A balanced financial plan helps you enjoy life today while preparing for tomorrow.

Alaina Sanders, founder of Get Well Planned, joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast to talk about how our money stories shape financial decisions and how intentional planning can help us find balance.

What Stood Out 

• People raised in the same household can develop different relationships with money.
• A scarcity mindset can influence financial decisions and limit opportunities.
• Finding balance means enjoying today while preparing for the future.
• Giving your money a clear purpose helps turn financial knowledge into action.

The Bottom Line: Financial balance begins with understanding what matters to you and making choices that support the life you want.

 🎥 Watch this episode below: 

🎧 Listen to the podcast below or on your favorite podcast app. 

Connect with Alaina Sanders, CFP®: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaina-sanders-cfp®-ba4227101/
• Getwellplanned Website: www.getwellplanned.com

Bio: 

Alaina Sanders is the founder of Getwellplanned.com as well as a Certified Financial Planner (R) professional and licensed advisor with a Series 65, Alaina brings over 15 years of experience helping individuals build confidence and clarity with their money. Her approach blends real-world lessons with professional expertise—because financial wellness isn’t just for the wealthy; it’s for everyone ready to take control of their future. With a background in mechanical engineering and a career that began at the Kennedy Space Center, Alaina Sanders knows the power of precision and planning. But after turning her focus to real estate investing and financial strategy, she realized most people lacked access to practical, affordable financial guidance.

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Transcript

Tony Steuer:
Two people can grow up in the same home and walk away with completely different money stories.

Welcome to Get Ready: Before Life Happens. I’m your host, Tony Steuer.

Today, I’m joined by Alaina Sanders. Alaina, welcome to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Alaina Sanders:
Thank you so much, Tony. Thank you for having me.

Tony:
I’m excited to have you because I thought your story was so cool when we first talked.

Let’s jump in. What is your origin story? You described it as a tale of two siblings. How did growing up in the same environment lead to such different money mindsets?

Alaina:
Yes. So I have a little story, as Tony alluded to, the tale of two siblings. It is loosely based on my experience in childhood and growing up.

It is a story about two siblings, Jake and Emma.

Jake and Emma grew up in a household where money was not so free-flowing. Can we get a new bike? Can we go on this vacation? And the answer was always, “We don’t have enough money.”

They grew up in this environment where money was a bit elusive. They never had quite enough of it. They were well-fed. They had a roof over their heads. But there was always this constriction.

These two siblings internalized the experience very differently.

Jake took that constriction and, in adulthood, wanted to regain autonomy. He started spending very freely. New shoes, new clothes, flights here and there, vacations, game consoles. You name it. If he wanted it, he bought it.

That was his expression of trying to break free of the constraints he felt growing up.

Emma, on the other hand, had a very different interpretation of that childhood. She took the constriction as scarcity. Not having enough. Not spending freely at all.

She had a 10-year-old laptop that barely worked, but she didn’t want to replace it because she just couldn’t spend the money. That restricted her in terms of taking risks. She had all of this caution around money because in her mind, this little voice kept telling her, “I don’t have enough.”

So she was not even taking calculated risks in her financial life because of that fear.

I would argue that neither Jake nor Emma is right or wrong. It is simply the way they internalized the experience, and now it is coming out in their adult lives.

What I want listeners to take from this story is the idea of balance. We are all trying to do things for ourselves today, and we are trying to prepare for ourselves tomorrow. If you are significantly out of balance on one side or the other, you are not doing yourself justice.

Spending freely and doing the things we want can be important. But we also need to be aware of tomorrow. We have to prepare for what happens if, at some point, we can’t work or we want to retire.

On the flip side, if you are so fiercely constrained, you may miss out on the things you could be doing and enjoying in life.

At the end of the day, none of our lives are promised to us. We don’t know how long we have on this earth. Finding that balance is key.

And I’ll let the listeners take some guesses about which one I am in the story.

Tony:
I won’t spoil it for the listeners.

What you hit on is that balance is so essential. This has come up with people who are pursuing FIRE, financial independence, retire early. Sometimes they sacrifice everything for this future, and then the future comes, and it is not what they expected.

They reach their FIRE point, sometimes in their forties, and then it’s, “Okay, what do I do now?”

You can’t sacrifice everything. At the same time, you don’t want to be 60 years old and have no money. That’s not a good outcome either.

