She's On The Money - How a Year Making SOTM Completely Transformed Our Producer Emma’s Finances

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

A year after being thrown head first into financial litteracy and producing over 200 episodes of  She’s On The Money, our behind the scenes queen Emma is here to share exactly how her finances and money mindset has changed. This is what happens when real life, rising costs, and a very loud financial education collide. A home that wasn’t meant to be forever suddenly holds the key to a much bigger plan. One tiny change inside her super she'd been putting off ends up doing far more than she expected. And the investing strategy she used to overthink becomes the thing that finally gives her financial clarity. Inside this ep:💰The cashflow move her family is making to unlock wealth sooner💰How she's investing to retire at 55, and what she's prioritising in her portfolio to get there💰The emotional hurdle she had to get over before she could start investing at all💰A tick box she ignored for years, but now it's unlocked the potential for a $50k return💰Why starting in your 40s is absolutely not too late (and the maths that proves it)💰What she learned from listening to your money stories every single week Ready to binge more relatable, inspiring, and downright juicy money stories? Check out our ultimate Money Diaries playlist. Listen now Join our Facebook Group AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+. And follow us on Instagram for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you.  Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha 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 beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's on the money podcast, acknowledges culture, country, community, and connections, bringing you the tools, knowledge, and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast that lets you be pervy about other people's money habits for educational purposes, of course. Now, today's money diary, it's a little bit different because it's with somebody who we talk about on the show all the time, but she's

never actually been on the show. Our money diarist today is usually behind the scenes. And a year after joining the She's On The Money team and being thrown absolutely headfirst into financial literacy, our producer Emma has volunteered to share her money habits, her mindset and goals that have evolved since then. Emma, welcome to the other side of the microphone. Oh my God, I can't believe I'm finally on the show. Which is fun because I talk about you all the time. I'm like, Emma, is that right? Oh, Emma will know. And I feel like people maybe know your name, but through me just yapping about you on the show, especially Bex broke tips. I'm like, did you get that from Emma? And she's like, yes. And usually when I call up the money diarist and

talk to them they're like oh it's so good to finally hear your voice yeah you're kind of like in the background but like now we've brought you to the forefront which I'm really excited about and you're normally not the type to put your hand up for the spotlight and I would never have asked you to do this episode because I wouldn't want anyone in our team to be uncomfortable but my friend you came up with this idea this was all you what on earth possessed you to go do you know what I'd finally be happy to be behind the mic Vy. Well yeah anyone that knows me does know that this is my absolute nightmare like I hate public speaking I hate the idea of being on video I hate all of that stuff which is really interesting because I've worked in television and I've now

worked in podcasts so but I'm always behind the scenes you know I've sometimes got roped in to I've been on television twice dressed as a grandma. You're like no one will recognize me that'll be fine. Exactly. I was a Dalek for a Doctor Who thing once as well. Oh, that's cool. But yeah, I've never been on anything as myself. I also got the idea, though, after reading some comments on Brooke's recent episode, the one where she talked about fire and retiring early because, you know, she's 27. She doesn't have kids. She doesn't have a mortgage. So we did get some comments that fired me up a little bit. And made us both, I think, a little, frankly, a little bit annoyed because Brooke, so if you haven't listened, Brooke is one of our team

members at She's On The Money and she did a whole money diary with us, but it was an investing diary and it was absolutely incredible. So we'll link that in the show notes so you can go back. Maybe we can start a collection, Emma, of all the She's On The Money team's money diaries and what they're willing to share. But we got a comment on one of Brooke's videos and I'm just going to read it out because I think it's really important to be talking about these things really openly. And we're not sharing this because we're like, oh, here's a really unrealistic story of investing. Like guys, at some point I want to get a billionaire on the show. And you know what? That's going to be wildly unrelatable, but it will be so pervy. But stories like Emma's that's

just about to come out and Brooke's, they're not unrelatable. They are completely accessible. And I think that that's what's so beautiful. Anyway, so this is the comment we got on one of She's On The Money's videos a couple of days ago. So it says, but does she also pay rent, electricity, water, gas, internet, phone, medical, home insurance, private health insurance, car fuel, rego and insurance? What about her food and incidentals, not to mention subscriptions or gym memberships or car parking? Nobody has that amount of money to invest. It's so unrealistic for the majority of people. And I did reply kindly and I said, content isn't created at she's on the money for you to follow them step by step. It was created because we believe it's

inspiring. She started with absolutely nothing, gave it a go and now has two full-time jobs to make sure she's achieving her goal. You can start with as little as a dollar and this is just her story and it's being shared to hopefully inspire others not to act as a blueprint for what we expect others to do. Because Emma, you and I both know, like you interview every single money diarist, the ones that make the show, the ones that don't end up on the show, literally everybody, nobody's money story is identical. Nobody's pathway to financial freedom is exactly the same. It is all so wildly different. And we never share any of these stories as a playbook, as you said. It would actually then be financial advice and I'd be in a bit of a pickle.

Yeah. We just had someone on the show who was 25 and has really great money habits. And she did get a better start in life for her financial literacy because her parents did teach her all the things that we're all learning now. But we didn't pick her for the show because we're like, oh, everyone should have a property portfolio at 25. She still had things that we could learn from and she has good habits that we can go, oh, actually I could change something and I could be like her. Yeah. And you don't have to replicate it immediately. And I think that's what I really want to draw the attention to because these things aren't unrealistic. Unrealistic would be saying, if you can fly to the moon, but these things can be replicated in a way that works for

you and your story and your journey. And every single Monday, as you guys already know, we drop a money diary and you get to know a lot of our community members and they are also wildly diverse. So let's get into it. But before we get too far into it, I also want to point out in exactly the same way I did with Brooke, that because Emma is one of my team members and is not completely anonymous, this isn't, you know, digging into the numbers. I'm not going to be like, give me the nitty gritty and how much tax did you pay? And what does this look like? Because she doesn't have the privilege of anonymity. This episode is purely being recorded because it's about what happens when you start actually applying what we talk about in your day-to-day life, which Emma was

a little bit passionate about when she started, but I think you'd only just been introduced to our community. And in her interview, she was like, oh my God, V, like love the content, been telling all my friends about it. And I was like, let's go. So instead of me telling you about your journey, Emma, let's go back. Where were you before or where were you at before joining the She's On The Money team? Well, I probably was a more relatable person, right? So I was 40. I had kids. My kids were about to turn four and two when I joined. I've been in and out of work contracts because I've been having my babies and we were renting while renting out our home so tell me a bit more about this rent vesting

journey of yours I know that that was something that's completely unrelated to she's on the money it was something that you and your husband had gone you know what this works for us how what why like all of that well that was never part of our original plan before me and my husband had kids we went and got our borrowing capacity done and we could borrow about a million dollars which back then could get you a lot more than it could get you now. Yeah, absolutely. But that idea absolutely terrified me. Seven figures is terrifying.

