Uncensored Money Season Three: Investing During Uncertain Times

Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 29/11/2022

 

Show Notes

With interest rates and the cost of living rising and volatility in the share market, it can be really easy to press ‘pause’ financially, especially when you’re fatigued at the end of the year. So in this episode, Mel and Lawsie share 8 practical things you should be doing or focusing on during this time of uncertainty.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• My Financial Focus mini course.

If you know you need more help with your finances make sure you join the waitlist for the next round of the My Financial Adulting Plan. 

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: Over the next few episodes, I wanna talk about investing, and that's because I'm seeing so many people pressing pause or talking about pressing pause financially because they're not sure what markets are doing and they're nervous. And I get it. When the media is talking about a crash in property with share markets bouncing around and interest rates and cost of living rising, it's easy to want to press pause. Cause Lord knows many of us have uncertainty fatigue. We have unprecedented times fatigue, we have pivot fatigue. Lawsie, we and I were just talking. I have fatigue.

Lawsie: in general.

Mel: Year fatigue. Yeah, it's horrific and we just want a little more normal. But the thing is normal is a setting on a washing machine.

And we need to get over what we think normal looks like and think about what's smart to do during uncertain times. So before we dive into property in a time of rising interest rates and shares where markets are volatile, in the next couple of episodes, I wanna have a discussion today about investing during uncertain times.

Cause Lawsie, the truth is many people are nervous about investing full stop. Adding a splash of uncertain times and the market's contracting or bouncing around and suddenly people can become even more nervous. Do you agree?

Lawsie: Oh, I feel like I have no choice. I have to agree. Isn't it the Meltatorship? No, absolutely. I agree. And we see the people that come in and do the course, and I would say a lot of the people that want to jump in and do the My Financial Adulting Plan are there because they're going, I wanna start investing and I don't know how.

And the beautiful thing that we get to see is by the time they've completed the course, they're either feeling more confident about it. Or they're going, I've done it, or I'm gonna take the plunge and I will do it. But there is absolutely the common thing with all of them is they're just nervous. They don't understand it. And then at the moment, of course, throwing in all the news headlines and everything else, people are just like, oh no. It's too risky. It's definitely that thing that is happening, but it is nice to see that more people are feeling, once they understand it a bit more, then they do feel a bit more confident to do it.

But I would say we're definitely seeing less people taking that plunge, I think, because they've felt more confident than they have before. But with everything else going on and all. If they're nervous about it and their parents have always been nervous about it, and they're talking negatively about it and feeding into all of those things, and I think people are gonna be more hesitant to start or to continue as well.

Mel: And I think, so I ran a bonus live Q and A last night and something really struck me that a few of the women said that they just wanna be comfortable at the moment. The last couple of years have been rough or they've been through really defining moments or we are just fatigued.

I know, I freaking am. And even if good things have been happening, you can still feel fatigued. And a few of these women said, I just wanna be comfortable. And I watched everyone else's head nodding as they said it. And my concern is that during times of uncertainty, if we really settle into that, I just wanna be comfortable, then that might be okay for now.

And for this moment in time, but it is not gonna be okay for future you. You are being comfortable. Now might mean that future you is very uncomfortable and it is figuring out. We're not saying we want you to feel scared or to feel unsafe. But I think sometimes there is a measure of uncomfortableness that's okay. And my question is always, what am I prepared to suffer for? Even just for a season. Even just for a moment in time so that I can be more comfortable for longer.

Lawsie: Yeah, and I think too on that whole thing around comfortability is if you are doing that and you think, no, I'm gonna do it when I feel comfortable, you've gotta put an end date on that, because if this is something new or if this is something that you haven't done for a while, or even if it was something that you were doing and you've just put the hand break on now because everything's bouncing around, you're gonna feel uncomfortable to get back in and to start or to restart or whatever the case may be. So to your point around things, you might do that for a season. I agree. Cause I just you need to go. All right. Yep. Now's not the time. I've got everything else going on, Christmas, blah, blah, blah. But in January or whenever the time.

