Anna Papaioannou, Womens Empowerment Coach at Altered Flow

"It’s funny to think about myself as even having a ‘money story’ when for the longest time I denied any sort of thing could have existed!

Ironic considering that by the time I was 18 I had two credit cards maxed out and was $6k in debt!

I grew up in a family where working hard was always championed. My dad worked long hours and I became accustomed with the mantra “If I work hard, I’ll be successful.”

Both my parents were self-admitted spenders and this is something I took on early in life. Despite their efforts to tell me to save, the concept was completely lost on me and juxtaposed with their actions, it didn’t gain much traction in my young mind.

Going to high school with other girls whose parents gave them money, I started to feel like I had to have money to keep up or ‘fit in’ with others. My parents hardly gave me any spending money and I was working at a restaurant when I was 16 all the way through high school and spending every last penny I had on the weekends.

Despite never really getting my head above water, being a chronic spender definitely made me very thrifty. I always managed to pay for the necessary things when living out of home but I was completely burnt out by the time I was 25.

I was very secretive about my past money habits and refused to let my fiancé even see my bank accounts. It felt like a dirty little secret, and something definitely had to change.

I decided to change my money narrative I was playing in my head from “I’m just no good with money,” to one that is more empowering, “I can handle money easily, I am aligned with the energy of abundance.” Once I started to tell myself that I was actually good at handling money, everything changed. I started to have conversations with my partner about my financial situation and debt.

I started to look at ways to educate myself on how to handle my money and I took a good look at my spending behaviours and the underlying limiting beliefs that I held about needing money to be accepted.

Once I had a good grasp on the mindset aspect surrounding my money story, things started to fall into place, I started to build my confidence up and paid down debt that I had.

Now at 27 years old, I am debt free and working on building my wealth through my business in a way that feels aligned to me, by working smarter not harder!"