"Good With Money" Showed Me a Gentler Path to My Finances

Most personal finance advice makes it feel like the only way to be good with money is to cut everything you love, wake up at 5 am, cancel your Netflix and launch a side hustle that eats your weekends. But what if you’re exhausted just thinking about that? What if that formula doesn’t work for everyone? What if being “good with money” isn’t about hustle culture at all?

That’s exactly why Good With Money by Emma Edwards felt like a breath of fresh air. It’s a personal finance book for people who’ve tried the spreadsheets, failed the rigid budgets, and are ready for a softer, more sustainable approach to financial confidence.

That’s exactly the refreshing premise behind Good With Money by Emma Edwards. In a world that glorifies grind and guilt, this book offers a more human, less exhausting way to get financially confident, without burnout, shame, or spreadsheets you don’t understand.

From “Hot Mess With Money” to Financial Clarity

Emma doesn’t position herself as a finance guru who cracked the code in her twenties. Emma doesn’t start the book with a millionaire success story. She begins with a confession: she used to be terrible with money.

She starts where most of us are: overwhelmed, anxious, and confused about money.

Instead of dishing out shame or one-size-fits-all plans, she takes you on her journey of figuring it out in real time. The result? A book that feels like a wise, kind friend helping you make sense of your money story.

Like many people, she set budgets that didn’t stick, felt anxious every time she opened her banking app, and cycled between trying harder and giving up.

Her story is familiar because money stress is extremely common, especially for millennials and Gen Z navigating unstable job markets, lifestyle pressures, and social media comparison.

Her journey isn’t about sudden wealth. It’s about understanding the psychology behind our money habits, and slowly building new ones that feel realistic.

One of the book’s biggest revelations is that your money problems aren’t always your fault.

Emma explores how diet culture, hustle culture, social media, and capitalism have all worked together to teach women (especially) that self-worth is something to be bought, not built.

From glossy magazines promoting expensive reinventions to Instagram influencing us to buy the latest “it” product, we’ve been conditioned to see spending as a shortcut to confidence. Even trends like minimalism or self-care have been commercialised, selling us new ways to feel “enough.”

The book also calls out how buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, once marketed as flexible tools, actually fuel overspending. Emma shows how these systems reduce the “pain of paying” and make it dangerously easy to say yes to purchases we can't afford.

In short: you’re not bad with money. You’re just up against a system designed to keep you consuming and feeling like you’re always behind.

This book doesn’t tell you to stop drinking lattes or shame you for ordering from Glovo. It doesn’t guilt you into rigid budgets or unrealistic savings plans. Instead, it’s about:

• Understanding your unique emotional relationship with money

• Creating value-based spending habits

• Learning how to manage money intuitively

• Gaining financial clarity that supports the life you want

You don’t need to earn more, do more, or be more. You need to get honest about what matters and start using your money accordingly.

Here’s where Good With Money stands out: it focuses less on numbers and more on your behaviour, beliefs, and feelings around money.

Emma breaks down how your:

• Upbringing

• Cultural conditioning

• Past financial mistakes

• And even your body image or self-esteem

...can all silently shape the way you earn, spend, and save.

For example, she explains how growing up in a diet-obsessed, image-driven world conditioned many women to spend heavily on “fixing themselves”; slimming teas, skincare routines, makeover trends, while never being taught how to build wealth or plan for retirement. 

This emotional lens makes the book especially helpful for people who’ve never connected with traditional finance content. It validates why you might overspend when you’re anxious, why saving feels hard when you feel like a failure, or why you freeze up when checking your bank balance.

While the book focuses on mindset first, it doesn’t skip the practical side. Once you understand your money patterns, Emma guides you to build what she calls your “financial ecosystem.”

This includes:

• Identifying your financial values (e.g., freedom, stability, generosity)

• Creating a simple system that fits your lifestyle (not someone else’s)

• Building awareness of where your money goes, without micromanaging it

• Making conscious spending choices instead of reactive ones

Unlike strict budgets, her method is flexible, gentle, and built around you. It encourages you to actively engage with your money, but not obsess over it.

You’re not expected to be perfect. You can still be “good with money” even if:

• You’re in debt

• You’re on a low income

• You’ve historically made poor money choices

What matters is that you start owning your decisions and give yourself grace as you grow.

Good With Money is more than a finance book; it’s a guide to emotional clarity, self-compassion, and money mastery that doesn’t rely on fear, shame, or spreadsheets.

If you’re tired of feeling behind, if you’re over hustle advice that ignores your reality, or if you simply want to make better money decisions without burning out, this book offers a powerful alternative.

So, next time you see another post glorifying 5 a.m. wakeups or 10 income streams, remember: You don’t have to hustle to be financially free. You just have to be good with money, on your terms.

Price: $20.13. Where to Buy: Shop Amazon