If your life was a movie, would you be happy with the story up to this point? What role does money play? It's time to flip the script, take control of your finances, and rewrite this story exactly how you want it. The Balancing Act helps you understand why you spend the way you do and educates you on how to change spending habits. You'll learn to better understand your personal finances and rewrite your financial script. While most people think more money is the path to financial freedom, research shows that is not always the case. Instead, human nature, marketers, and readily-available credit work to make us quickly adapt to every increase in income, then ratchet up our lifestyle and spending. Short-term gratification can overpower long-term goals and keep us from thriving financially. Research also shows that financial stress can negatively affect our decision-making capacity, leaving us susceptible to poor financial decisions and even more financial stress. Rather than being caught up in the rat race of continually striving for more, The Balancing Act shows us the way to financial freedom and finding contentment, reducing the stress of not having enough.The book includes a number of techniques and tools to help manage spending, eliminate debt, and stay on track to reach your goals. You will learn how the science of behavioral economics is important to understanding your spending, and methods to overcome those tendencies towards irrational decisions. Through the prioritize and compromise process, you can create a budget that builds a margin between what you have and what you spend. This margin then becomes a positive feedback loop, building wealth and sustainably improving your lifestyle. Ultimately, you'll be empowered to manage spending in ways that are most meaningful to you, achieve your long-term goals, reduce stress, and rewrite your financial script.