# Infinity Gave Them Security In Their Darkest Days | Steven & Sarah | CHANGING LIVES | Season 4 Ep 49

An episode of [Money Mentor Podcast™](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1632604767), 10 Jun 2026, 56 min.

Audio: https://episode.flightcast.com/jppmhzzc1zkxire4bsp96xyg.mp3

In this episode of "The Money Mentor," we speak to Sarah and Steven, who share how their journey with Infinity has given them financial freedom and security in an uncertain world. They married young and had three beautiful children. But their lives changed forever when their youngest son was diagnosed at just four months old with a life threatening condition requiring 39 brain surgeries over 19 years. The financial toll was immense — crippling mortgage debt, credit cards used to cover medical bills, andhundreds of dollars lost to interest every single day - with no end in sight. A chance encounter with an Instagram reel changed everything, leading them to Infinity and a moment where they could finally see a way forward. In just over a year they slashed over $106,000 from their debt, cut years off their mortgage, and built a growing investment portfolio. When Steve was recently hit with a sudden health scare, the couple were able to face it from a place of financial strength rather than fear. Sarah and Steven's story is proof that no matter how heavy the load, the right plan changes everything.Ready to change your financial future? 👉 Start by watching the FREE webinar and see what's possible: https://bit.ly/43V2jKN

## Transcript

[0:00] Jaden's latest medical issue has completely come out of the blue.
[0:03] So we knew there was a problem and we thought we would operate after Easter.
[0:07] That was planned with our neurosurgeon.
[0:09] And then he became critically unwell very, very fast.
[0:15] And for those things you can't prepare.
[0:18] Knowing there is no discussion about money between us, like how are we going to cover this, how are we going to pay for this, knowing that is like the biggest blessing that we could have asked for.
[0:29] Yeah, it's the biggest win, I think.
[0:31] Like I look at, yeah, we've got the investment properties, we're on track to pay our home off in six years instead of 28, but the fact we've absorbed like...
[0:39] My surgery, Jaden's three surgeries, the front door, that bloody front door is not even painted, the car expenses and all those yearly expenses that seem to come over Christmas, we've absorbed all of that and not had to worry where the money is.
[0:54] It's kicked our buffer a little bit.
[0:56] There's not one argument or concern.
[0:59] money isn't root of all evil the fucking lack of it is not money the lack of understanding money when i put that into emphasis when i realized that psychological effect and how it hit our family i fdb in the fucking way you were now watching the money mentor podcast there were days they couldn't afford to park at the hospital where their son was having surgery
[1:24] Not because they weren't working, they were.
[1:27] But the money was always somewhere else.
[1:30] Their son, Jaden, has had 39 brain surgeries.
[1:35] Sarah and Steven have spent his entire life navigating medical appointments, recovery, and the financial weight that comes with all of it.
[1:44] Over $670,000 in mortgage debt.
[1:47] Credit cards covering medical bills.
[1:50] Their home used like a line of credit to fund a pool and a car.
[1:54] And daily interest quietly costing them hundreds of dollars every single day.
[2:01] An Instagram reel led to a podcast and a podcast led to the webinar.
[2:05] The wow moment?
[2:06] Realizing how simple paying off their home sooner actually was and how much it was costing them not to.
[2:13] In just over a year, $106,000 off their debt.
[2:18] Five to six years stripped from the mortgage timeline.
[2:21] Two investment properties in their name and a third being planned.
[2:25] Sarah no longer carries the financial load alone.
[2:29] Stephen says the noise in his head is gone.
[2:31] And Jaden, their son, is thriving and now has his own FFF budget.
[2:37] The next generation already learning differently.
[2:41] Some stories are about numbers.
[2:44] This one's about something more.
[2:47] This is Sarah and Stephen's story.
[2:51] Welcome back to the Money Mentor Podcast.
[2:53] We have another episode of Changing Lives Financially.
[2:56] Today we have the lovely Stephen and Sarah.
[3:00] How are we guys?
[3:01] Good, thank you Rachel.
[3:01] Fantastic, thank you.
[3:02] Nice to meet you.
[3:03] Yeah, you too.
[3:04] And how are we feeling about being here?
[3:06] I'm excited but a little bit nervous.
[3:09] Yeah, that's pretty normal.
[3:10] But we're just going to talk about your story, which is exactly what you're going to start us off with.
[3:14] So tell me all about yourselves, the family, everything that was going on before infinity.
[3:19] Sure.
[3:20] So we are 45, both of us.
[3:24] We live here on the Gold Coast.
[3:26] And...
[3:27] We've been together since we were teenagers and we have had, we had a surprise baby.
[3:31] A surprise baby.
[3:32] So we were very young parents.
[3:34] High school sweethearts with a surprise baby.
[3:36] Not at high school.
[3:37] I didn't know Sarah in high school.
[3:39] I met her at the petrol station.
[3:41] I worked and I pumped her petrol.
[3:43] She did, like a gentleman.
[3:45] And then a few months later, pumping petrol turned into baby number one.
[3:50] No, not a few months.
[3:50] It was quite a while.
[3:52] So we had a surprise baby at 19 and we got married at 21.
[3:57] We had our next baby at 22.
[3:58] We had our second daughter at 22.
[4:01] We then had our third and final child at 26.
[4:04] And so we've been together a very long time.
[4:06] It'll be 27 years this year.
[4:09] Emily is turning 26 and she's an absolute delight.
[4:12] She is getting married in September.
[4:14] So we're very proud of everything she's achieved with her beautiful partner, Jamie.
[4:19] Chloe is our 23-year-old and she lives with us and her two babies live with us as well.
[4:24] So we are very lucky that we live intergenerally.
[4:27] Intergeneral, what's the word?
[4:28] General.
[4:28] Generationally, yeah.
[4:30] With her, she has gifted us a two-and-a-half-year-old who's an absolute little wildfire, just like her mother, and a 10-month-old who's just joy.
[4:40] He's a beautiful, beautiful child.
[4:43] And then our youngest, Jaden, who's 19, lives with us as well.
[4:46] So we rented for an incredibly long amount of time because it was hard being teenage parents and it was really hard to build careers, but Steve has...
[4:58] an amazing work ethic.
[4:59] So he's always worked super, super hard.
[5:02] And I went back to uni to finish my degree that the surprise baby interrupted when we just got together.
[5:07] And what were you studying?
[5:08] Teaching.
[5:09] Nice.
[5:09] And so I went back and finished my teaching degree with a little bit of a hiccup of having Jaden in that as well.
[5:16] When Jaden was four months old, he was diagnosed with a brain condition called hydrocephalus.
[5:22] Yep.
[5:22] He's had a lot of surgeries, hasn't he?
[5:24] He's had a lot of surgeries.
[5:26] The treatment for his hydrocephalus is to put something called a VP shunt into his body.
[5:31] So it takes your cerebral spinal fluid and puts it into your belly because ours right now is going down our spinal column and into our blood and that's how it kind of works.
[5:38] It makes your brain healthy.
[5:40] His brain can't absorb it.
[5:43] And for some reason his body doesn't like having shunts in them so that tends to try and reject them a lot.
[5:49] So he has had a lot of surgery and he had a lot of surgery growing up and we had a lot of bills from very young age.
[5:57] What was it like navigating that as young parents and having a child that had so many medical needs?
[6:02] Really, really tricky.
[6:03] Yeah.
[6:04] We have beautiful parents though on both sides so the kids have great-grandparents.
[6:10] And middle of the night, I would just, we'd just leave the house and drive into hospital or my mum would come down and have them when I needed to finish a prac for my degree.
[6:20] Steve's mum moved in for four weeks to look after them.
[6:24] But we're very, very, very blessed with our friends and very blessed with our family.
[6:28] So you've got a good village.
[6:30] We do.
[6:30] It's a very big village.
[6:32] We've been private healthcare all our life, especially with his condition.
[6:35] Yeah.
[6:36] So it's been very expensive.
[6:37] And what's surgery number 39?
[6:40] Yeah, so wow, 39.
[6:41] Yeah, last month.
[6:42] Well, he's had two rounds of surgery in the last sort of two months, three months.
[6:47] Yeah.
