She's On The Money - It's never too early to talk RETIREMENT

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

So, we get it, you're young and fun and cool, you don't want to think about your retirement yet!! But knowledge is POWER! And the things you do today can have a huge impact (bad, or good!) on your retirement. You can find the Compound Interest Calculator here! https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/compound-interest-calculatorThe advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Retirement is something that seems a long way off for most of us. But according to Victoria Devine herself, putting in a little extra work now can place us in a much better spot when we do finally arrive at the end of our careers. That sounds so dramatic and sad.

Can we be excited to be putting ourselves in a position to retire? Of course. And that is what we will learn throughout the show, my girl. Okay. All right. You were like, oh, sorry. like you can put yourself in a bit of a better position at the end of your career. That sounds so sad. Well, no, it's exciting. It's exciting. I don't want to stop working. Get there. Well,

hey, I don't think I can't imagine you will stop working, but I don't think I will either. Who are you? I am Georgia King. I'm a copywriter and journalism student. I don't say that enough these days. Anyway, I'm here to help explain exactly how much money we need to retire and the steps we can take to help us get there is, of course, financial advisor, Victoria Devine. For anyone listening today who is around our age and is thinking retirement, that's a boring topic. I don't want to listen. Turn off the pod now. Don't bother. If you think that this is going to be super boring, just zone out. Like, honestly, why bother? But being more serious, And I know it is not sexy, but it is so important to set ourselves up properly now

so that when we get to retirement, it's not a surprise. And as much as it feels like a million years away, Georgia, I think the easiest thing that you can do to get a little bit of perspective is ask a person who's in their sixties, whether that is a parent, a guardian, maybe somebody that you're friends with. I don't know. Ask someone in their sixties, hey um did retirement creep up on you they'll be like yes i was 30 yesterday i was actually 19 yesterday how many times do we hear our parents georgia this is just relevant for you and i i don't know if it's relevant for everybody else but how many times do we hear our parents talking about like oh well when i bought a house or when i was your age like it feels like yesterday time

literally flies and as much as retirement seems off in the distance and it's not something that we should be prioritizing. I promise you it is. And by putting in a tiny bit of effort right now, you're putting yourself in a position that is probably going to put you hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead in retirement without much more effort. But if you leave it too late, that's not going to be an option for you. So that's why it's important, Georgia King. Yeah. Okay. Well said. Well said. Thank you. Thank you. Here all day. So you just mentioned hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead if we do start now. how much money do we actually need to retire in Australia? Hundreds of millions of dollars but

actually that's not true so it completely depends on what kind of lifestyle you want to lead and the big costs that you'll probably want to cover at that point in your life like are you still going to be paying off a mortgage will you have medical costs are you planning on retiring and going to the Amalfi Coast for six months of every year or maybe you're planning something a little more low key, like buying a caravan and going around Australia. Or maybe you don't want either of those things and you're like me and just want to stay at home with your cats. It is completely up to you, but all of those different lifestyle choices have different costs associated with them. So the most important thing that you can do is actually work backwards and go, all right,

how much money am I likely going to need in retirement and work out what kind of investment figure is going to produce that income for you. And we'll get into it and I'll tell you how to do it in a minute. But according to Money Smart, a good rule of thumb is that you'll need two thirds or 67%, or let's be more technical, 66.66% of your pre-retirement income to maintain the same standard of living in retirement. So that feels like a good amount because some people listening to this podcast earn $50,000. Some people don't earn anything and they are on benefits at the moment, which is totally fine. And some people earn $400,000. So it is going to be different for everybody and that's actually okay. But the Association of Superfunds of Australia has an

industry retirement standard, which actually estimates how much money you'll need according to the type of lifestyle that you currently lead. And they say for individuals who want what they are calling a quote comfortable lifestyle they're going to need $44,412 of income annually and for a modest lifestyle which is just covering the basics and just covering the necessities not the luxuries like your oatmeal clarté every day which I'm going to be more towards that 44 G King So covering the basics, you'll need $28,254 a year. So those are some stats. But G, do you know what that actually means though?

