The Cost of Menopause: A Must-Read by Shannah Game

Intro by Coach Tammy

Hi friends,

It’s Coach Tammy here, and I want to talk about something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough—the real cost of menopause. Not just the physical and emotional toll (though those are immense), but the financial cost too.

As women, we are often unprepared for how this transition affects every corner of our lives—including our bank accounts. This is a topic our health system has failed us in. There’s silence where there should be support. And frankly, I couldn’t have written this better myself.

That’s why, with her permission, I’m sharing a powerful and personal blog post from Shannah Game, CFP®, MBA—author of Unraveling Your Relationship with Money and creator of Money Out Loud. She beautifully captures the intersection of hormones, identity, finances, and survival.

This is real. This is honest. And if you’re anywhere near midlife (or even just want to be prepared), you need to read it.

Please take a few minutes and let her story sink in. I guarantee it will resonate.

With gratitude and solidarity,
Coach Tammy
Balanced Well-Being

I didn’t expect menopause to hijack my bank account.

But here I am—midlife, perimenopausal, staring at receipts that feel less like choices and more like survival strategies. Supplements. Therapy. Acupuncture. Amazon orders at 11 PM because I can’t sleep. $16 cocktails because I just need to feel… something.

No one warned us about this part.

We grew up thinking menopause was hot flashes, mood swings, and maybe some vague “someday” our moms whispered about with a glass of Chardonnay. But nobody said anything about the financial side. Nobody said your hormones could mess with your relationship to your wallet, your work, your body.

That’s headline news—and yet here we are, still not talking about it.

So I’ll go first.
Because my story might feel a lot like your story.

And if you’re in your 20s or 30s thinking, “I don’t have to worry about this yet”—let me tell you: it’s coming. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to be prepared.

In 2022, I thought I was dying.

It started with chest tightness, dizziness, and a surreal sense of floating outside my body. Then the racing heart, tingling hands, tunnel vision. I couldn’t catch a breath. For a week, I was flat on the couch, unable to move, convinced I was moments from collapsing.

I ended up in the ER sure I was having a heart attack.

I wasn’t.

The doctors ran tests and eventually sent me home with a diagnosis: panic disorder.

When the doctor came into the room, he sat down and placed his hands gently on my ankles. To this day, I can’t explain why that moment cracked me open. Maybe it was the sheer kindness of being still and held when my body felt like an electrical storm.

Then he asked me, softly:
“What have you been carrying?”

And I spilled. Divorce. Debt. Miscarriage. Hearing loss. The overwhelming weight of a body and a life I barely recognized anymore.

I didn’t know it then, but what I was describing wasn’t “just stress.” It wasn’t a mental health crisis in isolation.
It was perimenopause.

Here I am, one day post-ER—smiling through it all, recording a podcast episode because what else are you supposed to do?! (I even looked at a small photo of myself in my dance outfit at 9 years old to remind myself of who I am.)

Here’s the thing—I’d never been an anxious person. But suddenly my nervous system was on fire 24/7. Loud noises made me flinch. Tiny tasks felt Everest-sized. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror.

And like so many women, I white-knuckled it.

I tried supplements. Yoga. Meditation. Green juices. Journaling. I told myself I just needed to “get it together.” Anything to avoid the one thing I feared most: medication.

Fast forward to last year. After months of trying to out-hustle my own hormones, I broke.
I started SSRIs.

I remember crying in the pharmacy parking lot—not because I was ashamed, but because for the first time in two years, I felt a tiny crack of light breaking through the dark.

The meds didn’t “fix” me. But they gave me a fighting chance to rebuild. To feel human again. To remember what it felt like to be… me.

And only then could I see what had really happened:
This wasn’t weakness. This wasn’t a character flaw.
This was my body sounding the alarm.

This was menopause.

The estrogen drop. The progesterone rollercoaster. The way your nervous system becomes a live wire sparking with no warning.

It had cost me years of feeling like myself.
It had cost me work I couldn’t finish, opportunities I said no to, thousands of dollars in therapy, supplements, acupuncture, and late-night DoorDash orders because I couldn’t even think about cooking.

No one told me menopause had a price tag. But it does.

💳 The impulse Amazon orders at 11 PM when your brain fog feels like drowning.
🥵 The career pause (or full-on exit) because your body just can’t keep grinding like it used to.
💊 The medical bills for HRT, therapy, and everything your insurance refuses to cover.
🍷 The $16 cocktails you didn’t even want, but you’re desperate to escape the ache in your own skin.

This isn’t just midlife.
This is a full-body, full-wallet shakeup.
And nobody’s tracking it.

Here’s the kicker:

Women in midlife hold more wealth than any generation of women before us… and yet we’re bleeding money, time, and energy into a transition we were never taught to prepare for.

We’re told to save for retirement.
But are we saving for the years when your libido crashes, your sleep evaporates, and your grocery bills skyrocket because now your body rejects half the foods you used to eat?

We’re told to budget better.
But how do you budget for the quiet panic of “I don’t even recognize myself anymore”?

We’re told to work harder, be grateful, keep going.
But what happens when your nervous system taps out—and your paycheck follows?

Here’s what I think:

Menopause isn’t just a health event.
It’s a financial event.
It’s a career event.
It’s a reinvention event.

And it’s time we start treating it like one.

So tell me:

👉 What’s the financial side of YOUR menopause (or perimenopause) story?
Are you spending differently? Saving differently? Earning differently? Or just trying to hold it all together?

Hit reply or drop a comment—I want to read the receipts.

Because every dollar has a story.
And it’s time we stop keeping these ones quiet.

PS: I fought myself for months about whether I should talk about menopause. Who was I to say anything? I’m not a doctor or a hormone specialist. But here’s what I realized: I am a woman in the thick of it. I’m a financial storyteller. And I know how isolating it feels to navigate the emotional, physical, and financial chaos of this transition in silence. So I’m saying the quiet parts out loud—not because I have all the answers, but because I know I’m not the only one doing late-night math on the cost of feeling like myself again.

Read another great blog on the subject by Shannah: https://receiptsplease.substack.com/p/i-didnt-budget-for-menopauseand-now

© Shannah Game, CFP®, MBA
Author of Unraveling Your Relationship with Money | Creator, Money Out Loud