48. Catherine Morgan Uncovers the Emotions Behind the Money

Listen to this real Money Stories episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Gaana, Stitcher or Podbean by clicking the links and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

In this episode, I speak to money coach for women, Catherine Morgan.

Catherine tells how early childhood traumas led her to have self-doubts which manifested as overspending and a slightly cavalier approach to money. She explains how she has completely reinvented her relationship with money over the past twenty years to build a healthy income and create a solid financial foundation, by helping others to help themselves be better with money.

This episode has some wonderful insights on how working on your inner self can help you build positive money habits, behaviours and routines, so that money  is your servant, not your master.

Check out Catherine’s podcast In Her Financial Shoes and her website for financial coaching for women, The Money Panel.

Episode Transcript

Jason Butler 0:05
Hello, and welcome to the Real Money Stories podcast. I'm Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out and your money journey, or well down the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from these stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less and enjoy life more.

Real Money Stories is sponsored by Vanguard, bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk For more details, and remember, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. Hello there, Jason Butler here. Before we get into the show, I just wanted to let you know about my latest money blog over on Jason hyphen butler.com. It's called millionaire mindset. Now we talk about building wealth. But what do you actually have to do to achieve that? Well, I walk you through the steps that people who have just like you have gone through to build their first million. So go over to Jason hyphen butler.com. And read millionaire mindset. It could be the most profitable thing you do this week. Now, let's get on with the show.

Hello there. Thanks for joining me on another edition of Real Money Stories, the podcast where we speak to people from all different backgrounds about their money journey, their money, beliefs, and their highs and lows. I'm your host, Jason Butler. And this week, I'm joined by a good friend of mine, Catherine Morgan. Hello, Catherine.

Catherine Morgan 1:42
Hi, Jason, great to speak with you today.

Jason Butler 1:44
Well, I am honored actually to have you on the show because you have become nothing short of a superstar I remember the first time I met you were sitting next to you at a meal or somewhere a conference some years ago. And we got chatting and you know, etc. And I thought yeah, very interesting lady and we'll get into your backstory in a minute, but I am honoured because you've got a fantastic podcast, you want to just tell everyone what that is.

Catherine Morgan 2:05
Thank you. That's really nice to say. And so yeah, our podcast is in her financial shoes.

Jason Butler 2:11
Yeah. And it is really I honestly, it's a really interesting, it's really interesting guests, but also it's a slightly, I would say, the slightly more feminine side of money, which I like. And as a man, I listened to woman's hour and I listened to your podcast, right? So they're my two little guilty pleasures. So it's, well, it's not just for women, but he does have that feminine slant, doesn't it? Which is makes it good.

Catherine Morgan 2:32
Yeah, I think what probably makes it feminine as well. I mean, my audience is, is women specifically in the consumer space, but I think a lot of the subjects we talk about are kind of the periphery is around money because it's the meaning we attached to money, isn't it that that creates the feelings and the thoughts and the behaviors. So it does make for very interesting guests because we can pretty much open that out to guests that talk about financial psychology behaviors, therapy, self worth, lots of these kinds of things. concepts that sit around the idea of money, which I hugely believe if we can actually understand ourselves and how we make decisions and not just in money. You know, a lot of the time the relationship we have with money is very similar to the relationship we have with ourselves. And so I'm a massive believer in the more inner work you can do, the more that will actually help you from a financial perspective too.

Jason Butler 3:23
And for your sins for your day job. You've got sort of two hats, haven't you apart from your apart from your superstardom in the social media space? And podcasting? You've got two hats. Haven't you just want to explain what you do?

Catherine Morgan 3:35
Yeah, so the two main parts of the business that we spend most of time on one is on the consumer side. So four years ago, we set up the money panel really as initially as a blog for me to just write how I was feeling about money and my personal journey. And actually some of the frustrations I had with the work that I had been doing prior in the banking sector was focusing very much on financial products. And so we built a built a business now, which is very much about consumer education, but not just on the financial education is but actually focusing predominantly on improving your relationship with money because I really believe that if you can layer financial education, on top of our beliefs and behaviors around money, that's when the magic happens. So we've developed a business with a number of different services that people can get involved to help to develop their relationship with money. So we have the podcast, we have weekly blogs, we have a weekly YouTube channel, we have a Facebook community, we have weekly lives in there. We have a membership, we have courses, masterminds, all sorts of different programs at different price points for people will say that, wherever they're at, they're able to get support with their financial situation. And that was really important for me because I'm a massive giver, and that and will perhaps get stuck into that my relationship with money's very giving. And so I had to build a business that enabled me to help Everybody, because that's my mission, that's my purpose is to create big, big change. And I can't do that if I'm just sitting in my room doing one to one work with one to ones. So that was really important for me to build that kind of business. And then the other hat that I wear, which is kind of developed really off the back of building that business is a lot of financial advisors over the years have come to me and said, well, that's amazing. Like, I want to learn more about that. So I've been mentoring financial advisors on a one to one basis. And during lockdown this year, we decided that right now is the time to launch a training program to actually help financial advisors to start implementing the skills of a financial coach into their practices.

Jason Butler 5:43
Great. I mean, I know that you you got a great following and that Facebook Live group. I know that people if you don't put it on there's there's sort of a queue of messages saying are you okay? Is that right? I mean, the people have become really into it, it becomes a sort of self fulfilling sort of self improvement. It's almost like a cult really, isn't it? I think and that's good, because it means that we are now speaking about money. And that's what this podcast, my little podcast is all about. It's about actually just talking about money, men, women, old, young, you know, high income, low income, whatever it is entrepreneurs stay at home, Mom, whatever it is, let's just talk about money. Let's share our thing as interesting because we lady put a review for last week's episode. And she just said, I've just come across this podcast, and I love the story. And the story was lovely and new, who came to the UK as a boat person in 1979, which is very topical with, you know, the migrant thing of his channel, and how she felt about money and how embarrassed she felt about not having stuff and how she actually built a life one step at a time. So that's great. So let's get into I'm very nosy as you know, and I know a little bit about you. And you did when we had a good chat that first night with our old friends, and take us back to To very young Catherine and kind of what it was like growing up sort of, in terms of what you understood about money, what you understood about lifestyle, what messages you heard, as you were when you were very young.

