Money with Alpha

My daughter was 6 years old the first time she came on this podcast. This time, at 11, she asked to come back on.

We sat down to talk about what she's actually absorbed about money over the years, just from being around it. It's a more personal episode than usual, and it turned into an honest look at how kids learn money habits long before anyone sits them down to teach it properly.

Topics covered:

• What an 11 year old actually understands about money, in her own words
• Why spending is the easiest lesson kids pick up, and why earning, investing and giving take more deliberate conversation
• The real challenge of teaching kids about money when cash is disappearing from the places they spend it
• How we set her up with a locked-down debit card for a cashless excursion, and what we turned off (no cash out, no online purchases, no gambling)
• Bank and micro-investing options for kids, including Spriggy and child investing accounts
• The investment bond we set up for her at birth, and how we're starting to explain the trust structure behind it
• Why financial literacy still isn't taught properly in schools
• What she would tell other parents about talking to their kids about money
• Our family's annual Live Like Her Challenge, sleeping in the car for one night to support women and families facing homelessness, and why we've done it three years running

Notable quotes:

• "It's the earning part, and then it's learning how to spend it wisely... and then it also becomes investing."
• "Money is definitely important to a big chunk of our lives, and we need to acknowledge that."
• "It's no wonder that by the time we actually get to adulthood, what we mainly know how to do is spend."

Resources mentioned:

• Spriggy (kids' money app)
• Raiz (micro-investing ap)
• Live Like Her Challenge: donate by 3 September 2026: Live Like Her Challenge 2026 - Brisbane | Alpha & Anouk Schulte
• Money Made Simple: www.moneymadesimple.com.au

Making more money and keeping more money are not the same skill. In this episode, Alpha unpacks why so many capable, hardworking people hit an invisible ceiling, whether that's in salary, business revenue or savings, and why the answer usually isn't "work harder." It's building the capacity to actually hold what comes in.

In this episode:

• The two-container analogy: why the size of the container you've built, not your effort, decides how much money (or time, or anything else) you end up holding
• How to tell whether you're operating from abundance or from a lack mindset, and why that shows up in the body before it shows up in your bank account
• Why some people sabotage their own income growth without realising it, because on some level more money doesn't feel safe
• The truth about women and investing: the caution that gets mistaken for fear is actually a strength
• Alpha's own experience receiving an inheritance after her father's passing, and why she deliberately slowed down before making any decisions with it
• Why money is energy that wants to move and grow, not just sit still, and how the Money Pie framework creates a simple system for that.

Most women aren't taught how to invest. We're taught to save, to budget, and if we're lucky, to buy a house. Share trading gets filed under "too risky" or "not for me" before we've even looked at it properly. This week I'm talking with Kaki Lee, a former chief pharmacist of 20 years who discovered a trading strategy called covered calls while on maternity leave and replaced her hospital income within six months. She now runs Cashflow Queen, teaching women how to trade on the US stock market with a strategy that can also protect up to 95% of your capital.

We get into why mindset makes up 80% of trading success (and strategy only 20%), what a covered call actually is in plain English, how much money you genuinely need to start, and why "share trading isn't for women" is a myth that needs to die. Kaki also shares how she's teaching her 11-year-old daughter to trade, and why paying more tax often means you're doing something right.

About Kaki Lee

Kaki spent 20 years in pharmacy, working her way up to chief pharmacist at a children's hospital in Perth. After the birth of her second child, she started trading covered calls and replaced her pharmacist income within six months, eventually leaving the profession altogether. Since then she's been a life coach, a podcaster, and is now the founder of Cashflow Queen, a 3-month one-on-one program teaching women to trade covered calls on the US stock market while working through the money mindset that trips most people up. She's also a multi-author and solo published author of four books, including Badass Asian Women.

What we cover

• Kaki's 20-year career in pharmacy and the leap into share trading during maternity leave
• What covered calls are, explained without the jargon
• Why mindset and energy make up 80% of trading success
• How Kaki teaches students to protect up to 95% of their capital
• The myth that share trading "isn't for women," and where that belief actually comes from
• How much money you actually need to get started (it's less than you think)
• Why paying more tax can be a sign you're getting ahead, not behind
• Teaching her 11-year-old daughter to trade
• Inside Cashflow Queen, Kaki's 3-month one-on-one program

Key takeaways

• You don't need tens of thousands of dollars to start. Kaki's minimum is around $2,000 USD, with $10,000 AUD as her "sweet spot."
• Confidence is built by doing, not by waiting until you feel ready.
• The stock market rewards people with a strategy, especially when markets get volatile. Anyone can make money when markets are going up.
• "Not for women" is a story, not a fact. It's worth questioning where our own risk beliefs actually come from.

Connect with Kaki

• Website: https://www.kakilee.com/cashflowqueen
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kakilee888
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kakilee888/
• Book a free chat with Kaki: https://calendly.com/kakilee/wealthtea?month=2026-07

Disclaimer: This episode shares Kaki's personal approach and experience with share trading. It's general education and conversation, not personal financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances, and talk to a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions.

