She's On The Money - All I want for Christmas is... A BONUS EPISODE

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Exaggeration? We think not. Welcome to our BONUS ep of She's on The Money, focusing on how we can all spend a little savvier this Chrissie while exploring the curious psychology behind our gifting habits. PLUS, you'll meet our glossy new co-host miss Georgia King, who will be joined as always by financial expert/wizard Victoria Devine. Arghhh we can hardly wait. We've got a Facebook group you can find here where you can share your missteps and success stories. We've got an Instagram page that'll keep you motivated. And we've got a newsletter that'll get you across what you need to know. In a money mess and need help untangling the muddle? We've got you sorted - simply record your qualm and send it through to us at [e-mail] and you may end up on the podcast! Your hosts of today's podcast are Georgia King and Victoria Devine. 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 I AFSL 230323.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to a very jolly edition of She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Today's episode is proudly brought to you by Shopback, a cashback rewards program that has already been wildly popular with the Shears on the Money community, but more on that later. Just like season one, our wonderful financial expert and my friend Victoria Devine will be answering all of our financial cues, but as a once-off, today's ep will have a little

bit of a Christmassy twist. Before we dive into the main chat, you're probably wondering who on earth the stranger in your ears is. Well, my name is Georgia King, your new co-host for season two. I'm a writer and TV production assistant with lots to learn about money. And look, I'm also a huge fan of the pod, Victoria Devine. Hello. Hello.

How are you? Very well, my friend. How are you? I am good. So excited to be back behind a microphone. It's been a while since we've been in the ears of our listeners and they have been absolutely busting for season two. I know, I haven't heard the end of it yet, which is obviously a really good sign.

Absolutely. So Victoria, I know today is just a once-off festive chat, but how would you feel about giving the listeners and me a little bit of insight, a little bit of a teaser as to what's to come for season two? Ah, where to begin? So without giving too much away, I can tell you that we have a lot in store and we will be back at the beginning of January. I've obviously been working really hard to make sure that the topics are ones that you guys all

want to hear so without giving too much away think all things super babies and a whole lot more on investing I'm absorbed already so I'm at it today on the show we're talking all things Christmas spending from how much we're spending and what others are forking out during this period to why we actually feel the need to. But before we get there, as always, it's time to share a money win or a money confession from the week. This is my first episode as co-host, so I'll go first if that's cool. Take it away. Okay, let's do it. I'm ready. So mine is a money win. I recently moved houses, which I was spending a stupid amount of money and now I'm not. I'm saving $50 a week on my new place, which maths, quick wizardry, it's about $2,800 a year that I'm now saving.

Yeah. That's epic. That's pretty much a whole holiday. Yep. Yep. And you're still in the similar area? Same area. It's actually the street behind. So. Oh, impressive. It's a win. Tell me what you've been up to, girl. You got a win for me? Sorry. This one's a good one. And I'm very proud. And I was very excited to know that I was recording the podcast today with you because I knew I could share.

So on the weekend, one of my best friends had her engagement party and I was tasked with the job of creating the engagement cake, which sounds like a lot of pressure because it totally is. But also I'm pretty time poor at the moment. So I was doing a lot of Googling and trying to find an engagement cake online and realized very quickly that the good ones were upwards of $250. So expensive. Insanity.

I am not spending that on a cake. anyway given i was so time poor it wasn't going to be possible to bake and frost and organize and decorate a cake so i did a bit of a cake hack and went to cole's and purchased four of their four dollar uniced mud cakes heaven filled them full of cream and jam and iced them with buttercream and i'm telling you right now that cake cost me less than 35 in total because i also decorated it with some beautiful peonies I got as a gift last week. Is that not the best money win you've ever heard? That's a very spectacular money win and it tasted delicious presumably. It did and everybody kept asking where the cake was from so I didn't really want to tell them it was Coles but

