Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #755 Saving 30 Grand in One Year

Transcript

#755 Saving 30 Grand in One Year · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
0:10
Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Collson, the founder of Happy
0:13
Speaker 2: Families dot com dot au and the co host and
0:15
Speaker 2: parenting expert on Channel Lines hit TV show Parental Guidance.
0:18
Speaker 1: Season two is just around the corner, and I'm so
0:21
Speaker 1: excited for it.
0:23
Speaker 2: At the moment, though, we're going to talk about something
0:25
Speaker 2: totally not TV related, and that is cost of living.
0:29
Speaker 2: Everybody knows that everything is insanely expensive.
0:33
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but.
0:35
Speaker 2: Kylie and I are doing everything we can to find
0:38
Speaker 2: level ways that we can save anywhere in any way possible,
0:43
Speaker 2: because I mean mortgages and rent and stress and groceries
0:47
Speaker 2: and everything. It's it just and actually, I don't know
0:51
Speaker 2: if you feel like this, but for me, it feels
0:53
Speaker 2: almost like everyone just wants all of our money and
0:56
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel fair.
0:57
Speaker 1: Fair like's you work so hard.
0:58
Speaker 2: For it and then you just give it a holes
1:00
Speaker 2: or wolies order the bank or to whoever, and it's just
1:02
Speaker 2: it's hard. So I've been doing a little bit of
1:04
Speaker 2: digging around on the internet and I found somebody who
1:07
Speaker 2: I think is fascinating to talk to about this topic.
1:10
Speaker 2: Olivia White is probably best known for her Instagram profile
1:15
Speaker 2: Olivia White aka House of White, but she's a mum
1:18
Speaker 2: of two living in regional Victoria and with her and
1:21
Speaker 2: her husband on sort of averageish incomes. A couple of
1:25
Speaker 2: years ago, she put away thirty thousand dollars in one
1:29
Speaker 2: year in savings and she wrote a couple of articles
1:32
Speaker 2: about it, got a whole lot of media around it,
1:33
Speaker 2: and I saw it and I thought, man, this is
1:35
Speaker 2: important stuff, Like if we could work out how to
1:37
Speaker 2: put it, it doesn't even have to be thirty k and
1:39
Speaker 2: everyone's circumstances are different, but imagine if we could genuinely
1:42
Speaker 2: put away a stack of cash in the current circumstances,
1:44
Speaker 2: with everything costing so much, What a relief that would be.
1:47
Speaker 1: So I contacted Olivia.
1:49
Speaker 2: And she said, yeah, happy to chat, and she joins
1:51
Speaker 2: me right now on the podcast. Hey Livia, welcome to
1:54
Speaker 2: Happy Families. Thanks for being with me.
1:55
Speaker 3: Oh no, thank you for having me.
1:57
Speaker 2: I'm very excited, to be honest, I just love that
1:59
Speaker 2: we've all these girls between us, Like if we got together,
2:01
Speaker 2: there'd be eight girls running around.
2:03
Speaker 1: That would be bonkers, but so much fun.
2:06
Speaker 3: We'd have a netball team and some spams that happen.
2:09
Speaker 1: We've even got the reserves.
2:10
Speaker 2: That's brilliant, Okay, So I want to hear the story, however,
2:13
Speaker 2: it is that you think we are going to learn
2:16
Speaker 2: the most from it As people are struggling under the
2:18
Speaker 2: strain of the current financial climate, when they hear this
2:23
Speaker 2: story about a mum and a dad in Victoria who
2:26
Speaker 2: have put away thirty grand, that just seems so unbelievable.
2:30
Speaker 1: It seems so out of reach. What'd you do? How'd
2:32
Speaker 1: you do it? What can we learn? And do you
2:34
Speaker 1: still practice those habits?
2:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely look for us. I think the main thing
2:41
Speaker 3: to take away from this, you know, talking specifically about
2:44
Speaker 3: this year and the thirty thousand dollars we put away,
2:47
Speaker 3: there was a goal for us, so we were doing
2:49
Speaker 3: renovations at the time, and so I think quintessentially at
2:54
Speaker 3: the core of that, the main thing was is that
2:56
Speaker 3: we had a very very specific goal and we knew
2:59
Speaker 3: you know, how much we needed. So I think that
3:02
Speaker 3: definitely that was super important to that. But in ways
3:07
Speaker 3: of like how we how we did it, and how
3:09
Speaker 3: we plan you know, plan to do it. We've always
3:12
Speaker 3: been pretty across our money, especially for me from a
3:16
Speaker 3: young age. I grew up with a single mum, and
3:19
Speaker 3: so I feel like I got a lot of you know,
3:21
Speaker 3: tips and tricks from her. She was extremely resourceful on
3:25
Speaker 3: you know, how to make things happen, you know, perhaps
3:27
Speaker 3: thinking outside the box. So I guess the first thing
3:31
Speaker 3: for us was mapping it out, and that was just
3:33
Speaker 3: you know, getting spreadsheet heavy, working out exactly what our
3:37
Speaker 3: incomes were, exactly where our money was going. You know,
3:41
Speaker 3: we had spreadsheets telling us, you know, weekly what was
3:44
Speaker 3: going to groceries and what we were spending on entertainment,
3:47
Speaker 3: and what our household costs were and stuff like that.
3:49
Speaker 3: And really from there getting a good idea of okay,
3:53
Speaker 3: where can we get get little bits and pieces like
3:56
Speaker 3: what can we shuffle around? How can we do that?
4:00
Speaker 2: So I want to ask you a quick question about that,
4:01
Speaker 2: or maybe maybe share an experience. We did this thing
4:03
Speaker 2: a couple of months ago, and our kids loved it.
4:06
Speaker 2: We pulled out the credit card statement because everything just
4:09
Speaker 2: goes onto the card. Right Back in the olden days,
4:11
Speaker 2: we used to have envelopes and we would withdraw the
4:14
Speaker 2: cash from the ATM and we would put the cash
4:16
Speaker 2: into the envelope for each week, and if there was
4:18
Speaker 2: any leftover that went into our surplus. But otherwise it
4:21
Speaker 2: was just it was an envelope system. Now we just
4:23
Speaker 2: sort of tap the card and walk away, which I
4:25
Speaker 2: don't think is a great system. So we sat down
4:28
Speaker 2: and went through, line by line every single expense for
4:30
Speaker 2: the last couple of months with the kids, and they were,
4:34
Speaker 2: in fact, we were shocked as well. We were blown
4:36
Speaker 2: away by where the money is going to. And we
4:41
Speaker 2: just said to the kids, so, what do you reckon
4:42
Speaker 2: we need to do here? And they're like, oh, we
4:43
Speaker 2: need to stop shopping at I won't mention the place,
4:46
Speaker 2: but there is a place that we happened to spend
4:47
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit more money than we should. And
4:49
Speaker 2: they're like, and we spend way too much at the
4:51
Speaker 2: grocery store as well, Like they could actually see it.
4:54
Speaker 2: There was so much value in, like you said, not
4:56
Speaker 2: just having the goal, which I think is so powerful,
4:58
Speaker 2: but sitting down and looking at you incoming and you're
5:01
Speaker 2: outgoing and mapping it out dollar of a dollar cent
5:04
Speaker 2: for sand really powerful. And the kids involvement had opened
5:08
Speaker 2: their eyes to how much it costs for us to
5:10
Speaker 2: raise them, which was in a non guilt inducing way.
5:14
Speaker 1: It was really great.
5:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's funny that you say that, because I
5:19
Speaker 3: think that that is so important that you are sitting
5:21
Speaker 3: down with your kids. I mean, I'm not even sure
5:23
Speaker 3: how old you know all of them are, but you know,
5:26
Speaker 3: it's never too early to start that stuff, because I
5:30
Speaker 3: feel like that's where I got it, because we can
5:33
Speaker 3: sometimes get this idea here that sharing this kind of
5:36
Speaker 3: stuff with our kids like, oh, we need to shelter
5:38
Speaker 3: them from it. We don't want them to know are
5:39
Speaker 3: we poor or are we witch? Like? You know, And
5:42
Speaker 3: I think that we need to just get rid of
5:44
Speaker 3: that whole idea and concept because you know, I was
5:48
Speaker 3: aware growing up that we didn't have much, that we
5:51
Speaker 3: pretty much had nothing, but I didn't see that as
5:54
Speaker 3: a downside. I wasn't sitting there going like, oh, you know,
5:57
Speaker 3: I'm poor. I found it really you know, I took
6:01
Speaker 3: so much from my mum about you know, how she
6:03
Speaker 3: would make things happen or what we would do, you know,
6:05
Speaker 3: to define money or make things happen. So I think
6:08
Speaker 3: that's wonderful that you're doing that, because that will be
6:11
Speaker 3: life skills that your kids will take into their adulthood
6:14
Speaker 3: that will hopefully help them, you know, as everything gets
6:17
Speaker 3: more expensive. So that's fantastic, that's awesome that you're doing that.
6:22
Speaker 2: So you've done this, and again, I just the goal
6:25
Speaker 2: is so important, right. If you don't have the goal,
6:27
Speaker 2: you're not even going to be motivated necessarily to sit
6:28
Speaker 2: down and work it out. Like, I just see so
6:31
Speaker 2: much value in that. What did you do after you
6:33
Speaker 2: sat down together and looked at the incomings the goings,
6:36
Speaker 2: put the spreadsheets together and sort of figured out where
6:39
Speaker 2: your expenses were.
6:41
Speaker 3: I mean, like you we had the shock of like, oh,
6:44
Speaker 3: we're spending a lot of money here, or we're you know,
6:46
Speaker 3: wasting a lot of money on this, or and yeah,
6:50
Speaker 3: I mean you'd be surprised even just from the get
6:52
Speaker 3: go how many things you're probably paying for that you
6:54
Speaker 3: don't even need to be. But then it's working out, okay,
6:58
Speaker 3: the things that you have to spend mone on, all
7:00
Speaker 3: the things that you can't you get around your fuel,
7:03
Speaker 3: your bills, your groceries and stuff. It's then getting savvy
7:07
Speaker 3: around how to find alternatives. Like I think that we
7:11
Speaker 3: can become extremely complacent. We live in a society of
7:15
Speaker 3: extreme convenience, and you know sometimes, yeah, it does take
7:20
Speaker 3: a little bit more time, It does take a little
7:22
Speaker 3: bit more effort, you know, being a bit more conscious
7:24
Speaker 3: about these things. But don't be afraid to shop around
7:28
Speaker 3: for better deals, don't be afraid to chop and change
7:30
Speaker 3: credit cards, banks, you know, your home loans. You don't
7:35
Speaker 3: you know, owe anyone anything. And with you know, so
7:39
Speaker 3: many people in the market these days, you know, people
7:42
Speaker 3: rates are extremely competitive for so many different things. And
7:47
Speaker 3: so yeah, we did a lot of that. You know,
7:49
Speaker 3: even we use apps to find the cheapest petrol in
7:52
Speaker 3: the area, or you know, it takes a little bit
7:54
Speaker 3: more time and effort, but these little things build up,
7:58
Speaker 3: and you'd be so shocked at how much it can
8:01
Speaker 3: build up. You know, if you think in a week
8:03
Speaker 3: you can save you know, ten dollars in your fuel
8:05
Speaker 3: or maybe twenty twenty five dollars in your shopping and
8:07
Speaker 3: you've saved you know, a couple of hundred by chopping
8:11
Speaker 3: and changing a bill or something like that. Those things