Mel: January 18th, that's my date...

Lawsie: At 7pm

Mel: Like it needs to specific.

Lawsie: And know that you're not gonna feel comfortable when you do it, and that's okay, because as you become more familiar with it, you will become more comfortable with it as well.

Mel: Yeah. Like, I grew up thinking we were poor. Like we were so not comfortable. We wore hand me downs. We had the black and white cupboard. Like we didn't have a stack, and yet my dad retired at age 53, so he did the reverse. And I think the reverse is not all we're not saying go so crazy, but then there'll be some people that want that.

The whole FIRE movement is based on let's be super uncomfortable now, so that as early as possible I can be comfortable. But it is that thing where I know my dad, Terry used to talk about how he had a very good friend who he had suggested along the way, do you wanna do this? Or maybe you could consider doing that?

And his friend. Oh no, no, no. Like we like our overseas holidays. We like our life now. I don't want to be uncomfortable or suffer now. And it's interesting looking at the two of them in retirement. I would not do what my dad did. That for me is no way to live. But the reverse is looking at his friend is no longer with us, but they really struggled later on because they were too comfortable. That was their whole focus. So you gotta find the balance. It's a strange segue, but I think during uncertain times, we want that. We're fatigued. We just want some normal, we just want some safety and some comfort. And what I wanted to say and have that discussion to start with is sometimes we need to push against that. And say, you know what? As of this date, that's what I'm gonna start, and I'm going to do something different. So, I think it's pretty obvious what uncertain times looks like.

Lawsie: Oh, come on.

Mel: I remember when we did our last launch as someone said, oh, did you know it was Mercury retrograde? And I went, no I don't really know what that is. But we had technology fails and so much went wrong. I think in the end we looked at one other went, oh, come on, what's going on? And even another business that I own, it never mucks up. It was going nuts and afterwards when people, few people said, you know, mercury was in retrograde, you can look back and go, oh, right, sure. Maybe that's why I feel like poor mercury retrograde gets blamed for everything now. But I think it would be very easy to look back to this point in time in the future and go, oh, they were some uncertain times. Property and interest rates. So property has absolutely performed against expert advice. What all the economists were saying raced in the last couple of years, the values, whilst interest rates dropped, and now the reverse is happening. Interest rates are climbing, property prices are contracting. Our share markets have swung wild. There's talk of a possible recession now, certainly globally. That's true In Australia it looks like we'll skate past it.

Lawsie: Depending on what things you're reading. There was one yesterday, still back in the thing that we are gonna hit it next year.

Mel: There will always be media reports that say that. For my mind, if conservative banks and the Treasurer is saying that we're probably gonna miss it, I reckon we're gonna miss it. Interest rates are going up, the cost of living is going up and more. So we are in some uncertain times. If you are feeling fatigued, if you're feeling like you just wanna press pause and you're not sure what you should be doing at the moment, I wanna say that it's little wonder. But what we wanna do is give you is a whole stack of super practical things that we think you should be doing during uncertain times.

So if you're driving, I'm sorry, pull over and take notes.

Mel: If you walking, surely you walk with notes.

Lawsie: oh God. Put them in your phone

Mel: I put him in my phone. Exactly. So, none of these are gonna be sexy or a silver bullet, but I promise you that if you follow them, they should give you some comfort as to, okay this makes sense.

So the first is to go back to basics. And this is not sexy or a silver bullet, but it is about going back to the simple. The problem is when you don't know what the basics are, it can be problematic. So the basics are your multiple bank accounts, so not just living off your everyday in your everyday account. Having a savings and a bills account, making sure you have a buffer of three to six months cash of fixed expenses. Making sure you're investing for the long term. Making sure you're not overspending, you're spending within what you're earning. That lifestyle creep is not a problem. That you're educating yourself.

Lawsie: Or bad debt, like credit cards and Afterpay and whatever else.

