What Happens When Your "Perfect Plan" Falls Apart? | E63
In this deeply personal and vulnerable episode, Deb shares a major announcement: Beyond Budgets® is going on pause. After two and a half years of hosting this podcast, she steps back to focus on an unexpected and challenging health journey. But this isn’t just a goodbye; it’s a powerful reflection on what happens when even the best-laid plans fall apart.
💡 What This Episode Covers
1. A Pause, Not a Full Stop
Deb explains her decision to step away from the podcast (for now) while navigating ongoing medical uncertainty. She reflects on the impact the show has had and where listeners might still find her voice in the future.
2. When Planning Meets Reality
A lifelong planner, Deb wrestles with the uncomfortable truth: even the most disciplined plans cannot prevent life’s curveballs. This episode reframes planning as something flexible, not rigid.
3. Living in Uncertainty
With no clear diagnosis yet, Deb shares what it’s like to live in the “in-between”—where answers are delayed, and fear can creep in.
4. Five Lessons for Navigating Life’s Unexpected Turns
Give Yourself Permission to Grieve
Cling to Hope (Even When It’s Hard)
Hold Plans Loosely
Break Out of Routine
Refocus on What Matters Most
5. Financial Life Planning
Deb shares real client examples showing how financial plans must evolve with life changes, especially during health crises or major transitions.
❤️ Key Takeaways
Life won’t always follow your plan, and that’s not failure.
Financial plans should be living, breathing guides rather than rigid scripts.
Uncertainty can be a powerful teacher of priorities.
📌 Resources & Next Steps
Revisit past episodes, especially:
Follow the podcast so you’re notified if and when it returns
Watch for potential future content on the Catholic Money Mastermind podcast
Connect with Host Deb Meyer, CFP®
Founder of WorthyNest®, helping faith-driven parents build financial plans that reflect their values.
Download your FREE guide | Follow us on YouTube | Take the Financial Wellness Quiz
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:03.84)
Okay, before we get into today's episode, I do need to make a big announcement. We are actually putting pause on the Beyond Budgets® podcast. And if you want to hear the real rationale behind that, you have to listen to the full episode here. But, just to be brief, I'm not quite sure when or if the podcast is going to restart. I haven't figured that one out yet.
It's been two and a half years, and I am so grateful for every listener … whether you've been with us from the beginning or just recently found out about the podcast. It's been a true joy being the host of Beyond Budgets®. And I really hope it has helped your family on the financial journey, especially when you think about making decisions that are aligned with your values.
This has been a labor of love, and I hope I can pick it up in the future again. But if I don't, you might find me over at the Catholic Money Mastermind podcast sometime this fall or in the future. Right now, that podcast is hosted by Ben Martinek. He and I are both members of the leadership team for Catholic Financial Planners Network.
And we may increase the number of episodes happening over on that platform. So if that happens, I will likely be another host to alternate with Ben. All right.
The theme of this episode: What do you do when life doesn't work out as planned?
I have always been a planner at heart. Even from the time I was little girl, I was planning lessons for my fake students or trying to plan the next family trip. I just love planning, and I think some of that has stemmed from a desire for control. I really like trying to control outcomes of things.
I was taught that if you put in effort and practice, like with grades or with sports (and you have some level of talent in sports) that you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to. That was something my dad instilled in me quite a bit. You can do whatever you put your mind to.
You know, for a lot of people, if you do put a plan into place and you are disciplined following that plan, yes, you can achieve the goal. But in practice, that doesn't always work out. It's a great theory and it does work out, you know, maybe 90 % of the time, but there's that 10 % where things just don't go according to plan where life will throw you a curve ball or two.
It's how you adapt to those curve balls that is really going to determine, you know, whether you're on a great pathway going forward, or if you just fall into hopelessness and despair. So I had to rerecord this episode because I got overly emotional in the first episode.
And ironically, I had a completely different episode planned for today, but, I guess my audio wasn't working on the one I recorded like a week or so ago. So you are getting me being very vulnerable, being very honest about why I am putting pause on this podcast and kind of reevaluating everything right now. I have been on a health journey since the beginning of this year, and it has been to put it in the words of my sister, “a roller coaster that I cannot get off.”
I was talking with her a few weeks ago after some not-so-great news. And I'm not a big fan of roller coasters. I am more of a Ferris wheel type person. So I'm going to use the Ferris wheel analogy. It's like I'm stuck at the top. Something needs to be fixed on the bottom, but we just don't know when it's going to be done.
Deb Meyer (04:30.464)
Yeah, without getting into too many specifics, I've been through kind of every test and procedure imaginable. I've had two different biopsies all in a span of like two months. And I have to go for another procedure in a couple of weeks, a surgery.
