Money Made Simple with Alpha Schulte

#113 - (EDITED) Alpha Schulte

Mon, Dec 02, 2024 9:51AM • 38:44

00:00

Emma, do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell, show a place where we talk about living a life you love. Now I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world, and now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure too. It's possible, and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams, to create a life you love and to live it now, not wait for a time and or someday in the future, I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01:03

I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place, now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land, waterways and skies where I work, live, listen, learn and play from here on you, Emma country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01:26

Welcome to today's episode. I'm so excited to introduce you to Alpha schulter, money and mindset mentor. I met alpha on a business chicks networking call, and we have grown our relationship and friendship since then. But also, I have hired alpha to do some wonderful money and mindset mentoring for me and my husband, and I cannot recommend her more highly. Alpha is an ex corporate tax accountant and management consultant with more than 20 years experience. Her business started out of her own journey to understand how to manage money personally and her quest to find her purpose. Fun fact, she was a competitive figure skater, and actually went out with Alfred the other day and just kept picking up fun facts. There's so much to learn about this wonderful woman, and so know you're going to love this episode. But also how she simplifies money. She has a podcast called money made simple, and she helps us to get clarity, especially between the business and personal finance, which was something that has really been a struggle over the years, and I share very openly in my book about so let's dive into the episode, because there's so much value, and I can't wait for you to learn from Alpha.

02:36

Welcome to the podcast, alpha. Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you. Well, you had me on your podcast a long time ago, and so this is well overdue, but we always start by in your words, telling us who are you.

02:53

So my name is alpha, and I started money made simple out of my own journey of trying to figure out money, and I'm an ex tax accountant, which would make you think I'd be good with money, but I learned how to lodge tax returns, and I was working in that corporate space for a fair while, and then I went into management consulting and the diploma of financial planning as part of my own journey, because I wanted to know more about money. And by doing that, I realized how much we don't get taught, and there's so many things that get over complicated, and there's a really gap in our in our knowledge and our education. And I had my own personal development journey going on in parallel, and I realized the two intertwine quite a lot. And then when I started my business, I also realized a lot of small business owners don't really understand what they need to do with their business and personal finances, so I now help them straddle both. So because your wealth is actually built in your personal finances. So I've, I've kind of morphed a little bit, and absolutely love it. But yeah, so it's, it's, it's changed a little bit over time, but ultimately, it's helping people manage money better so they can actually live the life they want and have the lifestyle, which is why I'm wearing my lifestyle. Earrings today. I love it. Yes. And we met on, I believe, a business jigs networking call. Yes, it was, yeah. I'm so grateful. I joined that call, yeah. And then it was wonderful. You got me on to talk. Because I think that call we ended up having, it always happens. There's like, some synergy. And I think there were quite a few financial people on that call, and so we ended up talking quite openly about money, and I shared some of my faux pas, which I would say is quite common, but we, yeah, we've all had, I guess, money lessons and but people aren't, don't tend to be open about it, I think, and then there's a lot of shame around money and around that, not knowing what to do. And the thing is, I've had to do a lot of forgiveness work in the last few years of myself of and honoring the journey, because, like, I started my business when I was 22 maybe, like.

