Today’s podcast episode is a tale of how irritation blossomed into love, intertwined with the unexpected ways money shaped our family story.
Life has its way of throwing surprises at us, and mine came in the form of a broken drink machine and a familiar face connected to my first husband.
As we peel back the layers of our story, you’ll see how money began to weave its complex web through our lives, altering our family dynamics in ways we could have never anticipated.
I’ll share with you the delicate balance of managing our finances within my marriage—navigating control, temptation for the latest trends, and a simmering tension. Through my story, you’ll glimpse the intricate dance of supporting my husband's financial decisions while facing health challenges and the early arrival of Laine’s sibling. Despite the outward appearance of wealth, the threat of debt was never far away, compelling us to make difficult choices.
Yet, it was my strategic decision to invest in a holiday home that offered us a beacon of hope, a move that promised to secure our financial future.
So, join Laine and I as we invite you into our world, where love, health, and finances converge under one roof!
Follow our mother daughter journey towards financial freedom!
Today’s podcast episode is a tale of how irritation blossomed into love, intertwined with the unexpected ways money shaped our family story.
Life has its way of throwing surprises at us, and mine came in the form of a broken drink machine and a familiar face connected to my first husband.
As we peel back the layers of our story, you’ll see how money began to weave its complex web through our lives, altering our family dynamics in ways we could have never anticipated.
I’ll share with you the delicate balance of managing our finances within my marriage—navigating control, temptation for the latest trends, and a simmering tension. Through my story, you’ll glimpse the intricate dance of supporting my husband's financial decisions while facing health challenges and the early arrival of Laine’s sibling. Despite the outward appearance of wealth, the threat of debt was never far away, compelling us to make difficult choices.
Yet, it was my strategic decision to invest in a holiday home that offered us a beacon of hope, a move that promised to secure our financial future.
So, join Laine and I as we invite you into our world, where love, health, and finances converge under one roof!
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 for you. Join us for all the ups and all the downs on Raising Rich.
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to our couch. Our couch, our couch, it's not your couch, it's our couch.
Speaker 2:
We've decided it's not your couch, not my couch, it's our couch.
Speaker 1:
Episode three. I'm excited to talk about this, why?
Speaker 2:
Because I think Well, what is it? It's marriage number two, isn't it For me, and I'm all of 25. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And I think for me, it's where I start to really, I guess, understand the world around me. Like now I'm actually starting to create memories and and things like that. So I think it's going to be interesting having having a chat about the second half of the nineties.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and this is also, I guess, where you're coming into, well, for starters, the podcast a lot more simply because you are now impressionable and you're at, like you say, you're starting to understand the world around you and how money has impacted you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, impacted you. Yeah, um. So let's begin, shall we? Let's get into it, okay. So second half of the 90s, you meet prince charming number two. Yes, who?
Speaker 2:
is he? So he becomes, uh, actually who he was. He was, uh, your dad's friend, okay, um, but in fact I actually didn't like him at all. He would spend a lot of time at our house and I would just say to your dad, please don't tell me he's coming over again. Like, what is with this guy? He is just a mooch now. Do you know what a mooch is? I know what a mooch is just mooching off us all the time. You know, food, dinner, um, hanging out with us, drinks, like I told you, you know we would, yeah, we would be very hospitable, um. So, yeah, I just really didn't like him. He worked at the same place as your dad, but your dad had actually transferred to a different location because we'd separated and he was just in our friendship group and you know we'd go away, uh, not camping, I would be in the caravan and he was just there and he was a really funny guy.
Speaker 2:
He was really funny and charming and, yeah, I thought he was my Prince Charming.
Speaker 1:
So how did you? I guess I want to understand, like, what was the flip of the switch? Because you've gone from like oh my God, this guy is a moocher, he's so annoying, to being like oh, actually, you know, he's quite funny and charming.
Speaker 2:
You know it was one moment. There was one moment. You know it was one moment. There was one moment we were away and I was renting a caravan with you and two other friends and we had hired this stupid like four-wheeler, double-pedal bike. All of us were taking it in turns and jumping in and I had you on my lap and he said come on, I'll take you for a spin. And I remember thinking, oh God, no, please go away from me. I just tolerated him for the sake because he was in our friendship group, as I said. Anyway, we pull up to a service station to buy a drink and it was the stupidest thing ever. But I went to buy the drink and the buttons weren't working and he's gone up like a fonzie and just hit it, hit the button and sort of gone and gone. Well, I hope you want a diet coke. And I just started laughing and for some reason, that laughter. I looked at him and it was instant how ridiculous yeah, it was instant.
