Uncensored Money Season Six: Let’s take the fear out of money and start growing in confidence
Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 30/12/2024

Show Notes

It’s a new season and we’re heading back to the basics to help you reduce your financial overwhelm and start (or keep) doing money better. Our question today is how do you remove the remove the fear out of money and to start (or for some of you, to continue) growing in confidence?  Mel and Lawsie talk you through why women particularly feel fearful or have low money confidence, we’ll share stories and give you some simple practical things you can do to help you remove that fear and grow in confidence in 2025.

Whether you’re super fearful, you have low confidence or you just want your financial cup refilled, this will help you step into 2025 with financial confidence.

For more tips and resources, visit us at melissabrowne.com.au, on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok @MelBrowne.Money or send us an email at [email protected].

The link for the My Financial Adulting Plan is here

The link for our HIIT new year money challenge is here

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

Transcription

Mel: Welcome to Uncensored Money. I'm Mel Browne and I'm here to help you do money Better. Money can be an enormous source of stress, and it can be what makes the biggest impact on our lives. I want that impact to be a positive one. I've helped thousands go on the journey to learn, grow, and become financially better off as an ex-financial advisor and accountant, author and educator, with over 25 years experience in the financial industry, I'm joined by Lauren Law, AKA Lawsie, hello, who is also an ex financial advisor, a personal finance educator, and my work wife. We both have so much financial choice and are here to help you have the same. We invite you to join us as we uncensor money.

Mel: Hey, lovely. We are so glad you're here for today's episode where we're talking about how to remove the fear out of money and to start, or for some of you to continue growing in confidence.

Mel: Why are we starting this series talking about fear and confidence Lawsie? Well, I know that many of you finished 2024 not doing money as well as you wanted to, but that's why number three in the top year's resolutions for 2025 is improving your finances. Chances are that's a goal for many of you too in 2025, but with the majority of women having below average financial literacy and 93% of women in a recent survey answering that they believed women were worse investors than men, there's a good chance you're not sure if having the finances you dream of is possible for you. Now, we wanna give away the ending and let you know it absofreakinlutely is possible. And that's why today we're gonna talk you through why women particularly feel fearful or have low money confidence, will share stories and give you some simple practical things you can do to help you remove that fear and growing confidence in 2025. So let's get into it. To give us a little experience, we're joined by the very fabulous Maree, who, how long ago did you do the my financial adulting plan? Marie,

Maree: I think it's nearly been two years coming up to two years, at the start of next year.

Mel: You've been in the community for a while. And why, did you initially join? Why, did you think that you needed to adult financially?

Maree: So I feel like I haven't always been bad with money, but I knew I could be doing better with money and I had just had my second baby and I was sitting there thinking, how am I gonna financially support and manage and juggle all the things? And then your course popped up and I've been watching you for a little while, and so decided let's just jump in and check it out. I loved the fact that there was no hidden agendas and you didn't push certain products, so that was really important for me. Yeah. but it's been an absolute game changer in our little lives.

Mel: I love hearing that. Today's episode, and one of the reasons why we wanted to talk to you and hear about your experience in the debt episode, is I know you're someone that kind of has a comfortability with debt. So talk to me about that, because in a conversation that we had recently, you said, well, actually, you are looking to get into more debt

Maree: Yeah. So I'm comfortable with good debt. When I joined the program, we had credit cards that weren't maxed out, but they were becoming, a little bit too easy to tap and not think about. Yeah. after doing the program, we cut them and sorted out buffers and managed things a lot better.

Mel: Lawsie and I, happy dancing <laugh>. Yeah.

Maree: Pop the poppers and then, um, we've had investment properties or we've got investment properties. And so I'm more than comfortable getting into good debt that I know is gonna make me money, um, down the track. But the idea of getting into bad debt or feeling overcome by debt, doesn't excite me at all. Surprisingly.

Mel: No, I love that. It's interesting to hear you say that you didn't have a problem with credit cards. It just became too easy. And we, again, in this episode, we're having a conversation where we're saying that that's kind of the lie that I feel like has been sold, that this is just something to make your life easy and we don't, and because if, one of the people that aren't paying interest, we actually think this is helpful to us when actually it's not.

Maree: Yeah. It's, I think credit cards are sold in so many different ways or marketed differently in that you can get points. It's easy, it's interest free for a certain amount, and they rely on people to not be on top of their finances to make their money. And so although we were paying it off every month easily, it just, I was over that constant credit card shock. Like in my head I'd be like, oh, it's probably about this much. And then when I'd get the statement, I'd be like, oh my gosh, why are we way over that or double that? So they were one of the first things that, uh, we sorted out. I took, we have a joint one hubby and I, and I just took it straight off him and he was like, what's going on? And I was like, we we're done with that. Like, we're over that from just using it for everyda stuff. And he was like, okay. But he really used it for a sense of security. He knew that if he went out somewhere and he didn't have money or couldn't access cash or whatever, he'd just tap it.

