She's On The Money - Victoria’s 2026 Investing Playbook If She Had to Start From Zero

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

If you’ve been saying “I really should start investing" this episode is for you. Because wanting to invest and actually investing are two very different things. And for most of us, it’s not laziness or lack of ambition that keeps us stuck. It’s the quiet spiral of I don’t know enough yet... or I don’t have enough money... or what if I pick the wrong thing... and what if I mess it up. This episode takes all of that and changes it to confidence, because Victoria is breaks down exactly how she’d start investing in 2026 if she had to begin again with nothing.  Inside this ep:📈Why waiting until you feel ready is the fastest way to never start📈How starting small actually builds confidence quicker than going big📈The difference between risk and panic (and why investing isn’t gambling)📈What to focus on when you’re paralysed by too many options📈How to invest without it becoming your entire personality📈The important reason Victoria still prioritises investing over putting all her money into her mortgage CHECK OUT THE SOTM INVESTING HUB: Full of our best investing freebies, resources, courses and podcast episodes here. INVESTING FOR BEGINNERS: All our best beginner's investing podcast episodes in one place here.SHARESIES CODE MENTIONED IN THE EP: Sign up for the investing platform Sharesies, use the code SOTM10 and deposit any amount and Sharesies will give you a bonus $10 to invest.  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.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Tii, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan, mumibangada boma ininyalan waka, gaunan yakarumja, wutunarana. 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's here to show you investing is not just for the rich, it's for you too. If one of your goals for 2026 is to start investing and growing your money, today I reckon let's start together. I'm Bec Syed and with me is a woman who has helped thousands of women start investing, Victoria Devine. Isn't that cool? That's really, really cool. That's really cool.

Yeah, that's great for the resume. I was reflecting on that last year because I got asked like, oh, how long have you been in business? Because I think someone was questioning me and I felt really defensive about it. And I was like, well, I've had this business since 2016. And then I was like, hold on. That means in 2026, I've been helping people invest for 10 years.

Yeah. Are you joking? That's crazy. Age is a privilege denied to many, but that made me feel really old. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, oh. Well, when you think about it, actually. Oh, yeah.

Actually, I have been doing this a while, but I love this. I love the impact that we've had. I mean, she's on the money, hasn't been around for 10 years, but me in the finance space has, and that's really exciting. But I adore this time of year. I feel like so many of us are like setting new intentions and setting goals and, you know, I don't want you to set unrealistic goals that's why we're doing an episode like this

but I love this period or this season because as you know Bec I'm not about dramatic transformation and becoming a whole new person when the new year hits because I just think it's so unrealistic but it's more because it's this time of year when people are a bit more open like you feel like you want to change I don't want you to change everything about you but you seem a little be more open to changing your financial habits and putting yourself in a better position than you were in last year I think it makes us very reflective especially after such a usually expensive Christmas New Year's period and we're like oh I really need to get it together and hopefully if you are new to this community that's why you've found us so hello and welcome but for

a lot of our community investing is something that they really want to do but they haven't done yet Yeah. Like they haven't taken the plunge. So this episode is all about helping you take those first steps and getting invested because literally anyone can do it with any amount of money. Absolutely. And it's so empowering. Yeah, it really, really is so exciting. But I do remember you saying last year that your resolution for 2025 was to get more women investing. And it's such a big part of our mission. She's on the money going into 2026. What is the why behind that for you? I mean, it's going to be my resolution every year. I think like, I'm not going to go, oh, I have a different resolution. Like I want more women investing more often because money

gives you freedom and freedom gives you choices and choices give you power. You get the power to choose. Like, and I think a lot of people are like, oh, it'd be nice. Like I want to be rich. Yeah. Like that's great. But I actually just want you to have choice, choice about parenting, choice about leaving a situation you don't want to be in anymore leaving a job that you don't like you know being out one night not feeling safe and having the choice to pay for an uber home like we're not talking about becoming millionaires which we can I will teach you but it's actually about having freedom of choice and freedom of choice is so much more powerful than you think it is and when you don't have it you look at it and go that would be kind of cool and when you do

have it, you become fiercely protective of it and go, oh my God, what was I doing before? My entire nervous system is so much more relaxed now. My whole body feels better just because I'm not in fight or flight all the time. And when you don't have access to money back, you are just in that really insular situation where you're not feeling like you can move forward, but you're just thinking about that day. And that makes you anxious. It's trash. No one should feel like that. And it is really hard to build that freedom from just having a nine to five Monday to Friday job where money comes in and then you spend it and then you go back to work and then next month you get paid again. Your salary pays your present, right? But your investments, they build your

future. And I want you to have a solid and secure future. And I don't think it's a secret that I care probably too much. Um, but I care insanely deeply about helping women invest because that's when magic happens. Like, and that's maybe a little bit selfish. It feels so good. But when your money starts to make money, it's so exciting because that's more freedom. That's, you didn't go to work for that back. And like, you've been investing now for more than 12 months, which is insane and so cool. But like, even you were saying your money make money and you're like, I don't gonna have to go to work for that. That's kind of cool. It's crazy to see. Yeah. And it's not the only way to build wealth. Like you can build wealth by starting a business, which is what I've

done. You could do it through property or you could do it through angel investing, but all of those things are relatively unrelatable. Like, let's be honest, not all of us have the privilege of being able to start a business or the privilege of being able to get onto the property market to make money from it or angel investing. Like, I feel like there are so many podcasts out there being like, oh my God, learn more about angel investing. It's where you invest in other businesses, like small businesses with your capital. So they don't go to a bank for a loan, they go to you. And more often than not, you might take a small shareholding in that business because you really believe in it. But again, that's a privilege and it's not that relatable

and it's fraught with so much more risk than just entering the share market and doing the arguably most boring option. And that's why I love the share market so much and teaching women about it because it's one of the most accessible places to begin your wealth creation journey. You can have all that. If you think that stuff's sexy, same queen, but we can have that later. We don't need to get complex. We just need to get basic. And if you're not doing basic well, how on earth do you think you're going to be really good at the property market? How on earth do you think that you're going to angel invest if you've never invested in the share market once? sure like to me it seems insane and the other thing that I think we need to touch on because

I feel like I'm a bit ranty already welcome to 2026 you don't need hours of your free time to commit to this you don't need to like do six years of deep diving before we dive in you don't need a huge income you don't need a deposit you don't need a bank to approve you you just need to download an app and start like yeah some apps you can invest with as little as one cent back that's so sorry I cannot make it more accessible than that and women are not only allowed to do this we are wildly capable at doing this research tells us we are better at doing this than men sure so why are you so scared why are you scared why are you so scared I understand because I was you and I still am actually but so was I and then we learned we were like hold on it's not that hard

if we can do it yeah you can do it just a couple barks every now and then I feel like it's like I tell you what, I miss it. I miss that couple bucks, but it's a way. Do you actually though? Sometimes. No, I often do, but it's a way that's like I still shouldn't access it. I never at a point where I'm like those $3, it's going to save me right now. It's going to put food on the table.