8:13
Speaker 3: start to add up really really quickly. And then, like
8:17
Speaker 3: I said, you know, before you know it, you've got
8:19
Speaker 3: this goal. You're like, oh wow, like I can actually
8:23
Speaker 3: and then it becomes it's sort of a flaw on effect,
8:25
Speaker 3: you know that you hit that point of krek Masca,
8:27
Speaker 3: you go, oh, it actually becomes like a bit of
8:29
Speaker 3: a game and you're actually like, oh, this is awesome
8:32
Speaker 3: because you're seeing you're seeing the rewards from it, and
8:35
Speaker 3: you're seeing the money and you're seeing the ability to
8:37
Speaker 3: be able to do it. So, you know, I think
8:39
Speaker 3: that was a really big thing for us. And then
8:42
Speaker 3: also finding other sources of income, you know, whether it
8:47
Speaker 3: be you know, a side hustle. You know, these days,
8:51
Speaker 3: especially with the Internet, it is really easy to monetize
8:55
Speaker 3: your skills whatever they are. You know, the Internet, you
9:00
Speaker 3: you know, it's endless who you can reach and whether
9:03
Speaker 3: that be using marketplace sites to you know, resell things
9:08
Speaker 3: or yeah, if you've got you know, good, good skills
9:12
Speaker 3: in something, there's so many websites you can jump on
9:14
Speaker 3: and outsource those skills to people and to me and
9:19
Speaker 3: obviously my upbringing and my mom nothing is beneath me,
9:23
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? You do what you've
9:26
Speaker 3: got to do to reach those goals. And yeah, I
9:30
Speaker 3: would say, really, you know, think outside the box and
9:34
Speaker 3: there'll be plenty of ways that you can find that
9:36
Speaker 3: you can sort of get I guess some extra income
9:38
Speaker 3: coming in.
9:42
Speaker 1: When you say that, it reminds me of a couple
9:44
Speaker 1: of things.
9:44
Speaker 2: So when I was finishing my PhD and starting the
9:48
Speaker 2: Happy Families business, we were tied.
9:51
Speaker 1: Like it was.
9:52
Speaker 2: It was hard starting a business, just come off ten
9:55
Speaker 2: years of being a student and working as a lectorer university,
9:58
Speaker 2: which doesn't play all that well. Things were really really tight,
10:02
Speaker 2: and we had the opportunities. Some friends had a commercial
10:05
Speaker 2: property and they needed a cleaner. They're cleaner had quit
10:08
Speaker 2: and I said to Kylie, how do you feel about it?
10:11
Speaker 2: And she was like, we'll do whatever we've got to do,
10:13
Speaker 2: Like we've just got to get through this. And so
10:15
Speaker 2: five mornings a week, Kylie and I would get up
10:18
Speaker 2: early and we'd go and clean this commercial premises. And
10:21
Speaker 2: it was just that thing that got us across the line.
10:24
Speaker 2: And so I really love the way you've said nothing
10:26
Speaker 2: is nothing should be beneath you, because if there's work
10:29
Speaker 2: to do, and go and do the work, and what
10:31
Speaker 2: you teach your kids, like our kids would go with us,
10:33
Speaker 2: and we've got it. We've got these kids that are
10:35
Speaker 2: following us along through this commercial property and they're cleaning
10:37
Speaker 2: toilets and they're scrubbing walls and they're doing it and
10:39
Speaker 2: they learned valuable skills, but they also learned that you
10:42
Speaker 2: just do what you've got to do. The other thing
10:46
Speaker 2: that sort of strikes me as you talk about adding
10:49
Speaker 2: an income stream, when we were trying to figure out
10:52
Speaker 2: how to make ends meet and from time this time,
10:56
Speaker 2: we still have that challenge.
10:57
Speaker 1: But my mum, she's like a serial on.
11:00
Speaker 2: She's built multiple businesses and done very very well out
11:03
Speaker 2: of them over the years. And I would complain to
11:06
Speaker 2: her every now and again that things were so tired
11:08
Speaker 2: and things were so tough, and I didn't know how
11:10
Speaker 2: we were going to make it and what could we do.
11:11
Speaker 1: And I wasn't asking.