Yeah. The idea of having that mortgage, even though the bank said we could have it, I was like the idea of struggling to make repayments if interest rate goes up or whatever happens in our life, you know, we ended up going down to one income and I'm very glad that we didn't take on that mortgage. But it was purely because of our fear. So we decided to go with more like a $750,000 loan, which meant also we kind of wanted to be more in the area that we wanted to live as well. So that meant a townhouse. And before we had kids,

I thought that would be enough. I thought a three bedroom townhouse, we could fit. Once you have kids, it just feels much smaller, doesn't it? Yeah. And my brother actually did say, you're going to outgrow that house so quickly. And I was like what do you know I just want to live closer to the inner city. I don't need heaps of room. Exactly and then how many train sets later and you're like oh we need space. Yeah definitely and we actually moved in the week before lockdown happened. Oh yeah. Before we bought the house it was a couple of weeks before we found out I was pregnant as well. So at that stage we didn't know if I could have kids. I'd had an ectopic pregnancy. I'd had surgery to have you know

removal. And so there was, we wanted kids, but there was the likelihood that I couldn't have kids. I don't know how it worked, but I managed to get pregnant again, pretty much straight away. But when we signed the contract, I was probably pregnant, but I had no idea. Do you know what? That's actually probably a good thing as well, because when you, and I would never recommend this, but when you disclose to a bank that you are pregnant or having a kid, it does change your serviceability of a mortgage. Well, yeah. And that's something that, you know, we've kind of learned as well as we've gone on that that does affect it now that we've got two kids. Yeah. You're like, oh, we want to move around. And the bank's like, so how many kids

do you have? And you're like, none of your business. Yeah. So, you know, we moved in just before lockdown started. I had my baby in lockdown. You know, I come from the country. I come from a town that wasn't in lockdown. Yeah. I have a lot of friends there who have babies the same age. They were all out and about. My parents are still there. And I was just like locked inside with this brand new baby, you know, struggling with sleep, all that kind of stuff and not being able to leave the house. And I was like going up the wall. Yeah. I said to my husband, I think I want to move to the country. Yeah. And, you know, he was like, well, what sort of job am I going to do? Because he is a beer brewer by trade. Very, very niche. So he started looking into what other

jobs he could do in that town because he was like, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. But I need a job obviously. Yeah. Because I wasn't working. You're on mat leave. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, just coincidentally about two weeks after we started chatting about it, a job came up in the local brewery, the only brewery in town. And then after that, a job came up at the TAFE. They were starting a brewing course. Stop it. So there was actually two jobs that he could have chosen from. Yeah. And like he was oddly qualified to do both of those. So we were like, this is a sign, you know, let's go for it. So we packed up, we moved to the country and yeah, we were happy there.

I got pregnant with my second child and then all of a sudden he got approached. So you didn't, just backtracking a little bit, you didn't sell the house you just bought. You decided, oh, we've moved in, we're moving to the country, but we're going to lease that out. So it wasn't really the plan to be a rent vester, but it's just what worked given the circumstances. So we had this house, we rented it out. We didn't want to sell it. We didn't really know that it wouldn't fit us. I mean, we just bought it. We didn't want to sell it within 12. I don't

think we're even in there for 12 months before we moved. But yeah, so, you know, we've moved, we're really happy. We're not looking to change. Our savings were taking a hit because, you know, we were in the country. Single income. Single income, but we're happy and we're happy to take that hit for the lifestyle. And we weren't looking to change, but then he got approached for a new job. And it was just kind of an opportunity we couldn't say no to as a family. We felt like we were going backwards, but we're happy. And then when this came along, we were like, we've got to move back. So we've moved back, but because we'd been in the country, we were in a big house in the country. He was really close to work. It took 10 minutes to drive to work because everything's

so close in the country. So we wanted that same lifestyle, but in Melbourne. So we decided to rent and rent it out. And yeah, so that's how we ended up rent vesting. We're currently paying, like when we first moved in, it was about $700 a week. So we were happy to pay that amount. We did, you know, some maths of tolls on moving back to our old place. And we really valued him being home quickly because I was going to have two kids. Yeah, you were pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. So the things we valued at the time were being close to work for my husband so he could be home quickly and the other thing was space. So we found a place that we could get the space where we could get my husband home early to help with the kids and we were paying about $700 a week. And over the last

two or three years, it's gone up nearly $300. I feel like we've had these conversations even over the last 12 months about like rental increases and how crazy they've been. And that's wild. So we are spending a big chunk of our income or percentage of our income on rent. I haven't done the maths of what that is, but you know, it's not the $700. And it feels hefty. Yeah. It's not the $700 it was when we started. Yeah. That can be stressful in itself because you obviously did your numbers when you moved back and you were like, okay, well renting and then the income that we get from our rental property. Like a lot of the time when I used to be a financial advisor, I'd go, okay, cool. If you want to rent vest and let's pretend you're renting out your property

for $350 a week, that's where you start with your budget because it's left pocket, right pocket. Because if your tenants are paying $350 and then you spend $350, this is a tax effective $350. And then you're technically just paying the mortgage. But when those things start to become out of balance, it's stressful and you don't feel like you're getting ahead. And then the compromises that you made don't feel as worthy. Yeah, definitely. All right, Emma, I want to backtrack a little bit because you said something that made my money brain go off. You said that you were in and out of work, had different contracts, went on mat leave. So can we please talk about superannuation? So even though I have had about four or five years out of paying super,

Like in total? In total. We didn't really think about super splitting at the time when I was on mat leave. My husband actually spent seven years in Korea. Oh, that's right. Her husband's really cool. Just so you know, beer brewer, worked in Korea. Yeah. So he's needed a bit of catching up. So we have prioritized catching him up more than catching me up. And was that just because you had enough or like, how did you benchmark that? Well, it was just that mine was bigger, I suppose. And we didn't really think too deeply into it. We didn't have a lot of extra income while I wasn't working. So we thought, well, his is lower, so we won't be putting any extra into mine. I was lucky that I worked at the ABC when I started my career. Yeah. So they actually paid

in my early 20s, I was getting 14.9% super. And that was when the base was 9.5. Yeah. So you're getting 14 and a half. Okay. So that would make me feel very comfortable. Not at the time, because I don't think at the time you really cared that much. You were probably like, whatever. I thought it was cool. Yeah. But I didn't really think about the impact that it would have. But it's meant that maybe for your age, you're not behind the average person for your age, even though you've had four or five years out of the workforce. Yeah, exactly. That's very sexy. And I do have a bit of a regret, which I only thought about recently. I didn't even remember about it until the market started dipping this year and we saw what it did to our super. But I started contributing to my super

