18. Money fear, ADHD and finally facing it

Welcome to She's Honestly Mental, a podcast for women who are done pretending they're fine when they're falling apart on the inside. I'm your host, Karina Rawlinson, ADHD brain medicated, mind and proud mental health hospital alumni.

Still here, still showing up somehow.

This is a space for the feelers, the fixers and the ones who carry it all and still wonder if it's enough. We talk about the chaos, the connection and everything in between because silent silence nearly killed me. And these conversations save lives. All right, cacao in hand, headphones on, chaos semi contained. Let's get honestly mental.

Hello and welcome to episode 18 of She's Honestly Mental. I'm Karina and I am bloody exhausted. It's school holidays already and I have just about had enough. No, it's not like I'm grateful I've got children and all the rest of it, but far out. It's just absolutely wild in our house at the moment. It's currently quarter past six in the morning. My hubby has just chucked the kids in a car. They're going to our workshop, we own a mechanical business to pick up our cage trailer, bring it home. It's Christmas Eve and I have been decluttering the house like absolute mad. So we're going to do a quick little rubbish run, drop the kids, then off to my in laws or not to my in laws, sorry to my dad and my stepmom for the morning and go and hit the shops very excited. Jared has his shopping list of what he needs from Woolies, which is mostly to do around all of the meat and some salad stuff and my shopping list is around all of the tasty morsel treats that I will be making, a pavlova, a trifle, a cheesecake and I want to try some Christmas crack. I'm gluten free, so. And so is my eldest son who's 12 and it's really tricky to get like a really nice tasty gluten free treat. So that's my goal this year. It's the first time we've hosted Christmas in I want to say probably 10 years and the kids really wanted to have a Christmas at home. Normally I have a massive Brady Bunch family so my mom and my dad separated but they had five kids and then my mom had another boy who is my baby brother which is now 17, so I was his age that he is now when he was born. And then my mum has her husband with, he has two other boys and then my dad and his partner, she has two other Kids as well. So literally the biggest Brady Bunch family. So when we get together for Christmas, it is huge. Normally, we all go around to my mom's open presents in the morning, but we're not doing that this year, which just feels so weird for me. But this is what our kids wanted to experience, and I hope they realize that opening presents at Grandma's with all of the family is actually way more exciting than opening the presents at home on our own with just the five of us. Anyway, that's my childhood. Just absolutely wild. And I am blessed AF because majority of us now, all of us, we all get on pretty well and it's just nice to be together with the family. So we're doing a Christmas 2.0 on the 27th because my sister is actually flying home and my stepbrother will be here as well. So it'll be the first time that all of us have been together in a room since my sister got married last year. But, you know, obviously when a wedding happens, there is just people everywhere and you don't really get to spend much time together. So this will be the first time that we've all spent time together in a very long time. So I'm super, super, super excited about that. Yeah. So episode 18. I am so grateful that I had a friend say to me a little while ago, karina, you need to take podcast weekly. Because as much as it grinds me to have such a solid routine, when I got up this morning and I said to Jared, I need to record a podcast episode, he just was like, right, kids? Because at the moment we've re shuffled our front living room, which is now partly my office workspace and then the kids lounge room. So with school holidays, it is absolutely wild. The kids have taken over, they've got their Xbox back and I had to fight them for space. And Jared's just said to them, look, guys, mom needs to record a podcast, and that's the priority for the family right now. So I think without actually having proper ownership around the podcast and having that cadence of having to record weekly, I wouldn't be taking it seriously. And I'm so grateful because I opened up my stats this morning and I've had over 1300 downloads. And I just seen those poor idiots that have listened to my voice 1300 times now, you know, But I'm just like, I'm so grateful. I am so grateful. So on today's episode, I wanted to chat about adhd, money shame, and the unsexy rebuild that we've been going through this last 12 months. And it was only kind of. When we sat down with one of our new staff members the other day, we were at our Christmas party and it was wild because we've never really had a team before. It's always kind of just been my husband, myself and Celeste who works in our office. And Celeste has always said to Jarrod, like, when Corinne is famous, we can be like, don't forget us, which I think's hilarious. But now we have brought on another senior mechanic and an apprentice, and our apprentice is actually a woman. So amazing. She is a third year apprentice, which is so great. But when we were at our Christmas party the other night, she was saying, context is Jared with Christmas coming up. We were trying to decide when we were going to take a break. And he goes, we'll close Christmas Eve. Like, we'll finish up lunchtime on Christmas Eve. And I said to him, die. We can't do that. Like, that's ridiculous. Why can't we close on the Friday before? And he goes, no, no, I can't. I've got too much work to do. And I was like, fine, then can we just close on the 23rd then? That way we're not working Christmas Eve. That way the staff can all finish on the 23rd. And he said, yep, that's fine. And it wasn't until I was sitting talking with our apprentice and she goes, you know, we're not saving lives here. There's no reason why we can't just finish up on the Friday. And I actually said to her, well, little did you know, but at the beginning of this year, and I don't think I've actually spoken about this on the podcast, but, oh, it's so raw.

