The Happy Saver Podcast - Personal Finance in New Zealand · Ruth - Personal Finance Blogger

109. Putting Up Some Financial Scaffolding After 50

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

After the February 2011 earthquake, Julian had no job, no tenant, and a mortgage he could not pay.

1. The Happy Saver Podcast episode follows Julian, a 51-year-old from Christchurch, as he describes a long financial U-turn. 2. Ruth, a personal finance blogger in Aotearoa New Zealand, hosts the conversation and says she condenses Kiwis’ money stories into relatable essays. 3. The episode asks how a late starter moves from pay-to-pay living to the “financial scaffolding” Julian says he is now building. 4. Julian traces his background to English immigrant families, central Otago work on the Roxburgh Dam, and a childhood in Christchurch and Queensland. 5. He says his mother left school at 15, later became a nurse and district nurse, then returned to study in her 40s and finished a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a graduate diploma in Management. 6. He describes his father as an accountant who became a partner in a national accounting firm and says money was never openly discussed at home. 7. Julian says he spent pocket money quickly, failed to save from school jobs, and struggled with perfectionism, rebellion, and behaviour issues at school. 8. He tells Ruth that private-school pressure led to year 11 scraping, year 12 failure, expulsion from Christ College at 17, and a later attempt at Hagley that also ended badly. 9. His parents eventually told him before his 18th birthday that they would not keep supporting him, so he moved toward a YMCA hostel and unemployment benefit life. 10. He says his first full-time job at 18 or 19 was in a wholesale plant nursery, and that his spending still went straight to partying with mates. 11. Julian explains that his introduction to debt came in 1994 at age 20 when he took on a student loan with interest of about 8%. 12. He recalls a summer trip in a Bedford van around the North Island, a relationship with two Swedish hitchhikers, and a marriage that helped him qualify for more student allowance. 13. He says that marriage ended in Sweden after four months, after which he moved to London and then spent about 15 years in hospitality, cash jobs, and under-the-table pay across Europe and New Zealand. 14. He and a later partner bought a two-bedroom apartment in 2005 for $120,000 with an $80,000 mortgage, after saving a $40,000 deposit and drawing up a lawyer’s contract about each person’s share. 15. Julian says a second Christchurch property bought in 2006 for $149,000 sold in 2007 for $187,000, but the profit was swallowed by tax and ACC bills from contracting. 16. He describes returning to Canterbury in 2010, losing his partner, and then facing the February 2011 earthquake with no job, no tenant, and a mortgage he could not pay. 17. A construction job after the earthquake led him into a two-year quantity surveying diploma compressed into 18 months, with a Polytech grant of about $250 a week and work that kept him afloat. 18. He says the new role led to a starting salary of $60,000, then $75,000 and later about $86,500, while he also used KiwiSaver, paid off his student loan by the end of 2015, and kept buying and selling property with his mother. 19. The tone is conversational and retrospective, with Ruth pressing for numbers, dates, and concrete examples while Julian tells the story in a long-form interview style. 20. Listeners interested in New Zealand property, late financial recovery, and Christchurch earthquake rebuild stories would likely enjoy it, while people wanting quick budgeting tips may skip it.

As heard by us

A Christchurch financial reset shaped by earthquakes, retraining, and a late-2023 start.

Julian's story is a Christchurch financial reset told without fuss. Ruth traces his late start in personal finance, from the resources that surfaced for him in late 2023 to the harder background: the earthquakes, a tenant moving out, lost work after the restaurant and bar was…

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Why you'd press play

Julian's 50s reset turns earthquakes, lost work, and numbers into a practical money map.

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