Set your money up for success in 2026

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

If wealth creation is important to you, you are gonna love today’s episode of the podcast. Today I am chatting to Molly Benjamin, the founder of The Ladies Finance Club, about simple, practical steps that you can do to build true wealth when it comes to managing your personal finances. I love this conversation, and I’m sure you will too.

Let’s go get rich.

A big warm welcome to the podcast, Molly. I might start by asking you to introduce yourself to the listeners, if that’s okay? Yes. Well thank you very much for having me. My name is Molly Benjamin. I’m the founder of Ladies Finance Club and really our main goal at Ladies Finance Club is to help make Aussie women rich.

And we do this a number of ways, but mainly through financial education. ’cause a lot of us are just never learned about how to manage our money. We’ve learned how to earn it, but not how to grow it. That is so true. Isn’t it crazy that they don’t teach this stuff at school? It is still not teaching it either.

I was like, maybe it’s changed. So I checked in, I went and spoke at a university the other day and I was like, are you guys learning about financial literacy? Nope. Crazy. Well, this is, as you can imagine, is the part of my mission on this planet, because I sort of find the same with entrepreneurs. You know, people fall into the world of business ownership and don’t, aren’t taught how to read a panel, aren’t taught how to manage their money. And I wasn’t, I, I jumped into the world of business, clueless about the world of business finance, a whole new ball game. A hundred percent. It’s really different. But I really wanted to bring you on and leverage your knowledge because wealth creation, like the listeners and myself, like we are all passionate about creating wealth, about becoming rich.

And you know, it was funny because even that these words can be quite triggering I find for some people. So maybe let’s start there and then I want to go in and dive into some practical strategies as well. But why do you think that people, particularly women, get really triggered by the word rich? Oh, such a good question.

A couple of things on that one. So when we think of rich women. What do we think of? Like if we have to think of rich women, do you know the first thing that used to spring to mind for me? Rich Bitch. Yep. Exactly. Mm-hmm. And like when I think of the movies, it’s like. The, like, I used to love pride and prejudice, but like all the really rich characters were really evil.

Yeah. Crazy Rich Asians, the moms a psycho, Cruella Deville Psycho, like mean girls. The moms like, she was the mean rich one. Like, so we had very few female role models who are rich and good people. Like there’s not a lot of them, but when we think of wealthy men, like there’s so many, and they’re always good looking and they’re always charming, but so I think the first one is like, we can be triggered by the word rich because we don’t associate being rich with being good. We can see it as being selfish, being bad, being evil. And if you think being wealthy is those things, what happens when you start earning money you might not even realize, but you’re self-sabotaging. You’re getting rid of it, you’re giving it away, you’re spending it, you’re not wanting to deal with it.

The other thing is I think we need to define the word what rich is, because what the word rich is for me might be very different to you, to my twin sister, Rihanna. So for example, like a. And I, I do this in a couple of our classes. I’ll be like, what does a rich life mean to you? And some women will say, it’s literally being able to pick up my kids from school.

Others will say it’s flying business class. Others will be like, it’s not having to check when my pay comes in because I have enough money in my bank account. So actually defining what is your rich life and what does that mean to you can be a good starting point and actually exploring the word. And not just going, oh, rich is bad, but I have to pull people up on it all the time because they’ll be like, they’re in a Mercedes.

What a dick. And you’re like, why? Because they’re wealthy. Okay. Well that says more about your beliefs about money than that person. Absolutely. And it’s interesting too, how, what we think changes over time. Yes. Like, you know, I, I remember that, you know, when I was younger, I, I used to think if someone’s a millionaire, that is like the ultimate.

And you know, and then over time you kind of go, well actually what that means and looks like a contract over time. You know what, it was so funny because I heard an ad on the radio yesterday and it was that scratchy and you can win $25,000 a year for every year. And I was like, that doesn’t get you a whole lot these days.

Like when I was younger, I’d be like, whoa, imagine gonna have that much money. And I was like. Yeah. You, you, you still need a lot more than that. Yeah. Well, my first job, I, you know, I worked as an accountant. Yeah. I remember I was on $35,000 a year, and at the time I was like, I’ve made it. I’m, I’m rolling. In the time I bought my first house.

