The two men vying for control of Australia's purse after the federal election have been at pains to paint themselves as very different breeds.
And based on the paths Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and his Labor rival Chris Bowen have tread so far, the nation should not have much cause to doubt them.
Both grew up in the electorates which they now preside over, which have long been held by their side of politics.
But Mr Frydenberg's seat of Kooyong in Melbourne's inner east is renowned for its affluence and history of producing Liberal leaders, including Australia's longest-serving prime minister Sir Robert Menzies.
The western Sydney seat of McMahon (formerly Prospect) held by Mr Bowen is somewhat more "working class".
Its incumbent is arguably its highest-flyer in parliament to date, after a brief stint as treasurer after Kevin Rudd's return to the Labor leadership in 2013.
A corner of town does not make a man, but how the economic opponents spent their younger years might have.
The tennis court was an early battleground for Mr Frydenberg, now 47.
The treasurer took a year off after high school to play the sport full-time, a compromise he has said he reached with his parents after trying to drop out of school to pursue the sport.
The year took him to tournaments throughout Australia and in Switzerland and Germany.
He also hit the court during university, as he studied law and economics at Monash University and was president of the Law Students Society.
But the son of two migrants - a mother born in Hungary and father of Poland - was bound for a less physical career, beginning with a legal gig at Mallesons Stephen Jaques.
He also studied a Master of Public Administration at Harvard University in the US and a Master of International Relations at the Oxford University in the UK, before an adviser posting with then-attorney-general Daryl Williams marked his entry to the political realm in 1999.
Mr Frydenberg went on to advise Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and Prime Minister John Howard.
A director gig at Deutsche Bank brought him back to the corporate world, after a month-long stint as a jackaroo at a South Australian sheep station.
Perhaps the hard yards of the outback were apt preparation for his entry to parliament in 2010.
At that time, Mr Bowen already had already racked up a term in both opposition and government, having won his seat at the 2004 election.
His involvement with Labor had far deeper roots, with the 46-year-old telling the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 that he had trotted along to his first local branch meeting at age 15.
That was a few years after he had used a $10 book voucher he won in Year 6 to buy a book about Bob Hawke.
Mr Bowen says university politics held no sway for him as he studied economics at the University of Sydney, due to his immersion in his local branch.
But he was clearly set on becoming a representative, serving for nine years on Fairfield Council, including as its mayor, until 1999.
He was president of Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils between 2000 and 2002, and chief of staff to a NSW roads minister in the lead up to his elevation to parliament.
The MP has also studied a Masters of International Relations and a Diploma in Modern Languages (Bahasa Indonesia).
Like Mr Frydenberg, Mr Bowen has two children to keep him busy as he tries to convince Australians that he is best placed to manage the nation's money.
Mr Frydenberg has sought to convince voters they should "stay the course" with the government's economic plan amid global headwinds, including trade tensions between the United States and China.
The coalition has also made no secret it wants further tax cuts, while arguing against what it calls Labor's "$200 billion" tax ramp up.
Mr Bowen, meanwhile, says the economy isn't working for all Australians and that the best protection against global shocks will come from giving everyone a fair go, through proper funding to schools and hospitals.
As shadow treasurer he has shown he is not afraid to break with the status quo, pledging changes to tax breaks under a Labor government, including negative gearing.
The commitments mean Australians have two very different choices for how their taxes will be spent when they cast their vote.
Just like the men who would enact the alternatives.
