Diana Jenkins reveals one detail that ruined her.
OPINION
In my fantasy life, I am a Salter Brother.
You see, the Salter Brothers have superb taste in property … and just quietly, I think I do, too. I know a quality listing when I see one and I can spot a potential goldmine from a mile off (actually, my 53-year-old sight is collapsing faster than my knee fat, so make it a metre).
But there is a key difference between the Salter Brothers and me: they have a truly enviable property portfolio and I … don’t.
I didn’t really know anything at all about the Salter Brothers until January, when I jumped on a last-minute deal and fled from my family for three nights alone in the Blue Mountains.
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Escape to the Blue Mountains. Photo: Supplied.
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I didn’t know it at the time, but I had checked into one of their recent acquisitions, the Hydro Majestic. In case you don’t know it, the Hydro Majestic stands as a testament to the many charms of faded glory hotels. Equally, it has become the object lesson in asking yourself if the bucolic yesteryear mountain road on which your delightful parcel currently sits might ever become a fantastically ugly freeway, with an unsightly overpass delivered right to your doorstep. Talk about bursting the Golden Age bubble.
The Hydro Majestic Hotel, Blue Mountains. Photo: Supplied.
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But the Salter Bros have plans for the Hydro Majestic, I’m sure. Smart and tasteful plans. They’re thoughtfully updating the other hotels on their books and I’m confident they’ll figure out some way to fix the fade and grow the glory. It’s what they do.
I’m even more convinced that my fantasy self fancies being a Salter after staying at Bannisters Port Stephens over the Anzac Day long weekend. It’s an updated motel but I really like the retro redux treatment and the last thing that site needs is a brutalist bunker hogging the landscape when the understated bedazzlement of the original sow’s ear is doing the job so nicely. It’s lovely there – what a beautiful spot. But I was unaware it too was owned by the Salter Bros until I received a reply to my guest feedback that told me they had acquired it from the previous owners.
Di Jenkins who made a realisation while away on holiday.
The pool at Banisters in Port Stephens. Photo: Supplied
Well, I thought to myself, those Salter boys sure have been busy! Half their luck – what a great place. Life must be pretty sweet if you’re a Salter.
So as the federal budget has now been announced, I’ve been gnawing a nail and wondering, “What would the Salter Bros do?” – but it’s not really the right question.
The real question is, “How do they do what they do?”
And I already know the answer: not like this! Not by doing what I have done. Don’t do that. Please, whoever you are, whatever you do, do not do as I have done, which is fail to pay off my mortgage in a sensible, disciplined manner. That was stupid and I will pay for my mistakes.
Robert Salter and Paul Salter, who lead Salter Brothers, an investment group. Photo: Kane Multimedia
You know, I’ve seen bumper stickers asking, “What would Jesus do?” and I sometimes wonder who among the faithful pauses to ask themselves that question whenever they are weighing yet another bad decision or once they have already gone ahead and sinned. Oops.
Billions around the world find genuine comfort in that guidance but personally, in real life, I struggle to listen to people who never put a sandal-clad foot wrong, like my friend whose biggest issue with her perfect children is that they insist on staying in school uniform to do their homework because it keeps them in the zone. Okay, please just stop talking now and get the hell away from me, lady.
And let’s face it, Jesus is another seriously tough act to follow. All those miracles! All the bread and fish, and turning all that water into wine, and the family connections that turned a sentence of crucifixion into eternal life. I mean, who can compete with that in a cost of living crisis? My kids are practically sniffing the milk because nothing – and I mean nothing – leaves that house anymore until it’s swilling in their guts.
And no, turning wine into tears doesn’t count.
In other words, the Salter Bros’ very fine example can’t help me – plus they might have their own problems now Jim Chalmers is squatting near the high-walled security gates of Australia’s family trusts looking for a place to relieve himself in broad daylight.
No, it seems I have to repeat at least another year at the School of Hard Knocks.
Australians are bracing for The Federal Budget to be . Photo: Getty Images.
I thought I had safely graduated many moons (oh, sorry, that’s just Jim marking his territory across the manicured lawns of every property east of Sydney’s Darling Point) ago, but now it seems I’ve been unwillingly re-enrolled.
And I’m about to learn my lesson the hard way. Again. Because it turns out my uni degree was not my ticket to success. It was a very nice time and I loved my liberal arts education. I also really appreciated the deferred payment scheme for my HECS debt, as I could not have attended university otherwise, but my degree has not delivered me from economic evils. My degree choice was just another unwise decision, if we’re measuring success against building wealth and ensuring the future financial security of my family. And I am.
So while I’m squarely a Salter Bro in my fantasy life, in this ongoing slog of mortgage repayments, interest rate rises, school fees, utility, grocery and fuel bills and job insecurity, I lie awake in a pool of rank reality sweat instead of basking in the cool, high thread count of my Salter self’s sheets.
In real life, I am closer to the Mary Magdalene of fiscal mismanagement, right in the thick of turning all my failing tricks, wishing that someone would lay their healing hands on my bank balance while knowing instead that the jackals are circling the carcass of my cashflow.
But because I’m a realist and not really much of a fantasist (despite the lush allure of my alternate Salter existence), I know in my heart I need to save myself from those seven demons of my crippling living costs.
It may be a good long while before I next go away for a weekend only to discover I’m staying at yet another judiciously selected slice of the generous Salter pie. Changes are coming. I’m going to start with a blunt force transition from pointless fantasies to achievable goals, because it’s time to get real.
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