Yuck.

At the beginning of this year, we were in a really, really shit financial position. Like, so bad. Our relationship was not good. We, last year went through the hardest thing as a married couple that you could have. We were not on the same page. We were not talking about stuff. I was so busy worrying about our baby and trying to get sleep and being kind of a little bit selfish. But I was trying to fill my cup up first. And then Jared, with our business was working so hard, he was doing all the paperwork on his own. Like, it was intense. And so there was some things that had gone on that were not ideal and, you know, to protect our relationship. I'm not going to go into the specifics, but look, it was not a great time for us and we both probably did some stuff that we were not proud of. And there's definitely rumors and stuff that are going around about that, but. Or have gone around about that. But I'm such a big believer in those that matter. You know, those people that matter around you, they don't mind. Like, they don't mind if you fuck up. They don't really care. They just love you for who you are. But those that mind, those that want to know the tea and all the rest of it, they don't matter. So it's like, of course, with our really close friends, everyone's really aware of our story, but those people who want to talk about it behind our backs, enjoy your teammate. Like, enjoy your tea. I'm so glad your life is that exciting that you need to be talking about us. Anyway, so, I mean, we've been together for. We started dating in year nine and then I was too cool for him and I kept breaking up with him. And we. And I mean, this is high school, so we dated in year nine and then again in year 10 and year 11 or whatever. But I loved him. I loved him, like, felt so safe and secure that, of course, when we were 17 and I'd broken up with a boyfriend and my best friend Stevie, who came home and said, hey, Spotty, like, Corinna's single. You should message her. And then he messaged me. And then it was all the things. Anyway, we've been together for a really long time. 16 years. We've been married this year. Crazy. So proud of us.

If you've been around for a while, you already know. My mornings don't start without my cacao. I've been drinking Invictus Apothecary ceremonial cacao since 2020. It's literally been everywhere with me, across Australia, up to Broome and even in.

My inpatient hospital stays.

It's my one little moment of sacredness each morning, usually brought to me, made.

With love by Jared, Bless him, the.

Beautiful humans behind it. Jody and Ben, AKA the Captain and the crew, also run Naturally Esperance, their gorgeous local store and dispensary. They've been part of my world for years and I'm honestly so grateful for what they've created. And now they've given me a little something for you.

My choose.

Honestly, mental fam, you can get 10% off their 250 gram and 1 kilo cacao in store and online using the code SHMFAM.

All one word.

Just head to invictusapocothe.com or pop into Naturally Esperance if you're a local.

