Coaches are really good at helping clients build plans, organize their money, set goals, and adjust their behavior. These are excellent things.

But something that comes up in almost every coaching relationship, usually several months in, is this: “I think things are okay. I mean, we're getting by. But I don't really know if we're ahead or behind.”

The client is still doing the work. Still showing up. Still trying. But the enthusiasm isn't what it was, and they can't quite tell whether any of it is actually paying off.

This week, we’re sharing the Progress Number, a single percentage that tells clients exactly how much of their income is actively going toward their financial future. Not their budget. Not their bank balance. A clear, revisable number that answers the question most clients are afraid to ask out loud.

We walk through the formula, how to calculate it, how to handle the gray areas, how to introduce it in a session, and what happens when a client who's been working hard finally gets to see the proof that it's paying off.

The progress number isn't just a coaching tool. It's what gives clients something to stand on when motivation gets harder and a rough month makes the whole year feel like a loss.

Links & Resources:

• Financial Coaching Essentials
• Episode 143: How Confidence is Actually Built

Key Takeaways:

• Without a concrete way to measure progress, clients go by feelings. A rough month makes the whole year feel bad. A good paycheck makes everything feel fine. Neither is the full picture.
• Net worth is a snapshot. It shows where someone stands, but not how fast they're moving or how intentionally they're directing resources toward their future.
• Two clients with the same net worth can be in completely different places in terms of momentum. Snapshots don't show trajectory. The progress number does.
• The formula is simple: total financial progress divided by total income, multiplied by 100. What counts as progress is something the client gets to define.
• The number itself matters less than the direction. A client who started at 3% and is now at 8% is winning, even if 8% sounds small.
• When a client can point to a number and say, “I was at 4%, now I'm at 6%,” something shifts in how they carry themselves. That's not a pep talk. That's identity.
• Your progress number is also your coaching tool. It gives you a concrete way to revisit progress across sessions, something to celebrate when things are going well, and something to investigate when they're not.

If you followed the recent series on calibration and the three rhythms that money flows through, this session is where both of those ideas come to life.

Mary Ann Stenquist is a spending coach who helps ambitious women break free from the shop-regret-shame cycle and align their spending with their values. She knows money. She teaches it. She coaches on it.

And she's stuck.

For four years, Mary Ann has been caught in a cycle: fund the emergency savings, drain it when something happens, rebuild it, drain it again. The AC breaks. Then the furnace. Health expenses pile up. Then the car. Each time she taps into that fund, guilt follows. The balance drops, and with it, her sense of security.

What makes this exhausting isn't the expenses themselves. It's the way her emergency fund has become a scorecard for whether she's doing money right.

When the balance is high, she feels secure. When it dips, she questions everything.

Before you listen, here are three things to pay attention to:

• First, notice how long it takes before any strategy is offered. This session is about 70% emotional coaching and 30% logistics.
• Second, listen for the distinction between emergencies and what we call Whammies, the irregular expenses that aren't unpredictable, just unplanned. Those fall into the SpendFuture rhythm, and once we name that distinction together, the whole conversation shifts.
• Finally, listen for the moment Mary Ann says she can't control her money, because that's a borrowed belief. When you look at the evidence, it's simply not true. She has an emergency fund. She's living on one income by choice. She's been managing well in so many areas. The story doesn't match her reality.

This is what calibration looks like. A real session with a real person, and the choices happening underneath it.

Links & Resources:

• Money Made Human Advisory
• Financial Coaching Essentials
• Join the Facebook group
• Join our email list
• Apply to be on the Client Seat
• Listen Inside the Session of this episode

Most clients walk into a session already convinced they failed.

The bad month is fresh. They went over budget. The spreadsheet is in the red. And every line item feels like evidence that they just aren't good with money.

But here's something to note when you look at months like that: most of the time, nothing actually went wrong. The rent was paid, the groceries were normal, and the everyday spending didn't spike. The month exploded because of something else entirely. And that something else has a name.

In this week’s episode, we’re introducing a lens that changes how clients experience conversations about their money. It's not a new tool or a new system. It's a way of looking at what's already in front of you and giving that picture to clients so they can see it too.

All money moves in three rhythms. Once a coach can see these rhythms clearly and help clients see them, the emotional temperature of even the most discouraging conversations changes. Not because the numbers got better, but because the story around the numbers finally makes sense.

This episode is practical. We’re walking through exactly how to introduce this framework in a session, what to say, what to notice, and why the rhythm that causes the most financial chaos is also the one most clients have never planned for.

Links & Resources:

• Join the Facebook group
• Episode 147

Key Takeaways:

• A bad month and a planning gap are not the same thing. The ability to tell the difference is what separates a frustrating conversation from a useful one.
• All money moves in three rhythms: SpendFixed, SpendFreely, and SpendFuture. The third one is the one that derails most clients, and the one almost no budget accounts for.
• When a client can see that the month fell apart because of unplanned irregular expenses, not personal failure, the emotional temperature of the session drops fast.
• Irregular expenses aren't surprises. They happen every year, and many happen at roughly the same time every year. The only thing missing is a plan for them.
• Your job as a coach isn't to point out what went wrong. It's to show your client what was always true about their money that they simply couldn't see before.
• SpendFuture is almost always the thread that unravels the whole thing. Find it, name it, and the path forward becomes clearer for everyone in the room.
• Clarity always comes first. Before strategy, before solutions, before next steps, a client needs to be able to see what's actually happening.