For our final episode in our 2024 Summer Series, we're welcoming Amanda, an extraordinary guest who is not only a TPC listener but also an empowering qualified property investment advisor at Ben's advisory!
Today, she's sharing an incredibly eye-opening and gut-wrenching story...
Amanda grew up in an environment where...
"Money was frequently used as one of the tools on the coercive control toolbelt by my dad... There was also financial inequity between the males and females in my family growing up."
From battling psychological, physical and financial abuse to rebuilding her family's life from scratch after a life-changing epiphany, we're unpacking a tale that demonstrates Amanada's strength and determination at every turn.
But this story isn't just about Amanda.
We also get to celebrate how her inspirational supermum escapes from this abusive relationship and takes control of her future – also using property as a vehicle! 🙌🙌🙌
It's a truly impactful and heartwarming story – we're finishing our 2024 Summer Series with a guest we're so proud to have on the couch and in our team.
LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
MOORR MONEY MANAGEMENT APP:
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
- Website
- Instagram
- Facebook
- Youtube
For our final episode in our 2024 Summer Series, we're welcoming Amanda, an extraordinary guest who is not only a TPC listener but also an empowering qualified property investment advisor at Ben's advisory!
Today, she's sharing an incredibly eye-opening and gut-wrenching story...
Amanda grew up in an environment where...
"Money was frequently used as one of the tools on the coercive control toolbelt by my dad... There was also financial inequity between the males and females in my family growing up."
From battling psychological, physical and financial abuse to rebuilding her family's life from scratch after a life-changing epiphany, we're unpacking a tale that demonstrates Amanada's strength and determination at every turn.
But this story isn't just about Amanda.
We also get to celebrate how her inspirational supermum escapes from this abusive relationship and takes control of her future – also using property as a vehicle! 🙌🙌🙌
It's a truly impactful and heartwarming story – we're finishing our 2024 Summer Series with a guest we're so proud to have on the couch and in our team.
LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
MOORR MONEY MANAGEMENT APP:
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
- Website
- Instagram
- Facebook
- Youtube
All right, folks, welcome back to the Property Couch podcast on what is the last episode of this year's Summer Series. And, folks, are we going out with a bang Because this story is powerful? Today we are talking to an investor who was subject to coercive control around money at home growing up and the story about how she broke free from this financial abuse. What else do we cover, then?
Speaker 2:Well, Bryce, you know this is a story close to both of our hearts on many fronts, but what I love about this is when you face those challenges, how you overcome them and the inspiration that you get from overcoming them. So in this case, we hear great inspiration and great motivation from her mum as well.
Speaker 1:This is an inspiring story, folks. Let's rip into it now.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Property Couch where, each week, you get to listen to two of Australia's leading property and money experts Bryce Holdaway, co-host of Location Location, location Australia on FoxTel's Lifestyle Channel and co-host of Escape from the City on the ABC. And Ben Kingsley, chair of Property Investors Council of Australia and a back-to-back winner of the Property Investment Advisor of the Year Award. And both the partners of the multi-award winning Empower Wealth, co-creators of more, the free lifestyle design app, as well as bestselling authors of the Armchair Guide to Property Investing and Make Money Simple Again. Stay tuned as they bring you the Insiders Guide to Property Finance and Money Management. Hi, ben.
Speaker 1:We've got a very special episode of the Summer Series. Today we are talking with a TPC listener. Her name is Amanda Joukowsky. Welcome to the Property Couch, Amanda.
Speaker 4:Thank you, really happy to be here.
Speaker 1:We're happy to have you here. We're excited to chat about your story today, but you know you've been a listener, you know what the Summer Series is all about. We want to get to know you. We want to get to know a little bit about your background. So can you let us know what money conversations were like for you growing up in your family?
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 4:So there's probably two themes around money as I was growing up.
Speaker 4:On one hand, one of the themes was definitely around perception and keeping up with the Joneses and showing outwardly that things were quite financially good in our family and it definitely probably looked and appeared that there was a fair bit of abundance happening.
Speaker 4:So a lot of the conversations around the dinner table had an element of boastfulness or positive outward perception about them. I think the other element of money conversations for me is that I very much grew up in an environment of coercive control and money was one of those tools on the tool belt. So my father was the only person who bought in income as I was growing up. Mum was a stay at home mum and it was the type of relationship for them as well as for us kids, where money was very much his and distributed according to his certain set of rules. So whilst it felt like there was a lot of abundance around me we had the lovely big home near the beach and the big boat on the front lawn and the cars and all of that sort of perception there I think I certainly did not feel in control of money and certainly felt scarcity despite potentially that abundance around me.
Speaker 2:It's a classic form, unfortunately, of financial abuse. We've talked about it before on the pod, around these types of controlling behaviours that sometimes get demonstrated, and, unfortunately, in a lot of cases, it is usually the male inside the household who is wielding their power, potentially through their argument that they may be the major breadwinner and ultimately it is their money and for which they can pass on to their household, and that should never be a situation that any household should be in, and so that's really a powerful opening for me, amanda, in terms of what that looks like. How was that? You've given us a couple of examples of how that was displayed, but it obviously left a lasting sort of impression on you around money behaviours and how you are meant to behave around money. Can you share a little bit more of those insights for us?
Speaker 4:Sure, so I think for me. I certainly observed the fact that my mum was given a pay packet every week and as she had that particular amount of money, that's how everything needed to be managed, and anything outside of that was certainly a request that she needed to make of my father. And I think one of the challenging elements there is growing up I didn't quite realise the goalposts always felt to me like they were moving. So you could ask for one thing one day and it would be a no, and ask for a very similar thing the next day and it would be yes. And I could never really initially work that out. But when I came to understand that, when it was through a lens of does this serve my father? So certainly having some narcissistic traits there that you could ask for one thing and well, okay, it might be an environment where others might say, yes, you can have it. It's an environment where nobody sees it. Well then you can't kind of think so it felt very, you know, the goalposts were moving constantly.
Speaker 4:The element of sort of psychological safety, physical safety, financial safety, all of those kinds of things were very much shifting plates underneath where you are, and also when I say it's one of the tools on the tool belt.
Speaker 4:Some of the other tools were definitely around things like self-worth and making sure that that, you know, definitely saying things to my mother around. You know, if you leave me, you're not going to have this and you're not going to have that, and all that kind of thing, similar to us keeping those that self-worth pretty low and being able to, you know, control things emotionally, financially, physically, whatever that needed to look like For me. There was also an element of gender disparity. So there's two daughters I'm the eldest, there's my sister and there's my brother and there was very much a theme around, you know, the boy's inherent family name. And there's something that was certainly more positive towards the males and the family. My brother reports not feeling scarcity at all. He definitely always felt abundance and anything that he wanted and needed was certainly there, and my sister and myself and my mom felt differently. So that obviously created a mindset for me as well.
Speaker 2:So when did he become aware of that, that he was being treated differently compared to his two sisters?
Speaker 4:Coming up. Anytime that I brought up examples of that, he very much was like, no, that's not the case. We've had conversations, even just this year, and he's certainly been expressing that to me, that he never felt because I would say, well, this is how it felt for me. My mom would say, well, this is how it felt for me, and he would be like, okay, I don't know if I was younger, I don't know if I was. For me there was definitely some being unaware of it, one element being gender, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a real disparity too, because you're the eldest and the eldest often get lots of things tried out on them and the youngest get away with a lot of things too. So there's a whole bunch of dynamics going on there. Can you help us better understand what that meant for you and your sister and your mom? Did you? Were you observing any budgeting? Was there any sort of money management on display, or was it just this just total, utter control, goalpost change? And it sounds like the? I think I just heard you say that if your dad could leverage what other people thought of him, so if there was an audience when the money was on show, that was great. If there was no audience, there wasn't. So can we go a little bit further on those impressions? And you said it was, it became a self esteem thing. How did that play out through teenage years?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so what I would observe money wise from my mom. I remember her once doing using a lot of lay bias to try and make it all work and bias gifts and all those kinds. So she made a lot of stuff work on not very much. And I remember one particular time where she would give us a gift that she just had been putting lay by wife for a really long time, and to my father that would have been, you know, he just have it right. But it had a lot more meaning that she had worked within the boundary that she'd worked. That was the only real financial things that I saw. On the other side, I certainly saw, you know, lots of spending. You know boats and cars and all had never really saw any money management.
Speaker 4:In terms of the perception and the self worth part there, I think it really affected my teenage years. I would say a little bit more. So in my teenage years, as soon as I turned I think the legal age in New South Wales was 13 and nine months at the time I fronted up to the worst manager and then asked him very politely if I could have a job. And he gave me that job. It wasn't something I got permission for ahead of time from my parents. So anyway I did that and then I worked as much as I could to build up some of my own financial independence.
Speaker 4:I think what that impacted me on one hand was to try and move into finding my own source of income, but then, on the other hand, my behaviors were, as a teenager, not very much about taking care of myself and you know, making bad choices and those type of things, and what that led to was I was literally sent away to boarding school. So they didn't tell me that, they enrolled me, didn't get a chance to say goodbye to anybody, but a week or so before starting year 11, I was taken out of the small town in New South Wales South Coast that I lived and promptly put into a very, very different environment which was boarding school, where you could only leave two weekends a term. So that was going from. I called it going from Planet Mars to Planet Venus. It was just a very, very different environment.
Speaker 1:What was the major impact that that had on you?
Speaker 4:I think I moved out of one environment where things were obviously challenging into another environment that had a little bit more stability but certainly a lot of control and all of those kinds of things as well. It felt very punitive. Like you know, you're being sent away. I think the main theme that it came back for me was that let's pay somebody else to raise, so it's getting a bit too hard for us to do that, and that's sort of the take home message that I got is let's pay the big, expensive boarding school in Sydney and they can take care of it from there. So it did, yeah, obviously it felt quite challenging.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's obviously a fair bit going on here. Your mother was a stay at home mum and obviously your father is the major breadwinner inside the household. You talked about his narcissism. What about? You know? Obviously he's chasing envy. Right, we call it keeping up with the Joneses, but the modern terminology now is just chasing envy. You know, and, and you know that's the biggest challenge. We've got really around social media and everything else. That's been these perceptions that are being grown around the world. It's crazy, it's a waste of time. You don't want to go after that. How secure was he personally, you know, and self-assured? What was his backstory in terms of you know, to become the person that he was? Did he grow up in a hard household? Did he grow up without money? Did he grow up with money? What's the what's the backstory there?
