When you hear the words 'tough love,' what comes to mind? For me, Jo, it's the pivotal moment my father cut the financial cord, setting the stage for the true-to-life tales of grit & growth you'll hear on today's Raising Rich Podcast. Joined by my daughter Laine, we're laying bare the emotional odyssey from the cushioned life of a university student—to the unceremonious title of UDO (University Dropout) & the bleak realities that followed.
Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through the transitions & tribulations that chiseled my independence & financial acumen, painting a vivid picture of those formative years that many will find all too familiar.
Yet, life's canvas isn't solely painted with broad strokes of hardship; it's the delicate intermingling of love, laughter, and letdowns that truly defines us. In a chapter of my life where romance & reality danced the tango, you'll be privy to the bittersweet nostalgia of a burgeoning love that blossomed amidst the economic drought of the 90s recession.
Together, Laine & I reflect on the fairy-tale beginnings, the idyllic home in 'Woop Woop,' & the house parties that masked the looming financial strains. As the fairy tale waned & reality bit back, you'll hear how resilience took root in the aftermath of a marriage unraveling and the life lessons that ensued!
Follow our mother daughter journey towards financial freedom!
When you hear the words 'tough love,' what comes to mind? For me, Jo, it's the pivotal moment my father cut the financial cord, setting the stage for the true-to-life tales of grit & growth you'll hear on today's Raising Rich Podcast. Joined by my daughter Laine, we're laying bare the emotional odyssey from the cushioned life of a university student—to the unceremonious title of UDO (University Dropout) & the bleak realities that followed.
Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through the transitions & tribulations that chiseled my independence & financial acumen, painting a vivid picture of those formative years that many will find all too familiar.
Yet, life's canvas isn't solely painted with broad strokes of hardship; it's the delicate intermingling of love, laughter, and letdowns that truly defines us. In a chapter of my life where romance & reality danced the tango, you'll be privy to the bittersweet nostalgia of a burgeoning love that blossomed amidst the economic drought of the 90s recession.
Together, Laine & I reflect on the fairy-tale beginnings, the idyllic home in 'Woop Woop,' & the house parties that masked the looming financial strains. As the fairy tale waned & reality bit back, you'll hear how resilience took root in the aftermath of a marriage unraveling and the life lessons that ensued!
Follow our mother daughter journey towards financial freedom!
Hey Mamas, welcome to the Raising Rich Podcast with your favourite mother-daughter duo, Jo and Lane. Join us as we take you on the rollercoaster ride that has been my mum's life with money.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I'll be opening up about the taboo topic of money, from bankruptcy to a six-figure income and all the heartache in between. So if you're a single mama out there trying to figure it all out, then this podcast is from bankruptcy to a six-figure income and all the heartache in between. So if you're a single mumma, out there trying to figure it all out, then this podcast is for you.
Speaker 1:
Join us for all the ups and all the downs on Raising.
Speaker 2:
Rich. Welcome back to the couch Mum.
Speaker 1:
Ah, welcome back to my couch.
Speaker 2:
How are you Our couch? I'm good, I'm good. It's actually not even ours. We're on a working holiday which is lovely. I'm so pleased that we can do this together. We're in the Gold Coast in Australia. Episode two.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, let's get into it. We're going to talk about me, which I'm very pumped about. No, I'm not. I'm actually not. Yeah, talking about the early 90s, like in episode one, we obviously had a bit of a chat about, you know, your upbringing, the early years with Nan, your mum and Opa, my Opa, grandfather yes, Dutch, or grandfather. Let's pick it back up Early 90s how did you meet my dad?
Speaker 2:
um, actually we met um working together, but, um, what I will do is I'll just go back to the very late 80s, okay, because this is um a little bit of again my money rollercoaster ride and I guess you know that's what we're sharing with people and, you know, want to connect. Now, you probably know from the last episode, I was a good girl, achieving all the A's and A pluses and, of course, I got into the university of my choice. However, I didn't really think that through, did I? Because I was living in Melbourne and I got into Deakin University down in Geelong.
Speaker 2:
Now, for folks who don't know, before we had the freeway down to Geelong. We lived on the other side of Melbourne, so it was actually like a three-hour drive. So in comes Dad, my saviour, my Prince Charming, because he rents a unit for me to live in and fully furnishes the apartment. Go, dad, well done, thank you very much. And essentially, you know he sets up so that he's paying all the bills, um, and all I have to do is turn up and go to uni monday to friday and come home on the weekends. So you know, here we go, I'm traveling down to geelong what were you?
Speaker 1:
what was your choice of studying? What were you studying to become a teacher?