Not really. It just sounds like a lot of money. And a lot of like planning and working it out. But when we start talking about how much income we need in retirement, and I talk about this literally every day, because as you guys know, I'm a financial advisor and I do have real clients. So I talk to people about, okay, well, how are we retiring? What does that mean? What kind of lifestyle do you want? And I can tell you a few things from that.

The first thing I can tell you is most of my clients do not say that they are happy to live off $44,000 a year. Most people go RV, like if my mortgage was paid off or if I didn't have any debt or I didn't, I was in a completely different situation in a perfect world, I would have maybe $80,000 a year coming in because at the moment, $80,000 is actually becoming the average of what people earn in metropolitan areas. So I'm not saying that that's the standard and I never base it off that because I know that that's actually not accurate, but it's a good conversation starter, but it's actually going to depend on what your current situation is and how we extrapolate that out. So to talk about what $44,000 means, let's go back to the example that if you've listened

to every single podcast you have heard before because it's really relevant here. But you know how I say, G, oh, if you invest $500 each and every single month at the age of 20, by the time you retire, you'll have an investment portfolio worth $1.2 million. You've heard that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I remember you saying that. You've said it multiple times on the pod. It's my only example that I have memorized, so I'm going to keep using it. But $1.2 million invested. Now we're not accounting for any type of CPI or indexation or anything like that. We're just using base numbers because if we're only starting the conversation around investment and super, we don't actually need to get too complex because we're going to work it out along the

journey. But a $1.2 million investment portfolio provides us with income every year. So you know how we talk about compound interest and the interest that is payable. If you had an average return of 5% on your superannuation in retirement, which was actually quite reasonable because between 5% and maybe like seven and a half percent is what I would use as an estimation because you never want to overestimate those things. Because can you imagine if you sat down with a financial advisor like me and I was like, oh my gosh, we could achieve these epic returns for you, Georgia. And you're like, great. Well, I'm going to need those to retire. And then we didn't achieve those epic returns. We'd both be in a little bit of a pickle because one,

I wouldn't have put you in a situation where you could actually afford your life until you're probably a little bit mad because the income that you thought you were going to get, you're not actually getting. But essentially the interest payable at 5% on a $1.2 million investment portfolio G is $60,000. So you could reasonably assume that a $1.2 million investment or a $1.2 million dollar superannuation fund is going to provide you with approximately $60,000 worth of income in today's dollars in retirement. So that's how we work out how much money we need in super at a particular age. And that's what frustrates me because so many super funds, they put out all of these statistics and they say, Hey, gee, like to have a comfortable lifestyle, it's 44 grand

a year for a single or $62,000 for a couple. And you go, great. What does that mean? I'm in my early twenties and I'm trying to work out what that means in the future. So using the example that the Association of Superfunds of Australia used for a couple, having an income of $62,000 a year, you're going to need a investment portfolio or a superannuation fund with about $1.2 million in it. Does that make sense? It does make sense. But just maths, I'm so bad at maths. So this 1.2 gives us 62K a year-ish. About 60 a year, yeah. For how long? So is this assuming? Forever. Is that right though? That's right. So the money that is actually in your investment portfolio is invested and you don't actually get to retirement and have $1.2 million and start

spending it. You actually keep that $1.2 million invested and the interest that is payable each and every single year essentially becomes your income. So by setting yourself up properly in retirement with an investment portfolio, you don't actually start drawing down on it, or you don't start pulling that money out and go, great, I've got $1.2 million to spend. And if I spend it all at once, that's going to be awkward. It's actually that $1.2 million each and every single year because of compounding interest is going to provide you with $60,000. And during the course of your lifetime, so you're investing right now in superannuation and the money that you are investing is compounding. So instead of taking that income out and spending it because you're

not retired yet, you're actually reinvesting that income into your super fund so that it grows. And you know how much I love the Money Smart website and their compound interest calculator. And that's a really good place to start to work out how much money you need to invest for the long-term to achieve the goal that you have. But that money is actually just money that your money makes each and every single year, and it's not going to disappear. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. Because whether you live to 80, whether you live to 100 or 120, that income is going to keep coming in. And let's be morbid for a hot second, G, when you die, that is what you leave to your family and your children. And that's how we start intergenerational wealth.

