🎂Age: 35
📍Location: New Jersey
💼 Occupation: Full-Time Nurse, Part-Time Money Coach
💍Marital Status: Married
💸 Total Weekly Spending: ~$700
Prisca is all about calm, clarity, and control when it comes to money. As a nurse and part-time money coach, she juggles long shifts and side hustles while maintaining a rock-solid financial system she’s built over years of trial, error, and intention.
Her weekly spending is far from random. From $8 gas top-offs to $250 charitable donations, every dollar flows through a thoughtful routine. “I have a system… even when things are unexpected, there’s a plan for it,” Prisca told us. “That’s the beauty of it.”
Let’s look at how she spent her money over seven days.
Day 1: Soup, Seaweed Snacks, and Self-Awareness
💸 Total Spent: ~$45
Feeling under the weather, Prisca ordered pho for a soothing dinner, picked up seaweed snacks at Costco, and had an $8.25 therapy co-pay hit her account. “It just feels healthy,” she said of the soup, adding that when she’s sick, she gets the urge to shop for comfort. “But I did not do that.”
Her therapy costs recently jumped from $5 to $80 due to an insurance change — but she doesn’t miss sessions. “Every two weeks is kind of the sweet spot,” she explained. “I use my FSA, so I feel less anxiety about it.”
Day 2: Trader Joe’s Discipline, Amazon Strategy
💸 Total Spent: ~$53 (gift card covered part)
Prisca keeps her grocery game tight with a “two store max” approach: Trader Joe’s and Costco. “It actually made me want to buy more things when I used to go to four different stores,” she told Jean Chatzky. “So I decided to stop doing that.”
She gave herself room for one or two “non-list” items, and skipped a bulky toothpaste pack at Amazon Fresh. “If I want to try something, maybe I’ll go to a store that has it in the normal size first,” she said. “Whenever I make a mistake, I treat it as a learning experience.”
Day 3: EZPass Reality Check
💸 Total spent: $100
A $100 EZPass top-off was the only transaction of the day. “I don’t like having negative balances anywhere,” she said. Her husband had just started driving to work, upping their toll costs, but Prisca adjusted quickly, building it into his personal budget.
“We have his, hers, and ours money,” she explained. “EZPass is all him.”
Day 4: Payday, Donations, and Deep Gratitude
💸 Total Spent: $250
On payday, Prisca made a $250 donation to her religious organization and funneled money toward savings and debt payments. “There was a time I couldn’t [give],” she said. “So I’m always grateful to be able to continue doing it.”
Her savings system includes automatic transfers to a “spending sinking fund,” which she taps for joy purchases like massages or travel. “If anything feels like it’s going to bust my budget, the sinking fund comes to save the day,” she said.
Day 5: Small Payments, Big Insight
💸 Total Spent: $8.26
Prisca has a rule: never let her gas tank drop below half. “It’s very fulfilling for me to just fill up my gas tank for less than 10 bucks,” she said. “It feels great.”
She once ran out of gas on the highway in college and has no plans to relive that. “I aim for calm,” she said. “This is something I can control.”
Day 6: Dance Class = Instant Joy
💸 Total Spent: $25.98
Prisca spent $25.98 on two dance classes, and it was the best money she spent all week. “It’s the one place that I feel completely that I can be,” she said. “I get so much joy from people’s energy… I love any time I get to include it in my life.”
Day 7: Costco Run, with a Twist
💸 Total Spent: $72.79
The week ended with another Costco trip, but Prisca didn’t go herself.
“The secret to keeping my Costco bill fairly low… is by sending my husband to go with the list rather than me going,” she revealed. “It used to be that this would easily be $100, $200 every week. I am very proud of the fact that it’s this much.”
Final Reflections: Money, Mindset, and A Healthy Margin
💸 Total Weekly Spend: ~$700
Prisca’s week of spending may have added up, but it was far from stressful. “There was a time in life where I was spending money every single day,” she reflected. “And it’s so insane how being more intentional leads to you spending so much less without feeling like your lifestyle is being up-jumped.”
Thanks to her systems and sinking funds, she doesn’t have to worry when life happens. “I don’t have to worry about gas. I don’t have to worry about travel. I don’t have to worry about supporting my family if I need to,” she told Jean Chatzky. “My parents are getting older. It gives me peace to know that if something happens, I can step in.”
Her best advice: “Pay yourself first. Women crave safety, and having a strong financial foundation gives you that.”
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Want to track your spending with us for a week? We’re looking for more participants for our A Week In Her Wallet series! If you’d like to share your story, fill out this quick form — we’d love to hear from you.
