Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: My name is Satasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud or
Speaker 2: the Order Kerni Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before
Speaker 2: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
Speaker 2: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 2: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
Speaker 2: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through.
Speaker 2: As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and
Speaker 2: the storytelling of you to make a difference for today
Speaker 2: and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
Speaker 4: that reminds you that even the most financially savvy people
Speaker 4: have made money mistakes, and today we're talking about them
Speaker 4: and we're doing something a little different. Victoria is usually
Speaker 4: the one leading the charge, helping us get our money sorted.
Speaker 4: What about her journey? Anyone cares about her journey? How
Speaker 4: did she go from feeling totally overwhelmed by money to
Speaker 4: becoming the finance expert we all turn to. I'm excited
Speaker 4: and as always I'm joined of course by Victoria Divine
Speaker 4: retired financial advisor. It makes you sound like eighty years old.
Speaker 1: I know, And how else do you explain that? Though?
Speaker 5: Well, retired ex financial advisor. I remember when we were
Speaker 5: trying to pick and it's like, oh, well, how do
Speaker 5: we refer to you because I'm not legally allowed to
Speaker 5: say I'm a financial advisor?
Speaker 4: Sure right?
Speaker 1: Do I say X? And then you might think I
Speaker 1: got kicked out of.
Speaker 4: The industry, true, like a criminal, Like like, what did
Speaker 4: she do?
Speaker 1: Advisor?
Speaker 5: Anymore's guys, I left willingly, I sold the business. I
Speaker 5: stepped out to do this. So retired just makes it
Speaker 5: sound a little bit nicer.
Speaker 1: Oh that's her, actually, I think.
Speaker 4: But she's not. You do sound that's true.
Speaker 5: That's okay because a lot of my money habits and
Speaker 5: like my personality traits are that of a senior citizen.
Speaker 4: So that's well checks out. Actually, VD is not only
Speaker 4: a retired financial advisor, but also best selling author, number
Speaker 4: one money podcast host, business owner and the reason we
Speaker 4: all know what an emergency fund is.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's very sweet. You didn't have to intro me
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: Well, sorry, but we got to be celebrating.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna lie I'm really nervous about me. Like
Speaker 5: it's funny because I can podcast till the cows come
Speaker 5: home and talk about money and like my advice and
Speaker 5: like it's like my subject matter topic.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: But the second you turn the tables and go can
Speaker 5: you talk about you? I'm like, oh, you're like kind
Speaker 5: of fumble at I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, totally. And the lights in these studios are
Speaker 4: just healthy. I know, I totally get it. Usually we're
Speaker 4: just talking about you by proxy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, but.
Speaker 4: This is all eyes on you. So if it's okay,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to like run through a Q and
Speaker 4: A with you. O.
Speaker 1: I am nervous, but let's go.
Speaker 4: Okay. So first question I have. You've helped so many
Speaker 4: people rewrite their money story, but I want to know
Speaker 4: what was your earliest memory of money, and like was
Speaker 4: it something you were aware of growing up or did
Speaker 4: it not seem like a big deal at the time.
Speaker 1: I have a few early memories of money.
Speaker 5: So I grew up in Tasmania and we used to
Speaker 5: go down or up to this beach called Greens Beach
Speaker 5: and very family friendly at the time, Like it just
Speaker 5: had one general store and that was it. In the
Speaker 5: general store sold petrol, it's old golf balls, it had
Speaker 5: a fish and chip counter, it had all the lollies,
Speaker 5: did everything right. I love those And I remember when
Speaker 5: I was younger, my parents used to give us like
Speaker 5: we would We'd be let loose, like this was acceptable
Speaker 5: at the time. We'd go out onto the rock pools,
Speaker 5: like down at the beach and like hang around there,
Speaker 5: me and my older cousins, and then we would go
Speaker 5: to the general store with our gold coins and we
Speaker 5: get hot chips with extra chicken salt, and then we
Speaker 5: would take them back to the beach. And I remember
Speaker 5: that was really cool because at the time gold coins
Speaker 5: felt like lots of money, like they weren't silver coins.
Speaker 1: They were gold.
Speaker 4: Yes, there's something so like, yeah, they're invincible, yea.
Speaker 5: And like that was so cool. But I always remember
Speaker 5: feeling a little bit like, oh.
Speaker 4: I really want the chippies when we're at the beach,
Speaker 4: but I don't want to ask mom and dad for
Speaker 4: the money, because I always felt like that was a
Speaker 4: bit like at the time, and I don't know where
Speaker 4: this came from, you shouldn't ask for money, like you
Speaker 4: shouldn't ask for it.
Speaker 5: But I mean, as I got older, I definitely asked
Speaker 5: for it. And then another moment that I have that's
Speaker 5: in my brain that you know, I would say, is
Speaker 5: maybe a negative association with money again it was about
Speaker 5: asking for money from my parents. Was when I was younger,
Speaker 5: and I was probably in like maybe grade two or
Speaker 5: three at school and I came home and my mum
Speaker 5: used to get a little bit grumpy at me when
Speaker 5: I didn't give her the forms that I got at school,
Speaker 5: like they'd just sit in the bottom of my school
Speaker 5: bag for ages. And some of them was genuinely because
Speaker 5: I forgot, but other times it was because I didn't
Speaker 5: want to give it to her because it was like, oh,
Speaker 5: we need to, like do I don't know how much
Speaker 5: it was, because like I never remember, but like maybe
Speaker 5: it was like twenty dollars for like a school excursion
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 1: And I used to just get.
Speaker 5: The itch even in grade two about pulling it out
Speaker 5: and being like, oh, Mom and Dad, like I need
Speaker 5: money for this sixcursion. Like it just never felt comfortable,
Speaker 5: and that might just be me, or it might just
Speaker 5: be you know, how I've grown up around money. I
Speaker 5: don't know, but that's yeah, I would say two of
Speaker 5: my earliest memories around like money.
Speaker 4: You sound like a dream child. I feel like I
Speaker 4: was constantly even though we were like perpetually broke, I'll
Speaker 4: constantly ask you for money. It had no concept of outwork.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think that comes from like and that's
Speaker 5: so fine, and like it's not a good or a
Speaker 5: bad thing. But I think I could tell well in
Speaker 5: a way that money at the time might have been
Speaker 5: stressful or significant. Yeah, it definitely had some significance. Like
Speaker 5: I couldn't tell you what was going on or why,
Speaker 5: but I knew that it would add pressure. And I
Speaker 5: just remember that feeling of not wanting.
Speaker 4: To add pressure. They're so sweet.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's fair. Okay, I have another question, if
Speaker 4: you're ready. I feel like I should have been given
Speaker 4: these questions in advance. I could have prepared, but here
Speaker 4: we are. Yeah. No, that's true.
Speaker 5: But it sometimes it's better to just like yolo. I mean,
Speaker 5: you're just getting it raw. I mean that's what you
Speaker 5: probably want anyways, that's what I want.
Speaker 4: I want to raw. What's the most valuable money habit
Speaker 4: or belief you picked up early in life that still
Speaker 4: makes sense today.
Speaker 5: I like that you've said still makes sense, yeah, because
Speaker 5: it doesn't mean I did it, but I was taught
Speaker 5: this from a young age, so.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a pun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my dad was a accountant or is an accountant.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever stopped being an accountant, and.
Speaker 5: Growing up, he always said, always save the first five
Speaker 5: percent your paycheck and pretend you don't have it, because
Speaker 5: if you start that habit early, you will always not
Speaker 5: have that money and you can always just save it.
