Unlocking Financial Freedom For Couples | Michael Khouri #660

Michael Khouri & Lachlan Stuart unpack how to make money serve your life, not swallow it, with practical ways couples can reduce stress, align goals, and create simple systems that actually stick. Michael shares why outside advice shortens the path, and how to talk about cash without fights or shame.

• money as an enabler, not the finish line
• common mistakes couples make in their 30s and 40s
• why more income without structure makes things worse
• spotting real financial planners and avoiding sales traps
• starting calm money talks and naming money stories
• a simple budget framework and bank buckets
• turning a surplus into debt reduction and investing
• reducing conflict between spenders and savers
• joint vs separate finances and when to merge
• protecting time with family and scheduling what matters

Visit betterfinancialplanning.com.au to book a free 15‑minute call. Listen to Sharing More Than The Sheets on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

All information contained in this podcast is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. You should consider the appropriateness of this information with regards to your individual objectives, financial situation and needs. This podcast episode is for educational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional financial, tax or legal advice. Any advice is general financial advice only which does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of that, you should consider if the advice is appropriate to you and your needs, before acting on the information. Past performance of financial products is no assurance of future performance. If you do choose to buy a financial product read the product disclosure statement and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored to your needs. While we do our best to provide accurate information, we accept no responsibility for any inaccuracies that may be communicated in this podcast. Michael Khouri is an Authorised Representative and Wealthness Pty Ltd ACN 613 313 250 t/a Better Financial Planning Australia is a Corporate Authorised Representative of Infocus Securities Austra

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Chapters

• 1:28 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 2:03 Money As Part Of A Bigger Life
• 4:47 Upbringing, Values And Service
• 5:43 Money Enables, It Isn’t Everything
• 7:07 Common Mistakes Couples Make
• 9:37 Why Smart People Make Bad Money Choices
• 11:47 Finding A Real Financial Planner
• 13:22 Starting Honest Money Talks At Home
• 16:41 Asking For Help And Ditching Ego
• 20:25 When Advice Collides And Strategy Lacks
• 22:47 A Simple Framework To Audit Finances
• 25:43 Budget As Structure Not Restriction
• 27:16 Reducing Money Fights In Relationships
• 29:21 Spotting Financial Wedges Early
• 31:42 Trade‑Offs Of Earning More
• 33:54 Time With Family Over Money
• 36:59 Joint Vs Separate Finances

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

Welcome back to the Man of the Cam project. I am your host, Loughlin Stewart, and today I have an incredible guest, someone who is outbeating me immensely, and there is a little bit of jealousy. However, you know, we've we've all through Michael said, I just, you know, I just grew it the other week. I'm like, well, that would take me about half a year to grow, and I'm very, very impressed. But very excited to have you on, Michael. So Michael is joining us from Better Financial Planning. And just a couple of days ago, I joined him on his podcast. And it's one that I've been listening a lot to, and I thought, how much value Michael would be able to deliver to everyone who is listening here today, just around how financial planning can improve things. So, Michael, I wanted to kick off. We talk a lot about leadership, about mindset, about performance, but I guess today we're going to dive into one of the biggest stresses that can undo it all, and that is money. Money. What drew you to want to help families and couples navigate money together, not just as numbers, but as a part of, I guess, the bigger life picture?

SPEAKER_01: 2:01

That's a good question, because that's actually something I like to share with my clients sometimes when I sit with them. And it's I think it's the fact that growing up we didn't have much. And I learnt and I saw that if you don't control money, it controls you. And I'm taking me wrong, my parents gave us an amazing childhood, and to us it was so fulfilled. And even looking back, we've got there's literally nothing I would change about it. But it was one of those things where we didn't have lots and lots of money. And that probably combined with the fact that I've got an obsession with helping people. Like literally, I'm the guy that will, you know, be at a cafe and notice something and find the owner and give him some quick advice and tips. Or if I've just bought a nice watch, I'll tell everyone to get the same watch because I love the watch so much. So it's yeah, I think those two combined is what drew me to it. And I think that's probably why I'm so passionate about it.