[6:48] Had a bit of a bad run.
[6:49] But, yeah, we've had the same neurosurgeon.
[6:51] We've been blessed with that, but it's very expensive.
[6:53] Yeah.
[6:54] So, which we'll probably get to later, but with the Infinity Way, it's no longer a concern.
[6:59] A concern for you guys.
[7:00] Because before there was a lot of stress around...
[7:03] being at the hospital and having that extra cost of parking and the meals that you'd probably have to have because, you know, you'd always want to stay by his side or always have one of you there.
[7:12] Yeah.
[7:13] Yeah.
[7:13] His treatment's in Brisbane.
[7:14] We didn't live in Brisbane.
[7:16] It was, you know, an hour and a half away from home.
[7:18] So it was always like you had to park a car.
[7:21] Yeah.
[7:22] And you had to do this and you have to eat.
[7:24] And it would come, like I had no leave left at work because of how common, because he's only 19, so 39 is...
[7:32] ref breaks down to one every six months yeah all the hospitalizations in between that as well but we kind of just got through it we did get through it with some credit cards and stuff but um we'd saved for a very long time and we managed to buy a block of land when we were in our 30s early 30s um and we built our little dream house on it and we took out everything that
[7:52] was going to be extra so like we took the driveway off we took the patio concrete save as much money as you could from it yeah kind of just built that like how we could what we could afford and we had scrimped and saved we were barefoot investors um but it gave us a structure at the time that kind of really worked for us because we needed something and
[8:10] Yeah, we always say it's a great start.
[8:12] Yeah.
[8:12] Because it's better than doing nothing.
[8:13] And it really, really was.
[8:15] And then as the kids got older, we decided that we wanted to live closer to the coast.
[8:19] We actually wanted to be closer to the hospital as well for him.
[8:22] And our daughter, our oldest daughter had moved.
[8:24] She'd bought a property and she had moved out.
[8:26] We were, they'd lived with us for three years at that stage.
[8:29] And we were really, really, really proud of them.
[8:31] And so...
[8:32] We sold our house and once we sold that first house we'd ever bought, which absolutely was heartbreaking to me, I actually didn't, I wanted to but I didn't want to, we realised what equity was and that kind of led us to looking for infinity.
[8:45] And so once we kind of saw how money actually works, then we were like, hey, what?
[8:52] we could do something with this rather than just we build a house, we pay the house off for 30 years.
[8:56] Yeah, that's always been pretty much a thing of ours.
[8:59] Like we earn good money now.
[9:00] Because what do you both do now?
[9:01] So I work for local government in IT.
[9:03] Yep.
[9:04] And I'm a teacher.
[9:05] Yep.
[9:06] So, you know, we had that first period of our lives where we had no money, credit cards, then we went barefoot investor, cleared a bit of debt, but the money never really worked for us.
[9:15] No.
[9:16] Then we thought surely we can do something with the money to make it actually work for us.
[9:22] Yeah.
[9:22] And then we just kind of started to see infinity and we, you know, it was kind of there.
[9:28] So I planted the seed.
[9:30] We were going on a weekend away to see some friends on the sunny coast and Steve loves a podcast and I love a podcast.
[9:36] We are very different podcast listeners.
[9:38] So on that way.
[9:39] What are you into?
[9:40] Oh, true crime.
[9:41] Oh, me too.
[9:42] Love true crime.
[9:43] What about you?
[9:43] Anything but crime.
[9:45] Really?
[9:47] Various stuff, video gaming, IT stuff.
[9:51] Oh, that's very different.
[9:52] Yeah.
[9:53] And I'm out walking every night with my AirPods in thinking I'm going to be murdered because I listened to True Crime.
[9:58] But I'd listened to quite a few of the original podcasts, you know, Casey and Lenny and him and Craig and Adam and Sinead.
[10:05] And so we're going to the Sunny Coast and I'm like, well, we, hey, should we listen to one of my podcasts?
[10:10] And he was like, yeah, okay.
[10:12] And I put it on.
[10:13] And I was like, because...
[10:15] Just listen.
[10:16] And he was like, he kept pausing it.
[10:17] I think it was the Kim and Craig one.
[10:18] He's like, but how?
[10:20] But how?
[10:20] And I was like, just listen.
[10:21] Just listen.
[10:21] But how?
[10:22] And that was kind of like the first bit where I was like, I think we could be doing more.
[10:27] Was that your first introduction to Infinity, our podcast?
[10:29] Yeah.
[10:30] Yeah, it kind of was.
[10:31] And it was the way that like, because it's a two-hour drive to the sunny coast, it was like, listen to this.
[10:35] And then on the way back, he actually asked me to put another one on.
[10:38] And I was like, yeah, okay.
[10:40] And then I said, there's a webinar.
[10:43] like we could do this and we actually still did a live one I think on a Tuesday night and then that was like March 2025.
[10:50] Yep.
[10:51] And then we pretty much at the end of that Steve was like sign us up, like what's the next step?
[10:57] And I was like two-day master class.
[10:58] So we did that and it was very much like we were ready to take that step.
[11:03] We knew that equity existed.
[11:05] We knew that there was a way you could use money.
[11:07] We knew that this new mortgage on the new house we'd bought
[11:13] um, that we could do this better and that we could maybe make a change that would really help these kids in the future.
[11:19] So then from there, you've done the webinar together.
[11:22] Yep.
[11:22] You did sit it together.
[11:23] What was it about the webinar that made you go, yep, this is, we need to do the masterclass.
[11:28] How simple things are when they're explained to you.
[11:30] Yeah.
[11:31] And no one else explains it to you.
[11:33] Like you go through thinking, um,
[11:35] Oh, they teach you about interest rates and if you can shave half a percent off your winning at life, okay, that's what we did.
[11:40] We refinanced.
[11:43] We did things like Sarah said, we skimmed when we got the house to save money, but then we refinanced to get the pool and to get the deck and the car.
[11:53] Yeah.
[11:53] And then you look at that in the webinar and you go...
[11:56] We don't know what we think we know.
[11:58] So it was very eye-opening and simple stuff that you think they would teach you but obviously the banks don't want you knowing that.
[12:07] Were you surprised that that was so much information in a free webinar?
[12:10] Yes.
[12:10] Yes.
[12:12] Because that's what I'm thinking.
[12:13] What's the catch?
[12:14] Like, I mean, it all seems genuine.
[12:16] But I'm like, what are we missing here?
[12:17] What have we done?
[12:18] How have we not seen this for the last 20 years?
[12:20] Yeah.
[12:21] And then I guess one of our real big wins was between the master class and...
[12:27] Actually, between the webinar and then being an Infinity client, we'd pay $26,000 down off our mortgage and we hadn't really changed anything.
[12:37] We had started a structure of like an FFF kind of structure, but we just kind of hadn't done anything that was...
[12:44] uncomfortable yeah we weren't uncomfortable we were still like oh my gosh but we redirected we didn't have a million buckets so we weren't running it it wasn't going like that but we were just like hey we could just focus this better and then that was once it once you prove it to yourself as well then you know that you're fully in you're in the whole way and you see it working yeah yeah
[13:06] Yeah, so that was like the best part for us.
[13:09] Yeah.
[13:09] And talk me through the weekend of the masterclass, what it was like sitting through that for two full days.
[13:14] It sounds like a lot.
[13:16] It did prior to it.
[13:17] But it goes so fast, doesn't it?
[13:19] It goes so fast.
[13:19] So fast.
[13:20] And there's so much info.
[13:21] And you find yourself just wanting more.
[13:23] Like you're like, before Infinity came along, Sarah did all the finances.
[13:27] Not because...
[13:29] That's her job.
[13:29] But I had no interest in it and she always took care of it.
[13:32] And I was like, okay, I got my little allowance every week.
[13:35] But then when you look at the master class, it's just information that's real world and shows you how to get ahead.
[13:41] Yeah.
[13:41] And it's addictive, right?
[13:43] It's exciting to make your money seem like it's doing something, make your property do something for you.
[13:49] Yeah.
[13:50] Was there a particular light bulb moment during the master class that you were like, wow, I cannot believe we never knew this before?
