She's On The Money - FRIDAY DRINKS: Welcome to book club

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

This week it's G and V on the Mics because our pal JRic is away with the spicy cough. We discuss the week that was, a few very exciting things happening in the Facebook community AND we welcome you to our newly founded (20 minutes before recording the show) Book Club. This week on Book Club, we're recapping The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason - a classic that's been around for more than 100 years.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. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome to another one of our Friday drinks episodes where we get to celebrate the wins from our She's on the Money community. As always, there are so many great money wins and confessions that are shared in our community each and every single week. And George and I this week have been poring over each and every single thing you guys have shared. This episode is for

you. We are celebrating you. But before we get into it, welcome Georgia King to your very own podcast. No, we're here. We're doing it. It's fun and we're ready. Except there is one notable absence. The gorgeous Jessica Ricci is home in bed. Home in bed with the spicy cough. With the spicy cough. I had it last week. She has it this week. You haven't even gotten it from each other. No, I haven't seen her in many months. I feel very un-Australian having not had the spicy cough yet. I'm sure it's coming your way, Dom. I'm just not social enough yet. I'm just weighing in weight.

Get yourself to a New Year's Eve festival. That's what I did. And here we are. That just feels like you were asking for it, Georgia King. Yeah, maybe I was. Anyway, it's good to be here, though. We're back. I feel like this episode is going to be a bit of a wild one.

Couple of reasons, George. One, Jess isn't here to keep us on track and make sure that we do the right thing, because she's the one that's always like, Victoria, stop saying that. Or Georgia, get on with it. like she's not here to keep us in line. But two, George, you weren't on either of the podcasts this week. Just Friday drinks, you're rolling on in. So you wouldn't know what went on. So I feel like it's my job to tell you what we did this week. Precisely. I have very little to contribute

today. So strap yourselves in. It's going to be an absolute corker. Do tell me what went on. Let's start with Monday. It makes sense. What happened on Money Diaries this week? All right. So on Monday, we spoke to an absolutely gorgeous money diarist who actually has been in our DMs for a very long time. Like I have seen her name come up a million times. She has a company called Dispense. They make like those hand sanitizer, like automated container things. And I bought some and I adore them. She's probably not going to be happy that I put fake tan in one and now it like self foams my fake tan. But I think I'm a genius. Like genuinely, like the second it started self foaming, I was like, I know what I can use this for. Because now I don't have to like pick up the bottle of fake tan and like pump it onto my mitt. I just put my little mitt under its mitt dispenser and it goes. That is good. Anyway, that's not what her product is for.

you can put sanitizer or hand wash in it or if you're victoria you would just put your fake tan in it and yolo but her story was epic she talked about her parents who came to australia as immigrants and started from absolute scratch and she's worked her way through life as well and george she recently as in 12 months ago found herself in the position where her boss said you've been doing a great job here's pay rise here's a promotion and the next week got made redundant. What? What a roller coaster. Anyway, she has gone from being in that situation to being made redundant and having no idea what was going on to creating her own small business, Dispense, and now she told us she's made more than $75,000 in that company already. So, clearly,

she's doing really well. Wow. She's obviously a very clever cookie V because, you know, we're in the middle of a pandemic what do we need we need sanitizer holders and we need fake tan dispensers okay so it's not a fake tan dispenser and I'm semi-regretting saying that although this could be revolutionary for her product I'm gonna pitch it to her yeah but genuinely I'm not here to sell it to you George because it's not sponsored and it wasn't sponsored and the product I got I literally bought with my own money purely because I wanted her product they're real sleek like they look really sleek on your bench so I have one beside the front door that actually has the hand sanitizer that came with the product in it and the other one which is meant to have a gorgeous

french vanilla and pear hand wash in it like that's full of fake tan gotcha gotcha you're welcome don't mix them up because that could be an awkward sanitizing situation i love that i can't wait to listen um tell me about wednesday's show oh wednesday's show george honestly am i allowed to say shitshow? Is that a thing? I think you can. Do I have to mark the episode as like being censored? I'm going to say it's a clean episode. Explicit content. Yeah, explicit content. But that's how we're going to describe Wednesday's episode. Not because the content was bad, George, but because Miss Jessica Ricci and I, we sat down to record that episode and I was so excited about it because this year we've decided to focus more on investment and really taking She's On The Money