Catherine Morgan 7:15
Yeah, do in preparation for today's podcasts. I was kind of sitting and reflecting and thinking about my stories around money. And actually, there's a lot of stories that I haven't ever shared with anybody. And I've done a lot of internal work over the last four or five years specifically, around helping to improve my self worth. And it was really interesting for me when I sat back and thought, what did I actually learn about my parents growing up, and when I grew up, so I'm one of four children. I've got a twin brother, who now lives over in Australia. he emigrated to Australia and when he just finished his GCSEs as sort of 15 my dad had emigrated out the year prior to that. And growing up as a family of four my parents said separated when I was very little, I think I was about two two years old when my parents separated and it was a very messy divorce. Not very nice at all. And my mum then met my stepdad who she's now married to and he had two children he lost his wife for the children were very little and and so it was kind of like two kindred spirits that lost partners in different ways. And come together and then we kind of merge these two families together and we move house when I was 10. And I remember living in a quite a big house actually in Milton Keynes, which we actually bought from it was a local liquidation purchase like some Japanese people have built this house by this lake, which sounds very glorious it like it's not on the lake. It's like, half a mile from the lake. And and they went bankrupt. So this house came on the market at quite a reasonable price

Jason Butler 8:55
from the bank. Yeah.

Catherine Morgan 8:57
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My mom sold her house my stepdad sold his house we merged the two families together. And I remember at the time and I remember writing in my diary at the time like I kept diaries for years and I was a kid and I remember writing in there that if I can convince my brothers and sisters not to move house then we can stay and I'm written out with real action plan is like a bit like a bit like home alone, like the little analysis thing that he does to get there the burglars as well how can I convince my brothers and sisters to stay where we are. And consequently, for me, I had a lot of change a young age and up until the age of 10. And then I started a second note a junior school actually I was there for a year and then I moved to secondary school. And I had a really bad time at school I was really badly bullied pretty much every school I went to, and but particularly at secondary school, and I'm pretty select the significant bullying I was physically beat school I had death threats on the telephone like it was just a really nasty

Jason Butler 10:06
nasty nasty horrible yeah

Catherine Morgan 10:08
just nasty girls yeah nasty girls and I think probably the reason why is I I was quite studious I was I've always been a perfectionist I my work my handwriting was like, meticulous it was just like a piece of art. It was so meticulous and and the reason that I was displaying that kind of behavior was because I didn't have any confidence in myself. And I would always judge my success on other people. I always compare myself to other people. And even to as an adult that really resonated when I was growing my business for example, I was always looking for other people's approval. I was always looking for people to kind of say yet No, that's okay. You're okay to do that before I would have the confidence to go and do some

Jason Butler 10:55
extrinsic motivation. So you're seeking validation? Yeah,

Catherine Morgan 10:58
yeah, yeah. Absolutely and but consequently, from a financial perspective for me, the reason I share that is because I used money as a tool to make myself feel better about myself. And so one of the, probably the earliest experience, but certainly my teenage years, because I felt so bad about myself, I, when my dad left to go to Australia, actually, I went into quite a deep state of probably depression. And then my brother left, and I basically shut down, I stopped eating. And I suffered then about 10 years worth of eating disorders,

Jason Butler 11:39
you probably felt a slight sense of abandonment in you as well that that both a trauma and abandonment. I know you were with your mom, but it's still you know, because lots of people go through that. That may have manifested itself as well. Yeah.

Catherine Morgan 11:52
I think I was always daddy's girl. So my dad was like, Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah, I get quite emotional like Yeah. To cool he was I would say probably at that point, I probably went through some PTSD at that moment of that real trauma traumatic event and my dad leaving. Now he, you know, we had various conversations about him going and you know, he we flew us out there when he moved in. Yeah, so it wasn't like he abandoned us. But certainly I feel that at that age, losing your father and your twin brother was quite, quite tragic. And then I was being bullied at school and sob story, doesn't it? But it's like, I used money there and why I thought, right, how can I feel safe? And how can I feel secure? And so for me, I would shop and I would buy clothes in the hope that what if I put something on that makes me feel skinny, then I'll feel worthy, I'll feel loved of I'll feel protected and it was almost like I created this comfort zone around myself. And what happens is that any experience that we have we the brain always looks for more evidence to support a belief so my brain is covered. Constantly kept looking for more and more evidence that you're not worthy enough, you're not good enough, you're too fat, you just need to lose weight. And I then went into like a 10 years slump, basically of eating disorders and not eating and using money, to buy clothes to make myself feel better. And I ended up in my overdraft every month, I ended up with about 30,000 pounds worth of credit card debt by the time I was in my late 20s. And, and I was a financial advisor at the time. I mean, imagine otherwise, just

Jason Butler 13:29
33,000 pounds of credit card debt. Well, the son was 25

Catherine Morgan 13:33
unbelievably,

Jason Butler 13:34
yeah. So tell me we've got obviously the situation where you got into the consumer debt and that was a surge in your feelings for spending. But what else was happening in your life and how did you transition from school to work and relationships and family that sort of stuff over that period as well? Now the twin track

Unknown Speaker 13:49
Yeah, it's a bit of a blur really, like I think it's probably my life. I've just mentally blocked Owl and but I saw I studied At levels I did theology history in English. All I remember thinking, oh my god, what have I done to myself or essay based at levels that I writing?

