WellSpnt
I have never been a saver. Not really. I've tried, in the way that most people try, setting aside a little here and there, telling myself this time would be different. But the truth is that money has always moved through me pretty freely, and for most of my life I've been okay with that.
I'm not going to pretend I've never felt the consequences. There have been months where I had to call a family member and ask for help getting through the rest of the week. There have been times I looked at my account and felt that specific kind of dread that comes from knowing you miscalculated, again. I'm not immune to that. But even in those moments, there's always been something underneath it that kept me from completely panicking. A knowing, almost. Like I understood on some level that money was going to come back around.
I think a lot of that goes back to one afternoon I spent with my grandmother, Aleatha Williams.
I was young, probably a preteen, maybe a little younger. At the time I had been cleaning my great aunt Selma's house every week and saving every dollar she gave me in a teacup. I genuinely thought I was rich. My grandma and I were out shopping, and she asked me if I was going to buy something. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember her response. She told me something along the lines of you can't take it with you. That you don't need to be so rigid with your money. That life is meant to be enjoyed and you never know when your time is up.
It wasn't a YOLO speech. It was something quieter, the kind of thing an older woman says to a little girl when she wants her to understand that life is short and money is just a tool, not something worth gripping so hard you forget to enjoy what it's actually for.
I've carried those words with me ever since, maybe a little too literally. My relationship with money has always been generous, sometimes impulsively so. I spend on experiences, on people I love, on things that make my home feel like mine, even on strangers at the bar. I don't hold on to it too tight. And somehow, money has always found its way back to me. Not always on my timeline, and not always without stress, but it comes.
I read a book a few years ago called Happy Money by Ken Honda, and something in it really spoke to me. He writes about the idea that being grateful for every dollar you spend is just as important as being grateful for every dollar you receive. That money carries energy, and the energy you put into spending shapes what comes back to you. I think my grandmother understood that intuitively, even if she would have never put it in those words. She spent freely and she gave freely and she lived well, and that always made an impression on me.
What I've figured out over time is that the part of my money habit that has actually kept me grounded isn't the saving. It's the tracking. Even in the months when I was being the least financially responsible version of myself, I still knew what was going on. I knew what I owed, what was coming in, what was overdue. That awareness has been its own kind of safety net, quieter than a savings account but just as real in practice. It kept me from completely losing the plot even when I wasn't doing everything right.
WellSpnt exists, in part, because of this. Not to turn free spenders into rigid budgeters, and not to make anyone feel bad about the way they relate to money. But to give people the visibility that I've always had through my spreadsheet, in a form that actually fits how real, complicated, non-linear lives work. Because knowing what's going on with your money, even when you're not doing the textbook right thing with it, gives you something that a savings account alone can't: a sense of control that doesn't depend on perfection.
Now that I'm in my 30s, I'm starting to think more about balance. Not because I've decided my grandmother was wrong, but because I think she'd want me to have both. The freedom she gave me and a little something set aside for the life I'm building. I'm not there yet, but I'm thinking about it, and that's more than I can say for most of my twenties.
In loving memory of Aleatha Williams.
