I was 18 years old.

I was living with my sister

and her brand new husband.

Not very awkward at all.

And one of the things that

you might know about me,

because you've been listening

to the podcast, is that

I have been through some

interesting home spaces.

I lived with some friends.

I didn't have a house.

I rented with my mom, et

cetera, et cetera, I

landed at my sister's place.

and her husband were dead

against me renting anywhere.

And so we started down this

track of thinking about what

I could do as an 18-year-old

to find somewhere to live

that felt secure and stable.

We lived opposite this

beautiful park and every

day we'd go walking around

this beautiful estate and

we noticed that there was

packets of land for sale.

Now.

This was a long time ago.

So we are talking

Western Australia, 30

something years ago

and there was packets

of land near the airport

and my sister said to me,

wouldn't it be great if

you could build a house?

And I thought to myself.

I'm 18, man, how is that

actually going to happen?

she started doing

the research.

Now anyone that knows me

knows I now work with Serena.

She's my business manager

and she's the researcher,

she's the patient

one, she's the bomb.

And she started researching

house and land packages

and what it would take and

all the bits and pieces.

And I thought, could

I actually do this?

Could I actually save enough

cash that I have my own thing?

Anyway, fast forward a couple

of months and I put in a

beautiful offer for a land

and house package, and the

house was a three bedroom,

two bathroom, brand new house.

Now, 30 years ago, that

didn't cost a lot of money,

but I was still only 18 and

my grandmother had in the

previous year had passed

away from breast cancer.

And my grandfather was

probably 80 and I was

telling pop about, my

desire to have my own place.

And at the same time, pop

was kind of deciding what

he should do now that Nan

had gone and we kind of.

I talked through some options,

and then we came up with

this really bright idea.

Why don't I get the house

and land package and pop

contribute a little bit

so I could get the deposit

together and then pop

come and live with me?

Wouldn't that be fun?

Now, I don't know many 18

year olds who wanna live

with their grandfather,

but my grandfather.

Was awesome.

He also lived to the ripe old

age of 105, so, we embarked

on this adventure together.

It was very exciting.

he was there from the very

beginning, and we lived

that way for a few years.

And it was beautiful.

It was beautiful time,

beautiful memories.

And then pop.

Turned to me one day and he

said, oh, I think I might

go and live with Anne.

And I'm like, okay.

now what you need to know

about my pop is he was

a good Baptist fellow.

Him and my nan had been

married for 65 years or 60

years, and uh, he wanted to

go and live with the person

that was my nan's bridesmaid.

At their wedding because her

husband had also passed away.

And I thought, okay,

cool, you go do that.

And I made the decision to

move to Melbourne, but I also

decided to keep the house.

So we decided to

rent the house out.

Pop would go and live

with Anne, and I would

cheer off to Melbourne.

So I arrived in Melbourne.

This is um, now I was

probably 20 or 22 and and

I started renting and I

was just like, dead money.

Dead money, dead money.

So I. Bought a

house as you do.

It was a beautiful,

big property in the

suburbs, which I loved.

And then I bought

another house.

Maybe a couple years later

I bought another house.

It was a beautiful townhouse

and I loved that house.

And then I bought

one more house.

Now I know I sound like

I'm collecting houses, but

what you need to know is

I'm collecting mortgages.

I'm not collecting houses,

I'm collecting mortgages.

And the reason that I was

so intent on this property

strategy, we didn't know

enough about shares back then.

We didn't know enough

about how else to invest.

All I knew is that stability

meant me buying something.

Making sure that I could

stay there and no one else

could upset that plan.

I wouldn't be kicked out

because I'm a renter.

I owned my own house.

I could do as I please,

et cetera, et cetera.

I hazard a guess that

I also might be, that I

need to be in control,

that small issue as well.

Anyway, I had four houses,

three houses, however

many houses, four houses

before the age of 30.

Financial security was

clearly very important to me.

And if you've heard any of

the other episodes of our

podcast, go back a couple.

You'll understand why

financial security

is important to me.

Financial security

should also be important

really to many of us.

And now it's so hard to get

into the property market.

It's so hard.

Prices are crazy.

And, um, I just allowed my

properties to sit there.

I managed them and made

sure that I could pay the

mortgages every single

month and some months.

That was hard.

I was like, holy crap,

what have I done here?

I've got four

mortgages to my name.

I'm a single woman.

If something happens to me,

I'm in dire straits here.

But you know what?

I'm also a risk taker.

So I went, I'm

gonna wear that.

I'm gonna wear that, and I'm

going to make sure that I

am in control of my destiny

and then I'm in control of

where I live, who I wanna

hang out with, how I pay

these mortgages, whether

to get rid of them or

not, et cetera, et cetera.

So probably for a good.

Eight years to 10 years, I

held on to four mortgages,

and actually quite smart, but

also by accident the WA market

just went through the roof,

and so that paid dividends.

When I eventually sold, one of

the things about having four

houses is that I didn't tell

anyone about the four houses.

I did not tell a soul.

people knew that I lived

in a certain house.

And that I had a

mortgage and that was it.

