Empowering women through financial literacy

In this episode of TaxVibe, Julie Abdalla speaks with Natasha Janssens, a certified money coach and founder of Women with Sense, about the importance of financial literacy and empowerment for women. They discuss Natasha's unique background, her journey from tax accountant to financial coach, and the challenges women face in discussing money.

The conversation highlights the significance of community support, overcoming limiting beliefs, and the need for financial education to protect against economic abuse. Natasha shares key takeaways for empowering women to take control of their finances and emphasises the importance of role modelling positive financial behaviours.

About Natasha

Natasha Janssens is a Certified Money Coach (CMC)® and founder of Women with Cents. She is an award-winning finance expert with a passion for supporting women to transform their relationship with money. Natasha is a high-profile speaker and the author of Wonder Woman’s Guide to Money.

Website: https://womenwithcents.com.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenwithcents/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/womenwithcents

For more information about The Tax Institute: https://www.taxinstitute.com.au/

Transcript

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Julie Abdalla: 0:08

Hello and welcome to TaxVibe, a podcast by The Tax Institute where we peel back the layers of the Australian tax world. I'm Julie Abdalla, head of tax and legal at The Tax Institute, and host for today's episode. Today, I'm joined Natasha is a high profile speaker and author of Wonder Woman's Guide to money. Today, Natasha is joining us ahead of International Women's Day on the 8th of March, and with this year's theme being balance the scales, it's the perfect time to talk about the importance of financial literacy and empowerment for women. Please note the discussion and information shared in this podcast is only for general information purposes and does not constitute financial tax or legal advice. Listeners should seek professional advice in relation to their particular circumstances. Natasha, welcome to TaxVibe

Natasha Janssens: 1:06

Thank you so much for having me.

Julie Abdalla: 1:08

We're excited to have you on, ahead of International Women's Day to talk all things money and financial empowerment for women. Let's start from the beginning. From childhood we develop inherent beliefs about money and these form part of our narrative. What was your relationship with money like growing up? Did you learn good habits from an early age or was it something that you developed over time?

Natasha Janssens: 1:29

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Julie, such a great question. So I had a very different upbringing to most Aussies. I was actually born in Uganda, and I'm Serbian by heritage, and I spent some of my childhood years in Sri Lanka as well. So my very early experiences around money were around scarcity, were around war. And so I developed a lot of anxiety around money and around having that financial security. So I learned some very, you know, difficult life lessons very early on. For example, back then, it was known as Yugoslavia, but we had, you know, something known as hyperinflation. So we had our income losing value quite rapidly. People had to learn how to survive in that environment, and, you know, how to trade currencies and all that sort of thing. We had banks go bankrupt. So I learnt a lot very early on around, you know, just being able to diversify and not putting all your eggs in one basket and those sorts of things. But what's interesting is that a lot of those life lessons as well, like I really learned predominantly around just being in that survival mode, you know, it wasn't the sort of space where we had the means to learn about things like investing, superannuation in Yugoslavia, wasn't a thing, you know, learning about taxes and mortgages and all of that. None of that existed. So when I came to Australia by myself, I really, you know, I was thrown into this completely different world where money, you know, behaved in a very different way to what I was used to.

Julie Abdalla: 3:08

It's so interesting how people's history and your life experience really shapes that perception and narrative around money. Where did you get your financial education? Was it through your family or school education? You mentioned you lived in different places along the way, or was it a situation that was more of a DIY of needing to teach yourself?

Natasha Janssens: 3:32

Yeah, I learnt the Australian system through very formal channels, so I started my career as a tax accountant, so that really taught me about the tax system, and then I became interested in exploring financial planning and mortgage brokering. So I really learned it, you know, directly from the source. You could say I didn't have any family here who could teach me any of these things. So I learned very much sort of on the go, but very much so in a professional kind of setting. The things that I learned from home were, you know, around being able to always make be employable. I think this was sort of no surprise, that I've diversified my income streams and even my career prospects so that I'm employable in any potential setting, and things like budgeting and, you know, being able to sort of survive and save your cash for emergencies and those sorts of things. But as I said before, that sort of only got me so far, learning here through sort of formal channels and through work and all of that, and through mentors, I started to learn about, you know, these ideas around growing your income, being strategic, all those sorts of things that sort of take you past that just living paycheck to paycheck and being in survival mode.