Speaker 5: And as your income increases, that five percent goes through
Speaker 5: being like four dollars to forty dollars and like that
Speaker 5: will increase.
Speaker 1: And that's always stuck.
Speaker 5: With me because it's kind of about this idea of
Speaker 5: paying yourself first, and he used to like drum that
Speaker 5: into us, Like when I got my first job, he
Speaker 5: was like, Okay, make sure that you're saving. Did I
Speaker 5: do it, though, beck No? No, So, like that is
Speaker 5: a money lesson that I have had with me for
Speaker 5: a long time that potentially I didn't actually implement.
Speaker 1: Sure is that answering their question? No, absolutely, because I.
Speaker 5: Can't think of something that I'm like, yeah, I've always
Speaker 5: been good at money and I used to do that,
Speaker 5: Like I haven't been good at money sure, like I
Speaker 5: am now, And I think that that comes down to
Speaker 5: two things. One obviously discovering my money story, being able
Speaker 5: to get on top of it, being able to have
Speaker 5: these open, honest conversations, and like being comfortable getting on
Speaker 5: top of it, but also honestly having a little bit
Speaker 5: more of it, like having the cash flow to support
Speaker 5: the lifestyle, because I genuinely don't know what would happen
Speaker 5: if I was earning the income that I used to earn,
Speaker 5: whether I would have at some points to come to
Speaker 5: being like, look, I really want to do this other
Speaker 5: thing and gone into personal debt or something, just because
Speaker 5: that's like, that's my personality, Like it's inherent in who
Speaker 5: I am to be relatively impulsive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that makes sense. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: say to people.
Speaker 5: I'm perfect and now like I've recovered from being in
Speaker 5: debt and you know, I'm not in debt anymore, and
Speaker 5: I am you know, the holy grail of savings and money.
Speaker 5: Like I get that that's what I share, but I
Speaker 5: also think that we need to remember that I'm just
Speaker 5: a girl, Like I am impulsive, Like I can resonate
Speaker 5: with a lot of things when people like I'm in
Speaker 5: after pay debt, I'd be like, okay, well I've never
Speaker 5: been in after pay debt. But I fully understand that
Speaker 5: if I was in that financial position and I still
Speaker 5: wanted that stuff, do you know what come midnight and
Speaker 5: I'm still on my phone, maybe I would have given.
Speaker 4: It a crack, like yeah, yeah, exactly, you totally. Also,
Speaker 4: I feel like there's like something in when you've been
Speaker 4: in debt and you get out of it and the
Speaker 4: fear of egg.
Speaker 1: It's so scary, but it makes me feel sick.
Speaker 4: Totally. Same even if I get like a debit success
Speaker 4: email because my anytime fitness thing didn't work, I get
Speaker 4: stressed anxious.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so like I do the same thing in the
Speaker 5: uns Like it's funny. I actually got a call yesterday
Speaker 5: because I missed an invoice. Yeah, and it was for
Speaker 5: like two hundred dollars. That wasn't like it was a
Speaker 5: business invoice. I just it was for my being completely transparent,
Speaker 5: It was for my accountant because I have lots of
Speaker 5: different entities. I have lots of different fees that I
Speaker 5: pay for different things, and like, honestly, I just missed
Speaker 5: it and the lady called me, and I I won't
Speaker 5: say I freaked out, but I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry, like just like, oh, it's just three
Speaker 5: hundred bucks. I'm just following up on, you know, the invoicing.
Speaker 5: You're like, you know, you don't usually miss any of them,
Speaker 5: and like con text, I paid tens of thousands of
Speaker 5: dollars a year in accounting fees. That's just part and
Speaker 5: parcel of running businesses, having what we do right, and
Speaker 5: so this two hundred dollars shouldn't have been an issue.
Speaker 1: I felt sick.
Speaker 5: I immediately am talking across the room to Sarah and
Speaker 5: I was like, Sarah, can you please look at my emails,
Speaker 5: like can you please find it? I can't seem to
Speaker 5: find it because I was frazzled looking my emails trying
Speaker 5: to find this invoice that I hadn't paid, and I
Speaker 5: was like, it's in there, can you please look it up?
Speaker 5: And then you know, she couldn't open it on her
Speaker 5: computer because it had timed out. Well, email them, email
Speaker 5: them and find out what it was. Like yeah, I
Speaker 5: was just so and I'm like, can you pay it now?
Speaker 5: And she's like, yeah, I think I can pay it now.
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, do that do that.
Speaker 4: Like, I just hate the idea that I would owe
Speaker 4: somebody money. Yeah, Like I won't say that that's trauma,
Speaker 4: but it can sometimes feel that way. Yeah. No, I
Speaker 4: totally get that. There are lots of people that have
Speaker 4: a lot worse things going on, but it's like it
Speaker 4: triggers that fight or flight in you because you know,
Speaker 4: you know that feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I felt sick and yeah, could if thord it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I can, I can afford.
Speaker 4: And that's so nice now, But I think in those moments,
Speaker 4: you forget where you've been and what you've come from,
Speaker 4: and you just go.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I owe someone money and I didn't
Speaker 5: transfer it. Oh no, Like I genuinely was real frazzled.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I completely get that.
Speaker 4: So relatable. Okay, my next question for you. When you
Speaker 4: first started making your own money, how did you handle it?
Speaker 5: So my first job was working at an ice cream
Speaker 5: shop on the Mornington Peninsula. I thought it was a
Speaker 5: coolest job ever.
Speaker 4: Weird boss, who Now I look back, you shouldn't have
Speaker 4: been managing people. But okay, I would say poorly, but
Speaker 4: I had a good time. Nice poorly, but I had
Speaker 4: a good time. Like I was young, I was fourteen
Speaker 4: years and nine months. I had some income coming in.
Speaker 4: I didn't know at all what superannuation was. I didn't
Speaker 4: know how tax worked, and at the time, I don't
Speaker 4: think I cared, because I think once I learned that
Speaker 4: it got taken out before I got my money, I
Speaker 4: was like whatever, Like I don't care.
Speaker 1: I would save up my money.
Speaker 5: And the closest big shopping area was Frankston at the time,
Speaker 5: and if I was lucky, Mum would let me catch
Speaker 5: the bus after school to Frankston with a couple of
Speaker 5: my girlfriends, where we would go to so Prey and
Speaker 5: look at all of the stuff at the Prey and
Speaker 5: get our pink tote bags. And I remember the headbands.
Speaker 5: I think they were like four ninety nine, like the
Speaker 5: really skinny headbands with the boats.
Speaker 1: Do you remember them. They were made of elastic. I
Speaker 1: had so many of them.
Speaker 5: I at the time really liked the slogan T shirts
Speaker 5: there because they had like, I don't know, weird slogans or.
Speaker 1: Semile T shirts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can remember that.
Speaker 5: And I've always been into clothes and fashion and stuff.
Speaker 5: And then there was this other store I can't remember
Speaker 5: what it was called and I wish I could, but
Speaker 5: it was like I want to say, Joanne Lee or
Speaker 5: something like that. Yeah, it sold. Do you remember the
Speaker 5: brand face Off like they did like face Off jeans
Speaker 5: and familiar. They weren't super expensive, but for me at
Speaker 5: the time, they definitely felt it. And all the cool
Speaker 5: girls wore those chees that real low rise, like sometimes
Speaker 5: a bit of a flair moment. And so I spent
Speaker 5: my money on that. I would spend my money at McDonald's.
