The One ETF for Life: Simplifying Investing with Equity Mates

Feeling overwhelmed by the thought of investing? With over 2,000 companies on the ASX and hundreds of ETFs to choose from, where do you even begin?

In this episode, Molly sits down with Equity Mates legends Alex and Bryce to break down the ONE ETF strategy that could seriously change your financial future. Whether you're just getting started or still sitting on the sidelines, they’ll explain—in plain English—why boring is brilliant, how $50 a week could grow to over $1.4 million, and what most fund managers don’t want you to know.

We’re talking simple, smart, set-and-forget investing. No jargon, no fluff, just the hits (literally—there’s a brilliant Spotify playlist analogy in there too 🎶).

If you’ve ever thought “I’ll start investing... one day,” make today the day.

This episode is brought to you by InvestorKit, Australia’s #1 Buyers Agency for 2023 and 2024. They specialise in helping investors find high-growth properties utilising industry leading AI and data driven research process across Australia. 70%+ of the properties they purchase are off-market and they have consistently outperformed national average capital growth rates by over 49%. Whether you’re looking to build your property portfolio or secure your first investment. Check them out here.

CHAPTERS

00:00 - Welcome to the Show
00:24 - So... What Even Is an ETF or Index Fund?
03:47 - How Many ETFs Are There in Australia?
04:25 - How Do You Choose the Right ETF?
06:00 - Why Boring Investing is Actually Brilliant
07:38 - Can Fund Managers Beat the Market?
09:16 - The 'One ETF for Life' Strategy
11:00 - Two All-in-One ETFs to Research
13:00 - Is One ETF Really Enough?
15:15 - The Crypto vs Stock Market Conversation
17:00 - Why the Stock Market Builds Wealth Differently
18:35 - Habits of Successful Investors
20:05 - Real Millionaires Drive Fords, Not Ferraris
22:02 - Don’t Wait: Start with $1
24:00 - Favourite Equity Mates Resources
26:49 - Feeling Nervous About Investing?
28:50- Final Words + Links

LINKS AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE

Compound Interest Calculator -
https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/compound-interest-calculator
SPIVA Scorecard (S&P Global) - https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research-insights/spiva/
Equity Mates Investing Podcast - https://equitymates.com/show/equity-mates-investing-podcast/
Equity Mates Books - https://equitymates.com/books/

CONNECT WITH EQUITY MATES

Website: https://equitymates.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/equitymates
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/equity-mates/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/equitymates/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5f8fQrkPzswdEwp55__peQ
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@equitymates

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• There are 2,358 companies listed on the Australian stock market.
• ETFs and index funds allow for diversified investing with lower costs.
• Boring investments can yield significant returns over time.
• Investing is about controlling your impulses and thinking long-term.
• You can start investing with very little money.
• The majority of active fund managers underperform the market over time.
• The One ETF for Life strategy simplifies investing for individuals.
• Building wealth is more about savings rates than income levels.
• Dollar cost averaging is a practical investment strategy.
• The stock market has historically overcome various crises and challenges.

SOUND BITES

"Damn it. The road not taken."
"You don't need more than one ETF."
"Boring is more than enough in this situation."
"You can dollar cost average into it."
"You can start investing with literally a dollar."
"There's always a reason to not invest."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Equity mates. Alex and Bryce, thank you so much for coming on the show. You are Ladies Finance Club, one of our absolute favorites. Um, so we are excited to hear from you today.

[00:00:11] Equity: Thanks for having us, Molly. Yeah, we're excited to be on the show.

[00:00:14] Molly: Awesome. So we're just gonna jump straight into it like we do. To kick off, this whole podcast is obviously called the one ETF you need for live.

[00:00:24] So we wanted to do a bit of a, a dive in, but firstly, for people who are listening, they're new to investing. How many companies are listed on the Australian stock market?

[00:00:36] Equity: Molly, there are an overwhelming. 2,358 companies listed on the Australian stock market. It is constantly changing, but yeah, plenty to choose from.