Speaker 4:The backstory there is he? Any person I've met in his family referred to him as the golden boy, so that he could never do anything wrong. Even though he would outwardly do things wrong, he wouldn't be punished for it. He was the eldest son there was. There was another son. It was a domestic violence relationship.
Speaker 4:So the parents, you know he certainly remembered things like you know, the stake on the eye and stuff of mum and all of that. So you know that that obviously translated from his household into his new household. Obviously, I came along later so I did see that there was money. I'm not sure before when I came along what the money situation was, but they certainly weren't in scarcity growing up and I think it really just came down to the fact that he, you know, wasn't disciplined, was told that he was amazing at every point and turn and and that kept being reiterated With the and I think he just whether he was born with it, whether it was conditioned, whether it was both, certainly just came into my, my recollection as someone who every decision and every thought goes through the filter of self.
Speaker 4:So you know it's very hard to have a really deep connection as a partner, I would imagine it's certainly very hard to have a deep connection as a daughter with somebody who puts them, because naturally as a parent you put yourself first. So his backstory, I think, definitely came from violence but definitely came from a lack of, you know, appropriately raising your kids right. I would just say so what?
Speaker 1:so? You're being incredibly courageous and vulnerable here, so thank you. What, what? So? What messages do you take on? Because you know how I like you, you know I think I've think back to some of the things that my mum and dad did, and I take all the great parts, and then there's a few things that I said I would do differently. What, what? How did you use that as a leverage point to say, well, this is the bit that I want to keep, or perhaps none, and here's how I want to model my life? So it's nothing to do with all of those narcissistic things you talked about. How did you, how did you, use that as a way to shape your, your future?
Speaker 4:Yeah, obviously it certainly shaped me and I think, as I went into because I'm married and I have two children of my own, as I've the parts that I've taken into that is, my husband and I are very selfless towards the kids and certainly put their needs first, but not in a way that's about you know, the label, clothes or the fancy devices or I think I certainly repeal when I see people very much outwardly appearing to be quiet.
Speaker 4:You know, here's my wealth on display. I raise them with what I believe are good money lessons. So, for example, you know, not buying them cars, giving them appropriate boundaries around. Well, if you want that, then that's a gift. Or you know, getting jobs, all of those kinds of things. So I I lean into love and support, but definitely don't respond very well at all to perception and type things, which is hard as young kids grow up because they want the latest device and the latest this and the latest that, the latest iPhone, the latest whatnot. So you know, I'm sure the kids aren't too impressed about the boundaries that I put there, but as they're getting a bit older they're expressing to me a little bit of gratitude around that.
Speaker 1:And is your dad still in your life?
Speaker 4:No. So between my engagement party and my wedding we we can't contact at that point and I was married 20 years ago. So it has been two decades. My sister ties with him first. She's too young, but she did that first, then I did, and my brother still has him in his life. So that's been two decades now.
Speaker 4:And the main catalyst around that, as you can hear, between engagement and a wedding, is I actually transitioned into a situation where I was having a relationship and I wanted I was getting married and I wanted some things to be about me, and obviously that doesn't go down very well when it needs to be things about him. So that was where I finally drew a line in the sand that said you know what, and being with somebody else because it was my normal being with somebody else going, this is not normal, this is not right. You're allowed to have, you're allowed to pick your wedding party, you're allowed to all of those kinds of things I'm like okay. So a combination of having someone who loves you in the right way and says you know, even though you're kind of parts of it, you overtly know we're wrong. There's subliminal stuff you don't necessarily see. So that was very much a catalyst of you know. This is how it's going to be. If you'd like to come to the wedding, you're welcome.
Speaker 4:If you're not, you're not and you didn't come, and that was sort of the end of that and I walked myself down the aisle by myself very proudly, and that was, yeah, a really good moment for me.
Speaker 1:You're an incredible woman. You're really great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's incredibly powerful and it's a powerful message for our community. You know, Bryce, in a couple of the other episodes, talked about his situation in terms of you know, Bryce, when you're on the selling side of new properties and doing that type of work. I've told my backstory around financial abuse, and you know that money always was a big argument story in my household, and it was a form of financial abuse from my father towards my mother. So she got the same thing, so she'd worked part-time and any of that money she would go to her needs and so forth, but she'd get an allowance as well, and, ultimately, where most of the debates around having enough was because she would have Jeremy and me in her ear saying we want this, we want this, we want this, and she's basically got an allowance and she's got to make it work.
Speaker 2:What's interesting for us, though, is we didn't have the fancy cars. We didn't have, you know. We just grew up in lower middle class or middle class sort of society, and you know my dad's trade-off was delayed gratification. There's no doubt my mum loved to spend money. You know she would find a reason to buy that latest vase or whatever it was. So there is definitely a delicate balance and you know, in a lot of these sort of summer series conversations we have is about we're both on the same page with money, and usually it's one of those you know, sort of elements that potentially drive people apart, because if there's no commonality or no connection around you know that there's two of us on this journey together in a relationship then ultimately you're going to continually keep hitting, you know, these speed bumps and that sometimes can result obviously in a separation and divorce. So that is an interesting story and I suppose to you know, to the point that I've made in terms of and how I've reconciled it for myself, because I still have obviously a loving relationship with my mum and my dad, but I still, you know, to this day, are coaching my dad around the behaviours.
Speaker 2:And by then I look at his backstory and he grew up in an abusive household as a single child. His father was a prisoner of war for five years in Europe, you know, with the Germans, and so he saw atrocities and horrible things. They didn't have a lot of money when he got back. His mum was abusive to him physically and also emotionally. So you can sort of, once you put all the pieces together, you can start to see how the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, and so that's an interesting story, and so you know, Bryce and I have openly shared about our stories of what that looks like for us and how we've said I want to take, you know, I want to take this work ethic from my dad.
Speaker 2:I want to take, you know, this tenderness and love from my mum, and I'll put those two together and I want to improve. But we're also still finding ourselves doing behaviours that sometimes are like, oh geez, that's my dad's coming at me there and I need to step back from it. So being aware of it is one step, but then also making change and behaviours around that is another. I want to. I wanted to share that, just just to let you know that there are other means by which that's happening and obviously that's that's an important message for our community that it comes in all different forms and sizes. It comes in different levels of you know what that looks like. My question, to round out what has been a pretty difficult conversation, is around your mother, and is she still in that relationship with your, with your father?
Speaker 4:No. So they had quite a challenging divorce when I was in university. We went through court and dragged on for a really long time. So on the day of the divorce and the court case finalising, I did get a call from both of them. My mum called and said I got everything that I wanted plus I got my legal fees paid for. And then my father called me and said I get everything I wanted, but I paid these legal fees. I didn't want to. And it really smacked me in the face that that whole journey they both knew exactly like there was an opportunity there, that they exactly both knew what they wanted.
Speaker 4:But no, we had to go through a really prolonged and challenging period and I think again that was somebody whose wife is leaving them and that was, you know, very much an out of control situation for somebody who want to be in control. So they definitely you know 25 years of marriage that's quite a long time to be married and my mum was very insecure, moving forward into her new life, as to what that would look like. If we fast forward that now, my mum actually used property as a tool to build wealth coming out of the settlement and we're in the process at the moment of just finally landing the last step plane in the next financial year and she has a very lovely passive income from property. And for someone to start that in their 40s, who has starting at the bottom on a career again, and then to be able to build that up in a short period of time and create the retirement lifestyle that she's got now, that's been a very inspiring thing for me. Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 1:And is there. Can we lean into that, amanda, to the extent that you're happy to share? Like that's amazing, that's someone starting again, and not only starting again, but thriving. What did that look like?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So she ended up starting a new career. She did study, which she hadn't obviously done since school, went into more of a healthcare type field and you know an entry level type of wage. She did get out of the settlement, the family home, and the family home was down in the coastal town. So you know, having a different growth rate toward a Sydney or a Melbourne would have.
Speaker 4:But what she did is she put in some hard yards, she sold that property and she bought out her happened to just before they divorced I think this was bought out the other siblings from her mum and dad's property in Sydney. So she then made that her home. She built a turn the garage, because it was on a corner block, into a granny flat. So she's got dual income from that property and I think she bought it for $400 and it's now like $1.61.8 or something crazy like that. So that's been a really important rock in the job.
Speaker 4:And she bought a couple of properties in Newcastle and another couple in Bateman's Bay. But she had moved through kind of selling the Bateman's Bay ones and has, you know, certainly got some. What she'll end up with after we sell one of the Newcastle properties is being debt free, having a little bit of super less than $100,000. But you know, having some dual income, passive income from one property, one from Newcastle, plus, you know, some bits and pieces with shares and things, and all of that adds up together to make a really nice portfolio. But she did that all herself. So she did lean into a property group at one point which didn't go so well, but she researched and purchased and got out there and, you know, educated herself and DIYed it.
Speaker 2:Amanda, just sorry, just can we just make sure that there was? She obviously joined the workforce again to get the income to allow her to do that, I'm assuming.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so she had the equity from the properties as in to form the basis of the deposit. But then she had the income and I think also because the costs were pretty low at that point as we were transitioning a bit lower, a bit sort of out into the world and you know, debt free home and all of those kinds of things, she and back in the day borrowing capacity was a lot easier. So she did. You couldn't do that. Now she was able. She has one 10-year interest only loan and one 30-year or something like lending that you just can't get now.
