Rebuilding After Bankruptcy: Your Questions Answered

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In this live Q&A session, Louisa Larado shares her personal journey of overcoming bankruptcy and the strategies she employed to rebuild her financial life. She discusses the emotional toll of bankruptcy, the importance of mindset, and practical steps for saving money, rebuilding credit, and setting financial goals. Louisa emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to financial recovery, combining mindset shifts with practical financial management. She also highlights the importance of seeking resources and education to empower individuals on their financial journeys.

Takeaways

• For bankruptcy recovery to be long lasting and not just a quick fix, you need to adopt a holistic approach.
• Mindset is key in getting back on track...don't miss this step!
• Rebuilding credit is possible after bankruptcy with the right strategies.
• Setting up separate accounts for different financial needs can help manage money better.
• Creating additional income sources can aid in financial recovery.
• Setting achievable financial goals is key to maintaining motivation.
• Resources for financial education are abundant and can help you recover quicker

Keywords
bankruptcy, financial recovery, money mindset, saving strategies, credit rebuilding, financial education, personal finance, investment, budgeting, goal setting

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Disclaimer: The information contained on today’s podcast has been provided as general advice only. The contents have been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or individual needs. Before making any decision regarding the information, strategies or products mentioned on today’s episode, please consult your own financial advisor or other professional first.

Chapters

• 0:00 My journey through bankruptcy
• 8:53 Mindset Shift: The Key to Financial Recovery
• 17:54 Practical Steps After Bankruptcy
• 27:11 Creating Additional Income
• 36:47 Resources and Support for Recovery

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the Bankruptcy to Bliss podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Larado. And on today's episode, we went live in the Bankruptcy to Bliss Facebook group. So I had a chance to answer people's questions on bankruptcy recovery and just how to get back on track with their money after bankruptcy. So stay tuned for the recording of that session.

Louisa Larado (01:11)
I'll give you a bit of a background of my story and why I've started this and why I'm doing all this now.

for you. So I went bankrupt, my husband and I both filed for bankruptcy back in 2016, at the end of 2016. And we're in Australia and I know there's different rules in different countries and different bankruptcy things that you have to go through and I don't even know in the US there's different types. In Australia, it's just if you're doing personal bankruptcy there's one type and it lasts for three years.

So during that period we had to make repayments back to our trustee because we earn over a certain threshold. what led to our bankruptcy in the first place was we, my husband and I got really successful really early in our lives. Like in our early 20s we built a really good property portfolio and we...

We're constantly looking for investment opportunities and we did really well for quite a while but then we made a few bad investment choices and all of a sudden, you know, we'd bought some land and then there were house renovations that needed to be done. And then all of a sudden there was all these really costly repairs and the property market at the time allowed investment properties in mining towns in Western Australia. And there was a big crash and everyone was leaving town.

which meant we could no longer rent our properties. And then we had all these repairs that we needed to do. And it was just like this snowball effect of things that had happened. And it got to the point where, you know, we just couldn't even afford to pay for groceries. We had to choose buying food for our family or making our mortgage repayments. it took a while. Like we were stressing and such an overwhelming time in our lives.

The emotional toll that it took was massive. But we then found that bankruptcy was going to be an answer for us. And it really was. It was such a game changer for us because it just gave us that fresh start, that clean slate to work and rebuild from, which was just so important. But what then happened after? So we'd filed our bankruptcy and then we had nothing. you know, in

Australia when you file a bankruptcy you're allowed to keep one vehicle under at the time it had to be worth less than thousand dollars You can keep all your furniture and things like that, but your other house gets repossessed if you own any more vehicles over that price value you get they get repossessed so it's basically you're starting with a car and Nothing else so we started from scratch and we were

So that meant we had to move house. So that was just a big time for us in our family and our kids were both young at the time. So it was a really challenging time for us. And what we found though, was, especially for me, like the first year post-bankruptcy, I didn't want to think about my bankruptcy for a bit, or money, money in general. So I sort of buried my head in the sand and I just was living on autopilot and hoping that all the money that we were earning would just...

take care of things and this definitely was not the right way to help us rebuild financially. And I also had a lot of preconceived ideas about what bankruptcy was going to mean for us. So I thought we would just have this constant blacklist next to our names. We'd never be able to borrow any money again. We'd never be able to get credit again. We wouldn't be able to buy a house. All these things that I just had decided.