to the next level. And, you know, having these deep dive discussions that just make sense about shares and ETFs and investing and different platforms and different strategies and what it means. And I'm honestly, this is where I thrive. So I'm, I'm finally in a situation where I'm like, you know what? She's on the money's content has covered more than enough to be a good base foundational amount of knowledge. We can like start stepping it up now. So if you haven't listened to all our old episodes and you're looking at our investing ones and you're like, I'm not ready for that. Just go back to the old ones and have a listen to that. We actually did a really great, I'm obviously biased, George, but really great mini investment series covering

everything you need to know when it comes to the basics of ETFs and shares and the different asset classes that exist and what that means. And I would go and have a listen to those first. In fact, even if you've already heard them, probably a good time to do a bit of a refresher anyway. But as you can hear, I'm very excited about this content. So Jess and I, we sit down and we record an entire episode george on the top performing etfs of 2021 so like incredible who returned the most what it meant and jess was like super excited about it really interested because obviously jess in the last few months has gotten really into investing and like buying her own etfs and um it turns out george i didn't have my microphone on oh you absolute pest you've done it to me

before and it's not ideal. It was literally the worst. Oh, when did you realize? Sam, our editor was like, Victoria, have you heard this? And I was like, no, because it turns out my microphone wasn't on. And I do have a pretty fancy microphone set up at home that I'm very proud of. And he was like, do you know that that entire thing was recorded on the microphone of your like really trashy webcam? Oh no. No, I didn't. I was like, can you save it? And he sent me like a snippet of the audio and that was absolute trash and I was like we're gonna have to do it again call Jess George Jess has got the spicy cough she can't talk so I couldn't record with her and you had the spicy cough so I couldn't record with her and Sam was like your community have no idea who

I am but I'll be on your episode and I was like Sam I love you come on the she's on the money podcast and so our producer Sam he co-hosted that episode did a stellar job we love you Sam thank you so much for that. But that episode did end up happening. We did talk about the top five performing ETFs. I did it for the second time. Sam did it for the first time. And I reckon I got a good enough amount of practice for it to be a really good episode. Exactly. And you said that that was a really popular episode, right? People were really wanting to hear about that. Yes. Like you guys have been craving more investment topics. And already I've had so many DMs of people being like, oh my gosh, more content like this. I really liked understanding why things perform the way

that they do. Because in that episode, we didn't just talk about like, hey, George, this ETF was number one. And you go, cool, Bea. We really talked about the intricacies of the market and what it means for it to perform and maybe why that ETF performed in the way that it did. Because George, a couple of the ETFs on the list kind of made sense when you started to talk about the state of the world, right? So one of them was a crude oil index, which is kind of like fuel. And we know that that's quite popular at the moment. Countries are really snapping that up to maintain safety and so that they can still be productive and all of that. The global cybersecurity one was on there and there was a global tech one as well. And you go, okay, cool. Like that makes

sense. So it was very fun to talk through what that was and why they performed. But also on the flip side of that, you might be thinking, oh my gosh, like I might pick shares based on what the top performing ones were. Like a really good point that Sam brought up was like, V, I've edited your content for a long time. I know you pretty well. I don't think you would pick this ETF. And I was like, no, it's definitely against my ethics and my values and what I actually want from an ETF and from an investment. So it's interesting to say that even though they perform well, I definitely wouldn't have picked it and still won't pick it into the future. So it was just a good conversation about values and goals and what these ETFs want to do and how they diversified because I think

as well obviously go listen to the episode really passionate about this but an ETF I think has this common misconception in our community that any ETF is automatically diversified and that is true but it's not diversified across the entire market it might be diversified across a particular sector So for example, that crude oil ETF only buys crude oil companies. So it might be diversified across that small sector, but when it comes to the bigger marketplace, it's not like a NASDAQ top 100 ETF where they have just the top 100 companies. So it was honestly really interesting episode. And I was telling you earlier, George, that we're going to do another one very soon on the top five performing individual shares, because that's also a very interesting conversation

to have. But yes, if you guys have any specific investment topics you want us to cover, slide on into our DMs, my friends. Let us know. Oh, that's so exciting. I'm so excited for the community and for us, I guess, that we're now at this place where we're not just explaining what things are, but we're reflecting on what they actually are like on a global scale. Does that make sense? Like it's, we've come so far. Yeah. Oh my gosh, George, I cannot tell you. I remember when we made the first 12 episodes of She's On The Money. Like the She's On The Money podcast was only meant to be 12 episodes. We're nearly at 250, George. Like never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd get to sit here and talk about investment all day and do