So at the beginning of this Year, our business was not in a great position. We had no money. There was nothing. We hadn't even paid ourselves for about a month. And that's as bad as it could get. We've always paid ourselves a weekly wage. And when it got to that point at the beginning of the year where we couldn't even pay ourselves, I just went, holy shit, something has got to change. And we're very fortunate that we have got family that is very, very supportive in the sense of I can ring and say, hey, I'm short, X, Y, Z. And they will just give me the money. And I know that that is not something that a lot of people have. And do not get me wrong, I am so fucking grateful. But let me tell you when I say how much that weighs on me. The fact that we've borrowed money from family weighs on me every single fucking day of my life. When I'm spending money on stuff that's probably not necessary or stuff that I believe is necessary and Jared believes is necessary. But because our family has different values to us, they don't see it as necessary. So then we're trying to, like, work with the guilt of all of that. And it's. It's hard. And so we're currently at the beginning of the year, we invested in a coach, and for both of us, and he's a professional and mechanical industry, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, and he's such a bro coach. Like, just a bro coach. And it was really good because he stopped and he really helped Jared understand his worth. And so then we increased our prices. We then started working a bit harder on our marketing, and we've slowly been able to rebuild from there. The bro coach was really good for us to get started with, but me, with my background in actually life coaching, nlp, all of the rest of it. NLP is neuro linguistic programming. Like, if you know, you know. If you don't, you should. I love it so much. It just wasn't for me. But we got to this point then when we invested in working with Chrissie from Grow Advantage, I did a full one on one day with her and she sat down and she said, right, this is Jared's role in the business. This is your role in the business. Because previously to this beginning of this year, I was working in other businesses. I wasn't actually working in our business and I was prioritizing everyone else's needs that when it came to having to be in our business, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. So I was trying to fix stuff in the workshop that wasn't actually my place. So we sat down with Chrissie and she did Jared's role, my role. She discussed it with the both of us and we built out the role for Celeste and then we built out the role for a mechanic because we just onboarded a new mechanic and an apprentice and it was so good, was so good. There was so much value in that. I then looked at hiring an online business manager and I tried that and it just wasn't for me. I don't think I was. Well, I don't think I wasn't ready in that headspace to have someone working that closely with me because I didn't really know what I was doing. That was in April. I let our OBM go in May and then we. I don't know, I don't know, it just all seems like a bit of a blur. But come I think we onboarded our newest mechanic. So like we've had a couple of mechanics that have been with us for a few months and then left and realized that working in heavy diesel plant mechanics isn't for them. Like it is a hard slog. But tell me like you are the people that keep this country going. Like we work with farmers and without us working on their machinery like they don't go anywhere. So the work that we do is so important to the way that the world runs that people forget I think but they don't realize just how, you know, the machinery is so big and huge. So these guys were like, it's actually not for us. We stumbled across this freaking other mechanic who is now working for us and he is so like Jared, it's not funny. The quality of work is amazing. Dedication to the work is amazing and it's just like it is a well oiled machine in our workshop at the moment. And it just feels so nice because we've been working towards this for such a long time. The thing that has really taught me a lot this year is, is and I've tried to live by this for a long time but it's if I'm not a professional at it, like if I'm not someone who knows I'm going to outsource to someone who actually knows. Like I can do a lot of stuff but a lot of the time it's actually costing me more by trying to do it all on my own. And sometimes I just need someone to show me the way and then I can pick it up. But I've got to this point in our business where I've had a couple of vas. It's worked really well. I've had people come in and help me launch the website for she's honestly mentor, help me in the back end sorting out emails and all of the rest of it. And I've just got to this point where I have to be so mindful because I'm looking for the quick fix all the time. And the quick fix is probably costing me more than what I'm happy to be spending. But what I've learned is that I need to be really focusing on the stuff that causes me the most pain. And for me, that is around our finances. And so when we were having this conversation with our apprentice, go back now. And she's like, why can't you just close on Friday? And I was like, well, I'll tell you this, at the beginning of the year, we had no money. We weren't even paying ourselves, right? We worked with a few people, we got our systems kind of in place, and then we moved forward. We then were so grateful that we actually picked up one of the brands that we'd worked with a long time ago. And it's a fairly big profit margin when you're working with these machines, but it is also a fairly big responsibility as well. So we brought these machines back on and we spent like, we were so lucky, the first machine. Like, we brought these machines back on and we'd already sold a machine before we'd actually signed the deal with that brand. And it was the boost that we needed to help us get from being fucking shit and not having any idea where the fuck we're going to, going, okay, we can actually make this work. And I think that's the biggest thing with our family. Them giving us the money is because they can see and we can see how profitable and how much this business gives us a life versus working for someone else and doing nine to five. Because for us, it's all about the lifestyle. We set clear goals at the beginning of the