Have you felt guilty after spending a large amount on yourself despite being able to afford it? 

I have. 

I’m qualified, experienced, a professional - I’ve worked hard to get to where I am - yet I have questioned myself for spending money on things I wanted or felt I needed. The modest holiday after not being away for half a year, the £300 shoes for my 40th birthday party, the £400 bright yellow cabinet…  

Yet I sometimes take ages to spend the money. I worry about judgement, that I am being frivolous, that “maybe I shouldn’t” - but why not?  

Or maybe you’re like a client of mine, Lottie, who had a recent windfall of inheritance - £300,700, to be exact - and doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s never had so much money and feels odd around her friends and uncomfortable talking about it. 

The strange thing about money is that the amount itself rarely tells us how we're supposed to feel about it. The financial world gives us the vocabulary to help manage money, but not the vocabulary for feeling it. We have “assets”, “liabilities”, “interest”, “returns”, “budgets”, “pensions”, “diversification”... but what words to use for: 

Guilt about having more than your family? 

Resentment at always being the financially responsible one? 

Discomfort when your financial power changes a relationship? 

Money is treated as mathematics even though we experience it emotionally. Yes, money should be used as a tool, sure, to help build a sustainable life, but we feel the money decisions we make, the amount we have, the relationships they affect… 

I want to give some clear examples of how the challenge with money is not the amount but the meaning of the amount. 

Say you earn £100,000 through your employed work. Imagine for a moment how that feels, the energy that holds for you. Now compare that to receiving a £100,000 inheritance from someone you loved, or earning £100,000 whilst your partner earns £25,000.  Feels odd, doesn’t it? The pounds are interchangeable economically, but emotionally, they aren't. 

We’re comparing feelings of guilt, indebtedness, pride and power, all in relation to the same number.  

Renata Klein, played by Laura Dern, knew this long before most of us had the language for it. Big Little Lies built an entire storyline around what happens to a marriage the moment the money imbalance flips, not because anyone stopped loving anyone, but because the ground underneath the relationship had changed shape. 

Women have made significant financial progress in the last two decades. More women are investing, earning, owning property and building wealth than at any previous point in history. Yet, many women are not feeling emotions that are aligned with their wealth growth. 

Many successful women experience financial anxiety - worrying about losing what they have built. A study conducted by Censuswide for wealth-management company Saltus, surveying 2,000 UK high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), found that 40% of high-net-worth women said their money makes them anxious, compared with 35% of high-net-worth men.  

Personally, earning considerably more, quickly, changed the relationship with the people I grew up with. I felt guilty about having financial stability while others faced economic hardship. As soon as I understood how to make money, I did. I put my head down and got to work. When I raised my head and looked around, I noticed those I grew up with were not where I was financially - and it felt so uncomfortable.  

I've also experienced the discomfort of earning considerably more than a partner, at times even hiding my income because I worried it would make them feel small. Research suggests that experience isn't entirely individual. A 2025 study led by Alexandra Fisher at the University of Edinburgh found that female-breadwinner relationships were perceived by others as less desirable, lower quality and less stable.  

It's the same discomfort Renata lived through on screen, not a plot device, it turns out, but a genuinely documented pattern. 

I grew up in financial instability; Mum did all she could, but we did not have much. As I started earning money for myself, I had a scarcity mindset. I held on very tightly to the cash I had, afraid to invest, spend, or go anywhere near my money - leaving it for inflation to deplete it! For the longest while, I still held tight onto my cash; I penny-pinched and judged others who were frivolous with their money. I recall buying clothes and holding off wearing them for a special moment, instead of living and enjoying what I had. It felt wrong to enjoy my money, as this is not what I was used to. 

Some of the thoughts explored above and the common difficulties I have seen amongst my peers who have built their own wealth are the psychological challenges of building wealth. When we talk about building wealth, we must include what happens when a fast-growing bank account creates friction with a slower-adjusting identity. 

As we develop financially, often our environments change, how we show up changes, and the people we interact with change. Add this to the way we are perceived in society as women who are successful and the work involved in navigating that space. 

I recall changing how I spoke about my property investments depending on who I was around, and hiding how much I paid for things from certain groups of people. I also have many examples of old friends not reacting kindly to a success of mine, instead shunning me or minimising what should have been a joyous moment.  

Name and talk about the feelings. 

I look back on my financial journey, as well as the journeys my friends, family, and peers are on, and see that none are a straight line. Whether you come from a wealthy family and have mirrored your relatives’ lives or come from struggle and have built an opposing solid foundation for yourself, the journey will be filled with conflicting emotions. 

I have accepted that the answer to financial wellbeing may lie in providing space for contradictory things to be true.  You can be financially secure and frightened. Successful and ashamed. Independent and uncomfortable about having more. Grateful and resentful. Good with money and emotionally complicated about it. 

Perhaps the hardest part of building wealth isn't learning how to earn, save or invest it. It's allowing our sense of self to catch up with our changing circumstances, and working out who we are allowed to become when they do.