Speaker 1: Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
Speaker 1: the Order Kerni Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before
Speaker 1: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
Speaker 1: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
Speaker 1: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
Speaker 1: through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
Speaker 1: and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
Speaker 1: today and lasting impactful tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: She's on the Money. She's on the Money.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
Speaker 2: for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another
Speaker 2: one of my favorite episodes, money Daries, where I get
Speaker 2: the absolute privilege of talking to one of our incredible
Speaker 2: She's on the Money community members all about their journey.
Speaker 2: Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got
Speaker 2: a message and it sounded a little bit like this. Hi,
Speaker 2: She's on the Money. I'm nearly fifty and recently separated
Speaker 2: from my husband and I've now brought him out of
Speaker 2: our family shipping container, small home. One of the reasons
Speaker 2: we separated was our very different approach to money, especially
Speaker 2: as we owned a business together. I was accounts in
Speaker 2: HR and would work out the budget, which he would
Speaker 2: then totally ignore, only to blame me if we didn't
Speaker 2: have enough money to buy what he wanted. I would
Speaker 2: love to share my story on how I survived our
Speaker 2: ten year marriage and the steps I took to lead
Speaker 2: myself out of this circumstance. Money Diarist, what a story
Speaker 2: to share. I'm so excited about this. We welcome to
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you very excited to be here.
Speaker 2: I am very excit t I d that you're also here.
Speaker 2: The first question that I always ask on the show
Speaker 2: is Money Diarist. How would you grade your money habits
Speaker 2: if I asked you to grade them from A through
Speaker 2: to F.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting between a BUS or a C plus.
Speaker 3: Can't quite make up my mind on that.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, you don't have to make up your
Speaker 2: mind just yet. We can talk about it at the
Speaker 2: end of the episode. My favorite question, though, Money Diarist,
Speaker 2: can you tell us a little bit more about your
Speaker 2: money story?
Speaker 4: Well, both my parents were quite interested in money, and
Speaker 4: where mum worked in accounts dad it went back to
Speaker 4: study accounting, though he never worked in it, and they
Speaker 4: did do a lot of collaborating with the bills and
Speaker 4: things that check their receipts against their accounts, but it
Speaker 4: was not something that was discussed with my sister and myself.
Speaker 4: So it was sort of like something that adults did
Speaker 4: not necessarily that children did. They did encourage us to save,
Speaker 4: and if we were we didn't necessarily a lot of
Speaker 4: money growing up compared to what I saw some of
Speaker 4: my friends having. But I know that probably we did
Speaker 4: have it. Mum and Dad chose to put it into
Speaker 4: paying off their property, having shares, but I didn't see that.
Speaker 4: I saw, you know, that I couldn't have the designer
Speaker 4: top that I wanted, And you know, my sister and
Speaker 4: I used to we'd get hand me downs from sports
Speaker 4: Scale when we'd take the label, like the tag at
Speaker 4: the back off the Sports Scale top and put it
Speaker 4: onto a Target top because then we had two tops
Speaker 4: that we could wear that were like the designer label.
Speaker 3: Because Mom wasn't going to go.
Speaker 4: And spend you know, sixty bucks on a T shirt
Speaker 4: when she could buy it from Target for like fourteen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm still like that but I feel like the
Speaker 2: older we get, the less we care about the label.
Speaker 2: We're like, hmm, young people definitely care about it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I will gloat to you that this is
Speaker 2: from Kama or Target. I will tell you that I've
Speaker 2: got the best money win any Thai world.
Speaker 4: Yes, definitely me now too. I think it made my
Speaker 4: sister and I quite innovative when it came to how
Speaker 4: we spent our money and what we did with it.
Speaker 2: Very cool. And then what happened as you got a
Speaker 2: little bit older.
Speaker 4: I suppose it went to UNI spent a lot of
Speaker 4: money on my horses. Yeah, traveled quite a bit, But
Speaker 4: I suppose I always had an interest in in saving
Speaker 4: and being able to do better. Mum and Dad for
Speaker 4: my first horse, I bought myself. Well, even just growing up,
Speaker 4: they told me that I desperately wanted a horse, and
Speaker 4: they said, well if I bought the land, that by
Speaker 4: meet the horse. And I think I was in about
Speaker 4: year two or year three at this stage, so religiously
Speaker 4: from that point I saved for land, not really realizing
Speaker 4: that land was quite a bit more expensive than a horse.
Speaker 4: And then in high school I sort of worked out
Speaker 4: that actually I saved enough money to buy my own horse,
Speaker 4: and Mum and Dad were good. They actually supported me
Speaker 4: in doing that over time. So I sort of always
Speaker 4: had a bit of a savor personality, which maybe would
Speaker 4: delve into later on. Is probably one of my downfalls
Speaker 4: as well. And from one of my trips overseas, my
Speaker 4: sister was working ski lifts in Canada, so I went over.
Speaker 3: To see her.
Speaker 4: I decided that I wanted to buy a house, so
Speaker 4: I came back, lived at home and bought a house.