[00:00:47] Molly: Yeah, that is very overwhelming when you're thinking about what do I actually invest my money in? And I know a lot of people, especially our audience, they work full time. Yeah. They just have [00:01:00] really busy lives. They don't have time to look up, you know, what the profit and loss for this company is doing and what the, the statement is for this company.

[00:01:07] So you guys talk a lot about exchange traded funds or index funds. So maybe we could just break down what exactly are ETF's index funds and why do we like you?

[00:01:23] Equity: So exchange traded funds and index funds, they're two related but slightly separate concepts. So let's go one at a time. Indexes are a way to track a change over time, and in the case of investing indexes allow us to track the whole share market.

[00:01:41] So rather than following one individual company, we can follow the top 200 Australian companies or all of the Australian companies or. All of the companies in the globe, and when you hear the news and you hear the American market rose 2%, the Australian market fell 2%. The way that we measure those changes is [00:02:00] with an index.

[00:02:01] It was about the 1970s, the founder of Vanguard, Jack Bogle, he had an insight that rather than trying to pick individual stocks. Investors would actually do better if they just bought the whole market, the whole index. And turns out he was right. And that was really the start of the index fund. But in the 1970s, it was tough to invest in an index.

[00:02:26] You had to fill out paperwork, you had to mail your check in. The process kind of sucked. And that was where the second related concept, the A TF comes from. The ETF basically introduced the online shopping experience for the index fund, and it's thrown away the paperwork and it's thrown away mailing a check.

[00:02:46] And now through ETFs we can buy index funds online with a click of a button and it's made it really aim really easy and a lot cheaper as well. So we will get into why we love [00:03:00] Index ATFs, but in terms of what they are, that's. They're the two concepts.

[00:03:04] Molly: Nice. And I always explain like ETF's, like a favorite box of chocolates.

[00:03:09] You've got lots of different chocolates. In a box of favorites, you've got lots of different companies in the one unit. And I heard this great analogy, it was Jess Loon the other day, and she was talking about indexes as like. The top hits. So you've got like maybe if you are in America, you've got the top 100 hits or the top 500 hits and they might change, as you know, certain music is more popular, other songs become less popular.

[00:03:36] And to use that comparison as an index, like an s and p 500, the top 500 companies in America, like companies will come and go from that top 500. But you are always buying the top 500 song in the country. It's

[00:03:47] Equity: good analogy. Yeah, I

[00:03:49] Molly: love it. I know, I like that. So how many. Sorry. How many ETFs are there in Australia?

[00:03:56] Equity: There's about 357. About, there are [00:04:00] 357 at last count, but I, I think similar to stocks, there are always new ETFs coming and going or coming to market. Some are also being delisted, so hundreds to choose from.

[00:04:11] Molly: And you guys probably got the same question 'cause I get this question all the time and they're like, okay, cool.

[00:04:17] Molly, get the concept of an index or an ETF. Okay. But with that many, how do I know which one to actually choose?

[00:04:25] Equity: Hmm. It is so hard. There's more ETFs than you could ever invest in, uh, listed now, and there's, there's more coming to market and that's, uh, really why we like to talk about this one ETF for life, because you don't need more than one.

[00:04:42] And we'll talk about some of the all-in-one ETFs. If you do wanna explore more, then it really is a process of understanding what your goals are and, and what the ATFs that are suitable to those goals are. Because, you know, you can get super high risk and ones that promise high returns, [00:05:00] triple leverage this and using options and all this stuff.

[00:05:03] And then you can get really boring and vanilla ones that invest in. They basically like put money into a high interest savings account and pay you the interest. So like the range has never been more varied. But the good news is for most people, in most circumstances, most of the time you can forget most of those ETFs.

[00:05:24] Molly: Okay.

[00:05:25] Equity: I just wanna add there, Molly, that to Rens point around boring, we should set the scene that boring is okay in this situation because the returns that you get from the indexes that Ren was speaking about earlier are pretty phenomenal. Yeah. And if we put some numbers to that, Ren spoke about the ability for indexes to track the market over time.