when I was younger. I have no idea why I started doing it because I never did anything for future me at all when I was younger. But for whatever reason, whoever told me to do it, I started doing it. And this was before the global financial crisis. And then obviously the markets crashed. I'm a young, you know, and I'm putting things into my super. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I'm putting this money in, but my balance is dropping. Oh yeah. And that would have been stressful because you don't fully, like at that time without the literacy, you don't fully comprehend what that means. You just thought you were losing money. I literally thought I was throwing money in the bin. No, but you weren't. You weren't. I know. I had no idea that I was

buying assets that would grow in value. Yeah. So I stopped because I was like, I'm an idiot. What's the point? You're so dumb. Can't believe you, Emma. I thought I was stupid for putting money into my super. No. And that was 17 years ago. That makes sense. Like the narrative that you had been taught and what you were seeing, the logic kind of makes sense. Like, and that's where, I don't know, this is where financial literacy makes me so passionate and now you as well because you go no no it's not like that like I know you logged in and it looks like there's less money but like you still have the same amount of shares and like I just want to scramble to explain it to people yeah and when we had that

dip recently I was telling that to all my friends please don't touch your super please you know leave it how it is and then I was like oh my god I thought back then I was throwing money in the bin yeah and I just you know you weren't but you didn't know any better and didn't know how to like analyze it properly. And recently, Emma, you and I have been working on a lot of superannuation episodes because it's obviously something I'm wildly passionate about. What changes have you made inside your super since then? Because like obviously back then you were like, this is a waste of money. I'm just going to stop. But where are you at now? Well, I have actually finally made the change to high growth from balance, which I have had that knowledge for longer than working

on the show that I should have done that. I actually worked on a TV show a while ago where we did a story on superannuation. I used to work with a money person on a different show. And so I did know that I should be in it, but I just never bothered to do it. And so finally, I was like, I just need to press that button. Like it was like, I just was like, oh. But it feels like life admin. Yeah. And it also feels like, oh, should I, shouldn't I? Like it feels, I don't know.

And you're very similar to me. Like we both overanalyze things. Yeah. And then you go, oh, maybe I'll just, I'll do it later because I'll do a bit more research before I make that decision. And I am a bit scared of commitment. I don't know where that comes from. You're married with two kids.

I don't know how to tell you. I know. But just making that committing to change is, I find that really hard. Yeah. But I did actually, I changed it. And I'm with Australian Super and they publish their daily losses and gains so you can check, you can log in and check. So I did some maths before doing the show and in the nine months

that I have changed it, I have benefited probably $2,000. In nine months? In nine months, yeah. Just from making the change that was aligned to your values and like what your risk profile was? Yeah, just pressing that button. And even with the market dip we had recently, my balance did drop to below what it would have been on balance, but it swung back higher again. Yeah. And that's the magic of the market,

I suppose. It doesn't feel like magic at the time. And when that dip happened, even I was a little bit not stressed. I just don't like seeing my own portfolio go down. I don't think anybody does, right? It doesn't matter that, quote, I'm she's on the money or that I used to be a financial advisor. Like we are the worst at taking our own advice, right? So when I logged in and I saw a dip, I also was like, oh, I don't like this. But then I was also slightly annoyed at myself because like my husband and I, as you know, had been trying to like work out if we're buying a new home and whatnot. And I didn't want to invest any more into the share market. I wanted to have cash available. And now I still see that drop in the share market. I look

at it and go, such an opportunity that like of all people to have seized, I didn't seize it. So I'm glad that you're ahead. It makes me very excited. And I know you've got the maths in front of you. I can see what you've drawn out. If you extrapolate that over like time, what does that look like? Well, without factoring in like compounding growth and interest and, you know, increase in salary, it will be an extra 50 grand in the next 20 years. That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But just pressing that button. Yeah. And have you now talked to your husband about his, where his might be at? Or was he already in high growth? He was already in high growth. I'm not surprised. Yeah. He was already in high growth and he had been telling me to do it for a long time.

It's like, you know, it's just actually sitting down, pressing the button, doing it. Love. All right. Let's flip over. I want to talk about money goals. You obviously own your like townhouse, family home what are your next money goals what are you currently working towards well we have this townhouse and probably at the start of the year we were like what are we going to do with it it felt like it didn't fit us anymore but we hadn't seen a lot of growth in the capital or anything like that and that's stressful yeah so you're like oh I wish we had some equity and then we could sell it and it would feel quite worth it yeah I mean we did get a little bit and we were like what do we do with it and we just we had no idea that how to work out whether we keep it

whether we try and buy a second home like all of that kind of stuff and we thought there was all these hard equations that we had to do to work it out and then we had to go see a financial advisor but as part of that we had to find out our borrowing capacity yeah and so we went to Zella of course not because I bully my team into going and seeing Zella that I literally say you don't have to use our team and you're not even in the Zella team. That's a like separate business, but they're really nice. Yeah. And you know, they're our second mortgage broker now. We have had an experience with another mortgage broker and we haven't heard from that other mortgage broker since we bought the house or, you know, and we contacted them and they were kind of like,

they weren't interested in talking to us again, really. Well, it just depends. And like, that's not throwing another broker under the business. Absolutely not. But it just honestly depends on their business strategy as well. Well, yeah, they were one of the big franchise ones. They just want your mortgage, they're happy to tick a box. Yeah. And that, you know, we were like, should we be refinancing? And they were like, if you want to try, we can look at it. Anyway, so we did that and we actually, they modelled out what would happen if we kept the house and tried to buy a second property or if we sold the house and didn't have that second mortgage. So what our borrowing capacity would be. And we actually, when we got the numbers, it was really obvious what we should

do with it for us. I love that because I think a lot of people go, do I need to, and this is just me side noting, I do apologize. Some people will be like, I need to go see a financial advisor. And then I go, okay, Emma, you can go see a financial advisor. You're probably going to pay about $6,000 for like a piece of advice at least. And that is fair. Like it is definitely warranted, especially if you're trying to do investment, insurance, property, you know, superannuation, all of that right but if you're just trying to make a decision around property a mortgage broker will probably do that for you for free yeah and like we can model it out and as i said before it's not throwing someone else under a bus it's just different business strategies and my team

are salaried right so they're not just on commissions like a lot of other people where if they don't get your big mortgage they don't want to talk to you as a client my team have heaps of time because they just get paid their salary so they can interact with you and you know oh yeah, I'll do some extra modeling and make sure that my client's in the best possible position. And then they go, hey, this is what option A looks like, B looks like, and this is what it would look like if you moved back in. And you go, oh, like it's not advice. It's the options being put on the table for you to make a decision. And so I just love that you're like, oh, it was obvious what we wanted to do. Cause I was like, my team can't tell you which is the worst part.

