She's On The Money - A little bit of HELP on that HECS

Episode Date: July 9, 2019

Hello lady! Do you belong to the 36% of Aussies who have attended uni? Well, today we've got a special episode just for you. Firstly, what the hell is HECS/HELP debt, and should we be trying to pay it... off ASAP? Then, what's the deal with the robo-debt Centrelink scandal that's draining millennials' wallets? We're covering it all, and THEN we're hearing from a money diarist who calls herself a "work in progress". Want to call the pod phone and tell us your money dilemma? We're working on some killer episodes all about INVESTING (tada!) and we want your listener questions. Leave us a voicemail on 0435 293 886 and you might make it onto the show! When that's all done, why not join our growing community? We're on Insta @shesonthemoneyaus or on Facebook, just search She's On The Money! The advice shared on She's on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on The Money exists purely for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Consultum Financial Advisers Proprietary Limited ABN 65 006 373 995 | AFSL 230323.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Annabelle Lee. I'm a law student and a millennial and I desperately want to get better at everything to do with money. To do that I'm stealing the brains of money expert and my friend Victoria Devine. Welcome Victoria. Hi. So what a week we've had. Many people closing down their afterpay
Starting point is 00:00:41 accounts because of last week's episode. How exciting. Did a lot of people get in contact with you about closing their afterpay account? They absolutely did. I had so many messages on Instagram and Facebook of people who maybe weren't posting in the group saying hey Victoria I've realized that afterpay is maybe not being used in the way it should be and I've closed my afterpay account or zip pay account or whatever fast money account they have and I'm so proud of them all again I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to have afterpay but if people are identifying that they're not using it effectively like it's fantastic to hear that they are owning that and taking that away from themselves what a proud mom moment I feel like such a proud mom
Starting point is 00:01:19 I'm way too young to be their moms but I would love to be what does that make me like a cool auntie. I just call myself a really cool sister. Anyway, Victoria, today, let's talk about all things Hex debt. So many young people are either accruing a Hex debt now or paying off theirs as they work. So why don't we talk about university in the context of it costing you a whole bunch of money. But before we dig into that, as always, let's get things rolling by sharing a money win or a money confession from the week. After you, my darling. So for the past week, I have been in lockdown after end of financial year and I have a bit of a money confession for you this week. I ordered Uber Eats three times in three days and it's not something I'm that proud of. And
Starting point is 00:02:05 what were we ordering? We were ordering pasta from Eto'o. Oh that sounds fancy. Am I supposed to know what Eto'o is? It's just this little pasta bar close to my work. Close enough I should be walking honestly. But no there's no time. You're a financial advisor. We've got bills to I don't no taxes to do yeah something like that I cannot justify the amount of pasta I've consumed in the last three days or the Uber Eats bills I've accrued that's okay I forgive you have you got something to make up for my my foes I've got a money win I didn't earn this money win at all but it um has something to do with a free weekend getaway oh I know have you heard of cozy tents by any chance I haven't not sponsored by the way it is this kind of glamping holiday thing where
Starting point is 00:02:48 you go to I think it's in Dalesford and it's this really fancy tent they bring you like a breakfast box in the morning oh so fancy one of my girlfriends has one of those companies called into the woods oh yeah it's gorgeous well it's I think it's supposed to be for couples but I'm single so I'm bringing my sister my best friend Ella she got gifted this for her birthday by her brothers but she a is in Europe right now so it's going to expire and b she broke up with her long-term boyfriend so she decided to give it to me. Oh that's so sweet. It's sad but also you know winning. I don't feel sorry for her if she's in Europe though. I know and she's having the best time. We miss you Ella. Would you like to be in a tent in Daylesford or in Europe right now? I'm
Starting point is 00:03:29 not sure. And it's freezing cold as well so yeah she definitely wins out of all of us. And you're going this weekend? Next weekend. Oh exciting. My sister has a busy schedule I've got to yeah slot her in. Okay moving on let's get into the show. The number of Australians going to uni has steadily increased over the last decade. On top of that, women have outnumbered men in universities since 1987, and now they do so by a hefty margin. Yes, girls. While that sounds like a fist pump moment, there's something we forget to think about when it comes to uni, the debt. Now, I have a huge hex debt, I think. I'm studying a double degree. But because I don't have to pay for it now, I haven't considered the position that I'm putting myself in, potentially down the track. Do you
Starting point is 00:04:07 think our attitude towards university and hex debt largely ties into our attitude towards things like afterpay? I think in a way it does and not in the same way that we would categorise afterpay more in the let's just think about it later kind of way. Not in a I know that this is an immediate debt how does this impact my future cash flow what does that look like how much will I be paying back and when will I be paying it back. So the average HECS debt is actually on the rise it currently stands at $20,000 up $5,000 from 2014. So experts say that HECS and HELP debt is at an all-time high for two reasons. One, we're expected to complete additional postgraduate studies to be qualified for our jobs in our field. And two, wage growth has flattened, increasing the number of people
Starting point is 00:04:51 who aren't making repayments and therefore are watching their debts increase. Do you think our generation has been, for lack of a better word, totally royally screwed up? Absolutely not. I think it's really important to realise that we are incredibly lucky to have access to help debt. So just to quickly define it, it used to be called HEGS and now it's called HELP, which is the Higher Education Loan Program, because it is a loan that you guys need to be paying back. So I think we're really lucky to live in a country where we have access to a higher education loan scheme that allows us to study and defer payments of something that is really valuable to us. So we know research says that a millennial who has a university degree will earn $800,000 more than someone who does not have a university degree. And for me, that is a massive impact that a university degree can have on you. And for a HECS debt of $20,000, is that worth you getting into that race?