Speaker 2:So that certainly helped her along the way.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. We shouldn't gloss over that too quickly, because you've got a someone who's been in a relationship with someone, who's got massive coercive control and the the just the mental mooring lines that your mum would have had to overcome just to be okay to be independent, let alone going into property investing. Like you said, there was a club, but I don't know where that was on the timeline or the journey, but that's a massive transformation in your mum's mind. I mean, how, how did she? Who did she lean on? What was the inner strength? What was the internal conversation she was having with herself? If you've had those conversations with her because I mean, we're looking in the rear vision mirror Of course you'd buy investment properties, but that's, that's downplaying some of the mental gymnastics you have to do just to even get to the starters gate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I didn't realise my mum's strength prior to that point, because obviously you have a different perception when you're in a relationship where you're self-worth isn't very high. She definitely went through a good period of time of morning and and struggling and feeling quite depressed and and those kinds of things. At the time I I was definitely in boarding school, I certainly wasn't living there, maybe even at uni, but my, my sister was there and my brother was there. So my sister did take a bit of a lead role, you know, getting my brother to and from school and looking after my mum and and so that was challenging and and so so my sister did a really good, great job supporting my mum.
Speaker 4:As my mum started to surface out of that, my understanding is she wanted to create a new life for herself and the, the confidence came over time. So it certainly didn't just suddenly appear, but she just, you know she would do a, do some study, and she would get, and that would give her confidence, she would get the job and that would give her confidence, she'd manage her own money and that you know. Oh look, he said I would. You know things would all go pear shaped and so it kind of was this incremental building of confidence over time.
Speaker 4:And then I'm really not sure I've never asked the question what made you think, hey, I'm going to buy an investment property. But you know she, she had had lived, experiencing property do quite well over time, right, and her mums and dad's place that she bought, obviously, that did really well in her own home and things like that. So I'm really not sure where the idea came from. But as her confidence grows, you would definitely describe her now as a fiercely independent person and even to the point where if somebody's not doing the right thing by her or her chickens, as she calls us she will certainly step up and you know be be advocating and doing all those things for us. So I would say it was incremental. I'm not sure where the the idea came from, but I think with every win and every success and she's got a much more supported partner now and he did have a backstory, just happened to have a backstory and property as well, property development but, but essentially very supportive as well. So I think all of those things just added up.
Speaker 1:So you said when you're in uni they separated. So you, what are we talking 15 to 20 years ago when she separated?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I suppose so. So 1999, something like that, 1998, something of that nature.
Speaker 1:We're still pre a lot of the, the content that's out there. You know, back then there was, you know, no podcast, no YouTube. So it's that's incredible.
Speaker 4:I'm on social media, none of that kind of yeah so the good old days in Jan Summer's books. Yeah, I'm not sure I should ask her about that, but yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:Now we know for you the fruit hasn't fallen far from the tree because you you had a, you've got a successful property portfolio. We'll build to that story. But can you tell us what, what, what? The first independent like you talked about, you know, as soon as you're at age, you went to Woolies and then, you know, you got sent off to boarding school. So there's some independence. But when, when you started outside of schooling and into your first job, with that as a backstory, what, what, what did, what did money look like for you when you had a breakout? You know how, how do, how do people break out of coercive control? Do you go on a spending spree? Or did you, did, you, did? You still build the storehouse?
Speaker 4:Bit of both. So when I was at university I had some essentials providers in terms of accommodation, but you know the fees and the, the everything and the living and everything. That was certainly something I needed to to manage myself. So I probably went out and got a job as a waitress and so therefore I was also working a lot when others were going out, so I wasn't going out as much. Obviously, studying as well, I did five years at university so that over that sort of five year period I was doing a lot of waitressing and my first rock in the jar was my car. So I hadn't had a car and I didn't live anywhere near the university and and all of those things, so lots of public transport and my desire was to buy my own car and it took me two years of waitressing to get $3,000. And I bought my little Mazda three and I was immensely proud of that car and that was definitely, you know, keeping the discretionary spending down and focusing on that goal was something that was, you know, important.
Speaker 4:But on the sideline in comes a gentleman who I was later to marry in that period of time and we, when we met, we actually transitioned our financial stories together pretty quickly. So within a few months we'd moved in together Within a. Within a few weeks of that, we had a joint bank account. We moved into those relationships with debt. I had hex, he had personal debts, and so we were behind the eight ball. We we got a property that we really shouldn't have spent that much on the rent. We went out and we spent a lot on you know fancy cheeses and things when we were doing our groceries. We kind of you know went, went a bit nuts in the first sort of six to 12 months and within six to 12 months we'd moved to a cheaper rental. We're having very different behaviors around money and we were starting to talk about the future and then starting to put some more rocks in the jar as that focus. So yeah, I think a bit of everything.
Speaker 1:Was that? Was that revenge sprint? Was that revenge spending from coercive control? Or is that just exuberance of a new phase of life?
Speaker 4:Both, I'd say, and also my husband's love language is a little bit about buying me things as well, and he doesn't have great guardrails when it comes. Well, back then he didn't. He's much more involved now, but he was definitely in the spending category.
Speaker 4:So so when you've got someone in the spending category. It kind of almost forced me to be in the well, let's take the reins on this a little bit more category, or else if you had two of those people together it would have been quite disastrous. But then I had a lot of anxiety about that because I'm like, but I don't want to be the person doing coercive control over my husband. So it made me feel quite uncomfortable to be the reins around money and wanted to do it in a way that's like but do you agree with this? Like, if we're going to have this as a goal, we're going to change this behavior. We need to have the same.
Speaker 2:You know it needs to be both our decision both on the same page, and so just can you give us an idea of how you organized your money? So you know what was the sort of? Did you have a system back in those days?
Speaker 4:It's pretty straightforward when you don't have a lot of money, there's not doesn't need to be too many jars. So it was pretty much, I would definitely say, living pay to pay for sure, and especially as I got my first entry level job out of university, you know, I was I think it was like $30,000 or something like, not a huge salary, and so the and my husband is a police officer, so he was just going through the academy and having his first, you know. So he was at the entry level beginning of his career as well. So we did have a joint bank account, money hit there every fortnight or week or whatever that looked like, and then we would, you know, work within a certain element of money from the day to day stuff and the rent and all of that. But we just always sort of really carved out a little bit of thinking about future goals, definitely.
Speaker 2:So nothing sophisticated just leave some left over, just enough to keep the books afloat, you know.
Speaker 4:Absolutely have more coming in and less going out. I guess.
Speaker 2:Running a book, running the books in a solvent manner, not an insolvent, Exactly Sorry did.
Speaker 1:I just hear something that you don't hear very often. You actually spent less than you earned. Well then, invest the difference in weight. That's pretty much the secret, so okay. So, ben, and I know that you have a you know, a property portfolio, which became a priority. So if we could start to lean towards what? Where did the spark? What was the property journey? What was the first jump onto the ladder? Can you sort of give us an idea of what that will look like, please?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So our first sort of rocks in the jar previous to that were paying for our own wedding and honeymoon, which you know we saved up when we did. My mum gave us $2,000, but each of those things were $30,000 each. So you know, we did lean into that quite a bit. And then we, once we were married, we lent into having a family.
Speaker 4:So my son came along and we really didn't think that we were able to buy property. We thought we sat down, we did the numbers and we thought we have to make a choice Are we going to have children and then a house, or house and then children? And we ended up landing on the children. So I really honestly at that point in time felt like we're planning three. We ended up with two. I'm surprised we ended up with two because they're both quite challenging pregnancies, the little ones.
Speaker 4:But we ended up, when my son was one, jumping onto the property ladder in a way that I really wasn't expecting to happen. And that was again kudos to mum. She did the parental guarantor thing and back in that day they'd launched 100% loans plus a $7,000 first home buyers grant. So on you know an oily rag, we jumped onto the property ladder in our little villa in Sydney, 1970s it was I'm also 1970s vintage, so it was as old as me and never been renovated or touched or anything. It was in quite poor condition but we got it for the bones. We got it for because it was for the space.
Speaker 2:Now Amanda there's. I've been pretty vocal on the pod about sequencing family versus having a property behind you Without your mum's support, both financially and also for equity. Do you think it would have been possible if you had a continued on the pathway with children first?
Speaker 4:Absolutely not. And my son and daughter both had significant medical complications. And although we we always planned into things, so it's like, okay, we're going to, you know, think about having a family here. In fact, the very month and year that we thought we would have Matthew, we did my daughter came when she was good and ready. That was a bit different, but we saved into that. So we saved into parental leave, knowing that we'd moved through some of that money, and then the idea was to save into it and move through it again. But we didn't envisage more than 20,000 of out-of-pocket medical costs across each kidney and some other things that had happened in that time. So, even though we planned and we saved and we did all the things we thought were right, life does throw you some curveballs sometimes and there's absolutely no way we would have gotten on the property ladder without all of those things coming together.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you bought this first property. What happened next?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I was going through a period of time of you know, matt was one. He took his first steps in the villa and then my daughter. There's a three year gap, so there was definitely, you know, some part-time work on my part and then casual because you couldn't go back full-time in my industry at the time, and then, you know so, and then getting pregnant again and I was very sick for both the pregnancies and couldn't work and all that. So just money was survival for a good many years into that villa and largely untouched. I think we put in a couple of built-ins and maybe some paint, but there wasn't the grant.
Speaker 4:Effectively the first time by his grant we did a little bit of touch-ups and nothing kind of changed. Then we went through a bit of a phase of me rebuilding and back into the workforce and bring some income. During the time that we had the kiddies we made it a priority and I don't say this in any judgment because it's not possible for everybody but we decided not to send the kids into any childcare till they were three. So we would work across seven days, he would work, I would do two days and he would do the other five across the weekend. We'd, you know, not see each other for a good long time to, and so again, that was more the financial priority. So it took a really long time before we were able to jump on the property ladder again.
Speaker 4:And we also did some renovations and things on the property as the kids go. You know, financially things got a bit better as well. In the end, we'd actually renovated every single square inch of that villa. But before we left and so 2003, we bought that property. It wasn't until, I think, about 2014 before we jumped on the property ladder again.