I don't have an official diagnosis as of today, but I have had two different doctors tell me we haven't really been able to rule out malignancy. And this is the next step diagnostically for me to figure out whether I have that six-letter word that begins with C that no one wants to have.
My honesty with you is much more composed than I was the first time I recorded this. But it's hard news to deliver, and it's been difficult … not only for me, but also for my husband. My oldest son has known a lot of these tests and things. We're about to tell our two younger sons later today.
Yeah, it's been a lot. And one of the main things that I've learned in all this is like, God has been slowly preparing me. I was talking to my mastermind group earlier, like in January, when I had some suspicious pain in this particular area. And...
We were talking about plans and you know, like we, even got to go on a cool retreat with my mastermind group and worked out plans for the rest of the year. And it was funny because our leader, Sterling Jackwith, she was like, yeah, so you have all these cool plans, but you also mentioned you're a little afraid of this pain. that.
Deb Meyer (06:53.196)
something we need to, like I'm surprised it didn't come up on the retreat. And I'm like, yeah, I'll just deal with that when it comes, if it comes, right? And apparently it's coming. I've been, ever since that retreat, the tests and the prognoses have not been favorable for the most part. But it was interesting too, like just talking with my mastermind group of the,
the business, like usually this time of year, I'm signing on a lot of new clients. I'm bringing on, you know, bigger workload and like, that just wasn't happening for me this year. And I was like, Hmm, that's odd. Like this is the time of year. Most people get their finances in order and like really are excited to tackle things and, it just wasn't really happening. And,
I think it was a blessing in disguise because honestly, like if I would have had a bunch of new clients come on, in the early part of this year, like I wouldn't have had time for all the medical appointments that have been thrown my way. so.
Yeah, that is one lesson I've learned, just as more of like an immediate, thing. And I just want to, before we move on, I just want to take a quick break and acknowledge that. Yes, this is the pause to the podcast. don't know if it will restart or not. So I don't want to call it an ending, but it is at least a goodbye of sorts for, for now. and I would encourage you, you know, if you've
whether you've been listening from the beginning and in late 2023 or, you know, more recently discovered the podcast, just go back through some of the earlier episodes and see what speaks to you. Cause, I really did put my heart and soul into this and I just feel like it's the right time to kind of focus on my health and make sure, things go smoothly in that area in the coming months. So.
Deb Meyer (09:07.938)
the other thing I would encourage you, you know, we've had a lot of good interviews and most of those guests have their own podcasts. So if you're looking for other podcasts to listen to, check them out. Like, Joe Salsehi and Mike Kim, like both have excellent podcasts and, trying to think of who else I'm, I'm, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of other people that have podcasts that have been, guests, but, everyone.
That is, I know in some way, or form, I'm going to try to continue putting out content. I just don't know in what way or form that will be and likely it won't happen until the fall at the earliest. So again, my encouragement to you is kind of go back to some of those earlier episodes.
If something spoke to you then, great. We listened to it. Maybe you weren't in the season of life where it made sense, and now it's a good time to revisit it. Maybe your kids were in middle school, and now they're in high school, so you can be listening to stuff on college planning or dual enrollment. All of those are great episodes to re-listen to. All right.
and also make sure just as a practical matter that you're following the podcast on your favorite podcast app. That way, if we do release episodes in the future, you'll get the notification automatically. Okay. So let me continue. What should you do when facing a big period of uncertainty or something unexpected? So,
Here are five different kind of lessons I've learned throughout this process. And I'm still going through the process. Like I do not have answers today. I'm still living in a state of uncertainty all these months later. So number one, give yourself permission to be disappointed. And that came from Sterling, my business coach. She's also in charge of Catholic mom calm. She's always been a very calming presence in my life.
Deb Meyer (11:17.518)
since I started working with her. And, you know, I sharing in one of the calls recently about some of this disappointing news and I'm like,
I can't even cry about it because I have to put on a happy face when my kids get home from school. We've intentionally waited on telling my younger two boys anything just to get through some of these bigger milestone things for them, like birthdays and big performance of my youngest son, stuff like that.
I think when I took her guidance, it was like, I had the call on last week, Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, I was taking the boys to faith formation, their last faith formation class for this school year. And there's this cool chapel, on site near the faith formation classes. I just went into the chapel and let out all my anguish, all my disappointment over the circumstances that I don't.
have answers on where my health stands and just really putting myself in a posture of surrender and trusting that God does have a plan. I just can't see it yet. So that's my number one encouragement for you is just like acknowledge that your reality today may be different from the dream or the vision that you previously created. And that's okay to
grieve that. It doesn't have to be a medical thing. could be financial. It could be a relationship, whatever it is, but just grieve that there is the perception of what you had and the reality of the current situation and those don't always align.
