Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Jacqui Clarke on how to 'Stop Worrying About Money'

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Manage money or it will manage you, warns business leader and author Jacqui Clarke.  Many hard working Aussies feel that constant, insidious money pressure and fear about the future, that keeps eating away at your body and soul like undiagnosed cancer.   But the good news is you can do something about it, you can control your finances and you can build and implement a plan to secure your financial future. To help you do just that is Jacqui Clarke, author of Stop Worrying About Money which unpacks her 30+ years of experience to help you clarify your values, set goals, and be upfront and honest about your money—both with yourself and others – to re-assess what financial independence and freedom really mean to you and how you can attain it. Jacqui is a trusted advisor, board member, executor and veteran business executive, including more than 20 years with Deloitte. As a personal wealth and money management expert, she has over three decades of experience helping high-net-worth families, individuals and business owners to build, manage and preserve their wealth. Enjoy the discussion! Connect with Jacqui: Book via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/Stop-Worrying-about-Money-Financial/dp/1394176880  Website: jacquiclarke.me Three easy ways to Get Invested right now: 1. Subscribe to this podcast now, if you haven’t already, and get the inspiration delivered to your podcast feed each week 2. Get a copy of my book, Get Invested, for FREE, and find out what it takes for you to invest in living more, working less. Go to: https://knowhowproperty.com.au/get-invested-free-ebook  3. Join the Get Invested community. Each month Bushy sends a free and exclusive monthly email full of practical ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can’t wait to get each month. Just visit bushymartin.com.au, scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up. About Get Invested, a Property Hub show Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Get Invested is part of the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights, inspiration and stories from Australia’s top property experts, investors, leaders and analysts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotifyand Google Podcasts to get every Get Invested episode each week for free, and also get full access to RealtyTalk, Australia’s top online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from property industry leaders and influencers. Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, show producer Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast network DM Media.  For business and partnership enquiries, send an email to: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From a pretty young age I was always well I was focused on property and you can't be in a building family without being focused on property and the second thing was actually having debt. So I grew up in a family where I was encouraged to have debt actually it was kind of like having good any property with debt was good good property good debt. Once we felt that we were able to just create that base we started to consider how we would invest and our journey over the last decade has really been about creating another source of income that does not come from our own personal exertion and I love working but the reality is there's got to be more to it than this right I could certainly write to give people a guide so that they could work through their money

worries and kind of deal with the ups and downs or the misadventures that occur in life which I think I've covered quite reasonably in the book there's an underlying theme that you may or may not have picked up on in the book which is really around discipline with money but also personal accountability so I'm really focused on people and particularly people in relationships actually not dropping the ball on it this is something that I say to people all the time is investing what you know what are some of the biggest mistakes that people make around money from your experience oh look there are many but probably the top three or the ones that i see and look it would be different in age groups but i think the first one is

i think the second thing which is maybe more common is which leads to my third probably what i consider the third biggest money mistake which is not actually understanding. You can be great with ideas, you can be great with driving strategy in businesses, you can be great at doing it, but if you're actually not focused on you're out or you will be in 18 months. Welcome to Get Invested, the leading weekly podcast to help you unlock your full potential and enjoy your version of sustainable success that lies the intersection of your three elves yourself your health and your wealth i'm your host and guy bushy martin and each week we go deep sharing great conversations with proven experts in all

walks of life including the best investors property experts analysts leaders founders sports stars and health gurus to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time their skills and their money and the benefits that this creates to help you find out what it takes to break free from the grind and discover your flavor of freedom to create your freedom formula you see the truth is that everyone invests every second of every minute of every day we're investing our time our skills our energy and our money in something some of us are investing consciously some unconsciously sometimes for good sometimes for bad and sometimes for no impact Get Invested will help you start living by design, not by default.

I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and live your legacy by investing now. You'll enjoy the stories and secrets of high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and discover the top tips on how to get started, how to make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's.

As you engage in each episode, you'll glean the information, inspiration and implementation that you need to get empowered and get invested in imagining and actioning the life that you've always dreamed about. And Get Invested is proudly part of Property Hub, your home for property investment insights and inspiration. Make sure you subscribe now on your favourite podcast player to get every episode of Get Invested and Realty Talk,

which is Australia's leading and longest running online property show that's full of red hot property investing news and insights direct from all of the industry leaders and influencers. You can also connect with me personally and join the Get Invested community of fellow Freedom Fighters at ushimartin.com.au or on knowhowproperty.com.au.

Now, let's get invested. Hi Freedom Fighters. Do you worry about money? Do you wake up in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling as you toss and turn because you're worried about the future and how you're actually going to pay for it? Or perhaps you're living from pay to pay or your savings appear to be evaporating as you're forced to spend more and more to fund your existence due to what feels like the never-ending increases in costs of your home loan repayments

and just about everything else these days, as you and your family's lifestyle actually feels like it's shrinking and becoming tougher, harder, more restricted, and probably more stressful. Well, if that's the case, you're not alone. For most of us, money is a complex and often confusing world of relationships and expectations, where we just never have the time or the energy left to do anything much about it, due to the never-ending demands of our frantically busy lifestyles, let alone plan or invest in our futures, which means that we're left living day to day and spending what we earn. And yes, without even realising it, we've become stuck on the accelerating treadmill of the rat race. But what happens when the treadmill breaks or you

simply want to get off? You feel like there's no end in sight and that constant insidious money pressure and fear about the future keeps eating away at your mind and soul like an undiagnosed cancer. But what if you could better navigate the challenging financial obstacles that beset all of us so that you can achieve your definition of financial independence sooner and you can finally stop worrying about money? It probably feels like an unrealisable dream to you right now, but fortunately it's not. You can do something about it, you can control your finances and you can build, implement and get invested in a plan to secure your financial future. Now I can tell you firsthand what a massive difference financial freedom makes to your entire outlook and enjoyment

of life. You just can't put a price on the peace of mind and the sense of security you feel when this burden is finally lifted off your shoulders. And the good news is that if I can do it after starting again with absolutely nothing when I was 33, then I know you can, because everyone can do it if you adopt the right money and investment habits, and there's never been a greater time nor a greater need for you to make this happen which is where today's very special guest jackie clark comes in because she's just released her new book stop worrying about money which unpacks her 30 plus years of experience to help you clarify your values your goals and be upfront and honest about your money both with yourself

