FoundHer FundHers x Wealth League: The Money Literacy Series. Money Needs a Job: Katja Jürgenschellert on Building Financial Confidence
Money is something most of us use every day, yet many of us were never properly taught how it works. We learn how to earn it. We learn how to spend it. We may be encouraged to save it. But what happens after that?
For the first instalment of FoundHer FundHers x Wealth League: The Money Literacy Series, I speak to Katja Jürgenschellert about a deceptively simple idea: money needs a job. Katja works with women to help them understand their finances, build systems around their money and make more intentional decisions about their future. Her approach is rooted in making finance simpler and more accessible, particularly for women who may have built successful careers or businesses but still feel that financial education is a missing piece of the equation.
Across this conversation, we explore what it actually means to give money a purpose, why earning more does not automatically create financial confidence, the emotional weight we can attach to past financial decisions, the importance of understanding your numbers and why it is never too late to begin.
This is the first of three conversations with Katja, published in partnership with Wealth League, exploring some of the foundations of money literacy. We begin with the basics. Because before we can make better decisions about money, we need to understand what we are asking our money to do.
Why This Conversation Matters
I have become increasingly interested in how much of our relationship with money is shaped by what we were never taught. I know this from personal experience. There is financial information I understand today that I wish I had understood much earlier in my life, before getting into debt and before beginning my own journey towards greater financial security.
That is one of the reasons I wanted to expand the scope of FoundHer FundHers. Financial literacy should not be something we only encounter once we have accumulated significant wealth. Understanding what comes in, what goes out, how to protect ourselves and how to think about the future are useful skills at almost every stage of our financial lives.
There is also a wider question of agency. Money cannot solve everything, and financial security is affected by income, opportunity and circumstance as well as individual behaviour. But understanding our own money can give us greater clarity about the choices available to us.
FoundHer FundHers exists to make conversations about money, capital and financial understanding more accessible to women. This series takes that a step further by getting into some of the practical knowledge many of us were never taught.
Because sometimes the most useful place to begin is simply understanding the basics.
Please note: This interview is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute personal financial, investment or tax advice. Investments can fall as well as rise in value, and past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Individual circumstances vary, so you should consider seeking appropriate professional advice before making financial or investment decisions.
A glossary of key terms and acronyms used in this interview is included at the end of this interview, for ease and clarity.
I think many people grow up seeing money as something that comes in and goes out, rather than something that should be directed with intention. When you say “money needs a job”, what does that actually mean in practical terms?
Most of us were taught to earn money and save it. Full stop. Nobody ever explained what comes next. So money piles up in a current account, which feels responsible, but it's actually just sitting there doing nothing.
When I say money needs a job, I mean it should be assigned a role with a clear purpose. Some, you use to pay your expenses; it’s role is to fund your life today, the necessities and the fun stuff. Some of it belongs in an emergency fund; its role is to protect you. And some belongs in ETFs, invested long-term, growing; its role is to build your future.
The problem isn't that women don't have money. It's that no one ever showed them how to direct it. Once you give each euro a job, the decisions become simple. You stop wondering what to do with a bonus. You stop overspending and over-saving in equal measure. You just follow the system.
You give money three possible jobs – buying life today, protecting you, or building your future. Most people's money is doing job one by default. How do you help women become intentional about jobs two and three without it feeling like deprivation?
The word "budget" has a lot to answer for. It makes people feel like they're being put on a diet, so they resist it.I don't start with restrictions. I start with numbers. What do you actually earn, and what does your life actually cost? Most women I work with haven't sat with those two figures side by side. When we do, it turns out there's almost always more room than they thought.
The reframe I use: you're not cutting back for sacrifice. You're redirecting money toward a future that's yours. Investing €500 a month doesn't feel like deprivation when you can see a projection that shows you could stop working ten years earlier than you planned. While living the life you want, by spending on things you truly value.
The other thing is that protecting yourself and building your future doesn't have to come at the expense of living now. The Wealth OS is designed around automating jobs two and three first, then spending whatever's left freely and without guilt. I believe constraint without purpose feels like punishment. But constraint with a clear destination feels like power.
When money sits in a savings account doing nothing, which is where most of your clients' money is when they find you, what job is it actually performing? And what is the real cost of that?
A savings account performs one job: it keeps your money accessible. That's it. The interest barely covers inflation. So we need to understand that the real job it's performing is psychological. It feels safe. It feels responsible. And that feeling is expensive.