Okay. My mind is blowing a little bit. So let's be really dramatic for a hot second and say that G King got to 88 and passed away. R.I.P.G. I'll come to your funeral. Yep. Great innings. I hope you live longer than that. Just FYI.

No, no, no need. No, no, no. I want you to live to at least 100 because then you get the letter from the queen. That's true. That's a goal. But say you get to that age and you've got your $1.2 million investment portfolio and you've passed away and, you know, you've got your will and your estate plan in place. so it goes nicely to your children that I'm sure you're going to have at least 10 of,

that can do one of two things for children. So that inheritance, and as you know, I deal a lot with inheritance clients, that is actually my bread and butter, but that inheritance can do one of two things. It can either go to the children and they divvied up and become an asset that they spend because among your 10 kids, it's obviously going to mean a lot less because they might get $100,000 each or whatever it is. And they might put that into a home and it might dissipate. Or you could say in your will, I only want them to take the income. And if you have one child, you could be providing that child with a $60,000 income ongoing because you don't need it anymore. And they have an investment portfolio that sustains their lifestyle. And that's what

happens when we talk about trust fund babies, because they have a big trust that has all these investments in it. And each and every single year, their trust makes a lot of money. And then that money gets distributed to them. And that's how it keeps going in perpetuity. Interesting. And I guess you're also saying there that you don't have to be rich from the outset to set your family up in that way. Like what you're kind of saying is that if we make these small changes or contributions every week, every month, then we could eventually be in the position in retirement where we are able to then hand that wealth down to our family. Right. Yeah. And that's something that in all honesty really motivates me when it comes to wealth. Like I'm not here going, oh, well,

I want to be wealthy because I want Gucci bags and designer things. Cause as you guys know, that's not really me. But the thing that motivates me is knowing that one day I'll be able to support a family and that my kids will be okay. And that if housing prices are astronomical in the future, at least they'll be able to pay rent on something to make sure that they're always safe and always secure. It's not necessarily, oh, I want them to be super rich and be able to buy mansions. Like I just want to know that my family are well looked after and cared for. And that's one of my values. And I think that it's important to understand that, you know, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. You might have different goals and different values to me, but at the end of the

day, if we know more about wealth, we are knowing enough to actually put ourselves in the positions that we dream of. Brilliant. Okay. Back to super though, V. Yes. Do people, are people in retirement generally just living off their super or do they have other investments set up or is it just completely dependent on the individual? Look, it could be both. It could be none. Some people prioritize superannuation for their entire lives and they don't invest any money outside of it. Now, this is probably not the episode you expected me talking about my values so much, but I think it's really important because it really opens the conversation up to, well, what does retirement mean? So retirement here in Australia is the age of, what was it?

66 years and six months. Georgia is the time that you officially, according to the government, can retire. But retirement actually isn't an age. It's actually financial freedom. And financial freedom to me is so much more important than just talking about retirement. Because when we talk about retirement, we're talking about superannuation. And when we can access our superannuation tax-free so that we don't end up getting stung with really big tax bills. But to me, retirement means financial freedom. And for me personally, that will be the point in time that I am able to generate enough income from my personal investments to not have to go to work anymore. So if your goal is to retire and have an income of $60,000

each and every single year, then maybe achieving that earlier is a value to you. And I love the idea that maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to retire before that age of 66 years and six months. And I would love to think that maybe at the age of 50, I would be financially free enough to make any decision I want when it comes to work. Because I think that there is this massive misconception when it comes to retirement that you have to hang up your boots and that you're done and that your career is done and you start gardening and cycling and going to lawn bowls and you know maybe playing bridge with the girls but it's it's not what it means to me and it's not what it means to most of our community retirement is the age that I can cut back my hours and not

be financially crippled by that I can maybe do something that is of value to me like I could volunteer all of my time but still have an income coming in or even just focus on the hobbies that I adore while technically being paid to do that. So that is actually accessible to a lot of people if you're planning on prioritizing it. And we did a whole episode, Georgia, on that FIRE movement. So Financial Independence Retire Early about creating that. So I won't rant on about that too much, but if you want to go listen to that, that was a good episode. But at the end of the day, people do generally live off their super, but they also live off different investments that they might've set up along the way. So hopefully when I retire, I'm not retiring and then relying

