She's On The Money - Can You Actually Use Your Super To Buy Property? And Whose Responsibility Is It To Pay For Your Parents’ Funeral?

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

This week on Friday Drinks, we’re answering one of your questions straight from the SOTM community… and let’s just say, it’s one we get asked a lot. Can you actually use your super to buy property? Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it’s a lot more complex than TikTok might have you believe. We break down how it works, what the catch is, and why it’s definitely not a strategy to jump into without understanding the fine print.  We also dive into a DM that sparked a big conversation both in our inbox and in the studio.Whose responsibility is it to pay for your parents’ funeral? It’s one of those questions that doesn’t have a neat, one-size-fits-all answer. We unpack the financial, emotional and cultural layers behind it, and share our own perspectives on what feels fair (and what doesn’t). Plus, if you’ve ever had a money question you’ve been too scared to ask, this is your reminder that you can send it to us. Drop us a voice memo via our website and we might answer it on the show. You spill, we help. Beep. Join our 400K+ She's on the Money community in our Facebook Group and on Instagram. Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. 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 and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Tii, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan, mumubangaraboma ininyalan waka, gaunonyakarumja, wutunadanar. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's on the Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,

bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Friday is our favourite day of the week because it's when we get our team together and celebrate you. How incredible she's on the money community. Today, Ms Jessica Ricci is going to be sharing some of our favourite community money wins. Ms Bex Syed is going to be sharing your broke tips of the week and we'll be helping to answer a money dilemma that asks the question, should you use a self-managed super fund to buy property? And a DM that you slid into our inbox

is about, whose responsibility is it to pay for your parents' funeral costs? Is it them or is it you? I feel like that's a hard one to answer. Yeah. I thought the best way to dive back into a Friday episode would be with a five-star review. Would you like to hear it? Absolutely. Yes, please. So we've got this one. It is from our friend Holly, not actually our friend, just our community member. She's just a friend we haven't met yet. Shout out to Jess. I love this podcast. I'm purely here as not enough reviews do justice for the legend that is And Miss Jessica Riucci, pronounced in Victoria's voice, of course. Of course.

She is legit, incredible, ridiculously well-spoken and intelligent. I'm in awe of how well-balanced her views and opinions are. And I'm not even going to lie, even at work, I try to channel my inner Jessica Riucci as she's just beyond professional and approachable. So Jess, this is for you. You are five stars. And I guess so is this podcast. Oh my God.

I could not agree more. You guys, Holly, you are my queen. I love you so much. That's literally the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me. Thank you. So, Jess, you are five stars. Yeah, I agree. I'll take it.

I'm going to put that in my Slack bio. Jess Gritchy, five stars. Five stars. Absolutely. Oh, that's so nice. It's such a joy to, yeah, know that people listen and that we're doing something and helping them and I don't really feel like I'm that good or special

but that's so nice of you to say. Can she sit down? That adds to your charm is that you're so humble. I love Bluebell. I love Bluebell. get in the vid all right let's move on from that because i think that beck and i could go on all day about how much we like jess but it is time for that part of friday drinks where you guys get to ask us one question that you are dying to know and it can be literally about anything this week's

question comes from nicole who wants to know what is your number one tip for soul traders and you guys are both sole traders true indeed we're qualified to answer questions oh my god okay well my only thing i think maybe would be to start taking note of every single thing you buy and then claim it on tax and that's all i have because i don't know anything you buy in your just day-to-day life like brown onions everything brown onions everything because i feel like if you're a sole trader you can really get away with claiming some random things you know and I could be wrong. And I would definitely make sure you speak to a tax expert

about anything that you were trying to claim. Yes, yes. I don't ever save the tax that I should be paying on things, which is like not good. So I think that my only advice is to save what you buy in case you can claim it. I have a sneaky suspicion I know what Jess's is. Do I?

Do I? We'll be talking about this the other day. I think we were, yes. Your invoicing I think is going to get your invoicing sorted and I would highly recommend Solo by MYOB, not sponsored. This is going to sound like an ad because we were talking about it. And when I was telling you, you were like, are they paying you? I literally was like, good girl, are they paying you? Because they should be. So MYOB is obviously like a large accounting software, but they have a separate program

called Solo, which is specifically designed for sole traders. And the reason it is so fantastic is I have sent every invoice to every client this financial year from my phone in like five seconds it's so easy it's so professional it auto follows people up which is a big one for me because I feel a bit awkward being like hey you haven't paid my invoice so I love like isn't it funny how you'll do that for me though yeah absolutely but when it's for me follow up an invoice for the money like a hound yeah she'll be like um no that's actually unacceptable when it's for her if you're awkward. It's fine. Don't worry about it. No one was on me. Yeah. So it's so good. You just like toggle the thing. It does it for you. And the best bit is it's $12 for your first 12 months.