[00:05:46] Yeah. And if we look at how the Australian. A SX has performed over the last, what is it, 100 years since 1900. Since 1900. It has returned 13% per year. [00:06:00] Now, that might seem like an arbitrary number, but when you put that into Dollar Figures, yeah. If you were to invest $50 a week for the next 35 years. You at 13%, you would have $1.4 million in the bank account after just investing $91,000.

[00:06:20] So I think that kind of contextualizes why we'll talk about these one ETFs and that boring is more than enough in this situation.

[00:06:27] Molly: And I think also when you look at what you're getting in a bank account and some of the highest interest rates I'm seeing around like five to 5.5%. You know, you're making double when you invest, but you know, as they say, when they're saying 13% per year, that doesn't necessarily mean you're getting 13% every year, does it?

[00:06:47] Equity: No, it fluctuates. It fluctuates a lot, and you know, the last few years we've had some pretty good years in the stock market. If we look over in the US the last two years, they've grown over 20% [00:07:00] in 2024 and in 2023, but then you go back to 2022 and it was quite a bad year and investors lost money in that year.

[00:07:07] It does vary. It's the, the term is volatile. Yeah. It's not like your high interest savings account where you'll get a pretty consistent amount every year. Yeah. But the thing that we've learned over and over again, that over the long term, when you think in decades, not days, the returns start to become a little bit more predictable.

[00:07:27] Mm-hmm. And they start to converge on, um. You know that sort of eight to 13% per year. So you've really gotta be thinking long term if you're thinking about investing in the stock market.

[00:07:38] Molly: Great. And for people who are looking at maybe actively investing, so maybe getting a fund manager to look at it. Do we have any stats on the success rates?

[00:07:48] Because I've seen stats where, yes, maybe for the first five years, generally fund managers can outperform the index, but then when you look at a, like over a 10 year period, it's only a very few, I [00:08:00] think it's around 20% that can actually outperform some of those indexes.

[00:08:04] Equity: Yeah. So the best source of data on this.

[00:08:07] S and P Global. They're like a giant financial, they, they do a financial institution called them. They track how active managers, uh, go against these indexes that we're talking about, and they publish it. It's their Spiva scorecard, so people can Google it if they want to. But I've got some of the numbers here.

[00:08:25] So over the last 10 years. 85% of active fund managers underperformed the s and p 500 in America, which means 15% of US active managers beat the index. But if we bring it to Australia, 82% underperformed the A SX 200. So the top 200 companies and 18% outperformed over the past 10 years. Wow, so that's less than one in five.

[00:08:54] Molly: Gosh, yeah. That always astounds me.

[00:08:58] Equity: Mm-hmm. '

[00:08:59] Molly: cause [00:09:00] I guess even if you make money, you don't make money. You're still paying either way.

[00:09:04] Equity: The phase on active management, yeah, they're higher than these index funds, so you've gotta factor that in as well. Mm,

[00:09:11] Molly: awesome. And I have to share this analogy. I did hear someone once refer to ETFs and index funds.

[00:09:16] They're like, they're like the Kardashians. They're a little bit different, but they're quite similar. So, I mean, the title of this episode is called one ETF for Life. So can you tell me more about these one ETF Life strategy? Can you share more about it?

[00:09:34] Equity: Yeah, so the one ETF for Life is a strategy where you take advantage of the index funds in the ETFs that we've spoken about.

[00:09:41] And in one simple. Investment, you can get access to the best companies in the world that are gonna generate the returns that we spoke about over a long period of time and provide you with, I guess, a, a financial or a portfolio over a number of years that is. More than [00:10:00] enough to live a comfortable life.

[00:10:01] Mm-hmm. And so the way that these one ETFs are constructed, they invest globally. So you're gonna get access to not only the Australian market, but the US market, the European market. And by doing so, a well diversified, you're not just getting exposure to one particular company or one particular sector.

[00:10:20] And we know that the fundamental principles of good long-term investing is to be well diversified. It's not actively managed. And what we mean by that is you don't have these managers making decisions in the background about which companies to choose. It's just you're gonna get access to the best companies and you don't have to make a decision about what they are.