research for these episodes and have really wholesome conversations about our ethics and our goals and our values. Like I am still shook that this is my career, George. Like I love it. I'm so excited. Anyway, let's move on. She's blessed. She's blessed. It's going to be great. Yeah. My favorite thing though is the community, as you know, George. So let's recap. We obviously had the money win thread and it's been a while since you've shouted out your favorite money wins from the community. So George, what have you got for us this week? Okay. I have some absolute belters as always. My first win is from the lovely Bree. So she is a young 19 year old student who was a shopaholic last year, weren't we all? She spent in excess of $14,000 on shopping,

nights out and takeaway food. So, a little bit of a money loss in 2021. That's a lot of money, but we've all been there, George. We have all been there. But the good news is she started out this year by working out a budget for each month, explaining exactly how much she's allowed to spend on what she needs and what she wants. This week she paid her rent and groceries and beyond that she did not spend a dime and then she thanked everyone in the community for all the support. So amazing. I love that and I love that you guys all support each other to achieve a goal and that not only do you support it until it's achieved, we then like get to celebrate together. Like I cannot tell you how wholesome it is every

day I read through that thread because you guys always update the thread and there's always new comments of things that you guys are winning at and it could be really small like I saw the other day someone was like um I went to Coles and there was a big M on sale and I wasn't gonna buy one but money win I'm like yes queen like I love that we're celebrating the small things but then people are also commenting really big things like I got out of personal debt I've been in it for 10 years or I finally paid off my car loan or I've saved up enough to go on the holiday of my dreams or I'm in a situation that I never thought I would be in before. Like it just, it's such a cool thread that it doesn't matter what your win is, how big it is or how small it is. Like we've got you back.

How cool. Exactly. We're celebrating them all. Let's move on V to a couple of insurancy wins. Sexy. I know. The first one is from Jess. So she had to pay her car insurance. She was quoted nearly $700 for renewal of her current third party insurance. Then she did a quote online with amy and it was 570 so that's pretty nice but then enter her friend who somehow got involved and redid the quote got a special deal not sure how she got it down to 220 sorry what yeah i'm not sure what's being insured here but it's impressive then we hope that it's got the same level of insurance obviously when we read these sometimes you're like we don't comprehend like we're happy for you but like hopefully you're still protected there's more to this story though

her work gave her an 80 voucher which she she put towards her insurance as well so in the end she paid 145 dollars instead of 700 hello gorgeous that is a very big money win i appreciate that massively oh thank you so good well done jess the next one uh is from ash so she changed her address on her car insurance policy to her new address and received a refund of $294. What? Yeah. Who would have thought you would get a refund? Like, I thought they'd just snap up the money and not mention it.

And you'd be like, thanks for updating my date. So I didn't think that was a thing. Why? Why is that a thing, V? Just because some areas are maybe safer? Yeah, it would be a thing because, you know, regional versus metro or some areas are categorized is more likely to have crime or more likely to have on-street bingles. Like it's all based on risk. Yeah. Gotcha. Makes sense. So, it makes sense, but I didn't think they'd refund you.

That's a good money win. The next one here is from Star. So, this year she said to a friend they are having a nothing new year. So, they are going to source everything secondhand unless it's absolutely essential. They buy brand new like a feminine hygiene product, for example. That Seems quite reasonable. Yeah, I think so. This week alone, she saved over $80 on buying perfectly good secondhand items. Good for the environment and good for the bank account. You're a legend star. Star's a star, George. Yeah, we'll see what you do there. I'm going to see myself out. Nadine V has a short and sweet money win. Her six-year-old is at his grandparents' place for the week, so she doesn't have to feed him. Apparently, children are very hungry,

so that's a good result. That is a great result. That's not just a money win, but like what I heard was you have a child-free week, my friend. The dream. I hope she's heading to some yoga sessions and living her best life. From two women who have child-free lives, we get it. Welcome. Ashley has quit smoking. She's already saving so much money and she says it's such a relief to finally be free of the habit. I love that. That's like a health win as well. Absolutely. That's not just money win, But like something that I think is really important, you guys have heard me say it before, is if you're going to make a really big change that is going to have a significant financial impact on your life, like quitting smoking, like that's a big one.

