Speaker 1: Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
Speaker 1: the Order Kerni Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before
Speaker 1: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
Speaker 1: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
Speaker 1: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
Speaker 1: through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
Speaker 1: and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
Speaker 1: today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Speaker 2: 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: for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another
Speaker 4: one of our Shop Back Money diaries, where I get
Speaker 4: to sit down each and every single week with one
Speaker 4: of our She's on the Money community members and talk
Speaker 4: about their money story, their approach to cash and everything
Speaker 4: in between. This week I got a message and it
Speaker 4: went like this. I grew up in a poor migrant
Speaker 4: family and we always struggled to make ends meet. My
Speaker 4: parents migrated from China and Malaysia and neither had the
Speaker 4: opportunity to finish high school. My sister and I were
Speaker 4: the only Asians at my school, and I only ever
Speaker 4: had hand me down clothes, With my parents unable to
Speaker 4: afford all of the normal things that kids around me
Speaker 4: had access to. My mum's family lived without electricity and
Speaker 4: hot water in rural China, and I really do feel
Speaker 4: the strain of bridging these different worlds working now. I
Speaker 4: feel like I want to leave the opposite to the
Speaker 4: life I grew up with, but it does make me
Speaker 4: feel guilty for my parents who still live in the past.
Speaker 4: Money Diarist, welcome to the show. What a story.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, of course, money Darist, I'm really excited
Speaker 4: to learn more about your money story, So let's start there.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us a little bit more about your
Speaker 4: money story?
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like for me it was a very
Speaker 2: like love hate relationship. I really loved how you know
Speaker 2: money can buy you a lot of things? Can you
Speaker 2: know can travel with it? I guess you need it
Speaker 2: for everyday life. But on the other hand, I also
Speaker 2: felt like it brought a lot of unhappiness as well,
Speaker 2: like especially when I was growing up, like I felt
Speaker 2: we didn't have a lot of money, and so there
Speaker 2: was a lot of experiences or things that other kids
Speaker 2: seemed to have and were able to do, but I
Speaker 2: felt because we didn't have the money for it, just
Speaker 2: felt like it was holding me back a bit. So
Speaker 2: I guess having that attitude towards money, I kind of
Speaker 2: hated it, but also wanted more of it as well,
Speaker 2: So I really wanted to earn a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So I feel like I always swing between like saving
Speaker 2: up money and not being willing to spend it, and
Speaker 2: then I'll go to like the spending like binges almost, So.
Speaker 4: That is a beautiful place to start. I want to
Speaker 4: know what do you currently do for work and how
Speaker 4: much money do you earn.
Speaker 2: I'm working in a hospital as a pharmacist, and I've
Speaker 2: just recently started a new job, so I think my
Speaker 2: current salary is about ninety one thousand. But we do
Speaker 2: also have to do overtime, which is not counted in
Speaker 2: that we're rostered on for weekends and public holidays, so
Speaker 2: they will just be counted as like extra overtime on
Speaker 2: top of it.
Speaker 4: Are the overtime rates good or something that you see
Speaker 4: as a bit of a burden because you get less time.
Speaker 2: I think they're okay, I'm actually really bad. I don't
Speaker 2: check the pacelips. I think I did do one public holiday,
Speaker 2: but I think it might be one and a half
Speaker 2: or two. I think I would prefer not to work
Speaker 2: if possible, but it is I guess expected that we
Speaker 2: do do the weekends and the public holidays, so it's
Speaker 2: just extra.
Speaker 4: That makes absolute, especially if you're in a hospital. They
Speaker 4: don't just shut for public holidays. All right, I want
Speaker 4: to know. Next question I've got for you is what's
Speaker 4: currently your big money goal. What are you working towards.
Speaker 2: I think in the future, like my current goal, I
Speaker 2: guess would be to get on top of my mortgage.
Speaker 2: Only just recently bought a house back in August. It
Speaker 2: was a bit of like a last minute kind of
Speaker 2: thing because my rent was going up by one hundred
Speaker 2: a week, so I was like, oh, maybe I should
Speaker 2: just buy my own place. So it would be really
Speaker 2: good to sort of get on top of the repayments.