and with others around you so that you can reassess what financial independence and freedom really mean to you and how you can actually attain it. Jackie's book has emerged out of her expertise as a trusted advisor, accountant and veteran business executive, is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a chartered tax advisor, a fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia and a justice of the peace just to name a few. Now as a personal wealth and money management expert, Jackie's got over three decades of experience helping Australia's most iconic and wealthy families, individuals and business owners to build, manage and preserve their wealth. Now the depth of accumulated experience

and expertise has moulded her as what she likes to call a truth-sayer, where she's become your conscience and confident to help you navigate your financial future. And one of her really interesting learnings, which I'm sure we're going to talk about more on today, is that we all worry about money no matter how much or how little we have. So given our mutual missions to help you and as many hard-working Aussies as possible to obtain and then sustain your lifestyles long-term, today's conversation is a very timely reinforcement of what you need to be habitually thinking and doing if you're to really live life on your own terms so that you can finally stop worrying about money. Now Jackie's been described as one of Australia's best-kept money secrets but not for

much longer if I can help it so welcome and let's get invested Jackie. Thanks Bushy I really appreciate that I love the introduction too having spent a little bit of time with you hearing the crossover in our personal stories is kind of nice and comforting as well probably not unlike you had to restart again at almost 40 with nothing so it's a great lesson and certainly a foundation for some of the things I've shared in the book. Great well we're going to dig into some of that in a minute. But I guess just to kick things off, Jackie, where I always like to start is, Peguita, tell us what you do differently and more importantly, why do you do what you do? It's a great question. I think the most important thing that I do or have always done is talk

straight. And I talk straight to wealthy families. I talk straight to patriarchs, to matriarchs, to their children I tend to be the bad cop so I'm often the parents is they're smiling while I deliver the news that they're otherwise less inclined to do so you know I spent my life advising wealthy families and I think the secret has been I've never been their employee always been a consultant whether that be through my role with Deloitte or PwC or now privately and the main thing for me is to separate some of their emotion from the decisions that they make around money and bring it down to the most practical, drive them towards the most practical outcome

I think is possible. Yeah. And sometimes saying no, which is interestingly one of the hardest things that people have with money, saying no. When you've got it, saying no to spending it. Very good point. That's a very good point, which we will dig into from the mindset perspective shortly. But just to put some colour around your background, and you've touched on a couple of the key

bits there already, can you give us a bit of a Reader's Digest version of your journey so far in terms of what you've invested your time, energy and money in over the years and why? And how has this now led you to what you're now doing and releasing the book? Sure. just starting from being an adult uh you know i started off like any good child out of a family of builders went and got my first the first university degree in the family to be an accountant and you know the funny thing about even choosing to be an accountant was that

growing up i recognized the need for an accountant in the business but i actually thought everyone needed an accountant in their lives so i figured i was choosing a relatively safe career where i could really help people out it's pretty much what i've strived to do my whole life is you know grow my skills but actually help people out and i've progressed in my career uh you know a lot of the progression was you know i was afforded great opportunities working in big firms where i was allowed to take on new roles quite constantly even though i had a baseline of building clients and working uh with lots of different families but i was actually able to continue to grow and develop over my career which I think was incredible experience but I think

through that having worked with so many businesses and families and also both in Australia and overseas I actually helped set the business up in Asia Pacific for Deloitte the private business it certainly has I guess brought me to this important juncture in my career so obviously one of the biggest things to do was to make a decision to to leave the business which I did in 2019 and that was really to continue to focus on what I had been doing but get much closer and so in that trusted advisor role being as independent like I've really valued my independence with families as well but being able to do that on my own terms was something that I was looking forward to doing once exiting one of these big partnerships so yeah I mean I could I could go on

yeah well i think what what i'd like to do uh right there jackie is is drill into your relationship with money because it you know your your book talks a lot about that subject so to kick things off uh you know to become an accountant you're normally uh very comfortable with numbers and there's there's almost a uh an indirect invisible link in australia between mass and money to some degree because if you're good at mass at school then then you sort of go that direction if you're bad at maths then you're also going to be bad with money it's almost like a psychological blockage uh can you sort of talk to us about uh why you felt so comfortable numbers and led you into that and and what was it about your upbringing and family that sort of uh

made that easy for you in that that respect yeah actually there's so many questions in there and as you're asking them i'm thinking oh my goodness where do i begin but actually i think part of where i begin is yes the experience growing up in a family of builders and plumbers so um we the business was at home the phone rang at home for all of the business i would be the first one to pick up the phone and take the job so i was already at a very young age participating in a business which i really enjoyed yeah i think that um as i progressed in life i just felt i used to see the family accountant come to home and talk to mom and dad like that it was a very trusted person in their lives yeah but as i got older and certainly to an age where i could earn

income myself in fact i my first job was underage um i actually said to mom and dad i really want to earn my own money and they reached out to a family friend of theirs who had a clothing store in hunter street in sydney cbd and and they offered me a job thursday nights which back then was 15 on Thursday nights and I that I saved in fact my parents will joke that she still had her first dollar until she got divorced you know that sort of instilled I was saving money from the age of sort of 13 14 um and then as that life continued on I think and things get a little more complex I was doing reasonably well at school and in fact it was my communication skills or my English results that perhaps have been the most valuable when it's come to a career in accounting

the numbers were okay but actually communication skills or just English as it's studied at school was something that I excelled at and and so that I was an unusual beast though I wanted to be an accountant from that very young age and I'll tell you the couple of reasons why as well yeah the family friend whose shop i worked in originally studied as an accountant and was a very successful entrepreneur having lots of clothing like a clothing retail chain then i had an uncle who also studied accounting and then went in to run the family jewelry business so there was these accountants in my life that had transitioned in their careers um to be to running successful businesses so i've definitely got this really deep sort of entrepreneurial spirit in me anyway

notwithstanding having an almost 30-year career in that kind of executive bubble if you like but I was able to in such big firms also challenge that skill because there's always programs you could run and businesses that you could build within those organizations that I was actually able to do like a like an entrepreneur as you refer to them um you know every day so so hopefully that gives you a little bit of an insight into how the accounting thing started but to me I just thought it was just essential and you know the one thing if you look at all of the business failures the number one reason why businesses fail is they take their eye off cash flow management and so to me again if you haven't got you can be great with ideas you can be great with driving

strategy and businesses you can be great at doing it but if you're actually not focused on the cash flow you're out or you will be in 18 months and I often have helped people who have come down the path of the 18 month honeymoon of starting their business or in the in partnership which I was in earning their income without having tax taken out of it at source when they moved from being an employee to being an entrepreneur say and actually getting a rude shock when their first tax bill arrives and and the money has all been spent anyway i've gone off on a tangent but no it's really interesting you mentioned that because you know in the property sphere which is the which is the area i swim heavily in the number one thing that trips up

investors and prevents them from lasting the distance to actually enjoy the fruits of property what what it gives them is cash flow because they very few think about it before they start and and then because they haven't properly accounted for all the expenses in holding a property and it starts to chew its head off and burn a hole in their pocket, they throw their arms up and sell the property prematurely, sometimes lose money and never do it again. So I think you make a really good point there that really thinking long and hard about what the real cash flow situation is through the thick and thin is the oxygen really that's going to keep a business or an investment opportunity alive.

