Money & Love: The Surprising Truth About Couples Who Thrive Financially With Terry Condon

Did you know that financial stress is the #1 cause of relationship breakdowns? 😬 According to Relationships Australia, money fights are one of the leading reasons couples call it quits. But here’s the good news: Couples who regularly talk about their finances are happier, more connected, and less likely to split. 🙌 Research from Indiana University even found that married couples who manage their finances together report higher relationship satisfaction.

In this must-listen episode, Molly Benjamin and Terry Condon dive into the biggest money mistakes couples make, how to understand each other's money stories, and why shared financial goals are essential for long-term relationship success.

They unpack the mental load of managing finances, the importance of open (and judgment-free) conversations, and strategies for creating a collaborative, stress-free approach to money. Whether it’s aligning spending with personal values, splitting financial responsibilities, or navigating different life stages, this chat is packed with practical insights for Aussie couples looking to strengthen their financial foundation.

What you’ll learn:
✔️ Why money is such a big deal in relationships (and how to handle it better!)
✔️ The most common financial mistakes couples make (and how to avoid them!)
✔️ How to have stress-free money convos with your partner
✔️ The power of setting shared financial goals for a thriving relationship
✔️ How to stop sneaky spending from turning into relationship drama
✔️ Proven strategies for building financial trust & teamwork

Download Ladies Finance Club's Money + Love Couples  questionnaire! 

Take Ladies Finance Club's free Quiz to see if you're financial match or mismatch!

 

This episode is brought to you by InvestorKit, Australia’s #1 Buyers Agency for 2023 and 2024. They specialise in helping investors find high-growth properties utilising industry leading AI and data driven research process across Australia. 70%+ of the properties they purchase are off-market and they have consistently outperformed national average capital growth rates by over 49%. Whether you’re looking to build your property portfolio or secure your first investment. Check them out here.

 

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Introduction to Money and Relationships
03:00 – Common Mistakes Couples Make with Money
06:01 – Understanding Money Stories and Their Impact
09:01 – The Importance of Shared Financial Goals
12:01 – Navigating Financial Dynamics in Relationships
15:01 – Mental Load and Financial Responsibility
18:02 – Collaborating on Financial Decisions
19:03 – Navigating Financial Dynamics in Relationships (Duplicate – Consider removing or merging)
22:00 – Understanding Life Windows and Financial Goals
24:59 – Strategies for Effective Money Management
29:54 – Cultivating Enjoyment in Financial Decisions

 

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

 Fair Play – Eve Rodsky: https://www.fairplaylife.com
The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel: https://www.morganhousel.com/
Compare & Track Your Superannuation: https://moneysmart.gov.au/how-super-works/superannuation-calculator
Check How Your Super Fund is Performing: https://www.apra.gov.au/

 

CONNECT WITH TERRY CONDON

Website: https://www.cashflowco.com.au/mentorship
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecashflowco/ 
Podcast: Escape Plan Series

 

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

 

TAKEAWAYS

• Engaging with financial discussions is a skill that can be developed.
• Many women feel disconnected from financial discussions in relationships.
• Misunderstanding of money often leads to conflict in couples.
• Individual money stories significantly influence financial dynamics in relationships.
• It's crucial to have shared financial goals to improve relationship well-being.
• The mental load of managing finances should be shared between partners.
• Couples should question their beliefs about money and its role in their relationship.
• Every dollar in a committed relationship should be viewed as shared.
• Tasks related to finances can create different levels of stress and responsibility.
• Collaboration on financial decisions can lead to better outcomes for couples. Most men impose their financial ways onto women.
• Guilt around spending can stem from perceived ownership of money.
• Shared financial goals can enhance relationship dynamics.
• Time, talent, and money are resources to manage effectively.
• Investing is about buying time, not just accumulating money.
• Wealth, richness, and success are not defined by money alone.
• Automating financial decisions can lead to missed opportunities for engagement.
• Enjoyment in financial management leads to better outcomes.
• Spending in line with values fosters positive feelings about money.
• Financial skills development is crucial for making progress.

 

SOUND BITES

"I want to have a place at the table."
"Money is a blocker in my life."
"It's about sharing the mental load."
"It's all our money."
"Wealth isn't money. Rich isn't money."
"What do we value?"
"I feel so good about money again."

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Hey, it's Molly here. Now, before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to our awesome sponsor InvestorKit. At Ladies Finance Club, we are all about helping women crash financial independence and property investing is a really smart way to do this. But let's be real, figuring out the right location, avoiding costly mistakes.

[00:00:19] And dealing with agents, it's a lot. That's where Investor Kit comes in. They've been named Australia's Buyer Agency of the Year in 2023 and 2024. And they're here to look after you, the property investor. They know the markets inside out, back every move with solid data and take care of the tricky stuff like research, negotiation and even connecting you with top property managers.