This week I'm joined by Kerstin Rheinländer, a bespoke travel planner who's spent decades helping busy professionals travel in a way that actually restores them instead of travelling like the busy person they are on a day to day basis.

Kerstin isn't a travel agent. She builds journeys around who you are and what you actually need, not a list of places to photograph and post on social media. We talk about the difference between a holiday that exhausts you and one that restores you, why "bespoke" doesn't have to mean expensive, and what she learned about herself walking the Camino de Santiago after losing both her parents within months of each other.

But the part of this conversation that stuck with me most was about money. When we plan travel, it's often to tick a place of a bucket list. In years gone by, travel was a chance to experience new cultures, to expand our thinking, and to connect with ourselves and our loved ones as we experienced adventures with them.

What we cover:

• What "bespoke travel" actually means (it's not necessarily about luxury)

• Why exhaustion after a holiday isn't a badge of honour

• Kerstin's experience walking the Camino de Santiago after losing both parents last year

• The guilt women feel about spending time and money on themselves, especially in the "sandwich generation"

• Why we'll pay for a course we never finish but hesitate to invest in something that could genuinely change us

• What AI itineraries get wrong, and why judgment still can't be automated

• Where Kerstin is seeing real shifts in how people want to travel now

Quotable moment:

"Why is it so easy to justify spending money on things that we own, but we have a difficult time spending money on an experience that could actually shape who we are or who we can become?" – Kerstin Rheinländer

Connect with Kerstin:

Kerstin Rheinlander | TravelManagers

Kerstin Rheinlander | LinkedIn

Instagram

This week Alpha breaks down six money personalities she has identified after years of working with female entrepreneurs and their partners: the Capable Avoider, the Busy Earner, the Optimistic Drifter, the Overwhelmed Achiever, the Intentional Builder and the Foundation Maker.

None of them are good or bad. They are a reflection of where you are at right now, shaped by life stage, upbringing, relationships and how much support you have had along the way. Alpha walks through what each type sounds like, what it costs to stay there, and what actually shifts things. Plus, she shares the free 10 question diagnostic she built to help you find out which one you are.

Why archetypes are not about boxing yourself in, they are about spotting common patterns

• The Capable Avoider: financially capable, but manages money at arm's length

• The Busy Earner: good income in the business, very little personal wealth to show for it

• The Optimistic Drifter: a healthy relationship with money but no structure to make it stick

• The Overwhelmed Achiever: high functioning everywhere except money, running on capacity not discipline

• The Intentional Builder: doing the right things but frustrated that progress feels slow

• The Foundation Maker: earlier in the money journey, often after a life reset, and completely okay to be there

Why the cost of avoidance is more than financial, it is the mental load, and how Alpha built the diagnostic tool, with a bit of AI help and a lot of real client data.

Take the free Money Personality quiz: moneymadesimple.com.au/quiz (10 questions, no email required to see your results)

This week I'm talking with Jo Goddard, founder of I'm Her Women's Wellbeing, a Brisbane-based wellness space specialising in touch-based modalities. Jo is a bodyworker, energy healer, and sacred sexological bodywork practitioner who holds space for women moving through all kinds of life seasons.

We covered a lot of ground. From what Kahuna massage actually is and why Jo calls it her "gateway drug," to the idea that touch isn't a love language, it's a survival language.

We also got into money. Jo's own money story, why barter and energy exchanges can quietly limit your business growth, and what it means to invest in yourself when everything around you feels uncertain.

If you've ever thought your relationship with money lives only in your head, this episode might shift that.

In this episode we talk about:

• What I'm Her Women's Wellbeing is and the range of modalities Jo offers
• The difference between Kahuna massage and Lomi Lomi — and why they're both more than just massage
• Why some women don't feel safe being touched, and what that's really about
• How bodywork helps process suppressed emotions — including rage and grief
• Jo's money story — how money was used as control in her family growing up
• Why barter and energy exchanges can limit your business, and when they genuinely make sense
• What Jo is seeing in her business right now — why discernment is different from scarcity
• The difference between "I can't afford it" and "It's not a priority"

About Jo Goddard:

Jo also runs Braless Brunches: community events designed to give women permission to show up exactly as they are.

Connect with Jo:

https://www.imherwomenswellbeing.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jogoddard6

https://www.instagram.com/im.her_womenswellbeing/

AI is everywhere right now, including in the money space. But before you hand over your finances to a bot, it's worth understanding what AI is actually good at, and where it falls completely flat.

In this episode, Alpha breaks down the real story on AI and money management. She shares why she ended up building the Prosperess app after trying to use AI alone for bank statement analysis (spoiler: it wasn't pretty), the story of a couple who drove off a cliff following GPS, and why a counselling bot once told someone to end their life.

