Danielle Labotka

02 June 2025

Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.

Though we may all strive toward financial success, achieving it doesn’t guarantee we will feel happy with our finances—something also known as financial well-being.

Our recent research finds 12% of people with high income and high net worth still struggled to feel satisfied with their finances. Why can we feel unhappy with our finances even when things may be going well for us?

Feeling financially well requires two components: We need to feel that our day-to-day finances are well managed and allow us to do what we want to do, but also we need to feel that our future finances are secure and will set us up to achieve our goals.

People who are financially successful, but don’t feel it, may be struggling with stress associated with their current finances or with their financial security.

For example, say you recently accepted a new job offer and have found yourself in the enviable position of making double what you made the previous year. As a result of this boost, you may have “upgraded” your life—buying a bigger home, a newer car, taking more vacations, and so on (something we refer to as lifestyle creep). But, even though your income is much better off than where it was a year ago, you are feeling more stressed.

Or, say you recently inherited a decent amount of money. Instead of seeing this windfall as an opportunity to improve your current life, you see it as a chance to secure the future you want. However, you’ve never had to think about how to invest and manage such a large sum of money before, so this inheritance is actually causing you stress because you’re unsure if you can grow it as you need.

In short, financial success doesn’t necessarily make us feel financially well, because we may be missing the habits, knowledge, and tools to feel secure in our present and future finances.

So, what can you do if your finances are better than ever but you’re not feeling the benefits?

Ask yourself: Am I stressed about my money now, or my money in the future?

Then you can dig a little deeper. What is the source of your stress? In our examples above, people were stressed because their spending was out of control, or because they didn’t know how to invest their windfall to achieve their future goals. You may find you have more than one stressor—you may even find you’re stressed about both the present and the future. Why?

Improving your financial well-being will require tackling your problems, starting with identifying what you’ll need for success. If you have a spending problem, you may have to develop a budget and learn how to stick to it. If you don’t know how to invest, you likely have to find some resources to teach you the basics. It can be hard to identify what you need, so tap trustworthy sources like educational tools provided by your banking or brokerage accounts or advice from a trusted advisor.

At this point, you may have identified several things you need to work on. Don’t try to tackle them all at once. Instead, pick one thing to work on and break it into manageable steps. For example, if you need to learn to budget better your steps may look like this:

Depending on the scope of your problem, you may also consider enlisting the help of a professional advisor or financial planner.

Improving your finances should be something to celebrate, but if you are not feeling in the celebratory mood, you may need to address some problems with your current and future finances.

AUTHOR

Danielle Labotka, Ph.D., is a behavioural scientist for Morningstar.

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