The ‘uncomfortable’ money talk that got Canna Campbell and her partner on the same page

When financial planner and author Canna Campbell first met her partner, Tom, they could not have been further apart on money. While Campbell had built a career helping people take control of their finances, Tom was convinced that debt was a permanent fixture of life.

“When we first met, we had very different opinions of money and different levels financial education as well,” Campbell revealed.

“When I met Tom, he didn’t believe in paying off a mortgage. He had always thought, ‘Oh, nobody ever pays off a mortgage. That’s impossible. It’s just a myth. It’s a fantasy. No one can actually do that.’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’”

It came down to having the raw, awkward money talks most couples go out of their way to avoid.

Between persistent interest rate hikes, soaring grocery bills, and the looming pinch of holiday spending, feeling in control of your household finances can seem almost impossible.

Yet according to Campbell, building lasting financial freedom rarely starts with an overnight overhaul or grand macroeconomic shifts. Instead, it comes down to small, deliberate moves you can execute right now.

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If you want to break out of survival mode and set yourself up for long-term freedom, here are four high-impact, short-term shifts Campbell recommends. She outlines these strategies in her new book Twelve Months to Financial Freedom, out now.

Have the uncomfortable money conversations with your partner

Getting on the same financial page as your partner is one of the most consequential yet overlooked short-term shifts you can make.

Even for seasoned professionals, aligning two distinct upbringings and spending philosophies requires active, deliberate communication rather than effortless harmony.

For Campbell and Tom, breaking through old assumptions required sitting down, running real numbers, and allowing space for frank, vulnerable discussions to build common ground while still respecting individual spending boundaries.

“When I sat down, I said, ‘Hey, look, if you were to put an extra $100 a month on your mortgage, this is how much money you would save per year, and this is how much sooner you’d pay off your home loan.’ And the moment that penny dropped, he was horrified.”

Eventually they were able to build a budget together that worked towards achieving their financial goals, one that acknowledge their different spending styles. And it isn’t a set and forget. They will revisit their budget as needed to make necessary tweaks.

“It was just having very open, uncomfortable at times, vulnerable at times, conversations so that we could get on the same page. This was not magic at all.”

Give your goals a concrete dollar amount and a deadline

Most mainstream money advice insists on extreme, all-or-nothing milestones, urging people to wipe out every cent of debt immediately or build six full months of emergency reserves before attempting anything else. For everyday households, that standard often breeds paralysis rather than progress.

Campbell advocates breaking big aspirations into bite-sized targets anchored to a calendar date. Turning vague financial wishes into a specific amount with an explicit deadline transforms how you approach your daily habits.

“It makes you feel so much more accountable, and you’re so much more aware of the value of time and not wasting it,” she explained.

Even if your immediate capacity is modest, creating a designated account and starting today reclaims your sense of agency. Rather than waiting for circumstances to become ideal, picking an attainable target sets an active process in motion.

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“I always suggest just pick something really simple and really short-term. So it might be, ‘I want $100 of emergency money, because I have nothing now, but I want to have started.’ And so you go and open up a separate savings account, you nickname it ‘My Emergency Money,’ and you might put $1 in there, but you’ve done something. And it’s simple, and you can work on that for the rest of the month, putting $3 a day into that account.”

Ditch reckless splurges for guilt-free, planned rewards

When cost-of-living fatigue sets in, it is tempting to adopt a “screw it” mentality, spending impulsively on dinners or retail therapy out of sheer exhaustion. But severe deprivation is neither sustainable nor helpful.

Campbell stresses that financial wellness should never mean stripping all joy out of life. The shift lies in changing how you reward yourself, swapping reactive impulse buys for intentional, cash-funded treats.

“And you will enjoy it so much more, because you know that you can enjoy it guilt-free, you know that you deserve it, and you know that dopamine hit is spread much longer because you’ve gone through the process and the journey of it, rather than it being an impulse decision, or a moment of recklessness.”

Harness “micro-movements”

When living paycheck to paycheck, people frequently write off investing or retirement planning as luxuries reserved for high earners. In reality, the habit of making micro-contributions compounds quietly into substantial sums over time.

“It’s about like really like micro-movements. If you think there’s 365 days in a year, if you’re doing one teeny-tiny simple thing each day, where you stand in 12 months’ time is very different as to where you land financially.”

The information provided by Nine is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.