Interview with Kimberly Graham
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- Continuous Growth and Evolution in Relationships
- Values and Alignment in Finances
- Creating a Safe Space for Vulnerability
Podcast Transcription
Episode 57: Financial Success for Couples: Build a Strong Financial Partnership | Kimberly Graham
Intro
Odiva Vasell (00:32):
Welcome, welcome, my fabulous fempreneurs! I am excited for you today because of the great information that you’re gonna find here. I am here with Kimberly Graham, and she is the one that tells us how to get down to the nitty-gritty of communication about money. This is something that can really change your life, so listen carefully and grab your pen and paper while we welcome Kimberly. Welcome, welcome, Kimberly!
Kimberly Graham (01:08):
Hello, hello! Thank you so much for having me. How are you?
Odiva Vasell (01:11):
I’m great, and I’m grateful—mostly that you’re here to talk to us about money, something that is so important to all of our lives in many aspects. But we have a fear of having that conversation. So I want to start with: How did you finally realize—’cause it takes a while for some of us, even entrepreneurs—how did you finally realize that having a conversation about money is so essential?
Continuous Growth and Evolution in Relationships
Kimberly Graham (01:50):
You know, it’s interesting, and it kinda takes a toll. It was a gradual thing. It was not overnight. It was not something that just kind of slapped me in the face one day, and the angels came down, and I was like, “This is what I’m supposed to do with my life! I need to learn more about money.”
I actually grew up very fearful of money. I loved spending it, but the idea of saving it—I felt completely just, like, confused by it. How much do I save? What do I save for? Credit cards scared me. The idea of owing someone money was something that I was scared of.
If I had continued to live my life that way, without actually pursuing more information or pursuing a knowledge of how to manage it effectively, I feel like I probably would be like a lot of entrepreneurs or a lot of people in the world who are just getting by, paying their bills, living paycheck to paycheck, and saying, “Yep, this is it. This is as good as it gets.”
But what happened was kind of a pivotal moment where my husband—we got married 13 years ago—and when we got married, he actually came into the marriage with $76,000 worth of debt. And it was high interest, and it was all—it wasn’t consolidated. So we had a ton of, like, additional bills that came in. It was a lot of money for both teachers.
That was kind of the moment where I had to be face-to-face with my fear. Like, “I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.” And he was scared. He was like, “I don’t know what to do with this. How do I—how do we—handle this?” It was student loan debt, and everyone told us, “Don’t worry about it. This is just what everyone does.”
And I’m like, “No! You don’t understand. This is not something I can just be okay with.”
So that was kind of the pivotal moment for both of us. We were like, “Okay, we could either ignore this and just, like, scrape by and have to borrow money over and over again, and just hope that we can just kinda live the life that we wanna live and ignore it, or we could do something about it.”
And we decided to do something about it. So we started learning. We started going to classes. We started saying, “How do we manage our money effectively so we can even just pay the bills?” ‘Cause I didn’t even know what that looked like.
And I think that was kind of the moment where we felt empowered. Like, “Wow! I think if we can really understand more and leverage the other things that we do—by just babysitting, tutoring, the little things we would do on the side—how much faster could we get rid of this?”
And it just became a question, and we started challenging ourselves. And 28 months later, we were debt-free. That was the moment for both of us.
It was in that time frame that we were like, “If we can be happening to our money instead of letting it happen to us, what could we do? How could this change the trajectory of our life?” And when we started asking those types of questions, I think a lot of people get stuck in the “It could never be me,” and they get stuck in the negativity.
We asked a lot of questions. I asked a lot of questions. “What do I want for my future?” “Okay, so how do we get there?” “What’s my point A?” “What’s the next step?”
Once we asked ourselves those questions, I think that’s when things changed for us. And it became more—not like a game—but it became fun. It became exciting to talk about money because it was surrounded by dreams.
Odiva Vasell (05:26):
So you mentioned money happening to you and money happening for you.
Kimberly Graham (05:33):
Yes.
Odiva Vasell (05:34):
And the transformation that occurred within that—because I can imagine some people would have, well, they might not even have gotten to the point of paying off that debt because it just seems so overwhelming. But you got to the point of paying it off, and you didn’t just stop there and say, “Hey, let’s go back to normal,” which could put you in the cycle again of having more debt. You were like, “Let’s ask more questions. Let’s learn more. Uncover some ways that money can happen for us.”