Speaker 4: I saved up the money, got the deposit, and went
Speaker 4: through doing that, had the house for a little bit,
Speaker 4: and then met my now ex husband.
Speaker 3: But my husband and.
Speaker 4: Although listening to my speel about him at the beginning,
Speaker 4: I'm like, we had some great times together, you know,
Speaker 4: we had dreams together, we had make it a bit
Speaker 4: sad about this because it just didn't turn out the
Speaker 4: way that I planned. Though he can be a bit
Speaker 4: of a idiot in some ways, there's many good things
Speaker 4: about him as well.
Speaker 2: That is so fine. I feel like that's such a
Speaker 2: relatable story though, Like no one gets married with the
Speaker 2: hopes that it doesn't work out right. You get married
Speaker 2: with all of the hopes and the dreams that this
Speaker 2: is going to be the happily ever after in the
Speaker 2: fairy tale. Otherwise you wouldn't get married, would you, Like,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't go this is my forever person. And I
Speaker 2: think the idea that you know obviously, I actually really
Speaker 2: like that you've shared that with us, because I think
Speaker 2: that there's this idea that a ten year marriage is
Speaker 2: a waste of time if the outcome was bad. But
Speaker 2: it's not. You had a beautiful journey together. You learned,
Speaker 2: you grew, you change together. You probably had so many
Speaker 2: moments that are life changing moments together. But sometimes just
Speaker 2: because it was right in the moment doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: it's right forever. Yeah, And I think that that's a
Speaker 2: really good story to share as well, because it's not
Speaker 2: a rite off.
Speaker 4: No, we were together like fifteen years, so five years
Speaker 4: and then got married and yeah, we traveled overseas, spent
Speaker 4: two years overseas living the dreams, snowboarding, mountain biking, and
Speaker 4: it was during that that we talked about starting a
Speaker 4: business together, and you know, came back, we got engaged overseas,
Speaker 4: came back, got married, started the business, got pregnant, bought
Speaker 4: a bird, the family.
Speaker 3: Of land that I now own. And yeah, we had.
Speaker 4: A great time together doing that and ah building the
Speaker 4: business up from where it was just him and me
Speaker 4: to the stage where we oh say we but I
Speaker 4: mean the business is continuing now without me, but we
Speaker 4: have several employees, we have contractors. That vision that we
Speaker 4: had over in Canada, you know, we actually saw to fulfillment.
Speaker 2: That's very cool. That is very very cool to know
Speaker 2: that it wasn't just kind of like a pipe dream
Speaker 2: or something that you talk about one day, like it
Speaker 2: actually happened and you built it and you proved to
Speaker 2: yourselves that yeah, you could do that. So what do
Speaker 2: you now do for work?
Speaker 4: Well, despite like although I was working in this business,
Speaker 4: I was also my career. All my background is in teaching,
Speaker 4: So I still work. I've just gone back for well
Speaker 4: say just the last three years, I've been back working
Speaker 4: full time. But previous to that, after having kids, I
Speaker 4: was working part time teaching, part time in the business.
Speaker 2: Very cool, And let's be a little bit pervy. How
Speaker 2: much money do you make?
Speaker 4: Like I did look this up because I was like
Speaker 4: I need to have these answers.
Speaker 3: So one hundred and nine thousand and.
Speaker 2: Is that including or excluding super now that.
Speaker 3: Will be excluding super.
Speaker 2: Oh very nice, very very nice. So I want to know.
Speaker 2: Obviously life has changed significantly for you, but what are
Speaker 2: your big money goals now? What are we working towards?
Speaker 2: What's on the radar?
Speaker 4: Well, definitely off the mortgage or paying it down enough.
Speaker 4: It's sort of a long term plan. But I'd really
Speaker 4: like to build a actual house and not live in
Speaker 4: a cabin for the rest of my life, which, although
Speaker 4: it's quite cute, is quite small when I have teenage children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely fair. I can't imagine how cramped it
Speaker 2: could become, given how many times I argued with my
Speaker 2: mum over getting the sink in the bathroom way back when.
Speaker 2: So I have no doubt you want that to kind
Speaker 2: of resolve itself sooner rather than later. Yes, tell me
Speaker 2: a bit more about you know this, I guess mortgage
Speaker 2: and what that actually means, and how I guess that
Speaker 2: has played into it. Obviously getting a divorce, things could
Speaker 2: be really messy or things could be relatively clean cut.
Speaker 2: How did you make those decisions around? All right, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pay off this mortgage, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get the home. What happened with the business, Like, I
Speaker 2: feel like there's so many questions there that could be,
Speaker 2: you know, really tricky, because I can't imagine I own
Speaker 2: my business but my husband's not involved. So I know
Speaker 2: that if something didn't work out, I'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well this is my business. I'm going to continue to
Speaker 2: run it. But if you run it together, that could
Speaker 2: be a very challenging circumstance, right.
Speaker 3: Very much so.
