Goodbye North Dakota fracking boom with six-figure salaries for blue-collar workers spending like there's no tomorrow.

Hello, clients who are ready to listen to their advisor because they realize they have to save for tomorrow.

Goodbye $50,000 truck “because everyone else has one.” Hello family sensible minivan or SUV.

The end of sky-high incomes in the heart of the Bakken Shale Formation has brought clients back to earth, says Greg McNary, an advisor with Thrivent Investment Management in Williston, N.D.

With annual oil-worker pay plummeting from $100,000 annually to $65,000 in just a couple of years, McNary says, clients are more willing to literally come to the table, whether it is to discuss family budgeting (which had been often avoided) to a semi-annual investment review (which had been avoided too, in favor of a once-a-year look-see).

McNary says he is seeing more wives join their husbands at these sessions because they typically have a better handle on what is being spent and tend to be less spendthrift.

One positive development helping prop up the standard of living for workers in the region is that housing costs have gone down.

However, McNary says, grocery and restaurant prices are still significantly higher than in the rest of the state.

A more conservative attitude on spending is also permeating his customers' approach to investing. “They may move from equity investments such as stocks to fixed-income vehicles to get a guaranteed interest rate. They are looking to minimize risk,” he says.

McNary, 57, says he left his job as an education superintendent three years ago to become a financial advisor because he got tired of wrestling with school boards.

Now all he has to do is to wrestle with one of the biggest boom-and-bust cycles to hit an area since the financial crisis.