How Kelly built a $280K portfolio and bought two investment properties before 30

**Kelly** (0:00)
I'm like that bossy girl who has to know where my money is going. I was questioning myself essentially, like is nine to five all there is to do? Like you just work in nine to five, save money, and hopefully you can have a comfortable retirement. I always thought it was for the rich people, because you see in movies, right? Like Wall Street, everyone is rich and you get to invest. But then I wish that was something that I knew a lot earlier. I think if you're not learning, you are quite behind in general.

**Jess** (0:32)
Thank you so much to ShopBack for sponsoring the series, and helping keep all of our content free. Welcome back to Get Started Investing, a show that helps you make the most of your money. This is how I got started. It's a series where I sit down with a community member to hear the highs and lows of their journey to investing. These are real stories and we hope they're going to give you the confidence that investing is for anyone.
Today, I'm joined by Kelly. She's a 28-year-old manager in Data and AI Consultancy. Kelly's built a share portfolio worth $280,000 and purchased two investment properties. But none of that happened overnight. Years of saving taught Kelly the value of money, but also led her to a bigger question. Was saving alone enough to actually build the life that she wanted? So how did Kelly go from saving every dollar she earned to building a life where her money works just as hard as she does? This is how Kelly got started.
Kelly, welcome to Get Started Investing.

**Kelly** (1:26)
Thank you for having me.

**Jess** (1:27)
Now we start every episode with the same question. If money was a friend, what kind of friend would you be to it?

**Kelly** (1:33)
Oh, that's a difficult one.
I feel like I'm the bossy but gentle friend. I need to know where my money is going, where my money is coming from. But I guess I'm also very gentle with it. I would spend my money, but I'm also very cautious where I am spending the money. So I'm not too bossy but also bossy at the same time.

**Jess** (1:52)
You sound balanced in a way.

**Kelly** (1:54)
Maybe a balanced friend.

**Jess** (1:56)
We'll get into all of that, I'm sure, as we talk through this. Before we rewind and go back to a bit more about your money journey, paint me a picture. What does life look like for you today?

**Kelly** (2:06)
Maybe I don't want to talk too much up, but I feel like at the moment, life is actually really good, is quite balanced. I feel like I'm at a spot where I feel like I'm doing quite well in terms of my financial situation and also my career as well.
I feel like I can take it further, but at the moment, I'm just sorting out on where I want to invest next and where I even want to live as well, because I don't know if I want to live in Sydney forever, given how expensive Sydney is for housing. I also don't know where my next step would be. I reckon at the moment, I'm just going with the flow.

**Jess** (2:43)
You're allowed to be proud of yourself by the way. I feel like you're killing it.

**Kelly** (2:45)
I feel like my parents, I should be proud of myself. I also feel like maybe when I was growing up, my grandma, it's always like, you always want to be a humble person. So I think if you are too proud of yourself, you tend to be stagnant at where you're at. So I tend to have that maybe like humble approach in terms of like where I'm with life. I feel like I'm doing pretty well compared to maybe like people around my age bracket. But I also feel like I can do a lot more, if that makes sense.

**Jess** (3:12)
Yeah, it's a continuous journey, but you're doing really well. And what about work? What do you do for work?

**Kelly** (3:19)
So my background is finance and law.
So I was going to be a lawyer, but I did that for six months and I was kind of bored. Yeah. And so I actually took like a whole, like transitions to data and AI. So like, yeah, so I transitioned my career, maybe about three years ago. So I went from like sort of finance and law area to data and AI. So now I'm a data and AI consultant.

**Jess** (3:41)
Good spot to be though.

**Kelly** (3:42)
Yeah, I think it's like where the future is heading. And I feel like in terms of like job security, I'm at a good spot.