Speaker 1: How do you think about your finances if you's someone
Speaker 1: who has a budget and a strict plan for your money,
Speaker 1: or do you cross your fingers and hope for the best? Maybe'
Speaker 1: splurging one day and then denying yourself the next, or
Speaker 1: maybe your finances are feeling just a little bit neglected.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's face it, money management books are not
Speaker 1: something that's going to appeal to everybody, and some of
Speaker 1: us need this information presented in a more palatable format.
Speaker 1: So this is where Victoria Divine has found her audience.
Speaker 1: She's the founder of Melbourne based financial advisory startup Zella Wealth,
Speaker 1: but she now spends most of her week making podcasts
Speaker 1: and managing a huge online community and creating content that
Speaker 1: helps people learn more about money and how to manage
Speaker 1: it better. Victoria's She's on the Money podcast gets over
Speaker 1: one million downloads every month and she's built a Facebook
Speaker 1: community of over one hundred and seventy thousand members. So
Speaker 1: how does a financial advisor approach her own finances and
Speaker 1: how should we deal with money when it comes to relationships?
Speaker 1: And what are Victoria's tips for making budgeting easier and
Speaker 1: not so much of a drag? I'm doctor Ramantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy invent Him, and this is how I work, a
Speaker 1: show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: Victoria has done an amazing job of building a huge
Speaker 1: community of people who want to feel more empowered around money.
Speaker 1: And I mean, so many people and brands talk about
Speaker 1: building a community, but it's easier said than done. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how did Victoria build a community
Speaker 1: of nearly two hundred thousand people who come to her
Speaker 1: to learn more about money.
Speaker 2: I think everybody thinks I have this crazy cool strategy
Speaker 2: for building communities, when in reality it was kind of
Speaker 2: an accident and that sounds terrible, but in retrospect it
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 3: But at the time, I just wanted to start a
Speaker 3: Facebook group.
Speaker 2: So She's on the Money started as a workshop that
Speaker 2: I was running in my business Zella as I'm a
Speaker 2: financial advisor, and I'd go out to corporate offices and
Speaker 2: law firms and stuff like that to give this talk
Speaker 2: to women about super an investment and taking.
Speaker 3: Care of their insurances.
Speaker 2: And I found that people loved talking about it, and
Speaker 2: it was one of the first times that'd had this
Speaker 2: conversation in depth in a really open way. And after
Speaker 2: these talks, I'd always get email follow ups of other questions,
Speaker 2: and the questions were so good, but they were so
Speaker 2: repetitive from talk to talk, so I'd always find the
Speaker 2: same things happening. And so I was like, great, what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do is create a Facebook group and
Speaker 2: people can ask the question and then like see what
Speaker 2: other people are responding, and I can respond publicly there
Speaker 2: to create kind of just a group chat really, because
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to create a group chat with
Speaker 2: the ability to like search anyway, created this Facebook group
Speaker 2: and it started growing with the people that were in
Speaker 2: my workshops, and then it started growing with people that
Speaker 2: I didn't know, and I remember being like, wow, where
Speaker 2: are they coming from? Like I don't I don't know
Speaker 2: who these people are. And then people started messaging me saying, oh,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for accepting me into your group, Like
Speaker 2: my friend did your workshop and said I should join
Speaker 2: this group because it's such good conversation. And I was
Speaker 2: like wow, okay, like what do you guys want from me?
Speaker 2: So I started creating weekly content, so I do like
Speaker 2: a Wednesday conversation and like some kind of activity that
Speaker 2: my community could do, and some people engaged and some
Speaker 2: people didn't. But it essentially just started out as a
Speaker 2: Facebook group that I was doing on the side of
Speaker 2: my quote professional job because I was so passionate about
Speaker 2: just talking about money with women and people who genuinely
Speaker 2: wanted to learn more. And I remember I got to
Speaker 2: the stage where I had seventeen hundred people in the
Speaker 2: group and I was like, Wow, this is so many people.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I just couldn't fathom how many
Speaker 2: people that was. I was like, I couldn't even see
Speaker 2: all these clients in one year, like what Anyway, From there,
Speaker 2: I asked them what they wanted and they said, Victoria,
Speaker 2: we would love for you to do YouTube, like start
Speaker 2: a YouTube channel and do video.