Here's what the math actually looks like. If you leave €50,000 in a savings account for 20 years at 1.5% interest, you end up with roughly €67,000. Invest that same amount in a globally diversified index fund at a historically average return of 7%, and you end up with around €193,000. The difference is €126,000. Not from doing something complicated. From doing something at all. From giving it a the right job.
And that's before you factor in inflation eating 2 to 3% a year. The money that ‘feels safe’ is quietly losing purchasing power.
Many women build successful careers, lead teams and run businesses, yet still feel less confident when it comes to money and long-term financial planning. Why do you think financial education still feels like a missing piece of the equation for so many women?
Because it was never actually taught. Not at school. Not at home, for most families. And the finance industry, which could fill the gap, has largely failed women.
The jargon is deliberately hard to see through. The products are complex. Advisors mostly assume women need safer options and recommend accordingly. There's actual research on this. A study of a major German bank found advisors gave women more self-serving advice than men and steered them toward more expensive, less “growth” products.
So women learn very early that finance is not for them. The field signals: this is hard, this is risky, and people like you don't belong here. Of course confidence suffers. It's a rational response to a hostile environment.
What I've found is that the confidence gap closes fast when you take the jargon away, show someone what they actually own, and make the path concrete. Women don't have a capability problem. They were handed a bad map and people wonder why they don’t follow it.
For someone who feels overwhelmed or disconnected from their finances, where is the best place to begin? What are the foundational habits or shifts in thinking that matter most?
Start with clarity, not action. The instinct is to do something, open an account, buy something, move money around. But if you don't know your current numbers or your goals, any action won’t last. You’ll stop, or worse, sell.
The first step is sitting down with your actual income and actual expenses and seeing what's there. Not budgeting, not cutting, just looking. Most people have never done this properly. What comes in, what goes out, what's left. That's it.
The second step is an emergency fund. Before you invest anything, you need a buffer of 3 to 6 months of expenses in a separate account. This is the thing that stops you from selling your investments in a panic when the market drops. It gives you the necessary stability to stay the course.
From there, investing becomes much simpler. You know what you have, you have a cushion, and now you can start building for future-you.
A lot of financial advice is deliberately complex. You are known for the opposite: you give women a money system they can run for life in a matter of 8 weeks. How does that work? What do you say to the woman who thinks she needs a more sophisticated approach?
I ask her to show me the evidence that complexity works. Over the 10 years to June 2025, 98% of actively managed global equity funds sold in euros did worse than the index they were measured against. That's not my opinion. That's data. The ‘sophisticated’ approach has a 98% failure rate.
The strategy that wins is boring. A couple of diversified, low-cost ETFs. Automated monthly contributions. Leave it alone. Warren Buffett has recommended this approach in his shareholder letters for years.
The reason complexity exists is that simplicity doesn't generate recurring fees for the finance industry. Nobody can charge you 2% a year to hold a couple of ETFs. But they can charge it to "manage" a complex portfolio for you.
What I teach in 8 weeks is not a dumbed-down version of a sophisticated system. It is the system. The one backed by 200 years of market history, recommended by the best investors in the world. Most women I work with don't need more complexity. They need enough understanding of how markets work to trust the simplicity, and enough accountability to stay the course when the noise gets loud.
I’ve personally had to learn a lot about money later in life and through lived experience, rather than through formal education. I know many women feel they are “behind” financially. Do you think it’s ever too late to improve your relationship with money and build financial confidence?
No. And I want to push back on the "behind" framing entirely, because I think it causes real harm.
It makes women feel like they've missed a window. Like there was a race. They didn’t sign up in time and now they're somehow disqualified. That mentality keeps people stuck. All of a sudden, they don't start because every time they try, they’re reminded of the guilt of not having done it sooner.
Here's the reality: a 45-year-old who starts investing today still has potentially 20 to 35 years of compound growth ahead of her. Markets don't penalise late entrants. They reward anyone who shows up and stays.
Yes, the best time to start was ten years ago. The second-best time is now. That's not a cliché. It's compounding math.
What I've seen with every client is that the shift in confidence happens fast once someone gives them a clear plan. So, you're not behind. You're at the beginning, which is where everyone starts.
A lot of people associate financial confidence with earning more money, but are those actually the same thing?
Not at all. And this is one of the most common misconceptions and I make it a point with clients.
I've spoken with women earning €150,000 a year who have no idea where their money goes and feel genuinely anxious about the future. I've seen women on a fraction of that income who have a clear system, a growing investment portfolio, and a concrete date in mind for when work becomes optional.
