Case Study - Sara

When Sara came to me, life looked ‘fine on paper’, but inside she felt trapped: a demanding workload as an independent consultant, big decisions on the horizon, and a creeping sense that her life had become way too focused on chasing money (and she still felt she didn't have enough).

She felt far too busy and couldn't say no to any work which came her way. She did not have time for herself or her family, and she certainly did not have time to manage her money. She had a bookkeeper who had access to her account, and she deliberately wanted her money to be a 'black box' with as little of her involvement as possible. She just earned and others must take care of the numbers. But as time passed, she realised that her growing fear of being older was because she had no idea how she would survive financially. She needed to learn about money, so she came to me for coaching.

At the time of the coaching, she wasn't just feeling tired; she was “in not a good place”. Sara wanted to feel calmer, have clearer boundaries over the work she would and wouldn't do, spend more wisely, and find a way to stay engaged with her finances without "going mad with boredom".

Starting point (what was going on)

• Work and energy: when commitments stacked up, her wellbeing dropped.

• Boundaries: time expanded without agreement (a 30‑minute client check‑in turned into two hours and could not be billed for).

• Spending style: impulse purchases driven by bargains or a sense of “I deserve this”.

• Avoidance/resistance: money review felt like punishment — she could feel herself resisting it.

• Life context: planning for the next season of life (bigger decisions) and wanting to avoid unnecessary pressure/debt.

What we focused on

• Boundary practice: noticing where she was being taken advantage of by clients and rehearsing simple scripts to hold the line.

• Mindful spending: separating planned, genuinely useful spending from impulse spending that creates discomfort later. Seeing that not all money spent "for the business" is wise spending, and that spending on training which is never used is wasteful.

• Reframing the admin: money review as a self‑respect practice and a way to learn about money in a real-world setting. Letting the bookkeeper involve her in the money rather than 'protecting her from it'.

• Confidence to make financial decisions on saving and investing and getting back some power from her partner so that she could also have input into retirement savings and plans.

• A tiny repeatable routine: a weekly check‑in instead of rare, high‑effort clean‑ups.

What changed (signals of progress)

• More honesty about spending triggers and internal resistance to money (instead of pretending it wasn’t there).

• A shift from “I have to” to “I’m willing to”: commitment to a weekly money awareness habit.

• Clearer distinction between spending that supports her life and spending that leaves regret.

• Feeling more knowledgeable and confident to make big financial decisions on her own.