Melissa Browne: What losing everything after divorce taught me about money

Have you ever been through a financial second act? Or maybe you’re onto your third or fourth act? I certainly have.

My own financial second act was in my early thirties. I remember so clearly, lying on a single bed at age 33, staring up at the mouldy ceiling in the tiny basement bedroom that now held all my earthly belongings.  I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. Oh hell, I was mortified.

This wasn’t where I thought I’d be. This wasn’t how I pictured my life at this age. I was an accountant, a ‘smart girl’, someone who was supposed to be good at money.

A few months earlier, because of a throw-away line from my first husband that “I’d never make it on my own”, I had given my entire divorce proceeds and every cent in my business and personal bank accounts to charity. Sure, it felt good in the moment, but the following morning I realised I hadn’t kept money for wages, cashflow, superannuation or a rental bond. That emotional decision was the reason I was living now, in my mid-thirties, in a tiny mouldy basement bedroom in a house I shared with four friends.

So many of my friends were buying houses, getting married and having babies, and there I was in five figures of debt with a business that wasn’t earning enough to pay me a commercial wage (never mind paying me any superannuation) and all my assets could fit in the back of a car. It wasn’t like I could ask my parents for help. They didn’t believe in or approve of divorce and hadn’t spoken to me for months.

It was up to me. And if I was completely honest, I wasn’t sure I was up to it.  I wasn’t sure if I could start again from less than nothing. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe you feel that way today?

You might not have started again in your thirties after a divorce, but you might have gone (or be going through) a separation in your forties or fifties and the idea of starting again or building your own financial independence at that age is terrifying.

Or maybe you’ve enjoyed yourself in your twenties or thirties and have the travel photos, stories or even closet to prove it. But you haven’t prioritised your finances and now you’re simply hoping you’re doing enough to try and keep up.

Or perhaps you went through an illness that set you back and while you’ve recovered physically, the idea of recovering financially is overwhelming. Or maybe you had a career and now your second act is full-time parenting, starting a business or working for a not-for-profit and you figure that means having less choice when it comes to wealth creation.

Whatever your financial second act looks like, chances are you know (and what keeps you awake at night) is that you need to do something different than what you have up to now. But you’re not quite sure what that looks like.

The truth that you don’t realise yet is you have more choice than you realise. And sometimes a financial second act, while not always being the thing you chose, could be the financial making of you. How can I confidently proclaim that? Because I’ve helped thousands (and tens of thousands) of women and many of their partners do just that. I’ve also done it for myself.

My story didn’t finish in that mouldy basement bedroom in my mid-thirties. Instead, fast forward to my late forties and you’d find a financially independent, multi-millionaire who has so much choice.

And yes, I needed to do a lot of work, not just with my finances but my mindset and what I believed about being wealthy, to get there. What are some things I did that I wish I did earlier and, if I could wave a magical financial wand, I’d have other women in their second (third or fourth act) do too?

• Face where I was at financially rather than avoiding it.
• Look at ways to reduce my expenses during this next act but also, and just as importantly, look at how to increase the money coming in.
• Reduce my bad debt as quickly as I could and get comfortable with good debt.
• Start investing for the long term, even with small amounts, understanding that the power of compound interest will make an incredible difference to your finances. Understanding that women make better investors because of our balanced approach and you cannot ‘earn’ your way to wealth.

Today, I teach others how to have great finances too, with whatever financial act they’re currently in and not with a one-size-fits-all approach that involves you doing exactly what I did. I mean, we’re all so incredibly different and the exact financial formula that what worked for me isn’t going to work for you.

In fact, I want you to run screaming from anyone who suggests otherwise. Instead, it’s with a personalised, sustainable, radically financially transformative approach.

Yes, it will mean challenging some assumptions you’re holding, opening your eyes to some myths and stories you believe and rolling up your sleeves and asking yourself some tough questions. But ultimately, it will mean the ability to have financial choice. It will allow you to become financially unstuck, to know that you can be on a path that will put you on track to having choice, to having enough, and to being wealthy.