it totally was. So get on it. Own that. That is truly delicious and amazing. Before we rip into today's show should we stick to tradition and read out a couple of amazing money wins from the is on the Money Facebook community? Absolutely we should. This is one of my favorite parts of the podcast. So today I've got a money win from Matilda and Matilda says that Christmas is one of the periods of the year where she spends most of her money like many other people and a few years ago she started saving all of her Christmas cards from people that had gifted them to her and now she's cutting them up and making cute little gift tags on them to put on all of her presents for this year. So cute. It's not only a bit of a saving but over the years it's been

adding up for her also great way of recycling money savvy and environmentally friendly i love it yeah no that is gorge what have you got for me okay so mine is from carla who has written that she just saved over 100 buying christmas gifts online by strategically using discount codes she also placed four separate orders from the same website and didn't have to pay any shipping on any of them impressive i know good on you carla it's very savvy and i'm definitely gonna steal that. I really like that. Yeah, it's a good one. Alrighty, let's get in to the main part of the show. So Victoria, Christmas is a massive time of year. Not only is it a huge financial hurdle, but it's also often a mental one too. Australians are tipped to spend over $52 billion across retail

stores during the Christmas trading period this year. That is an increase of 2.6% from last year. even though a recent survey from ING said an estimated 10 million unwanted gifts were received last Christmas. Victoria, why do you think we feel the need to spend more and more? Why is there so much pressure at this time of year? It's crazy, I know. The Christmas period that you're referring to in that research is actually only December as well. That's ridiculous. So that is not even accounting for all of those of us, not including me, who have been more prepared and bought gifts earlier. So this time of year is meant to be a really happy period of the year full of relaxation and celebration but for so many people it's such a stressful period of the year. Now I don't know

exactly why there's so much pressure now but what I do know for sure is that Instagram culture, online photos and the pressure to make everything look polished seems to be putting us in a position where we all want to be keeping up with the Joneses. I think there's a massive expectation that we keep up our appearances. And this often means setting really unrealistic expectations for gifts for people. So whether that's an expectation that you really want to impress someone or an expectation that you set for yourself by purchasing an expensive or out of your range gift before, I think we're in a position where as a culture, we show our love to people through things, not actions. And we really need to think about how we can flip that.

Yeah, I totally relate to that. And it happens to me every Christmas. Same. I do it all the time. So as an example of this, I actually purchased Christmas presents for my sister each year. And I know that she loves everything and anything from Mecca. So when I am organizing what I purchase her, I'm often a creature of convenience rather than planning when it comes to gifts. As much as I absolutely love giving gifts each and every year, I also often leave it to the last minute. So I find myself going into Mecca and purchasing gifts that I think she would love instead of putting in the research that I know I should be putting in to organizing a present that is thoughtful and within budget and I know that

this is probably putting a lot of pressure on her as well because when you think about it she's knowing that I'm spending a fair bit because we all know what products in Mecca can cost and how it adds up so quickly and then I think that there's an unnecessary level of pressure that she assumes is there because she wants to keep up with what I've purchased her. When in reality, she's often a lot more thoughtful than I am and purchases gifts that are really meaningful. And to me, that actually means a lot more than me going into Mecca and purchasing my sister gifts that I just think she will like. Yeah, absolutely. I have a kind of similar psych around it, I guess. With my brothers, for example, I always spend the same amount of money. Even if I've spotted something

that they'll love and it's on sale I'll still feel guilty about only spending $50 so I'll you know throw in some socks or oh we're all guilty of that yeah it's I don't know it's a weird thing that I've gotten into yeah and it's like it's like it turns your money win of you know spending less on a gift that you thought would be more into a money fail because you make up the amount exactly all righty so it seems there's an attitude out there that we should be spending money on impressive gifts at this time of the year why do you think that is like is it actually reasonable for the average working Australian to be purchasing gifts for every man and every dog maybe we should be buying dogs as gifts 10 out of 10 oh heaven I think it's a really interesting question actually