Speaker 2:
Um, but I've got a story about another man who actually did that to me years and years down the track. But we'll get there. That'll be in another episode. I think I'm just cringing.
Speaker 1:
Cause I know who this person is today.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and you know how like he would do that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, typical move from this individual yeah. Such a typical move from this individual yes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, our relationship starts and it progresses really super quickly. He introduces me to his family straight away and I'm thinking, wow, you know, this guy must really like me, but he actually does that with all his girlfriends, introduces them to the family straight away. So I wasn't that special after all, but that's okay. Yeah, it moves very quickly. We end up moving in together and he really likes spending money, so you would have loved that, of course. That sat really well with me. The first house that we moved into, he straightaway went out and bought all brand new furniture. Okay, and let me tell you what you did. We bought at the time an olive and cream striped couch.
Speaker 1:
Oh, I actually remember these couches.
Speaker 2:
Well, they stayed with us for a little while because we got them delivered and we were going out that night. So we decided we'll all have a nap. You're in the bed with us, we're all napping. We wake up an hour or so later and you're not in the room. Where were you? You were coloring in blue pen the brand new couch. So you can imagine. Yeah, mr prince charming number two was definitely not happy.
Speaker 2:
He would have been so pissed yes, he certainly was, um, because he he loved brand new things, every new tech item, every new kitchen, every new fashionable piece of furniture we had to have. So of course, that worked well with me. You can imagine I've come from living in a recession, living penny to penny. Now I'm with someone who's just forking out the money. He had a job where he earned a lot of cash money. Now, of course, you know you are meant to be declaring it with the tax office, and I'm sure he did, but you know he did earn a really good wage for a young person. Having said that, he was four years younger than me. Yeah, so you know, he's this young, what I thought was hot, fun guy earning a lot of money and spending a lot of money. And I really didn't have to worry about anything because I had a house over a roof over your head. Your dad was always very generous and looked after you, and in Australia, parents pay child support If somebody has more custody of a child, which he did. He always did. He always looked after you, so I never really had to worry financially for you.
Speaker 2:
I was young, I was 25, single, and I've met this young guy who loves spending money, who makes good money. I'm making good money and we're living together and I'm thinking life is good, life is great. And then I fall pregnant. Bing bam, boom, yeah, baby number two and I'm all of 25 years old. So that's um, yeah, that's, that's really tricky, um.
Speaker 2:
It was really a difficult time. I was very ill and I really struggled to work and things changed dramatically from there. We had moved into another place, a brand-new rental, brand-new furniture again. My Prince Charming had bought all brand new furniture again for this new place. So that was lovely.
Speaker 2:
But I soon discovered not working because I was pregnant and unwell. I had no financial security. I had no savings, no financial security. I had no savings. I had no money in the bank and essentially I wanted to go grocery shopping. I had to ask for money. There was no joint bank accounts, there was no shared income.
Speaker 2:
I had to ask for it and I'll tell you one time that I remember so explicitly. He had said to me what would you like for Christmas? And I said I'd really love a bottle of perfume. And he went to the shops and he came back with a mini TV. So I mean, we're talking late 90s, we didn't have iPhones, we didn't have YouTube, we didn't have streaming, we had nothing. So to have this little TV with an antenna it cost him $1, a mortgage repayment. I'll never forget how much it was, because it was like $1,200 for this mini TV. And he said I couldn't find the perfume, so I bought this instead. And I said well, what's that for? And he said well, when I'm sitting waiting in between jobs, I can watch TV. And I'm sitting there thinking, well, how was that? A Christmas present, big leap. But you know, it floored me. And then I started to realize is this person incredibly selfish with money?
Speaker 1:
And once the thought goes into your head, you start to realize you notice it a lot more Like your reticular activation system in your brain is like actively looking. But they're being selfish. They're being selfish again. Yep.
Speaker 2:
And when we decided we needed a new car to house two babies, I thought we were going to buy a second car. Yeah Well, we get to the car place and next thing I know my car is traded in for this new car. And I remember sitting there thinking hang on, where did my car just go? What's happened to my car? He had wanted this brand new car but couldn't afford the whole lot, so he'd already decided that my car was going to be traded in. So, yeah and yeah, and I still can never work out to this day why I didn't speak up and why I didn't say anything. But I just took it. I sat there and I took it. Where's my car? So I'm now 25. I'm renting a house, beautiful furniture, single mother Well, not single mother I'm raising my daughter and I've got a baby on the way.