I can look under my car seat and find $3. You know what I mean? So it's like I would otherwise have grabbed it already if it was not so out of reach. So I think it's a great way to. It's like forced savings. but also it's making you money. Exactly, exactly. So it's a new year. So I have to ask what are your personal goals with investing this year? So over the last 12 months, I feel like I have

not slipped off the investing train, but I've made some pretty big money decisions in my personal life. So my husband and I bought a brand new house, which was more expensive than our last house. And I kind of pulled back on our investing a little bit just so that I could really focus on making sure that we had free cash flow to pay for all the incidentals and like, you know, obviously settle a loan and all of that was well and good, but we kind of pulled back on our investing journey because I was like, okay, like we only have so much cash flow here. Like, don't get me wrong, very fortunate. And we're in a very secure financial position, but I think anyone going through the purchase of a new home that, you know, you're looking at the mortgage going,

that's going to be a lot more. Let's just pull back on other stuff so that we can see how it kind of comes out in the wash. And then from there we will reassess. So my husband and I are going to sit down soon and go, okay, cool. This is what our cashflow for the year is going to look like. This is what we want to invest. This is what we want to save. So we're still investing every single month, but like the minimum amount that I deem acceptable and everything else has kind of been going into our offset account for now. Is that the best thing in the world? like financially no but for my financial security and to feel safe yes um because there's just a lot of costs that have come up this year or the past year that I will not say are unforeseen but like

we've moved into a bigger house Beck yeah we now have more space I needed more furniture like just things like that when you move into a new space you're like oh we have a guest bedroom and no guest beds, like stuff like that, that, you know, is very first world. It's not a problem, but I just want to make sure that I can do that and invest and service our mortgage. So I think for me, it's about just getting everything a little bit more smoothed. I also want to get a little bit more consistent with investing for my kids. So I've spoken about it on the podcast before, and we have set up an investment bond for Harvey and he has that and it just ticks along. and when he was born we put a lump sum of money into that investment bond because that's what

made sense to us and the plan was always to take his birthday and Christmas money if he gets any and pop that into the investment and right now that's just sitting in a savings account. So like it's kind of like cleaning house and doing what I said I was going to do and just make sure that I can automate that because for our kids investments we aren't investing for them every single month or anything like that. I'm like we started with a lump sum that was our strategy like someone else might go, oh, well, we don't have that. And that's fine. We're just going to do it monthly or weekly, or it might just be pocket money or it won't be at all. Because like just side note, if you are not investing for yourself and if you do not have an emergency

fund, I genuinely don't think you should be investing for your kids. Yeah. But that's a side note. But yeah, that's, that's mine. Yeah. I like that. I really like that. So to prepare for this episode specifically, we did ask the community their biggest reasons they're not investing in the share market. And I want to get your thoughts on the most common responses. So 52% said, I don't know enough yet. And it feels too confusing. I broke my heart. I'm like, I'm trying my best guys. What more do you want? No, I get it. You see demystify it somehow. I get it. I get it. And for those of you in that 52%. Yes. So not only have we got this podcast, right? I have a whole investing masterclass, but I will say that is a paid option. And yes,

it is really powerful. And the thousands of women who have done it are all investing and they are doing it really well. And that's a separate community. But aside from that, I have, Bec, this is insane to me, thousands of hours of podcasts for you. And that is really overwhelming. But do you know what our producer Emma did for you? She has made playlists on Spotify so that you can just start from the basics. So I'm not sure, and I cannot remember what the playlist is called, but we will link it in the show notes and it will basically be an end to end. Here's the beginners, because sometimes if you're new to our community or you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by it all, diving into an investment diary might not be the best place for you to start

because you've just dove into content that is all about, oh my gosh, this person has a $50,000 portfolio and this is what it's made up of. And you're like, cool, that's overwhelming. I actually only have $100 and I don't know where to start. So we've put that together so that you don't have to like sift through all of our content and find something that works for you. Like we're just going to give you it on a silver platter and all of that is free. But I feel like we also need to touch on the fact that women consistently score the same as men on financial literacy when they're actually tested. So if I sat you down, gave you a test, women are often going to tell you that they will do worse but they actually do the same as men and the difference there becky's confidence

confidence we just don't believe in ourselves in the way that we should imagine we had confidence she would probably do better yes sometimes i like to just reflect and go what would a mediocre middle-aged white man do and then i do that yeah that's a good it's really empowering it's a good idea yeah i'm like what would craig do you know what craig wouldn't ask whether he's good at investing no no he'd be like I'm Craig I'm really smart I'll be sick at this he'd also just walk across the road without looking yeah how annoying he would and he also doesn't say thanks when he's at the bar like he just takes his beer and walks off yeah no no he doesn't so like we're different because like I'd be like thank you so much for that hope you have a good day anyway what can I

do for you yeah exactly women but women assume that we need to know absolutely everything before We even take the first step, which is wild because men just, they walk across the road. They just walk across the road. You're going to stop, right, Bec? I'm going to wait for that light. You're going to wait for the light, but like, oh, anyway, they'll try something. They'll learn along the way. We need to take a leaf out of that book.

