Themes: Childhood trauma and nervous system responses · undercharging and projection in pricing · ADHD and executive function barriers · generational patterns from immigration · when financial ease feels uncomfortable · structural vs personal money struggles · the "boots theory" of poverty · creating financially inclusive workplaces · understanding ourselves with compassion

Introduction

When Siobhan Strode and I sat down to talk about money, what emerged was a story about childhood, safety, nervous systems, and the long journey of understanding ourselves.

Based in Devon, Siobhan, is an advocacy consultant, mentor for change makers, and founder of This Sister Speaks. Prior to self-employment, she spent years as a teacher. She's also stood for Parliament, served as a town councillor, and even as a Police and Crime Commissioner candidate.

Siobhan is the kind of person who doesn't just see problems - she takes delegations to Parliament, sets up breakfast clubs for hungry kids in the holidays, leads campaigns that actually change things, and speaks up for justice whether that’s for people in the UK, Palestine, Sudan or further afield.

Perhaps it's because she knows what it's like to suddenly lose everything that she's spent so much of her life being fierce in fighting for others - advocating for better housing, fair education funding, and real support for families and communities struggling to make ends meet and offering her expertise through consultancy.

She's brilliant at what she does - but for years, she struggled to charge what her work was worth. When we explored why, the conversation went somewhere deeper.

A Childhood That Changed Overnight

Siobhan's early memories are of comfort and security in Reigate, Surrey—a wealthy commuter town in the Home Counties, the kind of place where success and status were visible in every driveway and front garden. Her father was a financial advisor.

They had a nice house. She went to a little private school. "Things were great," she remembers. Until they weren't.

When Siobhan was seven, her father committed fraud. The family lost their home, cars, his business. "I went from being this very well-off spoiled brat, essentially, to having nothing apart from what we could fit in the moving van," she shares.

She lost her beloved doll's house. The Care Bears wallpaper she loved. The sense that the world was a safe, predictable place.

"I hadn't really realised how much that stuck with me," Siobhan reflects.

She's 41 now, and it's only recently that she's begun to understand the connection between those childhood experiences and how she relates to money today.

The ripples from that time continued. Her father struggled with alcoholism. A few years later, he left the family in a domestic abuse situation—and left behind debts her mother didn't know existed. "Massive phone bills, huge amounts of debt with the gas company because he just hadn't been paying the bills," Siobhan remembers.

As she puts it: "I've got like a weird relationship with debt from those kind of memories."

When Security Feels Too Good to Be True

One of the things Siobhan shared that really struck me was how even now, when things are going well financially, it doesn't necessarily feel safe.

"I've got two new clients and they paid straight away," she told me. "And I'm not used to things being so easy. It's almost like a discomfort that comes with that. Like, I am more secure, but I still feel that kind of scarcity, lack, even though I'm not. I can check my bank account and I know I'm gonna be okay, but I still feel like I'm not gonna be okay. Does that make sense?"

It made complete sense to me. When you're a child and everything is suddenly taken away—through no fault of your own, with no control over it—your nervous system learns a lesson about security.

"It's almost like you feel like it's too good to be true," I reflected back to her. "Could this all be pulled away from me? You won't know when, but suddenly something's going to happen. And it's almost like preparing for it."

"That definitely resonates," Siobhan agreed. "I think as well, I then have the added element of the fact that I'm ADHD, so I lack, for want of a better word, the executive function to organise myself well enough to then put practical things in place to calm my nervous system maybe."

What I appreciated about Siobhan's sharing was her honesty about still being in the journey. She's not presenting herself as someone who's figured it all out—she's someone who's understanding herself more deeply and extending compassion to herself along the way.

The Stories We Tell About Pricing

Siobhan has been self-employed since 2015, first as an editor and proofreader, then as a copywriter and advocacy consultant. She's brilliant at what she does—but pricing has been a real struggle.

" I'm great at what I do," she says clearly. "And I am rubbish at asking for money for that."