I didn't tell anyone about it.

I wasn't proud about it.

I didn't celebrate it.

It was just literally my thing

that I owned for my own sanity

peace of mind, financial

security, knowing that at any

point if I needed to, I could

sell the houses and get out.

Some would say I rely a

little too heavily on myself.

And if you've listened to one

of our other episodes, which

was, you know, I woke up at

30 and without a husband.

I think as I look back in

hindsight, I was literally

just future proofing my

life in case I didn't

find a husband or I didn't

find a partner, or things

didn't pan out the way I

had fully expected them

from my teenage self.

I also am very much the person

that has the strategy, and

I know that if I am very

clear about what it is that

I want, that I can just

go out and get that thing.

Yes, it might take years,

and how I've explained it

to you is kind of linear,

but obviously there was

some choices that I needed

to make and trade offs

that we needed to make.

Just as we do in business.

And just because I

had four mortgages

did not make me rich.

It actually made me quite poor

but it did put me on a certain

path to financial security.

And that is, as I've

discovered as the years have

gone on, quite important to

me and it should be to you.

And one of the things when I

jumped into my own business

eight years ago that I was

really concerned about is

Is this decision too risky

for my risk appetite?

Because I like financial

security, and so I

had to think long

and hard about that.

But I also knew that I

had a marriage strategy, I

had a financial strategy.

I had clarity about

where I wanted to go,

and when you have those

things in place, it's not

just a wish and a spit.

I'm not just manifesting

the next thing.

I knew if I did the work

and had the plan and had

the clarity that I would

be able to pull it off.

Which I'm very pleased to

say here I am eight years

later and it's all good.

So if you are sitting there

thinking, I'm far away

from that, you know what?

Just get clear on the next

thing that you need to do.

Whatever the next steps

are, get your plan out

to the minuscule detail,

minuscule detail, map

it out and get going.

Because otherwise we just

sit there in indecision

and that's not nice either.

So.

What I wanna say is this,

financial security

is hard won.

It's not handed to you

on a silver platter.

It's not necessarily given

to you at any moment.

You have to work hard for

that stuff, but you have

to make sure that you have

some plans in play so that

you are financially secure.

I will also say that my

heavy reliance on myself.

It's not always advised.

I think sometimes I can be

quite stubborn and set in

my ways because I've got

a certain way I think it

should turn out and that

doesn't always serve me.

There you go.

Said it.

You heard it here first.

I wanna say this, once

you have one house, it's

really easy to leverage that

house to get another house.

Yeah, you still need to be

able to pay the mortgage.

And at the time I was working

full-time, I've always

been an entrepreneur, so

I've always had some kind

of side hustle going on,

so I was working full-time

and also had a little side

hustle going on the first

house, the very first

house in Western Australia

was paying for itself.

And so the next house.

The next three houses.

After that, I had to

contribute a little bit, but

a lot of them were rented out.

Now, this is when you could

do it and it worked for

you and all the things,

but you need to know these.

Some months I had to

contribute a lot of money

just because that's how

the chips fell that month,

which meant I didn't go out.

I didn't go out to eat.

I didn't catch

up with friends.

I literally ate noodles.

Actually, I did live in a

very nice apartment at one

point, and my neighbors who

were beautiful would bring

me dinner every night, and

that was quite nice too.

But that's a side

story for another day.

So what I had to do was

sometimes I had to sacrifice.

Sometimes you just have to

sacrifice for the things

that you really want.

I really wanted financial

security until I didn't.

At one point I woke up

and went, is this the

right strategy for me?

No, I know I'm four houses

deep in, and I'm like, no.

but was that the

right strategy?

Having four houses

and who knows, right?

But.

I had this epiphany where

you hear of people who

stack up the houses, stack

up the shares, stack up the

investments, and then they

retire and they sell it all,

and they go back to one house.

And you think to yourself,

that feels so much simpler.

so that is not what happened

to me, but it got me thinking

about when is enough enough

and how happy am I with

my financial security?

Now, I wanna fast

forward a few years.

I am now married

and with child.

Evie's in my belly and

I thought to myself,

do you know what I, I'm

not sure I wanna manage

these mortgages anymore.

I'm not sure I want

this complicated a life.

And so we made the decision,

mark and I together, that

we would sell everything

and pay off one mortgage and

live a life that was very

simple and that was awesome.

Because that's still

financial security and I've

still felt like a success.

And I still felt like the

choices, my 18-year-old

self made, still made sense

when I was, I don't know,

34 or something like that.

And so sometimes you

have beautiful hindsight.

Sometimes you just get hit

in the face with Epiphany,

what the heck am I doing?

And sometimes you go, no,

this is how life was meant

to be, and I feel like this

is how life was meant to be.

But wouldn't I feel like

that I'm mis optimistic

and I always feel like

things are gonna work out.

I'm like a cat with

nine lives just saying,

So I hope you found

this episode helpful.

if you have a plan and you

have clarity around your

plan, and you can take really

intentional steps, oh my

goodness, you will get there

If you've liked this

episode, just share it

with one person who knows.

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