One shock many mum’s aren’t prepared for after kids is the impact of losing their income – not just the financial loss, but the imbalance of financial power that can follow. Host Amelia Phillips sits down with David ‘Kochie’ Koch, one of Australia’s experts in family finance, to find out how an unequal financial balance can leave mums feeling disempowered and in serious cases victims of financial abuse, what the signs to be aware of are, and how to take the first steps to rebalancing financial power.
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
Before I got married and had kids, I was fully in control of my finances and gee, it felt good. I would reap the rewards of saving and I’d be battening down the hatches when things got tied. But fast forward to now and things are just so much more complicated. Slowly since marrying and having kids, I’ve let Tim take over most of our financial planning and management, and while in many ways I’m grateful because let’s face it, it can be tedious, time consuming, and often stressful.
I also feel that I’ve lost visibility and an element of control over our finances. It’s not a nice feeling. It drains my confidence, and frankly, I’d like to get that financial balance.
This is healthy Her with Amelia Phillips. One shock many women aren’t prepared for after kids is the impact of losing their income. Not just the financial loss, but the imbalance of financial power that sometimes. In married or de facto relationships, often the major breadwinner ends up taking over long term financial planning, budgeting, and even bill paying.
But this can leave moms feeling disempowered, out of control, or in serious cases, victims of financial abuse. So how can we ensure an equal financial balance in parents, even when one is the major breadwinner? What are the signs of financial abuse to look out for? And what are the first steps to rebalancing financial power?
We all know David Kosh or Kohi from Channel seven Sunrise, but what you might not know is that he trained as an accountant and is considered one of Australia’s experts in family finance investments and small business. He has written several practical books on family and business, financial management, and hosts, the podcast Kashi’s, Easy Steps to Financial Success and Your Money, Your Life.
Kohi, thanks so much for joining me today. Hi Media. Thanks for having me. Well, the definition of financial abuse states that it’s a form of control, which diminishes victim’s capacity to support themselves and forces them. Depend on their perpetrator financially. It can include things like withholding money, controlling all the household spending, and refusing to include you in financial decisions.
Now, Kohi, when I hear this description, these behaviors sit dangerously close to a situation many moms find themselves in, you know, handing over the majority of financial power to their partner. How do you think moms can identify if their particular situation may actually fall? Abusive category. Oh, media.
So many little telltale signs. And there’s y’all saying love can be blind. Yes. But when it comes to money, you’ve gotta be very practical with it. And it’s, it’s rampant. Throughout the community, across all ages, which surprises me, I come across a lot of, helped lots of women out of it. And friends. We had one friend come to us, uh, knock on the door, she’d just been away four weeks holiday.
Yeah. Uh, with her family. Three kids. Um, their kids were friends with, with my kids. And, uh, she got home from jogging and her husband was driving. Out of the drive. This is just getting back from holidays and said, um, I’m leaving. And she said, Oh, when will you be back? And uh, he said, I’m not, I’ve fallen in love with somebody else and you better be good, otherwise you won’t get a dollar.
Oh, nice. So she came around and knocked on our door in tears. Incredibly distraught. Cause she. She was gonna be homeless with the, with the three kids. And I just went through some really simple question. They owned their own family business, but she had no idea bank accounts, where the money went, what her husband earned, anything like that.
Just no visibility. No visibility of anything, superannuation, absolutely nothing. And I said, Are you a director of the family? And she said, Yes, I signed some documents every year that I’m a director. And I said, Right, okay. Leave the rest of me. And uh, I got in touch with a forensic accountant made of mine, and in the end she walked away with two and a half million dollars.
Wow. Because she was an owner of the business, the husband refused to buy her half share out, said he didn’t have the. That was until we said, Well, we’ve already gone to your biggest competitor and asked them if they wanna buy her half share out. And all of a sudden he had the money and uh, it was out. Oh gosh.
I was lucky to have you, you, as a friend, to pointer in the right direction. But that was one extreme. And we’ve had very good friends that have been involved in separations where partners have become really aggressive and abusive. You know, fairly small property settlements that have gone right up to the Supreme Court and wasted because it’s an ego type of thing.
