Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr the
Speaker 2: Order KERNI Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before we
Speaker 2: get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would
Speaker 2: like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of
Speaker 2: which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging
Speaker 2: the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through
Speaker 2: as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and
Speaker 2: the storytelling of you to make a difference for today
Speaker 2: and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
Speaker 4: for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Beckside
Speaker 4: and with me is Victoria Device.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to twenty twenty three Deep Dives. Are
Speaker 1: you excited?
Speaker 4: I am so excited, A little nervous.
Speaker 1: You look craly nervous?
Speaker 5: Do I look? I'm really you're a little bit scary,
Speaker 5: being intimidating, all like five for one of me, just
Speaker 5: like towering over you.
Speaker 4: Yes, you're a little I hate saying this pocket rocket.
Speaker 1: No worse, we're going to go, we'll keep it on.
Speaker 4: I'm very excited to do this deep dive with you today.
Speaker 4: Do you want to jump straight in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's jump straight in. Great.
Speaker 4: I think today's topic is actually all too relatable. I'll
Speaker 4: start by asking you, have you ever splurged a little
Speaker 4: bit when you really shouldn't have, Like, not anything huge,
Speaker 4: just misca our nail polish. I don't know, lipstick maybe
Speaker 4: if you have. Not only is it okay, but it's
Speaker 4: apparently so common that it's gotten its own name, the
Speaker 4: lipstick index. Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 5: I'm very excited to talk about this. I've mentioned it
Speaker 5: too a few of my friends and they're like, what
Speaker 5: are you talking about? So now we're doing a whole
Speaker 5: episode on it.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've got it. I actually had never heard
Speaker 4: of this before, but it makes sense. I think this
Speaker 4: is a term we're going to hear more often than
Speaker 4: do you know why it might be more common.
Speaker 5: Look, at the end of the day, the lipstick index
Speaker 5: exists as kind of like a really it's a bit fluffy,
Speaker 5: but it's a legit, which I find hilarious. But it's
Speaker 5: actually an indicator of an either an impending recession, or
Speaker 5: that we're already in a recession, and given we are
Speaker 5: likely to be headed into a recession this year, I
Speaker 5: don't want to put too many eggs all in that
Speaker 5: one basket. But we've been talking about it in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty two, and I think it is only fair to
Speaker 5: really embrace it this year and talk about it now.
Speaker 5: But a lot of economists are predicting that we will
Speaker 5: fall into a recession this year, which is essentially where
Speaker 5: we have a pretty significant economic downturn. So it's a
Speaker 5: period of time where less people have jobs and there's
Speaker 5: less economic activity, so less trading.
Speaker 1: People are a little bit worried.
Speaker 5: And I would assume that if that's the case in
Speaker 5: the economy, that's the case in our community.
Speaker 1: So we want to talk about it.
Speaker 5: But during times of economic downturn more crisis, you can't
Speaker 5: actually afford big ticket items like I'm not going to
Speaker 5: go out and buy a brand new washing machine when
Speaker 5: I'm financially stressed. But you know what I can afford.
Speaker 5: I can afford a like a little premium luxury. I
Speaker 5: can go back and like lipstick that makes me feel good,
Speaker 5: because I might not be able to justify a whole,
Speaker 5: brand new outfit to make myself feel good.
Speaker 1: But do you know what can make me feel good.
Speaker 5: Like refresh it, treating yourself? Yeah, exactly, a lipstick. So
Speaker 5: that's why it's called the lipstick index, because it basically
Speaker 5: makes you feel good, but is a small amount of money.
Speaker 4: Okay, that makes sense. I feel like I do that
Speaker 4: a little bit too often when I'm feeling already good.
Speaker 1: Feel like I feel good. I need more I feel good.
Speaker 4: I need to maintain this good feeling. I know that
Speaker 4: we're talking about the lipstick index, but if you don't mind,
Speaker 4: I might just quickly ask you what.
Speaker 1: What it actually is and give it a more info.
Speaker 4: What where? How does this happen?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: How do we expect or predict a recession? What is
Speaker 4: a recession? Should I just be blissfully ignorant? Or should
Speaker 4: I know about this? Should prepared?
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to know about it.
Speaker 5: I think that you would have already heard, assuming that
Speaker 5: you don't live under a roll Clarke Patrick the Cistar,
Speaker 5: you would have heard of a recession, and you would
Speaker 5: assume that it's not a good thing. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: we did a whole podcast on it, but you weren't
Speaker 5: here in twenty twenty two, so this is a very
Speaker 5: fair question. And I'm assuming we also have a number
Speaker 5: of brand new listeners, So we have heaps of resources
Speaker 5: that you can go back to. Just type into your
Speaker 5: search bar on whatever podcasting app you do use She's
Speaker 5: on the Money, and then recession and our episodes that
Speaker 5: reference that will come up. But essentially, a recession is
Speaker 5: a significant decline in economic activity that can last for
Speaker 5: months or even years, and experts basically declare, quote, we're
Speaker 5: in a recession when a nation's economy experiences negative gross
Speaker 5: domestic product, which is called GDP, essentially exports and rising
Speaker 5: levels of unemployment, as well as falling retail sales and
Speaker 5: contracting measures of income and manufacturing for extended periods of time.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like everything grinds to a massive holt,
Speaker 5: and I mean not absolutely everything, but like when things
Speaker 5: are going down, people get worried and you're like, oh,
Speaker 5: maybe I won't build that house, maybe I won't buy
Speaker 5: so many clothes, Maybe I'll just put that thing I've
Speaker 5: been planning on purchasing off for a little bit longer.
