Let's have a chat about money. Specifically. A million dollars. Becoming a self made millionaire. My story, how you can leverage your business to do the same. Let's talk about money because one of the reasons I went through the pain and agony of showing up on social media in front of everyone I knew without knowing whether or not this thing was going to work is because I was able to hold the vision of if you do the hard stuff, how on the other side.
People ask you how life got so easy. And one of the reasons I was able to believe in that and hold that vision was because there were creators out there and entrepreneurs out there who were very transparent around what they were making and how much money they had and what they were able to do with that money.
And I am trying to emulate that transparency and be an open book around money because I know that by listening. To this socially awkward, introverted, cat obsessed, ADHD, New Zealander, in her bedroom right now, making this podcast, I know that by listening to me and hearing what was possible for me, there will be a part of you that says, Shit, you know what?
I can do it. I can fucking do this. And you have to believe that. You have to hold on to that silly, crazy belief that you haven't seen anyone around you achieve. You don't know it's possible yet, and there's part of you that thinks, what the hell am I doing? But you have to be able to hold that vision.
To show up until it comes true.
Overcoming Early Struggles
And that first 6 months, 12 months can be really hard. Because yeah, it's working and things are happening, but it's like not enough to live on yet. And then like you go through phases. You go through phases. Like my first 6 months of Badass Careers, I didn't make enough to live on.
I think I made around like 30 grand or something in 6 months. Like I live in a very expensive country and I've got a mortgage like I was still doing consulting. I was doing brand sponsorships I wrote not even like I was hustling Like with part time work to make ends meet like badass careers wasn't it, right?
and then six months in seven months and eight months in I was able to Figure out what I was actually doing in business Make some fundamental strategic shifts and make the changes so that I started to have more like 20, 30k months and beyond and therefore I was able to make 150k in my first year of business, but like the first six months didn't feel like that was going to happen at all, and I was able to work on it pretty much, okay, not full time, but like a lot, basically full time because I was definitely working on weekends and stuff like that.
So all of this to say it can feel really Okay. confronting when you're having to show up on social media as if you're this business owner and expert and doing cool things and, attracting clients when you haven't yet become that thing. So you need to hold the vision. And part of that is getting so inspired and excited by the possibility on the other side, because otherwise, why would we go through that pain, right?
Why not just stay in the status quo land where everything's just okay. If we didn't believe that things could be pretty fucking exceptional on the other side. I started my business, and I say it's my business, as in, I know I had no even French, I know that made like over 200k, I know I had brand deals and stuff, but I didn't have a business model behind it, it wasn't a business, I didn't have a business strategy, a business plan I was basically like a content creator slash influencer with no business, okay?
Building Badass Careers
My business, badass careers, I started at 30. Which, in some ways, might say, Oh, you're so lucky to have been gotten started by 30 and other ways. In the online business world, I can be a bit of a late bloomer in some respects, like there are the most impressive, like teenagers coming up, like hustling on Etsy stores.
They're like 17 years old. Do you know what I mean? There are a lot of people who have started a lot younger than I have. I started at 30. There's no judgment there. It's not a good thing, not a bad thing. It's just a fact. I started at 30 and I had come from the corporate world. So by that time I had been working, I want to say 10 years because I was, I was working in recruitment part time throughout university.
So if we just add those sort of three, four years up and condense them into a couple of years. And then I had been working. Pretty much ever since then, even my master's program was a master's program where you were placed in a company working and you stepped out every three weeks just for five days to go to uni and do some courses, but then you kept working for the company.
So let's say I've been working for 10 years, right? And I'd developed my career in HR, I was working at L'Oreal at the time, but before that I had worked for the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Group, I had worked for cool startups, I had worked in New Zealand for, one of the number one industry exporters, like I had a pretty cool human resources career.
I wasn't Wealthy by that point, right at 30. So I had been earning pretty good money, but like over in France, for example, like the salaries are lower and the taxes are a lot higher. So it wasn't like as good a money as you probably might be imagining. And also on top of that, I had 50, 000 worth of student loans to pay off.
And I also came back to New Zealand every year, even while I was living in France. And so there were all these things going on that I didn't have hundreds of thousands in savings or anything like that. What I did have was a really cool bonus game at L'Oreal, and you were able to invest your bonus every year into a fund, which essentially was invested into stocks on your behalf and it was able to, generate compound interest.