[13:55] Yeah, just when Graham showed the out-of-debt calculator and we did the exercise, okay, so we've got this 28-year mortgage.
[14:02] Yeah.
[14:03] here's how it looks currently.
[14:05] If you just throw more money at it and budget properly, you can do it in six years.
[14:08] You're like, okay, that's it.
[14:10] Like, I'm so dumb.
[14:11] Yeah.
[14:13] It's a simple question.
[14:14] How do you pay something off quicker?
[14:15] Throw more money at it is the short answer, and that's what we're doing.
[14:19] But no one explains that to you.
[14:20] Like, we were paying ahead in our mortgage prior, but not to this degree.
[14:24] Yeah.
[14:25] And not thinking about the time to get out of debt.
[14:27] Yeah.
[14:28] Seeing Graeme explain rapid repay was amazing.
[14:34] And seeing the property growth, like not just having one property and sitting on that for 30 years and, okay, you paid your property off, but making that property work for you to get other properties.
[14:43] Yeah, to build further on your wealth, yeah.
[14:46] Had you thought about investing before?
[14:48] No, never.
[14:48] Well, no, we kind of had, but...
[14:51] We just didn't know where to start because you, of course you thought about like when Emily bought her property, we were like, oh, well, like we could buy a townhouse too.
[14:58] Like, oh, you know, like a really flippant idea kind of thing.
[15:01] But we just didn't know where to start.
[15:03] And it wasn't until we sold that very first property of ours and bought this one that it was like, oh, you can actually, like there's something in this.
[15:11] And that's why I think the infinity kind of came into our lives at that stage because we were looking for something that would guide us.
[15:17] And one of my things is,
[15:19] With Jaden's medical condition, we don't run that.
[15:22] Our neurosurgeon runs it.
[15:23] We follow him for advice.
[15:25] We take every – he gives us our options.
[15:27] He talks us through everything.
[15:29] But that's his field.
[15:30] We don't cross into that.
[15:32] We just do what he says.
[15:33] It was like going to a mechanic for your car, a dentist for your teeth.
[15:36] You know, you're not going to do his brain surgery.
[15:39] No, we are still not doing that.
[15:41] And it was one of those things like –
[15:43] Infinity now is just part of our bigger team.
[15:45] I used to laugh and say that Dr. Campbell was our sixth family member because we were always annoying him and he was always in our lives.
[15:52] And now Infinity is just another part of our team that makes us, this family, go forward.
[15:58] And so Dr. Campbell's been with us for 19 years of Jay's life and will continue to hopefully forever.
[16:04] But now Infinity is part of our family as well and you're looking out for the best of us.
[16:08] And when we come to you with like...
[16:10] This is what is important to us.
[16:14] You guys meet us where we're at.
[16:15] You're not offering a suggestion or a thing that doesn't align with what we value with what we want.
[16:21] And so that's really important to us as well.
[16:23] And I think one of the other lightbulb moments for me was realising that
[16:28] you can't get ahead financially without seeking advice.
[16:31] Yeah.
[16:32] Right?
[16:33] So I saw a couple of Graham's TikToks where he explained things.
[16:36] I'm like, no, we could just do that.
[16:37] Like, why do we need to pay for it?
[16:39] But when it clicks and you're like, no, we need to enlist these guys to help and you see it all working, you're like...
[16:45] You've got to get the professionals, like let the baker bake type stuff.
[16:48] Like it's, we wouldn't be where we are without proper advice and guidance.
[16:52] Exactly.
[16:53] And it runs in the background for us.
[16:54] It's not impacting us.
[16:56] FFF works really well for us.
[16:57] I think that was one of my takeaways was like I was making it too complicated.
[17:01] Yeah.
[17:01] And then with all the buckets.
[17:03] Yeah.
[17:03] And that's just simple.
[17:05] And to know just do it this way.
[17:07] And once that structure was set up for us, it was like I kind of fought against the tide because I was like, oh, no, like this can't be this simple.
[17:14] But it really is honestly that simple.
[17:16] Yeah.
[17:17] Um, we, we follow a very structured thing, which we learned off a podcast of someone else.
[17:21] Like, so we fill up on the day that it lands in our account.
[17:24] We fill up our petrol.
[17:25] I do an online grocery order for what we need.
[17:28] I think about what we need.
[17:30] We think about what the week might look ahead.
[17:32] And even in the last two months, because we've had a really rough six months, if we're honest.
[17:36] So we've been with infinity 12 months.
[17:38] The first six months was fantastic.
[17:40] We just followed the process.
[17:41] It sat in the background.
[17:42] We did what we were told, like what we were guided to do.
[17:46] And it just kind of ran.
[17:47] And then in November, so we'd been with the team about six months at this stage, Steve had a tumour that needed to be removed and he needed surgery and that put us financially like into a little kick.
[18:01] Yeah.
[18:01] Yeah.
[18:02] Then we needed some house repairs.
[18:04] Our front door broke and you can't have a broken front door and that was a lot more expensive to fully fix that.
[18:09] $4,000, Rachel.
[18:10] The front door.
[18:11] And it wasn't even painted.
[18:12] I had to paint it.
[18:14] Could I use the pun?
[18:15] Shut the front door.
[18:16] Shut the front door.
[18:17] Well, we couldn't.
[18:18] That's why we had to get a new one.
[18:20] And that kind of happened.
[18:21] And then I'd booked Jaden in for his wisdom teeth because he'd waited two years because of brain surgeries because he has to be very careful with when we surgery.
[18:29] We had this and it was just felt like everything was just kicking us.
[18:31] Yeah.
[18:32] And then at the same time, we're talking to the RM and they're just like, but just stay the course.
[18:39] Like just stay.
[18:39] just, cool, you've got this buffer, you've got this.
[18:43] And it was.
[18:44] It was the first time that things were happening and we couldn't do what we call a sweep.
[18:48] But we weren't dipping into it.
[18:50] We don't have credit cards, so we weren't dipping into that.
[18:54] So credit cards are gone now.
[18:55] Totally gone.
[18:56] 100%.
[18:57] And then Jayden's latest medical issue has completely come out of the blue.
[19:02] So we knew there was a problem and we thought we would operate after Easter.
[19:06] That was planned with our neurosurgeon.
[19:08] And then he became critically unwell very, very fast.
[19:13] And for those things you can't prepare.
[19:15] And knowing there is no discussion about money between us, like how are we going to cover this, how are we going to pay for this, knowing that is like the biggest blessing that we could have asked for.
[19:28] Yeah, it's the biggest win I think.
[19:30] Like I look at, yeah, we've got the investment properties, we're on track to pay our home off in six years instead of 28, but the fact we've absorbed like...
[19:38] My surgery, Jaden's three surgeries, the front door, the bloody front door that's not even painted, the car expenses and all those yearly expenses that seem to come over Christmas, we've absorbed all of that and not had to worry where the money is.
[19:53] It's kicked our buffer a little bit.
[19:54] There's not one argument or concern.
[19:57] where the infinity way has given us resiliency in our finances.
[20:02] Yeah, 100%.
[20:03] Because you've still done $100,000 or just over $100,000 off the home loan in a year despite navigating quite a few challenges in that last year.
[20:12] And we had nothing to sell.
[20:13] Yeah.
[20:14] Like we haven't sold anything.
[20:16] So we had no toys to sell, no investment properties.
[20:19] It was like bare bones.
[20:20] I wasn't allowed a jet ski.
[20:23] And our brain won't allow me to have jet ski.
[20:27] No, we didn't have anything like that.
[20:29] It's literally just focus and it's literally just sending it to the right place and sticking to your FFF, which is great.
[20:38] really not difficult.
[20:40] And we are a big family.
[20:41] There's four of us at home and the two kids, two dogs, we have two border collies, two cats.
[20:47] We sweep weekly quite a lot.
[20:48] So we maybe could adjust our FFF if we wanted to.
[20:51] But the best thing about the FFF being what it was, three weeks after Jayden's first...
[20:56] brain surgery that he's just had this year, he had another catastrophic failure and we rushed straight back to hospital and put him back in.
[21:03] That FFF is sitting there.
[21:04] If I need anything, I just go get it.