With a salary of, of, you know, $40,000 a year. And I think that, you know, you look at that in today’s terms and you’re like, whoa, times really have changed. And another thing that I’m observing as well in the age of social media is I think that people’s expectations around lifestyle and, you know, there’s a lot that people are trying to look like, be like, because of the influence of social media.

Do you agree? Oh yeah. And then it’s so easy to do it as well. ’cause I’ll be like, oh, and you can shop kick, just click this link, boom, boom, boom. Mm-hmm. We’ve already got your credit card details saved on file, boom, boom, boom. So never has it been easier to spend as well. So that’s definitely something. Yeah.

We’re seeing and it’s hard, like, you know, we try not to. Compare ourselves, keep up with the Joneses, or as I call it now, keeping up with the Kardashians. But when you are constantly being hit with these ads and these different influencers, it can be a real challenge to, to not spend online. Absolutely. I have to admit I am the same.

Like the ability to impulse buy is, it’s so much harder than it used to be. You know when you had to go and get, like physically go get your wallet and yeah, take some cash out, and now it’s like a click of a button and you’re buying. Yeah, it’s that invisible spending where it’s just like boom, boom, boom.

Even with like Ubers, uber Eats. Yeah. When you are not actually having to put like through the transaction just automatically happens. I think they’re the most dangerous ones. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so first thing I I’m picking up on is that you’re talking about like, get clear about what your rich life looks like.

Yeah. What does, what does rich mean for you? And it doesn’t have to mean the Mercedes or the, you know, Ralph Lauren clothes, whatever. Yeah. It can simply be more freedom. What are some other things that you see people identify as their rich life? You said picking up the kids from school. I mean the biggest one overall is freedom over time.

Yeah. And I think that, and the more like, I speak to really successful women, that’s what they have. They’ve got freedom over their time and that is priceless. Mm-hmm. So I think a lot of it comes back down to the control over your life. But I do get surprised with how often I will speak to, and I mean, I shouldn’t be that surprised because that was exactly the same.

Surprised I speak to people and I’m like, great. So what’s the goal? What are we working towards? They’re like, I don’t know. And it’s like, okay, well, so much of our money, our mindset, our, oh, our budgeting, it comes back to like, what are we trying to achieve with our money? If we don’t know what we’re trying to achieve with our money, it’s gonna be like, it’s like literally playing a game of football without goals. You’re just kicking a ball around, you’re gonna get bored really quickly. So I would say, yeah, just coming back to that question, freedom of time is the biggest one. Yeah, totally. Totally. And it’s interesting, isn’t it? Again, I find one, ’cause the work that we do is so parallel.

A lot of business. The first thing I do is like, what are your goals? And it, there’s so many, they’re like, you know, people often go, I wanna make 500,000 or a million dollars a year. And I’m like, but why? What do you actually want? And there’s some stat, I can’t remember exactly what it is but something like 90% of people never set themselves goals.

Does that feel about right? I don’t know what the stat is, but I would say from what I’m seeing, that would probably be pretty close to it. Yeah. Unless they’re obviously a Ladies Finance Club lady. I drill it into them like every time we chat I’m like, what’s the goal? What’s the goal? What are we working towards?

But yeah, I think we get into business for a passion for a love because we’ve found this unique problem that we can solve, but we haven’t actually kind of gone. Okay. What are the financials on this? Does this make money? Yeah. Yeah. What are the, what are the figures? And I love that because the thing is too, when you, when you are clear about what you want, it makes that, that desire, like all the things that it feels like “sacrificing”.

And, and we’ll dive into that later ’cause I don’t really love that word, but you know, like, it makes you go, Hey, we’re really hungry for this. So one of the things at the moment, like my hubby and I, we really, we wanna build our dream house. We’ve got our dream block of land. Yeah. We wanna build the dream house.

And so when we’re doing things like I got my nails taken off for the first time in. I don’t know how long and it, you know, you go. It’s, it’s, it’s worth it. Like the sacrifices that you go, okay, you know what, that’s not that important to me. I’m happy to cut back there, but, you know, other areas I go, I am not happy to cut back on my hair, so I’m gonna do that.

