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Needless to say, but finances can make any marriage, partnership, relationship, or whatever you call the dynamic between you and your roommate, tricky.

And I’d make the argument the word tricky, doesn’t do it justice. That’s why, at least from what I’ve seen over the years…the couples who really seem to be aligned are the ones who operate as a team. Not as two individuals.

I lived in five cities throughout my twenties.

On average, I moved every eighteen months. New York to Indianapolis. Indianapolis to Chicago. Back to Indianapolis. Boston. Indianapolis again. My parents’ house, which I’d love to pretend was a brief three-month layover, but unfortunately counts. Then Chicago again. Then Houston. Somewhere along the way, I crossed into a nomad-adjacent lifestyle where I technically had multiple mailing addresses at once.

I’m reminded of it constantly. Wedding invitations. Random packages. Holidays. Even food delivery apps. Someone is always asking where to ship something. For a while, I thought it was funny. Quirky. A decent cocktail party detail. But over time, I realized it shaped me more than I expected.

Along the way, I’ve gone from wearing a suit six days a week (yes even Saturdays still required a blazer), to wearing hoodies every day during my stint at a VC fund. I’ve spent a whole year traveling across three continents for Puma. I’ve also had stretches where I barely left my apartment because Habits didn’t require it.

If you zoom out, it probably explains why I’m obsessive about routine. Especially when it comes to time off.

When I get twenty-four hours to myself, or god forbid an entire weekend, I protect it. Phone in another room. A nostalgic video game I’ve beaten an embarrassing number of times. A comfort show I’ve seen a thousand times. Bouldering. The gym. A spicy margarita (or lately one of those THC-infused seltzers). Familiar things that make wherever I am feel like mine.

When your environment keeps changing, routine becomes your anchor.

This past Friday, Remington and I went bouldering at our gym. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically indoor rope climbing without the rope. Wherever you are, climbing gyms tend to attract humble, friendly, quietly intense people.

That night, everyone was talking about the winter storm rolling in. We shrugged it off until we got to Kroger around 9:30 p.m., which for us is not an abnormal time to start thinking about dinner.

The store looked post-apocalyptic in a very modern way. No produce. No meat. Shelves stripped clean along the walls. It felt eerily similar to early COVID, just without the toilet paper hysteria.

We pivoted. A few apples. The last plastic container of “fresh” blackberries. Loosely packaged Italian sausages that clearly no one trusted. Frozen vegetables. Chocolate milk. A massive bag of frozen blueberries. Sparkling water, because some people run on Dunkin and we run on seltzer. Somehow, Remington also found a couple of make-your-own pizza kits hiding in the chaos.

We headed home knowing we were about to be hunkered down for forty-eight hours.

Saturday morning came with ice and silence. I fell into a routine I’ve done on and off for years, regardless of city, job, or bank balance. A fifteen-minute walk outside. No phone. No headphones. Just observing whatever scenery exists, whether it’s pretty or not. Ten minutes of meditation. Then a smoothie.

One of our three remaining bananas. Frozen blueberries. Ice. Chocolate milk. Filtered water. Cold brew concentrate. Greens powder. Protein powder. Cinnamon. I’m being specific because it’s elite and you should try it. Do not forget the cinnamon.

Between eight and eleven am, one of three things happens. I read, rarely. I watch soccer or whatever sports are on that early. Or I play whatever video game or show I’m currently hooked on. That window hasn’t changed whether I was making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or barely two thousand a month. Whether I was in Ho Chi Minh City for Puma, rolling into Chase Tower on a Saturday, or swallowing my pride and moving back in with my parents while Habits was barely alive.

Routines are stubborn like that. They don’t care about your title, your income, or your zip code. They’re personal. And that’s probably why radical routine overhauls never stick. Things like 75Hard or juice cleanses. I’ve tried both. Overrated. Temporary. Performative.

Routines don’t need to be impressive, they need to be yours.

This is where money starts to complicate things quietly.

From a young age, we’re taught that more money leads to better routines. Better mornings. Better trips. Better services. Better stuff. More prestige. And in a capitalistic system, that logic makes sense. Responsibility leads to pay. Pay leads to access. Access leads to upgrades.

But through hundreds of conversations with Habits users and followers, I’ve noticed a pattern. The people who feel most grounded don’t use money to reinvent their lives. They use it to preserve them.

Money becomes less about upgrading and more about maintaining. Protecting the things that already work. The walk. The coffee. The gym. The people. The time blocks that make life feel coherent when everything else is noisy.

That snowed-in Saturday, I fully leaned into that. I planned on playing FIFA or NCAA Football for the billionth time when I realized my T-Mobile plan came with a free year of Apple TV. I stumbled into the F1 movie and lost two and a half hours immediately. Hans Zimmer did the score, he’s been my top Spotify artist for a decade straight, and Brad Pitt was in it. Ten out of ten. Zero regrets.

After that, I hit legs in our apartment gym. I know I sound like a hardo. This is not every Saturday. It was just the reset I needed. I showered, cracked open one of those “HI” seltzers with a touch of THC (very Gen Z, I know). Relaxed, not numb.

I forced myself to open a book I stole from my dad. Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway. I’m only about a hundred pages in, but it’s thoughtful. Reflective. Slightly uncomfortable, especially with a light THC buzz. His concerns around role models and masculinity stuck with me more than I expected.

At some point, I found myself craving chocolate milk for reasons I can’t explain. I reheated leftovers. Put on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Ate leftover pizza. And deliberately saved the Italian sausages, knowing they were the only non-frozen food left if this storm dragged on.

Nothing about that day was optimized. Nothing was impressive. It was quiet. Familiar. Grounding.

I’ve moved a lot, but I don’t plan on making it a habit forever. Still, stability has never really come from geography for me. It comes from repetition. From routines that travel with you. From knowing what you need when everything else changes.

Money and routines are more similar than we admit. Both are easy to obsess over. Both are tempting to overhaul when things feel stale. And both tend to work best when they’re boring, quiet, and dependable.

The mistake isn’t wanting more money or better routines. It’s constantly trying to upgrade them instead of asking what they’re actually supporting.

Sometimes the most mature use of money isn’t transformation. It’s maintenance.

The goal isn’t to build a perfect life, it’s to build one that still feels like yours wherever you land.

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