In The Cost of Starting Over, Marie Claire speaks with women who have experienced seismic change in their lives. They reveal the true price of beginning again, from the financial stakes to the emotional toll.

Emily Loker poured herself into her work. As a career public servant, she was dedicated to the notion that a lot of good could be done through federal service. Loker, who holds a PhD in communications for social justice and worked an internship with NASA, was recruited by the Department of Energy in May of 2023. A job she expected to work for many years to come in her home of Boulder, Colorado.

Then the “Valentine’s Day Massacre”—the first wave of the Trump administration’s mass layoffs in 2025—left the 34-year-old Loker and thousands of other federal employees dismissed from service. The way in which her firing was handled, the fallout, and the sudden change to her life plan left her reeling. Loker spoke with Marie Claire about navigating the upheaval, both financially and emotionally, and how she processed the experience.

Before the Layoffs

My job was to be the person in a technical office (Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies) to implement the Biden-Harris administration’s priorities for environmental justice. As the community engagement lead, I was trying to support federal dollars in having a more immediate impact by trying to address the social dimensions of research in hydrogen. That meant a lot of meetings, travel to hydrogen conferences, and supporting the office in implementing “Community Benefits Plans,” which focused on expanding the benefit of research to help those overburdened by the energy system. The work I was able to do with the Department of Energy under the Biden administration really fused my two passions of environmentalism and social justice. I felt so proud to be a part of this new wave of federal service with people who were committed to equity and justice.

I was living by myself in Boulder, Colorado, which has a high cost of living. I had been making just under $40,000 a year during my PhD. Then I kind of stumbled my way into salary negotiation [for the DOE job] and made more than three times what I’d ever earned by the end of my time at the DOE. I ended up being able to buy a condo, with the help of my parents. I was able to put away quite a lot into savings, make headway on paying back my mortgage, and save for my retirement. I was looking forward to the stability of the pension offered to federal employees.

The First Signs of Trouble

There were executive orders that came out within the first days of Trump’s inauguration that, in a multitude of ways, called out my job in particular. Then an internal email came stating that all work on Community Benefits Programs would be paused for the moment, so that also spelled bad news for my position.

It was a little like death by a thousand cuts and being bowled over all at once. Everything, other than the relationships I built with the human beings I’ve worked with, had been dismantled within the first two weeks of the administration. It was very swift.

My job turned more into emotional labor and support: I have a background in conscious communication and I was trying to offer spaces where [colleagues] could just be with whatever was coming up for them. It’s hard to articulate the volume of pain because I know each person experienced elements of their work being dismantled differently. Obviously, part of [offering space] was self-serving because I didn’t have anything else to do in my job and it was a really painful time.

We got our first “Fork in the Road” email on January 28, 2025, before I was fired. This email encouraged people to use a deferred resignation program. It didn’t seem credible because we had no internal validation that these terms will be honored and it seemed way too good to be true. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is trying to get me to not work for six months and pay me? We also weren’t sure if it meant we’d continue working or be on administrative leave. My [initial] calculation wasn’t very financial, it was more emotional of not wanting to let go of the job and trying to be hopeful. I really did feel that if I were to take the deferred resignation program and not get paid that I would be incredibly angry for feeling like I’d sold out—and then not even getting the payout.

The "Valentine’s Day Massacre"

On February 13, 2025, I was running errands and my coworker texted me a Politico news article claiming that DOE probationary employees would be terminated today. That was an hour or two before my two supervisors put a one-on-one meeting on my calendar. Typically, supervisors and directors of the office are the ones who initiate termination. This situation was out of the ordinary and upsetting because the control was taken out of their hands. My supervisors were crying and really upset, while I felt more numb during that conversation. It was really heartbreaking after building such strong relationships and such a healthy working environment in that office, pre-Trump.