[00:10:39] And they are low cost. And we hate fees at equity mates because if you're paying high fees, just like you would if you go to these managers over a long period of time, fees eat into. Your returns. So that's what we look for and that's why we like these ETFs. I'll finish there. Well, hold on. Let's, um, let's not keep people in [00:11:00] suspense maybe.

[00:11:00] Yeah. Go. People share thumb roll. As we were saying earlier, there's a lot of ATFs out there and there's a number of ATFs that fit this bill, so we don't wanna play favorites, but we do, we'll just give you two examples that tick all these boxes and we think are great ones for you to go and research, but it's by no means exhaustive, so we wanna be clear on that.

[00:11:23] But to that top, our personal lists, the beta shares all growth diversified ETF, which the ticket is DHHF, and then the other one is the Vanguard Diversified High Growth Index, E-T-F-V-D-H-J. Now, their very, very, very similar. The slight difference is beta shares is a hundred percent in shares. Vanguard is 90% in shares, 10% in bonds.

[00:11:53] They both tick all those boxes. And really for us, what that criteria rolls up into [00:12:00] is something that you could dollar cost average into every time you get paid. You could put a little bit of money into it over and over again for the length of your working life, and you can be confident that you're gonna get the market's average return, which will build you enough wealth to be comfortable in retirement.

[00:12:16] Molly: Love it. And if you are listening, you might go, Hmm, that sounds a bit simple though. It's meant to be quite simple.

[00:12:24] Equity: Yeah. And And I think there's a lot of incentive in the financial industry to overcomplicate things. Yeah. Because you don't make fees saying, Hey, you don't need to pay the experts. You can just take the average because the average is enough.

[00:12:40] Molly: Yeah.

[00:12:41] Equity: But the fact of the matter is, again, for most people, in most situations, most of the time. The stock market average is enough. And if you think about your superannuation, like it's invested in a pretty similar way, like the majority of your super is, you take a little bit from every pay and it gets put into mainly the stock [00:13:00] market, mainly an index following strategy.

[00:13:02] And the principle is over the length of your working life that super will grow into something that can fund your retirement. And really all we're doing is taking the same principle there and saying. If it's good enough for Australia's $4 trillion superannuation industry, it's good enough for us.

[00:13:17] Molly: Yeah.

[00:13:18] So there you go. You might not even realize, but you were already dollar cost averaging with your super, so you can do this with your investments as well. And I think we just answered it there, but let's say, 'cause I do get a question a bit like, well, how many ETFs should I have in ETF and should I have some shares on the side?

[00:13:36] Like what are your personal thoughts on that?

[00:13:39] Equity: At its core, our view is that. You can build a very successful portfolio and have enough money by just choosing one of these ETFs and, and that is it. If all you want to do is stress free investing and not actually even pay attention to what is going on in the markets, then one of these [00:14:00] is more than enough in fact.

[00:14:02] People have these as their superannuation funds. That's how beautifully they are set up. They're low cost, they're well diversified. You don't have to make a single investing decision. So like at its core, one ETF is enough. If you are then interested personally in exploring more about the markets, getting a little bit more involved and you're just generally curious and and want to.

[00:14:23] Try and add more to that. Then of course there are ways in which you can do that by adding thematic ETFs or ETFs that give it exposure to particular sectors or even choosing particular individual stocks. But I think fundamentally our belief is you don't have to do that to get great returns over the long term.

[00:14:43] Molly: And speaking to my own mistakes of someone who thought they could be a bit of a stock picker back in the day slash listen to father's tips. All

[00:14:52] Equity: back there

[00:14:53] Molly: looking at my portfolio the other day. The other day, and it's literally only my ETFs that have [00:15:00] done well. Actually I had one share, I think it was Mesoblast that had just done nothing since I bought it.

[00:15:05] It just crashed the day I bought it and I've been waiting and waiting and it came back and I was like, I'm out. I'm putting it into an ETF. I was just like so burnt from that.

[00:15:15] Equity: Yeah, we've all been there. That's a, a common investing rite of passage I think. And you know, when we started investing, ETFs weren't that big.