because we all have this expectation that everybody gives gifts at Christmas and everybody puts themselves in this position where if I give a gift to you maybe you'll feel the pressure to give one to me but we never really had this conversation about whether that was something we wanted to be doing. And I find this sometimes with friends where they turn up with a gift for me and I'm like, oh, that's, you know, beautiful. And thank you so much. But then you feel a little bit awkward because they've given you a gift and maybe you feel a little bit like you weren't thoughtful enough to think of one for them. So I think it's also about setting expectations around gift giving. Like, is there something you guys could do to make sure that you're not

overspending or even as a friends group, could you organize a KK and just buy one gift for one person and you know exchange those when you're going to do Christmas drinks together and really set that expectation so that maybe you're spending a little bit more on one gift for one person but overall you're spending a whole heap less and someone's getting a gift that's more valuable or meaningful to them because you only had to put all of your time and thought into the gift for one person exactly instead of thinking about gifts for 15. Yeah no that is so true and something I definitely need to do with my own friends sorry girls we're going to be having a chat this year all righty victoria what are some of the most obvious mistakes people are making during this

time and are there any mistakes you've seen millennials making in particular so i think the number one here is going to come as no surprise it's that they don't have a budget written down so it's one thing to have a budget in your head of what you're expecting it to cost but it's another to list down all of the things that you have to purchase whether that's entertainment costs, whether that is food, whether that is gifts. Like, have you actually budgeted for those additional boxes of favorites that you wanted to purchase on the way to a Christmas drinks? So I think it's important to have your budget written down and actually make a list of all the people you want to purchase for with an associated budget beside it. I think another

mistake that we are all making, not just millennials, everybody is using credit cards during the Christmas period. We get so reliant on credit that we end up putting ourselves in a position where we're overspending because as you would know from listening to the podcast last season we spend on average 12 to 22 percent more just because we are using credit. So maybe another tip there is budget but also put all of that money that you've budgeted onto a debit card to spend or better yet, take it out in cash and spend it that way because it is so much easier to tap away than it is to part with a cold hard 50.

That is so true. I completely agree with that. I know when I have cash, I do not want to spend it and it lasts so much longer. It is so true. And I think my last tip there is actually that we don't listen. And I know that's probably a little bit of a strange one, but this year I've made a conscious effort

to keep on my phone a notes section and whenever a family member or a friend mentions something that they like I've been writing that down as a suggestion for me and whilst I haven't done my Christmas shopping just yet I actually know it's going to come in handy because I already have in my head the exact things I want to be purchasing for my friends and family because they've been dropping hints accidentally all year yes so I think being prepared for the entire year is something that we could all be better at and it's really nice to be able to say oh but in June you mentioned you wanted this and that becomes a really thoughtful gift. Okay now that is a really good tip and I will absolutely be stealing it. You are welcome. Thank you. Now you mentioned planning what

we are going to spend is really important but how far in advance should we actually be preparing for Christmas? So that's a really good question. Thank you. And right now because we're posting this podcast in December we're all probably a little bit late but I think it should start in January when you are doing your yearly budget. Okay. Christmas spending often creeps up on you with the average Australian spending $573 at Christmas time just on gifts. That's not including the additional Christmas drinks or nights out with your friends. That is just purely on presents. So I think that this should be a part of our budget because not all of us have $573 just lying around to spend on gifts no absolutely no yeah I know so planning is really important make it a

part of your budget so each and every single month you're accounting for it but then it goes back to if you're thinking about it always you're probably going to find ways to be savvy if you know Christmas is coming up maybe you're purchasing things in October because you know it's coming around and you've already been listing down all the things your friends want and you are so excited to give your friend the things she really wants and you got it on sale so it's technically a money win. Yeah. Okay. So we need to get organized. In your opinion, would you say it's worth setting a budget for each person or having more of an overarching Christmas budget? Am I allowed to say both? I think you're allowed. I'll allow it. Thank you. So I think it's really important to

