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You Sent Me 14 Money Questions. Here Are My Honest Answers

17th September 2026 • Making Cents • Frances Cook

Grab a cup of tea, my friends, because today we are sitting down for a raw, unfiltered chat about life, money and everything in between. We have not had a proper ask me anything in forever. So I put the word out. I said, send me your questions, nothing is off limits.

And they came flooding in. Love when that happens, how to start investing, how to get ahead financially when it feels impossible these days.

What levers have I pulled to change my own financial situation to be night and day from where I started? Would I sell my fat cat for a million dollars? And how does financial independence work for real people?

We're covering a lot and there's a whole bunch more in there too. So let's go. Let's not waste any more time. Welcome to Making Sense. It's the podcast People who Want Financial freedom without giving up their Coffee.

And I am Francis Cook, a financial journalist and fellow financial freedom seeker who makes money simple for you.

Now, before we get into this, just because I am answering your direct questions here, I know we always have the disclaimer on every episode saying this is not individual financial advice, it's general information. But I really feel like I want to get that up top for this sort of episode.

You know, there are rules around what I can and can't talk to you about with money, and really good rules.

You know, I always say a red flag for someone who you can't trust with money is someone who tries to say this is one situation that works for everyone and everyone should do it. You know.

So there are rules that I can't tell you exactly what to invest in or exactly which providers to use because it might be different for your situation. I don't know your situation. So I'm going through all of your questions today. I've got them all listed out. I'm so excited to jump into them.

But remember how I'll be answering that is the general rules of the money game. What we know works for most people and I'll try to include sort of different situations there where I can.

Your situation might be different so you know your life the best. If something hits and you're like, ah, I don't know if that works for me. Cool. You know your life better than I do.

I'll tell you the general rules of the money game and then you figure out how to apply it to your life. Okay, cool. That's the deal today. First question, jumping straight into it. How do I prioritize all the things?

Pay off mortgage, save for new car, save for Renault, save for shares, etcetera Real talk, don't. You will exhaust yourself if you try to do all of that at once. Great list. You clearly know what you want to make happen.

You clearly have been looking at your life and like, okay, cool, I want to make some things change.

But it's like with any life change, you pick one thing that is the most important right now, that that is the goal, that right now you think, this will be the most achievable for me, or this is going to make the biggest difference for me. And you funnel almost everything into that. This works for a couple of reasons.

So first of all, it's really good and that it lets you build in new habits one at a time. So you might say, I'm doing one change per week or one change per month. And you really let that bed in.

You let it become a habit, and then you bring in the new thing and then you're not overwhelmed trying to keep all these plates spinning at once. Because it's so exciting when you want to make a new change. It is so exciting to be like, oh, my God, I could be living a different life.

There's these things I could do differently and it will help me lead a better life. And I love that. And I felt the same at various times. But trying to do everything all at once will exhaust you.

You can still do multiple things at once, but start each one one at a time and let it bed in, let it become a habit, then pick your next one. I also think the other reason this is really important is you need to give yourself the opportunity to achieve a thing.

And by not spreading yourself too thin, you know, if you only have a little bit of money to funnel into these extra efforts that you're doing, if you only have a little bit to put into saving up for a car, saving up for shares, building up savings in general, then if you spread yourself so thin on all these efforts, all of these efforts are going to take a really long time and you're never going to hit a milestone where you think, tick, I've achieved something. Good job, me. And you really need that positive feedback on the way because you're going to hit roadblocks.

You're going to hit times where you're like, ah, I would like to do the thing that feels good in the moment now. And I know it's not good for my future self, but it feels good now and I'm just going to do it.

If you haven't had those moments of proving to yourself that you can do the hard thing, proving to yourself that, that it's worth it and that you achieved it and it felt so good. If you haven't had that positive reinforcement, it's so much easier to backslide.

And then once you backslide, unfortunately, it's the flip side of what I said just before about proving to yourself if you backslide, it can be really tempting to fall into that mindset, which is not true, but it's an absolute siren call. It's that mindset where you think, see, I knew it. I'm no good at money. This was never gonna be good for me. This is not for people like me.

And it can spiral real quickly. So pick the one that you think is either the most achievable for you and is the closest goal and you could give yourself a little win.

Or pick the one that you think will make the biggest difference in your life for now and stick with it for at least a month before you add in something else. Now, the only thing I'd say there is you can still put a little bit into shares and savings, even if that's not your main goal.

You might say, okay, I really want to pay off extra on the mortgage. I think I could nail that thing and have it gone in 5 years. Amazing. Would love that for you.

But, you know, you don't want to go that time without fully an emergency fund.

Or you maybe want to just like put a little bit into shares, and it can be literally $5 a week just trickling in there and turn it into an auto payment.