And the truth is that hesitation is actually costing you more than the small mistake that you might make. So like if you got into the share market at the start of last year and you picked a shit ETF? Might've been one that you're like, V, I bought this 12 months ago and we've all done this, right? Like I've even done this in my own portfolio. I'm like, why is she there? Yeah. What, where were your values at Victoria Divine? Like, why did you pick that? And it might've been TikTok hype. It might've been me just Googling stuff and seeing like their marketing and being

like, oh, this is the best ETF. I'm going to pick this. So Beck, the small amount that you're going to have lost on that quote, wrong ETF or wrong share, that's a learning, that's a lesson. And I can almost guarantee that in the wash, it doesn't matter. So you can pick the wrong thing to start, but you're already in the game. Yeah. And then you can shuffle it around and work out what actually fits with your values and sell that and work out what's going on. Because if you are waiting until you feel quote ready, that usually means you're going to wait forever because even starting with like $10 gives you something Google can't. And that is experience. Like something that has stuck with me. And I think it was like a bloody Instagram quote. Ready is not a feeling

ready as a choice. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You don't feel ready. I've never felt ready to do anything. Sure. It's always been, all right, we're just going to do it. Yeah. Okay. Like what would it mean for you to feel quote ready? Oh, you know, everything. Okay. Well, how are you going to know everything if you have no experience? Yeah. Like you learn on the job, Beck. Totally. So I think it's so important that you know that you don't need perfect knowledge. You don't need to have read 10 books. You just need to have read mine. No, I'm joking. But you don't need to understand every single investment under the sun and pick the best one ever. You just need to know enough to take the first step. Yes, absolutely agree. But yeah, honestly, like once you start and once

you download Sharesies or whatever platform you want to use and you start Googling all these different things because it is really, really daunting when you go in there's so many things to choose from. But I just started Googling everything and then just kind of went from there. I just Googled the most, I don't know, popular stock and then kind of just went from there or ETF. But yeah, your journey is your own. But yeah, feel free to reach out to us, listen to all the episodes we have and then maybe do the investing masterclass. So this next stat is, I guess like a little bit lower, but 24% of people said, I don't feel like I have enough money to start, which is also obviously so valid, valid, valid.

You can start with $1. And I mean, I'm going to flip this back to you in a hot second. Yeah. You don't get rich and then invest back. I have not met somebody and you know what? Put your hand up. Call me, come on the show. I got rich from saving. Never heard it. No, nobody gets rich from putting their money in a savings account. Sure. Really? Sorry. You might have $300,000, but it hasn't grown. It hasn't compounded and leave that $300,000 in a savings account for the next 10 years. And I guarantee it'll be worth less. Wow. Like time value of money is so important. Like you need to invest to build wealth. Yeah. But if we go back to 24%, that's a lot of people, that's a quarter of our community who feel like they don't have enough money to invest.

Bec, how much did you start your investing journey with? A free $10 by using the code. Is it code word? Yeah, it's S-O-T-M-10. S-O-T-M-10. Yeah. That's, I got a free $10. So I started with $0 exactly.

So you didn't have anything to invest. You used literal free money, which, you know, not actually meant to be a promo for us, but like you didn't actually have any money to invest. You just decided, I'm going to start with a free $10 and see what happens. Cool. and then after that what was your first contribution um and then after that I genuinely

think it was like five dollars a few weeks later and so I and then I turned on the auto uh roundups in my bank and so every now and then five dollars keeps going in going in going in and then you felt comfy with that so comfy and like some people you can turn on auto invest which means that money just automatically goes somewhere yeah but I have now this paralysis and I just don't know what to choose So I spend a lot of time doing that, but somehow it's really built up over time. So how much is in your investment portfolio now? I genuinely think it's like $1,400. $1,400?

Yeah, isn't that crazy? But okay, let's reframe this. If I said, Bec, you need $1,400 to invest, when would have you started? I still wouldn't have. I still would not have started. But it's easy to start with a free $10 and then go, oh, this feels good. And then invest five bucks. We're not talking thousands here.

but from little things, big things grow. And I'm so sorry, Paul Kelly, I'm going to use your quote a million times over, but there is a platform that will fit your investing journey. So Beck, you're on Sharesies. Yes. I'm on Sharesies. I don't think it's any secret in our community. You need to go do your own research and work out what platform works best for you. But when we look at something like Sharesies, you can literally invest a dollar. Yeah, absolutely. Like you don't have to even start with my discount, which by the way, it's not a referral link. I get nothing for that. You just get a free $10, but like starting small is fine. In fact, I'd prefer you to start small because it doesn't feel scary. Like I want you to be like, well, that was so inconsequential

and didn't feel scary. Good. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. And then you keep doing it again. And then it's a $1,400. Holy guacamole. That's a four figures. Yeah. Beck at some point, that's going to be like a $10,000 investment and that's so exciting because it's compounding and when it's small it's just so smart or I think it's just so smart to start small even if you've been saving up for years right like you've been saving you're like oh my god like and I've met people in our community like this they're like V I've got like 50 grand in my account queen that's amazing they're like I really want to invest it but like I just don't know what in I'm like start with the dollar. Yes, you've got 50,000. We can get that into the share market. But like, I would

never recommend you go and drop your first 50 grand into the market on the first day. Sure. You're going to shit yourself back. Yeah, that's so true. You'll be so scared. What if next week the market drops? You'd think that you'd made the worst mistake ever. You'd take all your money out and never look at investing again. Yeah, that's so true. But if it was $5 here and there and you're watching the market ebb and flow yeah sorry what matters isn't the size of your first investment it's building that investing habit which beck has and now she's a little consistent investor yeah that's so crazy and that's way cooler than waiting until you're rich and also it just kind of feels like a game it's really fun i love opening it up i'm kind of checking it as much as i check

instagram you know so another thing that came up a lot in the comments um was that it kind of felt too risky like it felt like gambling or something it's nothing like gambling like nothing like gambling and i get that i get that narrative because it's come from people who don't understand investing talk to anybody in finance and be like is investing gambling not one of you will agree like not one person in the finance industry will your hairdresser might your mechanic might a doctor might smart people might that have no education around financial literacy might but where's that narrative coming from to begin with. Yeah. Why do you think it is risky? Yeah. Oh, because my uncle's friend's brother's dog invested during the GFC and, you know, lost everything. I get it.

But like, let's look at the things that he held. They were arguably probably very risky because if they had purchased the ASX top 200 or if they had purchased the S&P 500, you wouldn't have lost money if you'd stayed invested. In fact, you would have made more money because there was such a big market drop. If you held on while the roller coaster was going down and you were willing to ride it back up, you are rich now. Yeah. People lose money because they pull out of things when things seem scary. People lose money because they make investments that probably weren't aligned to their risk profile. All investment is going to come with risk and reward, right? There's a whole risk reward chart. That is true for every asset class, including the cash sitting in your bank.