She shared a pattern many of us might recognise: "It's one of those things I'm like, 'No, I'll do that because it's easy. I'll do that for you. No problem.' And then at the end of the month realising that I haven't charged people for stuff."

Around 2018, someone pointed out to her that she was earning less than minimum wage. She didn't believe it at first. Then she sat down and calculated.

"I was like, 'Oh wow. I'm earning less than I did when I was 16, working illegally in a Harvester,'" she laughed, with the kind of humour that comes from looking back at something frustrating and painful in a new light.

Even now, pricing feels challenging. She shared a recent example: a potential client who explicitly said, "I'm not talking to anybody else. You are the person I want to work with."

Should be straightforward, right?

Instead, Siobhan spent hours on the proposal, then had "several conversations with different friends and different business pals being like, 'Do you think I'm charging too much? Oh my God, this number feels really big.'"

She eventually asked her friend Pippa Parfitt to review it. Pippa's response? "Mate, you are undercharging."

"It's the stories about the other people and what they can afford," Siobhan explained. "And that's projection, isn't it? Because I would question spending that amount of money."

This really resonated with me. When we've experienced financial insecurity, we can end up taking responsibility for other people's budgets in a way that isn't actually helpful—to them or to us.

"They are a grownup, they're running a business, they make their own decisions about what they can afford or not," I gently reminded her. "You're not doing anything unethical. You're not pressuring them."

But knowing that intellectually and feeling it in your body are two different things, especially when money felt dangerous in childhood.

ADHD and the Practical Side of Money

Siobhan also talked openly about having ADHD and how that adds another layer to managing business finances.

"A normal person—for whatever lack of words—maybe would then be like, 'Right, well I'll invest some of this money that comes in,'" she explained. "But I'm like, 'Yeah, that's a great idea. I'd love to do that.' But then there's the actual steps to do that."

She only recently started checking her bank account regularly. She does her tax return by hand on paper because spreadsheets feel overwhelming. She hasn't set up a separate business bank account because "there's too many steps involved."

"Part of me is really sad that I'm not really good at this stuff by now," she shared. "But I also understand that there are so many underlying reasons. I'm not gonna find it really easy like somebody who's never had to worry about any of this stuff or their nervous system isn't dysregulated by the mention of the word money."

What Siobhan has found helpful:

• Banking apps that are genuinely well-designed (like Nationwide)
• Automated systems like CRMs with recurring invoices
• Stripe payment buttons so people can pay without her having to ask
• Friends who will reality-check her pricing
• Understanding and compassion for herself

"I'm giving myself compassion around the fact that yes, I am crap, but I'm trying my best," she said. "And hearing other people's stories—that's why I think your podcast is so brilliant. Hearing that other people struggle with different things as well when it comes to finances is really reassuring."

The Bigger Picture: Generational Patterns

As Siobhan has got older, she's also started thinking about the bigger patterns—the generational stories that shaped her parents' relationship with money.

Her father was an Irish immigrant who spent six years separated from his parents while they saved enough money to bring him from Dublin to the UK. He grew up being told "you are so lucky you're in England" and "think of all the people you left behind."

He arrived in 1970s London during the era of "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish" signs, with the name Paddy Bolger. "How strange that must have been," Siobhan reflected, "moving to London in the seventies with that name, which you stick out like a sore thumb."

He wanted to prove himself. To show he wasn't "this poor immigrant kid." The pressure to succeed, and then the shame when things fell apart—it all created its own trauma.

"There's so much generational trauma from Irish families with the Great Hunger," Siobhan noted, "and that immigrant story of having to save to be able to move."

On her mother's side, there was different complexity: being one of seven children, never having quite enough attention or resources, the pressure to get to university rather than pursue art and then "you're on your own."

Understanding these patterns doesn't erase their impact, but it does create context. It helps Siobhan see that her struggles aren't personal failings—they're responses to real experiences that made sense in the context they developed.

It's Not Personal—It's Structural

Despite her own challenges, Siobhan is clear about something important: money struggles are not personal failings.