Speaker 2: But it's a bit hard with all the interest rates
Speaker 2: going up, so I can't really put as much money
Speaker 2: towards towards it as I wanted to, because that needs
Speaker 2: a lot of renovations. But long time, it would be
Speaker 2: nice to get like a proper house with like three
Speaker 2: bedrooms maybe and to have like a yard with a dog.
Speaker 2: Because at the moment I've bought a unit, so that
Speaker 2: would be the dream house. But yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: long term it would be nice to just have like
Speaker 2: a proper house.
Speaker 4: I love that you're financial goal included a dog. I
Speaker 4: ten out of ten can absolutely approve of this.
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's nice to have a dog
Speaker 2: in a unit with no backyard.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, they do get bored, I promise you that.
Speaker 4: All right. I want to know next, do you have
Speaker 4: any investments? If so, what are they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of years ago, my friends and
Speaker 2: I started investing in stocks. It was pro pre COVID
Speaker 2: and yeah, so I've been slowly trying to work myself
Speaker 2: into like trying to put some money aside every couple
Speaker 2: of months, about one thousand every month, so I think
Speaker 2: at the moment it's about sixteen thousand. Unfortunately, some of
Speaker 2: my shares didn't do so well, so I kind of
Speaker 2: sold them and lost a lot of a few thousand
Speaker 2: from that.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, what made you sell them? If they
Speaker 4: were down.
Speaker 2: I think the company was just not doing very well,
Speaker 2: and I was just worried that they were going to
Speaker 2: like liquidize or like they were gonna shut down. So
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, I might get out of it
Speaker 2: before like the come zero.
Speaker 4: I need to know more about this. How did you
Speaker 4: pick the companies? Are we talking like small caps where
Speaker 4: the company's like really small and it was a bit
Speaker 4: of a punt a. Were we talking about big companies
Speaker 4: that maybe you were a bit anxious about. I need
Speaker 4: to know.
Speaker 2: It was more like my friends or bought it and
Speaker 2: then they were telling me, oh, you should get on it.
Speaker 2: It's going up. And then when I bought it, it
Speaker 2: went down by over like maybe fifty percent. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not a blue chip, so it's I think it was
Speaker 2: a pharmaceutical company. But then I was just like, this
Speaker 2: is not looking good. This company is like prices up,
Speaker 2: it's like going down. So I just kept monitoring for
Speaker 2: the longest time, hoping you'll go up, but it just
Speaker 2: kept going down. So I was like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: cut my losses and not be so risky.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you have to do that in the investment world.
Speaker 4: But that's why I wanted a little bit more clarification
Speaker 4: because I was like, is this anxiety or is this
Speaker 4: maybe a small company that you've invested in with the
Speaker 4: hope of a really high upturn, And it sounds like
Speaker 4: that might have been it. So I want to know
Speaker 4: if you had your time again, would you still invest
Speaker 4: in them or what would you have picked instead?
Speaker 2: If I could turn back time, I would have instead
Speaker 2: invested in something more stable and long term instead of
Speaker 2: thinking that I could get, you know, short term gains
Speaker 2: with my shares.
Speaker 4: So you got bitten because you wanted to get rich quick.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not bad. I did that a lot at
Speaker 2: the start, and then in the end I realized you
Speaker 2: have to pay capital gains tax, and then I was
Speaker 2: just like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: invest for long term and get the dividends from that, yeah,
Speaker 2: or reinvest. So some of them I choose to reinvest
Speaker 2: the dimonands. Most of them I just get the dibenands.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. So you've changed your investment strategy so
Speaker 4: you're a bit more stable, am I? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't have time to like check it
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 4: It is a full time job.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On a side note, one of my friends actually
Speaker 2: she tried to leave pharmacy. She was from UNI, but
Speaker 2: she went into selling stocks full time for a while
Speaker 2: and I was just so the rest of that that
Speaker 2: tried to do it, but I couldn't.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, wild. I feel like, although pharmacists are smart,
Speaker 4: that's a completely different ballgame.
Speaker 2: It is really different, all right.
Speaker 4: I want to know you mentioned before a mortgage. Do
Speaker 4: you have any debts? If so, what are they and
Speaker 4: how much?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I only just bought the house in August,
Speaker 2: so it was it was four and forty K. And
Speaker 2: as a pharmacist, you get I think some banks offer
Speaker 2: loan mortgage insurance.
