Money Matters

Money is not a four-letter word. Only those who have never been without, can say that money isn’t important.

To create, a women needs A Room of One’s Own a £5000 a year (Virginia Woolf)

These days, 100 years later, I would set that amount at $50,000. A modest income, apparently. That is $961 per week. The median income according to the Aus Bureau of Statistics in 2022 was $65k. The average income was $83k .
The POVERTY LINE has recently been updated to $1145.61 per week for a household of 2 adults and 2 children.

To be considered rich, that income is apparently over $250k.

Personally, my income for most of my life has been around $25k pa.

I have always been in the performing arts, though I have done many jobs to support that profession . . . I have not been single minded in my career . . I have followed where my nose – or heart – led me – in many cases into very deep water. . . . Self-preservation was not high on my list of priorities – It was only when I had children and realised I was responsible for more than my own self that I began to take everyone’s preservation more seriously. I have explored many avenues to unpack this and am grateful for every minute of every experience – and also grateful to have grown out of that phase of my life and come through in one piece.

Self development and spiritual healing have been high on the list.

My main professions have been motherhood, theatre and breathwork – all underpaid and undervalued and often deeply misunderstood, but passionately important to me. I

studied motherhood like a Masters degree – through the lens of feminism and psychology.

Coming from a wealthy school in the 80s (a scholarship girl – the ‘poor’(1) kid at the rich school) that was bent on producing young women who could rival men in male dominated professions. Many of my friends and peers studied hard and took high powered jobs, having children in their late thirties and early forties, and then taking on the full load of domestic tasks as well as bringing in a high income. (Men who may have taken pride in supporting a family, whose identity was built on their breadwinning capacity, were left floundering. . ) We were bent on proving we were as capable as anyone, but did not know how to begin to let go of generations of serving and caring for family.

We are the daughters of the Feminist Revolution. In our lifetime, it is a new thing to have had our own bank account and money of our own. For generations, we have been good at building community, at taking care of each other, taking care of our families, our children, our husbands, at trading and serving and giving – exchanging plums for herbs, delivering meals to sick or grieving friends, knowing that our turn would come when we needed support. This has served us forever. But times are changing. Now, if we are sick or grieving we can order Deliveroo/Ubereats – ‘for almost anything’.

As long as we have money.

As a freelance actor and singer passionate about the arts and spiritual matters, with little regard for money as a status symbol or anything else, and an alchemist who could dress well from an op shop and magic furniture on the side of the road . .. a reliable income was something I barely considered, let alone aspired to.

But hey. We live in this world. Money is useful. Money counts. Money talks. Money matters. Money can do an enormous amount of good in the world. Money represents Education, Freedom, Health, Service and whatever else you want to use it for.

Might as well line up with it and learn to use it well.

The first thing to know and remember is – there is plenty of money out there. More money is minted every year.

Where is it?

% of Australia’s wealth is in the hands of % of people. We need to get it into the hands of those who would do good. We need to be good stewards of money. We can grow our money like it grows on trees. We can invest it in ways that bring surplus to so that we can spread it like muck and watch it make life grow.

Why am I writing about money? Who am I to teach about money?

I am a singer, and actor, a voice coach, a breathwork practitioner – and a healer who uses all of those modalities and all of those experiences to bring people into alignment, to attune to their true and highest selves

But money has practically defined my life. Someone said ‘ you teach best what you most need to learn’. I may not be a great singing teacher – singing is too easy for me – (i’m like ‘just sing this, what’s your problem’) – But money has been hard for me – and in sharing my learning I can reach a whole new level of understanding.

After the famous hierarchy of needs by M—- Stacy Haines says as humans we are looking for three things – safety, belonging and dignity (or self expression). Generally we can have two of those things, and we tend to sacrifice a third. (quote)

I chose dignity every time, at the expense of both safety and belonging. In doing so I learned that I belong wherever I am – that I belong in the Cosmos as a Vibrational Being, and that ‘in my defenselessness my safety lies’ ACIM.

I am not proposing that we work harder to make more money.

Money, like fire, (and like the mind), is a good servant but a poor Master.

. . I am suggesting that money is important and that we need to learn how to manage it. Taking care of our finances is like taking care of our bodies. If we want to live a long and physically able life, we need to manage what we have. It is a game. It is mindset and management. So many people teach this better than I do – I just want to share my story through the extremes of the road.

Money isn’t evil. Money is as evil as a shovel or a rake . . if you use it to hit someone over the head – or if you leave it around tines upward and someone steps on it – it can do harm . . but in itself, it is nothing. It is the use of it that matters.

The love of money could be seen as ‘evil’. (2)

That could apply to many things: when working for money becomes more important than anything else. You don’t have to be rich3 to ‘love’ money – you just have to put it above relationships, or health – your own or anyone else’s.

My first money books were from my grandmother. The Magic of Thinking Big (??), the Power of Positive Thinking, and something about Confidence. She didn’t give them to me – I was an avid reader of anything I could lay my hands on. I read them when I was about 9 years old and they are on my shelves now, some 48 years later. Also on my shelves are pieces of the gold dinner service from the 1950s – (quote)

Later I remember her acquiring a baby grand piano by following the instructions in one of these books. So I learnt about the power of thought very early on in life.

My first wage (the award wage for an actor) was about $383 pw. I put $50 aside for kitty (the share household I lived in would do a shop with $50 each and we would take it in turns to cook. The menu was mostly sausages and beans) and $50 for rent – and spent the rest in a day, on Chanel/ Christian Dior make-up in gorgeous gold packaging. The next week I did the same and spent the rest on clothes. I still remember the purple harem pants and shorts I bought in Brisbane

My next money book was a small green paperback which I had in my twenties – it gave me practical habits to develop. I wish I could remember the name of this book. I used to receive my wage in cash and put it in envelopes. Since my wage was constantly variable, given the short term and intermittent nature of my employment, I used the percentage budget

10% saving (pay yourself first!)
20% debt
10% tithing . .
30% housing
30% everything else

I still use this plan. I have often broken it – but always come back to it.

I read Stuart Wilde’s ‘The Trick to Money is having Some’, The Richest Man in Babylon, Think and Grow Rich, etc etc . . . Most recently, I have followed Denise Duffield Thomas who is passionate about empowering women to make money

Money tracking – It is super important to pay attention to what is coming in. The chances are it is more than you think, and gratitude multiplies everything.

Abundance Games

My first husband was a chef – and a gambler. I have known what it is to be stuck with no petrol in the car and the phone disconnected, isolated from family and friends, alone with 2 toddlers, one with second degree burns from falling against the heater. For years.

We had a house. By then. We did spend several months in a caravan with a toddler while I was heavily pregnant.

Then I was a single mum raising two spirited boys alone and able to work part time at various jobs that did not demand too much commitment from me – because I was committed to the wellbeing of my sons and also to continuing to practise my art wherever I could.

There was a time when I revelled in the romance of being ‘poor’. I delighted in my ability to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, an outfit out of rags, a meal from scraps – and these are skills to be proud of, celebrated, skills learned from generations of women who have lived through war and famine.

A song I sang with relish was Peggy Lee’s version of I’m a Woman;

I can wash out 44 pairs of socks and have them hanging out on the line
I can starch and iron two dozen shirts before you can count from 1 – 9
I can scoop up a great dipper full of lard from the drippings can
Throw it in the skillet, go out and do my shopping and be back before it melts in the pan
Cos I’m a woman – W-O-MAN
I’ll say it again

I can rub and scrub till this whole house is shining like a dime
Feed the baby, grease the car and powder my face at the same time
Get all dressed up, go out and swing till 4am and then
Lay down at 5, jump up at 6 and start all over again
Cos I’m a woman – W-O-MAN
I’ll say it again

If you come to me sickly you know I’m going to make you well
If you come all hexed up you know I’m gonna break the spell
If you come to me hungry you know I’m going to fill you full of grits
If it’s loving you want you know I can kiss you and give you the shivering fits

I got a 20 gold piece there ain’t nothing I can’t do
I can make a dress out of a feedbag and I can make a man out of you
Cos I’m a woman – W-O-MAN
I’ll say it again
Cos I’m a woman – W-O-MAN
That’s all

Phew. It makes me tired to think of that song.

But this is where we have come from. And many of us(4) (of all genders and ages) are still playing out a modern day version of this – demanding of ourselves an environmentally sustainable perfect home, preferably self made out of mudbrick or strawbale, electric vehicle, gourmet organic meals made from food we have grown ourselves. . , stylish and earth-conscious clothing on a well maintained body, to accommodate a full time high powered job, a conscious respectful loving relationship, social life and a happy, thriving multi skilled family fulfilling all their talents and potential in the mix, while avoiding toxins and reducing our carbon footprint and doing good in the world . . .

Phew. I’ll just have a little lie down to ponder that.

I am aware I am speaking to a certain demographic here

(There could be a 2025 version of this song . . . called the Burden of Privilege: ‘Cos I’m a privileged white cunt’ P-W-C-U-N-T – That’s all’)

I once took the kids, aged 8 and 9 or thereabouts, on a trip to Melbourne. Probably for an appointment with a family therapist . . We wandered around the city and were told off for taking a dip in the Art Gallery pool. I would have been carrying food for us – some

sweaty cheese sandwiches perhaps?, but it occurred to me that I would just love to buy the three of us lunch at Southbank . . So I found an echoey spot under the bridge and put down a hat and sang . . Oh Danny Boy etc etc

And I bought us lunch.

Another time at the Maldon Folk Festival a very kind man gave us money for the CD I had not yet made – also so that I could buy the kids lunch. We stayed in touch, and I made that CD (I had to, since he had bought one already!)

Life is an adventure. It seemed romantic. It tied in with the poor starving artist identity that I thought I belonged to.

But it’s not romantic. With two little children in tow, it is irresponsible, and traumatic for everyone. It took its toll on my nervous system which has taken me 10 years or so to restore. There is nothing noble in being poor. And we live in the ‘lucky country’ where we have some agency over our fortunes.

My family came out from the UK when I was very small – the last of the £10 poms – with a good sense of postwar frugality and an appreciation that the standard of living in Australia was much higher than we were used to. We came for two years and stayed permanently, largely because we could have meat and wine more than once or twice a week . . My mum set her way to making and investing money while my dad held a good steady job and signed the mortgage documents that made projects possible. Mum studied and invested in all sorts of things; she was determined to be financially free. yes, It was the 70s and 80s and they built wealth on a modest income with determination and smart investing – and extreme frugality. Most of their colleagues had nothing like the financial success they did because it was not their priority. One family, not dissimilar to ours, but who had free housing and free private school education for their children, retired with nothing at all but a meagre pension. My parents built a small empire. It is not how much you earn but what you do with it.

Even I, intermittently employed and a single mum for many years, managed to buy a house in 2003 because I didn’t listen to the general belief that it was impossible for a single mum on the pension to buy a house, and because I didn’t take no for an answer and persevered until I found a mortgage broker who could help me get the loan I needed. When my second marriage foundered some 15 years later, I was left deeply in debt and with a crumbling house without a bathroom or kitchen. One kind friend said she would get her builder husband to declare it fit for demolition.

I had to refinance and I used the same tactic – don’t take no for an answer. That house saved me again and again. I rented out rooms for very little (once I had a makeshift bathroom and kitchen in place). I moved into the shed – and built a studio out of windows and doors off the side of the road . . I had learned something of the entrepreneur nature from my mum.

I now sing jazz with a professional guitarist who has worked for 60 years with some of the greatest names in the business. He is paid $50 for a two hour gig every Saturday. Tonight we were firing on all cylinders (and one microphone) and were tipped $50! Our best night yet . . Is this a living? lol