And what does that look like when money is happening for you and not to you, and you’re the victim of this debt?
Kimberly Graham (06:15):
Exactly. And I think that was, again, the pivotal moment for us when we were like, “I don’t wanna be in this position again.” Like, even though it was student loans, I wanna get a master’s eventually. How do we make sure that we don’t run into this again?
I wanna go—I want a house. I want a new car. I want a family eventually. How do we handle these, like, just typical lifestyle desires and wants without having to go into the same cycle again and again? Once we asked those questions—how can we make sure that money is happening to us instead of us happening to our money, instead of letting money happen to us—and we’re just like, “Oh no, life is just throwing us curveballs, and I guess it’s just over for us,” how can we make sure we’re proactive?
And it wasn’t always perfect. There were definitely moments where curveballs happened, and we were like, “Oops! We did not prepare for that. Okay, so all right, well, we’ve had lots of, lots of, like, checkpoints of when things did work, so let’s just—what worked before and how can we make sure that we keep going?”
And yeah, and so that, like, got to the point where we eventually bought our first home, and we didn’t have any other debt. So we paid it off in seven years. Like, we were able to do that because we had this—the same skill set from being able to do that from our debt from before.
And it allowed us to do so much more of the things we enjoy with our money, and our values were being, like, lifted and focused on. And so once again, like, it made money so much more empowering to think about what that could do for our wealth. How could we, you know, build silver streams of income? What would it look like if I went into business and quit my job?
You know, we’re not talking about, “What if he quits his job, and we, you know, we kind of live a more nomadic lifestyle?” What does that look like? And we just never stopped dreaming. That’s really, I feel like, where it comes down to it for us and for many of the people that we talk to.
Odiva Vasell (08:13):
Okay, so there’s a dream, there’s asking the questions, but it seems like there’s also a system that was in place to get there—to pay off this house. Where does someone who has no clue start to build a system?
Kimberly Graham (08:32):
I love this question—so good! So I always think about it as baby steps. I know Dave Ramsey has baby steps, and he’s like, you know, start with $1,000, which I think is not enough in our economy. $1,000 is not enough to start with, but it’s a place to start, right?
So I always think about it as, like, as a mom when I watch my kid learning how to walk. They start with one step, right? And when they get that one step, do they just figure out how to walk from that point on? No, they fall—and they fall a lot. But what do we do? How do we respond as parents?
This is—I think this is really where it starts when people are like, “How do I start?” Because every time I decided to do it, something happens, and it knocks me back, and I just go, “Oh, forget it. It’s not gonna happen for me.”
So I want you to go back to that idea of, like, when your kid is learning how to walk and they fall. What’s the response? Is the response, “How can—stupid! Why did you do that? Why did you fall?” Why would you do that to your child? They don’t know any better. They’re learning it for the first time—so are you.
So you have to give yourself grace. You have to applaud yourself for the things that you did do. You have to be like, “Okay, I did it. I went through.” I tell my clients this all the time. “One week—can we figure out just one paycheck? Can we understand how to just work through that and be successful in that? Can we strategize to that one paycheck?”
If we can do that, and you take that next step, I go, “That’s awesome! I’m so proud of you.” If you take a fall, that’s not the time for you to be like, “This sucks. Horrible.” No, no, no—you’re learning. What did we learn? What pitfalls did we fall down into?
So if you’re just starting out, you have to first give yourself grace and have the perspective in your mind of, like, what do I want to accomplish? What is my first milestone that I’m attempting to go for?
Odiva Vasell (10:15):
Yeah, so there’s strategizing and step-by-step. So you have this one paycheck. Does it also include going and getting other side jobs? You mentioned something about babysitting and things like that. What could a strategy look like?
Let’s say I want to buy a car, and my paycheck—it looks like I know it’s gonna take me several years or a couple of years to get to that point. How would I start to strategize?
Kimberly Graham (10:49):
To get there, so what I would do first is, I would—and it’s—I say one paycheck, it starts there, right? You do need to have an understanding of your debts, the amount of money, and the expenses that you’re paying in a given month. That is important for you to have awareness of, and when it comes down in the calendar.