on my superannuation. I have other investments outside of that because if the retirement age today, Georgia is 66, how old is the retirement age going to be in 40 years when I retire? Like, how am I going to be 70? Do I actually want to wait until 70 to have an income to stop working? For me, the answer is no. I actually want to create that financial freedom before then. So that's why I invest and save outside of superannuation while still prioritizing, making sure that I'm making use of essentially the closest thing we have to a tax haven in Australia, which is super because tax rates inside superannuation are only 15% in comparison to the marginal tax rates, which could be anything up to 39 cents in every single dollar. So there are lots

of different options and you've probably heard of downsizing as well and that's worth touching on and that is essentially where someone has a big fancy family home and they go and sell that fancy family home and let's say it was worth a million dollars because in Australia that's actually becoming quite a normal number for properties to sell for which is baffling but let's say it's worth a million dollars and they go great I've had this big family home the kids have left we don't actually need this. We don't want to maintain the gardens. We're going to go buy a $450,000 apartment. We're going to live in that. And we're going to invest the difference into our super or into another type of investment. And then they'd live off that. So that's essentially what

downsizing is. It's not just going, Oh, I'm going to get a smaller property. You are getting a smaller property to unlock some cash so that you can invest that cash for a more comfortable retirement. Very interesting. I wonder, I mean, you have a house now, but oh my gosh, yes. But like if I downsized, I just owe the bank a lot. Yeah. A lot of debt. Yeah. Not in the position to retire, sadly. At least you've got one doll. I'm happy for you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very proud of that. That is literally one of the coolest things that I have done. And I know that that's something that a lot of people are going to be like, oh, that's so entitled. You bought a house, rah, rah. But like, I'm just really grateful that my partner and I spent so

many years saving for a home and then got to achieve that goal. And I think that a lot of people don't see the flip side of how hard it was to save for a home and actually getting into the property market. Like for people still saving, I promise you the tough slog is worth it. For sure. And we're actually next week on the show, we're talking about renting forever, which is probably going to be my fate. So if you're with me over there, look forward to that. That is not true. But in saying that a lot of people are, I don't want to buy a house and renting forever is actually a really viable option. And I'm actually really excited to talk about that, but let's get back to this episode, Georgia. We keep going off track. We do. There's

a lot of tangents. Oh, well, I'm interested. I'll be relisting. Don't you worry. Um, so when it comes time to grab our super when we're at retirement, do they, do we get like a fat check with our 1.2 mill on it or do they like dish it out like little tokens? How does it work? Oh, they dish it out in tokens and food vouchers. No, no, they don't do that at all. So what they do is it depends on your superannuation provider and you'll either be able to access your superannuation as an income stream. So remember how I was saying before, the interest that your money makes becomes your income. That's essentially what happens. But if you don't have enough interest being made from your superannuation, you will actually have to take some of the cash out as well to top that

up. And there are some rules around how much cash you have to take each and every single year. So you will have to look into that, but it would be silly of me to be like, oh, it's like 5% at this point, because who knows when we are going to retire. It's actually not important, but that's how it works. But I would also caution against taking lump sums out and just taking all your money because as tempting as it might be, I think the important thing there is that cash needs to actually provide for your retirement. And most of us don't know how to manage that amount of cash to provide an ongoing income stream for retirement. So I'd err against wanting to do that. But again, each to your own, you are the boss of your own life. I guess if you took it out in cash,

if that was a thing, then also you would lose all of that future income, right? Like you'd just have that. It's essentially like taking an investment out and making it cash. Like it's not going to keep making you money. And the most important thing when we get to retirement is having a secure income stream, because that's something that not that many people actually have access to. All right. I think we will leave it there for a minute V, but after the break, we'll be chatting all things pension and also how you can put yourself in the best financial spot now. So when it comes time to retire, you're set to go. Don't go anywhere guys. okay so we've discussed super we've discussed other investment options we've discussed