Speaker 5: Because you know, my husband now doesn't have a job
Speaker 5: or I'm seeing around me other people not have job stability,
Speaker 5: and that can be really stressful. So a recession is
Speaker 5: something that is really stressful. And the last one we
Speaker 5: went through was the GFC, so the global financial crisis
Speaker 5: that happened in two thousand and eight and really impacted
Speaker 5: people in two thousand and nine, and that you know,
Speaker 5: we covered that on the podcast as well, So if
Speaker 5: you want to look that up, search she's on the
Speaker 5: Money GFC and it will come up because they deep
Speaker 5: dived into that. But essentially, it's important to not only
Speaker 5: understand what a recession is, but also financially prepare for it,
Speaker 5: which we're going to do a lot of content on
Speaker 5: these year. But the lipstick index is a term that's
Speaker 5: just kind of interesting, and I think that she's on
Speaker 5: the Money community will find it really interesting because it's
Speaker 5: one of those things that you don't realize how important
Speaker 5: little things are to a community until you know something
Speaker 5: bad happens and we start really appreciating the small pleasures.
Speaker 5: And I think it's also a really nice reminder that
Speaker 5: we can still have nice things when we don't have
Speaker 5: massive budgets.
Speaker 4: That makes me feel a little bit better about my
Speaker 4: spending habits actually, but it does a bit weird that
Speaker 4: it's because like, I don't relate to that, I don't
Speaker 4: buy lipstick.
Speaker 1: Why is that the term?
Speaker 4: Why you come across as the type of gowl who
Speaker 4: decides that lipstick is ho splurge item. Yeah, Like, are
Speaker 4: we assuming that it's just for people who buy like
Speaker 4: small cosmetic items?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, no no.
Speaker 5: So it was actually coined in the aftermath of September eleven,
Speaker 5: during the two thousand and one US recession by a
Speaker 5: guy called Leonard Lauder, who might be familiar because he's
Speaker 5: the chairman of stay Lauder Cosmetics. And this guy he
Speaker 5: found that lipstick sales Esta Lauder rose in the autumn
Speaker 5: of that year, which indicates that women facing an uncertain
Speaker 5: economic environment actually turned to beauty products as an affordable
Speaker 5: little treaty treat beck and it's continued to play out.
Speaker 5: So in the financial crisis of two thousand and eight
Speaker 5: slash two thousand and nine that I mentioned before, sales
Speaker 5: of Foundation went through the roof, and Lurel's sales in general,
Speaker 5: like across the board, grew by five point eight percent,
Speaker 5: which is why, given we were in a recession and
Speaker 5: everything else was just going down and Loreal's like, Oh,
Speaker 5: we're over here making bank Heven a really good time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it must be nice exactly.
Speaker 5: So the lipstick index just comes from a guy who
Speaker 5: decided to call it that. It's not because lipstick is
Speaker 5: the only thing we're spending on. It just came from
Speaker 5: a guy who happens to be a chairman.
Speaker 4: Of Esday lauder Town guy. Just a small town guy
Speaker 4: living in a big city. That's actually very interesting. Do
Speaker 4: they know why that is? Can you tell me how
Speaker 4: that actually works?
Speaker 5: So the lipstick effect is a consumer expression of something
Speaker 5: the economists like to call the income effect. So with
Speaker 5: normal goods, as a consumer's income rises, so does demand.
Speaker 5: And we've talked about this before and I call it
Speaker 5: on the podcast lifestyle Creep, which you would have heard
Speaker 5: me talk about a million times before. But essentially an
Speaker 5: example of lifestyle creeper is when I was at Uni,
Speaker 5: I used to buy like makeup and stuff from the
Speaker 5: supermarket and from price line, and now I have a
Speaker 5: full time job, I'm like dabbling with Mecca and my
Speaker 5: expenses have increased because obviously, like a Mecca foundation much
Speaker 5: more expensive. Though on the one on sale of coals,
Speaker 5: but it kind of just slowly creeps up on you.
Speaker 5: So with that in mind, for some goods known as
Speaker 5: inferior goods, the rising consumer income actually weakens demand. So
Speaker 5: cheap domestic beer is a really good example of that.
Speaker 5: Nobody wants to drink the cheap, crappy stuff, And I
Speaker 5: think that that's a really good example of quote inferior goods.
Speaker 5: The opposite actually happens in the case of the lipstick effect.
Speaker 5: So as consumers income's full or become less stable, they'll
Speaker 5: actually four go big ticket luxury items or big ticket
Speaker 5: luxury purchases that they can no longer afford, and instead
Speaker 5: spend their now reduced income on a smaller luxury item.