Speaker 2:
yeah, yep, you know, when it's your calling, it's your calling. Yeah, I was studying to be a school teacher even back then and, as you know, that's that's pretty much what I do now. But, yeah, I went to uni to be a primary school teacher and I had to set up myself down there and you know, the funny thing was I didn't have to pay for anything and I still didn't like it because I was away from my family. I continued to travel back and forward, even during the weeks like you know, it might be a Wednesday and I finished uni at three, so I would drive all the way back and, yeah, it just didn't feel right for me. Mum wasn't well and yeah, in the end I ended up leaving there, came home and, yeah, dad was definitely not impressed.
Speaker 1:
No, I was about to say.
Speaker 2:
Not impressed at all. In fact, he called no. He called my grandparents to tell them, not his parents, my mum's parents, and I was labelled the UDO which I didn't know about.
Speaker 1:
What's a UDO?
Speaker 2:
A university dropout.
Speaker 1:
Oh Wow, oh harsh Wow.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, so that was very harsh, harsh, so it wasn't that lovely anyway, um, because I was a udo, she's got a udo she's a udo. Good on you. Let's just label and damage your child, shall we? I'm like, please, wow, anyway. So, dad, you know if you're going to live in this house, you're going to go and get a job. You know I'm not going to support you anymore sort of thing. You can live in this house, you can pay board, go and get a job. So I actually cracked it and moved out.
Speaker 1:
It's such a turnaround though from, like I guess, talking about in episode one, just how much I don't want to say of a handout that you got, but in a way, a handout that you got, and then for like round two, he's just like actually You're a disappointment, yeah go out and get a job.
Speaker 2:
Off you go um, not that he's ever said that, no, he would never say that but yeah. So it was go get a job and, uh, you can pay board or you can pay rent, uh. So I actually moved in with my best friend brad. He was my little male friend that I had going through school and his mum had moved out of the family home and he had some friends living in his place. So I went and moved in with him. I got a job. Oh, my goodness, I'll never forget this. I got a job. It was the worst job I've ever had in my life and they knew how bad I was it was some kind of receptionist job.
Speaker 2:
Oh, okay, for a place called placard and they made plastic cards, like you know, your maya card or your credit cards and that sort of thing yeah, um, I lasted about 10 days and they sat me down and said you probably realize you're not doing that well at the job. I was like, uh, yes, because I actually couldn't even work out how to use the fax machine so you've gone from a udo to a pdo, a placard dropout yeah, udo to a pdo.
Speaker 2:
So then I actually worked for a doctor's office part-time, because that's all I could manage, five hours a day. But then I would go and work at Hungry Jacks just as a crew member and I wore my hair net and the brown uniform as you do. And yeah, I had two jobs for quite some time. I enjoyed making a lot of money having two jobs, but of course I would spend every cent, never really thought about saving. And then I met your dad me at Hungry Jets.
Speaker 1:
I'm pretty sure it was. Hungry Jets yeah yeah, that's why the burgers are better McDonald's.
Speaker 2:
Don't sue us, please don't actually I've got to tell you Smithburg burgers are better. Have you heard of smithburg, the little smithburg? Yeah, they're pretty good. Anyway met your dad and we kind of yeah, we hit it off. We had a lot of group of friends, as you do, and I soon worked out that he was probably my prince charming, because we went on a holiday together fairly quickly. We came up to Queensland, oh, and then we just started looking for a house pretty much straight away. He had the deposit, of course, because I didn't, because I never saved, and that was kind of my Prince Charming moment.
Speaker 1:
Where did you guys buy this house?
Speaker 2:
It was out at Whoop, whoop.
Speaker 1:
people listening what? Whoops? Not actually a place, it's aussie slang for out in the sticks mate out and come, bum, fuck you come, bum fuck you, bum fuck nowhere, bum fuck nowhere you know what I meant.
Speaker 2:
I give my words sometimes. I'm getting older, my brain's not functioning all the time. Um, so, upper, come back to west. That's what I was trying to say. I will come back to work. So well, that's what we would say. So, um, basically, far away, a long way away, like whoop. Whoop means like a long, far away way. All right, it was a distance from Melbourne, so, but that's where we could afford and that's where infrastructure was going on. It was going ahead and, yeah, that was, like I said, the place that we could afford. We built a little 12 or 13 square home on a 1000 square meter block.
Speaker 2:
We could fit probably an apartment building now 20 flats, but yeah, so we just bought that and both of us were working full-time. So, essentially, you know, we we were enjoying life, we had money coming in, we were both shift workers so we got good pay and we were both managers by then of hungry jacks and, yeah, things were looking up. We would have lots of parties at our house, spend the money on the parties, pay for all the drinks, pay for all the food. We were the couple that you know. People wanted to come to the house for Popular.