Mel: So what does he use now to put that sense of security back

Maree: So he can see access to our buffers and account, see that we can move money around if we need to. Yeah.

Mel: And that's the thing. I think too many people see their credit card as their buffer account instead of actually creating a buffer account.

Maree: Absolutely.

Mel: So you said, good debt is something that you're looking to get into. Did you always think of loans for investments as good debt? Or is that something that you now think and what changed for you with that?

Maree: So no, I didn't always look at debt as a good thing. I was kind of, so hubby and I come from two different money backgrounds, in the way that both sets of parents have always like struggled to get to where they were going and have both done very well for themselves. Both sets of parents. But Shane's side, hubby's side was like, you buy a house and you paid off for 30 odd years and that's it. There's no creativity around it. There's no, uh, investment property. Like you just buy a house and you paid off and if you want a bigger house, you buy something that's kind of within your means and then you wait another 30 years to pay that off. Where my family was very much, investment properties and making your money grow for you.

Maree: And so it was about making sure that we're both comfortable in that space. But I always had that in the back of my mind that like, the goal is to always pay down that mortgage <affirmative>. And after doing the course, that's not necessarily always the best way to do things. So we've adjusted the way that we, work our mortgages, we've adjusted our instalments. Um, we do as per your recommendation, we call the bank every, I do it every six months because the bank.

Mel: love that.

Maree: gentleman told me that they can do it every six months. So I like absolutely. So take advantage of that. Yep. so, and we've saved thousands of dollars on that. Like one phone call that I think took me about 11 minutes, saved me about $27,000. That's insane. So yeah.

Mel: That's a win. It's a quick win. Yeah.

Lawsie: Massive win. And I felt like someone had given me a million dollars. Yeah. I was like, woo hoo! I'm winning. I'm beating the banks, you know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So that was really, powerful for us and having the plan to move forward with, will you have Enough? What does all of that look like? Has really helped us with projection of where we're going, aligned with our goals and all of that as well.

Mel: Love it. Thank you so much for coming and chatting to us.

Maree: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Mel: So Lawsie we have heard so many stories about fear, about lack of confidence from clients and let's be honest, we felt that ourselves. Yep. So tell me, tell me about you. Tell me about you Lawsie. Ooh, <laugh>.

Lawise: Let's dive straight on in.

Mel: When maybe have you felt that lack of confidence or even fear when it comes to money? Cause experts can feel that too?

Lawsie: Oh, absolutely. I think for me the biggest thing was probably investing in shares. I think property, like a lot of people, you feel comfortable with it, you can see it, you can touch, you can drive past it, all of the things. So I absolutely liked confidence with shares before actually jumping in and going. It's not that bad, but I think that's something that we see is quite a common thing with people that we work with as well.

Mel: Yeah, I would probably be the same. It's when I'm trying something new and often what I do is I jump in both feet, what a surprise. And then I second guess myself when something goes wrong. So I do that in business, I do that in shares, I've done it in property, I've done it with crypto <laugh> like name an investment and I've done it. And for me now it's automating or it's setting up great habits so that I stop second guessing myself. And it just continues to happen. But I mean, that's just a couple of stories from us. We've also seen clients or my financial adulting clan alumni work through this.

Lawsie: Definitely. And I think shares, again, for a lot of them, they treat it like it's legalised gambling, but I think it's also for some people, it's a fear of not understanding money and even just realising that they can actually take control. And I think it's giving, you know, people that confidence to go, yup, I can actually take control. And then it's amazing the flow on effect with that. It doesn't just have to be investing, it's just going, oh, I don't actually have to have a credit card. Or why not pay later isn't just what I need. Like, there's so many things that people can learn, and realise that actually you don't have to have debt to survive. You can use savings and yeah. You know, sort of rewriting some of those stories for people. I would say.

Mel: I think too, it doesn't matter if you're in debt or if you have a great income, you can still feel this way. Yeah. Because we didn't learn money at school. We're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk through this today, but we didn't learn money at school. There is so much happening in the world that makes us feel overwhelmed about so many things. And when it comes to money, if we don't have that basic understanding, or if we feel like we are in a position of lack, then it's really easy to feel like you don't know how to catch up. And yes, everything is Googleable. Everything is figureoutable, but that takes time. And if you're already feeling fearful, feeling like you lack confidence, then that, alone can be overwhelming. So what we wanna do is we wanna start this episode by having you realise that you're not alone in feeling this way.

