Why you should spend more on yourself (from an accountant)

0:00Alright, alright, turn it up. This next track by Crown Royal, it's got a way of getting everybody together. So grab your people, grab a glass, and play this one loud. You got gold, so bring it, bring it, bring it. I said you got gold, so just bring it, bring it, bring it in. This track is brought to you by Crown Royal. Please drink responsibly. I said you got gold, so just bring it, bring it in. I really do believe in like money should have a purpose. Saving every single last cent for a future goal could work. However, if you are doing that in lieu of taking care of yourself, investing in what could even potentially make you more money, then there really isn't any purpose.

0:47My parents have been incredibly entrepreneurial. However, their physical health has taken a knock as a result. And I saw myself on the same path. It's 14, 16 hour days, day after day, until I burnt out. I had absolutely no choice but to review every single decision that I had made up until this point and be like, how did we get here? And how do we change this? But looking back, you know, would I have needed to do this huge switcheroo on my life if I just taken some of that money and invested in myself? I really have gotten on to like, what makes Dani happy? And I'll tell you what makes me happy.

1:26And this is what I really encourage every single person to get to.

1:33danny when we first spoke you explained to me that both of your parents very much worked in the financial sector and so you've always been around these financial conversations for you is money or like the conversation of money just something that's always been a part of your life definitely because i often have guests on the podcast where i'll say like what was the first you know money memory you had but i imagine for you it's just like a part of how you grew up it wasn't there's this specific time where you learned about money it was kind of just always there and normal in the same way we talk about so many other things is that was that your experience yeah my experience with money and my experience with money specifically within my family setting as I've gotten older I've come to realize that it's very unique compared to other people's so to start off my parents ran an insurance brokerage from the upstairs of my house Number one, it was my mother that was, you know, the one that was going after clients and the one that was really pushing that business forward, while my dad sat on like the operational side of it.

2:32So I really had a matriarch at the head of our family. It was very much known to me from the get-go that women work and women work hard. Then on top of that, my parents grew up, really, they grew up very poor, especially my father. So as they started accumulating money, money was something that was very much spoken to us and we were educated from the get-go. So our psychology of money, I'm speaking about myself and my two siblings, is very much in our DNA. And it kind of started super, super young. So I remember being like 12 years old and we started getting our allowance. When we got our allowance every single month, we got a little book and that was when we were taught about a general ledger and we were taught about savings and you had to save 10 % of your prior month's allowance in order to get the next allowance.

3:21And then at Christmas, whatever you had saved throughout the year was doubled for your Christmas spending. So we also had to spend from a very young age on our own toiletries. And as we've gotten older, the discussion of money, what we invest in, how we treat our money, what we're spending on, what we're investing on, how we're saving, and just the economy in general. That's something that like our family discusses often and together. Can we just backtrack for a second? Because I think you very lightly brushed over the fact that you had to pay for toiletries and your own things. So I love the concept of if you want to get your pocket money the next month, you're going to have to put 10 % aside.

4:01Was that for tax? Was that to try and get you in the mindset of tax? Or was it more that that's invested? Like, how did that work? That was definitely invested. That was the concept of the habit that you create to save every single month. So as money comes in, money must go out and that money must be for your future self. With that 10 % that you were told was invested, did they just automatically invest it for you? Did they put it into an account that you could see? Did they sit down and show you? Did they tell you where it was? How did that work? So that savings had to be done in your own account.

4:37like it wasn't handed over to them. This was the savings that you had to basically record from your prior month. And that's where the little book came through. So your money would come in, you would say, I've saved X amount. And then the next month you kind of have to prove. Now, like in reality, this lasted for a short amount of time of when we were actually practicing this. But my sister and I specifically continued that. And also, whatever we were working, like whatever we were earning in high school from a very, very young age. I started working when I was 12, she was 13, at a little kiddies party place.

5:09That was also whatever we saved from that was doubled at Christmas. And this was all basically through a book, which was a general ledger. And that was what comes in, what goes out, how much we've put aside. And, you know, back in the day, you didn't have, you know, the online banking that you do now, but it was all literally physical. I mean, it's something kind of amazing about that anyway, though, like the way that you learn often if you have to do something, it really is ingrained in a completely different way. I love that. Can I just clarify? I know that I'm getting stuck on the point that is not important, but I just want to understand because I'm fascinated by the idea of how you teach kids about money.

5:45So the 10 % that you kind of had to do in order to get your next month, that was like the minimum. And then if you could prove within your ledger that you'd done on top of that 10%, they would double at the end of the year. Is that how it worked? So was it basically the minimum you had to do was 10 % of what you had and then you would automatically get your next month. So it was kind of like that was just a given that you had to do. Exactly. And then when you got to the end of the year, all those 10 % from month to month plus anything else on top of that, they would double what you'd invested basically.