And so I didn't touch my bonus for three years and I was able to invest that every single year. And I had some savings, which I'll talk about in a second. But I wasn't a high net worth individual at 30, right? It's not like I had owned an apartment in Paris or anything like that. In fact, when I came back to New Zealand, we just had two suitcases each.
They were all of our belongings, no assets That's what it was. And in case you don't know about my full family history, I won't go into detail, you can listen to the origin story sort of episode, the first episode of this podcast, but believe me when I say, I had zero handouts or financial safety nets coming from parents, any kind of entrepreneurial or financial education growing up, like absolutely zero, like parents leave school at 14 to help, raise their poverty line families.
I myself grew up in financial disparity lots of mental health and addiction issues in my family. So just believe that there are no props up, right? Like I don't have let's say a huge safety net or I haven't been given I just went to a yeah, I went away for a weekend a couple of weeks ago and, there was someone that I was traveling with who had been given quarter of a million dollars from their dad to go towards their first home.
Like I've just never, ever had. Basically 25. Do you know what I mean? It's just it's just like a different life experience. Okay. If anything, like I'm having to help my parents out, like it's going the other way. So just to be super clear on that, that there's no secret background fund that facilitated this process.
Okay.
Financial Realities and Transparency
And when I say becoming a self made millennia, having a million dollars as your net worth. So a million dollars net worth, which I will break down in a second as to, I'm actually not quite there yet. I probably am by the time you're listening to this, but I'll break down the exact numbers in this episode and you might ask yourself like, okay, so how do you not have like millions of dollars?
Your business has made millions of dollars. Okay. So firstly. For me, it's a million dollars net worth off my own back. So I'm in a relationship. And and I'll explain all of this, so even though I have disproportionately helped us to pay our house off and purchase a second property and stuff like that, if I were to get a divorce tomorrow, it's 50 50.
That's the law in New Zealand and I don't have any kind of contract or prenup, like that's the law. And so for me, it's like a million dollars net worth on my own back. Like post divorce fees, like I as an individual have a million dollar net worth So there's firstly there's that so we might collectively have well over two million dollars in assets But like you've got to take away like net worth you've got to take away the debt you owe So any debt any mortgages any payment plans any like any debt credit cards anything?
And that's almost like what's left over. So you've got to minus the debt and then I would only count 50 percent of that as mine because I am in a relationship. Now, if you want to implement a relationship contract or a prenup or anything like that, that would help that to not be the case in your relationship.
That's a different decision. I haven't decided to do that. Okay, so there's that. And then also how much your business makes isn't the same as how much you pay yourself. And then there's how much you pay yourself and you've got to pay tax on it. So there's how much money you have left over. So even at let's take that million dollar year, three years into business, my million dollar revenue year, I paid myself amazing money, right?
Like almost 600 K. But then after tax, that's 380 K, which is. Incredible money! But do you see how there's a difference between what my business makes, and then what I pay myself and then profit, and then what I pay myself out of that profit, and then after tax, that's how much money you actually have.
Okay, when I talk about net worth it really is like a million dollars able to be cashed out like a million dollars able to be accessed It's not paying myself 600. I'm going to add 600. No, I got 380 after tax So i'm very clean with my numbers when i'm talking about a million dollar net worth now, of course Why are we talking about becoming a self made millionaire?
Look, again, I want you to know that the businesses that we are building have the power to exponentially, thanks to the internet, out earn what you could ever dream of making in a corporate role. Because instead of helping, a hundred employees as an HR professional, I can help thousands of people as an HR professional who are paying me directly or 3, 000 or 5, 000 people, right?
So you're able to scale your impact and when you scale your impact, you can scale your income. Now, what does it mean to be a self made millionaire? Maybe nothing to you, right? Like maybe it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean anything. It's just a fact, okay? We're becoming like. a millionaire having a million dollars in assets that you yourself have generated.
Now, I don't want to go into the debate of no one's really self made because I agree. My husband has a stable corporate job. That's enabled me to have confidence and take risks. That maybe I wouldn't have if we didn't have that security net. On the other hand, my net worth could be a lot higher by now, but because 50 percent is his, everyone has their own situation, right?
