How a Year Making SOTM Completely Transformed Our Producer Emma’s Finances

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kaka Yai and beIN Ahaka ni and Urga and in
Bina yakarum Jar Dominya, Domakaman, Damon Imlan Wumba bang gad
Obama in and now in Waka gan On yakraum jar Watnadaa. Hello,
beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people.
We thank, acknowledge and respect the Abiginal people's land that

(00:20):
we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land
and respect all that you see. She's on the Money
podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections, bringing you the tools,
knowledge and resources for you to thrive.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
She's on the Money. She's on the Money.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
that lets you be pervy about other people's money habits
for educational purposes of course. Now today's Money Diary. It's
a little bit different because it's with somebody who we
talk about on the show all the time, but she's
never actually been on the show. Our money diarist today
is usually behind the scenes, and a year after joining

(01:21):
the she's on the Money team and being thrown absolutely
headfirst into financial literacy. Our producer Emma has volunteered to
share her money, habits, her mindset and goals that have
evolved since then. Emma, Welcome to the other side of
the microphone.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Oh my god, I can't believe I'm finally on the show,
which is fun because I talk about you all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm like, Emma, is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Oh, Emma will know and I feel like people maybe
know your name, but through me just yapping about you
on the show, especially Bex Broke tips.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm like, did you get that from Emma? And She's
like yes.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
And usually when I call up the money Diarist and
talk to them, they're like, oh, it's so good to
finally hear your voice.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, you're kind of like in the background, but like
now we've brought you to the forefront, which I'm really
excited about. And you're normally not the type to put
your hand up for the spotlight. And I would never
have asked you to do this episode because I wouldn't
want anyone in our team to be uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
But my friend, you came up with this idea.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
This was all you.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
What on earth possessed you to go?

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Do you know what?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'd finally be happy to be behind the mic thee well, Yeah,
anyone that knows me does know that. This is my
absolute nightmare. Like I hate public speaking, I hate the
idea of being on video. I hate all of that stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Which is really interesting because I've worked in television and
I've now worked in podcasts. So but I'm always behind
the scenes. No, I've sometimes got roped in to I've
been on television twice dressed as a grandma. You're like,
no one will recognize me. That'll be exactly I've been.
I was a dalek for a doctor who thing once.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
But yeah, I've never been on anything as myself. I
also got the idea though, after reading some comments on
brooks recent episode, the one where she talked about fire
and retiring early because you know, she's twenty seven, she
doesn't have kids, she doesn't have a mortgage. So we
did get some comments that fired me up a little

(03:14):
bit and made.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Us both, I think a little frankly a little bit
annoyed because Brooks, So if you haven't listened, Brooke is
one of our team members at She's on the Money,
and she did a whole money diary with us, but
it was an investing diary and it was absolutely incredible.
So we'll link that in the show notes so you
can go back. Maybe we can start a collection, Emma
of all this. She's on the Money team's money diaries

(03:35):
and what.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
They're willing to share.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
But we got a comment on one of Brook's videos,
and I'm just going to read it out because I
think it's really important to be talking about these things
really openly. And we're not sharing this because we're like, oh,
here's a really unrealistic story of investing. Like guys, at
some point, I want to get a billionaire on the show,
and you know what, that's going to be wildly unrelatable,

(03:57):
but it'll be so pervy. But stories like Emma's that's
just about to come out and Brooks, they're not unrelatable.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
They are completely.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Accessible, and I think that that's what's so beautiful anyway.
So this is the comment we got on one of
She's on the Money's videos a couple of days ago.
So it says, but does she also pay rent, electricity, water, gas, internet, phone, medical,
home insurance, private health insurance, coffee or Red joe in insurance?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
What about her.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Food and incidentals? Not to mention subscriptions or gym memberships
or car Parking. Nobody has that amount of money to invest.
It's so unrealistic for the majority of people. And I
did reply kindly and I said, content isn't created at
she's on the money for you to follow them step
by step. It was created because we believe it's inspiring.

(04:42):
She started with absolutely nothing, gave it a go, and
now has two full time jobs to make sure she's
achieving her goal. You can start with as little as
a dollar. And this is just her story and it's
being shared hopefully inspire others not to act as a
blueprint for what we expect others to do. Because Emma,
you and I both know, like you interview every single

(05:03):
money darist, the ones that make the show, the ones
that don't end up on the show, literally everybody. Nobody's
money story is identical. Nobody's pathway to financial freedom is
exactly the same. It is all so wildly different.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
And we never share any of these stories as a playbook,
as you said it would, I mean then be financial advice,
and I'd be in a bit of a pickle. Yeah,
we just had someone on the show who was twenty
five and has really great money habits, and she did
get a better start in life for her financial literacy,
because her parents did teach her all the things that
we're all learning now. But we didn't pick her for

(05:39):
the show because we're like, oh, everyone should have a
property portfolio. At twenty five, she still had things that
we could learn from, and she has good habits that
we can go, oh, actually I could change something and
I could.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Be like her, Yeah, and you don't have to replicate
it immediately. And I think that's what I really want
to draw the attention to, because these things aren't unrealistic.
Unrealistic would be saying if you can fly to the moon.
But these things can be replicated in a way that
works for you and your story and your journey. And
every single Monday, as you guys already know, we drop

(06:13):
a money diary and you get to know a lot
of our community members and they are also wildly diverse.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
So let's get into it.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
But before we get too far into it, I also
want to point out in exactly the same way I
did with Brooke that because Emma is one of my
dear members and is not completely anonymous, this isn't you know,
digging into the numbers. I'm not going to be like
give me the nitty gritty and how much tax did
you pay and what does this look like? Because she
doesn't have the privilege of anonimity, this episode is purely

(06:41):
being recorded because it's about what happens when you start
actually applying what we talk about in your day to
day life, which Emma was a little bit passionate about
when she started. But I think you'd only just been
introduced to our community, and in her interview she was like,
oh my god, they like love the content, been telling
all my friends about it. And I was like, let's
go So instead of me telling you about your journey, Emma,

(07:02):
let's go back. Where were you before or where were
you at before joining the Shees on the Money team.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Well, I probably was a more relatable person, right. So
I was forty, I had kids. My kids were about
to turn four and two when I joined. I've been
in and out of work contracts because I've been having
my babies, and we were renting while renting out our home.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
So tell me a bit more about this rent investing
journey of yours. I know that that was something that's
completely unrelated to She's on the Money. It was something
that you and your husband had gone, you know what
this works for us?