Speaker 5: So my friends and I would go to McDonald's. Oh
Speaker 5: you got to school, oh yeah, And at the time,
Speaker 5: I remember like it was a four dollar meal deal,
Speaker 5: Like it was a chicken and cheeseburger, a small chips,
Speaker 5: a small coke, and a Sunday for four dollars.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, bargain, I know, right.
Speaker 1: Good deal. So we'd go do that.
Speaker 5: I used to go to the movies a lot like
Speaker 5: that was always like a good activity.
Speaker 1: Growing up on the Peninsula. There wasn't a lot.
Speaker 5: Of activities you could do after school or like a
Speaker 5: bud village yep, go down to the plaza. So all
Speaker 5: of my money, honestly, it wasn't on big things like
Speaker 5: I can't ever remember going. Oh, I saved up all
Speaker 5: of my money and spent it on X. I remember
Speaker 5: at one point my parents matched me because they really
Speaker 5: wanted to promote my savings, and I got an iPod
Speaker 5: Mini c pink iPod Mini. So I would say that
Speaker 5: was probably the biggest thing at the time that I
Speaker 5: had saved for. But all my money just went because
Speaker 5: like at the time, maybe I was earning like fifty
Speaker 5: to one hundred dollars a week with my part time
Speaker 5: job like max. Yeah, but all of that in a
Speaker 5: week would go on, like you know, little accessories and
Speaker 5: stuff a' to prey and going out for you know,
Speaker 5: after school things with my friends to McDonald's and the
Speaker 5: movies and just gone, just gone.
Speaker 1: So was I good at money?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: But no, I's just enjoying my teenagehood. I suppose you're
Speaker 5: just a tiny baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you enjoy the finer things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the finer things being a McDonald's chicken and cheeseburger
Speaker 5: four meal deal.
Speaker 4: I would argue those are still the finer things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you know what if that was still for
Speaker 1: like that was a.
Speaker 4: Good deal, all I'd be eating fials. I feel like
Speaker 4: sometimes it is for dollars, like I feel like they
Speaker 4: haven't including the Sunday. Oh maybe not including the sun.
Speaker 1: But the Sunday was like the literal cherry on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true, that's Truectually. I'm curious about what flavored
Speaker 4: Sunday you go for caramel always, I viscerally, like in
Speaker 4: my gut, I knew you were going to say, Cary,
Speaker 4: you did, but I was like, that's outrageous.
Speaker 1: Do you know what Jessica Briechi picks.
Speaker 4: She's strawberry.
Speaker 1: She's Oh my god, what you saw.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you're inside our brains.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, before you had your money sorted, Yeah, what
Speaker 4: was life actually like? What were the biggest money headaches
Speaker 4: for you back then?
Speaker 5: So I moved out of home when I was eighteen,
Speaker 5: and I moved out because I wanted to go to
Speaker 5: university and I lived on the Mornington Peninsula and at
Speaker 5: that point, the big freeway hadn't been built yet pink no, no,
Speaker 5: Peninsula Link wasn't a thing yet. So to get from
Speaker 5: my house like where I lived with my parents, which
Speaker 5: I definitely could have stayed in, like they were very
Speaker 5: generous to get to the city was about an hour
Speaker 5: and a half, right, And I really wanted to go
Speaker 5: to university, and so made the decision to move out.
Speaker 5: And I moved out with a couple of housemates, just
Speaker 5: people I went to school with at the time. We
Speaker 5: got an apartment in South Bank, and I think my
Speaker 5: biggest struggles were.
Speaker 1: Rent and food and managing all of that.
Speaker 5: I just remember the rude shock of having to pay
Speaker 5: for everything that I hadn't really thought about before. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and like, I mean, it's not like it is today.
Speaker 5: Things were much cheaper, Like olive oil was just olive oil,
Speaker 5: it wasn't liquid gold. But having to buy those like
Speaker 5: household items like washing machine liquid and you know, at
Speaker 5: the time, vacuum cleaner bags. Oh yeah, vacuum cleaner bags everything.
Speaker 5: I remember being like what the hell, like this is full,
Speaker 5: and then realizing that they were actually super expensive. And
Speaker 5: then I remember spending like a whole afternoon pulling all
Speaker 5: of the junk out of the vacuum cleaner bags so
Speaker 5: I could reuse it. Yes, and so yeah, money wasn't
Speaker 5: in abundance. But I also worked really hard, So like
Speaker 5: I'll give myself credit for working really hard. So while
Speaker 5: I was at university, I was working like three jobs.
Speaker 5: I was working at least forty hours a week. But
Speaker 5: even though I had that income coming in, I can't
Speaker 5: tell you where it went like it went on my lifestyle.
Speaker 5: It went on, you know, city, paying for clothes, paying
Speaker 5: for shoes, like I always was, and I would say
Speaker 5: still and well dressed, but to a downfall at that
Speaker 5: point in time. So you would have looked at me
Speaker 5: and been like, oh, she has her stuff together as
Speaker 5: a first y UNI student, But like I was living
Speaker 5: very week to week. Was I ever in you know,
Speaker 5: serious significant financial struggles? No, and like I've always had.
Speaker 5: I want to call it the bank of Mum and Dad,
Speaker 5: but you know, my parents aren't so well off that
Speaker 5: I could just call them that. It wasn't ever a
Speaker 5: comfortable call. But there were definitely a few times where
Speaker 5: I was like, do you think I can borrow one
Speaker 5: hundred dollars? Or can you please help me here or there?
Speaker 5: And I'm so grateful for that help, but it would
Speaker 5: be a missed to not mentioned that I had that
Speaker 5: in the background. But I think having that meant I
Speaker 5: felt safe not to be responsible, yeah, if that makes sense.
Speaker 5: Like I didn't feel like I ever had to worry
Speaker 5: about an emergency fund because like, at the end of
Speaker 5: the day, yeh, it's uncomfortable, but I could call my mum,
Speaker 5: Like at the end of the day, I called X
Speaker 5: y Z. So I always kind of had that fail safe. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and like it felt icky, Like I never liked it,
Speaker 5: but it definitely was something that I, yeah, nice to
Speaker 5: have the back of your head. Yeah, totally, And I
Speaker 5: think we need to talk about that because so many
Speaker 5: of us end up in a situation that we're not
Speaker 5: super proud of, but like we just don't really know
Speaker 5: how we got there, and like I know how I
Speaker 5: got there. But yeah, my entire journey was I would
Speaker 5: say comfortable. But like first, ye university, I was working
Speaker 5: three jobs. I was working two hospitality jobs and a
Speaker 5: retail job on a Saturday because I want to double
Speaker 5: and a half time rates, so I didn't have much
Speaker 5: free time. And then in between all of that, I
Speaker 5: would actually do like sessional swim teaching in the mornings
Speaker 5: and stuff before UNI sometimes cool, but yeah, so I
Speaker 5: had income coming in. But I would say that even
Speaker 5: with all of that work, it was at the time
Speaker 5: minimum wage. And I think my tax returns probably said
Speaker 5: it would be between twenty five and thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so not mass amounts. I see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, Now I want to know was there a
Speaker 4: specific moment where you were like, no, this isn't working
Speaker 4: for me. I need to sort this out or was
Speaker 4: it like a process.
Speaker 5: It wasn't early on, it wasn't at UNI or whatever.