05:00

And also there's a lot of untangling, because I was started as a sole trader, and then I've gone into a trust, and I've now started a company, and they are a different structure. And for a long time, it was like, Well, who cares about, like, the business money? It's my money. Like business, me and the business are the same, and it's so I just didn't know how and who tells you. No, can I look at your bank account and what are you doing? Because we don't talk about it. No, I've had so many situations where I've had to question the business structure, having worked in that space for a fair while, and then going, Okay, well, I know what the tax implications are for things. And because even though I'm not an accountant anymore, I still have that knowledge, and then I can ask the right questions and prod them and say, look, I think you need to actually chat. Because sometimes, and it just happens, like Time passes and they just stay in the same structure. Their business grows. Things organically change, and their accountant is so focused on getting things lodged that they don't necessarily take a step back and do like a review of the business. So that's often what I tend to do, is like, I have that oversight, and I have a look at the whole thing, and so I start to ask the questions, and then they go back to their account, their accounts like, oh yeah, we really need to do something about this. So some accountants are very, you know, happy for the the additional perspective, some are not so much. But it's really just asking the right questions and getting yourself set up in the right way. And the other thing too is separating their finances. Because yes, as a if you're a solopreneur or you've got a very small business, everything is your money, and it's very personal, because it's the labors that you put into it, and the the creativity and all of that. And so you have one bank account. And then I see this a lot too. I was like, no, no, they're very leashy to have a business account and a personal account separate them out. So there's just some fundamentals there. And then other things is just knowledge and just knowing yourself as well. Because I had to go on this journey too. I thought I had to, you know, learn about share trading and property investing and property development, all of that. And I did all the the courses, and then I realized I actually don't want to do all that. It's way too complicated. I don't want to have tenants. So now I just invest in property in a different way. But a lot of it is clarity, understanding ourselves, and then knowing how we can tap into the ways to build wealth and

07:18

understanding what you want for your circumstances. I think there's a lot of, like, six figures and million dollars. And you know when it's like, what do you and not just living on what you need, but it's like, what suits your circumstances? And I think I said to you on our first call that one of the things I had a really big reflection on was when I had my son, yeah, and I was really happy with the amount I worked that year. Like I wouldn't. Every time I thought, I've gotta make more money, I've gotta work harder, I would catch myself and be like, No, or like, I've gotta do more hours. It's like, no. What I realized I needed to do was be more productive. And it's something I'm working on at the moment too. It's that Pareto 8020 rule. It's like, there's probably so much stuff, like, I feel like, oh my gosh, I need a whole day when, oh my gosh, the amount of work I've done before a flight. Like, I'm in the lounge, they're calling, you know, my flight, and I'm getting out. I focus, yeah, so if you can do that, I really enjoyed realizing how much, like, yeah, I wasn't happy with the income. I would have liked more, but I was very happy with the amount of time. So then it was just like, how can I make more in the same amount of time? Yes, that's, you know, my like, where my life's at. And then then following year, I think I got back to the income I was at before I had my son, but I was working probably a third of the amount of time I used to work. And I'm like, yeah, it's a huge win. It's amazing. The difference having a child makes it makes you This is why, whenever we sort of just generically talk about women in the workforce, and I was like, part time mums are the hardest working people, I think because they have to be. They've got the same amount of stuff to do in a lesser amount of time, so they're super duper focused on what they need to do, and productivity goes up. And when it comes to money, there's so many things we can do nowadays with technology, so many things you can automate that you can systemize things as softwares out there. Understanding what you need it for, though, is part of the the thing, and then how to actually structure how you manage money around that. And this is something I'm, I'm, I love organizing things. I you know, life in general, but money in particular. And then how to I don't like repetition. So if something's like repetitive, like, how can I make this so much easier? So I don't have to think about it. And that's where technology and automation come in. There's apps. There's so many different things we can do now that we didn't have access to, say, 1520, years ago. So it's it is a lot easier, but we with that comes choice, and with choice comes complexity. With complexity comes overwhelm. With overwhelm, we do nothing because we aren't clear. So we just sit and we just do nothing, and then we start to feel guilty about not doing it. So this is it just compounds on itself, because that's not just in our money line.

