She's On The Money - How to Stay Confident Through the Highs and Lows of Investing

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Investing can feel like a rollercoaster, but today we’re zooming out and seeing it for what it really is—the long game. In this episode of She’s On The Money, Victoria and Brooke from Sharesies are breaking down how to keep your cool when the market gets bumpy, why it’s so easy to get caught up in the emotional swings, and how to stay focused on your long-term goals. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor, we’ve got the tips to help you ride the highs, embrace the dips, and let compound interest work its magic. Tune in to learn how to invest with confidence, patience, and a big-picture mindset!  Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast that makes personal finance a lot less daunting and a lot more doable. I know investing can be an emotional ride. Every drop in the market can feel like a crisis. Those market swings can trigger all kinds of reactions, but making snap decisions can throw you completely off course. Today, we're going to dive into how to keep your cool, ride out the turbulence and stay on track with your long-term goals. And I am very lucky to be joined by my very good friend, Brooke Roberts from Sharesies, the investing platform that's helped everyone start small and think big. Brooke, we're face-to-face finally. No more

Zoom records. Welcome to the show. Yeah, it's so good to be here and see you face-to-face too. I love it. So I feel like everyone in our community knows who you are or they should know who you are. But for those of you who might not have met you, Brooke, who are you? What do you do? Yes. How'd you get on a Shirtsies podcast? Yeah. How did I? I don't know. So I'm firstly a mum of two, which is heaps of fun. I'm a four and six year old and they keep me very entertained actually in this day and age. And it's quite cool teaching them things. And outside of that, yeah, I'm one of the co-founders and co-CEOs of Sharesies. So there's Leighton, Sonia and I, who are all CEOs. So we call ourselves the three CEOs.

I got to go on your podcast the other day, actually, and Sonia came into the office and that was very exciting. And I was like, guess what? I get brought in here. I just feel like I'm banking the Sharesies content. But you know why? Everyone has been asking for it. And I was thinking back to the last time that you were on the show, which was honestly too long ago. And I know our community loved hearing your story because we dived more into that. We'll put it in the show notes so that we don't have to recap old territory. But it is incredible to have you back. So if you haven't listened to that episode, we will link it in the show notes and you guys can dive right into it. But Phil Simbrook, now we know exactly who you are. We've given them some more info so that

they can dive further into you and your journey but like what's been going on at Shazzy's? I feel like there's been so much. There's been heaps going on at Shazzy's eh so you know we set out to create financial empowerment for everyone and there's a lot to do. We started with investing and we see heaps more opportunities and creating you know more accessible money opportunities for people. We've got the ability to auto invest and round up and heaps more coming in that space and then we also are starting to do more with partnering with companies so we're firm believers that in order to improve wealth for more people they should be getting shares in the companies are working for so staff should equal shareholders and that's a key thing that we're working on at

the moment too um that's bougie did you ever think that it would get this big oh i mean you don't set out to create an investing platform that has nobody investing so you clearly thought like this is a good idea but like this big brook well yeah there's like 700 000 people that use shares these and have invested five billion all up no they haven't yeah we're managing over five billion but there's so much more to go like this is this so it honestly still feels like day one for us i love following your story i'm obviously an investor on the shares platform and i feel like every time i do a money diaries like which are my favorite episodes of the show i'm like oh okay it's not a planted question i'm always like doing this and they're like oh i'm with shares and i'm

like, here we go, more free plugs for Sharesies. Because everybody in the community is just obsessed and I am too. But investing is exactly what Sharesies is all about. And we are here today to talk about that. And I feel like long-term investment is something we talk about a lot, but it can be really scary. Like at the end of the day, I think that we need to acknowledge that investing can be really overwhelming, but it's also not about the numbers. Investing is actually really emotional. In fact, I was talking about you today. Literally, I was talking about you today, I went to McGrob, which is a girls' school in Melbourne. And I was talking about the importance of financial literacy to a bunch of grade 10s, which is exactly what I want to be

doing. And I was talking about how investing nowadays is so much more accessible. Historically, I was so scared to invest because the minimum investment amounts were like $500. And don't get me wrong, a lot of people might go, like, $500, that's not much. For me at that point in my life. That was like the most amount of money I'd ever had in my bank account. And I was saying to these girls, like, investing is not for the rich. Like, there is this platform, Shazzy's, you can invest with as little as one cent. It is lit. You're not even old enough to invest yet, but when you are, you're going to love this. And then I realized I get to see Brooke later. So, that was very cool. But it is such an emotional journey. It's literally your hard-earned