Speaker 2:And so you're about to go on this journey of jumping on the property ladder again. I'm assuming you've got a. You've got decisions to make right. You've got a growing family who need probably a little bit more space. So you've got the big rocks in the jar conversation around principal place residence versus potentially investing. What sort of thinking did you do around that and how did you come to a decision and did you seek any advice around that? Or were you basically self-determining?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we lived in. We bought the villa in a location that wasn't very far away from mum because of the whole priority we had around family, but it was in no way convenient to my work. I drove an hour 45 one way an hour and a half back as I was working, so it wasn't convenient and it took us a really long time to just get functional bathrooms and kitchens and things. Obviously there is a temptation when you've got borrowing capacity because the banks at that time typically would give us more than what we could pay back. But luckily we recognized that and we went out to Kelly Villa as it was starting to be developed and we went into those lovely big display homes and we're like, oh, you can have this. And we were really seriously talking about doing that as the next step. But we ended up a little bit of motivation of me seeing the previous generations before spent 30 years paying off a mortgage and then living on the pension A combination of me really wanting to do that different and having good financial independence. A piece around the fact that when I had both my kiddies and they were very sick, I felt really forced back into work financially and I really didn't want that for my children either. So a combination of all of those things. We ended up saying let's stay put, We'll stay in the. You know we've got two meter backyard and running kids and you know one bathroom and all of those things and not convenient for anyone's work and all of that kind of stuff. Sure, we could change that or we could invest for our future, and we definitely had those tough conversations and decided to invest in the future.
Speaker 4:The first step we took was to get some professional help, and the business structure and the organization isn't the same as it was back then. But I took, I dragged Georgia along to lots of courses on weekends and we do property courses, and I just felt like, even though I'd read books and do courses, I wasn't in a position to execute it myself. So we went along and saw some professionals. They built out a plan for us, A plan that, again, you couldn't execute now, right, 10 properties in five years and all of those kinds of things. So we started on that journey. But it wasn't the kind of thing where the business purchased the property, you would be given the suburb or suburbs and off you would go. So you would a lot of DIY.
Speaker 2:And Amanda, just the 10 properties in 10 years type story. Can you just explain what the pitch was and what the strategy was that they were sort of advocating for?
Speaker 4:Yes. So, as I look back on it now, the strategy was accumulate $3 million of property divided by 10 is $10,000, $300,000 properties was the brief, and the goal was that we would reach a passive income target and, off the top of my head, I honestly can't remember what it is, but it was a passive income target for retirement and it was about, you know, using our borrowing capacity, which is obviously really generous at the time, based on lending being a little bit different, and that was effectively it. The plan and the report wasn't very extensive, it was just, you know, we'll help you to buy property every six months.
Speaker 2:So the building blocks are these. As long as I can borrow the money and as long as my property goes up and if I have a really high yield, then I should be and I picked the right location. All of those things being equal, I should be able to get a property a year and then ultimately, after that time and then I get to 10 properties and in some cases, to live off that passive income, I might sell two or three of them as part of that. But very, very rudimentary sort of you know very top line sort of modeling around what that story looked like. Yeah, obviously you know I'm of the same year as you. I was around those sort of conversations and seeing those sort of models and attending the same workshops and same sort of you know the 10,000 hours as we did to develop our own skill sets back in those days and so, yeah, you know that was a, that was at the time. I mean, you know you also got to remember there were low docs and no docs, so in some cases you didn't even need to have an income to be able to get access to lending, to your point that the debt to income ratios were not even relevant. You know, lending was certainly more accessible than potentially what cash flows could allow, and so it was always potentially a risk and prices on.
Speaker 2:Previous podcasters talked about live off the equity. You know, and basically live off. You know, take a, draw an income off the equity in the property and let the interest capitalise, but you're still going to have a really nice meaning for life, but you'll be left with nothing. There'll be no legacy or inheritance left behind. So, but to your point, you still, you know you had enough level of. I want to say I want to build my knowledge, which I, you know, commend you on in terms of we're going to be more informed and then ultimately, but it was left to you to potentially execute on the purchase.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, we were given lists of suburbs and, yeah, essentially given a little bit of feedback on properties that we might be interested in and in a top level way, but definitely the finding the property managers and, in fact, of the 1010 properties in five years story, we got halfway through five and all of those. There's only one that I've seen once and that's just happened to be down in Melbourne for work and there was an inspection. So it was very much a site unseen situation as, as we we did go through those properties, which was I needed the education being someone who needs to be in control to and the risk mitigation to be able to move forward on that. But we did get halfway through that journey. And, yes, in terms of the back end of the story, there was really no plan around laying the debt plane. There was some concepts in there, but we just didn't quite get to that part of the journey.
Speaker 1:How have you morphed the 10 in five? The 10 in five, it's, it's now you've. You've gone halfway and you've done the five. How have you morphed the, the entry strategy, to your current strategy now?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So we, as we're talking about before, the villa wasn't necessarily serving us and and the lifestyle that we had wasn't really serving us. So we did want to do a home upgrade. And the further along the investment journey you go, the harder it is to get borrowing capacity, especially as time went on and we really felt that if we went any further on that journey that we would not be able to upgrade our home and we kind of knew that we'd even need to sell the first one to to launch into sort of the upgrade home. I did have an epiphany moment as we were living in Sydney. I went to a particular piece of furniture we had where there was a whole bunch of scripts and I was holding the script for my son's mental health, my husband's mental health, my daughter, my migraine medicine, my mental health, my daughter had a medication there, I can't remember what. And I'm holding these scripts and going. I'm medicating, we're medicating our way through this. This life, this is not the. We need to live differently.
Speaker 4:So we did the sit down again. Do we really want to be living like this and working like this and all of this kind of thing? And and what are the elements about our life that we like. What are the bits that we want to change? And we did a complete U-turn and left Sydney and left the property, and left the jobs, and left the schools and left everything that was right in the middle of the bushfires and two months before COVID. So we did all of that, but we definitely came to a stop on the investment property side of things with a view that we wanted to change our life. So the home was part of that, but there was a bigger story around what that was what we wanted to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've recently moved into your dream home as well, and that I mean, that's it. That's. A lot of people say that they want to make those changes, amanda, but not a lot of people actually do. So what do you think? What do you think was the driver from? Clearly, those scripts are not fun, right, so that was the catalyst. But what do you think? What do you think it is about you and George and the kids that actually, you know, I've got a television show where people come on and they say, oh, we'd like to escape from the city. And then I take him, I show him the properties and then we follow him up later and we go, we decided not to move, right, so it happens all the time, but you didn't do it. Why do you think? Why do you think you actually did make that leap? Because it's it's difficult to transition kids and your networks, and you've got to be emotionally resilient Whilst you make these changes and sometimes you feel a bit wobbly as well. So what do you? What do you think separates you?
Speaker 4:I think I harness my inner mom and just went. You know if I put my mind to it and this is something that I was really motivated by creating a better life, whatever that look like, just creating a better life. And I hear definitely the kids watching them having their farewells from school. You know that's heartbreaking saying goodbye to their friends, not wanting to go, all of those things about trying to create a new career and trying to create.
Speaker 4:My husband transitioned across to a different role in the police, so he was a detective out there all the time. Now he's in teaching at the Academy. So as he went through that was a really difficult process. Every sort of challenge that we faced finding somewhere to live, you know, trying to still balance work and life, and all of those kinds of things. I just kind of dug deep and just kept the goal, like the whatever it was that I was saying in front of me and that I felt that I needed to do it, so that because I felt if we kept going the way that we were, I wasn't going to be raising the kids and giving them the best time in life that I felt that they deserve. So that was really the guiding light.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this is a big pivot and effectively wait a minute. We had a property plan and We've got. You know, we're halfway through. We've bought five properties. Do we now have to sell a couple of them? Do we have to look at the performance of those? How well were they going? And you know, you've been a listener of the pod. When did all that sort of start to shape up? And you know what sort of changes were you prepared to make.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So when we were looking at the dream home, we had some conversations about keeping all of the properties or not keeping all of the properties. We knew that if we kept all of the properties it would cap the price for our dream home and we just made the conscious choice that, okay, this is the cap, this is all we've got, and we know that we needed to let go of the property in Sydney, which you know we're feeling a little bit nervous about because it's obviously a good market. But looked at the performance and villas don't typically perform the same as houses and things and it was something that was standing in the way of what we wanted. So we did sell that property capital gains tax free. We rented for a little while and then tried to find where our new budget would land for us. We lived in three different locations across Canberra until we found the one that best suited, and that was a matter of getting the kids embedded where their friends are, where their schools are. My son and daughter both had school changes while we were here, all of those kinds of things. So we just decided we'd worked really hard to build out that portfolio, very hard to hold onto it currently working very hard to hold onto it. And so if we want that longer term goal and the things that we want for you know that gift that I want to give the kids so they don't have to work if life throws them a curveball we decided to hold on to those properties and just work within our budget.
Speaker 4:So we found the dream home. We compromised a little bit on location and definitely she's not a gorgeous home as yet. She's got lots of great bones, but we'll make her beautiful if and when, you know, money allows. But we just wanted to keep at the center of that, working within the money that we had and having the goals, which was a really large, lovely space for my son. He's got his own really big room which is basically a lounge room, a bedroom and you know everything all in one and his access to come and go and do those things. My daughter got the master bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe and the bathroom. My husband and I are on a different part of the house, but we've got the pool, we've got the views over the mountains. We've got all the things that you can't change and then we'll work on the things that you can change over time.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. So, Amanda, you know this stat really well. But 73% of all property investors stop at one and then a further. So anyone who has one or two, it's 91%. So nine out of 10 have one or two. So you now have the dream home and five investment properties. So how's your time horizon perspective now, Because it's just a game of waiting now. It's kind of letting time do its work. Is the queue in the Rack on Buying?
Speaker 4:The queue is in the Rack on Buying, there's a gentleman called Ben Kingsley who said land the debt plane once. And I really leaned into that and said, okay, we're in the land the debt plane base. At the moment, accumulation is complete. We're going to focus on paying down our home first and then move through the paying down of the investment properties until we reach a certain target. We're not the targets are. We definitely have a plan and a time frame that we're aiming for, but also a little bit of liquidity on that right.