I thought our life was going to be really hard after it. And it wasn't, but I had to figure that out the long and hard way. so then it took a while. So like I said, our bankruptcy period was three years. The first year I did nothing. I didn't want to think about it. Then I thought, you know what? I need to start applying some strategies. So I started doing all the practical stuff like how to better manage our money, how to set up our accounts in a certain way, how to start.

looking at how we could start creating some savings. And this helped a little bit, but I still found we were living week to week. each time, like before our next pay came in, we'd run out of money or we'd dip into those savings. it wasn't, I felt better about our money because I felt like I was a bit more on top of it, but I didn't feel like we were doing the right things to really just keep it.

working for us in any way, or we weren't really seeing much growth. So then I had to do a lot more figuring stuff out. And what I found was the game changer was when I started working on my mindset around money. And this is the biggest thing I feel like most people miss how that impacts your money. And when I started working on my mindset, then that is when we started noticing

that we could save, start saving some money. And we started generating a few different additional income sources so I was investing money in different ways. And by the end of our bankruptcy, we had over $50,000 saved up and we had some money invested in shares. And we just felt really good about our money. then I still offer up bankruptcy was clear though, I still thought that there was no chance that we were going to be able to

borrow, get a home loan. thought that was going to be too hard. It's going to be an FI. You know, credit rating is still pretty low. So I just thought that was not going to be an option for us. And it turned out that it was an option for us and actually it was so much easier. And so I had to do a lot of shifting. had to do a lot of, you know, busting beliefs. And so that's what sort of has led me now. So now, you know, a few years down the track, we

saved up over $100,000. We've been living in our own house that we bought ourselves for the last couple of years. We've, booking really expensive overseas family holidays for our family. We've got another investment property that we share. We've got all these different things that are working for us now with our money, only a couple of years out of bankruptcy. And now I'm really passionate and I really, really want to share.

the fastest way to get there. It took me like that whole three years to sort of figure this out and then beyond that, even after that, there was still a lot of learning to do and even today I'm still doing a lot of learning. And what I found was when you're bankrupt, there's not a lot of people that have experienced it. It's kind of an exclusive sort of thing to go through because it's not like...

you've got other family members or friends who've been bankrupt as well. It doesn't affect a huge amount of people. mean, it's affecting a lot more people now, but it's not always a big thing. So what I realized that was lacking was people to help guide through in terms of a holistic approach. Like you can see financial advisors, you can go to a lawyer, you can go to all these...

professionals that will guide you how to manage your money and maybe how to generate additional income or generate more wealth. Or you can see a separate coach that works on mindset but there didn't seem to be anyone that I could find that had gone through bankruptcy and could give you this holistic glimpse into the fastest way to recover. So that's what I thought. I'm going to teach people what I have been through and so hopefully by sharing my story

and what I found has worked for me. you know, through my own recovery, First, I just tried to do it all on my own and that didn't really work. And then I started, learning more things. So I had started reading books and watching YouTube videos and listened to podcasts and that definitely started shifting things. But it wasn't until then I started investing my own money into some online learning or some coaches or mentors.

and all these different aspects. wasn't just one that did it all. was one that was for, you know, money managing, money making. Then I was doing another course on money mindset and then just mindset in general. So there's all these different things that I've combined together my learning to share with other people. And you know, what's the point of having all this knowledge if I can't help others who are where I was before. Cause I know what it feels like to have that.

absolute feeling of overwhelm and stress and worry about your finances and about money. Because money really, we put so much focus on money because it really is the thing, the tool that we need to help us in our life, in our society. That's the currency that is valued really highly and it's something that we need and when we don't have it, it's a stressful time because we can't

keep up with whatever else is doing around us. my goal is to hopefully help inspire or empower you or to give you some knowledge so you can take what you need and take what you think would work for you so that you could hopefully start rebuilding faster than it took me because when you learn from someone who's been where you are,

are where you want to be. If you do the steps they did, you learn from their mistakes so you don't have to make them yourself. So that is my goal. But that's enough about me. What I want to do now is I want to get to some questions.