But what I'm saying is that absolutely, is anyone ever self made? Probably not. Like I've had coaches that have changed my life in the way that I think. So they contributed to me and what I, how I became this person who made this kind of money. Or yeah, I've had mentors and managers in my corporate life who built up my confidence, who got me to this point.
Like I've had a lot of people contribute to who I've become over life, but I'm really talking about quite a black and white concept of the work I'm doing, generating a million dollars in net worth. And why I'm talking about this is. Yeah, because being a millionaire ain't what it used to be, right?
Like, when I was growing up, I remember thinking like being so jealous of people who were like millionaires and the way that my mom would talk about millionaires and they own these multimillion dollar properties and I'd be like. Oh my gosh, I was so lucky and like a million dollars back then isn't the same as what a million dollars is today.
Like the average house price in Wellington where I live is a million dollars. That's just mental. Like when I was growing up, when I was like 10 years old, it was probably 300k, right? So it's like being a millionaire isn't exactly what it used to be. But still, I think psychologically the achievement, there's just something about that number that is holy shit.
And it does make you, just zooming out, looking at the stats, a very wealthy individual. I'm a very wealthy individual, which is so strange to say out loud, considering how I broke, I grew up. It's just it's gonna take a lot of therapy, I think, to process this identity shift, okay?
Defining Success and Comfort
And obviously, when I talk about leveraging your business to become a self made millionaire, I want to break down my process.
You've got to be very intentional with your business design. You have to have a business that has high profit margins and is scalable without needing more of your time or energy to make more money. And I highly encourage you listen to an episode that I created a few weeks back on. Retiring early like using your business to retire early because I get into the business model and How you first have like freedom to quit your job And then you have more time freedom as you're able to make more money without putting more time in And then ultimately you hit financial freedom and that process for me was only two to three years long So I talk about how I went through that process to then create a lot of profit, which you can then invest in ways that allows you to retire early.
So I go into more detail about that, but obviously the prerequisite to this conversation is, that I have a specific business model, which is this coaching course creation business model backed by a personal brand. Okay. You can also make sure that you grab my roadmap to a hundred K my freebie, my downloadable in the show notes, if you haven't grabbed that already, because I think it will give you a nice structure and step.
By step to support this conversation. Now, I also want to say that the decisions I've made and the way that I have invested in or spent my money in order to get to a million dollars in net worth is extremely personal. This is obviously not general advice, it's obviously not financial advice. In fact, I think I've made some illogical, emotional purchasing decisions and investing decisions that like, a financial advisor would probably say, oh, that's strange.
Don't do what I've done as such, but be inspired by the potential of being able to do this your way. Okay? And there's no right or wrong. Everything comes down to what works for an individual person and the decisions that they made with the information they had at the time that they had it.
I'm walking you through what I've done, but I do not think that it's necessarily like the role model roadmap that you have to follow. Okay. So I'm going to break down what I did exactly, where I've invested my money, how it's split, and also like how it feels achieving something that I never thought possible for myself by this age, because I am only 35 years old and I did not have an easy start even going to university was massive for me, and I started life with a 50 grand student loan, and I had to pay that off before I could start my husband didn't start with a loan because he got educated for free in France I don't think I've had massive Like advantages I would say on this journey.
So I'm really proud of what I've achieved. So the first thing is, getting clear on my numbers. It was incredibly important. I think it's incredibly important for everyone. You think you know how much your life costs, but you actually don't. So getting super, super clear. On must haves, like literally cannot pay my bills if I don't have this amount of money versus your comfort lifestyle.
Because in the episode where I was talking about how you can leverage your business to retire early, I was also speaking about the fact that I have this sort of like comfort number where I'm able to have all of the things that matter to me. So Twice monthly massages and private sessions with my pole dance teacher and being able to eat well and get meal like meal boxes that we can like create with really nice organic ingredients and there are things that and obviously go back to France and actually going back to France is pretty much a must have to be honest but you know there are things that are enhanced comfort like being able to have nicer gifts for your friends or Go on that holiday like there is comfort lifestyle versus must have and so my comfort number is around a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year as in like cash as in like I need to be able to spend a hundred and twenty five K per year.
And that's after tax, and that's because again, there's a lot going into that number. We've had really huge mortgages in the past before we paid off the priming home, but there's still a mortgage on the beach house, and New Zealand's just a very expensive country to live in. It's completely possible.