Julie Abdalla: 4:43

Yeah, you are now an acclaimed coach and speaker and author, but as you mentioned, you started your career as a tax accountant. Can you tell us a bit more about that and why you pursued the role in tax in the first place and what you learned from it? What have you also taken with you as your career has progressed?

Natasha Janssens: 5:03

Yeah, so me starting in the tax Well, tax career was sort of part serendipity and part necessity. So when I came to Australia, I was, you know, on the hunt for citizenship and residency. And so I studied whatever it would take to get me there. And so initially I actually studied software development, because developers were high in demand.

Julie Abdalla: 5:25

They still are.

Natasha Janssens: 5:26

But what happened was that back then, it was you only needed a diploma, right? So I went and did that, and unfortunately, by the time I completed that two year study, the rules had changed, and now you needed a bachelor degree. And so at that point, I went, you know what? I really I found that process of writing the code too repetitive, but I enjoyed the analytics and the strategy, and I thought, Okay, well, I'll study business and I'll become a business analyst. And I went on to do that and then find out that that wouldn't get me citizenship either. And it turned out that during this process, I was actually, as luck would have that working at an accounting firm, and I had a bit of a knack for it. And I asked, you know, well, would bachelor degree in commerce do the job? Then they said, Oh, yes, yes, the accountants are in demand. You can, if you study that, then, you know, you're a shoe in.

Julie Abdalla: 6:15

They still are too.

Unknown: 6:17

and so, and that was sort of how I ended up, sort of where I was. But what was interesting, and that sort of led me to explore extending my career, was that working as a tax accountant, I just noticed how disengaged people were from their finances. You know, they had investments that they didn't understand. I remember multiple times, having people with investment properties, they would go and refinance and restructure them, and the number of people that you know just didn't understand what they had done. And I say, you know, well, hang on, you borrowed an extra$50,000 like, where did that go? Oh, I don't know. I just, you know, my broker did it. And that frustration started to build in me over time. Because I thought, you know, I've come from poor countries where it's such a privilege to have what we have in Australia. And I was seeing these people who had so much opportunity, you know, right at their doorstep, and they were just letting it sort of fall by the wasteside. And and I thought, you know, I really want to do something to get people more interested, more proactive, you know, taking more control over their finances, more of an interest in it, and and often, you know, I would see opportunities that they had missed because they hadn't consulted, and perhaps hadn't even known that they should consult their accountant at the time of it, making a decision. So I would see them tax time, you know, sometimes a year later, and I'm like, No, you know, if you had only said that's what you were doing, you know, we could have done this, this and this, and, you know, and save you all this money and all of that. The human behavior aspect for me was the biggest, I guess, eye opener, and learning from working in tax, and that sort of propelled me into taking the next career step.

Julie Abdalla: 7:57

Yeah. And then in 2016, you founded Women with Sense, so you coach and empower women to achieve financial independence. What was it that sparked your passion for empowering women when it comes to money and financial decision making?