let me have a look, so how can I actually start saving during my bankruptcy? I have to pay a lot of money back to my bankruptcy and I feel like I don't have any left over great question because that was exactly, I felt the exact same way. So when we were bankrupt, my husband was earning quite good money at the time.

and we were up in a mining town, so he was working on the mines and so we were earning good money, but this meant that in Australia, you were capped your income and anything you earn over that threshold, you paid back 50 % to your trustee, which went towards your bankruptcy. And what we found at first was we were like, how do we save? Like, you know, all this money was going to this

our trustee, just didn't feel like we had enough left over. But what I found worked was just starting off really small. And my key, the thing that I found was the most successful strategy for saving is deciding a number first. So it might be 10 dollars a week. You know, start small, start achievable, and then you can increase that number. But the key to actually making it happen

is to have the account set up. our savings is in a separate account now. It wasn't at first because it was too easy just to transfer money anyway, but it's in a separate account to our main banking. And we have set up so that the second either I get paid or my husband's pay comes in, a set amount is allocated directly to our savings. So we don't see that money. It goes directly into our savings. And what this

did was because before we were just getting through, we thought we'll go through the pay cycle. We get paid, we have a lot of expenses, we go shopping, we do whatever we're gonna do. And then we think, yeah, whatever's left over, then we'll transfer that into savings. But that was always nothing, it was always nothing. So what we found to do instead was if the money...

is already allocated, we're not going to, you don't spend what's not there. if you don't see it in you account, you're less likely to spend it. set up a separate savings account with a separate bank and try and get one that has a good interest rate, or ours currently now is just now offset account to do with our home loan. So then we're reducing our interest costs on that, but you don't have to do it that way. But.

set it up separately so it's a few more steps you've got to go through to transfer that money into your account if you need it so you don't dip into it as much and have it set up have your amount that you've allocated to go out the day that your pay comes in that amount whether it's $10, $50, $100, $500, whatever it is goes directly into that savings account and you're a lot more likely to keep that money in savings.

So that is my tip on savings, but start small. Don't feel like, I've got to have this amount. Do what's manageable for you and in your situation. And that helps sort of rebuild your confidence a little bit too and it makes you start to feel good. And you'll find you'll start having a bit more money for savings when you start shifting these things. All right, let's have a look at the next question.

is it possible to get a loan or credit after bankruptcy and how do I do that? So yes, it definitely is. Now obviously different countries have got different rules so you'll need to figure out what it is in your own country but a couple of tips here. So firstly is start becoming aware of what your credit rating or your credit score is. Now there's apps you can put on your phone now to make it really easy. Obviously again different countries, different apps.

I use the CreditSavvy app on my phone, which will just give me an update on my credit rating. So you can just sort of stay on top of it because becoming aware is really important. Now there's some things you can do to start rebuilding your credit rating. And if you're still during that bankruptcy period, your number is going to be low. So you have to accept that it's going to take a little bit of time to rebuild your credit rating. But simple things you can start doing now, even if you're during bankruptcy.

is start making sure all your bills are paid on time. Make sure that you, if you're not over trying to apply for credit all the time, because every time you put a credit application in, whether it's like store credit or a credit card application, this actually negatively impacts your credit score. Cause it's like every time the request gets lodged.

negatively affect your credit score. So try not to apply for it unless you really need it. Now the only loan I personally have got since our bankruptcy is our home loan. And by the time we went for our home loan, our credit score was actually quite high and I hadn't really paid much attention to, I didn't take this advice, I didn't pay any attention to my credit rating during my bankruptcy or even for the first like year or so after my bankruptcy was clear because I just had fixed in my brain that my credit rating was just going to be

Terrible, but didn't want to think about it. So I was really quite surprised when it actually wasn't that bad at all and now it's amazing like we're in the top like whatever the very top Rating is that's currently what we are because we make sure we make allow We've got a home loan and we've been paying all our home loan on time. So that really boosts so if you are in a position to get credit of Some sort of loan if you're making those repayments on time, that's going to start boosting your credit score

But I suggest, personally, you don't want to put yourself in a situation where you're going to wind up back in to where you were before when you had to file for bankruptcy. I personally wouldn't get like a car loan or a credit card anytime soon. We think you've maybe getting a credit card more just for the points now and having it prepaid, but that's another thing. But I don't want to put myself in the position where I've got to spend money that I don't feel like I have.