Speaker 5: It was definitely once I got my first full time job.
Speaker 5: So when I've got my first full time job, I
Speaker 5: had finished two degrees and had just started kind of
Speaker 5: like dabbling whether I would do like a master's degree
Speaker 5: or not.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of.
Speaker 5: Like graduate interviews because I really wanted to work in
Speaker 5: organizational psychology, and I was dabbling in like you know,
Speaker 5: interviewing at Deloitte and doing all these other things. And
Speaker 5: then I got offered the role that I got offered,
Speaker 5: which was not a graduate position. It was a consultant role,
Speaker 5: and like I thought, I'd hit the jackpot because like
Speaker 5: that was like the step above graduate, and I felt
Speaker 5: like I could turbocharge, if that makes sense. Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I jumped something like it was like snakes and ladders,
Speaker 5: and I'd hit a ladder and I jumped up and
Speaker 5: I remember my and I found it the other day
Speaker 5: because I was talking to one of the teammates and
Speaker 5: I was like, I, reckon, this is in my email,
Speaker 5: like my first employment contract, and it was fifty five
Speaker 5: thousand dollars a year including super Yeah, and I felt rich,
Speaker 5: Like I genuinely felt like that it was the most
Speaker 5: amount of money I'd ever earned in my entire life.
Speaker 5: But I think that dynamic change of not being a grad,
Speaker 5: not having other grads around me, I went straight into
Speaker 5: the big swimming pool of the consultants who were in
Speaker 5: their mid thirties forties, and I saw them and I
Speaker 5: thought they were doing so well. And I did definitely
Speaker 5: play into and this is only in retrospect. I didn't
Speaker 5: know I was doing it at the time, playing that
Speaker 5: like keeping up with the Joneses mentality of like they
Speaker 5: have really nice suits, I really probably should get a
Speaker 5: nice suit, and like the stuff that I was wearing
Speaker 5: at the time, Like I would mainly shop at like Portman's,
Speaker 5: and I would go to like Zara and then like
Speaker 5: match it with like cute kmart tops and singlets, so
Speaker 5: like I was good at finding stuff. But then I'd
Speaker 5: see people in like Shinier suits, and I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 5: I really probably should invest in a really good suit.
Speaker 5: And I've said this before, and I think that's because
Speaker 5: that's my big purchase that was kind of pivotal, Like
Speaker 5: it was kind of like a it made me feel
Speaker 5: so good, Like I bought this suit. It was navy blue.
Speaker 5: I bought the skirt and the pants of it that
Speaker 5: matched the jacket. Because the jacket was so expensive, I
Speaker 5: was like, I need to get like maximum wear out
Speaker 5: of this, and it was from Saba and it probably
Speaker 5: cost me like six hundred dollars, right, and at the time,
Speaker 5: that's an astronomical amount of money. Yeah, but also in
Speaker 5: comparison to that salary, like that's not I don't know.
Speaker 5: I look back and I go Victoria divine, Like that
Speaker 5: was very irrisp constable. I don't regret it because I
Speaker 5: did feel really good and it gave me a lot
Speaker 5: of confidence. So like, you've got to weigh up the
Speaker 5: pros and cons. But yeah, I think for me, that
Speaker 5: was the downfall of it. At that point, I was
Speaker 5: still functioning completely in cash, so I paid cash for
Speaker 5: that off my debit card. But after that, I remember
Speaker 5: applying for a five hundred dollar credit card. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: I got that, and then I remember pushing that up
Speaker 5: to one thousand dollars. And then because it was like
Speaker 5: the start and I mentioned just before I was thinking
Speaker 5: about doing my masters, I then enrolled in a Master's
Speaker 5: of Business Administration. So I did my MBA and as
Speaker 5: a part of that program, I think it was maybe
Speaker 5: like almost twelve months after I started my full time gig,
Speaker 5: I got the opportunity to do like a secondment semester
Speaker 5: in France. Cool, right, very cool, And that was only
Speaker 5: offered if you like met certain criteria and had like
Speaker 5: certain grades and whatever. And I was like so excited
Speaker 5: and like I'd applied for it, I think, kind of
Speaker 5: not assuming I would get in. And then when I
Speaker 5: got in, it was like this mad scramble of I
Speaker 5: really want to go, but I can't afford to go,
Speaker 5: and there's no way, Like this isn't one hundred dollars
Speaker 5: for a mum and dad. Like I'd done my maths
Speaker 5: to like study abroad, I was going to have to
Speaker 5: take leave without pay, Like what do I do about
Speaker 5: the house that I live in? Like do I keep
Speaker 5: my rent or not?
Speaker 1: Do I?
Speaker 5: You know, like there was a lot of questions how
Speaker 5: was I going to afford accommodation overseas as well as
Speaker 5: like living expenses and not being able to work, Like
Speaker 5: how do we work that out? And then on top
Speaker 5: of that, it was in my head, I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: I haven't really traveled properly before this. Should I also
Speaker 5: do a holiday on top of that? And then you know,
Speaker 5: the conversation of a personal loan came into it, and
Speaker 5: I decided, Okay, well I could just get a loan
Speaker 5: for this and I can deal with all of this later.
Speaker 5: And I ended up getting a personal loan. And at
Speaker 5: the same time, my car was dying. Yes, so I
Speaker 5: had all of these big expenses and I needed a
Speaker 5: new car. And in retrospect, like you know when you
Speaker 5: look back on things and you're like, I should have
Speaker 5: done that so differently, like what are you doing? But
Speaker 5: it all made sense at the time. I needed a
Speaker 5: new car, I needed to go to France. I also
Speaker 5: wanted to add on a bit of a holiday.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Ultimately I took out a forty thousand dollar personal loan
Speaker 5: and I wish I didn't do. I regret going to
Speaker 5: France and doing the things that I did. No, absolutely
Speaker 5: not like I had the best time. I made some
Speaker 5: incredible friends. I have these beautiful memories. I don't regret it.
Speaker 5: But when I say I regret the debt, it's not
Speaker 5: because I regret the things I spent it on. Yes,
Speaker 5: I've got literally nothing to show for it, But I
Speaker 5: really feel the pressure that I was under when I
Speaker 5: returned home was so immense that it impacted my mental
Speaker 5: health and like how I felt and how I couldn't sleep,
Speaker 5: and it made me not eat, and like all of
Speaker 5: these other things, Like I just I didn't know how
Speaker 5: I was coming up with that eight hundred and eighty
Speaker 5: three dollars every single month to pay.
Speaker 1: That debt off.
Speaker 4: Yeah jeez, And like the idea that I was paying
Speaker 4: that off, but like the debt never went down, like
Speaker 4: that was the minimum, and like when am I going
Speaker 4: to get out of this?
Speaker 1: Is this forever?
Speaker 5: And then like you extrapolated out and I was recently single.
Speaker 5: I'd come out of a very long term relationship. The
Speaker 5: boyfriend that I had had before I went I was
Speaker 5: in a relationship with for seven and a half years.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, And I think it was all of that combined.
Speaker 5: I was like, no, I deserve this I'm going to
Speaker 5: do something for me, and I took out this really
Speaker 5: big loan and then I just couldn't sleep, I could eat,
Speaker 5: I couldn't do literally anything. It was I would say, crippling.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, and like if you've never been in debt,
Speaker 5: you don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yes, you don't get it.