not only have an overall Christmas budget, because then we know how much to put away each and every single week or month so that we can achieve that goal without going into debt. But I think it's also worthy of sitting down and listing out all the people that we're buying for and how much we want to spend because often we'll say okay well I want to spend $500 on Christmas presents and then we blow the budget because we spent $150 on one person and now we don't have much to share between the other five people you said you wanted to purchase for. So I think it's important to list down all the people that you're purchasing for and your relevant budget, tallying that and then seeing if that's actually in line with your goals. Maybe you need to go through and cut $10 off every

single person so that you're still buying gifts, but you're also making sure that it's in line with your budget and your values. Okay. So this is all great, Victoria, but my goodness, there is a lot to be taking into consideration. And if I'm being honest, it's starting to sound a little bit stressful. I read something recently that said Christmas is considered as one of the six most stressful life events, along with divorce, moving house and changing jobs, which is ridiculous, right? Absolutely it is. Another survey reported that 86% of people found buying presents to be really difficult and 65% reported Christmas as a stressful experience. This feels like something that we do not talk about enough. Why do you think that is? You are absolutely right. We do not talk

about these things enough. It seems that Christmas often comes with really high expectations of people having perfect happy families, enjoying luxurious celebrations and gifts. We all know that picture of the family sitting around the Christmas tree on Christmas morning opening presents it's just not something that we are all able to live up to like these ideals don't actually apply to everybody and in today's society it's actually the minority of people that are celebrating Christmas in that way so for those of us who might have lost a loved one Christmas can actually intensify those feelings of grief and loss and some people who are going through a period of time where they might be depressed or feeling lonely, Christmas can only

intensify those feelings and often leaves them in a position where they're feeling even more isolated because they feel as though everybody around them is celebrating with family and friends that they might not have. I also think it's worth mentioning that sometimes just because someone is marked as family, it doesn't mean you get along. So having a split family or some unresolved conflict in your family may contribute to additional Christmas anxiety which you absolutely do not need and family and relationship problems can be a massive trigger at Christmas time. While there's not a whole heap of advice that we can give here because we're finance experts not relationship experts I think it's really important for us to just be really mindful at this time of year that not

everybody is actually in the same financial or emotional position as each other and whilst we don't talk about this a lot and we probably should talk about it more. It's just a really good reminder for us to all be a little bit kinder to one another. Well said, Victoria. I completely agree. So speaking of budgeting, it probably makes sense that we introduce everyone to today's sponsor, Shopback. Yes, Victoria, very exciting to have Shopback on board, especially because they have been so very popular in our Facebook community. Victoria, can you please tell the listeners who aren't across the many benefits of Shopback exactly what it is and how it works? So Shopback is a cashback platform where you get actual cash back into your bank account

or PayPal account simply by shopping through their platform. Can you actually believe that you get sometimes up to 30% of your purchase price back? That is amazing. It's actually crazy how many brands they have on board already, Georgia. I couldn't believe it when I logged in to see how many brands they'd actually recently added to the website. Talk me through. I know Maya and Woolies are on there.

Have you been using it? I have used it. I've recently got 9% back on my Maya purchase, little Chrissy present for Papa. Oh, what'd you buy? Can't give it away. He'll be listening. Love you, Dad.

Oh, no. Well, if any of you are like me and you haven't actually started doing your Christmas shopping yet or you haven't gotten onto the ShopBack bandwagon yet, we're actually really lucky that ShopBack has hooked us up with a $10 welcome bonus for all She's On The Money listeners. So to claim it, head to shopback.com.au forward slash S-O-T-M. it's completely free to sign up and I will make sure that all of the details are in our show notes

for you to jump on board. Merry Christmas indeed. Happy savings guys. Hi there you've reached the shiz on the money mailbox. Do you have a money problem you want help solving? Do you have a money dilemma you just want to chat about? Victoria is here to help. Every week we'll be playing your questions to help make sense of a money mess you may have found yourself in. Make a quick recording on your phone and send it to podcast at shoesonthemoney.com.au and you might find yourself on the show. But for now, here's Maddie. Hi guys, this is a bit of a weird one. I've been with my boyfriend for about two and a half months now and with Christmas around the corner, I'm not really sure what to do. I'd like to get him