So, because it's too tempting just to get caught up or that, you know, I'll just put it on the credit card and then this can affect your score. So yes, you can get a loan again. But just take steps now to rebuild. And I've actually got a whole podcast episode on ways you can rebuild your credit score. So if you want a bit more information on that area, I suggest you go listen and I'll link it in the show notes below if you want to check out that episode.

definitely know that it is possible and if you are in a position where you want to maybe get a home loan or a loan of any type, start getting in contact with maybe a mortgage broker that can then advise you about something. We found a great mortgage broker who made the process really really easy and made it really clear exactly what we could borrow and

had good relationships already with different lenders that were happy to lend to people who had been bankrupt. So I'd advise you to, is someone that can help you. generally mortgage-breaking is a free service. So you don't have to pay anything and it makes your life a whole lot easier if you can find someone that knows, has all these little ins like we did. So don't feel like you won't be able to get a loan again, because you definitely will. All right, let's have a look at the next question.

Okay, so this is a good one. So what are the first steps I should take after declaring bankruptcy? Alright, so once you've declared bankruptcy, then I suggest you start, well there's a few, there's four things I think you need to be doing. So the very first thing, once you've declared it, is to start looking at your mindset.

And I know I've touched on this already, but this is a thing. I've used this analogy a few times. So it's like if you're building a house, like you can do all these money making and managing strategies time and time again. if you're building a house, that's like the roof or the walls. Now you wouldn't put them up first unless you had a foundation and your foundation is your mindset. So after you've faced a big financial setback like bankruptcy, your brain is going to be

as a default probably in that lack or scarcity mindset because you've gone through a really high stress period. Nobody declares bankruptcy that does not feel horrible about their money at the moment. their money, your money is not working for you. That's why you would declare bankruptcy. You wouldn't declare it if your money was great and working for you. So if your money doesn't feel good,

then that's a reflection probably on how your mindset is going to be about money as well. So if you're in that lack, worry, stress, you might be really over cautious of your money, you might be scared to spend it. So even if you do have money, now these are all things I personally was coming through. So I know I've been there.

before that when we were doing really well financially and we had all these investment properties, I love money, money was great, it served us and I felt really good about money and I didn't feel like I was spending from a place of worry or stress. But then after bankruptcy, that all completely changed. And this is because your brain wants to protect you, it wants to keep you safe in your comfort zone. It doesn't want you to do anything that's gonna put you at risk. So it switches into this lack mentality.

And all that does, which I found the hard way, is it creates more opportunities to find some reasons to stress or worry about money. So the longer you stay in that mindset of stress and worry, basically how you know where you are is how you feel about your money. So if your money is feeling really good for you and you feel happy to spend money or happy to use money, then you're in a good mindset with money. If your money feels...

terrible to you draining stress or then you're probably not in a good mindset so you need to look at some tools that you can use to shift that and I There I mean there's so many different things you can do but the first biggest thing is to look at any New limiting beliefs you probably have When I went bankrupt some of my examples were things like I'm terrible with money I had money and then I lost it so I must be terrible with money

or money is something that doesn't work for us, or it might run out again, we might lose it all again. they're just three examples of some of my limiting beliefs I had after my bankruptcy.

where your focus goes, that's where your energy is gonna be going. So if I'm thinking I'm terrible with money, I'm not good at managing my money anymore, then that's where my energy was going. And I was terrible at managing my money for a while for work, because I wasn't even trying to think about it. And it wasn't until I started challenging those beliefs, so I could spend hours talking about your money mindset, but

first thing is write down any beliefs that may be coming up for you. Second, I want you to think about, these actually true? Are any of these beliefs ultimately true? Is there anyone else in the world that is saying, you're terrible with money, you're gonna run out of money again, or is it just what your mind is telling you? And I can tell you, it is not true. None of what your mind is saying is true. They're just these beliefs that we have formed.