Starting point is 00:05:49 What's interesting to me is that 2.9 million Aussies currently have outstanding health debt, the highest in our country's history. and more than 200,000 Australians currently have an outstanding balance of more than $50,000. Whoa. Is that at all concerning to you? It is and it isn't. I think it's really special that we're in a country where as much as we are more in help debt than we've ever been, it means that we're more educated than we've ever been. Before you mentioned that more women are in universities than ever before and there was a period of time where women weren't in universities at all. So I think we really need to celebrate the progress that we are making and work out what that actually means. So unlike a loan for a car or a house help debt doesn't actually attract any interest at all
Starting point is 00:06:32 so in other words you're not paying the government for the privilege of borrowing the money you're only ever paying what's called indexation. This is such a good thing because indexation is not interest and interest would be they were charging you for the privilege of borrowing the money whereas indexation is actually just the amount that the debt is going to increase each year to be in line with the cost of living. So last year that was 1.8% and this year it is 1.9%. Right so I guess those stats are also fine if the debt is being used to fund careers that we actually want but studies show one in three university students regret their choice of degree. Do you see this as common? I think it is really common for people to jump straight into university
Starting point is 00:07:15 from high school and I don't think it's uncommon for people to be in a position where they've jumped from having a you know a really structured environment and then worrying about not having that structure so jump straight into a degree to kind of maintain that or they feel like their friends are doing a degree I may as well do the same degree I'll just follow in their footsteps but I think picking a degree is such a big topic and if you are not ready to pick a degree that you're super passionate about or you know you want to do potentially it's worth having a little bit more of a think about that and taking some more time yeah take a gap year take some time university will be there for you in 12 months in 18 months in two years in five years you don't
Starting point is 00:07:56 have to jump straight into a degree you can go out and work or you could go to Europe for a gap year or travel or do whatever helps inspire you and helps you work out where you want to go so do you think millennials and Gen Zers would benefit from a mindset shift? I think so I think it's really important to also remember that as much as help debt to me is an okay debt to hold it is still a debt and jumping headfirst into that is not a great idea if you're not 100% committed to the outcome so say you go do a marketing degree and then realize you don't want to do marketing you've just spent $35,000 on something that isn't contributing to you earning money because it's not a space you want to be working in. So studies show that degrees in nursing, health services,
Starting point is 00:08:43 education, law, business and psychology they all have a high satisfaction rate from graduates while more than half of all graduates from social sciences, humanities, culture and the arts felt their degree weren't actually relevant to their jobs. Do you think we need maybe job recruiters in the cultural fields to reconsider the need for that piece of paper? I think it's an interesting question. I think what we need here is actually career counsellors so people go into degrees knowing what the outcomes are going to be. It's one thing to go into social work because you want to be a social worker but those units are often not made up of things that are directly related to having hands-on experience. It's a lot about philosophy and you know psychology and things that
Starting point is 00:09:27 potentially you didn't expect to get into when you said I want to be a social worker. So I think if you are considering going to university and you're not entirely sure what degree you should be going straight into going and seeing a career counsellor is going to help you get that clarity but also work out what are the outcomes of this degree what does that look like how tangible and applicable are these things to what I'm working towards. It's also I think important to note that there are transferable skills in like arts degrees as well I don't want to put anyone off studying arts degrees because I'm studying one so I think that even if you are studying a broader degree it is it can be useful for the workforce. So I started my university career you could say in an arts