Speaker 4: If you pay, you get your LMI waved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get your LMI waves. So I only paid
Speaker 2: ten percent for the house.
Speaker 4: Deposit money win. That's not the only industry that gets that.
Speaker 4: Like doctors, some different healthcare professionals and like lawyers and
Speaker 4: stuff all have access to that. So if you haven't
Speaker 4: spoken to a broker about it, I definitely would because
Speaker 4: it's a great opportunity to one save l am I,
Speaker 4: but two only have to come up with ten percent
Speaker 4: of the deposit. Instead of a twenty percent, which is
Speaker 4: a money win for everyone.
Speaker 2: It is they accidentally put the LMI on my account at.
Speaker 4: The end on your loan.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, I agreed to this bank because
Speaker 2: there was no LMI.
Speaker 4: So cheeky. How did you rectify that?
Speaker 2: Oh? I just had to call the mortgage broker, and
Speaker 2: the mortgage broker like fixed it. And I was like,
Speaker 2: thank goodness, that would be an extra twenty thousand to
Speaker 2: pay if I had to pay l AM.
Speaker 4: I yeah, no, thank you. So you've got a mortgage,
Speaker 4: it's four hundred and forty thousand dollars. You came up
Speaker 4: with a ten percent deposit you bought in August. Do
Speaker 4: you have any other debt?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I do still have a really big heck step. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: pharmacists actually don't earn a lot at the start. When
Speaker 2: I graduated, I think my starting salary as an intern
Speaker 2: was move about twenty one dollars an hour, which is
Speaker 2: probably gonna surprise a lot of people. So I didn't
Speaker 2: actually start paying off my hex.
Speaker 4: I am surprised. I thought it would be heaps more
Speaker 4: than that.
Speaker 2: This was back in maybe two thousand and sixteen or fifteen,
Speaker 2: so I think they've might have changed it since then,
Speaker 2: but it was pretty bad pay for a pharmacist in
Speaker 2: the community, so it's quite low.
Speaker 4: So yeah, wow, So tell me about the career trajectory
Speaker 4: of a pharmacist. So you started as an intern and
Speaker 4: you were earning twenty one dollars an hour, and now
Speaker 4: we know that you earn about ninety one thousand dollars
Speaker 4: plus overtime and weekends and stuff like that. But what
Speaker 4: are you expecting to earn in the future. What does
Speaker 4: that look like?
Speaker 2: So I think it like when you go to hospital.
Speaker 2: I think it is like a big pay rise for
Speaker 2: me anyway from the community. So you have different grade levels.
Speaker 2: So depending on which hospital you go to, if you're
Speaker 2: an intern, you'll start off with the lowest wage and
Speaker 2: then each year you do go up and pay about
Speaker 2: a dollar or two, so it'll be like grade one,
Speaker 2: year two or three. So at the moment, I'm a
Speaker 2: grade two, year three, and it does go up I
Speaker 2: think until year six, and then to try to go
Speaker 2: to grade three where you get another pay rise, you
Speaker 2: maybe have to like apply for a more senior role
Speaker 2: or do like masters or some sort of research to
Speaker 2: sort of earn your way up. So yeah, it can
Speaker 2: be hard to go up though, unless you do do
Speaker 2: extra studies and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Wow, it's something I had never thought about for
Speaker 4: good reason, I've never worked in pharmacy, but it's so
Speaker 4: interesting to learn about. All Right, next question I have
Speaker 4: for you. I feel like this one is something that
Speaker 4: we all know about which is a bit of a win,
Speaker 4: and that is shot back. Do you use it? If so? How? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I definitely use it, and I think I just checked.
Speaker 2: It says I've saved like one hundred and seventy seven dollars,
Speaker 2: So I was like, wow, I love using shot back.
Speaker 4: One hundred and seventy seven dollars. That is good. What
Speaker 4: have you been buying?
Speaker 2: I buy a lot of things, and I think that's yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, like, for the next question.
Speaker 4: Let's do it or I don't want to know. What
Speaker 4: is your best money?
Speaker 1: Have it?