[00:15:22] They weren't really a thing. So it's great that they are now, and people should take advantage of them.

[00:15:27] Molly: And if we could just kind of get into the ear. 'cause I'm still having conversations with awesome, intelligent, smart people and they're like, oh, I'm just going all in on crypto. And I'm like, that's slightly concerning.

[00:15:41] What thoughts do you have for people who are maybe looking for that get rich? A quick scheme or They have put everything into crypto. EKA, you know who I'm talking about. If you're listening to this podcast, this person,

[00:15:59] Equity: I [00:16:00] think investing more than anything is a, an exercise in like controlling your worst impulses.

[00:16:05] And there's so much psychology and so much like behavioral finance that goes into it because like we all have that impulse that we want to get rich quick. We all have that fomo. We all hate it when we see. People making, you know, millions of dollars off NFTs and stupid stuff like that.

[00:16:24] Molly: Also tried that.

[00:16:25] It didn't work

[00:16:27] Equity: well, but as fast as it goes up, it can go down. And, you know, bitcoin's been an incredible story and like, you know, we both have a small portion of our money in Bitcoin, but, but the emphasis is there on small. And I think fundamentally when you're investing in the stock market, it's different to a lot of these other investments, whether you're buying crypto or an NFT or wine or art or gold.

[00:16:52] Even a house, in a lot of cases, what you are doing is you're buying something with the expectation that someone in the future will [00:17:00] pay more for the same thing. Yeah. But when you're buying shares in a company and, and when you're buying these ETFs, what you're doing is buying shares in 40,000 companies.

[00:17:10] Those companies are. Incentivized to make you more money. As a shareholder, they hire the smartest people they can. They invent new products. They figure out ways to go into new markets. They invent new ways of doing business. All to make you as a shareholder, more money. Yeah. All of their incentives, their bonuses, their promotions at their job are all based around driving profitability for the company.

[00:17:35] And those profits go back to you as a shareholder. And so what that means is when you're buying shares, it's something fundamentally different to investing in a lot of these assets. Mm-hmm. You're not relying on someone buying it for more in the future. Mm-hmm. You're actually owning something that will grow and change over time.

[00:17:51] The best example that we always point to is Amazon. You know, when Amazon listed in the 1990s, it was a book seller. It was doing, I think [00:18:00] about six to $8 million in revenue. It had about 200 employees if you had bought shares in Amazon at that time, and just held it to today. What you own is fundamentally different.

[00:18:12] It's now a trillion dollar Amazon Web services giant. It employs over a million people. It's entered all these different countries, and you didn't have to do anything as a shareholder. You just let other people work hard for you. Mm-hmm. And that's why we love the stock market. It doesn't happen overnight.

[00:18:29] You're not gonna get rich quick. But if you focus on getting rich slow, you might actually do it.

[00:18:35] Molly: I love talking to you guys 'cause you speak such practical language and that just made so much sense. And you covered a couple of habits there for new investors, which I think was, you know, dollar cost averaging.

[00:18:47] It's about the long term. It's not about doubling your money overnight, you know, investing. It does take time. Are there any other, I guess, habits that you think new investors [00:19:00] should kind of work on? Or develop.

[00:19:02] Equity: One of our favorite is this saying that's come from Morgan Hasell who wrote The Psychology of Money, and I would strongly recommend any everyone to read that because you speak of practical.

[00:19:12] He, he is very, very practical. It goes, building wealth has little to do with your income or investment returns and lots to do with your savings rate. And that really kind of hit home for us because we find a lot of people in the community feel that in order to invest or in order to increase your returns, you need to go out and make more income.

[00:19:31] You need. You need more than you currently have. And so for us, the habit actually starts in good savings habits so that you can maximize the amount that you can not only save in your bank account, but maximize the amount that you can save to actually invest. Yeah. Because sitting that money in that money in the bank account is not gonna get you very fast.

[00:19:50] So the habit starts there. It's like getting good cash flow management and good money habits so you can maximize how much you're saving. And then from there we have like a four step strategy [00:20:00] that we put into place, but. Did you have anything to add to the Morgan House? 'cause I know you love him. No, I, I do love him.