Make sure you're putting that money somewhere else so you don't get further down the track. And then you go, oh, where's that money going? Like everyone said that when I quit smoking, I'll save so much money, but I'm not seeing it like we need to be more active about this. So if you were spending 50 bucks a week or $100 a week, start putting that money in a savings account so that if you're ever tempted to go back to the habit, you look at it and go, no, I'm so happy that I have those savings. Like, please do it. Cause I've heard a few people in our community saying, oh, I thought I'd save heaps if I was not smoking anymore. And the reality is,

yes, you will, but we need to be more active about our saving. It doesn't just happen. The money doesn't just end up magically in our account saved. We as humans will always find another way to allocate it. So we have to be very specific about where things go and how they're structured and what we are doing with our money. You can go back to wins now. I'll stop ranting. I loved that. Our final win V is from Lucy. So she asked her boss for a pay rise this week and he gave her a 25% raise without any hesitation. What this means now V is that she's doubled her salary from the job she was made redundant from in May 2020. Turns out COVID business closures can have a silver lining in the long run, she wrote. Oh, I love that. But also, we're going

to use Lucy's money win as a reminder. New year, new salary. If you've been thinking about talking to your boss about salary, what are you waiting for? Lucy's boss gave her a 25% increase without question. If you've been thinking about asking, now's the time to shine, my friends. V, let's set up a meeting after this. All right. We'll have a chat. I wish I said that. No, no, no, no. But there's actually, George, as you would know, an entire podcast about negotiating your salary. So go back and listen to that because now is a very good time to be having conversations about salary. New year, new us, you deserve it. All right. Let's get back into it. Georgia, can we hear this week's listener question? Hey team, Maddie here. I'm 23 years old and I just got a new job

at a big company that I'm really excited about. The only issue is that I've just found out I'm going to be paid once a month, which is really starting to stress me out. And I feel like it's a money loss. Do you have any tips for managing only being paid once a month? Gee, I feel like this is a really relatable one. At some point in our lives, we've all gone through a change in employment that's meant a change in the way that we get paid or like maybe even a bump in the road. It might go from weekly to fortnightly, but monthly is a big one. Have you ever gone through a change that big? Yeah, I have. My first full-time job, I was paid monthly, which it was different, I guess, because it was my first full-time job. So I was earning more

than my casual job, but I was used to having that weekly top up. So it was a huge adjustment. So I definitely understand the stress of this question, but it's definitely not a money loss. Like you are going to be just fine with the help of Victoria. Yeah, it's not a money loss by any stretch of the imagination. It actually just requires a little bit more planning. And I say a little bit more planning because obviously, let's pretend, George, it's the same amount of money and we're not talking about, you know, pay rises or pay decreases. We're actually just talking about frequency here. But when it comes to frequency, if we get a big lump sum at the start of the month, mindset often comes into it. So, you're very likely to go, oh my God,

no, I've got heaps of money. It's so fine. Like I can go out for an extra Aperol with you, George, don't worry. Or no, no, no, babe, I've got the pizza this time. You got it last time. Even if you're not sure who paid and you end up just dipping into your money a bit more than you had actually planned to. So maybe the last week of your pay cycle is super tight and you end up feeling really uncomfortable. So this is where having a really good budget and cashflow system in place is going to be essential because then it won't matter because you are in a situation where you know what your expenses are and you know what you're spending on your food your fuel and your fun each and every single month so that you can allocate that to your personal spending

each week and this is how I do my own personal spending this is how our budget and cash flow masterclass is set up albeit I don't think this person came in for me to go do my course but at the end of the day, genuinely, my online masterclass would be of value here. And you know what I'm going to do, George? We're going to send her the masterclass so that she can do it because at the end of the day, she's in a situation where that would be really valuable. And having a system that is made for you is going to make it so much easier. So it's not, it's about sitting down and going, all right, what is my budget? What am I spending? How much am I spending? Being really realistic with that. When we say budget at She's On The Money,

we're not saying please restrict yourself like set a budget for groceries like we're not saying that I'm saying to you Georgia how much do you spend on groceries each week and you might go oh like maybe 50 bucks and I'll go are you sure you go oh let me go through my bank balance and then it's like 80 if we set our budget at 50 we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot each and every single week because that's not truly what you're spending so it's not a place where we're trying to restrict. It's a place where we're trying to understand so that you can go, oh, well, I spend 80 bucks a week. And you might go, that's pretty fair. I don't want to change that. But if you're super aware of your spending habits, you might go, but you know what?