Speaker 5: And it's like you've done something wrong and you're up
Speaker 5: at three am just ruminating on it. Like it's that
Speaker 5: feeling of like what am I going to do? How
Speaker 5: am I going to do it? And like everything's worth
Speaker 5: at three am, but like that's when you wake up
Speaker 5: and think about it. So I was having really bad sleep,
Speaker 5: I wasn't performing well at work. I was just anxious
Speaker 5: all the time, but also still wanting to keep up
Speaker 5: with my friends. Oh man, So my friends didn't know
Speaker 5: I was in debt. No, and they'd be like, do
Speaker 5: you want to go out for dumplings? Of course I do,
Speaker 5: but yeah, what do you do in those situations?
Speaker 4: I know, I know, I completely get it, and I obviously,
Speaker 4: as you know, have been there. Okay, Vid, I'm going
Speaker 4: to give you like a few moments to just reset
Speaker 4: and let's go to a quick break on the flip side,
Speaker 4: I'm going to ask you some more questions. But I
Speaker 4: do understand the anxiety around talking about debt, So I'm like.
Speaker 1: I'll let you have a little sit.
Speaker 4: You're feeling anxious now, but at the time, oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I totally get it. Okay, we'll be
Speaker 4: right back. Welcome back everyone. How are you feeling? Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm fine, yeah, fine, It's interesting. I'm like, I want
Speaker 4: to share this about how do I articulate myself. I
Speaker 4: don't worry about that, no, but I want to give
Speaker 4: you like all of the like oh and I was
Speaker 4: doing this and like, oh this added to it, and
Speaker 4: like I was going out of a relationship, and I
Speaker 4: think we can all relate to, like, yeah, coming out
Speaker 4: like I wanted to treat myself like I don't know absolutely.
Speaker 1: It's also like triggering memories for me.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, oh and oh, and so this is
Speaker 5: probably a really disjointed podcast, So I do apologize.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm enjoying it personally. Okay, Okay, so you've had
Speaker 4: your oh my god, I need to fix this moment.
Speaker 4: You've made the first move. But then what did things
Speaker 4: finally start falling into place? It was like a total
Speaker 4: mess before it got better.
Speaker 1: When you got out of debt, or when you were
Speaker 1: working out.
Speaker 5: We did it just all you woke up one day
Speaker 5: and it fell into place back personally, God, No, I
Speaker 5: sure journey eally, and I don't think there's ever it's
Speaker 5: going to fall into place moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I just had this realization.
Speaker 5: It was when one of my best friends shared with
Speaker 5: me her saving skull. I remember I was at brunch
Speaker 5: and it was an expensive brunch and I was picking
Speaker 5: the cheapest thing off the menu at the time, and
Speaker 5: I remember her talking about wanting to do like I
Speaker 5: can't even remember what it was like. The thing that
Speaker 5: sits in my head is I could tell you exactly
Speaker 5: the table where were sitting at at brunch and where
Speaker 5: we were. I can't remember what her savings goal was for,
Speaker 5: but I remember being shocked that she had savings, Like
Speaker 5: I remember being like, wait, what, You're not like me.
Speaker 5: I lived with this girlfriend, like she was my housemate
Speaker 5: at the time. Yeah, And I remember being like sorry, what,
Speaker 5: Like you have savings? I thought we were both Like
Speaker 5: I knew that I had debt and I hadn't told
Speaker 5: anybody about that, And I don't think I assumed she
Speaker 5: had debt, but I didn't think she had the capacity
Speaker 5: to save because we had not the same jobs, but
Speaker 5: similar jobs.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, similar, what do you mean what?
Speaker 5: And I think that was a very like for me,
Speaker 5: it was very confronting because we had very similar incomes
Speaker 5: and what do you mean you have a whole heap
Speaker 5: of savings and you're going to go to Europe and
Speaker 5: or you know, like that feeling of oh okay, And
Speaker 5: so for me that was a bit of an eye opening,
Speaker 5: like I probably should work on debt. I didn't immediately
Speaker 5: start getting out of debt, but I was really seriously going,
Speaker 5: I need to do something about this. And so at
Speaker 5: the time I did not believe that I could get
Speaker 5: out of debt on my own. I was googling what
Speaker 5: does it mean to go bankrupt? And that doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that I was in that exact situation, but I didn't
Speaker 5: know anything about money. I was googling what does it
Speaker 5: mean to go bankrupt? How would that impact me? Like
Speaker 5: at the time, I didn't have, you know, a business.
Speaker 4: Or anything like that, and I was working in this
Speaker 4: organizational psychology role in a consulting space, and like I
Speaker 4: knew that financial advisors existed because like some of our
Speaker 4: clients were financial advisors, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: maybe I'll go see an advisor. And I did all
Speaker 4: my research and I went and saw a financial advisor
Speaker 4: and he was at the time lovely, but then he's like, okay, like,
Speaker 4: let's put it on a white board.
Speaker 1: How much debt have you got?
Speaker 5: And I felt really judged, but I told him, and
Speaker 5: he put it on the white board and like drew
Speaker 5: up some things and basically told me that like I
Speaker 5: wasn't a good client for him.
Speaker 4: Ah, that's nice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I was kind of there going, oh, I
Speaker 5: was happy to spend money to have a plan to
Speaker 5: get out of debt because I just didn't I couldn't
Speaker 5: see the light at the end of the tunnel. I
Speaker 5: didn't know what to look up. I didn't know like
Speaker 5: I thought this was going to be the thing that
Speaker 5: solved it for me. And I walked away from that
Speaker 5: meeting feeling like trash. I felt like I'd wasted his time.
Speaker 5: I felt like and at the time, I did feel
Speaker 5: like I'd wasted his time, like I wasn't in this.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, what a rude person, Like I felt
Speaker 5: awful and so yeah, that all happened, and then I
Speaker 5: was like, well, maybe no one's going to save me,
Speaker 5: Like maybe I have to do this myself. And I
Speaker 5: started like looking things up on YouTube, and like, you know,
Speaker 5: I learned about the Snowball method versus the Avalanche method,
Speaker 5: and I was like, oh my god, there are all
Speaker 5: these people like the debt free community and they are
Speaker 5: talking about it. And then you know, there was a
Speaker 5: whole heap of other stuff going on in my work
Speaker 5: life where I was secondered to a financial advice business
Speaker 5: and I was doing some engagement work for them, and
Speaker 5: I realized that their work was way cooler than mine,
Speaker 5: Like mine was about impact, right, Like I was engagement
Speaker 5: and I could like sort of measure that, but like
Speaker 5: they were like sitting clients down and showing them like
Speaker 5: these plans, and I love a plan. I'm so type
Speaker 5: A like I love having a plan and I can
Speaker 5: show a client where I'm getting that from. And I
Speaker 5: could see that their clients were really happy, and I
Speaker 5: kind of wanted to learn more about that. So originally
Speaker 5: it wasn't necessarily about getting myself out of debt, but
Speaker 5: I kind of put the two and two together again
Speaker 5: in hindsight and was really interested in that because I
Speaker 5: think it benefited me at the time. And then when
Speaker 5: I realized, okay, you can create a plan. Okay, I
Speaker 5: can't just keep paying this eight hundred and eighty three
Speaker 5: dollars off every single month and think I'm getting ahead.
