You Didn’t Fail, You Were Handed Bad Financial Options
- Davina Jackson
- Oct 6
- 14 min read
Welcome to The Woman CFO - where money, business, and lifestyle strategy intersect.
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The Truth About “Bad Choices”
We’ve all heard it before: “You are where you are because of the choices that you made.”
It’s the favorite chorus of financial gurus, budget influencers, and even well-meaning family members.
But truth be told, most of us never sat at a table full of good financial choices. We were handed a menu of bad options and told to “choose wisely”:
→ College without crushing student loans? That's not on the menu
→ Jobs that paid fairly for our labor? Nope, nowhere on the menu
→ Affordable housing in safe neighborhoods? Also missing from the menu
→ Credit that wasn’t predatory? Definitely not on the menu
So, we did what anyone does when the house is rigged: We picked the least bad option.
→ We signed the loan papers because there was no other path to mobility.
→ We took the underpaid job because “experience” was supposed to open doors.
→ We swiped the credit card because the alternative was falling behind.
The message is clear: If we don't take the least bad option, any resulting struggle is your fault. But struggle isn't failure. It’s the system working exactly as it's designed.
And yet, the blame game persists.
Society would rather point fingers at individuals than admit the system profits from our debt and dead-end options, and that the deck was stacked long before we sat down to play.
This post challenges that narrative.
We're going to unpack why the “bad choices” story is incomplete, how bad financial options shape our lives, the strategies that actually give you breathing room, and how to build better paths forward.
This isn’t about dodging accountability. It’s about shifting the conversation because shame won’t fix the fact that the rules were written against us... but breaking them and rewriting our own will.
Let’s get into it.
TL;DR — What You’ll Get from This Post
We’ve all been told money is about “choices,” but that story leaves out the reality many of us have lived: bad financial options are often disguised as opportunities.
This post unpacks why the system is stacked, how shame keeps us stuck, and what it really takes to build better options.
Inside this post, we’ll cover:
Why the “your choices got you here” narrative leaves out half the truth
How bad financial options — from student loans to credit traps — were rigged from the start
What accountability really looks like when it’s rooted in context, not shame
Structural shifts that expand your options instead of shrinking them
A redefined version of progress that holds in today’s rigged economy
Instant Gratification Zone: Skip to the Good Stuff
The Blame Game We’re Taught
From the time we’re old enough to open a bank account, we’re told the same story: “You are where you are because of your choices.”
→ Didn’t save enough? Bad decision
→ Drowning in student loans? You should’ve picked a cheaper school
→ Struggling with credit card debt? Clearly, you lack discipline
It's a tidy, simple, and cruel little narrative. One that pins your financial reality entirely on personal responsibility, as if every option laid in front of you was fair and viable.
But the truth is: most of the “choices” we were handed weren’t choices at all. They were traps disguised as opportunities:
→ The “dream degree” that came with decades of debt.
→ The “entry-level job” that barely covered rent but promised future growth (that never came).
→ The credit card that was supposed to be a lifeline but turned into a leash.
None of that proves you failed or made bad choices. What it proves is that the system (continuously) profits from keeping your menu of bad financial options small, expensive, exhausting, and designed to benefit someone else (and not you).
That’s the real danger of this blame game: it always circles back to you.
If you’re struggling, you must have done something wrong.
But that's not accountability, it’s conditioning. Conditioning that's designed to keep you locked in shame for outcomes that were never fully in your control, instead of giving you real solutions.
Because if you believe your situation is purely the result of poor decisions, you’ll waste energy punishing yourself instead of asking the better question: Who benefits when my only options are bad ones?
Once you start asking that question, the picture shifts to: it was never about bad decisions. It was always about bad options.
And that’s where we go next: to unpack the so-called “choices” we were handed, and why they were stacked against us from the start.
When Bad Financial Options Were All You Had
It’s easy to say “make better choices” when you’ve never had to live with a menu stacked against you.
The story we’re told is simple: if you’re drowning in money problems, you must’ve made a bad decision.
But the reality is very different: most of us weren’t choosing from a buffet of good options.
We were cornered into weighing which option would hurt the least and take us down the least damaging path, not the best one.
And those limited choices show up everywhere in our lives. Here are the most common (and damaging):
Student Loans
College is often sold as the only option, the only ticket out.