And you know, we might have formed these beliefs over our whole life. It might have been beliefs our parents passed down to us by watching how they were with their money. It might be things we've heard our friends or our partners say about money that we've taken on to be our own beliefs. And these just aren't, if they're not serving you, if they don't feel good, then it's time to challenge them. But most people just go through this blindly and aren't even aware that they're holding on to these beliefs and these ideas.

So step one is write down these beliefs. Step two, ask yourself, are these beliefs actually true? Well, no. But then what, your brain needs evidence normally to challenge a belief. It will be like, no, and it will keep showing you stuff that's gonna reinforce that belief. will keep, know, things that are gonna keep coming up for you. So if instead you said, okay, well,

actually I am good at money, I am good at managing money, that's my belief, I'm gonna challenge that and then I'm gonna look for evidence to show maybe a time in my life I was really good at dealing with my money, which was the majority of my adult life, I have been good at money and I feel like I'm amazing at handling money now. Or if you don't find those beliefs in yourself, like for example another really common belief people have about money is,

Having money is evil or it's a riddle evil, people with money are greedy. To challenge that belief and if you don't believe that yourself, all you have to do is look for evidence of people who are doing great things with money. are so many, so much evidence that you can look for of people that are doing amazing things with money. So challenging any belief, this is really gonna be the first step you need to have to help you start creating new beliefs.

So maybe write some of these down. the question was about how what your first steps after you declare bankruptcy. Look after your mindset is number one. Don't fall into the pattern. And it's the longest stay there, the longest time that worry and lack and stress. And I'm speaking from my own experience, the harder it is to get out. The sooner you start challenging those beliefs, even if you're feeling like you're having a crap day.

and your money is just not working for you or like you're reinforcing these beliefs, these beliefs keep coming in your head or you hear yourself saying all these things that aren't maybe true about money, then write them all down and then challenge them. And that's gonna help you start shifting that mindset. Next thing is, in terms of your mindset, quickly I'm gonna touch on is

blame now another big part of your mindset isn't just your limiting beliefs but it's blame now in my bankruptcy I blame the circumstances of what had happened I blame my husband for the way he was spending money but the biggest person I blame was myself because I was the one that was in charge of our family's like managing the money in our family and I felt like I'd failed when we went bankrupt so was holding on to all this blame and all blame does is it keeps you

in the past, it keeps you feeling anxious or worried. It keeps you just feeling terrible about that situation. It doesn't move you forward. It keeps you stuck and it doesn't help you look for a solution. It just focuses on what the problem was that got you there. So you need to learn how to acknowledge what you're blaming or who you're blaming and how you can start shifting that and releasing that blame. So after you're bankrupt, mindset

Number one. Number two, start looking at ways you can start managing your money better so it can work for you. I've given you already one which was setting up savings goals. So start working how you can manage your money to suit your own personal needs. for me personally, I like to have, I've got quite a few different bank accounts because I like them to serve me in different ways. So one bank account is purely just for bills and expenses like things that

my direct debits or auto drives that come out every single month. So things like my phone bill, my electricity, internet, insurance, health insurance, all those different things that I know are gonna come out and I know the exact amount that's gonna come out of my account. So then when we get paid,

whatever that amount is, is gonna go straight into that account and I don't have to think about paying for my bills now. That's done on autopilot. So it's like making your money work for you. Then I've got my savings set up. I've got another account that's for investment money that we invest into like shares. And then we have another account that's like just for like short term savings. So it might be family holidays or something that, in your normal pay, you'd have to wait a few weeks or months to save up for. So it might be something to do with our house.

furniture or things like that. So set up your accounts so that they work for you and also on that, make sure you know how much money is actually coming in. So become aware of your incomings and your outgoings. Because then you can sort of see where you have the money working for you, how much you've got to play with, how much you could allocate for savings. But also don't be so caught up on the idea that your money is

that it's going to be the exact same every month because it's not. So that's why I'm not a big fan of tight budgets. You might have heard me speak about this before. What a tight budget does is it just keeps you in that scarcity, worry, stress because you're like trying to stick to this budget and your shopping might be a little bit more expensive this week or somebody's birthday so you've to buy a gift and that blows the budget and it just makes you feel like you're failing. It's actually up to failure having a tight budget. I like having a budget

I do have a budget but it's a real loose one. Like I know roughly this amount is going to groceries, this amount is going to fuel for my car, this amount is going to be for like kids activities or eating out or entertainment or all the various other things that aren't just you your bills and stuff. So I know roughly over the year what I would spend and I sort of average that out and that's how I sort of budget.