Starting point is 00:10:08 degree and after six months transferred to psychology so I was that kid who didn't really know 100% what she wanted to do and didn't want to miss out so all of my friends were going to university and I wanted to go to the same university they were going to and so that's where I ended up. I am very lucky in that I did speak to a careers counsellor at the university early on and worked out that potentially an arts degree wasn't going to help me achieve the goals I wanted to achieve and psychology was something I was more passionate about. So I did end up finishing that degree in psych and graduated with a Bachelor of Psychological Science and I don't regret that at all but it's also, as you guys can see, not where I currently work. So I think it's
Starting point is 00:10:49 really interesting that I have had such a varied experience but I also think that everything I learned in that degree is now being applied to what I do now and as much as people say oh it was a waste of money to do that marketing degree or that psychology degree I think that a lot of the skills as you were saying Annabelle are really transferable and if you are able to work out what those transferable skills look like especially if you're close to the end of a degree that you are maybe feeling like you don't want to finish sometimes it's better to just finish that degree have a think about how you could apply those skills in your new chosen career and move forward from there so as much as I'm saying don't get into debt for the sake of it I also would hate to think
Starting point is 00:11:32 that someone is getting $30,000 into hex debt and exits a university degree without spending that last $5,000 to get the final part of the degree at least you're walking away with something instead of you know just a debt that isn't applicable to a lot. It's a huge accomplishment anyway. Moving on from that to the more practical stuff I guess how can we actually improve our understanding of education and debt? So where can we find out what our current HECS debt balance actually is? So the myGov website is actually really helpful for finding out what your HECS debt is. You can sign in you can see what you've paid off it you can see what is owed you can make voluntary contributions through that website. It's also the same website you can see your tax information and Medicare
Starting point is 00:12:13 details through. So Victoria, you've mentioned you've got a hefty HECS debt still that you have to pay off. How do you approach it though? Do you make extra voluntary repayments on top of what comes out of your pay every month? I don't. So this is something I get asked a lot because it's such a tension point. Nobody likes being in debt. No one wants to feel like they owe anybody anything. And so getting rid of HECS debt to a lot of people is a priority. To me, it's not though. my help debt sits in the background and I know that if it is going to tick off over time so I am absolutely okay with the fact that it will be subject to indexation and I know that it's going to go up slightly each year but I also know that with my income I will be paying off more than
Starting point is 00:12:56 what indexation is each year so we're getting there and it is going to not be an issue for me in the future but I think I think it's a really interesting point that people ask me Victoria do you pay additional repayments off your HECS debt? If not, why not? So I don't voluntarily pay off my HECS debt because I look at debt in three different ways. You've got good debt. So good debt is where you have borrowed money for investments like property or shares and these things you expect to grow over time. You've got okay debt. So this is debt like a HECS debt that you don't want to have forever, but it's an appreciating asset. So mortgages and student loans and your help debt go into this basket because as much as we want to pay them off we
Starting point is 00:13:38 also aren't pressed for time we are living in a country where there is actually no no time limit on the amount of time it takes you to pay off your hex debt and if we are in a position where indexation is at 1.9 percent per year but the average return of the share market each year is about seven percent i know where i'd prefer to put my money so many numbers but i'm getting it i think I'm getting it yeah slowly but surely and then of course we've got bad debt and bad debt are things like personal loans and cars and holidays and things that you're putting on a credit card that you can't afford out of your weekly cash flow that are not appreciating assets and they typically carry higher interest rates that aren't helping you grow your future wealth so hex and help debt
Starting point is 00:14:24 to me go in that it's an okay debt to have because to me my money and my weekly income is better spent on things like shares and appreciating assets. Right, so as long as it's not bad, we're good. We are. Hi there. You've called the She's on the Money hotline. Do you have a money problem you want help solving? Do you have a money dilemma you just want to chat about?
