She's On The Money - 7 Financial Power Moves from Taylor Swift’s Playbook

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

You don’t have to be a Swiftie to learn from Taylor Swift’s epic financial moves! In this episode, we break down the strategies that helped Taylor become a Forbes billionaire and how you can apply them to your own money game—whether you’re negotiating a raise, diversifying income, or planning for the long game. From owning her music to adapting with every era, Taylor’s playbook is packed with lessons that can help anyone level up their finances. Ready to shake off those money worries and boss up? Tune in! Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. 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 tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

hello and welcome to she's on the money the podcast that helps you make smart money moves just like Taylor Swift, whose net worth has just been updated to $1.6 billion. If you didn't know already, my name is Victoria Devine. I am a retired financial advisor. I am scarily a bestselling author. And yes, I am a certified Swifty. I mean, I did go to Taylor Swift's concert here in Melbourne at 39 weeks pregnant, and I regret nothing. I was lucky enough to be at her era's tour. And yes, my friend, it was as good as you think it was. But while I was screaming along to literally all of her songs, Taylor was quietly making financial moves that got her on the Forbes billionaire list. If that's not a flex, I don't

know what it is. So today, my friend, we are marrying my two favorite topics, Taylor Swift and money together. And we are deep diving into some of those clever money moves and breaking down how you can maybe take a page out of Ms. Taylor Swift's billionaire playbook, even if your bank account isn't quite there yet, neither. So stick around and we're going to talk about how you're going to level up your finances, Swift style. So before we dive deep into the lessons, I just want to take a moment to appreciate how massive Taylor Swift's financial success is. So beyond her music career, which I think we can all agree is epic, beyond whether you are or are not a Swifty, I kind of don't care. I think we can all agree that she is a financial mastermind. And after

officially joining the Forbes Billionaire Club in 2023, I didn't even know there was such club until she was on it and then I knew about it, they've just updated her net worth to be a jaw-dropping $1.6 billion as of this month. Thanks to her heiress tour, which, get this, brought in over $500 million, re-recording her albums and making some savvy real estate investments. Taylor's actually proven that she's not just a musical icon. She's actually a financial powerhouse. And I wish she'd talk about it more. So if anyone could just call Taylor up and get her on Money Diaries, that would be a lead. But who doesn't want to take a page from that playbook? So let's talk about some lessons she has taught us without actually vocalizing them. The first

is she has a really diverse income stream. So Taylor doesn't actually just rely on recording a song and putting it out there, she actually has a whole heap of income streams. So she's got her tours. She actually has her hand in everything from merchandise to real estate, which I think is really important. And we can learn from that because it is so important to diversify our income streams. Arguably, it's essential. It's about making sure that you don't have all your eggs in one basket. So we talk about this in the community all the time. Can you organize a side hustle? Could you sell some extra stuff? Could you start investing? And when you are investing, making sure you're not just picking one asset. Because if like, let's say Taylor

couldn't sing and she just purchased property, what if the property market was down? She wouldn't have another income stream to prop that up. And I mean, I'm hoping that the sun shines forever on Taylor Swift, but right now she's making hay while the sun is shining, right? She is obviously going ham on the tours while she is at the peak of her popularity. But she's also making sure that she's got a heap of merchandise going out and other places that you can funnel money. Not only that, but she's dabbling in brand partnerships, which I think is low-key genius. Back to property though, as you guys maybe or don't know, like, I don't know, maybe I am creepy level of Swifty fan, but Taylor owns property in the UK and she also owns it in the US and she has an estimated

