The Unsexy Reps That Actually Make You Good With Money
Frugal Chic® #53: the hidden gym anxiety we have for money and how to fix it instantly
When you first walk into a gym, there’s that familiar anxiety: ‘people are looking at me’, ‘I look silly’, ‘I don’t know where anything is’. It feels like everyone in the free weights area is born being able to lift 100kg. Not only that, the culture around fitness is taking protein powder, tracking macros, wearing running vests, and somehow knowing unspoken rules that aren’t obvious.
Money can feel exactly the same. You download an investing app for the first time and suddenly it’s all ETFs, ISAs, SIPPs, asset allocation. No wonder so many people close the app and decide to “look into it properly later.” Whenever I’ve spoken with friends about investing, they say ‘I need to just allocate a whole day to set everything up’. It’s as if it’s as dry to them as helping their nan fix the tv channels or like it’s this whole operation. I tell them “it’s really not as complicated as you think, it could take 2 minutes”. They read that as ‘it’s easy for me, so it should be the same for you.’
A lot of us are operating like the person who buys the lululemon set and the weights, but doesn’t know where to start. We might have the cash to save and invest, but because we don’t understand the purpose, or how to actually go about it. It’s much easier to ignore it all together. Pensions are for when we’re older right?
In this issue
Why financial confidence feels like gym confidence: awkward before it becomes habitual
The money version of counting macros, and why tracking every penny is not the only way
Why FIRE can be the marathon of personal finance, inspiring but not compulsory
How to stop comparing your “day one” finances to someone else’s six-pack portfolio
The simple financial workout plan most people actually need
Becoming financially fit does not mean becoming obsessive or optimising everything for ‘tax-efficiency’. It means building enough knowledge and confidence that money stops feeling evil, confusing, or something that quietly controls every decision.
The goal is not to become the financial equivalent of a bodybuilder: impressive from the outside, optimised for competition, disciplined to the point of obsession, but with the strength of a soggy noddle.
The goal is to become the person who has a healthy, sustainable relationship with exercise in whatever form actually suits them. A regular gym session, martial arts, swimming, long walks, Pilates, whatever. The point is not to perform fitness. The point is to feel capable in your own body.
Financial fitness is the same, it’s deeply personal. For one person, it is paying off debt. For another, it is building a 6 month emergency fund. For someone else, it is investing every month, changing careers, increasing their income, or finally understanding what their pension is doing.
What is the risk of avoidance
Without focusing too heavily on the negative, because like fitness, financial progress is not equally available to everyone. Some people are dealing with low income, illness, caring responsibilities, or simply trying to get through the month.
Not enaging at all doesn’t suddenly make the problems disappear.
There is a reason why Benjamin Franklin once said, “money makes money.” Once you have savings, investments, assets, or even just breathing room, your money can start working for you. Like a farm, you can ‘grow more money’. But when you avoid it completely, the inverse happens (ok, not literally). Bills go up. Cash sits in a current account losing spending power to inflation. Your pension may be invested in a default fund you’ve never checked.
It’s like sitting stationary for years and assuming your body will somehow stay strong. You build muscle, mobility, and bone density now so that later in life, your body has more resilience. You don’t do it because every workout is life changing. You do it because tiny repeated actions compound.
Money works the same way.
Saving, investing, paying attention, and learning the basics are not just “nice to have” habits. They are how you build financial muscle.
Everyone has gym anxiety at first
Financial literacy has its own version of gym anxiety. You don’t want to ask a “stupid” question, so you avoid the whole thing. Paying off debt, starting to save and invest can feel like awkwardly sidestepping towards the weights and watching the pros glare at you.
I say this as someone who literally labels themselves as ‘not a sporty person’. When asked what exercise I do, I say, ‘Does walking count?’
But that’s why I understand this frustration about personal finance, because I also felt the same way. Growing up with zero financial literacy had me asking what an ISA was, but clumsily pronouncing it ‘I-S-A’ instead of ‘ICE-Ah’.
But nobody starts by understanding everything. You start accepting a new identity.
Seeing yourself as a saver, investor, debt free, even if it hasn’t happened yet. It sounds like the kind of ‘woo-woo’ advice you’d hear on an inspirational quotes Instagram page, but I can vouch for this method.
I felt like an investor when I had £25 in my ISA. I felt like a saver when I put 50% of my income away, and I earned £12 an hour. The starting point never feels impressive, but it is.