[00:00:42] Whether it's your first investment property or you're building your portfolio, Investor Kit makes it simple and stress free. Big thanks to them for supporting this podcast. Visit investorkit. com. au to learn more. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. Welcome back to Get Rich, the podcast helping you do just that. Get [00:01:00] rich and stay rich.

[00:01:01] Now, quick question for you. Do you know what the number one cause of relationship breakdowns is? It's financial stress. Yep. Money. According to Relationships Australia, money is the leading factor in couples calling it quits. But the good news is if you discuss your finances regularly, you know what your couple goals are, you're going to be a lot happier.

[00:01:27] And so if you're someone who maybe needs to talk to your honey about the money, or maybe you're not even sure how to have that conversation with them, or maybe They've been the ones dealing with the money and you're like, I want to start getting involved, but you think they're going to freak out. If you just start now asking questions about money, then we're going to be covering all this and a lot more with Terry Condon.

[00:01:51] He's the co founder of the cashflow co and he's got a background in. Elite sports coaching, but he's all about helping create light bulb [00:02:00] moments to help people fast track their financial goals. I absolutely love this conversation. I felt like we went to a space we'd never really gone to before in our podcast episodes.

[00:02:10] So if you love what we're doing here on get rich, just say thanks by hitting that little subscribe button. All right. Welcome to the show, Terry. Great to have you here.

[00:02:18] Terry: Thank you so much for having me, Molly. This is a real privilege.

[00:02:22] Molly: Before we jumped on, we were chatting about. This episode, and ideally, you know, we come across a lot of women, obviously at ladies finance club and for many of them, they've been really busy in their careers in motherhood and they might've taken a step back from the finances.

[00:02:39] And if we're speaking really honestly, there was never a step forward. Like they've always just had that the partners looked after the finances. So I wanted to kind of put today around. Those women who are actually going, no, I want to, you know, have a place at the table. I want to actually talk to my partner about the money, talk to my honey about [00:03:00] the money, but I don't want to freak them out.

[00:03:03] I don't want them to think that I'm getting a divorce and just have some questions around this and how they can approach this with their partner. So starting off, I would love to know, you speak to a lot of couples about money and relationships. And I would love to know, what are some of those common mistakes you see couples make that yeah, get them into those situations?

[00:03:27] Terry: You're right. Yes. We're probably, I think we've had about 1300 people go through our process. And I've learned so much Molly in this period of time for myself and because you know, you see, you see yourself in others all the time. You're like, Oh my God, I do that. So I want to preface this whole thing with the things I'll share from this.

[00:03:47] I am 100 percent guilty of this at times as most people and it's given me a real sense of self awareness. Just I guess getting, peering into people's relationships with themselves, with money and also the couple's relationship [00:04:00] with money as well and that dynamic. And I guess coming back to your question, so the major sourcing conflicts with money that I would see is a misunderstanding of what money is, and a lack of time, effort, and attention put into choosing what you want money to be as a couple.

[00:04:16] We both make assumptions. I say the word money, you think, feel, these things. Yeah. She thinks, feels these things and we never actually have a conversation about what those things are.

[00:04:28] Molly: And would you say that's kind of understanding the other person's money story, like how, what money means to them? And because I know with your money mindset that's made up when we're children, it's heavily influenced with how our parents behaved with money.

[00:04:41] And so I imagine if you get, you know, this one person where money was talked about a lot, very openly, you know, there was this real abundance mindset around. Money versus someone who grew up maybe in a household where there wasn't much money where it was very much or money was fought over by parents.

[00:04:58] You're gonna have a very different view of [00:05:00] what money is.

[00:05:01] Terry: It is, yeah. So, and it's interesting because I think some people are comfortable delving into their past and other people are not. It's always worthwhile but it's not necessarily always helpful. Because you both got to be in a place where you're willing to have these kind of discussions.

[00:05:17] And it's not necessarily about what the other person can do for you, it's about your readiness and willingness to have that kind of discussion. For example, like for me, you know, my earliest relationship with money that I can think about one of the most, what do they call it? Core memories, right? So the first time I really thought about money as a concept for me, I was 11 years old and I used to be like quite a good swimmer.

[00:05:38] I swam at a national level and the first year I swam at a national level. I got smoked. Okay. I was making up the numbers, right? And I had trained all year that 12 months, you know, I'm getting up at five o'clock and I'm breaking the ice in the pool in the middle of winter and I busted my arm. And but I'm excited, right?

[00:05:58] Because I remember this moment like it was [00:06:00] yesterday. I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm pumped because I know that I'm better than I was last year. I know I'm doing better times, and I want to know how I stack up against Australia's best. And I found out that I've just made state again. And so I've just walked home, and I'm about to tell my dad that I've made state again.