To go to a really desirable area of New Zealand and buy a two bedroom shack near the beach for 1. 5 million dollars. Okay, so it's just a very expensive country to live in, let alone the cost of living. So that's why my comfort number is so high and I'm not buying Lamborghinis or luxury handbags and stuff like that.
Okay, now, to be fair, I did buy one nice handbag. I'll tell you about it in a second. But my comfort number's around 125k. But my must have for bills for just like paying my bills, paying keeping the lights on, is less than that. Okay, so I think it's probably a little bit less now but it's, it was around 70k, okay?
So it was around 70k last year, but then we paid another massive chunk of our mortgage off. But then in saying that, now we are sending baby girl to a like expensive, nice daycare. And that's going to take up some of the budget as well. So anyways, let's just say the must have bills are around 70 grand.
Okay. Now, both of those numbers are after tax. So I based on New Zealand tax rates. So I typically tip into eventually the highest 39%, but. It's obviously scaling up based on your revenue bracket. So I do the calculation as to how much money I need or desire, if it's the comfort level before tax, to be able to make that happen.
So getting super clear on my numbers. And then once you have that clarity, you're able to instill a kind of commitment as to not inflating your lifestyle. Because just because I could afford a nicer home, right? A bigger home. I could just because I could afford a better car just because I could afford.
nicer clothes.
Strategic Business Decisions
I choose not to because my priority was financial security, safety, and investing to give myself financial freedom and financial options. And so when I was able to instill like in my comfort number, like just even things like having a cleaner come every two weeks and stuff like that. I could if I wanted to just use my cash from my business I could have a full time nanny, I could have someone doing meal prep for me, but I don't want that.
I have certain things that I'm like, yep, this is super important to me and I'll count in, and this is a super comfortable, awesome life for me. Like, when we fly back to France, I could send us business class if I wanted to, like I, I could, but I don't, right. And so you've got to be super clear on what comfort looks like to you now, because for me, I'm like, sweet.
Like I want to save, I want to invest and I want to be able to not feel stressed about my business working, not working like I like, and I want to have the option to become work optional. Before 65. Okay, so it's really important to get clear on these numbers. Now, I've done a few things like, for example, I, I shouted my husband and I to a beautiful holiday on a Pacific island that's like in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of New Zealand.
I've done that. When I had my 1 million year of badass careers. I bought myself an Yves Saint Laurent handbag. I love that bag. It's absolutely gorgeous. But at the end of the day, it was like two grand. That's not that big of a deal for someone who's been able to pay themselves 600k that year. So I was very clear on the importance of not inflating my lifestyle and having, but having at the same time enough comfort that I'm Sweet I have achieved cool things and I'm really happy with this life.
Like I'm really happy at this comfort level, like it feels indulgent to me. And maybe it helps that I grew up broke, but I don't need a Ferrari for life to feel indulgent for me. Okay, so you've got to understand like what you need as a human, and then you've also got to figure out what your business needs in terms of your business expenses.
And this is going to vary dramatically. And for both, I'd budget like plus 10 percent year on year. It depends if you have dramatic shifts. And so when you're able to look at that, and by the way, when you're a solopreneur, like you can be running a business raking in 500 K for five grand, if you just have tech tools and automations and things like that helping you, it doesn't have to be a lot.
Okay. So I just want to be clear on that. Now I'm not going to share my business expenses as such, because I have a specific business model where I have talented, expensive local talent, like a small, but mighty team with. People who earn good money and it's a personal choice and you might be like, Oh my gosh, like your business makes, like it costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars to run.
It's this is something that I've grown into and it's something that is also just a personal decision because. I wanted to delegate specific parts of my business and there's a whole system happening, right? So it's you don't have to be me, do me, have my business model as such. Your business expenses can actually be ridiculously low.
If I was a solopreneur with all of my tech tool systems, and then I'd probably like still have a social media intern or junior or something like to help me post my content, I could be running like a 1 million, 1. 5 million dollar business on like 60k, do you know what I mean? So it's it really doesn't have to be that dramatic.
But, once you're clear on these numbers, you can be very clear on, okay, so That's what I need to build up to. So firstly, you have to be able to cover your business expenses and your must have lifestyle. That's your first financial goal in business. Then you want to get to the point where you're living your comfort lifestyle plus covering all of your expenses.
