Love. Money. Tango.

The Midlife Art of Financial Simplicity

Mikelann Valterra — Mon, 18 May 2026 01:30:50 GMT

Midlife is a natural moment to clear the decks. We shed old beliefs, old obligations, and—if we’re lucky—old jeans that never really fit. But one thing most of us forget to shed is the tangle of financial accounts we’ve collected over the years. Old checking accounts, leftover credit cards that are still open, savings accounts we opened for “a good rate” and promptly forgot about. Let the energy drain begin.

The Weight of Too Many Accounts

Sometimes the intentions were good: “I’ll pay the mortgage from this one, the bills from that one, and this checking account is for fun…” But then the transfer game begins, and the whole system becomes a juggling act.

Other times these extra accounts are left over ghosts from past relationships. You and your ex had several accounts, now some are yours. And you’ve opened new ones, of course. The weight of old accounts carry their own stale energy, sitting there like energetic clutter, quietly draining attention and resources.

Or you remarry and now you have many new accounts. When Robert and I married, we decided to go with joint finances. So, we chose one account and made it our joint account. I kept one credit card in my name; he kept his. But I still had to close several accounts. It was such a relief. Too many accounts were simply too much to track — and not how I wanted to spend my time. (There are many ways couples choose to “do” money. Not everyone goes joint. Some maintain separate finances or a hybrid. But always the question is— can it be simpler or streamlined in some way?)

Elegant Financial Simplicity

After thirty years of coaching, I can tell you this with absolute certainty: fewer accounts create more peace. Not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because complexity creates blind spots.

I call this, practicing Elegant Financial Simplicity. More ease, better vision.

And research shows that as the number of accounts increases, so do late payments, overextension, and that vague sense of “I should be on top of this, but I’m not.” Every extra card whispers “use me,” and every extra account adds another place for money fog to gather.

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Seeing the Tangle Clearly

When I first meet with clients, we draw all their accounts on the screen — checking, savings, credit cards — and then draw arrows showing how money moves between them. Often a large, messy tapestry emerges, lines crossing everywhere. “This account gets paid from that account, which gets funded from that account…” Then we sit back and take it in together. I often sympathize and say, ‘whew, I can see one reason you are frustrated with money!’”

That moment of seeing the tangle is powerful. It’s the first exhale.

Why Simplicity Works

When you have multiple accounts, it becomes hard to see how much money you have and where it’s going. You feel scattered, seeing only pieces of your financial life. Credit cards amplify this: you don’t “feel” the purchase as much when you charge something, as opposed to paying cash. (Imagine buying that angora sweater with a pile of dollar bills. It feels different than handing over a piece of plastic, doesn’t it?)

And when you multiply this disconnection to your spending by using several cards, it creates a free‑floating sense of unease. You’re not sure if you can afford the sweater, but you want it, and you have a card. It will probably be fine… until it isn’t.

If you ever ask yourself, “Which account should I pay this out of?” or “Which card should I use?” you likely have too many accounts. It shouldn’t be about the account. It should be about how a purchase fits into your overall finances and goals.

With fewer accounts, you “feel” your spending more. Trust me. As strange as that may sound, you want to feel your spending. It’s much harder to hide from your own spending when it is all coming out of one account. Easier visibility on your spending leads to greater clarity and vision.

A Dancer’s Lesson

I danced recently with someone who knew many moves, but none very well. Like the fog of multiple accounts, it was a strange, “foggy” dance, where I felt yanked around the floor as he was often uncertain which way to lead me. (He had too many accounts to choose from in his head!) I was pulled off balance, nearly tripping. I made a note to refrain from dancing with him again.

By contrast, a newer partner who focused on just a few moves — and did them well — was a pleasure. We sailed easily around the floor, enjoying the music.

Simplicity creates mastery. Simplicity creates ease. Simplicity lets you feel the dance.

The Emotional Truth: Money Fog

The more accounts you spend from, the harder it is to see your money clearly. This creates “money fog”. And money fog — the feelings of stress and anxiety caused by financial vagueness — thrives in complexity. (I wrote a short, powerful book about this that shares the stories of four women exiting the money fog.)