Mel: Exactly, and I liken it, and I know I've told this story before, where my husband was involved with footy for a long time. And one of the players, and I'm not gonna say players' names to protect the innocent but someone was considered one of the best players at that time.

Lawsie: Player A.

Mel: Player A, thank you. Player A was out practising. Considered one of the greatest players was out there practising kicks. Just putting bombs up one after another, and Player B. He was a bit younger. Met Tone out. So these were from different clubs, so it was like, I think it was an origin or a national camp or something who knows. Player B was going, 'wow he's doing that'. And Tone goes to him, 'so what do you take away from that?' And Play B thinks about it for a moment and says he obviously needs the practice. And walked away, and Tony just said to me, he totally missed it. The best players in the world are relentless with getting the basics. Tone looks after Jess Fox who won gold at the last Olympics. He said she is relentless when it comes to getting the basics right to make sure she has those great basic habits.

And I think too many of us are looking for the fancy kick pass. So we're looking for the shortcut, especially when we're fatigued and we're in those uncertain times. But it is about going back to the basics and making sure we are doing those things well, cause if we're overspending, if we're leaning a little heavily on credit, if we're not aware of the different types of debt, if we don't understand about investing, it's really easy then to stumble into doing things that are really unhelpful for you. That if we do move close to a recession, if times are uncertain, it just could take longer to get out of it. And that's what I wanna avoid. I want you to avoid, I want you to avoid that extra time that it will take to undo those decisions.

Lawsie: But also the stress that if you've got these basics, or even if you don't have them and you go that's the stuff I'm gonna focus on at the moment, it helps to create less stress. So when these things do happen, it's yeah, they're not great. Sure no one loves paying more on their mortgage or that it's costing more at the grocery checkout or whatever. But if you're already prepared, it's just okay. It is what it is and move on. As opposed to then really feeling that pinch and starting to feel that real financial stress when you suddenly go, I'm not prepared for this and I can't keep making these high mortgage payments, or how am I gonna be able to keep buying groceries and doing those things as well?

Mel: yeah. Oh, absolutely. So, Lawsie, what's the next thing that we think you should be doing during uncertain times?

Lawsie: Yeah, I think it is just understanding and again, it's the basics, but understanding what dollars are coming in and what's going out. And there are different ways. Some people use a bucket approach. They'll have those multiple bank accounts like you spoke about before, to go, yeah, okay, I understand how much it's costing me for living. I know I've got money for bills, I've got things like that. But if you are someone that goes, I'm not sure, or you really just like a whole lot of data, which, being the numbers nerds that we are, we get that you can use plenty of apps. So the common ones that people had been using were like Pocketbook but they've now been wrapped up. Yes, cause they were free and they no longer exist. But there are other free ones that you can use or even just check out your own bank. I think so many banks now will auto-categorise what you're spending on. So it makes it easy to go, oh wow, gee, my grocery bills have really gone up. Or look at all of those things that I've been buying from online stores.

So you can become a bit more aware of that. But there are so many. There are some other free apps that you can use. These aren't in any particular order. And they all offer different things. So just being aware of that. You might download a few and try them to see what's gonna work best for you if tracking your expenses and stuff is something that you wanna do. So there are ones like Personal Capital and Mint and HoneyDue. Most of them will offer a free trial, so again, try before you buy. These next ones do have costs attached to them. So a popular one is YNAB. Not associated with one of our big banks. Another one's like Pocket Guard, Good Budget. Every Dollar Stashed. So they're just sort of a starting point. But, Google, wherever you are, just to see what ones are around and what works for you.

And I know given, particularly in Australia, some of the recent data breaches some people are gonna be nervous about connecting a third-party app to their bank accounts to sort of make this whole process of understanding where your expenses go a little bit easier and a bit more automated.

So there are ones where you can’t import the data from your back, so it doesn’t have to be an ongoing connection. And so you can check out ones like Fudget for that.