So I think that's a really good point. But what I'd love to do now, because of, you know, your focus in the book as well around money mindset and our relationships with money, what has been your personal relationship with money and what have you invested in around that exercise yourself and how has that gone, both good, bad and ugly? Well, look, to be fair, Bushy,

I've probably had a pretty good ride with money. And when I say that, I think from, I don't know if I should disclose my age, but I've had, it's been a relatively good economic times and I have progressed it in my career as well. So I've naturally been able to increase my income as time has gone by. And look, I've had to be relatively conservative with my investments. And one of the challenges about being a partner in some of these large global partnerships is the restriction on what you can buy.

so from a pretty young age i was always well i was focused on property and you can't be in a building family without being focused on property and the second thing was actually having debt so i grew up in a family where i was encouraged to have debt actually it was kind of like having good any property with debt was good good property good debt it was sort of a fine thing to do so i've never i've never really been afraid of debt but i have had periods of time in my life where i have been concerned about how much debt i've had and i've taken measures to get more comfortable about that and that can be any number of ways like making sure that my life insurance is adequate should something happen to me or in this case if something happens to my husband i'd

like to know that we've got good coverage around the debt that we're carrying now so um yeah yeah that gives me a really good snapshot on that well what i'd sort of like to dig into as well around this is get you to sort of and you sort of touched on uh you know your first marriage uh didn't work and i've unfortunately been there myself uh but if you were to think back over your time so far what's been probably the most challenging event in your life and uh what what learnings and changes have have you taken from that can you sort of break that down for us and paint a bit of a picture yeah isn't um it's hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it you know look I I think I had a pretty good life worked my butt off always have actually but certainly

there's probably three quite defining things in my life that have all really occurred in the last decade or so and one of those is getting divorced the second one is then raising a blended family of five sons wow and the third one is then exiting my executive career at Deloitte so all really really significant things but to be fair the final step in those three I took as a result of my level of financial security that I had built or created over a period of time and and I guess if you start from afresh going through a divorce in my late 30s and being the breadwinner for want of a better word I was hit really hard in the divorce financially and really ended up with not much other than um the legal bills and a tiny bit of cash so I had to rent for the first time in my

life and people might think I was pretty privileged at 38 or something to be renting um but I had gone from living at home into my first marriage into my first husband's apartment and I bought an investment property with him and slowly built our asset base which all ended up getting destroyed essentially through the divorce so really starting from a rental position uh when you've got three kids to raise and i did have the financial responsibility for my three sons and always have had so i was dealt a reasonably tough um outcome in the family court which was also a long and drawn out process which i wouldn't recommend anybody go through no um you're nodding away there going yes yes i get it i get it so right there and then when you have to start at

that age to furnish a house to buy groceries to work out how to work full-time support your kids in my case paying private school fees as well there was a lot to take on board and then over a period of time I then met my now husband and he came with two sons as well so we kindly decided to blend our family together and we bought a house because we needed to house we wanted to bring them together we thought that was important that was important for us as well give them a base give them something that they could rely on that was solid and i guess this is as much about um relationships as it is about financial things as well yeah so bringing them together under that one roof we had to go and borrow a lot of money from the bank like so

much i think it back there it was like 90 or 95 percent of the value of the property back then which kindly the banks were okay to do except i do remember when there was a correction in the market where they actually came back and said because of the correction we want you to give us but like a margin call yeah yeah pretty much 150 000 you know just something we whip that out you know so that that was hard again but the reality is um and then i had a full-time help come at home because i couldn't work full-time my husband was working full-time raising five boys like it was complete madness and actually still is to some extent so having that extra i had a full-time employee at home as well so these are all big financial you know so these things getting bigger

and bigger um boys are growing up every year they go through school the school fees get bigger and bigger um yeah so we were pretty uh we had leased cars like all of the things that you could do wrong we sort of had to do to get going again because we both came into the marriage with nothing other than our five children um a whole lot of debt which we created and we had great incomes, but we had to kind of look after it all. And betting in a new family, I think we did also spend a lot of money on taking the kids away and trying to do fun things. So that all came at a cost. But very quickly, once we felt that we were able to just create that base, we started to consider how we would invest. And our journey over the last decade has really been about creating

another source of income that does not come from our own personal exertion and i love working but the reality is there's got to be more to it than this right yeah and so building that base of assets up um has taken time and naturally building our skills whilst i've spent a career advising people on how to structure their investments what makes sense when you haven't been able to do some of it yourself or there's been some restrictions on you it's been a really steep learning curve but a really positive learning curve over this last 10 15 years now yeah awesome and just talk to me about uh what helped you get through that i mean most people with what you've just described uh they'd be seriously worrying about money uh given the number of commitments you had and the time

pressure you had on and the work side and the family side what was it uh that helped you through that period and have the confidence uh to to keep going and invest the way you have oh bushy sheer grit determination a bit of a hard head all those things helped i think look there was no other option though so look i think this would be fair to your listeners as well where where everybody's at there may not necessarily be another option right now so you do kind of have to buckle in but it'd be remiss of me not to say that I set clear goals around what I wanted to achieve so um before I exited my executive career I wanted to make sure well in advance I had all the school fee costs set aside so I just wanted to create this natural

sort of cushion if you like so that those things were dealt with should I do nothing or fall flat on my face whatever um i had did have a big brand behind me so i was you know nervous for example about making that transition as well um so i just wanted to make sure some things were set up and what i did um in the planning stages was i also took what you call like a mini sabbatical in my career so they could just take some time to think through what things could look like and i and i must admit I have continually looked at every three and five years out in fact I have a planner which runs every year and it has my age and my husband's age and all of our children's ages and you can imagine we've been going you know year seven year eight you know in terms of schooling

