I was born in Tweed Heads, New South Wales, in 1990. I have two younger sisters, Simone and Bridget, who arrived in 1992 and 1995, respectively. My dad — David — grew up in Victoria but moved to Queensland in his role as an area manager for the Target department stores. It was in Queensland that he met my mother, Leanne. They married in 1987.

After a short stint living in Brisbane, Dad was relocated with Target to Tweed Heads. Mum and Dad used some of the profit from the sale of their house in Brisbane (they doubled their money in three years) to buy a four-bedroom home at Carrara on the Gold Coast — perfect timing, given the impending arrival of children. Soon after, they invested the balance of the money in a sports store franchise called Sportsco, with Dad deciding it was time to leave corporate life to create a family business.

The Gold Coast was a wonderful place for kids to grow up and, for many years, the Fitzgerald household was as happy as any family on the eastern seaboard of Australia. Pretty quickly, thanks to their hard work, Mum and Dad were able to invest in a bigger house with a spacious back yard and a swimming pool: nirvana for three active kids.

In my childhood years, I remember regularly visiting my uncle John's house. While my family enjoyed a comfortable, middle-class existence, Dad's brother's house was like Disneyland! It had everything: a pool, tennis court, gym, sauna, games room, lap pool, granny flat and a guest room twice the size of the biggest room in our house. The house alone covered 1000m², almost four times the size of our home at Carrara, and was set on a magnificent north-facing waterfront block big enough to accommodate a hotel. However, that didn't mean much to me when I was young — at that time it was just a wonderful place to run around in and explore.

Growing up on the Gold Coast and making the most of the outdoor lifestyle, I quickly developed an insatiable appetite for sport. Before, during and after school, I could usually be found kicking a ball of some description around the oval. When I was still very young, I used to dream of becoming a professional footballer. My dad was a huge St Kilda supporter and, during the winter months, we would watch the weekend games together on TV. Pretty quickly I shared his passion.

I also become an accomplished cross-country runner, more on the strength of the volume of kilometres I ran than any innate ability. My high school, Somerset College, didn't offer AFL so in winter I would play rugby union for the school on Fridays, then AFL football for my local club on Saturdays, occasionally doubling up by filling in for the age group above me. There was no such thing as too much sport!

It was almost impossible to play that much sport without being competitive, yet I was never the kind of person to be outwardly competitive or super aggressive on the field. My motivation wasn't so much beating others but being the best I could be. I was driven by my personal growth and improvement, at times restless to move to the next challenge.

My parents generously embraced my dream of becoming a professional AFL footballer, however fanciful it may have been. At the same time, they encouraged me to have a back-up plan ‘just in case’ the ball didn't bounce my way. That was only fair, given they had invested countless thousands of their hard-earned dollars on my secondary school education.

At the age of 15, that back-up plan was to become a physiotherapist, the rationale being that if I didn't make it as an AFL player, I could become the team physio. As I approached the end of school, it was apparent my dreams of becoming a professional footballer were never going to materialise and I didn't like science, which all but put a line through physiotherapy. That left the vexing question: what am I going to do with my life?

At the time, I had a weekend and holiday job at a local car wash and I noticed most of the people getting their cars washed were lawyers and accountants. That was enough to persuade my then 16-year-old brain that I should study law and become a solicitor. I pictured myself defending wrongly accused criminals in court, just like in the movies. I guess a lot of 16 year olds have the same ideological thoughts.

In late 2006, as I was about to enter my final year of high school, my parents announced they were going their separate ways. It was an incredibly challenging time. I was 16 and still finding my adolescent feet, and my sisters Simone and Bridget were just 14 and 11. Dad moved out of our family home and I finished my final year of school living with Mum and the girls. This would have been particularly hard for Mum to manage given that she never fell out of love with Dad. Unfortunately, Dad didn't feel the same way.

Searching for the positives (as my father always encouraged me to do), I think my parents' separation gave me a big dose of resilience and an appreciation of the power of acceptance. Sport can be good like that, too. You play a game each week and either win or lose. Regardless, you turn up to training a few days later and play another game the following weekend. Sport teaches you to move on quickly, accept the losses and self-evaluate: how can I improve? What can I do better next time?

My first encounter with financial stress

In January 2008, I commenced a bachelor's degree in law at Bond University. The Law faculty was highly regarded and the campus was just five minutes from Mum's house. Even more importantly, Bond worked on ‘trimesters’, which meant I could get through a law degree in two years and eight months. Law degrees at other universities typically required a four-year commitment and I was impatient!

To say it was a step up from high school would be an understatement, particularly for someone like me, coming in without any base knowledge of the law. We were expected to read hundreds of pages of research each week, attend lectures that ran for two hours, write short-form essays on a weekly basis and then sit exams at the end of the semester. It was a rude awakening, particularly the exams, which were almost impossible to finish. But, looking back, it was a good introduction to the daily demands of a full-time job: prioritising, and getting down the most important points as concisely and clearly as possible.

Legal studies also taught me problem-solving skills, which I have carried through my adult life. The ability to differentiate material facts from immaterial, isolating key issues and ranking them in priority, then working out what rules of law applied, before ultimately arriving at conclusions based on the application of the rules. Who wouldn't want to learn how to do that? The final challenge, of course, is concisely articulating your conclusion with a minimum number of words, regardless of how challenging or complex the scenario!