cash, your dreams, and all of your, I guess, future wrapped up in one, which then feels overwhelming. Whether you're saving for your first home that's a few years away or your kid's education, which I'm now thinking about and that's really overwhelming, or building a retirement nest egg, your investments are representative of, I guess, all your dreams and hopes and goals. And when you're asked to make a plan for that, overwhelming, Brooke. That's why literally every market move can make me feel sick. I am an ex-financial advisor, as you know, and I still log into our investing platform. And if it is down, like if I log into Sharesies and see that I've lost some money on the share market, I still get that twang in the bottom of my stomach. I'm

like, oh, and then I'm like, Victoria, you're smarter than this. But I experience it. So I have no doubt that our community is. And I mean, when my portfolio is up, I'm like, yeah, I'm big dog investor. Look at that. Look at that. But when it's down, it feels like, oh my gosh, what have I done? Have I like done the absolute wrong thing? So Brooke, in your experience as an investor yourself, I'm assuming on Sharesies, where do you see this emotional rollercoaster getting people completely off track? Yeah. So investing or money is emotional. You know, money, like you said, creates opportunities in life or doesn't. You know, we've got the beliefs we have around money from what we've watched in the households when we were growing up and how we feel about it is

really tied to a lot of emotions really and when it comes to investing often there's a whole barrage of new emotions in a way like there's a lot of excitement thinking about your future and and it's exciting getting into investing and feeling like oh you're taking control of your money or you're doing something that's going to help future you but the other part too is investing can be quite overwhelming there's hundreds of thousands options out there now like you said there it used to be like minimum of ten thousand dollars needed now it's not you're literally changing it so that we can all have the same opportunities yeah that was a core belief of you know one thing we just would not walk past is like we had to make sure there was

no minimum investment so everybody can feel like they're an investor and also just invest the way that you expect like if you want to put a certain amount of money into it you can you don't have to have to calculate a share or you know like and have random I love it but like I love it because I just remember baby Victoria trying to invest for the first time and it was really overwhelming because I was a financial advisor and I feel like this is the story of like the plumber always has a leaky tap, right? So like as a financial advisor, I knew what I should be doing and I knew what we were advising our clients to do, but I didn't have $10 million like my clients. My clients had these beautiful, well-diversified portfolios of like, you know, 10 to 12 direct shares. I couldn't give

myself instant diversification. I didn't have any cash, Brooke. I was like $500 still too much. I remember seeing like some managed funds that had minimum investments of 10 grand and I'd be like must be nice like that'll never be me but now I can literally buy that same managed fund on your platform for literally one cent and get that same exposure and like that to me is kind of wild and I have looked up managed funds that were previously out of reach and like bought them on shares just cause like does it make up most of my strategy no it absolutely does not is it really fun to feel like I own that yes like I'm a little shareholder in that ha bet you didn't see that coming baby Victoria yeah it's funny when you said like I had this thing when we first started

there's this thing and when you're creating companies to eat your own dog food like it's like when you're creating something make sure that you're a real mega user of it so you can see the areas where it's not working well or is working really well but I had this thing around empathy so as we rolled out more and more investment options I had this thing where I was like well I need to have a bit of everything nearly because I want to if somebody comes up to me and starts talking about this investment I want to feel the empathy and know like the journey that I've been on and and now I have you know simplified it a lot because it started to get a bit extreme that's literally me like if you showed me your platform and you had something that

I didn't have I'd be like oh she's real smart maybe I should have that too and like is there any logic to it no because I literally know my stuff when it comes to investing but like that looks cool and what we both know is consistency pays off over time and time is the most valuable aspect of money I think when we started Sharesies we really built it around that philosophy and we would do heaps of content and education in terms of trying to counteract what people call behavioral finance so like the loss aversion feeling like off it goes down that you've lost but actually you don't lock in a loss until you decide to sell and I need to be reminded of that yeah it's crazy we talk about it a lot obviously it's she's on the money it's only a loss if you're choosing to

take it. I don't choose that right now. Like I'm walking away from that. Brooke, we talk a lot about strategy at She's On The Money and just buying random shares, not a good strategy, albeit it can be fun. And literally when they're one cent, like you can, but I want to know more about yours. Like, tell me about your strategy. How do you keep your emotions in check when you're investing? Cause I feel like you and I are both just inherently emotional people. I don't want to lose something, but like what happens when you see that you maybe are a little bit down on the shares? So the key thing is, yeah, investing is for the long term. And I think the key strategy that we really designed Sharesies for early on too was dollar cost averaging. So

investing every payday amounts you can afford and it builds over time. As you know, like there's massive power in compound interest and compounding returns and literally that time just pays off. So I invest like that for my children and I never do anything else. It's automatically every week money going into their investment portfolios. And they consistently outperform me because of that. Isn't it annoying? Because I do majority dollar cost averaging. But there's things where I'm just like, oh, I actually want to know what that's like, you know, and I will invest a little bit. But the important thing for me, though, and the way that I manage my emotions is I don't take big bets.