"I think it is really important for people to recognise that people who do struggle with money, it's not because they're bad at saving or budgeting," 

"It is structural things like class, poverty, inequality, and things like trauma. You've constantly got this awareness of risk and security, and it shapes everything that you do. It's not a personal failing."

Siobhan referenced what's sometimes called the "boots theory"—the idea that people with less money often end up paying more in the long run because they can only afford things that need constant replacing.

"Poor people can only afford to buy a shit pair of boots from Primark. And those boots are gonna fall to pieces in three months, but they can't afford a £200 pair of boots that's gonna last them because they don't have that money to begin with. So they look like they're failing, but actually they're doing their best with what they've got. That's not a mindset thing. They don't have £200 to invest."

In her advocacy work, Siobhan sees this reality play out constantly. Someone might look fine from the outside but be worrying about how to afford the bus fare to a meeting. The meeting itself might be free, might even include lunch, but if you can't get there, none of that matters.

"That constant stress affects your bandwidth and your capacity to do things and your confidence," she explained. "And if we want people to engage, speak up, thrive, we need to take their financial reality seriously."

What This Means for Workplaces

Siobhan also shared some thoughtful observations about how workplaces can inadvertently create financial barriers without realising it.

She remembered working in schools where staff would be asked for £25 at the beginning of September for the year's tea and coffee—before they'd been paid for that month, right after the summer holidays.

"Having just had the summer holidays, asking people for £25 before they've been paid for that month is a really unreasonable thing to ask some members of staff who were on less than £12,000 a year," she pointed out.

The same thing can happen with PTAs asking for upfront contributions, or creating situations where people either volunteer time or pay money—when some people genuinely can't do either.

The challenge is compounded by the assumptions we make. Someone might have a nice car (bought on finance), or their children might wear designer clothes (gifts from grandparents), and we assume they're comfortable financially.

"There's pride there," Siobhan noted. "People don't wanna tell people that they're struggling."

Creating more financially inclusive spaces means:

• Offering flexible options (smaller regular payments instead of lump sums)
• Not requiring phone calls for things that could be done another way
• Not making assumptions based on appearances
• Building in genuine understanding that some people are navigating real constraints

Moving Forward with Compassion

What I really appreciated about this conversation was Siobhan's willingness to be honest about where she still finds things difficult, while also being clear about what's helping.

"Some people will see Siobhan, she's spoke at Parliament, she's got this amazing website, and think that I've got all my shit together," she said. "But actually, I don't. And I think more of us need to be honest about that."

She's getting better at things. She checks her bank account now (thanks to a well-designed app that lowers the barrier). She has systems that work for her, even if they're not what a business advice book might recommend.

She has friends who will kindly but firmly tell her when she's undercharging. She's learning to sit with financial ease, even when her nervous system finds it uncomfortable.

Final Thoughts

Siobhan's story is a reminder that our relationship with money is shaped by so much more than just our current circumstances or our knowledge about finances.

It's shaped by childhood experiences, by what felt safe or dangerous, by what we saw modelled, by generational patterns we inherited, by how our nervous systems learned to respond to security and threat.

Understanding this creates space for compassion—both for ourselves and for others. It helps us see that struggling with money doesn't mean someone is careless or unmotivated or lacking in some way.

Often, they're navigating real trauma, real systemic barriers, doing the very best they can with nervous systems that learned different lessons about safety.

As Siobhan said: "More compassion is needed around those systemic things that keep people struggling."

And maybe that starts with the compassion we extend to ourselves—recognising that we're all doing our best, that healing isn't linear, and that understanding why we are the way we are is a powerful step toward change. 

Connect with Siobhan

Siobhan would love to connect with you:

• Website: siobhanstrode.com
• Instagram: @siobhan.strode
• LinkedIn: Siobhan Strode

This Sister Speaks is Siobhan's group program for women and non-binary folks who want to speak up with more confidence and courage. The next round starts October 20^th 2025. You can learn more here.

Connect with Harriet Formby: LinkedIn Instagram

Learn more about The Money Story Project and how to share your own story.

Photo credits: Celie Nigoumi