Speaker 5: Right now, when I say luxury item, I'm not talking like, oh,
Speaker 5: like people are stopping buying your bags, Beck, Like, oh,
Speaker 5: they're not headed off to Chanelle.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: I pause my der bag subscription.
Speaker 1: General, you have your bag subscription. You must have a dog,
Speaker 1: big dog.
Speaker 2: Beck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty nice.
Speaker 1: When we talk about that.
Speaker 5: I feel like the word luxury, especially in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two slash twenty twenty three, has a different take. Like,
Speaker 5: to me, luxury are those things that are not necessary
Speaker 5: in your budget. So we're not talking about like designer goods.
Speaker 5: When someone says, oh, luxury, I'm like, I immediately think
Speaker 5: of designer items. I don't know about you, I immediately think, oh,
Speaker 5: they must be talking about like really expensive things. But
Speaker 5: luxury in this term of reference is actually just things
Speaker 5: that are not necessary, so like not housing, not food,
Speaker 5: not bills, like things that you know, going out for
Speaker 5: a drink with your mates, that's a luxury that's not
Speaker 5: a necessity. So things that are not necessary for your
Speaker 5: budget or your life, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So we're not just talking about lipstick.
Speaker 5: But I feel like it's a good example, right because
Speaker 5: not everyone buys it. But like, for example, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: pick on you for a hot second. You dyed your
Speaker 5: hair recently. I mean it was it was fun to
Speaker 5: watch on Instagram and thankfully it looks really good.
Speaker 1: Like I'm shocked how good your hair looks.
Speaker 4: Doesn't look good?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it looks cute, You're real cute. But that would
Speaker 5: be a luxury purchase, as opposed to you're thinking maybe
Speaker 5: it was a deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeap, that makes sense. Okay. When I think of luxury,
Speaker 4: I honestly don't even think that far ahead. But it
Speaker 4: is whiled that going out for a drink with a
Speaker 4: mate is a luxury.
Speaker 1: Well, it totally is a luxury.
Speaker 5: Like it's something that not absolutely everybody has the privilege
Speaker 5: of experiencing because not everybody has the room in their
Speaker 5: budget to go. Oh, I can pop out for a
Speaker 5: beer with a mate, or in my be takeaway or
Speaker 5: Uber Eats, or it might be you know, you buying
Speaker 5: the pre prepared chicken at the supermarket as opposed to
Speaker 5: just marinating it yourself.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like, when we say luxury, we're saying a luxury from
Speaker 5: my perspective, especially as somebody who knows money is something
Speaker 5: that is not necessary but makes you feel good.
Speaker 4: So I guess you could probably understand that that's why
Speaker 4: I had to. Well I didn't have to, but I
Speaker 4: chose to bleach my hair at home as opposed to
Speaker 4: going to the salon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's still a luxury.
Speaker 5: Rat like you was still able to afford to buy
Speaker 5: some bleach to do your hair. It's kind of like
Speaker 5: a more affordable luxury. An affordable luxury is something that
Speaker 5: I want to talk a little bit more about this
Speaker 5: year because I feel like people have blown it out
Speaker 5: of proportion, Like I'm on TikTok all the time. Now,
Speaker 5: I don't want to talk about my usage, but like
Speaker 5: I love TikTok, I'm obsessed with it. If anybody has noticed,
Speaker 5: I have been posting literally twice a day on about
Speaker 5: the yeah big dog energy. Let's see if I can
Speaker 5: keep it up for the entirety of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: But something that I'm finding coming up on my FU
Speaker 5: page all the time is just like lots of luxury
Speaker 5: goods and people being like, oh, here's my hall from
Speaker 5: when I went shopping in Paris, or here's my outfit
Speaker 5: of the day, and like all of those things I
Speaker 5: really like consuming because like I love shiny things. I'm
Speaker 5: basically like a magpie. Like I see shiny and I'm like, ooh,
Speaker 5: I need it. But it's interesting because I look at
Speaker 5: it and go wow, Like your outfit of the day
Speaker 5: is more than one thousand dollars, Like even a full
Speaker 5: outfit that's more than three hundred dollars to me is
Speaker 5: not reasonable. Like and I mean, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 5: I definitely have items in my wardrobe that are more
Speaker 5: than three hundred dollars. So it's not about being a
Speaker 5: hypocrite here. I'm just looking at it going wow, like
Speaker 5: is this the new normal? Are we meant to look
Speaker 5: at it and be like, oh, you're meant to be
Speaker 5: wearing Chanel shoes because like, oh, there's such a good
Speaker 5: staple and I get good cost per way, Like why
Speaker 5: are people just anyway? We can talk about affordable luxuries
Speaker 5: on another episode, but I think it's really important to
Speaker 5: kind of check our imprivilege, right because regardless of what
Speaker 5: our income is, as you said before, it's a really
Speaker 5: good example. You were like, I, you know, didn't go
Speaker 5: to the salon because to go as blonde as you
Speaker 5: went would be like minimum six hundred bucks. Right, Oh
Speaker 5: my god, Yeah, it's so expensive. But the audacity you
Speaker 5: had to take that into your own hands. Like and
Speaker 5: she also, guys, she put it all over her Instagram
Speaker 5: and I was just like living for it.