So I'm still becoming aware, be really aware of your money. Don't do what I did for the first year and just ignore it completely because that will just make you, your money will keep running out. You're not gonna set yourself up. You need to be empowered by your money. You need to feel like you are the one in charge of your money and your money is not the one that is in charge of you. That is so key. So know where your money's going. Know how much you've got coming in. If you've got to pay,

a certain amount towards your bankruptcy. Make sure that happens. So when your pay comes in, allocate that amount straight away and then whatever you've got left, you know what you've got to deal with. That will hopefully help. And then once you've figured out how to, in your mindset, you figured out how to manage your money better, then I want you to start thinking about how could you start creating additional money in your life? So when we were bankrupt, I didn't want to limit,

I was working as a teacher, my husband was working on mine site. So we had a set amount that we knew was gonna be coming in each week. So instead of thinking, okay, well, this is all we have, it's gonna take us a million years to save up our deposit or, you know, we've got to pay, my husband had to pay a certain amount to our trustee towards our bankruptcy, but I was still under the threshold. So then what I did was I started creating some little side hustles to start generating some additional income.

I did some tutoring, so then I'd get some money from that. I used to make kombucha, which is, if you're not sure, it's like a fermented tea drink that's really good for your gut health. I used to make that in a back room in our house and sell that, and that was really, really successful, because it wasn't so mainstream at the time, where was in shops so available. But people used love my kombucha, and then I'd run some workshops to teach other people how to make it.

I did lots of crafty, I'm doing creative stuff, so I had little crafty activities I would do or sell things at the market. So I'd always have these different things that I had on the go to generate some additional income. So be open to how could you create a bit more money during your bankruptcy? Don't feel like, my money is limited by how much I earn through my job because that is definitely not the only way. That's only a little part of it.

It allows you to be a bit more creative and think what are your skills, what are your talents? And there are so many things that make it easy for us. Things like airtasks, where you can just go on and people can ask you to do whatever job that they need done and you get paid for it or become an Uber driver or a food delivery person or an Amazon or always looking for drivers. There's all these little things. You could walk dogs, you could house seat, you could babysit if you're already...

Like if you're stay at home parent and you're looking after your own kids, well then could you get other people's kids that you can offer to look after their kids and they can pay you for that if you're at home with your kids anyway and then your kid will have someone to play with. Like there's so many different ways to create additional income that you are only limited by your imagination. So be open to things like that and then when you start creating additional money, well maybe you can use that additional, we used it to invest in shares so.

then that was working for us and we'd get extra money through the dividends. And you know, there's all these different things that you may be closed off to. And this is why mindset is so key because when you are in that lack mindset, you don't open yourself up to these opportunities. You just have this tunnel vision and you can only see what's directly in front of you. And you know, your logical brain is saying, I can only make money through my job and this is all I could do.

When you start opening yourself up and you change your mindset then it literally is a game changer. So you'll start creating all these new, seeing these different ideas coming in. And you know, might even just be going to your boss and asking for a raise. And just putting it out there. Or saying if I do this for your business that will bring you more money, then I, in return I'll get, you should pay me this percentage extra.

So don't be limited in any way. And then once, so once you start working on your mindset, start working on managing your money better, start working on creating more money, then the next thing actually, this probably comes before those other, the managing and making more money, is start setting goals. Okay, if you were driving to a friend's house that you've never been to before,

you need a map to get there. If you've never been there, you don't know the area, you've never heard of the suburb or the area that it's in, and they say come here at this time, you're going to look it up on your phone or you're going to use a map of some sort to show you the direction to get there. What's going to happen if you didn't have a map? You're just going to be driving around in circles, you know, you might, there might be this small percentage of chance that you will find the destination, but...