And then you start getting into profit land. And that profit land enables you to start investing and building your net worth. And for me I pay myself my must have, or now comfort, obviously, salary out of my business. When I say profit, I really mean it's the extra now. We're in profit land, as in my salary's taken care of, my business expenses are taken care of, now we've got money where I get to decide where it goes.
So from that point, I'm able to understand at what point, at which threshold, do I have my investing money, essentially, okay? And this helps you to make decisions about trade offs. Are you going to delay hiring team members that cost 50 to 100k per year plus and do XYZ yourself for a little bit longer in order to have more financial security and buffer like it's up to you.
Okay. So you get to be able to have these conversations and have these decisions when you are clear on this kind of. Conversation. Now again, so my first year of business, I made 150k revenue, but I also made my first hire and made some bad investment decisions. I invested in building a website way too early.
Like I did a whole lot of things. I was on the must have. Lifestyle. Year one. Okay? Year two, my business made 500k. So that's when I was able to get up to comfort, right?
Navigating High Business Expenses
Plus my business expenses though are quite high, but I was able to start generating some, quite a bit of profit to pull out from there.
And then obviously million dollar year and beyond. That's when you're really able to have a lot of options with your profit. So for context, for transparency, I like to run my business at about 60 percent profit now. But when you're starting out, it might be more like 80 percent profit, 90 percent profit.
Okay. So it really is personal as to how you want to do things.
Starting a Coaching Business with Minimal Costs
The thing about selling knowledge and being a service provider and being a coach is that you can have incredibly high profit margins. It's literally free to get started. You can run a coaching business off a free social media app and Google Meets, Google Hangouts, able to have a call with someone or calling someone on WhatsApp.
Like I don't care, but literally zero excuses. There is no financial need. All the rest is bells and whistles. So how have I generated, this amount of net worth? So context.
Living in Expensive New Zealand
So I live in New Zealand, as as I said, real estate ridiculously expensive. The average first house price is just over a million New Zealand dollars.
And this small little capital city that I live in called Wellington, there are only like A few hundred thousand, maybe 300, 000 or something, like in terms of population, like it's not a big city. And the thing is with New Zealand is that there's massive disparity toward, like between what things cost and what people earn.
So the median wage of New Zealand is 65, 000. So houses cost a million and people earn 65K. Do you see the difference? Okay. So just to give you context, it's a very expensive context for me. I'm not, a digital nomad living in Portugal, living in Bali I'm in a very expensive country. Again, you might be able to generate more wealth and more investment far sooner than I am if you have lower expenses, if you have more time, if you have whatever it is, okay?
Again, this is just one example, and I want to draw back the curtains, but it doesn't mean it's the way. Okay, so this is where I would say I had a strong starting point as such and then it was built from here.
Buying the First Home
So my partner and I purchased our first home for 906, 000 at 30 years old, a month before I started my business.
So that was on August 15th and I started my business on September 19th. And the deposits from this house obviously didn't come from my business because I hadn't started it yet. They came from just a decade before of savings. And I told you about that sort of like bonus fund I had with L'Oreal, like things that we had from our old corporate jobs.
Okay. So 30 years old, it was our life savings. And so from memory, my deposit was about 80 grand. Let's just say I started this journey with 80k at 30 years old. Okay, so my net worth was 80k So same for Frenchie he put in 80k as well Like we had the same money going in but fun fact the bank wouldn't recognize me as an income earner which is completely normal because My business didn't exist yet.
So he had to take all of the risk and put the mortgage just under him. So it did limit how much we were able to borrow. Thankfully we're able to borrow as much as we wanted to. But it was just crazy cause he was still in like a 90 work, 90 day work trial and stuff. And I was just like, what are we doing?
But anyway. I did have a starting point of about 80 grand, again, after paying off my student loans, saving whatever I could incorporate, this bonus scheme that I was able to draw out, so I had bonus coming in, and then the euros translated back into New Zealand dollars, okay at the time, just say If I had 50, 000 euros, it gave me 80, 000 New Zealand dollars.
Okay. So all of that to say is that I did have that money starting out on my journey and I was able to purchase, we were able to purchase together a home. So we were saving for either some sort of property, it could have been an apartment in Paris one day, maybe or a home, and that's what we, that's what we were able to do.
