Organising Your Money with Glen James

Hello and welcome I am Bonnie, and I am Lily and this is Little Home Organised, the PodCast dedicated to helping you declutter, get organised, and reclaim time for the things you love.  

GLEN: or a match, is thing insured 

BONNIE: 

LILY: I definitely know what I like and 

GLEN: Your just a regular snob is that what you are saying 

LILY:  Just a regular snob really 

BONNIE: You said it 

GLEN: Clean stuff hangs on the mirror and the dirt is on the floor 

MUSIC 

BONNIE: Hello and welcome, today we will be joined by Glen James to talk about organising your money.  

LILY: So first things first lets introduce him, Glen is a retired financial advisor with experience helping countless people get on top of their finances and host of the My Millennial Money Podcast, with his own personal financial successes behind him, Glen has a passion to help people achieve financial freedom as he has.  His teaching method is light hearted and fun while still managing to cover sensitive and important topics in an engaging way, welcome Glen.

GLEN: Hey thanks so much for having me.  It is great to be here, I love chatting about organising things.

LILY: Oh and I would like to say I like chatting about money and that would have been a lie in many recent years, but in recent times I discovered your Podcast and learnt so much so I am absolutely stoked to have you here on the Pod today to talk all things money. Bonnie do you feel as the young people use to say, woke when it comes to money?

BONNIE: I think I have gotten a lot better at money management over the last few years but definitely in like our family with, there is the 3 of us, our brother is kind of on his own you know no kids, you have got one and I have got 4 so like money is pretty important to feed those 4 hungry little mouths and yeah I am super keen to learn some great tips from Glen today.  

LILY: So Glen can you tell us just like briefly a little bit about what drew you into the industry originally.  

GLEN: Yeah I think it was more, I always had an interest in personal finance and that was even back when I was a teenager, like I was interested in investing in shares and you know I found myself at like a community college with all these retired people on a Saturday doing like share investing courses, and you know weird stuff like that because it was the only access to information that somebody out on the street could get because we didn’t have Podcasts, we didn’t have micro investing apps, we didn’t have a heap of stuff on the internet, so you kind of had to go off line into books and you know weird community college courses, and then it was just a passion in the background that I always read about and I left school and I did a trade and I knew that wasn’t for me long term, and I thought I am going to study financial planning and I started studying financial planning and went on to work in a financial planning practice for 4-5 years and then started my own business, and yeah just kind of looking back, I am now doing what I was passionate about in my teens which is quite amazing because they are the most influential years in our life and I think if we are often worryied or wondering what we should do or it is just a good idea to think about, in your teens in the most influential time of your life, what did you want to do and it is just a great thing to really do what you love.  

LILY: Yeah evidentially you seem to live and breathe all things money, so one key thing worth mentioning of course is that you now associate yourself as an ex financial advisor, could you just touch on that briefly.  

GLEN: Yes so I was a licenced financial advisor for about 12 years and then towards the end of that, I had my own business and my own clients, we had hundreds of clients and I just started the My Millennial Money Podcast and wanted to go one to many so you know you would sit down with a client and do one on one and have so much impact in helping them, but I was just finding I was having the same discussion, so I started my online course and then started the Podcast and that really took off. I think we were the first major Australian personal finance podcast for Aussies by Aussies and just kind of really leaned into that and I thought stuff this I need a new challenge so I sold my business and just went all in on the podcast and at the same time I ceased being a licence financial advisor which was scary in itself, it is like oh no turning back now, and that is where I just went all in and you know I will go down with the ship but at least if it doesn’t work out I can honestly say I gave it everything so yeah a bit of a challenge to anyone listening if you want to step out on the water and give something a red hot go, throw everything at it because you know if it doesn’t work out at least you can say that you tried but I think if you put a lot of effort into it you will find that you will go further than what you thought.  

LILY: Yeah and for anyone out there who hasn’t yet listened to the My Millennial Money podcast, I highly recommend it, I am not a podcast snob but I have got, I definitely know what I like 

GLEN: You are just a regular snob is that what you are saying.  