[21:06] Yeah, so we can pay for parking now at the hospital.
[21:09] Oh, 100%.
[21:09] We can pay for some snacks.
[21:11] When he was little, I remember one time.
[21:13] Steve would come up and he'd move the car for me because we would, we just, it's hospital parking is.
[21:19] Isn't it ridiculous we've got to pay for hospital parking?
[21:22] And it's that, it's also just anything else that you might have needed.
[21:25] If I'd left the girls suddenly with mum, I'd feel like I've got this to pay for for school or I've got this or that or whatever, the petrol going up back and forth and stuff.
[21:33] And now it's been really nice to sit there.
[21:36] The other thing we really like to do for Jay because he's woken up that many times for a minute.
[21:40] is what do you want to eat right now yeah and now I have the absolute illness that I can just run down to South Bank because it's so close and get in whatever he wants and there's no oh what did you spend on the way home Steve because that account looks low or anything like that and I think that was it's just a blessing to us and we're not even talking about the other things that will come yeah part of the infinity family
[22:01] If you're enjoying this story and want to set yourself up for financial freedom as well, it all starts with our free 45-minute educational webinar.
[22:10] Click the link below this video to begin your journey today.
[22:14] How does that feel for Jada knowing that mom and dad can say yes a bit more?
[22:17] Because I know it sounds so small, but like you said, the fact that you can wake up and be like, I feel like this.
[22:23] Yeah.
[22:23] And you're just like, we've got it.
[22:25] I think when he was little, he used to always wake up and want Nutella donuts.
[22:28] It was so easy.
[22:29] And I would ring Steve and say like, Hey, swing past here and grab me this for him.
[22:33] Now he's quite funny.
[22:34] Now I'm like offering like a three course meal.
[22:36] And he's like, I really don't want that mom.
[22:38] But, um, it's also, we pay for his medical needs.
[22:42] So on, uh, coming up very, very soon, he has to have a whole new round of scans done again.
[22:48] And,
[22:49] He is a 19-year-old apprentice, so he's a third-year electrical apprentice.
[22:53] He's living a great, you know, to his potential.
[22:57] Yeah.
[22:58] Good on him, though.
[22:59] But with his time off, he's got no leave left.
[23:01] So he's got no annual leave, he's got no sick leave.
[23:03] So mum and dad are still supporting him.
[23:04] And that's the other thing that we get to do.
[23:05] We say...
[23:06] mate, we've got you covered.
[23:08] Tell us what you need.
[23:08] We've got you covered.
[23:09] Same with Chloe and Emily.
[23:11] We don't charge them any rent or outgoings.
[23:14] When Emily, our oldest lived with us and her partner, it was so they could save.
[23:18] And so they saved about a hundred K to get into the property market as well.
[23:23] So we don't charge them rent, although life would be a bit easier if they paid their way.
[23:28] The trade-off is we don't charge them outgoings, but we get to see them every day.
[23:31] Yeah.
[23:32] Especially the grandkids, right?
[23:33] And it's kind of our thing.
[23:34] Win-win.
[23:35] We couldn't give them a handout as parents.
[23:37] We weren't in that position to, you know, buy them things.
[23:40] So it's your way of giving them something.
[23:42] We call it a hand up.
[23:42] Like you'll always have a house with us.
[23:44] You'll always have a place to land, but we need you to save.
[23:47] And so the other thing that's changed for Jaden, given that he's got no leave and things at the moment,
[23:52] In about January, he came to me and he was like, I'm really sick of living pay week to pay week.
[23:56] And I said, why don't you try an FFF structure?
[23:59] And he lives on an FFF structure as well.
[24:02] And that moving forward for him is the biggest priority right now.
[24:07] when these operations have happened, he has got savings sitting there because we've shown him how this is just simple, put this here, live off this.
[24:16] And I let him set it all himself, so it might be high for a one-person 19-year-old, but it's how he kind of works.
[24:23] Yeah.
[24:24] And so...
[24:25] The education you give us is the education we give our kids and that's the hand up we give them.
[24:30] The hand up of how to do things and we're now really talking.
[24:34] We've always spoken with the kids about money because we didn't have money when they were little so we had to explain why they didn't go to dancing or why they didn't have this.
[24:42] And then how we got the house.
[24:43] Well, we get this house and now we have this and we've saved really hard for this and now we can buy that.
[24:49] And now we're like almost like, hey, guys, this is kind of happening.
[24:53] watch this, watch this space.
[24:54] And they're a little bit like, wow, what are you two doing?
[24:58] And it's fun for us to show them what could be possible.
[25:01] And I think for Jaden that's one of the things it's fun for –
[25:05] We talk about how if he can't work in the future, what will that look like for him?
[25:09] And if he's following the structure that we kind of started to follow with you guys, we think that might really lead him down a really strong, solid path of coming back up savings for when he can't work, if he can't work.
[25:20] I mean, we're always hopeful that every operation we always say that could be the last one.
[25:24] Yeah.
[25:26] Yeah.
[25:26] And what does his future look like?
[25:29] Oh, it's so incredibly bright.
[25:31] He is so intelligent.
[25:33] He's witty.
[25:34] He's the funniest person I've ever met.
[25:38] We're always working with Dr.
[25:39] Rob on new technologies.
[25:40] So he has two VP shunts in his brain at the moment, but he also has a permanent implanted intracranial pressure monitor, and he was part of a trial for that in Australia.
[25:50] We worked really hard to – the neurosurgeon worked really hard.
[25:53] I can't say I worked very hard on that.
[25:56] And we're always looking at new technologies.
[25:58] We're always looking at new paths for him.
[26:00] But the research into it is very, very low.
[26:03] Yeah.
[26:04] Are there many people who have this condition in Australia?
[26:07] Yeah.
[26:07] It's fairly common.
[26:08] It's one in 500 babies are born in bed.
[26:11] You don't always need a shunt.
[26:12] For a lot of people, you put a shunt in and that's...
[26:15] That's it.
[26:16] See you later.
[26:16] See you in 40 years.
[26:17] Oh, so the ideal scenario would be it would get you through to adult.
[26:21] Because it does the job of what your body is trying to do.
[26:24] Yeah.
[26:24] And for some reason you just sometimes get the wrong luck and you have the situation that we have had following him for a thing.
[26:33] At 2am the other morning after surgery, Dr. Campbell sat and said, you know, I operated on someone today who's just had their second placed in 44 years and then,
[26:42] I saw you guys three weeks ago.
[26:44] Like it's just not fair.
[26:45] Yeah.
[26:46] And it's just how it is.
[26:47] Especially when there's no answers.
[26:49] Yeah, but we just celebrate every single good day.
[26:51] Yeah.
[26:52] We always did that when he was little as well.
[26:55] He would get out of hospital.
[26:57] He played soccer when he was growing up and that kind of thing.
[27:00] He'd get out of hospital and literally they'd take the staples out of the back of his head a week later and he'd be like, I'm playing this game this week and I would be like holding my breath on the sideline.
[27:10] Don't tell the Dr. Campbell with that.
[27:11] Yeah, his neurosurgeons very much, don't let him play, you know, contact sport.
[27:15] Contact sport, yeah.
[27:16] No helmets.
[27:16] So, you know, what does he do?
[27:18] He goes and buys a dirt bike.
[27:20] His neurosurgeons has a heart attack.
[27:23] He goes and plays football.
[27:25] But we just want to celebrate all the good days, and that's what we're very much like as a family.
[27:28] We're very close as the five of us, and now there's kind of eight of us with Jamie and the two kids joining us as well.
[27:34] We're very close, and we're very like we just celebrate good days.
[27:38] So I think we've never travelled.
[27:40] We've never been anywhere.
[27:42] We've been to Melbourne.
[27:43] We were laughing about this before.
[27:44] We're talking to Amelie.
[27:45] She's come all the way from America, and we're like, yeah, we've been to Melbourne once.
[27:49] Yeah.
[27:51] we kind of needed to stay.
[27:52] Well, even now with how he is tracking at the moment, we need to stay within three hours of Dr. Campbell and the hospital.
[27:58] So it's just one of those things.
[27:59] But in the future, who knows?
[28:01] And I think that's one thing.