downsizing and property and what that looks like um so let's chat pension yes is there a pension in australia currently yes there is my friend the age pension is essentially the system that is in place to provide retired or older australians with an income if they do not have enough money in their superannuation. We are so lucky. We live in a country that if you don't have enough super, they will help you and they will support you. And that is not the case for so many countries. And I know that, you know, I'm one of those people that's always like, you know, practice gratitude and all of that other stuff. But like, how cool is it that we live in a country that they're like, oh, gee, you didn't invest enough or save enough. That's all good. We've

got an income for you. In saying that, there is criteria that you need to meet to be eligible for it. You can't be earning millions of dollars and still get free money from the government. You do have to actually be in need of it. So to be eligible for the pension here in Australia, you need to be of age pension age, sexy, which is 66 years and six months old. You need to be under the income and assets test. Otherwise you're going to end up with a reduced pension or perhaps no pension if you have too much money and you need to be an Australian resident for at least 10 years. So if you tick all of those boxes, then you are very likely to be eligible for the age pension. Something that I want to point out here that, gee, you and I were talking about before

recording this episode is that your family home or what the government calls your primary residence does not get taken into consideration when actually working out what assets you have. So your primary residence isn't taken into consideration when it comes to working out whether you can get a pension or not, which I think is really cool because it puts you in a position where you can own your family home outright. You know, you can save up and have a mortgage and pay it all off and then be in a position where you still are able to have a roof over your head, but still get the pension, which I think is really important. But to go back to income for a second, the income levels are actually quite low, which I mean, you won't be that

surprised with, but I think that they're super low. But essentially, if you make over $180 per fortnight, your pension will reduce by 50 cents for every dollar over $180, which I feel like is a lot. But at the same time, I get it because we really should be holding back the pension for those who actually need it. But to give you a little bit of an indicator of how much that is, this is for 2021. It changes all the time. So don't take this as gospel if you're listening to this podcast five years in the future lol imagine if people were still listening to our podcast in five years time georgia i hope it's i hope it's nice in 2026 hopefully the pandemic's done oh my gosh if it is fun send us a message in five years if you're listening to this how cute

but essentially normal rate pension you will receive a maximum base rate as a single per fortnight, $868.30. And then as a couple combined, you will receive $1,309 per fortnight, which sounds like a pretty comfy living, but at the same time, $1,300 a fortnight is about $650 a week. And that has to cover every single one of your expenses. If you don't have any other form of income, which can leave you in a little bit of a sticky spot. So basically Georgia, the pension sets you up with the modest lifestyle we mentioned earlier in this episode. So it's definitely enough to live off to cover the basics. But I guess in retirement, as we were saying earlier, like people might want to travel, they might want to play bridge with the girls and memberships expensive

to the bridge club. Like it might not be enough for the life that you want to live, but it's still something. Exactly. And if we be honest, that amount of money being paid into your account each fortnight, it might sound like, okay, cool. I could cover the basics, but it's definitely not putting you in a position to live maybe a luxury lifestyle if that's what you want to do. And if you go back to what I was saying at the start of this episode, if you're planning on doing international travel or traveling around Australia, or, you know, even doing different hobbies that might not allow for it. And that's okay because at the end of the day, having the basics is literally the bare minimum. And I think that that is so fantastic. But if that's not what you're

planning then we can start planning now and put ourselves in a position where we live the life that we want to live well that leads very nicely to my next question vicky d oh does it now what can we be doing now if we if we don't want to live on the pension and we do see ourselves traveling and doing all of those lux things in retirement plans i reckon you'll be a world traveler when you're old, you'll be that bougie nana. I really hope so. Yeah, you'll be the bougie nana. Backpack on. No, you won't have the backpack. Telling stories to the young kids. You'll have the fancy luggage that somebody else carries and you'll tell all your kids about your summer in France. I bet you. I'm on to you, G King. That's me, fancy elf. So far from what Georgia would want

to do. She'd have a backpack and a bag of goon and she'd be off. Not wrong, doll. You know me well. So tell us how we can make that happen. So there are a lot of things that you can do, G. One of the first ones I want you to consider is consolidating your super funds so that you are not paying multiple fees on multiple accounts. I've told you before to make sure that you are taking into consideration your insurances before you do that though, because we don't want to cancel insurances that might be putting us in a very good position that we wouldn't be able to get back. So consolidate your super, get fewer fees because those fees do really eat into your superannuation. Consider making additional contributions to super. So work out how much