Speaker 5: I need to create a plan where I can pay
Speaker 5: off some more. I was considering things like weekend work
Speaker 5: and like, you know, trying to work that out. And then, yeah,
Speaker 5: I think that was my moment of working out what
Speaker 5: I needed to do. And I think that realization that
Speaker 5: I couldn't just pay off the minimum and that would
Speaker 5: be okay. I had to actually throw a lot more
Speaker 5: at it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: That was confronting and hard, and I wasn't out of
Speaker 4: debt like no, of course, it did feel like I
Speaker 4: was in a bit more control. Yeah. Yeah, So at
Speaker 4: some point VID took the leap and kind of like
Speaker 4: turned into finance, which is so funny because I feel
Speaker 4: like finance at that time was maybe like a bit
Speaker 4: anxiety in guy it was, but I genuinely felt like
Speaker 4: by helping other people, I felt more in control of
Speaker 4: my money. Yeah, because I was forcing me to walk
Speaker 4: the walk. That makes it any way like, still nobody
Speaker 4: knew about my debt.
Speaker 5: I hadn't told anybody Like this was still very like
Speaker 5: secret squirrel, Like I was very ashamed of this. This
Speaker 5: wasn't something that had you asked me if I had debt.
Speaker 5: But I think I would.
Speaker 1: Have lied to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's so fair.
Speaker 1: Like am I proud of that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think I would have lied to you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Like I think I would have been like, no, I
Speaker 5: don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, because there's such a stigma around like Jay,
Speaker 4: keep go boss, Yeah, there is a stigma which we
Speaker 4: are trying to change every single absolutely we are.
Speaker 1: But like, how do I change it If I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be honest about it?
Speaker 4: I know that's it. But no, So you took the leap,
Speaker 4: And I wonder, like, if there's someone listening to this
Speaker 4: they weren't thinking about making a big career change, what's
Speaker 4: the best advice you've got for them?
Speaker 1: Make a plan?
Speaker 5: So I took the leap for a plethora of different reasons,
Speaker 5: Like I wasn't feeling like the engagement stuff was as
Speaker 5: nourishing as it could be. I wasn't saying things like
Speaker 5: that though I was just not feeling comfy with it.
Speaker 5: And I was like, you know, peeving across the fence,
Speaker 5: being like, what are other people doing on their job?
Speaker 5: Looks really interesting, and like I did have the privilege
Speaker 5: of like, that'syconment, so I could see what other people
Speaker 5: were doing literally in the office I was in, and
Speaker 5: I was like, I could definitely do that, and I
Speaker 5: took the leap into finance, but it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 5: an uncalculated risk ultimately, I so the first role I
Speaker 5: took in finance was for someone else, and I was
Speaker 5: managing their HR and like recruitment and engagement stuff inside
Speaker 5: of financial advice business, and that was agreed upon because
Speaker 5: I really wanted to be in financial advice, but obviously
Speaker 5: I wasn't an advisor. And while I was helping with that,
Speaker 5: I was studying to be I'm a financial advisor, and
Speaker 5: I was finishing off my MBA at the same time,
Speaker 5: so I was doing all of that, and I think
Speaker 5: because I was doing my MBA, which is a Master's
Speaker 5: of Business Administration, it was a lot about running a
Speaker 5: business and operating a business because I kind of knew
Speaker 5: that's what I wanted to do. Like winding back I
Speaker 5: had at the time the opportunity to do my Masters
Speaker 5: of Organizational Psychology or my Masters of Business Administration, and
Speaker 5: I was actually working in that consulting role. That meant
Speaker 5: I probably didn't need my Masters of bogsite because I
Speaker 5: was already in the space working, So like, why would
Speaker 5: I go and get the degree that would let me
Speaker 5: get that job when I already had the job. So
Speaker 5: I kind of decided that the MBA would make sense,
Speaker 5: and through that learned a lot about managing a business,
Speaker 5: what that would look like, and I think that pushed
Speaker 5: me into going, no, you really do want your own
Speaker 5: business at some point. So yeah, one thing led to another,
Speaker 5: and I knew that once I became a financial advisor,
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be a financial advisor that just
Speaker 5: worked for someone else. I wanted to be a financial
Speaker 5: advisor that had her own business. And so I think
Speaker 5: from the get go there was a lot of research
Speaker 5: into well, what does that.
Speaker 1: Look like, how much does that cost?
Speaker 5: And like I wasn't able to do that immediately, like
Speaker 5: I was working for another financial advisory practice at the
Speaker 5: same time as like building this up, But that was
Speaker 5: all very transparent, I think because I've always been quite
Speaker 5: headstrong if I want something like, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: skirt around it and going to be like, hey, bex,
Speaker 5: So I was thinking, this is like ultimately what I
Speaker 5: want to achieve, but obviously I can't do that right now?
Speaker 1: Do you reckon?
Speaker 4: We could do abcdn Sure, And that's what happened. That
Speaker 4: is so cool, And I think you've just got to ask, yeah, like,
Speaker 4: and if you want to make a really big career change,
Speaker 4: make a plan like, yes, you might have to take
Speaker 4: two steps backwards, but like ultimately it might shotgun you forward. Absolutely,
Speaker 4: you're climbing a ladder that you want to climb. Snakes
Speaker 4: and ladders, baby, Exactly when you started making more money, yeah,
Speaker 4: how did you keep yourself from slipping into old habits
Speaker 4: and letting lifestyle creep take over good?
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 5: When I started making more money, I was contributing more
Speaker 5: to my debt. But at the time, my debt honestly
Speaker 5: felt like a burden still, Like I was just like
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be putting money towards it. I
Speaker 5: didn't see it in the way that I see debt now.
Speaker 5: Like if you're in personal debt and you you know,
Speaker 5: said to.
Speaker 1: Me V what do I do.
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, cool, Like, let's make a plan and
Speaker 5: everything that you're paying off your debt. Beck like, that's
Speaker 5: you proving to yourself that that is one day what
Speaker 5: your savings will be.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like, I didn't see it that way, and I wish
Speaker 5: that I had someone that like was like, hey, like
Speaker 5: this is actually really good habit setting and like, look
Speaker 5: at what you could do into the future.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it that way. So was I amazing
Speaker 1: at money?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: I think I was still very much living week to week.
Speaker 5: I did start saving some money, though. Should I have
Speaker 5: been saving while having debt? No, but I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 5: That made me feel really financially secure. And so ultimately,
Speaker 5: once I, you know, learn a lot more about finance,
Speaker 5: and you know, I'm working in this financial advice space,
Speaker 5: it's kind of like the plumber that has a leaky tap.
Speaker 5: Just because I knew the right thing to do did
Speaker 5: not mean I was doing it right. I knew that
Speaker 5: I probably shouldn't be sitting on a whole heap of
Speaker 5: savings when I had debt, because if you have debt
Speaker 5: and you have savings, you don't have savings. So ultimately
Speaker 5: I did end up transferring most of that to my
Speaker 5: debt pay it off and keeping like a little emergency fund,
Speaker 5: because I thought that was really important. And the reason
Speaker 5: that was so important to me was I wasn't like
Speaker 5: buying into that debt cycle anymore. Like whenever something popped up,
Speaker 5: I had the cash for it, and I didn't have
Speaker 5: to like put it back on my personal loan or
Speaker 5: I didn't have to put.
Speaker 1: It on a credit card.
Speaker 5: And like, I remember learning about this like snowball and
Speaker 5: avalanche method and stuff, and I was like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm going to do this month. I'm
Speaker 5: going to do minimum repayments on my personal loan and
Speaker 5: I'm actually just for the next two months or however long.