[28:02] We hear about people with infinity who get to celebrate and they might plan these trips.
[28:07] And I think that's something that I kind of want to...
[28:09] look into doing in the future as well.
[28:11] And I would actually want to take the whole family, which Steve would probably be like, no, let's go away together.
[28:17] But I'd love to take the kids and kind of celebrate.
[28:20] We can aim for both.
[28:20] We can aim for both.
[28:22] Absolutely.
[28:23] Yeah.
[28:24] He's a great, his future's bright.
[28:26] Yeah.
[28:27] Like, yeah, we just have to, we're just in a little rut at the moment.
[28:31] Yeah.
[28:31] And we'll get better.
[28:32] But you feel better prepared for those, those ruts, don't you?
[28:34] Oh, 100%.
[28:35] Because that's life, isn't it?
[28:36] 100%.
[28:37] You guys definitely have quite a big challenge but, you know, I suppose there's a lot of people that can relate that there's going to be some moments where everything's amazing and you're celebrating.
[28:45] Yeah.
[28:45] And there's just going to be those moments where you're like, okay, I can't shut the front door.
[28:49] You know, we've got to fix that.
[28:52] But I think that's what's so good about this journey is that we already know that's going to happen, but you're set up for those moments and you don't feel that stress when it does happen.
[29:01] Yeah.
[29:01] Yeah.
[29:02] And how do the kids feel about what mum and dad have been doing?
[29:05] The oldest one is a bit sceptical but she's a sceptic by nature.
[29:09] She's a lawyer.
[29:10] So she questions.
[29:11] She does her due diligence.
[29:13] Yeah.
[29:14] I think they're just in a space where they're going to get married this year and –
[29:19] We kind of just drip feed it to them like, you know, this is what we're doing.
[29:22] They celebrate for us.
[29:23] When we came home from our first REM and we were like so pumped, they celebrated for us.
[29:29] They were like, Mom, Dad, that's excellent.
[29:31] That's so good.
[29:32] But they're just kind of on their own little 26-year-old journey at the moment.
[29:36] Chloe, I think as well, she sees what we're doing because she lives with us so she sees it daily and she's
[29:44] She 100% is behind us and backs us.
[29:46] And then as I say, like, Jaden's running an FFF of his own.
[29:49] So we feel that education we've passed down to them.
[29:51] Yeah.
[29:52] So that's kind of really, really exciting.
[29:55] Even if it's only 10% now, it's, you know, still going to be a huge leap forward compared to what some people are doing.
[30:01] Yeah, absolutely.
[30:02] It's quite funny.
[30:03] Our oldest, I think, is in a bit of a situation like we were.
[30:05] Like, I think she's paying well in advance of the minimum payments.
[30:09] And it's like, if you just get a little bit of education behind you and, you know, be open to some guidance, you could pay that off in five or six years.
[30:17] Yeah.
[30:17] Just while they've got no outgoings and no children and everything in their life.
[30:21] But they'll come around.
[30:22] Yeah.
[30:24] It's good that they're on board and you're talking to them about it.
[30:26] Because I think that's what's the most important, right, is you're actually having the conversations and you're not gatekeeping it.
[30:31] Because I think for so long, you know, so much of this information was held from us, you know, because the marketing around, you know, the way banks operate and stuff, it's all about just getting a customer.
[30:40] It's not about helping you pay the home loan down really quickly.
[30:43] So I think...
[30:43] The more what I'm really passionate about what I do is the more we can help the parents, the more the kids are going to have a head start.
[30:51] Absolutely.
[30:52] Absolutely.
[30:52] And our kids are older.
[30:53] You know, some people come to Infinity, they might still have those four and five-year-olds.
[30:57] And they're thinking of building that generational wealth going forward.
[31:00] Ours are at that stage where they are looking at property and looking at the prices climb at the moment.
[31:05] And we just...
[31:06] We're so excited because we don't even know where we'll be in like five years.
[31:11] If I think back a year ago, to be sitting where we are now is crazy.
[31:15] So where could we be?
[31:16] Would you have ever believed you'd have over $100,000 paid off the home in one year?
[31:20] Nope.
[31:21] No, I wouldn't.
[31:23] And to investment properties.
[31:24] And to investment properties.
[31:25] And just seeing the growth around us.
[31:27] And seeing everyone else kind of, you know, talking about interest rates, we don't even talk about it.
[31:32] We get the letters from the bank to say it's going up again because, you know, the RBA just put it up and we don't even think about it.
[31:37] It's such a – It was a waste of paper.
[31:39] It was a waste of paper.
[31:40] Thanks for the email.
[31:41] We're so free of financial head noise at the moment.
[31:44] Yes, we actually talk about money all the time, like podcasts, but we talk about it in a positive way.
[31:50] Yeah.
[31:50] Whereas before you'd be stressing if the interest rate goes up.
[31:53] Now it's like we're clear of all that noise because our system is built to kind of just not even worry about that.
[31:58] Yeah.
[31:59] It's so good.
[32:00] Which is definitely something we're very proud of that we build for our clients, you know.
[32:04] Just even something as simple as like, you know, we have federal budgets a lot, right, but this one we had this year had so much noise around it, so much commentary, so much clickbait and headlines and fear brought around it.
[32:18] But what I think was really cool was that we put on that budget
[32:21] Friday night meeting for the clients to just distill it.
[32:24] Thank you.
[32:24] Distill it down.
[32:26] Just give you guys like the rough and raw data of like, this is what it means.
[32:30] Don't stress.
[32:31] You know, this is how we pivot if we need to.
[32:33] And I just think that's really cool that we do that for our clients.
[32:37] So you can rest easy.
[32:38] Absolutely.
[32:38] It's funny though, because like it's very hard to block some of that noise out.
[32:42] Yeah.
[32:42] Because you see it everywhere.
[32:44] Because everywhere.
[32:44] And then you kind of go, oh, is that, you know, is it as bad as that?
[32:47] And you go, no, what would Graham say?
[32:49] What would Graham say?
[32:50] What's the infinity sort of line?
[32:52] Just, you know, just ignore it.
[32:54] And I've even seen yesterday there was an article, I won't name this site, but the same site that was going, oh, it's all doom and gloom, yesterday said, oh, hang on, maybe this finance stuff is not as bad as we thought, you know, because they've seen some new data.
[33:08] And it's like, okay, but Doc Wilson and yourself, Rachel, on the podcast, you guys said this two, three months ago.
[33:14] Yeah.
[33:14] And now it's only just coming out into the media.
[33:16] It's like, what?
[33:19] Yeah.
[33:19] People just get hoodwinked by the mainstream media, I think, and it's like, okay, if you just sit back and just take some good advice, you're not going to stress about things so much.
[33:27] Yeah.
[33:27] I filmed another podcast with Doc yesterday.
[33:30] Okay.
[33:31] And I think he said at the end where he goes, we never get sick of being right, do we, Rachel?
[33:34] And I was like, no.
[33:35] Yeah.
[33:36] It must be a good film.
[33:38] It's so interesting because we always listen to the podcast, Sarah and I, and, you know, I think I enjoy the Doc Wilson and your podcast more than Sarah because I think you find it a bit dry sometimes.
[33:48] No, not at all.
[33:48] I actually listen to that.
[33:49] Because Doc's very data-driven.
[33:50] Yeah.
[33:51] Oh, but he's so passionate about it, isn't he?
[33:53] And he's so funny.
[33:54] Yeah.
[33:55] And, you know, the amount of stuff you guys have said that a month or two later comes to fruition.
[34:00] Yeah.
[34:01] Or doesn't come to fruition because the media is saying doom and gloom.
[34:04] But you guys are saying, no, we think this will happen.
[34:06] And that's what happens.
[34:07] Yeah.
[34:08] Even people now who are like, oh, so you're investing?
[34:12] And it's like, yeah, well, like why the market's crap?
[34:15] Like, why?
[34:16] Oh, are you like, oh, I wouldn't do that.
[34:19] And we just kind of smile and we don't take it on.
[34:21] You know, there's that real like, like a staff room kind of discussion that you just kind of like smile and think.
[34:29] My guy knows what he's doing.