So when you’re thinking about that one paycheck and you’re like, “How far is this paycheck gonna stretch in this two-week period? How far is the next paycheck gonna stretch in that next two-week period?”
For some of us who are entrepreneurs, that’s gonna shift because some of us get paid. Some of you don’t pay yourself effectively—that’s a whole other thing. But there’s a lot of, like, you know, fluctuating income there, so you’re just gonna have to do your best with that.
I would start there first before we start taking extra jobs because if you don’t know where you currently are, and you don’t know where you’re currently spending, you don’t know where—what happens? You’re falling into—you’re gonna fall into a whole bunch of pitfalls. So let’s make sure we can catch that money first.
Once we kind of get our place to a really—a good place where we’re able to say, “This is my—you can say—my foundation. This is how much I know I’m gonna need. This is how much I need for the household.” And you have that down pat, then what I want you to do is, I want you to research.
What do you wanna do? How do you wanna feel in this car? What kind of car are we getting? What kind of loan are we getting? How much is it gonna cost in a given month? And then, once you kind of have that perspective down, what type of down payment do you want?
Then we talk about what extra job can we get to specifically be for that particular goal. So that’s when, like, the tutoring, the babysitting, or any other thing, you know, the new offer that you decide to come up with can now have a purpose.
And there’s something that I see a lot in the entrepreneurial space where we’re really loving to share, you know, six-figure this, six-figure that, multiple six figures—we love to throw that out there, but we don’t really know what it means.
So I meet with a lot of entrepreneurs that are like, “I just wanna get to 10K months. That’s what I want.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, you’re making 5K months now. What’s that look like for you? Like, are you—do you even know what’s happening with your money here? So how is it really gonna change when you get to 10K?”
Like, nothing’s really gonna change. And for many of them, they’re like, “No, I want this particular goal.” But when we actually go down to the numbers and what you absolutely need, they actually need, like, $1,000 more. If they made $1,000 more, they could get to their goal.
They don’t need the 10K as much as they thought they did—they just fell into the trap of, “I gotta have the six-figure years.”
Odiva Vasell (13:23):
Yes, it’s so funny you say that because I see that all the time, and those are what a lot of coaches are throwing out at you. But it’s okay if you have the goal to make six figures, but knowing your why and knowing the steps to get there, and moreover, knowing what you’re doing with your money now is what you’re saying.
So having your eyes wide open to say, “Okay, this is my goal, and these are the steps that I need to take there. This is how I’m spending,” like really, really paying attention to your money is what I hear you saying.
Kimberly Graham (14:03):
Yes, there’s a saying out there that I hear all over the place, which I love: “If you can’t manage $100, if you can’t manage $1,000, how are you gonna handle a million? How are you gonna handle $10,000?” It really comes down to the basics.
There’s a lot of thought out there that the more money I make, the easier life will be, but we have lots of examples of people who are multi-billion, multi-million, and down, down the gamma. You can go through Hollywood and see lots of people who have ended up bankrupt, who have, you know, don’t have good communication with their spouse when it comes to money, who have a lot of, like, financial issues, who have horrible money mindsets, and just waste their money.
It doesn’t end just because you have more money. If anything, it enhances the habits that haven’t been tackled, the mindsets that haven’t been tackled, and the perspective that you have around money and what you even feel about building wealth.
And so you have to tackle that now in order to actually, truly enjoy the wealth that you’re accumulating and also the wealth that you currently have within you. Right now, you have abundance. Right now, you have to know how to find it.
Odiva Vasell (15:14):
And it’s interesting you say that because I talk to people at all levels, sometimes who aren’t entrepreneurs, and they have this steady paycheck, and it’s pretty comfortable. Now, they have big goals, but they’re not paying attention to what’s coming in or managing it.
And some of them are working in finance at that. And I’ve—I’ve heard, you know, the statistics of people who are working in finance who don’t manage their money because they’re managing other people’s money, or they’re working at it at a certain level. But looking at what’s coming in and what’s going out, they are not in that habit because they’re so reliant on this paycheck, which we all know could stop at any time.