Jason Butler 14:09
Why not?

Catherine Morgan 14:10
Well, perhaps.

But I remember I really struggled with my a levels, I didn't quite get the predicted grades I wanted because I wasn't eating basically, my brain was completely starved. And I applied for university, I had a place to study law. And I remember at the time thinking, I don't really know what I want to do. And actually, you know, as I've as I've just said that out loud, it's just triggered something because the reason I think I wanted to study law was because in justice is one of my key values if anything's in just in the world, I feel like I'm on a mission to go and solve it. I love what like the police dramas and crime documentaries and I'm really intuitive. So I'm really great actually piecing together like an hour before anybody else has figured it out. And and that problem was what I was driven, why I felt driven to study law. But at the time I was with a boyfriend. I've been with him since I was 15. And he didn't want me to go to go to university. And when my brother emigrated to Australia, I thought, well, I'm just going to go to Australia. I'm going to go and join them. But I'll do my levels first, and then I'll go. And so I did, actually, I did my A Levels. I took a year out, I thought, I'll take a gap, and then I'll go to uni. I flew out to Australia, and I when I was over there, I went over there for five weeks. And I just decided what I'm going to apply to emigrate. So I flew back and made an application. And then I met my husband's. And during that period, I was working. I worked in retail for a couple of years when I was studying at college, and then I got my first job at the bank when I was 18. Because that's where my sister worked. My sister worked at a bank. So I got a job as a cashier. And within nine months of being a cashier, I was seeking the next progression, the next like, promotion in my job. And I remember I then got upgraded to be like an account opener. And this is when I kind of learned about credit cards and overdrafts and loans and all these things I hadn't really heard of before. And I did that for literally a couple of months. And I remember seeing this advert for a mortgage advisor. And so I applied to be a mortgage advisor when I was 19. And I got rejected and the board this was at Halifax that they actually said to me, no, you're too young, you can't be a mortgage advisor at 19 come back in two years time. And I kind of sat there thinking, well, it's a bit weird to decline somebody because of their age. And and so I basically left and I went to work for Abbey national who would who bought me on to their like, succession planning program. And so I self studied in my own time my mortgage advisor qualifications and then I did that for a couple of years. Got the got the two Year Itch which seemed to kind of come up every every two years. And then I went to studied my financial advisor qualifications did that was a financial advisor for a couple of years got the next itch. And that's then when I decided to go and work out work abroad I wanted to travel I wanted to I didn't want to stay in the UK I felt quite kind of claustrophobic a little bit Actually, I was just before the credit card hit. So it was it was quite a good time actually to come out of the UK. And just before all the audio qualifications hit the financial advisors as well. So we were quite kind of relaxed in the in the Channel Islands, which is where we actually moved out to and so financially, I guess in my 20s I I didn't really have any awareness about my problem. I didn't believe I had any overspending challenges I in my head I was like, Okay, I'm in my overdraft, but it's fine because it's an agreed overdraft or wait till I get paid. I've seen all the clothes I want to go and buy this month already. And I'll get paid, spend all my money and then have to wait another 29 days until I was paid again you were paycheck to paycheck,

Jason Butler 18:09
but that's

Catherine Morgan 18:10
literally paycheck to paycheck. Yeah.

Jason Butler 18:13
And so you were doing the, the, you're going through the loops of the different steps in your career. Um, and then when did you meet your husband? Was that was that as you were going through these stages? And when you when?

Catherine Morgan 18:28
Yeah, so I met my husband in 2001. I think was that right? He's gonna kill me now. If he listens to 19 years, I think yes. Something like that. We've been married 10. So yeah, that that may. That sounds about right. Okay, Matt in 2001. So I was about 21, I think at the time, and it was in that period where I applied to go and emigrate to Australia that I met him and we met at work. He worked at the National at the time. He was the branch manager. I was the mortgage advisor and I remember him coming to my office on his first day of work to introduce himself, and I just come back from Australia. So I was nice and brown. And it was literally a physical, like a physical reaction. We were both completely like lost for words. I was like, Hi, nice to meet you shaking his hand thinking, oh my god, you're gorgeous. I was the year before I moved out, actually. And I remember going home and saying to my mom, oh, my God, like the new branch manager is gorgeous, but he's got a girlfriend. And literally within three weeks, he dumped his girlfriend for years. asked me out on a day. And that's how that relationship blossoms. Water player.

Jason Butler 19:37
Yeah, really interesting. So interesting. So, okay. So then as your see your relationship, you know, blossomed and you realize you you have a thing for each other. Is that when you decided not to go to Australia and to stay in the UK? Yeah. And then What didn't you the two of you move to Jersey Did you say is that right?

Catherine Morgan 19:58
No. So at that time, So I decided not to emigrate, I then bought my first house at that point so that the year before that I had a car accident and I had 3000 pounds compensation paid. And I use that compensation to put a 3% deposit down. So I have a 90% 97% mortgage at the time, and put that down as my house deposit bought my first house for 117,000. And, and I actually lived in the house for two years, I think it was maybe even less, and I ended up selling it and then I moved in with Gareth, my husband to be and that was that was interesting because obviously when you buy your first house, you then start to really have the responsibility of managing your own money, right. But I'd never really never knew how to do that I no one had ever really taught me how to manage money. I was never given the opportunity to ever manage my own money. Up until I think I was 20. Or no probably early in that actually, I remember my dad used to pay my mom a maintenance used to pay her 60 pounds per month maintenance. And I was never allowed to have that responsibility of that money myself, which is quite an interesting thought, actually. Because I wonder how much that influenced my responsibility going forward around money. And but it was always given to my mom and my mom would manage it. So if I ever wanted anything, I'd have to go to my mom and ask her permission

Jason Butler 21:32
to buy something, learn the agency and the control of making your own decisions and your own mistakes. Right. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 21:37
No, never.