So great place to start is with the, the goals and the mindset around it. Let’s start to talk about some of the practical things, because as we are heading into our new year, it’s a, it’s a beautiful time to reevaluate these things. I think when people think about chasing down goals. What’s the first sort of thing when, you know when someone comes to you and they go, oh my gosh, I’m coming into Molly’s world, I’m joining the finance.

What do, what do you think that people initially think? What are they first. Oh, of like what they need to be doing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would say most of ’em come to me ’cause they’re like, I don’t even know where to start. I know I’ve gotta do heaps of stuff. So I always have like a bit of a, an order for them to be like, mm-hmm You don’t know what the first goal is, let me help you.

And it is always like, let’s work out your net worth. Like what are you currently worth on paper? Mm-hmm. Super simple. We’re gonna list out your assets. So. Like things in your life that make you money or are of value, like your properties, your super cash in the bank. And then we’re gonna list out your liability.

So things you owe money on. So it might be a mortgage. So the value of your property would be the asset, the mortgage would be the liability. Any car loans, personal loans, credit card debts. And then we can have a starting point. And sometimes this shocks people, they’re like, oh gosh. Other times people are like, oh, I’m actually doing a lot better than I thought.

And they can choose whether, I think as, as well, when they include their super in that they do get a little bit of a surprise. They’re like, Ooh, this is looking all right. So I go, okay, what is the net worth? And then I like to do mine monthly to just check in with it. Some people like to do it six monthly, yearly.

That’s up to you do it with your partner if you have a partner. And then I always say, the next goal is if you don’t have an emergency fund, an OMG fund. Because I, I like to call them OMG funds. We’ve gotta set that up. So high interest bank account fee free in your name only. And even women in their forties, fifties, sixties, they still won’t have this set up.

So that’s why I’m always like, do you know what? Doesn’t matter what age you’re starting from. If you are [00:12:00] restarting from the beginning, you’ve come out of a separation, divorce, you are widowed. We need to get this emergency fund up with three to six months worth of expenses. And from there it’s looking at your spending plan.

Now, I I, before we dive into that, I’m so sorry to cut you off, but I’d love to go a little bit deeper because there was something you said in there that I wanna go a little bit further into. You used the phrase. Your name only. Yeah. So talk to me about that. So this is your emergency fund, not your partner’s.

And a big thing I’m very passionate about in Ladies Finance Club is you’ve always got your own back. So if something happens to your partner. It might not even be that, you know, something bad happens, like they, you know, run off or they take all the money. It might be that there’s a legal issue and your assets get freezed.

You always wanna have access to your own money in case of an emergency. And yeah, so that’s why I always say it has to be in your name. You have to be the only one who has access to it. I’m not saying not keep, don’t keep it a secret from your partner because you know, like how would you like it if they were keeping secret money from you?

So definitely you, they should have money in their own emergency fund as well, but this, it’s a thing that’s very important for that independence to always have that kind of three months, three to six months worth of expenses. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I actually did a session inside my mastermind.

We had a lawyer come and talk about wills. And she had said that when you let go to the the banks all say that my partner’s passed away. They will freeze. Yeah. Your bank accounts and I was, my eyes were like dinner plates. I was like, what? No joint bank accounts. She said they will freeze joint bank accounts until like the, I can’t remember what it’s called.

It’s like the settlement. Which can be ages it’s gone through. Yeah. Which can be several months. Yeah. And she gave exact same advice. That’s a really, really good point there. Thank you. Yeah. And even if you wanna take it to the next step further, I would say you have your own emergency funds, but then you have [00:14:00] your partnership, your, you and your partner’s emergency fund as well.

I was speaking to a lady recently and her partner’s business recently just out of the blue, went under, they weren’t expecting it. One of the business partners had walked out and. They, they only, they didn’t have emergency fund. They only had like one month’s worth of an emergency fund. So then they’ll all of a sudden in this really tricky situation where they’ve had to borrow money from friends and family, they’ve had to sell things.

So we always wanna make sure that we’ve got that money there in case of an emergency. This is making sure this is your own safety net. People are instantly gonna say, because I know particularly entrepreneurs, we can, we can tend to be overly optimistic. We, we always think, well, that wouldn’t happen to me.