Deb Meyer (13:18.67)
Talking about trusting God, I do know, not only from this experience, but even prior experiences, that suffering is inevitable and it really can be an opportunity to bring us closer to God in those trials. One of my favorite songs, it's called Hills and Valleys by Torn Wells. It's an oldie bit a goodie.
I think it was recorded like nine years ago, but it's been such a comfort because, you know, he acknowledges in the song just those mountaintop moments that are amazing and how God got us there. And then how we are also sometimes in those low valleys and difficult circumstances where we just have to lift our eyes to God knowing that he's going to
get us out of this valley one way or another, right?
I find that to be very hopeful that that song, because even like in economic cycles, we go through the peaks of the market and then we go through the, the sell-offs and those are just normal parts of a cycle. And that's the same with life. Like we're all going to go through some trials and tribulations. Even if we put a facade out on social media of everything being picture perfect, it's very rarely picture perfect.
go down to the surface.
Deb Meyer (14:58.25)
It's okay to be authentic. I haven't shared on social media anything about what's going on with my health. I've just shared, you know, in person with different friends and things, or by text with people further away or bigger groups. But, I'm going to be putting this episode out on social media just to be vulnerable and let people know what's going on and that it's, it's hard to live in that uncertainty. So.
one of the other things that I found encouraging in times of suffering is a poem called footprints in the sand. When my, I was in like my tween years or early teens when my cousin Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer. And even though I didn't know Karen super well, she lived in a different state. I'm the type of person that feels emotions very strongly. So.
I was always praying for her recovery and I she was pregnant with her first and only daughter and unfortunately she ended up passing away from breast cancer after a long hard battle. That was many, many years ago but I kept reading this poem, Footprints in the Sand, and I'm gonna share it with you now in case you haven't heard it. Or just need a reminder.
It's by Mary Stevenson. One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flash across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there were one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life when I was suffering from anguish,
sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to the Lord, you promised me Lord that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there have been only one set of footprints in the sand. Why when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?
Deb Meyer (17:22.456)
The Lord replied, the times when you have seen only one set of footprints is when I carried you.
I think that's so beautiful, that picture of Jesus walking alongside us, not alongside us, carrying us, literally carrying us, uniting our suffering to His suffering that He had on the cross. Yeah, it's powerful and that's the hope that we can cling to.
I'm sometimes a word of the year person and in early January before any of the medical stuff started for me, I had this word come that was hope. And I really had to lean on that word so much this year. I tend to be a person that can catastrophize or get overly fearful about things and
And that has been my anchor is the word hope and trusting, surrendering, knowing that God has a plan and I just need to be willing to follow it. No matter what.
Deb Meyer (18:47.936)
All right. one other point I want to make is that it's okay to set goals, but you should hold them loosely. And, know, I, I am not saying let's throw planning out the window. think planning is still very good, especially when things work out as we expect them to. And most of the time they do, right? Like 90 % of the time things work out according to plan. we, have the plan, we do what we're supposed to do.
Yes, usually things work in our favor. But it's that kind of 10 % where we don't expect things to happen a certain way or, you know, a wrench gets thrown in there. I just want you to know that it's okay to have that plan, but you don't want to cling so tightly to it that you don't leave any kind of room for error. And it's okay, you know.
Sometimes you're going to have to revise the plan. That's all right. Um, when I think about it in like the financial planning context, I have a decent amount of people that reach out to me about hourly or project based work. And my answer is always the same for them. I'm like, no, I just specialize in working with people on an ongoing basis. And my rationale there is like, if I'm going to invest in a relationship with a family, like I want to really know their family and their unique.
and what makes them tick, what brings them joy, what is hard in their lives. And I know that that plan is going to change over time. It's not static. It is a living, breathing plan. you know, last fall, one of my dear clients got diagnosed with breast cancer and she's been going, she just finished chemo recently and she's gonna be having...
a similar procedure to me or the same in a couple of weeks, like within a day of mine. And it was interesting, like as we were working through her plan, originally we said, we're not going to take social security right away. That was always part of the plan was just to delay social security, at least until full retirement age. She's younger than full retirement age. And she was like, well,
Deb Meyer (21:11.042)
Should I be taking it early? And I said, you know what? Let's consider it. Let's not do it while you're in the middle of your chemo treatment, but let's think about it more broadly. Like, is this something as part of the long-term plan that we want to modify or do we want to stick with what we originally planned? And we're not making any big rash decisions. And I want to do that intentionally because I don't.
