with Dr Anna Emily
Business is thriving. $20k months are the norm. You feel on top of the world. But then your personal life throws you a curve-ball, demanding your full attention… and you’re suddenly left struggling to pay the rent. Welcome to the Rich Illusion.
In this episode of Feminine Luminary, we’re joined by the remarkable Dr Anna Emily, founder of She’s So Money. Together, we unveil the deceptive nature of the Rich Illusion, which often blinds us from achieving true financial freedom.
Key episode takeaways:
- Why investing is so important when it comes to generating wealth
- The magic behind saving your first $100,000
- How to recognize whether you’re living under the rich illusion
- What it means to be financially free and how this is different to what most people believe
- When your own business is simply a financier version of the 9-5 hamster wheel
- How you’re losing money by putting it into a traditional savings account
- Discovering the true price of a day of financial freedom
Get ready to break free from limiting beliefs about money and discover the path to sustainable wealth creation. Let’s dive in!
Bio:
Dr Anna Emily is the founder of She’s So Money, a financial literacy and investing education company for women. She helps women learn how to keep, manage and grow their money and reach financial freedom more quickly and without the overwhelm.
You can connect with Anna:
Instagram: @shes_somoney
Podcast: The She’s So Money Podcast
Episode Resources:
Watch the She’s So Money Masterclass: https://www.shessomoney.com/jointhemasterclass
Join the Wealth by Design program: https://www.shessomoney.com/wealthbydesign
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome back to the Feminine Luminary Podcast. I am so excited to be able to introduce today’s special guest, Dr. Anna Emily. Anna is the founder of She’s So Money, which is a financial literacy and investing education company for women. And Anna gets to help women just learn, learn how to keep and manage and grow their money to really reach that financial freedom so much more quickly and without the overwhelm.
So thank you for being on the show here today with us, Anna. It’s so lovely to be able to bring you on.
[00:01:19] Anna: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:21] Amanda: You’re welcome. I know when I first came across your work online, I just sat there absorbing it all. It was just something I found myself just nodding continuously going, yes, yes, yes.
I feel is so much in my soul. And I think a big part of this is just being my own experience around finances and wealth growth and what we’ve been taught in school. I know looking back on my own personal experience, and it’s just. So different to reality. I know for me, what I was taught is that you become rich through getting paid well.
And so you’re always taught to chase the good paying job. But in reality, that is just not how it works. And so what I love about you is the way that you teach women how to actually create their financial security from that financial overflow that they’re creating whilst being able to create that really incredible life that they desire.
So, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your own journey. And what’s the story behind your brand that she’s so money brand.
[00:02:22] Anna: Yeah, thank you. So, She’s So Money has definitely been born out of my own experience, and I started out in business in 2014, and at the time I was studying full time, and I basically just wanted something to do.
Make some extra money because I was a student and I started my first business and it basically did really well, really quickly, which was completely unexpected. And I went from earning, you know, no more than say probably 1500 and Aussie dollars to over five figures a month, like 15, 20, 000 a month. And. I basically, long story short, spent it all.
I was loving it. I was living my best life. I was going on holidays. I was buying luxury bags and just Enjoying making all of this, this money. And then around 2017, my income started to drop really rapidly and it fell very much out of my control. And I was panicking because I’d created a amazing lifestyle for myself, but one that required me to make a lot of money.
And so I was worrying about how I was going to pay for my car. My fancy apartment and how I was going to generally maintain my lifestyle and that was the first time that I realized that even though I’d made a lot of money, I didn’t really have anything to show for it. And it was really nerve wracking as the income was.
Was going down and so I started to save my money and be better at saving and I eventually started a new business and that time around, I thought, okay, I’m determined to save. And I actually inadvertently ended up saving six figures, a hundred K in the bank. And at that point, I put some of that money away in a, what’s called a bank bond, which is essentially where the bank takes your money for one year or two years.
And they give you a slightly better return than a normal savings account. And I put 10, 000 UK pounds in there. And then. After two years, I got an email saying, Hey, your money’s ready to take. And I’d made. I think it was around a hundred pounds interest and that was another catalyst where I thought, okay, there must be more to creating wealth and saving money.
And then that sparked my kind of journey into the world of investing. But like most people, my only real understanding of investing was property investing, but I hadn’t been able to do that because I’d moved from the UK to Australia. So I didn’t really want to own a property in the UK because I wasn’t there anymore, and I, I didn’t, well, I legally can’t own property in Australia at the moment.
So that’s what kind of then led me into the stock market and the stock market specifically. And realizing that all along there had been this. Vehicle for me to build wealth. It was very accessible, but that I had completely misunderstood and no one had taught me so all that time I was making very good money.
Not a single person said to me, are you investing it? Are you making sure you’re looking after it? Maybe one or two people said, are you making sure you’re saving your money? But I just realized that for the years where my income really, really peaked, I had thought that I was creating financial freedom, but I wasn’t at all.
I was just earning a lot of money and being really good at spending it. And it was just this massive slap in the face, really, of, wow, if I’d known about this. I would be in a completely, completely different financial situation. And whilst I can’t unfortunately go back in time, I thought I need to open this conversation because No one, none of my girlfriends, none of the women that I knew were talking about this or seemed to have any idea.
And I actually had a lot of friends who were in a similar situation, but they had not even saved their money. And then they basically got themselves in a lot of trouble because they had these really high outgoings. And basically they you know, they had no savings to help them. So
that was really all the, the catalyst and this big realization that women especially aren’t having these conversations. And I thought, okay, I can take what I’ve learned in my own story and share this and try and make sure as many women as possible don’t make the same mistake. they’re aware and they can make their own informed decision because I think for me I just had no idea and I would have made very different decisions had I known all the information.
So that’s really what Choose So Money is about is education and making sure that women know all the options available to them so that when they are making a decision with their money they are fully informed of All the things they could be doing with that money. And so if they do choose to spend it on a designer bag, that’s absolutely fine, but they understand there’s always this trade off and yeah, so that, that is the, the story behind the brand.
[00:08:33] Amanda: Yeah, I love that. There’s, there’s so much in there and I think early stage entrepreneurs, when they do start making them building their businesses, one of the things that. Is so easy to get caught up in is chasing that aspiring lifestyle because they see it on social media. It looks so appealing and alluring.
And, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with getting that designer handbag. If that makes you feel good. Incredible. Do it. If it’s something that. Is it necessarily going to align with the goals that you have? Maybe that’s something that you need to consider, but that’s all about using your own discernment.
But like you mentioned, it’s about that awareness piece and allowing people to really understand what the options are. And as you mentioned, the, the disappointment when you’ve gone and put all of that money into your bank bonds, thinking that that’s the way that you’re going to build your wealth and it comes back and you’ve earned, what is, what is 100 on 10, 000?
Let’s bet. Like 1% or is it less than 1% less than 1% 0. 1% it’s just so disheartening thinking that you’re doing the right thing because that’s what you’ve been led to believe is the case. And then you finding it afterwards that they were other ways. And so I just think it’s so powerful that you’re there, you’re out there hoping other entrepreneurs and other women to really invest and.
Allow their money to work for them and use it in smart ways than simply just having to continually work to support a lifestyle. And I know one of the things that you talk about is this idea of the rich illusion. So I love this concept and I’d really love for you to just break it down further and explain exactly what it is and how do women know that they’re actually sitting under that rich illusion?
What exactly is it?
[00:10:10] Anna: Yeah, so this is so I’d say most of my clients that come to work with me are under this rich illusion, and I did exactly the same thing. It’s very common, and it’s essentially where you earn a good income. And so you’re able to afford the things you want to afford. So you move from. You know, everyone kind of moves in stages, but when you move out of that kind of time in your life where what you’re making is just covering your bills and you’re kind of just getting by and then you start to have more disposable income and that grows and grows and then you get to a point where, you know, it’s, you see the money in your bank.
And so it’s very easy to say, yeah, I can go out and have a meal. Like, yeah, I can go shopping. Yeah, I can book that trip. And what happens is something called lifestyle inflation, which is where the more money you earn, the more, you know, your lifestyle grows in terms of expenses. So you get a nicer car, or you get a bigger house, or a bigger mortgage, or you take nicer holidays, and you eat out at more expensive restaurants.
And what this rich illusion basically means is that you feel like you’re rich because you can afford what you want or you’ve moved away from really worrying about money, which is where I was. I could Say yes to pretty much anything that was, you know, of course I wasn’t a multi multi millionaire, but I was earning a lot of money.
And, you know, I could say yes to my friends. If they asked me to do something, I could book lots of holidays and things. However, financial freedom, which is a term that gets thrown around a lot and it gets thrown around a lot in the context of this kind of. lifestyle, right? Oh, I’m, I’m financially free because I can have this luxury lifestyle.
What financial freedom actually means is being able to cover your expenses purely from passive income streams. So essentially being able to pay all your expenses without having to use active income. Okay, you don’t actively have to work. And so in terms of if that’s your goal, and that’s what being rich means to you as part of what being rich means to you when you’re spending money, and I mean, really, the main way the 2 main ways to know whether this is happening for you is.
You have no assets or very few assets, so maybe you’re, you either have no assets or your only asset is the home that you live in and you’ve still got a really big mortgage on that, and you’re spending the majority of your money on what we call things that depreciate, like holidays, cars, clothes, bags.
Eating out, you know, you just kind of the money’s disappearing or if your active income stop tomorrow. So let’s say all the money from your business stopped, you would really struggle to live. Basically, you might be able to last a month, maybe three months. But beyond that, you’d really struggle to keep up your lifestyle.
So essentially it’s where people are, they, they have this illusion of being rich because they can afford what they want and they can live pretty comfortably, but then not actually building wealth because to build wealth, you need to invest into what we call appreciating assets, things like property, the stock market.
And so if you’re not doing that, you just make a lot of money and also you, if you stopped working, you wouldn’t be able to maintain your current lifestyle. So again, you’re just, you’re running on a hamster wheel. And I think for a lot of women that quit the nine to five and they have a business and then their business is doing well.
They think that they’ve escaped their paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, but really they’re just running on a fancier hamster wheel and Like I said, most of my clients that come to me are there they can be earning, you know, I have clients earn 20k a month and then they maybe have some personal stuff that goes on and they can’t show up in their business and then they’re struggling to pay their rent.
That’s not okay. You know, that, that’s like huge red flag. If you’re, you know, you’re earning a lot of money, but you’re. Feast and famine or you know, something happens like clients don’t pay and then you’re, you’re freaking out. So, for me, I’ve actually, you know, in, I mean, since my, my first business, I’ve been in business 10 years now, and my income actually has been extremely variable.
I’ve had months where I’ve made next to nothing, and then I’ve had months where I’ve made 20k. The thing that has actually allowed me to stay out of a job for nearly 10 years and the thing that has allowed me to continue to live my life at a pretty steady like lifestyle, right? Like not having to suddenly, you know, downgrade or whatever has been how I manage my money and my savings rate.
Not how much I make that, that is the thing that’s really given me freedom is not how much money I make, but the way that I’ve handled it.
[00:15:37] Amanda: Yeah. And I mean, there’s, there’s certainly ways that people can structure their business. They do have that monthly recurring income versus the spikes that are going on with launches and so forth.
But what you’re talking about certainly sits outside of that. So it’s almost that extra layer of security and that extra layer of just. Feeling really grounded and knowing that the money’s coming in because when you’re actually in your business and you’re like you say, you’re trying to continually show up online or you’re trying to be there for your clients.
There’s nothing worse. So when you’ve got your own shit going on underneath the surface, it starts to wreak havoc with your mindset. It starts to bring up all of these limiting beliefs, these different stories and imposter syndrome can actually be doing all of this. So in order for you to actually be really clear for your clients, if you’re bringing all of that into your sessions or you’re bringing it into the content that you’re creating, it’s going to then start detracting from your business.
So it’s going to start pulling away from your income. So by having that backup, that security through investing and really being able to have that. Continual income that’s not dependent upon you actually working. That’s going to help those things so, so much. So I love the fact that you brought that up.
And I know you talk about saving quite a bit and the number that you you’ve mentioned to me is a hundred thousand K. So why is that so important to have your first hundred thousand K
saved?
[00:16:57] Anna: Yeah, so with saving 100k, I mean, I actually did that by mistake, but I, it’s the kind of the main goal in my program with my clients.
And there’s several reasons why I think it’s so, so important. It will teach you the habits. that you need to actually create wealth. Because you can, I mean, you can create wealth without making a ton of money, without having a super high income, but you can’t do it without being good at saving your money.
And whether that is, you know, the, The just the habit of putting money away. I mean, I know we’re going to talk about this later. Obviously purely saving. When I say saving your money, I don’t necessarily mean purely like having it in a savings account. I mean, savings and investments, but the, just the habit of making sure you’re putting money away every month and you’re not spending everything that comes in is absolutely essential for creating wealth.
You need to be able to put money away. The more money you put away. The quicker you’re going to reach financial freedom. So it’s just that habit is also, you know, a lot of my clients. They struggle with self sabotage when they start earning a lot of money, they’re burning through it because they feel uncomfortable holding on to it.
That is a huge thing that comes up, which is a more psychological thing, a safety thing. And so it allows you to see that you’re capable of saving and that it is safe to save and that it’s not this… You know, a lot of people have these preconceptions around it that it’s boring or it’s hard or… You know, I don’t know what I would do with it.
So it kind of changes. that mindset as well. And it proves to you that you can be the type of person that is good with their money. Because if you’re, if you’re telling yourself you’re bad with money, again, that narrative needs to change if you’re going to create wealth and financial freedom. So it confronts that part of your narrative so that you can change it.
And it’s actually You know, an essential milestone on the way to creating financial freedom and wealth. There’s a kind of saying in the investing world that the first 100k is a bitch. And what they mean by that is in the process of saving and investing your first 100k, that’s actually the hardest part.
Once you have 100k invested, then the kind of power of compound interest and think, and the magic really starts to work. So. If you want financial freedom at some point, you’re going to have to reach 100k saved slash invested. So it’s actually, you got to do it, right? So it’s this essential part. And the way that I kind of teach my clients and the way that I did it was, yes, I did save.
A hundred thousand in a savings account. But what that did for me was in that time, I was able to learn about investing and I was able to understand it. And it actually took me a good, I’d say 18 months to two years from the point that I. Was aware of it to the point that I actually felt brave enough to do it.
So I, I know a lot of women, like I had one of my clients say to me, you know, how quickly can I start investing? Well, I get that when you learn about it, there can be a lot of FOMO and a lot of, you know, oh shit, I need to get going. But it’s, you know, something that, especially if you’re going to do it yourself, you really need to just, you know, take a breath and.
Okay, I’m going to learn about this. I’m going to understand all the options available to me so that once you’ve got that 100k, you can deploy it in certain ways. So you might want to have, you know, save some of it for an emergency fund. You’re going to invest some of it. You might want to have some of it as a property deposit.
You know, you might, there’s lots of things you can do with it, but it gives you, you know, in our program, we do 100k in 12 months, and then that 12 months gives you time to learn how to manage your money and how to actually invest so you understand all of the options available to you, how you want to deploy, and really 12 months in the grand scheme of things is, is nothing, or, you know, you can obviously start Yeah.
Investing immediately if that is what you want to do, but it’s just so important for so many reasons and it’s, you basically have to do it if you want to, to create financial freedom. So it’s a kind of must do milestone.
[00:21:42] Amanda:
And you talked about it being an essential part of your business. And I think so often we’re taught about how to create the 10 K months, the 20 K months, the six figure business and beyond, but we’re not actually taught how to do all of these other things that go to building that wealth.
And you mentioned about the story that we tell ourselves that I’m no good with money. And you often hear it when people are building their business, Oh, I’m no good with finances. I’m no good with accounting. I’m no good with this. And they want to outsource everything and. Yes, there’s a point that you can outsource things, but I think there is so much.
There’s so much importance in actually being able to understand it before you outsource these things, because you don’t just simply want to cut the reins and hand it over and go, you know, you deal with it all because it becomes quite risky. So even if you aren’t necessarily doing it yourself, just have an understanding, take ownership of it, and then be able to incorporate others in, into actually building that wealth.
And so I’d love to sort of dive a little bit deeper into. Investing money and, and why that isn’t so important when it comes to actually creating that wealth in your business and life and everything beyond, like, why do we need to actually invest?
[00:22:49] Anna: Yeah. So I will try and make this short. I mean, it’s obviously it’s a big topic.
Yeah, every time I talk about it on a podcast, I think yeah, I need to really break it down somehow, but I mean, ultimately the reason people invest. as a bottom line is to beat inflation. So inflation is where your money loses. Value and purchasing power every single year, and you may have heard of inflation.
You may not. It’s been quite a hot topic for the last couple of years because the pandemic caused a obviously it was hugely damaging to the economy or like economies all over the world. And inflation has been at record levels, certainly in our lifetime, and that’s been in Australia, UK, America, everywhere.
So you, you know, if you didn’t know what it was before, it’s possible you know what it is now. And essentially, in a normal economy, inflation sits at around 2% per year. So what that means is when your money is sitting in, you know, if you’ve got it in cash, it’s losing value by 2% every year because everything around you more or less is getting more expensive by 2%.
So prices of goods and services that we use is getting more expensive by 2% per year. So if you think about your money sat in a savings account, again, at the moment, we’re in a bit of a topsy turvy. economy because savings account interest is actually very good, but that will not last. And typically, you might get 0.
25, 0. 5% interest on a savings account. If you’re lucky, you might get 1%. That’s on a typical, you know, regular savings account that your bank is going to offer. And so if you think about it, if your money is in a savings account, and let’s say it’s, it’s making 1% a year, but it’s losing 2% a year, you’re always behind.
Does that make sense? Yeah. So when you’re, when you have money sat in a savings account, which is, you know, what most people, if they’re taught any kind of financial literacy, it’s. Save your money, just save your money in the bank. You’re actually losing money. So, over time, you’re, you’re never going to reach financial freedom.
You’re never going to be wealthy because you’re, you’re always losing money. So the reason people invest is because they’re trying to make, they’re trying to outpace inflation, basically. They try, if their money’s losing value by 2% a year, they’re trying to make sure that their money’s… Out there somewhere, let’s say it’s making 5% somewhere so that they’re ahead, right?
That’s the kind of very, very basic reason and like all encompassing reason people invest. People want their money to make money. They want to put their money to work because if it’s sat in a savings account, it’s not working for you. It’s losing value. So when you invest, whatever you invest in, essentially people are looking to make their money work hard for them.
And then we have compound interest. And what that means is as you’re Earning interest on your money is, is basically interest on interest. So your money is compounding and it’s growing nicely. And then over time, you’re going to outpace that inflation and you’re essentially going to be able to build wealth.
So when people invest in say a property, if, if this is an actual investment property, because it’s. It’s a controversial opinion and it does split the personal finance world, but I, I personally don’t feel like your house is necessarily a wealth building asset. I think there’s, we could do a whole episode on that.
And this is your
[00:27:15] Amanda: personal property or is this, this is the investment property? So your non residential property that you’re talking
about.
[00:27:20] Anna: The home that you live in. Is there’s lots of reasons why that may not be a, like, actually an investment, but we can talk about that, that later if you want. But if we think about an actual investment property.
That is making people more money either through their renting it and that is providing like a monthly income or over time. They hope that they’ll be able to sell it for more than they bought it for. And it’s the same in the stock market when you buy stocks and shares, you are hoping to sell them in the future.
And also you can make money through dividends in the stock market. So these assets are either paying you some kind of income or you’re able to sell them in the future for more than you paid for them. So that is why investing is so important because it provides you. With passive income so that you can stop working and it makes sure that your money outpaces inflation and it’s not losing value.
So those are the two big reasons if, if that makes sense.
[00:28:27] Amanda: Yeah, it does.
And I think. We all had the dream of, I was actually chatting to someone the other day about wanting to retire, and when they said retire, they, they aren’t in the entrepreneurial world, they’re sort of sitting in more of a, a nine to five.
But when they were talking about retiring, it wasn’t necessarily retiring and sitting down and doing nothing. It was this whole idea of having that passive income that allowed them to essentially then enjoy their lifestyle. Yeah, and I think this is so much the intention and the dream of. Obviously we, we have these businesses where we’re wanting to support others and to make a difference in other’s lives.
But at the same time, we’re also wanting to do the same in our own. We want to have these beautiful freedom lifestyles and without having that investment or that wealth or the passive income working for us, it really means that we are going to be tied to our seats. And I know for me personally, like I love supporting my clients.
But in terms of my long term career trajectory, if you want to call it that, it’s not something I want to be doing when I’m 80 years old. I want to have moved into a different phase of my life. It’s whether it be writing books or something else, but it’s not necessarily, I want to be sitting down and trading time for money.
And I think that’s what happens at the moment. It’s this idea of trading time for money. And if we start building the wealth, We can start really having that passive income that supports the lifestyle that we’re desiring or that we’re craving and be able to just. Enjoy it. Because isn’t that why we’re here?
We want to enjoy life. We don’t want to be stuck on that hamster wheel, even if it is the fancy hamster wheel that you were talking about, it’s still a hamster wheel. We want to enjoy what we’re doing. And so if you were to think about. What’s something very sort of tangible? What’s something very simple that say people could do right away?
They could start doing an implement today that would really sort of put them on the path to either creating wealth or getting a better understanding of their finances and taking that first step. What would you recommend?
[00:30:25] Anna: I would probably recommend two things. One, mindful spending. So starting to be mindful every time you spend money.
One, one thing I find with my clients is once they understand what investing is and what it means. It puts this whole new perspective on spending. So I, one thing I do with my clients is we work out what one day of freedom costs them, and so ultimately they have this kind of measuring stick where, you know, for me, I think it’s around 260 or around, yeah, 300 maybe.
And so if I. I’m going to spend 100, then I, in my head, I know, okay, I can spend this 100 now, or it would buy me, you know, a morning of freedom, right? Or I can put it toward my financial freedom, because what you, what you are mentioning about retirement, I think that, especially entrepreneurs. They say, Oh, you know, things like my business will be in my retirement plan, or I don’t want to retire.
I love my business. But the thing is that for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially coaches, that you don’t have a business you can sell. Like that, that’s like the honest truth is it’s blunt, but it’s true. You don’t have a business you can sell when you are a personal brand. It would be very difficult to sell that kind of business.
If you have a business that you can sell. Great. That’s, that’s one strategy for being able to reach financial freedom is you build a company and you sell it and then you invest that money. But if you have a personal brand you don’t really have something you can sell, right? And also this idea of financial freedom or retirement where You know, we’re 70 and we go around the country in a camper van or whatever, or we’re not doing anything.
That, that’s a very old kind of, that’s one traditional type of retirement that we’re taught when we’re in a nine to five, but ultimately all retirement means is you have enough money to never work again and you can live without working again, that’s, that’s all it means. It’s just, we’ve been brainwashed to think that happens when we’re 70.
In fact, you know, especially as an entrepreneur, you have so much power over your income and your own money that you could be retired by your 30s or your 40s if you wanted, if you know the right things to do with your money. And it’s not about you have to stop your business. But how would it feel if you knew you could take the whole summer off or just take on clients when you felt like it or do something, you know, something that happens a lot with men, because men are taught about finance completely differently than women.
And men are starting companies, selling them, becoming millionaires, retiring, and then just starting companies for fun. Oh, I’ll just start this business. Maybe it’ll do well. And then they might accidentally land on another million dollar business. It opens up so many options, just purely knowing that you don’t have to, your work optional.
That’s what I call it, like reaching work, being work optional. But I think that once women realize. All these options available to them and what one day of freedom, you know, cost them, it brings this mindfulness around spending. So I had one of my clients message me and she, she earns a lot of money and she, she actually found that through managing her money properly, she realized she made more than she actually thought she was making.
But she was going to buy a pair of Prada sunglasses at the airport and she messaged me and said, you know what, I didn’t buy them. I put the money in my, you know, I have, I have my clients do a freedom account, which is just a simple savings account, but it’s building money to invest when they feel ready.
And she said it didn’t feel. Like I was denying myself. It didn’t feel like either or it was just an empowered decision. You know, Hey, I want to, I actually going to put this money toward my financial freedom. So just being mindful around what you’re spending. And, you know, Oh, could I, could I save this and put this towards my financial freedom instead?
Like, do I. And again, it’s not from a place of scarcity. In fact, it’s from a place of abundance because you’re not saying, Oh, I, you know, I should put it here. I should put it there. It’s just an empowered decision of I’m going to flow this money to my financial freedom because I’m excited about that. And, you know, maybe I’ll save up.
For the sunglasses or whatever. So I’d say definitely the mindful spending and start learning about investing. Just start the journey. Please don’t tell yourself things like it’s not for you or it’s too hard. Like I promised that it’s for everyone and it’s not as hard as you think it is. I. Promise you so start to learn about that so that you understand your options with your money.
Those would be the two things I would encourage everyone to do. Yeah.
[00:36:00] Amanda: That’s brilliant. And you talked about the, the day of financial freedom and how much that’s going to cost. Could you break that down a little bit more? I’m really curious about that. So how did you arrive at your figure? It was like 260 a day, was it?
Yeah.
[00:36:12] Anna: So what? So what? So basically it’s, it, you know, to be honest, it’s more of a psychological hack than a exact science, but, and with, with anything like this, unfortunately, there’s not a exact yeah, it’s not an exact science because things happen in the future that we have no control over essentially that is a very easy way to work out how much money you would need across your investments.
To be financially free and you do this by basically saying, okay how much I mean, there’s a bit more to it. It’s probably a bit too complex to go on, on to explain in the podcast. Yeah. So you would essentially say, okay I want to live off. 100k a year, right? And I want to be fully financially free by, so let’s say like we’re defining being fully financially free, meaning you have enough in passive income to cover your desired expenses indefinitely.
Okay. So you might say, well, by the time I’m 45, I want to be financially free. And I predict that I’m going to live until I’m 85. This is why it can never be an exact science, because unfortunately, none of us know the answer to that question. So, but let’s say, you know, that’s, so that’s 40 years, right? And you know, you want to live off 100k a year for 40 years.
So you basically work out what’s that number. I don’t want to embarrass myself by doing terrible, terrible math on the spot.
So I think I know what it would be. Yeah. So that’s 4 million. Right. So there is like another step to doing this in terms of working out how much you would need. You know, but it’s, it’s that you come to that number and then you can work out, you know, I mean, I can’t actually remember off the top of my head, which is embarrassing, like how I came to the number, but there’s a way of working out then, okay, what does a day, day of freedom cost me?
I mean, ultimately, if you think about it, 100k a year. Divided. Yeah. So a hundred K a year divided by 365 is $273 a day. So that is probably how I came to it. So it just, it makes it a really nice you know, for me, I like to have these like numbers to play with and it’s just a nice little psychological like hack and, you know, trick you can use.
Of like, okay, well I need, I know that to be fully financially free, I wanna live off $273 a day. So I can either spend it now, or, you know, when we’re saving and investing, we’re still gonna spend that money. It’s just, we are gonna choose to spend it later. So you can just say, I wanna buy this handbag now, or I wanna buy a day of freedom and I wanna get to that day of freedom, that financial freedom quicker.
’cause the more you invest, The quicker you’re going to get that. Does that make sense? Yeah, that’s
[00:39:25] Amanda: brilliant. I love it. And such an interesting way of looking at things. And I’m all about mindset and the way that we, way that we view things. And it’s just this completely different perspective on how we view spending something and having that instant gratification versus that.
Something that is going to be that delay gratification, but it’s just going to be so much more beneficial and so much more powerful in our lives. So love it. Is there anything that you’re currently working on or would love to share with our listeners that are going to be, that’s going to provide that incredible
value for them?
[00:39:58] Anna: So I have a podcast, so I’d really encourage everyone to go and listen. And I’ve actually just kind of made a recommitment to the podcast. So there’s going to be weekly episodes and some really amazing guests. So it’s called the shoe. So money podcast. And I also have a free masterclass where I specifically talk about the rich illusion and it’s called how to go from being a moneymaker to a wealth creator.
So that’s a free class. And yeah, I’m sure you’ll give the link in the show notes.
[00:40:30] Amanda: I’m going to pop that in the show notes for sure, because I know there’s going to be so much value in there. I’m definitely going to be checking out that masterclass as well, because I noticed even in this episode, I’ve learned so much going, yeah, okay.
Mental note. I’m going to come back and do that for sure. There’s, it’s something that I’ve been so interested in over the past, particularly probably six years, my journey has been into creating wealth. And I think it’s just, it’s something that we are always learning there’s when we sit in that growth mindset and that.
Opportunity to always be learning new different ways of growing wealth and expanding ourselves, expanding our business, our life, and all of those things, it’s just so much potential that we can create. So I’m so glad that you’re able to share that with us.
Now where can we find
you on social media or online?
Where
do you like to hang out?
[00:41:20] Anna: Yeah, the best place is Instagram. So the the name is @shes_somoney,
[00:41:26] Amanda: perfect. And I’ll pop that into the show notes as well. Brilliant. And is there anything else that you’d love to share with us today or leave us with as any sort of
final parting words of wisdom,
[00:41:40] Anna: I think just.
Like I always say is just go out there and educate yourself because I know that when it comes to money, especially the women I work with who are making good money, there can be this real, avoidance, right? Which I totally get this. I don’t want to look. I like staying in my bubble of not knowing because there can be a lot of shame and embarrassment and guilt and negative emotions with maybe past financial decisions you’ve made, or the fact that you are not managing your money and you know you quote should be.
And I’d really encourage everyone to know that You know, there’s no there’s no need to feel any of that, you know, we, no one is taught this stuff. So if, you know, if I asked you to perform brain surgery, you probably wouldn’t feel embarrassed telling me you had absolutely no idea how to do that. And it’s the same with our money.
We’re kind of expected, or we expect ourselves to understand it when ultimately, like ultimately we live in a society that not only doesn’t teach us how to look after our money and grow our own wealth, especially as women, but also actively encourages us into things like that. Actively encourages us to spend and so you kind of got the odds against you and so I just want to validate validate, you know, everyone’s feelings and everyone, you know, I’ve I’ve made shocking financial decisions.
I still make bad financial decisions. You know, because we’re actually driven far more by our emotions when it comes to money, it doesn’t matter if something makes logical sense on paper, we’re still more driven by our emotions. So yeah, I make, I make decisions that probably aren’t the best financial decision, but it’s.
It’s an emotional decision. So I just want, you know, every woman who’s listening to know that they are more than capable of managing their own money and growing their own wealth. Just take that step of starting to learn and starting to empower yourself through education.
[00:43:54] Amanda: That’s such a powerful note to finish on.
Thank you so much. I felt that so deeply in my soul. Like, Oh, okay. Time to really get back into it myself.
Oh, and
I thank you so much for being on the show today. I know I’ve learned so much and I know that my audience will have too. And thank you once again, from the bottom of my heart. [00:44:12]
Anna: Thank you for having me.
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