Starting point is 00:14:46 Victoria is here to help. Each week, we'll be playing your hotline questions to help make sense of the money mess you may have found yourself in. Give us a call on 0435 293 886 and you might find yourself on the show. But for now, here's a whole bunch of you who have some problems with uni debt and Centrelink overpayments. Hi guys, I am 24 and I'm currently in $170,000 worth of HECS debt due to doing two degrees.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Now I know that the government has done some sort of legislation that means we have to pay more tax or more HECS. So if someone could explain that to me, that'd be great. Thanks. Bye. So Victoria, is that right? What do you reckon? So the government has passed the thresholds at which you have to start paying back HECS or help debt. So this is not saying we have to pay back more than ever before. It just means that they've changed the amount that you earn per year as a minimum requirement. So in the 2018-2019 tax year if you were earning more than $51,957 you had to start paying your help debt back and you had to pay back two percent of your help debt. So the change that she's talking about is the upcoming change for the next financial year and
Starting point is 00:16:16 that's the 2019-2020 year and the threshold is actually going to change to $45,881. dollars so they've brought it down pretty significantly which means if you were in a position where you were earning fifty thousand dollars last year you weren't having to pay back your hex debt so whereas this year you now have to start paying that debt back but you are only going to have to do that at one percent as opposed to the two which you would have had to pay last year at fifty one thousand okay so it's not a complete loss i guess it's not a loss what what it means is the government has dropped the threshold so essentially people who are earning less and now having to start paying back their HECS debt or their HELP debt as opposed to before
Starting point is 00:16:57 where you had to be over the $51,000 threshold. All right. And rolling into our second question for the day. Hi, guys. My name's Stacey. I'm off the podcast. I've got a bit of background on myself. I live out of home with my brother and I'm studying full-time doing my honours at uni. I have a part-time job on the weekend, but I'm also receiving the independent Centrelink youth allowance for the last few years through a combination of factors and I've ended up with $4,000 debt to Centrelink and I also had enough to clear the tax threshold so my current strategy for paying it off is a deduction from my payment plus I pay 10 cent tax automatically I've managed to get down to about $2,600 but at the end of the year I won't be receiving Centrelink
Starting point is 00:17:44 and I'm not sure how to go about paying it off especially things I plan on studying further research and they won't be getting a full-time job. I'm just looking for some tips to help pay it off now or whether I should be leaving it until then. Thank you. All right, Victoria, let's break things down a little bit first. What is the robo-debt scandal? So essentially, Centrelink has gone and done a whole heap of data matching and realised there are a number of people here in Australia who have either been overpaid or have not declared income that they made while taking Centrelink payments. So we've had actually so many people in the shameless Facebook thread saying that this has happened to them. One said, I had to provide all my payslips
Starting point is 00:18:25 for the year and did that and never heard back, so it must be fine. Is it fine? Is that true? I think it's not fine. If you haven't heard back, you really need to be following it up. If you have been given a letter or you have been asked to pay back something and because you submitted it and never heard back, I think it's really, really important you are following up on this and really asking for clarity in these situations. So it's happening to so many people and it's just a product of technology getting better and better. As much as it is really frustrating, it's also a product of maybe people needing to take a little bit more ownership of their income and knowing where it's coming and what it's coming in from and why. So what would you advise someone like
Starting point is 00:19:05 Sophie who's found themselves with a letter claiming overpayments? I would tell her not to pay anything back just yet and get in contact with Centrelink immediately. So just go straight to Centrelink, ask some questions, make sure you understand the situation completely. So when were these overpayments made? Why were they made? Is it up to Sophie? Like did Sophie earn too much income and is that why they need to be there? Or was this Centrelink's fault and they've just overpaid? If so, I think it needs to be dealt with a little bit differently because Sophie wasn't doing the wrong thing to begin with. So then we know Sophie has $2,600 still left in debt. How would she go about paying this off if this was legitimate? So I think that if it's a legitimate
Starting point is 00:19:45 debt, she needs to be paying it off sooner rather than later. She said she's not sure what her financial situation looks like in the future. So if you're going into the future with a debt, you're more likely to be stressed, more likely to not be able to pay it off. If you, Sophie, you have the income to be paying this $2,600 off, do it sooner rather than later. You don't want that hanging over your head. Yeah. So what are some tips then we can give people who have been in Sophie's position? Is there like a hotline we can call or someone we can go see? Yeah. So I think the first thing to do is have a look at the letter that you've been given and you'll note that the number on the letter is different to the normal Centrelink hotline. So give them a buzz,
Starting point is 00:20:23 work out what these debts are, why they're there and demand a breakdown of the alleged overpayment so that you know exactly when they happened and why and once you've done that you can always call the National Debt Hotline or check out resources like notmydebt.com which is a website that is built and run by a handful of volunteers all around Australia with the aim to get as many false debt stories in one place as possible. Once you've worked all of that out, had a conversation with a counsellor or someone who can help you work this situation out and you decide to move forward into a formal appeal, that'll go to the appeals officer within Centrelink who will review that decision. So I think it's important to note that doing something like this is really important.