I don't want her to make a decision from a place of fear. I want her to make a decision from a place of calm and rest. And she really needed to get through that initial treatment to kind of be at an equilibrium again. So it's not always bigger decisions like social security claiming and what particular month to claim it, but.
You know, there are some things that you're going to have to change your plans because the event or whatever it is, travel that you had scheduled, like is imminently happening and you need to adapt accordingly. Some of these other decisions you can postpone a little bit and it's okay to make them from a more calm place rather than a, a frenzied, place from, of, of despair. So,
Another example, like I'm now in the leadership role with Catholic Financial Planners Network. We were organizing an in-person gathering for May 15th in St. Louis. I was going to meet with clients earlier in the week and then do the gathering. And I was organizing it. was spearheading it. And once I found out about this lumpectomy, I'm like, gosh, I have to
cancel or before I even technically had it scheduled, I knew that I was going to a surgical consult and, there was a good possibility I wouldn't be able to travel to St. Louis anymore. So I put it on hold. I said, Hey, let's postpone the event earliest. We're going to do it as fall. haven't even set a new date. and it broke my heart that we had to postpone it, but I'm also like, well, this Trump's
Deb Meyer (23:35.225)
Trumps that you have to put things into perspective and, it's okay that the plan changed. We're still planning to have a gathering at some future point. We just don't know exactly when that's going to be. So, hold those plans more loosely. Another thing that I found helpful in this time is to just step away from routine. a lot of us are creatures of habit and we really.
Most of us really thrive on that structure and sense of routine. So, you know, it's good once in a while, especially if we're going through something more difficult, just to take a step back and wake ourselves up a bit and say like, okay, let's do something a little out of character. Like maybe for you, it's taking a painting class. And even though you haven't painted in or did any kind of artwork in
10 years, or maybe it's doing like a picnic basket for lunch one day while you're at work, finding a nice spot as the weather warms up out on a beautiful lawn and finding like a fun way to make a working lunch good again. Any of these things can be uplifting like.
In my case, I recently celebrated my birthday and normally my birthdays are very chill. They're just like dinner with my husband and kids, or it might just be me and my husband. don't know. but this year, because of everything I've been through, I was like, you know what? Let's get a bigger party going. Let's invite some friends from the neighborhood. And we rented like a little cabana space.
It turned out beautifully. was, we brought in some barbecue, catered barbecue. was delicious. The weather turned out great. We got to see the sunset over the water. I mean, it was just really a fun, fun day. And it helped me like kind of turn off the worry from the upcoming surgery. So.
Deb Meyer (25:48.533)
That I would say is crucial. Like if you're going through a really tough season and you've become a glutton of routine, just maybe find some way to take a break from that routine. Now in my case with the birthday party, it was more expensive, but my husband and I are blessed with the financial resources to afford that at this moment, like right now our health.
concerns or something we can't really control the finances, we know we can afford to do something a little extra. But maybe finances are tight for you and you need to figure out a way to do something that's low cost. That picnic could be a perfect example. So any number of things are possible. It's just good to get a breath of fresh air once in a while.
And then my last point is to really take these unexpected times as an opportunity to focus on what matters most and live out your values.
Again, bringing this back to my values, I'm really prioritizing family and faith. Most of the time, I feel like I'm living that out well. But there are other times where I'll slip into working longer than I want to when my kids are home from school or pouring more into Googling answers on medical questions rather than just sitting in prayer, right?
So what I'm working on and continue to work on is “hey, how am I going to live out these values of family and faith on a daily basis, on an hourly basis, on a minute-by-minute basis?” For my season of life, that's sitting and watching a TV show with my son after school and just cuddling on the couch together. That brings me joy, it brings him joy, and it's living out that value. So yeah, I'm not being very productive in that hour or whatever after school, but I'm investing in him and our relationship. That's one example. If you're struggling with identifying what your values are, there are some earlier episodes that I want to point you to.
The first is episode two, it's called Shaping Your Family's Future with Core Values. And the other is episode 18, Turning Dreams into Reality with Values-Based Financial Planning. In that episode, I talk about moving from Southwest Florida up to Missouri. We've since moved back to Southwest Florida. So it's been a bit of a wild ride, but I was talking about our values in that episode more strongly and sharing some personal stories at that time.
I'll link to both of those episodes: two and episode 18 in the show notes. But what I want to leave you with is this:
What do you value most in life? And are you living in alignment with those values? If not, figure out a way to do it step by step, day by day, minute by minute.
I have really appreciated being host of this podcast, and I hope I can restart it in the future. And if not, I hope this was a good one to end on. Thank you so much!