Well, I can also imagine it’s a little bit of like that frog in boiling water analogy when you know you first have your child and you’re like, Oh honey, thanks so much for just taking care of anything cuz my brain’s frazzled and you are the major breadwinner. So if you can just look after that, it should have nothing to do with it.
Whoever’s the major breadwinner, that should not bear. Any importance on who looks after the finances? And if a partner says, I’ve gotta look after money cuz I bring it all in, well that’s a load of rot. It should be a shared responsibility and completely transparent. Because you’re a couple, you’re a team.
Whoever earns the most has nothing to do with it whatsoever. And anyone who said who, whose finances are dominated by a partner, You’ve gotta start thinking about the future of your relationship. It’s, I don’t mean to, to be fearful or scary, but if you’ve got a, a partner who dominates in terms of looking after finances, you’ve gotta assess what sort of person you’re in a relationship to because, and particularly if you go to them and say, I wanna know more about the finances, and they go, Don’t you trust me?
That’s your first warning. Sick. Yeah. You know, and some other examples I’ve heard of financial abuse of things like stopping you from getting a job or going to work, you know, not giving you access to bank accounts, denying you access to money to be able to afford some of your basic needs like food or medicine.
I mean, that’s a pretty serious one. But then there can just be, you know, little things like not encouraging you to go and study. Or forcing you to work in a family business, but you’re not getting paid because it’s the family business. And then of course you’ve got fraudulent activities as well. So what happens if you try to get involved and they resist by saying, Don’t worry about it, or Don’t you trust me.
You always reply, say, It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s I need to be informed if something unforeseen happens to you. I’ve got a family myself to look after. These are our joint properties and cause we’ve been married a while, uh, I have equal ownership, so I need to protect myself. If you are no longer around, if you get hit by a bus or whatever, and if they still dig their hills in, then the red light should be flashing.
Yeah. Because I think what can happen with a lot of moms, and I know that I fallen prey to this is before I had kids, I was all over it and you know, absolutely had transparency and it wasn’t. My husband’s fault or my fault. It was just one of those things that when you are, you know, eyeballs, deep in nappies and sleep deprived, whatever, you know, everybody just essentially takes on their own responsibilities.
But now that I’ve come out of that phase, and I think a lot of mums will feel like this, they’re like, Okay, I really need to get Yeah. A handle on things. And I reckon that might be when some of these red flags start to show up. Absolutely. But also, Even when you’re deep in looking after little kids and like I have four of my own, I got six grandchildren at the moment.
I know how stressful it can be, but it’s, You can still get a helicopter view Yes. Of the finances. I call it the tip me upside down. That’s right. You get the teapot, tip it upside down. That’s right. See what coins fall out and it’s the fundamentals. Where are the bank accounts? Where’s our super? Exactly right.
And it’s just knowing and having access to the file in that bottom draw where everything is, the wheels, are they up to date. Having a helicopter view, knowing where everything is, is the first step. And that can be so liberating to start with. And then as time frees up and pressure frees. Going into a bit more detail of how much money’s coming in, where it’s going to, getting more involved in the family budget.
Um, Li and I have always Lib’s really good at managing money. She is the world’s best. She negotiates everything. Did she do that when the kids were babies as well, or did she Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. She. Like I’m a bit completely the opposite. Li will read that panel on the back of every box in the supermarket before and look at the price per hundred grams.
Oh, that’s in the fine. All that sort of stuff. So drives me mad. So she does most of that sort of stuff and all the bills hates paying interest with a passion on any outstanding credit card balances. I do the investing runs or finances, and I’ve always. Really encouraged her to do that. Not only cause she’s good at it, but also.
That she gets a sense of security and comfort from being involved in those decisions and driving it. I, I basically get an allowance every week and that, Oh, I love, that’s, that’s how we run it. Very modern of you guys . Well, we’ve been doing that. We’ve been married 42 years. We’ve been doing it all our married life.
Uh, I drive the investing and also, The discussion on what are the goals we’re setting the financial goals for us. We sit down, we spend 15 minutes a month. Usually we crack open a bottle of red and have cheese and crackers and sit on the deck and talk about. But specifically set aside 15 minutes a month just talking about where we are at Big picture stuff.