I actually really need to reel in the amount of takeaway coffees that I have. I definitely don't need to a day. I can't believe how much they add up. That's adding X, Y, Z to my budget each and every single week. And it's not in line with my values. Like I just don't want to do that because I'm actually trying to save for a house or, you know, I'm trying to save so that I have a little bit more money in my budget each week so that I can actually go out on a Friday night and have a drink and go out for dinner with my girlfriends. And I'm not spending any more than I would have before. I've just reallocated my budget to be more in line with the way I want to live my life. That is what we're talking about when we say budgeting. It is about you living in line with

your values, not living in line with what you think people expect of you. So if you can do that and then you can set up your bank account system. And Georgia, we've posted in the group before how many bank accounts I think you guys need. The magic number is six from my perspective. But if you can set all your bank accounts up, you won't have an issue where at the end of the month you feel stuck because each and every single week you have the same amount of money that you can spend. And we're on a bit of a structure and it makes sense so that we're achieving our savings goals. We are achieving our debt repayments if we've got any. We are putting money away for the things that are going to come up in the future, like registrations, because they usually come at

the same time as insurance and for me at the same time as Christmas, which is so rude and I don't appreciate it. But at the end of the day, get on top of your budget, understand it, create a cash flow system that works for you. Two quick questions before we move on, V. I remember when I was getting paid once a month, it didn't take a toll on my emotions, but now that I get paid fortnightly, it's like an exciting you get your pay slip and then you get your money and it's like exciting when you just get paid once a month you only get that feeling 12 times a year like is that something that we can kind of do we just need to get our heads around that feeling not really being meaningful or yes we actually need to create a budgeting cash flow system where that's just a

part of it we don't want payday to be exciting because payday shouldn't be exciting because it's just topping up a fund that should be replenished, right? Like it shouldn't be like, oh my gosh, I've got so much more money to spend. Like it should be, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that my pay came in because I've already allocated where it's going to go and where it's going to live and where it's going to grow. So I think it's very important to remember that mindset does come into this a fair bit and we need to think about why we might be excited about payday. Are you excited about payday because you're really short on cash each month and that's the day that the pressure gets taken off a bit. I get it. I totally get it. I have clients that have been in this

situation. That's why we want to structure that makes sense. You're excited because you're too excited to get paid. Like that's cool. But more often than not, usually excitement around payday comes with a sense of relief because you're not under financial pressure at that point in time, because that money has come into your account. You're like, okay, cool. I can afford rent. And I wasn't sure how that was going to happen because I had no money left. Like no one deserves to feel like that. And that's why structuring yourself properly so that you're in a position of empowerment is really important. Yeah. Because you're not making less money. You're making literally the same amount of money. It's just how you think about it and how you strategize

to make it work for you. Last little question here, V, why do companies choose to pay once a month only? Is it just a cashflow thing? Payroll's a nightmare, George. I hate payroll as somebody who employs people. I'm sorry. At the end of the day, it's literally based on what the company does. If it's a big company, they might have a payroll department and they're sorting everything out during the month and they're getting it together and monthly just works for that company. Some companies pay weekly, some companies pay fortnightly. To be honest, it's really personal preference. Sometimes they'll be flexible. For example, if you work in a small business and you're like, oh, I'm really bad at cashflow. I really want to have a chat to my boss about my

pay cycles they might be flexible on this like it's definitely worth a conversation if it's something that's really important to you however it really just comes down to the way that the business has been structured to be honest I pay the way I pay because that's how the bookkeeper I worked with when I first set up my business worked and she just told me that's how it was going to be I didn't really have a discussion about it I didn't really have a conversation and it was just the way that she said would work the best and be the clearest. And it just made sense, but it's different for everybody. So, I don't think there's a right or a wrong. And if it's something that's really grinding your gears, G, talk to your boss about it.

Love that. V, is it time to move on to a new little segment that you created 20 minutes ago in our planning meeting? Oh, yes. Georgia, I'm very excited about this. And I mean, I've been thinking about it for a long time, but we usually do on Friday drinks, a little segment where we talk about the news or the current events and i was like george financial news over christmas was pretty bland i mean we talked about elizabeth holmes and i do have a recommendation based on last week's show because i said there was a really interesting case to follow and i'm really interested to see what actually eventuates and how it works and a whole heap of you slid into my dms and recommended the abc podcast the dropout gee i finished season one