Natasha Janssens: 8:13

Yeah, I often say I'm the accidental feminist. This wasn't something that I had set out to do initially. In fact, I was working on starting a, and I had started a holistic finance practice where I thought, you know, it's so inefficiency, multiple advisors, you know, we know how, how much red tape there is around getting tax advice and financial advice and brokering. And I thought, oh, gosh, this is rather inefficient. You're having the same conversation multiple times. How about I? I might just go and set something up holistic. And so I did that. And as Murphy's law would have it, after years of being unable to get pregnant, I also got pregnant, and that kind of then knocked me into a different, I guess, career pathway, because I then started to engage with mothers groups, and we were often, you know, you know, back then Facebook groups were just starting, and so that was the online forum where mum's would connect. And there were often conversations happening around money in the online forums. But because finance and financial advice is so heavily male dominated, you know, it was sometimes the case of the blind leading the blind, because there was no one there who was qualified in this area to sort of moderate these conversations, and with the support of the women and my mother's group, we said, well, let's set up a group that's dedicated to women talking about finances. And then we sort of started doing workshops and all that kind of thing. And it just sort of naturally grew from there. But it wasn't something that when I said I was going to become self employed and start my own practice. It wasn't something that was a vision at the time. It just sort of came out of, yeah, just observing and responding to

Julie Abdalla: 9:48

Real life experience.

Natasha Janssens: 9:49

Exactly, and just responding to what the community was saying that they needed. And there was a clear gap in market at that time

Julie Abdalla: 9:56

And talking about money is quite difficult. I think often it causes people to feel a bit exposed. They don't want to be seen as prying about the financial situations of other people in the workplace. It can manifest between employers and employees negotiating salaries or negotiating fees with clients. How can women become more confident when it comes to speaking about money in these sort of forums.

Natasha Janssens: 10:24

Yeah, and it's interesting that you say that, because I surveyed our member base when I was first starting the business, and something that really surprised me coming at it as a tax accountant, was just how much anxiety and fear and shame women held from even going and getting advice, so I'd get all these questions, like, I'm afraid to ask my accountant, what's the medicare levy surcharge? Or what is this? Because I'm afraid that they will judge me. I'm afraid to go and get advice, because I'm worried that they will look at my finances and judge me for what I have done or what I haven't done. So I think as professionals working in that space, it's important for us to maintain that awareness that, you know, these might be some of the obstacles that our clients are facing when they come and see us, even though, you know, it was something that never crossed my mind. I would, you know, I'd look at the numbers. It would all be very matter of fact, it never even occurred to me that someone would think that I was, you know, judging their question or judging their situation, because I was there to assist and look at how to improve things, not to pass judgment. So that really caught me off guard.

Julie Abdalla: 11:29

Navigating those internalised beliefs or fears.

Natasha Janssens: 11:33

That's right. Yeah, yeah. So I think the way for women to build more confidence in this space is to honestly, just to go and talk about this stuff more, because, and this is sort of where it was so powerful, having workshops and having women in the same room, because as soon as then, one person raises their hand and goes, Oh, hang on, what exactly does that mean? Or can you clarify that everyone else goes, I had that same question, or I was facing that same challenge. Now you start to realise for certain that you are not alone in what you're experiencing. You're not alone in your challenges. You know, it's not you, you're not making any, you know, horrible mistake. You're just navigating what you can. You know the best of you know how. And I think with that, then confidence starts to grow as far as being able to speak up, being able to ask questions, then you get more comfortable having these conversations, and then I think it just sort of grows from

Julie Abdalla: 12:29

One of the things that you mentioned earlier about there. people not wanting to talk about their finance or not really being aware of it. You would know this from your own experience in tax as well, but we see that a lot in the tax space, where, other than our practitioner community, who do like to talk about tax, most people don't want to know about it. They don't want to think about it, let alone talk about it. But that kind of attitude can be limiting, if you have ambitions to start or grow a business, if you want to invest money, you talked about diversifying earlier on, even if you want to run a side hustle, you might not be aware of the opportunities that are available to you, especially if you don't seek out the support of professional advice. So what kind of limiting money beliefs or attitudes do you see from the women that you work with?