Yep. Not, not arguing about who spent what on credit cards and stuff like that. It is, okay, we’ve set these, what? What do we want to do with our money over. Next six months, the next two years, the next five years, what’s the big dream? How do we get there? How are we going along that journey? Just so that we’re on the same page?
I mean it’s, That sounds like such best practice to me. And I wish I was in a situation where I could sit down with Tim and do that, but do you find Gotta make time. See, that’s the thing. That’s a priority thing because yeah, as I say to. It’s half an episode of Home and Away. Yeah. , talk about your money.
Except, you know it’s never gonna go for 15 minutes. It’s gonna go for two hours and then you’re gonna realize you have to cancel that weekend away because you actually can’t afford it. ame. Yes. Because, Well, that could be a goal. Weekends away. No, Li and I when, when we were, uh, deep in kids and Tina, uh, one of our goals was to have a weekend away together.
Every six. Without the kids and we without the kids. And we’d lock it in. Yeah. Okay. And that would be part of our budget. Li would have this budget where, you know, you list all your expenses and your income and all that sort of stuff. Budgets can be boring. Uh, I know. But they give you a great roadmap of where you go.
Do you feel so secure when you’re winning a budgeting, but a line item in the expenses? Was a regular weekly contribution to our weekend away fund. So the money would come out. Yeah. And it would be directed there. So you can still doing that can be a way of making sure you get away for a weekend. Yeah.
So do you find in your experience with mums in particular, there can be a confidence deficit when it comes to finances? Yeah. Why do you think that is? Um, I so often here, Oh, I don’t get involved with finance. I just don’t understand. It’s too complicated. Let me tell you. It’s. It is so simple. It’s just common sense.
How can you simplify it? It’s just, just by a helicopter view. Yeah. But I think people have a phobia about it. Um, all it is is how much money comes in and how much money goes out. Now we are all responsible for where the money goes. So often it is about making smarter choices on where the money is going.
Like every single thing you buy, You should negotiate. Now, I often get embarrassed by saying, Oh, is that your best price? Or What have you done? Lib does it every time, and I have, I have a brother and sister-in-law that every time they go out to dinner, when they ring up to book, they say it’s for a special occasion, an anniversary, birthday, whatever.
Generally isn’t only. Two birthdays and anniversary a year. But they just say to invariably, I get a bottle of wine or free dessert or whatever. That’s, that’s value. That’s cheek what? . Their kids get really embarrassed sometimes when they’ve got a family dinner. And you know, a restaurant will come out with a tart or a bit of cake with a candle.
Whose birthday is it? . And three people put their hand up, . And my brother’s forgotten to tell everyone this is the case. Now they’re used to it and someone puts their hand up. Oh, that’s so funny. But it’s. Getting the best deal because most stores, most organizations, staff in them are prepared to negotiate.
They have guidelines to negotiate. So when somebody doesn’t ask for a better deal, you know, you are walking out and they’re thinking, Oh, well that was easy money. They didn’t ask me for a better deal, and that’s better in my bonus. So that’s the way the game’s played these days. So it’s being, it starts with being a better consumer.
And everyone can understand that. So it’s not that hard. And so what, for a mom that’s listening, feeling quite unconfident in finances and just where to begin, where would she begin to get a handle on her finances again? Okay. With with her family and her partner? Um, number one. It’s taking an interest and having, um, the confidence to do it.
Um, and sorry, just to jump in there, the importance of that, Cause I think that’s what I’m getting from you, is that we can’t put our heads in the sound and trust our partners a hundred percent. Even if they are the most amazing people in the world because they could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Exactly.
That’s right. You don’t know what the future’s gonna hold. I could walk out. Um, Yeah. Now it’s not just a abuse, it’s what I call financial infidelity as well. Yeah. Which is where you have a partner. Spends money in areas without, without telling you that, that secret tab account. I’ve, I’ve heard a coin. I’ve heard a coin.
Um, sexually transmitted debt. Debt . Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a really interesting std Well, st sexually transmitted debt is when you have joint credit cards and you don’t know what your partner’s putting on it because you are jointly responsible for those credit cards. And, and that’s the, that’s the thing when.