Money fog keeps you from looking up and seeing the bigger picture of your life. Instead, you feel fearful about your spending, overwhelmed by your finances, and sometimes guilty. You waste time juggling. The fog keeps you from looking down the road and asking, Where do I want to go? You are too busy driving slowly to avoid a roadside pileup from overspending or using the wrong account.

One of the fastest ways to exit the money fog is to clean up your accounts.

What Simplicity Looks Like

People who feel at ease with their finances almost always have:

one primary checking account
one or two savings accounts attached to it
one primary credit card, with a second as backup

That’s it. Simplicity.

I have been a money coach for many years, and I know this with certitude. The simpler the financial structure the easier it is to focus on what truly matters.

What matters? Building your savings for the future. Using your money to create a life you love right now.

Closing accounts takes effort — updating auto‑deductions, moving subscriptions — but it’s worth it. And almost everyone finds at least a few subscriptions they no longer want. It’s rare to go through this process of pruning away old accounts and not save money.

The Invitation

Multiple accounts are simply not worth the time and attention they take. Think of this as a kind of financial spring cleaning — clearing the wardrobe, reorganizing the kitchen cabinet, refreshing the spaces you actually live in.

Simple is magic. Anxiety drops. Life calms. Vision opens.

So ask yourself: Is it time to simplify things?

Please leave a heart or comment? What does “Elegant Financial Simplicity” look like for YOU?

The Night We Didn’t Dance

Mikelann Valterra — Mon, 04 May 2026 02:30:51 GMT

The life we built

It was Tuesday, and Robert and I were on our “chiropractic date.” Yes, we book back‑to‑back appointments like the adorable middle‑aged duo we apparently are.

We dance a lot. I mean a lot. Most Saturday nights you’ll find us at the same tango hall, hanging out with our tango friends, dancing with each other and others. We glide around for three hours straight and come home with feet aching and hearts full. And that’s just Saturdays. There are other dances, classes, private lessons… I sometimes joke with people that I work by day and dance by night.

When you love a physical hobby, you do what you need to do to keep your body going. I work out so I can keep dancing. We budget for chiropractic care so we can keep dancing. We meal‑plan so we can keep dancing. You get the theme.

And here’s the thing: insurance doesn’t always cover the stuff that actually keeps you functioning. But we find the money. Meanwhile, I quietly marvel at people who won’t pay for the extra physical therapy visits beyond the allowed insurance maximum, but think nothing of takeout three nights a week or another “meh” online purchase.

Don’t get me wrong — I love eating out. But if I ate out whenever I felt like it, there’d be no money left for dance lessons, let alone chiropractic care. So we grocery shop. We cook. We choose.

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Where the money goes

To be clear, I’m not talking about the woman whose soul lights up from travel, or the one who is delighted by quality food prepared in imaginative ways. And I have clients who value aesthetics highly and express this beautifully in their thoughtful wardrobes. Those are passions. Those are intentional.

I’m talking about mindless spending — the kind that dribbles away on convenience and habit while you groan about your back.

Robert hurt his back years ago as a premier gymnast at Penn State, so he works hard now to stay in good physical shape to keep the old injury at bay. He is mostly successful.

And I’ve struggled with back issues since the birth of my son many years ago. I won’t regale you with that messy, life threatening and skeletal tweaking disaster just yet. You’re welcome. My son made a good recovery. I was less fortunate.

So yes, we take care of ourselves.

The office staff thinks we’re “cute.” “You guys are so cute,” they chirp — all of them 20 to 30 years younger. “Cute” is what you call puppies, toddlers, and apparently couples who’ve crossed into the vast, foggy territory known as “middle age.” So being “cute” in their eyes isn’t something aspirational in my eyes. I soothe myself by remembering the complex, musical tango sequences we can dance that these sweet young things absolutely cannot. Take that!!