The Financial Costs

Health insurance was primary in my mind after getting fired. I am privileged to have a safety net. Not including retirement, I had about $30,000 saved. But I was worried about losing access to health insurance if I got sick. We did have a month's grace period, so I got my teeth cleaned, my eyes checked, and a new pair of glasses. I applied for Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance. I used Medicaid for therapy, but I ended up losing access to Medicaid when unemployment payments kicked in.

My plan was—if things got really bad—I could rent out my condo and move in with my parents. Practically speaking, and living in a high cost of living area, I think I could’ve afforded to live comfortably for six months, but psychologically, even with that buffer, it felt like I had to hop on getting hired again. I am in my mid-30s and want to start a family in the coming years. [As a result of earning less and having less guaranteed income in retirement], I’ve had to make adjustments as to how many children I may have, where we may live, and how my retirement would look if I maintain this salary long-term.

The Emotional Costs

I experienced it much like the loss of a loved one or relationship. I assume the loss of a job and being part of a vision I so badly wanted to participate in creating may never fully resolve itself. The energy I had poured into my work no longer had anywhere to go. The more I could get out of my thought loops and into my body, the more I experienced the energies of grief flowing. I found such satisfaction and peace expressing my grief through mediums like rug tufting and quilting.

Moving Forward

I had really wanted to just rest and to take a few months to recuperate because I was very burned out. But my director pushed me to be very proactive about my job search, because there would be a flood of highly qualified candidates in the job market after all the people getting unjustly terminated or choosing to leave themselves. She told me, “I know you’re tired, but I really think you should be applying for jobs.” I set very deliberate boundaries around the job search and would only look during certain hours of the day. Even though I was feeling a scarcity mindset, I wouldn’t allow that mindset to manifest in spending a long time on LinkedIn scrolling.

I’d prepaid a gym membership, and I’m so grateful for that. I ended up going almost every day and that was a great way to spend time and be in community with other people.

On my lowest days, I found it so supportive to hop on my bike and move with others. I really tried to focus on self-care, so I allowed myself to pay for massages and more acupuncture treatments to try and get my nervous system settled.

During this time, multiple civil action lawsuits were filed because the mass firings were illegal. A Federal court case was won, so in mid-March the DOE HR called us back to work. [At that point], I had applied to three jobs, had a series of interviews after being fired, and had just accepted an offer. I pushed back the start date on my new job in order to report back, for what I was sure would only be a few weeks. I decided to report back, even if it meant just coming back for a few weeks, to allow myself that time to reconnect with colleagues and hopefully heal a little bit of the trauma I’d experienced. And that allowed me to get that retroactive pay for that month. Once the next deferred resignation email arrived, it was a pretty easy decision for me, unfortunately, to say it doesn’t feel like I can still be of use in this role.

Life After Starting Over

The job I took was at a municipal planning organization. I lead community engagement for a federal grant whose mission it is to support as many Coloradans getting heat pumps installed as possible in as equitable a way possible. I feel lucky to have a job that allows me to pay my mortgage and expenses now while continuing to live my values.

One of the gifts of the experience of getting laid off was to tune back into what I wanted to be devoting my time to. I had previously considered going back to school to become a therapist, but I was recruited by the DOE before I acted on that curiosity. To supplement my income—and to explore my desire to work with people more one-on-one—I enrolled in a program to become a certified holistic coach. My focus is on supporting people through life transitions both from a mind and body perspective and through their physical spaces.

Going through this experience has made me, begrudgingly, appreciate the wisdom of what can unfold through things outside of my control. Now my life is spending my days leading community engagement and coaching clients on the weekends and evenings. It’s a life I could not envision when I got laid off in February.

The Money Lesson

For the better, I am paying more attention to how much I am investing, putting away in savings, and trying to maximize my retirement contributions. My best advice for people who are worried about a layoff in any field is to try and find a balance of staying present and engaged in their current role and searching for others that may be more aligned and stable. That’s on a more practical level. On an emotional level, my advice is to be with that anxiety. Be gentle with that anxiety, observing it from a loving distance, and see what you learn.