[00:06:16] And he's on the phone, and you can see I'm sort of excited about something. And so he's like, one second, and he gets off the phone, and he's like, what's happening? And I said, I made state again. And he's like, mate, that's amazing. And then I just see this look of sadness, sort of, all over his face. And he sort of says.

[00:06:31] We can't afford it, mate. Can't afford a 10 year.

[00:06:33] Molly: Oh.

[00:06:34] Terry: I didn't have a conscious conversation with myself about money at this moment, but I realize now looking back that that was the first time I'd thought about money and I started to build a relationship with it where it was like money is a blocker.

[00:06:45] Molly: Mmm.

[00:06:46] In

[00:06:46] Terry: my life. Money stops me from doing the things that I really want to do. Gosh. It's not a fun, it stops the fun.

[00:06:51] Molly: Yeah.

[00:06:53] Terry: And I had let that story dictate the way I engage with money my whole life until it [00:07:00] changed and it changed to another story. And I guess I bring that up because I think we all walk around with these stories, these constructs.

[00:07:08] Without ever interrogating them and thinking about them because literally I could have told a completely different story in that moment. I might have told a story where I was like, If you get money, you can make anything you want happen. And then think about what that would have meant for the next 10 to 15 years.

[00:07:22] But it didn't. It created a, an avoidant relationship with money. And when it comes to partners and bringing this back to the conversation about couples, I see, you know, two broad patterns and it's got to do with relationships. It's anxious attached and anxious avoidant. And I've never met anyone who has a purely centered sort of approach and is completely balanced about this.

[00:07:43] And anyone who says that they do, is the least aware person in that relationship.

[00:07:47] Molly: Okay. And I guess then, so, if that is one of the big Kind of issues you see, is it about bringing in a third party to help mediate that conversation or [00:08:00] our, as adults, can we do it ourselves? Because I know as soon as we start talking about money, it can become a very emotional, people get super defensive.

[00:08:09] Sometimes it's just a topic we don't have much experience talking about in relationships. So all of a sudden, yeah, things come up that way. We weren't aware, we didn't think we're going to come up.

[00:08:19] Terry: Yeah, it's not a straightforward answer, but I would say that, like, the most dangerous belief is the one that you never question.

[00:08:26] And so if you don't even know that it's a belief to question, then how would you know? And so, ultimately, the way out of this is to have experiences that invalidate your ideas. You need to collect evidence that disproves that belief. And once that weight of evidence hits a certain threshold, you start to go.

[00:08:45] Well, that's actually a lie. I just told myself that in the moment and it's a story I told, but it's just one story and it's created a completely different reality. So if you need a third party to help you get to the stage where you can accumulate those experiences for yourself and walk you through a [00:09:00] pathway, then you should do that.

[00:09:01] Molly: But

[00:09:02] Terry: ultimately it's about accumulating those experiences and having different sets of outcomes that start to chip away, break down and destroy that idea.

[00:09:08] Molly: Yeah. Okay. So if we move on to, because this comes up a bit as well, this question, when it comes to money and relationships, splitting expenses, and there's some really prominent like money gurus in America who are like, if you're married, everything should be, you know, it's just One pile of cash.

[00:09:29] Other people are like, no, always keep your emergency fund in your name and then have, you know, uh, a house like account where you put money in as a couple, again, having coached hundreds of couples, what do you find is the best way of managing these conversations and splitting expenses?

[00:09:49] Terry: Well, let's go with the research.

[00:09:50] So, there was some research that came out, I believe, maybe 2023, maybe 2024. It's very, very new. Studied a bunch of different couples around [00:10:00] this question, and if we just think about the point of money is to improve your financial well being. Let's agree on that, right? You want to improve your well being in your life.

[00:10:08] That's what it's about. What it showed was the couples that had separate finances and didn't share goals when it came to money had to give, had measurably lower levels of well being in their relationships and were much more likely to break up.

[00:10:22] Molly: Yeah.

[00:10:22] Terry: So that is what the evidence tells us and what I can tell you from my experience is when I help and when we help people To actually go from operating in silos to coming together, having a shared way, a shared vision and then a shared way of working a system that's not one person's way, that's our way.

[00:10:40] Most couples, a lot of couples will tell us, I've had couples come into this program about to divorce and say, this is the last, this is the last gasp.

[00:10:46] Molly: Yeah.

[00:10:47] Terry: We tried this, we tried counseling, we tried this. And those relationships continue today. And they've gotten better. And purely it's because. You've got into a way where it's like, we are doing [00:11:00] this together.

[00:11:01] And so if you ask me to give you a categorical answer, I'd say go for shared as often as you possibly can, but I can't talk to everyone's context.

[00:11:09] Molly: Yes.