Earning more helps. But it doesn't automatically create confidence. Without a system, more income usually just creates over-spending or over-saving. High-earners rarely update their money mindset and habits from when they made 50k/year. A bigger salary just amplifies existing patterns (and sometimes, chaos).
Financial confidence comes from understanding your numbers, knowing what you own and why, and having a clear picture of where you're headed. That's solved with knowledge and structure. Not more income.
The irony is that once you have the system, a higher income accelerates it significantly, kind of like super-fuel in a Porsche.
In your experience, what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about budgeting and financial planning?
Three stand out. The first is that you need a lot of money to start. You don't. The amount matters less than the habit. Starting with €100 a month and automating it teaches you the behaviour that matters. You scale from there.
The second is that budgeting means tracking every coffee. It doesn't. The only thing that matters is that your key financial commitments, your buffer, your investments, are automated and leave your account first. This way you never spend money that has another job to do.
The third is that you need to wait for the right moment. To invest when markets are low, to start when you have more disposable income, to wait until things feel stable. That moment doesn't come. The cost of waiting is always higher than the cost of starting imperfectly.
From my experience of teaching this to over a hundred women, most of what stops people isn't a real barrier. It's a story that they never fact-checked.
Many women carry guilt, fear or shame around money, particularly if they feel they have “made mistakes” financially in the past. How important is mindset and emotional relationship when it comes to building financial confidence?
Enormously important, and entirely underestimated. You can have the perfect strategy on paper and still not execute it because fear is louder than logic. I bet you that every woman knows she should invest. She's read the books. She understands the need. And she still doesn't act, because the moment she opens the brokerage platform, the anxiety spikes and she closes it.
That’s not because she’s incapable. That's a very human response to something that has always been framed as high-stakes and error-prone. The finance industry profits from that fear, by the way.
Guilt and shame from past decisions are also real. Someone who feels guilty for losing money to inflation, for spending money on things they didn’t end up needing, or for trusting the wrong person. It becomes a story about who they are with money, rather than a decision they made at a time with the information they had.
Part of what I do is help women separate their identity from their financial history. Your past decisions are not a character trait. They're data points. The question is what you do from here.
Many women spend years in survival mode, simply trying to make ends meet, care for others or navigate financial instability. How do you begin shifting from a survival mindset around money to a more intentional and empowered one?
The shift starts with a moment of certainty, not a mindset lecture. When someone is in survival mode, telling them to "think abundantly" is useless. So is “just look at the data and invest”. What they need first is certainty over their financials. That’s where an emergency fund creates breathing room. Seeing income and expenses black on white creates transparency. This changes the psychological equation because you’ve now put yourself in complete control. That one change, creating certainty, is where the shift begins for most of the women I work with.
After that, it's about making the future visible. When I show a client a projection of where her money could be in 10 or 20 years if she starts now, something clicks. The future becomes real. She starts to see scenarios of her life unfold.
The third thing is removing friction. When investing requires an active choice every month, it becomes easy to skip. When it's automated, it just happens. You stop relying on motivation and start relying on structure.
You have described that your clients often go from chaos and not knowing where to start to having tools and a plan they can work with for life. That sounds like more than a financial change. What actually shifts in a woman when her money finally has a plan?
It's not just financial. That's the thing most people don't expect when they enter my program.
The most common thing clients tell me is that they feel lighter. There's a mental load that comes with having an open, unresolved financial situation. It sits in the background of every decision: the career choice, the sabbatical, the part-time request, the argument with a partner about money. Once the plan exists, that weight disappears.
I've had clients describe it as finally being able to exhale. One told me: "I used to feel like I didn’t have any options other than continue work until 67. Now I’m discussing moving abroad in 10 years with my husband."
What shifts is agency. Women who had handed their financial decisions to a partner, or an advisor, or simply to inertia, suddenly have their hands on the wheel. They know what they own, why they own it, and what it's building toward. That's not just a financial change. That's an identity shift.
One of your clients set up an investment portfolio for her daughter so she would have €100,000 by the age of 20. What does it mean to you when financial change becomes generational?
It's the part of this work that stops me in my tracks every time. Most of us are starting from scratch. We didn't grow up in households where money was discussed openly, or where investing was explained as something ordinary people do. We're learning in our 30 and 40s what we should have known at 22.
When a client sets up a portfolio for her daughter, she breaks the cycle. Her daughter grows up knowing that investing is normal, accessible, and not reserved for people with finance degrees or large inheritances. She gets to start at 20 instead of 40. The head start of two decades of compounding is worth hundreds of thousands of euros, but the more lasting thing is the belief that comes with it.