Natasha Janssens: 13:20

So I will say, and I'm sure as tax professionals, we've all seen this. A lot of people carry a lot of fear and anxiety around tax, so there is a lot of avoidance to even engage with this topic. But I do find women do struggle with just that false narrative that I'm no good with math, or I'm no good with money, or this is too much or too hard or too complicated for me. And what is great to see is that the moment they start to engage with it, the moment they start to tackle some of these challenges, they start to realise actually it wasn't anywhere near that, is what I built it up in my head. So the more that we can do around connecting with our community and getting them to realise that you know what your tax advisor is a source of support. And again, the earlier on you have these strategic and planning sessions, the better you can then set yourself up for future success. You know, the better it will be for them from that point of view.

Julie Abdalla: 14:20

And that sense of community, it makes enormous difference when you're trying to tackle these things, especially for the first time on your own, it can be quite daunting and easy to perpetuate feelings of self doubt or that anxiety that you spoke of, but when you have the right kind of networks and supports, whether it's within your workplace or your broader professional networks or in your mother's group with other people that you can share these sort of experiences, do you find that makes quite a difference in developing confidence around talking about money and engaging with their finances?

Natasha Janssens: 14:57

Yeah, I think so, and I think we're fortunate, to live in the age of technology that we do in that it's so easy to access these conversations, whether it's listening to podcasts like this, or YouTube videos and that kind of thing. So I think it's moving in the right direction. As far as giving people more access to it, we now just need to get them to actually tune in and listen to these things. But I think through conversation as well. You know, as human beings, we learn best through stories. You know, we remember all this intonation much better, and it's far less daunting, and it's not in a boring, you know, lecture style, where you're learning about, there is tax structures and all that. So I think there's a lot of power there as well, as far as business owners, you know, just talking to each other around, oh, yeah, you know, when I start, I'm thinking of doing this, or I set up this structural and that opens up that conversation, because it's hard with a lot of finance things, but tax in particular, it's hard to know what you don't know. You know, what question do you ask when you don't really know, sort of what that spectrum is?

Julie Abdalla: 15:54

You don't know what you don't know?

Natasha Janssens: 15:56

Yep.

Julie Abdalla: 15:57

Now I want to talk to you about something a bit more serious. We have ABS data from 2021 2022 that tells us that about 16% of Australian women, which is about 1.6 million women, and 7.8% of men, have experienced economic abuse by a partner. And broader evidence tells us that the economic abuse is severely underreported, so these numbers are likely to be significant underestimates. We see finances and the tax system weaponized in situations of domestic abuse, for example, when a woman or it can be a man, but data does show us, it's overwhelmingly more commonly a woman when she is made a director of a romantic partners company without any real knowledge of what that means, or is coerced into doing so, and then when things go wrong, they're left on the hook for enormous tax debts and other kinds of liabilities. How can people, and particularly women, protect themselves from getting into these kind of situations?

Natasha Janssens: 16:59

Yeah, so I think again, not being afraid to ask questions, I think, is really important. So this is often the thing where we just feel like, okay, it's inappropriate for me to be asking now, this and that, but we don't want to be the same thing that I said in my clients. Don't invest in anything you don't understand. It's the same sort of thing, as far as you know. Don't attach your name to anything that you don't understand. So not being afraid to ask those questions. You know if you're feeling pressured or rushed into making a certain decision, or even if you're not, you know, just going and taking a step back, giving yourself some time to contemplate this, and then going and getting a second or even a third opinion that is an independent way from you know, your your spouse or partner you know, who is most likely their accountant, because often, as financial advisors and as tax expert, we're not, per se, in the headspace of thinking that there is something sinister taking place. So we're so focused on the tax savings and structure and this and that, that we might sometimes miss something else sort of that's going on. So I think as advisors, it's important for us to take a step back and think around okay, what might be some of the potential consequences of this taking place and really encouraging, if there is a partner that's not involved in the business. They're sort of just coming along. You can see they're sitting in the meetings. They're not engaging. They're not asking questions, to encourage them to go and get their own advice, and for us to also be like a little bit of a stopping point there, just to make sure that everyone is, you know, on the same page and informed and understanding what they're getting into but again, it comes back to increasing financial knowledge and financial understanding for everyone, women in particular, and doing what we can to make them feel comfortable to ask questions and seek second and third opinions without feeling like they're going to offend us for speaking up.