There is risk and reward. There's low risk with the cash sitting in your bank. Yeah. There's low reward as well. Inflation is more than your savings rate. True. Buying property has risks. In fact, I would say in 2026, buying property has more risks than it did 30 years ago. Starting a business, massive risk, massive rewards if it goes well. Putting your money into the share market has risk. The question isn't, is there risk? The question is, how do we manage for risk? The question is, how much risk are you willing to take on? Yes. Not gambling. Gambling, it's just risky. The odds are terrible. Like if- That's so true. It's how they make money.

Yeah, exactly. And the share market isn't there to just like take advantage of you and make money from you. The share market benefits when you make money. Yeah. The share market does not benefit when you're losing money, Bec, because they're losing money too. Astronomical amounts of it. True. Gambling, they make money when you lose money. Exactly. In the share market, they don't make money when you lose money. They lose more than you and they're pretty pissed about it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Exactly. Yes. If you put all of your money into one company that you saw some guy on TikTok talking about guaranteeing this absolutely going to blow up. Yeah, that's high risk. I would argue that that's very close to gambling because he has not even studied finance.

He's just got a big yapping mouth. That's not the kind of investing that we talk about in this aspect. That is not what we do. We are talking about diversification. We are talking about stable, strong, steady companies. We love a blue chip stock. We love something that is so boring, but consistent. I just want to know that they're going to be at dinner on time. Yeah. When you diversify, which means spreading all of your money across lots of different companies and industries, you dramatically decrease your risk. Now that doesn't mean go and just like buy heaps of random companies and like hold it in your portfolio because you are not an investing expert and diversification doesn't just mean going and buying like what

30 different random companies and hoping one of them works out. Diversification is being smart about it. It is going and going, all right, well, I'm not good at this. Maybe an ETF is the best possible way for me. I know that if I purchase this particular ETF, it's going to be the top performing hundred companies in Australia. Or I know this ETF is really great tech companies because someone has gone and curated that list for me who is an investing expert. So diversification is important. Don't just go, oh, all of my eggs in random baskets in companies that people have never heard about. But a broad ETF, if you're starting, can often be a really great choice because it gives you tiny slices of hundreds of companies. And that's the opposite of gambling.

That's the definition of risk management. Got you. Okay. But we're managing our risk by taking people's advice who know what they're talking about. the dramatic risk that people picture when it comes to shares is like the whole market collapsing and never ever coming back yeah it just kind of sounds scary right that does sound scary but historically after every single major crash in history beck not just like recent in history in the history of all of the share markets in all of the world yeah markets have recovered and they've gone to hit new highs crazy they've gone all the way down to the bottom and everyone absolutely cacks it. Yes. And then if you stay on the roller coaster, you make even more money.

You know what? That's so great. When I see a market dip, a lot of people do panic. Don't panic. Why are we panicking in the dip? Go look at the research, go look at the history. And we always have to say past performance is not a reliable predictor of future performance because I need to make sure that you're not, you know, assuming that things will always happen the same way because there has also never been a market dip that has replicated the last market dip so like if we go back to global financial these are like the more recent ones but if we we could go all the way back to the recession right recession global financial crisis uh the great depression we could talk about the covid dip none of the things that have happened historically

have replicated themselves because the market grows and learns and then like kind of risk protects themselves to make sure that particular thing doesn't happen again, but something else might happen. But we always want to rebuild. So it's not just about Beck losing money. Multi-million dollar, multi-billion dollar companies are losing money and they are putting the smartest people at the top of those companies to go, you fix this, you get this ship back on the road. And they do. It takes a while, but we have never not seen a market recover from a crash and then make even more money. Yeah.

Like that's crazy. That's a pretty good deal, I reckon. Yeah. And the most overlooked risk is actually just doing nothing. So like that can be a really good thing because like, you know, if the market's crashing, Bec, I would hope that you don't panic and pull your money out and we do nothing.

That's a really good plan. But if you're not doing anything to begin with and all of your money is sitting in a savings account and it's losing buying power every single year, Queen, that's a loss. that's a guaranteed loss that's so if your money is sitting in your savings account yeah i actually don't even need to caveat this i can guarantee in 10 years it will buy you so much less stuff yeah it's not gonna have the same power that i had today god she's so so annoying aren't i no no

it's so true i leave it in your savings account that's cool it feels safe it feels secure right now because it's right there and you can touch it it'd be worth less one be worth less god i did sorry about that it feels safe right now because it's not moving right yeah it's kind of like you get to the beach and you're standing on the pier and you're like well the boat's not rocking so like i feel quite safe standing on the pier yes the boat's gonna go over there and you you won't be able to get to the boat yeah yeah i yeah guaranteed loss just not doing anything is putting future you at a massive disadvantage fair okay so we're gonna go to a really quick break and when we get back via i'm gonna get to the juicy stuff we're not in the juicy stuff of

me shaming you to keep your money yeah okay prepared to be grilled on how you would be investing in 2026 if you had to start again oh yeah so i've got no investments you got nothing all right all right i'm ready so don't go anywhere okay guys we are back and v i need you to hear me for just just one second all right so close your eyes and imagine when you open them you're still you okay same brain same experience but every dollar you've ever invested is gone so you're like completely starting from scratch it's a bit trash and so for the rest of this episode i want you i want to know exactly how that version of victoria would invest like the not past victoria how she started and grew her

portfolio but like i have no money in investments at all nothing do i have any money in my savings account you maybe you have in your savings account but no you don't have it how much should i get in my savings account. I have no houses. You have no assets. All right. I'm in, but of course I want to give everybody a reminder. I feel like this could very easily teeter onto financial advice, but you're not going to see it that way. Are you? No. So I'm going to answer these questions for me. This is what I would do personally. If I was starting over with the knowledge and the skills and the research and the tools that I have now for me personally, not what somebody who has the same $500 we might I don't know what your example is going to be but not what everyone

should do what Victoria would do okay okay that's a great caveat because I feel like I don't want to give financial advice I don't need to start my 2026 off with a nasty food no just we don't need it we don't need it ideally that's not the energy we're welcoming this year so this is purely Victoria's kind of advice for herself and not for anyone else yeah it's not advice. It's just what Victoria would do. It's what you would do. Yeah. Like how I wear rose gold jewelry, but not everyone likes rose gold jewelry. Exactly. Exactly. Perfect. Okay. So a few other points to keep in mind for the rest of this episode. Also, you are like a typical She's the Money community member. So you want financial freedom and to build wealth. Yeah.