Yeah, absolutely. We, yeah. But I guess from someone who speaks to a lot of women about money. Like it can happen and when it does, hundred percent. And if it does happen, ’cause life happens, and it might not be, you know, the, the business, the, you know, the business partner, or it might be another COVID, it might be you get sick, it might be your partner gets sick, a child gets sick.

It might be you need to fly to another location to be with a family member. Might be you’ve decided that you need to just take a break from work for a while for your mental health, whatever it is, you wanna have that control, that access. And that’s what having the control over your money gives you back.

Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. And sorry that I, I derailed it, but I just thought it was really important ’cause you just sort of said as a little throwaway sense, I’m like, okay, on. There’s a bit, there’s a bit more behind. Okay. So first things first. Get your emergency funds set up three months, what do you do next?

I would say make sure you’ve got a spending plan that works for you. Now, I am teaching at the moment the Glen James spending plan. I love, I don’t know if you know Glen from Money, money, money. I love his, so  he’s got a a really great podcast in Australia, but he has this spending plan that we’ve, and it’s the best one I’ve come across and we’ve started teaching it.

So really high level, it’s you’ve got all your money coming into a cash hub, and then you’ve got an automatic transfer every week. That’s going into your weekly spend. So the weekly spend account’s the only card you have in your phone, in your wallet, and it’s for like the food, fuel, groceries, entertainment, going out.

And you know, once that money for the week is gone, that money for the week is gone. And then off the cash hub, you also set up an account for your emergency fund. Your another one for like clothes, Christmas, holidays, like the Fun Fund. But the ones where you need a bit of a saving goal for. And then also you can have some different goals.

So an account for goal one, goal two, goal three, and everything’s on a weekly transfer. So no matter if you get  paid monthly, fortnightly or you get lump sums the money all still goes into the cash hub, but you’re just working off a weekly budget as opposed to trying to manage everything monthly, which can kind of feel like a lot.

So that’s an interesting one. So it is just about finding like that’s one one option. But really I would say the spending plan that works for you is the spending plan that works for you. So if you’ve got a system that works great, but what I find is a lot of people try and budget in their head. And that just probably isn’t gonna, it’s not gonna work.

So after that, I would say yes, that’s when you kind of look at, okay, what’s, what, what am I doing with my spending making sure you’re putting away for your goals. And then I’m huge, huge fan of investing and getting everyone investing. I say it’s like, you know, if you’re an adult, you brush your teeth.

It’s like. The, the, the adult version, sorry. The child version is brushing your teeth every day. The adult [00:18:00] version is investing all the time. When you can, even if it’s just small amounts. And I think so many women get scared of investing ’cause they’re like, I’m gonna lose all my money. I don’t know what to invest in.

But there’s so many ways now where you can spread your risk. There’s products out there like exchange traded funds, so you’re putting your money. Across hundreds, sometimes thousands of companies and you don’t even have to choose. It’s great in the one go. And so, yeah, huge advocate then for. Investing your money as well.

Yeah. I love that. Okay, A couple of things. Let’s go a bit deeper into, so coming back to splitting your money out, most of my listeners are running businesses. Yeah. We have incomes that, well, you know, they can be all over the place. And a lot of times, you know, you don’t actually know how much money you’re gonna be bringing in in the the coming.

How, how would you suggest that business owners navigate fluctuating incomes, I would say, and again, when you’re starting out a business, it can be really tricky because you don’t know what your average is. But I would say look at the smallest amount you have coming in a month and budget it off that.

So then it means anything additional is in that cash hub. Yeah, and it’s still accruing, but I I pay my, like for me personally, I pay myself the same amount every month, no matter if I make more, make less. So that’s the way I personally do it, but it is, I think it can be really challenging for business owners when it’s really lumpy.

So. Some months will be huge and then other months it will be nothing. So that’s again why I like having just the one place where the money’s just accruing all the time. Yeah, I love that. Love that. And of course, you know, me being me, I would be like, well, when you are getting strategic with your business, you can be, you know, I’m encouraging people to be looking ahead and saying, okay, well if I know that that’s coming up, what am I gonna do?