Jason Butler 21:39
So so you you had that house for a couple of years and then you and Gareth decided, you know, you were your long term right. So you What did you do moving with him in his house, or did you buy a house together?

Catherine Morgan 21:50
Yeah, so I sold my house, moved into his flat and we then sold his flat and then we bought a house together about a year later, and how

Jason Butler 21:59
do you first talk to him? About the shopping, sort of hacking put it routine and the credit card debt. I mean, how did that how would that sit with him?

Catherine Morgan 22:07
Yeah, at that stage Actually, it was probably it's fairly early infancy like I was giving him overdraft every month and I had a few thousand pounds on credit cards. So

Jason Butler 22:16
you weren't really serious about the shopping at this stage. This hadn't really taken hold.

Catherine Morgan 22:19
It had but I was managing it. Okay. reasonably, I would say and there was no level. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say that the the, one of the interesting things about Gareth is very like he's the most chilled person you'll ever meet. He's so relaxed. And I remember actually, even when we first met, we went to Paris. We flew out to Spain, we went to Barcelona, I remember in Barcelona going to the Burberry shop and buying a Burberry handbag. And he was like, oh, get the scarf as well and get the purse to go with it like he was almost gently encouraging that but not in a negative Wait, it was just because he was like, yeah, if he wants it just to get it, I don't think he really understood my probably

overspending

as much Yeah, the intensity. Yeah.

Jason Butler 23:14
So this is interesting because, and it's, first of all, thank you for being open with everyone about this, because because when you get into a relationship, you aren't just bringing together, you know, your baggage in your history and two different sets of, you know, thoughts and everything, but you're bringing that financial habits or skills or lack thereof, or addictions or whatever they are, you're bringing those to the party and very few of us ever have Sit down. We think, first of all, you know, do we like each other's company? Do we have similar values? You know, do we find each other attractive? Do we think we could build a life together? We don't actually anything. Hang on, what's your financial personality? What's mine? Where are the gaps, where where are the flashpoints where it's going to be the future rounds. So, so you know, you you develop to Um, you know, obviously your relationship. And then I mean, how did you how did you deal with your finances? Did you keep yours completely separate? Did you merge them? Or did it happen over time? What What way? Did you approach it? I can't remember

Catherine Morgan 24:11
Actually, I know we've always had our own bank cows always. And I can't remember at what point we had a joint account fairly early on, I think, I think when we bought our first house, we had a joint bank account where all the direct debits and bills would come out. And then we had our own separate individual accounts. And that's the way I always was always taught at the bank actually working the bank that have all your pot, have your pot. So have your joint account, all your bills go out there, and then you've kind of just got your own personal accounts, and then you decide based on what you're earning, how much you're both contributing into the bill pot. So that's the way we've always kind of worked. So I guess in a way that probably Harvard's that relationship because well, he wasn't really seeing what I was spending and likewise, I wasn't really seeing what he was spending either.

Jason Butler 24:55
So it was off balance sheet. It was like a sort of a Yeah, okay, so that's interesting. So So on the face of it, everything looks okay, you've bought the house, you've stumped up whatever cash buyer you can do, you've got your salary, you've got the bills account, you've got your secret stash of your own money stroke your own credit facilities. So how did that then evolve? And when did did that come to a crunch? Did it come to a head? Did I mean what happened?

Catherine Morgan 25:19
Yeah, it I think the reality of the situation came to its head when I was living in Jersey. And I was, I was a sales manager out in Jersey. And after two years, I fell pregnant with my first son. So we got married in Jersey. He got proposed to me in the middle of Peru, just before we emigrated out to Jersey. It was like the most beautiful proposal. It was awesome. And then we got married in Jersey, and then I fell pregnant on our wedding night. We found out while I was on honeymoon at the top of this volcano, where I told Gary he was going to be a dad's and it was just like, completely surreal. You couldn't make this stuff off. It was Like me, and so I fell pregnant. But just before that, just before we got married, I walked into the coffee shop one morning on my way to work, and it was opposite the branch. And there was this leaflet and it's mentioned about personal styling and I remember taking it home to Gareth, it was very near my birthday and saying I'd love to have one of these personal styling sessions and maybe that would make me feel better about myself. And so he bought me this gift voucher, I had this lady come spend the day with me and she weeded out all of my wardrobe. She told me what I should be wearing my body shape, what kind of makeup I should wear all of those things. And the last session that she did with me, she left me sitting on my little red couch in the this little tiny little cottage in Jersey. And she left me sitting on this couch surrounded by about, I don't know $8 billion worth of clothes. And I just cried my eyes out. And it was like someone to give me permission to get rid of all this stuff. I've been hoarding for years and years and years to make myself feel better. And we also have some personal family stuff going on at that point of some other stuff. And those two things coming together. I just sat there and thought, whoa, like this is this is this is finally I feel like I can crack this I can actually focus on myself worth more than anything else. And so I flew the lady over who trained this lady to come and train me and she spent two weeks with me and my home. And I trained to be an image consultant. And I set up my first business on the sideline, I was still working the bank at the time, I then fell pregnant. And when I was on maternity leave, I basically ran consultations from my home and started building my social media accounts, lots of lessons in that first business that really helped me in my business today about how to build an audience and how to when I was working with women, I was helping women to improve their confidence around their bodies off they've had children. And actually for me, I think That was really pivotal because not only did I actually understand that my self worth was probably the most important thing about money, the connection with money was was my self worth, if my self worth was better, my net worth would be better. So that was the first thing. The second thing was that building a business, I felt all of a sudden, that that's what I should be doing in life. And I then started to feel quite disconnected with the work I was doing at the bank. And that I think, made another difference because I was starting to see the benefits of running a business and actually having control over my money and having to be responsible around money. Whereas as an employee, the mindset was completely different. It was like guaranteed income coming in every single month, haven't got to even think about it. It's just there in my account. Whereas being self employed, I was like, oh, okay, I've got to actually create this business to make money for myself. So the whole meaning around money completely changed.

