,\u201d I begged. (Even I<\/em> get tired of my droning about sequence of returns risk.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is money such a motivator? It seems like money is a huge driver here. Where\u2019s that coming from?\u201d <\/p>\n

*slowly reaches for the remote to dim the \u201cMoney with Katie\u201d neon sign on the wall behind me*<\/em><\/p>\n

I looked at my lap as she correctly identified that I mostly made decisions by scanning a choice\u2019s potential (or lack thereof) to move me closer to this post-economic state.<\/p>\n

My current identity as the person who\u2019s motivated by the \u201cnumber going up\u201d as a benchmark against which to gauge safety and security, I realized, had been manufactured intentionally after that summer by choice<\/em>. <\/strong>I had not always been this person. I had chosen<\/em> to become this person, a process I wrote about in last week\u2019s piece<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to admit\u2014and harder to accept\u2014that my obsession with financial independence was a fear response to a job hunt I took far too seriously at 22. For nearly seven years, that fear response has served me well. In fact, there are some parts I\u2019d still like to keep around!<\/p>\n

But there are other parts\u2014the parts that were expecting too <\/em>much from money, asking it to provide meaning, a sense of safety, and feelings of security<\/strong>\u2014that I\u2019m beginning to see are like trying to explain niche memes to your grandma who\u2019s never wasted an afternoon on TikTok. We\u2019re simply speaking two different languages. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

When the \u201cnumber going up\u201d no longer signifies a meaningful, incremental boost in security (or success, or comfort) the way it once did, it\u2019s no longer the most helpful criterion by which to judge your decisions.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s an approach to money look like for a woman with a steady income and healthy savings? Or, perhaps in light of last week\u2019s piece: What\u2019s that identity<\/em> look like? <\/p>\n

Ignoring it entirely feels like an overcorrection on par with sneaking Q-tips out of SoulCycle bathrooms to save money, but maybe you\u2019ve earned the ability to weigh it as the second- or third-most impactful factor in decision-making, instead of the first<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

It\u2019d be a layup to summon examples about simple spending choices here, but the clearance section is not where life paths fork. Basing your next career move primarily on satisfaction and mental health\u2014as opposed to dollar signs\u2014is a more instructive example for where you may actually need to lighten<\/em> the weight you\u2019re granting the number on the job offer, not double down. <\/p>\n

More money will not meaningfully increase my feelings of safety and security anymore, because my needs are met and I have a healthy emergency fund. It was probably never<\/em> going to provide my life with meaning, but the confidence-building process of mastering it did for a short time. <\/p>\n

The good news\u2014as we\u2019ve learned\u2014is that identity can be changed. The evolution continues!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve written at length (both last week and at the end of 2022) about the realizations that helped me become financially savvy. But I\u2019ve never shared the experience that occurred before those initial W-2 paychecks started coming.  I faced a post-grad experience that will be familiar to most young people: Securing an internship after graduation\u2014rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2495,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","essays","type-essays","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-money-psychology"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Financial Mindset is on a Seven-Year Lag - Money with Katie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/financial-mindset-seven-year-lag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Financial Mindset is on a Seven-Year Lag - Money with Katie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve written at length (both last week and at the end of 2022) about the realizations that helped me become financially savvy. 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