We actually got the disappointing news that we couldn't get as much money as we wanted to. yeah and we hadn't been actively saving like a second house deposit or anything like that we've got savings and we've got you know we're both working full-time now we've got good jobs and I just thought we would get what we wanted like and just thought that serviceability because you had a pre-existing asset yeah and I know the two kids made a big impact that we didn't have originally and you know there are thoughts that go through my mind should we have taken that big mortgage on earlier on, would we be in a better position now? Maybe, but we also may have struggled a lot while those interest rates were up because, you know, I was on maternity leave and all that kind

of stuff. So we can't think like that, but, you know, maybe we would have been in a better position if we had taken on the bigger mortgage. Was that disappointing to find out? Because I know in the office, in the background, not for you particularly, but when someone comes along and they go, oh, I really want to do this. And then, you know, we find out, oh, they're probably not going to serve us more than x and then we have to go back to the client be like oh sorry but this is what your servicing is like that feels a bit trash for us as well yeah it was really confronting it was really upsetting because we were like we've got okay jobs we're working full time totally like how do people get ahead like we kept asking ourselves that question because we were like I thought we were

in a good position and you are yeah you are it's just a bank looks at all of your savings and your kids and the responsibilities that you have in your pre-existing mortgage and goes, well, we would let you service this loan because otherwise you wouldn't have the cash flow for it. It's not because they're like, oh, Emma's not got a good job. Like you both have very solid incomes and very stable jobs. So it's definitely not about that, but it does feel disheartening, hey? Yeah, it really was. And before then, it wasn't even an option for us to move back into that small house we were like we're either gonna have two houses or buy our second house and we don't want a third house in between our townhouse and the house that we want yeah yeah that's fair because

there's stamp duty and there's fees and charges and like you're just not sure what the market's gonna do yeah yeah so we want to wait to get that house whether we get it or whether we just keep this townhouse and I don't know but you know it just sort of made us zoom out and say well what else do we want in life and we're like we don't want to work forever we maybe want to retire early we maybe want to go part-time before we're 60 all that kind of stuff we do want to build wealth and we do want to have money to pass on to our children so they can do what they want to do and so we don't have much time on our hands we both work full-time we've got two kids and we looked at all our living expenses. And the only way that we can really generate more income is

by moving into the smaller house. So that is what we're going to do. We're moving back into the townhouse that you outgrew. Yeah, exactly. I like it. But it's not a forever plan. Our goal is now to invest $100,000 as quickly as we can, because we want to get the snowball momentum of that compounding growth as quickly as possible. We're 40. We don't have as much time on our hands. So we want to get that first hundred grand invested as quickly as we can. Which is really exciting. And I always say that the first hundred thousand invested is the hardest to build. Tell me about that decision. Cause I feel like that's a really big decision. Cause at the start of the episode, you were like, Oh, the house is too small. We outgrew it. And then, you know,

you've gone from doing that, talking to a pro car, working out what your serviceability was on a different loan, you're like, great, that's not going to work. And to be honest, I think in the future, you might look back and be like, I'm so glad that we didn't take out a massive mortgage that we arguably, you know, would have been stretched to do because that would have impacted your wealth creation journey. And like, I say all the time on the show, like your family home is not an investment unless you're planning on living in there to then sell it and live off that income. Where are you living in retirement when you're 60 or when you're working part-time before 60? where are you coming home to well yeah so it's a bigger decision and a bigger thing that I think

you'll be grateful for but like it doesn't I don't feel grateful for this in this moment and I don't want to get out of the property market so you know we want to keep this townhouse even for the moment because we don't want to get out of the property market because we do want to have some sort of house in retirement so you know whether we end up just renting forever and keeping this one. And we've always got a house that we can come back to if we need to in retirement or, you know, whether we sell it and buy a bigger house. But for now, while our children are younger and they can share a bedroom, we're going to put them in a bedroom together. Totally. Which could be something to get used to. But, you know, I shared a bedroom for a bit with my sister growing

up, I loved it. So I don't think it's the worst when they're teeny tiny. Yeah, definitely. And they're a boy and a girl. So we do realize probably it's a bit more limited, the timeframe that they can have together, but then we can use that third bedroom in the townhouse as a living space during the day. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So then we can use it for whether a toy room or an office space or whatever, just to make our living space a bit bigger. Yeah. And I feel like that's really strategic. You mentioned investing and I'm really excited. I feel like that's a big goal. And like one that I know in the background, I think you're secretly a little bit excited about because you're like, hold on, this is going to free up our cashflow and it's going to look a

little bit better. And like, we're on the right track. What did your investing journey look like before you joined She's On The Money? Before I met my husband, it hadn't crossed my mind at all. I didn't think it was an option for someone like me, just a regular person, but he had a small investment portfolio when I met him. And that was because his parents have always invested and they tried to teach him about investing by setting up a joint investing account for him and his brother, which did teach him about investing, but because it's a joint investing account, now it's causing a bit of issues. I was about to say, now that he's an adult, I've got questions because some people do that and then don't realize your actual children that

you were investing for, they get into their forties. Yeah. And you actually have different priorities than your siblings. Yeah. And it's not a giant portfolio, but one of them wants to keep it and one of them doesn't. So what do you do in that situation? You can't just take someone's name off. You have to sell it. You have to sell an asset. Yeah. So side note, if any parents are thinking of doing that, do think. Do you think about separate accounts? Yeah. So when my son was born, my husband was really keen to start an account for him. I love this. Yeah. And we went with raised. I didn't know much about investing then. And it was just that my husband set it up. If I had been left to do it, the account never would have been set up. I love that. Know your

strengths though. I do. Like I've got ADHD. He has to take care of a lot of the admin in our lives. Thank God. It turns out if you're not neuro spicy, you can't work at She's On The Money. Yeah. Like it's like a prerequisite. I don't mean it. Like it's not on your like on your resumes. it's not on the job ad but it's very funny when people come in and then you were like I have ADHD and I was like why why are we all the same yeah exactly but that just meant that he set up the account so it's in his name yeah so we didn't know to think about you know tax implications of that or what it meant to just be having it in one name all of that kind of stuff so he set up the account so it's in his name yeah yeah and I mean that's something that you can work through and make

decisions about. And I mean, it depends on if you've got millions in there or not as to the implication of that over the long term. But what else is part of your investing journey? Yeah. Well, we have actually decided at the moment to keep that Raise account. Yep. So it's a bit confusing. When you go into the app, it says our returns are 38%. Yep. So when my husband was reading that out, it was like, That's a big deal.