[34:30] Like I'm not worried about this at all.
[34:32] And if there are any questions, our team are a phone call or a text away.
[34:36] Yeah.
[34:36] And that was one thing.
[34:38] When I needed some clarification about something, I sent an email and within five minutes Dean had called.
[34:44] And I was out walking and it was like, okay, let's walk back through this and explain your strategy to you so you understand where you're sitting kind of thing.
[34:50] And that's priceless.
[34:52] Yeah.
[34:52] Like that is priceless because the – I don't have to think about it.
[34:56] Like Steve said, our financial noise is not on.
[34:59] we now can concentrate more on our son again.
[35:01] We can concentrate on the good days.
[35:02] We can concentrate on building memories and having a laugh and we kind of are not robbing Peter to pay Paul.
[35:09] Yeah.
[35:09] And anything that comes up comes up.
[35:11] It's more like, you know, some people think a win is they saved half a percent on an interest rate.
[35:17] We find a win every month when we look at what we sweep and go, look how far ahead in the mortgage we are.
[35:21] And we do it again and again.
[35:23] It just...
[35:24] That's what we're chasing.
[35:25] Like we're not stuck in, you know, well, it's me.
[35:28] We've got to pay, you know, tax and interest rate.
[35:30] It's more, okay, we're actually going where we want to be towards investments and paying things off sooner and, yeah.
[35:37] Because you become a bit competitive with yourselves with –
[35:40] reducing that hormone haven't you?
[35:42] Oh yeah, because the first month you do it, you go, okay, yeah, we're a little bit ahead of where we would have been.
[35:46] Then the second and third, you start getting so far above where you would if you just stuck to the minimum of payments.
[35:53] It's wild.
[35:53] Yeah.
[35:54] And we're also like a game with the FFFs.
[35:56] And the other thing that's really changed for us is not going to the supermarket and buying stuff we didn't need 100%.
[36:01] Because you'd go to the shops before and say, oh, we've just got to pick up one thing.
[36:04] Oh, you go down the chocolate aisle and you're like, hello, $20 worth of chocolate.
[36:08] Every time I leave work I'll call Sarah and say, what are we doing for dinner?
[36:11] Do you need something from the shops?
[36:13] In the past you might go, oh, can you get a broccoli?
[36:16] You know, 50 cents, $2, whatever a broccoli is.
[36:19] And I'd walk out of the shops with $60 worth of crap.
[36:22] And you do that two or three times a week.
[36:24] And because we earn decent money, you wouldn't feel it, right?
[36:27] But you go, where's the money gone?
[36:30] Now it might be – the mind shift has just changed, right?
[36:33] So I'll go and get this broccoli and I might get a $2 or $3 thing for us to share, right?
[36:38] Not $60.
[36:39] Yeah.
[36:40] And you don't miss the crap but you notice it in the bank account that you've got all this money that you can spend.
[36:44] Yeah, the benefit it's given you not spending on that money, especially when you're putting on credit cards too.
[36:48] Oh, yeah.
[36:49] So easy to just tap.
[36:50] Oh, and sometimes we had to.
[36:52] We were in a situation where we had to, you know, another bill would come in or we needed something or the kids, Jaden needed a prescription or something like that and you had to.
[37:00] But then that's when it got difficult when an,
[37:02] when something did come in and you were like, we have no space for this, like what am I going to do?
[37:07] And now, yeah, we don't need to worry.
[37:09] It's all taken care of.
[37:10] We have this buffer and if we dip into it, we dip into it.
[37:14] I think that was my, I had to learn that because I'm the emotional one and Steve is the logical one in our relationship and I was like treating sweeping like a game, like, oh, I loved it.
[37:24] It was addictive.
[37:25] And then when all of these life instances started to happen but we'd paid every single bill you could have thought of,
[37:32] And I was like, oh, but we can't do this.
[37:33] I was getting disheartened and Steve's over there going, no, no, no, we need to rehash that for you.
[37:39] You've not dipped into anything.
[37:42] Like we've got all of this.
[37:43] Yeah.
[37:44] Last time at the hospital, it was out of hours.
[37:48] And so they came to me with like a form and they said, we need you to take financial responsibility for the scans that he needs.
[37:54] And I just looked at the girl and I was like, just show me where to sign.
[37:56] And she was like, I have to give you a quote.
[37:58] I said, I don't care.
[37:59] Just show me where to sign.
[38:00] You're like, we've got it.
[38:00] We know we're good.
[38:01] Yeah.
[38:02] And then she came back and she said, if he needs anything else while we're in there, I have to come back out.
[38:05] And I understand there is reasons I have to do that.
[38:08] And I literally was like, just tell me where to sign.
[38:10] It's fine.
[38:11] Whatever that child needs, you give him right now.
[38:13] And that is freedom that you can't understand until you've been on the other side of that.
[38:19] And now it's like, you know what?
[38:20] Yeah.
[38:20] If he needs it, he needs it.
[38:21] Please just give it and get it for him.
[38:24] And, yeah, look at where we're going to be in the future.
[38:27] I know.
[38:28] What does the future look like for the Hughes family?
[38:30] So this is the interesting thing.
[38:32] People say, what's our goal?
[38:33] I don't know if we've got a set goal of properties.
[38:35] It's more for us, the goal is to be in a position to have options.
[38:40] So before we didn't have that.
[38:41] Now we're ahead in the mortgage.
[38:45] We've got investment properties that we can probably sell at a later date to fund whatever we want to do.
[38:49] Travel, more property.
[38:51] Our first goal is to get into a position where we've got options.
[38:54] But
[38:54] Our current drive is just, yeah, to acquire more property and pay the home off as quick as we can.
[39:00] Yeah.
[39:00] Really.
[39:01] Yeah, we find it really hard to answer that question because it's in the masterclass as well.
[39:06] You know, one of the, and Graham says in the masterclass, you know, have a goal and don't make it small.
[39:10] Yeah.
[39:11] Like go real big.
[39:12] Yeah, and we were like...
[39:14] We're different in that way.
[39:16] Our goal, like right now for the last six months of this year, our goal is to just have a healthy son and just have a smiling family.
[39:23] And so we never really thought about bigger, bigger goals.
[39:27] But if you had told 20-year-old Sarah and Steve, like that we would be where we are living in what we live in because we love our house and that we even have these opportunities, like we would be the most happy people in the world.
[39:39] So we're actually super happy where we are, which makes it hard to set a goal.
[39:42] Yeah.
[39:43] I think the future for us will be incredibly bright and that option as well.
[39:49] I love that we're young grandparents.
[39:51] We became grandparents at 43.
[39:54] And I love that by 50 I will have a real choice.
[39:57] Yeah.
[39:58] much I work because I'll still work because I love teaching but how much I work so that we can support Chloe and any other grandchildren that may have come by then and you know be in that way that we could do grandparents day at school we can do pickups we can do that kind of thing we get excited by the possibility of investment properties because we like the financial side of this as well though we do get excited about that um
[40:22] I would like to have a holiday one day and travel, but we really.
[40:26] That's a good goal for the vision board.
[40:28] Yeah.
[40:28] Again, we just work around what health looks like for our family and kind of thing.
[40:33] I mean, right now I'd be really happy with a holiday on the sunny coast and just getting away for a weekend and shaking off some of these things that we've just been through.
[40:42] So I think one of my goals personally too is just to get rid of the bad debt, like the PPR debt, right?
[40:47] So when I had the tumour stuff that went on for about three months, it could have gone pretty bad.
[41:00] Sorry.
[41:01] No, you are absolutely fine.
[41:02] Take your time.
[41:03] Thank you.
[41:05] So.
[41:06] You all right?
[41:13] You take your time.
[41:15] So when that was pretty bad, the only thing I was thinking was...
[41:27] So our... Take your time.
[41:29] Have some water.
[41:30] Sorry.
[41:31] No, no, no.
[41:31] You have nothing to apologise for.
[41:34] The tumour's benign, by the way.
[41:35] He's fine.
[41:36] He's good.
[41:37] Yeah.
[41:37] Now it is.
[41:38] Now we know.
[41:39] It was terrible, though.
[41:40] The surgeon was like, that was the worst one of my career to get out of your neck.