Speaker 4: Anyway, It's free to get advice from strangers on the internet,
Speaker 4: and I really I probably could have gone to the salon.
Speaker 5: See, I feel like the thing you should have done
Speaker 5: in this circumstance, okay, is probably just head down to
Speaker 5: chemists warehouse or like what is that hairhouse warehouse.
Speaker 1: Everyone did, Oh they did?
Speaker 5: Everyone did?
Speaker 4: What surely they? How did you do it?
Speaker 1: Tell me?
Speaker 5: Sorry, we're going on a Did you just like go
Speaker 5: to like came out and buy a packet to die
Speaker 5: and call it a day.
Speaker 4: I had some bleach left over my cupb and I
Speaker 4: don't know how if it was expired.
Speaker 1: I was hair bleach, it was.
Speaker 4: It was sink bleach.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. It was about to go down here
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow.
Speaker 4: But it was several years old bleach.
Speaker 1: But I thought, you sure, it's just yeah, sure, surely
Speaker 1: it doesn't expire.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think so. I didn't actually check. But
Speaker 4: it got there. In the end. A bleached it five times.
Speaker 4: It turned jelly a little bit, oh just a little bit,
Speaker 4: just a little bit of it went to jelly.
Speaker 1: That's all right? Is it all gone now?
Speaker 4: It's look it's it's actually hanging on by literally a thread,
Speaker 4: a jelly thread, a jelly thread. I can't get it
Speaker 4: wet right now, I will fall out. But I got
Speaker 4: there in the end. I just chucked a twelve dollars
Speaker 4: silver toner through it used my old bleach.
Speaker 5: I'm surprised at how good it looks given that experience,
Speaker 5: But for those of you who are playing along at home,
Speaker 5: I'd probably head to hairhouse, wearhouse and just ask someone
Speaker 5: there say, look, I'm going to be dyeing my hair
Speaker 5: at home on my own.
Speaker 4: What would you.
Speaker 5: Recommend I do to make sure I don't pull a
Speaker 5: jelly beck? Speaking of hanging on my threadback, let's go
Speaker 5: to a quick break, and then when we get back
Speaker 5: we'll re establish and actually talk about the lipstick index.
Speaker 4: Okay, perfect sounds good. All right, the we are back,
Speaker 4: we're talking about the lipstick index today. I guess I'm
Speaker 4: wondering what else does well because I know it can't
Speaker 4: just be lipstick? Is it all cosmetics? What are the
Speaker 4: other little things that do well in a time?
Speaker 5: Obviously it's not lipstick, because as you said before, you're
Speaker 5: not ellipstick kind of gal, and you're not going to
Speaker 5: go buy ellipstick. But I guarantee there's like small luxuries
Speaker 5: that you would be putting your money into. So it
Speaker 5: could be anything. It could be skin care, it could
Speaker 5: be perfume, it could be premium hair care because and
Speaker 5: when I say premium hancaan, we're not talking about a
Speaker 5: dice in air rap not everybody has. I think they're
Speaker 5: close to one thousand dollars now, which blows my mind.
Speaker 5: Absolutely worth it from my perspective, but definitely not an
Speaker 5: affordable luxury, but like a bottle of Oliplex, like what
Speaker 5: you were talking about before. It can be like fifty
Speaker 5: bucks for a bottle of oliplex. But I would assume
Speaker 5: that those sales increase during that period of time, and
Speaker 5: we know those sales increase during that period of time
Speaker 5: because they are seen to be more of an affordable luxury.
Speaker 5: Like back to your example, You're not going to go
Speaker 5: to the seal on and spend six hundred dollars getting
Speaker 5: bleached hair, but you might go and go, all right,
Speaker 5: I'm going to bleach my hair at home, and then
Speaker 5: I'm going to buy the fifty dollars oliplex to make
Speaker 5: sure that everything is a okay and of course be
Speaker 5: good to go. Things like clothing and shoes and going
Speaker 5: to the movies and types of entertainment are also likely
Speaker 5: to do really well during a recession. A lot of
Speaker 5: people make decisions like oh, maybe I'll just like sign
Speaker 5: up for Stan instead of you know, going out as much,
Speaker 5: so they justify smaller expenses because from their perspective, like, oh,
Speaker 5: and please don't quote me on this fourteen bucks a month,
Speaker 5: maybe I cannot remember for the life of me what
Speaker 5: my Stan subscription is.
Speaker 4: It's been nice, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: So rude, but I cannot, for the life I don't
Speaker 5: even think I've got stand at the moment. Just to
Speaker 5: back you back into your corner fair enough, I definitely
Speaker 5: have Netflix.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what that is.
Speaker 5: Mostly nice. You can have my login if you want to. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you're welcome, You're welcome. But these are in a good
Speaker 5: position as well. And then lower to me toe restaurants
Speaker 5: and more premium priced.
Speaker 1: Alcohol that you buy the bottle.
