Money with Jess. Jessica Irvine

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Introduction

      Hello friends!

      My name is Jess and I'm good at money. Like, really good.

      It's taken a long time for me to be able to say that with confidence — partly because it wasn't always true.

      Shortly after I divorced in my mid‐30s, a colleague suggested I write a book titled A Man Is Not a Financial Plan about how to manage your finances as a single parent. Trouble was, I didn't know how.

      Which is a bit embarrassing, really, given I've now been working as a high‐profile economics and finance journalist for some of Australia's most prestigious newspapers for the better part of two decades.

      I have a university degree in economics and philosophy. It's my job to regularly pass judgement on how the nation's treasurer is managing the country's budget. I've reported on 18 annual federal budgets so far (not counting the ‘bonus’ emergency budgets and stimulus packages during the Global Financial Crisis and COVID‐19).

      I've interviewed prime ministers on live TV, enjoyed private one‐on‐one lunches with Reserve Bank governors and I regularly text and speak with treasury secretaries, both past and present.

      ‘I've been to budgeting nerd paradise' — as the 1970s chanteuse Charlene once famously (almost) sang — but I'd never, until quite recently, taken a very serious look at my own personal finances.

It's not that I was ever particularly bad at money, depending on your definition of this. I've never had a credit card I couldn't pay off in full each month to avoid paying interest. And I've always paid my bills on time.

      But, wow, have I spent a lot of money during my 40 years on this earth!

      As my career blossomed in my late 20s and early 30s, I thought nothing of dropping $400 on a new designer suit jacket, a meal at a posh restaurant or a night at a fancy hotel.

      I remember spending about that much to have my childhood copy of The Lord of the Rings rebound in an expensive, fabric‐clad hard cover by a specialist antique book store.

      Pretty cool, right?

      But then, one day, you find yourself pushing 40 as a divorced single mum who doesn't own a home, has never invested in shares or property and has no idea if she's on course for a comfortable retirement.

      I'm the classic example of someone who knows a lot about something in theory, but was pretty crap at applying it in practice.

      Looking back, I can see that at the time of my colleague's book‐writing suggestion, I was still drowning in deep shame and sadness at the failure of my marriage and my single parenthood.

      But, as the dust began to settle on my new life, I did start to slowly pick myself up and put my financial life together — perhaps for the first time.

      I bought my first home as a single mum aged 38 (I share all my best hacks for navigating that gruelling process in chapter 6 — stay tuned!).

At about that time, I began writing a weekly personal finance column for the ‘Money’ sections of the Sunday Age and Sun Herald newspapers. In it, I finally began applying all the economic theory I had learned to overhauling my real‐life finances — and sharing all the gory details with readers.

      My СКАЧАТЬ