She covers what AI genuinely does well: data analysis, automating repetitive tasks, running calculations, and where it simply cannot replace a human. Understanding your money identity, your values, your lifestyle goals, and your emotional relationship with money? That's not something you can outsource to a machine.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why "artificial" is the key word in artificial intelligence
• What AI is genuinely useful for in money management
• The limitations of AI when it comes to behaviour, beliefs, and identity around money
• How Alpha used AI to help build Prosperess, and where it kept getting it wrong
• Why your intuition is still your most powerful financial tool
• When to call in a real human professional (and what kind)

Key Takeaways:

1. AI is a tool for data, not for understanding you as a person
2. If you don't know what question to ask, AI can't fill that gap for you
3. Your money identity, values, and habits need human-level understanding to shift
4. Always verify AI outputs before relying on them for financial decisions
5. Trust your intuition, even when the answer comes from a human

Resources Mentioned:

• Prosperess app

In this episode, Alpha opens up the Thriving Money System. It's the same system she uses with every single client, and the one she comes back to herself whenever something in her own money life starts to drift.

The Thriving Money System has 6 steps: Clarity, Mindset, Education, Systemize, Review, and Wealth. And before you assume this is another rigid, follow-steps-in-order framework, it's not. Think of it more like a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces don't always go together in sequence. What matters is that they all eventually connect.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why clarity is the most underestimated and impactful step in building wealth (and why so many people skip it)
• The real reason women carry so much baggage around money, and why it goes deeper than your parents
• What "education" about money actually looks like (hint: it's not textbooks and spreadsheets)
• What happens when the system clicks, and why clients so often say "why did I not do this sooner?"
• How often to review your finances, and what life events should trigger one
• What Step 6, Wealth, actually means, including the estate planning stuff most people put off until it's urgent

Key takeaways:

• The 6 steps are Clarity, Mindset, Education, Systemise, Review, Wealth
• You don't have to go in order. You can work on them in parallel. You just need to have done some clarity and mindset work before jumping straight to wealth.
• Pattern interrupts can be intentional or forced. Alpha strongly recommends the intentional kind.
• A money review doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to happen.
• The "should" word around money is a sign you haven't set up your system yet.

Work with Alpha:

• Full 1:1 Mentoring Program: www.moneymadesimple.com.au/accelerator
• Financial Future Review (single session): www.moneymadesimple.com.au/review
• Prosperess App: prosperess.net
• Money Essentials (self-paced course): www.moneymadesimple.com.au/money-essentials
• Free Clarity Chat (15 minutes): www.moneymadesimple.com.au/clarity-chat

This one's a bit of a pep talk, and honestly, it's one I needed for myself too.

This year has thrown a lot of people off, and if you've been feeling like things are just harder than they should be right now, this episode is for you. I'm sharing 5 things that help me when life (or money stuff) feels overwhelming, and they work whether you're dealing with a to-do list that won't quit or trying to get your head around your finances.

Because here's the truth: you can do hard things. You just need a bit of structure to prove it to yourself.

In this episode I cover:

1. Write it down. Get it out of your head and onto a list before your brain loses it.
2. Schedule time for strategic thinking separately from tactical planning. They use different brain cells.
3. Don't look at the big picture too often. Set the strategy, trust it, and let it run.
4. Do one thing at a time. Complete it. Then move to the next.
5. Keep going. Consistent micro steps beat one big leap every single time.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Financial Future Review: a 90-minute targeted session to get clear on where you are, where you're going, and what to do next: https://www.moneymadesimple.com.au/review

In this episode, Alpha sits down with Francesca Casaro, developmental educator, autism and ADHD specialist, and founder of Neuro Connections, to talk about what neurodivergence actually is, why so many people are only getting diagnosed in adulthood, and how to stop working against your brain and start working with it.

Francesca's path is a fascinating one. Born in Italy, she moved to New Zealand, had a daughter, and it was only when her daughter started school that the journey toward diagnosis began, for her daughter, and eventually for Francesca herself. Both are autistic and ADHD. Rather than sitting with that information, Francesca went deep, completed a Master of Autism Neurodivergence, and built a career supporting autistic and ADHD families.

This conversation is warm, honest, and genuinely useful, whether you're navigating neurodivergence yourself, supporting a child, or simply trying to understand why some things feel so much harder than they should.

· What developmental education actually is (and why it's different from teaching)

· Why autism isn't more common, we just understand it better now

· What a 'spiky cognitive profile' means and why it matters

· Why formal labels can be useful, but only when they give you tools, not more shame

· The neurodiversity movement and what 'neuro-affirmative' practice actually looks like

· How hyperfocus is a strength, not just an ADHD trait to manage

· What to do if you suspect neurodivergence, in yourself or your child, without a formal diagnosis

· Practical strategies for money avoidance when your brain works differently

· Why working to your strengths matters more than fixing your weaknesses

Francesca is a developmental educator and founder of Neuro Connections, based in Brisbane. She holds a Master of Autism Neurodivergence and works with autistic and ADHD individuals aged 9 and up, and their families. She also works as a facilitator with Reframing Autism. Francesca works face-to-face in limited capacity and offers telehealth sessions Australia-wide.

Find Francesca: https://neuroconnections.au/