You can't go all in, in the share market because you have other financial responsibilities too. but you can afford a small amount each week. Okay. You have too much going on in your life to make investing your whole personality. Oh, do you relate to that? Not really. It's going to be hard because I feel like investing is my whole personality. Feel free to come to brunch with me, but I'm ready. I'm ready. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's definitely not my personality. What are you talking about? I'm actually really cool. She's really cool. You guys. When we asked the community about why they weren't investing, a few said they are prioritizing paying everything on their mortgage instead. And I've already said that you have other financial

responsibilities. So let's say one of them is a mortgage. Okay. I get to keep my house in this situation. That's nice. Exactly. You do in this situation. Would you still be putting a small amount of money into the share market and why? Yeah. Yeah, I would. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I have a mortgage. You have a mortgage. You don't have, you don't have heaps of disposable income. No, no, no, no. And, but like in my personal situation, you've taken everything from me, but I still have my mortgage. And even though my mortgage is very large and it's a very big financial responsibility for my family, I'm still investing. Yes. Because. Okay. If I had a mortgage and had money left over after making those repayments, cause like also there are going

to be people in our community. And this is me, they're not giving advice on me. I'm like, oh, but caveat this, caveat that. There are going to be people in our community who want to invest and have a mortgage, but they don't have the free cash flow. That's cool. We've got to do what we've got to do. But like in this example, I've got my mortgage and I have free cash flow. I'm just going to pretend I've got a hundred bucks a month. Is that fair? Like that feels like a good amount, but like not too much, but also some people might not have a hundred, but some people might have 500, but I feel like a hundred, it's just a round number. All right. Yeah. That's so fair. It could be a dollar. It could be $2. Anyway. Yep. But if I had a mortgage and had

that amount of money left over, I'd still be putting it into the share market because from a financial strategy perspective, I don't want all of my wealth tied up in one asset. Yep. I also am a very firm believer that your family home is not an asset that can be relied upon for wealth creation. Because even if we get to 60 and my husband and I have paid off our house in its entirety and we're completely mortgage free, that would be so hard. That would be really cool. But if we're completely mortgage free and let's pretend my house has tripled in value. Yeah. To access that value, I actually have to sell my house and move somewhere else. Yeah. I don't want to sell my house. I want to have other assets so I can stay in the house that I've

actually worked for the last 30 years to pay off and I love and I don't want to move and even if my house is worth triple every other house in the area is probably also worth triple yeah so I could sell my house and like have a tree change or a sea change but I don't want to do that and most people don't right like you buy your family home and you've created all these memories in it I don't want to have to sell that asset to still be able to afford to live I think it's important to continue to invest on the side because if you wait until your mortgage is feeling like really comfortable, girl, you're losing 5, 10, maybe 15 years of compounding interest. That's money that your money makes. And at the moment, my mortgage is sitting at about 5% and the share market on

average returns between 9.5 and 11%. Yeah, true. So if I'm going to pay stuff off, I'd actually prefer to have my mortgage for a little bit longer back and be in debt for longer because it's good debts, creating wealth. It's like for a big asset, it's not personal debt. For sure. And also be investing alongside and making my investing money work for me. So that means that starting sooner would be a priority. So this extra $100 that I could afford to invest or I could afford to put on my mortgage to me personally is going to have more power in the share market. So I'm choosing to put it in the share market. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Love that. Love that. So we've established that you do want to start investing in 2026. What is the first thing you would do?

This is so unsexy. I thought that I was going to become cool girl, but I've just gone back to being nerdy girl and that's fine. I'm actually going to do a budget because if I want to commit to something, like I've said to you that I want to commit to this $100 a month, but have I worked out what my son's birthday presents are going to be? Have I worked out what my car insurance and rego for 2026 is going to be? Everything's going to change a bit. Like, you know, when was the last time I renegotiated my phone plan? So I want to do my budget and make sure that if I said I have a hundred dollars, I actually do. Because if you're putting money into the share market, I don't want you to have to pull it out. So we just want to make sure that the money that we

put aside, we don't have to touch. So I've decided I've done my budget and that number does fit into my life. So I can do that. And if you haven't done your budget yet, I'm so sorry. I'll give you permission. You're having a date night with yourself. Get a nice little bowl of wine. If you don't drink wine, get a nice cup of tea, go to my website and download the free budget that is on there and do that. I've made it as user-friendly as possible. Like I promise it's not as overwhelming as you think it is. It will show you very clearly what's coming in, what's going out and what's left that you can build this habit with. And that's what I'm going to do. That's like, you're telling me I'm starting from scratch. I've got this mortgage. I don't know where my stuff is. I

don't know where my money is. I don't invest. But once I've worked out that weekly or fortnightly or monthly number, even if it's tiny, that becomes my starting point. Compounding only works, Bec, if you stay in the game, that's why we need to know what that number is. And then we don't pull it out because if you pull it out, fruitless. Yeah. I'm here to make money and I'm here to make my money, make money. And I want that to be consistent. So consistency matters more than your enthusiasm. You can be so excited, but if you haven't budgeted properly, that excitement is going to turn into disappointment real quick. Next, I would be making sure that my financial foundations are staying strong. So I'm not investing if I don't have an emergency fund.

So I'm just going to audit, have I got an emergency fund? Most people want between three and six months worth of expenses. So I'm going to make sure my husband and I have that before I start. I'm going to make sure that I can pay my bills and cover all of the essentials because I'm investing for the longterm. Like I just don't want to be ever in a situation where I am forced to sell my investments because life threw a curve ball my way. That's what your emergency fund is for. Yeah. Before I invest a single dollar as well, I'd really want to be clear on my goals because your goals decide your strategy, not the other way around. Because investing, if you've gone, oh, Beck, I want to retire at 40. That is very different in terms of strategy than if you

were like, well, actually I'm investing so that when my kids turn 25, I can give them a house deposit. Yeah. Like that's a different strategy again, because they require different amounts and require different access points. Absolutely. Okay. So this is kind of a big one. We're now in the research phase. I need to know what you're doing to avoid analysis paralysis.