With it, you'll finally be on the path to stability, opportunity, and a future that finally makes sense.
It makes the message very simple: if you want a better life, get a degree(s).
But for many of us, there was no family safety net to help us through college.
No parents to write tuition checks, co-sign loans, or help with rent.
The choice was to take on debt or let the door to upward mobility close completely.
So we did what we were told: we enroll, sign the paperwork, and borrow because it's the only way forward.
But those loans aren’t short-term sacrifices. They're lifelong commitments designed like financial quicksand. Interest piles on top of interest until you realize you’ve been paying for 15 or 20 years... and somehow still owe more than what you borrowed. Some balances even outlast a mortgage.
And the cruelest part? We were told this was the “responsible” choice. The cost of ambition. The price of doing things “the right way.”
But what’s framed as personal responsibility is actually systemic design: a trillion-dollar industry that profits from our pursuit of education while lenders, not students, come out ahead.
Yet the narrative still points the finger back at us: if you’re struggling to pay off loans, it must be because you mismanaged your money - not because the loan structure itself was predatory from the start.
The truth is, student loan debt isn't a personal failing. It's a system that hands us debt disguised as opportunity and dares to call it progress.
And when those loans finally deliver you to the workforce, the story doesn’t get much better.
Work & Your Paycheck
Work and wages are supposed to be the payoff for getting your degree.
The proof that doing everything “right” has eventually paid off: You got the degree. You landed the job. You showed up and did the work.
But instead of stability, many of us find ourselves stuck in a new kind of squeeze.
Paychecks that barely cover rent also have to stretch to cover student loans, rising food and housing prices, and insurance premiums that cost more every year.
After taxes, childcare, and basic bills, there’s nothing left to save and certainly nothing left to build with.
And the problem runs deeper than math:
→ Entry-level roles that are meant to be stepping stones often turn into cages
→ Promotions lag behind performance
→ Raises don’t keep pace with reality
→ The wage gap ensures you’re working harder for less while carrying more of the fallout at home
→ Even the “good job” - the one with benefits and a decent title - can still feel like a treadmill that never stops
In the end, you find yourself running harder each year just to stay in place.
And when your paycheck can’t stretch far enough to meet the cost of simply existing, you're told to “just budget better.”
You can’t budget your way out of wages that were never designed to meet the cost of living - not when the system was built on your underpayment and overwork.
So when your paycheck can’t stretch far enough, the system has another “solution” waiting for you: credit.
Credit Solutions & The Illusion of Freedom
When your paycheck can’t stretch far enough, the system doesn’t hand you relief.
It hands you credit: Credit cards. Payday loans. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL).
They all arrive wrapped in the language of freedom: “flexibility,” “instant approval,” “buy now, pay later.”
It sounds empowering... until the bill comes due and you realize this "freedom" comes with 29% interest.
In reality, what these tools really offer isn’t breathing room; it’s borrowed time.
Every swipe, every installment, every “just $50 a month” payment quietly eats into your next paycheck before it ever hits your account.
And here’s the trap: the system counts on it.
Why? Because when your wages can’t keep up with your life, debt becomes the business model. Every late fee, every rollover balance, every “convenience” charge keeps the machine running (just not in your favor).
What’s worse, the shame that follows will keep you from questioning that setup.
You start thinking, I should’ve known better, when the truth is that credit was built to look like choice while quietly tightening the leash.
So no, it’s not carelessness. It’s design.
It's a system that calls it “access” while monetizing your need for a safety net.
And if credit is the illusion of freedom, housing is the illusion of stability. The cost of simply existing has become the system’s most profitable business.
Housing
Rent eats half your paycheck, mortgage rates climb higher every year (or month, in this 2025 hellscape), and homeownership feels like a finish line that keeps moving further and further away like a Charlie Brown cartoon with Lucy and that damned football.
But here’s what’s worse: the housing crisis isn’t just an unfortunate side effect of the economy. It’s a business model. Every delay, every interest hike, every rent surge is profit for someone else.
Landlords, lenders, and investors are all playing a game where your need for shelter is the prize. The average renter gets to pay record highs for apartments that haven’t been improved in years, while mortgages have become out of reach for entire generations.