Speaker 4: And though it was his skill set that we set
Speaker 4: the business up around, so if he took him out
Speaker 4: of it, the business maybe wouldn't go as well as
Speaker 4: what it is now. And I was, you know, my
Speaker 4: skill set is much easier to replace within that. So
Speaker 4: if I suppose we looked at we had equal shares
Speaker 4: in it, and because I had the house before we
Speaker 4: got married, he did not have a house, and he
Speaker 4: actually didn't have any super when he met maybe either
Speaker 4: working for himself. That was something that we sort of
Speaker 4: set up for him. As we've progressed in our financial journey,
Speaker 4: like getting together and getting married sort of thing, We're like, right, well,
Speaker 4: we need to set this up. So I think I
Speaker 4: just was like, well, what's fair, you know, and his
Speaker 4: time and intellectual property within the business was much more
Speaker 4: of a percentage than mine. So I was like, well,
Speaker 4: if he gets the business, then in some ways we
Speaker 4: it was pretty messy, but in other ways we wanted
Speaker 4: to try and keep it as messy free as possible
Speaker 4: for our children, and that meant keeping them in the
Speaker 4: family home, so that meant me buying him out of
Speaker 4: their property. So from there I went and saw some counselors,
Speaker 4: went and saw lawyers and talked to them about what
Speaker 4: it was, and let you know, I upskilled myself on
Speaker 4: what are the possibilities not just taking the first person
Speaker 4: I spoke to advice, and that's something I wanted to
Speaker 4: share for anyone else that's contemplating it is. You know,
Speaker 4: there's so many services out there, and for some of
Speaker 4: them I didn't qualify it, Like I couldn't go because
Speaker 4: of my income that I haned and because I owned business.
Speaker 4: A lot of them were like, oh, that's a little
Speaker 4: bit tricky. We can't help you, but have you tied
Speaker 4: this service or you know what about these guys? And
Speaker 4: I would really encourage people to make the call, ask
Speaker 4: the questions. And then when I started to go, oh,
Speaker 4: several people have so told me for our superannuation, the
Speaker 4: two amounts will be added together, and then it separated
Speaker 4: and I had heaps more superannuation than him. I was older,
Speaker 4: I had a longer working life, so I knew from
Speaker 4: the get go that I was going to end up
Speaker 4: losing some of my super to him. But it wasn't
Speaker 4: so hard to take because I was able to go,
Speaker 4: this is what it is. You know, normally it works
Speaker 4: in the female's favor. For me, it worked the opposite
Speaker 4: way because I had, you know, that greater asset. But
Speaker 4: we were also then my lawyers talked about the fact that,
Speaker 4: you know, because I had more coming in prior to
Speaker 4: meeting my ex husband, that it shouldn't be a fifty
Speaker 4: to fifty straight split. And so having that knowledge and
Speaker 4: having someone that was able to back me on that
Speaker 4: is really useful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, all right, let's go to a really quick break,
Speaker 2: and on the other side of the break, I want
Speaker 2: to ask a few more perfect questions, mainly about being
Speaker 2: on a different financial page and how that played out.
Speaker 2: Don't go anywhere, all right, money, diarist, We are back,
Speaker 2: and I have a few more perfect questions up my sleeve.
Speaker 2: I really want to know in your letter that you
Speaker 2: wrote into us. You said, you know, you would work
Speaker 2: out the budgets, and your ex husband he wasn't really
Speaker 2: a budget kind of guy. How did that play out?
Speaker 2: Was that something that was an issue the whole relationship
Speaker 2: or was it something that just when you spoke about
Speaker 2: the business was an issue or it was only an
Speaker 2: issue in the lady years? Like, what did that actually
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 4: It was probably always an issue from the point we
Speaker 4: started to have joint finances, and that probably came about
Speaker 4: when we started to travel together. You know, you get
Speaker 4: into a relationship for better or for less, and no
Speaker 4: one's perfect, and so you sort of go, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is his challenge. You know, I've got, as I
Speaker 4: said before, I save money. I don't spend the spender,
Speaker 4: not the saver. So it was just the further we
Speaker 4: got along where it wasn't his money habits weren't allowing
Speaker 4: us to reach joint goals. Then he would blame me
Speaker 4: for not reaching them. And when we'd sort of we'd go, right, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to spend this much on shopping, We're going
Speaker 4: to spend this much on petrol, this much on you know,
Speaker 4: our coffees and that, and he then wouldn't follow it,
Speaker 4: but then blame me for.
Speaker 3: Not following it. Each scot pretty.
Speaker 4: One of the early stories is I was thinking about
Speaker 4: this that I was when we were going to travel overseas.
Speaker 4: He come home one day with a.
Speaker 3: iPod and I'm showing my age here.
Speaker 4: It was an iPod that we used to have music on,
Speaker 4: not like burns nowadays.
Speaker 2: Hey, I had an iPod. You're not that old.
Speaker 4: Come on. Oh I teach younger kids primary school age
Speaker 4: and they think I am ancient.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's because they're actual children. They don't get it.