And you've just got a little bit building up in there, and that's totally fine as long as it's a manageable amount auto pay it so it's not on your mind and it's not taking up too much mental effort. So a little thing like that, that you.

You never really stop saving and investing, so that's something you can just keep trickling along even when it's not your main effort, that maybe you might do that. But I think one main goal at a time, that's how you do it. Don't try to do all the things you'll exhaust yourself, you'll give up.

And I want you to stay on this train with me and have a really good life. Because money itself is not important, but it impacts everything that is.

So let's make some changes in our money lives so that we can have all the other good stuff that is not money. Next question. Are you aiming for fire or coast fire or what now?

Love this question, because for anyone who hasn't come across financial independence, Retire early, the Fire movement. And that is also like, my second book. I wrote a lot. It was based on the fire movement. I keep. Need to do a video on this, actually.

Let me know if you'd be keen for a video on this. The different types of fire.

I know I've done a video on the five levels of financial independence before, but there's also, like the different end goals you can have. So you can have fat fire, where you save and invest a lot and you can live an extremely bougie life even once you are retired. There's lean fire.

When you might be aiming to live a very frugal life. You can obviously then hit financial independence sooner because you need less money for that. Barista fire.

Now, Barista Fire is probably the closest one to what I'm looking for. But let's step back a bit because I'm not sure if I'm truly a fire person myself. It's the re. It's the retire early. I really love my job.

This being my job now and this being my business now. I also feel.

I actually also do feel quite a responsibility now because I employ people and I don't necessarily just want to be like, I'm done and shut down the business and a bunch of people lose their jobs. That would suck. But apart from that, I actually really enjoy this job. I get a lot of meaning from it. Knowing that I help people.

I literally got a message last night and I need to come back to them. I'm so sorry. If you ever message me and I don't come back to you, like, my inbox just gets flooded.

But I do read every single one, and especially the nice messages, because, you know, I spend a lot of my life online and so of course you get nasty messages. That's just reality.

So people who take the time to say, I managed to pay off my mortgage early and it was, you know, because you talked to this person and I realized I could use that tactic and now I'm mortgage free 10 years earlier than I thought. Or people who got into their first home, people who started investing and they. They never thought it was for people like them.

And then they realized actually investing could be so simple. And every time I get a message like that, it really lights me up because money is such a source of stress for people.

If I can then play a part in making it less stressful and making their life a bit easier, that is incredibly meaningful to me. And there's.

There's new people coming into the workforce, coming into their adult life or just realizing that their money isn't where they want to be. There's new people coming into that all the time, and so there's new people that you can help all the time.

So right now, the idea of the early retirement thing doesn't appeal, but financial independence does. Financial independence is incredibly important to me and is what allowed me to build this business and to build a really successful business.

Because there's something I read in a book ages ago now where it said, the person who wins is the person who cares the least. Which could sound really awful, but take it in a very neutral way.

When I go into negotiations with a company, with a sponsor, with a partner, I'm able to say to them, this is my platform, this is my audience, and if you're coming on board to work with me, you're coming on board to help my audience. And that's what you get access to. You get access to my audience because you're helping them.

And the companies that I work with are like, yes, brilliant. We are all on board for this.

We are here to help explain the money world, to show what it's like from the inside, to give access to the data and the insights that we only get from working in the money world all the time. It's brilliant. It's a real meeting of the minds.

But there have been companies that have said, oh, no, no, no, but we'll give you a lot of money and you just need to basically manipulate your audience for us. And I've been able to just say no, because I am financially independent, because I'm not sort of desperate for money.

It gives me so much more power and leverage to take the time and to look for people who is a meeting of the minds. And that goes for sort of all of life, really.

The less you need something, the harder you can negotiate and the better you can do in it, which is so unfair.

When people are in those positions where they are, a lot of people are much more backs against the wall and much more needing that money coming in straight away. That is where you accept jobs that can be toxic or are lower paid because you just need something.

Yeah, that financial independence aspect, as someone who does not like to be told what to do, is incredibly important to me, but without the retire early part.

And so I think myself, I quite like the barista fire model, which is where you have enough invested to cover just the most basic of your core living costs.

Keep a roof over your head, keep food on the table, keep the lights on, as long as you don't be ridiculous about it, Very, very beans and ricey kind of lifestyle. But then here's the barista bit, is you can then earn some more money with jobs that you find meaningful or part time or whatever that money is.

Then you're living a fun life money. And that appeals to me a lot. Anyway, onto the next question. How do you get from average to actually getting ahead?

The million dollar question there, and it will depend a little bit on different people's lives. Like what counts as average to you, what counts as getting ahead to you?

And I think that's the first thing is what is important to your life, what actually feels like getting ahead to you.