Speaker 5: I can't remember how long it took me. I'm going
Speaker 5: to pay off that credit card because the credit card
Speaker 5: wasn't massive, but it was a lot. And then I
Speaker 5: closed it and I remember being like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: I now only have one debt like that, It's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And so I think that for me was like that.
Speaker 5: I started being a little bit more aggressive, and I
Speaker 5: started seeing cash that was coming in as an opportunity
Speaker 5: to get out of debt. Sooner as opposed to oh yeah,
Speaker 5: I can treat myself. But it was hard to change
Speaker 5: that mindset. And even once I got out of debt,
Speaker 5: I won't say that I was incredible at money management.
Speaker 5: I remember being like, hey, hold on, hold on, hold on,
Speaker 5: I've been out of debt for like six months and
Speaker 5: I've got nothing to show for it. And that's that
Speaker 5: point where I had to sit down and go, I
Speaker 5: need to create a money management system because ultimately I
Speaker 5: can't be trusted like I have ADHD. I'm incredibly impulsive.
Speaker 5: I've known that about myself since I was eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 5: I've been medicated since then, so I'm not, you know,
Speaker 5: someone who got a late diagnosis. But I didn't know
Speaker 5: how that impacted my money. Like at the time, you
Speaker 5: just don't know what you don't know, and like I
Speaker 5: still had that stigma in my head that I was
Speaker 5: that boisterous boy in grade two who's swinging on their
Speaker 5: chair and being told to like sit down and stop
Speaker 5: yelling in class. Like that was my idea of what
Speaker 5: ADHD was, even though I'd been diagnosed with it and
Speaker 5: had been told outright it manifests differently in women. I
Speaker 5: was like yeah, cool, you should say that to make
Speaker 5: me feel better about this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, who knows?
Speaker 5: So, yeah, I wasn't good at it, And it wasn't
Speaker 5: until I created a money management system where I was like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 5: I'm going to automate this and do this and every
Speaker 5: single week I'm going to transfer this to this like.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until then that I actually started getting quote
Speaker 5: good at money, right right.
Speaker 4: That was after I realized that just being out of
Speaker 4: debt didn't make me good at money, which was annoying.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's a really was like I got out
Speaker 4: of debt though, Yeah, you shouldn't be done now, like
Speaker 4: this is here, We're done, I should be rich exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: So you've seen so many people's finance up close, Yes, Lucky,
Speaker 4: what's one thing that all financially successful people seem to
Speaker 4: do differently?
Speaker 5: Financially successful like we're talking about do you want to
Speaker 5: know about like the rich people? Is that what you're
Speaker 5: talking about? Are you just talking about people who are
Speaker 5: just like good at managing money? We can talk about both.
Speaker 4: I think it's really just people that are good at
Speaker 4: managing finances and they're just like comfortably wealthy I'm not
Speaker 4: too fussed on them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so comfortably wealthy. And I've had the privilege of
Speaker 5: working with some incredibly wealthy people like I have. I
Speaker 5: used to work in the ultra high net wealth space,
Speaker 5: so minimum of ten million dollars investable.
Speaker 1: And I have had two.
Speaker 5: Clients in my time who have been billionaires, and so
Speaker 5: have I experienced wealth. Yes, I think that's a lot
Speaker 5: of the reason why I just don't. I don't want that.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be a billionaire. But what they
Speaker 5: have in common is they pay themselves first.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: So they are.
Speaker 5: Creating a plan, and they're not all doing this in
Speaker 5: exactly the same way, but in a roundabout way they're
Speaker 5: doing this. They are you know, going okay, cool, like
Speaker 5: I need to said, like I need to put money
Speaker 5: aside for rent, I need to put money aside for bills.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: They're talking about their savings just as like a bill,
Speaker 4: like they just go and savings we have to put
Speaker 4: a side X. Like they don't really think about it
Speaker 4: in the same way that I was hystorically thinking about it,
Speaker 4: because in my head, savings is just money I put
Speaker 4: aside for other stuff I want exactly exactly or it's optional.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's optional. No, they don't see it as optional.
Speaker 5: That's just part of this system. And then they can
Speaker 5: play with whatever's left. But it was always or whatever's left.
Speaker 5: And that system, I would say works for the billionaires
Speaker 5: and the people who have so much money they don't
Speaker 5: know what to do with it. But also it was
Speaker 5: working for like my housemate who had savings at UNI
Speaker 5: and we were on the same system. She was just
Speaker 5: like automating it and putting the money aside and pretending
Speaker 5: it wasn't there. And I just didn't comprehend that that
Speaker 5: was an option. And I also doing think with my impulsivity,
Speaker 5: I had the ability to see savings as not accessible. Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: so you're like, yeah, but I want it, And in
Speaker 5: my head I can see that and that's going to
Speaker 5: get me the thing that I want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not really.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's money for myself exactly, and you've kind of
Speaker 5: got blinkers on about what the bigger picture looks like.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so for me, getting serious about money meant I
Speaker 5: had to create a plan that worked with my impulsivity,
Speaker 5: and that was about automation and you know, having two
Speaker 5: separate banks, not just two separate bank accounts, but my
Speaker 5: savings went to a different bank, So when I logged
Speaker 5: in to see my everyday spending account, I couldn't see
Speaker 5: my savings account because sometimes I would see it and
Speaker 5: be like ooh, opportunities like do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like I just needed to not be able to see it,
Speaker 5: and that helped. But there's like, yeah, I would say
Speaker 5: that they're paying themselves first, So whether that is a
Speaker 5: business owner and they're just like making sure everything is
Speaker 5: going really smoothly and they are investing in their business
Speaker 5: before they're paying themselves, or if it's you know, my
Speaker 5: old housemate who you know would just act like savings
Speaker 5: were just part and parcel of her bill system. That
Speaker 5: to me was a revolutionary Yeah, And now looking back,
Speaker 5: I'm like, they all have this ability to put their
Speaker 5: money in a system that works for them as opposed
Speaker 5: to you know, money came into my accountant. I see
Speaker 5: a lot of myself in you, because like I think
Speaker 5: you and I are on the same page about you know,
Speaker 5: we're at different points in our journey. But like you
Speaker 5: say things and I'm like I get it back, yeah,
Speaker 5: because that's me, like or it was me or you know,
Speaker 5: I said before, like a lot of my I would
Speaker 5: say a lot of my success. But I'm very grateful
Speaker 5: to have a high income now because I still am
Speaker 5: a little bit impulsive and I think that that could
Speaker 5: maybe get me in a little bit of trouble, which
Speaker 5: is why I try so hard to have such a
Speaker 5: strict system, Like I do have a certain amount that
Speaker 5: I pay myself every single week that I know I
Speaker 5: can quote play with because if I don't have that,
Speaker 5: go I'm going in our savings. I'll say sorry later,
Speaker 5: like exactly, I just I need to have a system.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can always put double savings next time.
Speaker 5: Well, when we tell ourselves that, oh yeah, I've never
Speaker 5: actually done that, it's no same.
Speaker 4: But I thing happened.
Speaker 5: We should talk about that too, because it's just so hard,
Speaker 5: Like money is hard. It's not easy, and even though
Speaker 5: we've got more of it, like it just becomes more complex.
Speaker 7: Like yeah, and it's getting harder the cost of Oh,
Speaker 7: don't even start being like that's a story for another time,
Speaker 7: it is, OKAYVD last question, looking back at everything you've learned,
Speaker 7: what's one change or decision you've made with money that
Speaker 7: has had the biggest impact on your life.