Speaker 2: I'm a millennial, not a gen z. So often I'm
Speaker 2: not up with it either. Don't worry.
Speaker 4: And he was like, I thought this would be good
Speaker 4: for us to travel with. I'm like, excellent. How much
Speaker 4: does it cost? And he's like, oh blah blah blah,
Speaker 4: And then he wanted me to pay half of it,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I don't know that I can
Speaker 4: afford that, Like, this was not a joint discussion.
Speaker 3: You bought it.
Speaker 4: And then to top it off, he wouldn't let me
Speaker 4: put my music on it.
Speaker 3: But I still was meant to.
Speaker 4: Pay half of absolutely not sir, Well I did, but
Speaker 4: that kind of is a good illustration of where we
Speaker 4: got a bit stuck and where maybe I wasn't as
Speaker 4: capable as I am now. Life teaches you these things
Speaker 4: of setting boundaries with that and knowing that, you know,
Speaker 4: setting those boundaries early on would have meant that we
Speaker 4: knew where we stood. Later on, where it got harder
Speaker 4: to sort of, you know, go, Actually, I wasn't part
Speaker 4: of that conversation, So why.
Speaker 2: Am I then responsible for this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Getting some you know, impact from it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, absolutely so as you I guess progressed in your
Speaker 2: relationship and I guess got further towards the end of it.
Speaker 2: Were those things compounding or were you just sick of it?
Speaker 2: Or were you just at a point where you're all like,
Speaker 2: this is not going to work. Because to me, it
Speaker 2: feels a little bit when you're saying you would set
Speaker 2: a budget and then he'd tell you, no, I'm going
Speaker 2: to ignore it and then say it was your fault.
Speaker 2: I'm like, so that is textbook gas lighting. I'm not
Speaker 2: okay with that, And I feel like that could be
Speaker 2: over a really long period of time, really disheartening. You
Speaker 2: start to really question yourself, Am I good at money?
Speaker 2: Like I've been setting these budgets and he keeps saying,
Speaker 2: it's my fault, I'm not doing it. Did you start
Speaker 2: to think that maybe it was you not being good
Speaker 2: at money or you having the issue, when in reality
Speaker 2: that wasn't the case at all.
Speaker 4: In my brain, I knew it wasn't me. And I'll
Speaker 4: say that the behavior that I'm describing was not limited
Speaker 4: to financial. I'm only giving the financial examples, but it
Speaker 4: wasn't limited to yeah, of course finances. But it wasn't
Speaker 4: until I was out that I knew well. I started
Speaker 4: to see the damage it had done to my soul,
Speaker 4: my emotional well being that I was sort of like,
Speaker 4: I knew he hadn't had the easiest life growing up,
Speaker 4: and so I could forgive him of his faults. And
Speaker 4: I just thought, and maybe it's teaching, where you see
Speaker 4: You're always like people can learn, people can grow, and
Speaker 4: I thought that that's what would happen. And then over
Speaker 4: time realizing that it's not happening. And there was a
Speaker 4: couple of moments where the catalysts were where I asked
Speaker 4: my children to not change their behavior according to what
Speaker 4: their dad was doing, and I'm like, hang on a
Speaker 4: sec I changed my behavior according to what their dad
Speaker 4: is doing. How can I expect my children not to
Speaker 4: Is this what I want them to grow up with
Speaker 4: that this is okay in a relationship because it's not okay.
Speaker 4: And I could tell them that it wasn't okay, but
Speaker 4: my words weren't matching my behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And sometimes actions do really speak louder than words, right,
Speaker 2: Like you can talk the talk, but if you're not
Speaker 2: walking the walk, Like I feel, people see straight through that,
Speaker 2: especially kids who are tiny parrots who just copy everything
Speaker 2: that you do, whether they like it or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what did that, I guess translate into. So, if
Speaker 2: you were the one who was good at finances, I
Speaker 2: got to be a bit pervy. What does this mean
Speaker 2: for the business he's now running? Because if he's gonna
Speaker 2: not be good at money, I just have a sneaky
Speaker 2: suspicion that's not the best position for a business owner
Speaker 2: to be in.
Speaker 4: No, I believe, I don't know for sure, but I
Speaker 4: believe he has a very good admin person that he
Speaker 4: has put in place.
Speaker 3: That is, she certainly took on the role for me
Speaker 3: a lot of the bits and pieces that I was.
Speaker 4: Doing within the business, and she came from a strong
Speaker 4: money budgeting corporate business.
Speaker 3: So I'm guessing that she was just like, Yep, this
Speaker 3: is the way it is, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair, I like it. And I feel like sometimes
Speaker 2: you need that non related kind of party to step
Speaker 2: in and be like, actually, this is how it is
Speaker 2: for them to actually respect it. Which sucks because we
Speaker 2: could have had a very different outcome here, sir, Yes,
Speaker 2: but we are here. You mentioned your kids not replicating
Speaker 2: the behaviors of your husband. What do you think your
Speaker 2: kid's attitude towards money is.