Kimberly Graham (16:04):
At any time, exactly. A lot of my clients, surprisingly so, are accountants, or, you know, in the financial field in some way, shape, or form, and they feel embarrassed. They’re like, “How am I working in the financial field, and I’m having a struggle with this?”
And I said, “That’s okay because you’re so busy looking at everybody else’s perspective, and you can, like, get in there. But when you’re looking at your own baggage, that’s a totally different—that’s a different space, right? Even I have coaches for things that I’m like, I can’t see this within myself. It’s really hard for me. I need somebody else to pick it out and say, ‘No, no, no. This is what you need to do, actually, when it comes to strategy, you know, for your finances or for this,’ right?”
Like, I know how to manage it, but having that other person to, like, look it over is a valuable asset to your future and to your wealth because you can’t do it all. Like, you just can’t.
Odiva Vasell (16:54):
Yeah, and what you did was a bold step. The fact that you actually started looking at a lot of things that you did were bold. I mean, the fact that you—you entered this marriage, there’s this huge amount of debt, and you took it upon yourself to start looking at it and figuring it out.
I mean, I could just hear people saying, “I’m gonna run the other way because it’s too much.” So many—and the other part about it is that you did not have that conversation before the marriage, so you did not know what you were getting into.
And I can understand that coming from the perspective of, it’s not polite, or it’s not part of the culture to say, “What’s your money situation?” when you’re engaged or dating.
So what’s your advice for someone who is dating? Let’s start at the very beginning. A lot of times, people will say, “Oh, you’re not supposed to know that,” or “That’s my business,” or “Don’t ask me about that. Are you trying to get in my pockets?”
But seriously, how can someone prevent themselves from getting into a marriage that might not last by starting at the dating level, opening up communication about money?
Values and Alignment in Finances
Kimberly Graham (18:13):
Yes, such a good question.
Because my experience is gonna be different. I was 22 when I got married, and we had dated pretty much all through high school—so high school sweethearts. We didn’t really talk that much about money because we didn’t have any, you know, with the exception of, like, what we made in our summer jobs, you know?
So when the $76,000, again, was debt from school that he really didn’t have, was privy to because his parents were just like, “Here, sign this,” and he, you know, it’s FAFSA or whatever loan that he got from the bank. And so he just signed it because he was like, “Okay,” and his mom told him, like, “You’re gonna be responsible for this when you’re done. This is just what people do,” and he was just like, “Okay.”
But when the mail started coming in, and we realized it was our responsibility, we were like, “Oh no,” right?
So nowadays, we’ve been talking to a lot of couples who are either entering marriage or dating, and they’re like, “How do we start on the right foot? Like, if you could do it over again and you were a little older and had some money, what would you do differently?”
And I think what really is important is to talk about your values. So don’t go straight into the numbers conversation, right? “What’s in your 401(k)?” You know, that’s a little bit too much, right? But I think if you’re dating, it’s important to understand their financial values.
Like, what are their—what are their family values? Do they expect you to be home and taking care of the kids, or are they okay with you having a business?
Talk about your dreams, like, “What are the things that you would like to do?” and have the conversation about, “Oh, well, if you could—if you—if you were going to start a business, what business would it be, and how would you start funding said business?”
That’s a really great way to see how resourceful they are, how hard-working they are, if they are serious about this, and if this is something that they’re already starting or maybe, like, already in the back of their head, they’re already, you know, creating a plan for it.
It’s a great way to get an understanding of not only their values but how they view and how they value money and how they work with money.
If you see people who are just, like, spending or, you know, that’s it and that’s all they choose to do, a great thing to ask is, “Oh, what—what are the things that you enjoy spending on and why? What makes you the happiest? How do you make sure that you still have, you know, the cash flow to do that?”
That’s really awesome that you like to spend on shoes and whatever. And when you hear, like, “Oh, I just put it on credit cards,” that’s where that red flag comes in.
Hold on. Where do you get that from? You understand, kind of, like, the cogs, the wheels underneath it all, and you can start to kind of unearth some of the mindsets that they have around finances and kind of understand how to work through that before you get into a more serious relationship.
Odiva Vasell (20:59):
Okay, okay. And what I get from, you know, the example that you’ve said is that if they have those red flags, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to run the other way because not everybody knows.
Most people don’t know that there is a money mindset that can be made more healthy.