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Why like all of that, Well, that was never part
of our original plan. Before me and my husband had kids.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
We went and got our.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Borrowing capacity done and we could borrow about a million dollars,
which back then could get you a lot more.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Than it could get you now.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Absolutely, but that idea absolutely terrified me. Second figures is terrified.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah, the idea of having that mortgage, even though the
bank said we could have it, I was like the
idea of struggling to make for payments if interest rate
goes up or whatever.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Happens in our life. You know.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
We ended up going down to one income and I'm
very glad that we didn't take on that mortgage, but
it was.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Purely because of our fear.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
So we decided to go with more like a seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollar alone, which meant also we
kind of wanted to be more in the area that
we wanted to live as well, so that meant a
townhouse yep. And before we had kids, I thought that
would be enough. I thought a three bedroom townhouse we
could fit.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Once you have kids, it just feels much smaller, doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
And my brother actually did say, you're going to outgrow
that house so quickly, and I was like, what do
you know, I just want to live closer to the
inner city.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
You meetings of room exactly, and then how many train
sets later and you're like, oh, we need space.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, definitely, And we actually moved in the week before
lockdown happened.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, before we bought the house. It was a couple of.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Weeks before we found out I was pregnant as well.
So at that stage we didn't know if I could
have kids. I'd had neck topic pregnancy, I'd had surgery
to have you know, removal, and so there were just look, yeah,
we wanted kids, but there was the likelihood that I
couldn't have kids. I don't know how it worked, but
I managed to get pregnant again pretty much straight away.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
But when we.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Signed the contract, I was probably pregnant, but I had
no idea.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Do you know what, That's actually probably a good thing
as well, because when you and I would never recommend this,
but when you disclose to a bank that you are
pregnant or having a kid, it does change your serviceability
of a mortgage.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Well, yeah, and that's something that you know, we've kind
of learned as well as we've gone on that that
does affect it now that we've got two kids.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and you're like, oh, we want to move around,
and the bank's like, so, how many kids do you have?
And you're like, none of your business.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
So, you know, we moved in just before lockdown started.
I had my baby in lockdown. I come from the country.
I come from a town that wasn't in lockdown. I
have a lot of friends there who have babies the
same age. They were all out and about my parents
are still there and I was just like locked inside

(10:13):
with this brand new baby, you know, struggling with sleep
all that kind of stuff and not being able to
leave the house.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
And I was like going up the wall.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yeah. I said to my hutsband, I think I want
to move to the country.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
And you know, he was like, well, what sort of
job am I going to do? Because he is a
beer brewer, my trade, very very niche.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
So he started looking into what other jobs he could
do in that town because he was like, yeah, let's
do it. Yeah, but I need a job obviously, yeah,
because I wasn't working in that leave.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, So you know, just coincidentally, about two weeks after
we started chatting about it, a job came up in
the local brewery, the only brewery in town. And then
after that a job came up at the tafe. They
were starting a brewing course stop. So there was actually
two jobs.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
That he could have chosen from. Yeah, and like he
was oddly qualified those.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
So we were like, this is a sign, you know,
let's go for it. So we packed up, we moved
to the country and yeah, we were happy there. I
got pregnant with my second child, and then all of
a sudden he got approached.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
So you didn't just backtracking a little bit. You didn't
sell the house, you just bought. You decided we've moved in,
we're moving to the country, but we're going to lease
that out. So it wasn't really the plan to be
a rent vestor that. It's just what worked given the circumstances.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
So we had this house, we rented it out. We
didn't want to sell it. We didn't really know that
it wouldn't fit us. I mean, we just bought it.
We didn't want to sell it. Within I don't think
we're even in there for twelve months before we moved.
But yeah, so you know, we've moved. We're really happy.
We're not looking to change. Our savings were taking a
hit because you know, we were in the country. He

(11:55):
was single income, single income, but we were happy and
we're happy to take that hit for your life, and
we went looking to change. But then he got approached
for a new job and it was just kind of
an opportunity. We couldn't say no to us a family,
you know, we felt like we were going backwards, but
we're happy. And then when this came along, we were like,
we've got to move back.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
So we've moved back. But because we'd been in the country,
we were in a big house in the country. He
was really close to work.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
It took ten minutes to drive to work because everything's
so close in the country. So we wanted that same
lifestyle but in Melbourne. So we decided to rent and
want it out and yeah, so that's how we ended
up renvesting.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
We're currently paying.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
Like when we first moved in, it was about seven
hundred dollars a week, so we were happy to pay
that amount.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
We did know some maths of tolls on moving.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Back to our old place, and we really valued him
being home quickly because I was going to have two kids, yes,
an yeah, yeah. So the things we valued at the
time were being close to work from my husband so
he could be home quickly.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
And the other thing was space.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
So we found a place that we could get the
space where we could get my husband home early to
help with the kids. And we're paying about seven hundred
dollars a week, and over the last two or three
years it's gone up nearly three hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I feel like we've had these conversations even over the
last twelve months about that rental increases, how crazy they've been,
and that's wild.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
So we are spending a big chunk of our income
or percentage of our income on rent. I haven't done
the maths of what that is, but you know, it's
not the same feels hefty. Yeah, it's not the seven
hundred dollars it was when we started.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, that can be stressful in itself because you obviously
did your numbers when you moved back and you were like, Okay,
we'll renting, and then the income that we get from
our rental property. Like a lot of the time when
I used to be a financial advisor, I'd go okay, cool,
if you want to rent vest And let's pretend you're
renting out your property for three hundred and fifty dollars
a week. That's where you start with your budget because

(14:02):
it's left pocket, right pocket. Because if your tenants are
paying three fifty and then you spend three fifty, this
is a tax effective three fifty, and then you're technically
just paying the mortgage. When those things start to become
out of balance, it's stressful and you don't feel like
you're getting ahead, and then the compromises that you made
don't feel as worthy. Yeah, definitely, all right, Emma, I

(14:24):
want to backtrack a little bit because you said something
that made my money brain go off. You said that
you were in and out of work, had different contracts,
went on Matt leave. So can we please talk about superannuation.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
So even though I have had about four or five
years out of paying super like in total, in total,
we didn't really think about super splitting at the time
when I was on matt leave.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
My husband actually spent seven years in Korea, so.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yes, her husband's really cool. Just so you know, beer
brewer worked in Korea, like, yeah, so he's needed a
bit of catching up. So we have prioritized catching him
up more than catching me up.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
And was that just because you had enough for like,
how did you benchmark that?

Speaker 4 (15:10):
Well, it was just that mine was bigger, I suppose,
and we didn't really think too deeply into it. We
didn't have a lot of extra income while I wasn't working,
so we thought, well, his is lower, so we won't
be putting any extra into mine. I was lucky that
I worked at the ABC when I started my super career. Yeah,

(15:33):
so they actually paid. In my early twenties, I was
getting fourteen point nine percent super and.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
That was when the base was nine point five, So
you're getting fourteen and a half. Okay, so that would
make me feel very comfortable, not at the time, because
I don't think at the time you really cared that much.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
You were probably know whatever.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
I thought it was cool, yeah, but I didn't really
think about the impact that it would have.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
But it's meant that maybe for your age, you're not
behind the average person for your AG and though you've
had four or five years out of the workforce.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
Yeah, that's very sexy, and I do have a bit
of a regret, which I only thought about recently. I
didn't even remember about it until the markets started dipping
this year and we saw what it did to our super.
But I started contributing to my super when I was younger.
I have no idea why I started doing it, because

(16:22):
I never did anything for future me at all when
I was younger. But for whatever reason, whoever told me
to do it, I started doing it. And this was
before the globe of financial crisis, and then obviously the
market's crashed. I'm a young you know, and I'm putting
things into my super and then all of a sudden,
I'm like, I'm putting this money in, but my balance

(16:44):
is dropping.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Oh yeah, and that's so instressful because you don't fall
the like at that time, without the literacy, you don't
fully comprehend what that means.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
You just thought you were losing money. I literally thought
I was throwing money in the bin. No, you would,
you would, I know.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
I had no idea that I was buying assets that
would grow in value. Yeah, So I stopped because I
was like, I'm an easy point, You're so dumb. Em
I thought I was stupid for putting money into my super. No,
and that was seventeen years if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Like the narrative that you had been taught and what
you were seeing, the logic kind of makes sense. And
that's where I don't know, This is where financial literacy
makes me so passionate, and now you as well.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Because you go, no, no, no, it's not like that.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Like, I know, you logged in and it looks like
there's less money, but like you still have the same
amount of shares, and like, I just want.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
To scramble to explain it to people.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, and when we had that recently, I was telling
that to all my friends, please don't touch your super, please,
you know how it is, and they always.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Like, oh my god, I thought back then I was
throwing money in.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
The bin, and I just you know, you weren't, but
you didn't know any better and didn't know how to
analyze it properly. And recently, Emma, you and I have
been working on a lot of superannuation episodes because it's
obviously something I'm wildly passionate about. What changes have you
made inside your super since then, because like, obviously back.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Then you were like, this is a waste of money.
I'm just going to stop. Yeah, but where are you
at now?