Speaker 5: Oh, so we're not talking about people go to the
Speaker 5: mid range restaurant and order a bottle of like really
Speaker 5: expensive champagne. But if you went to Dan Murphy's, people
Speaker 5: are more likely to, you know, treat themselves with like
Speaker 5: a thirty or forty dollar bottle of wine instead of
Speaker 5: the like fifteen dollar bottle of wine that they usually
Speaker 5: got because they feel like they're missing out in other
Speaker 5: areas of their life. Because people basically want to treat
Speaker 5: themselves to something that lets them forget about their financial
Speaker 5: stresses and they'll go to a movie, but they probably
Speaker 5: won't go overseas because that puts way too much financial
Speaker 5: strain on Before the breakback, I was talking to you
Speaker 5: about TikTok and how that seems like it's just it's
Speaker 5: frustrating me. Like there's so many times that I really
Speaker 5: want to, like you can duet on TikTok. I feel
Speaker 5: so old when I explain this, but I really want
Speaker 5: to jeet it. But then I don't want to come
Speaker 5: across as like condescending or rude or mean, and I'm
Speaker 5: not being that.
Speaker 1: I just want to be like, hey, like.
Speaker 5: This is a really good video and I really like it,
Speaker 5: but like that's not reasonable to expect that a normal
Speaker 5: salary and wayjourning human being would actually have a thousand
Speaker 5: dollar pair of shoes and like cost per ware. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like let's talk about cost per ware. That makes sense,
Speaker 5: but like on a thousand dollars pair of shoes, that's
Speaker 5: still not reasonable from my perspective.
Speaker 4: You're a vigilante. I think you should do it.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, but I don't want to be rude because
Speaker 5: it's kind of like their intent is really beautiful, but
Speaker 5: it's also like can we reframe this because normal people
Speaker 5: cannot afford that, Like that's not normal, Like that content
Speaker 5: isn't normal. Anyway, My point there is that social media
Speaker 5: really does play a big part in determining what category
Speaker 5: benefits from the lipstick effect based on trends and what
Speaker 5: you're seeing on social media and consuming it.
Speaker 4: Sounds like literally all I spend my money on during
Speaker 4: good times and bad times.
Speaker 1: So I wonder like, oh, I'm just spending money.
Speaker 4: That's why have you on the show.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like we've got work to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I've got a lot to learn. I've got
Speaker 4: a lot to learn. But I guess my question is
Speaker 4: what are we actually cutting back on then?
Speaker 5: So obviously big ticket stuff, so all of the opposites
Speaker 5: of everything that I just said, so like expensive restaurants
Speaker 5: and going on holidays. But we also see it in
Speaker 5: the statistics around like home sales, So people aren't buying
Speaker 5: big luxury homes, they're not even buying their average standard home.
Speaker 5: Because during a time of recession, often our interest rates
Speaker 5: increase to kind of juxtapose what's going on and make
Speaker 5: things go back to normal. So during a period of
Speaker 5: time where we're in a recession, it's much less likely
Speaker 5: that people are buying their first family homes. It's less
Speaker 5: likely that people are going out and buying brand new cars,
Speaker 5: even if they need them. They're more likely to kind
Speaker 5: of push that purchase off because we're a bit anxious
Speaker 5: about it. So anything from you know, electronics and you know,
Speaker 5: white goods and stuff like that, all the way through
Speaker 5: to big home renovations. Like, people aren't going to agree to,
Speaker 5: you know, chucking one hundred thousand dollars into their home
Speaker 5: if they're seeing their friends and family go through rough
Speaker 5: financial periods of time. And it's not because they don't
Speaker 5: want their friends and family seeing that, they kind of
Speaker 5: get an idea in their head that they're like, oh,
Speaker 5: I could be next. So this period of time, we're
Speaker 5: cutting back on this. But I think it's really important
Speaker 5: to then be thinking about, all right, well, where are
Speaker 5: our emergency funds? How much do I have saved? Do
Speaker 5: I maybe want to have a little bit more saved
Speaker 5: if I'm anxious? And how does that work? So if
Speaker 5: you haven't got an emergency fund and you haven't really
Speaker 5: thought about it until twenty twenty three, and twenty twenty
Speaker 5: three is your year to get your financial stuff sorted.
Speaker 5: That would be the place that I start, because Beck,
Speaker 5: I'm such a big believer in financial freedom being accessible
Speaker 5: at any income, and I know that that seems to
Speaker 5: be a little bit backwards because to a lot of people,
Speaker 5: financial freedom means that.
Speaker 1: You never have to go to work and you've got
Speaker 1: like this big.
Speaker 5: Investment that pays you enough each and every single month
Speaker 5: or year to exist without work. Right, But from my perspective,
Speaker 5: financial freedom isn't just that, like, yes, that's the big outcome,
Speaker 5: Like that's big dog energy, that's the energy. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 5: that's so exciting. But we can't have that in the
Speaker 5: here and now. But what can give us financial freedom
Speaker 5: is an emergency fund so that if something pops up,
Speaker 5: or an unexpected bill or an emergency happens, we have
Speaker 5: the financial freedom to pay for that and not go
Speaker 5: into debt or to go, Oh it doesn't matter, that's okay.
