Get Started Investing

Josh spent his early 20s racking up consumer debt. Holidays, nights out and a car he couldn't afford. With his 30s approaching, he decided it was time to turn himself from a debt collecting spender, to an investor. Today at 32 years old he is debt free, investing regularly and his portfolio just ticked over six figures. He joined Jess to share the steps he took to get from there to and now. Th...

How do you know when it's time to change your strategy? At just 21, listener Ben is already asking when he should prepare his portfolio for retirement. He's invested entirely in a geared ETF and wants to know what that means for his future. It's something Jess hasn't really considered either. She's investing for the long term, but what should that actually look like as life cha...

It’s not everyday Jess meets someone whose first investment was a cow. But for 42-year-old dairy farmer Justin, that was the case. Bought with the profits of selling manure by the side of the road might we add! 😆 It’s no secret that farming is a tough, often volatile profession. Justin watched his parents financial life revolve solely around their farm. So when he discovered investing, he saw it...

Should Jess add an active manager to her passive portfolio? After logging into her super and noticing that a portion is actively managed- it got her thinking, should she add active management outside of super too? And she’s not the only one wondering, the equity mates facebook group had a lot to say on the matter! Actively managed fund are now more accessible than ever- out of the 50 new ETFs list...

Larissa thought she knew how to invest. She’d read the books, listened to the podcasts and watched her first investments climb. Then it went downhill. What followed was a shift to simple ETFs and an unconventional plan to buy property with her partner; give up renting and house-sit their way to a deposit. (spoiler; it worked!) This year, a break up changed the future she’d been financially buildin...

Don't let a lump sum sit in the wrong place. So how should you use it? Save it, invest it, pay off debt, put it in super, or spend it? Jess asks Financial Adviser Tom Hayes from Shadforth to run the numbers on every option. By the end of this episode, you'll know the trade-offs of each, and how to choose what fits your goals. Chapters: 00:00:00 What To Do With A Lump Sum 00:04:16 Where You...

You don’t need a high income to invest your way to a better financial future. Today’s guest is proof of that. Ten years ago, while on maternity leave, Leigh decided to get serious about her families finances. Leigh and her husband aren’t high earners. She’s a teacher and her husband’s an electrician- so they don’t have millions coming in the door. But ten years after her investing journey began; t...

Is your portfolio diversified, or just complicated? Jess is only five months into investing and she’s already got seven ETFs and a stock. What is each investment actually adding? She’s starting to think maybe she’s overcomplicated things… Then community member Hamish sent in a question about whether it makes more sense to own one diversified ETF or build a portfolio from several ETFs. Jess took it...

Hayden McLean knows a thing or two about playing the long game. After missing out on the AFL draft twice, Hayden kept going until he earned his place at the Sydney Swans. That same patience has shaped how he invests. At 27, he’s investing with one big goal in mind: creating the freedom to choose what life looks like after football. Hayden joins Jess to share how he went from being a hard-core save...

4 months into her investing journey and Jess’ life has completely changed. She’s since bought a house, switched her core portfolio to geared investments, gotten a dog and combined finances with her partner. Safe to say- there’s been A Lot™️ on 🤣. With all that change, she’s got a few questions still playing on her mind. Things like: Should dollar cost averaging be monthly, or weekly? How should y...

Amy has built a $400,000 share portfolio, owns an investment property, and has grown her net worth to $1 million. But just six years ago, things looked very different. She was living pay cheque to pay cheque, had a credit card she didn't really understand, and had no idea where her money was going. So what changed? Amy shares with Jess the choices that turned her financial future around, how she b...

Do you know how much is in your super? Or what it’s invested in? Most Australians know what's in their bank account but superannuation? Not a clue. This lack of attention has a cost- missing out on thousands more at retirement. So today, Jess gives her super a 5-step health check. She'd love for you to do the same alongside her. Walking us through the list is Jen, Head of Technical Services at MLC...

Ryan thought he was doing everything right with his money until a stock tip made his ETF feel like the wrong choice. For years, Ryan followed a very traditional approach to money: work hard, save hard and eventually buy a house. Then he discovered compound interest, started investing and found himself comparing two very different ways to put his money to work. What did that stock investment teach...

What if you already had more money to invest... you just didn't realise it? Jess has spent months manually analysing her spending, trying to free up more money to invest. This week, she wants to know if AI can make the process easier. Together with a chartered accountant and financial controller, Isabelle from Mind Her Money , Jess explores how to safely use AI to better understand your spending (...

Kelly grew up watching her immigrant parents work two jobs, seven days a week, after arriving in Australia with very little money. She thought the only path to wealth was to work harder. Then she discovered investing and realised her money could work just as hard as she did. Before turning 30, she's built a $280,000 investment portfolio and bought two investment properties. Jess sits down with Kel...

Joint accounts or separate? Split bills 50/50? Invest together or keep it separate? Ask five couples how they manage money and you'll probably get five different answers. After buying her first home with her partner, Jess put the question to the Get Started Investing community and quickly realised there were plenty of different approaches. So she sat down with financial adviser Glen Hare to hear w...

Gav loves spending money. Watches, skincare, Apple products, travel - give him money and he’ll find something to spend it on. So when he discovered investing, he did what came naturally….he started collecting ETFs. At one point, he owned 27 of them. So how did he go from trying almost every investing app and collecting ETFs “like Pokémon cards” to believing that less is more? Gav joins Jess to unp...

Australia or the world - where should you be investing? Jess has both Australian and global ETFs in her portfolio, but lately she’s been seeing more investors question whether Australian shares are worth holding at all…..especially when global markets have been performing so well. And she’s not the only one wondering. Community member Anand recently shifted his portfolio primarily into a global ET...

What would make you finally take control of your money? For 29-year-old marketer Ally, it was watching her mum navigate life after divorce. Seeing someone she loved suddenly have to learn how to manage money from scratch made Ally realise she never wanted to be in that position herself. So she taught herself. Through podcasts, books and hours of research, Ally built the confidence to start investi...

Once you buy a house, where should your next dollar go? Should you build your offset account? Pay down your mortgage faster? Or keep investing? In this episode, financial adviser Sam Hunt from Shadforth joins Jess to unpack one of the biggest financial questions homeowners face. Using Jess's own situation as a real-life case study, they explore the decisions she's now facing after buying her first...

Most Aussies know Hayden from MasterChef. But away from the cameras, he's gone from growing up with a fear of debt to building businesses, backing founders and investing in property. In this episode, Hayden joins Jess to share how that transformation happened—from working at Woolworths as a teenager to discovering investing later than he wishes he had. He also explains why he's already started an...

Everyone says they want to invest in AI... but what should you actually buy? Do you buy Nvidia? An AI ETF? The Nasdaq? Or are you already getting AI exposure through the investments you own? After hearing about AI infrastructure and wondering whether she'd missed the semiconductor boom, Jess found herself asking the same question many beginner investors face: where do you even start? This week, Je...

At 18 years old, in the middle of the pandemic, today’s guest gave herself 4 years to complete the following: Save 150K Graduate with two bachelors degrees Buy an investment property Build a share portfolio Secure a remote job Spoiler - she actually did it and has the portfolio to prove it. Today Jess learns how she got there and where she hopes investing will take her next. This is 'How I Got Sta...

To gear, or not to gear- that is the question... Geared ETFs have had a bit of a moment in the past few years. Plenty of popular ETFs such as NDQ, A200 and DHHF now have “geared” versions. But what does that mean? How do geared ETFs work? And if their long term performance is expected to be better- should you be buying them instead? Today Cam Gleeson, Senior Investment Strategist at Betashares, jo...

PJ has five jobs, so his pay is almost never the same two weeks running. Working in a creative field, pay can be scattered and unpredictable. So how does he invest consistently? Jess learns how PJ, an actor juggling four other jobs, built a percentage-based system that invests a slice of every paycheque no matter when it lands. Plus the lithium stock punt that led him to ETFs and how he uses inves...