10:00

Life, but life admin in general is just, even if it's not the physical things you have to do, it's the mental load that goes with it. Even just I got two emails from my daughter's school yesterday, I was like, what? Two emails? And one day, you usually send me one, what's, what's, what's this extra one. Now,

10:18

I love that you've talked about the mental load there, because the other thing that's shifted so much for me in the last well, since starting my business as a little freelancing 22 year old sole trader, is that I have a partner now. And so what we're dealing with

10:35

as we you know, at any stage though, you if you have a partner or a child, the money is a just yours. You're also dealing with their money stuff and what they think about how you should be making money, or how you could be using money. And I think we often come into it separately. And so, you know, I had a this year, sold my investment property, so meant a big cash influx, but I really wanted to make sure I set up

11:06

well. And I think there's been challenges over the last few years with my husband and our different attitudes to money and how money should be used, as well as the fact that he's a full time worker and I'm a business owner, and so you worked with us as a couple, yes, and it's, it is, excuse me, it is very complex when you come together, especially if you've been on your own and you've set yourself up financially, and then you've suddenly got this other person, and you've got to manage your finances together, manage your financial blocks and things together, and then actually move forwards that not every single thing is an argument, and it's helping each other be clear, or how awareness understanding your own stuff as well. And quite often, we can do that individually, but the other person's gotta know your stuff. It's not just enough that you know your stuff. They've gotta know your stuff too. And it's also not as simplistic as I hear this a lot. It's like, oh, one's a spender, one's a saver. Like, well, not really. I mean, yes, we all spend, we all say, but it depends on what it is. Like, my husband is relatively frugal, but when it comes to his

12:08

boat, that changes so and then I'm, I'm kind of the same as, like, I'm okay. But then when it comes to travel, I was like, oh, you know, we'll do the upgrade, because it's, you know, it's nice. I've worked hard. Like, you know, we justify so many things to ourselves. So it's understanding how that operates. And then if you choose to keep things separate too, like for the for many years, my husband and I have had completely separate finances. We've only ever had debt together, and then then when that was gone, we that was it, and so we run it quite independently. So in a way, it's baffling to a lot of people say, but it's what works for you, yeah, but it's having that conversation and being able to have and this is where I find the systems come in really handy, because it takes some of the emotion away when you can just see the numbers. It's like, there's this year, there's this here. We've we've both agreed that a percentage of this is going to go there. Percentage here will go there, and then whatever you want to do with your your percentage is entirely up to you. No judgment, no comments. You don't even get to say it, say in it, but you've had that agreement and that that conversation up front. So in a way, relationship is a bit like running a business, but because we don't focus on it like that, it doesn't it doesn't have its own accounting system. It doesn't have its own kind of advisor, unless you have a financial advisor. But then that tends to outsource things as well, because that's something else I learned. I gave my money to a financial advisor, and I had no idea, really what was going on, and he couldn't tell me. I also play such a different role. And like, I have an accountant who's wonderful and very good at, you know, knowing my life stage and all that sort of stuff. Do my day to day stuff like,

13:43

you know, that's the it's the day to day that sometimes causes the biggest headache. And one of the shifts that I had was when I read roommate set his book How to Get Rich or make you rich. But one of the things is, like, it's like, don't argue or don't think about books. He's like, if you want to buy a book, buy a book. They're like, 30 bucks, which is great for me, because I wrote a book. So I'm like, Yeah, find a book. But like, you know, like, I got a Kindle now, and you're going, like, is that such is that a good way to spend my mentor, like, if I'm buying 50, we're like, okay, we probably need to have a chat. But I'm like, there's two books there. And it's like, oh no, I'll save up for that. And it's like, and then you forget, or whatever. It's like, I've I feel inspired to get this book. It's going to help me. I'm going to read, especially a business or a non fiction.

14:29

It's $14 on Kindle, you know, or it's $30

14:34

you know. It's like, don't make that a decision. You don't need mental load over those kinds of decisions. It's more. Do we want to leave a legacy? Do we want to save for our child's future? Do we want to save up for a bigger house or a smaller house them or the conversations that you need to be having you don't want to bicker about the little things? Yeah, and the same. Then, you know, taking that into the relationship, then it's like, if it's under 50 bucks, like, don't call me. Don't call me. You want to buy some.

