Hold on tight! This money diarist is a 32-year-old single mum who has managed to buy a house, an investment property and a Land Rover – all within 12 months, without help! She comes from a corporate banking background and was super unhappy in her marriage. At the age of 29 she left the marriage with only $60 to her name. She began dabbling in OnlyFans and has made – wait for it – $400,000 last year! Truly epic.
Tell us a little bit about your money story?
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m driven by money or that money is a priority for me. However, stability and structure is really important to me as a single mum. I didn’t have that growing up and I realised quite quickly that money was the tool to help achieve that stability, not only for me but for my kids as well.
What do you do for work and how much money do you earn?
I’m a full-time OnlyFans creator and last financial year I sold over $400,000 worth of nude content.
How does it actually work? Can you break down how you generate income, because you don’t just chuck up a nude picture and someone buys it, right?
The way I like to explain OnlyFans is it’s like Instagram but for nudity. It costs people to follow or subscribe to my page, so that’s one avenue; I make money from a subscription price. Then I charge people to talk to me, so that’s another avenue. Then I make videos either of myself or with co-stars and sell that. So that’s three different income streams. I also run campaigns where I want to buy this toy or this set of lingerie and ask people if they’ll contribute to it, so that’s another stream. OnlyFans is the umbrella and there are a lot of different streams that come under that umbrella.
Being known as a subscription service, a lot of people probably think if you earn $400,000, that must mean you have 400,000 subscribers. But that’s not how it works, is it?
No. On my page, it’s like a girlfriend experience, so I’m very close with my subscribers. I’ve actually got quite a low number of subscribers, but they spend a significant amount compared to a lot of other girls who might have 100,000 subscribers who are only spending a couple of dollars each.
What’s your big money goal? What are you currently working towards?
Ever since 19, my big money goal was to buy a house. I wanted to do it all on my own and have it just in my name, and that became even more important to me when I became a single mum. I thought it would be amazing if I could do that one day, so that’s why I got into this industry. I vowed to hustle hard until I bought a house. And, actually, I did buy a house in December last year! So then it was like, okay, what’s next?!
So I’ve also just bought an investment property. My new big money goal is my retirement strategy: I want to buy one property per year, minimum, for the next eight years. The aim is to be able to retire at 40.
Incredible. And all this happened straight after you got divorced with only $60 in your bank account? You had a friend doing OnlyFans and thought, let’s give it a hot crack.
Yes, I had absolutely no experience in the industry. I’m just a mum from the suburbs and I do not look anything like a porn star. I come from a banking background! My parents got divorced when I was young which was the beginning of a long road of instability for me and my siblings. When I got divorced, I looked at my two beautiful little kids and thought there was no way I was going to let them down for anyone or for anything. I don’t care what society says, I’m doing this for my boys.
You sound so happy being able to provide for your family. So, tell us more about the investment property and any other investments you might have.
I put money away into super and I’ve played around with shares and crypto a little bit. However, they don’t really fit into my risk appetite because I’m hellbent on having everything safe and secure. I think it’s a really great option for some, but not for me. So most of my investments are in super and property.
Your investment outside of superannuation makes sense if you want to retire by 40, because you can’t access super until retirement age, which in Australia is 65. So your property makes good sense. And, do you have any debts?
I have a mortgage of about $220,000 on a house I bought for $270,000. I was really, really lucky to get in at a great point in time as its value has risen since I bought – it’s now worth about $320,000. So it’s gone up about $50,000 in six months.
What’s your best money habit?
My best money habit is when I have a goal, I get obsessed with it. So when I bought this house, I just went and put in an offer, then called my broker and was like, I’ve just bought a house!
He asked me why I’d done that and where I was getting the deposit from. Fortunately I’d already managed to save $42,000 in about eight weeks, so I had it covered.
As soon as I set myself a goal, I work until I hit it. Like, with my investment property, I was supposed to be using the equity in my home to buy it, but then my broker said that the bank wouldn’t let me do that and that I’d have to come up with $70,000 before settlement, in four weeks’ time. He offered to get me out of the contract but I told him, no, that’s okay, I’ll find the money. And I did. When I have a goal, I just get obsessed with it and I can’t handle the thought of not reaching it. So that’s kind of how I structure things, which probably isn’t the best financial advice, but that’s what works for me.