right through to this year our youngest is in year 12 doing the HSC so um but we've got three kids finish university now but i actually have had a planner looking at where they'll be so understanding what our needs to be around will be but also where things will shift and so naturally like when you're not paying school fees anymore you're not paying for i had a house manager at home those costs come off my job has not been to redeploy that cash into red wine my job has been to redeploy that cash into investments yeah yeah you know and unless you know a balance between what i would consider a lifestyle investment or asset versus something that's going to bring home some serious um income or coin down the track whether it be in yield or in growth whatever it

might be income yield or growth yeah yeah talk to us about uh and if you don't mind what your personal investment strategy is then around the growth yield and exercise and where you think it's going to get you to? Well, to be fair, it's changed quite a lot. And I guess you'd expect me to say that considering where we are right now. If I look back, I started with a pretty basic, I had some great property advice actually early on. And so I was really focused on buying blue chip investments where they were very strong um growth potential where they double you know doubled in 10 years that type of thing so i was very sort of clear about a baseline property portfolio or investment portfolio that was in blue chip locations um and and where and look

this is something um that i say to people all the time is investing what you know so i'd be saying this to a client if they wanted to buy a particular business or they wanted to buy any type of asset i'd be saying do you know that asset have you been there have you sat outside it have you whatever it is um i think that's a really important thing so that's to me i'm not the classic you know people used to buy units off the plan to put in their self-managed super fund in townsville queensland you know because that was a good idea so for me the thing has always been do you know what you're investing in not just because your mate told you it was a good idea then the other thing which is a little bit um maybe off piece for your listeners but um my

husband had a history in agriculture so we got into agriculture quite early in our relationship so we've been running cattle properties which has been uh probably one of the best things for me ever i think it gave me the headspace in my corporate role when i was getting out of sydney um that was one thing but also dealing with in a regional center different people completely different lifestyle definitely kicked back much lower expectations in a good way about how you live that's been a really incredible balance for me so that's been a big factor for us but that's got a big um i imagine that there's sort of emotional physical spiritual financial all those things wrapped up into the agricultural side of things for us yeah it's been great to get away

from sydney uh it's been great to raise livestock and we've gone had a couple of different different business models so we do run them like accountants you know we're quite focused on making sure that we are generating a profit which a lot of people don't necessarily do certainly not city people when they have farms but we we've run all of our properties at a profit and we've looked um we have run a pretty good property cycle as well there so in terms of the price per acre has almost trebled since we've been in this business um and the price of cattle has doubled at least if not trebled it's come back a little bit but so they've been good for us and then really the and then obviously running our own business is another source of revenue now well that is our one of

our main sources of income and i do board roles as you might be aware so i have a bit of income coming in from those so it's pretty pretty nicely spread oh i didn't mention the most important thing right now is a defensive portfolio that we've structured which is a yield-based portfolio so that's something i have an independent advisory firm um that have built that for us and that was a big step for me i have to admit um so that is a little less about what i know that's about trusting the advisor and doing my research on the information that they share with me so we've made all those decisions about what to invest in together there and that's targeting like a nine and a half ten percent return wow yes so that's that's a classic defensive portfolio so

it's it's less focus more focused on income than it is focused on growth is that an equities based portfolio what does that look like you don't need to go into intimate details but just just in broad terms well i mean there's a couple of different funds they're doing leverage debt all sorts of things in those portfolios yes yeah but really interesting well i'm going to sort of jump into the future to some degree and it might be too far away for you jackie but what does fulfillment freedom and financial independence mean to you oh well it's all about choice bushy i think it's about being able to choose where you work that's probably the number one thing to me now is that the gift that

gave us was actually letting people know that you can do most of it anywhere so i think to me that's a big part of how i structure my day there's no nine to five in my day anymore and that I sometimes not sure if that's because I left the big corporate job or if it's because of COVID but let's say it's a combination of both the other thing is having income sources that aren't dependent on me to show up every day so creating even if it's a bit of rental income or some other dividend coming from a particular investment I think that's really important I mean it's it's kind of simple really I'd like to be able to travel but even we've experienced you know we went away for almost seven weeks this year in January and we found it a bit hard

we've got a few things happening here um kids at different ages and stages as well and we thought maybe we're not so good at spent we thought we were going to go and spend months in Europe maybe next year and we thought actually we're not so good at this we should maybe cut this back a little bit but I think again having the freedom to make those choices I do I do I have always valued my own financial independence though from a very young age so certainly as we spoke about when I got divorced I still had my financial independence but it was completely rocked so my confidence was knocked on it as my parents would say first dollar she'd earned until then so financial independence is important to me as well so i don't want to rely on anyone else i think the

underlying thing there for those are listening is that financial independence is built on your financial knowledge and i often say that knowledge comes before outcomes generally so for everyone listening take the time to actually invest in that knowledge so because you you mightn't have the physical outcomes but you've got the means to create those physical outcomes because you've got what it takes between the years so uh and a lot of people and you know again this is a massive generalization but in the past uh if i can talk about my own own family dad made the money and and invested the money mom looked after the house uh cooked the meals and and did the housework and had no idea so when when dad passed away she felt completely at sea uh because it was

she didn't know how much was in the bank account so i love the fact that right from an early age clearly in the environment that you're in you've taken control of that exercise from from the get go so before i jump into the book because i've sort of been itching to do that so can you share with us what's been both your best and your worst in birth investment and what have you learned from actualize actually i had to think that's a hard one i haven't i haven't i hate i'm i'm gonna sound it's maybe not fair i haven't had a bad investment will she awesome but somebody who thoroughly does their research and has a good education about these things maybe wouldn't either look i'm not one to pick up the latest thing i'll admit that so i do remember back when people were raving about

let's call it after pay shares or crypto I was like you know based on my reading I'm just not sure and I was getting stories of friends as you would you know talk about that classic barbecue conversation I've never picked up on those things it's got it like my gut is a really strong guide for me on the financial decisions I've made and actually when I think about it probably 20 years ago now I did buy an off the plan property in the inner west in Sydney in a very good spot and it wasn't a bad investment but there was a sunset clause in the contract that enabled the developer to pull out and they did because the time from us exchanging the contract to the job being finished the profit uh was quite substantial and so they used the sunset course