Mel: I would suggest that, well we've had over 4,800 people go through our course. We have worked with thousands, tens of thousands people in our past life, as financial advisors and accountants. I think there is very few that lacked confidence, that didn't lack confidence or weren't fearful, when it comes to their money or their business. But what do we, I guess if we break it down further, like let's actually look at some of the, reality of why we are feeling this way. And I wanna start by acknowledging the elephant in the room. You know, as I said, we didn't do money at school and you know, I love me some stats <laugh>. So, you know, the S&P global FinLit survey found that almost half of women in western countries are considered financially illiterate. And I know I've talked about this before, but that means we can't answer the five basic questions when it comes to, financial literacy.

Mel: Things like what is compound interest. Uh, that's just a really simple example. Plus as women, we are playing catch up, which is always harder, especially when we're coming from a knowledge gap added onto that the super gap, the wage gap, and so much more. So I think the elephant in the room is, as women, we are already coming from a position of lack many of us. And so we add that fear and lack of confidence. Well, is it any wonder, so that would be number one. Lawsie, what would you add to that?

Lawsie: I think that another thing to consider there is that women are more likely to answer. I don't know. Yeah, And I put my hand up for that because that is absolutely my default. And it's not that we don't know, it's just, it comes back to that confidence pace as well. 'cause often I think we find it, we are not sure, or we're too scared to just have a guess with that as well. So, you know, for example, if we were to examine the questions from that survey that you spoke about, before we'd probably discover that women were disproportionately more likely than men to respond with, I don't know. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And they probably actually do have some idea. And they could guess. but for the most part they're just going, oh, I'm not sure. So I don't know

Lawsie: And we see that, you know, we see that all the time. How many times do we speak with people? I mean, I even know for myself that I would do the same thing that I'd be like, oh, I'm not gonna go for that. You know, if I wasn't working with you. Of course, if I was going for another job, I'd be like, if I don't tick every single job criteria on that, I'd go, oh, I don't even have a chance. I'm not even gonna put my hat in the ring. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Compared to if we're talking, you know, when you are looking at guys, often they're more confident with that and they're like, oh yeah, I can do that.

Mel: I'll have a crack

Lawsie: I'll just wing it. Fake it till I make it. So they're more likely to do that. And so that's probably part of this as well. Yeah. So I think it's just, yeah, it comes down to that confidence pace where we're going, oh, we don't know everything about it and therefore we're like, no.

Mel: And you know, for me, add in a little bit of eldest child, add in a little bit of perfectionism and absolute, I can know other people can't relate at all to that. then I, I have to confess, I was really surprised that on an anonymous survey, people were ticking. I don't know. And that was one of the answers. You could answer it. you had the choice of answers or you could just tick, I don't know. And no one's marking that in the same way that's no one's marking our finances. This is how we feel. and that, that I don't know, really highlighted to me this fear and confidence. Another one is, and I guess the flow on effect for this is that we see way too many women therefore abdicating their long-term financial decisions to their partners. Now, I'm not making this up. So UBS wealth Management survey found that more than half of women globally defer to their male partners or spouses to manage important long-term financial decisions. What's happening is that we're making the short term budgeting, choices. We're managing the day-to-day household spending.

Lawsie: Yeah the groceries

Mel: And then, Yeah, exactly. But we are not making those long-term investing decisions. And you might argue if you're in a relationship with a male partner that you do manage the money. But what we just said highlighted that we're really talking here, those long-term decisions. Yet what's interesting is that if we look at the surveys, women actually perform better financially with investing in men. So we really should be having a seat at the table, but we don't feel comfortable. So therefore nearly 90% have abdicated, which for me was really jarring. And of course, Lawsie, there is the T word

Lawsie: <laugh> Well, I won't jump straight to that, but yeah, it is all those things that we hear all the time. The local and global economic uncertainty. We've got, you know, interest rates, inflation, Trump your magic T word. Mm-hmm

Mel: <affirmative.

Lawise: House prices, share prices Bitcoin, like all of this stuff surrounds us.

Mel: That's just 2024 <laugh>

Lawsie: All the time. You get it hit, you were hit from it. Even if you're someone that doesn't read the newspaper ore, you know, use online platforms to check out the news and things, you are still gonna be seeing this invariably through your socials and hearing people talk about it like there's no escaping it. But absolutely, feeds into this, feeds into this. And you going, oh, there's so much uncertainty. Should I be doing something? Can I be doing something? and it can be really hard to see through that noise, particularly if you're already feeling nervous about your finances and all the things like that.