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Well, I have actually finally made the change to high
growth from balance, which I have had that knowledge.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
For longer than way we on the show that I
should have done that.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
I actually worked on a TV show a while ago
where we did a story on superannuation. I used to
work with a money person on a different show, and
so I did know that I should be in it,
but I just never bothered to do it. Yeah, and
so finally I was like, I just need to press

(18:40):
that button.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Like it was like, I just was like, Oh, it.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Feels like life admin. Yeah, and it also feels like,
oh should I shouldn't? I like a ues, I don't know,
And you're very similar to me, like we both over
analyze things. Yeah, and then you go, oh, maybe I'll
just I'll do it later because I'll do a bit
more research for that decision.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
And I am a bit scared of commitment. I don't
know where that comes married with two kids. I don't
know how to tell you. But committing just making that,
committing to change is I find that really hard? Yeah,
but I did.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Actually I changed it. And I'm with Australian super and
they publish their daily losses and gains so you can check.
You can log in and check So I did some
maths before doing the show, and in the nine months
that I have changed it, I benefited probably two thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
In nine months, in nine months just from making the
change that was aligned to your values and what your
risk profile was.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, just pressing that button.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
And even with the market dip we had recently, my
balance did it drop to below what it would have
been on balance, but it's swung back higher again.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, And that's the magic of the market. I suppose
it doesn't feel like magic at the time. Yeah, And
when that dip happened, even I was a little bit
not stre I just don't like seeing my own portfolio
go down. I don't think anybody does, right, Like it
doesn't matter that quote I'm she's on the money, or
that I used to be a financial advisor, Like we're
the worst at taking our own advice.

Speaker 5 (20:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
So when I logged in and I saw a dip,
I also was like, oh, I don't like this.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
But then I was also slightly annoyed at myself because
like my husband and I, as you know, had been
trying to like work out if we're buying a new
home and whatnot, and I didn't want to invest any
more into the share market. I wanted to have a
cash available, and now I still see.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
That drop in the share market.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
I look at it and go such an opportunity that, like,
of all people to have seized, I didn't seize it.
So I'm glad that you're ahead. Yeah, it makes me
very excited. And I know you've got the maths in
front of you. I can see what you've drawn out.
If you extrapolate that over like time, what does that
look like?

Speaker 4 (20:47):
Well, without factoring like compound and growth and interest and
you know, increase in salary, it will be an extra fifty.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Grand in the next twenty years. That's crazy, isn't it. Yeah,
just pressing that button. Yeah, and have you now talked
to your husband about his where he might be at
or was he already in hero was already in high grade? Surprise?

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Yeah, he was already in growth and he had been
telling me to do it for a long time. It's like,
you know, it's just actually sitting down pressing the button
doing it.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Love.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
All right, let's flip over. I want to talk about
money goals. You obviously own your like townhouse, family home.
What are your next money goals? What are you currently
working towards?

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Well, we have this townhouse and probably at the start
of the year we were like, what are we going
to do with it?

Speaker 4 (21:36):
It felt like it didn't fit us anymore. But we
hadn't seen a lot of growth in the capital or anything.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Like that, and that's stressful.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, so you're like, oh, I wish we had some
equity and then we could tell it it would feel
quote worth it.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, I mean we did it get a little bit
and we were like, what do we do with it?

Speaker 4 (21:53):
And we just we had no idea how to work
out whether we keep it, whether we try and by
second home, like all of that kind of stuff, And
we thought there was all these hard equations that we
had to do to work it out, and that we
had to go see a financial advisor. But as part
of that, we had to find out our borrowing capacity, and.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
So we went to Zella.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Of course, not because I bully my team into going
on seeing Zela that I literally say, you don't have
to use our team and you're not even in the
Zella team.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's a like separate business. But they're really nice. Yeah,
and you know they're our second mortgage broker.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
Now we have had an experience with another mortgage broker,
and we haven't heard from that other mortgage broker since
we bought the house or you know, And we contacted
them and they were kind of like they weren't interested
in talking to us again.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Really, well, it just depends on like that's not throwing
another broker under the business, absolutely not, but it just
honestly depends on their business strategy as well.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
Yeah, they were one of the big franchise one they
just went yes and that you know, we were like,
should we be refinancing and they were like, if you
want to try, we can look at it anyway. So
we did that and we actually they modeled out what
would happen if we kept the house and tried to

(23:12):
buy a second property, or if we sold the house
and didn't have that second mortgage, so what our boring
capacity would be, and we actually when we got the numbers,
it was really obvious what we.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Should do with it for us.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
I love that because I think a lot of people
go do I need it? And this is just me
side noting. I do apologize. Some people be like I
need to go see a financial advisor, and then I go, okay,
am you can go see a financial advisor. You're probably
going to be about six thousand dollars for like a
piece of advice at least, And that is fair, Like,
it is definitely warranted, especially if you're trying to do investment, insurance, property,

(23:47):
you know, supernuation, all of that, right, But if you're
just trying to make a decision around property, a mortgage
broker will probably do.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
That for you for free. Yeah, and like we can
model it out.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
And as I said before, it's not throwing someone else
under as it's just different business strategies. And my team
is salaried, right, so they're not just on commissions like
a lot of other people where if they don't get
your big mortgage, they don't want to talk to you
as a client. My team have heaps of time because
they just get paid their salary, so they can interact
with you and you know, oh yeah, I'll do some
extra modeling and make sure that my client's in the

(24:18):
best possible position. And then they go, hey, this is
what option A looks like, B looks like, and this
is what it would look like if you move back in. Yeah. Oh,
like it's not advice, it's the options being put on
the table for you to make a decision, and so
I just love that. You're like, oh, it was obvious
what we wanted to do. Well, yeahuse I was like,
my team can't tell you. Which is the worst part.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
We actually got the disappointing news that we couldn't get
as much money as we wanted to.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah, and we hadn't been actively saving like a second
house deposit or anything like that. We've got savings, and
we've got you know, we're both working full time now,
we've got good jobs.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
And I just thought we would get what we wanted
and just thought that serviceability because you had a pre
existing set.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah, And I know the two kids made a big
impact that we didn't have originally. And you know, there
are thoughts that go through my mind. Should we have
taken that big mortgage on earlier on, would we be
in a better position now?

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Maybe? But we also may have.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
Struggled a lot while those interest rates were up, because
you know, I was on maternity leave and all that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
So we can't think like that, but you know, maybe
we would have been in a better position if we
had a taken on the bigger mortgage.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Was that disappointing to find out because I know in
the office in the background, not for you particularly, but
when someone comes along and they go, oh, I really
want to do this, and then you know, we find out, oh,
they're probably not going to serve uce more than X,
and then we have to go back to the client
and be like, oh, sorry, but this is what you're
servicing is Like that feels a bit trash for us
as well.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, it was really confronting.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
It was really upsetting because we were like, we've got
okay jobs, we're working full time, totally like how.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Do people get ahead?