Speaker 3: And I just wasn't confident enough.
Speaker 2: So a podcast was actually the compromise of me not
Speaker 2: wanting to do video, and so I started this podcast
Speaker 2: with the help of two friends who already had a podcast,
Speaker 2: and it.
Speaker 3: Kind of grew from there.
Speaker 2: Originally I thought that I'd do only twelve episodes, which
Speaker 2: was our first season. And when we wrapped up the
Speaker 2: first season and on episode twelve, you'll hear me go, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the end, like, thanks so much, guys. It
Speaker 2: was kind of as though they were offended I would stop.
Speaker 2: And so so we worked in the background for a
Speaker 2: few months about how to get the podcast back up
Speaker 2: and running and what I should do because obviously, like
Speaker 2: I wasn't producing it in a way that was sustainable
Speaker 2: long term. And so we got it back up and
Speaker 2: running and now, yeah, we're at the point where we
Speaker 2: have one hundred and seventy thousand people in our Facebook
Speaker 2: group and about one point one million listeners a month,
Speaker 2: which is crazy.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely mental. And so how do you go
Speaker 1: from seventeen hundred people, which at the time was super
Speaker 1: exciting to one hundred and seventy thousand.
Speaker 3: Like it still is.
Speaker 1: It's wild, that's mental, Like, what were some of the
Speaker 1: things that you've deliberately done along the way that retrospectively
Speaker 1: you can go, ah, yeah, that was something that really
Speaker 1: helped me build that community and grow it.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I think it was my naivety in
Speaker 2: a way, because I didn't start it as a business.
Speaker 2: I started it as a platform for people to connect,
Speaker 2: and it was coming from a place of love and
Speaker 2: a really honest, open space where I could have a
Speaker 2: conversation with someone and they didn't feel like I was
Speaker 2: trying to sell them something, which I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people start communities, and I've seen it. I've seen
Speaker 2: it before on Facebook where people start Facebook groups with
Speaker 2: the intention of selling something to them or it's for
Speaker 2: a business, and I think people see straight through that.
Speaker 1: Nowadays, what else have you done that's led to like
Speaker 1: a step change in growth of building that community.
Speaker 2: So one thing that I think has been really integral
Speaker 2: is obviously, at seventeen hundred people, I could manage it myself.
Speaker 2: I absolutely could jump on, you know, twice a day
Speaker 2: get back to everybody's questions because they weren't that many
Speaker 2: in reality. Whereas now with one hundred and seventy thousand people,
Speaker 2: we do have a full time community manager and her
Speaker 2: job is to literally go through all of the dms
Speaker 2: and every single post in our community needs to have approval,
Speaker 2: so nothing gets posted without us going is that a
Speaker 2: constructive conversation for this space?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Or no?
Speaker 3: Is it going to put anybody at risk?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Great, it can be posted, and so I think that
Speaker 2: that has genuinely been integral to our growth, but also
Speaker 2: to making sure it is the space that we need
Speaker 2: and then furthering that, our community is always, always, always
Speaker 2: about giving more than we receive. So it's always been
Speaker 2: how can we best serve the community? And we ask
Speaker 2: we ask that question on a daily basis to the team,
Speaker 2: like this topic's happening, you know, we're talking about zubernuation.
