I used to hide money from my husband

We’re all doing our work around money. 

Here’s a confession that I’m not proud of. 

I used to hide my own money from my own husband.

I come from a long line of schoolteachers. Humble people, hardworking people – but nobody in my family ever taught me about money. Not how to make it. Not how to save it. Not how to believe it was actually mine.

So, when my mom got married, my grandfather handed my father (her new husband) a folder. Bank statements. Social Security card. Insurance papers. Everything. And he said one sentence:

“She’s yours now.”

That one sentence became a disempowering financial belief that quietly passed down through generations of women in my family – including me.

I watched my mom, a working schoolteacher earning her own paycheck, never feel like she had the right to spend it freely. We’d buy school clothes and cut the tags off in the car, hide them at the bottom of a drawer, and hope dad didn’t ask questions.

Nobody sat me down and taught me to budget or invest. 

What I learned instead went a lot deeper than money:

I learned men were more competent with money. I learned someone else should hold the decisions. I learned peace meant asking permission.

And without ever realizing it, I carried that straight into my own marriage.

I hid my purchases. I paid cash so there’d be no paper trail. 

If my husband asked about a new coat, I’d say a friend gave it to me, or I found it at a thrift store – even when I’d bought it myself. I wasn’t trying to be dishonest. I just didn’t believe I could be trusted with my own money.

Then I decided to start my own business. And I realized the hiding had to stop before the building could start.

One night I knelt down next to my husband, tears running down my face, and told him everything. The secret purchases. The lies I’d told to keep the peace. The years of shame I’d been quietly carrying. And then I said the sentence that changed my whole life:

“If I’m going to make my own money, I have to stop needing your approval.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at me – compassion and honesty at the same time – and said, “Okay. Let’s start again.”

About a month later, I had my first $10,000 month in my new business.

And, I believe deep down it’s because, for the first time in my life, I stopped borrowing someone else’s authority over my own financial life.

Twelve years later, I’ve had the honor of training 1000’s of heart-centered women entrepreneurs around the world to do the exact same thing – reclaim the money, the voice, the leadership that was never really missing, just borrowed out. 

It’s not the algorithm. It’s not luck. It’s a woman deciding she no longer needs permission to make her own money.

Inner work is essential as we’re building these businesses. 

And, it doesn’t make sense to do it alone in this world where everything is so polarized.
We need each other. We need women who won’t let us fall back into scarcity thinking. 

That’s what sisterhood is for. Not competition or comparison. 

The Women Rocking Business community is full of women willing to reach out their hands and remind you who you already are.

So if you’re feeling there’s work to do around your own abundance consciousness, or if you’ve caught yourself hiding money or asking permission for something that was always yours, I see you. I’ve been you. 

And I’m telling you: you can start again too.

Keep going, Sis. I’m always walking with you.

The world needs women who’ve claimed their financial sovereignty. And thank you to my dear friend Julie Steelman for helping me see the power of this story – and for compiling her life’s wisdom on wealth & the women’s journey. Her new book will be coming out later this year & I’ll be sharing with you how to get your hands on a copy. 

Let’s keep claiming it – together.

Love, 

Sage