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Like we kept asking ourselves that question because we were like,
I thought we were in a good position, and.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
You are, yeah you are.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's just a bank looks at all of your savings
and your kids and the responsibilities that you have in
your pre existing mortgage and goes, well, we would let
you service this loan because otherwise you wouldn't have the
cash flow for it. It's not because they're like, oh,
Emma's not got a good job. Like you both have
very solid incomes and very stable jobs. So it's definitely
not about that, but it does feel disheartening.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Hey, yeah, it really was and before then it wasn't
even an option for us to move back into that
small house. We were like, we're either gonna have two
houses or buy our second house, and we don't want
a third house in between our townhouse and the house
that we want.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, yeah, so fair because there's stamp duty, yeahes fees
and charges, and like, you're just not sure what the
market's going to do.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
So we want to wait to get that house, whether
we get it or whether we just keep this townhouse.
And I don't know, but you know, we just sort
of made us zoom out and say, well, what else
do we want in life? And we're like, we don't
want to work forever, We maybe want to retire early,
we maybe want to go part time before we're sixty,

(27:14):
all that kind of stuff. We do want to build wealth,
and we do want to have money to pass on
to our children so they can do what they want
to do.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
And so we don't have much time on our hands.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
We both work full time, we've got two kids, and
we looked at all our living expenses and the only
way that we can really generate more income is by
moving into the smaller house.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
So that is what we're going to do.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
We're moving back into the townhouse that you outgrow.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, exactly, I like it, but it's not a forever plan.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
Our goal is now to invest one hundred thousand dollars
as quickly as we can, because we want to get
the snowball momentum of that compounding growth as quickly as possible.
We're forty, we don't have as much time on our hand,
and so we want to get that first hundred grand
invested as quickly as we can, which.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Is really exciting.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
And I always say that the first hundred thousand invested
is the hardest to tell me about that decision, because
I feel like that's a really big decision because at
the start of the episode, you're like, oh, the house
is too.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Small, we outgrew it. And then you know you've gone
from doing that.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Talking to a pro car working out what your serviceability
was on a different one, and you're like, great, that's
not going to work. And to be honest, I think
in the future you might look back and be like,
I'm so glad that we didn't take out a massive
mortgage that we arguably you know, would have been stretched
to do, because that would have impacted your wealth creation journey. Yeah,
And like I say all the time on the show,
like your family home is not an investment unless you're

(28:41):
planning on living in there to then sell it and
live off that income. Like, yes, where are you living
in retirement when you're sixty or when you're working part
time before sixty? Where are you coming home to?

Speaker 5 (28:51):
Well?

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, So it's a bigger decision and a bigger thing
that I think you'll be grateful for.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
But like it doesn't. I don't feel grateful for this.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
Indust matter, and I don't want to get out of
the property market. So you know, we want to keep
this townhouse, even for the moment, because we don't want
to get out of the property market, because we do
want to have some sort of house in retirement. So
you know, whether we end up just renting forever and
keeping this one and we've always got a house that

(29:19):
we can come back to if we need to in retirement,
or you know, whether we sell it and buy a
bigger house.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
But for now, while our.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
Children are younger and they can share a bedroom, we're
going to put them in a bedroom together, which really
which could be something to get used to.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
But you know, I shared a breadroom for a bit
with my sister growing up. I loved it. Yeah, I
don't think it's the worst when they're teeny tiny.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah, definitely, And they're a boy and a girl, so
we do realize probably it's a bit more limited the
timeframe that they can have together. But then we can
use that third bedroom in the townhouse as a living
space during the day.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Oh that's good.

Speaker 4 (29:59):
Yeah, son can use it for whether a toy room
or an office space or whatever, just to make our.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Living space a bit bigger. Yeah, and I feel like
that's really strategic. You mentioned investing, and I'm really excited.
I feel like that's a big goal and like one
that I know in the background, I think you're secretly
a little bit excited about because you're like, hold on,
this is going to free up our cash flow and
it's going to look a little bit better, and like
we're on the right track. What did your investing journey

(30:26):
look like before you joined Shoes on the Money.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Before I met my husband, it hadn't crossed my mind
at all. I didn't think it was an option for
someone like me, just a regular person. But he had
a small investment portfolio when I met him, and that
was because his parents have always invested, and they tried
to teach him about investing by setting up a joint

(30:51):
investing account for him and his brother.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Which did teach him about investing.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
But because it's a joint investing account, now it's causing
a bit of issues.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
It was about to say, yeah, he's an adult.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
I've got questions because like, yeah, some people do that
and then don't realize your actual children that you were
investing for they get into their forties. Yeah, and you
actually have different priorities than your siblings.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah, and it's not a giant portfolio, but one of
them wants to keep it and one of them doesn't.
So what are you do in that situation. You can't
just take someone's name off to startless sell an asset. Yeah,
So side note, if any parents are thinking of doing that,
do you think do you think about separate accounts?

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah? So when my son was born, my husband was
really keen to start an account for him. I love this, Yeah, yeah,
and we went with raise.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
I didn't know much about investing then, and it was
just that my husband set it up. If I had
been left to do it, the account never would have
been set up.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
I love that you know your strengths, though I do
like I've got Adhd. He has to take care of
a lot of the admin in our lives. Thank god.
It turns out if you're not neurospicy, you can't work
at chess.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
On the money.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, Like it's like a prereck.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I don't mean it like it's not on your like
on your resumes, it's not on the job ad. But
it's very funny when people come in and then you
were like, I have ADHD, and I was like, why
why are we all the same exactly?

Speaker 4 (32:13):
But that just meant that he set up the account
so it's his name, so we didn't know to think about,
you know, tax implications of that, or what it meant
to just be having it in one name, all of
that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
So he set up the account so it's.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
In his name.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah, And I mean that's something that you can work
through and make decisions about. And I mean it depends
on if you've got millions in there or not as
to the implication of that for long term, but what
else is part of your investing journey?

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, Well, we have actually decided at the moment to
keep that Rai's account yep. So it's a bit confusing.
When you go into the app, it says our returns
are thirty eight percent yep.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
So when my husband was reading that out, it was like,
that's why are more people talking about this. Let's put
all all our money into it. But then I looked
at their own website and I was like, hang on
their website says their returns aren't as good.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
And then so I did the maths and it includes
your contributions.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Yeah, and I think it is it a time thing
as well. I'm still trying to get my head around it.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
The Raised platform absolutely nothing wrong with it. For those
of you following along, I don't want you to think
that I'm saying it's bad. I still have a Raise
account because, like I just actually have a lot of
different investing platforms, not because they're my predominant I've shared
publicly before. My predominant platform is Sharess. But I need
to know what's going on in my community. If you've
got questions about rays, I want to be able to

(33:37):
jump around and be like, oh, well, the operating system
looks like this. But I do find that their reporting
analytics inside the app are a little bit confusing, like
you can't get a clear like based on every single
contribution you've made, this is your return. They kind of
muddy the washes and they don't particularly love that. But
because of the construction of their portfolios, I would say

(34:00):
that their returns replicate on average what the market is
doing because they do hold ETFs. They aren't a managed
portfolio where they've picked every asset. They've gotten a few
different ETF portfolios, which is absolutely fine. Again, but it
would be more replicable of the market usually as opposed
to that thirty eight percent.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
But we can dive into that later because that's Yeah.
So I did the.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
Maths and it looks like the returns are actually coates
it to like twenty five percent.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, so not thirty eight percent, because I was like,
everyone through your money out there.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
But yeah, so anyone who gets a raise just be
mindful of that, I suppose because my husband's like, the
returns are thirty eight percent.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, that's pretty sexy, and I want to be even
more pervy. I know what your husband does means that
you have some like shares in the business, which is
actually really exciting for you guys, because like this is
a business that your husband's in that you're really passionate
about as well. And for the last twelve months we've
been having on and off conversations about, well, what's a
family trust you?