Speaker 2: How can we best educate? How can we best serve
Speaker 2: them with the tools and resources that they deserve to
Speaker 2: get this done? And I think that that has always
Speaker 2: been at the forefront, and when it comes to community
Speaker 2: management and community building, that's what helps it grow because
Speaker 2: when we look at the way the community has grown,
Speaker 2: and Facebook's incredible on the back end with the analytics
Speaker 2: you can produce, most of the community has grown from
Speaker 2: organically from people adding their friends, not them finding us
Speaker 2: on the podcast and then going and joining us, which
Speaker 2: is really interesting.
Speaker 1: What size was the community when you made the decision
Speaker 1: to hire a full time community manager.
Speaker 2: I think we were at just under one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people in the group, So it was this year, it
Speaker 2: was in February, I believe.
Speaker 1: Wow, I want to know, kind of like pre community manager,
Speaker 1: like social media is a huge part of what you're
Speaker 1: doing in both on Facebook and Instagram and you know,
Speaker 1: via promoting the podcast. And I find social media as
Speaker 1: a funny one because it can obviously be really unproductive
Speaker 1: for a lot of people and be a huge source
Speaker 1: of distraction. Yet it's a huge part of your business.
Speaker 1: So I want to know what's your relationship personally with
Speaker 1: social media, like in terms of interacting with it, consuming
Speaker 1: but also switching off.
Speaker 3: I've got to be honest with you here.
Speaker 2: For a while, it was negative, and I don't mean
Speaker 2: negative in that I was having a negative time. I
Speaker 2: was just all consuming, like managing the Facebook group, and
Speaker 2: because I'm so passionate about it and I genuinely feel
Speaker 2: like I have this massive responsibility to my community, it
Speaker 2: was always at the front of my mind. It was
Speaker 2: the thing I'd wake up at five am in the morning,
Speaker 2: not because I'm an early riser, but because I'd be
Speaker 2: stressing about it to check messages and see what was
Speaker 2: going on, to make sure that no one had been.
Speaker 3: Nasty or rude.
Speaker 2: And I just feel like it used to be all consuming,
Speaker 2: and it kind of got to a point where my
Speaker 2: partner would always say, Victoria, can we just have dinner
Speaker 2: without the phone? And you know, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be that person, and it's not something that I ever
Speaker 2: set out to be. But it wasn't me going, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so addicted to Instagram. I'm just scrolling. It was
Speaker 2: actually my underlying need or I just felt like I
Speaker 2: owed them an explanation. I felt like they owed them content.
Speaker 2: And I still feel that way. But now I have
Speaker 2: a team around me. I'm not so active on social media,
Speaker 2: and something that has really helped us is obviously a team.
Speaker 2: But that's you know, I'm really grateful for that and
Speaker 2: being able to afford that. But scheduling content has also
Speaker 2: been really powerful. So now we work at about two
Speaker 2: weeks in advance depending on our content, and everything gets scheduled.
Speaker 2: So all of our posts go into a scheduling tool
Speaker 2: for Instagram so that I don't have to you know,
Speaker 2: on the fly, I think of content and go, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I haven't posted today. What should I post it?
Speaker 2: I want it to be educational. I actually have a
Speaker 2: day a month where I sit down and create a
Speaker 2: whole heap of content, and then we usually just plan
Speaker 2: it for two weeks in advance, and I have a
Speaker 2: backlog of stuff that if I'm not feeling creative. I
Speaker 2: can pop something up, but I guess that has been
Speaker 2: really integral because it was all consuming and impacting my
Speaker 2: mental health and getting to a point where it was
Speaker 2: stressing me out being away from my phone, and I
Speaker 2: think having the support but also having a partner who
Speaker 2: drew the line in the sand and was like, right,
Speaker 2: this needs to calm down, because even though you are
Speaker 2: doing well and you're serving your community and adding so
Speaker 2: much value, at what cost.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you'll spend one day a week now
Speaker 1: thinking about social media content and planning that where are
Speaker 1: you going for inspiration? Like what does that day look
Speaker 1: like for you?
Speaker 3: So it's a culmination.