Speaker 4: Mindset, mindsetskay, mindset, But changing the way I viewed money
Speaker 4: changed everything. Like it wasn't a system or a process
Speaker 4: or a budgeting app like I feel like so many people,
Speaker 4: and I love it because you will want change, right,
Speaker 4: Like when people are reaching out to me and they say, fore.
Speaker 1: You, what's your favorite budgeting app?
Speaker 5: I need to get my stuff together, It's like, that's
Speaker 5: not what you need. What you need is a mindset shift.
Speaker 5: You need to see money as a tool, Like we
Speaker 5: need to take emotion out of money, because like I
Speaker 5: was so covered in shame about my money, and you
Speaker 5: know I would literally I can't remember anybody actually asking me,
Speaker 5: are you in debt? But I just know I would
Speaker 5: have lied to you, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: That sounds terrible, but it's true. And I think it
Speaker 5: was just changing this mindset around money is just a
Speaker 5: tool and giving myself permission to just accept that, and
Speaker 5: you know, changing this idea that I was bad at money,
Speaker 5: because I wasn't bad at money. I just spent more
Speaker 5: than I Doarn't that was it. I just spent more
Speaker 5: money than I had earned. And I needed to fix
Speaker 5: that and get into a better state of equilibrium and
Speaker 5: I needed to put myself ahead, and the way to
Speaker 5: do that was to just see it as a tool.
Speaker 5: And it's so hard to see money as a tool
Speaker 5: because it is inherently emotional. And I think that's where
Speaker 5: a lot of you know, I was able to fix
Speaker 5: or change my money story because it was a marriage
Speaker 5: of finance habits and psychology and just through luck and
Speaker 5: through my experience. I had the psychology background, and then
Speaker 5: I also was learning about these money things and realizing
Speaker 5: that if I didn't change my approach, it isn't going
Speaker 5: to happen. So I think, yeah, for me, it's all
Speaker 5: about mindset. And I can't say, oh, this is the
Speaker 5: right mindset, because there's no right money mindset, but being
Speaker 5: able to understand where I came from, why my money
Speaker 5: story was my money story, what I felt about money,
Speaker 5: why did it make me feel icky?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: How did all of that work? Understanding that, and then
Speaker 5: also going okay, cool, it's just a tool. How am
Speaker 5: I using this? How am I making every single dollar
Speaker 5: that comes into my account work for me? And now
Speaker 5: that looks so different Right now, I'm you know, at
Speaker 5: a more progressed like baby Victoria. I would never have
Speaker 5: seen this coming, but like me talking to my husband
Speaker 5: and about, Okay, well what was our like rate on
Speaker 5: our offset?
Speaker 1: What did that look?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: Okay, cool, We're going to put everything in that offset
Speaker 5: and like move it to here to do this, and
Speaker 5: like we're talking about investments and like that's just not
Speaker 5: how I thought my life would be. But all of
Speaker 5: that starts with like small money management. It starts with
Speaker 5: having a budget, It starts with having a cash flow.
Speaker 5: It starts with yeah, small steps in the right direction.
Speaker 4: I love that, Vie. You've really motivated me because I'm like,
Speaker 4: it's so nice. I think if you're kind of like
Speaker 4: me and you have never really had money and you
Speaker 4: still don't really know how to manage money, you're still
Speaker 4: kind of like perpetually broke, it seems. And then you
Speaker 4: hear other people through and you're like, oh, you're not
Speaker 4: that different. It's like, okay, we're I'm not like trying
Speaker 4: to achieve something that's completely impossible for someone that.
Speaker 5: No, like I own differently, yeah, no, and I steal
Speaker 5: something like impulsivity.
Speaker 1: I struggle with still.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like at the end of the day, like, yes,
Speaker 5: I have more money, Yes I have a successful business.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that that was luck.
Speaker 5: Like I have worked so hard and I still work
Speaker 5: so hard, and it says struggle every day. Not just
Speaker 5: financially because like comfortable financially now, but just like running
Speaker 5: a business, like I'm running three of them, Like what
Speaker 5: are you.
Speaker 1: Doing, Victoria? That's crazy talk.
Speaker 5: But I think when it comes to the finance side
Speaker 5: of it, I think a lot of people just assume, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: she must be really rich.
Speaker 1: Now, she must have like lots and lots of income.
Speaker 5: I'm comfortable for sure, but most of the business stuff
Speaker 5: goes back into the business. Like, yes, I have a
Speaker 5: higher income, but I'm not living in like a six
Speaker 5: million dollar property, like I'm not, do you know what
Speaker 5: I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, I'm not I'm not Richard Branson. I still am
Speaker 1: doing a budget with my husband. Guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's so comforting to know. Okay, I feel
Speaker 4: like it's all we got time for.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, I'm kind of glad because I feel emotionally hungover.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh spent, Absolutely, we are done. I think the
Speaker 4: biggest takeaway here is that no one is born good
Speaker 4: with money. So if you're listening to this and thinking, god,
Speaker 4: I'm so far behind. Just know that even Victoria Devine
Speaker 4: once had no idea what she was doing. And I
Speaker 4: think for anyone listening who feels stuck, this is such
Speaker 4: a good reminder that you don't have to get everything
Speaker 4: right straight away, you just have to start.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 5: I feel like this has been really fun and if
Speaker 5: there are questions off the back of this episode, maybe
Speaker 5: we can.
Speaker 1: Do another one. I don't know how that's fall, but
Speaker 1: we can see.
Speaker 5: But I think a lot of the conversation around money
Speaker 5: is inherently emotional. Like you can listen to six million
Speaker 5: episodes on what the best ETFs are, and that's good
Speaker 5: for if you're picking an ETF, but if you're just
Speaker 5: struggling to get started, like sometimes you just want to
Speaker 5: hear that other people have been in your shoes. And
Speaker 5: I really don't like the idea that people would just
Speaker 5: see me as being like high and mighty and oh well,
Speaker 5: she won't get it, Like, girl, I've been there, and
Speaker 5: I'm working my butt off to make sure I'm never
Speaker 5: back there again, because it's not a nice.
Speaker 4: Feeling, absolutely, But all in not, just be kind to yourself.
Speaker 4: Some people are really really not even in a position
Speaker 4: where they can even start saving right now, they're probably
Speaker 4: in the negative.
Speaker 5: So exactly, and that's okay. But it's not a reflection
Speaker 5: of who you are or how good you are as
Speaker 5: a person. It just means that you're spending more than
Speaker 5: your earning. And do you know what some people are
Speaker 5: forced into that right now? Oh yeah, like that's not
Speaker 5: their fault, absolutely, but that doesn't mean they can't understand
Speaker 5: budgeting and cash flow out what they want it to
Speaker 5: look like one day exactly.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, just be learning, okay.
Speaker 4: And of course, if you're loving the pod, make sure
Speaker 4: you're subscribed, leave us a review, do all the good
Speaker 4: things you know, the drill V thank you so much
Speaker 4: for letting me grill you today. I feel like we're.
Speaker 1: Thanks for grilling me and being kind.
Speaker 4: Oh of course, I feel like we're going to have
Speaker 4: to do a whole other episode just and how you
Speaker 4: actually got out of debt, because that would be a
Speaker 4: juicy one. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I feel like I need to put a plan together,
Speaker 5: so let's work on that, and guys, we will see
Speaker 5: you on Friday for Friday drinks.
Speaker 4: See then bye?
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