money you need to have in super by a particular age. And like this is fickle, right? So the average super amounts of how much money you should have in super are not how much money you have in super for your lifestyle that you're choosing. You need to actually work backwards from that. So remember how we use the example. If you, if you want an income of $60,000, you need a $1.2 million investment portfolio. You're going to work that out and then work out how to stay on track for that. The money smart compound interest calculator is going to help you here. Find it just by Googling it. It is honestly such a fab resource. We will again, put the link to that in the show notes so that you can find it, but essentially for someone between the ages and this pisses me

off Georgia because gender pay gap, but there is a difference between men and women and how much money on average men and women have in their super accounts for their age. But between the ages of 20 and 24, the average male balance is 9,400. And the average female balance is about $8,000 between 25 and 29. And the thing that pisses me off is as you get older, this gap gets bigger georgia watch this for a man between 25 and 29 the average balance is 28 300 and for a woman 23 700 then for a man between the ages of 30 and 34 the average balance is 58 000 and for a woman it is $45,000. Then between 35 and 39 for a man, it's $92,400. But for a woman, it is $72,000. And then for, and I won't keep reading them all, but for someone between the ages of 40 to 44,

for a male, they'll have $134,000. So they're now in happy six figures. For a woman, they have $98,000. Did you see how that gap at the very start when you're 20 to 24 is only about a thousand dollars, but then it's literally more than $30,000 by the time you're in your early forties. And this is, this is because women take time out of work to have families, part-time jobs, all of that. There's a lot of reasons, but at the same time as talking about women taking time out of jobs. And, you know, we all do that. And that's why I think we really need to take our super seriously. And if you're planning on taking time off, talk to your partner, if you're planning on having a baby about potentially them contributing to your super fund or plan to contribute extra so

that you make up for the time that you might lose. Like these things are important to consider, but the gender pay gap in Australia is still 14.9% Georgia. Like that is for a man and a woman doing exactly the same job. So it's not just super, it's not, you know, taking into consideration the time that's being taken off. We as women literally get paid less for the same job. And that means then that we get less super because it's based on percentages, right? Exactly. And do you know, this is me going on a completely different rant, but when it comes to retirement, do you know that the biggest age demographic of people who are becoming homeless is women at retirement age yeah and Georgia that's disgusting like we need to do more and do better

not just for ourselves but for the women that surround us and Georgia the pay gap obviously we're on our high horses about women because we have really good statistics around this but for our friends who are non-binary or in other minority groups they are even worse off we just don't have the statistics for it and I just think that that is so wildly unfair and we need to be having these conversations more often and more openly and talk about these things because I don't want people in our community getting to retirement and literally be on the verge of homelessness like to me that is so unfair and my job is to literally educate you guys so that that doesn't happen so that we can protect each other so that we can look after ourselves and you know it's not just a women's

issue. It is a whole community issue. And I guess, so it's almost as if like a single woman, for example, would be much more independent and in control of their finances because they have to be right. Whereas women in these long-term relationships, maybe they've had 15 years out of the workforce, don't have any super, they've just always relied on the male in the relationship or whoever the person at work is that then if that relationship crumbles, then they're ruined, right? Yeah. So how literally, so if you are in that partnership, how can you safeguard your finances? Do you talk to them, as you said before, about making contributions to your super? That sounds hard. Um, but is it just something we have to do? So G we absolutely have to do that.

And we know that on average women retire with half the amount of super than men, which is disgusting and 40% of older single retired women live in poverty and economic insecurity when they reach retirement. I just read that off the list of things that we've written down for this episode and it honestly makes me sick every single time I read this because it is just so wildly unfair and a lot of it gee is about what you're talking about. They've lived in happy marriages until or maybe unhappy marriages that was wild speculation on my behalf but they've been married or reliant on somebody else for so much of their lives. And then they get to this age and that relationship potentially disintegrates and they're left with nothing. So that's why as young people,