Speaker 2: So we do this once a month and it's kind
Speaker 2: of the social media day, and throughout the entire month,
Speaker 2: I'll be screenshotting things that inspire me, or screenshotting articles
Speaker 2: or saving things or emailing them to myself, and then
Speaker 2: I spend most of the morning of that day pulling
Speaker 2: together all of the content that I've either saved on
Speaker 2: my phone or my emails or resources that I wanted
Speaker 2: to go back. I'm very good our team. Our team
Speaker 2: uses a platform called Slack to communicate with each other,
Speaker 2: and we have a thread in Slack for social content ideas,
Speaker 2: so if anyone on the team has a good idea,
Speaker 2: we'll chuck it in the social thread. And then we
Speaker 2: go back on one day as a team and we
Speaker 2: essentially have a content creating day where we go great, like,
Speaker 2: what does this look like? How are we going to
Speaker 2: pull that together? What's the text on that post?
Speaker 3: What's this? What's that? How does it add value?
Speaker 2: And once we have about thirty ish posts, we pop
Speaker 2: them into the scheduling tool not to be scheduled straight away,
Speaker 2: and then we think about our content for that month
Speaker 2: and what's going to be on the podcast and what
Speaker 2: guests are we talking to or is there something topical
Speaker 2: like is the budget happening? Should we be talking about
Speaker 2: what is going on in that? And if so, does
Speaker 2: that require an Instagram story? And if it does, is
Speaker 2: it a story? Is it a static post? Is it
Speaker 2: a big We are very good in Cheese on the
Speaker 2: Money at using carousel posts because I feel like it
Speaker 2: gets more information out there, and so for us, it's
Speaker 2: talking about what type of content there is and then
Speaker 2: creating it. Whereas I I think if you start from
Speaker 2: creating content going oh my gosh, I need an Instagram
Speaker 2: post but have no structure. That can be really challenging.
Speaker 2: And so I think something that we do is just
Speaker 2: making sure that.
Speaker 3: It meets our criteria.
Speaker 2: So when we say we have thirty posts, we break
Speaker 2: it down from those thirty so I'll be like, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: I want ten educational posts, I want ten posts about
Speaker 2: our community, and I want ten posts about the podcast.
Speaker 2: And then we go from there. And I think if
Speaker 2: you can work out what your framework of content is,
Speaker 2: it makes one creating the content a lot easier, but
Speaker 2: it helps me understand where I can add extra value
Speaker 2: instead of having to think of every single post in isolation.
Speaker 3: If that makes sense, it does.
Speaker 1: And what tools are you using to schedule the posts
Speaker 1: and design the posts?
Speaker 2: So I use a company called sched Social sked social
Speaker 2: for scheduling content. You know, none of them are super
Speaker 2: reliable if we're honest, and we all have our teething issues.
Speaker 2: But for me, I like Scared because you can also
Speaker 2: schedule Instagram stories and you can tag all of your partners.
Speaker 2: And something that is really important to me is honesty
Speaker 2: and transparency. And if we are working with another partner,
Speaker 2: I want to be able to tag that partner right away,
Speaker 2: not go back and do it later, because a lot
Speaker 2: of the other platforms don't have that capability. And I
Speaker 2: like it because you can see a preview of your feed,
Speaker 2: so you can kind of move posts around and make
Speaker 2: sure that you're not posting all peach images one week
Speaker 2: and the feed looks a little bit strange. And then,
Speaker 2: to be honest, we just use Canva. Like Canva is
Speaker 2: so good. We have the paid version of it, but
Speaker 2: in all honesty, we could get away with not having
Speaker 2: the paid version and do it all on the free,
Speaker 2: free version of Canva. But we've uploaded all of our
Speaker 2: brand kits and how we work in Canvas, so if
Speaker 2: one of my team want to create a static post,
Speaker 2: they can jump in and know what the fonts are
Speaker 2: in the formats and just really create ate it because
Speaker 2: we've come up with a number of different templates that
Speaker 2: work really well.