Now again, And you might be like, oh, you're so lucky that you had a husband and that he put in the same amount of, again, I'm only counting my wealth as my half, okay? My net worth, because the rest of that house there were deposits came out off that amount, but then the rest was pure mortgage, earning interest by the bank, my net worth at that starting point was 80, 000, therefore, okay?
Because my husband's net doesn't count because that's his.
Paying Off the Mortgage Quickly
Because I have a lot of trauma around money I had a huge driver to pay this off as soon as possible. I also hated the idea of 4, 5, 6 percent interest coming off like 700 grand. Like I was just like, what a waste of money, like just people say, oh, renting is a waste of money.
You're renting your money from the bank, like when you're paying all that interest on it, like that is a lot of money, like tens of thousands of dollars going out and just. interest. So I knew that I wanted to pay this mortgage off ASAP. We took out a mortgage for 30 years. I did not want this to take 30 years to pay off.
So I had a massive security driver. I also just wanted to get it done as much as possible and stop paying so much money on interest so that I could free up more money to invest elsewhere rather than just dead money going to the bank. That was my starting point when I started my business.
Now, obviously every month I'm paying off more and more of my half of the mortgage as repayments. Every month our repayments go out, paying off our mortgage together, the standard amount. But again, it was a mortgage designed to take 30 years to pay off. And this came out of the 70 grand that I was paying myself out of my business, right?
My must haves, my, my covering the bills kind of money. Obviously, part of that is my living expenses, of which is my half of the mortgage. Okay, so we're always 50 50 going halves. On top of that, every chunk of profit that I was able to draw out from my business after year, a little bit after year one, but then a bigger chunk after year two and a very big chunk after year three, I would pay my tax.
So as I said, up to 39 percent tax, and then the rest would go on my mortgage as a personal decision. That's where I was first investing my money. So my first year of business, this might've only been like 30 K, but then in year two, it might've been more like 250 K. And then in year three, I was actually able to completely clear our mortgage.
Okay. So a mortgage that was meant to take 30 years to pay off, took three years to pay off. Now, of course, my husband was contributing monthly payments and some savings and stuff. It's to some extent, but he just didn't have the earning potential that I did obviously. And it was making his payments as much as he could, but.
To be honest if we looked at this house as as if we were business partners, I would say that I had 85 percent of the share versus his 15%. But we're not business partners, we're life partners and we're married. And it was a personal decision that I didn't and don't want to have any kind of contract around it.
And so it's 50 50. So again, my personal life choices, financially, maybe a bit stupid, but it's what I chose to do. And that's what I want to do. Because I also acknowledge. His contribution to my life that gives me, the calm and the reliability and the ability to do this work. He literally took a year out of his career to look after our daughter.
Now that didn't have to happen. Of course, we could have done nannies. We could have done daycare. We could have done other things, but, again, very personal decisions, but it is 50 50. In a partnership, it's not just about the money. So that's why I didn't want to do that. In theory, I could have had 700K.
Invested in shares or my own personal savings account. Like, all to myself. But, this is what I chose. And I chose to put it into our primary home and pay it off. And five years later, here we are based on five years from starting my business based on the values of like sales from similar houses on my street.
We've also had capital gains. So in that a house like ours would probably sell for about 1. 1 million if we sold it today. So as such, if we take the 1. 1 million valuation of the home and I'm classing my net worth from this house as 50 percent of that value, that's a net worth of 550 grand. We also bought a car, so your assets count.
Now, I'm not gonna, look, I've got some nice, I've got a Fendi handbag, I've got a Celine handbag from my time working at LVMH and getting staff discount. I've got my Yves Saint Laurent handbag in theory, you could add up all of your assets I've got thousands of dollars of technology and stuff like that I'm not going to do that.
Okay. But one of the assets that I will count in my net worth is my car. So we have a car. We just bought a second hand EV electric vehicle for 40 grand. And now it's estimated market years later is 25 K. So I'm going to add another 12. 5 K towards my net worth. That brings it to 562, 500. Right then enter the beach house.
Investing in a Beach House
In year three of my business the million dollar year, I could see that things were obviously going exceptionally well, really excited about the future, and started to think about, hey, we're actually going to be able to pay off our house, where will the overflow go, where will the money go, how we're going to invest, and again, totally personal decision, very emotional decision, but I decided that I wanted to buy a beach house, so yeah.