And yet, we’re told that this is freedom.
→ That renting indefinitely is just “choosing flexibility”
→ That living with roommates into your forties is “smart financial planning”
→ That rising housing costs are just “the market doing what it does”
But the market doesn’t have to live with eviction notices, unsafe conditions, or another rent hike that wipes out a month’s budget.
For women - especially single women - this hits even harder. Many are carrying debt, supporting families, and trying to build stability in a housing system that demands twice the effort for half the reward.
That makes the so-called housing “choice” not really a choice at all: drown in debt, stretch yourself thin for a mortgage that locks you into decades of pressure, or settle for unstable housing that chips away at your peace.
Either way, the system cashes in on your need for shelter and calls it opportunity.
None of this adds up to personal failure. What it adds up to is a system that profits from exhaustion and traps disguised as opportunities, then hands you the shame bill when they collapse.
So, no. You didn’t fail. You played the only hand you were dealt. (Even if it was sh*tty)
But let this be your turning point.
If you can see this for what it really is, you can now shift the question to: what does real responsibility look like if shame isn't the answer?
Beyond Shame: A New Definition of Responsibility
After years of living under loans that never shrink, wages that barely cover rent, credit debt that piles up, and housing costs that keep climbing, it’s no surprise so many of us carry shame like it’s part of a balance sheet.
That shame isn’t harmless. It isolates you.
→ It convinces you not to talk about money because you “should’ve known better”
→ It keeps you replaying past decisions instead of questioning the system that limited your options in the first place
→ It drains the energy you could use to build something different
That’s the breaking point: staying in shame doesn’t change the system, it just keeps you stuck in it.
Once you hit the breaking point, you realize a shift that has to happen. You come to understand that accountability is still necessary, but only works in the right context.
That's because real accountability isn’t about beating yourself up for taking the only bad financial options you had. It’s about recognizing the rigged menu for what it was, and then deciding how you’ll build something that expands your future choices.
It's a different kind of accountability. It means:
Not punishing yourself for the loans you had to take, but asking how you’ll structure your money now so debt doesn’t define your entire future
Not blaming yourself for low wages, but deciding how to layer income or build skills that give you more leverage going forward
Not carrying shame for every financial “mistake,” but treating them as data points for how you’ll design stronger systems next time
In other words, accountability isn’t about carrying guilt for the hand you were dealt. It’s about deciding how you’ll play the next one differently with better tools, stronger systems, and options that work for you instead of against you.
This is the shift that matters because shame will narrow your world, while strategy will widen it. Shame will tell you the story ends with your mistakes, while strategy reminds you the story will continues with what you build next.
That’s the work ahead: moving from survival on someone else’s terms to building structures that expand your freedom.
Because accountability without context is punishment... but with context, it’s power.
Solutions That Aren’t Basic (And Why They Work)
If you’ve been handed bad financial options your whole life, the answer isn’t another budget app or another round of “cut your spending.” That’s surface-level tinkering on a system that’s broken at the foundation.
What actually works are solutions that shift the terms and systems that widen your menu, instead of shrinking it further.
So let's talk about what that looks like in practice:
1. Redesigning Your Money Environment → Stop Playing on the System’s Terms
The environment your money lives in matters because if the structures around you are built to drain, you’ll always feel behind.
Start choosing tools that work for you instead of against you, like:
Switching from fee-heavy banks to low-fee or community-focused credit unions that return flexibility.
Using purpose-based accounts (with names like bills, savings, joy, future) to create structure and clarity instead of letting everything blur into one balance.
Why this works: Clarity is your best form of resistance when the system is built to profit from confusion and penalties. That's because every redesign puts you back in control.
2. Enable Collective Resilience → Stop DIY-ing Everything
The culture of “do it yourself” convinces us that struggling alone is strength, but money was never meant to be handled in total isolation.
Your resilience will grows faster when it’s shared. So instead of going it solo, try:
Forming co-saving pods with trusted friends and family.
Pooling buying power for big expenses like childcare or shared groceries
Exploring trusted lending circles or credit unions built on shared trust, not predatory rates
Why this works: Collective strategies reduce isolation, stretch dollars, and remind you that strength multiplies when it’s shared. It can also help you hit goals faster and keep each other accountable.
