Room For All - S2 E18 - Live at the 2025 Social Enterprise Festival - Amanda Di Medici

Understanding Money and Thriving with Amanda di Medici of Yenom

In this insightful episode of Room For All, we sit down with Amanda di Medici, the founder of Yenom, a unique financial education platform. Amanda shares her personal journey with money management and how it inspired her to create Yenom. We dive into the importance of financial literacy, the services offered by Yenom, and the pressing need for financial education in workplaces. Amanda also discusses common financial pitfalls, the rise of financial influencers, and her vision for an independent accreditation program. Join us for a candid conversation about money, personal goals, and thriving in life.

00:00 Introduction to Amanda Di Medici and Yenom
02:03 Understanding Yenom: Reflecting on Money
04:31 Amanda's Personal Journey with Money
07:13 Yenom's Services and Impact
10:44 Financial Literacy and Common Myths
11:31 Technical Glitches and Market Aggressiveness
12:10 Future Plans for Yenom
12:27 Rise of the Finfluencer
14:21 Addressing Dodgy Financial Products
16:11 The Dish That Represents Our Enterprise
17:52 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Reflect. Rethink. Reclaim your financial power.
YENOM is more than just a name — it’s money in reverse, a reminder to pause and reflect. Reflect on your habits. Reflect on your knowledge. Reflect on your future.
We exist to transform financial literacy into a powerful tool for wellbeing, equality, and opportunity — globally.

http://yenom.co

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-d-495991281/

Transcript

Track 1 sequence

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Speaker 2: [00:01:00] Amanda, Amanda Di Medici, founder of Yenom. Mm-hmm. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome to Room For All. Thank you. Um, we are running this podcast with a little bit of a different format for the Social Enterprise Festival this year.

Mm-hmm. But we are having loads of fun. Yes. This has been 

Speaker: really interesting. Yes. 15 minutes I feel like is not enough. But I think we should invite everybody because 

Speaker 2: we normally go too long. Yeah. So this is going the other way and going too short. We like to talk a lot, uh, but it's a great introduction.

[00:02:00] So talking about introduction, Amanda, who is Amanda? Tell us in a few words who you are and what is Yenom. 

Speaker 3: What is Yim? Well, Yim is money backwards, which is asking people to reflect on their relationship with money. Um, so it's all about understanding your own personal relationship with money, setting your own personal goals with money, and basically allowing people to thrive, um, in whatever life they want.

So we don't sell anything, we don't recommend anything. We don't tell you what your goal should be. It's all about the individual and it's all about getting the individual to the place that they personally want to be. So it's education. It is education, and it's my, it's my personal belief and my personal experience that if we are not in control of our money.

Then our money is in control of us. Mm-hmm. And that removes an awful lot of choices and opportunities for from our lives. So by being in control of your money, you are actively able to [00:03:00] accept opportunities to accept new pathways and to actually thrive in your life, whatever that means to you. Not everybody wants to buy a house.

Not everybody wants to buy a car. Some people want to live a hippie life off grid, and that's perfectly fine. Let's just make sure you've got enough money to do it 

Speaker 2: right. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. And,

Speaker: and like it's setting up for after, right? Like it's, you know, like the future. Yes. Something that was never really ingrained into me in school.

Right. I, I have to say, right. Um, it's only now in my thirties that I'm like, hmm. It's time to really, you're 

Speaker 2: pretty responsible as far as, and apart from clothes, you're pretty responsible. 

Speaker 3: Clothes are a big one. Right. I'm awful with, I'm awful with lip gloss. Ah, you know what? Makeup 

Speaker: has made its way in and skincare has made 

Speaker 3: its way into my spending.

Well, there's also, you know, the lauder, um, measurement, which came out of Estee Lauder. Okay. In times of depression and, um, economic downturn, lipstick, sales go through the roof. Yeah. Oh, true. And it's, it's because it can be like a 10 or $15. Feel good. [00:04:00] And if the lipstick case is heavier, then you feel even 

Speaker: better.

That's true. I was in Chemist Warehouse where obviously there's always a sale on, I'm a big bargain hunter. Mm-hmm. I have, I will not buy anything full price, to be fair. Mm-hmm. Um, and I was like. You're not wrong. I never thought of that. But so 

Speaker 3: why, 

Speaker 2: Amanda? Why do you do what you do? 