Speaker 4:Life throws you curveballs and things, but the general plan is that we're working towards paying off our home and doing some improvements there and then having that as soon as we can meet that passive income target, which is really about debt reduction. It's not about accumulation anymore. We have the option. My husband loves his work and is very much part of his identity, so we'll just see how that like. We've got a goal for that, but we'll just see how that plays out and obviously I enjoy my work as well. So I think it's more we can at a certain point and then we'll just see.
Speaker 1:Well, that Ben Kingsley. I know he doesn't look a bit, he is a pretty wise sort of guy, but hey, I'd like to sort of mesh the story now because the TPC, the podcast, had an impact on you, but it actually morphed into something more. So can you tell us how you came across the podcast and, obviously, what you're doing now?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So as we relocated our lives to Canberra, I wasn't working and because I was getting the kids set up and my husband set up and it was a real opportunity for me, I ended up taking a redundancy, which was really helpful as well to what do I want the rest of my career to look like. So I was able to sit down and piece together well, what are you doing in your spare time? Well, you like going to opens and you've got property and thinking about motor motivators and guides like my mom and all that kind. And I was like, could I potentially make a career out of this? And what are the key things that are important to me? And the key things that are important to me being able to help and guide others are like sort of coaching and helping people move forward, helping them to find financial independence and freedom, and all of those kinds of things. It would be really impactful as well. And property is that vehicle. How could I put that together as a potential career? And so I started leaning into the industry, found a book and found a podcast by both of you and started to lean into that. I did spend a good amount of time going to different organizations and they're kind of like the nights where they meet clients or those kinds of things.
Speaker 4:Because I was trying to look for, if I'm going to try and make a career out of this, the first thing I needed to do was do the QPIA, so the Core School, the Qualified Property Investment Advisor.
Speaker 4:I was doing that and while I was doing that course and getting that qualification, I was going around a lot of organizations to try and find the one that would fit for me.
Speaker 4:I felt like, as I was sitting in some of those presentations, I could really clearly see through the presentations and I was getting anxious and alarm bells, but I was very conscious that the people sitting around me didn't, and so I thought, okay, I must have some sort of radar here. And so I kept going through those meetings, going through those organizations, and I decided that I would make my list from top down as to what organizations I wanted to focus on. Top of that list happened to be a company called Empower Wealth. So I wrote an email to Ben and Bryce and said you know, here's my qualification. I've just completed the QPIA. Here's my resume. It's going to be very heavily based in science and management and pharmaceutical industry and corporate. However, I've been doing some of these other things and I would really like the opportunity to talk to you about potentially becoming a Property Investment Advisor at your company.
Speaker 1:And now the rest is history. Because you are a Property Investment Advisor in our business and you are an exceptionally talented one at that, which is wonderful, so I'm stoked that you're a part of our team. So this podcast actually came about, because I normally ask the question of all of our summer series guests why did you come out, come onto the podcast? But we have an interesting backstory to that. So there is something that you're really passionate about and I reckon we should talk about that passion, and then we might circle in the end about how you ended up on here, but talk to us about some of the things that you approached me about which initially you thought, oh, just sort of a great idea for a podcast for you and Ben to do, but it's now pivoted to us talking about it now.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I'm really happy meeting with people and talking with them and helping them and doing my job. This wasn't something I was necessarily looking out for and seeking. In fact, there was a fair bit of time I needed to take to reflect on it and say yes to you, bryce, when you suggested the idea. That took me completely from left of center. But I reached out to you because I knew that you were doing lots of great work on the podcast and I was trying to find out a way to mesh one of my passions with the work that you were doing.
Speaker 4:So the passion that I have is really about closing the gap on property for women specifically, and what I mean by that is there's lots of great content out there, but to try and sort of summarize it and a shout out to the CoreLogic Women in Property Report every year, that's a really good one that I'd encourage people to have a look at. But effectively, when you think about gender disparity and you can see in my history why I'd be interested in that there is still a wage gap. In Australia it's about 22.8% across the wage gap, women and men doing essentially the exact same role. It's different in different industries, so it's most pronounced in our industry, which is finance, and it comes about from things like women are much more likely to be part-time or casual, they're much more likely to be in caring roles, they get paid less, they're much more likely to have time out of the workplace all of those kinds of things. And also, and earning less, it's a lot harder to build up that deposit or have that borrowing capacity. And what that essentially translates into is, if you looked at the statistics on property ownership in Australia and you put to the side all the properties that are co-owned male and female you just put those to the side for a minute the most common ownership structure after that is a single male. Then we later get down the the track and it's a single female. Then you get down a little bit more in its two males and then you get down even further in its two females. So there's definitely a disparity in property ownership. There's a disparity in that women are more likely to have, say, units. Men are more likely to have houses. Women are more likely to have cheaper properties. Men are more likely to have more expensive properties. So if you have a cheaper unit that's going to perform differently to a house, it's got some good land value in a good location. So that widens further. We've got lots of stats on super-being different.
Speaker 4:So it's not it's in no way an anti-male sentiment at all. It's just more about the fact that there's things in life that are very real, very complex, very hard to kind of solve and that, yes, you know, if a woman chooses to have a baby, there's different choices that she needs to make that a man does. It's not, there's no blame game around it, it's just the fact that this is where we are. And the one stat that I found really interesting is when there's surveying of women and men. Women are more likely to buy property than men. So the if the goal was 50-50, that doesn't actually represent the sentiment out there. If there weren't any barriers, women would actually own more property than men in Australia, in New Zealand, in any countries across Australia.
Speaker 4:So I'm really passionate about, you know, the ladies that come and see me that are in the process of a divorce. Or I love my lovely same-sex relationship. Couples got some lovely ladies that I've worked with in the past. I love all of my clients but I think, helping overcome some of those challenges to give them confidence, meeting people that come to me and are not so sure of what's possible. Showing them what is possible and then helping them to make that real, that's very motivating and I really felt like I could.
Speaker 4:I was doing that one-on-one, person at a time, person at a time but I was just leaning into a conversation with you, bryce, about how how could we permeate this a little bit more out there. I already knew it was on your radars, trying to get more ladies on the podcast. Ladies are much less likely to ask for a razor. They're much more likely sorry, much less likely to ask for pay rise. Much less likely to put themselves on a podcast, much less likely to tell their story. So I think the fact that you're leaning into having more ladies representing their stories and showing people what's possible, I'd like to be really motivational around that for helping to close that gap. And you said well, how about you come on the podcast and talk about that?
Speaker 1:Well, so if I bring everyone into a fly on the wall, you and I meet and you are incredible. So you just shared the same level of passion that the conversation you and I had. And you, you pulled up all these stats and we went and had a look at all these websites and you, you were ready to go. And then I just looked at you and I said this is amazing. You like I could see you go great, you know getting some momentum here. And then I said but nobody wants to hear about gender inequity and the gender pay gap from two blokes Like who wants to hear that?
Speaker 2:And pale blokes right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two white, middle-aged, blessed blokes. No one wants to hear that. So I said, amanda, who's going to have this? Who's going to be the person that's in that says this? And you go.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, you started and I just looked at you and I said it's got to be you and if we could reply back. Then the color went out of your face. You looked at me as if I'd asked you to cut off a leg, and then you said leave it with me and and let me think about it. And you did, and then there was some time between that conversation and then you giving me the green light. But I'm stoked when, like if you could see the high fives I was doing, mental high fives, when you sent me a little note, you said Bryce, I've thought about this and I think you're right. I think I don't think this message is going to land if it's delivered by two blokes. So I'm coming on and here we are today having you on. So well done, because I think I think I've glossed over the fact that that that was a big deal for you to consider doing that.
Speaker 4:Well, I wanted to do it. It's really important to me. I don't know if this is an old, old lady thing, but I just want to live my life authentically. I just want to, you know, be honest, sit in a space that serves me. I just, I don't know, I have a little less. I don't want to put his and Grace's on or, you know, a face on. I just want to sit in a really authentic space.
Speaker 4:And so, if I came on, I wanted to do it in a way where it was an open book and you could ask me any questions, and obviously the initial part of the podcast reflects probably most of the initial nervousness. I wanted to have conversations with my family and make sure that they were okay with me telling my my version of that story, which I did, and and that's very much a thing that I kind of put in the past and try and leave in the past, even though it's, you know, obviously impacts everything that you do. So, as part of that, I think the other part is just yeah, being out in an audience of this size is not my comfort zone, but if I help one person, then that's. That's the message.
Speaker 2:And you nailed it right there, amanda. There's a couple of things I want to say, obviously as someone who you know has founded the business that you work for, and you know I call all of our team in powers because we find people like you who have proven experience, proven life lessons, and you've created a career path from pharmaceuticals into property advisory work. But you've done it the right way. You've got your qualifications in behind you and that's mandatory in terms of that and served your time as an associate to develop up those skills and all of those types of things as well. So there's a couple of things, the couple of layers that I want to put on that. The first one is coming back to, you know, empowerment for women as well, and we definitely know in the last episode before we did, before the summer series, we talked about what money means to you, right, and ultimately, the number one, the clear number one, was security, and that is that financial security piece and and that is very challenging for women, for all of the reasons why you suggested this and that is just that children especially, you know, impact incomes and and have a massive time commitment, and so a lot of people think there's potential trade offs a career or or having children, and that impacts income and if you don't have income, you can't get lending. If you can't get lending, you can't get a home. So all of those things are real and you know Bryce and I have spoken often about you know, the most challenged sort of demographic is the single female, and especially the single female with children, and that is very challenged if you're trying to, if you have a child, outside of having some financial security behind you, because you are forever chasing your tail on that. So the work that you do and our team does for all you know of those women and you know same sex couples as well as, obviously, you know male and female couples and singles who want to get on it. That's why we do what we do.