something nice, but I also don't want to go overboard and spend too much, but I also don't want to look like a cheapskate. I'm also not sure like what he's going to be getting me. So has anyone been in this situation? What do I do? What are the rules here, Victoria? I actually don't know. I'm not sure how much help I can be, but I do think the number one thing here is just talking about it. Like if you're in a new relationship and it's a solid relationship, talking about things shouldn't hurt it. But I would be bringing it up because it's one of those things that it's nice to set the expectation up front. Often in a new relationship, we put ourselves in a position where we really want to impress the other person and obviously look after

them. But does that set unrealistic expectations for the years to come? Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it's all about honesty. If he's a good guy, he's not going to argue about the amount of money that you spent on his gift. Have the chat, establish kind of the budget that you'll be working towards and then go from there yeah or just do what you feel comfortable with I don't think that financial aspects should come into gift giving to as much of an extent as it currently is we should be placing ourselves in a position where it's like all right I am giving this person a gift because I want them to feel thought about and I want them to feel good it actually doesn't matter how much money I spend on them is this actually relevant gift for them like how can I make them

feel the most special. And often that does not mean that you have to spend hundreds of dollars. I think it's the thought that counts. Okay, now for the fun stuff. What good would a money podcast be without the pervy stuff? Now it's time for our money diary. Let's do this. Today's money diary is from a 25-year-old gym manager who says she's pretty good at managing her money? I'd have to say that I'm fairly confident with money. I've always, you know, tried really hard to make sure I always have enough and I can always cover everything and I'm not sort of left short. I think that comes from just wanting that security of knowing that

I always have it. So yeah, I'd say all right. Okay, let's get into the juicy stuff. How much does she earn and how much is sitting in her bank account right now? So I currently earn $165,000 a year and I have $20,000 in my bank account which I'm pretty proud of but I work like I said before I work pretty hard for it and I really focus on saving so yeah I'm pretty proud of that. And what exactly happens to that money after it's deposited into her account? Okay so when the money comes into my account it comes into sort of my main account and then what I do is I quickly transfer as much out as I can so I transfer money out to my savings accounts in in my main account what's coming out of that is pretty much just like my bills and my regular

sort of fixed payments I suppose and then I transfer money for my spending account and I try really hard to stick to that spending amount obviously sometimes I have to dip back in to savings for whatever reason but yeah I try to sort of just keep to my spending. Okay then so how does our gym manager feel about investing? Does she invest and if so how? Okay yeah so I do currently invest. I was investing with Raise previously and I was just using it for the round up feature and adding a little bit more sort of every pay but I've actually recently been to see a financial advisor and we're going to be moving that money into some sort of investment portfolio with them. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. What about debts like credit cards and personal loans?

No, I don't. Not yet. I mean, I will have debt in the future but when I think about debt, I think about that being maybe for a house or an investment property, not any other sort of debt like credit cards or anything like that I'm actually terrified of them um I just I never want to have to have one um I just I think about you know when I was a kid and money being a little bit not sort of um it wasn't ever really that bad but it was a little bit stressful in a sense that you know dad would have never had a credit card and he was so against having credit cards and would always just have cash um so it's kind of scared me a little bit but probably in a good way because I don't actually have any credit cards. So what's today's money diarist actually

saving for and what's her big money goal? Well right now essentially what I'm doing is I'm I'm kind of looking out into my future and I really want to create financial freedom for myself. I'm fiercely independent when it comes to money. I never want to have to be reliant on anyone so I find well from everything that I understand about investing the earlier that you start the easier it's going to be later. So my plan is that I invest as much as I can now and hopefully sort of by ideally sort of, you know, when I'm in my 50s that it potentially will be more comfortable. You know, I just I want to make sure that I set myself up and I feel like this is the best way to do that. Does our financially savvy gym manager have any good money habits that she's

especially proud of? I think that what I'm most proud of is that I prioritise savings and I'm prioritising investing as well. I'm not sure that there's maybe too many others my age who are, you know, prioritising that maybe as much. But yeah, so for me, I'm quite proud of that. And I think that that's a good habit that I've gotten into early on, which has maybe made it easier for me to do that now rather than sort of being a massive spender and then having to try and you know curb all of those spending habits. So I'd say that's probably what I'm most proud of. And what about her worst money habit? My worst money habit I think I can so you know I said my best money habit was sort of saving and investing but that maybe could also lead to my worst which is