um you know right when i could have turned the property around and made an absolute fortune so that's probably it's not a bad investment it was unlucky and it didn't affect it it didn't have a major effect on me financially because it wasn't a big upfront cost at the time but that's like buyer beware there was this time you know i should have if i had the right contract experience at the time i probably would have had that struck out or cut a deal around that much earlier so that's an example of something you know hidden that i didn't see yeah and then interesting you mentioned that because given the environment that we're currently in particularly in the property arena there's been a lot of that happening because uh builders and developers

have locked into our prices and their prices have gone through the roof of the values have also increased so they've been terminating contracts and then redoing them for that for the exact same reason you just shared so before we last question before we get into the book if you were starting out again what would you invest in differently if anything oh look i just get into it earlier bushy i think the reality so would i have made additional financial sacrifices or additional lifestyle sacrifices to maybe have invested a little bit earlier that's probably all to be honest um and that look that comes with a topic we're no doubt going to cover today which is the good old-fashioned income and expense creep so the reality is i think as my income grew i

enjoyed the confidence and the ability to spend splurge enjoy get better cars whatever it might might have meant um and that was fun to do and when you're working hard you think you deserve it right yeah you deserve the spoils of it but but the reality is at 25 or 30 you're not looking at 60 saying oh I better put a bit extra aside so maybe the only difference I would have done was got into the property market a little bit earlier but I didn't do too badly no awesome well and let's jump into the book now because it is a great read of uh I sort of speed read books these days and and love the content on stop worrying about money so can you we start off by talking to us about why did you write it what are the key messages and who's best to have a read oh okay

i'll start with the end first which i think is it's for everyone actually the funniest thing that happened when i first shared it on facebook my 81 year old mother-in-law one of one colleague had said I'm too old you can't fix my money mistakes and my mother-in-law said I've read it and I you know essentially said you you're never too old she'd read the book it was like she was being an evangelist for me saying you can so anyway um the book applies to everyone whether you know you're 20 or 100 to be honest and it is built partly across my life experience but also um well it's bringing all of that together so it's quite the journey covering obviously so many topics why i wrote it is the interesting part so if you've spent your career like i have

working with the wealthiest families which is that higher less than one percent in our population yeah i was talking with i had a great business coach a business slash executive coach who i connected with soon after I left my corporate career because I wanted to think about design of my future from a business perspective and we're sitting down one day I said I don't really want to sound like a cliche but I think I've got to write the book and she said yes you you absolutely must and I thought you know what I've got all of this knowledge and wisdom that I'd just like to share with a whole lot more people so the bottom line is I just wanted to be able to help more people I wasn't going to be able to have a meeting and save help people out with their money

problem not everyone but i could certainly write to give people a guide so that they could work through their money worries and kind of um deal with the ups and downs or the misadventures that occur in life which i think i've covered quite reasonably in the book if that makes sense but that was about literally i um started writing in december 21 and here we are today well it's that's that's pretty good timing it took me an 18 months to go through the process so you've done pretty well there um let's start off then to dig into some of the guts what are some of the biggest mistakes that people make around money from your experience oh look there are many but probably the top three or the ones that i see and look it would be different in age groups and i already sort of

dropped one that i used to make but i think the first one is the classic sort of wearing and driving your money so it comes in easily it can be spent relatively easily as well so you think about having a nice suit or having a nice handbag or having the latest iPods, AirPods, iPhones, you name it. So I think that's sort of number one. I think the second thing, which is maybe more common, is the doing nothing. So I would challenge your listeners that if they're in a relationship,

that there is one of them in the relationship who knows exactly what's going on with the money or maybe has a bit of an idea and there's someone else in the relationship that doesn't really at all and I get a little bit on the bandwagon about this because really there's an underlying theme that you may or may not have picked up on in the book which is really around discipline with money but also personal accountability so I'm really focused on people and particularly people in relationships actually not dropping the ball on it so making sure that you do understand what money's coming in

and what money's going out so I actually think that's probably the most significant thing which leads to my third probably what I consider the third biggest money mistake which is not actually understanding your baseline costs so I almost jumped up then I was almost getting out of my chair with excitement but uh you know that if you I'm gonna I'm not gonna put you on the spot but I ask people do you know how much it costs to open your front door at home and people look at me blankly and I say so just tell me roughly what it costs your rent or your mortgage um your electricity your insurance your subscriptions and people like you know there's radio silence yeah crickets so that's that's kind of where i start because i think once you get that

right it's a lot easier to work out what to do with the rest i mean the worst thing that can happen to you is that you sit down you jot down on the back of an envelope what the costs are of opening your front door at home and you realize that they're more than your income yeah you got a problem i mean the worst case scenario is which i think easily happens is people underestimate those costs overestimate their income almost mentally they go and get themselves into a big fancy home and before they know it with rising interest costs they're in real strife and you know how hard it would be to sell your home and take your family out of that suburb into another suburb that you can afford that actually is more aligned with your income and

your spending habits that would be a really tough decision i've seen people have to do that i'm not talking about in the last 12 months i'm talking about historically yeah it can be really tough so i think it's important to recognize and look sure you and i having been through a divorce we've been through that experience before you go through a situation where you've got a combined income of x you might be spending it all and when it's half or less than that and you've got to pay for a whole family yourself it can be pretty tough so anyway the third probably one of the third those mistakes is actually just not understanding the baseline costs yeah that's spot on so you're sort of starting at the start then what are the first steps that we need to take to to get our house

order as you talk about in the book yeah well you you really have to document it first bushy so i think the most critical thing is and i say back in the envelope i actually have a table in the i think the first chapter of the book which people can jot things on um just to get an idea of what it is and people might be surprised it's like dry cleaning costs um the weekly grocery bill i know what mine's like like it's astronomical in fact today i i will refuse to pay for raspberries that cost nine dollars fifty versus five dollars you know i have my limits i'm not just going even if i've got i'm not going to go spend that money but the reality is um some people may not make that choice they may just spend it because it's there yeah yeah and the old the old tap and go exercise

it's got a lot to blame for unfortunately and actually just think it just on that because jumping around a little bit but the tap and go thing what do you think the kids are learning as well so people any of your listeners who've got younger kids one of the things i talk about is kids and money so i'm jumping off but yeah jumping off topic a little except that what are we teaching them when all we do is tap so my one of the things or the exercises that i'm suggesting to people is actually trying to explain the bit you know where mum or dad's gone for the day they're topping up the other side of that tap yes they have to go to work to earn a certain amount of money so that there's something on that card for us to tap it just happens so easily

no doubt we've all fallen foul of um tap with younger family members or classic one that happened in our house was when one of our sons auto saved the credit card on one of those gaming apps some years ago and we got the frightening bill from i think american express that was hundreds hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of little um tokens that he had purchased and i think lots of people fall into those traps anyway by the tokens you look better you fight better you do whatever better it's a bit like the money mistakes of wearing and driving money it's same thing you know you get it is exactly right eat at the fanciest restaurants exactly right But circling back around that, Ben, because we talked about your money story

and you talk a lot about the importance of understanding your money story as a space exercise, can you just sort of elaborate a bit on what you see as the best way to get to understand what our money story is? Because a lot of us just take it for granted. We don't even think about it. What's your thoughts there? Yeah, look, I think you have to go back, reflect on your – I think it's reflecting on a couple of things.

