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Foundational

The Same Page

Theo figures it'll work out. Nadia lies awake doing math she never writes down. Before they can fix a single dollar, the two of them have to stop running two different budgets in the same house.

7 min · Ch. 2

Foundational

Treading Water

Nadia and Theo both work, both come home tired, and four days before payday the account is empty again. Nobody can say where it went, because nobody has ever once looked at the whole thing together.

7 min · Ch. 1

Foundational

The System That Runs Itself

A year in, Maya's money moves on payday without her watching it. The plan she once fought now asks for about twenty minutes a month, and mostly it just runs.

8 min · Ch. 9

Foundational

Protect the Plan

A box at checkout wants to "protect" Maya's balance for a few dollars a month, and the next week the bank offers to insure her loan. Simon shows her which fears are actually worth paying someone else to carry.

9 min · Ch. 8

Foundational

Sinking Funds

A friend's getting married this fall, the laptop is on its way out, and Maya wants to see the ocean before she's thirty. None of it is an emergency. So why does it always land like one?

8 min · Ch. 7

Foundational

The Raise

The raise felt enormous on Friday. By the second paycheque it's gone, and Maya can't point to where. Simon can: it's the gap she just quietly closed.

8 min · Ch. 6

Foundational

Credit, Quietly

The card Maya didn't think she needed gets declined, turns out there's a scorecard on her she's never once seen.

8 min · Ch. 5

Foundational

Debt, in Order

Maya writes every balance she owes on one page and braces for the lecture. Simon doesn't ask how she got there. He asks which one charges the most.

8 min · Ch. 4

Foundational

The Calm Account

The laptop charger dies on a Tuesday and the dentist wants money on Thursday. For once the floor doesn't tilt under Maya, because a small, boring account already had it covered.

8 min · Ch. 3

Foundational

Give Every Dollar a Job

Maya's pay lands every other Friday and just scatters. Simon flips a napkin over and asks the one question that's ever fixed it: before the month spends her, what does she want the money to do?

8 min · Ch. 2

The Month Everything Changed

Maya only opens her banking app on paydays, when the number is friendly. Eleven days out, she opens it by accident, and the money has quietly gone somewhere she can't name.

5 min · Ch. 1