A life full of delight

I could see the chiropractor working on Robert’s back, Robert’s face smashed into the table, the doctor chatting merrily away. I gathered he was asking about our evening plans, and Robert’s response was garbled in the chiropractic face plant. I mused to myself that conversing with your chiropractor is second only to conversing with your dental hygienist.

I called over, “We don’t dance on Tuesdays.”

And then I paused. Because… wow. What a life. How many people have built a life so full of delight that not doing the thing you love is the exception?

And yes, it takes money to live this way. Tango shoes. Dance lessons. Chiropractic care. If we weren’t clear about where we wanted our money to go, it would leak out the door toward all the usual suspects: rideshares, takeout, impulse buys.

Lifestyle drift is the official term.

When convenience becomes the default

It’s so easy to spend on things that feel necessary. Other expenses lull you with the promise of convenience because you are tired or too busy. And of course, some spending, like that new purse, feels like a tiny hit of happiness. But here’s the truth: you get used to the new level of spending. The happiness hit fades. Ordering Uber Eats stops feeling like a treat and starts feeling like Tuesday. That is simply what you do when you are tired.

That is due to something called “hedonic adaption”. (It is sometimes called the “hedonic treadmill,” and I will write more about this treadmill we get stuck on, in future posts.) Simply put, our brains are wired to get used to a new “pleasure” and then return to a personal baseline over time. The treats we give ourselves don’t feel like treats for long. They soon feel like the new normal. And so, our lifestyle spending drifts upwards…

I don’t want my lifestyle to drift. I want to aim our money toward what matters: retirement, health, and the things that give us massive joy right now. Dancing.

Intentional spending. Intentional living.

This isn’t about virtue. There is nothing virtuous about spending money on tango lessons. It’s simply our passion. Intentional spending means: I want this thing more than that thing. It’s discernment. It’s choice.

Choosing what matters in midlife

Having finite money creates a choice machine. This is not a bad thing. You do have to choose what to do with your money. Otherwise, it simply leaks out, like water from a perforated hose. The simple truth is that unconscious spending may not leave enough for what you truly want to do. My clients often grieve the years of unconscious spending — all the places that money could have gone. When you don’t choose, life and money just… drift.

But now, in this powerful time of midlife when we get to consciously direct our lives in a new way, do you want to drift?

After our adjustments, we were tired. Going out sounded great. But we went home and cooked the groceries we bought yesterday. Because life is about tradeoffs. You can do anything you want — but not everything you want. So what do you really want?

Besides, it was Tuesday.

On the way out, I couldn’t resist showing the front‑desk fashion‑lover a photo of us dressed up at a recent dance. She oohed and ahhed over my tango skirt, shiny tango heels and fancy dance pose we struck for the camera.

Maybe being “cute” isn’t so bad.

Money Coaching Takeaways

Where do I want to aim my money?
Where am I drifting?
What’s one way I can redirect some drift toward something that actually matters to me?
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I’d love to hear your thoughts. And since money can be a tender subject, let’s meet each other with kindness. And would you give this article a heart? (Subscribe for free to receive my next article. You don’t need Substack to subscribe. I will arrive in your inbox.)

Why Tango Shoes Are So Bloody Expensive

Mikelann Valterra — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 22:50:04 GMT

If you love shoes, dancing, or pretty things (or all three), you’ll understand my love of tango shoes. And yes, they’re expensive — almost $300 a pair. But they’re not “fashion heels.” They’re precision sporting equipment. Yes, that sounds like a joke, but it’s true! And when you understand what tango shoes actually do, you realize you’re strapping your feet into a tiny, elegant device calibrated to your movement. If that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.

Now I’ve been a money coach longer than a tango dancer (30 years vs 10 years) but anyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with all things tango. And yes, it’s not a cheap hobby-- from lessons to travel to shoes. Oh the shoes!

So here’s where the money coaching comes in: This is a classic case of discerning between short‑term vs. long‑term satisfaction. Simply put, if something only gives you short‑term satisfaction, buy the cheaper version. Case-in-point: When I bought shoes recently for an outfit to attend my cousin’s wedding, I didn’t go to Nordstroms. DSW worked fine. But if something brings long‑term joy, it’s worth investing in — as long as you’ve planned for it. That’s what makes the purchase guilt‑free.