Speaker 2 (34:59):
How does that work? Can you tell me a little bit.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
More about that, because I feel like that's usually something
that people go, oh, it's only for really rich people.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Not the case, is it.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
Yeah, Well, my husband got offered these shares, and before
we accepted them, we got advice.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yes, we had no idea what to do.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
I had never really heard of these schemes before. But
the advice for us was it was best for us
to hold them in a family trusty. And so we've
set up the family trust. I think it cost us
about three thousand dollars or so.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Just be the establishment accountant. Yeah, and then it.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
Cost us a little bit more at tax time as well.
The last year we managed to just because there's nothing
going had been going on in there yet, we managed
to just replicate the letter we got the year before
because there'd been no changes. So that saved us a
little bit of money. But now we're starting to invest
in this family trust. But we wouldn't have this family

(35:53):
trust if it wasn't for those those shares, which is
why I was like, oh, why have you got it?

Speaker 2 (35:57):
How does that work?

Speaker 3 (35:58):
I think you know, if you start saying, oh, we
have a family trust, people might be like, she's worth millions.
And usually it's for our set protection for future you
and like, you know, being able to distribute dividends from
the shares and own them together and all of that
fun stuff. But you said, we're now just starting to
invest more into that. What does that mean? It's not
just the shares from his business now.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, so we don't really think about the business shares
as part of our future planning because they're not an
ASX listed company.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
And a lot more risky. Yeah, and we can't go, oh.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
They've increased in value, we can't look it up, and
we can't sell them whenever we want.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
So they're just kind of like a nice to have.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
All right, let's go to a really quick break, so
guys don't go anywhere. All right, Emma, we are back
and let's get into the really nitty gritty of it.
On Brooks Investing Diary, I think everybody loved the most
getting to know exactly what was in her portfolio because
there's not often that people are so open. So let's go,

(36:57):
what are you actually investing in? So far, everything that
I've invested in is ETF. Yeah, They're all things I've
looked into for the show.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
I love this.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
You kind of like help us with our content, get
to do market research, and then it benefits you personally
money win.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
I am like like, hey, can you please go work
out what the best ETF is? And you like say
less fabe, I will work that out for me, I
mean you, and then I'm like.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Sending them to my husband. This is what we're investing
in next.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
So, but if you listen to the Core and Satellite episode,
I'm not really following that at the moment because I'm
more new to investing. I do have a bit of
magpie shiny object syndrome.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
That's core satellite, that's the satellite. Well, I'm more satellite
than Core at the moment.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Okay, because we can rebalance it and now you know
what a core satellite approach is. Can I assume that
you have the plan to invest more of your capital
into the core?

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah? I do, because I have fomo I and I
know all these ETFs that are great.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
I just wanted to get in and each time, you know,
more money comes through to invest I'm like, let's do
this one, let's do that one. But we do have
the plan for the core. But yeah, there are a
few tech heavy kind of that.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Makes sense to me, like just knowing you personally as
well as professionally, like you're really into tech. You're really
into like making sure that you understand like how AI
could benefit a business. You're always like looking for you
in different ways, and I think your husband seems very similar.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, the ears picks as well. There you go. All right,
so talk me through what do you actually hold? So
we do have Vanguard Diversified High Growth vd HG. Very popular,
very good choice.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
And I gave a few sort of core options to
my husband and he liked that one. Why I need
to be so was it just because it was kind
of God is good? Or is it like the makeup
of it all of it together?

Speaker 2 (38:59):
He knows God. But also it's sort of a balance
of a little bit of yield and the growth as well.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah, and we're not scared of high growth things, but
we're not super risky, but we're not scared. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
In saying that, well, you want to make educated choices. Yeah,
And I think that sometimes in your role, like this
is just me like looking at it, you could probably
get analysis paralysis because I'm literally asking you every week, like, hey,
can you get me a fact sheet on this, or hey,
can you look into this random crypto one, or can
you look into saying or can you make sure that
I've got the information for this podcast?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
So like it might become all overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, and I think that, like for those of you
following along who maybe you are only just starting your journey,
VDHG is one of the most popular ETFs in the country. Yeah,
kind of tried to test it, like has a lot
of people from a very reputable investment house as well.
It feels luck and I'm not saying invest in it,
but it feels like a very solid option once you

(39:58):
do your research.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
And because we are in our early forties and we
do have the ultimate goal to retire at about fifty five,
we've worked out that that is doable, and to work
that out, we use sort of a yearly income between
us of about ninety thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Oh, that's good.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
We didn't go too much into the specifics of that,
but we were like, that will be good for the
two of us, So by the time we get to
about fifty five, our balance will be about eight hundred
and fifty thousand. We do also want a bit of
yield in there, so we want the dividends, so we
have also gone with an especially high yield.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, yes, smart, And I feel like when you start
talking about like investing and then you're talking about investing
for retirement specifically, yield becomes really important because those dividends
then instead of reinvesting, they get paid into bank account
and that becomes your income.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
And it gets to this really nice sweet spot where
will we be getting about fifty thousand dollars a year
in dividends, so that will cover a big portion of
our yearly income, and then anything else we need we
can sell down our shares to cover. And it kind
of is this night's sweet spot where we can do
that and that income is coming in, but our portfolio

(41:17):
is still going to grow, so it will be able
to support us, you know, as we use our super
as well. But it also means that we can give
money to our kids for things like milestones and weddings
and stuff like that. But then we'll be able to
pass on some well to them as well, and that
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, so that is why. Also we are going for yield.

Speaker 4 (41:40):
Yeah, I mean, I know that's not for everyone, but
that's what we've sort of thought that we want the
yield so we don't have to sell down the portfolio
as well.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
So tell me about the next one because I'm kind
of laughing at this ye because I feel like every
single person in our team owns this.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
What is it, Emma, it's a fan g is most
of the top tech companies in America.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Astronomical growth. We're not recommending it, we're just talking about it.
With the astronomical growth over the last few years.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Well, that's when I told my husband about it. He
was really keen and he saw the growth and he
was like, oh, we've got to be in on that.
So he kind of made the final call on that
after I told him about it. And then I would
never put my money into crypto like this, But you're
just a girl.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
So I love the idea of like, oh, you know, I.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Put my money in crypto, and you know, it's a
nice dream, but I would never actually do it.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
It's too much of a gamble.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
So I am in CRYP, which is the Beta shares
Crypto Innovaders ets, which was spoken about on the podcast before,
which kind of makes sense because if we're talking about
it on podcast and as our producer, so she's just.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Getting all the top tips and working it out from there. Yeah,
so I went with that one.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
It's not actually in crypto, just to make that clear.
It's all the sort of support systems that support crypto.
That is one of my favorite ones to watch because
it's funny swings.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
It's if you want an experience in a share market
and you just want to go, you know what, give
me like a couple of years worth of market swing experiences.
Beta shares cryptoch's chaos over the last six months has
gone up and down and up and down. And I mean,
if we and I'm just googling this for you really quickly.
So over the past six months, Beta Shares Crypto Innovators

(43:33):
ETF has increased by thirty six point sixty five percent, right,
But if then we go to the last month's worth
of performances, it's down thirteen point five nine percent. In
the last five days, it's down twelve point five four percent.
But if we then look at the year to date,
it's twenty two point five two percent.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yeah, so, like it literally swings back and forth.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
So if you just want to have your like, I
don't know what do we call it baptism of fire
in the investment world, go and just watch that, because
if you're checking your portfolio every single day, and I'm
not saying that this is a good thing to invest in,
but you can see how hot and cold the cryptocurrency
sector is based on literally how much this swings, because

(44:19):
this is all based on like what you're investing in
is companies who create the infrastructure to support cryptocurrency, and
obviously that's going to EBB and flow based on how
cryptocurrency is doing at this point in time.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
Yeah, and it also shows that if you picked one
specific cryptocurrency, like the swings could be actually wilder, because
you know, this is diversified across the whole crypto industry
and it's having wild swings. So it just sort of
shows how much of a gamble crypto can be if

(44:52):
you don't know what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
I suppose, yeah, one hundred percent, And I just find
that interesting. I'm glad that you kind of have it because,
like we talk about this stuff internally all the time,
but do I recommend it?