Speaker 1: How about for the podcast, So your podcast She's on
Speaker 1: the Money, and I know that you do several podcasts, now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but let's talk about She's on the Money.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about She's on the Money. That's had over
Speaker 1: four and a half million downloads and my corrector has
Speaker 1: that number has gone way up.
Speaker 3: Since I've last it has increased.
Speaker 2: But I do try and not focus too much on
Speaker 2: the downloads. I know that sounds silly, but you know,
Speaker 2: the second you start talking about the downloads, it doesn't
Speaker 2: feel as intimate and to me it doesn't feel as
Speaker 2: community centric as I want.
Speaker 3: It to be.
Speaker 2: But yeah, at the moment, we are doing about one
Speaker 2: to one point one million downloads a month.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, and you're releasing so cool, that's very cool,
Speaker 1: Like it sounds cool brag about that. Now you're releasing
Speaker 1: about every second day, which is insane. How do you
Speaker 1: decide on the content for the podcast?
Speaker 2: So we do three episodes a week on She's on
Speaker 2: the Money, and there's a very clear struck to what
Speaker 2: we do. So there's Money Diaries, and we have Money
Speaker 2: Diary Monday, and that is structured in a way where
Speaker 2: we get interviews and we talk about it and then
Speaker 2: we have a chat with that money diarist about their situation.
Speaker 2: The structure of it is very similar every single time
Speaker 2: because I always ask the same questions. But then the
Speaker 2: flexibility in that episode comes at the back end where
Speaker 2: we actually have a bit of a deep dive with
Speaker 2: that money direst and go, my gosh, how did you
Speaker 2: save x amount? Or what happened when your husband became
Speaker 2: disabled and how how did you deal with that financially?
Speaker 2: And there's always such interesting stories on there. The thing
Speaker 2: we are really grateful for, and to be honest, not
Speaker 2: as good at as we should be, is forward planning
Speaker 2: a heap of that content, because that content's what we
Speaker 2: call evergreen, and it wouldn't matter if it was recorded
Speaker 2: this week or next week. We can actually kind of
Speaker 2: bank a few of those up. So that's something my
Speaker 2: team are working on. The second episode that we do
Speaker 2: each week is on Wednesday, and we call that internally
Speaker 2: Wednesday Deep Dives, and we talk about one specific topic.
Speaker 2: So we'll talk about zuperanuation, or we might talk about
Speaker 2: micro investing, or we might talk about you know, insurances,
Speaker 2: or more recently, we actually spoke about you know, the
Speaker 2: federal budget because that was a because that was something
Speaker 2: that we'd actually you know, had on in the media.
Speaker 2: And we also do topics that we think our community
Speaker 2: will value, like last week we did a topic on
Speaker 2: imposter syndrome because I genuinely feel like that impacts our
Speaker 2: community and their ability to generate wealth, and so we
Speaker 2: deep dive on that and my co host and I
Speaker 2: talk about one particular topic. We usually drag in a
Speaker 2: number of questions from our community, and those topics are
Speaker 2: picked in a way that is usually quite responsive to
Speaker 2: the community. So we have a really big spreadsheet that
Speaker 2: everybody in the team can you know, add to and see,
Speaker 2: and we put all our ideas on there, and we
Speaker 2: have a couple of times, maybe every second month, we
Speaker 2: do a bit of a brainstorming session for a few
Speaker 2: hours in one of our meeting rooms and talk about,
Speaker 2: all right, what's a community talking about? How much content
Speaker 2: have we got, what topics do we need to revisit,
Speaker 2: like what's going on in the media, what should we
Speaker 2: be talking about when it comes to money, And we
Speaker 2: brainstorm all of these ideas. But before we pick each
Speaker 2: topic each week, we go back to the community and
Speaker 2: work out what's topical and go from there.