Julie Abdalla: 18:56

Yeah, there is that important role of advisors not to be professional counselors, but to identify red flags that they might see through their interactions with the different clients, and things that might not seem quite right, where they can intervene at that point to assist their clients. One thing that we're The Tax Institute and our members are focused on is working constructively with government. This is not a challenge that can be resolved on our own or at the individual level. We need to address structural issues that lead to and enable this kind of abuse. And in this regard, it's been quite positive to see several government announcements and works in progress to achieve this, but there's certainly still plenty to be done now. Natasha, I have one last question for you, what are the key takeaways that you would like our listeners to reflect on, to better support and empower more women to be financially healthy and empowered? And there's so many in your book, I've found that such an interesting read and there's a lot of helpful guidance in there that really makes you think beyond just the numbers, the narrative around that and other kinds of perspectives and beliefs around your engagement with your finances. But over to you, tell me, what do you think your key takeaways should be?

Natasha Janssens: 20:17

Well, I think the first one is to make people aware, or perhaps remind them if they already knew that money is not just math and logic. So we often associate it with and so we think, Well, if our clients understood tech structures and this, that the other then they would engage better. And this is a trap that I fell into. So I wrote a book, I ran webinars, all that kind of thing, but knowing how stuff works and having that financial literacy is an important component, but it's a much smaller component compared to our financial EQ. So having that emotional intelligence around money, looking at our habits, looking at our emotions, how do we navigate financial decisions when we get stressed and overwhelmed, you know, do we panic and bury our heads in the sand and we make an awful decision just to make it go away? What are our defaults? And that's important, especially when you're looking at the women in your life, and how can you best empower them? Because it's not enough, particularly for the next generation, for us to tell them what to do, we need to role model that? Because again, they will repeat the behaviors that they observe around them. You know, we started off talking about where I learned around money, so all of us will be learning from it. As children growing up by observing what is happening around us. So as adults, as parents, we need to be mindful of what are the messages that we are, perhaps subconsciously even sending to our kids, and is that the intentional message? Do we need to tweak the way we talk about it and bringing them on board and sort of really role modeling that skill set around women being more engaged with their finances. So if there's a woman in their life who can mentor them, and I find that a lot of the women that I work with today who are really engaged with their finances and with their super they had that type of upbringing growing up. So that becomes a really important part. And the other part, I think, is we need to start teaching women to think of their financial independence in terms of risk management. So there's been a long time phrase around that a man is not a financial plan. But I think an equally important message is that your ability to earn your own income is your greatest asset, right? So how do we risk manage that as we enter adulthood? What are some of the things that might challenge that, like getting into a relationship, like having children and taking a career break, all those sorts of things. I think it's really important for us to get women and girls thinking about in that context. I think that will put them in a better position to maintain that financial independence. You know, it won't eliminate the risk, but it'll significantly mitigate the ability of someone being able to scan them or take advantage of them in some way, or manipulate them into doing something that they don't want to do.

Julie Abdalla: 23:10

You have left us with so much there to reflect on. Thank you so much for being here, Natasha, and sharing your experiences and your views about the importance of financial literacy and empowerment for women. It's certainly been a timely discussion as we celebrate International Women's Day coming up on the 8th of March. Thanks again, Natasha.

Natasha Janssens: 23:29

Thanks so much.

Julie Abdalla: 23:30

I've been chatting with Natasha Janssens, founder of Women with Sense. If you've enjoyed today's discussion, there's more just like it coming up in TaxVibe in 2026 subscribe rate and review TaxVibe wherever you listen to keep up with us. If you're interested in being at the center of the tax conversation. A membership with The Tax Institute is just what you need. Stay current and connected with tangible, real world benefits. Learn more at the taxinstitute.com.au. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time you you.