SPEAKER_00: 2:48

There's two things you said that straight away just jumped out at me. Firstly, you didn't grow up with much, which made you want to start looking in how you can not allow money to control you. But secondly, you wouldn't change a single thing about your upbringing because your parents did provide so much in many other ways. And that to me, I guess, is a great place to start because I know your mission is to help people do better, right? You help families make better financial uh choices so that they can focus on the things that they love. Quite often, I know this even from my own personal experience, Michael. I thought I had to hit a million dollars to be successful. I just I had never questioned why, but I thought if I hit that number, life is going to be amazing. But what I've since gone on to realize is there that's just one aspect or one domain of my life. And if all I focus on in is that, and once again it's important to focus on and we'll talk about that, but if I neglect everything else, what's the point?

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

Yeah, literally, literally. And I think what when I was looking at that, um the the the seven areas that that you talk about, you know, that resonates so much with me. So much with me because I honestly, money is it's something, don't get me wrong, but it's just a thing. Like you could have 10 million bucks in the bank, but unless you've got something to do with that money or someone to spend it with or the health to use it, it's it's nothing. It's an enabler, and that's why I'm so passionate about money and I help people with it. But I also like to always say that, you know, there's a hundred things I could list off the top of my head, which are more important than money.

SPEAKER_00: 4:16

What what do you see? I guess some of the common financial mistakes that couples make, especially I'm not sure if you work with all different age groups, but maybe people in their 30s to 40s, they've got young families, and I guess I'm asking for myself here as well, because I'm about to venture into that territory.

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

Yes, yes. I think to be honest with you, most of our clients are actually in their 30s and 40s and 50s. Well, we've got plenty in the 70s and 80s as well, but I'd say the majority are our age, Gen X, Gen Y type of thing, if if that's what we're called. The biggest mistake I'd say is just probably assuming that money is going to fix all problems. In that if somebody isn't managing their money properly or they're not keeping up with their expenses, for example, just assuming that making more is going to fix it. Or if they've got a whole bunch of debts, just assuming that consolidating them is just going to fix it. And it doesn't. It's things like that are just normally more of a band-aid approach. And and probably the other thing is just assuming that, especially as a couple, that things will just fall into place and that things will just happen by themselves without talking about it or anything or planning it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:16

So it's interesting to think about a couple of those things, and I'd love to dissect them in a moment. I'm thinking, you know, I grow went through school, and the idea is that if I get a trade or complete a university degree, you'll be successful. And the definition of a success for me was financially. However, I still see, and I'm sure you see this every single day, super smart people, super successful people, but they're still making ridiculously poor money decisions. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

A big part of it, I think, is growing up. We weren't I mean, first of all, a lot of families don't talk about money at the dinner table. I mean, we actually didn't. Like we as much as I say, you know, it's it was a it was a thing that, you know, obviously we wish we had more of, we didn't talk about money. And it's something that like my parents never taught me how to manage money at all, you know, and it's something they we never got taught at school. So I think it's it's it's just one of those assumed things that people or society probably just assumes that everybody is just going to work it out. And the other thing is sometimes people trust the wrong people. So there's people out there that pretend to be experts, or they could be, but they have an agenda, you know, and they just assume it. Because I'll talk to a client, they'll say, Oh, we saw a financial planner and didn't work out, and then as we start talking, I'll find out that they weren't actually a financial planner, they're more of a salesperson, or there was other there was something else there, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

How would one figure that out? Like if you're looking at a financial planner or having someone to help you guide you with your financial decisions, how would you separate that just for the average person who isn't in the industry like yourself?

SPEAKER_01: 6:48

Yes. These days it's a lot better than what it was 10 years ago, for example. So these days there's a lot of legislation on who is allowed to call themselves a financial planner or a financial advisor, same thing. And there's there's a lot more transparency, there's a lot more regulation that's come in. In fact, there's literally almost half as many advisors now in Australia as there was five years ago. Half as many? Literally. There was about 30,000 advisors, now there's about 14 and a half thousand advisors. Yeah. Just because of all the legislation and all the things that have come in, education standards. So there's less of us now. So these days you're probably in a lot more safer hands if someone calls themselves a financial planner. But yeah, it was probably more back then when anyone could call themselves that and get away with it. And there was commissions on investment products, now there isn't.

SPEAKER_00: 7:30

But yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, someone's saying this is the this is exactly where you should put your money, and they're getting a little back pocket handout there. Yeah, literally. Interesting. In regards to like communication, you said like most families don't talk about it, and guilty of that for sure, a little bit different now. How would family go about approaching that if they're if they're listening to this, right? And they're like, shit, that's me and that's my family. Like, how do we initiate that? And what would I guess some of the best places to start around questions or even an even a goal or a bit of a framework to help?

