How rich you are depends on your bank balance, but how rich you feel depends on your neighborhood. In that sense, growing up, Chelsea Fagan didn’t feel poor. At least not at first. Living in a low-income neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina, hand-me-downs and used toys were the norm.

When her family moved to Annapolis, Maryland, however, things began to change. Suddenly, Chelsea’s classmates’ parents owned yachts. People laughed at her off-brand clothing. This greatly damaged Chelsea’s relationship with money. She learned to equate dollars with self-worth.

Ten years later, she found herself dodging debt collectors’ calls and being perpetually broke . Eventually, Chelsea used the windfall of her first publishing deal, a sizable advance, to turn her life around.

Initially chronicling her budget on a Tumblr, The Financial Diet has now become a premier destination for women to talk about their money. Together with her co-founder, Lauren Ver Hage, Chelsea turned all the lessons she has learned about money into a book, also called The Financial Diet .