Speaker 2:
We were popular, but it's probably only because we were paying for you know all the casual staff who couldn't afford their own drinks and what have you and most people had to stay the night because you couldn't afford a taxi to get back to Melbourne because we were in Kumbum Fuckyard we were miles away anyway. So you know we I was doing all the goody, goody girl things by getting, you know, a boyfriend, getting engaged, buying a house, and then we got married and you know, my parents paid for the wedding. I think your dad's parents probably put in some money for that as well. Again me not having to save for anything. I've got my Prince Charming as my dad and then I've got my Prince Charming, as you know, my husband, your dad being my saviour.
Speaker 2:
Everything is looking good and on track for a life of just marriage, future marriage, children and my sports car that I always dream of owning. Yeah, so marriage is fine. Then I fall pregnant and the recession hits. So in the 90s, australia went through a recession and, if I can explain to you a recession in this manner, if you're paying $400 a month on a mortgage, your mortgage went up and up and up and up, and after the two years or so the actually not even two years, it would have happened over a 12-month period, your mortgage was now $1,600, $1,700, $1,800. So it quadrupled.
Speaker 1:
Which, when you think about it, it's just so crazy for that time. Because your wages would have been nothing compared to what they are now.
Speaker 2:
I remember our wages were taken up by the mortgage. Two-thirds of our combined income went on our mortgage.
Speaker 1:
Wow, that's insane when you really think about it yeah, because you've got one person who's literally working to pay just to pay a mortgage and, and even the other person is still having to contribute, yeah, of their pay, yeah, yeah, and at that time I'd fallen pregnant.
Speaker 2:
I essentially had to go straight back to work within a couple of months, simply because we couldn't even have savings. We didn't have savings for me to stay at home. So I finished when I was eight months pregnant.
Speaker 1:
But that's also because you weren't getting any form of government assistance back then. Like nothing nothing.
Speaker 2:
So we have no maternity leave, no paternity leave. If you took maternity leave, if you were allowed 12 months, no pay 12 months, no pay.
Speaker 2:
You're allowed, you're allowed 12 months no pay, whereas and there was no paternity leave. There was no support from the government because essentially, we had one person working, so that meant that you were not entitled to any government handouts, not even now. I believe they do a once-off lump sum payment as well, because that came about when I was having my second child, but because he was premature, we missed the first day of um, yeah so we didn't ever get any money for that. So anyway, have have you.
Speaker 1:
You didn't come out this size, luckily um, I know, but you know, for people not watching um, oh yes, sorry, I'm five foot two.
Speaker 2:
Madeline is six foot. I'm teeny tiny. She's very tall and, uh, when people see us like jump onto our um instagram richrippleeffect did I get that right?
Speaker 1:
you did. I'm very proud of you good job.
Speaker 2:
I'm not, I'm not the techie person in this relationship.
Speaker 1:
You know we're yin and yang um, but yeah, check out our instagram, because I'm sure people would love to just see the size difference between the two of us.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, so have a child not working and no help from the government, no reception hits, yeah yeah, and essentially then our marriage breaks down through really no fault of anyone's, probably just my choice, thinking, well, this is not my prince charming, this is not the life that I imagined. And you know, looking back, that probably stems from money, like we're now broke. You know, I'm living in a house that's teeny, tiny compared to my friends, like I was. I just don't think that I was. I'm completely satisfied financially, and not that that's a good enough excuse, but I guess, because I always had the best of everything as a child, maybe that's what I was looking for. I don't know.
Speaker 1:
I'm just Well, I also think that, like, you've still got this I don't want to say developing brain of like a 22 year old, but essentially you do, you do your brain is still developing until you're 28. Yeah, do your brain is still developing at 28? Yeah, I look back at my life and go, oh my god, imagine if I put myself in mum's shoes and you know I'm 32 now. I couldn't imagine having a 10 year old child running around at this point. And so I think there's a huge element of of being in your early 20s and being like, oh my god, I've already married someone and it's not going the way that I thought it would, and I've already got a child, and especially, having that lifestyle, as you said, growing up, getting everything that you wanted and I don't have the financial um support or backing or savings that I thought, yeah, you know, and I'm 22.
Speaker 2:
I don't. I had no financial literacy growing up, so, coming into a recession, I literally had no idea of what to do. I had never experienced having to save. So here I am, in a marriage with a child, in a recession, trying to pay a house, trying to pay for a car loan. I've got no financial literacy skills. What?
Speaker 2:
do I do well, I run away. I run away because nothing's working. I don't know how to fix it, what's the best thing to do, and so I find myself as a single parent. I have to move in with people. I end up moving in with some friends who are wards of the state. So what that means is I had a couple of friends. They were sisters, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:
The awful thing was the father had abused them and so that they were taken away from him and they were given housing and a job, et cetera, etc. And they were kind enough to look after us and give us a shared bedroom with somebody else, and so for quite a few months we uh lived in half a bedroom. I slept on a mattress and you were tucked into. Um, you know how? You have dresser drawers and they have like a little alcove where you can pop your chair in if you want to put your makeup on. Well, your little cot mattress lived in there. I essentially left the marriage with only some clothing, a car seat for the car. I had the car I left with a car loan and a baby mattress, and that was it can I ask why go to your friend's house?