Speaker 2:
My brother comes over for a visit and my brother's a tradie. He's well. I've got two brothers. This is the younger of the two, older and he's. He's an amazing guy, and we reconnected probably in the last 10 or 15 years when our sister passed. We're always good friends, but this one particular time he dropped in and we never really saw each other, and so I was really excited. I I adored him. I looked up to him and he's coming in his tradie clothes and mr prince charming number two has answered the door and welcomed him in and said uh, you know, you can take your shoes off, thank you. And then says oh, please don't sit on the couch, because the couch is yellow and he doesn't want anybody.
Speaker 2:
Our house was like a display home yeah you could not sit, no, anywhere, no, we had to get a. We had to get a, a blanket for him to sit on, and it made him feel so incredibly uncomfortable which it takes a lot to make my brother uncomfortable because he's such a. He's such an Aussie like.
Speaker 1:
He's just so relaxed, all-around good guy and to be told like hey, come, sit on this blanket yeah, or don't sit down at all.
Speaker 2:
um, go and sit on the dining chairs. He didn't visit me for a very long time after that. Yeah, mr Prince Charming was very, very protective of all the furnishings. However, you know, he, when my brother left, he said well, you didn't pay for any of that, so I get to make the decisions. And that's when I started to realize, oh, you know, this is, this is a tricky situation. I kind of reversed it in my head and went you know what? That's the Cinderella syndrome. I'm going to be the good little wife, I'm going to accept what he says, because he is looking after me. He's looking after me, he's looking after my baby and he's looking after the fact that I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So at that point in time I know you said I kind of could start to see this, this selfish side of him come out when it came to the finances. But to you in your own mind, we like, oh, I register that I am now in a tricky situation, or you just didn't really kind of think of that at that time.
Speaker 2:
Um, I knew it was tricky, um, but at the same time I I'll tell you what I did a little bit later, and there's a reason behind it but essentially I knew what was happening. I knew he was very controlling money wise. I went back to work as soon as I could after the after the birth of my second child, our first one together. But when I say as soon as I could, um, it was 12 months later because I had quite severe preeclampsia.
Speaker 2:
And as you know, your brother was born premature and he really couldn't be around other children. He couldn't afford to get sick. His lungs were underdeveloped and you know, we just had to be super careful.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
By that time, by the time he was one, we had purchased a home together and we were setting up our little life. You know happy little families around the corner from our primary school and you know life was sort of skipping ahead. But we got into some financial difficulty with the house because he wanted the best of the best. We found that we couldn't afford everything and so we had to sell the car, oh okay, and we had to buy a shitty old bomb was that that blue?
Speaker 2:
yes, oh my god so we, we had to sell this brand new car that we bought, that I traded in, yeah, you know. So this car is only 18 months old. You know we're driving around in this hot car, got a brand new house and then all of a sudden it's like well, all you're spending on all this furniture and all this fancy you know swing set, dining table, the latest furniture we find ourselves ten thousand dollars in debt. Now, that's the late 90s. Ten thousand dollars was huge, yeah, so we sold the car. We sold the car for 15 little sports car, um, so we paid off the ten thousand dollar debt. Because you know what he?
Speaker 2:
he bought all this furniture on buy now, pay later oh, okay, when I like the after pay of the 90, yes but what happened there was, if you didn't pay it by the due date, it was a 20 interest, so we were going to be paying a ridiculous amount for this, all this fancy new natuzzi furniture and all. I can't believe. But you know, I was. I was happy to do it because I was.
Speaker 2:
You know, our home was a display home. And then, um, so we sell this car, we buy this blue dats and stanza and kind of life is is ticking along, yeah, okay. So this is when you kind of experience everyday normal, yeah, family life, yeah, we. Then we got up, we got back up on our feet and we then bought this swanky block of land just around the corner because, of course, we wanted to better ourselves again. So we then design our own home, we design our own swimming pool.
Speaker 2:
I've gone back to work our own swimming pool. I've gone back to work, um, mr prince charming's working, he's got his own business, um, and we are full on making it. We are, I'm excited. I'm thinking about having three or four more children. I'm never going to work after the age of 40, I'm just helping out with the finances. But going back to you know, when you do you realise this was a tricky situation and did you do anything about it? This is what I did. So we've got this gorgeous house, swimming pool, we've managed to buy another car and I see all this money going on fancy, ridiculous toys and I'm talking, you know, more handheld TVs. We build a house with a cinema room.
Speaker 2:
Like nobody's ever heard of cinema rooms back then?
Speaker 1:
No, no one had a cinema room back then.
Speaker 2:
Late 90s. No one has a cinema room. Early 2000,. We have a swimming pool, had a bar Bar on the outside outdoor area that we have a full swing outdoor playground. Five bedroom, massive house, massive kitchen laundry. Oh, we have a oven.
Speaker 1:
We also had a computer and an office which, yeah, yeah, a computer was a big thing back there. I think, yeah, I think as well.