$80 million worth of her money in real estate investments, which I think is absolutely insane. And back to brand partnerships, she's not just doing little influencer Instagram posts, which obviously we wouldn't expect from Taylor anyway, but she's partnering with key brands that I would say are really aligned to her target demographic, which is very smart, like Diet Coke, who doesn't love a crispy Diet Coke, who hasn't got an Apple iPhone in their hands, and she's working with Keds as well. And those have significantly contributed to her wealth. So that, I guess, is all I want to talk about when it comes to diversification. If we take anything from Taylor, it is that diversification is key. The next is taking control of your

narrative and in particular, your financial narrative. So let's be honest. I think we would be all living under a rock if we didn't know that Taylor Swift has re-recorded all of her albums. Like I am waiting on bated breath for the next one to drop. And Taylor has taken absolute control of her story by choosing to re-record her albums, which she definitely didn't have to do and refusing to let business deals define her. And I think that that is honestly so inspiring. Like she's been through some pretty hard times, which for a lot of people would just push them completely off the cliff. And she would go absolutely not like, I don't want to do this anymore. Like it is what it is. Like maybe this isn't for me. But she has taken ownership of her

finances by creating, I would say some pretty clear goals, creating a plan, sticking to it and implementing it. I think it's so important that if you've got a vision and it's not going where you want it to go, you can change that. And I mean, she has faced a number of significant challenges, but I don't think anyone would say that she backed down from them. It is so important that even when challenges pop up, if you have a clear vision and you have clear goals, we're still going towards them. So you're probably up with the goss, but if you're not up with the goss, Taylor had to re-record her first six albums after the rights to her original masters were sold or stolen, but like that's alleged, right? And this actually allowed her to regain complete

control and ownership of her music. So she's used the original names, right? So her album Red is now Red, but Taylor's version, has sold 605,000 album equivalent units in its first week. And in its first week, Fearless, Taylor's version, sold 291,000 AAUs, which actually far outperforms the original. Talk about the community getting behind her. And then her re-records have received immense support, right, from me, from fans, and from platforms like iHeartRadio, who are committed to only playing the re-recorded versions. I think that's such a slay. Anyway, moving on. I have another lesson written down and it is that she is great at adapting and evolving. I don't know about you, but I became a massive Taylor Swift in her country era. I thought that I was going to be

also a country singer. Can I sing? Absolutely not. But that is all I belted out in my 16-year-old bedroom. And her career is, I guess, a masterclass in adaptation and evolution. So each of her eras has represented, I guess, a very distinct reinvention from country singer that I knew and loved when I was young to essentially being the biggest pop star in the entire world. And maybe I'm clutching at straws here, but I think that we could compare this to how financial goals can change over time and the need to adapt is going to change as we grow, as we become interested in different things. So, for example, 18-year-old Victoria had no interest in starting a family or moving in with a boy or saving or investing, but now I do. Let's look at this,

her reputation era in particular, I would say marked a stupidly bold shift, leaning into like darker, moodier, edgier images with themes of defiance and self-empowerment, which I was obsessed with, like the snake symbolism. You would not have caught me embracing that, but Taylor turned all the criticism that she got from that into, I guess, a badge of resilience and honor and by consistently reinventing herself and refreshing who she wants to be like the shift to I guess more pastel colors in her lover era she's really kept her brand fresh relevant and ever evolving and I mean it meant that when my team and I went to the errors tour oh the outfits were on point and so diverse all right I feel like I've covered some relatively serious ground also not

serious ground but there's still more to come so after the break we are going to be diving into how you can actually negotiate like a billionaire in the making. So my friends, stick around. Welcome back. Now we've covered what I'd say is adapting your money strategy like Taylor. Let's now talk about something that I think she's mastered and that is knowing her worth. Like, oh my gosh, negotiate your worth is the next lesson or the fourth lesson I want to talk about. and do you remember back in 2014 when she took on Spotify? Taylor literally pulled all her music from Spotify and protested because the platform was paying artists really low compensation. Iconic. She did return in 2017 after negotiating better terms, but it took her pulling all of her

music off to actually be able to negotiate those better terms. And this decision actually set a precedent for artists advocating for fairer streaming compensation. Isn't that cool? Her advocacy for herself was also publicly advocating for others. And I think the importance here is that negotiating for a raise or a better deal on a loan, or even with service providers, not that deep. What's the worst thing they can say? No. And we can make like Taylor, if it's not working for you, you can leave. You can find someone better. You can do better for yourself. And I think that advocating for yourself is just so necessary. And I think there seems to be this hang up that advocating for yourself makes you greedy when that's not the case at all.