If we're being real, I got a little bit of that. Okay. So I'll play into that a little bit, but that can't control our narrative. That can't stop us. Yeah. I'd be giving myself some boundaries. so in the same way that if you're at uni or if you're at school and you have an assignment due so crazy how you can whip out a whole assignment if the due date is friday we are giving ourselves

a due date of when we want to start investing so we aren't just talking about like oh i'm going to do my hundred dollars a month we are talking i'm going to do my hundred dollars a month and i want to make my first investment by the 28th of February. Or you know what, that's too far away by the end of January. And you can then go learn all of the basics of ETFs, of diversification, understand the fees. Like you're going to spend a couple of hours on these probably like just deep diving, hopefully on your laptop while you watch like Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which I'm obsessed with. And then you're going to make a few decisions. The decisions that you make today for these ETFs might not align to future you. And that is okay because they're going to

teach you what future you wants. Beginners don't need to understand everything. Beginners just need to understand enough to be dangerous. You just need to understand enough to get started. My mom used to always tell me, Victoria, you do not need to know everything in the world, but you need to know enough to be dangerous and I'd be like what does that mean and basically I just need to know enough about everything so that I could walk into a meeting let's pretend I'm walking into a meeting because I'm building a brand new house with an architect I need to kind of know what he does as his job you know what the biggest pitfalls in the industry are and the questions I need to ask him I don't need to know how he does his job but I need to be able to walk in and decipher whether

he's the architect for me or not yeah I need to go in and be like oh cool so how did your last project finish or hey so what would this look like or what what hidden fees and expenses might exist in this process for me you need to know enough to ask the questions that are going to cover your butt yeah but you don't need to know the ins and outs of absolutely everything okay okay and that is fine we have created and you're not going to be surprised by this another playlist on Spotify but it is the investing playlist with all of our investing episodes that I will make sure is in the show notes for you. But we also have an investing resource hub on our website that I will link as well with heaps of free resources. Money win. I also want to narrow

my options early. So like analysis paralysis happens when we stay way too diversified for too long. Like as in, in our thoughts, not diversified in the share market, but like you're looking at, let's say instead of researching 25 different ETFs, that's wild. I would never. I didn't even used to research 25 ETFs for my clients when I was a financial advisor, Bec. That's astronomical. Yeah. I'd actually be going, okay, cool. What are my values? What are my resources? Like for me, I already know in my head that I would want something Australian. And then I probably want some international market diversification. So I'm going to narrow those options early and I'm going to take a look at a few Australian ETFs,

a few global ones, compare those and pick from it. And that's it. We're not looking at 25 options. No, if you can help it. And I mean, I've definitely looked at more than 25 options, but you shouldn't even have 25 options in your portfolio. So whatever the temptation to deep dive. Yes. Every single technical detail, because you want to feel empowered is going to be really strong, especially for women, because we are so conditioned to feeling like we need to know everything back before we even get started. Girl, you don't, you actually don't. Some of the best investors I know were like, oh, so yeah, just heard about this app one time, downloaded it. Yeah. Just looked up Australian ETF and now my portfolio is like, I don't know,

a hundred grand. And you're like, how? Exactly. Where did you get the audacity? Your first investment. Yeah. It's just a starting point. It's not a lifelong commitment. You're not getting married to it. No, you can change it anytime. So what are the three things you would make sure you understand before you start it? Me. Okay. I want to understand me. Before you even look at a platform, before you even look at an ETF, before you even understand what ETF means, what's your risk profile? Are you like real conservative or are you really risky? I'm pretty risky for this. We'll just pretend I'm mediocre, like, and I'm sitting in the middle, which I feel like most of our She's On The Money community are sitting in a growth

like situation because I've surveyed so many of you, but your risk profile isn't about being like brave or being cautious. It's actually about knowing how much movement you can emotionally tolerate. Yeah. The market is psychological and you hate to hear it, but it's literally psychological and you need to work out how much you can emotionally tolerate losing without panicking or feeling really tempted to sell. Because if I said to you, Beck, sign into your shares his account right now. Have a look. You think it's at about $1,400. How would you feel if it was under a thousand dollars? It would be scary, but I think I would be like, this is a good time to buy. Okay. And that's the right mindset. But some people will feel that pit in

the bottom of their stomach and freak out and be like, oh my God, I need to get out. I need to sell. We need more education in that particular situation, but we need to know how much you can tolerate it going up and down because yes, it's so exciting when you log in and maybe that $1,400 was $1,600, you'd be like, oh my God, slay. But like you can equally lose money. Yeah. And it's the ebb and the flow of every day that we need to understand. So your risk profile is really important. I'd also want to understand, well, what does normal market behavior look like? Because you know how I say, oh, what can you tolerate? You're like, why would you be asking me what would happen if my share portfolio dropped in value by 20%

tomorrow right it's just to like give you an example but like go look at what the market does on average the market crashes every seven years can you handle that yeah on average the market ebbs and flows sometimes Donald Trump says something wild and the market goes insane go have a look at that and see what happens after those events happen yeah they recover yeah so i'm going to get really comfortable with that because some people when they see a drop they might interpret it in a way that they go oh my goodness something is wrong but i don't interpret it that way i literally see it as part of how the market works but if you know ahead of time that your investment i guarantee beck one day you're going to log in and you're going to

be disappointed with it. It is going to decline and declines are expected, but they are also temporary. You are far less likely to then sell on a bad day and lock in a loss. And then the last thing I want you to understand is diversification. You are not putting all of your eggs in one basket. It's really about spreading your money across lots of different companies and markets so that you're not relying on any single thing to perform perfectly. You just need overall consistent performance from a market. It's one of literally the simplest ways to manage risk. It's how I manage risk in my portfolio. It's how every single one of my ex financial advice clients managed risk. It's how anybody in the market manages risks. Warren Buffett manages

risk this way. He like everybody who's good at investing does this, right? Especially when you are starting out and a broad ETF actually does that for you automatically. So you don't even have to think about it, Bec. So for me, I think it comes down to those three things. So understanding myself, understanding how markets move and what their behaviors look like, or what the behavior of a market looks like and understanding how diversification is a protection for me. And once I have those pieces, I think that investing feels a lot less overwhelming. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I love that. So what's something you wouldn't bother stressing about at the start? I'm not picking a perfect investment yep yep yeah i'm just picking a investment in fact a perfect investment doesn't