Mel: And if you go to the we low financial, confidence, we have low financial literacy, uh, we're abdicating responsibility. And then we get those media headlines really whipping up that that fear when it comes to money and global uncertainty. I mean, every single year about, the media will bring out someone that says house prices are gonna fail every year the media will bring out someone that says the share is share market's gonna tank. As they're also bringing out people that are saying, no, no, it's all gonna rise. Like it's no wonder we are, we feel so schizophrenic when it comes to money. So if you are feeling that way, I guess what we wanna really highlight with that is that you are not alone. Yeah,. Is it any wonder? But what we wanna do then is move you to a place where you don't feel that way. Cause it's one thing to all sit here holding hands. Well, we're not gonna do that <laugh>. It's one thing to be here going, ah, we all feel the same. Yeah,

Lawsie: We're not alone

Mel: We're not alone. We can all do, like, we can all abdicate responsibility. Is it any wonder? This is a great excuse. Excellent. We'll just park money. No, no, no. What we wanna do is recognise what's holding us back and then give you some tools and tips to actually build on that confidence to actually reduce that fear and that stress. And I wanna start by saying we're going to, we're both gonna share a bunch so that you can take something away today. But I wanna start by saying it's just like any skill. Often it's really easy to pick up the basics, but it requires a lifetime of practice to make sure you keep going. So I guess what the reason that we're doing this today, and for the start of this series is we're going back to the basics here.

Mel: We're gonna be talking about the basics of money for the next dozen episodes. Because what I am seeing at the moment, when there is that highlighted fear, when there is that highlighted uncertainty, is that too many people are reaching for the quick wins. They're reaching for that trick pass and they've forgotten the basics. They've forgotten how to catch, they've forgotten how to kick. Like they've forgotten the basics. Lawsie can't do either or can't do anything, don't throw a ball at her. So that's why we wanna bring this series about basics. But it's also realising, you know, when I, when I'm learning French, I can pick up the alphabet really easily. I can pick up hello, goodbye, I can pick up some really basics and I pick, oh my God, I'm a French rockstar, ask me to start to string sentences together or listen to someone speak French, blah, blah, blah, blah, Like I'll go, whoa,<laugh>, I'm never going to learn this. So it can absolutely feel overwhelming when you feel like you've got a little bit of a handle over it, but you see how much further you have to go. And I wanted you to realise that it is just figuring out it's realising that it's just like any other skill. And as adults we learn less and less new skills. So this is gonna feel uncomfortable, this is gonna be harder than maybe we did when we were younger. And that's okay. That's normal.

Lawsie: So I think the first thing that we really want everyone to remember is that you're not good with money yet. Or that potentially you are good with money, but you could be better. Mm-hmm. And just to remove that whole thing around not having to be perfect. Yeah. There's like no one is grading you with any of this where, you know, Mel and I aren't coming in to go, oh, please show us your money homework and you're gonna get an A plus or B minus or a gold star. Like what you're always chasing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Mel: I am, I want an atta girl.

Lawsie: So it's just knowing that this is something that you're going to be able to keep working on and keep improving. I would say even Mel and I have got things that we would look at and go, yep, well I'll speak for myself. Mel might be perfect, but, oh, nice. <laugh>. So even for people that have been in the industry and you know, for so long and are surrounded by this all the time, there's still things that we can be doing better with money. And I think that's something really important for everyone to realise that it doesn't matter wherever you are at now, you're still able to make, yeah. Make decisions and take action. Yeah. To start being better with money.

Mel: So tools and tricks. The first one is realise it's a skill and it's potentially gonna be hard and, and it will take a while and that's okay. Two is the gift of that word yet. Like, I think that's so important Lawsie that it's every time you hear yourself going, I don't think I can do this. It's too hard right now, yet I'm not good at money yet. I don't know how to invest in shares yet. Like, it's just add that word whenever you feel yourself in that downward spiral of I can't do this, I, I really want you to hear the gift of that word yet. The third thing is that what removes fear, what removes uncertainty action. So to think about what's one thing you can do this week, this month to move you forward financially towards your goal. And again, over the coming weeks, we're going to give you some really practical things that you can do.

Mel: But one thing you might do is go and open some bank accounts and see where you're at. One thing might be doing that thing you've put off and you know it, it might be your tax return. Mm-hmmm <affirmative>. It might be, last year I was going to open a share platform. So go and open a share platform. It might be facing the credit card amount like you, for many of us, we know what that one next step is. So what removes fear is action. Lawsie, what are some other things that you've seen where people have taken action?