Yeah. It was in, in an area of New Zealand, a beautiful area that means a lot to me. I feel very much at home there. I feel very just emotional being there. That beach, there's something about it. I just feel so connected to my country, to the land. Like I just love that place. I had very happy memories there growing up.
It's actually. Several hours from where we live. Like it's not right next door. It's a real holiday home, a real beach house. And of course, this is how the rich just keep getting richer because we were able to buy this house without spending a dollar because we leveraged our primary home to buy this house on a 100 percent mortgage.
And. That just was just, yet again growing up poor, growing up broke, you're just like, you're in this vicious cycle where, you have a cheaper car, and so it breaks down more often, so it's more expensive to run, or you have to buy your washing machine second hand, and so it breaks again, and so you, and it's it's just, you're in this cycle, it's so hard, it is so hard, and yet, It's like the rich get richer.
It's once you get going, the momentum financial momentum gets going, where you're able to make more money and make it work for you. And I'm not saying that it's helpless or guaranteed on the other side. But I'm just saying, just objectively easier to generate wealth when you have some wealth let's be honest.
So that was just like, a little bit of a life's not fair moment, but anyways, we carry on. So between. Like my income increasing and business, and also the ability to Airbnb and rent this place out whenever we're not there. So we like to spend like weeks there over summer and stuff like that, but we will Airbnb in the meantime.
So that helps to pay a small proportion of the mortgage. So we took this informed risk. And again, I want to call out that privilege, because we had that privilege of. My husband's salary even though I still had to carry financially, like he couldn't quite keep up with the mortgage, like just slightly, but couldn't quite keep up with the mortgage payments when we had both the primary home and the beach house, right?
Like we had to clear the primary home for him to be able to come in 50, 50 again. But. If I were alone, maybe I would have made a different decision. Maybe I wouldn't have felt safe enough to take that risk. Maybe I wouldn't have believed in myself as much. So again, massive privilege there as well.
Not that I'm counting any of his financial contribution in this discussion today, but even just the psychological safety of that probably, helped. Okay. So just wanting to flag that as well. Anyways, we're in year three of my business. And so for a year there, we were paying, that's when the mortgages were just nuts because we're paying both the Wellington place and the beach house off.
But long story short We purchased this house for 1. 2 million. And again, like over time. So I had some, like just over the past few years in business, I've been able to pay off at least 250 K. Cash per year extra off that mortgage, plus we've been paying those monthly mortgage repayments over the last three years and stuff, all of that saying, all that to say our mortgage balance is down to about 515k at the time of recording.
As such, if you take away, so you've got 1. 2 million is the value of the property, but then you take away the money you owe, the 515, you have, that means that we have 685K capital in that house, half of which is mine, so that's 342, 500, making my net worth total now 905, 000. Okay, so again, in theory, I could have been a self made millionaire by now with different choices.
Reflecting on Financial Decisions
I paid a lot more than my husband did into our properties, obviously. And I could have been particular about that and put a contract around that. I could have also not spent my money in those areas, just kept paying my mortgage, like a normal human, my normal 30 year mortgage on my primary home and be chucking all of this cash into investments with compounding interest, right?
By this point in time, I could have like by year three of my business. Yeah, four for sure. I could have very comfortably been a self made millionaire and had more than a million dollars cash and interest, like interest and investments just like working for me for sure. I've made different choices. I could have kept this like cash and investments and shares.
I could have Purchased my own solo owned apartment and paid it off and had rental income coming my way I could have done a lot of things when you have excess money You're able to have a lot of options, but I didn't this is what I chose to do. And again, probably not the smartest financial decisions right because like in theory is your primary home an investment? Yeah, with capital gains and that kind of stuff, it is nice to have. And you are saving that money from your mortgage payments not going out every month, so that is great. But at the same time, it doesn't make you any money. It's your roof over your head.
It's your home. It's not a business. It's not an investment. I paid it off for security. I paid it off because I wanted to. So again, I'm not saying that I've made the smartest financial decisions here, but they were decisions that I have made. Okay. And again, everything's 50 50. So my net worth 905.
Now the last asset is cash money. So cash money and savings and my retirement count. So you're meant to count like your retirement count. To be honest, I don't have a very big retirement account because When I moved to France, I was able to go through an application process where I could drain what I had in there just for my first few years working in my career by saying, hey, I've left the country.