[41:43] Yeah, I was in the neck too.
[41:45] Yeah.
[41:45] So you had to cut like all down there and rip all that out and about six hours worth of drama.
[41:51] Wow.
[41:52] Anyway.
[41:55] We went to the Christmas party.
[41:56] Can I just while you gather your thoughts?
[41:58] We went to the Christmas party.
[42:00] Steve actually got the bad news on his birthday in November.
[42:03] Oh, my gosh.
[42:04] That's so terrible.
[42:06] And he'd said that he'd had something.
[42:08] Like he felt this lump and stuff and I was like, oh, you know, go follow it up.
[42:12] But...
[42:13] He's a man and he doesn't love the doctor.
[42:15] But he went to the doctor and he did all that he needed to do.
[42:18] And, yeah, it was on his actual birthday, which ironically, Jaden's first ever brain surgery was on his birthday when Jaden was nine months old.
[42:25] So, like, I feel like your birthday is a bit cursed.
[42:28] But immediately, like, we're used to dealing with medical drama.
[42:31] This is what we do.
[42:33] We're just that kind of family and we just came together.
[42:35] We just kind of...
[42:36] Came together.
[42:38] The kids came over straight away.
[42:39] We just sat.
[42:40] We said, this is what it is.
[42:41] We kept it within the five of us for a little bit to start with just so we could deal with it.
[42:45] Yeah.
[42:46] But knowing that whatever we were going to face, it was really funny because we weren't going to worry financially.
[42:51] Yeah.
[42:52] Even Steve has a good leave balance because...
[42:55] Yeah, about 19 weeks because I don't take it because I keep it for Jayden.
[42:59] Yeah.
[42:59] Yeah.
[42:59] So he had a really good leave balance and we were just like, it's going to be okay.
[43:03] Now, what did you actually want to say?
[43:05] So the goal when this was happening...
[43:11] Sorry.
[43:11] You're absolutely fine.
[43:14] So if this turned out bad...
[43:23] I just want to pay off the...
[43:26] You want your family to be okay.
[43:28] Yeah.
[43:31] Yeah, that was the goal.
[43:32] Get rid of the bad debt and then, yeah.
[43:36] And we would have been fine.
[43:38] Yeah.
[43:38] Yeah.
[43:39] Because you're always thinking of us.
[43:41] That's what you do.
[43:43] You've got a good man.
[43:44] Yeah.
[43:45] Yeah, my goal when this was happening was to make sure if it was really bad and
[43:51] There's that security for your family and knowing that whatever happened, they'd be okay.
[43:56] Because it's your biggest expense, right?
[43:57] Your home loan is your biggest expense.
[43:59] Any housing is going to be your biggest expense.
[44:01] So knowing that you will remove that and, you know, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a month, $6,000 a month is gone, that makes a big difference for your family financially.
[44:11] Because we've literally just been through everything with infinity and we've gone, okay, we can pay this off in six years.
[44:16] I'm like, okay, this dude's bad, just give me six years.
[44:19] Yeah, that's where you went with that, yeah.
[44:21] Yeah.
[44:22] Sorry, long-winded way of saying that.
[44:25] No, you have nothing to apologise for.
[44:27] And then I think we've got some good things coming up.
[44:29] We do.
[44:30] Ashton's going to be one.
[44:30] Great things.
[44:31] Avaea's going to turn three.
[44:33] We're all going to have our birthdays again.
[44:35] You're going to have a good birthday this year.
[44:36] Yeah.
[44:37] And there's a Christmas party to look forward to.
[44:39] Oh, I can't wait.
[44:39] So we're coming to the Christmas party?
[44:40] Oh, we are 100%.
[44:41] Oh, that's amazing.
[44:42] Yeah.
[44:43] So two of my, if we did travel, Sarah's probably not keen, but two of my things would be to go over to see Tomorrowland and Coachella.
[44:52] Yeah.
[44:52] Yeah.
[44:53] But we're going to do Infinity Land first.
[44:55] Then we'll compare it.
[44:56] Yeah.
[44:56] Because the travel for that's fine.
[44:58] Yeah.
[44:58] Yeah, because we don't have to travel.
[44:59] So it's here on the Gold Coast.
[45:01] So yeah, last year was wild.
[45:03] It was really good.
[45:04] Yeah, it was a good night.
[45:06] Excited to see how we're going to top it.
[45:07] Yeah.
[45:08] We can't even imagine though.
[45:09] Like it's the same with Infinity.
[45:12] Yeah.
[45:12] You see this and you can't imagine what's next.
[45:14] So we're just going to have our minds blown no matter what it's like.
[45:18] I always say that.
[45:18] Like I just, I always look at every event we do and I think, I said this in another podcast where I go, I think we've reached our peak.
[45:24] Yeah.
[45:25] I think we've done it.
[45:25] Yeah.
[45:26] We're doing so well.
[45:27] And then I get to the next event and I'm like, how did we just go do better?
[45:31] Yeah.
[45:31] Because we'd seen the previous year's footage, I think it was at Dreamworld.
[45:35] Yeah, SeaWorld.
[45:36] SeaWorld, yeah.
[45:37] And we're like, wow, that's interesting.
[45:38] Then we did the, yeah, the Coachella style and it's like, wow, this is.
[45:42] Yeah.
[45:43] Wild.
[45:44] And, you know, it was very eye-opening just to see, like, it was all put on.
[45:48] You guys put it on for free with just the requirement to or the request to, you know, bring a present for the Kmart.
[45:53] Yeah.
[45:54] Make a wish, which is fantastic.
[45:56] And seeing how many presents were there at the front was wild.
[45:59] Yeah.
[46:00] Let alone the million plus dollars that was raised.
[46:02] So.
[46:02] It's literally trucks and trucks.
[46:04] Yeah.
[46:05] That we have to get to fill to get those toys out of there.
[46:08] Yeah.
[46:08] That's cool.
[46:09] And it's so worth it.
[46:12] I know it's a different charity but we did quite a few Christmases in hospital and the hospital would give Jaden Christmas presents and the girls Christmas presents if they were there.
[46:20] So it's kind of something that's really close to our heart as well is being charitable and giving to others when they're having a rough time because so many people have shown us love and grace when we are having a rough time.
[46:30] So we enjoyed shopping at Kmart to go and get those toys.
[46:34] We just loved filling a trolley because it was one of those things, you're thinking of people and you're just filling them with joy and that's all you kind of want to do.
[46:44] And we've always had people show us the most amazing amount of grace.
[46:48] through everything that we've kind of gone through.
[46:50] So we just want to pay that back as well.
[46:52] And being with Infinity, we're talking about choices in five years' time.
[46:55] Imagine what we could do in five years' time.
[46:58] Imagine how we could give back to communities that need us to give back to them.
[47:01] Yeah.
[47:02] That's one of our things.
[47:03] So when we talk about our big goals, we don't actually still know what our big goals are, but we know that...
[47:08] Being in a position to be really amazing humans is a really important thing to us and our family.
[47:13] And paying all of those things forward that people have given to us is super, super important to us.
[47:17] And you can get the grandkids involved as well, which I think is really cool.
[47:21] 100%.
[47:21] Yeah.
[47:23] I mean, she'll probably think everything's good.
[47:26] It's like, why are we leaving it here?
[47:27] Yeah.
[47:28] Yeah.
[47:29] Hang on.
[47:29] Why put that back in the car?
[47:31] Where are you going with that?
[47:32] And you talked about having less noise around the negative side of, you know, the media and the industry and whatnot.
[47:39] How does it feel now in your relationship knowing that you don't have to focus on that anymore?
[47:45] You've got your budget on lock.
[47:47] You're absolutely killing it with that, with the big family.
[47:50] Yeah.
[47:51] How has that changed your relationship?
[47:53] So because I managed all of the finances, that was also just something that naturally kind of happened because if I'm up in Brisbane in the hospital, I needed to know what the bank balances were so I could make sure the girls were taken care of no matter who was looking after them.
[48:06] And, you know, Steve, you have this much perpetual and stuff.
[48:09] So it wasn't that we fell into like a traditional kind of way of like I did everything.