[00:11:10] Terry: And there are some very unhelpful, very toxic relationships that are probably just going to end anyway. Yeah. And if you feel like you might be in one of those.

[00:11:20] And heads up, if the person uses money to control, manipulate, and those sort of things, maybe don't combine your finances. Maybe you realize that's a huge red flag and either try to work through it, or let it play out.

[00:11:32] Molly: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Terry: More often than not my answer is share your money, but that doesn't mean Molly that you have to share everything Yeah, my wife and I have our own spending accounts discretionary spending that it's a black box.

[00:11:45] You can do whatever you want with That's your money.

[00:11:46] Molly: Yeah

[00:11:47] Terry: beyond that where we share expenses and how we have shared goals and we have shares objectives and those sort of thing That's our money and that's how we work together, but you no one should tell you how you should spend your Yeah.

[00:11:59] Molly: Cause I always [00:12:00] find it tricky when women have children and then they obviously go from earning to not earning.

[00:12:06] And this is where I can imagine, and I've seen it in some cases, the balance of power kind of changes. And if you've gone from both being earners to now one's relying on the other. It's a dynamic shift and I don't know if I've come across like the you know the right solution for this But I imagine then if you're approaching that those finances as we are one then that's going to be better to Tackle those situations with

[00:12:36] Terry: what a pickup seriously this is a real inflection point for a lot of couples and it's where you know, we talked about gender roles with money and Honestly, we're still walking around most of us with gender roles that are from the 1950s.

[00:12:50] Yeah He makes the money, she manages the money. And whoever makes the money has all the say.

[00:12:55] Molly: Yeah.

[00:12:56] Terry: Okay. But here's the problem with that, Molly. When you [00:13:00] come together in a relationship, you have three resources to manage. One of which is money. You have time, you have talent, and you have money. To believe and to assume that money is the only one that matters for the most important decisions around our lives.

[00:13:15] It's horribly misguided and it should be called into question and it needs to be thrown out. I'll give you a really good example of this. So there's a lady who came through our program, her name is Rachel Taylor, and this lady is an absolute dynamo. In fact, she's retired now. She retired early, like 10 years earlier than she, she went to a financial planner and he said, you got to wait 15 years and keep working.

[00:13:35] She retired 18 months later. Now what she said to me was, I'm coming to you because I want to empower myself because I'm coming off a broken relationship where I've realized. That I let the other person ultimately control this part of my life. She said there was no conversation and actually she said before we got married and before we had kids even, we were peers when it came to money and after we had kids, all of a sudden there's this unspoken rule which was like, [00:14:00] you handle the money.

[00:14:01] And I'll make the homework and she said, that has cost me so much, the financial ignorance that I've held and I've had, that's my fault. And she says, I just didn't question this, neither as did. And really she came through because she's like, I want to actually know what I should have known all the way through.

[00:14:21] Molly: And

[00:14:21] Terry: so coming back to your sort of question, like it's just so important to realize that when one person's earning or earning more, if you are truly in a committed relationship, Every dollar is ours. You can do it the other way if you want and you can account for every dollar and I see people in these relationships and frankly, I would be completely miserable doing it.

[00:14:41] If you want to keep score the rest of your life and think about who's ahead and who's behind, that's a great way to create tension, resentment, and distance in a relationship.

[00:14:51] Molly: Yeah. And I absolutely love that. And I think the challenge I imagine women will have is when they've been in that situation where they've just had nothing to do with [00:15:00] the finances and all of a sudden they're like, Hey honey.

[00:15:03] Let's sit down and talk about the money, like taking that step because then I imagine they're like, well, why do I obviously want to all of a sudden want to know about the money and where's this going? Again, those defenses would come up. So

[00:15:18] Terry: you know what? You would be surprised. So I advocate for women most of the time, but I'll step in here for men for a second and say, That assumption is more often not correct than it is correct, particularly these days.

[00:15:29] Molly: Yeah, okay.

[00:15:30] Terry: Because there's a mental load that comes with the money.

[00:15:32] Molly: Yes.

[00:15:33] Terry: Yes. That is always best shared. Because. If you're making the decisions about money, then you're making decisions about our future. That's a lot of load and stress to measure and manage. My wife and I had conversations about this, this mental load in the home.

[00:15:47] She's managing it all, and I said, and that would be true, and I'll be managing all the mental load when it comes to money. And most men would prefer the women to be involved. It's the way that that happens that's the [00:16:00] problem. So question that assumption that your partner doesn't want you to be involved.

[00:16:04] It's how do we do this in a constructive way and how do I do it in a way where it brings us closer together? I think that's a better question.

[00:16:10] Molly: That is actually such a good point and because I Obviously female that's what I know. That's my perspective. But now you say that I do recall conversations with people where the partner has been so open and like, yes Finally, I've been trying to get you involved in the finances for years.

[00:16:29] You show no interest. So I just thought you weren't interested So let's have a conversation. So maybe that's how women can approach that conversation. Like, let's share this mental load. I know it's a huge amount that takes up your head space. I mean, women have a lot of mental load, but you know, again, that's changing in relationships.

[00:16:46] That's being shared a lot more. But that's a great approach, which I hadn't thought of. So I feel like that answers the question.

[00:16:53] Terry: Yeah. There's a book that I read that my wife encouraged me to read called Fair Play, and it's written by Eve [00:17:00] Rodsky, who's a lawyer, and it's all about mental load in the home and how we manage it.

[00:17:03] And it's the first time I really thought about this concept because I've got twins, like two six year old twins. Yeah. And. When you have twins, you don't get the choice to be like, I'll let her do most of the nurturing and I'll just kind of step back until like we're ready to, I'm ready to kind of play more of a role.

[00:17:17] You don't actually get that choice anymore. And so I found myself doing more, doing a lot more in the home and she was still exhausted and she was still like resentful about it. And I didn't understand why because I was like, I'm destroying myself. I'm doing so much more work here. Like why is this not working?

[00:17:34] Why is this not enough? And what I realized is all tasks aren't created equal and this is the same with money. So there's tasks that have to be done when they need to be done, like change the baby's nappy. You don't get to choose whether you'll do it in an hour

[00:17:46] Molly: or

[00:17:47] Terry: whether you do it now. And there's tasks that can be done when they can be done, right?

[00:17:52] And so I had taken on and started doing more of these tasks, like take the bin out, like

[00:17:56] Molly: clean the room. Has to be done straight away, yeah.

[00:17:58] Terry: But those ones don't have to be done [00:18:00] straight away. And she's managing all the ones where it's like, they're going to be done when they're going to be done. So it feels like her day is dictated to, whereas I can manage all these things around myself.

[00:18:08] Ah, your schedule.

[00:18:09] Molly: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Terry: Right. And it's the same thing with money. So these, there's different times of tasks where some tasks can be done and there's other tasks that are urgent and need to be done when they're done. And then this all contributes to mental load as well. And then there's kind of stress, tension, and a level of like assumed responsibility in this space that.

[00:18:26] Yes, you wanna share it for that reason. But the second and most important reason to share it is because most of the time the women are gonna have an insight into things because you're in that caring, nurturing relationship more than the man you are going to be spending more. Mm-hmm .

[00:18:38] Molly: You have

[00:18:39] Terry: to, that's the role.

[00:18:40] Yeah. That's just the spending role.

[00:18:41] Molly: Yeah.

[00:18:42] Terry: And for the man, if for that period of time the wound's not working as much, he's gonna be doing the earning. You're go, both going to have siloed information about what's happening. So you're going to know what things cost, how much it costs to actually have the nappies, how much things have gone up and what, what our groceries have gone from this to this.

[00:18:57] And I'm going to just see us spending all this money [00:19:00] and I'm not going to actually have any insight into what's going on. So I'm going to be going, I'm working harder than ever and we're spending more than ever and you're spending all the money.

[00:19:06] Molly: Yeah.

[00:19:06] Terry: And. It's because we actually don't have a way to collaborate around money.

[00:19:11] We don't have a shared way of working with money and we're not sharing that mental load. There's no shared. So, I'll tell you where the problem actually eventuates. Most men are open to this. The problem that eventuates is they've got their way

[00:19:23] Molly: and

[00:19:23] Terry: then they try to impose their way. That they've always done it onto the way we should do it.

[00:19:27] And that creates a bit of a power differential where it perpetuates the problem that women feel, which is like, well, this is your thing. It's not really my thing. I'm just here for the ride. Just tell me how it works.

[00:19:38] Molly: Yeah. Does that

[00:19:38] Terry: make sense?

[00:19:39] Molly: Yeah, no, it does. Absolutely. So then coming up with the shed and that actually, sorry, I'll, I'll digress.

[00:19:45] So I had a conversation on the weekend with some friends and One of them's got kids. Those kids are growing up and she's not working at the moment. The partner's working. So she's looking after the household and she [00:20:00] goes out for these lunches and she feels this immense amount of guilt from going to these lunches while her partner is working and because the kids now are at school.

[00:20:09] And I just thought that was. Yeah, that was an interesting thought as well because I don't have kids so I'm, I'm new to like this world and these different insights of just the guilt that is felt around the spending.

[00:20:23] Terry: Yeah, I mean, if I could decode it for a second, I'd say the biggest assumption, probably again, Not really thinking about this, but just taking it on is that the whoever makes the money it's theirs

[00:20:34] Molly: Yeah,

[00:20:35] Terry: and so she's thinking or maybe feeling I'm spending his money and maybe he maybe I've just gone out to his lunch and agreed To it, but I haven't really discussed it with him So I'm just spending his money and in actuality if you're in a healthy relationship, it's all our money

[00:20:47] Molly: Yeah

[00:20:48] Terry: and The problem is if it hasn't been discussed or there's no space or room for those kind of decisions to be made Then you feel like you're betraying that person But it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:20:58] Molly: It doesn't have

[00:20:59] Terry: to be that way at [00:21:00] all.

[00:21:00] Molly: So coming up with shared goals, I know this is something you guys do a lot of work on, is actually looking at what are you wanting to do, you know, with this time you have on earth? How do you want to spend it and how do you want to spend it together? So how can couples approach, well for lack of a better word, it's a goal setting, like what they want to achieve with their money over time?

[00:21:20] Terry: This solves so much for couples if you do it the right way because You know, I talked about the three resources you had before, the time, the talent, the money. They're the three resources that you have to manage and allocate to get what you want out of life. And when you realize that the game is to maximize time through money, not maximize money with time, you start to get more clear on how the money could or should be used for you, for what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:21:43] And so the first thing to really realize is you're trying to manage time.

[00:21:47] Molly: You're

[00:21:47] Terry: trying to expand time as much as possible. When you think about it, that's what investing is. It's you buying time. And so, when you get clear on how short life is, it's like if you had a near death experience today, you would walk back into your life and say, there's so [00:22:00] much superfluous shit

[00:22:01] Molly: that I'm going to

[00:22:02] Terry: stop doing right now.

[00:22:03] Wouldn't you?

[00:22:04] Molly: Yes.

[00:22:05] Terry: And so, when you sit down with couples that manage goals, the first thing we show them is how short life is. Because you don't have the rest of your life, Molly. You have. You have five life windows, and you and I have been through this process, so you know what I'm talking about. You have freedom, which is everything before kids, marriage, mortgage, all the kind of big responsibilities pile on and converge.

[00:22:21] And then you have responsibility, which is what I'm in right now. Two six year old kids, myself and my wife run businesses. We run really hard and fast to keep things going and make progress, you know? And then as the kids get a little bit older, It goes into counsel, which is like you're being more of a guide, being more of a sort of a manager and helping people see things and, and some of those responsibilities on the day to day have dropped away.

[00:22:41] So you're starting to get a little bit of time back, money is improving, but your health starting to decline and then you move into exploration when the kids leave home or some of those responsibilities drop away or the mortgage is mostly paid off and you have more freedom and then you go into legacy, which is the last part of your life where you've got heaps of money.

[00:22:56] Heaps of time, but no health. And so you're trying to really [00:23:00] look at how to maximize each of these time periods or windows. And that's how you start to think about how to maximise your money. What it's got to fund for you in each of those periods. So, I think a lot of folks just, they start with just like, Hey, I want a house.

[00:23:12] Molly: Yeah.

[00:23:14] Terry: Right? You know, which is understandable because it's like something very visible. You look around, you can see people with houses, that sort of thing. But it's quite memetic. It's very much looking at other people and referencing outside of yourself. When you look at how short time is, you've got to think about what you care about.

[00:23:27] What's very important to you in this window and the next window. And then you can start to really think about what you want to get done.

[00:23:33] Molly: Yeah.

[00:23:33] Terry: Right. So we have like these definitions that we separate from money. Wealth isn't money, rich isn't money, and success isn't money, but the world wants you to think that they are.

[00:23:42] The world wants you to think that having more money must be, you're more wealthy. Having more money means you are richer, right? Having more money means you must be more successful. But it's not any of those things. It's a way to get them. Kind of like plane tickets with travel, right? Yes, you need plane tickets to travel, but having a lot of tickets doesn't make you well travelled.

[00:23:58] Molly: No.

[00:23:59] Terry: It's the [00:24:00] way that you use the tickets. And how you put them to work, if that makes sense. So for us Wealth is having more of what you value, not anybody else, what you value. Rich is living with less obligations, things you want off your plate. And success is dying with zero regrets. And so you can think about each of these life windows, and you can define wealth, rich, and success for this window that you're living in right now, the next window, and the ones that are coming up.

[00:24:24] And once you do sit down and actually do that, now you're ready to set some goals. You've got to really think about the experience, because it's not money, it's what the money's for, and you cannot optimize your money. Unless you know what you're optimizing it for. No answer is going to be found in a spreadsheet unless you've started with the end in mind.

[00:24:39] Molly: Yeah.

[00:24:40] Terry: That make sense?

[00:24:41] Molly: Yeah, it does. I'm loving this conversation. So many thoughts.

[00:24:48] Terry: I'm just spewing like eight years of like stuff at you.

[00:24:51] Molly: No, it's good.

[00:24:52] Terry: Yeah,

[00:24:53] Molly: no, no, it's great. So tools or strategies for kind of the practical part [00:25:00] of managing this?

[00:25:02] Terry: I would start with like maybe our biggest realization. With money because we probably spent two years trying to figure out what doesn't work and why the things that are out there don't work

[00:25:11] Molly: Yeah

[00:25:12] Terry: We had most people come to us having read all the popular books Beverly investor and the Dave Ramsey's and lots of stuff and in telling us Yeah, we read those books, but we still don't feel better about our money.

[00:25:21] And even though the bank balance looks okay,

[00:25:24] Molly: we

[00:25:24] Terry: still don't feel like we're getting the most out of things. Because we read all these books too, and we're like, what's going on with this? Like, this is supposed to be the only money guide you'll ever need, isn't it? So we're like, well, what's going on? Again, I'll give you the benefit of eight years worth of learning in this space.

[00:25:40] This was verified by research that came out just last year, so university, Australian Catholic University and Positive Psychology Lab in Canada. And they looked at different types of motivation and financial goals, outcomes, and well being, and There's two different types of motivation. There's controlled motivation and then there's autonomous motivation.

[00:25:59] And so [00:26:00] if I adopt your prescription and just follow whatever the rules are, whatever the ascribed percentages are or whatever, that's what they call introjected motivation. It's not mine. I'm just following the rules. I'm complying, right? Whereas autonomous motivation comes from a place what I just described before.

[00:26:16] If you decide what money has to do for you first and you give money a bigger job, now you can line it up to who you are and what you value. You don't have to do it, you want to do

[00:26:26] Molly: it.

[00:26:28] Terry: And those two things are very different. There's a should versus a I'm doing this. This is, this is really important. This is really important versus this is a job to be done.

[00:26:36] So if you can't, you need to start there first. And the second thing I'll say is, we've also been conditioned to try to make it as easy as possible. Here's what I don't like about that. It assumes that you're not good with money. You should just automate it all the way. Never think about any of it. And I'm not saying automation is the wrong thing, by the way.

[00:26:54] I don't want to sort of, I'm not making a broad brush statement. I think automating payments is fantastic, but automating [00:27:00] allocations and the decisions that you make with money, that's a real opportunity lost because that's an opportunity where you get to sit down and decide how you're going to allocate this finite resource to get what you want.

[00:27:10] Now we've consulted with and interviewed some of the world's best behavior scientists. One of them is BJ Fogg. BJ Fogg is the reason we're all addicted to Instagram, Uber and all these addictive apps, right? And so we've had him on our show. And you know what his number one insight is, if you want to build a habit, you don't change by feeling bad.

[00:27:25] You change by feeling good. And so what the research tells us and shows us is that if you use a method or a strategy or a tactic where you're introducing someone else's values into your situation, it doesn't make you feel good.

[00:27:37] Molly: No.

[00:27:38] Terry: It just helps you feel like I'm doing the right thing. You want to actually feel good.

[00:27:44] Doing it and you don't want to automate that away instead of looking for ease Cultivate a situation an environment and a practice where you enjoy it because the most potent source of motivation is feeling like you're getting somewhere

[00:27:58] Molly: And

[00:27:59] Terry: if you [00:28:00] automate everything away and you're very detached from your money, you can't see your feel that you're getting anywhere.

[00:28:04] Molly: No

[00:28:05] Terry: Unless you actually go into your bank accounts. And here's the big secret, Molly. We know a lot of these financial influencers and I'm really good, got good relationships with one in particular. They'll talk about this stuff as a start.

[00:28:17] Molly: Barefoot

[00:28:17] Terry: investor, that's what they think. But if you actually dig into the way they do it now, it looks nothing like the barefoot investor.

[00:28:22] They customize it to themselves. I'm sure you're the same. You make out, you figure out what works for you because that's what's sustainable. Not what somebody tells you to do. Don't do what somebody tells you to do. Figure out what works best for you. And that requires you to engage with your money.

[00:28:36] Molly: So

[00:28:36] Terry: coming back to strategies, number one strategy, stop looking for ease and start searching for enjoyment.

[00:28:42] How can I enjoy my money? How does this actually play out? Like I said, start with the end in mind, get really clear on what the money's for first. And then take that financial vision, break it down into some financial goals that you can measure progress against. Then build a shared operating system that you can both see, [00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Molly: so

[00:29:00] Terry: you can surface progress at each stage.

[00:29:02] You want to be able to see clear line of sight between today's decision, tomorrow's outcomes. And you don't do that unless it's customized to your situation. And so setting up buckets we think is fantastic, right? Buckets are great, but they shouldn't be generic. Shouldn't be generic, shouldn't be splurge, this, this, fire extinguisher, whatever it is.

[00:29:21] It should be very specific. Specific for what that's

[00:29:23] Molly: for.

[00:29:24] Terry: Yeah. Specific for your goals, what it's about. So yes, maybe the house is a part of your financial vision, but it's house, July 2025, 65, 000.

[00:29:33] Molly: Yeah.

[00:29:34] Terry: Right? But that's not enough. You need your structures to actually reflect that and then your information systems to surface it every single day because then you can start to see the spending trade offs that you're making.

[00:29:44] Yes, we can have Uber Eats tonight, Molly, if you really want to, but we're going to be taking it from the house account. Do you want that?

[00:29:49] Molly: Yeah.

[00:29:50] Terry: Remember what I said before about behavior science and feeling good?

[00:29:53] Molly: Yeah.

[00:29:54] Terry: Best way to feel good about, good about money is to spend in line with your values. You never feel bad about [00:30:00] money if you're spending in line with your values.

[00:30:01] Does that mean the Uber Eats is wrong? No. Because maybe, maybe a couple that you're really good friends with and they're flying out tomorrow and it's unlikely that you're going to see them for a long period of time. Maybe they've come over and decided to turn lunch into dinner and just having so much fun playing games that you're like, let's get some dinner.

[00:30:19] And you're making a decision there and you're saying, Oh, it's not really necessarily in our plan for this month. But it's these, these guys are so important to us. Are we happy to push out the house by three days for this experience? What do we value? Now we're making a decision about values. It's not a mindless, we've got the money.

[00:30:35] It's a, yeah, no, that's, that makes complete sense to us. That's who we are. That's what's really important to us. Absolutely, we're getting new Baris tonight. Let's like dial it in. Baris, spend up, you know. Spend money in line with your values, feel good. Spend money or save money in line with somebody else's values, feel bad.

[00:30:50] Molly: Yeah.

[00:30:51] Terry: I

[00:30:51] Molly: love that. It's so true and so much better having that conversation than just like money that's just in an account for [00:31:00] no reason, doing nothing, you're not sure what it's for. You can just see how that has such a huge, will have such a huge impact on your life. This has been such a great conversation.

[00:31:10] If people are like, loving Terry, wanting more of this, where can they go?

[00:31:16] Terry: Probably the best place to start with us is, um, we have recently just published a full series on the actual method that we teach. So if you want to understand, I guess the, the nuts and bolts of what I'm kind of talking about here, we've podcast.

[00:31:30] So if you go to money minded. And you search for escape plan series 2. 0, that's going to take you through step by step, literally exactly what we do and how we do it, and more importantly, why it works. But the most important thing too is, and I want to get across is that, um, what we're doing is we've realized that.

[00:31:48] Don't look for ease, look for enjoyment and build financial skill

[00:31:51] Molly: because

[00:31:51] Terry: the more skilled you are with money, the more challenges you'll take on and the bigger decisions you'll make and that's how you make really fast progress. It's how the Rachel's of the world get to retire in 18 months [00:32:00] versus 15 years.

[00:32:01] So there's a financial skill score that we've developed. And it ties in with our method as well. And it's a great way to kind of audit yourself and say, where am I at? Because there's five money skills that you need to succeed. And that's kind of what we teach and what you'll learn through that series.

[00:32:13] So if you want to take that score, that'll be a good fast track as well to give you a sense of like, this is where we're at against each of these skills.

[00:32:19] Molly: Amazing. And we'll make sure we put those links in the show notes as well. We recently had a ladies finance club member work with you guys, and I'm sure you know this, but her feedback was incredible.

[00:32:32] I think that was the biggest thing where she was like, I feel so good about money.

[00:32:36] Terry: Yeah.

[00:32:36] Molly: She's like, I'm good at this. And I'm like, Oh yes, love that.

[00:32:41] Terry: That's me done for the day. Well, I'm packing up and I'm just enjoying that for the rest of the

[00:32:45] Molly: day. That's all I've done. I

[00:32:46] Terry: feel good about money and I'm good at this.

[00:32:48] That's it.

[00:32:48] Molly: It was so good. And then she's just about to buy a property. So it was awesome.

[00:32:53] Terry: That's so good.

[00:32:54] Molly: Well, thank you so much, Terry, for all that you do and helping so many people. And I'm so excited for people to hear this episode. [00:33:00] And also I will be putting all those links and I'll put in a link to that episode you mentioned before as well with the behavioral guy in the show.

[00:33:08] I'll be there.

[00:33:09] Terry: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. This has been so much fun.

 

 

 

KEYWORDS

money, relationships, financial skills, couples, communication, mental load, financial goals, money stories, shared finances, financial dynamics, money management, financial goals, relationships, life windows, financial strategies, budgeting, wealth, financial literacy, couples finance, financial well-being