How to Start Investing in Australia: A Beginner's Guide for Women

By Molly Benjamin, Founder of Ladies Finance Club

Listen to the full podcast here.

Let's be real for a second. Investing can feel like a world that wasn't built for us, full of suits, stock tickers, and terminology designed to make you feel like an outsider. But here's what I want you to know: I was once standing in a supermarket, crying, wondering where all my money had gone. And now I own a share portfolio and property, and I built one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women.

In this episode of Get Rich, guest host Briony Benjamin sits down with Jessica Leung, ETF portfolio manager and founder of The Leung Way, to cut through the noise and talk about what investing actually is, why it matters, and how to get started even if you've never bought a single share in your life.

So... What Actually Is Investing?

In Jessica's words: "Investing is putting your money to work so that it can grow over time." Instead of your dollars sitting quietly in a bank account earning a modest return, investing gives your money exposure to things that can increase in value, shares, companies, property, bonds.

The goal isn't to get rich overnight. Wealth building through investing is a long game, and that's actually what makes it so powerful. It's steady, it's sustainable, and it doesn't require you to be glued to a financial news feed.

Why Saving Alone Isn't Enough

Saving is still important, it's the foundation, and Jessica is the first to say so. Every investing journey should start with an emergency fund in place. But saving alone has a quiet, invisible problem: inflation. When the cost of living rises faster than the interest rate on your savings account, your money is effectively shrinking in real terms even as the number goes up.

Jessica puts it plainly: if inflation is running at 6-7% and your savings account is earning 5%, you're still effectively going backwards by 1-2% each year. Saving keeps you safe. Investing is what bridges the gap between getting by and achieving genuine financial independence.

Of course, the flip side of higher returns is risk. Investing means your money can go down as well as up, and that's exactly why understanding your personal risk profile matters. The right investment for someone saving for a house deposit in three years looks completely different to the right investment for someone building a retirement nest egg over three decades.

The Magic of Compound Interest (AKA Why Time Is Your Best Friend)

Einstein allegedly called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. Jessica calls it a snowball rolling down a hill, and once you picture it that way, you'll never forget it.

Compound interest is what happens when your money starts earning money on top of the money it's already earned. At the beginning, the growth feels almost invisible, a bit boring, honestly. But over time, each layer of return builds on the last, and then the last, and then the one before that. The acceleration is where the real magic happens. The snowball gathers momentum. You don't need to do anything; it just keeps rolling.

This is why the investing world loves the phrase "it's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market." The longer your money is invested, the more powerfully compound interest works in your favour. Which means the best time to start was a decade ago, and the second best time is today.

Getting Started: The Real Step One

Here's where Jessica gets refreshingly practical. Step one, she says, is actually "step zero" — and it has nothing to do with picking stocks. Before you invest a single dollar, you want to make sure your foundations are solid.

That means having an emergency fund in place, three to six months of living expenses set aside for life's OMG moments. It means paying down any high-interest debt first. And it means doing a budget so you know exactly how much you can actually afford to invest. Even if that number is $50 or $100 a month, that is absolutely enough to start.

Jessica is a big believer in starting small, not just because of the practical financial risk management benefits, but because learning on the job with a small amount is far less emotionally bruising than going all-in and watching the market dip on day two. You build familiarity and confidence, and by the time your portfolio grows to a substantial size, you'll actually know what you're doing.

What Are ETFs, and Why Do People Love Them?

ETF stands for Exchange Traded Fund, but Jessica's analogy is way more memorable. Think of it like a party mix bag of lollies. Inside one bag, you get exposure to hundreds of different companies or even an entire share market index. Instead of buying individual shares in BHP, CBA, NAB, and Westpac one by one (paying brokerage each time), you buy one ETF and get all of them at once.

The A300 ETF, for example, gives you exposure to the 300 largest companies listed on the ASX in a single purchase. You can buy and sell it just like a regular share during market hours. The fees are low, the holdings are transparent, published daily on the fund's website, and you don't need to spend your evenings doing company research.

Diversification: Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

Diversification is the art of spreading your risk. If your entire portfolio is in one company and that company has a bad quarter, you feel the full impact. But when your money is spread across hundreds of different companies with different performance patterns, one bad day for one stock barely registers in the overall picture.

It's worth noting that diversification doesn't eliminate risk,  there's no such thing as a free lunch, as Jessica puts it. But it does smooth the ride considerably. And while you can't control how the market performs, you absolutely can control how concentrated or diversified your portfolio is. For beginner investing in particular, broad-based ETFs covering the ASX, the US S&P 500, or global indices are often the most sensible starting point.

Ethical Investing: Aligning Your Money With Your Values

One of the things that makes ETFs so versatile is that there are now options for people who want their investments to reflect their values. Ethical ETFs exist across a range of themes, some screen out fossil fuels, some focus on gender diversity, others prioritise ESG (environmental, social, and governance) criteria.

Jessica's tip here is to look under the hood. Don't assume that because a fund has "ethical" in the name it aligns with your specific values. Go to the ETF issuer's website, find the fund page, and read the index methodology. What does the fund actually screen for? What does it exclude? What themes is it trying to capture? The more specific your values,  like avoiding fossil fuels, for example, the more important it is to do that homework.

The Biggest Mistakes Beginners Make

Jessica's top beginner pitfall? Checking your portfolio too much. When you're investing for decades, a single day's movement of 1-2% is almost completely irrelevant. But watching it constantly makes it very easy to get emotional, second-guess your strategy, and make reactive decisions that work against your long-term goals. The discipline of looking away is genuinely one of the most valuable investing skills there is.

Two other myths she hears constantly: that investing is basically gambling (it's not, speculating on volatile assets without a strategy is gambling; investing in a diversified portfolio aligned with your risk profile and goals is something else entirely), and "I'll start when I have more money." That second one quietly keeps people stuck for years. The power of compound interest means that starting with $50 today beats starting with $5,000 in five years.

And then there's the one Jessica admits is a little cheeky, the assumption that a partner will handle the finances. "A man is not a plan," she says, and it's hard to argue with that. Financial literacy isn't just about growing wealth; it's about having independence, confidence, and choices that are yours regardless of your relationship status.

Set, Forget, and Let It Grow

Jessica's preferred investing style these days is gloriously unsexy: automated, consistent, and largely ignored. She sets up regular investments to come out automatically when she gets paid, after her savings, after topping up the emergency fund, and then she lets compounding do its thing.

On the brokerage platform front, she looks for ease of use (because adulting is already hard enough), automation features, and good educational resources. She also recommends factoring in fees carefully — if your platform charges a flat $10 per trade, investing $20 at a time doesn't make mathematical sense. Work out your budget and cash flow first, then find a platform whose fee structure actually suits how you intend to invest.

The Best Advice? Just Start.

If Jessica could go back and tell her 25-year-old self one thing, it would be to stop spending money on outfits she'd only wear once and start putting even $50 at a time into a brokerage account. Not because $50 is a lot but because the habit, the consistency, and the time in the market are worth more than any perfect moment to invest.

You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need a lot of money. You don't need to wait until the world feels more stable (it won't). You just need to get the foundations in place, make a start, however small, and let time and compound interest work their quiet, steady magic.

As Jessica and Briony say at the end of this episode: start small. Stay consistent. It's not about being perfect. It's about taking the first step.

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