Speaker 4: I get worried because I'm forever saying to them, we
Speaker 4: can't afford things. We're on a tight budget.
Speaker 3: This you know.
Speaker 4: It's so I'm like super conscious of it. We have
Speaker 4: done the barefoot like book, they've done the Barefoot steps
Speaker 4: for families. They've got their little jars. I think they
Speaker 4: understand it in that sense. But I do worry that
Speaker 4: I'm putting my hoarding. We must hoard money, but there's
Speaker 4: not enough of it onto them. But then maybe that
Speaker 4: evens out with his let's.
Speaker 3: Spend everything we've got sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that gives me so much anxiety. All right,
Speaker 2: I want to know when it comes to investments. Do
Speaker 2: you have any mentioned Super before? Can you tell us
Speaker 2: a little bit more about I guess super and any
Speaker 2: other investments you have.
Speaker 4: Well, obviously I have the mortgage on the property at
Speaker 4: the moment, so it was valued at six hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty thousand, and I've got a mortgage of around the
Speaker 4: three hundred and sixty.
Speaker 3: Five thousand on that.
Speaker 4: My sleeper is sitting at one hundred and fifty one thousand.
Speaker 2: Not bad looking good, Yes.
Speaker 4: Like he obviously took a bit of a dip with
Speaker 4: what I had to share out to my eggs. His
Speaker 4: was sort of around the under fifty thousand, so it
Speaker 4: certainly was a little bit of a chunk of that
Speaker 4: went to him. But as I said, that's just the
Speaker 4: way they sort it out, and it works in favor
Speaker 4: of some people and not in favor of others.
Speaker 3: So I'm still pretty happy with it.
Speaker 4: Shares, I have some pair pictual shares. I'm sitting at
Speaker 4: around fifteen thousand.
Speaker 2: Oh where did perpetual come from?
Speaker 4: I had a financial advisor back before I met my
Speaker 4: ex husband and they started. My grandmother left me. I
Speaker 4: think it was about a grand when she passed away,
Speaker 4: and then my grandfather left me about five hundred and
Speaker 4: I put them into perpetual shares back. I don't know
Speaker 4: however many.
Speaker 3: Years it was.
Speaker 4: And we have added to them when things were good,
Speaker 4: and we stopped adding when things weren't good. But that
Speaker 4: was something that because I started them with money gifted
Speaker 4: to me from my grandparents, my lawyers were like, I
Speaker 4: get to keep them. I did have to buy him
Speaker 4: out of them.
Speaker 2: Oh good.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's something.
Speaker 4: That's another one of those little things where I'm really
Speaker 4: pleased that I've kept my grandparents' legacy there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really cool.
Speaker 4: And then I've got a very small Cheers's account at
Speaker 4: forty eight dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh love, love.
Speaker 4: Yep, And I will thank you for introducing me to
Speaker 4: that because I wanted to add to my share portfolio,
Speaker 4: but I haven't been able to do the big chunks.
Speaker 2: From little things, big things grow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do five dollars a fortnite, so you sort
Speaker 4: of work out how long I've been doing it from
Speaker 4: that and just have an automatic. I did do some
Speaker 4: purposeful buying and then I've just automated it and let
Speaker 4: them choose.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that so much. It makes me so
Speaker 2: happy when people, I guess share that with me, not
Speaker 2: because you're using Chazy's Obviously I do like the platform,
Speaker 2: but I think it's just this idea that it's so
Speaker 2: much more accessible. Obviously, the perpetual shares have such a
Speaker 2: higher entry point for you to be able to contribute
Speaker 2: to them, and if you were adding five bucks every fortnight,
Speaker 2: you'd be like, maybe this isn't worth it, Like I
Speaker 2: can't really see it. There's not that level of transparency.
Speaker 2: The brokerage fees would be so expect on that, whereas
Speaker 2: five dollars on chairs is really attainable, really really accessible,
Speaker 2: And I think it just makes you feel a little
Speaker 2: bit more motivated about your journey as well. And it
Speaker 2: just you're doing the right thing, You're in the right place,
Speaker 2: You're taking the right steps to create financial freedom, and
Speaker 2: I think that's really sexy.
Speaker 3: Thank you all right.
Speaker 2: I want to know you mentioned before your mortgage you
Speaker 2: have a six hundred and fifty thousand dollars mortgage with
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five thousand dollars oweing on it,
Speaker 2: or that was what your property was worth versus what's oweing?
Speaker 2: Do you have any other debts?
Speaker 4: I do I have a car line that I took over,
Speaker 4: so so it was in my ex husband's name, so
Speaker 4: I took that over from him, and there's thirty three
Speaker 4: thousand left on that. It could be one of those
Speaker 4: bad money habits where I'm like, it was a car
Speaker 4: probably above what I could definitely what I could have
Speaker 4: bored now, and it was kind of like a gift
Speaker 4: of say, if you stay with me, these are the
Speaker 4: gifts that I can give you.