Starting point is 00:21:02 If you were overpaid and you are in a position where you are unable to pay that debt back or that debt is a really big burden on you, you need to be making sure that you are not in a position where you can have it overturned. Centrelink isn't the be-all and end-all either. So you can actually go external to appeal these types of things to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal who are an external body to the Centrelink. So if you feel like you're not getting what you are meant to be getting or the debt is still completely unreasonable and not a debt that you feel like you should be paying back, it is worth researching it. And as always, now it's time for the fun stuff. What good would this be if we didn't bring you the pervy stuff? Yep,
Starting point is 00:21:42 it's time for our weekly money diary. Let's go. today's money diary is from a 26 year old nurse who says she's keen to improve when it comes to all things money I would introduce myself as 26 year old work in progress a little bit careless but likes to have a good time as well I think I've always just enjoyed enjoyed life more I've always been experiences over the kind of adult side of life you know I would rather spend my money doing things that I'm enjoying even if I can't really afford it or I shouldn't afford it I choose to do that instead and that's always been my my way of life I guess I don't really know why I do that. Okay so down to the nitty-gritty stuff how much does today's 26 year
Starting point is 00:22:37 old work in progress earn? My base rate is $76,000 but the job I work in I get penalties so my salary could be it's always changing but my base is $76,000. At the moment I have $6,000 in my savings account. I feel okay but at the moment I just in January got back from living overseas and I've only been working full-time for three months so I feel like I've really knuckled down and every time I look at it, initially I think, oh God, do better. But then I actually think about it and I'm like, you're okay. Actually, a lot of my money has gone towards traveling. I've traveled every year. I've gone overseas every year since 2011 and it's been my thing to do every single year and that's where my money has really gone. And I'm totally fine with that. Whenever I think
Starting point is 00:23:32 about it and I compare it to my friends that have lots of money, I'm like, oh, but I've spent my money on experiences and that I feel like money can't really buy those kind of things so we know how work in progress gets paid but what exactly happens to that money after it's deposited into her account so I've just moved out so like 450 of it will go toward my rent that's four nightly and then I usually pay off whatever bills I have straight away and get that done and then the rest of it just goes into an abyss. Savings and then whatever I have happening that fortnight. Prior to moving out, I was trying to put it like a thousand dollars at least because I could, I was living at home. Now that I'm moving out, it's a little bit difficult, but I'm still going
Starting point is 00:24:22 to try at least $500 a fortnight to put towards my savings if I can. Time for the question every money diarist dreads. Do you invest and if not, why? I don't know anything about investing. I've never invested. I don't know anything about investing. I don't understand how it works. I literally have no interest in it whatsoever. It's never come up. I've never been in a situation where it's come up. I've never been in a situation where it's been an option. So I guess I just, I haven't gone out of my way to learn about it, but I wouldn't be opposed to learning about it. Another tough one. It's time to talk about debts. I have my HECS debt, which I actually looked at this morning, and it was down to $6,000.
Starting point is 00:25:03 And then I enrolled in my master's, which is $45,000 over three years. So it's gone up. So I think I'm now owing $23,000. And I have about $2,000 on my credit card that I'm owing. It used to be a lot worse. It was $5,000 that I was owing. So I'm in the process of getting rid of that. I've always had a very bad relationship with credit cards a lot of the time it's just something I'm out for dinner and I you know I haven't transferred money I'm just like I'll just put on my credit card um or you know like I'm going in Splendor I'll just quickly pay on my credit card and then I'll pay it off later and I I do but then you know I feel like I blink and
Starting point is 00:25:44 then all of a sudden I'm owing so much more on it than what I thought it just gets out of hand quickly and I'm not very good at paying it I know a lot of people pay use it in the fortnight and then pay it at the end of the fortnight I've never been that that person so I think once I you know I need to get rid of it I would like to think that when I pay off my credit card I'll cut it up so does this work in progress have any good money habits that she's proud of um oh my gosh I don't know um I actually don't know what my best money habit is is that bad I can think of one that I've tried but it doesn't it hasn't really worked as well as I'd hoped for so I drink coffee every day I got a coffee maker buy proper coffee and that's
Starting point is 00:26:31 my way of stopping to buy coffee but it doesn't always work I still I still buy coffee I literally got one on the way here I don't know what I'm talking about and her worst money habit I think I just um I'm very impulsive that's my I think that was probably my worst money habit I just um you know that Ariana Grande song that's I see it I want it I got it that's literally me I find something I'm like yep I like that I want it I'm gonna get it right now done and if I don't get it I'm thinking about all the time I'm like I need that even if I don't actually need it once I decide that I want something that's it I'm gonna get it so we have some work to do but let's find out what that work is for what are our work in progress as big money goals that she wants to
