\u201cI think most people think incorrectly that if you just earn more money, you would be okay,\u201d McQueen says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what more money gives you, usually, is permission to not worry about the money, not to actually use that or channel it to get ahead faster. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo then you end up having people who are on great incomes, and their lifestyle has stretched to match their income – not the speed of their wealth has grown at the rate that their income\u2019s increased.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQueen speaks to this from personal experience.<\/p>\n
On a mission to escape mortgage debt, McQueen got on the phone to the calculus department at the University of Auckland and said “\u200aWill you help me work on a formula to structure my debt to pay it off as fast as possible at the lowest possible interest rate with the maximum flexibility?” <\/p>\n
What followed was a three-month period in which McQueen and Dr Jamie Sneddon devised a formula that optimised her debt structure. But the formula alone wasn\u2019t quite enough for McQueen to take control of her mortgage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt assumes I\u2019ve got money left over to pay the mortgage off faster, which makes sense, apart from the fact I didn\u2019t have any money left over. So I was earning good money, but I was still living payday to payday,\u201d McQueen says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a chartered accountant, I know how to set a budget. I can colour code a budget if you want me to. I just wouldn\u2019t stick to it unless I felt like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I thought, \u2018Well, how do you get someone like me to engage on a spending plan so that I can unlock the savings that this formula permits?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Instead of focusing solely on budgets and interest rates, McQueen became fascinated by the psychology behind spending. This became the foundation of EnableMe, the financial coaching company McQueen later built and sold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many people who were like me, who are actually smart. They like nice things. They don\u2019t want financial success to be at the expense of a lifestyle they enjoy. So how do we get that balance?\u201d<\/p>\n
McQueen says people are willing to compromise if it\u2019s worth their while. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat people would previously say, and still say, is just shop around the banks and you\u2019ll get a sharp interest rate. And you do, but it kinda saves you $10,000. And I\u2019m, like, is it even worth it?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut … if I can save $300,000, now you\u2019re talking.\u201d <\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode<\/a> for more from Hannah McQueen on:<\/p>\n Why selling an 18-year business was far tougher than building it.The conversation that sparked her latest venture.Why New Zealand\u2019s approach to ageing leaves too many families on their own.<\/p>\n Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every second Sunday.<\/p>\n You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think most people think incorrectly that if you just earn more money, you would be okay,\u201d McQueen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3225,3017,32758,40923,24344,57197,6326,3269,674,138,9060,107818,28470,811,22137,30538,2959,6132,22055,162504,14909,130,20340,11692,111,139,69,52990,29647,12633,6100,7235,1361,61,3912,4276,102,24750],"class_list":["post-498770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-according","tag-ahead","tag-anything","tag-ask","tag-automatically","tag-bennett","tag-biggest","tag-build","tag-building","tag-business","tag-decades","tag-earners","tag-earning","tag-financially","tag-hannah","tag-helping","tag-high","tag-income","tag-leads","tag-mcqueen","tag-me","tag-more","tag-myths","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paula","tag-sees","tag-spent","tag-still","tag-struggle","tag-that","tag-to","tag-wealth","tag-why","tag-with","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}