Solo Aussie mum’s ambitious plan to make $100,000 in 90 days to escape Centrelink payments

A Gold Coast mother is taking on a TikTok challenge to try and earn $100,000 every 90 days to achieve her dream life. Currently living below the poverty line, Amber Wilde hopes the challenge will be a step towards giving her children, and herself, a better life.

Talking to Yahoo Finance, Wilde explains that she came up with the lofty $100,000 in 90 days challenge by calculating what her dream life would look like financially. Based on her current expenses and estimated costs of one-off purchases like a car, Wilde worked out she would need $1,015,203.66 in the next two years and four months, which is around the time when she will graduate from her Bachelor of Counselling Studies degree.

To take on the challenge, she has started sharing her situation on social media and digital blogs, which she hopes will be the beginning of a new financial journey.

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After ending a tumultuous relationship, she now relies on the single parent payment from Centrelink as her only source of income while studying full-time. After housing costs, she is left with only $500 a fortnight to support herself and her two young children.

“It’s not enough to sustain covering the cost of a household of three people’s food, medical, and clothing, let alone provide any enjoyment in our lives, especially in the current cost of living crisis,” she says.

She first took to TikTok last week to start sharing her story and her plans for the particularly ambitious challenge.

While she says she has no intention of becoming TikTok famous, she hopes digital marketing through her blog will set her on the path to financial security.

“It’s going to be a slower thing to build,” Wilde acknowledges, “as it’s mostly built on affiliate marketing and brand deals”.

A woman cleans the floor of her bathroom with a text overlay describing how much money she'd like to earn from TikTok. — Amber Wilde calculated what her ideal life would look like financially by considering current bills and the cost of potential large purchases, such as a new car. · TikTok @_amberwilde

There has been an “explosion” in the amount of money content creators have raked in via influencer marketing, or affiliate marketing, in recent years, with the industry in Australia tipped to hit $1 billion in 2026 after brands spent $830 million on influencer marketing the year prior, according to We Are Social’s Digital 2026 report.

While TikTok’s affiliate program is not available for Australians, the platform has plenty of users promoting ways to make money via various affiliate marketing programs online.

‘It’s just hope’

The Queensland mum of two knows it’s highly ambitious, but is basing the income potential off the testimonies of others who have touted their success online.

As Wilde has only just taken to the challenge, she says she’s going to spend the first 90 days building out her plan. In the 90 days following that, she wants to start striving to hit the $100K mark.

By sharing her effort publicly, she hopes she can inspire others who may be in a similar situation, and facing living below the poverty line in Australia.

“I want my story to have a purpose in life. All of this is not for nothing, it’s got to be for some good,” she says.

“It’s embarrassing, it’s very humiliating to say I live in poverty… People might look at this and call it really ambitious or they think it’s silly, but it’s just hope.”

Wilde says if she can get online and see other people doing things like this, then she needs to approach her days with the mindset that she can not only achieve great things herself, but that she can be a source of inspiration for others too.

“Building in public is a way to share my story and hopefully inspire someone else who’s in my position just to start making financial plans towards their future so they don’t end up in poverty as well.”

Single women at higher risk of financial hardship and homelessness

Wilde is not alone in her experience of facing financial hardship after a family breakdown, with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare finding that 60 per cent of the people presenting to homelessness services in Australia are women.

The key reason for seeking homelessness support is family and domestic violence.

For single women who are renting a property, almost 80 per cent are living below the poverty line themselves, according to a 2025 report from the Grattan Institute.

Women who have purchased a home are still disproportionality affected if the relationship ends. Of the women who separate from their partner and lose the house, only 34 per cent will manage to purchase another home within five years, increasing to just 44 per cent within a decade.

By contrast, 42 per cent of separating men buy a home within five years, and 55 per cent within the 10 year timeframe.

Elderly woman sits alone in a bedroom. — Men are more likely than women to financially recover following a separation. · Maskot

Rebuilding your finances

Deb Shroot, Financial from Financial Counselling Australia, tells Yahoo Finance that a lot of Australian women seeking financial advice are those experiencing financial hardship as a result of a turbulent domestic situation.

“From a financial counselling perspective, the challenge is not simply the loss of a relationship or household income, it’s also … trying to rebuild their finances,” she says.

This includes anything from restricting access to money to forcing someone into a debt, such as a car loan because the partner has terrible credit.

Economic dependence is another big issue, when one person in a relationship is given very little money to pay for expenses and groceries especially when kids are involved, as well as creating barriers to employment and education.

“The abuse actually continues after the separation,” Shroot says, highlighting how perpetrators often still have access to joint accounts, mortgages and child support arrangements.

“It’s quite complex and broad, and the designs of our financial systems and the way that our society works with money, it’s been [set up] in a way that it can be abused quite easily”.

If you or someone you know is impacted by domestic violence, find help by calling 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, or contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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