I tend to feel a little bit guilty when I spend money because I think well you know should I should I be spending that shouldn't I be saving it but I do work hard and I am doing relatively well I think so I would like to at some point in time not feel bad about spending money so maybe just yeah giving myself permission a little bit to not like go crazy but not feel bad about you know buying a top or anything like that. And what about budgeting at Christmas time? How does our money diarist manage that? Yeah extensive time of the year. So my family is I've actually sort of got kind of three families because I've got my partner's family and his family is quite big and then I've got my mum's side and my dad's side as well. So what we actually do across all the

families actually is we do KK so instead of having to buy sort of one small gift for everyone it we actually get to buy sort of one good gift I suppose for each kind of family so that really helps um and it makes my list a lot shorter which is helpful um and it just means you get to spend so a KK limit um is about $50 so $150 for like across the three families and then my partner and I we don't kind of go crazy we're spending on each other and then I've got my niece and my nephew who I always like to buy something nice for so but again like I'm pretty anal when it comes to saving so I already have that money aside ready to go so it's not doesn't need to be stressful. So how would today's money diarist rate her own relationship with money? If I was

going to give myself a rating look I guess I'd probably have to give myself an A. I do think that I am pretty good with money and I do think that I'm off to a relatively good start. But obviously there's always room for improvement. So I'd like to be A plus. What an incredibly impressive 25 year old. My God, Victoria. I wish I was that good at money when I was 25 years old. I wasn't that bad, but I definitely didn't have $20,000 in savings. That's insane. I am 25 and I'm just a little bit stressed out now, but I'm happy for it. And are you on track to beat our gym manager? Look no but hey with your help maybe. Slowly but surely. I absolutely love that she said that she was using Raise and then went and spoke to a financial advisor about setting up a portfolio

that worked for her. Investment platforms like Raise can be really cool tools to use so that you can start investing without having to commit to a full investment portfolio. While you learn about the markets and you learn what's going on and you know how much you can contribute each month so I'm really excited to hear that she reached out to a financial advisor to have that conversation after she's been trialing it herself very very sensible I also thought it was interesting that she said she feels that guilt even though she is so good with money like that makes me feel even more guilty like she should be so proud and treat herself every now and then I think so too I think it's important to not have too much of a treat yourself mentality but I also wouldn't want

someone to feel guilty around spending especially on themselves and that's where I think we should or she could potentially build into her budget a fund or an amount of money that she can guilt-free spend on herself because it sounds like she's really good at budgeting and managing her money but I'm going to assume that she doesn't ever put money aside for herself to spend on herself so maybe that's something she could do to put herself in a position where she feels empowered around money and not so guilty. That is a really a really good point and I feel like in my life I need to start budgeting for the fun stuff as well. Good idea. Alrighty, that's all we have time for today. But just before we head off on our Christmas breaks, let's quickly wrap the boring but important

stuff. The advice shared on Shiz on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. Shiz on the Money exists purely for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Oh, and yes, don't worry, we promise Victoria Devine is an authorised representative of Consultant Financial Advisors Proprietary Limited, ABN 65006 373 995 AFSL 230 323. We would absolutely love it if you joined our Facebook group where our community shares money, tips and tricks every single day free of judgment.

Just search She's On The Money on Facebook and join us. If Facebook's not your thing though, you can find us on Instagram. We're at She's On The Money AUS. Alrighty, we'll see you guys next season. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. We'll be right back.