The Geeky Part: Why Tango Shoes Cost So Much

Tango shoes are handcrafted in small batches in Italy or Buenos Aires. You can’t even buy them at Nordstrom. You buy them from vendors at festivals, who function like part of a secret society whispering, “Try these… they’ll change your life.”

And they do.

The Engineering

Steel shank: shorter and more flexible than street heels, so the shoe bends exactly where you need it to without collapsing.
High‑quality leather upper: designed to mold to your foot over time. (Did you know we wear them barefoot so we don’t slide around in our shoes on the dance floor? Bare feet grip the leather.)
Extra padding: because tango dancers live on the balls of their feet.
Heel placement: centered under your weight, reinforced with nails, tango shoes pitch you slightly forward for correct tango posture. (Ballroom shoes pitch you slightly backward. And my feet still remember the pain of wearing the wrong shoes when I was a new dancer. I accidentally bought ballroom shoes.)

The Wildest Part

Tango shoes are engineered to release at 12–15 degrees of rotational force. That’s the angle where the sole and shank stop resisting and let you pivot.

Under 10 degrees? Too stiff — your knee absorbs the torque. OUCH.
Over 15–18 degrees? Too lose and slippery — you lose stability.

That 12–15° window is the sweet spot where the shoe holds you until you intend to pivot. As a tango salon dancer who lives on micro‑pivots and controlled dissociation (your upper and lower body often move in opposite directions in tango), this is knee‑saving magic.

A great tango shoe holds you… and then, around twelve degrees into a pivot, it releases. Suddenly your whole body flows. That’s why good shoes feel like butter.

The Festival: My Budget Meets My Dopamine

This year at Valentango — one of the biggest tango festivals in the Pacific Northwest — my top priority wasn’t dancing. It was shoes. Remember, you can’t buy them in a store.

I had budgeted $600 for two pairs. And here’s the thing people misunderstand about budgeting: Budgeting isn’t restrictive. It’s liberating. Because I had planned for this, I could plunge into the pleasure of it all without guilt or worry. My other financial goals were safe.

When we arrived, I raced to the vendor hall, determined to beat my friend Rebecca Raven (who wears the same size, same brand, but favors a slightly higher heel — thank goodness). She was already there, of course, taking in the shoes at the Julia Bella table. I dove into the tables anyway, dopamine firing like fireworks. (Scroll down for shoe dopamine picture.) Rebecca won the national senior Salon tango championship a couple of years ago, and I will unabashedly emulate her taste in quality shoes. She’s a gorgeous dancer and besides, we have similar feet.

I found a promising pair that Rebecca had just put back and waved over my dance partner (and husband) Robert, to lead me in a few pivots. When you dance intensely in heels, there is no margin for error. A bad shoe ends your night — and you have a week of blisters. A good shoe must still be broken in slowly, but it makes you feel grounded, powerful, and ready to fly.

Tango has taken me on the full emotional roller coaster — tears, bliss, peak experiences. When it works, it’s the ultimate feel‑good feeling. And the right shoes help make that possible.

After careful deliberation, I came home with two pairs. Did I want three? Yes. But 2 worked in my plan. Long‑term satisfaction achieved. Many great nights of dancing await.

The Money Takeaway

Intentional spending is not about deprivation. It’s about choosing joy on purpose. I often tell my clients, “You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want. So, what do you really want?” When you budget for what you love — whether it’s tango shoes, travel, or something entirely different — you get to savor the experience fully, knowing you’re honoring both your present self and your future self.

That’s the real luxury.

Take Way Tip: The next time you are debating a purchase, ask “Will this give me short- or long-term satisfaction?” If short, then buy the cheap version or the knock off. If long term, go for quality.

I’d love to hear your thoughts — dancers, intentional‑living folks, and curious readers alike. And since money can be a tender subject, let’s meet each other with kindness. And would you give this article a heart? (Subscribe for free to hear of my next article.)