year. And I like when I say we set like Jared and I literally sat down, we had our first little business meeting on our own, sitting down in the lounge room. We were watching this presentation and we worked out what our vision, mission and values are and what our goals are of where we wanted to take the business. And what we want is a business that supports us and our family, where we can have a family business, where our children can come and work with us, but where we can prioritize having children and having time with them, which means traveling, which means adventures. Which means camping, all of those things. Being able to go fishing. Like, we don't get that many summers with our kids. We get 18 summers with our children if we're lucky. And I know I've spent Most of my 12 year old summers being mentally unwell. And that's when we just went and said, you know, like, we can't close on the Friday. We still need a couple more days of work to make sure that we have income coming in, to make sure that we have enough money set aside to carry us through for the next two or three weeks while there's no income coming in so that we don't end up back where we were. And she's gone. You never told us this when we signed up. I said no, because we don't have to, but also because we've been able to meet our financial obligations every single time. Sometimes, you know, like, we're currently on an ATO payment plan for a large sum of money, which scares the fuck out of me because when we spoke to the ato, they said, oh, we want to go through and audit absolutely everything. And my accountant was like, no, no, actually, it's fine. And it is fine, but it's because I find. And I'm like, oh, I'm using this as an excuse. But like, with my adhd, ahd, ptsd, anxiety, depression, all of the rest of it, like, it is so easy for my brain to fall into the trap of just ignore it, avoid it, it's not a problem. Like, don't do it, it's not a problem. Like, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, it's all good. And then I leave it and I go, it's all good, it's all good, it's fine. And I leave it, it's all good, it's good, it's fine. And then it leads to you calling the ATO to talk to them and they're saying, actually, no, we can't put you on a new payment plan because you've defaulted on the last three payment plans and now you, we want to order everything. And I'm bawling my eyes out on the phone to them. And the fucking lady goes, what are you crying for? Like, it's fine, you're all good. Like, why are you crying? And I'm saying, I legitimately don't have all of that money to pay you and you're telling me you need it, otherwise you're going to order everything. Hard, hard. But that same week, I had started talking to Vicky Wren. Holy shit. So good. I'd met her at the Biz Revolution gala, and we got introduced, and I was like, what do you do? And she said, well, I'm an accountant by trade, but instead of being like, a tax accountant, where we sit and we go and we look back at all of the things, I actually do cash flow forecasting. And we have a spreadsheet, and you literally have all of your numbers so dialed in that that can tell you what business decisions you're making. And I was like, spreadsheet, cool. You know, I've done cashflow forecasting before, and it wasn't until this week. Like, I've trusted this woman so wholeheartedly because all of the questions, all of the things that she has done over the last three months with me and our business. Holy shit. Genius. Like, I know I'm good with. I'm like, I know I'm good with money. Like, I am actually good with money. Because we have been able to. We're going into the end of this year with actual savings in our bank account. I am not missing any of my obligations. We are making all of our repayments. We have cash. Like, we are in a much better position than what we were. But I'm not just going, okay, there's cash in the bank. I'm going to spend it. It's like that cash sits there. I'm 36 years old and this is the first time it is happening for my family. So, yes, it has been an absolute mess. It has been an absolute shit show. But this is like, oh, knowing that I'm adhd, knowing that I've had ptsd, knowing that I am anxiety, depression, all of the rest of it has taught me that I need to outsource to the people that really know. Like, get the expert. Get the expert and the person that knows their shit. Yes, it's costing me money now, but that is an investment in making sure that long term. Like I say, when you go and get therapy and you do all of those things, you know, you go for a walk, you go to the gym, you take your medication, that is an investment in your future. And so I'm just so proud of me and where I've got to. From the beginning of the year, my story was, you're so shit with money, you've got no fucking idea what you're doing, even up until, God, September. And I have just worked so hard on building the structure that we actually need that things have really turned a corner. So I'm proud of me. I'm so proud of me. And I'm just really, really grateful for the support and the structure that I've started to build into my life. I'm building a rhythm. It's not like a solid routine. But we spoke about again a couple of episodes ago around, like, what I've done to build to suit my brain. And like, I know that getting up in the morning and recording a podcast is what works for me. I know that I can record a couple of episodes at a time. That's what's perfect. Keeps Laura happy. I feel so bad because I just don't. Sometimes I'm like, oh, sorry. But yeah, just having that capacity for all of the things that I love has been a blessing, so. But it's been a lot of me having to step away from things that I was doing out of obligation. So the sound of the big ram has just turned up my husband's car, which means the kids are about to drop in. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. As always, grateful AF for you guys. Talk to you soon.

Thanks for hanging out with me. On She's Honestly Mental if today's episode cracked open something inside of you or gave you space to exhale, come say hi over at Instagram. She's honestly mental. Or send this to someone who needs.

To hear that they're not alone.

And if you haven't yet, hit that follow button so the next episode lands in your messy feed right where it belongs.

Belongs.

Until next time, take care of your brain. You're not broken, you're just honestly mental.

And all the best people are.