Pei-Ling Lee
Director of Programs & Partnerships, 5 Buckets Foundation
About this series
“What’s Your Why?” is our ongoing series asking one honest question: Why does this work matter to you? Each post is a personal look at what brings someone to the 5 Buckets community and why they keep coming back.
Read the whole series →5 Buckets came into my life as a beacon of hope, right as I was emerging from a humbling season of financial stress. Scrambling to make rent each month, I hid from reality and let shame isolate me even as my debt and fear compounded. I felt like a failure because life hadn’t gone according to my plan. Turns out, a fruitful life rarely follows the script you write for it. The story wasn’t over yet.
The Messy Middle
Working in financial wellness was nowhere on my radar, but the mystery of life has a way of providing what I didn’t even know I needed. I was already growing through the messy middle of my own financial journey, and learning on my own wasn’t enough. I needed to build curriculum and community around what I was learning, and stay immersed in the work day after day, season after season.
That is how my bumpy financial past became precious and purposeful. Sharing our money stories puts that history to good use, and it normalizes the vulnerability and imperfection of being human. Every time a learner shares a hard part of their own money journey, we all get the chance to meet that uncertainty and fear with a little more tenderness — together.
A Program of Action
Our curriculum carries that same spirit. We teach practical skills like budgeting, and we name the emotions and stories behind the numbers. Money is activating for almost everyone, whether you are brand new to this work or you have had a thousand conversations about it already. We all have room to grow.
That growth isn’t tied to a particular dollar amount or milestone. It is the resilience and the relationships that carry us through, regardless of the waves and the weather.
Left to my own devices, finances aren’t something I naturally gravitate toward. I need the scaffolding and accountability of this work to keep doing what I might not do alone. 5 Buckets is a program of action. We don’t just talk the talk — we walk it right alongside our learners. With patience and perseverance, my financial life is healthier than it has ever been.
Now I get to grow our impact alongside some of the best people around: our partners, learners, staff, facilitators, volunteers, and board members. Financial wellness was never meant to be a solo endeavor. It requires community. May 5 Buckets offer you the same beacon of hope it continues to be for me.
“Work is love made visible.”
— Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
This why belongs to
This blog features the “Why” of Pei-Ling Lee, Director of Programs & Partnerships at 5 Buckets.
Your turn
What’s your why?
If financial wellness matters to you, we’d like to hear the reason. Facilitators, partners, learners, volunteers — every voice belongs here.
Share your why
