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Teressa Fisk, who runs Your Finance Broker, has released Life costs money – Now what?, a practical guide designed to help teenagers and young adults understand the financial decisions they will face as they become more independent.
The idea began with a familiar challenge for parents: making sure their children have the knowledge they need to manage money before they have to figure it out for themselves.
“I started thinking about all the things my son will need to know as he gets older, from understanding his first payslip to buying a car, managing bills and eventually moving out of home,” Fisk said.
“I’ve worked across banking, business and finance, and I thought, why not put some of that knowledge into a book that he and other young people could actually use?”
Rather than taking a textbook approach, the book follows everyday milestones, using simple explanations, relatable examples, practical checklists and humour to break down financial concepts.
“I didn’t want to write something full of complicated financial language. I wanted it to feel a bit like having a conversation with your mum, just with some helpful information thrown in.”
The guide covers a broad range of topics, including first jobs, tax, superannuation, saving, buying a car, credit, investing and preparing to buy a first home.
Through her work as a finance broker and financial educator, Fisk said she had seen how easily financial decisions could become overwhelming when people were unfamiliar with the terminology or the options available to them.
“Sometimes it’s not that people can’t understand finance. It’s just that nobody has explained it in a way that makes sense to them.”
Fisk hopes the book will encourage more open conversations about money and give young Australians the confidence to ask questions before making important financial decisions.
“You don’t need to know everything about money. You just need to know enough to make a good decision when it matters.”
Life costs money – Now what? is available in paperback through Amazon.
Young buyers struggling
Fisk’s book comes amid a challenging time for young people attempting to get onto the property market for the first time.
With property affordability hitting all-time lows, many buyers are holding back from entering the market.
Data from credit reporting bureau Equifax found that first home buyer mortgage applications fell 22.1 per cent year-on-year, with the youngest cohorts recording the sharpest falls.
Equifax’s data found that the 18 to 25-year-old borrower segment recorded a 25 per cent decline while the 26 to 35-year-olds recorded a 22.5 per cent decline.
Casting a wider time frame, a recently published Senate report found that home ownership among Australians aged 29 to 32 had fallen from 40.4 per cent for those born between 1970 and 1973 to 32.7 per cent for the 1990–93 birth cohort.
Half of Australians aged 18–29 were living with their parents in 2024, up from 39 per cent in 2001. Of those who had moved out, two-thirds were renting privately, while 40 per cent of young renters in major capital cities were spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, up from 26 per cent in 2001.
Brokers speaking to Broker Daily have also reported that borrowers are increasingly taking more creative routes into the housing market, such as through shared ownership with friends or family, rentvesting or buying apartments and properties in rural areas.
[Related: ASIC commissioner Kate O’Rourke to speak at Women in Finance Summit 2026]
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