why are more people talking about this let's put all our money into it but then I looked at their own website and I was like hang on their website says their returns aren't as good and then I'd so I did the maths and it includes your contributions yeah and I think it is it a time thing as well I'm still trying to get my head around it the raise the raise platform absolutely nothing wrong with it for those of you following along I don't want you to think that I'm you know saying it's bad. I still have a Raise account because like, I just, I actually have a lot of different investing platforms, not because they're my predominant. I've shared publicly before my predominant platform is Sharesies, but I need to know what's going on in my community. If you've

got questions about Raise, I want to be able to jump on there and be like, oh, well, the operating system looks like this, but I do find that their reporting analytics inside the app are a little bit confusing. Like you can't get a clear, like based on every single contribution you've made, this is your return, they kind of muddy the waters. And I don't particularly love that. But because of the construction of their portfolios, I would say that their returns replicate on average what the market is doing because they do hold ETFs. They aren't a managed portfolio where they've picked every asset. They've gotten a few different ETF portfolios, which is absolutely fine again, but it would be more replicable of the market usually as opposed

to that 38%. But we can dive into that later because that's pervy. Yeah. So I did the maths and it looks like the returns are actually closer to like 25%. Yeah. So not 38% because I was like, everyone, throw your money in there. But yeah. So anyone who gets a raise, just be mindful of that, I suppose, because my husband's like, the returns are 38%. Yeah. That's pretty sexy. And I want to be even more pervy. I know what your husband does means that you have some like shares in the business which is actually really exciting for you guys because like this is a business that your husband's in that you're really passionate about as well and for the last 12 months we've been having on and off conversations about what's a family trust you how does that work can you tell

me a little bit more about that because I feel like that's usually something that people go oh it's only for really rich people yeah it's not the case is it yeah well my husband got offered these shares and before we accepted them we got advice yes we had no idea what to do I'd never really heard of these schemes before, but the advice for us was it was best for us to hold them in a family trust. Yep. And so we've set up the family trust. I think it cost us about $3,000 or so. Yeah. Just for the establishment through an accountant. Yeah. And then it costs us a little bit more at tax time as well. The last year we managed to just, because there's nothing going, had been going on in there yet. We managed to just replicate the letter we got

the year before because there'd been no changes. So that saved us a little bit of money. But now we're starting to invest in this family trust. But we wouldn't have this family trust if it wasn't for those shares. Yeah, those shares, which is why I was like, oh, why have you got it? How does that work? Because I think, you know, if you start saying, oh, we have a family trust, people might be like, she's worth millions. And usually it's for asset protection for future you and like, you know, being able to distribute dividends from the shares and own them together and all of that fun stuff but you said we're now just starting to invest more into that what does that mean it's not just the shares from his business now yeah so we don't really think about

the business shares as part of our future planning because they're not an asx listed company and a lot more risky yeah and we can't go oh they've increased in value we can't look it up and we can't sell them whenever we want so they're just kind of like a nice to have all right let's go to a really quick break. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Emma, we are back and let's get into the really nitty gritty of it on Brooke's investing diary. I think everybody loved the most getting to know exactly what was in her portfolio because it's not often that people are so open. So let's go. What are you actually investing in? So far, everything that I've invested in is ETFs yeah they're all things I've looked into for the show I love this you kind of like

help us with our content get to do market research and then it benefits you personally money win yeah exactly I am like hey can you please go work out what the best ETF is and you like say less babe I will work that out for me I mean you and then I'm like sending them to my husband yeah this is what we're investing in next so but if you listen to the core and satellite episode. I'm not really following that at the moment because I'm more new to investing. I do have a bit of magpie shiny object syndrome. That's core satellite. That's the satellite. Well, I'm more satellite than core at the moment. But that's okay because we can rebalance it. And now you know what a core satellite approach is. Can I assume that you have the plan to invest

more of your capital into the core? Yeah, I do. But because I have FOMO, I know all these ETFs that are great. I just wanted to get in. And each time, you know, more money comes through to invest, I'm like, let's do this one. Let's do that one. But we do have the plan for the core. But yeah, there are a few tech heavy kind of. But that makes sense to me. Yeah. Like just knowing you personally, as well as professionally, like you're really into tech. You're really into like making sure that you understand like how AI could benefit a business. And you're always like looking for new and different ways. And I think your husband seems very similar. Yeah. So some of them are his picks as well. There you go. All right. So talk me through, what do you actually

hold? So we do have Vanguard Diversified High Growth, VDHG. Very popular, very good choice. And I gave a few sort of core options to my husband and he liked that one. Why? I need to be so pervy. I'm sorry, was it just because Vanguard is good or is it like the makeup of it or all of it together? He knows Vanguard, but also it's sort of a balance of a little bit of yield and the growth as well.

Yeah. And we're not scared of high growth things, but we're not super risky, but we're not scared in saying that. Well, you want to make educated choices. and I think that sometimes in your role like this is just me like looking at it you could probably get analysis paralysis because I'm literally asking you every week like hey can you get me a fact sheet on this or hey can you look into this random crypto one or can you look into fang or can you make sure that I've got the information for this podcast so like it might

become all overwhelming yeah and I think that like for those of you following along who maybe are only just starting your journey VDHG is one of the most popular ETFs in the country yeah kind of tried, true, tested, like has a lot of people from a very reputable like investment house as well. It feels like, and I'm not saying invest in it, but it feels like a very solid option once you do your research. Yeah. And because we are in our early 40s and we do have the ultimate goal to retire at about 55. Yeah. And we've worked out that that is doable. And to work that out, we use sort of a yearly income between us of about $90,000. Oh, that's good. We didn't go too much into the specifics of that, but we were like, that will be good for the two of us.

Yeah. So by the time we get to about 55, our balance will be about $850,000. We do also want a bit of yield in there. So we want the dividends. So we have also gone with saying that high yield. Yeah, yeah, smart. And I feel like when you start talking about like investing and then you're talking about investing for retirement specifically, yield becomes really important because those dividends, then instead of reinvesting, they get paid into your bank account and that becomes your income. And it gets to this really nice sweet spot where we'll be getting about $50,000 a year in dividends. So that will cover a big portion of our yearly income and then anything else we need we can sell down our shares to cover

and it kind of is this nice sweet spot where we can do that and that income is coming in but our portfolio is still going to grow so it will be able to support us you know as we use our super as well but it also means that we can give money to our kids for things like milestones and weddings and stuff like that but then we'll be able to pass on some wealth to them as well. And that makes sense. Yeah. So that is why also we are going for yield. Yeah. I mean, I know that's not for everyone, but that's what we've sort of thought that we want the yield. So we don't have to sell down the portfolio as well. So tell me about the next one, because I'm kind of laughing at this. Yeah. Because I feel like every single person in

our team owns this. What is it, Emma? It's that F-A-N-G is most of the top tech companies in America. Astronomical growth. We're not recommending it. We're just talking about it. Astronomical growth over the last few years. Well, that's why my, when I told my husband about it, he was really keen. He saw the growth and he was like, oh, we've got to be in on that. So he kind of made the final call on that after I told him about it. And then I would never put my money into crypto like this. But you're just a girl. But I love the idea of like, oh, you know, I put my money in crypto and, you know, it's a nice dream, but I would never actually do it. It's too much of a gamble. So I am in CRYP, which is the BetaShares Crypto