Speaker 1 (45:03):
No.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
But also if you've listened to Brooks episode or you've
listened to like Emma's episode, now, like we all are
just so interested in this stuff and like you might
not be, and that's fine, but I think it's Yeah,
it's just like the needy gritty of being like, ah,
you know, I'm Victoria. I've said publicly before that I
don't own crypto and I just don't really want to
own crypto.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
I just feel like it's too risky.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
But I'm still interested, Like I'm still so interested in
the market and kind of like get a bit of
fomo and for me, this is my way of playing
in that without playing in that.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
And you know, as I said before, you know i'd
love to be like I picked the right crypto and
I put in a dollar and now I'm retiring.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
You know, wouldn't we all? But you know it's actually crazy.
What's next on the list?

Speaker 4 (45:46):
So Hack is a cyber security ETF and that one
was one that my husband wanted to invest.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
In, So what makes him interested? So Hack is the
Beta Shares Global Cybersecurity ETF. What makes him interested in
cyber security.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, I think it's something that he sort of believes in.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
He's sort of into computers a little bit and gaming
a tiny bit, not like a full on gamer, but
he knows.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
The value of cybersecurity. Yeah, things like that. So I
think he sees potential in the industry and that it's
not going anywhere.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Love, And I think coming out of this conversation is
I guess this underlying secondary conversation that I love, which
is like everyone's always like, victory, what's the best ETF?
And I can't answer that because there's no best ETF.
And we do, you know, at the start of each year,
we do that rap emma of like what were the
top performing ETFs of like last year, and that's really fun.

(46:43):
But what I'm hearing from you is you have gone right,
ETFs makes sense for me and my family. Now we're
going to pick ETFs that are based on our values
and our interests in what's going on. And some families
and some people are going to be like, v I'm
not interested in cybersecurity and crypto infrastrut whereas you are,
on the flip side, you might be like, I'm really

(47:03):
interested in the beauty industry, or I'm really interested in
retail or I'm really interested in you know, tech or.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Specifically television technology.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Like there is a ETF for literally everything and that
can give you analysis proalysis. But that's why I'm always like,
we'll work out what your values are and like know
what you're interested in before you go shopping.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, I mean another one that my husband would like
to invest in is like an e gaming one because.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
He does oh yeah, He's like I see that going yeah,
because he is a tiny little bit into that sort
of stuff. So that's kind of like on your watch list.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
You could say, is there anything else sitting on your
watch list that you're like, oh, we like, aren't sure
or we are sure.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
We were going to invest in Asia because we could
see the potential in Asia my husley.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Lived in Korea though it's sort of in his wheelhouse.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
But the reason we didn't invest in it is because
we look further into our raise account and that has
a heavy Asia too. It does, so that's why we
didn't go with that. But if we were to sell
our raise, we would probably.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Investigate something similar interesting. Interesting.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
So we already know that you've mentioned that, you know
you want to have one point three million dollars invested
and the ideally you want to like retire by the
age of fifty five, and that you've run the numbers
and like you kind of have worked out what you
need to do between your super and your investments outside
of super. Can you tell me a little bit more
around like the goals with investing, so.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
Like our short term goal is just to get that
one hundred k invested as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Like with that, she's aggressive.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
Everything that we get is extra money is going to
go to getting us there as quickly as possible. So
that's the whole thought that if we move into this
smaller house, it will take us two years rather than
four years.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
That's so exciting, Yeah, and like exciting from I don't know.
My perspective is an ex financial advisor, because sometimes you'd
put and like you didn't have a financial plan, You've
done it all yourself, like you haven't seen an advisor.
But sometimes you'd go okay, like you do your fact
fines with your client, you talk to them about their
goals and they might say something similar like Victoria, we
really want to retire by the age of fifty five

(49:17):
and have this amount invested and it's so crystal clear, right,
And then I would sit down and go, okay, well,
now my job is to create the plan.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
How do we get there?

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Because you've said you want to retire by fifty five
and have a ninety thousand dollars income. And usually that's
where the story ends from the client perspective, and then
it's my job to work backwards and go, right, well,
you need one point three million dollars invested here, and
this looks like this, and this looks like that. But
you would often go okay, well, we need to create
a different lifestyle for you, emma, because we need to get.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
This, so could we?

Speaker 3 (49:45):
And like some it's all about compromise, right, Like you
can't have your cake and eat it too. But sometimes
I would say to clients, like your overheads are too much,
like to achieve the goal that you're saying, we can
either do two things. We can change your overheads and
like change your lifestyle a little bit to meet the
goal that you've set, or changed the goal like whether
you're retiring at sixty instead of fifty five, or whether

(50:06):
you are, you know, maybe not retiring with ninety thousand.
You're retiring with sixty thousand, all those like variables, But
like my favorite type of client was the one where
I go, hey, I looked at your goals. Here are
the things we need to tweak, and you guys would
be like yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, no aries, we'll
move to a small house. We'll do Like it's just
so exciting because you're clearly so committed.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
And it feels actually quite empowering. Like until we actually
had this financial plan, I did not want to.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Move back into that house. No, why would I? It's smaller,
but it doesn't make sense. You've got two kids, and
we're not the type of people who buy a lot
of stuff that's Fay values.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah we're we're the way I know you and like
we're not best friends, but like we work together, like
Emma loves dining out. Yeah, but I cannot imagine you
making Frivolos purchases and like bringing home knickknacks or trinkets
or even going clothes shopping.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, I feel like that's just not your vibe. Yeah,
it's not really us.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
And so apart from going out or cutting out our
holiday like which you know you've got to live, we're
enjoying the journey where else.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Can we cut money?