If you don't have that clear path of how you're going to get there, you're likely not going to hit that destination. And that's exactly the same for any money goals you have. Any goals. If you're like, I'm just going to live my life and do all the things and maybe if I'm lucky I might get some money.

leftover savings. No, you're not. Maybe you will. Maybe you'll stumble across that party as well. But the chances of you reaching and finding any success when you don't have a goal is next to zero. So start with a really small goal that you can achieve. And start short term as well. So it might be at the end of this month, I'm going to have $50 in my savings account. Or it might even just be

At the end of this week I'm going to set up a savings account. I'm going to figure out, do all my money expenses, figure out how much I can allocate to savings and I'm going to set up a direct debit so the day my pay comes in that amount goes. So that's the first goal you can start making. And once you achieve one little goal,

and you're like, yes, you get success. It builds your confidence and then you can start setting, pushing that bar a bit further and then you can extend it and extend it. we had our home, well, at the time, initially it was not a home loan deposit because we thought that was impossible. So we just wanted to have some money in savings to use for holidays and investing. So we had that as our savings goal. So whatever it is for you, it doesn't have to be a home loan. It doesn't, it could be just,

whatever feels good and your goal should feel good, it should excite you, should feel a little bit challenging for you but not impossible and it needs to be specific so don't just say I want to save up a thousand dollars. Well when do you want to save up a thousand dollars? Bye. it might be within the next three months so it has to be something you know specific you should be able to measure it and it should be something you think and believe that you can achieve so setting up those goals is key.

So there you go, so your steps after bankruptcy, number one, mindset, number two, set some goals, three, start managing your money better, four, start looking for ways to increase that money, additional income, and then your final step is celebrate your successes and your wins as you make it. If you just go on autopilot and start doing all these things, but you don't actually stop to look back and see how far you've come and what you've achieved,

then you might start losing momentum or you might start slipping back into those bad habits again or you might lose that confidence. So when you stop and think, wow, like I managed from where I was like a year, even like for me looking back at this year from where we were at the beginning of the year to now, like we just spent a whole lot of money to surprise our kids to go to New Year for Christmas.

And Christmas in New York from Australia is very, very expensive. So that was something even a few months ago we were like, we probably won't be able to reach that goal. But we went to the travel agent and we're like, let's just do it. Let's make it happen. And we've reached that goal. And it's so exciting. So now looking back, we're like, my gosh, we've achieved this exciting goal for our family. And it's something we can all get behind and get excited by.

Having goals that excite you and then accelerating them when you actually reach them, that is priceless. So don't miss that part, okay? Because that's really gonna help cement all this stuff. All right, let's see if we've got some more questions. Anyway, hopefully that helps. Steps on bankruptcy. I could literally speak on that subject for hours and hours. In fact, I've got a whole course that I'm creating that is how to recover, but that's just a bit of an overview for you.

All right, next question how do I stay motivated and focused on my money goals? All right, well, I feel like I've just sort of touched on that a bit. like I saying, make them achieve something you can achieve, start really small so you know you can achieve it. If your first goal you set is to have 50 grand saved in two years time, or you're going to...

probably lose focus on that one. You're gonna lose interest. It has to be something that you can get success from quickly and then slowly increase, okay? That's the best way that you stay on track with your financial goals. And I always have multiple goals too. I don't just have one. So I might have my, this month, this is what I wanna do in the next three months, in the next six months, in the next year and so on. Usually years as far as I go, because...

I'm always quite a spontaneous person, so like, who knows what's gonna happen in five years time? Yeah, so we'll just wait and see for that one. But for now, yeah, I like to have those goals, but whatever sort of works for you, but make it something you can achieve and that's realistic and that you can find quick success from, and that will help you keep that momentum going. Let's see, what other questions? All right, what?

should I look for a financial advisor during the recovery process? Now, I'm not personally used to financial advisor because we looked into one like a few years ago and usually financial advisors they have their own interests at heart and

they'll be promoting whatever they'll get the most kickbacks from, so their investment strategies or things like that. So I personally like to do my own sort of research in things and invest in the shares that I want to invest in. I actually did a whole share trading online course just so I had that knowledge myself. So I like to be empowered by that myself. But there is a lot, instead of a financial advisor, if you are like bankrupt right now or you've

facing any sort of financial hardship. There are so many great free non-biased financial counseling services you can access. in Australia, we've got some great financial counseling services and I know in the US there's some as well. just Google free financial counseling and they'll give you a more, be able to look at your own snapshot and give you a more non-biased opinion on how to.