In The Cost of Starting Over, Marie Claire speaks with women who have experienced seismic change in their lives. They reveal the true price of beginning again, from the financial stakes to the emotional toll.

Chloe Elise built a career teaching women how to feel confident with money. Her life in Kansas City, Missouri looked picture perfect, but behind the scenes, she says the person she trusted most was quietly draining her bank accounts over their five years together. Looking back, she describes the alleged betrayal as a form of financial infidelity.

The 30-year-old money expert and author of Deeper Than Money spoke with Marie Claire about how it all unfolded, the financial and emotional fallout, and what it took to finally walk away.

Before the Financial Fallout

In 2016, I was a full-time college student studying economics and Spanish and working multiple jobs. I was in the mailroom for workstudy, a babysitter, an after-school tutor at an elementary school, a personal assistant, and a “lunch runner” for a trading firm, which was basically DoorDash plus an office cleaning service. I also donated plasma twice a week and rarely ever missed unless my iron was low and I got denied. I was so fed up from working constantly and still feeling broke, plus student loans and a car loan had me in $36,000 of debt. A breakup got me really into personal development, so I made a list of what I wanted to change about my current circumstances and money was at the top.

I started teaching myself about personal finance. I checked out books from the library and watched YouTube videos, which is how I learned it’s important to have an emergency fund, even while paying off debt. I started saving and built up about $7,000 in a year. I spent pretty much every waking moment working to put money towards paying down debt, but I still managed to meet my ex-fiancé one night out at a bar. He was older and had graduated.

The relationship felt simple and fun. It was wining and dining in the beginning, which created this image in my mind that he had his life together. He’d also been working a corporate job, so I felt like the younger, more immature kid.

The First Red Flag

About six months into dating, I found out he was considering taking out a payday loan to cover a car loan payment. He claimed he’d lost his credit card and didn’t want to miss his payment. I knew how bad payday loans were and said he could borrow my debit card to make the payment and cover other costs while he waited for his replacement card. He ended up taking the debit card to ATMs all over town to withdraw the $7,000 in my emergency fund. I felt like I was being pranked and there had to be some sort of explanation.

He admitted to a gambling addiction and said he was going to pay me back every cent. I thought I should break up with him, but he was so charismatic, so visibly upset, and gaslighting me into thinking I’d be a bad human if I left him while he was struggling with addiction. Even one of his loved ones reached out to me to express concern that he might harm himself if I left.

The Escalation

After the loss of my emergency fund, I rebuilt it the same way I’d originally created it: I hustled. It was soul-crushing to think of the money he took from me, but I looked at it as a curveball—and it lit a fire under me to build a financial foundation that no one could take away from me.

As the years went on, I started sharing online about my journey to debt freedom and how I began building wealth without compromising my lifestyle. Seeing the impact of sharing my story and people wanting to learn about my process led to the creation of my financial literacy company Deeper Than Money.

Eventually, I was able to quit my corporate job and become a full-time entrepreneur, but my ex kept getting fired, so I ended up supporting him. Anytime he had any sort of assets, he would leverage them, and sell them to have money to gamble. We had good times too, though, and I thought everything bad in our relationship was because of his addiction.

Then he started to figure out creative ways to steal from me, like taking one of my cards to get groceries, buying some, but then also taking cash back. Or borrowing money from my friends and telling me, “You can let them be mad at you or you can pay them back.” Then things started to go missing. He’d convince me I’d lost them and berate me for misplacing my stuff. It made me so anxious and self-critical. Eventually, I found out he was selling it all on Facebook Marketplace.

He even forged confirmation emails that he’d paid off debts and lied about paying off his student loans. This started complicating my relationship with my online community.