Speaker 3: Because I just want people to thrive.

I want people to be able to live the best life they possibly can. And look, it's my belief that that comes down to how you manage your money. But where does 

Speaker 2: it come from? Your motivation? Like what? What Do you just love 

Speaker 3: money? 

Speaker 2: How did you start? What you doing? I do look, 

Speaker 3: I think. I, I was, I just ran a workshop actually, and I, when I introduced myself, I said, people assume that because I do what I do, I'm great with money, and let me tell you, I'm awful with money, which is why I do what I do.

Yeah. Because I've lived a life of having money control me, not being able to go places I want to go, do things I want to do, take up opportunities I want because I was irresponsible with my money. Um, it became clear to me very early on that if I wanted to thrive, I needed to get ahead of that. Yes. [00:05:00] And because I'm so bad with money, I needed to examine my own daily habits and behaviors.

I needed to examine my attitudes, and I needed to put some roadblocks up for myself. Okay. Um, and one really good roadblock for me was to buy a property. Because it's an enforced level of saving and investment over, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, whatever you want it to be. That's not everybody's objective, but it really worked for me.

That was my motivation. So there needs to be 

Speaker 2: an anchor somewhere. Yes. Yeah. Okay. 

Speaker 3: And guaranteed equity, you know, Australian property market. It's ridiculous, that's for sure. Oh my God. Yeah, that's for sure. So I bought my first place 30 years ago, you know, and it has really served me well. Yeah. Um, day to day I'm pretty good generally.

Um, but I do have tools that I go back to. If I find myself getting to the end of the week and wondering where that money went and why there's not more in my bank account. You know, I have a spending diary that I can go back to and go, oh, that's right. You blew, you know, $30 on makeup or, I 

Speaker: mean, but how could this 

Speaker 3: makeup, [00:06:00] so I'm just saying, and clothes, and she, oh my God, my God.

Stop it. Yeah. So you told us who 

Speaker 2: you are. Mm-hmm. Uh, in a few words, you told her what money is, um, or y is. Mm-hmm. Um. 

Speaker 3: Why did you do that? Sorry? Why? Why backwards? Oh, I paid for branding and the branding, the, the brief that I gave the company. I spent money on branding. I did. I spent a fortune on branding, but it's the best money I've ever spent because I said to the digital agency, your brief is if I could say to anybody for the relationship with money, know thyself, know yourself, know how you treat money, know how you act, know what you do.

And they came back and went, what about reflect? And what if we reflect this image so that it's yim? And I was like, oh my God, you nailed it. Nailed love it. And all the imagery is mirror images, so it's all reflections. 

Speaker 2: I love when branding people come, come to I am not, not creative, 

Speaker: like I'm not creative person.

So like, like he is our brand. Yeah. But the 

Speaker 2: creative, like I really [00:07:00] love the, the thought process. Sometimes reverse engineering, but that's okay. I'd rather the money of the artist gives me a financial, Sydney 

Speaker 3: digital marketing, just in case anybody wants. Okay, that's fine. Shout 

Speaker 2: out. Um, so my question now is.

How, what do you do? Like what do I do? What does Yenom do? Okay, what, what are your services? What are your products? What do you do? So sure 

Speaker 3: we've got a profit for purpose arm. 'cause I need money in order to change the world, right? Mm-hmm. And then we've got a not-for-profit arm, which is the Yenom Foundation.

Okay. Through Yenom. I actually provide a workplace financial wellbeing program. So, and we focus on the big guys, like the 500 employees plus. And we go to them and say, you realize 49% of your workplace is financially illiterate. Last year in America, that cost $250 billion in lost productivity. Wow. And that that comes down to people being stressed due to their financial situation.

So they're on leave. They're not focused on their role, then it's simply not well enough to do what they need to be doing within your organization. Um, they're vulnerable to dishonest [00:08:00] behavior. They're vulnerable to dodgy products and services outside the workplace, and more than likely, they're working a second job or a side hustle on your time.

Yeah, right. So there, there are huge impacts there. But the other thing is, from an employee perspective, your employees cannot thrive. It's my belief they cannot. Thrive if they can't pay their bills and goals and get ahead. Agreed. Mm-hmm. You want an empowered, productive, positive employee and that starts with their personal life.