I make sure that I'm building over time. I'm not overexposed in one area and that I'm just sticking to a habit and then anything else on top is something where I'm willing to take a bit more risk and potentially more return but I know that that consistency is going to work in the long run no matter the peaks and flows of the market at the time. Yeah I feel like everyone's always surprised when I talk about my investment strategy because I think that there's this expectation that you know if I gave you the login to my Sharesies platform you'd probably see this really comprehensive list of six million different options and like Victoria's so smart and like knows what to pick and you'd actually log in you'd see some really weird stock picks you'd be like why has she got

this and I can share them with you later because we don't make recommendations on the podcast but then a majority of my portfolio is split among two ETFs yeah and I think people are always like wait what like you just invest in ETFs and I'm like yes because I would love to think that I'm intelligent but I am not smarter than the people that pull together ETFs I've got one international all. I've got one Australian and that is currently where most of my wealth sits. And then I have my little satellite. It's that core satellite approach where I've got those satellite ones because Brooke, it's fun. Like there's this like biopharmaceutical company that I've been following since 2020. It's not done well. This is why you shouldn't reckon. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I

got this biopharma company and would I recommend it? No, but I put money in it and I'm not going to pull it out at a loss I don't need that money right now but I look at it and I just go I'm glad that I didn't make that recommendation because that was a punt and I'm so glad I just have that core portfolio that every month I just add to yeah and it kind of tracks along and I know future me is going to be okay but I'm not always chasing okay well what's the next thing I should invest in to create wealth like I'm going to be screwed if I don't yeah I know I'm fine but I do still like to have a little bit of fun yeah and we're in the industry right so of course we're a bit more attuned in some ways to what, you know. Brooke, I thought I was a genius. I'll talk to

you about this off air, but I read all of their annual reports. I did a deep dive into who their CEO was, where he used to work. The fact that this biopharmaceutical company deals with this particular health condition and the CEO has it, like he's using their treatment. I'm just like, I've cracked it. It's gone down. I think I bought in at like a dollar 13 per share and it's like at 26 cents or something. So is that a good share for you to buy? No. It might be though. I know. When we studied finance and we were getting access to this world, I remember all of my research saying and all of the academic papers saying that buying and holding outperforms buy, sell, sell, buy. And women typically are way better at investing and taking a long-term

approach with it. And we know that that strategy pays off significantly more over time than somebody who's like actively trading and so I think that that hopefully helps relieve some of that comfort of when you've got those feelings around have I made the right choice or you know it's like are you happy with the investments you've made are you diversified enough to weather storms and is it money that you're happy to invest in the long term knowing that markets do go up and down but traditionally over time they are trending up in the long term do you put some blinkers on like are you looking at what other people are doing are you looking at what your investors are doing. I feel like blinkers for me are really helpful, but are other people using this strategy?

Yeah. So a lot of people on Shazzy's auto invest or round up to invest and are building their portfolio over time. That's the vast majority. I don't get caught up in the hypey things. I just know that. I feel like it's all over social media. Have you seen the most recent stuff about the day trading and how that's going to create ultimate wealth? It kills me because you see these posts from people who genuinely think that they're helping. They have no finance background. And then you see people commenting like, oh my gosh, yes, please tell me more. I'd love to create wealth. And you just go, this is a scam. Like, yes, some people can create money in day trading, but it is not a long-term solution. In fact, most people who day trade lose more money than they

make. And you just go, if you're so worried, go down a very classic pathway. Like the best type of investments I've seen over my career have been the most boring ones yeah like I remember one client Brooke I inherited them from another financial advisor who'd retired and they had BHP shares and like that could be a little bit topical because obviously BHP like it's a fossil fuel company and a lot of people might not agree with that and the person I was advising was actually morally not okay with it and I mean it's a bigger conversation he'd inherited them from his grandfather but when we looked at it it was just this tried true blue chip stock that had paid off over time and the way that he held them was really complicated for me as a financial advisor because