Speaker 3: And then on.
Speaker 2: Fridays we do a Friday Drinks episode, and that is
Speaker 2: all about celebrating our community and their money wins and
Speaker 2: confessions and starting to make conversation about money more real.
Speaker 2: So we talk on the Wednesday episode about a specific topic,
Speaker 2: but on the Friday episode. It's genuine conversation about Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I did this this week. It was a
Speaker 2: bit naughty when it comes to money, but it's all
Speaker 2: about making money conversations more prevalent, and we hope that
Speaker 2: that carries through to the weekend when all of our
Speaker 2: community are probably out having brunch and I want them
Speaker 2: to say, oh my gosh, did you hear that money
Speaker 2: win or that confession on cheese on the money, and
Speaker 2: then they can talk about money more openly.
Speaker 1: Hey, there, it's nearly time for a quick break, but
Speaker 1: before we do that, I'd love it if you could
Speaker 1: hit pause and leave a review for how I work
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to this show. Okay, we will be
Speaker 1: back after the break, where we will be hearing about
Speaker 1: Victoria's rather unusual approach to goal setting. Now I want
Speaker 1: to shift gears and talk about goals. I know that
Speaker 1: you think a lot about goals in terms of finance,
Speaker 1: but I want to know in terms of life and
Speaker 1: career goals, like, what is your approach to thinking head
Speaker 1: for the next twelve months, three years, five years, What
Speaker 1: does that look like for you?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I really dislike this question because I
Speaker 2: think everybody thinks I'm so planned and structured and you know, formatted,
Speaker 2: But in reality, like you said to me five or
Speaker 2: six years ago, Hey, Victoria, do you think you'll even
Speaker 2: start a podcast? The answer would be an astounding no.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be something that I was interested in or
Speaker 2: even think was possible. So in She's on the Money
Speaker 2: and Zella, my business is I'm more likely to set
Speaker 2: six month goals, so I often write them down and
Speaker 2: have them on my desk consistently, But it's more so
Speaker 2: I'm consistently checking in with myself and feeling like I'm
Speaker 2: achieving stuff on the way, as opposed to all right,
Speaker 2: in five years I want to be here, because if
Speaker 2: I'm being honest, I have no idea where I want
Speaker 2: to be in five years, and I still don't really
Speaker 2: know who I want to be when I grow up.
Speaker 1: That's very refreshing, Like what does a six month goal
Speaker 1: look like for you? Like, what's something that's currently sitting
Speaker 1: on your desk.
Speaker 2: So one of them that we've just achieved is releasing
Speaker 2: an investment platform, which has been a little bit of
Speaker 2: a longer road because I've been doing a whole heap
Speaker 2: of research into that but I even have smaller goals
Speaker 2: like being in certain publications or you know, meeting certain
Speaker 2: people or networking or being on a certain podcast that
Speaker 2: I go, oh, that would be so cool if I
Speaker 2: could achieve XYZ. And I think that that, for me,
Speaker 2: is a little bit more motivating because to me, they
Speaker 2: are markers of success, not.
Speaker 3: By metric by Oh yeah, I did get.
Speaker 2: An article in the Australian Financial Review, and for someone
Speaker 2: who's a financial advisor, that's kind of like the Holy
Speaker 2: Gray al right, And for me, I was so excited
Speaker 2: about that. But I'm not a metrics driven person. So
Speaker 2: if you said, okay, well take your podcast from ex
Speaker 2: listeners per month to why listeners per month, I'd be like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: that's not like that doesn't feel gratifying.
Speaker 1: What's your philosophy when it comes to thinking about and
Speaker 1: managing your own finances?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, do as I say, not as I do?
Speaker 1: Is that that not at all tell me about us?
Speaker 2: So my partner and I we bought a house into
Speaker 2: last year and we finally put our finances together, and
Speaker 2: I think that that was something that really surprised people
Speaker 2: because they assumed I would be all over that. But
Speaker 2: it actually took me a while to get to the
Speaker 2: point where I wanted to share finances with my partner.