Speaker 2: And now you've got the debt for the gift. That's
Speaker 2: very nice, very generous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is sort of during our make up time.
Speaker 4: But it's been one of those things where I'm just like,
Speaker 4: you know, that little bit, it makes me feel better
Speaker 4: about myself.
Speaker 3: And so I have kept it.
Speaker 4: But it might be one of those things if things special,
Speaker 4: if intrastrates on mortgages and electricity bills keep going up,
Speaker 4: I might have to be realistic about whether I really
Speaker 4: need it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair. I kind of lack that you told
Speaker 2: me that it makes you feel good about yourself because
Speaker 2: I think that that especially in circumstances like yours, where
Speaker 2: you said before you know your emotional wellbeing, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to extrapolate that out to your confidence has really
Speaker 2: been knocked. I think that there are some things that
Speaker 2: I don't really care about the financial side of it,
Speaker 2: Like this is what's making me feel good at the moment,
Speaker 2: and we're aware of it and we're going to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on it, but like it's helping, and it's
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of crutch that I'm going to
Speaker 2: lean on for the moment so that I can put
Speaker 2: myself in the best possible position long term. Because I
Speaker 2: think that it's not always just about finance. I think
Speaker 2: it can also be about your well being and your
Speaker 2: happiness and your confidence and just how you feel about
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I do a lot of driving.
Speaker 4: Some of those are like country case, and so having
Speaker 4: a good car that starts, that's comfy, that's economical as
Speaker 4: as well as big cars can be. You know, that
Speaker 4: is also you know, part of it, and it's safe
Speaker 4: to drive my children around in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, all right. I want to know, because I
Speaker 2: feel like you've probably got a few of these up
Speaker 2: your sleeve. What is your best money have It?
Speaker 4: Probably a lot of planning, I'll call it budgeting for
Speaker 4: want of a better word. Every fortnight, when I get paid,
Speaker 4: I sit down and I write down in a little notebook.
Speaker 4: You know, I have a different one for each financial year.
Speaker 4: A going and getting the new notebook is really excited.
Speaker 4: And the front of it has like my long term
Speaker 4: goals and where my money flow is going to go,
Speaker 4: and how my cash flow is, and might list my
Speaker 4: debts that I've got and I might redo those quarterly.
Speaker 4: But in the back is I look at all my
Speaker 4: different accounts and I'll list down how what I've got
Speaker 4: in all of them, and then I look at is
Speaker 4: it better or worse than last fortnight? And then what
Speaker 4: my net overall position is. And it's that idea that
Speaker 4: from little things, big things grow. You don't see it
Speaker 4: from fortnite to fortnite. But if I grab a book
Speaker 4: from last financial year and I look at it and
Speaker 4: I look at those accounts, you can see the difference
Speaker 4: that you're making.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that. And you keep them all. You
Speaker 2: don't like get rid of the old ones as the
Speaker 2: new year comes in.
Speaker 3: No, I keep them for seven years.
Speaker 2: Oh seven years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my parents are accountants.
Speaker 2: No, I like it, the seven year rule. I get it.
Speaker 2: I've got anxiety over the year seven. It's all good.
Speaker 4: And then I'll work out what bills I have to pay,
Speaker 4: you know, and it may even be my parents lent
Speaker 4: me some money the other day when I had some
Speaker 4: cash flow problems, you know, and that will go down
Speaker 4: on that, and then I'll list them in hierarchical order,
Speaker 4: you know, what's most important to be paid this fortnight
Speaker 4: down and then sort of track so that you don't
Speaker 4: miss any and if you have to jiggle them around
Speaker 4: to go, oh, this one's got a due date soon,
Speaker 4: better make sure that that one's paid. It just helps
Speaker 4: me feel like I'm on track instead of like you've
Speaker 4: thrown up a deck of cards and you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: my goodness, which bill am I going to grab first
Speaker 4: that I need to pay?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Have you always been like this with budgeting or
Speaker 2: is this something that you've learned over time.
Speaker 4: I'll go back to that story I told it about
Speaker 4: saving for the land instead of the horse. Yeah, the
Speaker 4: second horse I wanted to buy. Dad told me if
Speaker 4: I kept track of my finances for a year and
Speaker 4: I could prove to him that I could afford it,
Speaker 4: that I could get a second horse. And I think
Speaker 4: that's where it started to stem from.
Speaker 2: I love this motivation everybody's motivation is so different. Like
Speaker 2: if you said to me you can buy a horse,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, I do not know what to do
Speaker 2: with a horse, Like this is not my jam. Whereas
Speaker 2: a horse you budgeted for twelve four months because of this,
Speaker 2: and it's impacted the rest of your box. I love this.
Speaker 2: If ever I need advice on how to budget for
Speaker 2: a horse, I am coming straight to you, my friend,
Speaker 2: because there is nobody who I would deem more reliable
Speaker 2: in this space.