do you talk about money at home did your parents talk about money at home do you talk about money with your kids or with family so you sort of go back and you think well if we're not if i wasn't talking about it with my parents how can i change that so i think it's i think normalizing it is important so try understanding your story is partly understanding first do you talk about it the next thing is then what is the thought process you go through to make a purchasing decision is there any decision made is there any discussion is there any planning is there any of that sort of let's say for something bigger in the future and that will give you an insight i think into what your money story is now if you've you might have grown up in

a house where there wasn't any money at all um i worked with a great family you know who used to have the packet of tim tams there are a couple of kids in the family and the highlight of their week was having one packet of Tim Tams which they all literally had their two biscuits of for the week um you know so that influences them and their next generation of kids in terms of how like scarcity did you grow up with scarcity or did you grow up with a gambler somebody who disappeared on Saturday afternoons came home drunk whatever it might be all these things impact our story I think the what's really important about this is though you can change or adapt it as well so I think I'm all for acknowledging what your money story is where

you came from you might not like debt for example the classic one as well people would be afraid to take on debt so you might rent the rest of your life because you were so afraid your parents built into you some fear around having debt and having big brother you know behind you but you've rented your whole life anyway i think what's important is did you have conversations about it and how might the history in your life actually be affecting decisions today with earning and spending money yeah yeah that's a really good way to look at it but actually and maybe just generation sorry bushy to get you off there but thinking about generationally i had brilliant you know grandparents who even the cornflakes box cardboard was saved you know they used to sit and

argue over John Laws on the wireless you know when I was a kid and I loved it but my grandmother saved every bit of paper we had fish and chips on Friday night from the like that was the big spender you know and then we'd reheat it on Saturday for lunch and it was the you know it was just the best food ever at my grandma's place and you know the roast dinner would be bubble and squeak the next day they're the types of things that maybe with your Uber Eats of today you miss out on a bit right my kids might well are reluctant to have leftovers yeah what am i teaching them but anyway these are all things that factor into your money story and yeah i think they're shifting because we have excess now versus perhaps what our grandparents um had very good

call let's talk about money goals for a moment because again there's a great section in the book where you talk about setting meaningful money goals that are within our means can you sort of elaborate on that one as well yeah look i think this is also about but i'm very much for being practical and realistic and i mentioned earlier about you know that sort of three to five year planner i do like to sit down once every year and i look at my planner all the time but i sit down once every year usually in january to think about what are the types of goals that i would like to set and when i say within you know within your means goals i think it's important to recognize that within the current income you've got what's possible and if that income's not enough or

let's say it's not enough then you've got to contemplate are you the person who's going to build a side hustle a different type of business are you in the wrong job all those types of things that you need to work out today how to get you through in the future to setting what those goals that are meaningful to you yes yeah so i mean how long is a piece of string to some extent i think the reality is that the financial information you have today can really inform that nothing's guaranteed we know that but without in the absence of making that plan i think you're in deep trouble and actually i saw this great meme today a friend of mine put up on this topic and it was around discipline and um it said the discipline is the difference between what you want now

and what you want most right and i i really love that because that's what when i talk about kids and money and i talk about like creating savings goals with kids we're just the same so do you want to have a three-month holiday in europe in 2026 or do you want the latest um BMW or Tesla whatever the thing is which one's it going to be so it's that meaningful goal but where does each one of them get you to but I actually like that because I think about kids you know having their first jobs and creating because what I did was I did save a bit of money but I spent it as a 14 year old buying you know Dolly magazine or something I can't remember what it was but actually back then it was just the independence of choice to make a decision that

I didn't need to ask anybody else for that money. I can spend it. And I think the problem we all have as adults, we have so much choice and so many options that we just spend it because it's there, it's ours, we created it, let's go for it. The difference is have you got that opportunity to pause and make a decision on, and you go, of course, right, if you don't have that goal set.

I talk about North Stars, you know, what's your North Star on these types of things. If you don't set one, it's pretty easy to fall off the wagon. Yeah. and decide, well, we'll go to Fiji, let's go to Fiji in two months' time and that eats away at whatever you were saving for the three months in Europe. Well, we can't do both.

Spot on. And that leads nicely into a subject that's near and dear to my heart because, you know, in this age of instant short-termism and abundance, how do we get motivated to embrace that delayed gratification that we all know is, you know, sacrificing something small to have a much bigger result down the track? uh what's your thoughts around that because it's something that i find very challenging to get

through to people at times what's what's your thoughts around that actually i read i actually i only just finished reading over the weekend the book which has been around for a while paradox of choice which i think i'm in that position now in my life where i do have a lot of choice and and to your question i think it it's actually about making the choice that is best for you and know may not necessarily what's best for you today but what might be best for you in the future you know sometimes people think bad happen bad things happen to them i say things happen to you for a reason yeah so you know take the positive spin on it this is happening to me for a reason you know what am i gonna what's gonna come out of this or how's it gonna look on the other side

probably be a whole lot better but it's happening for you not to you yes that's a very very good point uh now there's a couple of specific things i want to dive into that i found really interesting in the book as well and you know you talked early in the book around uh i think there was a something you heard on mamma mia uh where i did too bank accounts yes yeah let me get your thoughts on this around should couples have separate finances oh it's a it's a tough one i don't think it makes a whole lot of sense so you know i talk about financial infidelity in quite a bit of detail yeah i think financially so i'm going to the extreme version of the separate bank account right now but financial infidelity actually occurs in a lot of relationships and i think

it's just right at the outset people have a limit of trust around money with other people yeah and i don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that but the concern with financial infidelity and relationships is that you know the little bit of spending that's done on the quiet you know the new things arrive in the house um you know or this old thing that i'm wearing you know this old thing but had this for ages and then unlucky for you the bank statement arrives that you've never seen before um these days those things are less likely to arrive because we don't have so much paperwork but things arrive that maybe you don't remember buying um these are types of things to watch out for separate to that i think um