15:00

Think for a son, that's 50 bucks buy it, you know, like, you know, or, or we have, you know, we basically have a kind of thing that, if it's for Finn, you know, not, not $1,000 thing, but if it's for Finn, if he's playing game, he's going on a horse ride or whatever, donuts, like, you can do it. Buy him food if he needs it, like, and so that's on our shared card. And then it's not a discussion. You don't call and go, Oh, should I buy this? Or should I not? It's like,

15:25

you know, it's on the shared account, it's agreed. One of the other big ahas I had out of our session was

15:31

when you looked at our home boss, because, like, we we've done the percentage thing, or we've done the breakdown of how we we contribute, and all that sort of stuff. But my husband would get quite worried or concerned about our living costs going up. And I remember one week getting him getting really worried about we had taken some money for the offset. And he was like, talking about canceling his gym and not going out for dinners and things like that. And I was like, How much is it? Yeah, $50 more. I don't even think a week. I think it was like a month more. Like, yeah. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? Like, I can make that like, I'm selling stuff around our house to make that like, yeah. And you told us that looking at it comparatively so you don't know your situation, right? You're in it, and you're just like, that, step out, yeah. And you said to us that our living costs are actually quite low. And so it's really helped, because I keep coming back to Matt, it's like, oh, we can't buy, I don't know, the this extra milk or something. And I'm like, I know things are going up, but our living costs are low. Like, we're okay. Like, that's okay. And everyone in this economy is going through a situation, yeah. Like, let's not create a stress when actually we're doing okay, yeah. And sometimes it's about getting a bit creative too. Like, I've, I've leaned into more, like, going to Costco and Aldi. I make a lot of the things that we have. Like, I make the bread because some, I mean, I mean, I can find because I like, spell sourdough, and I just, I also love the creativity of making it, but there's different ways. There's co ops out there now as well. So from a day to day living cost, but ultimately, I think it's having a purpose for your money. And this is where I find when people say to me, Oh, how do I stick to I can never stick to a budget. I was like, Well, do you know what your money's for? If you've got a vision that's bigger than you, it's a lot easier to stay on path, because you're like, Okay, I can I for me Val, and then it's value versus cost is okay. Well, for me, it's more valuable to buy, you know, the organic milk, you know. And I like to support the farmers, so I'm going to buy, you know, the baramba, or whatever the farmer produced milk is. But then, do I really need this extra streaming subscription. So it's, it then becomes a value versus cost conversation, rather than a living costs are going up. So I need to, I need to do without. I mean, we see how diets, you know, I've, you know, we've all done this. We constrain our, you know, whether it's calories or whatever kind of diet we're doing, and then when we feel too constrained for too long, we just like, bust out. Same thing happens with money, but if you're doing it for a purpose, like, I don't think I've ever eaten so well, like, just sticking to the food thing for a moment when I since when I was pregnant or breastfeeding, I was like, because it wasn't about me, it was about something bigger than me, my my daughter. So if we have a bigger purpose, it makes it a lot easier for our money to be aligned to that, and the abundance go towards it, it doesn't get swanded. And then we earn more as a result, because the universe then knows we can handle it so. And I'm getting a little bit woo, woo there, but

18:33

yeah, but I just, I think having someone come out in

18:37

to navigate that conversation is is really great to actually look at the numbers with you,

18:43

to ask you about your goals and that sort of thing, because I'm, yeah, very, very driven and focused on and I can, I can break down like I'm not day to day is more challenging for me, but I can tell you the dollar to the dollar, how much things cost in on trips. I itemize everything, and I can plan, and it's one of the things I need to include. I've got a spreadsheet that I use for planning trips, and I'm pretty within $1,000 within probably $500 of what I set out at the start. We'll get to that so I can really budget for how much it's going to cost.

19:19

And then that is such a great goal. I think when you get into like, bigger thing, like big things, like houses and stuff, it could be, you know, because it feels like such a long term thing. And another thing that you shared with us was,

19:32

you know, one of the really important things was me setting up, you know, is we just talk about trust fund babies and things like that. And I was like, I would absolutely, would have loved to be a trust fund baby. I would have loved to be and not in the way that we view it. It's just in that setting your child up. And I know that if you started from day one, like now, looking at how, knowing how investments pay off, I think that's the other thing. When you're in your 20s, you can't understand how investing works.