Speaker 2: I feel like, in a way, the way that I
Speaker 2: was brought up by my parents was that you have
Speaker 2: to save life every single dollar every way that you can,
Speaker 2: so like always buying things on sale, like in the supermarket,
Speaker 2: and like using coupons and vouches. But now it's like
Speaker 2: a lot of that song on like apps and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I have like so many apps on my phone
Speaker 2: just to try to save money, like all the petrol apps.
Speaker 2: And there's something called Live and Pay. Live and Pay.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like having cash back but on like
Speaker 2: restaurants like oh wow, Yes, I use that all the time.
Speaker 2: And I refer friends to that app and you get
Speaker 2: referral bonuses. So I've had like I think one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty dollars from referrals from too friends.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, money ween.
Speaker 2: It is because it's like free money and you're gonna
Speaker 2: buy that food anyway, might as well get money back
Speaker 2: from it, like you get like ten percent back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a lot of different things like that
Speaker 2: should try and save money. And also the credit card.
Speaker 2: I know credit cards might seem bad. I always buy
Speaker 2: the ones that have you know, bonus points and you
Speaker 2: know sometimes like they give you vouchers as well if
Speaker 2: you sign up for a year. So I use that
Speaker 2: to like get flights back to go back home to
Speaker 2: visit my family. And yeah, I'll always pay it off
Speaker 2: as soon as I can. I don't wait till the
Speaker 2: end of the month. Whenever I have money, I just
Speaker 2: pay off the credit cards.
Speaker 4: So you just transfer it straight away. I feel like
Speaker 4: there are a number of ways to use credit cards
Speaker 4: really responsibly. Feel like there's this idea in the community
Speaker 4: that I am a thousand percent against them, and I
Speaker 4: am if you are irresponsible with money, but it sounds
Speaker 4: like you're not and you're just using it to get
Speaker 4: all of the rewards in the bonuses, which I mean,
Speaker 4: I can't blame you if you're smart with it in
Speaker 4: saying that I'm not smart with it, so I don't
Speaker 4: trust myself with it, and I won't be doing it,
Speaker 4: but I'm impressed that you do. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have spent a lot of money this month trying
Speaker 2: to say, like buy things for the renovations next month
Speaker 2: in my unit, and I just feel like I've been
Speaker 2: spending a lot so not good.
Speaker 4: All right, let's flip the narrative, then, what is your
Speaker 4: worst money have it?
Speaker 2: I have this thing where like sometimes I have trouble
Speaker 2: sleeping at night, and I always play with my phone
Speaker 2: and I start buying things online, which is really bad.
Speaker 2: So I have been known to like buy like a
Speaker 2: soda stream once when I was feeling really like unwell,
Speaker 2: so I don't know why. I don't even drink soda,
Speaker 2: but I bought a soda stream online. And the other
Speaker 2: day I bought a massage, like something to put on
Speaker 2: your chair for a massage.
Speaker 4: Oh, like a chair massage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just bought it because I couldn't sleep, so
Speaker 2: I just have my phone and I just bought it online.
Speaker 4: Like this is a really good idea. So you're good
Speaker 4: at impulse purchasing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 4: Let's ask the last question before we get to a
Speaker 4: really quick break. I want to know what grade would
Speaker 4: you give your money habits if I forced you to
Speaker 4: give yourself a grade.
Speaker 2: I feel like it would be a C minus. A
Speaker 2: C minus just because I don't feel like I budget.
Speaker 2: Like I used to be really good, Like I used
Speaker 2: to have this app called pocket Expenses, and I was
Speaker 2: really diligent, like keeping all my receipts and like putting
Speaker 2: an on through that app and then working out how
Speaker 2: much money I spend. But these days, because I have
Speaker 2: the credit card, I feel like I just spend and
Speaker 2: spend and I don't even know what comes out. And
Speaker 2: I feel like that's why I need to start bludgeting,
Speaker 2: so that I know where my money goes. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: why I feel like it's C minus smart.