Speaker 1:
why didn't you go back in with your mom and dad?
Speaker 2:
my mom and dad had just separated. So they just they divorced. Maybe just actually they'd separated, uh, the night before you were born, oh, and so I kind of only put two and two together because they came to the hospital separately and yeah, so that's, that was not a nice time to have found out your parents had separated. When you, you're excited and you, you want to share this newborn child with their grandparents and, yeah, they come in separately. So mum left my dad and so he was living in the house on his own, but he was, you know, this is nine months later, or whatever, and he's, you know, partying and he's ready to move on. So I move in with these friends. I've got this home, this car loan that I'm struggling to pay in terms of the house that your dad and I owned. Like he put the deposit in, so, whatever we were going to sell the house for he was entitled to have back, um, but the unfortunate thing was, with the recession, the recession ate away every single bit of equity.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that we had so did you walk away with any money at all? No, no, nothing. But I wasn't. It wasn't mine to take. No, no, I didn't mean you specifically like it, did I mean just from the sale of the house in itself. No, no.
Speaker 2:
So we purchased the house for 107 000. We put in a. Your dad had put in a good size deposit and my I mean my dad he was a cabinet maker at the time he put in the kitchen for free. Your grandfather painted the house for free, so we had lots of help. Yeah, um, but when we went to sell the house because of the recession, the house was valued at 92 000 less than what you had, less than what we had paid, and we only had it for, I think, maybe two or three years, so it had gone backwards. So even if there was any money like, as I said, that would have been for your dad.
Speaker 2:
I took the car and I, um, had the car loan to go with it. So, uh, you know, I've lost my prince charming, I've lost my house. Then I lose the car. Oh yes, because it was a sports car. As you know, I have a love for, for, um, nice vehicles. Um, it's my weakness. I'm trying to. I think I need to go to a bit of therapy, because I do love a good car. And, yeah, I had this sports car with a baby seat in the back, my two-door sports car trying to get a baby in and out. Who was a big?
Speaker 1:
baby, uh, let's. I mean I'm like we said, I'm six foot now.
Speaker 2:
So I mean, at least I didn't come out this size right, so grateful I'm not sure I'd be able to walk, but yeah so sports car, love, love, love my car. Don't want to give it up but actually just can't afford the repayments. I'm now a single mum. I'm trying to rent, living with friends. I then move back to my dad's house. He's not charging me board or anything, but I'm working shift work. You know. You're being handed left, right and centre to my parents, to childcare, and I'm literally just trying to make ends meet. Dad comes to the rescue again and he buys a car for me so that I can at least get to my job at a reasonable hour. And, um, that's kind of my, my life in in the 90s. I'm well the first half of the 90s anyway I'm. I no longer have that fairy tale.
Speaker 2:
I don't have the husband, I don't have the house and I don't have the car and I'm living on a mattress, a shared mattress with with your baby, with my baby, fresh baby crazy times yeah, that was, um, that was a really difficult time, not only financially, I I probably I would would say emotionally, because my brain is still trying to figure out how did this all happen? How do I raise a child, how do I look forward, how do I still party?
Speaker 2:
And that's really a terrible and I don't think I was thinking how do I still party, but I still felt so young and all my friends were still partying and I was like I was 22, 22, 23 with a child, just trying to find my way and and being responsible, but also just trying to live a life, yeah, um, I'd say it's probably like your first experience of hardship, and you had it in a.
Speaker 1:
You had consecutive things happen, yeah, in a really close amount of time. Yeah, so it would have just felt like this massive wave of just one shitty thing after the other, after the other, after the other, and, as you said, you're still young, you've still got friends that don't have kids, that are still out there having a good time, and you are now again single as well, wanting to get back into that. Yep, I guess lifestyle yep, yep.
Speaker 2:
And then, in the next episode, along comes, uh, prince charming number two. Prince charming number two, who I well, I think is prince charming number two. Prince Charming number two, who I well I think is Prince Charming number two. So yeah, if you want to hear all about Prince Charming number two, tune in and the second half of the 90s yes. I feel like the 90s drag.
Speaker 1:
All right, we will, yeah, be back with episode three. Super Thanks for joining me on my couch, our couch.
Speaker 2:
Our couch. Thanks for listening to this episode of Raising Rich. If any of today's episode has resonated with you, we'd love for you to share it with another mama. It really helps us to connect with the right women.
Speaker 1:
And if you would like to share your story, you can connect with us on facebook, instagram or tiktok just search for richrippleeffect is it time for a wine yet?