6:16Yeah, 100%. The first year or the first couple of months that we did, it became like a competition. So it wasn't just 10 % that we were saving. Yeah, so it was whatever you had actually saved, then that was doubled at Christmas. And I remember I bought my like an ice cream machine with my sister, which we still have at my parents' house, like this very bougie Disney themed ice cream machine. And this was like really young. I must have been like 10, 11 years old when I when we started doing this. And, yeah, just looking back at it, nobody else was doing it at the time. I now I landed up studying accounting and landed up becoming an entrepreneur.

6:50So I feel like those early experiences kind of shaped me and they obviously shaped my sister and my brother because they're both also self-employed. Oh, gosh, that's just such a cool story. And can I ask you, with the money that you were given month to month, were there specific parameters around, okay, you all need to pay for your own toiletries, uniforms, etc.? I mean, did they sit with you and say, these are the things you've got to pay for, check how much it is? it was a kind of like a fun activity and how did they do that in a way that wasn't putting pressure on you at a young age that was because I just I hear a lot of people talking differently around I don't you know I don't want kids to have the the pressures of money or stress or blah blah blah and obviously it's different you're not having to pay for mortgages and you're given the money it's quite different but yeah if you reflect on it now would I do the same with my kids 100 % like when I look back at that whole entire experience, it was something that was super exciting and fun.

7:51And it was very playful in its nature. It was never kind of like, this is what you have to pay for. And this is how you have to pay for it. It was actually very freeing. Because at the end of the day, what it meant that like, I could get what I wanted. It was, you know, if you are going to be paying for things with your own money, it means that you have purchasing power. And it means that you get to have the really super jazzy pens or the super exciting stationery, you know, when it came to the start of the year. So it was never something that was pressurized or negative. I could only see that it did positive for us and it was exciting.

8:27And then from that moment onwards, you know, we all made our own money and we've all been pretty, pretty great with it and, you know, taken ourselves pretty far with the habits that we were taught quite early on. The psychology of money and the habits that you form around money, they really do form around the table. And this is something that I, through my research and speaking to customers about my business, have realized that my habits are and my belief around money are quite different from a lot of people. Like I do not feel a lot of money pressure, a lot of money stress. If anything, I feel very empowered by my financial journey, whereas I know that that is very different for a lot of people.

9:07And through Demi and through my research around women and money, it came to shock me that like so many women rely on their partners for financial planning or really just avoid the topic completely. I would love to speak about that more, your own personal approach to money, because yes, that foundational learning when you were 12 and through your early teenage years would have been quite impactful, but you then went on to study, you did an ACA, you studied economics, you know, you've really developed from there with your knowledge base and education around how you now manage your finances. When it comes to saving, spending, investing, how do you, I guess, approach it holistically?

9:53And how is it, or is it any different to what you hear thrown around a lot where it's like 50 % on essentials, 30 % on your wants, 20 % investing. How do you personally approach that? And I know you're in a position now where you have started a business and it's a totally different story, but you've had a lot of working years, university years to ground your approach to those things. And I'd love to hear what yours is. That's such a good question. Yeah, it really depends on the phase of life that I'm being in. But I think, you know, just to speak about my approach to saving and investing and spending would be best described when I was in my corporate career or working for startups and I had a linear income coming through.

10:36So like basically it's, you know, pay yourself first, get your investment straight. And I really do believe in like money should have a purpose. So because I'm quite entrepreneurial, I've always had these quite large goals. So at first, when I was living in South Africa and I was qualifying as a chartered accountant, my big goal was to move to Europe and start a life there. So although I do believe in saving for retirement and I do believe in investing in your future self, that future self can be many different versions. That future self can be planning for a child. That future self could be planning for a business, moving overseas, or it really could be retiring early or retiring on time.

11:16but to have this future goal that you're working towards and having this number that you're working towards. So I've always had a number that I like to work towards. So the first number that I ever saved for was one full year of living in Europe. Like looking back, you are always going to need more than you think you're going to need. Even as an accountant, even now somebody that's fully qualified in financial planning, I really did underestimate how much I would need. So the second time that I did this, which was again, to open up another business, I really, I overshot the mark. I was like, you know, they say, save up your minimum monthly expenses.

11:55And then times that by 10, like add 10%, no, add 25%. Really give yourself a very, very comfortable buffer. And around this, when money comes in, you know, when money first started coming in for me, I really took the mark of like, okay, cool. It's invest, invest, invest as much as you possibly can, let's say for this future version of yourself. I kind of didn't nourish myself or give myself the extras that I kind of wanted. And that was kind of self-protection at the time. However, as I've gotten older, I have given myself more of what I've wanted. This comes down to a quote that I really, really love about like, focus on making money young because you can buy pretty later.