[48:13] It was just kind of how it worked for our family.
[48:15] The minute that all of that got shared through Infinity and Steve could see what it looked like to run the budget or to pay for housing costs and that kind of thing, and we were a bit more together with that, that really freed me up and freed him up.
[48:29] And then those conversations are so open now.
[48:31] Like they're literally so open to the point where if he's running down to, like say we need something from Bunnings or something, it's like,
[48:40] he'll ring me from Bunnings and say, this is this much, this is this much, and I'm going to get this, but I've decided we don't need that.
[48:45] And all of that is just so, and there's no blame.
[48:47] There's no, you spent what, you did that.
[48:51] Like it's, we just work as a team.
[48:52] I think the biggest thing is we're both watching the finances and both on the same page.
[48:57] We both, we said we didn't have, you know, firm goals, but we're both committed to this process.
[49:03] And I think Graeme said it best in, I think it might have been the webinar or something he said, if you're not here with your partner, like,
[49:08] Get out of here.
[49:09] Like this is a commitment between both of you.
[49:12] And it's true.
[49:12] Like I couldn't do it without Sarah being on board and probably vice versa, right?
[49:17] We're both in the journey.
[49:19] It's exciting.
[49:22] I think it takes a bit of the stress off Sarah as well, having to manage the budget because we're both looking at it.
[49:27] And, yeah, we talk every day, every couple of days about money, but it's in a positive way.
[49:31] Yeah.
[49:32] What someone's done on the podcast, look at that win they had, you know, how we're going with infinity.
[49:37] It's such a positive mindset shift.
[49:40] Yeah.
[49:41] Yeah.
[49:41] And do you think that this process is about income or more behaviour?
[49:45] Behaviour.
[49:45] Yeah.
[49:46] I think so.
[49:46] Oh, yeah, 100% behaviour.
[49:48] Yeah, because we haven't changed our income, right?
[49:51] We haven't.
[49:51] But look how far ahead we are and it's brought us closer together, right?
[49:56] Yeah.
[49:58] And we've had such small incomes at times.
[49:59] Yeah.
[50:00] So imagine we're very used to living within our means and now we've even found extra just from living within our means within the infinity structure, which is crazy to us.
[50:11] And what would you say to somebody who maybe has seen maybe Infinity and is umming and ahhing about going a bit further into it?
[50:18] Do it.
[50:18] Just whether it's Infinity or not, I can't recommend you guys highly enough or the Infinity family, but just do something.
[50:25] Like we were there doing nothing thinking, yeah, we never had a bill that was overdue.
[50:30] Well, when we were young we did.
[50:31] But prior to Infinity, all the bills got paid, but...
[50:34] We didn't know where the money went, right?
[50:36] Yeah.
[50:36] It wasn't working for us.
[50:37] There was a lot unaccounted for.
[50:38] Yeah, so do something.
[50:39] Get some advice to get you ahead, whether it's investments or paying off your principal place of residence sooner.
[50:45] Just get something.
[50:47] Yeah.
[50:47] Get some advice.
[50:48] But Infiniti is the best, you know.
[50:51] I do see some of the other social media people kicking around that claim to do similar things in Australia.
[50:57] slightly different ways and I just think this is the best way.
[51:01] Everyone's so genuine.
[51:03] The community's amazing.
[51:04] I've never been in a community that's had, I don't think I've seen a single person that's carried on like a turkey.
[51:11] You know what I mean?
[51:12] Like everyone's just so positive and shares each other's wins and it's just such a good vibe.
[51:18] So not only will you benefit financially, but I think emotionally we take a lot of the noise that's in the media out of the equation.
[51:25] Yeah.
[51:25] Were you surprised by the community that we had?
[51:28] You know, when you signed up to work with us, obviously there's a lot of that financial strategy and support, but were you surprised by the community side of it?
[51:34] Yeah, 100%.
[51:36] And the support that we can get from anywhere if we needed it.
[51:40] And not feeling like we are doing this alone.
[51:42] And then attending REM and sitting at a table, our very first table we sat down at, I was so nervous.
[51:47] And we sat down and Adam and Sinead sat next to us.
[51:48] Oh, great couple to be next to.
[51:49] And I literally had like a starstruck moment.
[51:51] I was like, oh.
[51:54] And she was the most beautiful soul.
[51:55] And I had a hundred questions because I was a bit, you know, me.
[51:58] And she just calmed me.
[52:00] And then she sought me out for the rest of the weekend.
[52:03] We've sent each other messages.
[52:04] Yeah, she's beautiful, isn't she?
[52:05] Yeah, and to think that you're here for a finance conference in a way.
[52:10] Yeah.
[52:10] And then you're walking away with connections that are just genuine and loving and even people in the lift, you know, like you're pressing the lift to go to a different floor and people are like, oh, hey, how's your weekend going?
[52:21] We're like, yeah, we're having a great weekend.
[52:22] They're like, so good.
[52:24] What a vibe.
[52:25] It's part of that.
[52:26] There doesn't seem to be any gatekeeping in the community.
[52:29] Everyone just shares each other's wins and just happy for each other, right?
[52:32] I've got a guy at work that's in Infinity as well and we chat about it, you know, whenever we see each other at work.
[52:39] It's such a nicer vibe than dealing with the rest of the yuck that's in the world.
[52:43] Yeah.
[52:44] And who would have thought a community would come together and celebrate each other's wins like this?
[52:51] And each other's downfalls, like each other's hard times.
[52:56] this has happened.
[52:57] Yeah.
[52:57] People just jump in there with like advice or like support or backing.
[53:01] Yeah.
[53:02] That's beautiful to see.
[53:03] Yeah.
[53:04] And you were just talking about the real estate mastery before.
[53:06] I haven't asked you yet.
[53:07] How was your real estate mastery?
[53:10] amazing um overwhelming we walked out with two properties now graham will probably flip his lid if he hears this because we're one of those uh couples that got on board at rem before we were fully on board oh louie's in trouble so louie we don't know louie but we'll blame louie um so which was wild because we walked out of there with you know one one property in our name one in our self-managed super which wasn't even set up then um it's a big commitment but that was the
[53:38] We're all in with the budgeting side, with the property acquisition stuff we're in.
[53:43] Yeah.
[53:44] But such an eye-opening and educational event, right?
[53:47] There's so much happening.
[53:49] And again, it's like a masterclass on steroids.
[53:52] You just get all of the information that's just valid that you don't get anywhere else.
[53:57] And it's so easy to just attend, sit there and walk away with clarity.
[54:02] Yeah.
[54:02] Clarity again on like you get to meet your people so we got to meet Luke there and that kind of thing too.
[54:07] But the clarity on this is where we belong and this is where we should be kind of really happened at REM for us.
[54:14] And then we had REMFOMO.
[54:16] Every time it pops up, you know, you kind of get REMFOMO and you're like, oh, I'm missing out this month or whatever.
[54:21] But when it's our time again, we will be there.
[54:24] You'll want to go.
[54:25] Yeah.
[54:26] Um, and hopefully like that's part of our reason as well for sharing our story because we like, we like to bring awareness to hydrocephalus because it is something that people are out there dealing with.
[54:35] Yeah.
[54:36] Um, and there's not a lot of funding for it in Australia, but there is a big community of people who are living with, um, is actually related to Spina Bifida as well.
[54:44] So Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus go hand in hand in some cases.
[54:48] And now we want to share our story with the community as well because there might be someone out there listening to this who has an adult child that they may be needing to financially support going forward.
[54:58] Infinity is really going to help us with that.
[55:00] And we don't know exactly what kind of financial support.
[55:03] any of our kids might need.
[55:04] You might have a four-year-old right now that you don't know that you may need to support in the future.
[55:08] But with you guys, you're going to help us see the way and know how we can support.
[55:14] And there'll be other families like us as well.
[55:16] That's incredible.
[55:17] Thank you so much for sharing your story.
[55:18] I know it can feel very vulnerable, but I think it's going to really help a lot of people.
[55:22] Is there anything else that you wanted to add before we finish up?
[55:25] No, just thank you.
[55:26] Oh, you're so welcome.
[55:27] Thank you guys so much.
[55:28] Thank you.

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