LILY: Just a regular snob really 

BONNIE: You said it

LILY: But it is such a good podcast and you have got like a variety of styles and episodes as well, you kind of have the camp fire chats and all different kinds, so definitely recommend listeners go and check out that podcast, and something you said there too that really resonated with me and perhaps for you too Bon is that similarly with you and your one on one professional organising Bonnie, going online and doing the podcast was such great way to help more people and one thing is that many of our listeners may now hopefully after many months of listening to us have slightly more organised homes but money is something that doesn’t necessarily come up

BONNIE: Just on that note it is interesting that when we were talking off air before, we were talking about how you know Lily is doing her psychology honours and I the physical organising and Glen you were saying oh Lily can take of like the mental side of things and the emotional well being and I do the physical and that’s what makes us such a great duo, well I find that the clutter that is in people’s houses really represents more that just physical clutter, it represents what is going on for them emotionally, and you know that saying; like “a tidy desk is a tidy mind” and I find that a lot of people will come to us because the physical clutter is overwhelming them but there are things that are disorganised in their life like for example their financial situation and because they are not on top of that, that kind of overflows into all of these physical areas of their life and I think that once you start to get that physical stuff out and you are decluttering and you can make decisions on what stays and what goes, that then paves the way and kind of likes strengthens your muscles to be able to then move onto things that are maybe a little bit more heavy like the financial situation.  So that is something I want to I guess delve into a little bit today is if we have actually gone through and decluttered most of the physical stuff and we are ready as a family  to delve into that financial side of things where do we start?

GLEN: Yeah and I love how you’ve have touched on this because I released the podcast the other day about how to save money fast or something like that and one of my points, I split it up into 3 sections like and I forget the sections but it was like the budget, the practical and then the mindset piece and I think in the practical piece one of my tips were clean your house up because you know if you go home and you feel like you have got crap everywhere it is just another barrier and it is just, it could be the straw that breaks the camels back that I just cant be bothered and I honestly and then I think I even talked about, this is your domain but there is a difference between you know being living in filth and a mess and actually stuff, like you have can nice stuff and have a cluttery house because a lot of people like stuff, that’s fine, but just make sure you are not living in filth, like just do something in the physical to help with that connection and give you the strength to kind of attack stuff but it is such a great segue to you know when I was teaching people about personal finance a lot of people would come into my financial planning practice and say Glen we want to invest, we want a financial plan and all this stuff and by the end of the meeting they were walking out and pretty much was like you just need a budget, like you just need to manage your money and probably I like to draw parallels like in your world people like oh I have just got so much stuff and so much clutter, it is like well no you just need a bit of system and structure, like we are not saying you have to throw everything out, we are just saying get a system in place that works for you and what I developed was what I like to call the sound financial house, and in my book ‘Sort Your Money Out and Get It Invested’, which is available to purchase now, I share a story about how I developed this for a client that came in to my office and it ended up being the cornerstone of my advice process, so we are going to play a mind game, wow that probably sounds a bit weird but lets do it

BONNIE: Close your eyes 

LILY: Are we drawing a house?

BONNIE: Think of the chicken 

GLEN: Yeah that’s right, everyone I want you to imagine an elephant, now everyone can imagine and elephant in their mind right now can’t they.  

BONNIE: And how many people will have got toddlers 

LILY: I was gonna say mine’s a pig!