12:39So around my financial glow up journey, I've also had like a physical glow up, which I've had to kind of really work towards and work for. And that has like, I've spent quite a bit of money on that. So when it comes to my own personal money philosophy, it really has always been around. And this is what I will speak to people about. Money must have a purpose and saving every single last sent for a future goal could work. However, if you are doing that in lieu of taking care of yourself and investing in yourself, investing in your education, investing in your physical health, investing in what could even potentially make you more money or make you happier, you need to really get down to the psychology of that and really take a look at monthly, what do I need versus wants and what wants do I have that could make my life better?

13:34And that's different per person. And that's really the coaching side that Demi offers. So just to go into that a bit deeper, when you say you deprived yourself to a certain extent when it came to looking after yourself or investing in yourself, what were some of those things that you initially disregarded as not important or not part of the financial plan that you then circled back on and decided, actually, I think those things really should be a part of what I am putting my money towards. Like my physical health. You know, I have these incredible role models in my parents that have been incredibly financially savvy and incredibly entrepreneurial and really taken themselves out of a really bad place and into a really financially abundant space throughout their lives and worked really hard towards that.

14:24However, their physical health has taken a knock as a result. And I saw myself on the same path. So I really worked myself to the bone during my chartered accountancy qualification. So it's, you know, it's a degree and articles and then post that, you know, in consultancy. And, you know, it's 14, 16 hour days, day after day and not, you know, taking the time and the resources to take care of myself until I burnt out, until I was so finished with that career that it was no longer worth it. So I kind of came to this position of extremely high earning potential, but without lacking just the energy for life to actually enjoy the fruits of my labor.

15:08And I kind of at a very young age, just was in my mid-20s, was able to see, okay, you can put all of your time, energy, space into a career and time, energy, space into saving up every single penny and investing every single penny from that career. But if you're unable to, you know, get yourself out of bed comfortably and get your ass to the gym and feel good about yourself, then there really isn't any purpose. So I truly believe that like money, as I keep coming back to this and I keep drilling it, money should have a purpose. And if you are able to spend money on something that's going to save you time to then be able to make more money or use your money in a smarter way, I really believe in spending it.

15:51And for me, that's now having a personal trainer, really focusing on my nutrition, giving myself time to go for a walk after every big meeting that I have every single day. And my quality of life and my ability to hold the vision and hold the stress that comes with being self-employed, especially after having saved up all this money and invested all this money and then having to pull that to now build this business. I don't think that if I didn't invest in my health in the way that I have for the last couple of years I would be able to do what I'm doing currently. Oh I have so many questions I have so many questions I love what you just shared the the first thing that I wanted to touch on is that you were at the peak earning in a corporate life and then for want of a better description bowed out and decided that that wasn't for you and you had something else that you wanted to focus on That takes so much courage to do.

16:46And I was in a really similar physical and mental and professional stage at around 27, 28, where I had burnt myself out so badly. And I was working for, at the time, a music, like it was a record company in Australia. And I could see what I could do and how I could get there. and I was really unmotivated by it and decided to leave and then, you know, started the curve. But I think I have a similar tendency to go really hard and then burn out, recalibrate, and it's super – it's quite difficult to do. I'm a person of extreme, so I either, like, go hard, burn out, but I don't want to keep doing that same pattern.

17:31So if someone's listening to this and they're really resonating with what you're saying and they also, you know, they want to be able to prioritize earning good money, investing for themselves in the future they want while also really making sure that they are putting the money to work in something that is of meaning to them and going to hopefully allow them to sustain healthy throughout that process. What would be some of the key areas that, and you mentioned a couple, having the sort of nutrition side of things and the personal trainer, could you list some of the things that you've found to be the most helpful to enable you to sustain health as well as your wealth and feel excited and motivated by your career?

18:15Because it's so easy to just say exercise and food. But if you dived a bit deeper, what are some of those line items that you didn't put in your planning that now are non-negotiables? Now, this is quite like, how do I say it? It's parallel to your financial journey because not all of these things cost money initially, but they do cost time. And you need to plan for or be able to take the time. So a sabbatical from this career. so after the my initial you know auditing and then consulting career I then plan to quit my job then go on a Vipassana retreat I did one it's so hard I have a horror story from Vipassana oh my god can we just say the horror story but also say what it is because a lot of people won't know this is a sidetrack we'll come back to the main point in a second but let's share so for those who don't know, Vipassana is a 10-day silent meditation in which they teach you a meditation technique.