All flippancy aside, I instantly recognised these skills were invaluable — knowledge that would help me navigate my way through life. Despite that, at the completion of my first year of university in 2008, I decided that as much as I was interested in and engaged by the law, I wasn't convinced it was the career path for me.

Halfway through my law degree, while also working part time for a small firm on the Gold Coast, I discovered that as a criminal lawyer you have a duty to the court to act for a defendant even if you think the person is guilty. Morally, I couldn't come to grips with that, so I decided instead to become a corporate lawyer, adding on an accounting degree to give myself further career options.

Deep down, I wasn't enamoured with law. It felt a little bit like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. I wasn't naturally good with words, nor was I particularly good at retaining large volumes of information, especially the minutiae such as section numbers and case names. I was committed to finishing my degree, and adding a financial bent to my studies was definitely a good move. This played to my strengths from school — numbers and business — and opened more options when I finished my studies.

I was living with Dad by then and when I told him about my plan to add accounting to my university schedule, he greeted the news with great enthusiasm.

‘Absolutely, you could do that,’ I remember him saying effusively.

I alerted him to the additional cost, pointing out that it wouldn't be covered by the federal government's FEE-HELP assistance package, like my law degree, but he brushed it aside.

‘The best investment you can make is in yourself,’ he said. ‘And don't worry about the money — we'll be able to figure that out.’

My mind, at least momentarily, was put to rest.

In the middle of 2010, while I was chipping away at my dual degrees, an envelope from FEE-HELP arrived in the mail. Enclosed was an invoice for the following semester's fees — roughly $3000 for each of the four subjects ($12 000 in total). I had never received a bill before. FEE-HELP had paid the debt automatically, but now my funding had clearly run out. I had prioritised my law studies but still had about 10 per cent of the subjects to complete before I graduated and I was only 20 per cent of the way through my accounting degree. Despite Dad's ‘don't worry, we'll be able to figure that out’ assurances, I was hit by a wave of panic. That night I tentatively presented him with the invoice, hoping payment wouldn't be an issue. My worst fears were realised.

‘Geez, $12 000! That's dear as poison. Mate, we don't have $12 000,’ Dad admitted.

I could tell he was panicked and flustered, which for him was very unusual. He was always so positive and optimistic.

‘Well, what are we going to do?’ I asked.

‘I'm not sure, but we'll have to find a way to get it paid. I'm sure you'll be able to borrow the money somehow,’ my father advised.

Reflecting on that moment, I realise how naïve and entitled I was. Deep down, I had known that the FEE-HELP funding was going to run out at some point. I just assumed Dad had put aside money or had some sort of plan to meet the expense. My expense. And yet I took no responsibility. Dad told me not to worry about the money and, selfishly, that's what I did. Typical 20-year-old male thinking! Gloss over the problem and hope it simply goes away. I should have tried to understand how he was going to pay the bill. As kids, even young adults, we think our parents have all the answers in life when in fact they're just as human as we are!

The tuition fees were due in two weeks and, if the money remained outstanding, I wouldn't be able to attend classes and do my allocated subjects that semester. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have seen the writing on the wall. My parents had been trying unsuccessfully for about six months to sell the family home in Robina. As I would later learn, Dad's income in his latest incarnation as a business broker was dropping, while his expenses remained static or even on the rise. My sisters were both still at school and their fees certainly weren't cheap.

Meanwhile, Mum was being blindsided by phone calls from the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) about $25 000 owing on a credit card. Not that it dawned on me, but Dad was already under enormous financial pressure and here I was, compounding the situation by tossing another $12 000 in university fees into his lap. Of course, he didn't divulge to me the extent of the financial pressure he was under. I think, like most families, he and Mum sheltered us from their financial affairs: what they had, what they didn't have, how much money they earned and what expenses they incurred every month. In my self-entitled way, I just assumed we had sufficient money, and I was comfortable in the belief that if we didn't, Dad wouldn't have given me the go-ahead to commence a second degree.

I occasionally think about the alternatives. What if Dad had told me he didn't have the money for the accounting degree? Would I have just continued with law? Would I have transferred to a cheaper university? Would I have dropped law and only studied accounting? Would I have done anything differently? Who knows?

Cultural and gender stereotypes have us viewing the male as the main breadwinner. Historically, males have been expected to know how to generate enough money to fund a family's lifestyle and associated costs, but how does any person become savvy with money? The ability to earn, to manage finances and turn money into more money is hardly genetically bestowed! I think back to when I was 20, having been baptised in the ‘bread-winner’ gene pool, having gone to a great school and graduated with good grades, then having enrolled in law and accounting at uni. I ticked all the right boxes, yet I didn't feel at all comfortable about money. This is when I had my first taste of anxiety associated with money, experiencing a few sleepless nights.

Fortunately, my fee problem was quickly resolved. We learned that Bond University had a relationship with the ANZ, which agreed to lend me the $40 000 required to finish my degree, with no repayments required until after I graduated. Interest would accumulate at 11 per cent per annum while I was studying, after which I would have to pay back the loan, plus the interest, over a period of three years. The arrangement sounded okay to me, and Dad agreed. There weren't any other options, so I accepted the terms without giving any thought to the monthly repayments I'd face when I finally graduated.

But a big lesson in life and money awaited me just around the corner.