Leave the finances to a spouse is that your legal responsibility is for half of those debts, particularly on joint credit cards. If they rack up all of this credit and then run out or don’t pay, you’re responsible for, You’re responsible for it for the whole lot, not just yours. Yeah, for the whole lot. Um, same with the home load.
So it’s a protect. Uh, going forward and any decent partner will encourage you and be more than happy to be transparent. Yes, and this is what I I say about if they kick back, that’s the red flag for that’s a red flag. And you know, I’m not saying they don’t love you and stuff like that, I’m saying. For me, and I’m a finance nerd and I’ve seen lots of people in this position.
For me that’s a red flag to question stability of your future. Okay, so step one is to take that interest and two, talk to your partner. Exactly. Step one is to say, dear, who are our bank accounts with, If you don’t have password to the online banking, you need the login and the password to it. Uh, where are insurances?
Who are they with our home loans? Uh, who are they with and what’s our obligation? Um, any wills that you’ve done together. Having them, them the same. So understanding what’s in them that they haven’t been changed. That’s simple to where your first step is, knowing where everything is and having access to.
And that’s, that’s the fundamental, uh, your accountant, if you’ve got an accountant, for example, if you, if your partner’s a tradie and you, you run a small business, who’s the accountant? And if things start to get really worrying, you can, you can insist on having copies of everything. Um, tax returns, financial accounts for the business, the whole thing.
And never, ever, ever sign anything. Without out understanding what you’re signing. So when those annual accounts come in and you, your one page is put in front of you, Sign this go. Yeah, I will. But I’d like to read all the other pages that come before it. And have a bit of an understanding of what it is as far as a, a relatively straightforward family financial situation where both people are employed and, you know, they kind of, they’ve got regular money coming in.
I’ve heard that one way you can manage your accounts together is you set up a joint account where you both have access. You arrange for both salaries and any maternity leave to be paid into this account. You arrange for all regular expenses. It’s like mortgage payments, utility bills to be paid of that account.
But then you also both have a personal account as well and you kind of pay a monthly allowance from the joint account into your personal account. Is that like, is, is that kind of a best practice example of a pretty straightforward It is working arrangement? It is cuz we’ve always. We’ve run that, um, everything’s transparent because if we buy each other birthday presents or anniversary presents or stuff like that, you don’t want it showing up on the credit card and all that sort of thing.
Um, so yes, we’ve, we’ve done that, but I think the trust is built around transparency and the amount sometimes. I have a worry when people put in joint accounts and they divvy up the expenses, who covers wallet and all that sort of stuff, because then it starts to skew towards that. Well, I’m the major breadwinner.
I should have a bigger say. Yeah. Um, that can’t. C pin to any financial arrangements, no matter what you get paid, it goes in. You are both equally responsible for the amount each other gets paid. And where it goes out. So whoever gets paid the most should not just come into how can you balance that power?
Because it can be, you know, as a woman who has earned decent money before kids, and then suddenly she finds that money, you know, gone, It can actually feel really disempowering. Yep. Is it just really starting to recognize that everything you’re doing during those working hours now looking after children, arranging parenting?
Is helping your partner in an income Exactly. Exactly. And building an asset that they’re working towards that your, your meeting responsibilities to make sure their earning power is maximized. So you’re doing it as a team. Everything’s gotta be a team. And that’s why I sort of insisted. Do all the household finances.
Cause we, we decided that I was going to be the, the bigger, uh, breadwinner and she was going to raise the kids. That’s not for everyone. It was a decision that she and I were comfortable with and we saw our, our kids as our biggest investment going forward. And so again, that’s up for you to decide.
Everyone’s different, but that’s why. Insisted she look after finances so she didn’t feel disempowered. Good. Yeah. By by not earning. Earning as much. And I think any good partnership relationship would certainly take that into account. Many moms choose not to go back to work because when they subtract those hideous childcare fees from their salary reentering the workforce just isn’t worth it.
Well, you’re falling in love with your. Yeah. Which is nothing wrong with not wanting to go back to beautiful. It’s, it’s, you know, I’ve, I’ve employed lots of people. I employ lots of mums and, and come and tell me they’re pregnant and, but I’m only gonna take three months off. And I go, Look, take as much as as you want off.
