I put a pause on publishing and tackled the debt behind running a small business

I launched Stella in 2012, out of Port Moresby, from a tiny, crooked kitchen table in a granny flat behind a house in Korobosea. A story for another time. My target audience was Pasifika women who had spent their lives looking at magazine covers made for everyone else.

If you read it, you probably know which issue was your favourite. If it passed you by, the short version is that it ran until 2017. It travelled a good deal further than PNG, even went digital on an app, and it did the thing I made it to do.

It looked after its readers and it looked after its writers. But the person running it came last.

I was chasing invoices in the same week I was chasing the printer and organising photo shoots and interviews. Every issue wanted money before it made any, and I filled the gap the way founders do. First out of what I had saved, and then out of what I borrowed.

In 2017, I put Stella on hiatus.

The next edition cover story sat finished on my desktop. A PNG model wearing a PNG designer, waiting for placement in the issue. Holding it back was the hardest call I made that year, and I made it with the file open in front of me.

I chose the word hiatus on purpose. It meant postponement rather than an ending, and I spent a long time believing I'd get back to it.

The business idled while I carried the anxiety of owing creditors and chasing debtors who dodged my calls.

I had wrapped my identity up in something that was failing. It was a dark time. I definitely spiralled.

But then I read the Barefoot Investor. A financial guide that assumes a salary, a household, and a life that runs in a straight line. Mine ran sideways but the steps worked for me too. I used it to dig myself out. I just needed time.

What I owed my creditors was the easy part to work out. The trade debt and arrears took an afternoon. Living next to it took years. I swallowed my pride and negotiated payment plans with anyone who agreed to be patient with me.

For the non-negotiables, I called the National Debt Helpline in Australia (ndh.org.au) and spoke to a trained financial counsellor. They assessed what I owed and what I could afford and then we created an action plan.

My payment plans ran from 6 weeks to 88 weeks, chipping away at lump sums until I paid them off.

Writing this, I went looking for the same service in Papua New Guinea. What I found was CEFI, which runs financial literacy programs, and banks and licensed finance companies, some of which advertise consolidation and refinancing. Unregistered individual lenders operate outside that. In Fiji, the Consumer Council runs a debt advisory service.

PNG has 1-Tok Kaunselin Helpim Lain, free and answering around the clock on 7150 8000. The counsellors there are trained for the weight of the pressure rather than the arithmetic of the debt, and on the worst nights that is the more urgent of the two.

What I'm still looking for is the number you can ring here to have a trained stranger sit down with what you owe and what you earn and build you a plan. If you know of one, write to me and I'll publish it.

With a plan in place, to make ends meet, I taught English to sassy backpackers in Cairns and worked in a department store trying to fathom fashion retail. The backpackers were spending their savings down on purpose. I was paying mine back. Same room, opposite directions.

I'd spent five years certain I'd only ever work for myself. Then a fortnightly pay cycle turned out to be the most useful financial tool I'd ever had.

My supervisor in the department store was twenty-seven and ran her money better than I ever had. She had a system she'd worked out herself, for a wage a fraction of what I used to invoice. I copied it.

I eventually found my feet in communications roles back home in Port Moresby, where I quietly did some of my best work.

Anyone who’s grappled with owing a large sum of money knows how it changes you. It takes up room you need for other things. It decides what you do with your spare time. Checking a bank balance often requires radical mental gymnastics. Creative pursuits lose their shine. And you keep all this to yourself.

What this chapter taught me, though, was a financial discipline I came to late. The last instalment cleared in 2019 and I kept the habit moving the same money into saving instead. The deposit took another four years. Then I bought a house and to my utter surprise I'm a home owner.

That arc is what this publication is about. A founder winging it, to a home owner with a plan. Fifteen Mondays will tell it properly, start to finish.

The other six days each do another job: cover the numbers, tell other people's money stories, show you what I've built, work through the money books, ask questions and share answers.

I keep my figures to myself. The balance, the salary, the size of what I owed, then and now. That's a decision, and it sits closer to the point of this newsletter than any number of mine would.

One post a day, a hundred days. Short enough to read on the way to work. Honest about how money works, from someone still working it out.

I’m open to feedback and questions and would love to hear about your experiences with money.

For five years I was the employer, which made the superannuation contribution mine to pay.

Best

Amanda

P.S. What’s your view on today’s newsletter? Did I miss something out that you’d like to share? Reply to this email, [email protected]. I may not get back to you, but I will try to read what you send in.

Wild Money is general information only, drawn from my own experience and research. It isn't financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or manage money in any particular way. What worked for me won't necessarily suit you. Please seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before making decisions about your own money.