Jason Butler 28:59
I'm interested. I just want Back to the bin bags, the bin bags personified all the hurt that you've been trying to, or the wounds or the feelings that you've been trying to. Is that is that essentially when it hit you that that actually was a personification of all of the stuff you've been trying to deal with, but it actually come out and in that session in those bags.

Catherine Morgan 29:19
Yeah, that that was definitely. That was definitely a lightbulb moment for me. Definitely.

Jason Butler 29:26
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just want to just sort of share some thoughts here is that sometimes we get epiphanies like that, don't we? And we can put our finger on them. But sometimes the realization is more gradual. In other words, it doesn't happen overnight. It perhaps happens over a couple of months or a couple of years. And everyone's different, and that's okay. The key The key is, is that everyone at some stage has some issue that they need to deal with the issue is not that they got it, but they use it to move forward and use it and take it for what it is So, okay, so you did the image consultant thing? And how did that change your relationship with money? And this whole spending thing? Did that? Did that have a positive impact? Or was it a holding position?

Catherine Morgan 30:09
I think it had a number of different impacts or influence really on on me, I think, from what I've already shared, and it's interesting. So I've never really been asked that question, and I'm kind of trying to think, now, how did that impact on on my relationship with money? I think that was definitely the starting point of actually understanding more about responsibility around money. And then I think also when I became a mom, everything kind of changes when you become a parent anyway, right? And all of a sudden, it's not about you anymore. It's about

Jason Butler 30:44
you gotta be a grown up. Yeah.

Catherine Morgan 30:49
And I definitely think that that I mean, responsibility around money is a massive topic in itself. That word responsibility can mean so much. And for me, I would definitely say That was the superseding stages of having that responsibility. And I think what happened after that is that I then had my first son. It wasn't a good birth, I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after my labor and went into an awful state of depression after he was born. And then we moved from Jersey back to the UK. And

Jason Butler 31:27
then the sun to the Sun to the rain for this fun little bit of blue skies to grace. Grace guys. Yeah, what's not okay. second son was on the way. Yeah. Yeah. So

Catherine Morgan 31:39
second son was born and and that was it actually, from financial perspective. That was interesting, because when we moved back to the UK, the house by that point, before we moved to Jersey, we'd actually bought our second house. So we, we had one house, the first house together, lived in that for two years, of course, because then the two Year Itch happens Then we moved to a bigger house, we moved into a four bed house, right at the top of our income, affordability. And then we rented the house out while we lived in Jersey. And the tenants, we have a pretty good came back to the UK move back into this house. And all of a sudden, I was like, why are we living in this four bed house? I know we had one child by that point. But I was thinking that what a waste of money I'm spending all this money on a mortgage and we don't need this house. And it's slowly though that sort of change around stuff and status and spontaneity and the definition of success

Jason Butler 32:41
right as well. The definition of what it means to be successful. Yeah, yeah.

Catherine Morgan 32:45
Oh, yeah. Completely that that starts to shift to experiences and actually, a lot of that I believe, came from my dad because my dad had the big house, the flash cars, the Jags Porsches, and the nice holidays and I think my way of actually was He left was that? Well, maybe if I have some of this stuff in my life of feel loved? Yes. He'll be proud of me and

Jason Butler 33:08
Okay, acceptance. Yeah,

Catherine Morgan 33:10
yeah. So there was definitely a lot of that in there for me. And then that started to shift. And, and then when my second son was born, he was very poorly as a baby. And we nearly lost him when he was born. He had an infection of birth, and we were told there was a 5050 chance he was going to survive. And then when he was five weeks old, he woke up one morning actually was the first of October, and I had someone coming around that morning to do some baby hand costing sessions. And he just wasn't himself. He was grunting in his sleep, making his weird noises in his sleep, and he was kind of pushing into his stomach like he was constipated, and we just thought he was constipated. But it wasn't feeding very well. And to cut a bit of a long story short, and that particular morning I took him out of his Moses basket to have his Hand castings done and he just screamed at me. Absolutely scream blue murder at me and I remember telling him to my friend and saying, something's not right with Him. I'm going to book a doctor's appointment. So I did I quickly did this hand casting. And as I took his hands out of his baby grow his hands were like ice. And I remember thinking, why is Hans so so cold and quickly wrapping back up again put him in a Moses basket, my friend left and I walked back over to the Moses basket and he was just lying completely still slightly gray and not moving at all. And his eyes were just like blinking like this. Like every blink was a painful and I checked his temperature, his temperatures like 39.8 or something like that. And I put him straight in the car. See, I rang my husband and I said, I'm going straight down to a&e and not taking any chances. And within 20 minutes of arriving, his skin starts to motl. And I'll never forget the moment When they put me on a wheelchair, they wheeled me into resuscitation. I remember I remember the double doors, opening resuscitation being above my head and thinking what what is going on? And all of these doctors started swarming around the beds and trying to get some blood from Thomas. And this one doctor kept using this word sepsis. And I remember thinking, what the hell is sepsis? I think I know what it is septicemia right. I remember watching a Home and Away episode when I was younger, like the Shane, this character and homeaway died of sepsis. I remember thinking, Oh, God, that sounds blood. Yeah, and I didn't know as a mom that that was the biggest killer of newborn babies. I didn't know that the symptoms of septicemia or sepsis or cold hands, cold feet, grunting in their sleep. I didn't know that. And I remember thinking, like, I felt stupid as a mom a second Mom, why do I not know this? And because I'm a very optimistic positive person. I was Just like right what needs to happen? Like, what can we do? Just go straight into solution mode. And I guess being a financial advisor as well, you you go into that pain the solution hat on. And two weeks later when we were discharged he was he was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. So they did a lumbar puncture. And they came into our hospital room about four days in actually and said he's got back to a meningitis but because we caught it so early, he was really, really lucky. He was pumped IV antibiotics for two weeks, but he was absolutely fine. But when I came back to back to work a year later and back at home, I remember sitting there thinking, how many people feel like this about money? How many people feel stupid that they don't understand the jargon that we use in financial services. And going back to that hole in justice, peace, I felt an injustice there was an injustice in the world, that that up and staying in negative patterns because they didn't understand it, and they were they felt judged and guilty and shameful to admit it.