Speaker 4: I feel like maybe that credit card isn't as financially
Speaker 4: savvy as you might have originally thought it was. But
Speaker 4: let's talk about that after this quick break. All right,
Speaker 4: money diarist, we are back and you have a super
Speaker 4: interesting money story. I want to hear a little bit
Speaker 4: more about it from your perspective. When you wrote into
Speaker 4: us and you were talking, you said that you grew
Speaker 4: up in a poor migrant family and you always struggled
Speaker 4: to make ends meet. What does that mean and how
Speaker 4: has that, I guess impacted you growing up having parents
Speaker 4: that are both from China and Malaysia. Like you said
Speaker 4: before that you travel back to see your family a lot.
Speaker 4: Like what type of financial pressures are on you now
Speaker 4: as an adult as well? I just have so many questions.
Speaker 2: So my parents live interstate, so they're not overseas. Still expensive,
Speaker 2: yes it is, but yeah, I moved over to where
Speaker 2: I'm now for work. When we were growing up. I
Speaker 2: have actually two siblings for older sister and a younger brother.
Speaker 2: So when they first moved to Australia, we didn't actually
Speaker 2: have our own house. So my parents and my sister.
Speaker 2: We were living with my grandparents and also my uncle,
Speaker 2: so it was like a shared house, I guess, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately my mom had to cook for everyone, so I
Speaker 2: think she got really sick as well because she was
Speaker 2: just really stressed. So she was working looking after two
Speaker 2: kids and then cooking for like my grandparents and my uncle.
Speaker 2: I can't really remember a lot of that, but my
Speaker 2: mom always tells me how hard it was. She had
Speaker 2: I think a lot of health conditions because of all
Speaker 2: the stress. And it was only later when my grandparents
Speaker 2: helped them to buy their first house, like they had
Speaker 2: half of the house, so it wasn't even our house.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just kind of like grew up in
Speaker 2: an environment where don't really expect pocket money. It was
Speaker 2: more so like if family members gave us money, we
Speaker 2: were to have money. And it was a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, we couldn't afford new school clothes. It was
Speaker 2: always like we had cousins and older cousins and they
Speaker 2: would always give us their clothes and even though it
Speaker 2: didn't fit. They were a lot bigger and taller than us.
Speaker 2: We couldn't afford like, you know, proper new clothes. So
Speaker 2: my mom would try to buy us clothes that looked
Speaker 2: like the school uniform, but it wasn't really. She'd just
Speaker 2: do the same color and we'll just try to like
Speaker 2: pretend it is the school uniform. One thing that really
Speaker 2: stood out to me, I think was in high school,
Speaker 2: both my sister and I we hosted exchange students from Japan,
Speaker 2: so we had this sort of sister program between Japan
Speaker 2: and my high school. So there's also a chance for
Speaker 2: us to go to Japan, and I really wanted to go.
Speaker 2: I was really keen to learn Japanese and I was
Speaker 2: studying Japanese in high school too, but unfortunately my parents said, oh,
Speaker 2: we don't have enough money. We can't afford to send
Speaker 2: you there. And then I just remember being really angry.
Speaker 2: I was really angry with my parents, and my sister
Speaker 2: sat me down and was like, you can't be angry, Like,
Speaker 2: this is the money that our parents earned. They're allowed
Speaker 2: to spend it, you know, however they want. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember like they bought a new TV not long after,
Speaker 2: and I was just really angry about that. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: so you rather like have a TV? And then yeah,
Speaker 2: I just felt like it affected me because I felt
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of things I felt I was
Speaker 2: missing out on. I felt like that was maybe one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 4: Do you think that that anger came from maybe not
Speaker 4: fully comprehending their circumstances, Like was money discussed growing up
Speaker 4: or was it just something that you knew you didn't
Speaker 4: have enough of but it wasn't really a popular topic
Speaker 4: of conversation in your home.
Speaker 2: Well, my mom and dad, like I guess they always
Speaker 2: complain if they felt like we were wasting money. They
Speaker 2: didn't really know much. I think their education in terms
Speaker 2: of like stocks and stuff wasn't that good, so like
Speaker 2: they didn't have knowledge about how to invest or anything.