So that first question that you spoke about—these values questions—and I hope our listeners have their pen and paper.
As I said, the first question that you could ask them about their dreams, could you repeat that again?
Kimberly Graham (21:33):
Yeah, it’s important to ask the person, “What are their values? What are the things they really, you know, dream about? Like, if they could do anything in the world—start that business, be home and just be with your kids—what is a value that is the most important to you, that you feel like your purpose, that you feel like you’re put on this earth for?”
That’s a really important question to ask someone because then again, you’re gonna get kind of like a deeper understanding of what makes them tick, what makes them light up inside.
And every decision that we make, believe it or not, is connected to our financial—to our money, to our finances.
Odiva Vasell (22:21):
Glad you said that.
Every decision we make is connected to our finances, like, “Can I go for that, or is that not for me?” It’s kind of in the back of your mind—what can I afford, or what have people in my family or in my background afforded previously?
It can be in there, and you don’t even know it, that something’s telling you no, yeah.
Kimberly Graham (22:50):
Yeah.
So, for example, like, I meet a lot of, you know, people who want to be a freelancer, right? I’m working with a client—a couple right now—that their goal, that they recognize as a value for them, is that they don’t wanna be tied down to a typical 9 to 5.
It’s not that they wanna build a business, but they wanna have the flexibility to kind of like have the freelancer lifestyle where they can teach, they can, you know, teach classes and whatever, build, you know, like, where are their kids, but just be able to kind of live a very flexible living type of lifestyle.
And I said, “That’s awesome that you know that.”
So, we need to understand the numbers associated with that because there’s a lot of different costs than a person who’s gonna stay at a typical 9 to 5 for the next 40 years or a person who’s choosing that they want to build a brick-and-mortar and build multiple six-figure businesses.
That’s different. There are gonna be different values and different things that we have to think about there.
So, for them, we’re talking about things like:
You’re gonna need to look at the cost of private healthcare.
You’re gonna need to look at the cost of what it looks like to make sure you have an additional, maybe more so, savings because if something happens to one of your freelancer gigs, you’re gonna need to have money available to you.
We’re gonna be talking about investing more into your, you know, lifestyle and into your retirement.
And I don’t go over retirement—I’m not a financial advisor—but we’re gonna have to talk about having someone who’s going to be able to support you in that, building that wealth so then you can say, “Oh, we can actually retire early,” and we know exactly what that number is gonna look like.
That conversation for them and their values is gonna be different than the conversation I have with the person who’s working a typical 9 to 5 and is gonna stay there for 40+ years.
And that’s—I think that’s the thing that’s tricky about money—is that it’s not a cookie-cutter situation. Everybody’s values are different.
Odiva Vasell (24:41):
So it’s like a fingerprint for everybody.
You’ve gotta find out what your financial—they always talk about footprint on the computers—find out what your financial footprint is, what it looks like, what matters to you, how you wanna spend, what your goals are, and plan it.
And not only plan it but keep looking at it. Would you say daily?
Kimberly Graham (25:07):
Yeah.
I would say when you have a budget, a money management system in place that, again, mirrors your values, right? Once you have that in place, I tell people when they’re first starting, you’re probably gonna look at it probably every other day because this is new for you.
Once again, going back to that baby learning how to walk, you’re just figuring out how to look at your money from this perspective. The question I constantly have my clients ask themselves when they look at their budget, when they look at where their money has gone:
“Does this reflect my values in a way that I will feel good about at the end of the month, in a way that my future self will be like, ‘Yeah, you definitely were able to enhance and say yes to a lot of your values’?”
And before you think values just means, “I went and got Starbucks every day…”
Odiva Vasell (26:00):
I was just gonna ask that. You know, values can be such a broad thing, and some people would be like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got a pedicure.”
No, wait a minute. What really are your values?
Kimberly Graham (26:10):
Right.
And so, again, that’s part of the first conversations I have, right? Your value is not necessarily that you want to be able to have the ability to say yes and say, “I want to get Starbucks every day.”
Another part of a value that’s attached to that is, you value savings, then you value security, so that you can go get Starbucks every single day or go get your whatever—whatever happens to be your pedicure every single week, your beauty routine every single week.