20:00

Because it just seems so far away. But I bought a house next minute, it's seven years, and it almost doubled in value. Yeah, I walked away with $300,000

20:10

like, you know, that's couldn't have saved that. Conceptually, you couldn't even imagine saving that at the time you started. It was, I mean, I saved for the deposit that was, that was big enough, you know, like, put down 42,000 and walked away with close to 300 so you like, that's a pretty great return on investment. And so once, like, Oh, wow. And if had I put in bits and bought, like, little bit over time, the way that compounds, yes. And you have a timeline with your child, right? Because 18 or 21 whatever you decide, 25 that you're going to you can actually give them amounts. Like, what an amazing thing, whether that be a house deposit or a car or, yeah, university, what? Starting a business you might want to put it into. But I was like, we did that today, and this is no shade on our parents, but I'm just like, giving up me, yeah, and trust them. Like, only if you were Uber wealthy could you do that, yeah? And this, this is the thing I think we forget in just in general, it has to be a big effort or a big gesture, or a lot of money. I was like, No, like it literally, one of my favorite money stories is a janitor in the US, and he retired with $2 million because from the age of, like 20, he may he put some money aside, he bought a modest house, kept putting the money in investments, and then gradually, over time, they just grew. And this isn't trying to time the market, because this is the other thing that I had to learn was the difference between trading and investing. Everyone, when they think investing, they're like, oh, I have to know when to buy, what to buy, when to buy, when to sell. Is like, well, hang on a minute, investing is about in actually just investing, not buying and selling. That's trading. And I had a cousin who did that, and he was very good at it, but he he studied it. He was up all night during the month when he used to try and explain it to me. I'm like, that just sounds really, really complicated, but you can buy and hold if you want to look at how to time the market, you can try. But even the best investors say that it's very difficult to try and time it. So as long as you're just putting a little amount away consistently, into investments, into saving and even if you pay a little bit extra off your mortgage, even just paying your mortgage fortnightly rather than monthly, makes a huge difference. So it's actually wealth is built in the incremental steps that you take. You just do them consistently and have discipline around it. So, but it sounds boring, like no one's going to buy that because it's you don't. You can't sell that anywhere. So everybody's trying to sell all these complex ideas and concepts. Was like, you really just like my daughter, I've opened up an investment fund for her when she was born. It's now been nearly 10 years, and I'm looking at that just going, Whoa. This has actually exceeded my expectations of what I thought it would be based on my spreadsheet. So I was like, sorry, but that's just I'm like, so now I'm even, you see, when you see that, you get even more motivated, because you're like, wow, I see the power of this. I'm just going to keep doing it, and that's why I'm like, I want everyone to know this and to do it, because it's, it's available to everyone, especially with the micro investing that we have nowadays, kids can get into it at a young age. So I get very passionate about this because, like, it's so simple. And you brought up a really good topic, just little by little, yeah, and I think it was so complicated for so long, and I didn't even try and seek out help in the last year. Asked my father in law and my dad, because they buy shares because, you know, it's always the men, yeah, and my husband has shares because his dad bought them, and his dad tells him he's 400 bucks put it in, and he's been doing that, if

23:38

somebody doesn't help you with that. I mean, now the information is becoming more available, but even the platform, then, it took me. I opened up a platform at a women's finance night, because I was like, you'll do because otherwise it was like, do I go with concept? Do I go with pearl? Do go with raise? Do I go with this? And essentially, it's like, had to start, and I might decide to report different. But it was complete. Felt complex, yeah? And what happened is, though, that they didn't, they were like, Oh, but I don't want to tell you the wrong thing, so I'm not going to tell you anything, anything, yeah. And I don't want to do the wrong thing, so I don't do anything, yeah. And so it's like, and then, you know, me talking quite openly about the fact that I've bought shares and I started high risk $1,500