It was like one of these exceptional conditions, like I've moved away from New Zealand and I used part of that to help me. You know pay down my student loan and stuff like that. I really needed the money at the time. I was just like broke over in paris And so I did that and then of course I didn't contribute to it for six years because I was living in france So I don't have a impressive retirement account at all Which is also one of the reasons why investing is really important and really protective for me, but Looking at my minuscule retirement account and some cash money savings, they're currently sitting around 80k.
Look, I don't like to count on them too much towards my net worth calculation because that might be an emergency fund or what if it needs to get cleared out? It doesn't, I don't currently have a project for it as such, but. I think I'll only really celebrate becoming a self made millionaire when my net worth is like 1.
3 million or something, so that I have buffer. But anyways, for the sake of this episode, and for facts being facts, that technically brings my net worth to 985, 000. And because I record my episodes often a few weeks in advance, by the time you're listening to this, I will have hit a million because, I have a lot more than just 15 grand excess per month in terms of my profit.
So that means you're listening to someone who became a self made millionaire in five years, thanks to her purposeful coaching business. Thanks to just impacting thousands of lives. I was able to supercharge my income in a way that's just silly, really. It's absolutely wild. And if you're listening to this, like a year from release date, who knows?
Maybe it's a lot more than that. And maybe I have paid off the beach house or bought another home or done something else, or maybe I've got a nice big share portfolio. It doesn't really matter. But the point is that.
Achieving Financial Security
Once you're able to get this financial momentum, thanks to this financial overflow that your business can create in a way that a corporate job cannot, like your options really do become limitless.
It's actually crazy. And as to how I feel, look, part of me feels like I haven't really noticed it because I've had zero lifestyle creep, right? Aside from shouting myself. That nice trip and that nice handbag over a period of five years. That's not that big a deal for someone earning what I'm earning. And so because the money's always been going property mortgages, like I haven't felt a significant change in my lifestyle, but what I will say is that I have an immense psychological sense of relief and security.
It's this beautiful feeling of I'm good, I'm safe and I'm going to be okay. And it's also really exciting because. Once I'm okay, and we're okay for the rest of our lives, then we get to start thinking about that intergenerational wealth and thinking about how we can best support that feeling of constant relief and security for our child as well.
And also I want to say, by the way, in my budgets, in my must haves and things like that, I donate to causes that I care about. I'm able to You know, share the money in a way that's meaningful to me. I can do more and more of that. And it's just this amazing feeling of having options and this immense gratitude for starting a business.
Even though I felt awkward, I didn't have the skills. I didn't know what I was doing. I had never seen myself as an entrepreneur. I was so scared of what other people thought. I had no confidence in myself. Just immense gratitude for that version of Rosie holding the vision and being like, I'm going to do it anyway, because the payoff is going to be worth it and just working and working until that came true.
And what I will say is that business can feel really slow, like you can work on something really hard for a whole year and it doesn't feel like the needles moving. It doesn't feel like it's really been worth it and it feels like it's not clicking, but it's actually wild what can be achieved in just three to five years.
Look at my story, like from three to five years in that story. It's not that much time in the grand scheme of things. And it's changed my life. It's changed my career. It's changed everything. It's changed my future. It's changed my options. It's changed the kind of choices and decisions I get to make forever.
Encouragement and Final Thoughts
So I really hope, cause I'm feeling quite vulnerable sharing all of this personal information. So I really hope that this conversation inspires you to start and inspires you to keep going. I would love to hear from you, please. DM me over on Instagram at BadassEmpires underscore let me know if this has inspired you in any way because I want to know that it was worth putting out all of this information all this vulnerability all of these numbers out there to the internet like if this has made one of you think fuck like I'm gonna do this thing or oh my gosh I needed to hear this please let me know because I'm willing to open up and get more and more detailed and more and more vulnerable but I want to hear from you that it's You know, appreciated and it's worth it and that is making a difference on your journey.
I really want this to impact you and your future and your earning potential. So let me know if that has been the case. And otherwise, as always badass, keep doing what you're doing. The fact that you're here tells me enough about you to let me know that you are going to be one of the ones who makes it. I know you can do this.
And just keep showing up for this. Keep holding the vision. Who knows what your life will look like just three to five years from now. Bye for now. Stay badass. And we'll talk very soon.