SPEAKER_01: 8:05

Yeah, that's that's a really good question. I think it's by listening to good content like yours, like my podcast, like listening to people that look at things from an outsider's point of view to help them maybe just to start the conversation. The best way is to get proper coaching, to get an advisor or to get a coach or someone that's looking at things from the outside and working with them one-on-one. But the initial spot I think would be to start listening to other people, listening to other perspectives. Just because when you're in a situation, as you'd know, I'm sort of preaching to the choir here, but when someone's in a situation, they're in their own bubble, they're very biased, they make decisions the way they think, they you know, they just like to a kid, everything's a a hammer in a way. You know, like it's they just have their way of doing things, and sometimes they're bashing their head against a brick wall and they don't realise it, and they're just trying their way to fix it, which they've always done, and it's always gotten them to the same place, yet they still keep doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

It's so true. Just what's that, the definition of insanity, right? We need to look up and and I found, especially as a bloke and majority of our audience, Michael, man, and I knew that I had this resistance to asking for help because I thought that I should have had it all figured out. I thought that I should have known the answers, and that in itself was a really bad cycle for me to be in because I prolonged the time between being where I was and being where I wanted to be, because I was too, I guess my ego or my pride was in. I'm like, I should should know this and I should figure it out. As I've gotten older and I've worked with coaches in different areas, I've now realized that if I've got a problem, first place I'll go is you know, ChatGPT or Google and and find podcasts like yours or people who have the results that I'm looking for and can start making or challenge me to think differently. And then finally, if I'm still like I just need some support and some personalization, I'm gonna get a coach and have them walk me through that because those blind spots and those years of conditioning are the things that are gonna continue to hold me back. And I was thinking life's to be bloody short, money is an important part, I want to get it on track so that m every other area of my life can thrive.

SPEAKER_01: 10:05

Yeah, and and honestly, like if there's any if there's anything I'm really good at, it's asking questions. And for me, I even remember at school, the teacher in primary school, teachers used to get annoyed because I asked lots of questions, and to this day I'm not embarrassed to you know say I have not, I don't understand this, I don't know how this works. Can you just explain it? If anything, I actually enjoy it. I actually enjoy being like, hey guys, I don't know everything. And it's even talking to like experts, like I've got there are some of the best advisors in Australia, literally the best advisor in Australia, who I now talk to all the time, only because I randomly messaged them one day on LinkedIn say, Hey, look, you do this really well, I'm not very good at it. Can you sort of just give me a f 10 minutes of your time? And they said, Yeah, of course, and we've had some chats, and it's just gone from there. And I was even like just I was actually listening to one of your recent episodes. You interviewed someone, and you were just mentioning how initially you didn't really know him, and it was just through LinkedIn. I think you were talking to him, and I think just yeah, having that being able to put your walls down because really, not many people, unless they think you're a scammer, not many people are going to say no. If anything, someone would feel privileged that someone's gone out of their way to say, Hey, look, can I have 10 minutes of your time? I just want to have a quick chat. I need help with X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_00: 11:18

I agree, that's so awesome. And I do, it's even how we connect it. I know Dan connected us, uh, absolute legend. But there are so many people that I follow on different platforms that as soon as they say something, I'm like, I'm giving them a high like a virtual high five and dropping them a message because as someone who creates content like the both of us do, sometimes you don't know whether it's landing, whether people are listening, and then when you get those messages, you're like, cool, this is worthwhile, or when someone validates some of the content that you've done, or even asks you questions, you're like, I definitely want to help people because that's why we're doing it in the first place. And if I can talk to someone directly as opposed to a podcast, awesome. Yeah, I'm more than happy. And to your point, you've just gone and surrounded yourself with some of the experts who have the answers that you want, which has helped you become more successful, which has helped you serve your clients a whole heap better. On the something that popped into my head a moment ago when you were talking, and I just started smiling was there's some things that you're like, I just don't even understand that. Have you had a couple come in and and sit down with you about their financial situation and just start talking? You're like, oh my god, I have no idea what's going on here. Like, there's just such a big amount of miscommunication and misalignment that we've got to scrap this and start again.