24:22

across three companies, you know, like, they're like, venture capital type thing, and I'm like, someone's like, so high risk, low return. I'm like, that's my that's my game, baby. But now I've gone with a more like $25 a week, yeah, but you know, I mean, that could do great, and it's that was fun for me, they've started because it was fun. You split it out too. Like, I have some people who, like, I really want to dabble in crypto. I was like, well, you can just, don't put everything in it. Just put something that you're prepared to lose, and then you, and this is why they call it balanced portfolios. And you spread your risk around different asset classes. So don't just, this is why I'm like.

25:00

If you want to just buy a single investment property, yes, it can gain, but there's also a lot of costs involved with it, too. Then there's the opportunity cost. If it's something you really want to do, though, do it, but then also make sure you're investing in some other companies, some shares, maybe some index funds. You can invest in property trusts, where you actually get exposure to commercial property, which is a lot more lucrative. But as an individual, it's almost impossible to get in because it's millions of dollars. So doing little 1000, and once you see it, and like, I opened up my app the other day and I was like, up $4.80 and I'm like, ooh,

25:32

$4.80 and you know that you didn't have otherwise, that's no And I know you had to put that in there. Yeah. And it was really fun. Like, I I've been doing $25 a week since my son was born, yeah, so I've got in a savings account three and a half 1000 and then. But now what I've started to do, because I just want to make sure he has money. So I'm doing, every fortnight it goes to the shares, and every four like, so alternate, once one go, payment goes to the bank account, and one payment goes to the shares. You're diversifying. Feels good to me, because I just, I'm like, if all the shares when I would be really disappointed. And so I want and but there might be a point where I go, I've got $5,000 for him. That's a great amount. I'll hold that in the savings, and that's great to have. And then I'm happy to just do the shares, which I could buy back. It's very unlikely they would

26:27

maybe go to zero, but, um, but then they can come back again. And this is, this is the other thing too, we because we keep an eye on it so often we panic, and then when things go down, we sell because it's emotion. You're like, well, just hang on to it. Don't, don't sell it when it's low. Like, just keep it going. I remember being approached by by a lady one time at an event, and she's less like, oh, I don't know what to do. My soup is down, and you know that? I don't know should I sell? What should I change portfolios? I was like, Well, what do you like? How often do you look at it? She's like, I'm looking at it every day. And I was like, Well, my advice would be, just stop looking at it.

27:02

Maybe every six months, when you look at it, you go, you forget. And I've been doing $50 a week for like, oh, gosh, since I was probably 22 and so it was so cool. I remember being in Mexico and being like, Oh, my car insurance is due, and I'm over here in Mexico studying, and I opened up my ing, and I was like, Oh, there's $1,000 there, because I was putting $50 away, and I've never turned it off, and I've sometimes taken that beneath it, but I've never ever turned it off. Yeah, and the automation powerful, yeah, it's really powerful. And,

27:34

yeah, but what with the the shares, yeah, I would love to talk to my mum, but my mum and my brother will be talking about it, and now they're asking me for advice. Yeah. And I was like, all my brother said, I want to talk to dad. And I was like, don't, because he's going to tell you, don't do anything. And I'm like,