[00:20:05] There's this book, uh, written in the 1990s in America called The Millionaire Next Door. Yeah. And they surveyed a few thousand American millionaires to understand like who they were and how they approach money. And a lot of our preconceptions about who becomes a millionaire are wrong. The most common car driven by a millionaire is not a Ferrari, it's a Ford.

[00:20:28] Like the biggest finding from this book is the people that build serious wealth, the people that have the highest savings rate, and then they put that money to work in investments, in, in assets. And it wasn't people earning crazy salaries. You know, they spoke to doctors and lawyers who were earning stupid amounts of money, but weren't saving any at the end of the day, and they weren't building wealth.

[00:20:49] And then they speak to just regular people who consistently over time focused on improving their savings rate. And those were the people that built wealth over time. So I [00:21:00] think that's really something that we've internalized. You know, like we, we started an investment podcast when we were in our early twenties, and we were young and dumb, and we wanted to.

[00:21:09] Make stupid invest like you get rich quick and make big investment returns and find the next Afterpay and you know, go to the moon, all that stuff. But what we've learned is that this, the art and the skill of investing comes in those habits that you have every day. Yeah. And doing the right things consistently over time is what makes a difference.

[00:21:28] Molly: Absolutely. Which. It can actually be really challenging, but you've gotta stand your ground. 'cause I absolutely agree. What I see as well is it's all about people's behaviors and their habits. It's very little to do with how much money they make, and we have teachers and nurses who have. Large portfolios, and then we have other people who are doctors, and you know what you'd expect to be in those higher income brackets with literally debt or on really nothing to show for that money.

[00:21:57] So yeah, it's definitely about those, [00:22:00] those habits and those behaviors that you build.

[00:22:02] Equity: One thing that always gets me my, um, I've got a number of younger cousins and they are always saying to me like, um, oh, you know, I'd love to listen to your podcast, but I don't have enough money to invest. And that always gets me because you can now start investing with literally a dollar l less than a dollar on some platforms.

[00:22:22] And if you just look at the Money Smart Compound Interest calculator, uh, which I'm sure you've spoken about before on the podcast, Molly, that I've just done it quickly here. $10 a week for 40 years at 13% return. That 13% that Bryce was talking about earlier, that's a bit over half a million dollars. So it's like if, if you only have a few dollars to get started, you know, you make a coffee at home rather than drink buying it, and you just put that money to work or.

[00:22:49] You use a platform like raises and you round up some of your purchases and put a few dollars here, a few dollars there. Yeah. Those small incremental changes over your working [00:23:00] life, that's all you need to make a huge difference. So it's

[00:23:04] Molly: huge. I always like to kind of like. Change it around a little bit. I say, what if I could guarantee you a lottery win?

[00:23:10] At some point in your life, you might have to wait till, you know, you're a little bit older, but we can, we can guarantee you some kind of lottery win. I love that. But you've just gotta do this. And you know, instead of putting it in the actual lot, put it into investments. And I'm really excited. I've just been asked to go back to my old college in Brisbane to give a finance talk and I'm like.

[00:23:30] Well, Luelle Luelle, yes. I have so many, so many tips that I wanna share, but really wanna encourage as many of them to start investing and just share all the mistakes I made. Because if I was at college now and I could see myself doing what I do, I'd be like. Literally no chance. I was the worst. I was that girl always borrow money or just like always looking for like the cheapest place to have drinks.

[00:23:54] 'cause I just never had any cash. So I'm, I'm excited to go back and try and get them all [00:24:00] set up on something. All right. So you guys, as I mentioned in your intro, you got one of Australia's top investing podcasts. So looking back on 2024. Were there any like absolute standout moments or any shows that you would love our audience to go and listen to?

[00:24:19] Equity: Wow. Last year specifically. Wow. It feels like a blur. The time is flying. Anything to go back and listen to? Honestly, I would probably go, if you're in this position that you are right now, which is looking for a very simple way to start investing that allows you to get on with your life and not be too stressed about it.