exist yeah if it did i'd be so rich beck yeah because i would have worked it out um but historically and this is backed by data a basic diversified etf has beaten like it's performed better than most active investors over the long term so if you take an etf just one single product and compare it to someone who is like going and picking individual stocks and shares and trading them consistently and looking at portfolio all the time, the ETF still does better. Yeah. Annoying, right? I know. Annoying. But I also wouldn't stress about trying to time the market because like you didn't tell me that I had a really big lump sum that I need to invest. I'm just going to start investing tomorrow. I'm not worried. Like, yes, I need to understand what the market's

doing, but I'm not going to go, oh, the market's down this week or the market's up this week. I'm just going to chuck my first hundred bucks in and then I'm going to do that every month. Yeah. And I'm just going to do that consistently because you cannot predict what the market is going to do next month. You are not going to predict the perfect moment to buy. Not even experts do that well. Sadly, they don't want to hear that, but they don't do it well because you can't time the market. So starting now with very small, very consistent contributions is actually going to beat trying to time the market. In fact, if, and I might not get this stat right, but I can find it for you make an Instagram post about it but if we look over a 30-year period of somebody

who has tried to time the market and they miss the four biggest days in the market because they were like waiting the biggest day happened they invested the next day compared to somebody who just like dropped their money in every month consistently and didn't care those four biggest days make up more than 50% of their portfolio performance yeah I see so dumb yeah just invest consistently I don't know how to tell you this. You can't time the market. Yeah. If somebody could time the market, Beck, I would be deep diving and learning how to do that because I am nerdy as all get out. And I would want to do that myself. I don't even do it. I think it's four days, specific days. So just like, that's the average of like how many days are like. It's insane. Just stay invested

consistently. Another answer we got when we asked why people weren't investing was that they were stuck on the platform. So how are you choosing yours and what features are you looking for? So platform is hard because I think investors care too much about which platform they use. Yeah. Okay. So you go, oh my God, I'm going to go and take the four biggest platforms in Australia and I'm going to compare them all. And then you start caring about the tiny nuances that you don't even understand. And you get analysis paralysis when in reality, download two, download three. I don't care. Play with the app. See how the app performs. I invest on shares as you invest

on shares is it wasn't the only, and I have a lot of investing platforms. So I probably have upwards of like 15 investing platforms just because I'm a nerd. And I want to make sure that if like you as a, she's on the money listener, um, messages me and goes, Oh, I'm with this niche one. I'm like, Ooh, I've, I've had a turn. I have five bucks on that. Tax time is so trash for me. My accountant wants to kill me. I'm pretty sure because I'm like, here is all of my investing stuff. And he's like, why do you have $5 on that random platform? I'm like, just so I can access it just so they can talk to my community about it. But like most of my money is sitting on sharesies. And the reason for that is I just like the app. I like the way that it works. I like its

interface. I like its research. And I know that through trial and error. Yeah. Because I've downloaded them and had a play with them and decided that maybe isn't for me. And I really like practical things. So you might go, oh, I want to be with self-wealth. And I go, great, go with self-wealth. Minimum investment to even start on the platform's $500. Yeah. Well, that's probably not going to work because I already told you that I only have $100 a month in free cashflow. So that platform's probably not for me. Sure. That's fine. Cause I actually don't want that. Maybe you're really interested in fees. Like for me, pay peanuts, get monkeys. So like, I'm not worried about getting the lowest fees ever. I'm worried about getting value in

exchange for my fees. Sure. So if a platform is more expensive, but it gives me access to like additional research and like I like the tools and the resources and I'm investing more because of that, that's a good investment, right? So I want good value, not necessarily the cheapest. The cheapest platform honestly is pointless if I hate using it or I find it confusing or overwhelming. So it needs features that I want. I also personally want an app that's easy to navigate. I don't like again and I'm not throwing self-wealth under the bus. I have self-wealth and for years when I was a financial advisor, that was my primary platform, but they are definitely more old school. It's not got a good user interface on my phone. If I'm, you know, on the train and I want to invest a hundred

dollars, I can just do it through the Sharesies app. So app was really important to me. And if it's clunky or I hate using it, I don't want to be put off investing. And then for me, I'm an ADHD girly so automation is literally my savior for some people you really like doing it manually pop off queen could never be me um like if we are talking about this hundred dollars beck i'm setting up a direct debit every month for the hundred dollars and then i'm just like not thinking about it too deeply easy does the platform auto invest so automation for me is the biggest behavior hack for anything when it comes to your money cool yeah i like so for me like out of sight out of mind. And if I forgot to do it and it immediately happens because I set it up last time. Yeah.

Things pass me. You're looking out for future me. Absolutely. Okay. So it's time to make your first investment or investments. What are you choosing and why? Something really exotic and complicated. Okay. My first investment, honestly, so boring. I reckon I would probably just pick one ETF. I know that in my portfolio, if I'm starting from scratch, I probably want at least two ETFs. I want an Australian one and I want an international one, but I'm not going to split this early. I'm just going to get one. So I'm probably going to pick an Australian one just because it feels a little bit safer, a little bit less rocky, not in a bad way, but like I just, I live in Australia. I feel very comfortable with the list of brands on an Australian ETF

because like they're brands I've seen and know. So my first investment's really boring. I'm looking probably for an ETF that's broad and diversified in a good way so that I get exposure to a really big chunk of the market instantly. I'm looking, yeah, locally. It might be an ETF that tracks the Australian market. So it could be something like an ASX top 200. So I might be investing in banks, mining, healthcare, retail companies that I interact with every day. That feels kind of comfy. Why? Because at this stage, we're not chasing returns. I'm just chasing consistency. I'm not trying to blow the market out of the water. I'm not trying to turn my $100 into $1,000 in the first year. Just my $100 needs to be consistent. And a broad ETF is going to give

me that diversification. It's going to feel relatively low stress and it's going to take the pressure off me to pick anything like perfect. And it becomes the foundation that I can then build from later. And once I've created that habit and I feel more confident making decisions, I could maybe have a few things that are a little bit more fun, but I'm starting boring, honestly. Yep. Now you go to hit buy, but all of a sudden you freeze and you're overwhelmed by fear. What are you telling yourself to overcome this? Well, I'm not risking my life savings. if I am I'm not doing it yeah like if that hundred dollars is your life savings cut that out yeah go build your emergency fund like I'm genuine about that too like investing is my biggest passion in