Speaker 2: And I only my dad was actually working. My mom's
Speaker 2: ever really had a proper job where she gets any
Speaker 2: like super or any thing. It was always you know,
Speaker 2: cash only sort of work that she did. Like it
Speaker 2: was a lot of like helping out with like family
Speaker 2: at like making dumplings or cleaning the hotels, so none
Speaker 2: of that. She didn't know how to you know, invest
Speaker 2: the money or anything. It was always about trying to
Speaker 2: save money, so like trying to cut back on cost,
Speaker 2: like turning off the lights when you walk out the room,
Speaker 2: not taking long showers. You know, like everything was sort
Speaker 2: of about like, you know, you know how to reduce money,
Speaker 2: but you don't know how to Like we didn't have
Speaker 2: much knowledge about how to save money or things like that.
Speaker 2: So I just felt like, yeah, financially, I've never been
Speaker 2: really good at like money until I was older, and
Speaker 2: then you know, I started learning about what super is
Speaker 2: and like stocks and stuff. It was all from friends
Speaker 2: and like podcasts like this.
Speaker 4: So oh, I love that I've been a part of it.
Speaker 4: But I want to know at what part in your
Speaker 4: I guess journey or what part in your life did
Speaker 4: you realize wow, like I can actually earn a fair
Speaker 4: bit of money, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: ninety one thousand dollars is a lot of money to
Speaker 4: be earning, especially when you contrast it with the family
Speaker 4: that you have overseas and the money that your parents
Speaker 4: were able to earn. Like, at what point were you like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, like I have a very comfortable wage.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about that? What does that look
Speaker 4: like for you?
Speaker 2: To be honest, I still feel like really anxious about money,
Speaker 2: Like I still feel like I don't earn it off,
Speaker 2: or maybe I'm just not good at money because I
Speaker 2: even though it is a lot of money. I don't
Speaker 2: know if other people feel this way when you first
Speaker 2: start working. Like when I started working as soon as
Speaker 2: I graduated high school and went to start UNI, I
Speaker 2: felt like I was earning a lot at the start,
Speaker 2: just doing like a part time job in a cafe.
Speaker 2: But as I sort of like went into full time
Speaker 2: work and I was slowly growing up, I always feel
Speaker 2: like I don't earn enough. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: this is just the way that I've been brought up.
Speaker 2: I just still feel like it's never enough, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if other people feel this way. I just
Speaker 2: feel like, even though the money might be going up,
Speaker 2: I just feel like I'm never have enough money or
Speaker 2: I'm not saving enough.
Speaker 4: I always feel like that that is usually a very
Speaker 4: good indicator that you need a better cash flow system.
Speaker 4: My love so that you feel super in control of
Speaker 4: it and you know you're working towards your goals and
Speaker 4: you know that what you're doing at the moment is
Speaker 4: good enough. Because I feel like that really ends up
Speaker 4: impacting your confidence. Do you feel like that that is
Speaker 4: a part of your story as well? Like hearing you
Speaker 4: talk about it like, oh, I just don't feel like
Speaker 4: it's good enough. And before you raided yourself as CNUS,
Speaker 4: but in August you bought a house and you've got
Speaker 4: like sixteen thousand dollars invested. I feel like you are
Speaker 4: definitely on the right path and having no personal debt,
Speaker 4: Like you are not in a bad situation. But you
Speaker 4: seem to be quite self critical, if I do say
Speaker 4: so without knowing you too deeply.
Speaker 2: At this point, I was, yeah, thinking about that. Like
Speaker 2: a few years ago, I did actually want to get
Speaker 2: into medicine because I felt like maybe that would be
Speaker 2: something that would earn me more money. So I did
Speaker 2: try doing like the medical exams a few times, like
Speaker 2: it's called gamsat, but unfortunately I just didn't get in.
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes I do feel like if I
Speaker 2: was brought up in you know, like a more wealthy family, like,
Speaker 2: would that have meant that I could increase my chance
Speaker 2: of getting to medicine. I felt like I would. Maybe
Speaker 2: I wasn't smart enough, or because I went to a
Speaker 2: public school, maybe that's why I couldn't get into medicine
Speaker 2: and I had to do pharmacy instead. Because yeah, I
Speaker 2: know it's bad, but I do sometimes compare myself to
Speaker 2: one of my cousins who comes from a wealthy family.
Speaker 2: Both parents are lawyers, and they she just got into
Speaker 2: medicine straight out of high school. And I just felt
Speaker 2: like the way that we were both cousins, but we
Speaker 2: grew up in such different worlds, And I just don't
Speaker 2: know if that actually affects how, you know, how confident
Speaker 2: I am and like, you know what I achieve in life?
