The Math Didn't Math.

I Did It Anyway.

Between Tables is where I explore the emotional, psychological, and practical sides of money, especially for women carrying a lot.

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Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

I left money on the table when I walked away from my C-suite role. I’m not going to tell you the number, but I’m also not going to pretend the number was irrelevant. It wasn’t. It was real, and I sat with the discomfort of it for a while. The version of me who had spent 15+ years building, climbing, optimizing had a hard time reconciling “walked away from a C-suite role” with the identity I had constructed around being someone who does not walk away from things.

But there were other parts that were real as well:

Every three weeks, I sit in a chair next to my mom while she goes through chemo. Not coordinating from afar. Not sending flowers or rearranging trips to get there when I can. In the chair. Every time. Holding her hand when the nurse comes in with the IV. Being the person she looks at. We watch Sebastian Maniscalco comedy specials, silently laughing until we cry and I get a little work done while she naps. I also wear a ridiculous outfit every time I show up. At almost 42-years-old, I have spent multiple 8-hour days in a room full of cancer fighters wearing everything from an elf costume to a rainbow tutu. No questions on what anyone is thinking. No embarrassment. I show up as a daughter wanting to bring as much joy as possible for her mama. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I am at bedtime more nights than not now. I’m there for the conversations the kids want to have at 8:47pm, when the lights are out and something is suddenly pressing on their minds. I’m there for the “in between” moments running errands, in cars, walking to school. For the conversations that don’t schedule themselves around your availability. For a long time I wasn’t there enough, and I knew it.

I put myself first. Not as a concept I nodded at while reading my 107th self-help book. As an actual organizing principle. I stopped doing the mental gymnastics of being everything to everyone at full capacity simultaneously.

The math didn’t math. I did it anyway.

What Made It Possible

I could make this choice because of decisions I had made in the years before. Not glamorous decisions. Not decisions anyone was watching or applauding. In my highest-earning years, I stashed money away. I kept our lifestyle largely the same as income grew. We traveled, and that has always been our family’s version of intentional spending. I don’t have one ounce of regret about any of it. But outside of that, we didn’t inflate everything else to match what was coming in. The house stayed the house. The daily spending stayed what it had been. I saved like someone who knew she might someday need options, even when I couldn’t see yet what those options would look like.

I didn’t know it would look like this. I didn’t know I’d be spending every third Tuesday in a chemo infusion center or negotiating bedtime questions at a stage of life when I thought I’d have more of it figured out. You never know what it will look like. That’s exactly the point. You build the financial foundation not because you have a specific scenario in mind, but because life will eventually ask something of you that no salary can solve on its own. The foundation is what makes the choice possible.

I work now because I want to. Not because I have to. If you have not experienced that distinction from the inside, it might sound like a small difference. It is not a small difference. It changes everything. How you show up, what you take on, what you say no to, what the work actually means to you. I landed back in work I had missed for years, work I can see myself doing for the rest of my career without ever thinking of it as something to retire from. That is everything.

The Paycheck Was Never the Point

Most career conversations I have with clients start with salary. How much is the offer. How does it compare to what they’re making. Whether they’re leaving money behind by accepting it or walking away from opportunity by declining. I understand why. Salary is concrete. It’s the number you can compare directly. It feels like the right place to start.

The problem is that most people stop there.

Salary is one variable in an equation most of us solve with incomplete information. Benefits alone account for roughly 30% of total compensation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which means two offers at the same base salary can be meaningfully different in real value once you factor in retirement match, health coverage, equity, paid leave, and everything else sitting underneath the headline number. Your compensation trajectory over five years matters more than year one in ways that catch people off guard. Research from economists Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever found that two people offered the same starting salary, one of whom negotiates a modest increase, can end up more than $1.5 million apart in lifetime earnings over the course of a career due to the quiet, compounding power of where you begin.

And then there’s the piece that’s hardest to quantify: what the role costs you in capacity.

A job that keeps you in survival mode is not a neutral financial decision.

When you are running at your limit, you spend more. Stress spending is documented and it is significant. You defer financial decisions because you don’t have the bandwidth to make them well. You miss contribution windows. You don’t get around to the conversation with your financial planner you’ve been meaning to have for four months. The role looks fine on paper while costing you ground. This is how you earn well, but fall behind on wealth at the same time.

What to Sit With

When I left, I did not make a purely financial calculation. I made a whole-life one. And the questions I asked myself are the same ones I’d ask anyone sitting in the middle of a career decision right now.

Not: what does this pay? But: what does this do to my net worth in five years, not just year one? When I build in the full compensation picture, the match, the equity, the benefits, the leave, what is the actual value? What would I keep after taxes and the cost of living wherever this role is based? And honestly: does this role give me enough margin to manage my financial life, or does it consume the energy that requires?

Those aren’t purely financial planning questions. They are life questions. The paycheck is where the analysis starts, not where it ends.

The answer I came back with when I ran my own version wasn’t a number. It was the recognition that I had built enough of a foundation to make a different kind of choice, and that making that choice was actually the whole point of building it.

That is what I want for the women I work with. Not a specific account balance or a retirement number that finally feels like enough. The option to make choices that aren’t dictated by the paycheck. To look at your own life and choose it deliberately rather than having it chosen for you by what you feel you cannot afford to walk away from.

Some of us are still building that foundation. Some of us are closer than we think. And some of us have already built it and are still waiting for permission to use it.

That permission is not coming from the outside. You’re going to have to give it to yourself.

I left money on the table. I sit by my mom’s side every three weeks. I am home for bedtime. I do work that feels like mine, on terms that feel like mine, with more presence than I’ve had in years.

The math that matters most is not on a spreadsheet. It’s in how you want your life to actually feel.

Disclosure: Between Tables is a space for reflection, education, and conversation around money and life. While I am a financial advisor and Founder & CEO of Allora Wealth, LLC, a California-registered investment adviser, nothing here should be taken as personalized investment advice. This writing reflects my own views and experiences and is meant to inform, not prescribe. If you need specific financial guidance, please work with a qualified professional who understands your situation. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training.