You are willing to sacrifice the, you know, shopping spree at X, Y, and Z because that’s not a huge value to you so that you can say yes to this other thing because that is a value to you, right?
So, when you are looking at your financial system, you should be able to look at it and look at your purchases from the last week, 2 weeks, month, and say:
“All of my values for today and for tomorrow have been represented on this page, and I feel so satisfied and empowered by what I see on the page,” as opposed to:
“I hate what I see. I hate the debt that I see. I hate that I spent it here, there, and everywhere, and I had no control over it.”
That’s the opposite feeling you wanna feel.
So, at first, you’re gonna look at that probably every other day—twice a week max. Twice a week is a good place to start. After you get used to it and you’re in a groove, and you’re like, “Okay, I’m understanding this. I feel good about it,” you’re actually gonna enjoy looking at your money more.
But you can get down with just once a week. You can get down with once every 2 weeks once you really get it down. I just made a post today that I forget when payday is all the time because that’s how automated my systems are, and that’s how on top of it we are.
I don’t even remember when payday is. I’m constantly like, “Do we get paid? Oh, I think we did. I don’t know. We got paid at some point, but I don’t know. Bills are paid, so…”
Odiva Vasell (27:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in this day and age, that is one of the benefits. Like, the money can come out automatically to pay certain bills, and it also can go into the savings towards the value that you systematize, that you prioritize, and also your emergency savings.
So that when something hits the fan, you don’t have to just panic and throw a lot of money at it.
You can also—I think—negotiate on paying off those emergencies.
Yeah.
And a lot of people don’t even realize the power they have to do that. And they, you know, in fear, they just pay a whole bunch of money and then eat noodles or ramen for the next month.
Kimberly Graham (28:48):
I can’t tell you how many people, especially with medical debt—that’s a big one too—like, “I just got this medical bill, and I have to pay for it,” and I’m like, “No, you don’t. Take a breath. You’re good.”
You are not, again—we’re not letting money happen. We’re happening to our money instead of letting money happen to us, right? So, situations are happening where you’re constantly in panic mode, and we’re like, “I got it,” and I’m like, “No, you don’t. Calm down, first of all. You’re good. Call first, get the information, stay calm, and work it through piece by piece.”
You do not have to be the person who feels like you are out of control. You are in control of your finances. And when you have that perspective, those curveballs don’t shake you as much as they used to.
And just like you said, having automation for things like savings, for emergency funds, and stuff like that. I actually have automations for things that are more fun and more short-term and immediate. For example, like vacations, or my clothing fund, and hair fund, or like my daughter’s tuition. So, I can pay for that in full before the school year begins cause I don’t wanna have to think about it during the school year.
So, I can also put automations on things that are happening right now so that when my kids are like, “Mommy, I wanna go on, you know, I wanna go to, you know, the trampoline gym or something like that,” it’s not a, “Oh no, do we have enough for this?” It’s like, “Okay, let’s go.”
That’s not touching my day-to-day budget. That’s from something that I put aside two months ago that I can say yes to. And that’s what I mean by your budget. Your money management systems should allow you to say yes to your values—not just today but also tomorrow—so you can constantly stay in your values. You can stay in your groove and stay empowered by your finances.
Odiva Vasell (30:34):
Alright.
So, doing this together—that is the gold mine right there. The communication that you have with your spouse or significant other.
What—I don’t wanna say should that look like—but what can that look like where you’re talking about it often enough, at least once a week, about what your goals are and your values are?
Kimberly Graham (31:05):
Yeah.
So, typically, in every—this is a big can of worms. I’m trying to be like, “Okay, just talk about the big important points,” because we could go down the rabbit hole when we talk about money management and couples.
Typically, with a lot of couples, what I typically hear is that there’s one that enjoys looking at the money—quote-unquote enjoys. Sometimes, that person doesn’t even enjoy looking at the money. They have just been pushed into it because they have to, because they’re like, “If I don’t do it, they’re not gonna do it.”
So, there’s typically one person who’s manning it, and the other person is like, “Tell me what I gotta do, and I don’t wanna be a part of it at all.” Either that person might be messing things up without recognizing they’re messing things up, or they just, again, have no understanding of what’s happening in the finances.