Finding balance is essential for everyone.

Alaina:
Absolutely. I love that you touched on FIRE because I did something along those lines before it was ever called FIRE.

What I realized is that when you buy back a lot of time, there is usually a lot of sacrifice in the meantime. Let’s say you get to 40 or 45, and now you have this newfound freedom. The question is: what are you going to do with all of those bought-back hours?

Especially if you may have another 30 or 40 years on this planet.

Just because we get to that line in the sand called retirement, at whatever age that is, life does not stop there. It is not a light switch that turns off.

We still need fulfillment. We need something to put our energy into.

So again, tying this back to balance, we can work so fiercely during our working lives and then reach the end of the rainbow. But there still has to be balance on that side too.

Tony:
Exactly. With longevity, many of us may live into our 70s and 80s. But as you age, sometimes there are restrictions on what you can do.

For example, when I was in my 30s, I decided to be a whitewater raft guide. I was physically able to do that then. Today, I could not do that. I couldn’t take the physical impact that comes with it.

If I had gone full FIRE mode, maybe I would have reached a number earlier, but I would have missed that experience.

Alaina:
Absolutely.

It really always comes down to balance and being able to take time in your 20s, 30s, and 40s to do some of the things you want to be doing in life.

I think about a trip my husband and I took across the country. We visited many states and many national parks. On average, we were hiking probably four or five miles a day.

Had we deferred all of that to age 65 or 70, that trip would have looked dramatically different. We would not have been able to access the things we saw or do many of the things we did, simply because of youth.

So there is this balance.

I also want to point out that we all have limited resources. I talk to my clients about this all the time. We have a pot of money or cash flow coming into our pockets, and we have to decide what we are going to do with it.

Some money may go here. Some money may go there. Maybe you fill up your emergency fund. Maybe you have a vacation fund. Then there is your retirement fund.

There are always competing priorities for all of us, whether you are a part-time schoolteacher or a fancy lawyer who owns a firm. We all have a finite amount of resources.

Being intentional about how those resources are split so you can get to a point of balance is really important.

Tony:
I totally agree.

Let’s walk back for a minute and talk about Emma and fearing scarcity. That is something a lot of us identify with.

Scarcity can show up in retirement, too, especially when people are making the switch from accumulation to spending.

How do you recommend people start to reconcile those feelings of scarcity while recognizing that they are real feelings?

Alaina:
The first thing I recommend is to examine your relationship with money.

That can be scary and hard, but I think it starts there.

We have to ask ourselves some questions. How do I feel about money? Does money bring me happiness? Does it give me security? Does it make me scared?

Where did I learn about money? What is my earliest childhood experience with money? What do I remember internalizing or absorbing?

When we start to examine our relationship with money, we can begin to identify patterns.

There are different money personalities. You have the saver, the hoarder, the investor, the spender. When you spend money, whether it is at the grocery store or on Amazon, what is it actually buying you?

Recognizing your habits when it comes to buying things you want or need is the first step.

Once you have a better sense of which category you may fit into, then you need to get to the root of why that is.

With Emma in the story, her scarcity really came down to security. Money made her feel safe. Nothing bad would happen if she just had enough money.

The problem is: what is enough? What is the magic number that will make you feel good inside?

For many people who tend in that direction, I would argue that there is no magic number.

When we think about what money buys us, at the end of the day, it is really a tool. It is a tool to put a roof over our heads, feed ourselves, create a nice life, and hopefully, if we have done the things we should have done during our working lives, live out the fourth quarter doing more of what we want to do.

When you identify the emotion behind money and also bring it down into something quantifiable, that can help.

For example, if I know I am spending $5,000 a month, that is $60,000 a year. If I feel good and comfortable on $60,000 a year, that number gives me a starting point. It could be different for everybody. Maybe it is $10,000 a month. Maybe it is $15,000. Maybe it is $2,000. It depends on your lifestyle.

Wherever you feel comfortable, you can create a framework around how much you really need.

The person who is spending $5,000 a month probably does not need $5 million or $10 million in retirement.

When we boil it down into something quantifiable, some of the anxiety can start to fade. You can say, “I know I am on the right track because I am saving this amount, and this amount can largely cover what I need now and for my future self in retirement.”

Tony:
That makes a lot of sense.