Jason Butler 36:59
It's the Emperor's New Clothes, right? People don't want to actually say, hang on a minute is that lifestyle that someone is telling you on the news or telling you on the soap or on social media or whatever? Actually, what's that got to do with me? Who's to say that's right? I'm not stupid, or, and there's an interesting thing, just a segue to that is, sometimes people look at people who haven't got much money and think either they're lazy or stupid, or people who have gone loads of money that they're somehow gifted and smart. Right? may or may not be the case. But the assumptions people make they could have just been lucky, right? They could have just been lucky someone. People are lucky with money, right? This is by all their uselessness when it comes to energy. So, so you felt like that? You thought there were parallels between the kind of feeling impotent about your son's medical situation, and how people feel about money. But at that stage you were you You must have got to the the crescendo of you're kind of out of control spending. So how did the two things collide with you feeling that if If any of do people feel like this and actually getting real about your own situation where there parallels there?

Catherine Morgan 38:06
Yeah, that was it really. So when I came out of hospital, Mike, the kind of ugly head of the spontaneous impulsive, spender reared its head again, because I was out of control. I couldn't protect him. I felt like I couldn't protect him as a mom. And the only way I could control how I felt was to actually, ironically get out of control with my spending. And so what happened in my teenage years was I would control my food. And I actually dealt with that and then actually, Frank thankfully don't have that issue anymore. But what happened is it kind of shifted from one to the other. So it became a rather than trying to control food, I tried to control money, but I got out of control. And it became a comfort blanket. It was so familiar to me living in my overdraft. It just became

Jason Butler 38:52
an having the new book, the bags of new gear and the first feeling of opening it all and do you say to your husband, Money should you set something new said no, it's not something I had in the cupboard ages, but it was new when you

Catherine Morgan 39:05
never see it. There was never the secrecy of it. Oh, I had it for two years and you didn't notice. No, always very honest about it. But and we both knew that we had credit cards that were kind of out of control. Right. And, and when we lived in Jersey, we actually because we earn really well in Jersey taxes were lower, we earn really well. We actually paid off the credit card debt. And we saved 30,000 pounds in savings which we then spent on our wedding, which I know is a lot of money to spend on a wedding but hindsight is a wonderful thing. And yeah, and what happened is we then look back, look back on that and we said to ourselves car, if only we made that decision five years earlier, we could have had another 30 grand in the bank and we wouldn't now be struggling to pay them or not whether we are struggling but we were didn't really have any spare money. We were just kind of You know, we weren't particularly frugal we were just we just wanted something we would just get it.

Jason Butler 40:05
There was no structure there was no structure to be keeping your head above water because the money coming in money going out. paycheck. Yeah,

Catherine Morgan 40:13
yeah, no budgeting whatsoever. And that was another thing for me is that the word budgeting always put me off I want to restrict my boring people

Jason Butler 40:21
do right boring people. Yeah, you get a life you make a live.

Catherine Morgan 40:26
Exactly. And I can't tell which book I read. I read a book. And somebody talks about spending plans and I was like, ah, I quite like that. Because actually it's about me giving permission to allocate money where I want it to go rather than it being restricted.

Jason Butler 40:44
But it's my I have my smart spending system right smart spending systems, you tell the money we're gonna go you make allowance for fun, you make allowance for the future, but you also make allowance for centuries and you can vary them and you can adapt it and you know, you can fit you don't it's not a straight jacket. It's just a guide. Right? Smart spending. Yeah, absolutely. Telling the money where to go. Before you wonder where it's been, yeah,

Catherine Morgan 41:02
yeah, absolutely spot on. Yeah.

Jason Butler 41:05
stage when you suddenly this came to you and you and Gareth, what did you have a proper conversation about this? Or do Is it a gradual realization between the two of you?

Catherine Morgan 41:13
There was never like, a specific moment it was very, it was just a gradual combination of change of thought and belief. And then habits because and this is what I I found and this is why I feel quite I love talking about this because I experienced this myself when we want to create a new habit or a new behavior. Often what happens is we just focus on the outcome we focus on Well, I need to go to the gym or start eating more healthfully or whatever. But actually, if you don't really believe it, then it's never going to stick anyway. It's never going to happen. So I think for me, I just saw this very gradual, several different experiences all kind of a bit occur. like cooking a cake, like, all of these ingredients were very slowly coming together. So then, you know for that kind of almost like you imagine when you're baking a cake, like you've got this gentle machine kind of staring everything together. And then gradually all seemed to stick together. And then it was like, then I started to think, okay, so maybe I should create a spending plan. And then I discovered Starling bank, and I thought, okay, I'll set up my pots. And, and then I was building the business in the background as well. And slowly I'm starting to see my savings pots go up and up and up. And I was like, I've never experienced this before. And initially, I spent it, I was like, well, I need to get rid of this money, because going back to what I was used to my comfort zone was scarcity, not enoughness. So I would just find any excuse, oh, well, the windows need redoing, I need new picture frames, we need to redecorate this room, something would come up and if you weren't used to

Jason Butler 42:56
at your money, you weren't used to aging your money in other words, Always having the expenses you're going to need next year, the year after always, they're ready. Yeah,

Catherine Morgan 43:05
yeah, I love that analogy, a beautiful analogy. I wasn't used to that. And now I understand why. Because I understand that, yes, if it's your comfort zone, your brain will look for more evidence to support that belief. So you have to work on changing your beliefs first, then you create the new habits, and then they stick and that's when you can change some of those patterns of behaviors that haven't served you.

