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A core purpose of my work in financial planning and financial therapy is to help clients achieve and maintain financial wellbeing. What is that, exactly?
One definition I use, which comes from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), is “a state of being, wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, can feel secure in their financial future, and is able to make choices that allow them to enjoy life.” That definition reflects a large body of behavioral research and serves as the basis for the CFPB’s Financial Wellbeing Scale.
Earlier this year, I was surprised to see my name and this definition quoted in The Jerusalem Post. Interestingly, the quote was used not to support a point, but to challenge it.
The article, published July 17, 2025, was “The Miserable Rich and Happy Poor” by Marc Gafni. He disagreed with the definition, feeling that it described financial independence rather than financial wellbeing.
Gafni wrote that “someone with a low income who really enjoys life and funds it through debt could have greater ‘financial wellbeing’ than someone with a large income.” He was confusing financial wellbeing with emotional wellbeing.
A person who funds their lifestyle through borrowing, even if they report enjoying life, is not experiencing financial wellbeing. If they are unable to meet obligations or face growing financial risk, they do not meet the behavioral threshold for financial wellness. They may have emotional wellbeing. But financial and emotional wellbeing are not interchangeable.
Of course, it’s possible to have a high net worth and still be miserable. That’s a core tenet of financial therapy. But that truth doesn’t invalidate the CFPB definition of financial wellbeing. The definition does not imply that net worth creates happiness or that even financial wellbeing creates happiness. It simply states that meeting financial obligations, feeling financially secure, and exercising choice are markers of sound financial functioning.
Two Kinds of Wellness
My company’s purpose is “to help transform the emotional and financial wellbeing of people.” We pair these intentionally because each requires its own form of attention. Financial wellness involves budgeting, saving, insuring, planning, and building resilience. Emotional wellness involves healing internal trauma, resolving generational money scripts, and becoming able to modify financial behavior that does not serve us well. They interact, but they are not synonymous.
In clinical practice, the difference matters. A client may feel calm and grateful while ignoring growing credit card balances. That is not financial wellness. Another client may have solid finances but be haunted by chronic anxiety. That is not emotional wellness. In either case, mistaking one for the other impairs one’s overall wellbeing.
Financial wellbeing is not simply about income or net worth. Nor is it about happiness. It’s about a person’s ability to function financially with security, agency, and sustainability. Emotional enjoyment doesn’t override that, and wealth doesn’t guarantee it.
Financial wellbeing is not the same as financial independence. Financial independence, which can be a subset of financial wellbeing, describes a threshold condition of having enough passive income to cover basic expenses.
The public conversation around money is often distorted by polarities: rich versus poor, happy versus anxious, saver versus spender. But financial therapy works in systems, not slogans. It’s not enough to feel good, and it’s not enough to manage money well. Wellness depends on how those elements function together.
Gafni’s article raised a real question but reached for the wrong answer. One does not need financial independence to have financial wellbeing. And financial wellness is not the same as emotional wellness. They are separate components of overall wellbeing. Naming them correctly is essential in order to build them both.
Rick Kahler, MS, CFP®, CFT™, CeFT®, is the founder of Kahler Financial Group, a Rapid City, SD-based fee-only Registered Investment Advisor.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
