For when the timeline feels like it’s closing in.
I’m AJ. I’m 58, I live in Kelowna, and I’m working through my own financial stress in real time. There’s plenty out there telling you how to invest. There’s almost nowhere that holds the worry, the shame and the dilemma. So I’m making that space, sharing my tools and what I’m learning, one chapter ahead, not arrived.
No services. No investment advice. Just honesty, tools and company.
See the tool I’m usingThe fear, the shame, the 3 a.m. maths, said out loud without judgement.
The tracker I use to stop avoiding, and what I’m learning as I go.
Real stories from people in the same middle.
“[Your own words: what it felt like the first time you really looked.]”
“[Words from someone in a case study. Add once you have them.]”
It isn’t laziness. For a lot of us, avoiding money is protection: from shame, from fear, from the feeling that it’s already too late.
The truth:
You don’t need to be “good with money” to start. You need a way to look that doesn’t flood you.
Burnout began for me in my twenties. At 58, I’m on my third leave of absence, and for years I lived to solve my financial worries. Hustling, avoiding, and never really looking.
So I built a simple tracker with AI and gave myself fifteen minutes a day. It’s helping me get unstuck, and I want to share the map while I’m still walking it.
Four steps I keep coming back to:
I’m not a financial advisor. I’m someone learning to look, and sharing what helps as I go.
Read my storyWhat it does, how I use it each week, and how you could set up your own.
See the toolWhat research says about financial stress, burnout and mental health, in plain language.
Read the researchHonest stories of people learning to look at their money, starting with mine.
Read the storiesThe unopened statements. The 3 a.m. maths. The plans you don’t make because you’re scared of the answer. Avoidance doesn’t make the stress smaller. It just keeps it in the dark.
You don’t have to fix it all today. You just have to look, with someone beside you.
Sometimes you look, and the numbers don’t add up. The savings won’t stretch. The plan you were promised isn’t coming. I want to talk about that too: the shortfall, the dilemma, the distress. Because pretending it isn’t there doesn’t help anyone.
Look at the worst case calmly, so it stops running the show from the shadows.
I’m talking with financial advisors about the hard cases, and sharing what they tell me.
For many of us, retirement as we knew it is a thing of the past. So what could you do that brings value and joy? Work that doesn’t feel like work?
Work to live, not live to work. And stop letting “retirement” be the thing you dread.
Not everything has to be about money. Let me teach you how simple it is with AI to create your own website and useful apps.
Timed cribbage practice: score dealt hands and track your speed, accuracy and personal bests.
Play Cribbage Count ↗[One line about it.]
You don’t need to have it figured out.
You just need to start looking.
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