Jason Butler 43:31
So what that was a gradual realization, what would you say have a say in that stage of going from being in debt? Because you did get out of all the debt and you cleared all the debt? Yeah. Um, and when you declare the debt, first of all, how did you feel when you got clear of that? That legacy? Right? I mean, how did that really changed you as a person, your relationship, your feelings about the future?

Catherine Morgan 43:53
God is interesting. I think that we should always celebrate things like that, but I didn't really celebrate And I think it's really interesting. So for me financially now, I'm in the position for the first time in my life I've ever been in where I've got investments that I'm not dipping into, you're not taking back out again, I've got really good positive cash flow my business I generate between 10 and 20,000 a month in revenue, and I'm taking profit for myself. And I share that quite openly because I've never been in that financial position before. And even now, though, if I had a 20,000 pounds sale this week, for example, doesn't mean anything to me. Because the meaning that I attached to money is no longer there that that meaning of self worth I attached to money for so many years is no longer there. The impact that it has for me is when I can see transformation. And when I can feel like I'm empowering somebody to change amazing things in their life. That's where the value sits with me. So it's interesting for me that my relationship with money now, it's not it's not about the money, whereas it was 10 years ago for me, it was always about, well, if I have more money, I'll feel better. But now it's not about that. So it's really interesting how, because all the work I've done around myself worse, and, and I've had, I've had years of therapy around lots of different things that have happened. And that, for me, has changed my financial situation. It's not because I'm earning more. It's not because I'm spending less. It's because I've spent so much time focusing on the enemy, the inner child healing some of those past traumas and things. And that's been at the core of changing my relationship with money. And that's what I really believe that if anybody's listening to this and feels like they've tried over and over and over again to get out of debt cycles or out of cycles that are not serving them, it's possibly because you're focusing on the behaviors and not focusing on action. uncovering some of what's behind the meaning that we're actually attaching to money and that that was what it was for me completely.

Jason Butler 46:07
And that's so, so true. Catherine. I mean, here's the big thing. I really hate it when I hear people talking about money gives me security money gives me freedom, financial freedom, and all this I hate it, you are free, and you are secure. Be without money, right? Because no one will starve right may not be a great existence and you do. Obviously, having poverty is miserable for most people, you know, real Wazzup abject poverty, but you get security from within and it sounds to me like that's where you got to so you've got to fix yourself because money wants to come to you. Money is abundant is plenty of money. It's just time we don't have a huge amounts of where people live like this unlimited time and we got limited amount of money, but when you stop chasing money, it comes to you, doesn't it? It comes to you. And when you really

Catherine Morgan 46:56
think it's people think it's really woowoo don't they because you have a Talk about the woowoo ness about you know, well just go to bed and wake up and money will sit in your bank account you know, it isn't really about

Jason Butler 47:08
you we're not talking here about the secrets rubbish like we're talking here about this fixing yourself to be abundant so that those opportunities that you probably before sabotage or that those unhelpful spending stories you told yourself are sabotaging yourself or you're not looking for your physical health so therefore, you can't really run your business properly, whatever it is, but so it's fixing yourself, isn't it?

Catherine Morgan 47:32
It is and it's also when we think about the self sabotaging beliefs and things like that sometimes it's difficult for people to really uncover what does that what what how am I self sabotaging? What are my self sabotaging beliefs? And I think a lot of it goes back to what we tell ourselves is what will happen you know, if we tell ourselves money doesn't grow on trees, I have to work hard, then we will just look for more evidence because that's how the brain works. You know, as scientifically The brain will always look for evidence to support those beliefs. And because the brain doesn't like anything complicated, it will push it away. And when we think about how the brain actually works, it's really fascinating. So if you start telling yourself something that you want to happen, it will happen because your brain will look for evidence. It's a bit like, I remember I remember as a teenager when I spelt spit out with my first boyfriend, and it was my choice, but I was devastated. And all of a sudden, everyone around me were in relationships. And I felt like the only person who was single like I'm sure loads of your listeners will resonate with something like that. And that's because at a scientific newer level, you know, you're creating those neural pathways for your brain to believe that that is the case. So this is really powerful stuff. I've qualified in NLP, which is neuro linguistic programming, and this is specifically what this helps people with is actually rewiring the brain to believe that it's possible. Sounds a bit But it's so true. And if you can really understand that, you know, that inner child, we're actually we're trying to unprogrammed what we felt as a six year old version of ourselves. Actually, it's a six year old version of ourselves that needs love that needs support, not the adult version of ourselves. And that's really powerful.