What am I launching? What am I selling? Like, how am I actually taking back control of my volatile income if I know that that’s the nature of my business. And speaking of just like business finance, this is just something I, I don’t know how, I didn’t know this, but it was only very recently I learned, and this is embarrassing, but I didn’t realize you could have your business money in a high interest savings account.

Like you could be making interest, like good interest on the money that was in your business account. I was like, oh, that could have definitely made me money, but hey, I now know. I didn’t know you could use it for other things. I just thought, oh, it has to stay in there. It has to stay in the business account.

So yeah, that’s, so again, I think the big thing I, I’ve, I’ve worked with a lot of business owners and different people do different things, and I think the big thing I’m always. Get advice from your accountant. Yes. How to, how to do that, how to navigate that. I meet with my accountant once a month and I’m always like, explain it to me like I’m five.

I love that, Molly, because do you know what most business owners don’t? So there you go. I love that. Okay, so let’s, let’s go a little bit deeper into becoming a rich woman. So we’ve spoken about. Having the hubs, what if people, and I, I wanna go there because I know that a lot of business owners are there and not just business owners, actually a lot of people.

What about when people are quite literally living beyond their means? So we know that this is a systemic problem in Australia because of our, our debt levels. We know that with the rising cost of living, there are people who are like, I don’t even know how I’m staying afloat, quite frankly, because I am outspending what I’m earning.

And a lot of people just like to live in blind ignorance. I just pretend it’s not happening and I just don’t look at the credit card bill. Hopefully I just keep paying the minimum and trying to just keep struggling through. What, what do people then do if, if that’s their circumstance? I mean, I think that’s where you have to get sick of your own.

If I don’t wanna say, yes, you’re allowed to swear on this podcast. It’s when you’ve gotta say, okay, I’m sick of my own shit and I’ve gotta make a change. Because we can teach you all the systems, we can teach you how to do it all. But unless you decide that you wanna change, you’re probably not going to change.

Yeah. And so I think there’s definitely little things you can do to help yourself with that. So definitely like. Actually work out where is your money currently going? And my new favorite hack for that is obviously there’s lots of budgeting apps out there, like we Money Forough Bill Ru, but just stick a CSV file into chatGPT and ask it to categorize your spending for you.

And a lot of the time, your money’s going we’ll probably be going to places it doesn’t need to be going. And that’s why you need to be like, just wait. Is that where I want my money to be going? All this, like, I’m going out, I’m earning, I’m spending all this time earning money. Is this where I’m wanting that energy to go?

But I think like until you have that wake up call, no one else can have that wake up call for you. It’s gotta be that mindset shift of Yeah. And I know for me it was like. For me when, ’cause I was a real hot financial mess for a very long time. I was just like, I can’t keep living with this stress of like, not knowing what’s going on with my money.

It’s just too stressful. And that like had a bit of an embarrassing moment in a supermarket. That was my rock bottom moment where I was like. Things need to change for things. Things need to change for, things need to change. Like, so, and then it’s about getting the support and getting the help if you can’t do it by yourself.

There’s money coaches, there’s debt counselors but I would speak to quite a lot of women and they’re using credit cards and I’m like, why? And they’re like, oh, it just helps me manage my money. I’m like, well then you’re not doing like in the nicest way possible. I say it in a lot polite terms, but you’re not doing a very good job if you are relying on credit cards to manage your money.

Same with buy now, pay later. If you’re doing it for points, you’ve got a system, you’ve got it worked out, go you. But for, I would say, yeah, a lot of people, they’re just too reliant on these credit cards and it’s not doing them any favors because you can never build your financial foundations if you’re constantly in debt.

Yeah, and like you don’t wanna get to another five years of your life and still have not made 1 cent, which is what happens. Do you know, I had a moment. You’ve just reminded me of it. It’s many years ago, I was living in London at the time. Yeah. And this Excel spreadsheet did the rounds and it said, how much are your nights out costing you?

Yeah. And so I’d be like, you know, how do you get out? I catch a taxi. You know, how many drinks do you have? Do you get, get McDonald’s on the way home, which was for me at the time, I used to get this horrendous cottage chicken. Oh yeah. Yuck. Big fried chicken. Seems like a really good idea when you are, you’ve had a night out.