11:12
Speaker 2: Her for cash or handouts. I was just looking for
11:14
Speaker 2: a bit of empathy because it was hard. And my
11:18
Speaker 2: mum is not the kind of person to give empathy lightly,
11:21
Speaker 2: and so instead of giving any kind words, she would say, justin,
11:24
Speaker 2: just go and create it. And I would get off
11:27
Speaker 2: the phone so frustrated, and I'd throw pens at walls
11:29
Speaker 2: and I'd slam phones onto benches and say to Kylie,
11:32
Speaker 2: she just doesn't understand how I was bosed to create it?
11:35
Speaker 1: Where do I create it?
11:37
Speaker 2: And over the years, what I've discovered is that, as
11:39
Speaker 2: you've just said, there are so many skills, so much knowledge,
11:42
Speaker 2: so much capacity, that we all have to create something.
11:47
Speaker 2: It doesn't necessarily happen today. I mean, we need the
11:49
Speaker 2: money today, right, the bills landed today, But if you're
11:53
Speaker 2: really thoughtful about it, creating a YouTube channel or getting
11:57
Speaker 2: your skills out there. I mean one of my daughters
11:59
Speaker 2: she heard this create idea, and so she started busking.
12:01
Speaker 2: And when she started busking, she was not good enough
12:04
Speaker 2: to start busking.
12:05
Speaker 4: But but but she went and did it, and and
12:09
Speaker 4: her attitude was somewhere so what, and people put money
12:11
Speaker 4: in her guitar case even though she wasn't that good,
12:14
Speaker 4: And that gave me the confidence to practice more and
12:16
Speaker 4: to keep busking.
12:16
Speaker 2: And she is red hot now and she has like
12:19
Speaker 2: real she gets real gigs. She's not even busking anymore.
12:23
Speaker 2: She's getting paid for gigs because she went out and started.
12:26
Speaker 2: I've got a nine year old Olivia who she wanted
12:30
Speaker 2: to do a bake sale and now she's kind of
12:32
Speaker 2: turned into the cookie chef for our neighborhood. And she
12:35
Speaker 2: just whenever she's bored, she cooks up some cookies and
12:37
Speaker 2: then goes and knocks on doors and sell them some
12:39
Speaker 2: neighbors Like there's that, there's there's something that we can
12:42
Speaker 2: do to create everyone all the time. No, not necessarily,
12:45
Speaker 2: that could come across as being over privileged.
12:47
Speaker 3: I don't know, but yeah, I know what you mean.
12:51
Speaker 3: And you know, it's funny that you say that about
12:53
Speaker 3: you know, going out and just you know, creating it,
12:55
Speaker 3: because that's effectively what I did. And you know, we
12:58
Speaker 3: were very similar my husband building a business from scratch
13:01
Speaker 3: in the early days. We'd both just come out of
13:03
Speaker 3: UNI and we you know, we had my first jot
13:06
Speaker 3: A really young and when she was you know, a newborn,
13:10
Speaker 3: I was actually cleaning houses for friends because a lot
13:12
Speaker 3: of my friends still work full time, you know, they
13:14
Speaker 3: didn't have kids yet, and I could take her, I
13:16
Speaker 3: could take her in the in the baceinett and yeah,
13:18
Speaker 3: I was. I was literally cleaning for friends. I also
13:22
Speaker 3: was doing letterbox drops because that was great. I could
13:24
Speaker 3: push the prem around and do letterbox drops. And it
13:27
Speaker 3: wasn't great money, but it was something and it was
13:30
Speaker 3: something I could do in the circumstances that I had,
13:33
Speaker 3: and you know, living in regional Victoria. Moving to regional
13:37
Speaker 3: Victoria was really hard for me because getting a job
13:40
Speaker 3: isn't necessarily about what you know, it's kind of who
13:42
Speaker 3: you know. And I just wasn't having any success and
13:46
Speaker 3: so I just decided one day to give this whole
13:48
Speaker 3: Instagram thing a go. And back then it wasn't really
13:52
Speaker 3: we weren't really making money from it. We didn't know
13:54
Speaker 3: what the opportunity was going to be, you know, influencers,
13:57
Speaker 3: you know, social media, all that kind of stuff. It
14:00
Speaker 3: was very unknown back then. But I just decided, you
14:03
Speaker 3: know what, I'm going to give it a crack. And
14:05
Speaker 3: you know, it took quite a few years, but eventually
14:08
Speaker 3: I got there. And that was again me just creating something,
14:11
Speaker 3: being resourceful, taking those skills that my mum had given me,
14:15
Speaker 3: and yeah, identifying opportunity. So it's definitely possible. And like
14:21
Speaker 3: you said, you know, I don't want to sound like
14:23
Speaker 3: it comes from a place of privilege. I understand that,
14:25
Speaker 3: you know, everyone's circumstances are different, but I think if
14:30
Speaker 3: you just at the you know, at the core of it,
14:35
Speaker 3: having that goal, wanting something and just you know, if
14:40
Speaker 3: the doors aren't opening, create the door.
14:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, bring your expenses down, find ways to increase your income.
14:46
Speaker 1: And that's kind of I don't know.
14:49
Speaker 2: I was going to say that's the magic formula, but
14:51
Speaker 2: I don't know how magic it is. It just it's
14:53
Speaker 2: hard and it requires so much intention and.
14:55
Speaker 1: Effort, right.
14:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, you could say this almost goes against
15:00
Speaker 3: what I do for a living, you know, as a
15:02
Speaker 3: social media influencer. But one of the core things, and
15:05
Speaker 3: one of the points I made in the original article,
15:07
Speaker 3: is not comparing yourself to other people, because I think
15:11
Speaker 3: that that's one of the key things that can really
15:13
Speaker 3: undo you in that journey, because it is easy to
15:18
Speaker 3: look at other people and what you think they have,
15:21
Speaker 3: or how you think they're doing, or the life that
15:23
Speaker 3: you think they have. But that is the thing about
15:26
Speaker 3: social media is that you don't see everything. You don't
15:31
Speaker 3: know everybody's circumstances, you don't know you know what's going on,
15:35
Speaker 3: and you've really got to sort of stay focused on
15:38
Speaker 3: your own goal. You know. For us, it was that
15:41
Speaker 3: renovation and getting that done. We had a forty year
15:45
Speaker 3: old house that you know, some people said, like, why
15:48
Speaker 3: are you even renovating it? You know, but we bought
15:51
Speaker 3: the cheapest house at the time that we could get. Well,
15:54
Speaker 3: everyone else was buying the house and land packages. But
15:57
Speaker 3: that's you know, we just wanted to get into the
16:00
Speaker 3: market and we just wanted to do you know. We
16:03
Speaker 3: never wanted to get into debt for it, apart from
16:05
Speaker 3: having like the Court Home loan. So that's why. Yeah,
16:08
Speaker 3: we really knuckled down to save that money to get
16:10
Speaker 3: that renovation done and that was important to us.
16:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and five hundred bucks a week or thereabouts.
16:18
Speaker 2: We'll give you thirty grand in a year, maybe a
16:20
Speaker 2: little bit more than five hundred maybe six hundred bucks
16:22
Speaker 2: a week, but as you bring those expenses down, there's
16:25
Speaker 2: one hundred maybe one hundred and fifty maybe two hundred
16:27
Speaker 2: bucks a week, and then find a way to earn
16:29
Speaker 2: a couple of hundred and you're most of the way there.
16:31
Speaker 2: It's a pretty cool story. Olivia White Instagram influencer from
16:35
Speaker 2: Olivia White aka House of White on insta, mum of
16:39
Speaker 2: two life lolls, fashion, travel, Disney memes, and a whole
16:43
Speaker 2: lot more on your Insta. People can follow you there.
16:45
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for chatting with us on the Happy
16:46
Speaker 2: Families podcast. I reckon there's been a handful of things
16:49
Speaker 2: that should be pretty inspiring for mums and dads as
16:52
Speaker 2: they're listening to this conversation.
16:54
Speaker 1: Great to talk to you, Thank you.
16:56
Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
16:59
Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and if
17:02
Speaker 2: you want more information, you can check out lives Instagram
17:04
Speaker 2: or visit us at happy families dot com today