Speaker 5: I'm going to pay for flights to go, you know,
Speaker 5: see a sick parent or relative into state because I
Speaker 5: have the money for those flights and I don't have
Speaker 5: to second guess it. And to me, that is a
Speaker 5: really really big part of financial freedom is setting yourself
Speaker 5: up so that you don't have to say no because
Speaker 5: you can't afford it. And I mean, when it comes
Speaker 5: to an emergency fund, we're not saying.
Speaker 1: Go to Europe with your girlfriends like that, to me,
Speaker 1: is not what your emergency fund is for.
Speaker 5: It's more for those things that pop up so that
Speaker 5: you can either get into a situation you need to
Speaker 5: be in or get out of a situation that you
Speaker 5: don't want to be in. Like Beck, what if one
Speaker 5: day you went home and all your housemates were They've
Speaker 5: gone rancid. They have absolutely gone feral, and you can't
Speaker 5: live right. Yeah, they've ruined the house, they've decided to
Speaker 5: grow drugs in the laundry or something, and you're like,
Speaker 5: I can't live here anymore. But if you didn't have
Speaker 5: the finances to get yourself out of that circumstance, you
Speaker 5: might just be stuck there. But financial freedom is having
Speaker 5: enough finances behind you to get out of any circumstance
Speaker 5: or situation you don't want to be in because you
Speaker 5: shouldn't have to be in that. And that doesn't matter
Speaker 5: whether that's a housemates situation or a relationship, or even
Speaker 5: just you're on a holiday and you want to fly
Speaker 5: home because you're no longer come forgive it with the
Speaker 5: friends that you're with, right, Like, I think financial freedom
Speaker 5: to me means so much more. And if we're talking
Speaker 5: about what people are cutting back on, I think that
Speaker 5: we also need to really juxtapose that with well, where
Speaker 5: should we be putting our money during this period of time,
Speaker 5: because I think a lot of people just get anxious
Speaker 5: and then stop doing anything, and then they see all
Speaker 5: of these smaller things and you might not be spending
Speaker 5: you know, you might go, oh, financial times are tough.
Speaker 5: Let's not spend seven hundred and fifty dollars on a
Speaker 5: new washing machine.
Speaker 1: We'll put that off. That makes sense.
Speaker 5: But if then you're not thinking about your money and
Speaker 5: you're going to Priceline every couple of weeks and spending
Speaker 5: thirty dollars here in there, like that's going to add
Speaker 5: up to that seven hundred and fifty dollars and you've
Speaker 5: lost that money. And if I put a pile of
Speaker 5: my cup on the bench, and also the washing machine,
Speaker 5: is that beck? Which one do you want? You'd be like, well,
Speaker 5: I needed the washing machine. But because you had your
Speaker 5: head in the sand, that money fell to the wayside
Speaker 5: and you didn't actually make the most of your financial circumstances.
Speaker 5: So from my perspective, yes, we're cutting back on things,
Speaker 5: but it should be really purposeful and we should be
Speaker 5: really thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Speaker 4: Financial freedom actually sounds like heaven. It's so sick, it's
Speaker 4: kind of sexy. I feel like that could be the
Speaker 4: life for us. I mean, I mean for you, it's
Speaker 4: already maybe you've already they had it.
Speaker 5: Well, I do have an emergency fund, and that's something
Speaker 5: that makes me feel really good about the circumstances that
Speaker 5: I have. Like, you know, what if I didn't want
Speaker 5: to be with Steve anymore?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't. I love him. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make that decision.
Speaker 4: I love him so much to decide right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but like what if something happened like that? Is
Speaker 5: the one thing that keeps people in relationships they don't
Speaker 5: want to be in is finances. Like I don't think
Speaker 5: anyone in our community should be in that circle ccumstance.
Speaker 5: And when I say relationships, we're not just talking about
Speaker 5: your partner. We could be talking about your family circumstances.
Speaker 5: We could be talking about your work, your relationship with
Speaker 5: your boss. That's a relationship too. And what if it's
Speaker 5: such a toxic environment that you need to leave but
Speaker 5: you can't because you don't have the funds behind you.
Speaker 1: What if I said, oh, Beck, well you've actually.
Speaker 5: Got three months worth of savings, like you could quit
Speaker 5: now and look for another job, and actually everything would
Speaker 5: be okay, and your mental health is absolutely the biggest
Speaker 5: priority right now. You'd be like, Oh, that takes the
Speaker 5: pressure off, taking their pressure off ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So anyway that we've talked about emergency funds before, I
Speaker 5: keep talking about them literally forever, but they're really.
Speaker 4: So important now, just coming back to the lipstick index, Yes,
Speaker 4: is that what this episode is about? Yeah, I actually forgot.
Speaker 5: I just have so much stuff that I want to
Speaker 5: give you guys this year that I'm like, let's pack
Speaker 5: it into this episode.