What’s your worst money habit?
If I don’t have a goal, I’m not very good at saving money. I could have been saving this whole time towards my deposit, but although I haven’t spent a lot on material things, I’m really big on experiences. So I’ll take the kids for weekends away and just spend up.
Look, I always say that so long as your decisions align with your values, then that’s what matters. So how would you grade your money habits?
I think a B or a C. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, but I could definitely be better with more focus.
Before you were in the sex industry, what were you doing? You were a mum, you were married, but what were you doing for work?
I worked as a corporate banker. I started working in the industry at 17 and I thought I was going to do it for a couple of years and then go travelling, but I ended up staying there. It was good; I always had enough money, but I never had any extra and once I got married that got worse. I married at 22 – way too young now that I think back on it – and we just had very different attitudes to money, which is not my fault and it’s not his fault. It was just different. Once we separated, it was actually really cool to have all the responsibility on me because then I could make all the deci sions. I think I made more responsible decisions then because I had nobody to fall back on. No-one was coming to save me. If I didn’t make things work for the kids, then they weren’t going to have a roof over their heads. So that forced me into better money habits.
How much were you earning as a corporate banker?
I was on just over $100,000 a year, but I don’t know where it all went. I never seemed to be able to go out for lunch or dinner or anything like that. I think it was because I had extra people to pay for and take care of. Once we separated, it was just me and the two kids and I seemed to make the money stretch further.
It sounds like you weren’t on top of your cashflow at the time. How did you find going from $100,000 to over $400,000? Have you found yourself leaning on professionals to give you advice or did you learn how to do it yourself along the way?
I’m really lucky that I know a little bit from my banking experience. However, I do enlist the help of professionals. I have an investment strategist, I have a bookkeeper and I have an accountant because even though I think I know a little bit, I didn’t go to university and study any of this. So I’m happy to hand the reins over to them. They do the things that they’re the experts in and I do the things that I’m the expert in, which is running my business.
Was there a learning curve jumping from the lower to the higher income?
The first thing I learnt was just how useless I am at accounting. I thought I could do my own bookkeeping and my own tax return. No, I could not! I know what I’m doing with numbers, but when I had to look at company structures and things like that, it was a smart idea to get advice from someone who knew what they were doing.
I want to know a bit more about OnlyFans. As a young mum, how did you decide to switch from corporate banking and give it a crack?
I really never intended to do it long-term. Initially, I thought I’d do it for a month or so. I was going to be anonymous, clear some bills and then move on with my life. However, once the money started rolling in I was hooked. And I was also outed very early on. Somebody contacted my ex-husband, my parents, my family; they took screenshots of me and sent the images to all the school dads.
I had people contact the police, child protection, everything. It was a really hard time because I just felt like I was at a fork in the road and could either be like, okay guys, I’m sorry, I should never have done this. Or I could say, you know what? I’m going to do this and I’m going to do it for my kids.
Someone even told me I wasn’t attractive and that I was fat, that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I’d never make it. I just thought, you watch me, I’ll make as much money as I want to because I’m so motivated by those two little people in my life. If I don’t make money for them, nobody else is going to.
I always say no-one hustles like a single parent. And it really propelled me, having all that stigma and judgement. It motivated me even more to make sure that I succeeded. I’ve already got this reputation now. I’ve already got this stigma attached to me. If these people are going to shame me and call me a whore, then I’m going to be the best whore they’ve ever seen!
That’s a good way to own it. People can be so mean. But actively trying to bring you down probably got you more publicity?
Exactly. Each to their own. I personally am not going to go out and become a mechanic, but I don’t have anything against someone who does that. I’m not going to tell them they shouldn’t do it, that it’s a dirty and greasy job. If it makes them happy, who cares? I don’t understand why it’s not the same for people in the sex industry. People think that they get to have an opinion on it, when really, they don’t.
Ultimately, it’s your choice. There’s this stereotype that if you’re in the sex industry, it must be out of desperation. It must be that you’re on drugs or not doing the right thing or you’re a subpar human, but you’re just a mum who wants to put food on the table and give your kids the best life.