they'd bought them when you bought them in British pounds like way back when they had originally listed and you could see from that period of time like how much it had grown how many dividends it had brought in and it was a bigger conversation but it was just incredible to see such a long-term portfolio and how it had provided wealth for this family and it was like this is genius but I can still do it today because these companies are still growing like these options are still on the table and I just remember thinking yeah maybe I do need to invest a little bit more after seeing that I wasn't impressed that I had to do the currency conversions from way back in the day though that was a little bit of a mess around but it was fun nonetheless and it's interesting

the emotional side of that legacy left too and going well this is what my grandparents believed in yeah you know should I continue because it's their assets that I'm continuing on or should I do it my way and I think that's another interesting element you know there's a lot of emotion when it's passed down and I think it's important to remember that your values can control how you invest I mean that's what that conversation was about like the BHP shares was something that my client was not that happy with because he was like that's not ethical I don't want to have my wealth being generated by this company. But to dispose of those shares after such a significant time holding them, the capital gains tax was astronomical. And so it just didn't make sense

to sell an asset because you would have to pay so much in tax. But what strategy can we implement to counteract that? And we ultimately ended up having, you know, any new acquisitions were all very ethical. And he started investing some of the money he was making from BHP into environmental charities, which were then working against BHP, which was quite funny because it was like, man, swaying it up and you feel good about this. We've got a strategy, but everyone's strategy is going to be different, right? Like at the end of the day, we have been chatting for a while and I could talk underwater with a mouth full of marbles about investing. And I know that you could too. We've covered why investing can feel a bit like an emotional rollercoaster and how it can

completely derail, let's be honest, even the best laid plans. Like you just get overly emotional and then you're like, I should sell, Brooke. One of the things that we say on this podcast all the time is when in doubt, zoom out. Like when in doubt, look at the bigger picture. Like it could feel trash. I was looking at a chart this morning and one of my favorite resources, sorry, it's not the Sharesies website, but you can replicate this or create your own version for me. It is the Vanguard Interactive Index chart. Have you seen that? I adore it. So it's on their website and you can kind of put in your own dates and your own asset classes and it shows how it would perform over time and historicals. And if you put in any 30-year period, you can see that long-term

investors have never lost. So any 30-year period, but then if I put in my birthday, which was the 30th of June, 1991, great date for a finance girly, literally, right? I put that in and over that period of time, you can see the drop in the share market when the global financial crisis happened and we know that that is spoken about you know 2008 was obviously horrific people lost their homes people lost their money like that's the worst thing ever you might even listen to your parents generation they're like that ruined us that you know ruined my friend but then when you zoom out that's actually just now a blip in the performance chart like our economy has recovered and then some and when you look back obviously there was some really big flaws

in the American financial system for that to happen. But then you know that a lot of people during that period of time lost a lot of money because of their emotions. It wasn't because they were poorly invested. It was because they saw all of this housing stuff happen and they started to freak out. And because the market was reflective of other people's poor decisions, even really good performing stocks started to dip because market sentient was that, oh, this is scary. so good quality shares were dropping and those people that owned those good quality shares were freaking out and they were like oh my gosh brooke i'm just gonna sell today because i'm gonna put all in my savings account and then i will feel secure but you can see this chart and how it

completely rebounds and some more so a lot of people that lost a lot of money during the global financial crisis weren't actually impacted but they were scared and i think that that's a really good story to tell to go well you need to zoom out and have a look at the bigger picture like is this just another situation where so many people are terrified so many people are so scared to lose their wealth which makes sense like we do have to do some education around this but they actually shot themselves in the foot by transferring their wealth that was going to recover into cash which then hasn't really performed yeah i think that's an interesting important part that people should understand is like the reason markets move is purely because of our it's emotion our emotions

you know it's actually not math some information and you're like oh now do I believe in this company or this fund now yes no and you buy sell and I think there's obviously the big companies at play and institutions but as individuals too it's like yeah zoom out do we believe in this investment we're making in the long term do we believe in this fund this country whatever it might be where you're exposed all these companies you know we are actually typically good at just buying and holding and not being too emotive and that was a lot of the like crap we'd get at the start of Sharesies to be honest it's like people won't know what to do and you know they've got to be sophisticated it's like well now you've got 700,000 people that know what to do. This is the