separate bank accounts create a level or a lack of trust at a foundation a foundational level and I don't think there's any sense in doing it from a relationship perspective I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense perhaps the only circumstance where it might is if somebody's got a gambling addiction or a substance abuse problem like where there's a risky type of behavior that you may be aware of in the relationship that it may be a good reason to separate income into different accounts, that type of thing. But I think that's a little bit different. I'm not a fan of the separate bank account thing. I've never had that. I've never suffered as a result of having joint bank accounts. I'm afraid the way the rules work anyway, and whether we're talking about

family law or other places, sure, someone can go and spend all your money and you've got to deal with that. That's a relationship issue as well. It is. And you touched on a really good point there, the relationship impact there, because I'll be quite open about my situation and maybe it's because I joined us from my first marriage, but we have a basic rule and that is that there are no secrets, there are no surprises. So it's all one bucket and it goes right down to the fact where if we're making a purchase, then that purchase will,

we've got a debit card, that purchase will come up on each of our TVs, on our phone screens so that we both know when someone's spending money and how much we've spent. And all it's doing, it's not like we don't trust each other, but it eliminates any fear of distrust so if you're not creating opportunity where there's any chance for that to happen it actually builds builds a trust by virtue of that does that am i making sense by what i'm saying 100 to me i think that transparency in relationships about money and if you go back to what we were talking about just before the family history of talking about money

which wasn't so common like a great story um a very senior female executive shared with me she's probably about 15 years older than me anyway it's one of those i was told i was writing the book and she told me this funny story although it wasn't that funny she got divorced and the arrangement with her husband was that she would retain the family home to raise the children in it yeah and this is all lovely except that um 18 months down the track her ex-husband had moved into a lovely waterfront apartment in the same suburb down the road and she said oh how'd you managed to afford that and he said oh the bank had no trouble lending me the money and she said how much how much income do you earn to which he responded to her utter shock and in this

long marriage of maybe 15 or 20 years because she'd grown up sort of not really talking about money they just got she said you just didn't ask we just got by that she actually didn't realize and went through you know a relatively amicable amicable divorce it was all kind of nice but she didn't really appreciate what her husband earned now that's pretty hard um when you're sharing bank accounts i must admit to not realize that yeah it eliminates that there's just no like i say the open transparency eliminates any any opportunity for those trust issues to even occur so i'm certainly well and truly in that camp and it works beautifully for us that we we we talk about those things a lot and we we never make a purchase without talking to

each other uh it's it's as simple as that and if it's if it's buying a coffee down the road then i know that my wife is it's going to pop up on the screen she's going to say yep uh bank west debit card you know seven dollars so it just eliminates any exercise that and if there's something that appears on my screen i'm not sure about i say hey what's that one for great gone uh next yeah and the other interesting thing about this is and i think when in that story that i heard what the young lady was experiencing was that her friends who had separate bank accounts were the ones who are now breaking up so it's like you're creating this level of distrust at the start of a relationship it just doesn't make any sense and look perhaps here we are as seasoned professionals having

been through a divorce when you've kind of lost everything what have you got to lose you know how you can rebuild from that again it's not like that at all i don't i don't think about it like that at but what we have is a joint accountability around that money in that account yeah spot on goes out we're making commitment to spend it that way absolutely spot on i want to jump now to the other end of our life because again you there's some great stuff in the book about this and and talk to us about planning for our deaths which which very few people actually think about much yes frighteningly so you know um i used to do presentations years ago about the two certainties in life death and taxes it was perfect for me to deliver on but look this is you know the the

mistake perhaps that people make is that they only do deal with this when they're ill or when they're really old neither of which are actually great times to be doing this i agree that you must refresh these things regularly but i think the reality is all of us should have a current will and what i mean by current is that if anything in your life has changed children grandchildren marriage divorce death whatever it might be you must update your will yeah and i'm constantly i'm the executive for a number of wealthy families um for parents in particular and it's incredible how regularly we review their wills and how regularly we say we need to change them because some sort of fundamental fact that the position's been based on no longer exists so look there's lots

of stories about getting this right and getting it wrong in australia um there are a lot of very significant or high profile cases where people have felt that they haven't been treated fairly in wills as well yeah and um it can be pretty tough so i think the most important thing is that you are again open about financial conversations with your family and what your plans are so like even i mean at my age i have started talking to the kids about what will happen when we die and because we're in a blend of family we've taken a little bit of a unique position to ensure that if something happens to either one of us all the kids get a little bit of money yeah because one of us could live another 20 30 40 years remarry but we want to try and

preserve what we've built in this marriage together for our five children it's a little bit different maybe but i think uh the main thing here is that people are actually getting a will written properly and in fact i just read today that there's some conjecture now about the wills that were done during covid because of the digital signing of wills um so all i'd say to any of your listeners who did update their will during that period which is quite likely they did if they've got one to perhaps revisit it um for example some wills have been considered invalid because not every page had been signed things like that so that's just something that's come up that's in the press this week yeah i hadn't i wasn't aware of that but that's a that's a good tip for uh

anyone listening into the revisit uh and i agree with you where spending the right amount of money on a goodwill uh will make a massive difference in in the outcome i've seen it with what my mum and dad did and and that that's force of discipline with sonya and i in relation to getting someone who really understands estate planning and and the whole exercise because There's a lot of traps there for players who don't understand the tax impacts and the whole bunch of stuff that flows through from that. So make sure you get someone who really knows their salt when it comes to will exercise.

