Uncensored Money Season Three: 5 Financial Tips No Matter Your Age or Stage 

Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 23/05/2022

Show Notes

Melissa recorded this podcast at the request of someone who messaged her on Instagram asking if there’s hope if you’re starting again in your late thirties and what she should do.  

In it, Mel talks about her own story about coming back from less than nothing as well as 5 strategies to financially move yourself along, no matter your age. 

If you know you need more help with your finances make sure you join the My Financial Adulting Plan. Doors are open now, but hurry – they close on Tuesday, 24 May 2022! 

If you're not already, come play over at insta at MelBrowne.Money and make sure you are signed up to Mel's Money Musings and Monday Money Moments (yep, we love us some alliteration) for more tips, tricks and ideas on how to best work with your money.

Finally, if you love this episode please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Mel: So I wanna start our chat today with some statistics. And that is three startling ones when it comes to women and money. The first is that women over 55 are greatest at risk of homelessness. There are 450,000 women in their forties who are at risk of homelessness. And that 52% of women in Australia at the moment are considered financially illiterate, according to the 2020 Hilda report. Now those three statistics for me are absolutely frightening.

And if you are a woman, it doesn't matter if your twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties, it should make you pause and care about money. But what I'm seeing way too often is that there is, yes, there is a growing movement of women, which I love, that are giving a shit about money, but there's also a very large group that are still abdicating their finances, that are still thinking that a man or their partner is their financial plan. And they are just putting their head in the sand and thinking, this is too hard. I don't wanna face it and it's too much.

And my concern is that means that you are going to be one of those statistics. So what I wanted to do today is I wanted to give you some hope. I wanted to talk about five things that I think you can do in order to turn it around five things, no matter your age and stage, cause I'm not, I'm really not a fan of those beauty tips for your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, or style tips for your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. I think you should be able to wear and put on your face and wear your hair however you want to, you wanna do that? And when it comes to money, I don't think there is an age and stage that we need to find ourselves at.
And it used to be that, you know, you left school, that you would get a job. You'd meet a nice bloke. You'd have babies. It was a buy a house. It was a very predictable path. Whereas now, every step on that path has been challenged. And every step of that path is not accepted as a status quo or in quotes, "normal". You know, normal is just a cycle on a washing machine. It's not an age and stage.

And so I, the reason that I mention that is because I don't want this to be a, oh, this is what you should do in your twenties, thirties or forties. I think these are good things to do regardless of your age, because I don't believe it's ever too early to start caring about money. And I don't believe it's ever too late to start caring about money. You know, we have teenagers inside the My Financial Adulting Plan that are doing the course with their parents. Our oldest is 80, uh, that is doing the course because her husband's passed away, she's not entitled to the pension and she wants to get financially literate and understand money. I just, I can't tell you and everything in between.

So, what I wanna do though, is I wanna start with a story before I dig into these five things. Because it can be really easy to go, yeah Mel, but what would you know? In your forties you have options. You're a multimillionaire, you're an ex accountant. You're an ex financial advisor. Of course you'd be good with money.
And yet the truth is my background is I'm from the Western Suburbs of Sydney. And whilst my dad was an accountant, we didn't talk about money. My dad retired at the age of 55, and we didn't know how he did that. He never shared that with us.

And if you look at myself and my siblings, uh, my brother's never worked a day in his life. He's a drug addict and he's always struggled. My sister has a very different value system around money than me. And that's not a judgment. It's just, she doesn't understand finances. She's quite financially confused. And I think it would be fair to say, um, that my parents are her financial plan. Whereas I am fiercely financially independent and don't want help from anyone. So I dunno that any of our techniques, uh, my sense around money are 100% helpful, but I wanted to show you that just because you grow up in a household with an accountant doesn't mean you automatically become good at money.

But my story is that at age 33, uh, if for those of you who don't know, uh, as a result of a throwaway line from my then husband, who said to me, you'll never make it on your own, I took the entire divorce proceeds and every cent that I had in the bank from personal savings and everything that was in the business bank account.

And I went and gave it all to Opportunity International and set up a trust bank. And I wanted to ring them the next day and say, um, so I'm the charity. Can I have some of that back? But you can't, right?. So that meant I had no money for tax for super, for wages, for cash flow, but also no money for bond, um, or any other expenses.

And it meant at age 33, I had to go and move in with five good friends. So six of us in a frat house. In, uh, the inner city and it was a whole lot of fun, but also freaking stressful. And it really took me three years to really start to build that back, to build up my confidence, to build up my confidence around money.