I'm halfway through season two. I am obsessed. I have been listening to it while I'm working. I have been listening to it when I walk the dog every morning. I have been listening to it laying in bed. Like it's, it's not healthy. Like I'm obsessed, but it's such an interesting case. And that was definitely a good pod recommendation from you guys. But to replace this week's news segment G, we're going to do book club. We're creating a book club, but it's like a fake book club. It's not a real book club. What happens is I read the book and then I tell you about the book and then you guys get to pretend you also read the book because I'm going to do like the TLDR version, like the too long, didn't read. So, you can get all of the knowledge out of a finance

book without having to read it because some of them are really dry. So, I guess that's another point we should make. It's going to be a finance book. It's not just going to be any book. It's not just going to be some rom-com that Victoria's been reading in her downtime, which I absolutely do, but we're not going to talk about the topics that I read, but it's going to be a finance book and you guys should be really excited. I mean, are you? I mean, I would love it more if they weren't finance. I'm not going to lie to you, but this is a finance podcast and here we are. I mean, people could make really trashy recommendations, like if they wanted to, like if you read a really good rom-com novel recently, please. I'm currently reading The

Paper Palace, which is kind of in that vein. So, I would recommend that. But again, that's not why were here. What I think is good about this idea, V, is that no one really wants to read finance books unless they're she's on the money, of course. So, this is a really good way of kind of grasping the main concepts that you've taken away. You can dumb them down for my good self and the listeners and have fun with it. You're welcome. You are so welcome. And I've said on the podcast before, we're going to start with my favorite finance book of all time. And at the same time as being my favorite. I would argue it is the driest finance book of all time. But the thing I adore about it, George, is actually the cures. Our card's seven cures out of it, which teach a

different investment lesson for each and every single segment. And I feel like it's a really timeless book. So the book we are going to talk about today, George, is called The Richest Man in Babylon, and it is by George Samuel Classen. And this book has existed for more than a hundred years. Literally, it has been around the sun a fair few times. But to summarize it very quickly, it gives, from my perspective, very common sense financial advice that I would argue is still very applicable today that is told through different tales and parables from the times of ancient Babylon, which sounds very romantic, but I promise when you read it, you'll be like, this is dry. and also the font in this book is particularly small which we don't write like I want readable

fonts not fonts that make me squint while reading so like just a little bit of feedback to the publishers there you could increase it but it is very it feels very old Sophie not gonna lie you haven't really sold it the font's really small it's boring and dry uh written in the 20s it's It's not great, but as I said, it has financial advice in it that I think is incredibly relevant today. Okay. So, you're like still not selling it. Yeah. I mean, not really convinced. Like, what are the main lessons that you learned from the book? All right. So, there's a fictional Babylonian character in this book and we follow him and his name's Arkad or Arkad. I think it's Arkad. Anyway, Arkad is a very poor scribe who essentially became the richest man in Babylon

through these tips and tricks that are shared in the book. So, Babylon was the wealthiest city in the entire world at the time that this was published because people appreciated the value of money. And this book, if you're in financial advice, is known as being like one of the most influential classic books to exist in this space. And by the end of the book, you have an understanding of Arkad's financial advice. Specifically, he has seven cures and five laws of gold and these help you generate money, then protect it, then invest it. So like it sounds kind of cooler when I'd be like, oh, it's actually kind of like a story, but let's just go through them really quickly. Essentially, the seven cures are really important and they're kind of like

seven top tips. And for each tip, you get kind of like a parable or a story to go along with it as to why it's important. And the first one is pay yourself first, which at She's On The Money, we agree with. And he says, you should always, always, always be looking to save money where you can. The author recommends saving at least 10% of your earnings always. If you can save a higher portion of this, then that is fantastic. This money might be just going to pay off debt, but that is still growing your wealth. If you are in debt, you should live on 70% of what you earn, save 10% for yourself and use the remaining 20% to pay your debts. And you should set this aside before you spend any other money. So, that's kind of interesting. He also says that every

expense you have is slaving away for somebody else. If you don't pay yourself first, you are merely working to pay for other people. The author then goes on to explain that you might as well be a servant if you don't pay yourself first. And he says this is because servants work to earn food and shelter. So, that's number one in his seven cures. Oh, that's number one. I thought that was all seven. No, not all seven babes. Like sit down, strap yourself in. Number two is control your expenses. So the author says you absolutely well and truly need to control your expenses to be able to save a minimum of 10% of your earnings. You actually have to minimize the amount of money going out of your accounts or out of your hands. So the recommendation in this book