Speaker 2:You know, and ultimately that's what this podcast is about. It's about getting that message out there, irrespective of whether you work with us or work with another professional organization who can demonstrate that they put the customer first and they basically look at the financial situation and they work from a goals point of view first, in terms of what are you trying to achieve and what's reasonably possible, and we'll come at it from a conservative nature. If you want to go on, you know, build a property empire. We're not for you, you know, and this pod's not for you, right? I mean, we'll give you the fundamentals in terms of what that looks like. So, you know, this is the very, very first time we've ever had a staff member on the podcast in a summer series role, and so we didn't obviously lead with that at the start of the show. But we're certainly telling that story now because it does give a clear indication in terms of we practice what we preach. It's the type of people that we're looking forward to be able to help others, and that's why it ultimately is about.
Speaker 2:You know, we talk about building wealthier tomorrows. We talk about achieving financial peace. We talk about taping people from Payne Island to Pleasure Island. All of those things are real as part of this journey, and what you've delivered in this podcast is an authentic outlook on someone who is very relatable to someone who I related to in terms of some of that sort of idea of financial abuse that can happen.
Speaker 2:I had it a lower scale, you had it a more severe scale in terms of what that looks like, but they are stories, this is real, this is life, and our job is to try and say to people don't give up, don't lose hope, you can still pivot midway through. You know a five-year plan to get 10 properties, but then say, wait a minute. You know, I've got all of these. We've got all of these health issues that have come up. And so you've said, well, what's part of that? Well, part of that is the environment and the life that we've built for ourselves. So if we reverse ourselves out of that life and that environment, we don't have to go to it. You know, it's not a healthcare system, it's a sick care system that we operate. Generally speaking.
Speaker 2:There are some proactive means by that, but all that we're doing here is, you know, we talk about a medical analogy where we go and see our doctor and, rather than just getting a script for this, we say, well, what are you trying to achieve? And we get right down into the nitty-gritty in terms of what that looks like, and so we can put a plan of action, rather than, you know, someone turning 55 or 60 and realizing, wait a minute, they're going to be leaving off the pension or they're not going to be financially free. So we want to do that preventative work first that planning work first, that you know that action work first before it becomes too dangerous and too risky to then start taking on those risks. So I just want to thank you personally for entrusting.
Speaker 2:You know, coming along on the journey with us and being one of the key members in our organization, that basically plays a role, you know, in your specialization and you help people solve really big problems in their households and you give them hope. And you know that's the most powerful thing that we can give all of the, the customers that we work with and we give them direction. We talk about making the invisible visible and then you know it gives them a plan to act. And you know, bryce and I have been talking about this podcast for four hundred and sixty seventy eighty shows. Whatever it is all trying to educate, move the dial in education and move the dial on action, and so you're a perfect example of that. So thank you so much for allowing us to to share your story and for also me to putting some icing on that cake.
Speaker 4:Thank you, ben, I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if if this is appropriate, but I'm really proud of you. I spend a lot of time with you in the business and what I can tell from that time that we spend is, technically, you're very capable and competent People could just hear that, but you've got the most beautiful heart and I think your, your clients, get the beneficiary of that heart, and I think I think I thought I knew your backstory pretty well, but I clearly didn't know enough about it, and so I'm really excited to have learned a bit more today. My final question for you is coercive control.
Speaker 1:What is what is your? What is your message to anyone who's listening to this, who is experiencing some form of coercive control, some form of marginalization or discrimination of any sort that you are passionate about? What would be your seed planting message to those people who probably probably the mountain probably feels a little higher right now as they listen to this or as a friend is encouraging them to listen to this what, what's, what's the? You know, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What is the single step for those people?
Speaker 4:The first thing I would say is just try and say to yourself and it might not feel like it fits at first, but just keep saying it Just say to yourself that you're worth it and you're worth something better than this and and you know you might hear a lot of noise that suggests that you're not or that you're not good enough, but you are worthwhile, you do deserve it and you do deserve to live better than the circumstance. And there are some very, very real barriers and challenges. No doubt, and even especially now, right when the interest rates and challenges and all that it's not as easy to just click your fingers and change out of a really challenging situation to a different challenging, into a different situation. It's not that straightforward. But what I would say is, if you start with self and say I do deserve better, I do want better, lean into the fact that there are some places, like one 800 respect and some other places that are very geared around helping you in a way that I'm in no way qualified to do, but that can really help you, and I think what it would be is to just say look, the mountain does look big and yet the mountain is big. I'm not going to lie to you that the mountain is not big. But if you are able to map out some sort of road forward and just take one step at a time, and as you take each step, you will start to build more confidence and then you'll take another step and you'll build some more. So you know there's I'm going to throw a couple of like little examples in here but it's going to be different to different people's situation.
Speaker 4:Obviously, you know being married to a cop and and not and you know hearing about some current changes in legislation in that space just yesterday there are certainly support services out there within the police that specialize in that and can help you on that side of things.
Speaker 4:But there can even be some really straightforward things around having access to your documents, maybe having access to setting yourself up your own bank account, lots of little things like that building a little bit more of a network even though there may be some coercive control about, you know, having friends and knowing other people still hanging on to that and having a network and trying to build support services and start to take one little step forward at a time towards a plan.
Speaker 4:Now, whether that's on the lower end of the scale, simply having a conversation with your partner and saying this doesn't serve me, and giving them the opportunity to see if there's some insight there and some change right through to. Well, let's, you know, use some emergency services and take a step like that. I've got one of my properties in Melbourne that is being rented out by an organization and they help people in that situation in various situations, life without barriers, and so there are emergency places that you can go and some things like that. So everybody's situation is unique, but you deserve better and you're the best judge of whether or not you should start with a conversation and hope to have some more change or whether that's really just going to be a drop in the ocean and there are some better support services to just take one step forward and create that different life.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said, amanda. And yeah, please, you know if people are in that situation. There are some resources out there for you, so do your best to get access to them. We've made this summer series all about what money means to you and and it's obviously very clear it's self-determining for you, and your mother has been a great inspiration for your story Time with family, providing for family, work, life balance and freedom. So you can see those themes in terms of when you think about the discovery section in more and putting those sort of you know what does money mean to you? You've highlighted those in a strong way. You're using the Money Smart system as part of your journey, using the more platform to help manage everything you do, and obviously you've got the power of our simulator in the advisory business as well to be able to do all that sort of work. So I mean I think I think you know what I've got out of the summer series this time around and I mentioned it to Bryce earlier because it's a consistent theme.
Speaker 2:Like I'm always looking for themes coming out of all these different types of things, and Bryce did mention and you mentioned it just just a moment ago it does require effort, it does require work.
Speaker 2:Nothing comes easy in a lot of senses, and your mum's story about you know, basically, separation and going through those tougher times. Sometimes you go through those tougher times because the reward is so much greater at the other side of that, and I think you know I've seen a lot of effort and hard work going into these types of results. So don't just think that you can sit on the couch and magic is going to happen for yourself. You've got to want it. You know there's a need, but you've got to want it right. And so if you can't find that intrinsic motivation to basically make change, nothing will change. So you know it's a message to everyone to sort of say well, I'm hearing all these great stories about world-class athletes finding mastery, doing all these other things. Well, they did it through thousands and thousands of hours of effort and they also did it with support around them, and I think that's a really nice message to finish off on today's pod.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. So, folks, the request is if you know someone who's in a situation that Amanda's described before, maybe just let them. Maybe that first step is just for them to hear Amanda's story. Just share the episode so they can hear that not only has Amanda navigated some of these challenges, but her mother did it in an incredibly courageous way at a time that you know a lot of the information that's around now wasn't there. So hopefully that is just but one way that you can make a positive impact in the world, amanda. I'm very, I'm very sure that you will continue to make incredible change and impacts in people's lives. But, on behalf of everyone here on the Property Couch, amanda, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4:My absolute pleasure and thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go, ben. What that's? I'm just so proud of Amanda for her vulnerability and her courage to actually come and tell that story, because I can still remember the look on her eye when I when I said this is the story for you to tell, and then the journey and then the incredible story that you've just heard now. Yeah, I think I'm hoping that's had a major impact on our community, because it had a major impact on me.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, obviously that's the type of talent that she is I'm, you know, we're very proud to have her in the organization and but to share her story.
Speaker 2:I mean it is a story of money, psychology, all right, but what it is is a story that sort of allows people to overcome those things. Like do you know what I mean? Like sometimes we don't fall too far from the tree and then sort of we're stuck in these, you know, these habits and behaviors, what Amanda's been able to do and hasn't come easy. I mean, you know she she mentions that in terms of how she's talking about the process that she had to go through to change her story. Right, and that's, you know.
Speaker 2:That's why I think it's such a fitting final episode for the summer series, because it is a story about overcoming those challenges but also, you know, not having that as a as a mooring line, as an anchor in terms of being able to get away from that. So obviously we're super proud of Amanda and what she's gone on to achieve and and she's been able to achieve that financial piece and that financial success but also family success. You know, the money is just really a safety net for her and and ultimately allowing her to be in control, and that's what she and her mother didn't feel that they had in the relationships that they were in so incredibly powerful story, incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1:So for me, for me, the key takeaway is this right From from Amanda's story, it two words if someone finds themselves where they can relate to some form of segregation or some form of marginalization that Amanda failed, the first two words to getting out of that bin and it could be controversial, I'll talk it through yeah, Is to say it's my fault. My fault because nobody's coming to rescue you and what happened to Amanda wasn't her fault. But staying stuck in circumstances and doing nothing about it, If she didn't change, would have been her fault. How many people blame others Exactly? It's so important and and I want to be super mindful Some people might hear them go.
Speaker 1:Not because I grew up in a lower middle class family band and, for all intents and purposes, I had a great childhood right. So so I get that people could say, oh, that's nice for you to stay in a privileged position, but please hear me, what I'm saying here. I'm not saying what happens to people that are terrible is their fault. What I'm saying is it's it's it's your fault if you stay stuck there. Yes, If you stay stuck there Distinction.
Speaker 1:Because Amanda chose that she was not going to let that be the story that she lived out. She, she's one of my favorite humans. I love it because I spend a lot of time with her. I love it, but she, she's decided that at some point, whether she articulated those two words or not, she goes. If it's to be, it's up to me. This is one of yours, or this is not a Disney movie. Nobody is coming to save you. You actually have to do it yourself. So folks, let that land If it jarred with you. Please hear my heart.
