The month my bank sent me a “low balance” alert at 3 a.m., I was sure the problem was my freelance income. My clients paid late, my projects were irregular, and my calendar looked like a game of financial roulette. I told myself, “If I just earn more, this will stop.” So I chased new gigs, raised my rates, and stacked extra hours on weekends.
The strange thing? The stress didn’t go away.
The more I earned, the more the money dissolved into rideshares, spontaneous lunches, one-click buys, and subscriptions I couldn’t even name. One night, staring at my statement, it hit me like a slap: my issue wasn’t an unstable income. My issue was unstable expenses.
And that realization quietly changed everything.
When your money leak isn’t where you think
There’s a quiet drama that plays out on payday. The money lands, a small sigh of relief escapes, and then it slowly disappears into a fog of “small” decisions. We tell ourselves our paycheck is too small, the economy is bad, the industry is unstable.
Yet the real chaos often lives in what leaves our account, not what comes in.
I spent years blaming my irregular income for my anxiety. I never thought to blame the €4 coffees, the forgotten gym membership, the monthly “treat yourself” orders that had become less of a treat and more of a habit. The leak was small, constant, and completely invisible. Until I started looking straight at it.
The moment things became real was a single screenshot. One Sunday, I downloaded three months of bank transactions and highlighted every “unplanned” expense in yellow. I expected a handful of lines. My screen turned into a highlighter crime scene.
There was the streaming platform I hadn’t opened in six months. The app subscription from a free trial I never canceled. Random delivery fees that cost more than the actual food.
When I added it up, the number was bigger than one of my monthly client invoices. That stung. It also felt strangely liberating. Because if this much money was leaking without me noticing, maybe the problem wasn’t that my income was “broken”. Maybe my spending just had no script.
What I discovered next was simple, almost painfully so. Unstable expenses feel normal when life is messy, work is unpredictable, and our phones keep serving us frictionless ways to spend. Every tap is painless. Every cart looks harmless.
The brain loves novelty and hates constraints, and the modern economy is built on that weakness. So we tell ourselves stories: “It’s just this month”, “I deserve it”, “I’ll be more disciplined once I earn more”.
The math quietly disagrees. *The real stress often comes less from how much we earn, and more from the fact that our expenses behave like an untied balloon.* Once I saw my spending as moving, not fixed, I stopped fighting my income and started calming my outflow.
Giving your expenses a backbone
The first thing I did was brutally low-tech. I opened a blank note and wrote two columns: “rocks” and “waves”. Rocks were the non‑negotiables: rent, basic groceries, insurance, transport pass. Waves were everything that moved with my mood: eating out, clothes, apps, gifts, taxis, fun.
Then I took my total average monthly income and gave the rocks a clear number. They got paid first, every single month, no negotiation. The waves had to share whatever remained, like kids sharing one pizza.
This tiny mental shift changed the movie. Income became the stage. Expenses became the actors. Some stayed. Some got cut from the cast.
If you’re reading this with a knot in your stomach, that’s normal. Taming expenses feels like admitting defeat. As if wanting stability meant giving up on pleasure. The truth is softer. You don’t cut all the waves. You just stop pretending they’re rocks.
The most common mistake I see is people upgrading their lifestyle every time their income hiccups upward. New phone, nicer takeout, more rideshares. Then when income drops again, the lifestyle stays, and the stress multiplies.
Let’s be honest: nobody really tracks every cent every single day. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s to catch the big patterns, the monthly traps, the “just this once” that actually means twelve times a year.
One small, almost invisible habit helped me more than any budgeting app. Every time I wanted to buy something non‑essential, I’d ask: “Is this a rock or a wave?” No guilt, no drama. Just a tiny pause before the click.
Over weeks, this pause turned into a filter. Some waves stayed. Many quietly faded away. And the wild swings in my bank account started to calm down, even though my income still danced up and down.
“You don’t need a higher income to feel safer,” a financial coach once told me. “You need expenses that behave as if your income might change.”
- Separate your “rocks” (fixed essentials) from your “waves” (flexible extras)
- Give rocks a protected zone in your account they always get funded from first
- Let waves compete for whatever is truly left, without touching the rocks
- Review waves once a month and cut only the ones you don’t even remember enjoying
- Keep one small, guilt‑free “fun” line, so the process feels human, not punishing
Living with uncertainty without living in panic
Once you see your expenses clearly, you can’t unsee them. That’s both terrifying and oddly peaceful. Your income may still fluctuate. Clients might leave. Jobs can change. Life will absolutely throw you late payments at the worst possible moment.
The difference is that your money life stops feeling like static. You know which costs are solid and which ones can bend. You know what you can cut for a month without your world collapsing.
You stop needing a fantasy salary to feel safe, and start building a flexible, very real one with what you already earn.
A 100-year-old who refuses care homes explains the daily decision she never compromises on
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Rocks vs. waves | Classify fixed essentials separately from flexible extras | Gives instant clarity on what truly needs funding first |
| Protect the essentials | Fund rent, food, transport before any lifestyle spending | Reduces anxiety and late‑night “low balance” panic |
| Micro‑pause before spending | Ask “rock or wave?” before each non‑essential purchase | Creates control without complex budgets or strict diets |
FAQ:
- Question 1What if my income is genuinely too low, not just unstable expenses?There are situations where income is objectively insufficient, especially with high housing or family costs. The rocks/waves method still helps by clarifying the gap. Once you see the shortfall, you can look for targeted solutions: negotiating rent, shared housing, side gigs, or social support, instead of vague stress.
- Question 2Do I need a complex budget or app to do this right?No. A simple list and a monthly check‑in are enough to start. Apps can help later if you like data. The real shift happens in your head: seeing expenses as flexible, not automatic. You can begin with a note on your phone and a highlighter.
- Question 3How do I handle irregular freelance or commission‑based income?Base your rocks on your lowest realistic monthly income, not your best month. When you earn more, don’t instantly inflate your lifestyle. Use surplus to build a small buffer, pay debts faster, or fund bigger goals. That way, bad months hurt less.
- Question 4What about guilt when cutting back on “fun” expenses?If everything feels like punishment, the system will collapse. Keep a small, intentional fun budget. Knowing you have some allowed pleasure money makes it easier to calmly cut the extras you don’t truly enjoy. Guilt fades when choices feel conscious, not forced.
- Question 5How long until I feel less financial stress from these changes?Many people feel a shift within one or two months, when rocks are consistently covered and a few waves are trimmed. Full stability takes longer, especially if you’re paying off debt. But that first month where rent, food, and transport are funded on purpose? That changes your nervous system.