Jason Butler 49:20
And really, if you think about the stoics they say you've got to understand first of all, don't get attached to stuff because it all go and the judgments are everything. Even Hamlet said that you know, nothing has a meaning and the meaning you give it. But the other thing just to finish off on here is that we're not into this woowoo kind of affirmations and goal sheets and stuff. They may be helpful but but that's not the thing. We're not talking about the law of attraction and stuff. We're talking here about, it's understand how bad things could be like IE anticipate crap happen in your life, anticipate your cars, not if your car goes wrong or if an emergency happens or if your income drops or if you get it It's going to happen right at Sam's name. So assume it fix the house, the sun, you know, while the sun's out fix the roof. So if we go into it not with rose tinted spectacles optimistic because we want to make the most of our life and a positive role of money, but also assume that they're going to have blow ups and cups and financial problems. So So if we go in, realistically, it's not pessimistic, is it? But it's just kind of like, when is there going to be another Coronavirus? Something like that. There'll be something like that every two or three years. Right? So I just just want to finish up about coping with adversity and, and sort of getting it in perspective when it comes to your money.

Catherine Morgan 50:34
Yeah, I think one of the things we're not very good at is looking at the future.

And I think when we think about your future self or your future self, this is why I have an issue with things like retirement because there is no such thing as retirement and as And this is why the language needs to change in this profession. Because if you talk about more, what do you want to do in six months time? What kind of holidays Do you want to go on? And thinking about, you know, taking a 12 month calendar and just sitting there and thinking, Well, what did you spend in the last 12 months? Is that likely to be repeated in the in the, in the forthcoming 12 months? Yes, great. Put it in the diary, go and set up a pot and get some money popped into that policy as possible. What else did you spend in the last 12 months that you might be spending the next 12 months? What things might just come up every couple of years? You know, it's kind of planning ahead, but it doesn't have to be over complicated. Goal planning is I hate I hate gold panning. I do as well. panning for me is about a finite moment in time or who knows what's

Jason Butler 51:42
gonna happen and things change right and also if you don't have them you putting off your happiness too. You do get there and if you don't get there your failures Yeah, goals is for ya. goals is for losers. Let's focus let's focus on living. Yeah, I agree.

Catherine Morgan 51:56
I think I'm

Jason Butler 51:57
joking. I'm joking. have goals do have goals, but don't They're overrated. Don't put all your hang all your hat on them. That's the key.

Catherine Morgan 52:05
Like, the goals are very like, yeah, they have to be smart.

Jason Butler 52:08
Don't even get me there don't we don't do goals. We just do positive, healthy behaviors that help us live a full life. So look, Catherine, I gotta let you go. I know because you're, you're an inbound lady. Before you leave us Do you want to leave us with any kind of what I call nuggets or amazing pithy pieces of wisdom that are going to sort of be up there with Churchill and Ghandi and people like that?

Catherine Morgan 52:33
Oh, goodness, wow, what?

Jason Butler 52:35
expectations I know you can do it, anything Well, before you go,

Catherine Morgan 52:41
I would say from everything I've shared today in the interview, and thank you for giving, like physically having this platform available to share. I can't think of any other podcasts that enables people to share their stories in this way. So thank you. And it's quite therapeutic actually to kind of talk about some of this and From my experiences, I would say, the most important thing is two things. One is about what I call getting financially naked. It's about stripping everything back, inside and out and understanding your relationship with yourself. Because actually your relationship with money is a reflection of your relationship with yourself. So rather than focusing on the money, focusing on healing your inner self, focus on healing some of those, you don't have to necessarily have significant trauma in your background, any anything divorce, moving schools, moving house, new relationships, career changes, redundancies, all these things are trauma to the brain. And if they sit there unresolved, they can have physical repercussions on our body and mental repercussions. And if we can really spend some time thinking about those and improving our inner child that in a worse, your financial position will absolutely 100% guarantee To improve. So getting financially naked inside and out, I would say is, is key. And the second thing is it's about is the small steps of imperfection. Week talk on the podcast, small steps, big wins. It's a small steps of imperfection that makes the difference. If you're sitting there right now thinking, well, I don't have enough money to save my holiday that I want next year. Start anyway, because the process and the habit of getting started with imperfect action will create a good positive result and it will motivate you to do more. And that self motivation again is really important, particularly when you're looking at building money for the future. If you can just start those habits. It doesn't matter whether you didn't do when you when you set it up if you didn't set up a pension when you're 18 who cares is the past it's gone you can't get from where

Jason Butler 54:49
you are now where you are where

Catherine Morgan 54:50
you are, right now look at the next right step of imperfect action. There you go. There's my my Ghandi quote.

Jason Butler 54:58
I love it. I'm gonna put that in the book. No, we've got the money miracle is coming out. Hopefully towards the end of the year, I pick so much good stuff. Obviously I've got a quote you on that. So that's Yeah, that's scary. That is definitely going to going to rewrite those chapters to to shoehorn that quote in.

Catherine Morgan 55:14
Oh, well send me a copy. And I'll put I'll give you a testimonial thing. All right. Good stuff.

Jason Butler 55:19
Good stuff. All right, Katherine, you're a superstar. Thank you for giving up some of your valuable time. So if people want to go to your website, what's the website address?

Catherine Morgan 55:28
Yeah, sure. So we have two websites, the money panels kind of UK. That's where our blogs and courses and things are on and then we've got Catherine Morgan's calm, which is if you want to follow me, if you want to put me as a speaker, or you want to understand more about the podcast then yeah.

Jason Butler 55:45
Catherine is a fantastic speaker, whether it's whether it's in person post COVID or virtual, she's brilliant book her Don't even think about it. You know, I'm telling you, I've seen so many speakers in my life. You know, I've been around a long time. She is brilliant. She knows what she's talking about. And she's very humble. You've probably heard from the show, Catherine Morgan superstar mom, business person, just general good egg. Thank you for being on the show. It's been great talking to you.

Catherine Morgan 56:09
Thanks, Jason you too.

Jason Butler 56:15
Thanks for listening to Real Money Stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey. Real Money Stories is sponsored by Vanguard bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk For more details, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai