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Personal finance expert Tammy Barton, shares life changing money stories and looks at how money can transform every aspect of daily life.
Michelle & Phil podcast transcript
Phil 00:00
For me, the whole thing is a peace of mind thing. Yes, very much. That's what it is for me. Yes. I mean, I know that that's gonna get paid. That's gonna get paid. I mean, we don't even, I don't even look at the bills now.
Tammy 00:13
Welcome to MyMoney MyStory, where we chat to some amazing people about their money story and hear just how much money can really impact your life, and I'm your host, Tammy Barton, founder and director of my MyBudget.
Danielle 00:28
We begin today by acknowledging the Ghana people, traditional custodians of the land on which we are recording our podcast today. We pay our respects to their elders past and present, and we would like to extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Tammy 00:44
Welcome. Today, we have Michelle and Phil here on our MyMoney, MyStory podcast. Welcome. We're very excited to have you chatting with us today, and I'm excited to hear your journey and your experience with money, and also your experience with MyBudget as well. So let's jump into it. Yes, thank you. And you guys have come all the way from Brisbane to do this.
Michelle 01:08
Sunny, and extremely hot Queensland. To the beautiful temperature.
Tammy 01:12
And how are enjoying Adelaide?
Phil 01:15
You walk around outside and I'm not sweating. It's beautiful.
Tammy 01:18
Yes, I do love that about Adelaide. All right, so let's jump into it. Can you start by just telling us a little bit about yourselves, your family, and anything that you feel comfortable sharing your life in Queensland.
Michelle 01:31
Okay, well, we met, I was 16, and he was like, in his early 20s, and, yeah, we've been together now for about 37-38 years. Congratulations, yeah, so we've been married 34 years, yep, and we have three kids during that time, I got my teaching degree, so Phil's been in sales. We actually met at Maccas. So we got McMarried. He was, I was a crew trainer, he was a manager, and we met, there and young and in love and but now, yeah, we got three kids. They're all grown up now. So our eldest is 28 your youngest is 25 we have one grandson, who is my heart. He's beautiful. And, yeah, we're really comfortably situated now, yeah, like it was. It was a lot of struggle at the very beginning. We got I was 19 when we got married. We were young.
Tammy 02:26
And how old were you when you had the kids?
Michelle 02:30
I was 25 so not quite as we got a lot of stuff ironed out before we had the kids, but they came along at the right time, but we did three kids in three and a half years. So Wow. Yeah, it goes out
Phil 02:42
Like most couples. I mean, of our generation, we got we got married young, and, you know, and these days, that's not necessarily the way it goes. So you see a lot of people getting married these days, they're in their 30s. Yes, back when we got married, it was pretty much the in thing. You'd be married and have kids by 25 it was, yeah, it was just the way it was. But yeah, we suffered like most people do when they first get married. You know, you're used to living by yourself and having your own individual lives, and then you come together and you try and live as a married couple, and we're both fairly active. People were both very busy at the time, and I think that's just the way things were back then. And as much as you try and your family tries to assimilate you and and get you ready for that. I don't think anyone really knows until you start. Yeah, we certainly weren't ready for it. I can tell you.
Michelle 03:28
We chucked ourselves in the deep end. Yeah, moved out of home. I'd never lived out of home, you know? I went from being at home with my parents, and that wasn't a financially stable area. As I moved out my my parents suffered greatly when the interest rate rise of the 80s that that took their house away from them, and that was the tragedy. They signed their house over the night before we got married, wow, because they had to sell, yeah, and they no fault of their own. No, they lost that house. They worked so hard to get it, and those interest rates just, yeah, just took them out, and they were very devastated, yeah, by that, and it affected them financially for years and years.
Phil 04:04
It did a lot.
Michelle 04:06
A lot, and was was really hard to watch. And because, you know, watching that, I never really had any understanding of how to manage money. Yeah, numbers are not my thing. I will never teach math, and I think I probably have a form of dyslexia that just swaps numbers around, and yeah, just don't do numbers. And so I tended to be the one doing the work with the money, because he was working a lot more than me. And so I was the one doing the budgeting. And I was rubbish at it. I was really rubbish.
Phil 04:44
Where I was the opposite. I was young guy, single, yeah, no commitments, you know, no nothing to keep spend money. I mean saving money at my age, what the hell is that? Yeah, yeah, yep, you just spend it. So I was used to earning it and spending it, earning it and spending it and not saving it.
Michelle 05:01
I remember you shopping time. One time we went out and you bought a $300 pair of sunglasses.
Phil 05:05
Yeah because that's just what you did.
Phil 05:09
So say you spend it. And I mean, I, and I feel sorry for a lot of young couples these days trying to get a start, because unless there's a system already in place that they can follow or go to for advice. I mean, one of the big topics that people don't like talking about is money.
Tammy 05:28
Yeah, people would rather talk about sex and money. Yeah, exactly.
Phil 05:32
And I think that, and that just doesn't matter how old you are or what generation you are, that just seems to be everywhere, and I see it now with younger guys that that I work work with and work for and work around. You see, money is not a topic they want to talk about, yeah, and no one wants to say anything about it, whereas I think Michelle and I are both spruikers of MyBudget. Yeah, because we've seen what it does. We've lived it. So yeah, so and young couples need that.
Tammy 05:59
And you've seen the transformation in your own lives, and that's what we're here to unpack and learn more about. So let's so when, when was it that you do what it will kick on that journey? So you had your three children, and this just talk.
Michelle 06:13
So we just bought our home. So just we couldn't get into the housing market because we couldn't save. Just couldn't. Money would come in and we would there would be some other expense.
Phil 06:25
We did. We had the we had the income, we had a small amount of savings, but it wasn't enough. But it never stayed there. Back then, when we didn't show a confident history of saving, is what the bank told me, yeah. They said, Look, we can see you got money. We can see you save money, but we can't see a progression of you saving money towards a goal. Yeah, that's that was our story from the bank.
Michelle 06:47
And then we what we decided to do was my parents, they had savings, but they were also older, and so they couldn't come out of the house loss, because they're too old now to get the loan that would last 25 years. So couldn't fund a 25 year loan, but we could, and so we joined together, and we bought a house together. And so we all got a loan and fudged and we did it, we pulled it off, and we got made it happen. We got it together, and we got a serious fixer upper, yeah, ugly house, but in the right street. That's the best way to do it, pretty much same street that our kids went to school on, so they walk. So we wouldn't, because I was about to start teaching full time in Ipswich, which is a good 45 minute drive from home, and it's very much about the location. Location, yeah, we want, that's where we wanted to be, near the school.
Phil 07:43
We actually looked at a couple of houses on the same street, yeah. But to put it in a nutshell, and we wait for this one, because this was one we could afford to buy at the time, yeah, and work on it, yeah.
Michelle 07:55
So dad, okay, my dad was a jack of everything he could do, everything, everything from concreting to building. And so he they took the underneath of the house, which was just blank space, big open area, big, huge garage.
Tammy 08:08
So it's like a Queenslander-style home was it?
Phil 08:10
No it’s a brick style, brick style.
Michelle 08:12
I would call it, your Queensland high set home. So it's a big box, standard Queensland, not a Queenslander with a big veranda. But we built in underneath, and it's utility space now, because it's not the right height, but it's a two bedroom apartment down there now. You would not recognise our house. Since we bought it, we paid just under $400,000 fo it,
Tammy 08:41
Yeah, wow. Well done.
Phil 08:43
Which in the Queensland market doesn't mean a lot, yeah? Well, you pay for down here, yeah. I mean, it's our house is in a situation now where, it's a good spot, would be ideal for a family of, say, three or four kids, yeah, and mum and dad that want to move in downstairs, which is why we bought it. Yes, that was our plan for it long term.
Michelle 09:02
And there's a lot of duplexes going up, so they could also just level it and use a piece of land which is nice and close to everything. So it's good, it's a it was the wrong house on the right street.
Tammy 09:10
So it sounds like it was a great investment, but you also added value to that, and you did what you needed to do.
Michelle 09:16
But we struggled, yeah, we got the house. We had the mortgage, yep, but we were also paying it with my parents, and so there was times where we couldn't meet the actual dates. We'd have to wait a couple and I never understood that paying your loan a couple of days late impacted the amount of interest you paid. And that was a that was an education. It took a lot to get into my head, and that paying your mortgage late was bad, and that we just kept creeping until we got to the point where we were a month or so behind, because we were always paying a couple of days a couple of days late, and we would have to take money from here, and I could never see the full extent of what it was we were paying. We had some very badly thought out loans, GE finance, finance loans. And we had, I think we had a couple of those. And we had
Phil 10:12
Typical young car loan, young couple loans, yeah, like, you see a car, you want a car, you go and buy a car. Yes. And that's how it works at that age, whereas now at my age or at Michelle's age, you see a car and you go, Okay, can I afford that before I buy it? Well, now we do that things that's things that you need to learn as you grow up. We weren't any different from a lot of other we're not a lot of other families, and a lot of other couples are in the same situation as us. Some have come through it and some haven't, yeah, but that's just the fact of life. But we bought that house solely because we could see with investment it was going to be worth us in the future to do it. And we did it up ourself a lot of it.
Michelle 10:50
So we had dad, so dad was doing a lot of the work.
Tammy 10:52
Yeah, which makes a big difference.
Michelle 10:55
There's no taking down some of those walls downstairs, those things, they're there for life. Yeah, no, there's certain layers of concrete.
Phil 11:01
I became a TA overnight, pretty much
Michelle 11:05
He learned how to hold gyprock. But yeah, when we lost dad, that made a little bit different, like we had to then start relying on tradesmen, tradesmen and but once again, with MyBudget, it's been, yeah, we say, Okay, can we afford to do this? Yeah, we want to renovate. And we have loaned again since then, twice, a couple of times, but it has. We've always known in advance whether or not we could afford it. First thing we do as a kitchen.
Tammy 11:31
So when was it, when in that part of the story, or in that part of your journey that you decided, was there a moment? Was there a moment in time where you said, I'm/we're going to join MyBudget, or you heard about us, or a friend ultimatum time.
Phil 11:46
I think it was probably a few hints. I'm not saying where they were coming from. There was probably a few hints along the way, you know. And I'll be the first to admit I'm stubborn when it comes to letting people help when it comes to money, because, as I said before, some people like talking about money. I'm the one that doesn't like to talk about money, yeah. So there were those points, and when you're young and you're married and you're trying to grow a family and all that sort of stuff, the more distractions you can get out of the way, the better. And money was a very big issue for us because of how we handled money, yeah. And I was, you know, a little bit like the guy that sticks his head in the sand and says, it'll be all right. It'll take care of itself. Because as a single guy, I'd never had a problem, yeah, yeah. So I'd always had money. It was never an issue.
Michelle 12:29
I got to the point where I said to him, like, I don't like doing this. I'm doing this job, and I'm rubbish at it. Yeah, I would, we would have big arguments, because he would come home and he tried take money out and there was nothing there. And I was always worried that he would check the bank, yeah, and there would be no money there. And we got to, we got to a bit of a point where I said, Okay, there's three choices, because we discussed looking at MyBudget. We've seen it, we'd seen the ads on TV, and we thought that looks like a really good idea. And he's like, Oh no, but you've got to give all your money to them. And I think, yeah, but, but wouldn't it just be easier to let them do it? I guess I just want someone else to do this, not me. I said, so you have three choices. You can do this. I'll give you all the all of the books, I'll give you all of the account numbers, and you can do it. Or we can go to my budget, or we can get a divorce. Pick one, because I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want this angst. We need to do something to stop the constant arguments, because the kids are hearing it and it's not healthy. And and he said, Okay, well, we'll go talk to them. And that was the turning point. But the conversation where they said, look what we can do, and we were able to sit down with someone, and they showed us, yes, they looked at it, yes, you've got a good income. You're both earning well and a little bit higher than most. You shouldn't be in this problem. And they showed us how we could get slowly paid out. And then there was the negotiation I had tried to negotiate with our debtors. And I was, I was in fear of that phone call. Every day the phone would ring and I go, Oh, who's this? Back in the day before phones could tell you who was calling, yeah, and it was off, yeah, because it was a home phone often it was, this is so and so from GE, and you're walking behind, yeah. And how are you going to catch this up? And I've got no, absolutely no clue, because we don't have it.
Tammy 14:28
So you came into our office and you saw someone, and they put the budget together, and what did you think at that appointment? Like when you saw the budget?
Phil 14:36
I was blown away. I thought, How do you do that? How do you forecast? I think is the word you use, yeah, so far in advance. I mean, we were used to living and, you know, as I said, we both had good incomes, yeah, because of our the way we spent money, and because of the way we budgeted money, it was never enough. And we think, Okay, I've got to go and get another job, or I've got to go and earn more money or do this, when really it had nothing to do with that. It had to do with. With how you're using the money you're actually earning. And I was and that was the aha moment for us, yeah, as in, oh, okay, so you can do that, and you can do that. And I'll admit, I was reluctant at first, thinking, No, this will never work. This will never work. And
Michelle 15:13
the fact that we had to pay you for it, that was another one of his big issues. Say, Oh, this is going to cost us more money, yeah, every week, we already can't afford what we've got. Why are we adding another bill? And I'm just like, but then I don't have to worry about this anymore. This is not going to be my problem. And I mean, the first few months that we were with you, I was on the phone every couple of days, yes, first three months working it out and refining it so it would work. And the guys were great, like, they really, really helpful with, Okay, well, you could do this, and you could, if we move this one day, and that sometimes that really just blew me away, that by moving a payment one day to the next income, yeah, that we could free up enough money to pay this bill.
Tammy 16:03
And that’s what the visibility does. It shows you that you can do that, and even if you're not the one physically doing it, we're doing it for you by moving this, but we create that. And you can see it.
Michelle 16:14
I can see it happening on my screen, on my computer screen. Yes, back then it was a computer, not an actual laptop, but it was, it was just awesome to see, like we have, we had, you know, when hiccups happen, so, yeah, speeding fines. That was one of his favorite things, to get speeding fine. And, you know, we'd ring up and we'd do the spur thing, where we we'd pay it off, but then I could ring you guys and say, Okay, well, we've got another speeding fine, and they would just pop it into the budget and it would get it paid on time, and we wouldn't forget, that would be my biggest problem. I would even get to pay the negotiated amount of money, because I was busy. I was marking assignments, and I was doing exams, and I was, you know, I was busy.
Phil 16:57
It probably took a six to get used to the allowance idea, I suppose, if that's the correct word, but you're living expense, that's the word, yeah. I called the allowance because that's how I grew up, yeah, but I mean, it took us about probably six months to get and we found that quite manageable, because we could see how much we were getting every Friday. Okay, we need to spend this on this, this on this, this on this, and this and this. And we struggled with sticking to that amount for a little while, but once we got used to that idea, I reckon it's the best thing since sliced bread but it was also great.
Tammy 17:29[a]
And you don't have to worry about anything, that's yours to spend.
Michelle 17:31
I learned to put everything into the budget. Yeah, right. That that I really was reluctant initially, to to list all the little things like my fingernails. I like having my fingernails done. It's one of those. I work in an industry where, well, because I'm a teacher in a kitchen, my hands are in water all the time, and so my fingernails would degrade and they would break and they would hurt. And so getting my nails done was just not an extravagance, but a necessity. Yeah, and just putting that $40 a week back then, yeah, $4 a fortnight to have my nails done, knowing that I could go without guilt, I would always feel guilty. Yeah, spending that money on myself, yeah, but now it's, it's in the budget, and I don't have to worry.[b]
Phil 18:18
You can next level to that is the the milkman.
Michelle 18:22
Yeah, we have milkman who's paid.
Phil 18:25
Put the milkman in the budget. Yeah, you'd think, why on earth? Why on earth would you do something like that? Yeah, but it's, it's surprisingly easy. Once it's in there, you don’t have to think about it.
Tammy 18:36
And it's the peace of mind, right? And it
Michelle 18:40
for That's right, is one of his favorite customers, because he knew that 15 bucks was landing in his bank account every week, and we were actually slightly overpaying him. Yeah, every like 40 or 30, cents a payment. So every few months we were able to buy chocolate milk. Yeah.
Phil 18:57
nice. Get a gift and you turn up Christmas time and you'd get plum pudding and custard on the stair with us. We think, what's that for? And you'd look at his invoice, and it would go, you know, zero again. There's nothing better than looking at invoice that says owing zero, yeah, because
Michelle 19:11
he'd put the he'd just figure out how much we were overpaid, yeah, and he would give us something that cost that much money. And so, yeah, but it was, it was putting those little things and figuring out how much we needed each week for things like food and because food is crazy right now, even with only feeding three of us, I'm still spending over $200 a week on food. Probably, I probably need to assess that a little bit, but mainly by just doing a shopping list. But it's
Phil 19:39
not even just the consumer food and fuel
Tammy 19:45
and utilities
Michelle 19:47
coffee money and utilities
Phil 19:48
and it, I mean, and that's what MyBudget did for us, that we could never do ourselves. So it's like, oh, there's a power bill coming up. And I'd say to Michelle, did you have we paid the power bill yet? Yeah? I thought you paid it, yeah.
Michelle 20:01
And that was always, that was always the juggle in and pay, because we used to take the paper in and pay the power bill at the post office, yeah. And I would hand him the power bill and say, Please pay that today. And then he would get busy, and I would thought he would pay it. But we, we had got to a situation. There was one, one time that we didn't have the power money. There was just no way we could pay the power bill. Everything else was paid, and this was before my budget. But I had a really nice rose gold bracelet that I bought when we were a little bit more affluent. I think it was worth one of his commission payments. I had to sell it that we only way we could pay that bill was for me to hock that, and that was absolutely that was one of my little breaking points that I've had to part with. That piece of jewelry that I adored, I'm sure, special to me and and
Tammy 20:55
you're not the only clients or people who have been in that situation. No, we've seen that many, many times. I personally saw that many, many times myself. So you're not alone in that. And it's you know, and they are the moments where you go, I want to make a change, and then you do. You did that.
Michelle 21:16
I used to say, this is this is crazy. I shouldn't have to sell things. I love to be able to keep power on, both working full time. This is nuts.
Phil 21:27
But unfortunately, there is a, I suppose society has a stigma about asking for help. Yes, yeah. And money, as I said before, is one of those things that no one likes to talk about.
Tammy 21:37
So, yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And I think you know, that was one of the big inspirations for this podcast is to have amazing people like yourselves come on and share that your story, to inspire others to say, I'm not alone in this. There are other people that have been through what I'm going through, and you can come out the other side, you know, on top and doing and with and achieving your goals and just living that life without having to worry about money, so you can concentrate on other things in your life. So we are very appreciative that you are brave enough, really, and courageous enough to share your story.
Tammy 22:15
Inspire others, which is great that that's that is, you know, amazing
Phil 22:18
Plus it's about teaching. And I mean, Michelle is a teacher. I'm not a teacher. Yeah, for us, it's being example. I mean, you raise kids, you have a family and whatever. And for me, the most important part of it raising a family is being the example. Yes, yeah, very hard to be an example when you're, you know, digging in your pocket to try and pay a bill for $55 yeah, that's not setting a good example for your for your kids as they grow up arguments, and we've had that with our kids. I mean, our youngest basically came through the whole stigma, whereas our oldest child, our daughter, oldest child, never really knew that side of it, but for some reason, she's picked up on how to save money. Don't ask me how that happens so, but that's how it works.
Michelle 22:59
She was eight when we started with MyBudget, and she's only ever seen us be sensible, yeah, which is and she she has savings accounts for everything she's a savings account for she had a loan account, a home loan account. She's got a travel account, she's got a car account. She always has $1,500 sitting in her car account, just in case, because that covers her her if she has an accident, that covers her excess. It covers if something breaks or she needs new tires. She's knows that $1,500 pretty much, will cover any car emergency that she has.
Phil 23:32
Because she's learned that from us. So she's she knows how your system works, because she's seen us use your system. She's got her own, but
Michelle 23:44
she's learned from that example.
Phil 23:46
That's the whole thing, because she's, she's seen us go, Okay, so what's, what's your allocation this week? So to speak, obviously, we don't talk figures at home. Yeah? She knows that we have an a fixed amount, and we look at it as a fixed amount, yeah, to spend that week. And that's how we work. And we go to that, you know.
Michelle 24:02
It took me a while to look at the budget as I can't touch that, yeah. So that money there is not mine, that belongs to all the people we owe money to, yeah, and that allocated toward probably about 12 months to really understand and not see that I'd like, I would call up and say, Look, I really need this money. I need money. Can I just use? Can I take a little bit No, but, but then you're not paying your whole bill. So we, I've got little not lectures, I just call them, not they didn't actually lecture me, but, but if we do that, you're going to be behind like, Oh, okay. So it was a little negotiation in my own head. Yeah, that's exactly what. It's an education.[c] And we, I did learn how to swing it, though. So we think we're about three or four years in, yeah. And I think my son, our son, Ellis, was driving. He finally just started driving. That was trauma all by itself. It's another story. But. He had his first accident. I'll say first. Did many, but yeah, he had his first accident. And of course, because he was teenager, it was up to us to pay excess. So I just rang up my budget. I was really worried, because it was high, because he was young, it was like 800 or $900 under 21 so you paid, yeah, and so I rang up said, Look, got this bill. I've got to pay for this excess, and we have to pay it the next couple of weeks. And you guys just did this really clever thing where you just moved this thing over here to the next income, and all of a sudden I had the money. And I rang Philip and said, got, I've got the, I've got the the money for the excess. He goes, what? How did, how do you get they just did this magic thing where they made this money, and it's coming, it'll be in the bank today. We can pay it today, and because we've also figured out that if we did things really early in the morning, we'd had that money that afternoon. Yes, but it, it was just that was a real revelation for me, that we could have an emergency and by just making a phone call, we could have a solution in place. That's amazing. It hasn't always been that easy.
Phil 26:11
Yeah, yeah, that's that instant,
Michelle 26:13
But we can see it
Phil 26:15
But that's one of the stigmas, you know, and I mean, for people thinking of using your my budget system, I call it a system. It's probably not a system, but yeah, system, yeah, it's a system, but it's getting used to that, and it's learning to appreciate and use it to your own advantage. [d]Yeah, so to speak. So I'm the non spender.
Michelle 26:33
I'm the spender. Absolutely I still am the spender.
Phil 26:37
So and Michelle has a go at me all the time. I'm the person that you know, if there's a pair of shoes over there for $50 I won't buy them. I'll just walk away. Yeah, yeah, but if I know there's money there, I will buy them, because it's part of the system. And for a long time, we lived in that scenario where I don't spend any money at all, and the other one spends all the money. And because that's the way we work, whereas now we're a little bit more flexible, yeah, because we know, we can see where it's going. And there is those odd occasions, and young families, it's even harder than more, say, even harder than us. But yeah, young families, or families, those things happen. They do. They pop up out of nowhere. You never know.
Michelle 27:14
Every now and then the like, the hot water system blew up, yep, but we're just sitting there, oh, that bang. Like, what the heck? And, you know, that was two and a half grand. I mean, granted, my mum was paying half a tax, half her house. That was always a good deal for us.
Phil 27:28
But it's having the confidence that we had someone there
Michelle 27:30
the money find the money for the hot water system replacement, and, yeah, and it's hard[e].
Phil 27:35
Sometime it's hard to accept help, and it's hard to accept that that sort of situation can arise and can happen. You know, we see all the time. You know, we can't pay electricity this week, so we just turned the power off for a week. I mean, we've never been in that situation, yeah, but we never wanted to get to that situation either, yeah. And I've said this many times, and I say to a lot of our people know that we talk to her, they know we're with you already, so it's easy for us to talk about it, but for for us, it was more, as we've been with them a couple of years. It was more an investment. We could see what it was absolutely for us, the money we pay every week, yeah, we can see where it was an investment,
Tammy 28:15
And it is. It's an investment in your life, in your future.
Michelle 28:18
It's one of the biggest questions I get asked. But aren't you paying a lot of money to have the services and well, back $200 a month, which isn't really huge. Oh, that's a lot of money. No, because we're probably saving that in late fees, you know. Because you know the how you get the electricity bill. If you pay by this date, you get to pay this much, but if you pay after that date, well, with your rejo, it's $100 more. We will always paying the more. Always, we couldn't afford to pay the more, but we couldn't afford to pay it by the due date, and we're not paying those so we are never late.[f]
Phil 28:50
For us, it's, I don't know what the correct word is, but for us, it's the, I suppose, the ease of our financial situation. I mean, we don't have to worry about when that's coming, when it's coming, when that's coming, when that's coming, and we still both earn a good income. Yeah, have to spend the time, but we've done and as you get older, you want to do more things, you know. And as we've got older, we want to do more things. Like we've been overseas twice, we've bought cars, we've renovated houses, you know, we've done all this type of thing. Whereas if we look back as where we were back then, never imagined being. Never even imagined it. I mean, rental properties, and I think[g]
Tammy 29:27
Amazing. It's just how it works. So if you go back to after you joined, what would you say would be the biggest benefit, you know, in the early days, initially going from where you were having a partner,
Michelle 29:40
yeah, in this process. I mean, Phil still didn't really have a huge amount to do, not do with it, and but I had someone to talk to about our finances, so I was able to get on the phone and have someone with knowledge tell me the best way to go, like. Not a financial advisor, but someone who could look at my money, yeah, and say, if we do this, this is this is going to work out best.[h] And I slowly but surely gained the confidence to not be checking in. I would often open the budget up on my computer and just check where we were at and how much was being coming in and going out and stuff like that. But I wasn't having to make the phone calls. I was just able to go in and check I still, to this day, will l[i]og on Friday morning and make sure our incomes have come in. Yeah, that that's always
Phil 30:35
I know that because I get the phone going, your income hasn't come in yet. Where is it? Been a couple
Michelle 30:38
of occasions where that's happened where
Michelle 30:42
the weekend, Thursday, yeah, and so most of my my workmates will get their pay Thursday afternoon, yeah? But because it's going into the budget, we have to wait till the next Yeah, yeah. So that when it sweeps into our account, and there's been a few times where it's gone in from our employers late, right? And we've looked at it, and there's no money in their budget, and the budget looks horrible because there's no money there. And I ring up, yeah, yes. All that happens is that they change the date to the Monday, which is when our incomes will come in. And there's priority, so there's bills and everything. So you have your absolutely you can't do anything, you can't change skills, and they all get paid still. And that's I just have to tell the personal trainer that she's going to get paid a week late, yeah, and she's fine. Like, there's things that you can't stop in those bills. The ones that are more negotiable are able to[j].
Tammy 31:42
You guys really are the super users of MyBudget, you know, the system.
Michelle 31:46
I'm not very good at the app. I don't tend to use the app very much because I got very used to
Phil 31:49
that. Yeah, that took time. Yeah. I mean, this isn't something you can go into and not use it. I mean, it's you go, you go and buy a new car. Do you drive it? Of course, you do so, and my budget is very good at helping you learn the journey as you go. [k]Like Michelle gets on the phone now and she's on the phone for 10 minutes, whereas five years ago, she on the phone for half an hour. Yeah, just learning the system. I do
Michelle 32:16
make my January call. So my January call is the one where I go, Hey, we're putting aside two hours right now. I tell them, You have me for the next two hours, because we are going over everything. Yeah, yeah. So I will sit down with my bank accounts and I'll have a look at any changes. So any date changes, any amount changes, because I've got the budget sitting there, and I can say, and this is the only time I spend a considerable amount of time looking at our finances. This is because it's January and I'm on holidays, so I make the most of it, and I will have it all in my diary, and so we'll work our way through all of the payments that are happening, and we will fix it so everything lines up. Yep, perfect. And I add in anything new.[l]
Phil 32:59
We take stuff out sometimes too, anything that's
Michelle 33:02
stopped, like our milkman stopped. I was
Tammy 33:05
devastated goals in January. Yes, yeah. Is that one of the things you do where you look ahead for the next 12 months?
Phil 33:12
We do, and we've learned to do that
Michelle 33:13
well, he turned 60 next year, and we'd really
Phil 33:15
like to actually just tell everybody
Phil 33:19
you look like you turning we'll cut that bit, yeah.
Michelle 33:25
We gave him a surprise birthday party for his 50th and he because his birthday is Boxing Day. Ah, it's a
Tammy 33:30
boxing Yeah, yeah.
Michelle 33:33
And it's a bit of a rubbish day to have. And he'd never, had ever had a party. And I was able to organise that party because my budget was able to bring across, I was able to do it. It was all clandestine. He didn't know you knew nothing, nothing. He was totally surprised. But this year he next year, he'd like to go somewhere. So, yeah, planning to go, ma[m]ybe to Japan or something. Oh, amazing.
Phil 33:54
And that's the sort of thing you can do, though. And I mean, yes, that's once again, that's using the system to our benefit, yes, as a client or the consumers, benefit whoever you want to, however you want to word it. And, I mean, it's, for me, the whole thing is a peace of mind thing. Yes, very much. That's what it is for me. Yes. I mean, I know that that's going to get paid, that's going to get passed. I mean, we don't even, I don't even look at the bills now, yeah, she'll open some to you, and that's
Michelle 34:19
like, how have you paid for the trailer bill? There's nothing. It's like, $68 for the year, but it is a trailer. And all I do is I snap my bi[n]ll and yep, I send right. That's the only time I use the app. I use the app for the snap my bill, and that is really useful. And it just goes in and you guys have it, and I know that it's going to get done. An[o]d you know, if we look at ourselves this year, we'll in the in the two years. So from beginning of this year to the end of next year, we'll have done four overseas trips. Wow, we never even conceived we thought we would have to wait until we were retired to be able to afford to go overseas. Yeah. And we did our first major overseas trip in 2019.
Phil 35:04
Just before COVID
Michelle 35:06
Yeah just before. It was just after my daughter graduated in so we had to finish paying all
Tammy 35:10
the school fees. Yeah, and then you get away, right? The school fees took
Michelle 35:14
a huge amount of our budget for a while there and and we always said to ourselves, we would, we wanted our kids to have private education. That was one of the things that I was, I was reasonably insistent on. And he, you know, he came up through Cafe as well, so he got a, you know, a good education, yeah, and, and we put aside that money, and we were, we literally, and my daughter finished grade 12, and we finished paying our fees. Yep, that was a very big deal. And the last time we had all this money and we did our first overseas trip in 2019.[p]
Tammy 35:49
So, so what would you say are the milestones or the things that you're most proud of, that you've achieved in your time being in my budget
Phil 35:57
Our house, probably, probably investing in what we have, in assets. I mean, the house for me was a big thing, yeah, and that, that is a big thing for me, having having a house even more so these days, yes, but we want to do a renovation. Okay, well, let's plan that renovation. Let's put that money aside for innovation and all that sort of stuff. You know, does everyone want to go overseas all the time? Of course you do, but you have to be able to afford to go overseas all the time. And that's, that's the whole idea of the program. It tells us when we can and Michelle will want to buy something. For example, it might be three or $4,000 No, that often spend that much. And it might be, well, when can we do that? Now it's not, let's sit down look at the books. Now it's, let's ring you guys, yeah, and you tell us when we can afford to do it, and you do, you work out. Okay, well, if you do this, this, this, this and this, and save this, this and this, then eventually you'll get to that goal. But you said the one accomplishment? Well, I don't think there is one, to be honest.[q]
Michelle 36:55
I think we, when we bought our house, it was definitely a fixed wrapper, and now it's a very comfortable, livable, it's inviting, and it's warm and it's fully air conditioned you need in Queensland, I think we have five air conditioners in that house now we have, you know, we put on a 12 meter deck, we put on we put on lots of area that is, makes it a home before it was a very ugly house, and now it's an attractive home. And then we got a rental property. So getting the rental property was a big deal. We did sell that at the beginning of the year, but that's because I needed brain surgery again this year, and we were a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to work. And so knowing what was coming. I knew what was coming for me because I'd had it before. [r]We sold the property at a good time. We actually ended up getting over more than $5,000 more than we expected to get, and we sold it in four days. Wow. And we have money in the bank, and we'll do it again. We'll get another rental prop[s]erty. Yeah, we're just biting our time waiting for the prices to come down a bit.
Phil 38:03
I suppose the other achievement is, and something that that's that I look at myself, is we can help the family. We can help our kids, as though I grew up, as they get older and they start having their own kids, yeah, and I mean, we struggled when we first got married, and we didn't want to put, well, them under those sort of stresses as they get older and they get married and they try and have kids. Yeah, we've been easy thing.
Michelle 38:31
If you need help, please ask. I could say no, yeah, but ask first.[t]
Phil 38:38
Son's oldest son's car, had trouble with his car a couple weeks ago. Yeah, there's a grand Yeah, yeah. No one the world. Could he afford that money? It was just never going to happen. But, you know, they need two cars. They've got a baby now. They both work part time so that they need that money, and he's studying. So, yeah, we didn't have that money when he's when they were his age, yeah, and they're very lucky to have you no chance. We could have done it, but now that's that's our privilege. [u]We
Michelle 39:06
can do that. Will happen when we retire.
Phil 39:10
When I retire, he's coming over to mow the yard.
Tammy 39:14
But what about you? Just your day to day life. How has that improved over time? I can see a sale
Michelle 39:19
and go, gee, that's a good I can buy that like, I mean, I'm a clothes horse, and I love fashion, and I also love slow fashion. I teach textiles. I I know the damage of the textile industry, and so when I look at clothing online, and you don't pay small amounts of money if you want to buy sustainable clothing. And so, yeah, a $300 dress is not something that most people can afford, but I can look at it and say, okay, that $300 dress is only $200 at the moment. That's really good deal, yeah, and that's an. Investment I can make, yeah, it's a good thing for my self image, if I'm wearing a nice dress and or I can buy something crafty, like I am a huge crafter. I've got my cricket machine, and I've got my I have a craft room in my house, and I can outfit that, and I could buy the new press if I because I know I can afford it.
Tammy 40:22
It goes back to that peace of mind and having that support there to go. I know I can do this exactly right, and I don't have to worry about it, that stress of worrying like maybe you once did
Michelle 40:32
previously. Yeah, no, there was definitely a feeling of ill like I would, I would often feel physically sick when the phone rang and
Phil 40:41
And for me day to day, that's exactly it. You know, I'm the phone rings onto the phone. I know it's not going to be someone on the other end of phone. Want to yell at me, yeah, unless it's work. But other than that, like normal everyday things, like, you know, you someone rings up, well, you're late with your payment. You know, you're late with your payment, you're late with the payment. And that's their job. That's what they're supposed to do. That's what they get paid to do. I don't like being the other end, on the other end of the phone, saying, Listen, I can't do that, right? Yeah, or and that we don't get those
Michelle 41:07
just not knowing that there was an issue in the first place. We don't get that. I would get, I would get the phone. How come I'm getting phone calls about this? And that's where it put a huge amount of pressure on our marriage, I could imagine.
Phil 41:19
So we don't talk about money necessarily a lot. No, every now and again, we'll chat about, Oh, where are we in the budget? Or can we afford to do this? Usually,
Michelle 41:28
when we question, like, I'd like a new dining table, but we're not going to buy a new dining table at the moment, because we've got other things we're doing, and maybe next, his next commission payment, we'll get a new dining table. So
Tammy 41:41
it sounds like you've got your priority. Yes, right? Like you, you work out, this is the income, these are our priorities, and then that helps you.[v]
Michelle 41:48
Thre’s nothing wrong with that dining table. It's just too bigg
Phil 41:51
but you've got to be able to I can't express it properly, but it's getting to a situation of control, giving over the control to someone that can do it better than you can. And we found entrusting the process, but we're still in control, like we can ring you up and say, No, I don't want you to pay that. I want to buy this instead. [w]And sure you're going to have little voice inside your head, going, do you really want to do that?
Michelle 42:16
At the moment, it is that money that we were sending over to savings. We'll grab that out and we'll use that for this thing that this really good deal right now, and we've been wanting to do we we're in conversations about whether or not we end up getting a pool. So we both have wanted to have a pool. We have, we found out just recently that getting a decent pool is going to cost us $80,000 so we put a halt on that one because we don't want to spend $80,000 right now. Yeah, cool, but we could afford a Swim Spa. It's that negotiation of, yeah, what is it? Can we? Can we meet that goal another way? Yeah, and
Tammy 42:53
it sounds like you're totally in control, because you're right there. There's probably this perception that if I join MyBudget, I'll lose control of my finances, but absolutely you gain more control than you probably had laughed
Michelle 43:06
and of our ship, Nick, yeah, and we're actually able to steer it so it's getting
Phil 43:10
over that initial fear, which is what your new clients are feeling, what we faced, yes. Oh, and Michelle said it at the very start there. You know, Phil didn't want to do it because he didn't want to lose control. That's true. Yes, not everyone's control freak, but there's only certain things you can control, yeah? And at the end of the day, once you see the benefit of that of the system, letting it work for you, yeah, you're more than happy.[x]
Michelle 43:34
I'm sure it's also being good for our health as well. Oh, yes, definitely. He used to get ulcers. He's never had another ulcer. Yeah, that's amazing. Starting MyBudget, my budget
Tammy 43:44
so. So what advice would you give to anyone that's listening, that might be struggling with their payments or feeling stressed out about their
Michelle 43:54
talk to someone you can just, I mean, I I know from talking to my cousin worked for you guys. I for a while, and he had had to turn people away, mainly because they wouldn't listen come to the party. They wouldn't listen to the[y] advice that was being given to them, and they wouldn't let go. And he said, The only time we can't help is if people won't really listen. And I just say, Listen, actually listen to what's being said. Because this service, and it is a wonderful service, is so worthwhile. It will take so much pressure. I don't have to spend hours dealing with my finances every week I can put that into sewing a dress or doing something I enjoy reading a book instead of sitting and fussing over bills and loo[z][aa][ab]king at spreadsheets. And no, it's not. It's not my idea of fun. It might be other people. It might be your idea of fun, but it is not my idea of fun. I. That is not fun, but it's nice to look at my, you know, have a go in and have a look at the budget and see how well it's doing. That that's, that's something I enjoy.[ac]
Tammy 45:11
So what would be the biggest lessons that you guys have learned over the last 11 years?
Phil 45:18
Priorities, yeah. Priorities, yeah. That would be and that that was, I was going to say to you, you just said to me, then you said to me, Michelle answered hers. I mean, mine is for new people, thinking of coming to you or thinking of talking to you or listening to whatever. Have a look at your priorities. First, what do you want out of life? What do you want to achieve is probably the biggest three things. I mean, everybody knows how to talk, but does everyone know how to listen? And I mean, the biggest thing that is every in everyone's way is listening and taking advice. Yeah. And I mean, if you've got all these great things now with technology and iPads and all these programs, you can show people and everything else, but the number one thing people need to learn to do is to listen. And that that's probably the biggest thing, and anyone wanting to join MyBudget is, yeah, give it a go. Have a listen. Have a look at all the all the technology, and have a look at
Michelle 46:07
all the programming. See, I mean, because it costs you nothing to have that initial appointment and have it all run through, and it's a yes or no, you are either going to do it or you're not, but unless you ask questions, you're not going to know how, like, how you can be helped,
Tammy 46:26
And then it's a journey, right? So most definitely, from there, and I always say this, almost in every podcast episode, it's our clients who are the courageous ones who join and they are the ones making the difference in their life. MyBudget are your financial partner, and we're there to help you every step of the way, but it's our clients who make those decisions. It may not make the changes.
Michelle 46:46
It may not be easy to start with. You may have to make, yes, some changes in how you view your finances, but those changes will be beneficial to you in the long run. That's right, you may have to tighten your belt. You may not be able to go out with the girls or out with the boys on Friday night every week, yeah, but are you willing for your own sanity and your family to make those changes so that you can in the future, if we wanted to go out on Friday night every week, we could now, well, I mean, we might not be able to buy the craft stuff, not that we would, so you can forget it, but yeah, we could. And
Phil 47:27
as I said, it's priorities. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as a person listening to a podcast, and they're listening to it, so they're obviously interested in it, yes. And my one question I would ask that person is, what is your priority? Yeah, that's the number one thing like for us. It was about our relationship. Yeah, that was, that's what threw me in the end and brought me over in the end was here I could see what it was doing to Michelle. I could see what it was doing to us as a partnership and as a married couple. I could see that personally. And that's what made me sign up.
Tammy 47:59
And I think that was one of the things I didn't realise when I started MyBudget. I thought people would say to me, thanks for sorting out our finances, but what I was actually hearing was, thanks for saving our marriage money anymore, and you saved our marriage and our children still have their parents together. And that was one of the things that took me a little by surprise, and then I realised that that money has such a big impact on your life.
Michelle 48:26
I mean we really did. I just said we could. We had conversations and about no longer being together. I said, but look us how that's going to what's going to happen. So you're going to live somewhere else that's rent. I'm going to live somewhere else that's rent. The kids may not be able to go to go to their school like the the logistics of that whole not being together part, and this one doesn't like to lose money. I don't we. We had a a little kerfuffle at the five just before we had kids, and the way that we worked it out was, I said, I'm going to get rid of the rental property, and going to lose all your bond came back. To lose all your bond came back. So losing money for Phil was something that was definitely a trigger. And by coming to MyBudget, I was we were able to show that we would save money. Yeah, even though we're spending money, we were going to save money in the long run. And it definitely has been that for us.
Tammy 49:20
And so you definitely, you created those savings, and you've been able to achieve so much savings, yeah, and
Michelle 49:25
but we've also, we also knew, like, if, if, even if, we couldn't save up for something and we needed to loan. So that first trip we took to the UK, we got us, we got a personal loan for that, because we got a really good deal. My mom got this awesome deal package, and we we loan, we own 10 grand, but we paid that off in the end of the time that we knew that we had that we went to my budget and said, we want to do this loan, because this is a really good opportunity, because my mom's with Wyndham, and she had these tickets for cheaper and and so we took the loan. And we paid it. Instead of it being a four year loan, we had made it a two year loan. Yeah, amazing. Paid it off quickly,
Phil 50:05
but it wasn't us. It wasn't a stressful loan for us, because we knew we'd already handed that to you guys. Can we afford to do this? How are the payments going to work?[ad]
Michelle 50:15
Same with the kitchen when we know, yeah, we
Tammy 50:18
loan you can afford it, and you load in your budget, and you could afford those repayments. And
Michelle 50:22
little things, we've done a few little things where we've just used a loan and we've just but we've been able to pay it off quicker and a[ae]nd now we are actually, you know, we're saving considerable amounts of money. We're saving over $2,000 a month, amazing, an account, and there's another $1,000 a month going off to an Africa trip we're taking next year, we're doing a mission trip for our church to Uganda, and we were able to look at that advertised like they'd put up a thing we're going to Uganda who wants to join us. And Phil and I looked that would be so much fun. I would really enjoy that, and it gets you reckon we could afford it? I reckon. I said, I reckon. It was my first question, can we afford that? And I said, I reckon so. I rang that that Monday, I rang, and I said, okay, it will be $6,000 and it's next May, and we need to be finished paying by the end of March, end of March, I think it is. Yeah, we'd have to be all paid off by then. And we figured out $250 a week done, and we're still saving amazing $1,000 a month. Amazing to our savings, to your savings account.[af]
Tammy 51:31
Well, you guys should be so very proud, and we are very thankful that you've come on to share your story. Is there anything else that for anyone listening who, whether or not they're considering joining MyBudget or they just on that journey about, you know, doing better with their finances? Is there anything else that you would share?
Michelle 51:51
Save yourself, time save yourself stress of having to deal with this? There is somebody who, for a small amount every week, we'll happily take that for you and manage it, and you don't have to remember to pay the bill. It's done. Yeah, I am. I know I'm totally rubbish. I mean, even if it's on the calendar, that's not necessarily something I'm going to read. I mean, and we've got some good technology, back in our day, we had to write it all on the calendar and actually pay
Phil 52:23
attention to the calendar. Just get paid and write it all out every month. But even
Michelle 52:26
with a reminder on my watch, on my phone, I would still not necessarily remember. I can me and my ADHD, we get distracted really quickly, and I can all shiny, and that's it. I've forgotten to do that. Yep, that is our lifestyle these days, too. Everybody is living a really busy, fast lifestyle, and MyBudget definitely fits into that. [ag]So even if you're young and upcoming, and[ah] it's just makes you can just hand it over, and you get your little income at the end of every week, and that's the money I can spend. I can do whatever I want with that money that comes into my bank account on Friday. It's ours. Sometimes we go through it way too quick, and then I bring up the budget. Just need another couple of $100 to get to the end of the week. Ching, ching, ching, and we've got a couple of $100 extra to get us to the end of the week. And and it is that knowing that in the back of my mind that, yeah, okay, we can have dinner out again because our friends are in from town, and this is an opportunity, and I'll just talk to the budget next week, and we'll just replace that money. Amazing. And yeah, yeah, it is. It just saves so much time and stress. It’s gone”
Tammy 53:39
Thank you. And what about yourself?
Phil 53:42
I'd agree with all that. But I mean, for me, it was more about stress. I mean, we all know these days the cost of living is getting higher. Things are getting more expensive. Your money's not going as far. And I mean, we weren't in the bracket where we came to you, where we had no money, where the other we were the other end, as in, we had the money. We just didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Yeah, because how you're managing Exactly. But I mean, people, your system works for both ends. It works for people that don't have a lot of money and they're trying to budget a smaller income right through to, okay, there's your there's your bigger amount of money, you got to work ahead and manage it and set goals. That's probably the big thing that we learn very well, retirement, now that we set goals comfortable. Yeah, our first overseas trip was a big goal for us. That was, that was a big thing for us. We never thought like a, I'd say Bribie island. But you guys probably don't know where Bribie for you were to be a trip to glenelg for us, it's a trip to Broadway. It's and that was a big thing for us, whereas for us, probably the biggest aha moment for us is always so we can save money to go overseas, amazing, and travel, you know? And that's the sort of thing now, yeah. Now next goal is retirement. And what do we do next?
Michelle 54:55
And having an understanding now of how MyBudget works, I've i. We've been very we've been looking at our super and, okay, where's our super gonna take us? So I've got a super fund manager now, and we're looking at, I currently have two super funds, because one of them has better insurance than the other. And so we've got the original one, and then we've got one that is performing better as far as making the return. And so, yeah, I've got, I've been able to do the forward thinking, whereas before, we thought we were never going to be able to retire. And at the moment, we now know that. I'm kind of hoping that when he retires, I'll be able to go at the same time, because it's five years between us, and normally you work, I'm hoping that we'll be able to just stop together[ai]. Yeah, into retirement, which I'll be lovely living the way we have become a cluster. Yeah,
Phil 55:47
I don't think I'll ever stop, but yeah, I'll slow down together. Yeah?
Michelle 55:52
Maybe i'll start making cakes on a regular basis, because that's a My Little side hustle. Yeah, that's something that I knew that when I first started doing side hustles, it was always to see if I could make a little bit more money for the family. And none of them ever really paid off until I started making the cakes. And I can, I can make money making cake and but that money became ours. So if I got a cake, if I had a cake, and I spent Friday night, and to say, early Saturday morning working on a cake. That money that I get paid is play money. We could play with that money because we knew all the bills were covered, and we could go to the movies and have a decent night out and yeah, or maybe book a weekend in the city for together.[aj]
Phil 56:35
I suppose the summary for us, to put it in plain, simple language, is you keep saying thank [ak]you to us. We need to say thank you to you. Yeah, it's you don't see it from our side. You see it from your side. Yeah?
Michelle 56:49
He’s gonna cry, yeah. We are really appreciative of this program that you have set up. It has saved our relationship. It has certainly saved us a lot of money, a lot if I looked back at the amount of late fees, we probably have saved probably a good 10 grand or so of savings there, and for a small amount of money week that, yeah, we've got rid of stress, we've got rid of we've saved money, and we're able to have come to go on a holiday and spend a bit of money and buy some nice food and and have memories. I think that's big. We've we've we've become a very much experience shoppers these days, not as much things. And we were recently able to take our family away. We went up to Mapleton outside, up in the glass house moutains, and we took our whole family and we rented a property, and we got to spend, you know, almost 48 hours with our grandson, full on for that time. And it was just a lovely family weekend in a beautiful old house altogether, and we haven't had the family together under the same roof like that for a little while. And Sean got married 2017 Yeah, so yeah, and his wedding was a good example of how you guys have helped us, because he broke his wrist eight weeks before the wedding, and that meant he couldn't work, so he couldn't pay for some of the things. So we had this negotiation of what they were paying for, and he was paying for, and we were paying for, and we had to, we were able to step up and help with the food, and because we rang up, okay, we just need a bit more extra money for this, for this wedding. And it was there money was available to help. [al]
Tammy 58:40
And how incredible, well, you guys should feel really proud of what you've done. Yeah, and I want to thank you for thanking my budget and for, you know, taking a chance on us and our service and our people. And I'm so I'm so proud of you and what you guys have achieved, and again, really grateful that you've come on to share your story and and your journey. Gratitude is a bit of a theme of this podcast. And so there's always three questions that we ask our guests towards the end of the of the podcast session. So what is it that you are most grateful for?
Michelle 59:23
Our relationship, the fact that we still have it amazing.
Phil 59:28
Yeah peace of mind, yeah, yeah.
Tammy 59:30
Incredible. And if you had a billboard, and this is a question we ask everybody, if you had a billboard, what is the message that you would want to put out to the world?
Michelle 59:41
It would be a bit Nike. Just do it. Just do it. Step out, take the step and just give it a go.
Phil 59:47
Listen, yeah, listen.
Tammy 59:48
I love that. Very succinct. And funnily enough, the last clients that I interviewed to exactly the same words, just do it. Just do it like a Nike ad, just do it. Yep, amazing. So where to now? What's the future for you guys? What are your travel goals?
Michelle 1:00:02
As much travel as we can possibly get in,
Phil 1:00:05
More probably, probably some, some more travel. Like we enjoy traveling, and it's something that we never thought we'd be able to do. I mean, some more travel. But now at the stage of life we're in, and everyone thinks I'm old because I am getting old. It's 60s, and what's in it for us for the next 10-15, years, we want to set ourselves up where we can travel, where we can do this, and we can do that, which is something we never thought we'd be able to do. So that's probably what's in it for us.
Michelle 1:00:35
Have stuff to leave our kids too. We'll get back into that whole housing market. We'll just wait for it to get a little bit less crazy, if they'd ever wait for the interest rates to come down a bit. Yeah, we were aware of that stuff now, though, too.
Phil 1:00:49
Yeah and just be in a position where, yeah, be in a position to help. I mean, as I said before, at the start, one of my big goals is to be in a position to help family, yeah, and we never would have been able to do that without MyBudget?
Tammy 1:01:02
Well, thank you again. Really appreciate you taking the time to come and share your story. It is really important, and I'm sure, just now and anyone listening to this, you're changing their life. You're changing their life because you're probably inspiring them to do better and be exactly like you guys and live their life and not worry about money. So thank you again. Happy to help. Thanks for joining us today to hear more about our stories and budgeting tips, head to my budget.com.au to check out our resources. There, we've got free budget plans that you can download, and if you're interested in taking that next step so you can start living your life free from money worries, just give us a call and book in your free appointment. It won't cost you anything but your time.