19:20And you sit for up to 10 hours per day in pure meditation. And they call it a surgical operation of the mind. And it truly be that. It is insane. Not for the faint of heart, but life-changing stuff. So my mom had done a Vipassana. I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to go do this Vipassana. I'm going to go to India, do my yoga stage training. I'm going to move to So I had worked up, you know, a big pot of money. I had started pulling some of my investments and I was like, this is the plan. Let's go. Do I not go in Vipassana and break my foot on day five? So I quit my job, go in Vipassana, break my foot.

19:59I mean, of course, though, can I just say you were probably a broken human in general at that point. And then, of course, the physical manifestation of a broken foot and not being able to literally move. I mean, the irony in that. It was basically as if I had absolutely no choice but to review absolutely every single decision that I had made up until this point and review every single habit, every single element of myself and be like, how did we get here? And how do we change this? Because it literally had come to this point of like just pure depression, pure unhappiness. And it was exactly like you were.

20:38You know, you had this corporate career, this high-flying corporate career where it was like, for me, it was like a path to corporate investment banking in London, extremely high paying, extremely rewarding in the financial sense. But, you know, I'm just not that person. I'm just not that person. And the craziest thing is I have the brain for it. I have the personality for it. You know, I was consistently being told, you're fast-tracked to partner. You're the perfect person for this. I'm very good at client-facing. I'm very analytical. my mind. I'm a happy person to work with. But when it came to impact and the purpose of my life, I just could not see myself in it.

21:16I could not continue on. So I break my foot and then land up getting stuck for four months. And what a dark and depressing time. But I'm so, so grateful for that time because it really, as I said, made me analyze so much about myself. And that was when I really started getting into journaling. So I really was forced to stagnate and thankfully was able to live at my parents, both a blessing and a curse. I didn't have to pay rent, but you're living with your parents again in your late 20s and you're like, oh, this is painful. And instead of moving to Berlin straight away, I spent all of the money that I was supposed to spend on my move on traveling.

21:55So I went and I did my yoga teacher training. I went to Thailand and did my patio. I went to Japan. I really spent a lot of the money. And this is where it really comes down to money has a purpose. So because I had spent so much of my time saving and investing, I had this pot of money that I could turn my life around with, basically. But looking back, you know, would I have needed to do this huge switcheroo on my life if I just taken some of that money during my articles and invested in myself. So it's this kind of give and take. Now I really have gotten down to like what makes Dani happy and I'll tell you what makes me happy and this is what I really encourage every single person to get to.

22:39So what makes you happy? For me things like skincare, things like taking myself for a massage, things like taking myself on a trip, international travel, These kind of really beautiful, wonderful things that make my life better, that is really what I like to spend on. I'm not a designer bag kind of girl. I completely buy vintage. I completely buy secondhand. And I really focus on what is expensive that I really like versus expensive that I'm supposed to like and kind of figuring those two out. One of the things that you've done several times is grow an FU fund, emergency fund, and then either spent it on something, whether it be a sabbatical, whether it be starting a business.

23:22For a lot of people, they're doing that as a safety net to make a different decision with their life or, you know, unexpected things come up. But what I find happens to me, and I'm sure happens to a lot of people, is it's really hard to move on from a goal once you've got there. You know, especially if you have a scarcity mindset, which it doesn't sound like you actually have, which is quite amazing, but you can get quite stuck on this idea of, oh, I've just put a little bit more in my emergency fund. I'm so guilty of this. Do you have any tips or words of wisdom for people that are finding that they kind of can't move on to that next stage of their financial plan or journey?

24:02Because it might seem like it's a really good thing. and how hard could it be that you're just putting money into a high interest savings account, but actually it's really preventing long-term growth when it comes to what you could have. Do you have any advice or ways that people could start to shift their mindset to be less afraid of that next step financially? Yeah, I like this question and I reflected on it quite a bit because it really, it made me think about so many of the women that I've spoken to that, But number one, there's people that see saving for a fuck you fund and in a high interest savings account as almost punishment, you know, not having that money, you know, able to spend or the opposite, you know, actually just reaping the rewards right away and having it invested for the long haul.

24:50So number one, the mentality around having a fuck you fund is such an important thing because, you know, people need to understand that it's the first step to freedom. And it's by having that fund and by having that emergency savings, you're opening yourself to a bigger life. Really reflecting on your understanding of it and why you feel negatively about having it in the first place is the first step. But if you are somebody that has a fuck you fund and now you're struggling to make the step or make take the leap to now a bigger investment strategy and actually putting the next set of money that you're saving every single month to work.