use your money. But again, this is up to your own personal preference. if you so if you are seeking financial advice after your bankruptcy, then get recommendations first. get some feedback on the ones that you're looking at and see what percentage of any investments are they going to be getting? what are they actually looking at?

you investing in, if they're investing in certain companies or whatever they suggest that you invest your money in, is that a broad advice or is that just because that is where they had their own interests involved? So I would perceive with that with caution, whatever you do.

anything like your financial advisors or your even lawyers on, know, I know in the US you've got to these courses on financial recovery or whatever. That's only going to focus on that tiny little piece of the pie, which is that money managing strategy. And that is such a small part of your bankruptcy recovery that all that's going to do is it's going to give you that short term fix and you're going to find yourself still

struggling with anything if you keep doing the same thing you were doing prior to bankruptcy and You expect things to magically change they're not okay You have to change the way you deal with everything and that might be open to learning new things or it might be Open to changing your beliefs and your ideas or just taking on stuff that you may have been closed off to before because

If what you're doing is not working, you need to change something, okay? Obviously it's up to you and your own opinion, but that is what I think. All right, let's just see if there's any last questions.

here's one. resources are available for free or low cost financial education? Well, there's so many books, there's so many podcasts, there's so many great YouTube channels you can watch. For me personally, I love reading, so I always get books from the library, so that's free. Or if you've got Spotify, you can get free audiobooks now, which I love.

There's lots of great ones. most favourite book for money mindset is Richter's F by Amanda Francis that is game changing that book. prepared, only listen to that or read that if you don't mind a bit of language. But that was a really good book in terms of mindset. But she's got a great podcast.

I love Kathy Heller's podcast. Beft Investor was another great book in terms of your money managing and making strategies. And I'm pretty sure he's just about to launch a podcast. So there's so many great things. Obviously this podcast is amazing. This Facebook group, Bankruptcy, Facebook group is amazing. Now a few things on that in terms of free financial education is I have decided in a couple of weeks, I haven't figured out exactly when, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.

that I'm going to be having a five day bankruptcy bootcamp which is going to be a free, completely free online virtual. You can tune in wherever you are in the world where I'm going to be talking about different strategies to help you get back on track after bankruptcy. So that might be something you want to look into. Make sure you are, if you don't get my emails or if you haven't,

subscribe to my mailing list, comment below if you want me to add you to that list so you can find out about that. Or you can just keep checking back onto the Bankruptcy to Bliss Facebook page or on the podcast. I will let you know when I've got the details of that. But I reckon it will be in about two or three weeks time. And it's gonna be five, one hour.

So each day there'll be a one hour Zoom session you can tune into and we'll be going through the different steps for financial recovery and it will be this more holistic approach to financial recovery post bankruptcy. So hopefully you'll be able to join me on that. That's a really good starting point for you. Because like I said, the key that I found and the biggest thing that I found was lacking was people that are advising you on all this stuff, but they don't know that would be bankrupt.

So they don't know where you are coming from. You might see, if you're seeing a bankruptcy lawyer or advisor, they probably haven't been bankrupt themselves. So it's hard to take advice from people who have not been in your shoes. So yeah, check, see what's out there that sort of aligns with you and your own beliefs. So that's a few things that may help you.

Alright, well I think that is all we have time for today. It has been so much fun. Thank you so much for all those people that sent in questions or commented their questions in. And like I said, stay tuned to when I'll be releasing this five day, I don't know what I'm going to call it yet, something about post-bankruptcy boot camp to get you back on track.

Now the other thing, if you are interested, I also have got a free one hour masterclass on rebuilding after bankruptcy and this is going to give you an overview of your step-by-step success plan. So if you want information about that that's on at various times, can, I'll leave the link to register for that in the comments or in the show notes below. So thank you so much.

for listening and I will see you next time. Thanks everyone.