Speaker 4: We really appreciate it. You were mentioning before V that
Speaker 4: it's easier to make little, cheap, superficial changes than costly
Speaker 4: ones when we're financially under pressure. Do you think there's
Speaker 4: like a deeper psychological behind what makes lipstick cosmetics other
Speaker 4: beauty products so popular at a time like.
Speaker 1: This, Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: So there was actually a study that was done in
Speaker 5: twenty twelve, so a while ago. Do you know, twenty
Speaker 5: twelve was actually ages ago, It was more than ten
Speaker 5: years ago. It doesn't feel that way though. It's twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three. Wild anyway, But this study done in twenty
Speaker 5: twelve found that the lipstick effect is deeply rooted in
Speaker 5: mating psychology.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, sexy, right, so that's sorry. Sarah Hill, who.
Speaker 5: Was the person behind the study, found that during quote,
Speaker 5: periods of scarcity, women see a decrease in the availability
Speaker 5: of quality mates. So Hill has said that because unemployment
Speaker 5: and low returns on investments occur at a higher rate
Speaker 5: during recessions, a recession makes signal to women that financially
Speaker 5: secure men are becoming relatively scarce. Okay, And while this
Speaker 5: might seem really superficial, and from my perspective, I think
Speaker 5: that financial security in a partner, any partner, is very sexy.
Speaker 5: Hill has conducted four separate experiments, not just one, not
Speaker 5: just one, and all have said yes, that effect does exist,
Speaker 5: and that times of economic stress see an increase in
Speaker 5: women's desire to buy products like lipstick or designer genes
Speaker 5: or high heeled boots and perfume, and they're just not
Speaker 5: interested in men as much or not interested in having
Speaker 5: a partner as much because they're like, man, they're not
Speaker 5: that financially secure.
Speaker 1: Get in the bin. I'm gonna go make myself.
Speaker 5: Look chic and ten out of ten and I find
Speaker 5: it's super super interesting and obviously beg that super heteronormative.
Speaker 4: And not relate.
Speaker 5: No, No, That's why I was like, probably not related
Speaker 5: to you, but on a base mating level, Like if
Speaker 5: women are looking at men in general, something that women
Speaker 5: from a psychology perspective look for when they are looking
Speaker 5: for a male partner is a level of security. So
Speaker 5: it kind of makes sense that this makes sense. I'd
Speaker 5: be interested to see if that experiment in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: three could be pushed out, because you know, during this
Speaker 5: period of time it's a recession. We could do the
Speaker 5: research again, and I would like to see it as
Speaker 5: a if people in general are looking for a partner,
Speaker 5: what would that look like during a recession, because I
Speaker 5: think that would actually be extra juicy.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's twenty twenty three. I feel like the
Speaker 4: results will be a little bit different.
Speaker 5: I just think in general people will be like, oh,
Speaker 5: I don't want to partner. I don't want to have
Speaker 5: to pay for going on dates.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, I don't think this has got anything.
Speaker 4: To do with gender.
Speaker 5: You're like, I don't want to go on a date
Speaker 5: because I don't want to have to pay for it,
Speaker 5: And like, what if I have to pay for the
Speaker 5: whole date?
Speaker 1: Hell no, let's just not do it.
Speaker 4: I'm a buy myself a lipstick exactly. It's expensive dating
Speaker 4: and that's why I'm still very much single.
Speaker 5: Ah's that's a suggestion to those in the community that
Speaker 5: might find back a feeling.
Speaker 4: Yes moving on anything. So V can I ask what's
Speaker 4: an affordable luxury to you?
Speaker 5: Ah? This is such a good question because I feel
Speaker 5: like so many this is a trend on TikTok at
Speaker 5: the moment, too, all I'm doing is talking about TikTok
Speaker 5: because we've just come back from holidays and like, I
Speaker 5: spent a lot of time on the internet. But for me,
Speaker 5: having thought about this over the brain, I feel like
Speaker 5: an affordable luxury obviously, like fluffily, enough is time. But
Speaker 5: if I've got some time, I want fresh sheets, beck,
Speaker 5: like real crispy fresh sheets and a cup of tea
Speaker 5: in bed with a book and literally nowhere to be
Speaker 5: like like a Sunday morning. Like to me, that's a
Speaker 5: really good affordable luxury where it's kind of like I'm
Speaker 5: enjoying my time, like I'm snuggy, I'm having a good day,
Speaker 5: Whereas to somebody else they'd be like, I hate spending
Speaker 5: time in bed, Victoria like from wake, I'm up and out,
Speaker 5: like my business partner Kate, like I cannot imagine her
Speaker 5: lying in bed and enjoying it.
Speaker 1: But what about you? What's an affordable luxury?
Speaker 4: Well, yours sounds actually very wholesome, and mine won't sound
Speaker 4: very wholesome.
Speaker 1: It's okay, we are who we are, beck, Are you
Speaker 1: gonna say hair bleach?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 1: I knew you would, But I think that's good.
Speaker 4: An affordable luxury to me would be going to the
Speaker 4: pub with mates, to sitting around in the ber garden,
Speaker 4: and I usually get a soda water believe it or not,
Speaker 4: so it's still actually I do.