Speaker 1:I'm some people have had some terrible things happen to them and I'm not justifying that. But what I'm saying is, if you let that become the story going forward in your life, when that is, when that is a thing of the past, that ultimately becomes a decision that you get to make there. There is enough opportunity in this country if you're listening in Australia to get yourself out of poverty, to get yourself out of terrible situations, because the resources, free resources, are actually available in this country. All you got to do is go to YouTube and there's lots of ways just to flick over the change in mindset. So that's that was of all the tactical, all the story, all of the all of the journey she went on for me. I hope that's the biggest takeaway that everyone catches that they get to be the destiny chooser, not circumstances, no matter how bad they are. They get to say once they say those two worlds worry them.
Speaker 2:right now is my fault if I don't make any steps to change that trajectory and so if you're looking for searching for sort of context and learning in that area, victim mindset might be what you might type in there, because that builds off that psychology of trying to overcome that victim mindset and move on. So, mate, an awesome way to finish. And, bryce, we've also been promising right throughout the summer series that we have a really important announcement to make around what we're doing with the platform to allow people to get to that next stage.
Speaker 1:It's true? Yeah, because I guess, if we tie a bow on summer series, hopefully you've seen nine scenarios where people are on a journey of lifestyle by design and so where the mission of our podcast is largely, if you chuck it up to its highest form, it is lifestyle by design, and all of the stuff that we give for the content and all the resources all form part of that umbrella of how do you actually set a path, choose within yourself that this is the path that I want to take, and what does that look like?
Speaker 1:So you're right, that's our mission.
Speaker 2:That's our mission. And then you break that down and sort of like educate and then take action. So, obviously, through the airwaves and now through our YouTube channel, we've been able to give that in an audio and a visual context. But what about the tools? What about the sort of the infrastructure? What about the devices and applications that I need to put it down on paper and make it happen more Really.
Speaker 2:That's the vision of more and we've built our five step process that we have in the book and the armchair guide to property investing. If you haven't got a copy, you can obviously go to the website, check out the show notes and get yourself a copy. But there's a five step proven process that we've used and that's helped build literally hundreds, if not thousands, of millionaires and some multi-millionaires. Now, again, that's not what we're about, but in terms of financial peace, financial security, financial lifestyle, buy, design. And we've got this five step process really simple clarify, evaluate, plan, implement and manage. They are our pillars. And, of course, when you come in and see an advisory business, that's everything we work through. As an advisor, what Amanda would do is all of those things. So how have we built the more platform? Well, there's four main pillars in the more platform. There's lifestyle, there is money, there is property and there is wealth. Okay, they're the sort of things. So, when the product team and we sit down and we get feedback from everyone, we're looking at those things, but we're building it in a framework that is by a five step process.
Speaker 2:So I just I'm going to build up for, obviously, the mega accounts that I've got, but let's just go through a couple of those. So, inside, clarify what tools do I use? Inside more to clarify? Well, if you break it down into two themes, the first theme is money management, which we're really big on, because obviously, what do you have to do, bruce, to actually invest? You have to spend less than you earn. There we go.
Speaker 2:So we've got to obviously clarify financials, but also clarify our big rocks in the jar, our goals, all the things that we're doing. So we've got two main categories in there. So we have my financials, which we talked about just before the summer series. So we've rebuilt the core, the engine that then captures all that information, and now you can set them up into financial cards, which makes life easier. You can go deeper or you can keep it simple, or, in my goals, it's always about setting and setting those targets and organizing those goals in a sequential order Number one let's go to number two evaluate. What tools do I use in the more platform to do my evaluation? Well, what do most people do? Bryce the curiosity about the envy and in terms of what's sort of happening there, what are they thinking about in terms of their position versus others?
Speaker 1:Well, Morgan Housel says it best. He says happiness is actually quite simple. The hard bit is when we start comparing it to others. Yes, of course, so we have money fit.
Speaker 2:So money fit is that tool where? Now, I don't think it should be one of those things to use for motivation per se, but curiosity is always going to need to be solved. So if you want to go and have a look at what you spend on groceries for your household composition versus other people in your state or across Australia, or any one of our expense items in that list, or any income in that list, it does give you a chance to just sensitivity test in terms of how much are we spending on this compared to, and it basically has a histogram that allows you to then look at well, we sit roughly in the middle or in the top quartile, or down in lower area. So that is the money fit. So that's one part. Now, on the wealth creation side, though and this is the big part for us about motivation and getting that is our wealth speed and our wealth clock. They are the next generation of tools that are about you seeing whether you're problem aware or opportunity aware.
Speaker 2:Now, most people go through life not realizing the problem that they've got, so we built those tools really as a trigger for you to assess some simple things is how much is my money working hard for me. So spend less than you earn, trap the surplus and then put that surplus to work, but then seeing basically well, where do I sit? Like you know, what action do I need to take today? Not in five years time or 10 years time, when you're in your 50s or 60s and going right now I've got to think about my retirement. No, thinking about your retirement needs to be over decades, not over years as well. So those are the main tools when it comes to evaluate what's the next one Plan. So, with plan, what do we got for plan?
Speaker 1:Well, clearly the flagship for ever since we started the podcast was around money smarts.
Speaker 1:So if we have the fundamental belief that people should spend less than they earn, they should trap that surplus and then they got a big decision to make because some people could spend less than they earn but then make decisions about lifestyle that don't really give them any security for tomorrow. So our hope is that you trap the surplus and then it gives you an opportunity to go. Why don't I put a large portion of that trap surplus towards really building the moats and creating real wealth through? You know, clearly for us it's through buying property. Clearly we have a bias, but whatever investment choice you like. So a little bit for tomorrow and then you can carve off a little bit for the here and now, right to create the experiences. But the flagship underpinning all of the conversations we've had pretty much from day to day has been our money smart system. I remember on the podcast Ben, our first website had a one page of where people could download how to use it. It's now obviously turned into a book, but that's that's the big part of that wealth creation story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and so the make money symbolic in book is effectively the manual for setting up money smarts. Now what's important about that is money smarts has two functions it's trapping that surplus, but it's also getting proficient with cash flow management. And then it's what? Where most people fall over and that's where traditional budgets fall over is when I'm looking at money stretching, like, oh, I've got these big decisions that I need to make, so how is that going to be impacted on my cash flow? That's where the money stretch tool comes in.
Speaker 2:So if you've got a big decision to make around having a child, a private school, public school or interest rates have gone up significantly, you can plug in, you can take a copy basically take a copy of my financial, you bring it across into the sandpit and then you can play around with your numbers and that's going to basically tell you how much time you have available with the cash flow that you've got.
Speaker 2:So they are the two main tools when it comes to planning and, of course, from a wealth creation point of view, there's a lot of moving parts and we would say get some professional advice around the planning work that you're doing. And if you're thinking, property is the way to go. Again, we'd recommend you speak to a property investment advisor or something along those lines. So that's true Implementation, and then implement and ultimately manage. So the implementation is part of the taking action phase that we talk about there. So, from an implementation point of view, let's just focus on money management. Well, again, this is why money smarts is so important, because it's a rules-based money management system. It's not just about setting a target and trapping that, it's actually how do I operate on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting story. The other day we were at basketball training with the kids and one of the because I'm training the team one of the players, sam, goes can we go get some sushi? And my wife Andrea goes no, sam, we've only got $1.50 in the bank and so. But he stood down and then that friend the next day gave Andy a call and said is everything okay?
Speaker 2:You're living in a low-solar camp.
Speaker 1:I couldn't help, but hearing that you only have $1.50 in the account.
Speaker 2:Seven-day float.
Speaker 1:Our seven-day float only had $1.50 in the account. Sam knew because we've trained. He knows because we have that rolling system. So, folks, I promise you this is not a theory that we reckon you should do that we don't do the money smart. The seven-day float has been the biggest game changer bar none in our household for the last decade. So so that just goes to show that I am walking the talk B, I still, to this day, can't think of a better system where you pay yourself once and make it last. And I guess the third take where there is. My 10-year-old son actually knows exactly what my mom meant by that.
Speaker 1:I didn't mean that we only have $1.50 overall, but it meant we have $1.50 and it was a Tuesday night and we pay ourselves on a Thursday, which is what we thought about it, so that $1.50 had to last, because the school holidays been and it was getting turned up very quickly.
Speaker 2:It does it does Absolutely Just talk to the kids to the movies. How?
Speaker 1:much of that. Okay, I brought it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the implementation. On the money side, we've got some exciting announcements throughout 2024 on really ramping up our property management story. We have investors who have investment properties. You're running a business right, so the bookkeeping and all that needs to be important. So we are well on our way in terms of building out and we'll be releasing some tools throughout 2024, which we'll really focus in on, because the vision of more is to be the best money and property management tool, the one place that you need to go to to manage all of your portfolio properties. If you're blessed enough to have multiple properties, so if you're also aspiring to do that, then this is the one place you need to be. It's available on mobile and web, so that's going to be coming in the implementation side as well.
Speaker 1:And 23 was kind of. If you're honest, it was a frustrating year because there was a lot of for those in the game. There was a lot of tech debt to clean up, so it meant that a lot of features couldn't be laid on top until that tech debt was sorted out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know, in speaking honestly, we've got an advisory business that uses this platform as a client portal, and so whenever we want to change things, there's lots of moving parts that you go. Of course it affects it, and so bringing all of that together just means that our development last year was a little bit slower. In terms of our product, the 24 is the features. Yeah, here we come, and rebuilding that my financials engine is part of that story. So now, finally, manage this. Here we go, here we go, right. So we're going to be doing some money management and sort of day to day, month to month, week to week, year to year type of still money smarts. That is the go to platform, and we'll be releasing some new feature updates for money smarts, hopefully in the next two months. So that is being worked on the right now. I've seen the prototypes of that and they are looking great. So standby for that.