And so anyway, what this spreadsheet did was it spit out a number and it said, this is how much you have spent on nights out in your life. And I remember looking at that number and feeling sick and thinking. I could have paid off a quarter of a house. I could have, and you know, you just sort of have that, that moment where you’re like, what am I doing?

This is such a waste. I’d love to pretend that that was the start of me not going out anymore. It wasn’t, but it was just a real, it was a very eye-opening moment. Put it that way. And that’s the thing, like when you are getting on top of your money, it doesn’t mean you’re saying no to the fund anymore.

Yeah. And like I love, like especially when I was younger, I loved my nights out. Like they were the things I would’ve prioritized probably more than anything. I’m like, no one’s taken that off me. Yeah. Like it could have come with balance. Absolutely. Like I can still have the night out, but you know, just even the way you spend on those nights out, you know, the rounds of drinks, the choosing, the expensive cocktails, like there’s different decisions you could make that I definitely could have made.

So I could have had the best of both worlds. And I think when I got back to Sydney, especially after being in the UK, I started having like those conversations and I’d be like, my girlfriends would be like, let’s go for dinner. They’d choose a really expensive restaurant in Sydney. And I’d be like. Can we go for the happy hour tacos?

And they’d be like, oh good. Yeah, yeah, no, I’m trying to save money too. So I would just kind of be like, guys, let’s go for a walk and a coffee. I’m not doing the super expensive dinner, which I know will just like, it’s just a waste. And I love to do it for special occasions, but also I don’t just need to do it ’cause it’s a random Tuesday night.

Like, yeah. So I think it’s just setting yourself some boundaries. It’s interesting being pregnant. I’m not buying any clothes, nothing fits me, but I will literally, like, I had this realization ’cause I’m always working on my money mindset and my money journey, but I walked through Westfield and I didn’t wanna buy anything and I was like, wow, like this has never, like, I’ve always been quite pulled into, I’ll just have a good little pop in.

Let me just have a look at what’s around. I was just like, no, not interested. It’s not, it’s just not. I’ve got too much stuff in my life already. I don’t wanna add more to it anymore. I want less. So I’ve gone to this stage now where I’m like, less is more like I have a pair of boots. I’ve had them since 2019.

I’ve got them reheeled twice. I love that. I’ve got them reheal twice. I’m like, that just saved me like. S you know, if you’re spending 250 bucks on a new pair of boots every year or two, that saved me so much money and I’m not putting extra like waste into the economy. Anyway. Sorry. That’s me at Mad Panto.

No, no, no. I love it. I love it. And I think that it’s really helpful because people are probably listening and thinking, well how do I know where? Like, how do I know what’s my like No, I love that. What if people are like, I love everything that’s in my life and I don’t wanna cut any of it back. Then what do they do there?

Well, then you’ve gotta get clearer on your goals. Yeah. And get goals that you are more excited about. Yeah. Because yeah, it, it all come, it all, there has to be a give and take. And if you’re spending too much, you can only do two things, earn more or spend less. That’s, yeah. Ah, that’s beautiful. It sounds so simple.

It, and yet it’s so hard to do it. So simple. So hard. Yeah. And sometimes I think too, we had a bit of a moment. Early this year and we went, we are just stripping everything back and then that’s where you really find out actually what really is important to you. Yeah. You know, me getting my nails taken off, I know that’s an example I keep coming back to, but I, I actually came to, I’m like, I, it was really actually annoying having to go in once a four when you’ve got little kids and soccer and all the things.

And for me, I’m like, I. You know, it, it’s actually just been a really nice break. We cut our cleaner back. We spent most of the year without a cleaner and I had the realization actually, that doesn’t serve when we are two entrepreneurs. Yeah. We, we do need some help around our house. Yeah. But I kind of had to have that swing back the other way to then go, okay, what, what is the happy medium? What does that look like? Yeah. And and yeah, land at a place that is, is sustainable. Cool. Okay. So you’ve given us some really wonderful big tips. There’s one last thing that I want to touch on because again, I feel this is a little bit of an area that a lot of business owners in particular can be ignorant with actually all business, all, all.