You know, you might decide you love. A mum at home full time, and that’s a gorgeous thing. So don’t make that decision now. Just let me know a couple of months after you’ve, you’ve given birth and do it. And I reckon, I reckon 50%, um, yeah. Of mums of mums who have worked for me, rang me up and said, Oh gosh, yeah, I thought you were a dinosaur when you, when you told me that back then.
This is the most gorgeous thing that’s ever happened to my life. I can’t leave them. My husband and I have decided we’re gonna sort of split it like this. There’s nothing wrong with that. You know, it’s every single person’s choice is right for them. But what about the mum who does wanna go back to work?
Yep. But she subtract. The childcare fees, and it turns out that she’s earning $8 50 an hour . Yeah. Um, you know, it’s, it’s a challenge. This actually happened to my sister who was an accountant and she lost six years where she wasn’t in the workforce and it actually made it extremely hard for her to reenter the workforce.
She had to do another three years of study, but when she subtracted the daycare fees, she said it just was not worth her going back to work. Yeah. I. And again, I can’t talk hasn’t happened to me. Uh, it’s happened to my daughters. So just observing them, one of them set up a side hustle that she did that actually became her own own business.
After that, lot of girls do the side hustle and all of a sudden find that that corporate world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And it gives them flexibility and, and a sense. Freedom, basically, that they’re, they’re their own boss. So for me, even if you only made $8 an hour after you take out the, the childcare fees, it’s up to you on.
I think how important a job is to you emotionally. Yeah. To relationship personal fulfillment and that’s, that’s often, I don’t think you can put a value on that. You know what else I heard, which I wish I knew this when my sister was going through it. We shouldn’t be looking at the woman’s salary. And the childcare fees.
We should be looking at the cumulative family salary and say, Well together, you know, your a hundred thousand dollars and my $50,000 together, can we afford to take childcare fees out of that cumulatively? That’s a why you should approach it, don’t you think? Absolutely. That’s a great should be based on the, It never occurred to my sister.
It never occurred to her to say, Hang on, this is us together doing that. Yeah. And you know, had she done that, I reckon she probably would’ve gone back to work and I reckon. Depending on what you want and everyone’s different, it’s. Investing in your relationship. Yep. And your sense of wellbeing and that’s can be really powerful in people.
I married the world’s greatest mother and the greatest nurturer, and she loved that side of it. Um, but now then went back into working in the business. Yeah. Which was fabulous. Yep. And we’re gonna be parents for a long time, so there’s gonna be dipping in and dipping out. Oh, absolutely. So, Kohi, just to wrap up for, for the moms that are listening that are nodding their heads along with me going, Yeah.
I’ve probably been turning a bit of a blind eye to finances and who are feeling a little unconfident to getting back into it. What’s something she can go home and do today? Ask where? Get back on track . Yeah. Understand where everything is. Yep. Okay. Go through it, make sure you’ve got access to the, um, to the online banking and things like that.
Start your 15 minutes. A month with the wine and cheese. Don’t forget the wine and cheese. Wine and cheese, exactly right. It’s funny how honest we become as the wine no . Um, and sit down and just talk about big picture money. How are we coping at the moment? How do we want to get ahead financially? Is it.
Paying down bigger lumps of the mortgage. Is it funding a weekend away together every six months? Is it putting aside a little bit for date night, all that sort of thing? It can be short term. And then the big picture ones that, you know, in five years time we wanna move to a bigger house or, uh, we want to take the kids on a big trip and make it all worthwhile.
So it’s. It’s just having a roadmap. Yeah. In your mind, and for goodness sake, Don’t be turned off by any complexity cause just apply your own common sense that you do with everyday consumer decisions. Yep. Just apply that to your money and you know, if you are. Fearing what adjustments you might have to make to your lifestyle.
I always remember that the fear of that is way worse than the actual adjustments that you have to make. And I think a lot of us stick our heads in the sand cuz we’re kind of nervous about, you know, what we might uncover when we do, when we do get into it. But having control over finances. Yeah. And feeling that transparency is so much.
Cushy. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
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