Speaker 2:
Yep, so not only do we have the cinema room, we had the baby's room, which was built directly off our huge ridiculous bedroom.
Speaker 1:
Bedroom.
Speaker 2:
With the master, en suite with the spa, the walk-through laundry, another three bedrooms, the massive office with the computer as you say Life is ticking along, but Mr Prince Charming's getting a lot of cash in his pocket and I'm thinking where is this all going?
Speaker 2:
because I'm understanding you know all these toys that are coming in and I want to start saving for our future. So I say to him uh, we need a holiday house, we need a holiday house for us and the kids. So we go for a trip down to philip island and I talk him into buying this holiday house because this forces him into putting money into something for our future.
Speaker 2:
By this time I've had our third child incredibly sick, worse than the second child. I was actually not allowed to carry the child. I was not allowed to get out of bed to feed her. I had home help come home with me helping latch her on, bathing her. I actually wasn't even meant to be walking you guys to school or driving a car, um, so it that was a really difficult time. I wasn't working, yeah, um, and so hence I all I could foresee was all this money going out the window and us having nothing. So I've talked him into purchasing this holiday house down philip island, which is, you know, two hours from Melbourne, gorgeous little spot. We buy this fancy holiday house, we put in all this gorgeous furniture and we kind of rent it out every now and then, and then we also purchase an investment property around the corner from this new house.
Speaker 2:
So you know, life is super duper. We've got this fabulous house, swimming pool, sporty car, we've got a holiday house and we've got an investment property. Wow, I mean, do you remember?
Speaker 1:
that time yeah, I'm, that's what I was kind of bringing up earlier is for me, as I said, like this is the period of my life where I'm really starting to understand my surroundings a lot more and I felt like we were rich, like in my opinion but through the lens of like a seven and eight year old. Yeah, like I just felt like we were the the richest family in in our suburb, which probably I don't know if that was the case but not many other people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, like you said, not many people had a house like we did. Not many people had a holiday house and then not many other people on top of that also had an investment property. And yeah, the parties. I remember them so distinctly, like the amount of you know weekends where I would just remember seeing you and Prince Charming number two you know dancing on our coffee table and people. It was a good laugh. Our friends from school, like their parents, were always over dancing on our kitchen benchtops and being you know opening up the baby's bedroom and someone's passed out on the floor and vomited, and vomited.
Speaker 2:
Yes, we do know that. Yeah. Shout out to that person and she knows who she is. Yes, we do know that. Yeah, shout out to that person.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and she knows who she is. I just very much remember that was your lifestyle with Prince Charming number two. Yeah, very contrast and very different to the lifestyle for me on the other off weekends, seeing it through the lens of a seven-year-old being like wow, like we're so rich, like how cool are my parents?
Speaker 2:
uh, yeah, I was actually just emulating my own parents, wasn't I?
Speaker 1:
yeah, when you when we, when we're talking about it, it's literally the same kind of cycle yeah, especially when we're talking about the house element of it, like as you were saying in episode one about your parents. Have been the only house in the neighborhood that had like a swimming pool with a water slide going into it and like a bar with a dance floor, like if you had that, if you can imagine, you know that the mustache going from the handle mustache, the collars out here, yeah, the ladies that, the studio 54, yeah, it was literally your house.
Speaker 2:
You know my house and now I'm emulating that, I'm replicating that and I'm so comfortable, yeah. So looking back, just episode one, two and three. Episode one I've got this fabulous wealthy lifestyle, you know. Episode two I'm talking about I'm losing it. I've lost everything. You and I are sleeping on a mattress, yeah. And then look at the turnaround. You know that cycle.
Speaker 1:
Which is also probably why you allowed the I don't want to say trapping, but you allowed for the things to be happening the way they be happening.
Speaker 2:
Right, absolutely, absolutely yeah I and I and, and, looking back, like I actually don't regret any of it, um, but the the older I am, the wiser I am, and I look at that and I I have an explanation and it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. I looked at my parents and thought wow. And then so I took that wow moment and I've replicated that for me and my children, thinking that they were looking at me, going wow which, in some ways, I definitely I was as as a child.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I certainly was, but let me tell you, the crash is coming, isn't?
Speaker 1:
it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the crash of all crashes, and in the next few episodes, like in our 20 or so episodes that we're going to discuss, crashes that had set me into almost a. Really well, they did send me into a very, very dark hole. Yeah and um, yeah, it's. It's. When I say a roller coaster ride, it's uh, this has got a tunnel that goes underwater before coming back out the other side. So if you've enjoyed, um, our last couple of episodes, just wait the next one is juicy.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, guys. Thank you, 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.