Two things came to mind. One is billionaires who never seem like they have enough money. It raises the question: when is enough going to be enough?

The other is that feeling of comfort. That is really what people are striving for.

But what gets me is when I see studies saying the average person feels they need a certain amount to retire. Often there is not much rhyme or reason to the number. Then people start thinking, “Oh boy, I don’t have enough.”

It is like, wait a minute. People may be coming up with a number they think they need, and then everybody else uses it as a measuring stick.

Alaina:
Yes. I have seen many different cases in my career as a financial planner.

Sometimes people come in with $1 million, $2 million, $3 million, or $10 million. You ask them, “How much are you spending?” If the answer is $2,000 a month, there is a disconnect.

I can often tell that this may be someone who is saving significantly because money gives them comfort, or perhaps they are in more of a hoarding mentality.

Again, I want everyone I talk to, touch, or interact with, especially around money, to come back to balance.

For people who have saved a significant amount because they decided, “I feel good at this magic number,” I would then ask, “You have saved this pot of money. What now? Are you going to enjoy it?”

Can you pivot from being an accumulator, a good saver, clipping coupons, and saving every penny, to enjoying the fruits of that labor?

I would argue that is a hard pivot. It is hard to turn off when you have done a great job saving and planning.

But at a certain point, that has to shift to: “I have done these things, and now I can actually enjoy life.”

I developed Get Well Planned with tools to help people sort through that right or “magic” number. For people who have a financial planner walking side by side with them, tools can help quell those fears of “Do I have enough?”

If the math says you have enough, we can let that be more of a driving factor than only how you feel about it.

Tony:
Exactly. There is a role for numbers, but a lot of it has to do with feelings.

The numbers can help you feel like you have enough. That is the balance we have to remember: the numbers and our subjective feelings about them.

Let’s talk a little bit about Get Well Planned. What is Get Well Planned, and how does it help people build a path forward?

Alaina:
Get Well Planned is an online platform I created. It is mainly educational.

The premise behind Get Well Planned is that too often financial guidance, information, help, and advice are reserved for people who are already wealthy or nearing retirement.

The question is: what about everybody else?

What about the couple who just had their first child and are 30 years old and trying to sort through how much they need to save for retirement?

What about the single mom who is 45 and trying to help her son get through college?

There are all these questions that come up in life around finances. How do I deal with this situation? What is out there for me? What kinds of accounts should I be investing in?

If people do not have someone helping them, they are often scouring the internet and trying to piece together information from one article and another article. Then there is conflicting information, and people start to spin in the details.

I created Get Well Planned, quite frankly, for the 30-year-old version of myself who was scouring the internet, spinning in questions and details, feeling my way through the dark, and trying to figure it out.

Get Well Planned is built on the seven pillars of financial planning: money management, insurance, investments, college planning, retirement, estate, and tax.

It is split into knowledge banks that give you a comprehensive view of each category.

For example, if someone is trying to help a child get through college and wants to know how much to save or what they can do, the site lays out the options, advantages, and disadvantages.

The beauty is that the information is in one place. It is maintained and controlled by a CFP and licensed advisor, so you know you are getting quality information.

It is meant to help people who may not have the significant resources to hire a financial advisor. Financial advice can be costly. A lot of financial advisors won’t sit down with you unless you have a certain number in your bank or investment account.

So again, what about everybody else? How do you get started?

It is meant to be accessible and in plain language. There is no use in my using fancy words if nobody understands the concepts behind them.

It is meant to be an affordable, self-guided option where you can access information and create a plan for yourself.

Tony:
When you say create a plan for yourself, does it actually create a plan, or is it information?

Alaina:
Great question. It creates a plan.

At the end of the day, information without action is useless. If we have knowledge but do nothing with it, what is the point of having the knowledge?

The intent is for the user to come out with their own plan.

The way it works is that the user takes a quiz and answers questions about their financial life. Then they get results in a stoplight system. Across the categories we measure against, they can see whether they are red, yellow, or green.

That automatically lets them know, “I probably need to focus on these things.”

Based on the questions they answered, they get a personalized learning path.

Seven knowledge banks is a lot of information, and not all of it applies to every person. The system filters and directs people to the most relevant information for them.

Then they follow the learning path. As they go through, there are tools and calculators.