Speaker 2: As a type a business owner, I guess it would
Speaker 2: be very safe to assume that I'm somewhat controlling when
Speaker 2: it comes to money, and I just didn't want to
Speaker 2: feel like i'd lost that. And so for me, when
Speaker 2: it comes to money, I'm really conservative when it comes
Speaker 2: to investing. I do genuinely believe that the best types
Speaker 2: of investments are boring, and I'm not someone who is
Speaker 2: ever going to dabble in things like cryptocurrency or you know, bitcoin,
Speaker 2: which is very popular at the moment. I'm not buying
Speaker 2: IPO stocks. I'm not someone who is buying the trendy
Speaker 2: stocks at the moment, like Apple or Tesla. I'm definitely
Speaker 2: more of a boring, well diversified type of person, and
Speaker 2: I guess that's why I'm so passionate about talking about
Speaker 2: it on the podcast, because I don't want people to
Speaker 2: take risk. I just want people to get good advice
Speaker 2: that will set them up for their financial futures. And
Speaker 2: I've made a lot of financial mistakes along my journey.
Speaker 2: I would say like I've been in personal debt I've
Speaker 2: you know, lived paycheck to paycheck, and I feel really
Speaker 2: really grateful that I now have the privilege of not
Speaker 2: being that person. But I think to not be that person,
Speaker 2: I had to go through that and experience it so
Speaker 2: that I knew how important it was for me and
Speaker 2: my journey when it.
Speaker 1: Comes to budgeting and managing our cash flow. What are
Speaker 1: some of your favorite apps that you use or recommend
Speaker 1: to your clients to kind of keep things, you know,
Speaker 1: simple and finn.
Speaker 2: I guess, oh my gosh, there are so many of
Speaker 2: them when it comes to budgeting. Though, before I tell
Speaker 2: you what my favorite apps are, I think understanding what
Speaker 2: a budget is is really important because there seems to
Speaker 2: be this idea that a budget is all about restricting
Speaker 2: what you are spending. It's all about saying, Okay, so
Speaker 2: I need a budget because I spend too much on
Speaker 2: groceries each week and I'm now going to cap it
Speaker 2: at one hundred dollars. So budgets make you feel restricted
Speaker 2: if you're not looking at them from an abundance mindset.
Speaker 2: So budget from the she's on the money perspective is
Speaker 2: much more about just really deeply understanding where your money
Speaker 2: goes and how it comes into your account and then
Speaker 2: how it leaves your account, and not so much around
Speaker 2: restricting exactly what the amounts should be, but rather looking
Speaker 2: at your account going Okay, I am a couple and
Speaker 2: I have two kids, and yeah, we spend three hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a week on groceries. Does that provide value to us?
Speaker 2: And if the answer is no, then cool, cut back
Speaker 2: your groceries and you know, be a bit more savvy there.
Speaker 2: But for a massive foodie like myself, I wouldn't want
Speaker 2: someone to cut my grocery budget. I'd want them to
Speaker 2: cut something else out before you tell me I can't
Speaker 2: have my fancy stuff. And I think that everybody is
Speaker 2: different in that way. So when you start to look budgeting,
Speaker 2: it's actually making sure that your values are in line
Speaker 2: with the income coming in and going out of your account.
Speaker 2: And there are lots of different ways to manage it.
Speaker 2: So I've written a budget and cash flow course and
Speaker 2: I do that because or I've done that because I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like anything truly took you on the journey
Speaker 2: of understanding your money story, understanding what's coming in and
Speaker 2: going out, and creating a banking.
