At some point, almost everyone gets a wake-up call. It could be job loss, the death of a loved one or the realization that the life you thought you were building isn’t the one you’re standing in anymore.

That moment came abruptly for Steph Wagner, National Director of Women & Wealth at Northern Trust and author of Fly! A Woman’s Guide to Financial Freedom and Building a Life You Love (1).

In an exclusive interview with Moneywise, Wagner shared her wake-up call. It was when she learned that her husband, the father of her three young sons, was having an affair.

The revelation didn’t just fracture her marriage. It exposed something else she hadn’t expected: how far removed she had become from her financial life — even as someone who had helped others build financial security and wealth in her private-equity career.

“I love this stuff and I let this happen to me,” she said.

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One of the reasons Wagner wrote her book and shared her own story was to support others through similar shocks.

“How is that average woman feeling who never learned about this stuff that buries her head in the sand? How is she feeling at moments like this?”

As she reveals in the book, while it’s hard to prepare for the emotional fallout of such wake-up calls, surviving — and eventually thriving — depends on whether you have a firm grip on your personal finances.

Sacrificing your income comes with more than financial costs

Wagner didn’t feel like she had a firm grip when she learned about her husband’s affair.

She admits she’d been losing touch with her financial health over the course of 14 years.

It started when she turned down a work assignment to evaluate a business deal in rural Alabama. She was pregnant, had a two-year-old at home and a husband constantly travelling for work.

She walked away from the assignment — and her job.

“I lost my earning power that day,” she said. “I always thought I could get it back, but I began to slowly give away my agency around money.”

As caregiving took priority, Wagner became less involved in the mechanics of her financial life.

She said this is a common, and troubling, scenario for many women. It’s not only about loss of income, but the emotional trade-offs that come with becoming financially dependent on someone else.

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It also means losing opportunities for all sorts of growth — including personal growth — as financial security is tied to the ability to plan, imagine and take risks.

A Bank of America study on women and financial wellness found that nearly all women expect to be financially responsible for themselves at some point in adulthood. Yet their financial confidence doesn’t keep pace with that expectation.

The study revealed that while 92% of women feel comfortable managing day-to-day tasks like paying bills and sticking to a budget, only 36% were comfortable saving for retirement and a mere 27% were confident about investing (2).

Read More: The average net worth of Americans is a surprising $620,654. But it almost means nothing. Here’s the number that counts (and how to make it skyrocket)

Women taught to believe money is ‘complicated’

Wagner ties women’s lack of confidence around money to an undue sense of shame. They may feel embarrassed that they don’t know everything about how money and investments work.

“It’s been ingrained in us that this is complicated,” Wagner said.

She adds that this sense of shame is instilled through “money messages” — laws, lessons, cues and assumptions that a woman absorbs before she opens her first bank account.

For example, until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was signed into law in the U.S. 1974, banks could legally deny American women access to credit.

Unmarried women could be refused a credit card outright, while married women often needed a husband to co-sign.

That restriction limited generations of women’s ability to build credit impacting everything from mortgage approval to borrowing costs and access to financial products.

Research by Ylva Baeckström, a senior lecturer in finance at King’s Business School, confirms that differences in women’s financial confidence, risk tolerance and knowledge are situational, not inherent (3).

Taken together, those forces help explain why so many women end up stepping back from financial decisions, even when they’re fully capable of making them and why reclaiming confidence often starts not with numbers, but with unlearning the messages that shaped their relationship with money in the first place.

How can women rebuild financial agency?

In Fly!, Wagner argues that rebuilding agency starts with understanding the full picture of your finances — what you earn, what you spend, what you owe and what you’re building.

Research shows that 75% of women still don’t have a formal financial plan. Working with a financial advisor can help, she says, but it’s only part of the equation.

A long-term plan also has to reflect everyday decisions, including how money actually moves in and out of your account each month.

When it comes to budgeting, Wagner takes a different approach.

“I don’t believe in budgets,” she said. “I feel like budgets set us up to fail.”

Instead, she uses a simple bucket system designed to balance structure with flexibility.

Under her 45-20-35 framework:

45% of take-home pay goes toward fixed costs like housing, transportation, utilities and insurance

20% is directed toward future goals including saving, investing and paying down debt.

35% is reserved for living, the spending that supports day-to-day life without guilt.

That flexibility is intentional. Wagner favors tools over rigid rules, an approach she says helps people stay engaged with their money, whether they’re rebuilding in midlife or learning to manage finances for the first time.

When asked what she still splurges on, Wagner laughed before giving an answer she knows is well worn.

“This seems like such a cliché,” she said. “But I’m still going to say it. Starbucks.”

Her order: a venti latte, no foam, with cinnamon and sugar.

She doesn’t sidestep the math.

Over 15 years, she notes, a daily luxury like that could cost upwards of $50,000. Still, she rejects the idea that financial health requires eliminating small pleasures altogether.

Some expenses, she says, are non-negotiable not because they’re cheap, but because they support long-term well-being.

That includes investments in physical and mental health, like fitness classes or cycling, which she sees as foundational rather than indulgent.

The goal of her approach isn’t perfection. It’s participation by staying involved in your financial life rather than disengaging out of guilt or frustration.

As women live longer and take on greater financial responsibility, Wagner believes that balance matters more than ever.

“We’re living longer than ever. We have more opportunity than ever before to go throughout the rest of our chapters and do things that we never thought possible,” Wagner said.

In fact, women are expected to control roughly $34 trillion, or 38%, of U.S. assets by 2030, nearly double today’s levels (4).

“The rise of women’s economic power combined with the rise of financial autonomy opens up so many possibilities for us as individuals, but also collectively as a group of women.”

Steph Wagner hopes all Americans heed that wake-up call for investing in the future.

Private equity insider gets stunning wake-up call that turns her into an advocate for women’s wealth

Private equity insider gets stunning wake-up call that turns her into an advocate for women’s wealth

Must Read

Sacrificing your income comes with more than financial costs

Women taught to believe money is ‘complicated’

How can women rebuild financial agency?

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