Speaker 4 (51:06):
And I think a big thing is what are you
willing to and I use the words suffer, But where
are you willing to have a little bit of pain
to get some more money? And that is the spot
where we're like, Okay, we're near a good school for
our kids, so the area is quite nice. We bought
the townhouse because of some of its features, like it

(51:27):
had the bigger kitchen and it's not actually a small townhouse,
but still living in the country, it's going to feel small.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
But I'm excited. I'm excited.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
I'm deep in TikTok of you know how to make
your small space bigger all of that. Now that we
have this financial plan, I'm so excited.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
To move back there and I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
I love it that the fact that we are making
decisions that is going to benefit our family and make
our life easier.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Adore, So tell me, what would you say is your
biggest in testing lesson It's the starting, Like you.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Just need to make that first investment.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
Like I've had all this knowledge from working on the
show for so long, and before I started working on
the show, it started becoming more of a personal interest
for mine, like a you know, special interest with my ADHD.
So I was sort of getting into it, and I
knew that I should be investing, but I just apart
from what my husband was doing, I wasn't physically being

(52:28):
involved in Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it was
that I was scared to have something in my portfolio
that was in quotation marks like a mistake.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
But it actually doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
It doesn't because you can undo that later or change
it or sell it down exactly.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
And I'm in a position where I can put a
thousand dollars into something and if I lost it, it
wouldn't be the end of the world.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
But it actually wouldn't matter if I made a mistake.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
And since we actually made our first purchase together in
our trust, I'm all over it. I'm like, yeah, do this,
do that? You know, it's that one you got to
press that button, and that is that mental hurdle.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
It's like my husband doesn't do online shopping. He finds
it really overwhelming. Like I'll be like, oh, just jump
on the iconic. He'll be like, oh, Victoria, I need
like new T shirts or whatever, and like that sounds
so nineteen fifties, but like he just doesn't shop online.
I'll be like, just download the Iconic app, like it's
literally just look up the T shirt that you want,
because he just orders the same stuff over and over

(53:35):
and then just order it when you need it, because
like I always forget and then he forgets to ask me,
and then he says he needs new T shirts and
I don't know if he means he's white ones or
if he wants something fancy like it just it's a journey.
But like if he downloaded it, I know that his
first purchase would be the hardest because he's like, oh,
I don't know how to use this app. Then I
think he might have a shopping addiction.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah, and then he'd be get T shirt fright.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
It's easy, right, Like it's the first time you use something,
it feels overwhelming and it doesn't matter what it is.
But girl, if you are shopping on the Iconic, you
can buy shares like it is literally as easy as
one another. I know I'm sidelining this a little bit,
but you've also recently done your insurances and that is
something I am wildly passionate about because I want to
make sure that if you have an income, you are protected.

(54:19):
If you have family and kids, they are protected. Had
you thought about that before joining she's on the money
or was it just my relentless nagging of everybody else
around you that you were like, this seems pretty important.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
We had a free hour with my parents in law's
financial advisor and she basically said, all you can do
is your insurances. You don't have enough money, because that
was when I wasn't working all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
That's all I can kind of do for you. And
we were like, well, why would we spend money on that, you.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Know, one hundred percent, because like she's not really showing
your value. She's making you feel like you don't have
enough to have an impact.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
Yeah, So I was kind of like that was a
waste of time and whatever. And it never felt like
something that I wanted to do and I wanted to
spend my money on. I don't know, but up until
I worked on the show, I felt like it was
a bit of a waste of money.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Totally, And like I'm not saying it is totally. I'm
saying totally, I can see whe're coming.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
Yeah, it just like it felt like that I was like,
why like would I spend money on that, so I'd
never really thought about it properly, as in, I'm going
to do it before.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Working on the show.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
So then you joined the show, what changed your mind?
Because I don't think it was me, like I don't
hound my team to do it, but I definitely talk
on the show. And then you're the producer of the show,
so not only do you edit that, but you have
to sit there while I'm talking about it, so it's
not as though it's sideline commentary.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Yeah, what changed mind?

Speaker 1 (55:41):
While?

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Were you like oh my gosh, because like one day
you came to me and you're like, I need to
do my insurances and I was like, yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
Do So we had had a couple of money dirists
on who used their insurances and then we had the
broken brains there.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Yeap, which more I was like, I got to do it.
I got to do it. And then Phil came on
the show and something that he said really stuck with me,
and it was that feel being philosophical. Interesting. It was
the Ferrari analogy he gave.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Yeah, if you had a car that was that expensive,
would you drive it without insuring it?

Speaker 2 (56:11):
No one would know because that's scary. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
And then if you take how many years left you're
going to work, and then your times are by how
much money you're going to make. Yeah, would you not
inture that? And I'm like, oh my god, what I
shouldn't even be going out into the street.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, I'm the Ferrari. But it's kind of true.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
And like I've said this before a million times, like
if you're not getting insurance, Like I actually think it
is crazy talk, maybe because I see the bad parts
of financial advice, and like, unfortunately, most people reach out
for financial advice when they experience a life event. And
that can be fun life events. It can be like marriage,
it can be kids, it can be buying your first home.

(56:51):
But a lot of people reach out for financial advice
when a close person to them passes away. Yeah, when
they experience something really traumatic when they don't have cash
anymore because they can't work, and that can be really jarring.
And you don't want to do all of the sub
stories to try and sell a product, but it's not
selling a product. It's like you ensure your car, and

(57:11):
regardless of whether it's a Ferrari or a Toyota, Like
if I said to you, you have a brand new
Toyota in your driveway. It's not insured, would you drive it?
I'm pretty sure you'd say no, Babell, grab the tram. Yeah,
like it's not insured yet. But like we take our
bodies out every single day and that's our main source
of income. Yeah, Like that's that's our livelihood, that's your
going back to your goals, that's you being able to

(57:32):
retire at fifty five. That's only going to work if
you can keep working, and if you can't, what kicks in.
So it's crazy to me. I'm going to be so
self indulgent now though, because like we obviously love Phil.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
On the show. What was the process? Like did you
like it? Also? Should I ask you on the show?
Like maybe you didn't like it?

Speaker 4 (57:49):
No?

Speaker 2 (57:49):
I mean it was really interesting because they do sat.

Speaker 4 (57:52):
With things like your goals like you would in a
normal financial advice situation.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
We have to work out how much you need to
be insured?

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Well exactly, And so they asked us about that and
different things about our life, and they got our cash
flow and found out, you know, are we putting money
into super and all of that.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
They do do the hygiene factors. Yeah, so they did
all that and then they went out to market.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
I suppose, and just sort of looked at the best
options for our specific needs.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
So they asked us health questions. They figure out who
will into health questions? Can be pervy, can't they?

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (58:27):
They want to know everything.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
And just for those of you following along, don't be
coy Ye not answer those questions because if you go,
I don't really want to tell my financial advisor that
one you have the wrong financial advisor because you should
be really comfortable with them. But two, if you don't
disclose medical history, and then it goes to an insurer
and then they ask your doctor for their notes, and

(58:51):
they find it in the notes, they will decline you. Yeah,
and you might think, oh, decline is not that important,
but when you're applying for insurance next time the other
insurers go, you ever be declined for insurance, and that
puts a little red.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Flag on you that is not good.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
I didn't even know that, but because you know, you
would have overdiscribed because you don't all your eyes and
cross all your teas. I'm a rule follower, so you
know I answered everything, good girl, But you know that
gives them the most information to get you the best
product as well, because it's really funny how different all
the insurers are, and even just for different occupations, what

(59:25):
you can be insured for and things like that.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
So I have two different insurers that I'm going with.
My husband has one, and.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
He also has been told that he should probably keep
his super insurance because of some pre existing conditions that
he has, so he'll be that was the same as
me better insurance if those events happened through his super,
so his is a little bit more expensive, and.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
That was a little bit of the shock.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
But also it kind of showed, I mean, some of
these things he was born with, so it wouldn't have
made a difference, but it does show that the early
get your insurances in order, the better coverage you will
get as well for things that will pop up. So,
you know, we kind of joke like we're in the

(01:00:12):
middle of getting it done, but we're like, oh, we
can't go to the doctor, you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Know, until we get our insurances.