But make sure that you're across what's coming in, like your income and your earnings, what's going out and that you're comfortable with it. And if you don't know that, go to one of these apps or just, go back through, three months' worth of expenses, all that kind of stuff to have a look at what's going on and make sure that you are comfortable with it or are there things that you can cut back and or consider using an app as well if you find that easier and if that will keep you on track. I know a lot of people use them cause it just brings that awareness to their spending and in a really easy way.

Mel: Oh my gosh, I didn't realise my groceries were costing that much each week. I feel sick, or I didn't realise that my takeaways had crept up. Yeah.

Lawsie: Yeah.

Mel: And if Lawsie's really nice, she might, in the next couple of months do a comparison download for those different apps. I reckon that would be really handy.

Lawsie: Oh gee. There's like the most subtle 'here is a job for you, Lawsie' push ever. Well, if you as my now PA remember, you can remind me after this.

Mel: I will. I'm writing it. App comparison. The other thing I guess too is, I know a lot of people use free ones and it's amazing that they're out there, but someone could eventually buy it and shut it down. If you've got a paid one, it's less likely for that to happen. And we've seen three shut down in the last 18 months. So if you've got a paid one, there's less chance that could go away. So just be aware of that too.

Lawsie: Definitely.

Mel: Another thing to consider is that we think you should do during uncertain times is, and the third thing is, understanding where do you wanna be?

Mel: You wanna understand your long-term and your short-term goals because I think part of how it is easy to have fatigue, how it is easy to press pause, is if you are not excited enough about your long-term and your short-term goals, then you will press pause.

Then during uncertain times, you'll go, oh, I don't know what I should be doing. Should I be saving 20%? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing that? You're far more motivated to do something about it. In our line of work, too few people really crystallise what those goals are and really understand and are excited about them.

Often they've done a little bit of goals work, and then they go, oh, I probably should buy a house. Like, that's the extent of it. So really understanding what you want and then breaking that down to 12 months and then 90 days and 30 and seven, that's what elite athletes do. That's what really successful business owners do.

It's intentionality. It's both saying, this is where I wanna go, and now I can shoot for that. And if I might, if I don't quite make it, then I'm gonna get a whole lot closer than I would be if I didn't aim for anything. And it's gonna give me at least that sustainability and that understanding of, okay, it might be choppy around me, but I know where I'm headed versus I didn't even know what I should be doing at that point.

Lawsie: Yeah, and I think too with the goals, it's making sure that you've got the numbers and you've got the timeframe around it as well. Cause I think to your point there, some people will go, yep, I do want a house. I'm like, well that's lovely, but how much do you wanna spend on said house and when do you want to that by? You need to be really intentional around the goals, but then make sure you're putting in the numbers and those other specifics around it. So you are laser focused on what that is and what that target is. And then it's measurable to see how you are going to head towards it.

Mel: I'm a fan of thinking about your next major birthday and thinking about what you want that to look like. What position do you want to be when you get there and then break it down to your best year yet, and then your 90 days. Because as you said, if you want the house worth 700,000 or the apartment in Brisbane or the townhouse in South Australia, whatever it is, and you are deeply in debt at the moment, then the next 12 months have gotta be about getting rid of that debt. It's one thing to say, I'm gonna vision board it, manifest it, and another thing to go, what action do I need to take tomorrow?

Lawsie: Yeah.

Mel: And if you are nodding along, listening, going, oh yeah, I need to do me some of that, we've got a goals mini course. What are we calling it?

Lawsie: Financial Focus Plan. Just called our Goals mini-course.

Mel: Yeah. Cause the idea is we want you to focus. And when you focus on something and I talk about it in the goals course, the psychology and the science behind it. But you know, there's a reason why when you buy a white car, you see white cars everywhere. If you set that intention, if you say, that's where I wanna go, you'll start to that'll be that motivating intention.

But you've also gotta figure out what are your next steps, and that's the important bit. That's the bit we are gonna show you how to do. So that's coming out so soon. Look out for it at the very beginning of December, probably the week of the fifth. So if it's not here now in the show notes

Lawsie: That doesn't sound very goal-driven and intentional, Mel.