Um, and I absolutely went into debt in order to get out of debt. And I always tell that story because if I've made those mistakes, someone who grew up with an accountant in the family and who studied finance, you know, if I've made those emotional, raw and wrong decisions and had to come back from less than nothing in my mid thirties to the fact that in my late forties, I have the choice to work or not, then how does other people cope? And I've received a lot of messages of late from people in their late thirties or their forties or their fifties saying, how do I turn things around? And I always tell that story because there's hope you've gotta wanna do the work. You've gotta give a shit about money. And that for some of you, that sounds jarring cause you go, oh, give a shit about money, but isn't that like ick? Aren't people who care about money, you know, not, not good? You know, isn't it not great to care about money? And if you instantly had that reaction, then that's a money story that I really want you to dig into.

And that's number one is what money story are you carrying? That's holding you back without you even realising. If you are finding that you're caught in a sabotage loop, if you are finding that you are unconsciously sabotaging plans for you to get ahead, maybe it's a money story around if I have too much, then I won't be an attractive partner or won't be an attractive prospect.

Maybe it will be around the role that you think nice girls have. Maybe it's around whether someone that has money is considered unfeminine or whatever story you grew up believing. I want you to dig into what money story did you grow up with and how is that affects your goals and your plans for yourself?

Certainly for me, I grew up Western Suburbs of Sydney and with this notion of not being enough. So I just believed that I would be less than that. I was, I had an excuse to play small, and for me it meant, uh, educating. It meant putting myself around others who were where I wanted to be. And very quickly I realised, oh my God, these people are no smarter than me.

In fact, I would hesitate. I would hazard a guess to say that I'm kind of smarter than a bunch of them. Who am I not to be doing these things? And if you are in the position where you don't have those people around you, uh, then what I would suggest is that you take a look at the My Financial Adulting Plan. Yeah, the doors are open. They're open till Tuesday night, this week. Uh, the 24th. If you're listening to this after, we run this three times a year, so make sure you jump on the wait list, but this is a community. This is an education. This is me, uh, as your mentor, where you're able to figure out what are these stories for me? Um, and how can I have someone in my life who I can listen to, who I can believe that I can do these things and who will guide me because we all need that. I think it doesn't matter what it is. If you have a coach, if you have a guide, if you have someone to educate you, it just quickens that. So one is what money story you're telling yourself. And we spend two weeks inside the My Financial Adulting Plan on financial awareness. And I think that that's key, particularly to women and financial success.

Two is understanding what your goals are. You know, there's a lot of expectations on women. There's a lot of expectations on all of us in society, whether that's on having children, whether that's on the role of women in society, on how we should behave for me as the first born. It was around being a nice girl and everything that that involved. And I've had to peel that off, uh, layer by layer and as awkward and uncomfortable as it sometimes. But it's asking the question, are these my goals that I'm working towards or are they society's goals? Are they my peers goals? Are they my parents' goals?

So for example, if I, if I was to say to my, um, mum, What goals do you have? For me, it would be two kids living near them working part-time. Like so different to what it is. Whereas I am purposefully child free, um, absolutely loving and have worked the life of a CEO in my own business, which means I'm extraordinarily busy. I don't leave near them. And I split part of my time between the mountains and part between the city. So it's and my mum doesn't get. Like she, we have this strange relationship because she doesn't know how to relate to me in that way because it's not the life she would want for me. And I could keep my mum happy by trying to force myself into that life. And it would be horrible. No, I'm not suggesting it's horrible for you, but it just wouldn't be right for me. And yet some of you are striving for goals and you're wondering why you're sabotaging and yes, some of it might be to do with money's story, but it might simply be that, you know, those goals aren't right for you.

So I would encourage you to sit down and figure out what goals do you want. And chances are the first time you do that, it'll be what Brene Brown calls your shitty first draft. So you'll throw it out and you have another crack. And once you've done that, it's number three is figuring out, well, what does that mean for the next 12 months?

Because if your goal is, you know what, I don't wanna own my own home, cause I don't know where I wanna end up, but I love the idea and safety of property. So I'm gonna buy an investment property. Yet I've got $10,000 in credit card or I've got no deposit saved. So your next 12 months have to be all about that, right? So it's once you understand what goals you want.

The third question is, well, what does that mean for the next 12 months and even more? What are you prepared to suffer for? And that's the thing. I don't know if you've ever watched a sprinter. As I consider those short term goals, sprints. I love the sprinting at the Olympics, the 400 and the 200 and the 100 and the 800. But if you see the faces of sprinters, they're not jogging. They're not going oh, wow, with a big smile on their face. I mean, once they're over the finishing line that happened. But they're grimacing, they're suffering. They do not look like they're having fun at the moment. And I'm not suggesting you don't wanna have fun, please don't hear that.

But my question for you is, are your goals exciting enough that you are prepared to suffer for them and to go without some things in the short term? And the answer is no, that I wanna challenge your goals.