Speaker 4 (01:00:18):
But it's obviously it's a joke, but it's like you
don't want any other things to happen before you get.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
You get it all locked and loaded. It's so funny.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
I obviously had the privilege of getting insurance when I
was quite young, and I got it back when this
is your money diary. But I think it's just really interesting.
I got it back when you could have a financially
underwritten plan, and that is no longer a thing in
the industry. So I still have that plan and it
is very sexy, but it doesn't have a lot of exclusions.
And now I've obviously had a number of health events

(01:00:45):
and like you know, I now have a mental health
record and like all of this other stuff that has
not been considered in my old insurance. And now because
I have this honestly shiny insurance policy that is increasing
in price each year, I can't get rid of it
because I can't change insurer because if I changed insurer,
I would end up with exclusions on a number of

(01:01:07):
different things. So it's kind of like good and bad,
like I've got this shiny policy, but I'm also like
damn it, like I'm stuck here. But that's why I've
got a mix of different insurers, which I think a
lot of people assume that when you go to an
advisor and get your insurance is done, they just all
put it in the same place, right, Yeah, But I
have like three different insurers. I've got my income protection

(01:01:29):
with one place, I've got a trauma policy through a
different place. I then have the insurances inside my superannuation
and they're both with two different companies, so I actually
have four different insurers across the board, which can get
a little bit confusing. But I work with Skywealth as well,
and they just tell me what to pain when and networks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Yeah, and I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
And the good thing about it is they come back
to you as a plan that is sort of the
gold standard. Yeah, what they think that you should be
insured for. But if you don't want to pay that amount,
there are different levers that they can pull to bring
the price down as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Field should be so happy because I feel like this
is a full sales pitch for him, but it's like
an interesting conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
I like, hold on, we're still talking about Phil, But yeah,
he does. Hey, here's the goal, and this is what
a good financial advisor should do. Anyway, they should go, hey, Emma,
this is the gold standard. But if that's too much
trauma coverage, the lever would drop. If we dropped it
down by fifty thousand dollars, it would look like this
price instead and your income protection is sitting here. But
if we, you know, dropped it down a little bit again,

(01:02:29):
it would be this and you can kind of play
with it a little bit. By way, if you're also going, oh,
that wasn't in budget and that's okay. Have you had
the conversation about putting some of it inside your superannuation
and some of it out or like, what's your strategy there?

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
So they have done the maximum a plan for us,
the maximum that we can put inside our super, and
then they've done a cash flow plan for the rest. Yeah,
and then they have made suggestions of contributions to cover
that if we want to, which where probably not going
to keep doing the contributions because we already do that

(01:03:03):
and we plan to stop that to start putting that into.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Our share portfolio. Well, you can't just have your cake
and eat it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Yeah, And I know that that sucks because insurance is
so important, but we also have to consider cash flow
and your bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Goals and what that actually looks like.

Speaker 4 (01:03:18):
Another reason is because I do have over like two
hundred thousand in my super, what it is generating more
than covers my insurance. Anyway, I saw in the first
couple of months of the financial year that was enough
to cover my insurance. Yes, so I'm kind of like, wow,

(01:03:38):
you're happy with that. I'm happy with that because it's
not taking all my growth, but it also will allow
us to invest in the share market.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Yeah, and I feel like that's yeah, that's a really
good important point. But also working with a financial advisor
to work all of that out means that you can
just have candid conversations about, well, actually, I want more
money in my investment, what would that look like?

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
How do we drip that back?

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
It's I don't know, it's really fun, But Emma, I'm
very acutely aware that we are running out of time.
So I wanted to ask, what's the biggest thing you've
learned from working on Cheese on the money. It's a
bit of a self indulgent question, but I just think
it's fun to ask.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
My biggest takeaway has been that no one has ever
saved their way to wealth.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Oh that's good.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
That's my biggest takeaway, Like you cannot just squirrel your
money away and expect to be rich one day.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
What we don't even talk about that that often.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Yeah, but that's my biggest takeaway, Like you have to
use it to build something, whether it's investing or whether
it is a business, or whether it is investing in
property and all of that. Your house can't be your
own personal house really can't be your investment unless you're
using that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
So you need to do something outside of that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
And you know, it's all about what you're willing to
give up, what you're willing to risk, the effort you're
willing to put in to what you can get in
the return. Yes, and that's how we've come up with
our plan where the effort that we're willing to put
in is to move into a smaller house and then
do something that doesn't take a lot of time investing

(01:05:12):
to build our wealth.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
We don't have time to have a business or do
all of that. And that's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Maybe in the future you go, all the kids are
old enough now and we've got some free time, and like,
life changes, But that is a really good lesson that
wealth doesn't come from savings. And if you guys are
listening to this episode and you also listen to our
money diaries in general, I don't think there's ever been
a money diarist on the show that's like, yeah, I
saved and saved and saved, and now I'm really rich.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Yeah, never has never happened.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
It's like I saved and I invested, or I saved
and I bought a property and the equity increased, or
like you know, maybe some people get rich through inheritance.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
But like gol, that's not saving. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
That is a different wealth creation strategy. So last question
before we go, Emma, what is next for you? What
are the next steps?

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
What's in the plan?

Speaker 4 (01:05:56):
Our next step is to refinance our current mortgage interest
rates to drop here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Yeah, I mean then we need to do. They will
still drop going forward, but I feel like slowly, slowly.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Yeah, So once we move back in, we'll refinance hopefully
free up even more cash flow to put in our
investment portfolio.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Iconic. I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
And the other thing is I am starting after forty,
but I'm building something, and you can like.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
It's not too late. I suppose.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
I hate the narrative that I hear in our community
all the time from people who are in their forties
and fifties. They're like, it's too late, I can't build anything.
Like I wish I had this information when I was younger.
I also wish you had that information when you were younger,
because yeah, time in the market, I talk about that
all the time. But being forty, that's not a death sentence.
You can still create so much wealth later.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
In fact, now you've got your stuff together, you're probably
going to prioritize it more because you're like, all right,
I really need to knuckle down and get this done.
Whereas if you start investing in your twenties, like maybe
you're a little bit more frivolous about it because you're not,
you know, as aggressively working towards retirement in fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
It's just a different story. It's a different narrative. But
it doesn't mean it's not going to work.

Speaker 4 (01:07:08):
Yeah, definitely, And you know we're still, as I said,
we're still going on holidays and we're still going out
for dinner.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
It's about the journey, not the destination of that as well.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
I love that, and I just love the idea that
once you get to fifty five you'll probably be in
the position to retire. But my favorite part is that
you'll get the choice. You might go, oh, I'm doing
something I really love at the moment, I don't really
want to change that, or your partner might be the same,
like you might get this job. He's like, Emma, I
don't want to retire from this, but how cool to
then go, Maybe I'll do it part time. I'll just
work three days a week and we have a different lifestyle. Again,

(01:07:40):
it's all about freedom of choice. Anyway, this has been
so fun. Thank you for letting me drag you onto
the show and share your investing diary because just real
world examples, especially from people in my community but also
in my team being like, oh no, we walk the
walk like that's cool, And.

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
I think that everyone is so generous with sharing their
story with the show. So I felt like, you know,
maybe you do not have to do this, but.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
I am very very grateful because I know that a
lot of people listening are going to get a lot
out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
So thank you so much for that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
And guys, if you've listened to this and you love
this and you want more investing diaries, Emma and I
seem pretty keen on getting more out in twenty twenty six,
so hold your horses, there is more coming.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Bye, guys. Bye.

Speaker 5 (01:08:31):
The advice shared on She's on the Money is general
in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's
on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should
not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
If you do choose to buy a financial product, read
the PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Tailored towards your needs.

Speaker 5 (01:08:52):
Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are authorized representatives
of money SHERPA pty Ltd ABN three two one six
four nine two seven seven zero eight a f s
L four five one two eight nine

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