life you should not be doing it unless you have a level of foundational financial security I'm putting I would argue a small manageable amount into a diversified investment so that I can learn by doing it. Do you know what? If I lost absolutely everything, if I lost a hundred dollars, but I gained a heap of education and knew what to do better and different next time, I actually think that's a good deal still. Yep. Absolutely. I'd remind myself that this isn't a lifelong commitment. Putting a hundred dollars into an ETF. I have spent more on espresso martinis for my girlfriends on a night out, like contextualize it. And if you're going Victoria, a hundred dollars. Are you kidding? That's an astronomical amount. Don't start with

that then. Start with five dollars. I think all of us can be relatively frivolous when it comes to money. What's your frivolous amount? Start there. If a hundred dollars feels too much, don't do it. Do it with $20 and start there. Do it with $10. Do it with the free $10 you can get if you use our discount code. Like, or not discount code, referral code or whatever we want to call it. And I also would remind myself like, this is really normal. Like being scared of something is normal. Every single investor feels that for the first time. Like you don't just go, I'm amazing. I'm an amazing investor. I just invested my first $100 and I had no qualms and wasn't even worried. It just doesn't happen. You're always a little bit like, oh, I just don't

want to do the wrong thing. Who cares if you did the wrong thing? We can fix it later. I can sell that and buy something that's more in line with a different value set that you have. Yeah. And I'd remind myself of the research and go, oh my God, Victoria Devine, you are playing into the stereotype. Cut that out because women score just as high on financial literacy as men. The thing that we underestimate is ourselves. Yeah. What are you doing in that moment when you're like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. Underestimating yourself. So I'd have a good hard look in the mirror and be like, Victoria Devine, get it together. Fear does not mean that we are not ready. It just means that we care and caring is cool. Yeah. I want you to care about

your financial future. I want you to care about future you. You caring and you being fearful is because you want future you to be in a better position, right? So if you're scared to make that decision, I get it because we don't want to disadvantage ourselves. So true. But you're not. What would Craig do? Exactly. What would Craig do? And finally, I would then remind myself that the the hardest part is actually that first purchase. Yeah. Once you press buy once, then you're like, oh, okay. I'm in the game. I'm an investor. You're an investor. That's it. Then it becomes addictive a little bit. So you've made your first investment. Now looking forward to the rest of the year, what are your goals in your first year? And what are you putting in place to keep yourself

on track throughout the year? As I said to you, I want to just be consistent. I'm not chasing massive returns. So I'm staying consistent and I'm automating it because can't be trusted. Yeah. and even if you can be trusted just automate it it makes your life easier less life admin less life admin more life better you're also going to ignore the daily noise at the start I get it you're going to look at the investing app every day it's fun it's novel it's new yeah but like just don't consistently check it if it's fueling your anxiety um I'm going to add to my education slowly so as you said I'm just a community member i'm not victoria i'm gonna listen to my podcast maybe every week i'm gonna listen to a podcast

or i'm gonna read an article just one idea at a time we're not trying to like oversaturate ourselves like you don't need to cram like you're like going to an exam on friday and you need to get as much information in as possible in fact all of that information did you ever do that at school where you just like crammed the night before or you like crammed for a week and then had an exam. And then if I asked you about it two weeks later, you forgot all the information. Absolutely. So dumb. Don't do that. Just small, consistent pieces of information will stick better with you. Absolutely. And then build out an entire portfolio slowly, not immediately. So you know how I said before, like I want at least two ETFs in that because I've only got

a hundred bucks, but I'm going to purchase one to start with. So we're going to start with simple and then we can expand once our habit is strong. So, you know, for the first couple of months, I might just do, you know, my first month might be a hundred dollars on that Australian ETF. And then I might go, Oh, I'm going to buy an international one the second month. So then I've got two. And then maybe every month after that, I might split it like $50 in each. And then I might have, I don't know, we'll get to a thousand dollars after like 10 months. Right. Then I might go, Oh, maybe this month I'll do a little like satellite investment or something. or I might like buy a share that my friends and I've been talking about. And I just want to have

a little bit of exposure, but I'm going to take 10 bucks out of my hundred dollars. And I'm going to buy, you know, it might be a beauty company or something that we both like really passionate about or something. I'm going to buy that, but I'm going to then still split the amount between my base because I want to have that core satellite approach. I want to have really strong foundation and then you can have fun too. But also you don't have to have fun if you don't want to if you're not an investing girly in the same way that i am where i love deep diving on individual shares you might be like what's the point oh you don't have to do the satellite part you could just always have those two etfs and you'll be fine queen sure but like if you want

to have more fun because you've gotten interested in it sure then you can do that too absolutely what is the one thought you were making victoria who's starting from scratch knows about that it's boring. Boring. Boring wins. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Like simple is usually the winner. Absolutely. And I don't want to tell you that because that sounds boring, but diversified strategy is going to get you further than trying to be clever. Yeah. You're trying to be clever. Sometimes it just falls over. One of the most powerful things that you can do when it comes to investing is time in the market. I can't yell that enough. It's time in the market, not timing the market. the earlier you start, the less you will have to invest over the long term of your own money

to get to your goal. Do it. Get it. Go invest. What are you doing? This has been so motivating. And that's exactly the energy we want you to take in 2026. You're not behind. You've not missed your window. Your fresh start can literally be today, right now. Yeah, I think that there's this misconception that you feel behind and they go, oh, I'm starting from scratch. And we've used that a little bit today. You've been like, V, if you were starting from scratch, what would you do? And I don't love that terminology. Like I'm not starting from scratch, Beck. I'm starting from here. Like, I don't want you to feel like you're behind. You're not behind. If you've never invested before, you're not behind anybody. You're actually only competing with yourself. You're starting from

here. So we're starting from today. It doesn't matter what you did before. So like maybe we reframe that idea of starting from scratch and just going, yes, I can have a fresh start, but I'm just starting from here. This is my investing journey and it starts here. For sure. And I think that that's really exciting. And if this episode hopefully has made you feel more confident about investing, please don't forget to hit subscribe because we've got so much more investing content just like this planned for this year. And we are so excited about it. So let's make 2026 like our rich girl investing era. And if you can't wait, my friend, don't worry. You don't need heaps of new content. We have two full playlists of investing episodes that are planned right now.

they're in the show notes. We've got all the episodes that we think you should start with as a beginner and then all of our investing content in another playlist. So go and absorb that. We will see you on Friday. Bye guys. 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.

Thank you.