27:51

again, his his partner has shares, because he's her dad just did it for her, or just set it up for her. And I'm like, I just think you know if you know something, and it might not be like you just kind of disclaim yourself if you want, with the guidance. But like you said, this is what I did, but somebody knows nothing, so you've got help them start somewhere. And I'm like, if I can inspire, if somebody listens to this and they go and open up one of those super simple apps, choose your flavor, um, just to start, and then people get upset about fees or whatever you're like, I don't know things that's like to start with. Yeah, I opened up like, and I'm a pretty low risk person. I'm risk averse. I think it would be the term. And so when raise who they were acorns, and this is a micro investing app, when they first came to Australia, I was like, I'm just gonna, like, if it's just roundups, I'll just, that's okay. I'll just sign up to do that. And then within four years, I had like, $4,000 I was like, oh, let's something to this. And then another year later I was up to 6000 I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna add like, $10 a week. Oh, sorry, $10 a month, and see what happens. And now it's up to like $8,000 a year later, I was like, this is actually pretty cool. And then you can add, like, a child's one in there, and in so I've added one for my daughter, but in that one, I've actually chosen the shares. So now I'm going to dabble with, you know, because it's micro, I don't have to spend 1000s of dollars dabbling. I can just experiment with a few, you know, $50 here, and $100 there. And it doesn't feel so risky dollars, right? I mean, I've got a they've got an affiliate link, which, if you have one, please do share, because I really need to set mine up too. But they have an affiliate link for like if you join up. So I think I got a $20 bonus of signing up through someone else. And then you can earn an affiliate thing too, but you literally, like I was at the event, set up the app while the event was still running, had put in 20 bucks like. I think that was my issue too, is that I thought I needed to, like, do you start with 1000 do you start with like, I you know, start walls around it, because I know and and you just think and like, like, I said, I think when there's a lot of forgiveness work about should have done it 10 years.

30:00

Ago. Should have done it 20 years ago. Why didn't I? You know, it's like no to give ourselves or didn't know, and start today and just continue then to learn. And this stuff is hard, and so I do highly recommend working with alpha, because I honestly like that conversation, and there's still work to do, hand on heart, there's stuff that I'm still I'm still untangling a lot, and it was I shared it very openly in my book as well. Like business and personal finance has been a real challenge, and I'm still untangling and changing habits from years ago. So but I know that I'm I'm learning, and it's getting better, and

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there are still things that I'd like to be setting up, but I mean, just the way that me and Matt are talking about money is so with so much more ease, and I could see that he's a lot more comfortable, because that would put a lot of stress on me. I have a lot more appetite for risk, but I want him to be on the same page or or comfortable, so that I can be okay to take a bit more risk or just manage my own staff, because that's taking on his stress as well. Was a lot, yeah, and a lot of it's perceived too. So as soon as you start to talk about it out loud to your partner, and then they realize, oh, okay, you don't have it all figured out. Either we're all human, we're all still figuring it out, and we're doing it together, and we're at least wanting to do things. And I think that's that's really the key, is having that desire and that curiosity. So if there's still questions, ask someone you know. So people love talking about their experiences, so you'll find and with it, although you you do have to listen to your gut. And if someone's saying to you, oh, here's a great you know, I've heard some, some horror stories from some of the parents at my daughter's school where, you know, kids are being kind of given these investments to invest into. And I was like, What? What is that like? They still need to have a basic understanding of what, what is an underlying value of a company, which is why crypto is such a weird, intangible thing, because there's no necessarily, like, there's no company behind it, but there's ways to understand that as well. So I think it's just having that curiosity and not being afraid to do something, because otherwise you will be, you know, chastising yourself in 10 years for not starting 10 years ago. And then your your current self is also chastising your 10 year old. You know, it's, it just, we'll just have too much guilt around it. Yeah, I think time to take the shame and guilt away. Let's just open up the conversation and figure out what we need to do, just one step at a time. Yeah, and you do that really well. And so how can people work with you? Alpha, so I have a couple of different things I'm doing. I'm actually next year, I'm starting something slightly different, but at the moment, I do offer the money management assessment, which is a one off, one hour session where we literally just, we don't pull everything apart, but we just have a helicopter view at everything. We delve in as deeply as we need to right now. We talk about some money mindsets as well, and some of the blocks and your beliefs and habits, and we look at which ones that you can actually put into place. So that's, that's, that's a one off session. And then I do offer a