Innovators ETF, which we've spoken about on the podcast before, which kind of makes sense because if we're talking about it on the podcast, Emma's our producer. So she's just getting all the top tips and working it out from there. Yeah. So I went with that one. It's not actually in crypto just to make that one clear. It's all the sort of support systems that support crypto. That is one of my favorite ones to watch because it swings. Oh my God. It swings. If you want an experience in a share market and you just want to go, you know what, give me like a couple of years worth of like market swing experiences beta shares crypto she's chaos over the last six months it's gone up and down and up and down and i mean if we and i'm just googling this for you really quickly

so over the past six months beta shares crypto innovators etf has increased by 36.65 percent right but if then we go to the last month's worth of performance it's down 13.59 percent in the last five days, it's down 12.54%. But if we then look at the year to date, it's 22.52%. So like it literally swings back and forth. So if you just want to have your like, I don't know, what do we call it? Baptism of fire in the investment world, go and just watch that because if you're checking your portfolio every single day, and I'm not saying that this is a good thing to invest in. But you can see how hot and cold the cryptocurrency sector is based on literally how much this swings, because this is all based on like what you're investing in

is companies who create the infrastructure to support cryptocurrency. And obviously that's going to ebb and flow based on how cryptocurrency is doing at this point in time. Yeah. And it also shows that if you picked one specific cryptocurrency, like the swings could be actually wilder because, you know, this is diversified across the whole crypto industry and it's having wild swings. So it just sort of shows how much of a gamble crypto can be if you don't know what you're doing, I suppose. Yeah, 100%. And I just find that interesting. I'm glad that you kind of have it because like we talk about this stuff internally all the time. But do I recommend it? No. But also if you've listened to Brooke's episode or you've listened to like Emma's episode

now, like we all are just so interested in this stuff and like you might not be and that's fine. But I think it's, yeah, it's just like the nitty gritty of being like, ah, you know, I'm Victoria. I've said publicly before that I don't own crypto and I just don't really want to own crypto. I just feel like it's too risky, but I'm still interested. Like I'm still so interested in the market and kind of like get a bit of FOMO. And for me, this is my way of playing in that without playing in that. Yeah, exactly. And you know, as I said before, you know, I'd love to be like, I picked the right crypto and I put in a dollar and now I'm retiring, you know, wouldn't we all? But you know, it's actually crazy. What's next on the list? So Hack is a cyber security ETF and that

one was one that my husband wanted to invest in so what makes him interested so hack is the beta shares global cyber security etf what makes him interested in cyber security well i think it's something that he sort of believes in he's sort of into computers a little bit and gaming a tiny bit not like a full-on gamer but he knows the value of you know security yeah things like that So I think he sees potential in the industry and that it's not going anywhere. Love. And I think coming out of this conversation is, I guess, this underlying secondary conversation that I love, which is like, everyone's always like, Victoria, what's the best ETF?

And I can't answer that because there's no best ETF. And we do, you know, at the start of each year, we do that rap, Emma, of like, what were the top performing ETFs of like last year? And that's really fun. but what I'm hearing from you is you have gone right ETFs make sense for me and my family now we're going to pick ETFs that are based on our values and our interests and what's going on and some families and some people are going to be like Vee I'm not interested in cyber security and crypto infrastructure whereas you are on the flip side you might be like I'm really interested in

the beauty industry or I'm really interested in retail or I'm really interested in you know tech or specifically television technology like there is a ETF for literally everything and that can give you analysis paralysis but that's why I'm always like we'll work out what your values are and like know what you're interested in before you go shopping yeah I mean another one that my husband would like to invest in is like an e-gaming one because he does oh yeah he's like I see that going yeah because he is a tiny little bit into that sort of stuff so so that's kind of like on your watch list you could say is there anything else sitting on your watch list that you're like oh we like aren't sure or we are sure we were going to invest in asia because we could

see the potential in asia my husband lived in korea so it's sort of in his wheelhouse but the reason we didn't invest in it is because we look further into our raise account and that has a heavy asia tilt it does yeah so that's why we didn't go with that but if we were to sell our raise, we would probably invest in something similar. Interesting. Interesting. So we already know that you've mentioned that, you know, you want to have $1.3 million invested and that ideally you want to like retire by the age of 55 and that you've run the numbers and like you kind of worked out what you need to do between your super and your investments outside of super. Can you tell me a little bit more around like the goals with investing? So like our short term goal

is just to get that 100k invested as soon as possible like what that she's aggressive everything that we get is extra money is going to go to getting us there as quickly as possible so that's the whole thought that if we move into this smaller house it will take us two years rather than four years that's so exciting yeah and like exciting from I don't know my perspective as an ex-financial advisor because sometimes you'd put and like you didn't have a financial plan you've done it all yourself like you haven't seen an advisor but sometimes you'd go okay like you do your fact find with your client you talk to them about their goals and they might say something similar like Victoria we really want to retire by the age of 55 and have this amount invested and it's so

crystal clear right and then I would sit down and go okay well now my job is to create the plan how do we get there because you've said you want to retire by 55 and have a $90,000 income and usually that's where the story ends from the client perspective and then it's my job to work backwards and go right well you need 1.3 million dollars invested here and this looks like this and this looks like that but you would often go okay well we need to create a different lifestyle for you Emma because we need to get this so could we and like some it's all about compromise right like you can't have your cake and eat it too but sometimes I would say to clients like your overheads are too much like yeah to achieve the goal that you're saying we can either do two

things. We can change your overheads and change your lifestyle a little bit to meet the goal that you've set or change the goal. Whether you're retiring at 60 instead of 55 or whether you are maybe not retiring with 90,000, you're retiring with 60,000, all those variables. But my favorite type of client was the one where I go, hey, I looked at your goals. Here are the things we need to tweak. And you guys would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. No worries. We'll move to a smaller house. We'll do that. It's just so exciting because you're clearly so committed. and it feels actually quite empowering like until we actually had this financial plan I did not want to move back into that house I was like why would I it's smaller but like it

doesn't make sense you've got two kids and we're not the type of people who buy a lot of stuff that's not our values yeah the way I know you and like we're not best friends but like we work together like Emma loves dining out yeah but I cannot imagine you making frivolous purchases and like bringing home knickknacks or trinkets or even going clothes shopping yeah I feel like that's just not your vibe yeah it's not really us and so apart from going out or cutting out our holidays yeah like which you know you've got to live we're enjoying the journey where else can we cut money yeah and I think a big thing is what are you willing to and I use the word suffer but where are you willing to have a little bit of pain to get some more money yeah and that is the spot