I also love what it says about the client herself. She's not just building security for her own future. She's writing a different financial story for her family. That's the kind of change that moves forward through generations. Subconsciously, maybe that’s always been the real goal of my work, but I never expected it to happen so naturally.
Social media often presents wealth in a very performative way, with luxury lifestyles and quick success stories constantly being pushed online. How can people stay grounded and build healthy financial habits without falling into comparison or pressure?
The first thing I tell clients is: the people performing wealth online are almost never the people building or owning it.
Real wealth accumulation is boring to watch. You automate a monthly ETF purchase and then you don't touch it for 20 years. That doesn't make a reel. What makes a reel is a Porsche, a yacht, a crypto win. None of that is a strategy. It's a highlight.
The comparison trap is real, though, and ignoring it doesn't work. What does work is having your own number. When you know exactly what it takes for your specific life to become financially independent, someone else's Porsche becomes irrelevant. It's not in your plan. Your plan has different coordinates.
I also think it's worth being honest about what we're actually watching when we scroll. Most financial content is designed to make you feel behind, anxious, and like you need to do something fast. The antidote is knowing what you value, and then build a clear system and the discipline to leave it alone.
What does “giving money a job” look like beyond paying bills and surviving month to month? How can people start thinking more intentionally about the future, even if they are starting small?
Start by defining what you're actually working toward. Not a vague idea of "financial security", but a concrete picture. At what age do you want to fully or halfway retire? What does that life look like? What would it cost?
When you have a number and a timeline, the monthly investment amount becomes obvious. Suddenly you're not just putting money away and hoping for the best. You're funding something specific.
The practical starting point for anyone starting this on their own is small and automatic. Pick a globally diversified, low-cost index ETF. Set up a monthly automatic purchase, even if it's €100 to start. Schedule it to leave your account on payday so you never decide whether to do it. That's it. From there, increase the amount whenever your income grows.
Are there any practical systems, tools or habits that you personally recommend to help people become more aware of where their money is actually going?
Yes, there are three things that I use myself and build into the programme with every client.
First, a cashflow tracker. Not an app that logs every purchase, but a monthly view of what came in and what went out, in categories broad enough to be useful. Income, fixed costs, investments, variable spending. That's all you need to see the picture. And you want to automate as much of this as possible.
Second, a wealth tracker. This is the one that genuinely changes behaviour. When you can see your total net worth and your projected portfolio value at 55, 60, 65, you stop making short-term decisions without thinking about the long-term cost. The projection makes the future real.
The combination of seeing where you are and seeing where you're headed covers 80% of what most people need. The other 20% is accountability. Someone who will ask the uncomfortable questions and keep you honest when markets drop and panic sets in. I hired a business coach this year for €8,000 because I knew the cost of going it alone, in time, in mistakes, in missed momentum, was higher. My clients make the same calculation.
Good financial behaviour requires discipline. But it also requires the right structure, and for some people, the right person in their corner while they build it.
What are some of the small financial decisions people underestimate, but which can make a significant difference over time?
The invisible fees of the finance industry. Almost nobody looks at it, and it quietly costs a fortune.
Assuming an average annual return of 7%, the difference between a fund charging 2% a year and an index ETF charging 0.2% over 30 years on a €300,000 portfolio is roughly €860,000. Not a rounding error. Almost a million euros, either in your pocket or the fund manager's, depending on what you chose.
The second one is the timing of contributions. Investing on payday, before you've had a chance to spend, versus investing whatever's left at the end of the month, sounds like a minor difference. In practice it's the difference between a portfolio that will fund your life and an empty one.
The third is switching to an accumulating ETF rather than a distributing one. An accumulating ETF reinvests dividends automatically. A distributing one pays them to you as cash. Most people spend that cash. The compounding effect of reinvested dividends over 20 years is significant. The tax treatment of accumulating and distributing ETFs varies depending on your country of residence and individual circumstances. It’s worth checking with a local tax adviser before choosing between the two.
None of these are exciting. None of them are going viral on social media. All of them move the needle.
For women building businesses, freelancing or navigating inconsistent income, what mindset shifts are particularly important when it comes to managing money well?
Firstly, in those positions, you are your own safety net. So before touching investments, your safety buffer must be bigger. Then most important shift is from "I'll invest when income is stable" to "I invest based on what came in this month, however small that may be."