BONNIE: And they are making elephant noises in the background 

LILY: Right now, yeah 

GLEN: Exactly, so let’s all in our mind, imagine a house alright and I have actually sent Bonnie and Lily an image and copy of the book so they can look at this as well, but basically when I teach money and when I wrote my book I am not pretty much saying hey everyone do this and use that super fund and use this bank account like I am just not prescriptive like that. I would rather give people a guide and teach them how to understand things themselves right, so the sound financial house, we want to build things on solid foundations, we know that if you are building a house on sand or at the beach you need some deep foundations right but if you are building on rock well you need different foundations so everyone needs foundations and they could vary but we know the structure of foundations are, they have got be somewhat deep, and they have got be concrete and reinforced. So we know foundations are foundations so when I teach the sound financial house the 4 foundations that I like to teach is the first foundation is having a spending plan or a budget, just some type of system, the second foundation is to be cashed up so an emergency fund of around 3 months worth or expenses and to be consumer debt free, the third foundation is a personal protection plan so you know if we have got dependants and debt, some death cover, like if you check out I am sorry we are all going to die and that sounds really crude but we want to make sure the people who we leave behind aren’t worse off, aren’t in a pickle, we need some income cover like we run out and insure our car when we get a new car, but why don’t we run out and insure our income when we get an income so we just have to, and the book kind of teaches about all this stuff and then the fourth foundation is wills and estate plan, you know it is a once off thing usually, set up your will, so they are the kind of four foundations I teach first and the client that I shared this with he had the investment properties, he had the share portfolios and all that stuff, but he had no foundations and he wanted to do further investing and I couldn’t work with him because I said to him I think I would not be able to sleep at night myself if I helped you invest further without some decent foundations. He had consumer debt, like he had car loans and personal loans, even though he had investment properties, he didn’t have a will, he was in his 30’s and still lived with mummy and daddy and I said to him, hey bro like you are going to need to leave the nest one day and if you can’t factor in those costs you are in a real pickle so wherever you are at we can just go back and start to work on the foundations and usually it is a longer task but you spend some decent time on some deep foundations you only have to do it once and that is the beauty.  

LILY: So that is so true isn’t it, like it may not be like the prettiest, sparkliest, you know like there is this whole idea of growing my money that is so exciting but like if you can get the foundations strong and even like home organisation we are like it’s habits, you need to have good habits in place, you know we need to set up a system and then you need to follow it and yeah is it boring but like once you get that in place things will fall into place and when the system is there you can work with it.  

BONNIE: Yeah the foundations are so important.  Okay though Glen once we have got those foundations those 4 foundations in place, what comes next in the house?

GLEN: Next the slab is the superannuation, so just imagine a bit slab and everyone has a slab but at the moment some of us might not have any foundations under the slab, so we just have pause everything, do a bit of renovation and go oh I should actually go and get a will sorted, before I worry about doing anything else, so everyone has got superannuation, and then the walls of the house or the bricks or whatever they are really lifestyle goals, so your lifestyle goal could be, you know we want to do a bit of travel, we want some work-life balance, we want to start a family, we want to save for a mortgage, we want to pay down more of our mortgage, we might want to start a business, we might want to learn to fly, get a pilot’s licence, whatever that this, like choose your own adventure, it could be saving for a new lounge and then the roof of the house is our investing, so it might be our investment properties if we want in the future, it might be some shares, you know it could be other complex investments.  I had a client once who wanted to buy some pink diamonds and they are very rare and expensive and they could do that in my view because they already had all their foundations, they had their super, they had their investment properties, so it was seen as a luxury investment and it was ethically sourced I did ask that but you know they had everything in order so it wasn’t putting the cart before the horse, and I would just encourage everybody just to where you are at the moment, press pause and have a look at your own sound financial house, do you have an investment property, but also do you have consumer debt, do you owe money on credit cards, do you owe money on personal loans. You know are you saving to travel overseas and go to Prague for 2 years you know once the borders open again but you don’t have some insurances in place, so it is just a real good exercise and I basically say with our spending plan, you know my spending plan and I can send Bonnie and Lily and I can send you a copy to do if you haven’t got one, it would be my gift, what it does is basically allows you to put all your income in, all your expenses and then each the third tab it tells you each week how much to put in what account so it really works out that let’s just say you have got $150 a week left over out of the spending plan, well we might say okay we are going to put $100 towards our lifestyle goals that week and $50 for the future but because we have got our spending plan in place, we are out of debt, we have got our insurances in place we know that that $50 that we allocate for investing for the future is actually allocated and we don’t have to sell shares or sell an investment property once the or if the hits the fan.  So it is just about you know stepping back and making sure we have got  the structures in our life. 