That's right. You have an Employee Wellbeing Pro program that focuses on mental health or workplace health and safety. If they break a leg, let's get their money sorted out. Okay. Let's get them back on track. And so 

Speaker 2: your client, the one that pays is the actual company? The company, the employer. 

Speaker 3: So it's factors into, so we've got online education, we've got face-to-face workshops.

We embed the training in the organization through Certified Train the Trainer program. We provide financial counseling for anybody who's completely in the hole or needs to talk to somebody. And then we provide daily ta, daily community based habitual changes. So peer to peer education support, et cetera.[00:09:00]

A percentage of all of that goes into the Yenom Foundation. So if somebody who is not employed by one of those big organizations come to me and says, I'm in a mess, what do I do? Like, Hey, we have a scholarship for you and it's been funded by this company. Right. That's great. Come and enroll yourself in the program.

Speaker 2: And how long has Yenom been around? 

Speaker 3: About two years now. Okay. So we're relatively new. 

Speaker 2: And how's it going? 

Speaker 3: Good actually. Well, we've been commenting on this festival, right? Yeah. Surrounding yourself. We had a little 

Speaker: conversation beforehand. 

Speaker 3: Surrounding yourself with people with a passion. People who want to get up every day, they wanna change the world.

They wanna make a difference. It's, it's, yeah. It's perfect actually. I love it. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Very good, very good. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: This place

Speaker: is magic. It's amazing. You walk outside and the feelings are, yeah, all there. Um, I will say this in my twenties. I was definitely not, not great with money that I'm much better in my thirties.

And you've just 

Speaker 3: had to teach yourself, right? Yes. It's not taught. I'm all self-taught. Yeah. I 

Speaker: moved out of home quite early on, so, and I've always had two, three jobs. Right. Um, so from 15 I was in charge of my own money and [00:10:00] it's, it's not taught anyway, especially schools, you would think that they. Yeah, they would do more in school.

There is 

Speaker 3: more being done now, but certainly when we were at school there was nothing. And if you don't have parents that actively budget and teach you, you don't learn that either. 

Speaker: I, as a parent, trying to teach my daughter that, 'cause she loves to spend money. Yes.

Speaker 3: And. The other thing about Yenom is that we are completely independent.

We don't sell anything. We don't recommend anything. We are purely education. Okay? So we're not gonna come to you and say, Hey, I think you need this X Bank account, or I think you need this X Life insurance policy. We just don't do it. We are there for the end user. So, yeah. Right. 

Speaker 2: How many people do you have working for you?

We've got 

Speaker 3: about five at the moment. Okay, 

Speaker 2: cool. 

Speaker 3: Mm, 

Speaker 2: cool. Two years. Good. 

Speaker 3: That's pretty good. Yeah, we 

Speaker 2: we're 

Speaker 3: doing it. We're doing it. 

Speaker 2: So what's one 

Speaker 3: financial, how to change the world Financial myth 

Speaker 2: that you would love to bust or one myth in the road. Money. But you can't spare money. Run anything. 

Speaker 3: Money no interest.

Free loans don't start me. And can I do. Can't believe they're still allowed to money. I know. Are they, 

Speaker: they're [00:11:00] not interest or I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't like that. No, they're 

Speaker 3: absolutely not interest free. And honestly, financial literacy is not about your academic education level either, because I've been in standup arguments with people with a PhD in engineering about how an interest free loan is not interest free.

Right. So I don't blame people for falling into that one. But the other one that I really hate and I advocate a lot against is, um, debt consolidation schemes. Ooh. Because in Australia, if you go to one of those debt consolidation schemes, it's not a debt consolidation scheme. It's a part eight or 10 bankruptcy agreement.

Yeah. And they never warn you about that. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of yapping that I do around those issues. 

Speaker 2: I've just lost my computer. Um, let's recording. 

Speaker: Well, let's hope we got a backup. 

Speaker 2: Yes. Um, no, no, it's good. Um, yeah, I agree. I agree. It's actually so, um. Uh, aggressive. Mm. The, the, the market in that space, right?

It's, 

Speaker 3: it's like stalking the vulnerable. Yeah. I just 

Speaker: [00:12:00] learn how to invest and I'm like, right. I'm talking, I'm using an app like I'm not an investor, but because nobody teaches you how, nobody teaches you that. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, 

Speaker 2: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So what's next for, Yenom, what's, what's the future like? 