most sophisticated way of investing the way that the majority of them are which is you know like that consistency pays off over time. What would you know Brooke you are female. Jeez Louise. Yeah you never get to 10,000 customers and all that sort of jazz. I mean you don't have $10,000. You've got $700,000. Oh, I love it. All right. Let's go to a really quick break. On the flip side, we're going to dive into some practical steps you can take to keep those emotions in check and make sure that you're on the right path to reaching your financial goals. So, guys, stay tuned. Welcome back. So, we've been talking about the emotional ups and downs of investing, but now, Brooke, it is time that we get practical. I'm not a podcast that

just motivates people like we actually need to give them practical steps and things that they can do to implement this do you know there's nothing worse and you've probably done it because like I feel like you are a TED talk girly like you're the same as me like I love a motivational talk I love watching other people speak love going to a conference there is nothing worse than walking out of a conference being like I'm so motivated she was so great I don't know what to do like we need to give people the tips and tricks that they can implement to actually get stuff done. I mean, you're clearly doing it because not only are you empowering people to invest, you're like, here's the actual investment platform. Like you can lead a horse to water.

I'm pretty action oriented. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. Picasso. So now it's super easy to say, you know, we need to be investing for long term. We're talking about that before, but let's be really real. It's tough to stay motivated. Like you can walk out of the motivational presentation. You can listen to the podcast. You can be like investing, Brooke, it's for me yeah and then life gets in the way and you just feel like the payoff is so far down the road what's it going to take to compound nicely like seven to ten years like that just feels so far off but how did you keep yourself pushing forward when you first started your

investing journey and what helped you stay engaged and not lose any focus even when progress sometimes feels slow and like I checked it yesterday and I've earned nothing honestly the best thing to keep me on track is automation like you can't think about investing all the time why not I do welcome to she's on the money it's not that sexy though no no not everybody you know and for most people too it's just like the best way of managing money is having really good habits essentially and for me it's about automation so I have my autumn best set up if I was here in Australia I'd be definitely doing roundups and we don't have that in New Zealand yet but in New Zealand you also have investing for kids and we don't have that yet so what i'm thinking is we could

do a little bit of a swap so like i'll let them have roundups and they can let us have investing for kids that's exactly what we're working on the structure on at the moment yeah and so just that automatic investing because i really want to make sure we're giving back because when you're investing you're helping you know companies create jobs and fulfill this vision they have for the world that you want to have you know come to life and also on funds too you know and so i think that automation for me is the biggest way that just makes me relax I'm like well I know I'm putting a certain amount of way I'm happy to every payday and that's fine you know yes I might dabble on the side and do the satellite approach as we're talking about before but that is the consistency

and that is why I just sleep easy and I think that's why I'm so clear about the approach I take because I don't want people hearing me go oh my gosh yeah I did this research into this like pharma company or whatever and thinking that that's the investing journey. It's not like my portfolio is so boring, but then I do some fun things and the fun things happen not because you have to do that, but because Brooke, we're on Shares on the Money. I'm obsessed with the share market. I love chatting about it. I love seeing what's going on. I really love, you know, good companies and good people. And I really love reading an annual report, but that's not for everybody and that's why I guess Sharesies exists and I feel like I'm a walking like

billboard for Sharesies because whenever people are like so what should I do I'm like well sit down so have you heard of Sharesies literally because I'm just like not everybody wants to be as technical and you can be yeah but sometimes you just want the spark notes version I want you to tell me what does this company do how does it do it where can I find it you know what are the spark notes of this and that's what the Shazee's platform does and then all of this other stuff I'm doing in the background yeah I guess a good question that I have for you I mean I think it's good because it's my question it's gonna be a great question you're a CEO that's pretty big dog are you investing differently now that you're a CEO than when you were just a salary and wage

earning employee is there like some kind of like I'm cracking the code because now I have lots of money coming in or am I cracking the code because now I have a, you know, really fancy career. I feel like people seem to think that because you have a very fancy job title, your investment portfolio must be oodles more complicated. I would say it's changed more from being a founder and going through the process of starting a company that then I'm more exposed to other startups and things like that, that I want to, you know, in a small way with a group of friends, we're trying to get more female shareholders in companies early on. We're going to talk about this.

We are going to talk about this off air. But honestly, I wanted to invest. I looked at platforms in New Zealand, but my first investments were through staff share schemes. So Xero, I got shares from working there, and that was my first actual ownership of a share. And so it wasn't until Sharesies that I got to start investing, and then we got to create it the way that we learned.