Speaker 4: A bit of a like a bit of a deep question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: No, It's interesting to have that conversation because I think,
Speaker 4: looking at you, I'm so impressed. I'm just like, oh
Speaker 4: my gosh, she's a pharmacist in a hospital. She has
Speaker 4: this really great income, like ninety one grand. She's bought
Speaker 4: a house, like you must be really good at saving
Speaker 4: to be able to, you know, as you said before,
Speaker 4: on a whim by a house because your rent was
Speaker 4: going up like that is epic. To have given yourself
Speaker 4: the financial freedom to be able to not only afford that,
Speaker 4: but be able to seize that opportunity. And then to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I invest in stocks like I might have made a
Speaker 4: few mistakes, but also I've got a really good amount
Speaker 4: of savings and your saving or investing, sorry, about one
Speaker 4: thousand dollars a month. To me, all of this sounds
Speaker 4: so impressive, but I guess I guess the thing I'm
Speaker 4: really getting out of this Money Diary is that from
Speaker 4: the outside looking in, that might be the case, but
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that on the inside that's how it feels.
Speaker 4: And I think that there are probably a lot of
Speaker 4: people in our community that would compare themselves to you
Speaker 4: and be like, oh my gosh, money Diarist is doing
Speaker 4: so well. I wish I could X y Z because
Speaker 4: often the grass is always greener in a way, and
Speaker 4: I think that we forget to water our own sometimes.
Speaker 4: I want to know a little bit about your mum
Speaker 4: and dad's family. They're still overseas, They're still you know,
Speaker 4: living in a very different world to you. How does
Speaker 4: that impact you now? Do you see the family often?
Speaker 4: Do you talk to them like? Is there a bridge
Speaker 4: between those two worlds?
Speaker 2: So I should explain that my dad's family is mostly
Speaker 2: in Australia, so they moved here first, and then it's
Speaker 2: my mom's family that's still in China, so all of
Speaker 2: the family's in China. To be honest, I haven't actually
Speaker 2: seen my mom's side of the family for so long,
Speaker 2: so it's probably been a good eight years. I reckon
Speaker 2: when my sister got married. I think we went to
Speaker 2: China then, But yeah, every time I went when I
Speaker 2: was a younger kid, I always felt like we had
Speaker 2: it so good in Australia. So even though I felt
Speaker 2: like in Australia we were not doing very well, we're
Speaker 2: really poor, but when we went to China, I actually
Speaker 2: felt like I was really privileged, to be honest, Like
Speaker 2: they don't even have flushing toilets in China. Everything's like
Speaker 2: a hole in the ground well in my grandparents' house.
Speaker 2: And yeah, back then, they didn't even have a shower,
Speaker 2: so you had to boil water and then just shower
Speaker 2: in a bucket. And yeah, it was just really different,
Speaker 2: like the lifestyle there. I felt it was very rural.
Speaker 2: But I feel like my mom grew up very happy though,
Speaker 2: so she's very good with like not having much and
Speaker 2: you know, like cooking everything from scratch and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I guess she's very used to it. For me, it
Speaker 2: was very different. I can kind of see why she's
Speaker 2: always saving money and she's you know, like eating food
Speaker 2: that might be off and I would like refuse to
Speaker 2: eat it because I just feel like it's past his
Speaker 2: due date, like it's not safe. But she would be
Speaker 2: just like, oh no, it's fine, just cut it off.
Speaker 2: And I guess that just comes from a someone who's
Speaker 2: you know, experienced even worse, Like she came from a
Speaker 2: place that was even worse than how it was when
Speaker 2: she moved to Australia. So for her, like Australia was
Speaker 2: really really good, even though they started with like, you know,
Speaker 2: minimal income, like just doing odd jobs. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I might have mentioned before, like she's taken us to
Speaker 2: a few jobs when we were younger, so we used
Speaker 2: to follow her to like the hotel for cleaning and
Speaker 2: sometimes she's so's clothes for people, and yeah, just doing
Speaker 2: dumplings and cleaning houses. So she worked really hard, which
Speaker 2: is yeah, very admirable.