we really need to be considering and trying to put ourselves in the best possible position, whether we trust our partners or not. Like you need to make your super a priority. You need to make your income a priority. You need to understand budget and cashflow, not because it's just cool to, but because it's actually essential. Like I think that a lot of people might go, Oh yeah, like money's trendy at the moment. It's so cool. Like, no, it's not. It's always cool to be financially secure. It is always trendy to put yourself in the best possible position because poverty is not sexy and economic insecurity is not something I would wish on anybody, but a lot of our community goes through it. And we need to understand that and break the

stigmas surrounding that down because more often than not, it's not the person experiencing that fault. It is the fault of the community and our lack of education and the system that we have grown up with. And it is not something that anybody ever puts themselves in the position of intentionally. And I think that we need to just be a little bit more supportive, a little bit softer and actually try and help work out ways to fix this issue. And, you know, I'm a bit ranty on this episode because as you know money is something I'm really passionate about but it's not because I'm here going I want to get rich I love money let's do a she's on the money podcast it's because we literally retire with less money than men it's because we literally are in a

situation where if we don't care about this we are going to live in poverty because if we don't care about this economic insecurity is going to be our reality and that's just the truth of it yeah Exactly. And we need to have these conversations and raise awareness because how else do we know about them? Absolutely. But back to the reasons you mentioned before, G, as the system is absolutely set up for males to thrive, to look after ourselves coming into retirement years. Not that many of us are even close to it, but we need to make sure that we have a level of financial independence, regardless of how codependent our relationships are. So whether that means you have your own savings account, or as I always recommend, having your own emergency fund. Like I actually am going

to be really blunt here. I don't care how much you love your partner, your husband, the person you live with, whatever we're going to call them. I actually don't care. Still have your own emergency fund because that is going to give you the power to one, not experience poverty, but two, put you in a position where you can escape a situation, a location, a job, a person that you no longer want to be associated with. And if we don't have that, we don't have that power. And the amount of people in our community, G, who say, oh my gosh, Victoria, didn't listen to you for the first year of your podcast, but I now have an emergency fund and I sleep so much better at night. I feel so much more empowered. I feel like I am finally financially secure. I'm not experiencing the

stress that I used to experience around money. It makes me so proud, but more of us need emergency funds. And G, to get a little bit legal on you, if you're not married yet and you are planning on getting married or even moving in with a partner, finding financial agreements. We did an entire podcast on this. Go back and listen to that episode about making sure that you are putting each other in the best possible financial position should something else happen and it's to me again here's some unsolicited relationship advice Georgia if your partner has a problem with that I have a problem with them oh but is it not a massive red flag if somebody says oh gee sorry um I know we're moving in together but I just feel so uncomfortable having a binding financial

agreement that puts us both in the best possible position should we separate yeah it makes so much sense to have one. But also let me be that friend. If you are in a situation where it's so awkward to bring it up and you're not sure, blame me. Literally say that you've had a conversation with me or say you listen to this dumb podcast and they keep ranting on about binding financial agreements and oh, hey Harper, that's Georgia's partner for anybody following along. I listened to this silly podcast and they said we should have a binding financial agreement. What do you think? like blame me you don't have to bring it up and say hey harper i think this is a really good idea if you're not ready to like literally use me as a segue i'll be the bad guy i would love to be the

bad guy if it means you're in a better financial position because of it yeah and it benefits both partners i would agree but do you know what i think you and i can both agree on georgia is that this podcast is pretty long and we probably should wrap it up do you reckon we leave it there for today i reckon we leave it there we'll probably open a thread in the facebook group at some point this week as well guys so if you do have more questions open it up and we'll continue the conversation but hopefully you have learned something today i know i certainly have uh but v i think that is all we have time for and as always g just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to australia's aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples

they're the traditional custodians of the lands the waterways and the skies all across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness and 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 a financial decision. And we promise Victoria Devine is an authorised representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management, Proprietary Limited, ABN 34132463257, AFSL 339151. Gee, remember that time that we said that the end of 2020 was a garbage fire?

Can you imagine what we're going to say the end of 2021 is? Mate, we thought it was all behind us. here we are it is august in zoom on zoom but we're still smiling aren't we we are we love this see you next week we hope you're all doing doing well guys we love you bye we love you bye