And what I mean by, uh, suffering. And this leads me to three and four is to get real and to get creative. Because there is this notion that I'm thrown at some time where people talk about the dream house. You know, that was never a thing when I bought my first house. The understanding was I could only afford a shitter and I could only afford one about 45 minutes away from where I wanted. Whereas's this notion around of a dream house with the dream furniture to suit. We all want a house that looks like it was from The Block. And I think that we need to get real about it.

So this is three and four, but also to get creative, cause I've got a good friend who is in her thirties, forties. She's unexpectedly gone through a breakup recently with her husband and she's had to get real and get creative, really freaking fast. And for her, do you know what? She probably could have gone and rented somewhere and it would've eaten up at least half of her income. And she really would've struggled for the bond. She would've gone into debt for the bond. But instead, she went to her community and went, you know, what does anyone have house sitting available? And, uh, there were people in her community that she was able to house it for 12 months while they went overseas. And if you don't have, if you can't get creative, if you don't have people like that in your community, there are actually websites where I think it's called House Sit and there's another one called Paw Sit where you can strip an enormous cost from how you live by simply removing housing as a cost.

So it doesn't mean you have to move back in with your parents. Lord knows I could never do that, but you could for example, house it, and yes, it might mean you need to move every six months or 12 months, but hey, if you rent, you might have to do that too. And if it means that you're paying nothing for your housing or an absolute minimum amount, I don't know about you that's worth getting creative, getting real, and maybe having some short term pain for. And inside the My Financial Adulting Plan, we help you get creative with things like that. We help you figure out what your goals are. We have a lesson in there called 33 ways to find, um, 10 K in 12 months. We help you make a plan for debt. We help you create goals and you create your own financial plan. I help you get real there because that's what it's all about, right? It's not relying on what your parents perhaps were able to do. Not relying on looking around at your friends and what they're able to do, but what can you do?

And if you are single, can I also say it's also getting real as to the cost of living cause the cost of living of a couple as compared to the cost of living of a single is really freaking different. Everything from food to shelter, to shared insurances and more for so much of its double. And what I think you need to do is get real about that and get creative.

As I said, get real about housing, get real about all those different things, even if it's for a short term. But I also think you need to talk to your friendship circle because if they're really your friends, you should be able to have a conversation with them and say, especially if they're coupled up and say, you know what, I love doing all this social stuff with you.

However you guys, most of your costs are shared and mine aren't. So what I'd ask is when we do social stuff, out of the five that we are gonna do together can four of them be where we go to each other's houses or they are a low cost? And then every fifth one be bougie instead. Because I just can't keep up and I really wanna see you all. But my cost of living is so high compared to the rest. Or maybe if you've got a bunch of single friends, you could say to them, hey, why don't we do a weekly cook up? We do a grocery shop, we cook together, and that way we've got shared cost. It's social and we're, um, alleviating this cost of making these meals for ourselves where it's really freaking expensive, or we are just eating the same freaking thing every night because of that cook up or maybe saying to those same couple friends, hey, how about I come over? We do this together and then we split it up. So I think it's also being creative about other shared costs so that it's not just you bearing that alone. And so that your friends, I promise you, people are in a bubble. And if you let friends know, they will love to be part of this solution for you. And they'll be grateful that you've told them. And you know what? If they're not, then my question is, are they really your friend?

But the final thing I, I wanna say is you've gotta have a plan and everything I've talked about so far today is about having a plan. Whether it's getting educated about money, whether it's figuring out your goals, whether it's getting real about where you are at, understanding what your monthly expenses are. Getting real about the cost of what it costs you to live. Getting real and getting creative about solutions for you, but you've gotta make a plan and have that plan.
So that it's something that you are excited about. Something that you're prepared to enact and maybe share it with others and say, hey, this is something I'm really struggling with. Is this something we can do together? Cause I want us to be able, I'd love to be held accountable to this.

So and if you love these ideas, be you are thinking, you know what? I just, I can't like it's too much. Then what I want you to consider is checking out the My Financial Adulting Plan. There's a link in the show notes because sometimes it is about that community of others who have been there and done that. And I have, so I have over a thousand people in my community that have done the course, and there are so many women that are in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and now eighties who either are coupled up and have done it with their partner or are single, or are contemplating being single and have decided that they're going to financially step up. And once they're in there, they're suddenly keenly aware that they're not alone and they're able to see others who've gone before them who've done it. And that can give you hope. So I hope that this has given you hope. Um, the cost of the My Financial Adulting Plan is there, is I've got three different payment options. And one of them means that it's less than a cup of coffee a day, cause I want to make sure it's affordable.

So if this is you, I hope that you've listened to today and it means you realise that I don't wanna be over 55 and living in my car. I don't wanna be one of the 450,000 women at risk of homeless. I wanna decide today to give a shit about my finances. So I'm going to make a plan. I'm either going to start working on those things that I talked about today, or I'm just gonna dive in and join the My Financial Adulting Plan. I can't wait to welcome you in.

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