Speaker 4: So I love that. And how are your parents today,
Speaker 4: Obviously it's been a while since you were young and
Speaker 4: it's schooled and a bit grumpy at them for not
Speaker 4: being able to go on exchange. How are they doing now?
Speaker 2: Well, I think my dad's actually semi retired, so I
Speaker 2: don't think if I talked much about my dad, but
Speaker 2: he Yeah, he did a lot of odd jobs and
Speaker 2: when he came to Australia as well. I think he
Speaker 2: worked in my uncle's restaurant for a bit, and then
Speaker 2: he was picking apples for a bit, and then finally
Speaker 2: he did a tape course and it went into gardening.
Speaker 2: I think he got a job as a gardener and
Speaker 2: a disability hospital, and then they didn't need that many gardeners,
Speaker 2: so they ended up putting him inside the hospital as
Speaker 2: a sort of like a I don't know, a nursing assistant.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he was there for thirty years, which is
Speaker 2: a really long time.
Speaker 4: It's a government job, so yeah, we love government jobs
Speaker 4: and the benefits they attract.
Speaker 2: I think back then it was really good. Now I'm
Speaker 2: working in government, but it's not as good. I feel
Speaker 2: like they don't offer full time contracts. Everything is like
Speaker 2: one year contract or so, yeah, unfortunately it's not as
Speaker 2: stable as before, but it used to be really good.
Speaker 2: So he got offered a package a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: so he took the package and now he's not working,
Speaker 2: so he's at the time of retirement yet either. So
Speaker 2: they're kind of like in a limbo, which is kind
Speaker 2: of makes me worried because I'm like, what if they
Speaker 2: run out of money? They do do your like a
Speaker 2: little bit of letterboxing, like you know, advertising, like junk
Speaker 2: vowels into boxes. Yeah, we used to do that. We
Speaker 2: used to help them, and I used to hate it
Speaker 2: because they made us go and like walk around and
Speaker 2: deliver junk fowl at nighttime. I used to hate it,
Speaker 2: but they still do it to this day.
Speaker 4: So it's a good way to get cash in the door.
Speaker 4: And I think the thing I admire especially about my
Speaker 4: grant families is just their work ethic. Like I feel
Speaker 4: like there's no such thing as being too good for
Speaker 4: a job or you know, putting in the time, energy
Speaker 4: and effort, Like it's just honestly so admirable. And I
Speaker 4: know that as a young kid, you're probably like this sucks,
Speaker 4: but I'm sure that it has instilled in you a
Speaker 4: beautiful work ethic as well, which obviously makes sense given
Speaker 4: you are a pharmacist today, Like that is epic. But
Speaker 4: I'm sure, absolutely certain that they would be so proud
Speaker 4: of you and who you've become to I hope, so, oh,
Speaker 4: I know, so I feel like.
Speaker 2: I have it a lot better. But yeah, I do
Speaker 2: feel like I should be more grateful for like having
Speaker 2: you know, education in Australia and you know, because they
Speaker 2: never got the opportunity to do any like, not even
Speaker 2: to finish high school.
Speaker 4: Yeah wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately they're not working. Both of them aren't working full time.
Speaker 2: They just do the letter boxing at the moment and
Speaker 2: just they're hanging out for retirement. So I think it's
Speaker 2: a couple of years away until my dad can get
Speaker 2: access to a super. Unfortunately, my mom didn't actually have
Speaker 2: a super because she's never had like a proper job,
Speaker 2: so I hope that I can support her in the future. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I live into States, so I don't know if she
Speaker 2: wants to move over with me, but they do have
Speaker 2: their house down.
Speaker 4: So it's sweet that you want to though. I love that.
Speaker 4: It is honestly so sweet that you're like, I hope
Speaker 4: I can help her. I don't even know if she
Speaker 4: wants to live with me, but I would love that.
Speaker 4: It's literally the best. Oh my gosh, money direst Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: that is all we have time today, so thank you
Speaker 4: so much for joining us. I feel like this chat
Speaker 4: has been really wholesome and really eye opening, and I
Speaker 4: just want you to be more proud of yourself and
Speaker 4: what you've achieved, and stop comparing yourself because they think
Speaker 4: that you're doing an epic job.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having me.
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