It was really funny when we got one of those, this is a brand name, but you know what I mean, One of those DVS systems where they circulate the air through your house, they circulate the dry air from the roof through your house and it makes the house warm and not damp. In our previous house, before this one, it was an older house and we got one of those put in.

And I remember my husband saying to me, I always thought these were for rich people. And both myself and my husband come from very much working class backgrounds.

And so as we have changed our financial situation, we have hit these milestones where both of us together have been like, never thought we'd be here.

And literally just installing that system to have warm, dry air circulating through the house, to not have a damp house was this moment where we were both like, oh, how fancy. And I think it's always, it's really good to sort of be like what matters to you.

So for me being average is probably, you've got a job, you're not necessarily in debt every day, but things might be a bit tight and you're not really like, you're not maybe able to make future plans. You're just getting through sort of every day.

And then to getting ahead is like, you have those savings, you have some investments, you're not feeling so squeezed every day, you're feeling less stressed and you're able to have those quality of life changes where you do things like, you know, now we've invested solar power, that was quite a big investment, made a huge difference to our lives in terms of reducing our everyday bills.

But also, I have two kids, I run through an enormous amount of washing and every time during the day we're running the washing machine and the dryer just to like get through their clothes quicker. And it's no problem because it's on solar power, it's Free feels luxurious, man.

And being able to make choices based on what you want rather than what you have to do. So that's the definition I'm taking from your question. Yours might be slightly different. All of money is going to come down to two levers, really.

Earn more, spend less. That's it. There's different versions of those, there's different complicated, like ways you can achieve each of them.

But basically all of money advice comes down to that. And then when you have some money left over from that, earning more, spending less, you do something with it.

You can pull one or the other, you can pull both at the same time. Um, but that's basically what it comes down to.

If you're at the very beginning of this, and this is certainly where I started, the spending less lever is one that you can do pretty much more immediately. Um, I'm not saying it's easy. I know life is incredibly expensive. I know it's hard to spend less.

I'm just saying that's one that's more within your immediate control. You are not waiting for someone else to say yes to you for it. Um, so it is looking at places that you can save money.

And I went really hard on that at first, you know, only buying secondhand for anything but clothes or homewares. I spent a lot less. We would make sure we were on the right power plan. My husband's still super focused on that.

He's in charge of the household bills these days.

So like comparing all the power plans, comparing the insurances, just really hunting out those bills, having a reminder in your phone every single year to be like, right, all those regular bills, let's go, let's check. Are we getting the right price and really cutting down on what we were spending?

And then from there it's making those longer term plans because earning more is more powerful than spending less. There's a certain amount you will always have to spend because you gotta eat.

But once you've got the spending down as low as you can, okay, now you've got a little bit of breathing space, hopefully you can just stash a little bit in savings. Earning more is going to be more powerful, but it takes longer because someone has to say yes to it. So are you going to do some overtime hours?

Are you going to take a free course so you increase your skills so you can go and get a promotion or you can start working in an area of your work that earns more than other areas.

You know, Former journalist Business journalism often pays more and so does political journalism because they're two of the few areas where they still make money. Paywalls work for business and politics, journalism. That's why you see paywalled news outlets going so hard on those two topics.

Because the people who read that will give you money. And so the journalists who produce that can also ask for a raise. So, you know, like what, what, what is the equivalent of that in your industry?

And how can you start aiming yourself towards that? Building up investments, that's another way of earning more. Is it going to be a side hustle for a while?

And all of those are incredibly effective, but they do take more time, so it's less immediately within your control. And I will say, the first couple of years that I was changing things with my money, it felt glacial. It was these little changes.

They didn't build up too much, or at least they didn't feel like it at first, but they did help me make slightly bigger changes.

And then each little step up you take, it's like you make this little change and you say, okay, I've changed how much I'm spending in that area and now I can save more. Okay, now I've got some emergency savings and I'm feeling less stressed, so now I can think more clearly.

Okay, I'm going to put some more effort into my career and I'm going to try and earn more. Okay, I'm earning more, I can start investing. I've got even less money to, you know, and it all.

Each little step up you take makes the next step easier to take. So those first steps, I don't want you to feel discouraged by because it can feel like nothing is happening, but everything is actually happening.

It's just, it's a snowball. And you've got to let those first little steps that feel like nothing build into the big things.

Because probably after like 5 years, I was in such a different place than I'd ever thought I would be. I had not thought that was a place for people like me. And I always use that phrase because I think that's super common.

I don't think I was the only one falling into that. I still have people say it to me all the time. So within one year it didn't feel like I'd made a huge change.

But there's changes I made in that first year built to me having this night and day, different life within five years. And the time is going to pass anyway. What are you going to do with it? Do you still want to be where you are in five years? Fine, if you do.

But I think a lot of us want to be somewhere different. So start making those little changes. Start building it.