Mel: It will be done the week of the fifth. It will be done. It'll be dropping the week of the fifth. There you go.

Lawsie: Thank you. Thank you.

Mel: Oh my god. So that way make sure you look out for that. So, Lawsie, what's next? We've got back to basics. Understanding what money's coming in and going out. Understanding where you wanna be.

Lawsie: Then it's actually starting to do the action that you want to do in terms of just those specific things. Like you're gonna have all of these big goals and that is so important as we've just gone through, but having the specific things around, okay, working out that plan to pay off that credit card debt or clear that Afterpay and making sure that you actually do it instead of going, oh yeah, I'll do that this week.

No, put it in your diary. Schedule it in. Let's get super specific about it, because life in general, but also at this time of year when there are just so many things that are going on, it's easy to push this stuff to the side. So even if you break it down and go this week on Wednesday, I will call the mortgage broker to refinance or I will spend an hour looking at investing cause that is something that's super important to me and I just haven't done it yet. Or even to do those things like you said around having different bank accounts. Just sit down and do it, and schedule that time in your diary and treat it just like you would any other meeting that you were doing as part of your work is part of your business or whatever it is.

This is just with your finances and I would argue is probably more important than a lot of those other things. So just get it in, make sure it's non-negotiable, and just start doing those small activities now, which are all gonna over time compound, and help you reach those shorter and long-term goals that you've got.

Mel: And it's like anything, whether it's fitness, it's for me. I just get bored with fitness, but I stick it in my diary and I do it. But if it's not in my diary, I'm less likely to do it. So I get up in the morning, I check my diary and oh yeah. That's when I said I was gonna do it. Okay, fine. And it's funny how the fact that it's in my diary means that I'm more inclined to do it.

So that's a habit. It's an action that I know that I need to do to move me towards the goal of feeling better about myself, feeling fitter, getting those endorphins during the day, like all that sort of stuff. When I say better about myself, just my well-being is what I mean. It's also just those daily habits, we have so many daily habits, whether it's cleaning our teeth or making a coffee when we get up, it's just saying what daily habits do we need to apply so that we have got great finances, but what are the big actions as well as you said. The mortgage broker, the one-offs that once I do those, then it just makes my life easier and it can become automated.

Yeah. So the next one is we wanna have a long-term timeframe. So up till now, we've talked about the things that you can be doing. So where are you now? Where do you wanna be? What do you need to start doing tomorrow? But the next part is simply, how you feel comfortable during uncertain times to have a long-term timeframe when it comes to investing.

Because if you are looking at the property market and it's starting to retract, it's easy to think, oh, no, what should I be doing? If you're looking at the share market and if you've been investing regularly, but now you're watching those values drop, it might be easy to think, oh, I'm just gonna not be contributing while the prices are going down and yet that's exactly what you should potentially be doing is just regularly investing with that beautiful plan that you set up in the beginning. But that long-term timeframe is so important. It's not about the short term. It's not about what your superannuation's doing in the short term. Or your property's doing, or your shares are doing. It's making sure you've got a long-term timeframe, and by long term we mean more than seven years, ideally more than 10 years. For property, almost 20 years.

Lawsie: Yes, we certainly saw with the course, plenty of people jumped in to buy shares and start investing when Covid hit. And we had that first like drop in the share market and people were so excited then. Cause by the time we came out the other side, they're like, woohoo. I've made money. And then I think for probably last 12 months, if you've still just been putting money in, I know for mine certainly, I look at it and go, oh, today's nice. It went back to slightly positive. And then the next day it's all great and back down negative again. It’s an exciting ride! But again, it's just that I think for people to realise that is what is actually happening at the moment. So if you are relatively new to investing, and if we look at it the last couple of years, you'd go, yep, there was that dip, and then things went up and it's like party time and then it's been bouncing around ever since.