Advocating for yourself brings you higher. And the higher you get, the higher others get. A rising tide, my friend, lifts all ships. The next thing I want to talk about is leveraging your personal brand. She is perfect when we talk about this. Like Taylor's financial success is honestly, it's not just about her music. It's about her personal brand as a whole. She's crafted this perfectly curated public persona that evolves with each era she goes through. So back to what I was talking about before from, I guess, this country, innocent sweetheart to being the biggest pop icon in the entire world and building personal brand can open doors to additional income opportunities and recognition. So whether it's in your career at work as a side hustle or maybe

your online presence, why don't you leverage who you are and what you stand for? Because it can actually create long-term financial success. Whether it's in the background, you don't even have to have social media for this, right? But you could be building personal relationships through your professional community. You could be showing up at events. You could be engaging in conversations and be open to collaboration and I think that that is a really big point like it's also about really backing yourself and Taylor does that really well now the next lesson that I have jotted down is plan for the long game I mean she's played it in every aspect she isn't just thinking about next year she's making decisions that are gonna benefit her

for literal decades and I mean she I don't know if you guys have seen the videos of her on TikTok where people have asked, well, how did you actually train for the Eris tour? Because she sings like she full pelts out for three hours. Like it's actually insane how she manages to dance and sing and not lip sync. Like it actually blows my mind, but she is the mastermind of thinking long-term. I don't know if you've seen those videos, but like she literally stood and ran a marathon on a treadmill while singing. That's how she did it. And I mean, I'm not that committed, so I'm not planning on doing that, but she is literally a master of thinking long-term. Her decision to re-record all of her albums and then regain control over her music rights showed that

she not only has commitment to herself and who she is and wanting to show them where to shove it, but also her future earnings and the ownership of her music. And beyond her music, she invests in other places like real estate, and she's been strategically planning her career moves to ensure sustained financial growth and stability. She's an actual icon. I mean, I feel like I could get heaps of you investing just by sharing that she has a share portfolio and a financial advisor, like iconic behavior, let's be honest. I think the importance here is that Taylor clearly gets it. She's benefiting from compound growth, not only in her career where, you know, small things are starting to add up, those decisions are starting to pay dividends, but also her financial decisions,

her share portfolio, her property portfolio. She's just smart at it. We can do that too. It is not that hard. The next lesson I've got for you is a really big one. And it's one that I have historically struggled with as well. And it's know when to walk away. So obviously when Taylor decided to tell her previous record label, Big Machine Records, to get stuffed and she decided to sign with Republic Records, she negotiated full ownership of her future masters. So like her historical label meant that she didn't own that. But when she signed with Republic Records, she made sure that if she was to ever leave again, this wouldn't be an issue. And this actually allowed her to completely rebuild her career on her own terms and increased her earning potential

significantly. So I think it's really important to know when to pull the pin. Like you can walk away from a bad investment. You can walk away from a bad job or a bad boyfriend or a situation that is no longer serving you. I think it's important that if you're thinking, maybe I need to start fresh, but oh V, I've invested like seven years in this job. I don't want to walk away from it now. I might get a promotion. Like that can be a really hard decision to make. But if Taylor has taught us anything, it's you need to own your own narrative. So why not just rewrite your financial era or your next era here. Just like her journey from literally being a country singer icon. Like no one would have guessed at that point she would become the world's biggest pop star. You can

actually choose to evolve your finances and your choices if your values are currently at odds with your beliefs. That can change. Maybe it's time that you negotiate that raise or start investing or start diversifying your income stream, whatever it is. I think we should just make it big. so this weekend obviously I want you to listen to some Taylor Swift but I want you to also channel your inner Taylor mate if she can re-record all of her albums and take back control you can absolutely own your financial future and while you're at it my friend don't forget to subscribe because like Taylor I would say that we have plenty of hits to still come and I mean if Taylor knew about this podcast obviously should be subscribed so like get ahead of the curve

i'm off to enjoy the weekend i literally am going to put on my eras to a concert playlist on spotify thank you for negotiating yourself back there taylor i'm going to be dancing in my living room and i will see you on monday for another money diary 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 tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa,

PTY, LTD, ABN, 321-649-27708, AFSL 451-289. you