"I love all the disposable trappings that come with a disposable income," says McIvor.
"But it doesn't mean anything. I'm at my happiest when I'm on the beach."
McIvor's attitudes to money were formed growing up in the egalitarian days of 1970s New Zealand and by the glitz of the 1980s as she entered the media at just 21.
"[In the 1970s] everybody was sort of the same. Nobody was ostentatiously rich or poor," she says.
"And even if you did have money in New Zealand the 1970s there wasn't a lot to buy and what there was, was expensive."
"So you couldn't as a young girl go into Superette and buy four or five dresses. You saved and saved and saved and saved and bought one."
Does she remember that change in the 1980s?
"Oh God yes - it was so much fun," she says.
McIvor also reflects on how her bank-manager father's attitudes to money - and his early death affected her.
Listen to the full interview on the Money Talks podcast. You can find new episodes in the Herald, or subscribe on iHeart Radio