People can be a little bit ignorant of, you know, when we think about saving, putting money aside, investing, all that we think about. Okay, cut back. Cut back. The daily coffees don’t go on big nights out. Yeah. Where is that area? It’s, it’s a bit of an unsexy area, but what is, what’s, what’s a couple of things that people just tend to ignore and they’re like, they’re just, it is what it is.

I’m stuck with that. What are those, those big areas that you notice that can really be needle shifters that people often don’t pay attention to? I think a really big one, and the one that can probably have one of the biggest impacts on your overall finances is actually your super. And I know business owners sometimes we’re not the best at putting away for our super, but again, it just has to be a non-negotiable.

It’s just gotta be part of, part of being a business owner and actually working out where is your super being invested? What fund are you in? Because people go, oh, I’m in this fund, or I don’t know, I’m in a default fund. Default fund generally means balance fund ’cause you haven’t, you haven’t chosen, it’s a default fund.

Just choosing like. And obviously this is not financial advice and it depends on your circumstances and you know, your how close to retirement you are. But even just switching from a balanced fund to a high growth fund, that can mean 50 to a hundred thousand dollars extra at retirement. Like that is huge.

That is massive. Likewise, with just investing $50 every month or every week or every month, whatever, you can do this all compounds over time. So yes, you can be, you know, cutting back. On your nails or not getting the coffee here or there, but sometimes it’s those bigger financial questions and those bigger financial pieces that we ignore that will have a much bigger impact on our finances.

Likewise, with where your savings are you keeping them in a high interest account or just a normal transaction account? Like if you’ve got $10,000 in a 5% interest rate, that’s $500 you’re making every year on that money as opposed to $20 if it’s just in a normal transaction account, like that’s just free money, why not?

And then the other thing I always say as well is just be making sure you’re negotiating on your bills. So just if you haven’t, just set maybe a like, I don’t know, a [00:32:00] Saturday afternoon or a Friday afternoon aside, or if you are working full time, like it’s worth just taking off the, the two to three hours.

Writing out who your suppliers are, your internet, your wifi, your gas, electricity your health insurance, your car insurance, and calling up and trying to get better deals. And we just did this exercise recently with about 400 LFC followers. We got them to negotiate on their health insurance with a group we use called choicey.

They’re fabulous. It was like the equivalent of $350,000 they saved just by changing this one lady was paying 4,000 a year with Bupa and she found a deal where she was paying 1,200. So that is huge. So that again, added up over time. That’s a few overseas holidays, so they’re probably like a couple of areas I would say.

So check your savings cannot make it high interest if you’re needing that money in the short term. If not, think about investing it. Find out where your super is, what fund your, what fund is it, what fund that money is in and have you actually, are you putting enough in, there’s a great tool called Super Detective, just Google Super Detective.

You put in your age and it will tell you how much you should have in your super. If you don’t have enough, that is absolutely fine. There’s so much you can do. To top that up, especially if you’re a business owner, have a conversation with your accountant and then negotiate with your suppliers. Oh, I love all of this.

And it’s, it’s, it doesn’t seem that sexy, but I’ll tell you what, the money that, you know, people work so hard for their money and to get that extra deal, and it’s like, oh my gosh, you could be leaving tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table by just not making these simple phone calls and following up.

So Molly, I have loved all of this. It’s been a really, really fantastic starting point for the listeners, if people are thinking. You know what, I, I really need some help to go and implement this. How can the Ladies Finance Club help them to, to do that? Yes, so absolutely we have a club, we have a membership.

We also can connect you with experts as well. So we’re really excited to be launching that platform next month because it’s hard to know who to go to and who to trust. So we’re like a bunch of amazing financial advisors. We love to work with mortgage brokers. But you can also just get in touch with the team, book in for a quick call, and then we can point you in the right direction as well.

Gorgeous. And just to clarify, you only work with ladies in Australia? It’s, look, it’s mainly ladies in Australia. Yeah. Fabulous, fabulous. Okay. If this sounds exciting to you, I’m gonna pop the link in the show notes for today’s episode. Molly, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Thanks so much for having me.

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