The more that I built in those smaller changes, the more I had the stability and the foundation for taking those bigger swings.

And the fact that I could then, even at that five year mark, then start to properly think about financial independence, properly think about real financial freedom. That was mind blowing to me from where I came from. So it does take time.

And you're going to have to make all these little changes that we talk about on this channel and you use them to snowball up to the medium things and then to the big things, and the time is going to pass, so just use it and don't overlook the small stuff. Oh, okay, we're into the cat questions now. If someone offered you a million dollars for your fat cat, would you take it to which I say, which cat?

There's two, and they're both fairly chonky. But I'm going to assume that you're talking about Banana.

In Banana's defense, she's from the spca and I have been reliably informed that the way they fix girl cats from the spca, they just kind of go straight on the side and fix them. And it's very, you know, they're trying to do it as fast and as quick as they can. That's fine. They're a charity. They're just doing their best.

But apparently it cuts a few sort of muscle bits that makes them have saggy tummies. So she's not just entirely fat, she's a responsible gal who's making sure that she's not, you know, bringing unwanted kittens into the world.

And it's given her a little bit of a pooch. She's fine. She's beautiful. No, I wouldn't sell her for a million dollars. I wouldn't sell over $10 million.

But I will say, okay, so if we want to keep this on the financial discussion side, this is the beauty of financial independence. A million dollars is not enough for me to sell out my mate. There you go. The next question is also about Banana.

What are Banana's best characteristics? I've said this to Banana's face, so that's okay. I can say it on the channel, too. She is all heart and no brain, but she is very, very loving.

When I got her, she was the world's most anxious cat. She hid in a corner of my bedroom for like three months. And every day I would try to win over her trust and she was just like, ha, ha, no.

So we eventually got there and now she is entirely, anxiously attached to me, bless her. So I wasn't sure how she would go with kids, but she is so patient.

I think it helps that she's all heart and no brain because she puts up with a lot from the kids. That Archie, who is all brain and a little bit of heart, but much less. But he's very smart, her older brother, he gets himself out of there.

He sees the kids are out of bed and he's like, goodbye, everyone, I'll see you later when the kids are at school.

Meanwhile, Banana is laying on the floor being overly loved by kids who think she is the best, but don't have much concept of cats wanting personal space. And she just puts up with it, bless her.

And that patience and tolerance from her has saved her many times from being turned into a hat because, you know, the no brain part means she does some really dumb stuff sometimes that you could lose patience with if you didn't remember that she is very, very, very good with the children and a very sweet cat. Don't turn her into a hat, no matter how much it might seem like she deserves it right now. So there you go, that's Banana.

Back into the proper money questions. Should you invest in shares of the company that you work for? I get a 50% contribution match. Nice. Okay.

I do have strong feelings on this one, which is why I included it, because I think there's a general lesson here for people. Even if your company doesn't offer these sorts of investment schemes, I think they can be great.

If your company offers you the opportunity to buy in and buy shares from them often. Now, I don't know which company you work for, I don't know your scheme.

Often the way things work on these is that you get a better rate than the general public might get. So you might get a discount on the shares. Love it. Love a discount.

And often you'll get something like what's mentioned here, you get a 50% contribution match on yours here. So your employer might say, if you put in a certain amount, we'll put in a certain amount. Great. Further discount. Love that.

And then it's, you know, it's like any shares, it's you've invested into this company, you get some of the profits back. Brilliant. Cool. My caveat on that, my just my little word of warning is I think it can be great to get in, get these perks. Love it.

But I would say don't make it your only investment because then we talk about, don't have all Your eggs in one basket with money diversification, we love that. But this is the ultimate eggs in basket situation because you are working for this company, they are who employ you. This is how you get your income.

And then you're also investing into it for your future in the event of a worst case scenario and this business maybe goes bust. It happens. It can happen with really good companies. They take a swing at something that just goes horribly wrong and the company goes bust.

Or you know, a black swan event like Covid, which nobody saw coming. Plenty of very healthy otherwise businesses went bust because something happened that nobody saw coming.

So I'm not saying like live your life by this. I'm very much a, you know, hope for the best, but plan for the worst sort of gal.

You don't want to have all of your money, both your now money in terms of your income and your future money in terms of your investments with one company. So my perspective on these shares, employee agreements, is they can be great.

Take advantage of the perks, just have other things elsewhere too, just to balance out that risk. But you know, don't miss out on the sweeteners either. How good? Oh, I love.

See, I got this next one from, from lots of people in lots of different forms. So this question represents a lot, a lot of very frustrated sounded people.

What's the best piece of advice to get a reluctant partner on board with money goals? And I get this all the time, overall, make sure it's their money goals too, not just yours.

If you're changing something, anything in your life, any sort of change is hard. There's masses of research on people just don't like change.

We will stay in a situation that we know is bad because we are just uncertain of what's on the other side of the change of it. Because what we know is comfortable is nice, even when it's not nice. That is why it is so hard to break toxic cycles.

Because we just like the things we know.

And so in order to be convinced to make any sort of change, even good changes, you have to have something on the other side of it that you want more than you want to stay comfortable. And it has to mean something to you because there's also there's gonna be setbacks along the way.

There's going to be times where it's not perfect or you don't feel like it or whatever. And it has to mean something to you to pull you through that.

So one of the things I like is to just, you know, even start talking about money and to start Talking about money where you're not, like, fighting, that's a trick too. But yeah, to start talking about money with each other, a nice icebreaker is, what would you do if. If we won lotto? There is no wrong answer to this.

Please do not let them have a wrong answer to this. You've got to also be on board with them and their values, too, not just asking them to embrace your values. Would they want to pay off the house?

Would they want to pay off their parents house? Would they want to go traveling?

Would they want to set up a foundation that gives scholarships to kids who wouldn't go to uni otherwise, like, Sky's the limit, what do you want to do?

But what's nice about that conversation is that then tells you someone's money values, whether it's family or stability, security, the house, the new experiences, gifting to other people, you're getting an insight into what actually matters to them. And then from there it's like, fine, we're not going to win lotto. No, you're not. You're not going to win lotto.

What version of that can we build for our life now? How can we work backwards from that goal and say, what are we going to do to make that happen? You know, they say they want to pay off the house.

Okay, we could pay off the mortgage early. How are we going to do that? Let's go talk to a mortgage advisor about revolving or offset or extra payments or whatever. You want to go travel?

Love that. Let's plan a career break five years from now, where we're going to put our careers on hold for six months and go traveling.

Any version of life is achievable, but you just have to decide what you want from it. Fun fact. I once sold a winning lotto ticket. I say, you know, you won't win lotto. I did sell a winning one. Not to me, but yeah.

At university, I worked at a lotto counter mostly because they didn't care on anything other than Wednesdays and Saturdays. It was dead quiet and dead boring. And so they would let me do my uni work at the lotto counter. And so I put aside my feelings on gambling.

I didn't like gambling even then, but, you know, we all put aside our morals and ethics when we need a job, because that's lights. So I sold people tickets, and I sold a $10 million big Wednesday one time.

They didn't give me any of it, but we got a balloon arch over the counter for a week or so. So, you know, that's totally the same thing as $10 million. If this episode is your kind of thing, you'll want to check out the Market Memo too.

It's my weekly newsletter where I break down how to actually invest or plain English chat about how the share market really works and how you can get it working for you. It's everything I wish I'd had when I was starting out. Head to Francisco Co NZ Invest. I'll also pop that link into the show notes for you.

Right back to it. How has moving your family to Te Awamutu made a difference to your life financially? Hugely.

So for anyone who hasn't kept up with this, because people message me a lot and often think that I live in Auckland. No, not for me and certainly, certainly not for my husband. Actually, he was the main one who was like, no, I'm never living in Auckland again.

We lived in Auckland in the early years of our career. I actually think he just hates it because we were so broke during that time. He's like, I never want to live like that again.

I'm just like, I actually think the problem was that we were poor. But, you know, sure, we won't live in Auckland again if that's what you really don't want to do.

But living in Tehmuto, that was what we decided we wanted to. We started off in Hamilton and then we got the opportunity to build a house in Tehu. It is five minutes down the road from my parents.

We're also very close to his parents. Love that. That was actually one of the big things for us is wanting to be close to family.

So I think it was a real combination of financial and lifestyle factors for us and that's what made it work. So the financial side of it, I mean, we have a bigger semi lifestyle property that we absolutely could not afford elsewhere.

We have a really nice home life that does not overstretch us. That means that we can still build towards other financial goals like investing, like building up this business without feeling pulled on all fronts.

That idea of arbitrage where you live somewhere cheaper but you still get paid as if you're getting that more expensive Auckland lifestyle. And that has worked really well for us, but it also worked really well because of all those other lifestyle factors.

Like I said before, we're really close to family. Family is a really important value for us. We like being close to them. I don't go more than a few days without seeing my parents and his parents.

So to some people that maybe wouldn't be a benefit, but for us, that's a benefit, you know, the grandparents being nearby also means great babysitting.

So I guess that's also financial and being part of a community, I think, you know, I walk into my local cafe and they know my order and I notice when the waitress has changed her hair color looks great on her by the way. And we bump into daycare teachers at the supermarket and the kids love that. It's just nice.

I always think when you're trying to bring down expenses, you want to tackle the big ones first. People always go on about coffees and avocado on toast and it's dumb.

