My Happy Money Journey: money for mid life women with Phoebe Blamey

Phoebe Blamey retired financial and mortgage advisor, podcaster, coach and course creator

Life changes as we get older. Kids grow up. Parents need care. Divorce, grief, and career curveballs can hit hard and suddenly, by choice or by chance, you’re in the financial driver’s seat. My Happy Money Journey is the go to money podcast for women over 40 in Australia who are ready to take control of their finances, pay off debt, buy a home, invest build wealth, and live a fabulous life! Phoebe Blamey is a bestselling author,  former award winning financial services business owner turned small business coach. The podcast explores real conversations about money, midlife transitions, financial freedom, and difficult topics like sexually transmitted debt, death, inheritance and spending, all while making money simple, manageable and doable. This is real money talk for real people. Super qualified Phoebe has a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning, a Diploma in Mortgage Broking,  an MBA, and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching  Phoebe brings 20+ years of expertise to help women heal their money stories, make smart financial choices, and thrive in this powerful life stage. Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice or recommendations.

  1. May 26

    S4 E26 Bank of Mum and Dad: How to Help Your Adult Children Without Wrecking Your Retirement

    The Bank of Mum and Dad is now somewhere between the fifth and ninth largest mortgage lender in Australia. That's not a metaphor. That's Finder research from 2025. Seventeen percent of first-home buyers now receive help from their parents to save a deposit — up from eleven percent in 2022. Seventy-five percent of that help is gifted, not loaned. And the average gift sits at $74,040… though in real life, as a former mortgage broker, Phoebe regularly saw two, three, four times that figure cross the table. And it's not just deposits. It's the wedding. The school fees. The second car. The credit card debt. The bond money when they suddenly had to move. The family holiday you "treated everyone" to. For many Australian women in their 50s and 60s, this is now the second largest line item in their financial life — after their own mortgage or rent. And here's the part nobody is talking about: we didn't sign up for this the way our mothers did. They raised us, packed us off with a Vegemite jar of cutlery and a casserole dish, and were essentially financially done. We're mothering and funding well into our 60s and 70s — and we're quietly tipping in without saying a word at book club, at dinner, or sometimes even to our own partner. In this episode, Phoebe Blamey unpacks one of the most important — and least discussed — financial issues facing midlife Australian women right now. Because the maths is brutal. The average woman aged 60–64 has around $318,000 in super. A comfortable single retirement needs closer to $595,000. The gap between those two numbers is exactly the kind of gap created by 10 or 15 years of "just helping the kids out." You'll hear: The three biggest financial blast radiuses of getting Bank of Mum and Dad wrong — including the $200,000 deposit that walks straight out the door in a property settlement, and the inheritance fight you create from beyond the grave without ever meaning to Why the Family Court treats gifts and loans completely differently in Australia — and the simple, inexpensive paperwork that protects your child (and your money) if a marriage ever goes sideways The five conversations to have at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning, when nobody is in crisis — before the phone rings late at night Why your only job when your adult child arrives in marital distress is to listen — and the one exception where the rules completely change How to have the fairness conversation while everyone is still alive (because fair and equal are not the same thing — and the version of this conversation that destroys sibling relationships is always the one held silently, in a will) The single biggest mindset shift that makes all of this stick: you are the lighthouse, not the lifeboat This episode is for the woman who is capable, educated, earning well, and increasingly realising she needs to be the one making the calls — not deferring to a husband, an adviser, or a default "yes" when her adult children ask. Because the greatest transfer of generational wealth in history is moving toward women, and learning to hold money — not just spend it or give it away — is the skill of this decade. Decide your line now, while the weather is calm and the seas aren't stormy. You can love your children ferociously and still hold your line. Those two things are not in conflict. The line is love. Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice or recommendations.

    21 min
  2. May 12

    S4 E25 Who's afraid of beng the eldest daughter?

    When my friend Kate (not her real name) broke down on the phone to me three weeks into managing her father's estate, and the line she said that I have heard from a hundred women: "I'm doing all this and I haven't even looked at my own super in years." I had one thought! There's a phrase doing the rounds; eldest daughter syndrome! It's funny on Instagram until you realise the finance industry has been tracking the same thing for years, and it has some really scary implications for our generation.  JBWere call it the oldest daughter effect. When wealth transfers in an Australian family, it's the eldest daughter who is most likely to end up managing the estate - roughly 50% more likely than other siblings. She didn't ask for it. She's just the one everyone already trusts to deal with things. In this episode, we unpack what happens when the woman who has carried everyone, suddenly has to carry the money too. We look at the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in Australian history — somewhere between $3.5 and $5 trillion and the staggering fact that about 65% of it is heading into the hands of women. Most of whom have never been the financial decision-maker in their own lives. If we want the world to change we need to understand what this means.  We talk about the three disasters that no one talks about and drain inherited wealth: the wrong-beneficiary super, the death-benefits tax mistake, and the inherited adviser nobody chose. We walk through five things you can do this week to step out of the eldest-daughter trap and into your own financial authority, including the one nobody tells you about: breaking the silence. This is the episode to send to your sister, your mother, your daughter, and the friend who has been carrying it all alone because taking this on gives us the opportunity to impact the world.   #EldestDaughterSyndrome #EldestDaughter #WomenAndMoney #AustralianWomen #MyHappyMoneyJourney #PhoebeBlamey #MidlifeMoney #WomenOver50

    23 min
  3. Apr 28

    S4 E23 The money conversations to have when things get too hard...

    If you’re suddenly finding yourself pausing before you open your banking app, this episode will hit close to home. Because the pressure is real right now,  rising costs, inconsistent income, tax debt, family responsibilities… it adds up. For most of us, it doesn’t explode overnight — it quietly builds until things feel tight, overwhelming, or just not sustainable anymore. In this episode, Phoebe Blamey breaks down what’s actually happening beneath financial stress, especially for capable women who are used to handling everything. We talk about why smart, successful women still end up in financial hardship… how fear and avoidance start to shape your decisions… and why confidence drops long before the numbers are fully out of control. This isn’t a “budget better” conversation. It’s a real look at how financial pressure builds — and more importantly, how to take back control without shame or panic. You’ll learn how to recognise the early signs of financial stress, what’s really going on psychologically when you start avoiding money, and the exact conversations to have when things feel unmanageable — whether that’s with your partner, your lender, or the ATO. If you’re dealing with tax debt, cash flow issues, or that constant background anxiety about money… this episode will help you step out of avoidance and into action. Because you’re not failing. You’re responding to pressure. And once you understand that — you can change it.

    20 min

About

Life changes as we get older. Kids grow up. Parents need care. Divorce, grief, and career curveballs can hit hard and suddenly, by choice or by chance, you’re in the financial driver’s seat. My Happy Money Journey is the go to money podcast for women over 40 in Australia who are ready to take control of their finances, pay off debt, buy a home, invest build wealth, and live a fabulous life! Phoebe Blamey is a bestselling author,  former award winning financial services business owner turned small business coach. The podcast explores real conversations about money, midlife transitions, financial freedom, and difficult topics like sexually transmitted debt, death, inheritance and spending, all while making money simple, manageable and doable. This is real money talk for real people. Super qualified Phoebe has a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning, a Diploma in Mortgage Broking,  an MBA, and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching  Phoebe brings 20+ years of expertise to help women heal their money stories, make smart financial choices, and thrive in this powerful life stage. Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice or recommendations.