25:31You know, let's say you've got three months saved and you're still feeling very like you can't take the next move. Then potentially you are somebody that would need six months worth of savings to feel comfortable in taking the investment journey. And I believe like if you are somebody that needs that, take that and do it. But if not, like I would start very, very small. So there is a version of your financial planning strategy where you continue to grow your fuck you fund in a high interest savings account until it's really and truly a number that you're like, whoa. And maybe that really does become a full year's worth of living expenses.

26:15I personally don't recommend it unless you really are somebody that needs that level of security. but like if you really really do need that to start your investment journey number one you'll be losing out on compound interest and you know growth but this may be the version of you or the version of your life that gets you started in your investment journey but you can continue to grow it while taking a very very small percentage of what you save every single month and just trying your hand at your first investments, trying your hand at, you know, buying EFTs, index fund investing, you know, very, very, you know, low risk or medium risk investing, and just getting comfortable with the idea of now taking a slightly bigger risk.

27:05I really want to speak about the timeline thing. We've teased this now for a while, and it's just one of those concepts. A lot of us do not understand the cards we've been handed in context with our finances because there is lots of milestones and things that happen within a woman's life whether you choose to or not and ways that your finances are impacted completely differently to if you are showing up to this world as a man and so I hate to make it gendered but there is a really huge difference in the way that we need to think about our timelines quite differently to how guys do. So can we just touch on that with a bit more context?

27:49Because obviously this was the whole reason that you started Demi and the whole reason that the platform exists and that you've poured all of your savings and investments and finances really into building something that is specifically for women because we don't have something like this. So before we get into the features or the why of the business, I really would love to explain to the listeners what the differences are and how we can approach those with a financial planning lens to not end up in a situation where we haven't planned in advance. Because we know a lot of the time what those differences are, we just haven't reconciled it with the way that we're then handling our finances.

28:24One thousand percent. So if you just take a look at the earning capacity of a woman versus a man throughout their lives, it becomes glaringly obvious that these biological moments come into a woman's life in a much harsher and bigger way financially than a man's. Let's talk about the obvious ones. Maternity. You plan for a baby, you then fall pregnant. You're pregnant for nine months. During those nine months, your earning capacity can, doesn't always, always actually happen. Your earning capacity can decrease. Then you go on maternity leave. If you are lucky, you are getting paid during that maternity leave.

29:10Most places around the world, you are not. Your partner is potentially going on two weeks. You, if you are lucky, you're going on four months, if not up to a year. During that time, you may be getting paid, may not be getting paid. Then you take a look at childcare and the cost of childcare, and you compare that to your salary. if you are younger and early on in your career it is likely that the cost of child care will match or almost match the salary that you're currently earning so partners will sit down next to each other and they will be like you're earning almost you know the same as what it would cost to take care of this child why not stay at home for a year or two and take care of this child so woman stays at home and takes care of this child maybe has one two three more and all of a sudden before she knows she's been out of her career for up to eight to 10 years even if she doesn't and she's just out of her career for four months four to five months what generally happens is she comes back into the work scene now having a child and whether she likes it or not having a bias that she no longer has enough time to do the job that she was paid to do and whether we like it or not that still exists and it exists in a major way and compounded with the guilt that mothers have with just even coming back to the workplace at all.

30:33If they come back later on in their career, they come back less qualified than their male counterparts. Their male counterparts have now gone through one, two, maybe even three promotions and earning far more than they are. So they are behind, they're earning less. Now this is career break interruption number one. Career break interruption number two comes around perimenopause or menopause, one of the most under-researched and underfunded parts of women's health and health in general, human health in general. Women go through extreme energy dips, extreme changes within their health that they now have to manage at a point in their career, if they've been active in their career, in which they should be peaking.

31:17And as a result, they get excluded from promotions, they get excluded from continuing on in their career. and once again fall behind. So there is this very glaring, immediately obvious difference in how much women and men are earning at those two points. Then there's caregiving. To this day, the caregivers of the family, you've got three boys and a girl in a family, and who's going to take care of the parents? It's going to be the women. There's these points in which women physically step out of their career throughout their lives and throughout their careers. So they earn less because they step out of their careers.

31:56And then they also do not invest their money. And my hypothesis or Demi's hypothesis is that they don't invest their money, not because they're bad with money, but because they've seen their aunts, family members, cousins, their grandmothers have to have liquid cash because of becoming single mothers, because of having to take care of their parents because of needing to use their money to take care of their community in a way that men do not god isn't it's just so depressing it's so depressing it's it's and it's it's depressing and it's and it's scary because women are labeled as risk averse or risk like like they can't take risk and it's used as like a financial slur against women that women don't want to take these big risks and investments and it's like no it's actually biologically smart to not want to take higher risk in your investments when you know that you are likely going to, number one, need that liquid cash to take care of your community and take care of yourself.