But if you focus on housing, transport, your main bills, food, those are the big categories where you can make a big difference. But especially for housing, I mean that is about 50% of most people's costs. Housing is just insane.

And so this was a huge one for us to be able to build other options.

It wouldn't work if we hadn't also considered the lifestyle and what made that work for us, you know, we also considered New Plymouth, love New Plymouth, but it wasn't close to both sets of parents like we are now. And I wouldn't have been able to commute back and forth to Auckland for a lot of my work like I do. So you have to be really mindful.

This is why housing is such a fraught topic because it is both lifestyle and financial and there is no getting around that. So you really, really have to think about those things. And also I will say like it comes with certain sacrifices too, right?

Auckland is a really big media center and a really big financial sector and to do my job well, to run this business well, I have to be up there at least fortnightly, sometimes more. And that is a long drive. It means I will sometimes miss out on part of my kids day I really pride myself on.

I'm there for both drop off and pick up with the kids. I see them for breakfast, I have dinner with them, I'm there in their lives every day, right?

And so when I'm up in Auckland I might miss breakfast, but I'm really trying hard to be home in time for dinner and I'm running myself pretty ragged on both ends of that day. I might be starting my day at 4:30, it might be finishing at 10pm so that I can get everything done.

And all I've done that day is business and kits and I'm really tired by the end of it.

But that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make because the other days of the week are living really within my values and being so actively part of my kids life in a way that I know a lot of other parents would love to be and can't. Because of certain constraints, I'm able to run the rest of my life in a way that makes that worth it.

But there is always going to be compromise and there is always going to be give and take. And I just think you need to go into these things really, really clear eyed on that if you're thinking about making a similar move. I love it though.

I really rate small town New Zealand life. It's so good. All right, next question. This one is a really hard question. I can't see a way forward financially given my current situation.

It's killing me internally. And this question, I kind of debated about putting it in because it's really hard, right.

And you don't give a lot of details about what it is about the current situation that you're finding so difficult.

But I wanted to talk about it because I think it speaks to a general feeling that is around at the moment where the cost of living is so hard and so high and jobs aren't the easiest and it feels like a lot of the promises in terms of how you get ahead aren't being held up anymore. Those paths aren't so simple and aren't so clear.

And there's just this sort of oppressing feeling for a lot of people of like what is the way forward? And I don't see the way forward. And so I wanted to talk about that a little bit. It's heartbreaking getting a question in like that.

So first of all, I just want to acknowledge it. I just want to acknowledge that that's a reality for a lot of people.

I got sort of various variations of this in the inbox and I think the only thing you can do when you're feeling that sort of oppressive, nothing is working and I don't know where to go next. You just have to try and look for the things you can control. There will be a lot that you can't control. That is life. Life is hard and it is unfair.

And I know we talk about different ways to take back control on this channel and different things you can do. That always comes with the understanding that life can be really unfair. And we start at different places, we all have different things in our way.

And yet the other hard and unfair truth is that nobody's coming to save us. I don't say that in order to be unkind or unsympathetic.

I say that to try and Say we just, we need to do what we can, give ourselves a break, but also not give ourselves an excuse not to do anything. Because this is our one beautiful life and you want to have the best one you can.

And whatever you can take control of is going to make that life better for you. There is always something, even if it's small.

So you need to look at what you don't like about your situation and then look at where you'd like to be five years from now. And then you need to find the things that you can change to get there, even if they're small, even if they're hard.

Because where you are obviously can't continue. You know, to say something like, it's killing me internally, that can't continue.

So even if the changes are hard, are they harder than staying where you are and feeling like this? And it's like what I said before about how I changed things for myself.

A lot of the first changes were small and they had to be because I didn't have many resources. The big options weren't open to me yet. I couldn't make those swings yet.

But asking for a pay rise, deliberately building skills to get me into those higher paid areas of work, cutting down, spending on everything to the bare minimum, only buying things secondhand. And then that let me save, that let me take risks with my career that paid off, built more income.

Everything I did just cleared a little obstacle from the path and let me see a little clearer. And the way these things stack, they all sound small in the beginning, but they stack to be bigger than they are by themselves.

And then you build in those base layers, you start to see the way ahead a little clearer because everyone's way ahead will be different depending on your career, depending on what you want. And you start to see the biggest swings you can take. And then you've also got the stability, that stable footing to make those big jumps.

That's really just the only way. You just have to look for the things that you can control. Be realistic, give yourself a break on the things that you can't control.

But don't assume, assume that everything is out of your control. Look for what you can, and even if it's small, take control of those things because it does make a difference.

Also, don't think you have to do it alone, because nobody in this world does. Community is an incredible way to get ahead.

Talk to people around you, share advice, share your time, pull resources, work together, because that also makes things happen.