If you calculate something and say, “I realize now I have been saving X in my retirement account, but I need to be saving Y,” you can add that to your plan.

Every time you have an aha moment or identify a change you need to make, you can add it to your plan.

The plan is compiled in the user tool so that, at the end, you have concise documentation, similar to what I would write to a client: “I need to do one, two, three, four, five, and six.”

Tony:
That’s great.

For people watching and listening, there will be a link to Get Well Planned so you can check it out and see if it can benefit you.

What are three things people should know about understanding and reshaping their relationship with money?

Alaina:
One of the biggest things we need to understand is that money is just a tool. It is meant to be used.

Tools perform jobs. If you have different types of accounts and money in different places, all of those things have a job, and some perform different jobs.

If we think about money as a tool to keep a roof over our heads, feed ourselves, do the things we want in life, and get us to retirement, it frames it in a way that says: I need to put this tool to work.

Your money should be going to work for you.

Another big concept is balance. I know I keep coming back to it, but it is this idea that I need to take care of myself today and also take care of myself tomorrow.

That balance point is different for everyone. Someone may be comfortable eating rice and beans and going to the library on weekends. Someone else may enjoy going to nice restaurants and taking vacations.

There is nothing wrong with either. All of us have a balance point, and we need to continually work toward it.

The third thing is that money is an ever-evolving journey. You should constantly be reevaluating your relationship with money, where you are, how you got here, and where you want to go.

Just because you come out with a plan, whether that is from Get Well Planned or a financial advisor, it does not stop there.

Life will always life. That is what I tell many of my clients.

You need to be flexible and continue reevaluating where you are because there is always room for improvement.

Finally, I would say people should give themselves grace along the way.

This is a hard thing to tackle and an even harder thing to master. Financial planners and advisors, even though we are the so-called experts, have our own struggles along the journey.

We ask ourselves these same questions and try to sort through the same things.

There is an amount of grace that we should all give ourselves along this ever-evolving journey.

Tony:
I love that: give yourself grace.

Not only do we all have struggles, we have all made money mistakes. Every CFP I have had on the show has had something, and I know I have had money mistakes personally.

For example, taking on too much debt when I was in my 20s because I thought credit cards were free money when I graduated college.

They are not. Credit cards are not free money, just to be clear.

There is always something. Like you said, life will always life. Things change, and you have to evolve. You have to constantly reevaluate, just like you would with anything else.

If you are playing a game of chess, you take into account what your opponent does. You do not just charge ahead with your strategy. If you don’t take into account what your opponent is doing, your strategy may not work.

Alaina:
Absolutely.

I love that you brought up making mistakes, because I have made them too.

If we are having a real conversation about money, we need to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. None of us is immune to that.

We all have tendencies based on our experiences, whether we are in financial services or not. We all have a different relationship with money.

I think about a scenario in my early 20s when I was feeling my way through the dark. I had a full-time job. I was working as a mechanical engineer. I decided to completely stop contributing to my employer retirement account.

I made that decision consciously because I was starting to invest in real estate. I was pushing that money into real estate.

At the time, I felt it was the right thing to do. With the information I had at the time, I probably would not have changed anything.

But with the information I have today, I would change that.

In hindsight, I left a lot of free money on the table because I was getting an employer match and did not take advantage of it.

When I came back around in my 30s, I said, “Okay, I have done all these things with real estate, but I am unbalanced in some other areas. Now I am in catch-up mode. I should have been contributing to a retirement account for a decade, and I have not been.”

That is not to say I had to contribute everything to a retirement account. But there was a missing balance.

It is important to bring these things to light. As much as I sit here trying to educate others, and that is a life calling or passion of mine, I am also human.

I did a thing, and I realized I probably should have done the thing differently.

At this point, I have taken the life lessons, education, and experience I have gained and I am trying to bundle that into something tangible and digestible for other people so perhaps they do not make that same mistake.

Tony:
That is so important: based on the information you had at the time.

When we look back and say, “Oh boy, that was stupid,” we need to remember that we may not have known any better at the time.

When I think about my credit cards, I may think it was stupid, but at the time I didn’t know any better.

That comes back to giving yourself grace.

Alaina, what is one money myth that you are trying to break?

Alaina:
Before I answer that, I want to go back for a second.

In talking about understanding your relationship with money, balance, and the journey, there is something else that is really critical: education.