Thank you. It’s something I get really passionate about. I talk quite openly about the fact that I don’t look like your typical porn star. I’ve got cellulite and stretch marks and I’ve got that wobbly tummy because I’ve had pregnancies. My body didn’t bounce back, which is fine. Before I started on OnlyFans, I’d never even been to a strip club. This isn’t something that I was supposed to do, but it’s something that I fell into and now I wonder why was I working at the bank! Imagine how far ahead I’d be if I’d done this years ago. The stigma that’s attached to it is worth the happiness I have now and it’s worth what I’m able to provide for my kids. That’s everything to me.
What do they think you do for work?
They think I just work on the computer. It’s not something I’m ashamed of and I’m really looking forward to having that conversation with them when they’re a bit older, but at the moment they’re not at an age where they should know what sex or porn is or anything like that. They see that I’m working hard and sometimes in the morning I’m really tired as I can stay up until 2 am, but I can pay the school fees in full for the whole year while working from home. How lucky am I that I get to do that?
We don’t live a fancy lifestyle, but the fact that I can pay their school fees in full is huge to me. I want them to see that their single mum worked really hard and put them through private schools by herself.
How have you gone with the divorce? Does your ex contribute financially or are you doing this by yourself?
He does contribute financially. But that’s only started in the last few months. We owned a house and when I left I tried to have this conversation with him about how we were going to settle things financially. But he just said, you’re not seeing a cent. If you want to go down this road, I’ll see you in court.
I had too much on my plate and couldn’t go to court. So I told him to keep everything, that I just wanted the kids. I didn’t get anything from the house, it’s all in his name, and he kept all his super. He does see the kids now and he does contribute a little bit each month, which is cool. But I’m glad he started contributing after I bought my house. It was just so important for me to be able to say that I bought the house all on my own without his help.
You said earlier that your parents’ divorce was the start of a lot of instability for you. What have you changed for your kids so that they don’t feel the same way?
I was 10 when my parents separated. I ended up in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere at 15 which I hated. I moved out on my own at 16 and just sort of bounced around. I ended up living in something like 30 different houses. I don’t have things from my childhood and I didn’t want that for my boys. We’ve got this dream that one day we’ll buy a farm, nothing big, maybe five or 10 acres. They know that if we move again, it’ll only be once and only if we get a farm. It’s not all that important to the boys, but it’s important to me that they’ve got that stability.
My parents never really taught me anything about money growing up. So the lessons I’ve learnt, I try to pass onto the boys. My eldest said to me, I’ve got $100 in my Spriggy account. If I give you $100 for the new house, do I get some rent as well? Once it settles he’s going to transfer me that $100. And then once the new house is built and there are tenants in there, he’s going to be getting a portion of rent every single week back into his Spriggy account.
Yeah, they just started learning about banking at school and his teacher’s going to put him in charge because he was the only one who asked about interest! All these things I only learnt at 29 they’re learning now. I hope that by the time they’re my age they’ll have a lot more than I do.
Tell more about how you teach kids the value of money?
They’ve got the Spriggy app on their iPads so they can see what their bank balance is. They don’t get pocket money. If they want money, they have to come to me and say, hey Mum, I want to earn money for Minecraft or whatever. My youngest wrote out a list of jobs he’ll do for money and put it on the fridge. Once he’s done a job, I transfer the money across to his Spriggy account.
I try to let them make mistakes along the way. My youngest always just wants to go and buy lollies. His brother has that $100 he’s putting into the investment property and my youngest says it isn’t fair, so I remind him it’s because he always spends his money on lollies!
I think it’s about putting the responsibility onto them, but also helping them make good decisions and supporting them when they make bad ones. I try to have open conversations with them about money. I think we need to expose them to money and make them realise that money is real and that we all need to be held accountable.
I love that so much. You sound like you are such a good mum. I have no idea if it’s going to work out!
It’s more about the care and the love and the reason you do things. It’s all about purpose. It’s not necessarily right or wrong. There’s actually no right or wrong when it comes to money stories and how people learn and what they should and shouldn’t know. It seems like you’re doing really well. I hope so. I want to teach my kids the new money habits that I’ve learnt over the past few years. Then hopefully it’ll start something in them. I don’t really care if I’m rich or not, I just want to be happy and secure, so hopefully the money I’m earning can help with that. Then it’s all about instilling those values into the kids.
An edited extract from Money Diaries, Penguin Random House Australia, out now.
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