Now, I'm sort of mindful of your time, Jackie, so I'd love to perhaps get you to summarise what you think are the keys to being successful with money so we don't have to worry about it. Can you give us a dot-pointed version on that one? okay well look i i have there's a couple that i think of actually um probably the number one thing i've been banging on about is being accountable around your income and your expenses so that that self-discipline i think is critical knowing what your financial goals are living by

those doing your research we touched on this right at the start like i am an avid researcher you know i spend my time filling my brain with information i read every day um i listen to podcasts almost every day that's important to me to keep up you know up to speed with things but you've got to understand what you're investing in or what you're considering investing in and then actually investing in what you know so stick to what you know yeah i love it pretty pretty basic rules i think but they're rules that might feel basic to you but a lot of people don't addressed then. So I think you've summed it up beautifully. I want to sort of transition now into what I like to call the bushfire ambush round, where I give you the old blindfold and

cigarette, Jackie, and hit you up with the podcast fastball. Can I break the rules? I love breaking rules. Yeah, of course you can. Good, good, good. Okay, shoot, hit me. So I'm going to hit you. The first one is what's your favorite quote and why okay well look i don't have one but what i live by is getting up dressing up showing up and never giving up but the other one that i will be heard saying is nike which it means just do it and if you're in real trouble with me i'll basically give you the definition of insanity which is doing the same thing expecting over and over again he's speaking the same outcome different outcome god yes listen to me spot on that you've actually gave us three there so sort of switching to the literary field for a minute

apart from yes what's the top book that you'd recommend we read more well i don't know if i'm going to blow your mind away with this but the book that had a profound impact on me was the good old-fashioned seven habits of highly effective individuals by stephen covey can't changed my life i got to go to a course when i was at cooper's and librarian back in god knows when best book ever and the one that um inspired me to write the book was big magic by elizabeth gilbert they couldn't be more polarizing as books but that really uh inspired me to write so there you go if anyone's looking for inspiration to write yeah i know i haven't read that one actually oh it's brilliant there's a section where it goes a little bit um off into

of the you know sort of a bit out there for me but there's a very good practical creative side of it because i would naturally think as an account i'm not creative but i think what the book demonstrates you is you actually are and that's what i liked about it totally agree switching back into the investment sphere for a minute what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received oh you're gonna love this i rather give it than take it i've stopped you in your tracks i love that yeah much more i can say about that really so that that sums up now i'm a big believer that as we've spoken about uh pretty going to air that uh it's our healthy habits and our rewarding

rituals and daily disciplines that bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be ultimately so if you've got good habits you get there if you've got bad habits you'll take it the other way so can you share with us a personal habit a rewarding ritual or daily discipline that you employ that's contributed most to your success today yeah you know you asked me a question about financial freedom and goals earlier and for me getting up and walking my dog in the morning having the space and time to do that and listen to a podcast if I choose is one of the most special things that happens in my day I can double that up with a peloton ride as well then you know all my stars are aligning but I do think that having got out of bed at the

crack of dawn rushed off to an office uh earlier on in my career well actually until not that long ago um the effects of that i don't know that my brain was ever growing whereas now i feel like it's full every morning in a really good way not with just emails yeah so i just think that you know the mind and the body the health thing has been a really the physical emotional spirit whatever you want to call it but that's been really valuable to me and i think it makes a big difference to me as a person yeah just being able to have that space yeah it's interesting I mean, our very first thing is cuddle times with the dogs and then we go for the walk and then I do exactly the same.

I listen to some podcasts. It just sets my day up. There's nothing like it really. And when I miss it, it feels like you know it's missing. Yeah. Something just about having that bit of space. And I feel like I've worked for that. I want to be able to have that in my day.

Yeah, beautifully said. All right, so to summarise our really good conversation today then, Jackie, what are your key takeaways for hardworking and inspiring investors based on what we've talked about? my takeaways for them we should can they dial in the takeaways look you know go back to let's go right back to the start do you right here and now do you know what the baseline costs are in your house have you got your head in the sand about your income and expense creep if you have get out of there you're going to get ahead if you actually take some time to understand what these

things are and it's hard work you know you've got to get out the credit card statements go online work through exactly what's going out of your house i think you can get a long way ahead by reviewing or understanding what your baseline costs are and i think potentially resizing you know so that then you can set achievable goals that are within your means yeah yeah resizing it's good work that's a that's a really good word actually because i'd say a lot of people who and you'd see more than i'd probably who have amazing goals without any real ability to ever make that happen and they basically set themselves up to fail before they even start because they just don't have that awareness and knowledge around where they're at and and what the

what the reality of that is no that's uh extremely well said uh look i really enjoyed our conversation i feel like we've only just scratched the surface jackie and it's always a way when i enjoy these conversations but for those who really resonated with your message uh where can we get a copy of book and and how can people find out and get more involved with you and what you're doing oh thanks well she's good it's kind of you to ask there's a couple of things you can order currently pre-orders available on booktopia and amazon uh which hopefully you can put the link in your show notes you will but there's there's a special offer i'd love to make today if you're okay with it um definitely my website is jackieclark.me um it's the new website ending

but what i would love to do is if people are going to buy my book pre-order it or buy it it's out at the end of this month um if they email me they can find my email address through a link on the website if they email me a copy of their receipt i will send them another copy of the book at no cost which they can share with someone they love i love it that's the yeah the gift that keeps giving i love that i love that that's that's a awesome idea to really really further leverage the message and to get as many Aussies as we can to actually really start embedding some of the really fundamental lessons that are going to set them up for much better things down the track.

Sorry, yes, I just wanted to say they must mention your podcast when they email me with the receipt. Okay. It's got to be the Bushy's offer, we'll call it. There we go. Yeah, just put Bushy in the tag. I love that. No, look, it's been really enjoyable, Jackie.

I know the book's going to go really well. I really enjoyed reading it. I really encourage everyone to go out and grab themselves a copy. And particularly for those who've sort of been thinking about this for a while and life's too busy and it's always one day I will, we'll make that one day be now. But thanks for your time, Jack, and we look forward to continuing the conversation

and we'll talk soon. Yeah, thanks, Bushy. Awesome. I really enjoyed myself. Cheers. Thanks for getting invested. Now, here's three easy ways you can take action to start making it happen.

to ensure you build momentum and start living by design, not default, so that you're following your freedom formula. Firstly, subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already and keep the weekly inspiration coming. Secondly, get a copy of my book, Get Invested, for free and find out what it takes for you to invest in living more and working less. Just visit bushimartin.com.au forward slash books or knowhowproperty.com.au

or click on the links in the show notes. And thirdly, join me and the Get Invested community. Each month, I send a free and exclusive email full of practical self-help and wealth wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can't wait to get. Just visit bushymartin.com.au, scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up.

And there you have it. In three easy steps, you're on your way to dusting off your forgotten dreams and making them a reality. Get Invested is proudly part of the Property Hub, your home for property investment insights and inspiration. When you subscribe to the show, you get all of your Get Invested episodes along with Realty Talk, Australia's longest running and leading online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from all of the industry leaders and influencers. And finally, feel free to connect

with me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as I'd love to hear your feedback, your inspiration, your ideas and your questions and queries anytime. Thanks for listening. Hear you next week and as always, dream as if you'll live forever and live as if the day's your last. Thank you.