Speaker 3: Structure that really works.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it goes beyond what you could
Speaker 2: say budgeting apps do because it literally tells you, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what you spend, These are the bank accounts
Speaker 2: I want you to have, and this is how I
Speaker 2: want you to manage it for success. Whereas a lot
Speaker 2: of my community also love apps like Pocketbook and we Money,
Speaker 2: and you know there are a million out there. It's
Speaker 2: just about what you actually value and what you want
Speaker 2: to track because some of these apps connect directly with
Speaker 2: your bank accounts and do data feeding, and some people
Speaker 2: aren't comfortable with that, so some people want to manually
Speaker 2: put it all into a spreadsheet. And to be honest,
Speaker 2: there's no right or wrong when it comes to budgeting
Speaker 2: as long as you are paying attention to it.
Speaker 1: If someone's just wanting to get started, and I love
Speaker 1: that explanation of a kind of a reframe of what
Speaker 1: a budget is. Like, what's a good go to app
Speaker 1: that's simple to get started if someone wants to, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll get more insight into where the money's
Speaker 1: going to me.
Speaker 2: It's actually the smart Money Gove budgeting tool that you
Speaker 2: can download. I just feel like it's a free spreadsheet
Speaker 2: that you can fill in and get a good insight
Speaker 2: into what you're spending and saving. I'm not the most
Speaker 2: tech savvy person. There are lots of apps out there,
Speaker 2: but I feel like when it comes to money, you
Speaker 2: actually need to go back to basics and not rely
Speaker 2: on technology too much to tell you what percentage you're
Speaker 2: spending and reality. One of the most powerful things I
Speaker 2: find that my community is able to do is what
Speaker 2: I call a bank account audit, which is definitely as
Speaker 2: sexy as it sounds, and that's.
Speaker 3: When you print off. Yes, print off.
Speaker 2: Not not do it online. I actually want you to
Speaker 2: hold the paper in your hands and have two different
Speaker 2: colors of highlighters, so printing off your bank statements from
Speaker 2: the last three months and then highlighting your discretionary costs
Speaker 2: and then highlighting your non discretionary costs. So these are
Speaker 2: the things that you don't really need to be spending
Speaker 2: money on and just having a good look at, well,
Speaker 2: where is my money going?
Speaker 1: Fantastic and Victoria. My final question for you for people
Speaker 1: that want to get more involved in what you're doing
Speaker 1: in the She's on the Money community or get hold
Speaker 1: of your new book as well, what is the best
Speaker 1: way for people to.
Speaker 2: Do that oh so many ways. We as you mentioned before,
Speaker 2: we're all over the internet. We spam ourselves across Instagram.
Speaker 2: You can find us as She's on the Money. AUS
Speaker 2: can find us on Facebook and in our group or
Speaker 2: on our page.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: You can find me on my personal Instagram which is
Speaker 2: Victoria Underscore Divine. And my book, which I'm so genuinely
Speaker 2: excited about because i feel like I'm going to reach
Speaker 2: more people and have more of a positive impact on
Speaker 2: the financial literacy rates in Australia is excitingly going to
Speaker 2: be in all large retailers online or all large retailers
Speaker 2: across the country in store, but also from all of
Speaker 2: the online retailers like book Toopia, which is so.
Speaker 1: Fun, amazing, amazing, Victoria. It's quite inspiring what you have
Speaker 1: achieved and packed into your short amount of time so
Speaker 1: far on this planet. I'm very inspired. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: You are so kind, Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I've really enjoyed having a chat with you.
Speaker 1: Hey there, that is it for today's show. If you
Speaker 1: are enjoying how I work and my role as a host,
Speaker 1: you might want to follow me on social media. You
Speaker 1: can find me on LinkedIn. Just search for my name,
Speaker 1: Amantha Imba. I'm on Twitter at Amantha and I'm also
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Amantha I. How I Work is produced
Speaker 1: by Inventing with production support from Dead Set Studios. The
Speaker 1: producer for this episode was Jenna Koda, and thank you
Speaker 1: to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound better than it would have otherwise. See you
Speaker 1: next time.