SPEAKER_01: 12:32

Uh yeah, definitely. You mean as in like I'm confused, I've been confused by what they're doing, and then yeah, definitely. And and it's usually that's when they've gotten advice from different people in different places. Like I've sat with clients and they start rattling all this stuff off and things about a particular share, which I wouldn't even know. I'm like, wow, okay, this person knows their stuff, and then then they show me something that they're doing. I'm like, okay, well, that makes no sense. Why have they done that? And then they'll then the wife will admit something, then the husband admits something, and then I'll just figure out that all they've done is they've gone and spoken to work colleagues and friends and Googled things and watched videos, which is good, but they've gone and grabbed all these bits of advice from different places, educated them a lot on one area, for example, not much on another, forgotten another. There's no strategy to anything that they've done. They've gotten some advice that didn't suit their personal circumstance, like maybe, you know, like in this case, they were in their 30s and they got advice off someone in their 60s, for example. Different life stage, different everything. And there was all these, it's like it was sort of like a puzzle that they were trying to fit together, but they had grabbed pieces from different boxes, and it just wasn't working. And then, yeah, I definitely did work out. Hold on a second, I don't understand why you've done this. This makes no sense. I need to look into this. But we worked out very quickly between the three of us that they needed a strategy, like they needed something.

SPEAKER_00: 14:19

So true. Personal circumstance is something that I think many of us often overlook. We might see things on the internet. As you said, we're grabbing stuff from all different boxes and we're trying to make our own level of definition of success without actually asking what what is the success that I'm chasing and what are my current circumstances? Many we all live different lives, we all have different levels of responsibility, income earning, potentials, outgoings, all of that, but we just never really audit that. So you're talking about strategy would be once again a nice strategy. And I know the first part would be go see yourself or a financial planner, but would there be any simple framework that someone who's listening could do to give themselves a little bit of an audit or an understanding of maybe their personal circumstances and what I guess moving forward without it obviously being financial advice? Yeah, no, plenty, plenty.

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

Like the the the simple the most simplest thing is going back to basics and having a budget, figuring out what's coming in and what's going out. Most people literally have no idea. It doesn't matter how smart someone is, how how much money they earn, if you're not doing that, the you don't even know what you're working with. So it's initially having that first that discussion with if it's a couple having a discussion together, um, or if it's just yourself, just asking yourself these questions and going through it, listing your income, listing your expenses, and then from there, probably culling some of it. Normally when I get my clients to do what they work out, they're paying for like four different subscriptions that they don't even use, or they're doubling up here. And yeah, I even had it the other day, like I ended up finding out I had some sort of scriptscription that was going through my Apple, but I also had it through Telstra, I think, through my Telstra bill. And I was like, you know, literally, I was double dipping, you know, and my budget's like tight, you know, it's it's not tight, but it's it's pretty oiled up. But it was it's it's just sitting down and going through that first of all, just to work out what's going in, what's going out. Okay, and then from there they'd work out are they in a deficit? So are they every week, do they are they in in the red or are they in the green? If they're in the red, they need to obviously increase their income, which isn't usually as easy as said, but they need to also potentially reduce their expenses. If they're in the green, or once they are in the green, it's then working out what are we doing. First of all, are we surprised by the surplus? Usually it's a yes. When I show couples, they've got like a surplus of two grand a month and they're like, where is this going? But working out what that surplus is, making sure it's real, so maybe running the budget for a few months and giving it a trial in case something's been forgotten, and then working out what to do with that surplus. Okay, do we invest it, do we buy property, do we chuck it into shares, put it into super, pay off the mortgage, put it into savings, and just to work, and that's where having advice helps, but just working out what to do with that money instead of just having it sit there. And then once they've got that structure, the simplest way would be to have different types of bank accounts, so like having like a bills account, having a spending account. I don't know if you've noticed, I've I haven't I think I've only said the word budget once, because when most people think of budgeting, they think of complicated spreadsheets, they think of they think of being restricted, you know. And when I think of budgeting, I think of structure. I think of having a really simple process in place where someone's not restricted and it's not complicated because not many people like complicated, not many people like being restricted. And in a relationship, sometimes you'll see someone, it's normally the engineer in the relationship or the technical person that loves a complicated spreadsheet, and the other person just gets anxiety just looking at it. Yep. Then you've got the spender and then you've got the saver, and you know, and it's the idea of a budget is it puts everyone on the same page and having that structure so that you know where things are going. Because without that, it's the small expenses that fall between the cracks, and that's when sometimes at the end of the month, they're like, Where's all the money going? And they don't know where it's going, and they literally can't figure it out because they've got everything coming in out of the one place.