According to HMRC, around 7.5% of UK adults paid into a Stocks & Shares ISA in 2023/24, and 31% of UK adults have either no cash savings or less than £1,000 in emergency savings (FCA). It’s safe to say that even if you did open an ISA and put in £25, you’d be in the minority of people just willing to give it a go.
Not everyone needs to count macros
Some people love tracking every gram of protein. Some people love line by line budgeting. If that works for you, great. But it is not the only route to being financially fit.
For most people, the better starting point is knowing your big numbers: income, fixed costs, debt, savings rate, and what you invest each month. That’s your financial body scan.
Two options here.
A budgeting spreadsheet can help visualise your overall spending. It may seem excessive to some.
A simpler version is a budgeting app that automatically pulls data from different accounts to give you as less manual approach.
The key is, you don’t need to be tracking every iced latte to build wealth. You do need to be somewhat aware of how much your lifestyle costs month to month.
FIRE is the marathon, not the minimum standard.
The FIRE community can be incredibly inspiring. It shows what happens when people treat saving and investing like a serious sport. But not everyone wants to run the financial equivalent of an ultramarathon.
I’ve always seen the value in knowing your FIRE number in the same way a fitness coach might encourage you to know your weight, your strength level, or what you’re training towards. It gives you direction. It makes the goal measurable. But it is not supposed to become a punishment, and it is definitely not supposed to make you hate the process.
That’s what I loved about the FIRE movement when I first discovered it. It made financial freedom feel tangible. Not some vague “one day I’ll be rich” fantasy, but a number, a plan, a set of habits. It taught me the power of keeping promises to myself. Every time I saved, invested, or chose not to spend impulsively, I wasn’t depriving myself. I was building self-trust.
But there’s no doubt about it: reaching FIRE on an average 9–5 salary, even with a side hustle, requires sacrifice. The danger is pretending everyone should want the most extreme version. For most people, the goal does not need to be retiring early, it needs to be gaining stability and eventually growing their money.
For some, that’s a 6 month emergency fund. For others, it’s maxing out an ISA.
You don’t have to run the ultramarathon of finance to feel fit.
The “ripped” people are not the benchmark
In fitness, the most visible people are often the most extreme. The same is true with money.
This is amplified with social media. The people posting huge portfolios (guilty), aggressive savings rates, and “I saved 80% of my income” are impressive, but they are not always realistic.
Your benchmark is not someone else’s net worth. It is your own trajectory. Your goals, your circumstances, your privilege or lack of.
Another thing is trade-offs. That person flexing online may have worked 3 jobs for a year, neglected friendships or not had the most fruitful social life. Equally the person with the high consulting salary will have faced rejection left right and centre and perhaps is only in that industry to fulfil what their parents want. You can’t want someone’s output without needing all the conditions that created it.
Financial muscle is less about the end product and more about the small habits you build everyday and the deeply personal goals you set for you and only you.
The everyday financial workout
If you want a simple routine, start here.
Automate a small amount into savings or investments.
Review your spending once a week.
Log into your workplace pension.
Build a small emergency fund.
Open an ISA. You don’t necessarily have to invest straight away, but even opening the account can remove a lot of the fear. Sometimes confidence comes from making the thing feel less mysterious.
For example, this is where an investing platform like XTB can be a useful starting point. You can open a Stocks and Shares ISA, explore the app, understand what funds and ETFs actually look like, and get familiar with the process before deciding whether investing is right for you.
AD | Disclaimer: Your capital is at risk when investing. The value of investments and the income from them can fall as well as rise and you might lose the original amount invested. Fluctuations in such value and income can result from factors such as market movements and variations in exchange rates. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
And you may be thinking, that’s it? It sounds too boring or simple. That’s the point.
A lot of people get sucked into hacks or get-rich-quick-schemes thinking there is some magic overnight treatment they can apply. In reality, building wealth is far slower, like drinking bone broth everyday instead of taking a collagen pouch once.
Because just like fitness, money pays dividends when you stop waiting to feel ready and start making it part of your normal life.
That’s all this week,
Mia x
The gym anxiety analogy is spot on — money feels intimidating for the same reason. You don't need a perfect system, just the courage to start with the basics and show up consistently.
I think the recipe for financial success is simple - spend less than you earn, and invest the rest. You don’t need checklists or routines, just a bit of common sense in not wasting money on things you don’t need, and investing it instead. After a while, once your investments start to grow, it becomes infectious - investing gives you the same dopamine hit as spending once did!