And just that reassurance that it's happening to most people. Unless somehow you've managed to pick and invest in things that have been immune to that. And if you have good on you. I think for most of us, we're all just experiencing that rollercoaster ride. But again, just sort of highlighting, if you were to only look at it in the last two years, everything has been uncertain as we're seeing there. Then make sure that you've got that longer-term timeframe, which is yes, easy for us to say,  but go back and look at how the markets have performed over the last 10, 20, 30 years, so you can really see that benefit of that long-term investing.

Mel: if you've got a long-term timeframe if it retracts in the short term, it doesn't matter. I tell the story a lot that when I bought my home, the property price didn't move for 10 years. Like it did not move. And yet clients would come into my office and just sprout things, like ‘but property doubles every seven years’. Like it was an absolute. I'm like, I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Lawsie: It'd be nice if it did, if it was so certain.

Mel: But my experience was it didn't, and did I panic? No. Did I think, did I make the wrong decision? No. We bought, we only spent half of what we needed to. We bought what we were very comfortable spending, we bought for the long term. So what prices were doing was kind of irrelevant. Yes, it affected our ability to use the equity in the house to buy other investments. But that just means that you then have to save or you have to do other things in order to have that deposit, and that's okay.

Lawsie: Put a different plan or strategy in place.

Mel: Yeah. Exactly. So have a long-term timeframe when it comes to investing.

The next one, Lawsie is to diversify. Freak, this is important.

Lawsie: Really important. So in the same way, everyone would've heard that expression of don't put all your eggs in one basket. And that is exactly what we're talking about when it comes to diversifying your investments. So you might not be in a position to do that today. Let's just first acknowledge that.

But again, over that long term and when you're looking at your longer-term goals and even your short term goals and keeping in mind that investing is for the long term, you're wanting to make sure that you've got exposure to shares and to property and potentially to business, as well as keeping money in cash, which I know we flagged right at the start about making sure that you've got that buffer of that three to six months expenses. Again, the importance of that, particularly when we're talking about that diversification piece, is because if the share market drops, or property prices go down, you still are gonna need cash for something you still need cash to live on.

If you put everything into your investments and suddenly lose your job or your job hours get reduced, or whatever it is, having access to cash means that you can still keep on that long-term investment view, without having to cash in investments and sell things at what might actually be inopportune time. Eg, If you'd invested 10 grand in shares and then suddenly the share market bottomed out and it's only worth six. You're gonna lose that money, whereas you actually can ignore that if you've got that buffer. So I think that's definitely the important thing, but even when we say shares and property. It's not Monopoly. So don't go and buy every house in the same street.

Mel: Or all the houses in your street.

Lawsie: Cause that's not exactly diversification.

Mel: I am Barron of where I live.

Lawsie: If property is your thing, we'd recommend having some diversification. It doesn't mean that you have to all be in different States too, but there could still be in different areas, regional versus city apartments versus townhouses. Look at the different things and make sure that everything is not the same and same for your shares. Don't just go and put it all in X, Y, Z share. You want that diversification.

Mel: Or even a class of shares. Don't just download Spaceship and go, oh, now I've invested in shares because I've downloaded an app, and yet I'm only in technology shares in the US. That's super problematic.

Lawsie: So just making sure that you’re investing for the long term, but also that you've got that diversification and therefore exposure to a wide range of assets. There are so many different ways and options of being able to do that. Shares, Exchange Traded Funds, Managed Funds even different options for property.

Like you don't have to buy the whole house. Again, it's not monopoly. You can buy a brick of the house or you can buy in other different investments that will still allow you to invest in property. So just making sure you're investing in more than one thing.

