Antonia Magee, Living Thin With Debt In:

Today we have been lucky enough to interview Antonia Magee. Antonia has written a great fiction book called Living Thin. Living Thin is based around Maggie Rose who is deep in debt. It follows this character over a 12-month period from being broke and living in debt to being out of debt and having savings.

The book is written in such a clever way it gives entertaining advice on how to get your money back on track. It would be great for twenty something girls to read on the perils of not watching your money.

Antonia, for people who don’t know much about you, can you fill us in?
I’m 32 and from Melbourne. I have been a journalist for five years now. But about two years ago, I had the idea to write Living Thin and I worked the publishers whiley books. Essentially, the book is for anyone who does not know about budgeting and finance. So, instead of writing a straight out finance book, I decided to write a fictional story and add the finance in. Essentially you are learning finance from fiction.

So maybe you can tell us a little bit about the character in Living Thin?
The main character or the hero is Maggie Rose. She’s 29, single and broke. She has a whole bunch of debt and doesn’t know the first thing about savings. She gets a shock one month when she can’t pay her rent and she goes on a savings mission.

She tries to get advice from books and friends, but to no avail. Then she goes to see a guy named Jason, who is a financial adviser who puts her on the straight and narrow. He helps her get her head around the basics of budgeting.

We really liked the book, and when we reviewed it we gave it four out of five.What is the feedback you have had on the book?
It has been really positive. I think the people who have read it and didn’t know much about budgeting have appreciated that it was not dry. You could enjoy reading the story about Maggie and her life, romances and finances. But you are also learning at the same time. It was kind of a subliminal message being sent to people. It sold very well, so that’s been good.

I have just had a new book come out which is a sequel. It’s Maggie Rose again, but it is two years on and she has now well and truly learnt to save. In fact, in the next book she has around $30,000 in the bank and she decides to buy a house.

Exactly the same premise, but in this instance teaching people how to buy property. This book follows her journey.

Was the character based on you in any way?
In the sense that I didn’t know very much about budgeting when I started. So it was a learning journey for me. There are a few of my experiences thrown in there. Probably the biggest one is that I’m a journalist and so is Maggie. But generally it’s not after me and her experiences are a lot different to mine. I made her a little bit more exciting.

What are some of the bad points Maggie Rose has prior to cleaning up her budget?
She has a whole heap of credit card debt. She is living pay cheque to pay cheque and she is constantly getting into more debt. She has parking fines and she is pretty sure her credit rating is down the toilet. She is just in a really bad way.

Did you notice people in your own life that fit or mimic her actions?
I think it was a bit of everybody. Definitely a bit of me and some of my friends, both male and female. A lot of people live like Maggie. She doesn’t have debt collectors running after her, but debt is a normal part of her life.

People in everyday life have the credit card debt sitting there hanging about. They don’t really think about it, they are just using it and paying minimum payments.

Now you are into budgeting and you have written a book about it. If you could teach everybody in the entire world just one budgeting fact, what would it be?
Something my mother instilled in me when I was little was not living beyond your means.

If you could go back to your 21^st birthday what would you tell yourself about money?
I would tell myself to take it more seriously, and that it wasn’t going to get any easier as you get older. Being young doesn’t mean you can’t be good with money. These are the sorts of things I never really thought about. In fact, I never really thought about money when I was 21; and I never really earned any.

Are there any home budgeting books you have read?
I liked Zero to Rich (Tracey Edwards) and Money Makeover (also by Tracey Edwards). These are the two I have read in the last 12 to 18 months and I quite enjoyed. As well as Jason Cunningham’s book Where Is My Money? I read this quite a lot when researching Living Thin.

Any other books in the pipeline?
Not in the immediate future, but possibly next year. I’m not quite sure what she is going to do yet. But it could go in any direction.

The Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008, did you notice a change in people’s behaviour?
I absolutely noticed a change in people’s behaviour. When the market crashed, it was my first week as a business journalist. Personally, I started thinking about my finances; in fact I started focussing on them because of it. Being a business journalist for such a long time, every day we have data coming out which shows that people are much more frugal now and they are much more concerned about the state of their family finances. This is a direct result of the GFC.

The book touched on someone in their late 20s with someone who was getting into a fairly serious relationship. Do you think people who are in relationships talk about money or their values relating to money before they get married?
People should. But most people who are young and in love think it will all just work out. But if you’re not thinking about it, you won’t talk about will you? It’s extremely important for couples to do this.

Thanks for your time Antonia Magee. If you would like to purchase one of Antonia’s books you can go to http://www.booktopia.com.au/living-thin/prod9781742169767.html