Starting point is 00:27:12 save towards? I am going to in the process of saving for a house I actually just kind of got approved for a home loan my parents are guarantor for me so I am doing going down that route but for myself I need I need to have a solid amount of savings before I look into actually doing that because at the end of the day even though my you know they're guarantor for me I have to pay the the loan like it's not anyone else's job to pay it so I'm in the process of saving a solid amount of money so that I can go ahead with that and also more trips as well so how would today's money diarist rate her own relationship with money if we force her to give herself a grade I would say a c c I was gonna say c plus but I thought that was too generous
Starting point is 00:28:03 I think I've had bad money habits but I'm aware that I need to be better and I'm in the process of doing that but in saying that I don't regret any of my money habits because as I said earlier they've all bought me experiences so I don't regret it all I'm just aware that I need to be the 26 year old that I am. So Victoria what are your thoughts? I think she's in a situation that many millennials are in actually where you maybe aren't super clear on your goals it sounded like she wasn't sure whether she wanted to purchase a home or travel first and she felt like she wasn't maybe on top of her cash flow so what was coming in and being saved as much as she said that she was saving $500 a fortnight she still had $2,000 on her credit card and having $2,000 on
Starting point is 00:28:52 your credit card means that you have spent $2,000 more than you've earned so what would you recommend she do what could she improve on I think that she should have a really good look at her cash flow and her goals and work out what do you want to do do you want to travel first do you want to buy a home or what does that home actually look like if you're in a position where you are lucky enough that you've got parents that are willing to guarantor a loan for you is that something you want to take on immediately or do you still have some like bucket list goals to tick off and you need to go down the south of France I don't know but I also think she needs to address that credit card $2,000 on a credit card when you are saving $500 a fortnight is a lot to have so I think
Starting point is 00:29:32 getting rid of that credit card ASAP is really important now I'm not saying don't have access to that card but the way that she's using it doesn't seem constructive so she said that she just puts festival tickets on it and she uses it in a way where if she hasn't remembered to take money out for a dinner she's just spending it on that and maybe forgetting about it I think she needs to maybe put some space between her and that credit card and maybe when she's going out leave it at home it's bad debt not okay debt exactly you are learning so much I'm so proud of you what about what she's maybe doing well I loved the Ariana Grande reference I did too I did too but I think that what she's doing well is saving so she said that she was putting five hundred
Starting point is 00:30:14 dollars a fortnight and she had a couple of thousand dollars saved I think that that's a really good goal. I think that she's spending a reasonable amount on rent, like at the same time as, you know, we all have to pay rent. $800 is a really reasonable amount to be paying per month for her salary. So I think she's got a lot of income for her age and for the stage of life she's in. And she has a lot to do with that. So I think that as much as she's saying, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know where I'm going. She could just increase the clarity on that for herself and be in such a better financial position 12 months from now. And that clarity is what's going to give her that. And she seemed super positive as well, which is always good. She did.
Starting point is 00:30:53 I really liked that. She could also learn a little bit about investing. So whether that's having a look at the She's On The Money Facebook group and going through the posts and comments in there, or even just researching a couple of books she could read and, you know, educating herself on what actually invest or what investing actually is, I think is a really important step for someone who has, you know, $500 a fortnight is a really nice amount of cashflow to start investing. And if she's talking about buying a property, that's an investment in itself. So maybe have an understanding of why you want property as opposed to any other asset class. Well, that's all we have time for today. Again, episode three down. Look at us go. We are flying. I know, what? Just before
Starting point is 00:31:32 we head off though, as always, let's quickly wrap the boring but important stuff. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's All The Money exists purely for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision. And of course, we promise Victoria Devine is an authorised representative of Consultant Financial Advice Proprietary Limited.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Here goes. ABN 65 006 373 995 AFSL 2303 23 I think that's the first time you've got that out in one go. Join our Facebook group where 4,000 women share money, tips and tricks every single day free of judgment search she's on the money on facebook and join if facebook's not your thing find us on instagram we're at she's on the money aus this podcast is a production of shameless media on behalf of she's on the money
Starting point is 00:32:23 see you guys next week bye

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