And so, for them, it’s really important for the conversation to not come from a space of, “We are having an issue, therefore we need to have a money conversation.”
If every single one of your money conversations starts because there is an issue to be solved, you are creating…
Odiva Vasell (32:05):
Peep… peep… red light!
Kimberly Graham (32:07):
Red light!
You are creating tension within your marriage simply because the moment you mention money, a meeting about money, “I have to talk to you about money,” there’s tension. There’s immediate like, “Nope, don’t wanna be a part of it.”
You’ve just walked into an argument, right? Or you just walked into some type of argument—something that’s outside of the realm of what we’re talking about.
So, that’s the first part. What’s important here is if you’re trying to have better money communication—again, same thing about the dating thing. You know how they say, “After you get married, you don’t stop dating”?
After you get married, you don’t stop talking about… You don’t just stop talking about money, right? You have to continue to have these money conversations about your values.
It doesn’t stop once you’re in marriage. There are so many ebbs and flows and transitions in marriage between what’s happening in life. You need to continuously have these dreaming conversations.
So, these money conversations—actually, we love to… My husband and I actually have a podcast where we talk about it. Surround your conversation around positivity, around dreaming, around goals.
Odiva Vasell: (33:16)
Positivity, dreaming, and goals, okay.
Kimberly Graham: (33:19)
Yeah. So, you start with gratitude. I’m so excited to have this conversation about how we’re gonna get to Disney World this year. Notice I’m not talking about the bills that we have to pay for this week, right?
Does Disney World have to do with the bills from this week? Yes. But we have to have a goal in mind. If we both agree that we want to go to Disney World and take our kids to Disney World, let’s talk about that trip. Let’s really lay it out. Let’s have a good time and talk about how much it’s gonna cost.
Okay, it’s like 10 grand. Alright, I don’t wanna pay for this on credit. I would like to pay for some of this in cash. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. Well, then we’re going to have to have a conversation—you see where we’re going—about what we’re doing today, so that tomorrow, at the end of the month, we can say yes to this trip.
So, then every single decision we’re making, we’re not making it separately. We’re not saying, “Okay, you have to do this if you want us to go on this trip.” “Okay, fine. I just need you—just put it on credit. Like, I’m over it. Like, I’m over talking about this with you.”
Now, it becomes a team effort. “Okay, I think you know what? Maybe if we decided that we put $500 away every single week…” I’m just throwing numbers out there—I know people might be like, “$500, girl?”—but you get what I’m saying. Let’s put this X amount of dollars away every single week, and then we can get to our goal by the end of this quarter.
Does that sound fun? I think we could do that. Now, you have them engaged in a goal that you’re both shooting for. Then, the money conversations become more engaging, more fun, more about dreaming, more about positivity, more about goals—less about, “Why did you spend this much here? You messed it up!”
You see the difference? Because I am that person who would mess it up.
Odiva Vasell: (35:06)
Okay, yes.
Kimberly Graham: (35:07)
I will suspend her.
Odiva Vasell: (35:09)
Oh, okay, okay. But I can—yeah, I could be the person who’s like, “You messed it up.” Yeah, okay, okay.
So, I’m loving this—start from a place of positivity, gratitude, dreaming… Did I miss one? Was the third…?
Kimberly Graham: (35:29)
No, that was it—positivity.
Odiva Vasell: (35:30)
Okay. Positivity, dreaming, gratitude. The values—don’t stop talking about values just ’cause you got married. Bring in the value conversation. If you don’t even know what you mean by values, look it up. Get some ideas.
Kimberly Graham: (35:43)
Yep.
Odiva Vasell: (35:45)
What those dreams are—and set them free.
Kimberly Graham: (35:49)
Exactly.
Odiva Vasell: (35:50)
And then you’re building your team.
Creating a Safe Space for Vulnerability
Kimberly Graham: (35:54)
And when people are able to do that—and I know it sounds easier said than done—but my husband and I have a resource that I’m welcome to give to anybody who wants it, who’s listening to this, called 2 Questions Before Bed.
We laugh because—you know how sometimes you’re in bed with your partner, you’re about to go to sleep, you know, the lights are off, and all of a sudden, one of you (which is typically me) has this existential question? And you ask it to your partner, and your partner’s like, “Are you for real? It is 10 o’clock at night!”