32:59And you're going to need that cash because you're going to have to step out of your career at some point. And then on top of that, coming back into your career and earning at the pace that you were before is not guaranteed. And then you go on to traditional financial planning and financial tools. And what's out there is completely developed for the people that were historically using them and their users, which is men. And men have never been taught or been visualized a life in which they have a career that takes breaks. They know that their career, worst case scenario, their career, they will just go back to work.

33:37They will just go back to work. And that's also why women are the highest purchaser of insurance and household and family insurance, because they know that their ability to just go back to work may be compromised. What I want to understand from you is with Demi and how you've developed this financial planning. Is it to encourage, like, how does it work and why, like, what are we encouraging women to do differently? Because on the one hand, yes, the reality is that so many of us are taking steps back in careers or for caring or menopause, like there's so many different things. are we trying to encourage women to not do that?

34:11Or are we trying to encourage them to arrange their finances differently, keeping in mind that that's likely? Are we trying to encourage guys to step up if they're in a relationship with a woman making those sacrifices and top up? Because there's one conversation, which is what you're developing with Demi, but it's like, what is the actual ideal solution here? Because there's people who want also to take these career breaks and I definitely am not trying to say that they shouldn't. It's more just like, if we think about this solution focused, what is going to help to level the playing field when it comes to planning finances?

34:49Does it come down to how you do it within your relationship? Is it on women individually? What are the solutions? Not just looking at this and being like, oh, isn't it so shit that we have to do X, Y, Z? Because we all know there's a problem, But how do we approach our finances differently to not be so compromised and to not take such a backseat financially? Yeah, great question. So a big part of me first taking my sabbatical and then saving up to take the leap into entrepreneurship was me projecting, based off of my current habits, spending and financial needs, projecting how much money I would need for this.

35:29And, you know, because of my background as a CA, I would do traditional cash flow forecasting and get the present value of that cash and then have this as a goal in this very clunky, hideous Excel document. So basically what we are, we're definitely not encouraging women to say no to motherhood, to saying no to the sabbatical. We're encouraging women to go after their biggest, wildest dreams. If motherhood be that, it is one of those dreams. Let that be. but encouraging them and teaching them how to plan for it. And a big tool in this is projecting that future. So Demi has a projections play with the possible feature, and it basically allows you to ask questions based of your current financial position.

36:19What happens if I want to have kids in five years' time? What happens if I need to take care of my parents? How much would that need? What happens if I want to go back to school? and then uses behavioral coaching to then guide you towards those goals if you lock them into a goal. Definitely encouraging partner conversations, top-ups. This differs so much from partner to partner. And Demi is very encouraging of discussing very openly the motherhood penalty, how much it costs women both physically and financially to have children, and for that to be one of the highest and deeply respected values within a family and not just a given because she is a woman, that she is taking on this burden as if it is nothing.

37:05It is an incredibly important role that people, women play within our society. And I love this very like hardcore feminist quote by the B2 movements in South Korea that says, if the earth born from my body oppresses me, I will not let that earth exist. Women have come to a point of loving their careers, loving where they're going, loving the communities that they're building while still having childbearing and bringing life onto this earth as one of our highest and most important values. and financially planning for that as a given to say, this is what I want to do with my life. This is how I'm going to put our family's money towards that in a very structured and planned and meaningful way, but without making it feel like something that is extremely scary or extremely uncomfortable to do.

38:00And this is where I come back to my own personal values of money must have a purpose. and when you start giving money these greater purposes within your life to give you financial muscle or financial freedom when it comes to having a family, to having the life that you love, to have the financial freedom to live a life on your terms and to use an app like Demi to be able to plan and secure yourself for that is an incredibly empowering and exciting thing. This even now goes deeper into further my own personal values in building Demi and building a more matriarchal society. Because when we plan for things like motherhood, things like caretaking, these things that are truly actually the backbone of society, without raising families, without caretaking for our elderly, we would not live on this earth.

38:49We would not exist as a species. And to start really placing our financial focus on that, not just as women, but encouraging our male partners or other people to do so, we then make childbearing and infrastructure around that as one of our highest values in society. And this is, I truly believe that when women have more money, nothing bad happens. And as more women have more money, women will hold more power within society. And then we will start to build a culture, build a society around matriarchal values at heart and start seeing a change that we so desperately need. Oh gosh, that's like, I love everything that you've just said.

39:34And what I would love to know is if you feel comfortable sharing, if we imagined that the life that you're in right now was slightly different because obviously your focus is Demi and the business that you're building, majority I imagine right now would be very hard to be doing, you know, like both of those things at one time, birthing a business and birthing a child. But if you were zooming out and you were thinking about building a family and financially what that would look like and how you would set that up in a relationship context, both for yourself and with who your partner was, how would you feel comfortable doing that and what would have to be true to feel like your financial future was being prioritized just as much as family and just as much as your partner's?