SPEAKER_00: 18:02

What would you say is the best way to get couples to be able to, I guess, get this structure or even learn to start talking about money without fighting? Because I can imagine you mentioned a few things there, you've got the spenders, you've got the savers, you've got the people who love the complicated spreadsheet, the other person who gets overwhelmed by the complicated spreadsheet. And if you're looking at one thing without, I guess, getting on the same page, I can see that there can be a little bit of tension and potentially arguments or even just head in the sand kind of business. From what you've experienced, what would be some great ways to help couples talk about money without the fighting?

SPEAKER_01: 18:39

Two things I'd say. One is to do it as early as possible. I'm a big advocate that couples should do it when they first get together. Like that's literally the whole title of my podcast. So they're the spenders, they're the ones that usually grow up with money, potentially. And money to them equals freedom and they're the spenders in the relationship. To others, money equals security. They could be the ones that didn't grow up with much, they're the savers, they're the ones that will have a hundred grand just sitting in the bank doing nothing. They don't know why it's just there. Because it helps them sleep at night. And acknowledging that neither is right or wrong. Um, neither is usually the male or the female, it could be the other way around. And that it's both that there's not there's nothing wrong with both of those, but it's about having a structure or a process in place so that they can move together forward, you know. And as soon as you do that, it makes it a lot easier because it's like someone telling the other person, I don't know, it's like talking to someone with ADHD and saying, Why can't you focus? It's like because they can't focus for more than 10 seconds, you know. Well, it's a and it's the same thing with spending and saving because what does happen is when someone does like they're two different extremes. And the spender, for example, if they happen to agree to having a really strict budget, it may last a week or a month, but it usually falls apart and it causes a lot of tension. And same the other way around. This is a person that really wants to save. If they're not saving, they might be they might be able to bite their tongue for a couple of months, but eventually it causes issues. So that's that's a big part, just acknowledging that everyone's different.

SPEAKER_00: 20:22

And even on that, to add to that, that's essentially to me, it sounds like that could potentially drive a wedge between between partners, essentially. So would that be, I guess, a warning sign, and would there be any other warning signs that there is a I guess a financial wedge being thrown between couples?

SPEAKER_01: 20:40

So many, so many. It's it's it's it's a good very good question. And I would say every relationship's different. To some people it could be just spending lots of money. One of them it could be, you know, like arguments about bills, arguments about who's paying for what. It could be just the anxiety of talking about money. So to some men or women, they'll literally get anxiety just talking about the topic. Like, you know, like for example, my wife to this day is still convincing me to clean out our garage. I want to clean out the garage, but I I need a whole day to do it properly. But even just talking about it stresses me out because I'm like, oh, okay, I'll we're gonna get to it, we're gonna get, you know, and it's and it's not it's just cleaning out the garage. I know how to do it, but and it's not that bad, but it's just the talking about it gives me anxiety, just and it and I can just imagine a lot of men and women they get anxiety literally just talking about money because A, they never talked about it, B, there could be issues there, and that could sometimes be a sign that they just don't want to talk about it. And that's where it helps to have someone come in from the outside, like an out a third party. And I've had literally the most smartest one of my clients is a financial planner. I mean, he's got me there to sit down with him and his wife as a third person to come in because he they both know whatever I say is not connected to emotion. Like if someone's wrong, I'm gonna say, no, that's wrong. This is right, this is wrong, this is how you should do it. There's no bias. I don't tell them what to do, obviously, it's their decision, but it's my job to look at things from the outside. So having someone come to look at things from the outside helps. But yeah, I think just the arguments about money, the obvious things where just going back to what I said at the start, a lot of couples just assume they need to earn more money, and that's just gonna fix everything. But usually there's something else going on.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

And the and the trade-off with earning more, and I see it all the time with the men that I work with, is they're winning on paper, but the other areas of their life are falling apart. So to earn more, you're generally giving more time, longer hours, stressful if you're creating leverage through bringing on staff or management, whatever it is, and that then robs you of you know peace when you're at home, and it impacts your relationship or your spare time or your lifestyle or your health, and that also can impact the relationship, and it's this this circle. So I think as you said, it's not always the most important decision. So you need to understand why it would be beneficial to earn more money as opposed to bringing back your lifestyle a little bit to keep what's important important, and everyone's different for sure, but yeah, I think there's it's definitely very important to bring someone in for that third party, no emotional connection to highlight a few things for for people, that's for sure. I'll show you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 23:16

I just wanted to say on that note, like I always remind myself and my wife, I need my wife to always remind me of this as well as well, that you know, we're working for our families at the end of the day. And if you talk to anyone that they're working for their families, and what's the point of working for your family if you're not seeing your family? You know, so I think that's I always think of that if literally every single week. I think, okay, I'm doing this for them. So Yeah, I'm pretty sure the kids would rather be homeless and have their dad hanging out with them than being like a$20 million home and not see their dad four days a week.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

It's crazy how common people hear that, and even men will hear that where their partner's like, look, I'd rather earn less and have you home than you constantly coming home stressed and being pissed off or being lethargic and overweight and just like they want you.

SPEAKER_01: 24:03

I read this thing on Facebook or I think it was before Facebook, whatever it was before MySpace. There was something I read. My face, not Bivo. I read something years ago. Years ago, years ago I'll never forget this. And it's literally my worst nightmare. If my son's my son's gonna listen to this and say it to me now, just to piss me off. But anyway, it's it's a kid that went up to his dad and said, Hey dad, how much do you earn? You know, what do you do for work? He goes, I do all these things, I consult, you know, celebrities and hot really famous people and executives. And he goes, How much do you how much do you charge? He goes, I charge you know 400 bucks an hour. He goes, Oh, that yeah, really cool, Dad. Okay. And then you came to him, he goes, Oh dad, can I have a hundred bucks? He goes, Yeah, sure. You gave it to him. He goes, What do you want the money for? And you gave it back to him. He goes, Oh, can I have 15 minutes of your time? And to me, that's so powerful. Like, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it now. And it's like, you know, it's our kids are our biggest, like that should be our focus. I know we have to work, but how many times do we put that before that? You know, like it's crazy. And that was literally at least 15 years ago that I read that, but to this day I still think about it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

It hits like, and this is where I think what you do is so important, and even to a lesser degree what I do, when we're reminding people of why they're actually doing what they're doing. You said, you know, we're working for our families, which is true, and it's very easy that when you spend X amount of time in a place and generally we spend a fair amount of time at work, it does become all consuming because wherever we are or whatever we're doing, moderation tends to disappear just because of time in proximity. So that's where it's good to be pulled back and just be like, look, there is more to you, there's more things happening in your life outside of work. How much money is enough? Like, and what does that look like for you and your specific personal circumstances, as we were saying earlier? An area that I'm also interested in is like what's one thing or even a couple of things that you wish that couples knew about like joint and separate finances? Because I always hear different things around this, and I'm I'm just curious to see what I guess whether it's data or conversations that you've had with people around yeah, whether everyone goes all in on joint finances or you have separate or what that could potentially look like.

SPEAKER_01: 26:17

Yeah, so this is actually a big it actually is a big topic that comes up a lot because I'll sit with a couple sometimes that's doing it completely separate, and sometimes they've been together for like 10 years and they've got kids and everything, and you know, and but they still have their own bank accounts and someone pays for this, someone pays for that. And then you've got some who have gone all in straight away and had issues and it didn't work out and whatever. And in a perfect world, you'd have both together. And the reason for that, and and that's what we all everyone, all couples I feel should strive for, having everything together. And the reason it's the perfect scenario is because you're basically working together, like that budget that I explained to you. You know, when you list your income and expenses, you've got both your incomes, you've got all your expenses, and you're working together as a team. And two people working on something together is better than two. It's like I I always give the scenario of a kitchen. You can have two head chefs, or you can have one head chef in the kitchen. It's going to be a lot more efficient having one head chef, one strategy, one person there. And at the end of the day, it all goes into the same pot anyway, even if you are doing things separately. So it is a lot easier to manage if it is together. A lot of couples I talk to that have probably come out of a separation or maybe in general. I had a mate once that was with his girlfriend for like 10 years and didn't want to get married. She wanted to get married, he didn't. And I started asking him why. And he was just worried that she was going to take his money. I was like, Do you want to have kids? And he said, Yeah. And we were young, like we were early 20s, you know, by the way. So sorry, mid-20s, if he was with her for 10 years. I'd say we were mid-20s. And I asked him, like, do you want to have kids with her? He's like, Yeah, yeah. I'm like, how soon? I was like, Yeah, straight away. I'm like, okay, well, if you you're willing to share kids together, why are you too scared to share money? Like, what's more important? It's like, yeah, that's true. And as soon as I said that, yeah, I think it clicked. Um, a year later they got engaged. I don't know if that was the reason. Probably not, but claim it. Literally, you know, and it's it's probably realizing that thing, okay. What's the worst that can happen as well? That's now put certain scenarios aside where there could be, you know, abuse and addiction and other th other more complex matters. If we're just looking at it in a very basic scenario, you know, what's the worst that could happen? You know, worst case, three months later, you run out of money, you think this was a terrible idea, and you separate again, you know, you separate your money again separately. And because if you're living together, you've got most of the same bills. You know, and but saying that, the rule I would say, and the best way to before you do that is to have a budget first. Make sure you're on the same page and make sure you've got a strategy as to where things will go, have that bills account, have that spending account. Because, yeah, of course, if you shove everything together and you don't have a plan, it's literally setting yourself up for failure.

SPEAKER_00: 28:58

Yeah, I I agree with you. My wife and I, we have all of our stuff together because I I would just it's just more work having to be like, oh, can you transfer me for this or transfer it's like because it just brings tension to the relationship, it's just like put it all in one pot. You have the same common goals. Like my wife and I know what we're building towards over the next decade and all of that in terms of our financial position. And you know, we obviously both run our own businesses, so you know what we get paid, and all of those sorts of things. So just for me, I just try to remove as much friction and additional conversations or actions as possible for my financial life, so you sort of can check it every week, and it's very consistent because there's processes in place and we're working towards the same same thing. So yeah, I'm very interested because there, as you've said, there's some people who just want to keep it separate, which each to their own, but for me personally, it just adds more stress and frustration to my life. It it does.

SPEAKER_01: 29:56

And the other thing as well is it's like in in a lot of relationships, let's be honest, it's actually there are very little relationships where both people earn the same thing. You can have a stay-at-home mum, you can have a stay-at-home dad, you can have someone that's earning$300,000 a year and the other person earns 80. Like my wife is a stay-at-home mum, she's like she's got like a small business and just she dabbles in that, and you know, it's more of a passion for her than anything else. But I always say that she works harder than me, and she contributes, I would say, more to our family than I do, you know, because you know, it's not financial, it's everything else. But A, I can't do what I do without her. And secondly, even if I could, I'd still say she contributes more anyway, you know. So so it's also couples getting a getting around that idea as well, because sometimes the reluctance is that it's like one person is earning a hundred grand a year, one person's earning three hundred thousand dollars a year, and the person earning more says, Oh, it's not fair if we put it all together because I'm earning more.

SPEAKER_00: 30:52

Yeah, okay. But that yeah, as you said, it's one metric, and that's I think it's so important to make the other domains of your life tangible because it's very easy from like a health perspective, we can track our weight or how much we're lifting or how fast we're running. Finance is the same thing. It's like, are we earning more than we're spending, or vice versa? And then obviously work hours, but many other areas like relationship or investing in the family, many people don't really make that tangible, it's just it just happens. But if you think about for me, if I'm making a relationship tangible, there's things that we did initially in a relationship that make made the couple fall in love with each other. You know, that for me, for example, driving down from Toomba, driving two hours a couple of nights a week, even though I was working as a chippy in Toowomba, getting up at 4 a.m., driving back to start work at six, like that's an investment and that's an action. That's an act of giving. And so then I look back to, well, as relationships we get more responsibility, which means it's very easy to sacrifice the things that were important in the relationship, the morning walks, the date nights or the date days or the random flowers and those things. And that's where I'd go, okay, if I wanted to keep my relationship, you know, the vibe alive and all that, I'd go back to what are some things that I could do that I could track and then I could gain an understanding of is that moving my direction in a my relationship in a better direction? Or is it making it worse?

SPEAKER_01: 32:14

Yes, yes. And I actually had a um marriage counsellor on the podcast the other day and something she said is always be dating. Yes. And I think of that now always be dating. It makes sense, you know, like it's it's yeah doing those things and understanding what a love language is like I only figured out I only heard about love languages like five years ago. But it just hit me how like one person love their love language could be active giving. They love gifts. For one person it could be hugging for one person it could be providing, you know and my wife and I have very different love languages. It's if you know the other person's love language and you're always dating then Yeah it's yeah those things don't seem so silly you know no not at all.

SPEAKER_00: 32:53

I think you're spot on there's always going to be tools and things that we can do and across the park. Even a stat for men is recently came out that we should be having two catch-ups a week with with our with our mates.

SPEAKER_01: 33:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:06

I wonder how many men actually do that. I know I don't and I work in the space and I'm very aware of it. I get to catch up with a lot of people but just hanging out with my mates in whatever context twice a week that's insane. Yeah. Right? And so there's things that we can do to make tangible we then just have to that comes back to and it does influence and this is where integration of the domains rather than the isolation of the domains is like okay if I were to be able to do that how do I need to set my life up from a financial standpoint from the flexibility with my time or my career to the trust and love that I have in my marriage to be able to say I want to start catching up with my mates once or twice a week. Is that okay? And can I afford to do that and you know is that worthwhile like that's where we have to start thinking and it's what I'm always thinking about because otherwise it's very easy to just go I need to earn more money and sometimes it's not about earning more money it's maintaining what you earn and getting time back or leverage in other ways.

SPEAKER_01: 34:07

Yeah I I've been so passionate about time management in the last probably I mean probably since I've had my business so for the last eight nine years. Yep. Because it's like even like I started Pilates a year and a half ago for example and I'm literally one of the most busiest people I know I know everyone's busy but I'm really busy and but I still manage to go three times a week how do I do it it's in my diary. Like I put it in my diary three days a week 8 30 in the morning I'm there. Doesn't matter what it is I'm there. My wife and I every um actually today we're catching it we're going out for lunch together you know so we have we make sure every week we have a date together a couple of hours through two three hours lunch coffee something just being together so I think putting it in your diary as stupid as that sounds like for me anyway everyone's different but for me it's helped having it there and because otherwise it'll just it's just one of those things you'll always you'll just get around it and if you just expect to get around it you normally don't get around to doing it. It just doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_00: 35:00

Bot on make time for what matters it's super important. Like you can tell someone what they value by looking at their calendar and if they don't have a calendar you're like well we've got some work to do. Let's start there. That's a great first step. If I guess if you had one financial principle or piece of advice that you would want to leave people who are listening to this today, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01: 35:26

One piece of advice I would say that's just too hard to narrow it down for someone like me that just likes to talk about everything.

SPEAKER_00: 35:34

Even if we made it around like financial principles or finances and the work that you do that could better improve that domain of their life.

SPEAKER_01: 35:42

Yeah I would say get help get get advice get external advice get an external person to look at your situation and I'm not just saying that as a financial planner because I'm I might sound it sound a bit biased but it really is important. Like there's having a coach you know you know it's I had I had a business coach three years ago for six months it was the best thing I ever did probably a year actually I think I had him for it was the best thing I ever did. So having someone help you from the outside could be a friend that you really trust you know that you know won't be biased it could be an advisor it could be a coach it could be someone but have someone look at things from the outside because I always say even the best you know even the best player in the world has a coach. Even coaches have coaches even on my podcast the other day you mentioned blind spots you know so e even the best race car driver has blind spots. So have someone look at things from the outside because we like as people you know we always think that we know what's best but usually we're missing the mark and very rarely do I ever sit down with a couple that know everything or have everything sorted. I'd probably say 99% of the time there's something big that they've missed or something small that it is big and and sometimes that one thing can just change everything everything everything.

SPEAKER_00: 36:58

I love it great advice and an easy actionable step for people to implement where can people find you Michael like if they're listening and they're like okay well I'm keen to get some feedback and have a yarn and see what that could potentially look like where's the best places for people to go and what would those next steps look like I'd probably say just to visit the website and just I've got a calendar an online calendar and they can book a free 15 minute phone chat just to have a chat and in that first call I like to at least just work out if I can help that person uh whether we're a good fit.

SPEAKER_01: 37:29

If not I'll at least point them in the right direction. If so we'll organise an appointment to do like a full health check together. Yep. So betterfinancialplanning.com dot au and secondly the podcast I'd say just good place to start. It's called sharing more than the sheets.

SPEAKER_00: 37:44

It's on Apple Podcast Spotify all that stuff and it's yeah it's a big passion project of mine as I'm sure like literally what this is for you as well it's just talking about these things putting good news out there good ideas good advice awesome well that's Michael Curry ladies and gentlemen as he said sharing more than the sheets it is a really good podcast I've listened to I think I'm up to six episodes now they're super easy to listen to and I always take away one or two things that leave me wanting more information or I'm able to start having those conversations around that household. So thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_01: 38:18

It's been awesome thank you thank thank thank you so much for having me on and keep up the amazing work Lochlin honestly like as even just listening to your podcast and just everything you've been going through over the years and the just even what you did early this year it's it's crazy. It's crazy. So it's it's inspiring to be honest with you. I'm not going to run a marathon but it's still inspiring. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.