Speaker 3: So further on that, we're just looking for more business at the moment.

Okay. So we're rolling. We wanna get to, you know, 10,000 Australians if we can, whether it's through the workplace or individually. 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 3: Uh, we want to make that impact at the bottom line with people. Um, the one big thing that's burning on my mind at the moment though, is the rise of the finfluencer. Which is people, TikTok or financial 

Speaker: influences on TikTok.

I have heard of this. Or social media? They media. They don't come up on my algorithm. Mine fashion and makeup and cooking. 

Speaker 3: Look, they're on mine because it's all I do. Right? Yeah. I come across it and some of them are really good, some of them are really dangerous. So what Yenom is going to do is put together a, finfluencer accreditation program standards.

So if yes. Standards. So if you do wanna be a finfluencer, great, go for it. [00:13:00] But you need to do this certified training course, and you need to promise that you're not gonna sell anything dodgy. So they're not required. That's cool. No. Under the Financial Service Act or whatever it's called. No, anybody can just, I could stand up there tomorrow and go, Hey, I'm an expert.

Listen to me. Because they couldn't do it on tv. Right. But I mean, it's the same. Yeah, they can. 

Speaker 2: They can on tv. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. They, because they're not calling themselves advisors, financial advisors. Yes. They're finfluencers, which is unregulated at the moment. It's the 

Speaker 2: government agenda. Government's always behind.

The law is always behind. Right. 

Speaker 3: But people who don't know the semantics are vulnerable to that. Yeah, of course. To the terminology. Yeah, of course. So look, a finfluencer accreditation program, I think is next off the list because we just need to make sure that the information that's getting out there is accurate and not harmful.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So are you working also with. Government levels to make that happen? Or is it just a like a, an industry self, 

Speaker 3: it's an industry self at this point. I mean, we do have the support of the go of certain government agencies. Um, and I will absolutely be making them aware of [00:14:00] what I'm doing and asking if they'd like to be involved, but I'm not relying on them.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I'm 

Speaker 3: obviously. It's not something that I'm gonna involve any banks or financial institutions in because we're independent. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: So I suppose I could guess what the answer is, but if you had a magic wand, then you could wave it and change something out there. What would you do? 

Speaker 3: Um, the dodgy debt peddlers, like the interest free loans, the payday loans.

Oh my God. Yes. There's 

Speaker: a massive rise in that with the cost of living crisis. Yes, there is. Huge, huge. 

Speaker 3: And people using credit cards to buy groceries, you know? Yeah. Uh, they're not splurging because they've got the 

Speaker 2: points and all this other things, and then you get out, gets out of hand. Right. Or they just don't 

Speaker 3: have the money to buy groceries, don't, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And then can't pay it off. Um, but the, definitely the payday loans, those dodgy interest free loans, the rent to buy schemes, which is, I'm not talking about those. Rent to buy, build. Schemes. Mm-hmm. Because they're generally authentic. 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. But 

Speaker 3: if you see a [00:15:00] piece of paper on a telephone pole saying, wanna rent to buy this house, and it's got ripoff pieces of paper on it, please don't rip that piece of paper off.

Don't do, don't do that. The 

Speaker 2: problem is that when people are desperate, desperate times to desperate measures. That's right. 

Speaker 3: Absolutely. And actually, you know, you can edit this out, but just a story on that. I, I did see a person posting in the local Facebook group. Asking about one of those flyers, you know, we're desperate for housing.

What, what are your thoughts on this? And I said, for God's sake, don't do it. It's a, it's a, um, it's a scam. Yeah. It will cost you everything. You can't get out of that. Please call me if you need any help. Yeah. And then there were like 15 comments underneath saying, don't do it. My parents lost everything.

Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. We definitely will not be editing this out 'cause it's good advice. Yeah. This is good advice. But 

Speaker 3: there's two comments at the bottom of that thread that say, who can I contact to get more information about this? 

Speaker 2: About that. 

Speaker 3: About about the rent to bicycle. Right. So tells me that that person is desperate and needs housing.

Yeah. Um, and are vulnerable to the dodgy brothers. Yeah. With these financial, dodgy financial products. [00:16:00] Love the dodgy brothers brother. The dodgy brothers. The dodgy brothers. So that's what I would eliminate the dodgy brothers. Okay. Okay. There we go. 