I mean, everyone who used to sit near me in A newsroom would somehow mysteriously start getting paid more because they suddenly had an idea of pay rates and what was possible and how to negotiate for a pay rise. And I didn't do those things. Well, no. Who could say those things didn't happen mysteriously and with. No one could say who was giving out information.

It wasn't done to get favors back, but it did. It did lead to people helping me out at times when I sometimes really needed it. Just sharing resources and helping people is incredible.

Don't overlook community and see where you can build it. Even if it just makes the journey a little easier, even if it just gives you people to complain with on the way, that's fine too.

So please, please don't feel like there is no way ahead. There is. It's just going to feel really small at first, but it will let you build to bigger things. Right. Changing gears very much.

Is Airbnb a good idea or are other rental options more financially sensible? This one. Okay. I was having a conversation about this the other day. Super. Depends on the property, for starters.

But I included this one because it gives me an opportunity to jump on my soapbox. I think the political winds are changing on Airbnb. We have seen countries overseas trying to ban them. We've also seen councils moving against them.

Here in New Zealand, just recently in Christchurch, they had super interesting case, you can find it on the news, where they said because someone had bought these brand new small apartments and they had never been used as homes, they were turned straight into Airbnbs from built to Airbnb. So they said, well, that's not within zone usage then. So you're going to have to ask for consent to run an accommodation business.

And if you don't get that consent, then you're going to have to stop, which is. It's just really interesting to me that we are seeing these moves and I don't think that's the last we'll hear of that.

Queenstown has a housing shortage. Certain areas of Auckland tourist hotspots.

So you've kind of got this situation where either property is in high demand, Airbnbs are in high demand, and therefore councils are watching you and kind of not loving you and might use bylaws to get you out of there, or it's not in high demand and therefore the business case doesn't make sense. So I think you can see where I'm landing on the Airbnb.

I think the political environment for Airbnb, the feeling towards Airbnb has, has really changed. Wherever you land on that I don't care how you feel either which way.

I just think it's smart to pay attention to those things and say, well, is that going to be a long term investment if it's on the edge of getting outlawed? I don't know. Also, Airbnbs are harder than people think. So the other thing to think about is what type of property is going to work for it.

Often a lot of bedrooms. You will either need to do cleaning yourself or have someone nearby and reliable who will clean it.

Because sometimes you'll only have a couple of hours turnover between guests. Look, there's plenty of people who make it work and make a really good investment of it, but I don't think it's an easy investment.

It's definitely not a passive investment. And if you are really interested in it, there's lots of great Facebook groups around the country of people who are in the Airbnb business.

They share their stories. You can sort of get the lay of the land on that. So.

So I think if you're interested in it, look into it, but please don't think it's an easy option and keep an eye on what's happening. Politically, I'm super interested in the way the winds have changed on Airbnb. It is not so beloved as it was. Next question.

What's the next big treat your family has planned? The kids don't know about this, but they don't watch this YouTube channel anyway, so that's okay. I really want to go to Bluey's World.

I don't know if you've heard about this. Apparently in Australia they have a Bluey's World experience set up and they go hard on it for Christmas. They get it all like, Christmassy.

I have done very minimal research on this, but that's all I need to know. I want to go and I want to take the kids while they're still young enough to find it. Exciting experiences.

I think that's the big thing right now, that I am willing to spend money on stuff you get used to, the excitement wears off and it just becomes normal. Whether you have a little bit or a lot, it just becomes your normal, your baseline. But experiences, things that you can look forward to.

Anticipation is huge for our little monkey brains.

So something you can look forward to and you know is coming up is a really fun, exciting thing and sort of sprinkled through the year, little highlights of one off things that you don't have time for it to become normal in background. So you go there, you have a great time. You come back to normal life and you're like, ah, brilliant. That was, you know, memories. Love it.

And I'm really, I really want to do some things while the kids are still little and excited and into this stuff, while they still ask me if Bluey is real or not. Never really sure how to answer that question. But anyway, they're excited about Bluey's World. I'm excited about Bluey's World.

I really want to go there around Christmas time. Let you know, I haven't booked anything yet, but. But I really want to go and I want to make it happen. Next question.

Should you contribute more towards paying off your mortgage or invest that money? Both. Why do you have to choose? I like this one. Technically on the numbers of it.

Paying off your mortgage early is the smarter financial decision because let's say over time, mortgage interest might balance out to be around about 5% a year. It goes up, it goes down, but maybe 5% a year.

Now the share market over a period of many years might balance out to be about 7% per year after you've taken off, you know, fees and taxes and all that good stuff. But debt, paying off debt actually gives you a slightly higher repayment than it shows on the tin because it's tax free. You're not earning anything.

It's just paying that straight off. So they kind of balance out and the mortgage repayment gets you further on the financials of it over time.