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financial growth fast track, which is where I actually build a money system for you with your own data. And then I show you how to how to run it. And that's, that's four sessions at the moment. And we do values discovery at the beginning. So we actually don't even talk about money. First up, we look at how to align your values to your lifestyle. And then we start to build in the money part of it too, because without that clarity, it makes it very difficult to have an idea of where you want to go and how much money you need for that. But I do also, so just want to have a chat. I also have a free clarity chat too, which is a 45 minute conversation

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that I will I will be only doing that for the rest of this year, next year, like I said, I'm making a few changes. So if you do want to have a clarity chat, you can book it in now. We can have it next year, but I'll be making some changes to that next year. But it's Yeah, because I feel very strongly about clarity for people and money, because it's yeah, it it just creates so much stress, and it doesn't need to yeah and and so how can we find you? So I'm on on Facebook and Instagram. So on Instagram, I'm Alpha money made simple, and in on Facebook, I'm MMS money made simple. And yeah, so it's money dash made simple.com.au. On my website. So everything's money made simple. And you have a podcast as well. I do money with alpha. Oh, I love it. And quickly, you came and joined earlier this year, in July. Yes, we don't even know when these things going to come out.

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Joined my rest and receive retreat. And you came for one night, which was really special. Can you briefly tell us a little bit about your experience? Oh, it was, it was on my, on my vision board to come to one of your retreats. And family circumstances made it a bit difficult to get away for three nights. So you very graciously allowed me to come for one night. And it was the most like, even just going for like, two days, one night was the most incredible experience. So.

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The women that came, the openness, the this, just having that space to actually be just still and to have the right questions asked, to have the support, have different perspectives, provided. It was just it was amazing experience like it's hard to really explain how significant it was when it was such a short space span of time, but I learned so much about myself and about the other women, and it's really nice to share, because you, you, we aren't alone, and we, our problems aren't necessarily unique, either. So I found some commonality with some of the others there in relation to the issues they were having with family and children and and then business as well. So I would highly recommend, I would love to do another retreat next year as well. So yes, anybody, if you're on the fence, I just, yeah, I just go to one of Emma retreats. They are brilliant well, and I loved, yeah, being able to offer that to you. And it really opened up for me too, because I had whether that was going to be possible or workable. But I loved your understanding of coming in for the one night, and it was valuable for you, because I thought it was like, Oh, am I butchering my offer, or is that like, how's that going to work with the other people? But you just you, you came in. So we do have a chat group before, but you came in so beautifully. There wasn't FOMO on your part as well, like you understood the time you were coming for and I just, I was like, Oh, this is really nice. And, yeah, it was really nice that it was like, okay, I can create something that works for you and your circumstance. And you came coming in, can add a lot of value as well, even in your short time and still build a connection. And it didn't disrupt or any like, it was just No, everyone was so welcoming. I just like slotted in, which was very nice, which was the collective space that you created. Yeah, it was wonderful, and I'm so grateful. And then, you know, you know, it was always such a lovely alignment of, yeah, where people are at, and I could see people needing your support. But also, you know, there's a real fluidity, and then you needing some other people's guidance, or wherever they're at. So I know those connections have continued as well. So yes, pretty magic. How it all comes together. But yeah, I was so, so grateful to have you there as well. Yes, thank you. I was so excited to be there and have that opportunity, because I loved it. Thank you so much for sharing today. I said this conversation is long overdue. I love what you're doing.

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Money is such a complex subject, and I love being able to share it and talk openly with you. And I know that it's going to people are going to get a lot out of this episode, but you can get so much more from Alpha. She's so generous. But if you're certainly in a relationship or struggling with that business, personal finance, I cannot recommend more highly to go and talk to alpha, because it just

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just feels sane and it does feel a lot more clear and a lot more optimistic. So thank you, wonderful. More than welcome. Thank you so much.

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Thank you for listening. Lovell one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected. Come and join the live a life you love. Group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au the same as my website, but all the details are in the show notes. Lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom, seeking Yeah, go out there and live a life you love, you.