where we're like okay we're near a good school for our kids so the area is quite nice we bought the townhouse because of some of its features like it had the bigger kitchen and it's not actually a small townhouse yeah it's real cute but but still living in the country it's gonna feel small but I'm excited I'm excited I'm deep in TikTok of you know how to make your small space bigger all of that. Now that we have this financial plan, I'm so excited to move back there. And I'm so excited. I love it. That the fact that we are making decisions that is going to benefit our family and make our life easier. Yeah. Adore. So tell me, what would you say is your biggest investing lesson? It's the starting. Like you just need to make that first investment. Like I've had all this

knowledge from working on the show for so long. And before I started working on the show, it started becoming more of a personal interest for mine, like a, you know, special interest with my ADHD. So I was sort of getting into it and I knew that I should be investing, but I just, apart from what my husband was doing, I wasn't physically being involved in that. And I think it was that I was scared to have something in my portfolio that was in quotation marks like a mistake but it actually doesn't matter no it doesn't because you can undo that later or change it or sell it down exactly and I'm in a position where I can put a thousand dollars into something and if I lost it it wouldn't be the end of the world but it actually

wouldn't matter like if I made a mistake and since we actually made our first purchase together in our trust. I'm all over it. I'm like, yeah, do this, do that. You know, it's that one, you got to press that button. And that is that mental hurdle. It's like my husband doesn't do online shopping. He finds it really overwhelming. Like I'll be like, oh, just jump on the iconic. He'll be like, oh, Victoria, I need like new t-shirts or whatever. And like, that sounds so 1950s, but like, he just doesn't shop online. I'll be like, just download the iconic app. Like it's literally just look up the t-shirt that you want. Cause he just orders the same stuff over and over and then just order it when you need it because like I always forget and then he forgets

to ask me and then he says he needs new t-shirts and I don't know if he means these white ones or if he wants something fancy like it just it's a journey but like if he downloaded it I know that his first purchase would be the hardest because he's like oh I don't know how to use this app then I think he might have a shopping addiction yeah and then he'd be getting t-shirts left right and it's easy right like it's the first time you use something it feels overwhelming and it doesn't matter what it is but girl if you are shopping on the iconic you can buy shares like it is literally as easy as one another. I know I'm sidelining this a little bit, but you've also recently done your insurances. And that is something I am wildly passionate about because I want to make

sure that if you have an income, you are protected. If you have family and kids, they are protected. Had you thought about that before joining She's On The Money or was it just my relentless nagging of everybody else around you that you were like, this seems pretty important? we had a free hour with my parents-in-law's financial advisor and she basically said all you can do is your insurances you don't have enough money because that was when I wasn't working all that kind of stuff that's all I can kind of do for you and we were like well why would we spend money on that you know 100% because like she's not really showing your value she's making you feel like you don't have enough to have an impact yeah exactly so I was kind of

like that was a waste of time and whatever. And it never felt like something that I wanted to do and I wanted to spend my money on. I don't know. But up until I worked on the show, I felt like it was a bit of a waste of money. Totally. And like, I'm not saying it is totally, I'm saying totally I can see where you're coming from. Yeah. It just like, it felt like that. I was like, why like, would I spend money on that? So I'd never really thought about it properly as in I'm going do it before working on the show. So then you joined the show. What changed your mind? Because I don't think it was me. Like I don't hound my team to do it, but I definitely talk on the show and then you're the producer of the show. So not only do you edit that, but you have to sit there

while I'm talking about it. So it's not as though it's sideline commentary. What changed your mind? Why were you like, oh my gosh, because like one day you came to me and you're like, I need to do my insurances. And I was like, yeah, you do. So we had had a couple of money diarists on who used their insurances and then we had the broken brains there yeah which more I was like I gotta do it I gotta do it and then Phil came on the show and something that he said really stuck with me and it was that Phil being philosophical yeah it was the Ferrari analogy he gave yeah if you had a car that was that expensive would you drive it without insuring it well no one would no because that's scary yeah and then if you take how many years left you're going to work and then you times

by how much money you're going to make, would you not insure that? And I'm like, oh my God, what? I shouldn't even be going out into the street. Yeah. I'm the Ferrari, but it's, it's kind of true. And like, I've said this before a million times, like if you're not getting insurance, like I actually think it is crazy talk maybe because I see the bad parts of financial advice. And like, unfortunately most people reach out for financial advice when they experience a life event and that can be fun life events it can be like marriage it can be kids it can be buying your first home but a lot of people reach out for financial advice when a close person to them passes away yeah when they experience something really traumatic when they don't have

cash anymore because they can't work and that can be really jarring and you don't want to do all of the sob stories to try and sell a product but it's not selling a product it's like you insure your car. And regardless of whether it's a Ferrari or a Toyota, like if I said to you, you have a brand new Toyota in your driveway, it's not insured. Would you drive it? I'm pretty sure you'd say, no babe, I'll grab the tram. Like it's not insured yet, but like we take our bodies out every single day and that's our main source of income. Like that's, that's our livelihood. That's your going back to your goals. That's you being able to retire at 55. That's only going to work if you can keep working. And if you can't, what kicks in? So it's crazy to me. I'm going to be so

self-indulgent now though, because like, we obviously love Phil on the show. What was the process like? Did you like it? Also, should I ask you on the show? Like maybe you didn't like it. No, I mean, it was really interesting because they do start with things like your goals, like you would in a normal financial advice situation. We have to work out how much you need to be insured for. Well, exactly. And so they asked us about that and different things about our life and they got our cash flow and found out, you know, are we putting money into super and all of that. They do do the hygiene factors.

Yeah. So they did all that and then they went out to market, I suppose, and just sort of looked at the best options for our specific needs. So they asked us health questions. They figure out who will ensure. Health questions can be pervy, can't they? Yeah, they want to know everything. And just for those of you following along, don't be coy.

answer those questions because if you go I don't really want to tell my financial advisor that one you have the wrong financial advisor because you should be really comfortable with them but two if you don't disclose medical history and then it goes to an insurer and then they ask your doctor for their notes and they find it in the notes they'll decline you yeah and you might think oh decline's not that important but when you're applying for insurance next time the other insurers go, have you ever been declined for insurance? And that puts a little red flag on you. That is not good. I didn't even know that, but because, you know. You would have over disclosed because you dot all your I's and cross all your T's. I'm a rule follower. So, you know, I answered

everything. Good girl. But, you know, that gives them the most information to get you the best product as well. 100%. It's really funny how different all the insurers are. And even just for different occupations what you can be insured for and things like that. So I have two different insurers that I'm going with. My husband has one and he also has been told that he should probably keep his super insurances because of some pre-existing conditions that he has. So he'll get better insurance if those events happen through his super. So his is a little bit more expensive. And that was the little bit of the shock, but also it kind of showed, I mean, some of these things he was born with, so it wouldn't have made a difference, but it does