Speaker 2:But, bryce, in terms of wanting to be able to build wealth, this is where it gets quite interesting, right, because most people, when it comes to starting with getting fit or whatever, it takes time. You've got to build up momentum and that's really hard and that's why a lot of people drop off. So what I'm about to announce to you that will be released in early February it will be released in early February is the concept of historical tracking and these new insights that are going to be available right down on the cut, the financial cards. So every financial card inside the platform will allow you to basically track history and then see those insights in both a historical timeline but also potentially in terms of an allocation, of a categorization. So you get a sense of how much am I spending on this and what is that as a part of my overall allocation. Now, I cannot underestimate how powerful this is in terms of building habits and behaviors.
Speaker 2:And the big story here why is this so important is you can go back in time. You can go. So it's not just about today. Moving forward, marty McFly, we have built a time machine. We've built a time machine that will allow you a money management time machine, a financial time machine that will allow you to go in there and put all of your past history so if you've got a couple of old spreadsheets hanging around the place, or if you've done a back of envelope sort of financial position 10 years ago 20 years ago In fact I was just thinking about. The other day I looked at all my old loan applications and in sort of loan application you actually have to put your financial position. So I know in one of my file cabinets at home I've got an old A&Z.
Speaker 1:You're struggling to sleep. They've got sleeping tablets. Now you don't have to look at the loan application.
Speaker 2:I know, but I did a financial position there and I know I've done financial positions over time. So I'm super keen to now go in and plug all of that past history in, because what it will do for me if I think about saving money in bank accounts, if I think about moving the asset value forward and show what did I buy? Well, I bought that property in 2001 for 395,000. Now it's worth 1.8 million. But I have done some valuations over time. So I'll go and I'll be able to track that progress in terms of the from my mortgage point of view. Sometimes you just look at your mortgage and it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. But imagine if, over five years, you could go back and get the balance from an old statement five years ago and just put that one in there and that's a data point, and that data point will appear in the insights layer.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people have been using spreadsheets for this type of work. Spreadsheets are gone. We're moving into the 21st century. You will have all of this in cloud, available for you, easily accessible, both on your mobile and also on the web app as well. So this is the time to move into the 21st century and because it's cloud based. Most of those old spreadsheets maybe the you know 97, is an example. So Excel 97 isn't supported by Microsoft anymore. So if there's a glitch you can't actually go back and get it fixed. So this is what I'm talking about in terms of having that historical data, because it's super motivational.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking about this and the way I can think about it. Last year I spent a lot of time journaling then and so so then what came out of that was the concept of journal mining. So you go back and you have a look at what you were thinking and what's interesting is you go back in, you know, december, and look what was I thinking about Interesting, and then you can actually measure the growth that you're currently feeling based on some of the thoughts that you're having back then. So that's kind of trying to think of an analogy on how to land the plane, for that it's a bit like that. You, you don't realize what you were thinking at the time, because it is, the thought gets easily superseded or the statement gets easily superseded.
Speaker 1:But for me, you know, I just use the one word what you describe, insights. Well, I actually, instead of just having a spreadsheet with the portfolio that I scramble to keep up the date to get to the account at the end of the year, there's actually something that I can go in and get some meaningful insights as to the performance of a whole range of things, including expenses, that show me how far I've come, where I've come from, which, to your point, is actually keeping people motivated along the journey? Because, let's be honest, when you have a get rich slow program like ours, you know it, it it's, there's no adrenaline.
Speaker 2:No, it's, it's, it's. I'm promise you this is going to be in Dauphin hip. So if you go back and find an old financial position and you put that data in, you're going to. There was progress made there. You know so and of course we will continue to build on that. But the way in which it's been designed one input in one location, then you've got a historical log down the side, but you put that in there.
Speaker 2:We can use that bit of that data point and put it all throughout the insights that you're talking about, and that's the way we want it. And it's like you know, when the spreadsheet is like we're going to move that data or I'll put a you know, find that page, add that page to here to get one spot, and we basically do all the work in terms of showing those insights. So I cannot be more excited about it. Of course, we will come back and talk about it again in a later episode. In fact, we're building up an episode about, you know, what the research says about human behavior and why it's so important to do this particular thing. So I won't give away that clue as well, but we'll have an episode on that in February at some point as well, so we will let you know when it goes live. But that's what we promised and it's going to be early.
Speaker 1:So, folks, so why are you thinking at the end of what was a wonderful summer series? Have we labored this point? It's really because we are generally committed to helping you have resources and tools that actually make you move the move the needle. So you're hearing this towards the end of January, so you've got an opportunity to springboard 24 like no other year that you've had. And, yes, we have spoken about it at some length, but you can get access to it for free. It's to the point that I was saying before about Amanda's story. You get to choose at this point.
Speaker 1:And, yes, if you come into our business, we have staff and overheads, which means that we have to charge a fee to have the done for you model if you use our business.
Speaker 1:But this allows you to actually download the app for free, use the desktop version for free and for the lifetime of us talking about this platform, it has been free, so it gives you an opportunity to do all those five steps, those critical five steps that Ben talked to before. But, yeah, the reason we're leaning in at this point is because we actually want you to have a Ripper 2024, we want you to spend less than you earn. For those of you that have investment properties, we want you to have genuine insights that allow you to make better decisions and in an environment where, in the first part of the year, you're going to be navigating some negative headlines, you need to be rock solid in your resolve about where you're headed and about where you are, and these things allow you to do both of those things. Here's where I'm headed, here's the progress along the way. Oh, by the way, here's some insights of the where I've been in the past and allows you to have that sort of resolve in yourself when others might get wobbly there. That's true.
Speaker 2:And, just you know, we've also released a couple of the interim features, which is bulk edit and bulk upload, and so that allows you to also, you know, see it in a more concise manner if you want to, and I think there's there's some real value.
Speaker 2:So if I'm doing my annual review, as an example, I would go into the bulk edit so it just makes the cards in you know table format and so I can quickly then work out which money smarts jar that I want to have in and I want to adjust the annual. So those people and we know the bulk of our people are doing their annual rollovers in money smarts. That's where you want to go. So if you need to learn more about that, go into the website moorwhorecomau, go to new features and you'll see some articles and blogs and videos in terms of some of that. And, of course, if you're listening to this podcast several weeks later and playing catch up that website where all the new blogs and new features are going in there, just that's where you'll get all that information and, of course, by that time, historical tracking and also insights will be live.
Speaker 1:M-O-R. Dot com dot I use. We can check that out, folks. So again, as we wrapping up what's been a an incredible summer series for us, it's it's exciting. A couple of things I want to say to you.
Speaker 1:If you've listened to these stories and and something stood in you, I want you to act on that stirring in your belly. I want you to go to the property couch dot com dot. You forward, slash my story. I get to read all of those stories and we get to make invitations to folks who want to share that. So I normally do a call out towards the end of the year.
Speaker 1:But if you've, if you've had a stirring where you think you know I want to be a part of that, just come and leave your details. We'll reach out to you, say thanks and when the timing's right, we'll get you to come on and share your story. So, number one, number two if you haven't been inspired by any of the stories, I want you to feel the inertia that might come up, to stay status quo, to remain unchanged, to think it was a good idea. And I've got to get around to that. I promise you, the lower your action threshold, the better it is that you will get success because you this podcast. If lifestyle design is the umbrella of what underpins our mission, probably the number one tactic that we're trying to do is get people to take action, and that's why summer series was was so important.
Speaker 2:And the best way to motivate yourself is set, set some goals. Set some goals for this year and then start to think about well, do I need finance to achieve those? And that should get you started. So the first step you know, as our good mate in terms of atomic habits, james Clear, would say shoes by the bed. So for us, download the app, start with your, my goals, and then start to think okay, all right, now I'll start it, I'm into it. So that's the best way in which I will give the tip for that to happen.
Speaker 1:So now, folks, we have an epic February coming up. We have got our Ben and my personal property market outlook it's coming. We will have a commentator on at the end of the month to talk about how they see the market. We've got some some wrapping, some, some best moments from summer series as actionable takeaways that Ben and I can encourage you to take action this year, and we're also going to help you to Ben's point earlier on how the tracking actually helps you achieve your goals. So it's a big February we've got planned, so we want to encourage you to stick around.
Speaker 1:Folks, we recently went over 100,000 unique listeners on our podcast, which is something that we're very, very proud of. So we're asking you to help us spread the word. If you've had value from the podcast in 2023, or for someone that you've cut a couple of laps around since the beginning, it would be wonderful if you could share the podcast this year. We've got so many amazing things lined up for the property catch in 2024. So we want to share it with as many people as possible so that we can help as many people as possible achieve lifestyle by design, ben. So it's been fun.
Speaker 1:The summer is always good, the good news is is the summer series finishes at the end of January, but Aussie opens on, yeah, and we still got February in summer here in Australia, which is good. So until next week, knowledges and powering, but only if you act on it.
Speaker 1:Act on it, folks. See you next week. Hey folks, bryce here again. I just wanted to catch you real quick before you go.
Speaker 1:If you're new to our community, I want to encourage you to listen to our very first 20 episodes, as the concepts we share in EPS One through 20 are foundational principles, pillars and frameworks that you need to know for you to get the best value from our content week to week on our show, my little tip is to listen to it at one and a half speed.
Speaker 1:Now, for those of you that are time poor and don't have the option to go back to the beginning, don't worry, because we've got you covered as well.
Speaker 1:We've created a binge guide that summarized these foundational episodes into one easy to digest booklet so that you can get up to speed super fast. So go to the show description on whatever device you're listening to now and simply click on the first 20 episodes link to download it straight away. Oh and, by the way, whilst you're there, you'll find a few extra goodies for you, including a link to download our lifestyle by design app more, the home of wealth, speed and wealth clock, and our hugely popular MoneySmart's money management system, as well as how to get free copies of our bestselling books. Now, just a reminder that anything we cover on this podcast is not considered to be financial advice, and we certainly recommend that you seek out expert advice tailored to your unique circumstances, and everything we talk about is general in nature. Folks, I want to encourage you again to click on the show description, wherever you are listening, to access all the free goodies we have for you. See you next week.