I grew up in South Africa, one of five children, raised by a widowed mother. We knew scarcity in its rawest form. There were times we simply went without. The shame of not having enough became part of our daily life, unspoken but deeply felt.

Without realising it, I made a silent vow:
My children would never feel that same shame.

So I gave them everything I could. Expensive schools. Extravagant holidays. Designer clothes. Lavish parties. I wanted to protect them from the pain I had known. But behind the image of abundance, I was drowning in debt.

I had no financial education. No budgeting. No long-term planning. Only stress, arguments and a constant feeling of never doing enough. I relied on credit cards to maintain the illusion of control. I linked love with spending, and self-worth with what I could provide.

But beneath it all, I was still living in fear.
The scarcity never left. It just dressed itself in luxury.

And it did not only show up in my bank account. It showed up in my body. I overate to soothe, to fill the emotional gaps that money could not touch. The same patterns of not- enoughness that drove my spending also drove my eating. I was trying to feel full in every way: emotionally, financially and physically, but nothing ever truly satisfied.