Waiting for stability is a big trap. Income is rarely perfectly stable for very long. If your plan depends on a consistent salary, you'll never start. The alternative is a percentage-based approach. Whatever comes in this month, a fixed percentage goes to your investments. The amounts vary. But you still build the habit.
The second shift is around your own salary. Many women who run businesses pay everyone else first and pay themselves last, or inconsistently. That's backwards. Your salary is a business cost. Pay it consistently, even if it's lower than you'd like, so your personal financial system has something predictable to work with. You also need this record for loans, credit scores etc.
Finally, if there is one thing you wish more women understood about money earlier in life, what would it be?
Money is power. Not in the abstract sense, not as a personality trait. In the most practical sense: money gives you options. The option to leave. The option to stay. The option to choose work because you want to, not because you have to. And you should never hand that ownership over your money to someone else – no partner, no banker should know your financials better than you.
And the biggest lever you have to build it is not your salary. It's time.
Most women I work with come to me frustrated that they didn't start sooner. I understand that feeling. But the point is not to mourn the time you didn't use. The point is to stop wasting the time you still have.
A massive thank you to Katja Jürgenschellert, for agreeing to be interviewed for FoundHer FundHers, and becoming a part of the STYLISA FoundHers community. If you’re interested in finding out more about her work:
Connect with Katja on LinkedIn
FoundHer FundHers Takeaway:
Give your money a purpose. Money does different jobs. Some supports your life today, some protects you from the unexpected and some can be directed towards your future. The starting point is knowing what you need your money to do.
Clarity comes before action. Before opening accounts, investing or making major changes, understand your current position. What comes in? What goes out? What is left? Financial decisions become easier when they are based on reality rather than assumptions.
Earning more and financial confidence are not the same thing. A higher income can create more possibilities, but it does not automatically create financial confidence. Understanding your numbers, having a system and knowing what you are working towards matter too.
Your financial history is not your identity. Debt, missed opportunities and previous financial decisions can carry enormous emotional weight. They are part of your history, but they do not have to determine what happens next.
You are not “behind”. Feeling late can become another reason not to begin. Time matters, but so does what you choose to do with the time available to you now.
Systems can be more reliable than motivation. Automation, regular tracking and clear financial structures can remove some of the decision-making that makes managing money feel overwhelming.
Looking wealthy and building wealth are different things. Social media can make wealth look fast, glamorous and highly visible. Long-term financial progress is often far less exciting to watch.
Money can create options. Perhaps the biggest lesson is not about accumulating money for its own sake. Greater financial security can give us more agency over how we work, live and make decisions.
FoundHer FundHers Glossary: October Edition
Because understanding the language is half the battle.
Accumulating ETF: Confidence, culture and permission often have a greater influence on women’s financial decisions than financial education alone.
Automation: Setting financial actions, such as transfers or investments, to happen automatically at regular intervals.
Brokerage Platform: An online service through which people can buy, sell and hold investments.
Cash flow: The movement of money coming in and going out over a particular period.
Compound growth: Growth that occurs when returns are earned not only on the original amount invested but also on previous returns.
Distributing ETF: An ETF that pays income generated by its investments, such as dividends, directly to investors rather than automatically reinvesting it.
Diversification: Spreading investments across different companies, sectors, markets or asset types to reduce reliance on any single investment.
Emergency Fund: Money kept readily accessible to cover unexpected costs or periods when income falls.
ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund): A type of investment fund that can hold a collection of assets, such as shares in many different companies, and is traded on a stock exchange.
Financial independence: Having sufficient financial resources to support your lifestyle without being completely dependent on employment income.
Fixed costs: Regular expenses that tend to remain relatively consistent, such as rent, mortgage payments or subscriptions.
Index: A collection of investments used to represent and measure the performance of a particular market or section of a market.
Index fund: An investment fund designed to track the performance of a particular market index rather than trying to outperform it through active investment decisions.
Inflation: The general increase in prices over time, which reduces what the same amount of money can buy.
Investment Portfolio: The collection of investments owned by an individual or organisation.
Net worth: The value of what you own minus what you owe.
Purchasing power: The amount of goods and services that money can buy. Inflation can reduce purchasing power over time.
Working capital: Money available within a business to fund its day-to-day operations and short-term financial obligations.
Working capital: Money available within a business to fund its day-to-day operations and short-term financial obligations.
The Wealth OS: Katja’s programme teaching women how to turn their income into an investment portfolio designed to help fund their lifestyle.
Comments