is that you need to be spending 90% or less in total of your income. So the author recommends that you need to learn to live below your means and try and avoid any unnecessary expenses because your expenses will always grow to equal your income if you don't protest. So like lifestyle creep. Yeah, exactly. Like we talk about this stuff all the time. So it turns out I really, really haven't reinvented the wheel. It's actually come from 4,000 years ago in Babylon. Like who would have thought? He should have done a podcast. I know. Can you imagine? He would have made heaps. So, a perfect example of this is exactly like lifestyle creeps. So, when people get a raise, instead of using that as an opportunity to save more money, people tend to just start

spending more. So, unless you can control your urge to buy unnecessary things, the author says you're always going to struggle to maintain this cure. That's kind of cool, right? Yeah, I like it. What's next? So, George, number three is make money work for you. So, together, saving money and not spending money on unnecessary things is not enough to actually create wealth. You need to be investing your money. So, the book says the first two cures, which is saving and then controlling your expenses, will help you with this third cure. The first two cures will provide money for you to invest and then every single cent of your savings should be invested. Again, I think it's important here to say this isn't my advice, this is me summarizing the book. If you then receive returns

on your money invested, then you should be investing those returns as well. So effectively, they recommend that you build a little army of workers, which are your dollars, that are earning money for you. Also known as compound interest, am I right? Yeah, you're not wrong. The other part of this chapter is ensuring that you're investing in areas that you are knowledgeable. Or if there is an opportunity that you are not knowledgeable in and you need to learn more, you need to lean on somebody who is an expert in that area. So, one example, which I think I've posted quotes on before, is you wouldn't take advice on purchasing diamonds from a brick layer. And I think that that is incredibly important because so many people, especially

nowadays, are reaching out to social media influencers about buying crypto. And you go, why would you do that if you actually want to create wealth instead of relying on experts in that area? So the best people in this book, this is also me going, ha, ha, ha. But the best people to learn from are actually financial advisors. In the book, The Richest Man in Babylon, there are actually several fictional characters who can be described as financial advisors but they are essentially rich self-made men who are endorsed by the quote king and other leaders in this book but essentially they are seen as being the trustworthy experts that help other people make money but the guy who's trying to convince you that he can help you buy diamonds but he's

a bricklayer and doesn't have any diamonds like he's probably not the one right so essentially avoid being scammed my friends that's what we're trying to do trust the pros trust the pros Are you ready for number four? Number four, let's go. George, number four is protect your wealth. There are a number of risks obviously associated with attempting to become rich and becoming wealthy, and it is so easy to lose money or make a poor investment. So, to minimize risk, the richest man in Babylon says that you need to learn from people who have successfully built wealth and kept it for long periods of time. The recommendation on this one is surround yourself with people who are familiar with money who work with it each day and who ideally make lots of it

the other recommendation in this chapter is you want to spread your wealth out you do not want your investments to all be in one place or one stock or one bond doing so is arguably too risky so the book recommends that you diversify your investments based on logic so that you will make money i feel like they've listened to the podcast before george i think they've stolen your word Yeah, literally. All right, let's move on, G, because number five probably isn't she's on the money advice. Are you ready? Number five is own your own house. Well, that's pretty much impossible. So, thanks a lot, George. Thanks to George. But it's 2022 and we can't afford property. So rude. Anyway,

number five is own your own house because apparently owning property gives a person more confidence they say in the book that renting a property is an easy way to waste money they say that you're simply giving your money away to another landlord they say it is better to take out a loan and buy a property when the loan is paid off you then own that house and you can do whatever you want with it you can even start renting out that property as a form of investment but the book says the best case scenario is buying a house without a loan if you can do this then you definitely should. Low. Yeah. I, as a financial advisor, can't agree with that. I mean, it's probably, I, as a financial advisor, can't agree with that. In fact, it's probably advice that

worked 4,000 years ago in Babylon, but like probably not today. Like, I don't know if he knows what our interest rates are. They're pretty good, but the cost of property nowadays is a bit too hard to swallow. So like, nice try, George. You did good. Yep. Let's just move on to number six let's move on number six i do love so we're back on track george we're back on track number six is ensure a future income so he says that you always need to look forward to the future financial circumstances can change dramatically and really quickly so what you need to do is have a plan in place in case circumstances are worsened for you an example of this in the book was that you become too ill to work or maybe a specific industry isn't needed anymore you want to have