Speaker 1: I'm smart, all man, thank you. Sometimes they're free too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're free.
Speaker 4: They're either free or max two dollars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's an affordable luxury and affordable luxury.
Speaker 5: But I also think it really depends on who you
Speaker 5: are and what that looks like. Because we're talking about
Speaker 5: this before the show, and I was like, oh, like,
Speaker 5: another thing that I really like is a good coffee,
Speaker 5: Like and I think that's an affordable luxury that fits
Speaker 5: into my budget, and to me, that's one thing that
Speaker 5: I won't remove from my budget. So like Steve and
Speaker 5: I go for a walk every morning with our dog Lucy,
Speaker 5: and we go to the cafe and we get a coffee.
Speaker 5: And you could say, oh, eye, but you'd save so
Speaker 5: much money if you made the coffee at home.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, but that's like.
Speaker 5: A luxury to me, Like that's something yeah, like we
Speaker 5: love the experience. I love a good coffee, and I
Speaker 5: think it's to me that makes sense. But then there
Speaker 5: are other people that would be like, oh, I cut
Speaker 5: coffee out of my budget and I save twelve hundred
Speaker 5: dollars a year, and like that makes sense because that
Speaker 5: might not be worth it to you. So I think
Speaker 5: this concept of affordable luxuries is really personal and I
Speaker 5: think that's really good. But the thing that then overlays
Speaker 5: on that is to me, and this might sound really fluffy,
Speaker 5: but it's she's on the money so bear with me
Speaker 5: is a level of gratitude as well. So to think
Speaker 5: about affordable luxuries, you actually have to put your gratitude
Speaker 5: hat on and go, oh, like what am I grateful for?
Speaker 5: That's maybe not you know, a flat screen TV or
Speaker 5: going to Europe or like something really big? Like what
Speaker 5: are the little things in life that are affordable to
Speaker 5: me that make my life better or make my life good?
Speaker 1: And I've got a million of them.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna make TikTok serious on like my favorite afford
Speaker 5: trees because I have heaps of them. Do you know
Speaker 5: what another or one of my favorite affordable trees is.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, it's so lame. Are you ready please? Okay,
Speaker 5: so try so when I travel, Like, one thing that
Speaker 5: I really like is the face washers, so like you know,
Speaker 5: like a fresh clean face washer.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 5: So I went to Kmart and I bought like ten
Speaker 5: of them because they're like a dollar at Kmart, and
Speaker 5: I roll them up and I have a little tray
Speaker 5: in my bathroom. Yeah, and every time I get in
Speaker 5: the show, I have a brand new face washer. And
Speaker 5: I know that, like maybe that's normal to some people.
Speaker 5: And I know some people because growing up I had
Speaker 5: a face washer, and I just like left it hanging
Speaker 5: in the bathroom and I just used the same one,
Speaker 5: but I then like hang it over the side of
Speaker 5: the shower and chuck it in the washing basket and
Speaker 5: like it just goes through with the normal load. Sure,
Speaker 5: but that those ten face washers cost me ten bucks
Speaker 5: and I feel so lux when I use them. I'm
Speaker 5: like grab my rolled up thing and I'm like ready
Speaker 5: and I use my nice face wash and I do
Speaker 5: that anyway. It's really lame, but to me that makes
Speaker 5: me feel good. So affordable luxuries could literally be anything.
Speaker 5: Like it's the way I'm washing my face back now,
Speaker 5: I think is a little bit luxul But how can
Speaker 5: you incorporate more things into your life that make you
Speaker 5: feel good about the processes that you're going through? And
Speaker 5: if me spending ten bucks on ten little face washers
Speaker 5: from Kmart made me feel good one hundred percent great
Speaker 5: affordable luxury and the last lifetime, well.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Do you get them from paymart and pro brand and
Speaker 5: pro brand We don't know how long they're gonna last month,
Speaker 5: but they definitely will be worth the ten bucks I've
Speaker 5: paid for that oh.
Speaker 1: For sure, one hundred.
Speaker 4: Actually, you've really talked me into it. How about let's
Speaker 4: leave it here then I'm going to head off and
Speaker 4: go by myself. A ten one dollar face washers. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and we'll be back here soon.
Speaker 5: I love it all right, guys, I am done for today,
Speaker 5: but as always, we would love it if you joined
Speaker 5: our Facebook group where our community shares money tips and
Speaker 5: tricks every single day free of judgment. So She's on
Speaker 5: the Money on Facebook and join us if Facebook's don't
Speaker 5: you think We're on Instagram where She's on the money
Speaker 5: aus we are on TikTok and I'm posting literally twice
Speaker 5: a day at She's on the Money. And as always,
Speaker 5: new year, New mean new review. Don't forget to rate,
Speaker 5: review or subscribe. But also, Beck, congratulations on the end
Speaker 5: of your first ever deep dive.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, f that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about that.
Speaker 4: I am so excited. I'm so excited for twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Let's let's do it.
Speaker 4: Match it out the part all right, See you on Friday, guys,
Speaker 4: See you Friday.
Speaker 5: The advice shared on She's on the Money is general
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