I threw a party to celebrate him getting debt-free; beforehand, I discovered he hadn’t actually paid off any of it. It felt like such a betrayal to my community. At the time, it felt like I couldn't go back and tell them it was a lie because I was protecting him. It created so much shame and distrust in myself. In my mind, if he would choose recovery and sobriety, then everything else would be fixed, which is why I said yes when he surprised me by proposing publicly.

I thought to myself: "I did want this at some point, I'll just make sure he changes before the wedding." The day after getting engaged, he said, “By the way, I had your sister pay for the ring. I don’t have the money to pay for it, so you’ll have to Venmo her.” He’d told her we go over finances once a month, and he didn’t want me to see the charge on his account.

The Break-Up

Around the time of the proposal, I started going to therapy, which is how I realized I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. Oftentimes financial infidelity comes with mental and emotional toxicity and abuse. But at the time, I thought examples of financial infidelity were huge scandals—and not something that could happen to me as someone who was good with money. But now I see financial infidelity as one person in the couple betraying the other’s values and trust.

I also went to a support group for the partners of those struggling with addiction. One of the wives pulled me aside and said, "Are you married to him?" I said, “No.” She said, "Run." That shook me to my core.

An incident made me realize he was never going to change, so ​​I told him we’re going to break up and even offered him a lump sum to get his own apartment. He was dependent on me and I wanted it to end amicably. He was furious and didn’t think it was enough. He even said, “I’m two months away from getting half [of everything by getting married].”

The final night I saw him was frightening and resulted in my putting all his stuff in the hallway and telling him to come get it. I’ve never seen him since.

The Financial Costs

Over the course of our entire relationship, I’d ballpark that he’d easily taken around $100,000 from me between me manipulating me into repaying his debts, outright stealing, and me financially supporting him.

I did make a document with a timeline of everything and linked to receipts. I included text messages, bank statements, documents he forged, and Venmo receipts. My therapist had me do this in case I wanted to file a restraining order, if I ever wanted to try to recoup some of the money, or if he tried to come back and claim I owed him.

If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I want to calculate how much time the financial infidelity set me back on the path to my financial milestones. I never got paid back for any of it, but I was so happy to be free.

The Emotional Costs

All the lying and manipulation created such a distorted reality that I stopped trusting myself. I wasn’t honest with friends and family about what was happening, which was so hard, and created a lot of distance in those relationships.

Plus, I felt like I was betraying my community. I was sharing about financial literacy to an online audience of more than 500,000 while my partner was stealing from me behind my back. It made me feel like a failure.

My friends didn’t learn the full story until after we broke up. Luckily I have the best friends in the world and all of them immediately dropped everything to support me, and never held it against me that I had distanced myself.

It took longer to be open with my online community. I shared that we broke up, but it was triggering to keep getting asked what happened. It took about a year before I was ready to talk about it.

I did a lot of healing work in therapy prior to dating, but after my previous engagement I said I’m never getting engaged or married. I didn’t want to ever have to trust someone in that capacity. Then I met someone.

Life After Starting Over

I recently got married and going into a wedding feeling joy, ease, pure excitement, and love was so healing. It was opposite to how I felt prior. My intuition had zero hesitation and fear.

Deeper Than Money keeps growing. Hiring people is one of my proudest accomplishments. I wrote a book and I've purchased two properties now that are short-term rentals. In addition, I also purchased my first commercial property that I am renovating to become Deeper Than Money’s headquarters, and bought my dream home in 2023 in Kansas City.

From a personal perspective, I hit my goal of becoming a millionaire before turning 27 and am now a multi-millionaire at 30.

My experience with my ex, while traumatic, made me more passionate than ever about teaching women how to have financial independence to leave bad situations and to go after their dreams.

The Money Lesson

Make sure to create financial boundaries and have financial independence. In my story, the financial infidelity happened from the person who didn’t have the finances to the person who did, when it’s often the other way. In that regard, I felt incredibly lucky because ultimately, even though there’s trauma, I had the independence and power to get out of that situation.

It’s important in any way, shape or form to create some type of financial independence, like having your own savings account on the side.