But you kind of laugh about it, or you have a conversation about it, and it’s nothing serious, it’s nothing deep. You’re just having a funny conversation, you’re laughing with each other. So, we have this thing called Two Questions Before Bed that are just like very lighthearted conversations that get into the values that your partner has.
It’s just a fun conversation—we could totally, totally turn it into a game if we wanted to—of just like, “Tell me more about this,” you know, and getting to know your partner more in a fun and less pressured environment.
And that’s kind of how you get to the nitty-gritty of your partner, because you can start to lose that as you get into a relationship, in your marriage, and you get stuck in the humdrum of everyday life. This is a way to ignite that.
So again, you can bring that into your money conversations and kind of create more fun and excitement around the conversations. “This is where I wanna be after we get out of this debt,” or whatever. “This is where I wanna be then.” That’s the reason why we have to sit and go over these—go over the stats and pay it off.
Odiva Vasell: (37:30)
So, it’s like permission to have a deep conversation before you start snoozing, which they probably might fall asleep. But either way, it’s permission to put it out there and just open the door to really getting to know the person.
And what I love about this is—because when you watch all the reality TV that’s out there and how the value system is, “Oh, you look like this. I look like this,” or, “Maybe you live in this city.” “Oh, I live in the city too!” “Oh, and the one I really love—oh, you wanna have two kids? I wanna have two kids too! Let’s get married!”
Alright, let’s start dating. Seriously, you don’t know that person. You don’t know their footprint, their fingerprint, their uniqueness.
So, what you’re saying is really opening up couples to build a better relationship—not only around money, but just opening their eyes to who they are dating and living with.
Kimberly Graham (38:35):
And living with, yeah. Because again, that person is going to shift and evolve. You are not a consistent person here on out forever and ever. You’re going to change and shift and evolve, and so you need to keep getting to know your partner. And you need to keep getting to know their values because they’re gonna shift as well.
I might have started the process, you know, or started marriage with the idea that I was gonna be an administrator, and I was going to, you know, be the principal of a school. That obviously didn’t happen. I decided to be a CEO. So, like, that’s—I mean, I’m still kind of a leader, I guess. It’s just a different type of student. Instead of teaching 2nd graders, I’m teaching adults. But that evolved, and a lot of conversations had to happen.
And if you’re not ready for that, and if that just comes out, like out of nowhere, where you’re like, “I’m done. I’m quitting,” you’re like, “Where did that happen? When? When did you shift? When did you change?” You stopped talking to your partner. You didn’t even see the signs that they were showing you very clearly that there’s an evolution happening.
So you have to keep that door of vulnerability open in your relationship and your communication so that you are aware of that. And then you can actually make sure that your finances align with any shift that’s gonna happen in the future, whether it be a year from now or five years from now. If you decided to say, “I think I’m done with this job now. I think I’m ready to quit,” we’ve already been saving for it. Have fun, babe. Enjoy. That’s a beautiful space to be in.
Odiva Vasell (40:03):
And we can all agree on the importance of money in a relationship, or the need for it at least. So that can be a starting point to opening up these more deep conversations on values and goals. So, oh, I feel like we nailed it today. Thank you so much, Kimberly.
Kimberly Graham (40:23):
Absolutely.
Odiva Vasell (40:25):
Thank you so much for coming here and just laying out the roadmap for us to really level up our lives and have better relationships. Not just better money and money goals, but better relationships. That is awesome, and I just wanna thank you again for coming today and sharing with us.
Kimberly Graham (40:46):
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And I could talk about this all day, every day. There are so many topics that were unearthed in our conversation that are smaller conversations we could just, like, talk about. So anytime anyone has questions, I am an open book and love having conversations around this.
Odiva Vasell (41:00):
Yes! Thank you again.
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Conclusion
In the end, building a strong relationship isn’t just about love—it’s about growing together, staying open to change, and having real conversations about dreams, values, and money. When couples create a safe space to talk openly, they can navigate life’s shifts with trust and understanding. By making financial discussions lighthearted and meaningful, they strengthen their bond and build a future that aligns with their shared goals. So keep learning about each other, embrace change, and remember—strong relationships are built on communication, not just romance.