People who are smarter than me have run the numbers and it does work out. However, then we add in human behavior.

Human behavior is what always messes up the numbers because we're all people just living life and we might run the numbers and then we do something different. So what tends to happen if you only pay off your mortgage early?

You get right to the end of that and you think, oh, but I'm only 40 and so I've nearly paid off my mortgage early. I can just, I'll just extend that out a little bit because I've always really wanted to redo that bathroom. And a pool would also be nice.

And it's only going to add another five years onto the mortgage. And then you get to that and you're like, well, and another bedroom would be nice. I'll just, just, just a quick runner.

And it just, it gets, it gets sort of bumped out and bumped out and bumped out. And this whole time you're never investing. Meanwhile, the superpower of investing is what it does for you over time.

You know, the longer you can leave it, 5 years of investing then to 10 years of investing, 20 years of investing. It's the longer you leave it there, just a small amount of money becomes huge. And so it's the power of time.

So where I land, and to be clear, different people in different areas of the money world have different feelings on this, but where I land on this, and it is a well researched opinion, but it's just an opinion, is I like to take the extra money that's like your future building money that you're thinking, should this go on the mortgage or should it go into shares? Split it 50, 50. Half of it goes as an extra repayment on the mortgage and half of it goes into a shares account.

And you're getting ahead on two fronts. And it's also kind of the idea of investing is always, you know, diversification, more than one thing, right?

So paying off the house and getting yourself that stability, great. But it's not an investment, it is an asset. It is not an investment.

Meanwhile, if you put money into shares, that is making money for you, that is giving you the opportunity to go and do fun things that cost money. So both. I have a small amount of money that I would like to invest, but I have no idea how or where to start.

Join my investing newsletter, the Market Memo. Every single week I send you investing tips, tricks, different ways to do it simply.

The whole point is none of us want to live our life by a spreadsheet. That is the entire ethos behind the Market Memo. If you go to marketmemoweekly.substack.com, then you can just sign up.

It'll be in your inbox every single week. You get smarter with shares. People have loved it.

I'm just gonna toot my own horn on that one because I am really proud of helping people feel confident to invest. And I think just drip feeding it into your inbox like that turns up every week and you get a little bit more and you carry on with your.

I just think drip feeding knowledge is the way to go. Keeps the motivation going. But also it's pretty hard to mess up a good global index fund. That's still the core of my strategy.

But if those words mean nothing to you, come read the Market Memo and it will mean a lot to you very soon. Last question. What are your favorite investments and what is one thing you might do differently if starting again? Index funds for life.

I love me a share market index fund. I don't think anyone is smart enough to pick winners. Some people did buy Nvidia before it went big.

But they were lucky and they probably won't be able to repeat that. Meanwhile, I've got index funds that bought into Nvidia just because that was part of the market. Can't miss. It's great. What would I do differently?

Sorry to end on a very. Like, I don't want to be preachy but I, I just, I do mean this. I really truly don't believe in regrets.

And believe me, I've done some things that are definitely regrettable. But I just don't think you can live your life with regrets because first of all what you gonna do about it and it's done now.

But secondly, everything I've done, even the really big mess ups and I do have some things that I feel bad about, believe me. Some things that I've done in my life that I maybe should regret, I still wouldn't take back. But I will try to give penance for it. How's that?

Because you learn something every time.

Everything that you have done that you maybe wish you wouldn't do again has still taught you something and maybe it saved you from a bigger, worse version of that because you had to learn something the hard way.

So there's times where I could have paid more on the mortgage and it would have made life easier by wiping out a few years of, you know, before I had kids. I probably could have gone harder. Absolutely. I could have gone harder. Do I regret buying a 2 milk? Yes. Yes. Stick to index funds.

Don't think you're a share picker, but you know, I put a hundred bucks on a 2 milk and it wasn't a thousand or ten thousand, which it might have been later if I'd kept going and thought, you know what, I'm just such a genius, I'm going to put all this money into this and then you lose a whole bunch. So in all seriousness, I just don't believe in regrets. But do take the lessons.

If you don't take the lesson, then you should regret it because there's always a lesson. And if you don't learn the lesson and you do it again, I don't want to call anyone a big dum dum, but I'll call myself a big dum dum.

If I did something twice, I'd be a big dum dum. But I like to think I take the lessons. All right, that is all we've got time for. This video is a monster.

Thank you so much for sending me your questions and for trusting me to answer them. I hope this helped. Let's do it again. It has been so long since we've done an Ask me Anything. I love just rabbiting onto you.

If you have more questions, drop them in the comments. Maybe we'll do another one just based on those. But I want to do these more often. So yeah, that was really fun. Until next time, have a great day.

This podcast can only give you general information about how things work in most situations. It's not individual financial advice. If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.

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