What Is Financial Empowerment Coaching — and Could It Change Your Life?

How I paid off $46,000 in debt, rewrote my money story, and started helping others do the same

If you found this post by searching for "financial empowerment coaching," here are 3 things you should know about me: I will never tell you to stop drinking lattes and eating avocado toast, I hatttteeeee cryptocurrency and multilevel marketing schemes, and while I personally love a budgeting spreadsheet, I will never pressure you to use one.

If you haven't closed this tab after reading that, then you might be in the right place. I'm Sonja, a board-certified health and wellness coach and behavior change expert who's spent 15 years studying why people struggle to change — and what actually helps. And I can tell you from both my professional experience and my deeply personal experience that financial wellbeing has remarkably little to do with math, and a great deal to do with feelings, beliefs, and the stories we carry about what we deserve and what's possible for us.

That's what financial empowerment coaching is about. And it might be exactly what you're looking for.

My story

In 2014, when I was 26 years old, I packed my life into the trunk of my mom’s Subaru and moved into her basement in Minneapolis.

Walking away from my house, career, relationship, and life in Iowa was the hardest decision I've ever made, but my relationship had become toxic and knew I needed to make a change, no matter the cost.

I arrived in Minneapolis with:

• $6,000 in my checking account

• $40,000 in student loan debt

• No job

• Zero financial literacy

• And a genuinely terrible attitude about all of it

That last one is important. I wasn't just struggling financially — I was resentful about my student loan debt, frustrated by the cost of living, anxious about my bills, and carrying a deep, quiet conviction that I was already too far behind to ever catch up.

I had believed my whole life that being bad at math meant I couldn't be good with money. And that belief had given me permission to never really try.

The moment everything started to shift

One day, almost by accident, I stumbled onto an online interest calculator.

I started plugging in numbers — my student loan balance, different payment amounts, different timelines — and what I found surprised me: An extra $5 here and there could actually make a meaningful difference.

That was the beginning of a major shift in my life.

The $5 proved something important to me: That I wasn't helpless and that my small actions could add up into something big. That I could start exactly where I was, with exactly what I had, and it would matter.

Over the next two years, here's what happened:

• I paid off $40,000 in student loan debt and $6,000 in medical debt — completely

• I learned to use credit cards wisely instead of avoiding them entirely

• I built a savings account, funded retirement accounts, and started investing

• I took my first real vacation as an adult

• I moved into my own apartment and bought my first piece of furniture

• I got a promotion and put the extra income toward my car

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, something else changed too:

I moved from being someone who felt like a victim of her own financial circumstances to someone who felt genuinely, deeply empowered by her relationship with money. The resentment lifted, the comparison to others muted, the money anxiety that had been a constant low hum started to fade.

I started to believe — based on evidence I had created myself — that I was capable of figuring hard things out.

What I've built since then

If you had told me in 2014 that I would end up as a homeowner with no student loan or credit card debt, a healthy savings account, an investment portfolio I manage on my own, a collection of photos from hiking adventures I took with money I earned myself, a divested portfolio where none of my money funds shit I don't believe in, and well on my way to early retirement as a full-time self-employed coach and consultant — I would not have believed you.

But that's the power of simple systems, sustainable habits, small steps, and doing the psychological work that makes all of it possible.

And that's exactly what I bring to financial empowerment coaching.

What financial empowerment coaching actually is

Financial empowerment coaching is not financial advising. I will not tell you what to invest in, how to structure your portfolio, or whether to refinance your mortgage. For those questions, you want a Certified Financial Planner (Note: CFPs are fiduciaries who are required to act in your best interest. This is not the case for financial advisors).

What financial empowerment coaching is: a structured, supportive coaching relationship focused on helping you understand and change your relationship with money — the beliefs, emotions, and behaviors that are shaping your financial life, often without your conscious awareness.

Most people who struggle financially are not struggling because they don't know what to do. They're struggling because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different things, and the gap between them is almost always psychological, not mathematical.

That gap is where coaching lives.

How I work: The EDIT Framework

Everything I do as a coach is built on a framework I developed called EDIT. It stands for Experiment, Design, Implement, and Trust — and it applies to financial wellbeing just as powerfully as it applies to any other area of behavior change.

Here's what it looks like in the context of money:

Experiment. We start by getting curious about your current relationship with money, with zero judgment. What are the patterns? What are the beliefs? What does money mean to you, and where did that meaning come from? We treat this as an experiment in self-knowledge, not an audit. There is no failure here, only information.

Design. Once we understand what's actually happening, we build a system that fits your real life — not a budgeting template designed for someone else's income, priorities, and psychology. The best financial system is the one you'll actually use, and that looks different for every person.

Implement. This is where most coaching falls short — the plan meets Monday morning and falls apart. The Implement stage is about showing up consistently in the messy middle, troubleshooting what isn't working, and adjusting the plan without abandoning it. I am in this stage with you, walking alongside you and helping you figure it out.

Trust. The last stage is the one that makes everything else sustainable: building genuine self-trust around money. Not the feeling of confidence you're waiting to arrive before you take action, but the earned confidence that comes from following through on small commitments and discovering — through your own evidence — that you are more capable than you thought.

This is the same process that took me from a rock bottom leaving my home in Iowa, carrying $46,000 of debt and a story that I was bad at money, to where I am today.

Who this is for

Financial empowerment coaching is a good fit if you:

• Feel anxious, avoidant, or emotionally activated around money, and you want to understand how to change that

• Know what you "should" be doing financially but can't seem to make yourself do it consistently

• Carry a story about money — "I'm bad with money," "there's never enough," "people like me don't get ahead" — that you're ready to examine and rewrite

• Are navigating a financial transition: paying off debt, starting to save for the first time, recovering from a financial setback, rebuilding after a major life change

• Want structured support, accountability, and a thinking partner who has been exactly where you are

It is probably not the right fit if you're primarily looking for specific financial advice, investment recommendations, or tax guidance. For those needs, a financial planner or financial therapist may be a better match — and I'm happy to help you find one.

What working with me looks like

Financial empowerment coaching happens within my signature 1:1 coaching program, The Behavior Edit. We meet regularly over a defined period of time — typically 3-6 months — and we work through the EDIT framework applied to your specific financial situation, psychology, and goals.

This is not a course. It's not a workbook. It's a real, personalized coaching relationship where we roll up our sleeves and do the actual work together.

If you've been carrying financial stress, a limiting belief about money, or a sense that you're too far behind to catch up — I want to say to you what I needed someone to say to me in 2014: It's not too late. You're not too far behind. And you don't have to figure this out alone.

The next chapter of your money story is still being written. The only question is whether you write it intentionally or let old patterns write it for you.

Ready to get started?

The first step is a free 20-minute discovery call — a conversation to talk through where you are, what you're working toward, and whether coaching is the right next step for you.

There's no obligation and no pitch. Just an honest conversation.

Want to keep thinking about this before you're ready to book a call? I write about newsletter all about demystifying coaching, giving you the inside scoop on behavior change, and teaching you how to edit your own life. It's called The Behavior Edit and I'd love to have you on my list.

About Sonja Ecklund, NBC-HWC I'm a board-certified health and wellness coach (NBC-HWC), behavior change expert, and financial social work coach with 15 years of experience helping people change their lives through the power of coaching. I'm the creator of the EDIT framework and the founder of The Behavior Edit, The Business Edit, and The Study Edit.