show that the earlier you get your insurances in order, the better coverage you will get as well for things that will pop up. So, you know, we kind of joke, like we're in the middle of getting it done, but we're like, oh, we can't go to the doctor, you know, until we get our insurances. but obviously it's a joke, but it's like, you don't want any other things to happen before you get your insurance. No, you get it all locked and loaded. It's so funny. I obviously had the privilege of getting insurance when I was quite young and I got it back when, this is your money diary, but I think it's just really interesting. I got it back when you could have a financially underwritten plan and that is no longer a thing in the industry. So I still have that plan and

it is very sexy, but it doesn't have a lot of exclusions. And now I've obviously had a number of health events and like, you know, I now have a mental health record and like all of this other stuff that has not been considered in my old insurance. And now, because I have this honestly shiny insurance policy that is increasing in price each year, I can't get rid of it because I can't change insurer because if I changed insurer, I would end up with exclusions on a number of different things. So it's kind of like good and bad. Like I've got this shiny policy, but I'm also like, damn it. Like I'm stuck here, but that's why I've got a mix of different insurers, which I think a lot of people assume that when you go to an advisor and get your insurances done, they just

all put it in the same place. Right. But I have like three different insurers. I've got my income protection with one place. I've got a trauma policy through a different place. I then have the insurances inside my superannuation and they're both with two different companies. So I actually have four different insurers across the board, which can get a little bit confusing but I work with Sky Wealth as well and they just tell me what to pay and when and that works. Yeah. And I love that. And the good thing about it is they come back to you with a plan that is sort of the gold standard. Yeah. What they think that you should be insured for. But if you don't want to pay that amount, there are different levers that they can pull to bring

the price down as well. Phil should be so happy because I feel like this is a full sales pitch for him, but it's like an interesting conversation still. I'm like, hold on, we're still talking about Phil, but yeah, he does go, okay, here's the goal. And this is what a good financial advisor should do anyway. They should go, hey, Emma, this is the gold standard. But if that's too much trauma coverage, the lever would drop. If we dropped it down by $50,000, it would look like this price instead. And your income protection is sitting here. But if we, you know, dropped it down a little bit again, it would be this. And you can kind of play with it a little bit that way if you're also going, oh, that wasn't in budget and that's okay. Have you had the conversation about

putting some of it inside your superannuation and some of it out or like what's the strategy there so they have done the maximum a plan for us the maximum that we can put inside our super and then they've done a cash flow plan for the rest yeah and then they have made suggestions of contributions to cover that if we want to which we're probably not going to keep doing the contributions because we already do that and we plan to stop that to start putting that into our share portfolio well you can't just have your cake and eat it yeah and I know that that sucks because insurance is so important but like we also have to consider cash flow yeah and your bigger goals and what that actually looks like another reason is because I do have over like 200,000 in my super what it is

generating more than covers my insurance anyway like I saw in the first couple of months of the financial year that was enough to cover my insurance yes so I'm kind of like well you're happy with that I'm happy with that because it's not taking all my growth but it also will allow us to invest in the share market yeah and I feel like that's yeah that's a really good important point but also working with a financial advisor to work all of that out means that you can just have candid conversations about, well, actually, I want more money in my investment. What would that look like? How do we strip that back? I don't know. It's really fun. But Emma, I'm very acutely aware that we are running out of time. So I wanted to ask, what's the biggest

thing you've learned from working on She's On The Money? It's a bit of a self-indulgent question, but I just think it's fun to ask. My biggest takeaway has been that no one has ever saved their way to wealth. Oh, that's good. That's my biggest takeaway. Like you cannot just squirrel your money away and expect to be rich one day. What? We don't even talk about that that often. Yeah. But that's my biggest takeaway. Like you have to use it to build something, whether it's investing or whether it is a business or whether it is investing in property or all of that. Your house can't be, your own personal house really can't be your investment unless you're using that. So you need to do something

outside of that and you know it's all about what you're willing to give up what you're willing to risk the effort you're willing to put in to what you get in the return yeah and that's how we've come up with our plan where the effort that we're willing to put in is to move into a smaller house and then do something that doesn't take a lot of time investing to build our wealth we don't have time to have a business or do all of that and that's okay maybe in the future you go well the kids are old enough now and we've got some free time and like life changes but that is a really good lesson that wealth doesn't come from savings and if you guys are listening to this episode and you also listen to our money diaries in general I don't think there's ever been a money diarist

on the show that's like yeah I saved and saved and saved and now I'm really rich yeah never has never happened it's like I saved and I invested or I saved and I bought a property and the equity increased or like you know maybe some people get rich through inheritance but like girl that's not saving. Yeah, exactly. That is a different wealth creation strategy. So last question before we go, Emma, what is next for you? What are the next steps? What's in the plan? Our next step is to refinance our current mortgage. Interest rates are dropping. Yeah. I mean, they're not. Which we need to do. They'll still drop going forward, but I feel like slowly, slowly. Yeah. So once we move back in, we'll refinance, hopefully free up even more cash flow to put in our investment

portfolio. Iconic. I love it. And the other thing is I am starting after 40, but I'm building something and you can, like, it's not too late, I suppose. I hate the narrative that I hear in our community all the time from people who are in their 40s and 50s. They're like, it's too late. I can't build anything. Like, I wish I had this information when I was younger. I also wish you had that information when you were younger because yeah, time in the market. I talk about that all the time. But being 40, that's not a death sentence. You can still create so much wealth. Like definitely. In fact, now you've got your stuff together. You're probably going to prioritize it more because you're like, all right, I really need to knuckle down and get this done. Whereas

if you start investing in your twenties, like maybe you're a little bit more frivolous about it because you're not, you know, as aggressively working towards retirement in 15 years. It's just a different story. It's a different narrative, but it doesn't mean it's not going to work. Yeah, definitely. And we're still, as I said, we're still going on holidays and we're still going out for dinner. It's about the journey, not the destination. Doing all of that as well. I love that. And I just love the idea that once you get to 55, you'll probably be in the position to retire. But my favorite part is that you'll get the choice. You might go, oh, I'm doing something I really love at the moment. I don't really want to change that. Or your partner might be the same,

like he might get this job that he's like, Emma, I don't want to retire from this. But how cool to then go, maybe I'll do it part time. I'll just work three days a week and we have a different lifestyle again. It's all about freedom of choice. Anyway, this has been so fun. Thank you for letting me drag you onto the show and share your investing diary because just real world examples, especially from people in my community, but also in my team being like, oh no, we walk the walk. Like that's cool. And I think that everyone is so generous with sharing their story with the show. So I felt like, you know, maybe I needed to give back. You did not have to do this, but I am very, very grateful

because I know that a lot of people listening are going to get a lot out of it. So thank you so much for that. And, guys, if you've listened to this and you love this and you want more investing diaries, Emma and I seem pretty keen on getting more out in 2026. So hold your horses. There is more coming. Bye, guys.

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