We all owe it to ourselves to educate ourselves around money.

When I think about the public education system, or even private school, I see schools starting to incorporate more money topics. But when I was growing up, this was not formalized. You heard your parents talking about something or maybe a neighbor talking about something, and you tried to sort it through.

One thing that is really missing is the educational piece.

That is why I felt called to build a site like this. We all deserve access to education. With education, we can make smarter, wiser decisions and continue to grow.

So, to answer your question, one money myth I would like to break is that money is both elusive and exclusive.

When we think about money and having money, sometimes what comes to mind is the billionaire. The rest of us may look around and say, “I’ll never have that. I’ll never be that. I’ll never do that.”

But money, money topics, education, and making the most of your money are meant for everyone.

Start here and move forward.

I love that line. It is a line from one of my favorite songs. I think about it in almost every aspect of life.

It does not matter where you are starting. Just start here and move forward.

If you are in debt, if you just came out of college, if you are just starting, and you think, “I can’t talk to anybody about this. Money is this elusive and exclusive thing,” that is not true.

Everyone deserves their version of the American dream. I truly believe that. It will look different for everyone. It will look different for a household of two doctors versus a part-time substitute teacher.

But everyone deserves the opportunity to have their slice of the American pie.

If you are listening to this and thinking, “I don’t have any money, so this isn’t for me,” that is not true.

Tony:
That’s a great point.

We all have some money. Some of us may not have a lot of money, but there is some money that we all have. The question is whether it supports the lifestyle we want to have.

Most of us are not going to be billionaires. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that I am not going to be a billionaire. Maybe, who knows, but it is doubtful.

The bigger question is whether my lifestyle is enough.

As you get older, it becomes more about experiences, family, and other things. You stop keeping score in terms of the bigger house or bigger numbers.

That is where it can get dangerous: when money becomes about keeping score.

Money alone does not create fulfillment.

Alaina:
Money does not equal happiness.

I think money opens some doors and makes some things easier. It allows us to have some experiences and do more of what we want to do.

But money in and of itself does not equal happiness.

We all have to find peace, joy, and purpose outside of money.

Again, money is just a tool to help us along the way.

Tony:
That is powerful.

Sometimes when people have more money than they know what to do with, it still may not bring satisfaction. That is a reminder that money alone is not the goal.

Alaina:
I have thought this for a very long time.

Let’s exclude billionaires for a second because they are in a whole different stratosphere. I believe there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to money.

What does that mean? I have an engineering background, so I sometimes throw out things like that.

It means that at a certain threshold, most of us can live happy, fulfilled lives where we don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. Our shelter is secure. We have a good job. We can do the things we want to do.

There is a threshold for all of us. That magic number where we feel comfortable and good.

After that, the question is whether more money gives you more happiness or fulfillment or opens more doors.

I would say the curve drops off steeply after a certain point.

Money can be additive to our lives and help us out. But if you overshoot that significantly because you are just chasing money, then what is that actually buying you?

Tony:
In economics, I think that is marginal utility. The marginal utility goes way down.

Alaina, to wrap up, what is your number one tip to change the way we think about money?

Alaina:
I come back to this idea that money is a tool and it has a job.

Money has a place in our life. Its job is to support us and help us move forward.

It is not there to buy us happiness. It is there to open doors and create a pathway forward.

We can reframe our thinking about money so it is not this elusive or exclusive thing. We do not need to chase money just to have money or hoard money.

It is a tool that helps you do the things you would like to do.

If you can use money to clear a path forward, that is on the healthier side of a relationship with money and finding balance.

Tony:
I love that. That’s a great place to close.

Alaina, where can people learn more about you, and where can they check out Get Well Planned?

Alaina:
We are launching in the next few weeks, and I am very excited. You can go to www.getwellplanned.com for updates.

Anyone can go there, leave their email, and receive updates about the launch.

Tony:
By the time this episode is published, the site may very well be live. You can go to the show notes and find Alaina’s LinkedIn profile as well as a link to Get Well Planned.

Alaina, thanks for joining us on Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Alaina:
Thank you so much, Tony, for having me. It has been such a pleasure, and I loved the conversation we had today.

Tony:
It was fantastic.

I hope everybody got something out of it. If you learned something today that changed the way you think about money, please be sure to share and subscribe.

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