Speaker 4: Well, I would suggest that you don't budget for a
Speaker 4: horse because that really expensive creatures.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I've heard that We've had some horse friends
Speaker 2: on the show before, and I'm always so shocked at
Speaker 2: how expensive they are. But I will say horse people
Speaker 2: are some of the most committed people in the entire world.
Speaker 2: So like, if you're into horses, like get it clean,
Speaker 2: because that is an expensive habit. Yes, I do want
Speaker 2: to bring down the mood of the conversation. I need
Speaker 2: to know what do you think is your worst money
Speaker 2: have it?
Speaker 4: While I've probably alluded to a couple of them, I
Speaker 4: think having horses and kids is probably.
Speaker 2: Horses and kids. Yeah, fair, I don't have horses.
Speaker 4: I don't have kids, Yeah, definitely worth having it, but
Speaker 4: not financially, and then just hobbies and school with kids
Speaker 4: would definitely add to it. Maybe a little zip pay account.
Speaker 4: When we're talking about debts, I didn't get to mentioning that.
Speaker 2: Whoops.
Speaker 4: I've used it for vet bills and for tires on
Speaker 4: my car, and it was the only way I could
Speaker 4: afford to do it because I don't like credit cuts
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to take out a credit cut.
Speaker 4: Paying that off would certainly change things.
Speaker 2: I feel like. I like the way you're using that though,
Speaker 2: because obviously going through a divorce, you're going to have
Speaker 2: cash flow issues like these are very common things to
Speaker 2: go through, and if you're using something like zip paid
Speaker 2: to actually cash flow VET bills, which are essential, I
Speaker 2: don't think that's the worst use of the platform. I
Speaker 2: think the issue is when you go down the slippery
Speaker 2: slope and people end up spending way beyond their means
Speaker 2: on things that they don't necessarily need. And so the
Speaker 2: thing I really like about these platforms, which you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we don't endorse getting them, but if you're in
Speaker 2: that circumstance where you can't pay your vet bills, what
Speaker 2: a tool to have to be able to cash flow
Speaker 2: that because I guarantee, if you're anything like me, you're
Speaker 2: as obsessed with your pets as I am. And there's
Speaker 2: absolutely no way I'm not paying for that. Like in
Speaker 2: that moment, I don't care how much debt I'm taking
Speaker 2: on because I love my animals so much and that
Speaker 2: is my priority. So I think it's it's also very
Speaker 2: helpful to have a tool that enables you to cash
Speaker 2: flow stuff like that, which is, you know, essential from
Speaker 2: my perspective. Yeah, so not the worst thing, not the
Speaker 2: worst thing at all.
Speaker 3: And then maybe coffee and alcohol.
Speaker 2: No, I feel like that apple doesn't fall far from
Speaker 2: the she's on the money tree. I'm very, very good
Speaker 2: at a coffee, but I did do the maths the
Speaker 2: other day. My daily coffee does cost me fourteen hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a year, and if I saved fourteen hundred dollars
Speaker 2: a year and ten years, I still can't afford a house.
Speaker 2: So I will be continuing my coffee addiction, and I
Speaker 2: hope that that makes you feel a little bit better
Speaker 2: about it as well. Definitely, so money Diarist, before I go,
Speaker 2: I feel like this has been a really special story
Speaker 2: to share because you're in the position that you know
Speaker 2: a lot of us in our community might actually find
Speaker 2: ourselves in one day. And you've shared some really really
Speaker 2: good tips and tricks about you know, not just taking
Speaker 2: the first person's advice and making sure that you always
Speaker 2: know your worth and that you you know, set boundaries
Speaker 2: and put yourself in the best possible position. What other
Speaker 2: advice have you got that the community definitely needs to hear.
Speaker 4: I would go like relationships Australia was a has some
Speaker 4: great resources and their people that you can speak to
Speaker 4: on the phone have been really good financially, putting some
Speaker 4: child support in place, as to you know, how you
Speaker 4: sought out the timetable, how you sort out who's going
Speaker 4: to pay for what would be definitely a resource. I'd
Speaker 4: recommend listening to podcasts obviously that that was something that
Speaker 4: really helped me. I think I actually wrote down some
Speaker 4: notes too. Oh, if you need to go get some
Speaker 4: good counseling, psychology, get a mental health plan, don't be
Speaker 4: afraid to do that. I think at one stage I
Speaker 4: was seeing three different psychologists because they all gave me
Speaker 4: little different bits that I needed to be able to
Speaker 4: drag myself through that have a tribe. Have your friends,
Speaker 4: you don't have to share everything with them. I think
Speaker 4: the year that it first started only shared with two friends.
Speaker 4: I didn't let anyone else know. But I wanted to
Speaker 4: protect him as well. And I didn't know if we
Speaker 4: would stay together through what was going on, and people
Speaker 4: would judge him for what he was doing, so I
Speaker 4: didn't want to share it with people that might then
Speaker 4: if we stayed together, have.