[00:24:40] I would be going and actually tuning into a series that we just did on our Get Started Investing podcast, which is the sort of end to end. Process that we go through from sorting your money and your emergency fund through to automating your investing decisions and, and getting on with life. I think it was four or five episodes that we did over [00:25:00] summer that really get you in the markets and feeling confident.

[00:25:03] So that's what I would be suggesting. And that kind of flows into our book as well. Don't stress, just invest, which is a four part strategy to automate. So I feel like Bryce kind of stole my thunder there. Oh really? Yeah. I was gonna say, uh, the highlight for me last year wasn't, uh, podcast per se, but the book that Bryce mentioned, we sold the Spanish language rights and it got published in Spanish, which pretty full Oh my.

[00:25:28] That God. That was something we didn't expect. And I'm not gonna try and read the Spanish title, but, um. You can look it up. I think for us, that book was really, it's a really a reflection of this one ETF, the life ethos. And it's been, it's the journey we've been on and we wrote it for all of our friends and our family members who would never listen to our podcast, who just weren't interested, didn't want to know what was happening in markets, just wanted a strategy that they could set up, automate, and then do something [00:26:00] more interesting with their days.

[00:26:01] That's why we wrote it, and it's pretty cool that. The Spanish publishers thought it was good enough to buy the rights for. Um, but I think for me, that's probably the next step if people want just the absolute simplest way to get started investing.

[00:26:14] Molly: Ah, congrats guys. That's awesome. I, no, no Spanish, but Allah for you guys,

[00:26:23] Equity: we're hoping to you do the Spanish book tour at some point.

[00:26:26] Molly: Please do. Because that, that'd take you all over. You've got Europe, you've got South America, so looking at everything like, oh my God, 2025 is off to a wild start. So for those people who might be feeling a little bit uncertain or like. Should I be investing my money right now? What kind of words of wisdom do you have for the listeners out there?

[00:26:49] Equity: Just get started. Yeah. Yeah. For me, like there's always a reason to panic and if you look at the, the historic returns that we were talking about from 1900 in [00:27:00] Australia, the stock market has overcome reason to not start investing over and reason to not start investing again. You know, the world was the Spanish flu.

[00:27:10] Covid, uh, financial crises, prime ministers going missing off the coast of Australia. Other prime ministers being dismissed. Yeah, there. And you look the same in America. There, there's always reason to not invest, but the story of the stock market is as people work hard and start new companies and find ways to invent new products and new technology emerges, that is the engine that drives.

[00:27:37] The stock market, not any sort of short term political noise or anything like that. Um, and even if you just look back over the past five years, you wouldn't, oh, covid, iss hitting, so I won't start getting invested now. And then, oh, 2021, the market's overvalued and people are saying it's a bubble, so I won't start investing now.

[00:27:56] And then 2022, our inflation is coming [00:28:00] and you know, it can't start getting invested. Now, 2023 interest rates are rising. That's not good for the stock market. There's always a reason to not invest, but just between 2020 and, and today in some markets, you would've doubled your money or close to have doubled your money.

[00:28:15] And so that is just another reminder of the long-term lessons, which is there's always a reason to not get started. Mm. But that shouldn't stop you because the power of the stock market overcomes all those reasons.

[00:28:28] Molly: Awesome. Well, thank you so much guys. This has been such a great conversation and I, as I always say when I speak to you guys, thank you again.

[00:28:36] Like you have given Australians so much education, you've changed so many lives and it is always such a pleasure talking to you guys. I always learn lots, so thank you for coming on the show. Thanks.

[00:28:50] Equity: Thanks for having us, mark. Well, I mean the same back to you. I think we really respect what you guys are doing at Ladies Finance Club and um.

[00:28:56] Yeah, you've changed just as many lives and let's keep doing it. [00:29:00] Awesome.

[00:29:01] Molly: And we'll pop all the notes and all the links in the show notes where you can find their podcast and their book and the Spanish version as well. Yes.

KEYWORDS

investing, ETFs, index funds, financial habits, long-term investing, Australian stock market, wealth building, financial education, Bryce and Molly, Equity Mates