Lawsie: I think it's even some of the smaller things like people always talk about, you know, utility prices and all those kind of things. It's like we'll just make some time and go and see if you can get a better deal or

Mel: Yeah. I feel like you've got a quick win.

Lawsie: Yep. Shop back. It's like, okay, go on and look at what that is and have that installed on your computer. So when you're already buying things, you are getting a little bit of a kickback from you know, the various number of platforms and things that do that now. So I think it's just choose one thing. Yeah. And do it and celebrate it once you've done it.

Mel: Absolutely. And if you wanna hand with that, um, head to the freebies section on our website and there's a bunch of things you could download and that could be your one thing Yeah. That you do. The next one is surround yourself by positive influences and remove your negative ones. So I am such a strong believer that boundaries are such a big part of having good finances. I'm talking online and offline. So online I would be unsubscribing, unfollowing from people that are a negative influence for me online, either causing me to spend outside my values,causing me to click to buy a little bit more regularly are making me doubt or compare. And it might be someone that you're really close to that you are comparing yourself to them incessantly and feeling like you're coming up short. You don't have to unfollow them.

Mel: That might be hurtful, but you can mute them. You don't have to have them in your face. But it's also choosing who to put in your space. So it might be people like us so that you've got that positive influence, but also understanding who to ignore. So the crystal ball, gazes, the chicken little sky is falling or the people who promise big returns and quick wins. And again, it's you might choose if these people are in your world, you might simply choose to have to not have conversations with them when they start. I'm a big fan of deflective questions because people love talking about themselves. So just ask them a question back about something else. And that way you don't have to hear that. But it might also be that you choose not to read certain media. You choose not to engage with certain content or it might even be that you choose not to look at your share portfolio every single day or every single week because that's going to negatively influence whether you continue to invest because of that, how it makes you feel.

Lawsie: And then I think just, yeah, our final tips for success with that is just start learning and actually put the time aside to do it. Just like you would if you were wanting to start going to the gym or get back into going to the gym or you know, if you're wanting to study, if you wanted to stay French. All of these things like you need to actually just commit to it, put some time aside and it doesn't have to be a whole day a week. It can be small chunks every day. You might decide that it's just when you have your morning coffee, that's when you're gonna be looking at this kind of stuff. Or you could do it where you once a week you go Right on a Sunday, this is what I'm gonna be doing. Like, you know, you best. So I think it's just setting the time aside so you can start making some progress and everything towards this.

Lawsie: And then telling people that are gonna be able to hold you accountable as well. Yeah. 'cause you can, for some of us, we can be our best friend mm-hmm <affirmative>. And let ourselves like, oh no, I'm busy or There's so much going on, I'm not gonna do that particular thing. So find someone that will work and actually hold you accountable that isn't gonna be your other best friend and let you get off with things that they are actually gonna go, have you done that thing? What have you learned from this? You know, and maybe you could be doing that together. So you're actually starting to both become better with money. Yeah. And it's not just something for you.

Mel: Because my prediction, I'm gonna get my own crystal ball out today. My prediction for this year is we are absolutely gonna see inflation increase. We are gonna see inflation decrease. There is gonna be talk of interest rates increasing, there's gonna be talk of interest rates decreasing. There are absolutely gonna be property, bubbles. There's gonna be property slumps, there's gonna be some properties that are stagnant. There are absolutely gonna be sectors in the share market that continue to bubble out. There are gonna be sectors of the share market that drop. So what I'm saying is, change is inevitable and instead it's not trying to predict what's gonna happen. It's making sure that you are getting the basics right, that you are doing money well across the board so that you are not being fearful about everything that you're reading. Now, if you want more resources, make sure you come and check out our website.

Mel: We're having a hit challenge in the new year. So if you are looking for that one action that you can take this year to help you build your money confidence and remove that fear, then make sure you check out our Hiit Challenge. It's free and it's happening at the end of Jan. Check the show notes for that. We hope you enjoy this episode and are feeling more confident to do money better in 2025. Remember, it's not about doing everything perfectly today. Instead think about that one thing you are gonna do as a result of what you've heard us talk about today. And start with that. Come and let me know what that is @melbrowne.money. Thanks for listening to Uncensored Money. If you found value in this episode, make sure you click follow to stay updated on the latest episodes and leaving a review helps others find us here. For more tips and resources, visit us at melissabrowne.com.au. There's an E on the end of Browne 'cause I'm a fancy Browne. On Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok. It's @melbrowne.money or send me an email. There's links for all of these and any other resources we've talked about i the show notes.

 

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