Speaker 2: So before we wrap up and ask you the last question, we are, we've been asking this question to a few of our guests.

If your enterprise was a dish on a menu, what would it be? 

Speaker 3: Because we are foodies, right? Mm. Always. And Im hungry and I'm, I'm starving. Me too. And I'm going for Italian tonight it would be pasta aglio with some chili and maybe a prawn or two. 

Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. 

Speaker 3: Because it's. Just to me, that's the taste of Italy.

You know? It's, it's simple, it's authentic, it's tasty, it's, and it goes. And that's 

Speaker 2: what you feel your business is like. Yeah. Like it's authentic. It's simple, but authentic. Is that 

Speaker: the, it's very basic. That's the chili and oil Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just oil, garlic, garlic and oil. Garlic, garlic, 

Speaker 3: garlic oil into the, I think I've had it.

You made it? Yeah. Yeah. So very, very good for a quick meal at night too. There's nothing in the cupboard. 

Speaker 2: That's what you normally, yeah, when you grow, when you're sort of a young person in Italy, it's like the, after the coming back from a club or from going out. [00:17:00] So that's like at two o'clock in the morning.

That's o'clock in the morning type of thing. The Kebab. That's 

Speaker 3: the Kebab. It's the Kebab. See, that's what a bogan I am. I like the most basic Italian dish. Right. 

Speaker: I love it. It's tasty, but it's a bit of parmesan cheese. Bit of 

Speaker 3: the really good Parmesan. Yeah, it has to be. 

Speaker: It's not even called Parmesan cheese. I don't know.

Nice. We actually don't 

Speaker 2: put Parmesan on are you are like the original, but you can do whatever you want. I'm Bogue if you are, I'm agnostic with what if you come home 

Speaker 3: from a club at 2:00 AM you add that cheese, anything, it's justified. I'm a, I'm a bogan. I think I can get away with it. That and a good glass of wine and it's what I plan to have for dinner tonight.

So do you put 

Speaker 2: pineapple and pizza? 

Speaker 3: No. 

Speaker 2: Okay, 

Speaker 3: good girl. I put, I put banana, bacon and chili, which is 

Speaker: probably 

Speaker 3: even worse. A pizza? Yeah. 

Speaker: Banana. Bacon. Well, Andrea calls me a bogan, so. I'm really happy to meet you. Yeah. Um, from one Bogan to another big fan, one Bogan to another. Big fan. Big fan. One, 

Speaker 2: one last question.

Um, what's one thing that we haven't spoken about if we haven't spoken about something that you really wanna, um, uh, get across [00:18:00] people to hear? 

Speaker 3: I just wanna say, no shame. You call me. You can't tell me a story I haven't heard 10 times before. You can't have done anything stupid with money that I haven't personally done myself.

Judge, a judgment free zone. Um, and should be with money. Yeah. And also everybody can do it. I know it feels overwhelming and that you'll never get out from under it, but we can do it and we'll just take baby steps. 

Speaker: Nice. 

Speaker 3: One at a time. I noticed people 

Speaker: talking about money more. Yes. Now. Yes. Um, I don't think it was ever really, it's, and I think the probably why I didn't get it in school or anything is nobody talks about money.

Speaker 3: There's a lot of shame around money. Yeah. And there's a lot of people, people tend to think everybody else is doing so well and I'm not. Everybody else is much better than this, than I am. I don't know how they do it kind of thing. And a couple of conversations. You can change a person's life in a couple of hours with some of this financial education.

Yeah. And a lot of it can just be making them aware that they're at the same level as everybody else. 

Speaker 2: Very good. Mm-hmm. And how do people [00:19:00] find you? 

Speaker 3: They find us. At Yenom dot co. dot co C O. Yeah, co. Yeah. We've got the English version of, of that. We'll put it 

Speaker 2: in the show notes. So we've got those records. We just wanting to, and do you have LinkedIn?

Speaker 3: I do. So Amanda di Medici on LinkedIn or Yenom on LinkedIn. Fantastic. Both there. Perfect. 

Speaker 2: Amanda, thank you very, very much for being our guest. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Enjoy your, your Italian 

Speaker: dinner. 

Speaker 2: We've learnt a few things with wine. Um, including, including your, um, your good taste. Exactly, exactly.

And, uh, enjoy the rest of the festival. 

Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Thank 

Speaker 2: you. Thank

Speaker 3: you.