investments in place that are leveraging compound interest. And you also want to develop a passive income stream that will keep coming in after you don't work anymore. Cough, superannuation, cough. This will help account for factors that could potentially pop up in the future, like becoming not well or being too old to work. So, that is something we definitely agree with, J. King. A hundred percent. Super is very important. Moving on. We're trying to be fast. I mean, we're not because I'm really excited about this. you'll be like Victoria, it would have taken the same amount of time to read the book, but whatever. And G, number seven of our CAD seven cures in the book is invest in yourself, which I think we can

all agree with. Oh, gorgeous. Agreed. Your most valuable asset of all is your mind. So to maximize the ability to gain wealth, you have to invest in yourself, they say. You need to improve your earning potential and you can do this by acquiring new skills. That is important for acquiring wealth during that period. So think about how you could be earning more money. Then consider what changes you need to make yourself that make that potential wealth generation a reality and then invest in yourself to make those changes. So learning a new skill or investing in yourself could be anything. They recommend things like changing to be more healthy habits like walking more or reading helpful books before bed or cutting out a bad spending habit. So I think we can all agree that

that's probably a good tip. Definitely. Okay. So, they're the lessons or whatever you said before. Yeah. The seven QSG. What are the five laws of gold? All right. So, you can smash through the five laws of gold very quickly. It's not going to be a little summary of each. In the book, George provides us with a summary of how to make money. Great. He calls these the five laws of gold. Number one, he says gold comes easily to those who save at least 10% of their earnings. Number two, gold labors diligently and multiplies for people who find this gold a profitable employment. Number three, gold clings to the people who invest their gold with wise people. Number four, gold slips away from people who invest in unfamiliar

purposes. And number five, gold flees from people who force gold into impossible earnings, which I think we can all go, hmm, I feel like that makes sense because obviously he's trying to say, look, if you're trying to force money into impossible areas, it's very likely you're going to lose it. And if you're investing with people you don't trust or in unfamiliar asset classes, like it might slip away because you don't know what you're doing. So, I feel like there's a lot of good lessons to learn there. But to summarize, G, because we are done here, Like, I'm sure you're sick of me talking about this book, but now you can pretend that at brunch you read this book. Like, this could become a whole side podcast. What do you reckon?

Yeah. I think the girls are going to love this at brunch tomorrow. They're going to be asking me all the questions. Tell them to sit down. I got some lessons to tell you. But I do think it's really important because so many people say things like, hey, which finance books should I read? And I go, oh, look, here's my favorite one. I really like it because it's the principles and it's the rules and it's the things that I really want you to get a base understanding of before you start trying to talk about strategy. And before I start being like, well, this is what the investment is. Like I want you to understand why you're investing. And I guess this is why I always start with money stories and understanding yourself.

But to summarize the richest man in Babylon, essentially the secret to creating wealth is spending as little as possible, saving money so that you can invest and investing in yourself so that you can seize financial opportunities as they come up. To become rich, you need to think about your money like a tree. In the book, they say that trees grow very slowly from a seed and that they need water and light to flourish. And the seven cures are the food for your money tree. That said, they actually can't help grow your money tree without hard work and consistency. So the recommendation is to set out a logical plan and stick to your financial plan. If you do this and you work really hard, then money will accrue surprisingly quickly. That's the summary of the

book, J. King. Well done, V. I think it's very cool that a book written more than 100 years ago still stands up. I think that's really, really cool. I think it still stands up. And that's why I like to start with that one. And I know that it is dry and I've just told you all about it so that you don't have to read it yourself. In saying that, I think I've lost count of how many times I've read it because I just really like it. It makes me feel at home. But let me know if you've got another book or if you hated this segment, let us know. Imagine if this was a whole pod. I reckon we could do like bonus episodes where Victoria's finished a book and I'm just excited to tell you about it. I'll co-host that with you. I love that idea. All right. It's on G King. It's

on. But I do think, gee, that's all we have time for today. So just before we head off, we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. they're the traditional custodians of the lands the waterways and the skies all across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness and remember guys the advice shared on cheese 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 a financial decision and we promise victoria divine is an

authorized representative of australia pacific funds management proprietary limited abn 34132463 257 afsl 339151 you forgot to mention that i'm also now a qualified book reviewer thank you yep thank you so we won't be reviewing issues on the money book because i think that that will be too biased so well it's 10 out of 10 we already know 10 out of 10 but if anybody else would like to recommend a book for me to review or have a read of or even just read in my own time let me know slide into my dms also send us through your money questions guys we love listening to them and we we want more so send them through see you later guys