Know your financial season

Frugal Chic® #61: Why your money moves should match the season you’re in.

The hard part about personal finance is that it isn’t universal. As the name suggests, it’s deeply personal.

That’s why blanket advice like “start investing with £100,” “buy a home as soon as you can,” or “stay away from credit at all costs” often falls flat.

Your financial decisions are heavily shaped by the season you’re in.

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In this issue:

• Why personal finance tips only work when they match the season you’re in

• How to know whether you’re in a season of securing, building, or curating

• Why stability has to come before bigger financial risks

• How to build wealth without burning out in the process

• How to spend more intentionally once you’ve earned the right to be selective

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Our money has seasons

What I mean by this is that, online, you’ll often hear people say investing isn’t for them, or complain that it’s pushed too heavily. But sometimes the issue isn’t the advice itself. It’s that the advice doesn’t match the season you’re in.

Because if you’re still trying to build an emergency fund, being told to take bigger financial risks can feel completely out of touch. But if you’re already financially secure, being told to cut every small expense might keep you stuck in a season you’ve already outgrown.

These are the 3 seasons of your financial life you need to know about.

#1 Secure

This is the phase where money is the scarcest resource.

In this season, you might be starting from zero, building an emergency fund, or honestly just trying to make ends meet.

Consciously tracking your money will be beneficial here.

You might be just starting out in your career on a low to average income, perhaps in a notoriously underpaid industry. Sound familiar? It was for me.

One morning, I was hoovering the showroom at my fashion job. I’d been scrolling that morning and saw how much an Ocado driver made: £33k. I was on £30k after four years of university and three internships.

I remember feeling a bit disillusioned. Not because there’s anything wrong with delivery work, but because I had bought into the idea that if you went to university, did the internships, and worked hard in a “proper” career, the money would follow.

Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for my job and I did enjoy it, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I had taken on student debt, spent years building experience, and still didn’t feel my income matched up.

But that season taught me something important. When your income feels limited, you start becoming very intentional with what you do have.

I was incredibly frugal during this time. I brought my lunch in every day. I never bought coffee. Not because I was depriving myself, but because I wanted optionality. I wanted an emergency fund. I wanted to invest. I wanted to feel like I was moving forward, even if my income wasn’t moving as quickly as I wanted it to.

My attitude towards money may seem boring to some people, but it came from genuine experience. I wanted to improve my finances, and at that point, the only thing I could control was what I did with the money I had.

And I think I still hold a lot of the values I built in that season.

Goals for this season:

Know your income and expenses

Don’t opt out of your workplace pension

Make a splurge vs save list and reduce spending in low-value areas

Be savvy with points, cashback, and rewards

Read one money book and listen to one money podcast

#2 Build

In this season, the scarcest resource is time.

You don’t quite feel like you can breathe yet. Perhaps you’re ambitious like me and you know you want to increase your income. Maybe you have a big financial goal, like getting to £10k or £100k in your savings or investments.

You know it’s a long game. But after reading those finance books and becoming more financially literate, you also understand the value of small habits built consistently over time.

I’d liken this phase to juggling both my 9-5 and content creation. I’d get home sweaty and overstimulated from commuting for an hour back to my childhood bedroom in Lewisham, then get out my tripod and film until the sun went down. I’d eat dinner, shower, and repeat the cycle again.

The goal in this phase was to increase my income and build up my investments.

Frugality had helped me build the habit of saving regularly and not giving in to lifestyle creep, but that alone wouldn’t help me achieve my bigger goals.

This season was going all in on the “girl boss” narrative, knowing it wouldn’t be forever, but also knowing I was creating more space for financial freedom.

You don’t have to be as extreme as me, but the point is, saving as a ceiling.

Goals for this season:

• Set a blue sky financial goal, work out how much you’d need to set aside monthly in the timeframe

• Open an investment account

• Know how much you can afford to invest consistently, meaning money you won’t need to touch for 5+ years

• Build a side hustle or business to gain skills and diversify your income

• Create a schedule that avoids burnout through time-blocking and being selective

• Negotiate your salary

• Boost your professional visibility by posting on LinkedIn

#3 Curate

In this season, the scarcest resource is energy.

This is about being frugal with your time and building taste. At the start, the bottleneck is money. You fix that in season two by renting out more of your time. In season three, you’re in a better position to be selective.

In this season, you might feel like you’ve done everything right. You’ve got the dream career, a good salary, and you’ve built up your investments, but there are still things you’d like to improve.

Now, it’s about designing a life that allows you to live in alignment with your values, because you have the privilege to do that. Whether it’s going all in on your splurges, moving to an area that better suits your lifestyle, or outsourcing tasks to buy back time, it’s a season of power.

It’s not a time for total rest and chilling. You are still working, but the work you take on is more meaningful, and you’re able to be more selective.

This is exactly how I feel now. On paper, I am successful. I built a £300k business, hired staff, and work when I want to. But I haven’t really stopped to think about whether parts of my life could be made easier.

Having an assistant, hiring an editor, or even in my personal life, splurging a bit more on conveniences like Ubers, would have felt frivolous at the start because I was trapped in my Secure season.

But now I’m in Curate, I have the space to change what I’m not happy with. It’s about granting myself permission to finally design the life I wanted.

Goals for this season:

Outsource low-value tasks. This may not have been an option before, but now you have the money, use it to buy back rest. Get a cleaner. Try meal prep. Make your life easier.

Delegate. If you have a side hustle or business, know that you don’t have to do everything yourself.

Splurge more on the things you set out in the Secure season. Life is for living. Whether that’s designer handbags, a meaningful trip, or both, don’t let anyone convince you there is one “right” way to spend your money.

Say no more than you say yes. Not every invite is beneficial to you. I’ve been drained so many times by people who only wanted to take and never build a reciprocal relationship.

So maybe you dabble in habits from each of these seasons and that’s totally normal. What is helpful is to distinguish between habits that help you survive vs thrive.

This newsletter was inspired by the talented Devamsha who has been my #1 muse for content. She has a framework called Earn Keep Grow, and I wanted to put my take on it with a Frugal Chic® lens.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx