She just hit her first $1,000,000!

My friend's investment portfolio just hit one million dollars. She's going to share with us exactly how she did it, the mindset, the practical strategies, and how she feels about her financial future. We're catching up with my friend Michelle for episode three. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to

This morning were joined with Michelle.

So this is actually our third catch up with Michelle. So in our first episode, Michelle shared the most insightful quote, and that is hopefully everyone remembers this. If you can afford an iPhone, you can afford to start investing in shares, and she was spot on. Then in this second episode we Talk, where we chatted with Michelle, she shared with us how she had doubled her portfolio in less than

One million dollar mark.

So she's going to allow me to pick her brain and give us all those insightful important bits of information so that we can apply at this in our own financial lives. Good morning, Michelle, How are you hi?

How are you getting now?

You were previously living in La when we first spoke, and then when we met in person, we were in La.

Where are you living now?

Phoenix? Aa? Zona?

Wow?

And what's the weather like there? Right now?

It's one hundred and fifteen degrees?

So how much is that in Celsius? I think it's like over forty I think Levy Google because.

We don't do Celsius. But you know the rest of the world.

Yeah, Well, in Sydney at the moment, it is winter and is wet, cold and miserable, and I have to say I'm feeling like I'm permanently soggy. But that's not too you know. The good thing about I guess winter is you get to hypernate it a little bit, and I tend to spend it a lot less because I'm just more happy filling my soul at home But enough about me, I want to ask you about you and your financial journey. Now, a massive, massive congratulations because your portfolio just hit the.

One million dollar mark. Can you here with that? It's just crazy?

Can you share with us how it feels to achieve this milestone at the age that you all like you're not even like halfway through life.

Yeah.

I hit it on Thursday, to be exact, So last a week ago from yesterday, I hit the mark and it was thanks to Broadcom and I was at work and I was looking at, you know, the shares for the day because I knew that they had big news and I was so close. And then I got home

So that.

Was what it felt like, and it was It was the weirdest feeling, because it's like I've worked for this special number, and I think everybody works for this number. And then when it finally happened, it was like, Okay, I do feel kind of different. I really do, so you do feel different. But then you're like, okay, now I know I can't tell everybody, but I want to

Yeah, it's quite special because the day where your investment portfolioer clapped the.

One million dola mark, it was actually the.

Anniversary of your mother's passing, and your mother is actually the woman that initially really inspired you to take control of your financial.

Future and to step up. It's so special.

Yeah, it was, and you know, you saying that it did remind me. I was like, cause she was one of the people.

I was like, oh my god, I wish she was living because she would have been like, well, it was always good with money, because you know, I was I was her little calculator when we go to the grocery store.

You know.

I would she put some in the car and like, well, okay, where am I at? And I would run it in my head. I'm like, oh, plus with tax, it will be this amount. So I would go to the grocery store with her and be the calculator. So she would have been very impressed, but she wouldn't have been surprised because she always said I was gonna be rich.

So now, but to ask you a whole pot of like practical questions and you know about how you did this, and and you know.

The resources that you use, so a quick you know, reminded ever one that all of my.

Content, in particular my podcast episode is always general in nature, and nothing is that a product advice, investment and advice, strategic advice. What sort of place is purely obviously for everyone's educational purposes only. But I've got to ask you your mindset is phenomenal. You are like constantly motivated and driven,

Well, you know, it's funny you see that, But most of the time I'm focused on a goal. But I'm not so much focused all the time because I will get down a lot because I'm like, you know, I see people half my age, like in their twenties saying they did this and that. I'm like, Okay, I'm doing everything right. Why didn't I get there? So sometimes that motivates me when I see somebody much younger that you know, doesn't have like how do I want to put it?

I literally bought what other people bought.

I bought what I knew, and I think I remember telling you everything I bought.

I always bought what I knew, and I love dividends.

But now I'm buying stuff I don't know because now I've become so seasoned that I'm really comfortable, you know, thinking outside the box.

So that's how.

Yeah, when you're having those days where you feel flat thinking, you know, there's this you know guy or girl like half my age earning you know, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year. You know, how do you like deal with that feeling? Because I don't have a believe in comparing yourself. But I think that's like a bottomless pit. But you know how for people who do that, like you, how do you get out of that hole?

Oh?

Good question. I get out of it by helping other people. Like I'm if I'm you know, on a bene and I'm watching these YouTube videos and they're telling this and that. I mean, you could get so down and so depressed you're like, you know what, I'm not gonna watch it, and then I'll look at my portfolio. I'll literally go online and look at it. I'm like, I've got a

Or do you like your job?

And you know, I did this with a neighbor two doors down for me who will become you know, good friends.

And they started investing.

And so we've been doing one hour classes twice a week where I'll go over there and we'll just sit there and I go over like, you know, how to look at this, how to look at read the numbers, decide what you want.

And so they finally did.

We did this for about two months and now they have got their their portfolio started.

And they've got a few shares.

And the first thing I told them, now, Okay, you can look at the market every day, but do not keep buying every day and don't sell every state. Just trust what you bought and ride out the storm. And so that's what I do. When I'm you know, comparing apples to oranges, I just go and find somebody who's has done as well as I have.

I think it's so important, you know, that sense of gratitude of just taking pressing pause and looking at actually how much we've got already, and we have everything we need to in the moment right now to exceed and progress ahead, and then that moment to actually stop and look at how far you've come. It's a great mindset switch, you know, if you're feeling you know, down in the dumps, to like, you know, stab yourself and pull yourself out

For example, Like how do you find the balance?

Like have you you found on that sweet spot where you balance in your financial goals and being responsible with money, but also are allowing yourselves to have a couple of spudgets here and there.

You know what, you're right because I used to be frugal, Like when I was younger, I was very frugal. But my mother used to tell me all the time because her father used to tell her she doesn't wear well. So she would, you know, even lay five kids. She would never like buy like really cheat clothes. She would she loves I wouldn't say so much name brand, but they were always high quality clothes. So sometimes they would

Have that extra little cash.

I've put money in my emergency fund, I've put money in the market, and then if I come into a couple of more hundred bucks, I'm like, you know what I've earned it, I'm going to enjoy it and it is a happy balance. And I found that the more I've enjoyed the money that I have, the more I get.

I know it sounds right, I know it doesn't.

It doesn't sound crazy at all, I think, but it's that, you know what that is is, it's gratitude and what we appreciate, appreciates and pressing pools to acknowledge how nice it feels to you know, come from a place of self love and self respect. By prioritizing our financial wellbeing, we can then reward ourselves in a very healthy way which is filled with self love and self respect, and do it so guilt free because we've got our priorities in the right order.

Yeah.

And I've started to donate more so, like I said, I've started to do stuff that I've wanted to do a long time, like tied to my church. Also give to charitable organizations. I've gotten two of them that I like.

One is Project.

Forty seven and another one I think you guys probably have heard of a lot is Wounded Warriors.

So I don't get to that.

And I gotta tell you, Hannah, I enjoy donating more than now I'm buying stuff. Something I never thought would come out of my mouth, but they say, when you're a happy giver, things come back to you tenfold.

And it really does.

You get the satisfaction point that your hard work and you're building your financial freedom is helping others pour down on their luck at the moment.

And you know, it compacts me with good karma.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I run this group. It's called the Money Mindset Manifestation Program, and it's a special community that people can join and and I am available literally twenty four to seven. And the other day someone messaged me and said, hey, something's happened, Like I'm feeling a bit.

Flat, a bit confused, you know.

And I spent like, you know, I think forty minutes chatting with this person, working through the stuff that was going and helping them see what was the blessing behind. And it was the most fulfilling, like enjoyable experience, like connecting with someone, helping someone allow like peeling back the

Okay, So what I told them because they wanted to literally buy the same things I buy. And you know, recently I bought some of chipotlets and things like that, and those are in the dollar range.

I told them, I.

Said, you shouldn't start that high. I said, trust me, I've been doing this a long time. And I said, and when I first started, I didn't buy anything more than like twenty five thirty forty dollars.

And I said that was too much for me.

I said, so don't try to start at the same pace as somebody else, because then you'll get you'll get down, you'll get the scrunt on and you're like, oh, I can't do it. I said buy, I said pick a dollar amount, stick with that amount, find ways to cut your budget to just get that amount each month, and stay consistent.

That will make you feel better.

You won't see it growing too much for like a two or three months or something like that. But just stick with it. Trust me when I tell you the turtle that me here.

Yeah, it's it's better to start with something that's actually achievable, and you've got to be so patient. And this is what I love about one thousand dollars project. You know, it's you're just focusing on one thousand dollars. Get about the million dollar dreams and goals. I mean, they're great to have, but just focus on what you can do today to get started. If it's one hundred dollars or five hundred dollars, that's still great, but you can once you get started, the only way is up from there,

But you know, if you can do a.

Little bit every day or every week or every month over the period of time, like, it's incredible what it can do. And I think people would sort of turn their nose up, thinking, well, why would I bother with something such a small amount of money, But they don't realize that's the birthplace of your journey and it's it's incredible how quickly.

That adds up.

You know, your thousand dollars project when I started now, granted I want people to remember too. My portfolio is also from when if I switched a job and I rolled over my retirement funds, like my irais and stuff that were like in mutual funds, and they you know, once you leave a company, you get the money and you have to roll it over. So when I roll it over. I roll it over and I buy stocks with it. So that's how it grew a lot faster. As well as for your thousand dollars projects, I love

I would use working money.

But I have told people about that, and I also let them borrow your your second book, The Money Mindset one so mindful, so I gave that.

To the mindfuls.

I'm gonna yeah, and I told him, I said, Okay, you got a couple more weeks and then I want it back.

I may get them that.

I may buy it for them for Christmas, because yeah, I just it's something that you can always go back and look at and read. But yeah, the thousand project is it's tougher than it sound.

And I think one of your readers even.

Like cut it in half or she did like one hundred dollars project, so they could do that.

So it's yeah, you know, someone did the ten thousand dollars project. They messaged me they were working in passes of ten thousand dollars.

I was like wow, oh my gosh.

But you know, the funny thing is that I've been doing it for eight years. But the truth is, over the last four years, I haven't really added anything to the portfolio. I've really just been like, I haven't added really much owing the last probably six months.

I've been chipping away at the marginal and.

There's a very small marginalone that's reducing and I've been sort of paying that off. But I haven't actually added anything really to the portfolio portfolio for the last four years.

So you know, it actually could have been much much bigger.

But the beautiful thing about the thousand dollar project is it rolls with you because you know, for me, the last four years, I've had two babies, and we've moved house like twice, we've moved out twice, so I've had, you know, additional distractions and expenses to deal with. So I haven't been able to put you know, my heart and soul like I had for the first four years of the thousand dollar project.

So but I doesn't. That's the whole thing is it's fluid. It works with you, it volves with you, and you.

Know, this year I'm looking at paying off the thousand dollar project margin loan, which is down to about thirty nine thousand, and I'm going to look at switching it into a debt recycling strategy. And my goal is now to turn it into a million dollar share portfolio like you've done. So you know, it's you don't have to be constantly committed to it.

You can.

You know, investing can evolve with you depending on what's going on in your life. Now I need to ask you an important question. What would you say is the biggest lesson that you've learned along the way of building up this million dollar investment portfolio that you wish you had known before you got had gotten started?

What I learned? I took too long to do it. That's the one thing I learned. You said you didn't put more money in. I haven't added more money to this account since last year. What I put two thousand dollars in?

Wow?

Yeah, this is the power of compounding interest. Because you've been in you know, And this is why it's so important as an investor. If you're investing in in stocks, you know it's a long term real investment horizon. And when I say long term, it's ten, fifteen, twenty years and I know for me, it's indefinite because I never intended selling my stocks.

They'll be cutting off my passive income stream.

But you know, people will get they want to be they want to get rich overnight, and that look, it can happen, but at huge risk and at humorge risk of things potentially backfiring, going wrong, and filling a life with regret. I'd rather plays you said that it's the head and the you know, I would rather something allows balance in my life and allow me to build wise, intelligent, tax effective, you know, passive income than some sort of form of gambling.

Really yeah, And a lot.

Of people think this is gambling, but I'm like, it's not because you see the stores you go into, you know whether they're doing bad or they're doing good. You can see the foot traffic and you can see when it's probably time to get out if you bought something like in one of these retail stores or something like that. So I said, that's not gambling, that's just you know, you see it and you're just taking advantage of it.

And it's only six months.

And if I would have known that so many years ago, that you know, your soldiers out there working for you would do it because you I feel like I'm a CEO of my portfolio and all of my worker bees are sitting here working for me.

I'm not doing.

Anything contributing to making it happen except for moving money from here to there. If I sell something that's gone up really high, you know, such as in a video or something when that split happened, you know, and you have you know, I had one hundred chairs, now I have a thousand. I knew I didn't want that many of that stock, so.

I took some off the table. But when I take something off the table.

I buy stocks like I bought more of you know, I don't mind saying I bought more of PEPSI. It hasn't been doing great, but it does. It is a great company as well, and it has a great dividend, and it's flow and steady, which is what I like. So you know, you could be here own boss. Part time is what I'm doing. But it's you know, it's rewarded me ten times.

How important is that passive income to you in being able to one day allow you to quit and you know, enjoy an early retirement to quit now.

I when I Thursday, okay.

How I ran the numbers the numbers on Thursday, I said, Oh my gosh, I could pay the ballance of the house I'm living in out off because it's my only dat I don't have. I paid off my car in two years, so I have no debt. And I was like, oh my goodness, I said I could. I even ran the numbers on how much I would have to pay an insurance, you know, health insurance until I can I'm able to get Medicare in a couple of decades, and

So if I.

Now that I remember this, yeah, at one point and I feels like the other day.

Yeah, and I'm at one point two five two.

That's including the house, licked, equity and everything, and I'm like, you know, I don't even want to count the house. I wanted to just be so now I'm working to one just to get the other two real estate properties that I want to get to rent out and to just you know, be able to take care of those were a couple of years.

I'm looking at three years now.

Yeah, okay, okay, can you tell everyone how old you are?

Forty seven and a half.

You are amazing like retiring, you know, if you wanted to, And this is the thing is you've got choice.

You know, I know you don't want to, and I love that that you don't want to, and I don't.

To be honest, I don't think you'll ever stop because you're just so driven and so passionate about life. But if you wanted to, you could retire today at forty seven.

And a half.

Do you know how like many people in the world could say that, not that many, Like you're in the minority.

Yeah, exactly, you know, especially being a minority, that's huge. But again, when I looked at others online who were even like forty and thirty time, I'm like, okay, but some of the things they did I didn't do. So they did live in lower costs of living cities.

I of course did not living in LA for so long.

But I enjoyed myself and would love to go back there, and but go back there comfortable, struggling, But yeah, it's it's weird, and it doesn't feel like, oh I'm so young.

No, it feels like I'm creeping along.

Or for anyone who's listening right now, and they're like, I want to be like a show. I want to be able to have that choice where I can retire if I want to know, what would be your advice to them? To tell them to stop thinking about it and talking about it or start doing it.

You just said it, Just do it like the friends, like I said, a couple of doors down they were when I told them and everything, and they were feeling comfortable. The first thing they did was open up one of those I don't know what app it is, but it lets you pretend to trade and everything.

Oh yeah, go paper trading. Yeah, it's brilliant.

I want to do that like a month or so and I'm like, stop it. Just just take the money and put it. Even if you just open up the broker's account and put the money and let it just sit there, just do it. You trust And when they finally pull the trigger, they're like, okay, fine, and they did it because I think those apps. I think they were good back in the day, but I think now because the market is constantly moving one way or the other, you can't time it. So stop trying to time it.

Just get in it. Don't sit on the sideline. Stop it.

And that's why, you know, I say to people, you know that if someone you know comes up between the street and says, look, I really want to start investing in shaz you know.

What should I buy?

Obviously I'm never gonna say, hey, buy this stock, because that's product advice and personal advice and will get me into whold lot of trouble. But you know, if anyone that wants to build up a diversified portfolio is overwhelmed by you know, the analysis paralysis of what to invest in, what company, what industry, what sector, blah blah blah, learn about ETFs and listed investment companies because you could essentially take your one thousand dollars And this is assuming that

But you know it is it is so easy. And I know a large amount.

Of my portfolio, for both my personal share portfolio that's separate to the thousand dollars project portfolio, a large percentage of it I've been you know, accumulating you know, more listed investment companies because I don't have to sit there and watch stocks and research reports and you know, you know, sit in front of like Bloomberg or you know, Sky Business.

I can. It's I can.

I've got It gives me my time back from other enjoyable things in life.

I like read, I like listening to the quarterly reports, and that's about it. All the rest of it I can't because you literally, like you said, you just started to get a headache. But you know when people say they feel overwhelmed, because I'll say that, oh, I just don't know what to buy, I just know what to buy.

I'm like, go to the mall, sit at the full court. Then you'll know what to buy.

Because it always walks me that people can take their tax return and it'll be a couple of thousand dollars and they can go to the mall and they could go and buy all these things and have two hands filled with bags and they're so happy walk into their car. And we know that feeling because I know, I remember those days.

I still get a kick when I have that bag in my hand.

You know, you know these bags we're talking about, how they wrap it in a bowl and everything and give you extra little free samples. I'm like, okay, so you just did you feel overwhelmed when you went on that shopping spree And they're like, no, I said, it's the same thing with stock. The difference is you can't buy as much as you would on that little spree, but if you still have your tax refund of one thousand dollars,

Be the owners.

I love exactly, And you know I you know, not product device, but I owned shares and Woolworsts, which is our major supermarket here, and it's so satisfying walking through going I'm supporting a business by shopping here, and you know, a bull West every rewards. You know, I click my points every time and use my pet insurance discount. But it's so satisfying walking through and going. I own a

Also, think about what do we need every day to live?

Well, we need electricity, we need to put petrol in our car.

We need food, We need to buy bread, we need to buy milk.

There are the essentials. If you're wanting to pick your individual stocks, start with what we need to be able to survive and to live, you know, and start building a portfolio. You know, look around you look at the trends, look at what's you know, where people are spending money, you know, and it's like when you start actually you know, opening your eyes and looking at what are people doing, like where are they spending their money, it's really insightful.

You can start going.

You know what, I know, I've probably got that particular company and my portfolio already through the ACF for the listed investment company. I'm actually gonna up the stakes a little bit here and buy some individual stocks in that company, so I have a little bit more skin in the game with that industry or that company. It's amazing how creative you can actually really be in building up your wealth.

Yeah.

I mean I started in mutual funds. I started with Vanguard Funds and Janis Funds, and you know, they did great, but they didn't do fabulous like I'm doing now. And I knew I'd always wanted to buy individual stocks. And like you said, it's fun when you go into a store or something, you're like, you know, I had to go and get another phone upgrade, and I walked into you know, a Verizon store, and it was just great to know that, Okay, I own some of this.

You know.

That felt great. And of course I was buying another Apple. And I'm not saying if Samsung Apple and ones better than the other, I just I buy because it all talks to everything. It talks to my watch, to my AirPods all that, so you know, and it's like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna get another one because I own stock in that. You know, you get in your car, you're going driving

Yeah.

It's the feeling.

Yeah, it's a good feeling. And it cracks people up.

When I'm in the car with them, I'm like, you know, yeah, get that, and I'm like, thank you for your contribution to my retirement when they buy something that I I.

Did that. Literally, I did that. I think it was what was it Tuesday Wednesday?

At work, they had pizza or something and they didn't have coke, but they had PEPSI and I have shares in both, and I was like, I said, thank you for contributing.

What, Oh my god, really I don't know that.

And it's like, oh, you know, you never asked, but yeah, so you know, it's not an at the little cocktail parties.

Look, Michelle, you are so incredibly inspiring, and you know it's I'm so motivated as well to go and like jump into my share portfolio, look at my account, Look at what extra money I can kind of hustle up for this week to be able to you know, to add more to my portfolio because I just have this massive rush and I'm sure our listeners do right now.

It's just, you know, it's just gold, Like.

Like everything I have so much, you know, like respect and appreciation towards you and what you've achieved and how generous you are with you sharing your insights and experience and knowledge.

Yeah, but I wanted to add one more thing, Okay.

Bridy was also a big day for me.

Yeah, I'm a perfect credit score of a fifty. I'm the only person I know that's done that, and everybody I told to they don't know anybody else either. That is also very important to me that I wanted to get out there on this podcast.

You know, credit scores is massive in America, and it is. It is a little bit here, but no one talks. It's a bit of a behind closed doors because only really people check their credit scores here maybe when they're going to apply for a loan with a bank or if they're in trouble. So you know, it's funny, like I think people almost have in America their credit score is part of their like dating profile, but here it's not.

Yes, just look now, Michelle. My next final question is is, and we'll take this offline, but when you come.

Into Australia and insist that you come and stay with me in Sydney, so you need to like you need to.

Hurry up and retire and book that flight to Sydney.

Yeah, I want to come so bad.

And when I started with this client because I'm a consultant and that I have this client and it was supposed to be just a few a couple of months, but now it's got extended. So it's like, okay, great. And anytime my current employer, when we have a project with a client, you know, it's never a good time. And I'm like, I need to sit time off because I'm not going to lose my vacation time because you know, I'm working with somebody.

But I definitely want to come. But every time I.

See your kids, the two cute little girls, I'm like, oh my god, I be ready for this because Rocco, I'm ready for and you know, you know, I want to see just Giseppie so bad.

I love that. I know, Oh my gosh, I wanted on screen today because I was like, I never ask you, Giseeppe.

Oh I'm so sorry.

I will.

I promise you'll send you some photographs. Giuseppe is the only SAE member of our household. We have a pretty wild neurodivergent mix going on here, and he's the only sane one, probably followed by Rocco, probably.

Definitely the other end of the Spectrum. Yeah card today.

I was glad you did another Tom's car today because I was watching it.

I just thought, he needs a little caddy. We can put all these.

Little things in like a little you know, one of the little caddies that you could put in there and he could sit it on the floor and he could just everything in that little spot.

I think his whole car is a caddy. But yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

People love my updates of what's inside Tom's car this week, but that's over my Instagram account.

Look, Michelle, I will let you get back on with your day.

I can't thank you enough for coming on Sugar Mama's Fireplay and to all the listeners right now, you know, please make sure you go and listen to the previous episodes like it really is phenomenal what Michelle has achieved. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and a review, I would greatly appreciate it because for me, every review and rating counts just like every