3. Reframing Risk → Start Small & Build Agility
Too many of us wait for perfect conditions: the big raise, the $10K emergency fund, the investor check. Meanwhile, years pass.
Progress doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from starting where you are and taking consistent steps towards the goal.
Your first step is to establish your goal (it's ok to start small), then grow from there:
Test a skill or service with one client before building the whole business and website
Start with a $5 weekly transfer instead of waiting until you “have enough”
Build savings in layers instead of waiting for one big fund
Why this works: Agility is safer than perfection. Small, low-cost experiments can protect you from betting everything on one outcome and give you data you can build on.
4. System Leverage → Go Beyond Budgeting
A budget alone can’t hold up against a system that profits from your instability.
What you need are layered systems that make the essentials automatic and protect your energy for everything else.
Automate essentials (rent, insurance, debt minimums) so you never miss them
Layer income streams so one paycheck isn’t your whole story
Keep lifestyle spending flexible (so still feel human and not burnt out)
Why this works: The goal isn’t rigidity. It’s to make your core stable while giving yourself breathing space everywhere else.
Each of these shifts has the same purpose: to stop playing inside a system designed to box you in.
They’re not about hustling harder. They’re about creating options that actually work because you don't need a tighter budget, you need a wider net.
That wider net will do more than steady you in the moment.
It will create room to rethink what progress actually means when the old milestones no longer fit.
Because if the system was never built for you, then success can’t just be about playing by its rules.
It has to be about rewriting them.
Redefining Progress in a Rigged System
If the system was never built for you, then measuring your progress by its standards will always leave you behind.
That’s the trap baked into the narrative of “just make better choices": it tells you that progress = climbing a ladder that was never on solid ground in the first place.
The definition of progress in 2025 can’t just be “debt-free by 30” or “six figures by 40 or 50.”
Those benchmarks were created in another era, under rules that no longer apply (if they ever applied for women, especially those carrying both systemic wage gaps and disproportionate financial burdens at home).
Chasing those old milestones while the ground beneath you shifts isn’t ambition.
It’s an exhausting, never-ending road to nowhere.
So what does real progress look like when you’ve been handed bad options?
It looks small at first, but it runs deep. It looks like:
→ Setting up autopay on your essentials so late fees stop draining your wallet
→ Building a $100 buffer that turns an emergency into an inconvenience instead of a crisis
→ Redesigning your expenses so you free up $50 of breathing room without erasing your dignity or joy
→ Pooling resources with trusted people in your circle so the weight doesn’t fall entirely on your shoulders
→ Giving your future a placeholder like a $5 transfer, a Sunday money ritual, or a skill you invest in because you refuse to let survival mode erase your tomorrow
None of these actions would make a financial guru’s glossy “success story” reel.
But every single one chips away at the system’s grip and expands the choices available to you.
And that’s the point: progress isn’t about proving you can thrive inside a rigged game. It’s about building exits from it.
That's where the conversation shifts.
Bad options don’t mean you’re doomed. They mean you need different measures of success.
Every system you design, every anchor you drop, every collective solution you form is more than a personal win. It’s resistance to the cycle of exhaustion the economy keeps trying to normalize.
So... if the old rules demanded perfection, the new ones are about consistency.
→ If the old benchmarks measured status, the new ones measure stability.
→ If the old story said “you failed because you chose wrong,” the new story says “you win by building better choices than the ones you were handed.”
Stop measuring yourself against outdated mile markers that were never designed with you in mind.
Measure yourself against where you were last month, last week, or even last paycheck.
Did you steady yourself a little more?
Did you reclaim one piece of energy or dignity?
Did you make tomorrow’s options a little wider than today’s?
That’s what real progress looks like. And once you start defining it on your terms, the shame falls away, the blame loses its power, and the rigged system has fewer places to hold you.
Ready to Build Beyond the Basics?
You don’t need another lecture about lattes or discipline.
You need tools that hold up in the real world: tools that recognize the system is stacked and help you build stability anyway.
That’s what I share here on The Money & Lifestyle Blog by The Woman CFO: strategy that cuts through the noise, names the traps for what they are, and gives you a way forward that works in 2025’s economy.
Your story deserves more than surviving bad options. It deserves a strategy that expands your choices.
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