Head to Dress for Success' website and you'll find many examples of women who have found themselves homeless or in an unexpected tough financial situation. On the night, a client told her story of being a successful events manager in the '90s and a decade later finding herself on the verge of homelessness and relying on Dress for Success to get back on her feet when starting a business for herself. It was a situation she never believed she could find herself in, yet it only took one serious protracted illness to get there.

As I watched the 500-strong crowd listen intently to the story, I couldn't help but reflect on the statistics in Australia when it comes to homelessness and financial stress.

Research by organisations such as Mission Australia suggests that 30 per cent of Australians are six paydays away from homelessness.

Now, 30 per cent might seem like an abstract number, but it means 150 people in the room that night are themselves at risk of being homeless at some point. It means in an average group of three or four family or friends, one of you is at risk.

If you're a woman or you have a mental health issue, then the statistics are even higher. There are more than 330,000 single women over 45 living in conditions of serious economic stress in Australia. There are also too many people exiting state care - including hospitals and drug and alcohol facilities, correction facilities, detention centres and mental health institutions - without somewhere to live.

Now you may argue that we're always going to have a percentage of society who are at risk. My question is which of your family members, friends or loved ones would you choose that to be? Or are you comfortable with it being you?

The truth is we should have zero tolerance for homelessness in this country. Until then, we can support groups like Dress for Success and Mission Australia but we can also make sure that we and our loved ones aren't at risk of becoming one of the 30 per cent.

How do you do that?

By choosing to be financially literate and reducing our apathy. Putting as much concentration and focus on our finances as we do on our physical health and wellbeing. Too often I see singles and DINKS particularly who are on good wages and aren't concerned about their finances because they think they can start saving next month. It's much better to create the savings buffer now than waiting for a derailing life event to happen.

By creating a buffer. Interest rates are currently at their lowest levels ever but too many of us are only paying the minimum onto our loans. This is the perfect time to create a buffer for when a life-altering event happens. Instead of basing your repayments on the current low rates of 4-5 per cent, instead repay at 8 per cent. This way you're building a buffer and if interest rates are lifted, you can still sleep at night because you're already used to the higher repayments

By having financial independence. Domestic and family violence is the No. 1 reason people seek help from a homeless service, particularly women and children. I'm a fan of ensuring you enter a relationship with some money of your own and always keeping some funds in an account in your own name. Hidden if need be. This means you might leave the home with the clothes on your back but you'll at least have a stash of cash as well.

By talking about finances. Nothing removes shame and vulnerability from an icky situation than bringing it into the light and talking about it. By making money simply another thing we talk about rather than it being an awkward, impolite subject you can't possibly discuss, we can be there for each other. Wouldn't you want your daughter, your girlfriend or your colleague to be able to talk to you about the financial stress they're under? We need to be able to talk about financial questions as easily as someone might ask at lunch whether anyone has ever run a marathon and can they give advice for how to tackle it.

It might seem simplistic and idealistic to view financial stress in this way, but we have to start somewhere. Yes, we need to have the bigger conversations about superannuation, the pay gap and how we can better deal with those among us who have mental health issues. But we also need to be able to have the smaller conversations around what can we do today to ensure we're only financially supporting organisations such as Dress for Success and Mission Australia and not relying on them ourselves.

Melissa Browne is CEO of accounting firm A&TA and financial planning firm The Money Barre and author of Fabulous but Broke.