“Money nearly broke my marriage. Now we don't fight about it at all'

"We both earned enough... I should’ve been living the dream."

There are four words you’ll never hear Kim say to her three year old daughter.

“We can’t afford it.” 

It’s taken a lot of work for the Perth mother to bite her tongue and hold back the sentence, but she has a very important reason as to why.

Kim doesn't want her daughter to view money the way she did. Instead she wants to promote security. That money is something to manage, not fear.

“I used to believe money was limited… but that’s not actually the real truth. Money is an unlimited resource,” Kim told Kidspot. 

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"We're just living out my parents cycle again" 

Money was once the root of all arguments between Kim and her husband, Daniel.

“We would fight like cat and dog,” Kim revealed. 

They both had very different approaches before they welcomed their daughter.

Kim was frugal, wanting to save, but Daniel wanted to spend freely.

“We were always fighting because Daniel just wanted to spend and have fun with his life. I would be like, ‘but you're not thinking about the bills that we have next month,’” she recounted.

It was particularly sensitive to Kim after watching her parents divorce over money as a child.

“It was like, ‘Oh, f**k’. We're just living out my parents cycle again,” she shared.

The couple earned enough, but the struggle was always real.

“I built my income up to $100,000 a year as a 26-year-old. I should’ve been living the dream. But I was still so broke,” she shared.

She knew something needed to change.

Kim invested in a money coach so she could rewrite the attitudes she'd harbour since childhood.

“I learned to love myself and I learned to feel like I was good enough,” she said.

“If you don't feel like there's enough in the bank, it just reflects your feeling of not being enough.”

That change started with her. Kim invested in a money coach to confront her beliefs.

But even with a new outlook, Kim feared her husband wouldn’t be on board. 

“I was like he's not going to be into this. He's going to roll his eyes,” she laughed.

“But I presented it to him and said, ‘If we can do this together and we have this plan, are you in?’ And he said yes. Ever since then we have followed that, and we don't fight about money anymore.”  

Changing her perspective about money has impacted how Kim is raising her three year old. Image: Supplied.

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"I didn't have stability within me"

When she really thought about it, she found that a lot of the problems may have stemmed from her own projection. 

“It would probably be me who would trigger it. I would just straight away react without even any conscious thought,” she said.

“The reason I didn't have financial stability, was because I didn't have stability within me.”

She now knows what she didn’t know then.

“My autopilot is not scarcity. I'm only human. I'm not perfect. But it's just not like it used to be," she explained.

Today, Kim is a money coach helping other parents rewrite their own relationships with money. Particularly those feeling the crunch of Australia’s cost of living crisis.

Her coaching focuses on three pillars: mindset, management, and manifestation. 

“There’s not just one thing. If there was one thing, we'd all be fine,” Kim pointed out.

Kim says it all comes down to mind over matter. 

“They have to work on their mind. They have to change their mindset. They have to change how they manage their money… They’ve got to change their energy. But the energy is a byproduct of doing the other two,” she said. 

She says parents should prioritise themselves before any bill, rent payment or loan contribution. That when payday comes around, they need to pay themselves first.

“Transfer a small percentage. That’s showing that you are the most important. You’re still going to pay your mortgage or your rent,” she said. 

Now, Kim is determined her daughter will grow up with a different mindset around money. One rooted in confidence, not fear.

“She learns by watching me. Watching how I talk to Daniel. Watching how I open the big electricity bill. Watching how I react and respond,” Kim explained.

“They’re a big sponge. That’s what she’s learning.”

Originally published as “Money nearly broke my marriage. Now we don't fight about it at all'