Isn't that cool? It's really cool, yeah. That is cool. But also a shame that it wasn't there when we were younger, but I'm just so stoked it is there. for people now. But it wasn't as accessible. I mean, I did the same calculations you did. And I was just like, the cost of the transaction wasn't going to be worth the amount of money. The brokerage was astronomical. Like there's no way that when I started, I could have afforded

to invest in the way that we recommend now, right? Like you spoke before about dollar cost averaging for those of you who are like, oh my gosh, like I have not listened to enough cheese on the money. That's essentially where you invest consistently and regularly so that even if it's a good time in the market you're investing, when it's a bad time in the market you're investing, so that on average, we can get access to all of the best days in the market. Whereas if I could time the market, Brooke, I'd be so rich. So would you. We wouldn't even have to have investing platforms because we would be Warren Buffett, but we're not. Nobody can time the market. And the second best thing to timing the market is time in the market. So dollar cost averaging

is literally making sure that you're investing consistently so that you know if the market goes down you get the little discount if it's up it's not so worrying because last month you got the discount and all averages out but when I started my journey that wasn't an option I had to like get my money together I worked out what brokerage was going to cost and it was going to be way too astronomical to do dollar cost averaging and so then I had this additional stress of working out well I can only afford to basically invest I think it was like four times a year because like of the amount of money I was investing. And I'm like, when's the best time? And then I get analysis paralysis. I remember one year being like, I haven't invested at all because like, I just

couldn't find a time and dumping all my money in. And then something happened and I was like, great. Like I didn't get that control. The idea that you can just do this for so cheap and so easy now to me is kind of wild. Brooke, we've covered a lot today from, I guess, the highs of market gains to the lows of like the nerve-wracking dips I still get that pit in the bottom of my stomach but here are the golden rules so keep your cool when in doubt zoom out stay focused on the long-term game and let compound interest do what it does best and that's making your money make even more money like I love the saying it's like you can't work 24 7 but your money can yeah and I think that's what happens your money starts earning money that creates money and it's

incredible over time you've typically compounded more money your money's made more money than you ever started putting in or ever put in I wish I could show that graph visually right now but it's so important like I think for people to understand so sorry no no no I love it in the presentation that I did this morning I was talking to the group of girls and I was so excited about it and I was like would anyone say no to a million dollars of free money and they were all like no obviously because like we're not crazy like that's fine but I was like if you invest every single month for your entire career, $500 each and every single month, whether that is in your KiwiSaver or it is in your superannuation, like, or you just want to do it externally, $500 every single

month. Over that period of time, that becomes $240,000. And they're all like, oh, that's a lot of money. And I'm like, yeah, I know. But that's just if you saved it, if you invested it with an average rate of return of seven and a half percent, which we know it's not, it's more than that, but we like to be conservative, that becomes $1.25 million. So I'm telling you that if you invested instead of saved that same amount of money, you could have a million dollars for free just by waiting. I love money. I want a million dollars for free, Brooke. And I guess that's why to me it's so powerful because that's what gives women in particular power. And I've never met anyone who's like, oh yeah, when women get financially illiterate, world's a worse place.

like every time a woman becomes more financially literate our entire world becomes a better place women help women I'm seeing it literally in you you're like oh my gosh now that I am a CEO I have the funds to get together with my friends and help other women get into business or get them funded like this is happening around the world isn't that cool that you get to not only be a part of it in that aspect but your investing platform is going to create these women into millionaires I love that saying a rising tide floats all boats you know and I think that there's so much more to do to empower more people to have more access to opportunities and yeah I say that all the time I feel like you and I are just like you're the blonde version of my brunette because like I

always say a rising tide lifts all ships oh nice and like I'm always like no no no like it doesn't matter we're all on the same page like there's more than enough out there like and that quote about, like, you don't make your light shine brighter by dimming somebody else's. I really like that one too. But now we've moved on to quotes. I think it's time to move off the show because I want to talk about investing for kids, which, you know, watch this space. She's on the money community. But Brooke, as always, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with our community. Before you say goodbye, though, So I obviously have to do a completely shameless plug.

If you haven't joined Sharesies, please don't forget that if you sign up to Sharesies using the code S-O-T-M, you get a free $10 in your account to invest with. And did you see, Brooke, the other day, our co-host on our Wednesday episodes, Bec, started investing and she now has $11 invested. And I am so excited because 10 of that was free. Be for real. We basically funded her entire investment portfolio. So fast. I love that. All right.

Thank you, Brooke. It has been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment

or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.