40:24So I would first of all start with discussing at length what this future looks like with my partner, like what's a good, healthy lifestyle looks like as a family and what those non-negotiables are. So what's non-negotiable for myself, my career, my future goals? What's non-negotiable for them, their career, their goals? And what is non-negotiable in the ways in which we want to raise this family? And what responsibilities do we have towards our community? Do we have grandparents to take care of, siblings, something like that? And once you've got all of this, you start putting numbers towards it.

41:09number one time frames so you get a time horizon involved if you're planning to have children or if you have children how far are they away from big milestones needing to go to primary school needing to go to high school needing to go to college needing to plan for these kind of big things write those down with timing and then write down numbers so you can use a tool like Demi to figure out exactly what your numbers are how much is school going to cost in your area if you want to buy a house? What is your mortgage going to look like with current housing rates versus future, current interest rates versus potentially changes along that and what impact will that have and coming and getting down your numbers for most elements of your financial journey and then project it forward.

41:57The biggest thing is money isn't just money. Money is a value system and how you use your money is tied towards your own personal values, the values you have as a family and your responsibilities towards your community. And until you get real and down about that, it'll always be something that you avoid versus actually seeing money as a tool and seeing money as an empowering asset to get you further towards your goals and get you excited and living, being an active participant in your life and your community, it all starts with conversations with those closest to you or conversations with yourself.

42:36So if I were, sorry, if I were to be planning for a child, I would get this all down and then I would get numbers attached to it. So a time horizon and numbers attached to the minimum life expenses that I had. And then I would take a look genuinely if the habits and the job that I'm currently in and the experience that I'm currently having is going to, is leading towards that path or if there's something that needs to change. And let's say I'm in a job that I like and I'm earning well, then it would come down to the wants versus needs. Am I, according to the projected future that Demi has suggested for me and the one that I'm ultimately going for, are my current habits and is my current spending, my current day-to-day, matching that highest self or that future self.

43:25And Demi can tell you that. And personal question, outside of Demi, and you don't need to talk about whether or not you're in a relationship or what your setup is, but for you personally, what would you, as someone who obviously loves working, who is so excited about her business, has the potential to earn lots of money and also by the sounds of things, maybe one day does want a family. How do you think about balancing that or what you would set up between you? What would need to be true literally is it, I would want to be able to take three months off paid. I would want to be able to then get straight back into work and have the money to pay for childcare.

44:06Or when I'm not earning, I would want my partner to be contributing to my pension. There is the app version, but I'm just curious as someone that's a financial planner that has a lot of experience planning her life for milestones and also really values things like motherhood and caregiving for family. For you, if it came to deciding whether or not, back to that quote that you shared, how would that be really fair for you? For me, I would need childcare covered and my ability to get straight back into work as and when I want to. So that would look like a full year of me not working or a full year of my partner not working.

44:53And that is where childcare comes as covered. So either we're both straight back into work with childcare covered or one of us is taking childcare. and that is because I have as you said earlier I have quite a abundant mindset around money and it's because of this what I had modeled to me so my mom got straight back into work and ran this business and unlike many of my friends at the time my most active parent was my father so I think the person that you choose to have a child with you know some men want to have a wife and kids and some men want to be fathers. You want to find a man that wants to be a dad.

45:39And I want to find a man and I have found a man that wants to be a dad. And I think that is a big, big thing. And somebody that actively supports your dreams and your career and somebody that you truly feel does and shows you what their actions that that is possible and knows that your career is just as worthy as theirs. Your dreams are just as worthy as theirs. And I think a lot of women my age, I'm 31 now, haven't necessarily found that and they kind of rush towards the closest thing to them. But I think personally, as somebody that is so career focused and so ambitious, I could never give up my dreams to have a family.

46:22It's both or nothing. Yeah, that's exactly the same. That's exactly how I feel, but I just haven't been able to figure out practically what it is that I would, what I should ask for and put in place to make that a reality. It's quite interesting. There was basically a discussion around how lesbian couples have children quite differently. And that is basically around the negotiations that happen between two partners that can birth and the decision of the birthing partner who decides to birth. and then the sacrifice or the payment that's given towards the other partner. And I found this super fascinating because in hetero relationships, the assumption is that a woman will be the birthing parent and therefore the sacrifices will all be hers.

47:10But when there's two partners that can be the birthing parent, the non-birthing parent will often financially sacrifice something, whether that be pension fund payments, exactly like you said, more time off of work when the birthing parent goes back to work. You know, there's many different forms that this could take, but there is a deep negotiation. And for me, I see myself having a deep negotiation and I suggest that all women have a deep negotiation and do not assume this burden of birthing is a given and unimportant. It is very important and you need to feel like your career, your body, your health is prioritized in the process.

47:53And until that, I don't know. Oh, I just think it's such an important conversation that a lot of people don't have. And there's no one right way to do it. You know, if you're in a position where someone is comfortable stepping back from their career and staying at home to look after the kids, amazing. That's so cool. But if you're not clear on the thing that you want, whether it's like you do want to have both, well, then you need to be able to afford to fill the gaps and not for that to not fall on one of you. Because if you both feel the same, then you need the money to fill the holes of caregiving.

48:29And it's so expensive. I mean, being realistic about that is, are one of you willing to do that? And actually, could you do that without resenting the other by taking a step back, even if you're still working, but you're not going as hard because you are prioritizing caring at the same time as your career. Or if you know that both of you actually couldn't do that without being resentful or you actually feeling like you're giving up something that you don't want to, then you have to use something like Demi and create a timeline to be like, well, okay, well, if we do want to do that and we're going to make the decision to have kids, what does that look like and how do we do it in a way that we can both get what we want here by creating a family unit we care about and love and adore and and can be an amazing parent but at the same time are not having to sacrifice something yeah financially or otherwise yeah and this is where I think the habitual like the habits of saving up for big life things early on is so important because whether it be kids, whether it be starting a business, because you can also say, you know, let's say you're in a couple and you've got a child.

49:43Both of you want to potentially start your own businesses. Both of you are unlikely to do that at the same time because you need one person to stay for security. This is where even if you're not in a partnership or you're not ready for a partnership, but you do know you potentially want kids one day, whether you want to start a business one day, but you're not necessarily ready for it. Using something like Demi to project the needs of your future self and then investing in your future self, even though you're not necessarily committed to that version of yourself. You haven't found a partner, so you're not ready for kids.

50:18Or you haven't found something that you're ready to go into, but you know you one day want to be an entrepreneur. Planning for your future self is never time or resources wasted. And starting young and starting as early, starting today is better than not starting at all because you will always thank yourself for being smart with your money. You will always thank yourself for giving your future version of yourself what you needed, even though you weren't necessarily 100 % sure on what that was. And if you are lucky enough to have a partner that's been doing the same and then you come together, like how beautiful.

50:53It is how beautiful and also what you've created and the psychology and the learning that you've had from your own personal experience, as well as the financial elements, bringing all of that together and encouraging people to look at what different scenarios could look like. because also I think until you've seen the numbers of, okay, well, if I want that, it's going to cost this. Or if I want that, I have to sacrifice this. Or if I don't want that, I'm going to have to do this. It's all good and well to have the things that you think you want or don't want or the life that you want and don't want, or to look at the numbers in isolation.

51:27And you have to bring those two things together. And for me, when it came to investing and getting to a point of thinking, I could either buy something or invest it until I understood the difference of you're not going to be able to do everything or have everything you want. You have to always make a trade-off. Unless you have all of that information together and you've decided what you want and then you know how you have to get there, it's very hard to make those decisions without all of the information in one place. So I can't wait to use Demian to give it a go and to play around with different life stages and scenarios and then be able to make decisions based on really what that could look like, because it's been way too long of having the finances in one place and then my heart and my brain in another.

52:12So to be able to make an educated decision on do I quit my job or not? Or do I go and invest this money or not? Or is this a person I want to have kids with because they're not willing to X, Y, Z? You know, that is just like such a missing piece in the financial landscape. And thank you so much for creating a product that fills that gap. I can't wait to try it myself. And yeah, thank you so much for everything that you've shared today. Yeah, thank you so much. And for anyone that does want to find you and the work you're doing, or Demi, where can they find you? I think let's start off with Instagram.

52:43It's meet.demi. You can go hang out there. We do financial education. Currently, our app is only available in the US, but we are looking for other markets. We'd love for you to join our waitlist. or if you are in another market, please, please, please do. You can also pop me an email at dannyatmeetdemi.com. Yeah, it's been fantastic to chat to you. I've loved having you on the podcast. I'd love to have you on again. And for anyone that wants to learn more about Demi, we'll link everything in the podcast show notes. But yeah, thank you so much for your time and we will see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Curve.

53:20Feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought. We always love hearing your feedback. New episodes are out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. so make sure you're subscribed to be notified whenever a new episode drops. In the meantime, we're around on social so you can find all the links in the show notes. Hope you have a great week and we will see you for the next episode. Okay, quickly, the Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing, but we are not financial advisors. Our platform exists for educational purposes only, and it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.

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