Mel: Yeah. Diversification's so important. We see too many people where, particularly in Australia where it's you buy your own home, maybe an investment property, you have superannuation and that's it. And often that's not diversification enough. The reason diversification is so important is it gives you options. And that during uncertain times, we often feel like we don't have enough options. How you reduce that is by giving yourself options. And we are gonna talk about shares in next week's episode, but certainly shares, if that was your scenario and you wanted to start to invest in shares or bonds or cash in asset classes other than property, it can be really easy to invest with really small amounts of money. If you are thinking, oh, I can't invest because I don't have a large deposit. That's just such a closed view of what investing is. So there are so many different ways you can invest, and even with property, you could invest in a listed property trust or something like that, where I don't own the property myself. As you talked about, you own a unit in a property trust, so

The second last one, and this has really got to do these three things I feel like are really are all part of the same story, but don't try to time the market. It's about time in the market. So we've talked about how you wanna have that long-term timeframe and when you do it's understanding, could you wait till April next year and the market will have softened further? Maybe. Could you wait till April next year and the market will have taken off again because interest rate rises have slowed down? Maybe. No one has a crystal ball.

And until they do, then just ignore them. So go and do all the research you want, but at the end of the day, it's about time in, not timing. And if you've got that long-term view, then yes. Would it have been maybe you could have had a bit more equity and you could have owned more shares cause you've got it cheaper? Sure. But because we don't have that crystal ball, none of us can make that call. And I know so many times I've looked back and gone, oh God, if I'd waited. But that's the same with sales. So I've got a birthday coming up. So I've bought a couple of outfits for different festivities

Lawsie: I suspect you've maybe bought more than just a couple.

Mel: But if those dresses went on sale two weeks after my birthday, absolutely. I'm gonna go, oh, bugger. Yeah, but it doesn't matter cause I've worn them, I've enjoyed them and it is what it is. And I think it's the same thing. You've gotta look at that with mindset; it is what it is. I intend to hold this for the long term. So the fact that they dipped, it might be that you look at it and go, now that I'm investing regularly. So they've dipped. So the next time I buy them next month they'll be on sale; perfect. But with property, it's too large an asset to be selling and repurchasing, so it's a long-term timeframe please people. And don't try to time the market. Even experts get that wrong, especially experts get that wrong.

Lawsie: Always. Then our last one and we think this is very important, invest in your financial education.

Mel: That's how you have that sleep-at-night factor, right? That's how you feel comfortable that what you are doing is right, because you actually have that knowledge. And I would say Lawsie, it's more than just knowledge. It's understanding.

Lawsie: Definitely, it just makes things clearer. So I think if there's anything that we've been talking about, you go, oh, I'm not sure about that and I'm not sure about that yet. We're saying, these are the things that we think you need to be doing in uncertain times, then absolutely you wanna make sure that you're getting up to speed with that.

And so you can look at that later and go, gee, I have done all of that and I am doing all of these things, and I'm looking after myself now and in the future, regardless of what the certain or uncertain times may be.

Mel: Yeah. And if you want to either deep dive with that, or if you haven't done enough and you know you really wanna do more, in Australia the stats are 45% of people are financially illiterate at a time when things are more uncertain and we have more financial choice. So I think that's a dangerous statistic. It's a dangerous position to be in. I'm a financial educator, ex-financial advisor, ex-accountant. I think financial education is so freaking important. It should be taught in schools. It's not, but we're essentially giving you that financial education, and we do it through podcasts. We do it through Instagram, we do it through short courses and all sorts of stuff. But we also do it through the eight-week My Financial Adulting Plan. And the new year is a beautiful time to decide that this is the year I'm going to finally get this sorted, or I'm gonna upskill myself so that I can feel more comfortable around my decisions, more confident.

Particularly cause the uncertain times I'm here to tell you peeps, is here to stay for the foreseeable future. That's one thing I can say with certainty. So if you love the idea of that, make sure you join the waitlist for the My Financial Adulting Plan for when we open our doors. Lawsie, end of Jan?

Lawsie: Yes, end of Jan 2023, which is actually coming along really quickly.

Mel: Don't, can't even. So we hope to see we hope to welcome many of you in and let's make sure you feel comfortable as we continue going down this path of uncertain times.

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