BONNIE: I love that you have got a house, like and that you say, you use the phrase house in order and that is so funny because that is terminology that we use with decluttering and getting organised physically as well is like about getting your house in order so I am loving the correlation.  

LILY: And also Bonnie you know we talk about how you divide the room up into 3 and if you are the first area to begin is always the floor, got to start from the ground up baby. 

GLEN: Absolutely. 

LILY: One of the things you said earlier which I found interesting Glen was you were saying that you are not very prescriptive and I think one of the things that when people are floundering with finances is they are like just tell me what to do, but even you describing that house lets obviously there is detailed information in your book but it lets people learn that I have given you the information, you decide you know potentially which banks and whatever you want to go with, but here are some things to help you make those decisions and I think that is something that is so essential and missing, is that we get thrust out into this big world we have graduated school, we are of to go on our adventures and suddenly it is like okay and the world is going to assume you are financially literate, you are all over it but even you spelling it out so simply like that, get those foundations in place, what are the foundations, here they are, like that I think is going to be useful for so many people, that has certainly struck a cord with me, you know things like the personal insurances I am sure you can speak to people who assume they are in a position where they don’t need it. So many of our listeners are probably partnered and have kids but for those who are single, 20’s ready to mingle, who don’t think that they need any of those kinds of insurances, what would you say to that.  

GLEN: I would say like if you have an income, most of the time a lot of us are just working because we need the income and if we don’t need the income why are we working and it could be that oh yeah I want to do that, I have got heaps of money over here, I am just doing it for the social benefit, to get out there and any money I get you know I can just do whatever I want with, my life doesn’t need an income, and that is a really good place to be but a lot of us have an income because we need it. We need it to pay rent, we need to pay for food, we need it to actually live. When we go for a rental property, they ask us what is our income, when we go for a mortgage they ask us what is our income, now if the income stops what happens, well you are going to get kicked out of your home or the bank is going to sell your house from under you if you don’t pay, so a lot of us have an income and we need that income, and that means we want to make sure the income never stops, and if you are under 30, if you’re single and you have got an income well then you need to protect it and you just, you get one shot at this, I have had clients that have been on long-term claims and the income insurance has covered their income due to an accident or illness that happened outside of work and it is just a mindset thing and a lot of people don’t know that they can insure their income, you know we might have a $20,000 car and we pay $1200 a year for insurance because  we can’t afford to lose that $20,000 if there was an accident, but if you are earning $50, $60, $70 or more thousand dollars a year well can you afford to lose that, if it did stop for a period of time. So it is just about pressing reset and learning what is available  and you know I am, I don’t have kids, I don’t have a partner, I live by myself but I have got disability insurance, so if I couldn’t work ever again I have got a lump sum of money that will clear my mortgage and then I have my income insurance that will continue to put food on my table, now linked to that is death cover, I don’t need it but it is bundled in there and it was cheaper to kind of bundle it all but yeah it is just one of those housekeeping things that we need to factor in that cost to our budget, so our budget always has money that is coming in because a lot of people say well if I couldn’t work, you know I probably wouldn’t be going out as much or I can lean on mum and dad, well I don’t know how much mum and dad are going to want to pay you $500 a week for your rent or to have you move back home so it, I don’t want to get stuck in boring insurance land but it is just an important foundation and the book really does go into detail around what is available and how to obtain that yeah.  

BONNIE: I love it I think that is great.  I think it is time for a bit of a break though, and to get into a clutter confession.  

CLUTTER CONFESSION 

BONNIE: Ok Glen so every time we have a guest on the Little Home Organised Podcast we put them in the hot seat and we ask them to share with us some weird whacky or wonderful that they have got, their clutter confession, so what have you got that you would say is a bit of clutter confession in your life?

GLEN: It is so fascinating that I saw this question in the email this morning that you are going to ask me because just on the weekend before we were going to do this in my wardrobe I saw some things that I know are clutter and it’s illogical, like there is a lot of stuff that we have that is not logical and you just want it, I just need it so in my wardrobe up the top I have got 3 plastic tubs and basically those 3 plastic tubs are all the stuff that was in my wardrobe as a child or as a teenager before  I left home. And it is like a time capsule into the 15 year old Glen, it is a time capsule into the 12 year old Glen and yeah 

LILY: I’m intrigued

BONNIE: Yeah is there yoyo in there 

GLEN: I mean it has got like my year like 12 or 11 year book or whatever that was, it is just random stuff, old photos and for me it is just, I don’t know I just want to keep it because it is something physical that reminds me of me as a child.  

BONNIE: Mmmmm

LILY: It is what we call a memory box, it is a place, so you are actually more organised than you realise, so the memory box is something that we encourage people to do because one it acts as a boundary having boxes with size but it is a place where you put things that are sentimental that mean something to you that are memories and you don’t want to keep them you know around your house building like clutter and dust, it is that place that you can go and open it and you intentially walk  through those memories and you have that.  

GLEN: Yeah and I mean, I have probably looked through it once in the last 7 years but it is just nice, so I won’t tell you about under my stairs then.  

BONNIE: Or now I am intrigued, what’s under there?

GLEN: So when I moved into this place and I own it, under the stairwell, it’s like there is this whole storage area right but when I moved in it wasn’t accessible so I got a handyman in, in the garage to cut this hidden door in and you press it and it opens under the stairwell so I can store stuff. But it is kind of like, it is almost like it is my memory cupboard so it just has other memory crap like it is got like stuff from my grandfather’s garage, old tools, woodwork stuff that I made in year 11, so it is more just a memory compartment.  

LILY: Memory den.  

BONNIE: At least you have like a physical boundary where all that stuff is together and I think the other thing on that, when you are on your own and you don’t have a spouse or kids I feel like there is more room for you to be able to keep that stuff whereas when there are other people in the house you have to get more selective about what you keep because there is just no space.  

GLEN: Yeah and I mean I am not a like my house downstairs like I am not a cluttery person, I am not like I just, it is clean it’s almost minimal, yeah I am brutal with just throwing stuff out, but it is kind of weird it is just like this illogical emotional thing that, no that is my freakin memory box,  and that is staying and that is my memory staircase and that is staying and that is pretty much like everything else it is like nah if I haven’t used it in the last 18 months I am throwing it out I can always buy more like I am pretty brutal like that.  

LILY: So if you have a clutter confession at home listeners be sure to send it into our socials page we love to hear it, anything weird, whacky or wonderful you have held onto or maybe like Glen you are more organised than you realise and you have got systems in place under the stairs and up in the cupboard.  

MUSIC.  

BONNIE: Ok so we are talking with Glen James about organising your money and we have a couple of listener questions for you Glen, people who have decided that’s enough I need to get some financial affairs in order so Lily take it away what are our listener questions for Glen today?

LILY: So these are from our community group on Facebook and if you haven’t check us out there be sure to go to Little Home organised community and the first question is from Donna and Donna wants to know the best ways to budget and keep track of a budget, so both digital and non-digital ideas.  She was wondering if there are any particularly good apps that make budgeting easy. She wants to help keeping track of spending and knowing how much is still available in the budget to spend on certain things is her major issue, I feel like Glen has got just the thing in mind judging from what we were talking about earlier.  

GLEN: Yeah so Donna I am going to get your details and I am going to give you a copy of the Glen James spending plan and it is a course worth $69 and I am happy to gift that to you Donna but basically I am a little bit different if you haven’t already realised. I honestly I am a spender by nature, I don’t really care what I have spent I just want to know each week how much I can spend without losing my mind, I want to make sure my bills are paid and I want to make sure my savings are increasing, so that is why I use the Glen James Spending plan and what I would say to Donna is this plan will help you set up a separate account just for your mind numbing dumb week on week spending, it will tell you how much exactly to do into that account and I think that helps a lot of people just know that hey this amount here is allocated for fuel, groceries, going out and I don’t have to use my mind week on week.  For anyone out there who is wondering the easiest thing to do, low hanging fruit is to have a separate account with a separate bank that you transfer money weekly to and that is the only app that is on your phone that is the only card that is in your wallet, it is the only card that is on your Apple Pay or Google Pay so you have got to quarantine your money.  Now you might be saying well that is good, I am a saver I don’t need that, no but if you are a saver you need permission to spend and you feel guilty sometimes when you spend, so this system and having that separate card, it gives the savers permission to spend because you are allow to spend your money, you’ve worked for it people and it limits the spenders so that it what I would say to Donna so I will am going to email both of you after this with a code for Donna and I am also happy to give Donna a copy of my book Sort Your Money Out and Get Invested.  

LILY: Woohoo thanks so much 

BONNIE: Oh thanks Glen that is so generous.  

LILY: And thank you to Donna for sending in that question, now Glen we do have one more question, do we have time for another one.  

GLEN: I do

BONNIE: Why not?

LILY: Absolutely lets do it, Janine I am pretty good at using different accounts for different purposes, for example school expenses, Christmas, utilities, kids etc.  It works better for me than budgeting everything in one account but it can get kind of messy having lots and lots of small accounts is there an easy way to kind of do this but within one account? 

GLEN: Yeah so Janine thanks for the question I will also send you a copy of the Glen James spending plan because it could help and one of the accounts that I use it is called my gifts, clothes, holidays and Christmas account and so that is just one account for ad hoc lumpy things throughout the year and when we are first setting up our plan we just want to make a guess and it is almost like probably when you declutter in your home you know we have just got to make a judgement call, okay we think we are going to need this item in the next 6 months or 12 months so we will keep it, I am going out on a wild limb here but go with me, so if we don’t know let’s just make a guess and that is better than not making a decision right, so what I would say is um the gifts, clothes, holidays Christmas account make a list and spreadsheet will help you Janine when you get a copy and what that will do is it will allow you to just quarantine that certain amount of money and then just over the first year or so you know if you need money for a Christmas big grocery shop or a Christmas gifts or someone’s birthday or a weekend away just make a note over the first year of how much you are actually spending so the next year it comes around you can really get a good idea, bank accounts are free basically and you know I don’t have 15 bank accounts some people do I only have 4 in my system but the important thing is you need a system that works for you, you know my system isn’t the way it is a way and I will always encourage you to use a way that works for you and my goal with Donna and Janine when they jump in and do the course is for them to learn, it is a behavioural manipulation course like I want to just start to get your habits and behaviour in order and get them tweaked. But my hope is that you outgrow my system and it is just a good starting point so I will also send both you a book to pass onto Janine as well

LILY: Lovely thank you Glen

BONNIE: Oh that’s great 

LILY: And thank you Janine for the question

GLEN: Thanks Janine 

LILY: You are always more than welcome to anyone listening to send us questions for any of the episodes, any kind of content you can reach us on our social media but as we said we have also got the Facebook group, Little Home Organised Community you are welcome to come in and join and people there are really friendly they will answer all your organising questions.  

BONNIE: And it is run by two pretty awesome sisters.  

LILY: I mean what can we say, we are not bad 

GLEN: Oh are you sisters 

LILY: Yes

GLEN: Oh didn’t know that, okay wow.  I have got a final question for both of you, who is more organised? 

LILY: Oh she is

BONNIE: You noticed how I paused cause I didn’t want to make her feel bad 

GLEN: I mean really if you have got 4 kids you would want to be organised. 

LILY: Oh you have to be, its survival.  Full confession Glen I had a floordrobe as a kid, as a teenager and I work pretty hard to stay organise now and Bonnie definitely she wears the crown in that department.  

GLEN: I still have a floordrobe.  

LILY: There you go 

BONNIE: As long as you know which is clean pile and which is the dirty pile.  

GLEN: Absolutely the clean stuff hangs on the mirror; the dirty is on the floor.  

BONNIE: That sounds like a clutter confession right there Glen

LILY: So one more question for you Glen you were talking about for answering those listener questions as well, the way we allot and assign money and I think that is something that sometimes people get stuck with is knowing what expenses they should be considering as priorities first before they start spending money on like the luxury type things, is that something that you could touch on?

GLEN: Yeah so in the book I talk about my money hierarchy and you know Donna and Janine will see that in the course as well, I do a video module on it, basically we need to organise our personal budget like so imagine a pyramid and I base it of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which you know being a psychologist student you would love that which is on the premise that I can’t feed myself if I can’t clothe myself I am not looking for a 10-day silent yoga retreat in India am I, like I am just not there because I need that instant food, I need my house before I worry about the yoga retreat in India . So like with our own budget imagine a triangle, the bottom section I like to call baseline, the next section is basic comforts, and then luxuries, and them premium luxuries and then whatever. And the problem I have seen over years of coaching people is and we are all guilty of it, we confuse luxuries with basic needs, we confuse luxuries with baseline items, in the book I share a story of a young family where they couldn’t, their electricity bill was overdue and about to know, they were about to get sued almost or go into default because they hadn’t paid their electricity bill but they had the kids in private school and while I want every parent to be able to send their kid to private school if they wish we have to be clear some things in Australian standards and world standards are actually luxuries and we just have to be very careful and again we are all guilty of it and that is why we need to always go back and have a look at our baseline spending, our basic comforts, our luxuries are we confusing luxuries as baseline things, like you might be paying for 5 private Pilates classes a week but you are struggling to pay your rent, I am sorry like it sounds rude but I think you might have your priorities wrong.

LILY: Some thing has got to give 

GLEN: Something has got to give, like we all don’t get this magical pass on mathematics and that is why it is important to build our sound financial house in order so our big structures of our life and investments and insurances and wills and all that stuff but then we need to go back to our budget and make sure we build our budget the right way up

BONNIE: I love it, you just really simplify it and that image in particular in the book; and especially knowing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because teaching is my background so that was in there as well for my uni degree I love seeing this in such a visual form because you are right there are so many people who prioritise the name brand clothing, the private schooling, and the you know exceptional holidays, but yet you find out that there is some really basic stuff that their kids can’t have or their family needs to have that they can’t afford because the priorities are a little bit twisted.  

GLEN: Yeah and I think we you know the 3 of us agree that the aim of having a decluttered organised house is peace, it is just like there is no stress here, everything is organised and the aim of having your financial house in order and your budget in order is peace and no stress, and if you girls walk into a big house and there was stuff everywhere and the person was overwhelmed and we all can get overwhelmed with stuff I would basically say well that is okay we are not going to do everything in a day, can we do one thing today that is small to make a movement in that direction and if you are overwhelmed with your money that is okay, can we do something to make a move forward, can you invest $24 and buy a book, I don’t care if it is my book or the next book or whatever just make a step forward, get encouraged, get into the Facebook group of whatever you want, like don’t do this alone you are not alone and there is always help and there is always hope for the future and I just really want to stress that you can’t change everything over night like a freak would be able to declutter their whole house and do everything overnight and if I was doing that it would probably involve a bulldozer but you know 

BONNIE: Or a match 

GLEN: Or a match, is this thing insured? But let’s just go easy on ourselves, we need a lot of grace and you know just because the next house is decluttered and everything is good well that is fine, I’ll get to mine and I will do it my way and just because your neighbours got good money systems and you know the nice boat that is probably on finance anyway, let’s not worry about anyone else and just do our thing and control what we can control 

BONNIE: We are all walking our own journey.  I love that Glen and I think that is such a great way to wrap up today’s episode, just want to say thank you so much for sharing your money wisdom with us and especially for being generous and offering copies of your book and your online course to our listeners who sent in a question.  What a great reward for contributing to our Podcast, so here is a hint for people in the future, if you have got clutter confessions that you have been holding onto maybe it is time to actually yeah share them with the world.  

GLEN: What I am going to, I will send up 4 books and you can give two others away to people in your Facebook or whatever

BONNIE: That sounds wonderful, we might run a little competition. 

LILY: That’s lovely 

GLEN: I just feel yeah like you can’t you know, you can’t give anything away because it always comes back to you and you have just always got to be generous, be nice, be generous and you know if you get your sound financial house and your budget in order it will allow you to be generous, there is a lot of people in the money world that don’t teach generosity, I am of the view that slow down with making all your money, slow down and help people along the way.  

BONNIE: Pay it forward.

GLEN: Totally so we will send out 4 books and yeah you can give them away as well. 

BONNIE: Thanks Glen 

LILY: OH that’s lovely and Glen for people who haven’t come across you and are now totally intrigued and want to hear everything, all you have to say about money where can they find you.  

GLEN: First I would like to apologise but secondly, sorry everyone but secondly yeah My Millennial Money, you can listen to our Podcast wherever you are listening to this, we have also got My Millennial Health Podcast, My Millennial Career, My Millennial property, My Millennial Business, you can find us anywhere

LILY: Awesome and you are on the social media as  well

GLEN: Yes, yes we are.  

LILY: And also for the listeners who do know we have like quite the TikTok following believe it or not you can also find Glen James on TikTok as well so if we haven’t enticed you to move over there, maybe he will

GLEN: So there is probably about 2 videos there and then I had to delete TikTok for my own mental health because I was watching it before bed and I was getting all worked up it was just not good.  

LILY: Yeah.  I can confess it has taken up much of my time.  Thank you so much for joining us today Glen

GLEN: No worries I will see you guys soon.  

BONNIE: Thank you.  

LILY: If you haven’t been tuning into the Podcast for a while you may have missed a very exciting announcement and that is Little Home Organised, that’s us, we have released a brand new course

BONNIE/LILY: Yeah 

LILY: The Organised Wardrobe, that’s right a course solely dedicated to getting that wardrobe in tiptop condition.  Bonnie what can people expect?  

BONNIE: So if you are a time poor person and you find that getting dressed in the morning is just giving you such a headache the organised wardrobe is the course for you.  We will help you zone your wardrobe, we will help you let go of the items that are no longer serving you and we will help you organise your wardrobe to within an inch of its life so that in the morning it takes you less than 5 minutes to get dressed and you walk out the door feeling fabulous

LILY: Ah doesn’t that sound good but the thing I love of course Bonnie is that our courses are DIY which means that you can jump on online anytime, log in, do a module, try it at home and do it at your own pace which is fabulous for the busy time poor parent 

BONNIE: Because life does get in the way sometimes and it is great to know that you can just come back and pick up from where you left off 

LILY: And as long as this course is offered you will have access to it, so if that sounds like something that you want to incorporate in your life, you want to get your wardrobe looking spic and span and loving it every time you open that door, this is for you, head to littlehomeorganised.com.au and check out the Organised Wardrobe.  

LILY: Hey everyone just a quick note to let you know that Bonnie and I are taking a wee break from the podcast just while life settles down, Bonnie has got a new bub I am in the middle of it with uni and we have some great ideas and great content coming your way but we need to take a little break until then to make sure that we can bring it all to you, so in the meantime if you want all things LHO be sure to head to our website, our social media, of course you can check us out on TikTok and YouTube and if you miss us that’s fine just send us an email, send us a DM, we are still here and we will be back soon with more progress and not perfection.  

We would love to see the conversation continue, head over to the Little Home Organised Community group on Facebook, ask questions, find motivation and share your before and afters, and if you enjoyed the show please help us keep it going by hitting subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you listen.  It is free and ensures you do not miss an episode but if you really want to share the love leave us a rating and review.  Trust me it makes all the difference in the world.