Speaker 3: A different opinion of him. So I tried to keep
Speaker 3: that outside.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, if you listen to anything
Speaker 4: by Brene Brown and where she talks about the value
Speaker 4: of trust, it was making sure that the people that
Speaker 4: I shared it with were then going to share it
Speaker 4: with other people because it wasn't their story to share.
Speaker 4: But then have the people that my friends that kept
Speaker 4: inviting me out even though I burst into tears with
Speaker 4: them every single time. You know, you need people like that.
Speaker 2: They're the good friends. They're the good ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And financials run your numbers, like, sit down
Speaker 4: and work it out. What's it look like now, what's
Speaker 4: it going to look like on a single wage? What
Speaker 4: funding is there out there for a single person? And
Speaker 4: this is I know, this is a female or mainly
Speaker 4: female audience that we talked to. But it's not just
Speaker 4: a female story there, you know, it does go vice versa.
Speaker 4: And then take your time, but have an end date.
Speaker 4: So I talk about the year that it was all happening,
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to believe it was happening. And
Speaker 4: then the next year was my year that I was like, well,
Speaker 4: it's happened. He's not changing his behavior. I don't accept
Speaker 4: his behavior. So I had to have a plan for
Speaker 4: getting out of it, and it took me that year
Speaker 4: to do it and to live and COVID happened in
Speaker 4: the middle of that as well. I had to live
Speaker 4: with that knowledge and we were presenting a different picture
Speaker 4: as soon as we stepped out of the house to
Speaker 4: what was happening behind closed doors. But I knew where
Speaker 4: I wanted to go, and I just had an end date.
Speaker 4: And that end date ticked over. It was the thirty
Speaker 4: first of December of that year, and the next day
Speaker 4: I was like, what now we've got to work on
Speaker 4: with the process of actually separating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, and then use your type in that process
Speaker 3: as well. I figure route down there, Yeah.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, that's when you need the most support.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the only other two things I wrote
Speaker 4: down was that in that time, live like you already
Speaker 4: separated so financially wise that if you start to it
Speaker 4: was something I did when I was saving for the house.
Speaker 3: I put aside.
Speaker 4: The money as if that was my mortgage payment, and
Speaker 4: that became my deposit, and you then live like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm going to have to pay an electricity bill and
Speaker 4: that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So that same idea that I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Have to live off a single wage, how is that
Speaker 4: going to look and actually live it? So you start
Speaker 4: to when you muck up, you've still got the two
Speaker 4: wages to be able to work around and go books,
Speaker 4: going to have to rework that little bit and then
Speaker 4: journal and budget.
Speaker 2: I love that. I feel like those are so powerful,
Speaker 2: and I feel like our community is so much richer
Speaker 2: having had your story shared in it. It's very very
Speaker 2: special that you've wanted to open up with us, and
Speaker 2: I'm so so grateful. But I'm also a bit confused
Speaker 2: because at the very start you said I think I'm
Speaker 2: a B minus or a C plus, And as much
Speaker 2: as you've gone through a lot and maybe you're not
Speaker 2: in the financial position you want to be. Like, from
Speaker 2: my perspective, you have so many of the good money
Speaker 2: you have. It's like you're doing all the right things.
Speaker 2: You're budgeting, your cash flowing, like you're caring about investing.
Speaker 2: We've spoken about your kid's attitude towards money, which you're
Speaker 2: heavily impacting. We've talked about the fact that you know
Speaker 2: that your confidence and your emotional wellbeing were not because
Speaker 2: of this, Like, how do you do you still think
Speaker 2: that you're really a B minus or a C plus?
Speaker 2: Because I'm not gonna lie, my friend, I can't see it.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe my knowledge is an A, but my effort
Speaker 4: is a C right spoken like a tru school DJ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, of all people who should know how to
Speaker 2: grade efficiently and correctly after all this time, my friend,
Speaker 2: it should be you. But I do think you should
Speaker 2: be giving yourself some more credit because I have adored
Speaker 2: their story and I feel like there's been so much
Speaker 2: to have learned from it. Like I'm just I'm so
Speaker 2: proud that you're a part of our community and that
Speaker 2: you wanted to share this because I just know that
Speaker 2: there are going to be people in our community who
Speaker 2: are going to breathe a sigh of a relief at
Speaker 2: the end of this, and they're going to say, oh,
Speaker 2: at least it's not just me, or at least I'm
Speaker 2: not alone, or I'm at the start of this, and
Speaker 2: you know, She's worked it out, so can I. There
Speaker 2: are just so many people who are going to benefit
Speaker 2: from this, and I'm just so grateful. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your time today.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me on. I have
Speaker 4: really enjoyed the process. And you know, sitting down and
Speaker 4: going through this and thinking about it, it gives you
Speaker 4: an idea of how you are traveling.
Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you so much. The advice shared
Speaker 2: on She's on the Money is general in nature and
Speaker 2: does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money
Speaker 2: exists purely for education purposes and should not be relied
Speaker 2: upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you
Speaker 2: do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS
Speaker 2: TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.
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