That was when I signed up and I double checked it this morning. Because you were like, I know Victoria's going to ask. 100%. It is still $12 for your first 12 months, which is unbelievably cheap. And even when you're paying full price, it's so much less expensive than like a big fancy accounting software, which like for she's on the money, we need the big fancy accounting software. but for me as an individual, it's not cheap, but that scares small players off because you're like, oh, it's going to be like 60 or 70 bucks a month. That's astronomical. Like not in your first year. Yeah. And it's just nice having it all in somewhere. Cause my first few years, I was just making my invoices in like a Microsoft Word document, which is fine and does the job,

but then it's hard to keep track of everything. What's been reconciled, what hasn't. You can like connect it to your bank account and it can pull information if you want it to like, it's quite comprehensive yeah for the price and for the fact that it is like a segmented product i guess so that is my recommendation getting invoices like organized like whether you're using a program or not because come tax time it's just such a nightmare if you leave it i used to always leave it and then it's just so difficult and if you want a recommendation that would be my one i like that yeah she's being paid under the table what do you reckon oh if only it's great my recommendation would be it's so boring i've said this before it's separate bank accounts

don't use your personal bank account for your small business you spec siet have a separate bank account so that even if you don't have cash to put in it right now and you need to put all your payments through at least then you can track how much money you're transferring to the business even if it's like 30 here or there to buy supplies or whatnot like have a separate bank account so that it's all in one place yeah and then if you want to take it a step further which I do want you to take it a step further I want you to have three different bank accounts so that you have all of the transactions so that's one account and that's where the money comes in and it's where the money goes out that's where clients pay you that's really good we then want to have

a tax account where we transfer all of the money that is for tax so that it's just like set off to the side so that we know we like that's not our money and too many times as small business owners money comes in and you're like, oh, well, that was only $100 invoice. So that was only $1,000 invoice. I'll just work out tax later. No worries. Later comes and you've done that so many times that you're up for a big tax bill and you don't have the cash saved. Yeah. So we just take it out the second it comes in. And personally, I always transfer at least 30%, if not 35%, because I'd prefer at tax time to get my tax bill, pay my tax and be like, oh, there's money left in the kitty instead of having not enough and being like, oh, I only transferred what I thought was going to be

the bare minimum and that's not cutting it. And the third account is your business savings account because not everyone wants to take their cash straight out of their business. And if we're in a lucky position, we don't. It can sit over to the side and that can be our buffer. It can be our emergency fund. We can see how much cash we have that's not operating capital. And whilst you might be just starting your small business journey and you're like oh operating capital who are you it happens really quickly like money will start to hopefully pile up and the reason it will pile up is because you have a system in place and it's not just falling through the cracks you're not just you know seeing extra money in your account and being like oh i'm gonna get grilled

this week and it just goes away real quick and you're like hold on this business is making no money but come tax time the tax man is like beck you have a lot of money and you've just thought it was spendable so that would be my hot tip is just set up your bank accounts a bit of structure goes a long way absolutely well great advice i feel like those are three hot tips you're welcome guys and if you've got a question that you want us to answer please leave it in the comments here on spotify if you're on spotify otherwise shoot us a message just be brazen be like i want you to answer this on your friday drinks and we'll come for it yeah now miss jessica ricci when it comes to community money wins and or confessions what have you got firstly this week i've got one

from kayla which she said is a money win that's turned into a money loss she bought a uv gel nail kit and has been doing them successfully for herself for the past three times on her fourth go though a little bit of the acetone splashed unexpectedly from the container onto her partner's concrete dining table no she had a towel directly under her hands to catch any drips but she said it sprayed off the side it eroded the finish and the sealant and she's now going to have to pay to get sanded and polished and it's going to cost quite a bit of money so she just said psa everybody cover the entire workspace just to make sure you don't have any little incidents which is very good advice okay but like even if it was like my laptop and my partner broke it i'd be like that's okay

i'll pay for that oh you break it you buy it sorry oh my god that feels so mean is it mean i don't think so this is the what was the dilemma the tv and the ladder when we all had very different opinions on oh yeah like you helped someone anyway go back that's a really good But that's a different story than I think I'm triggered by this because growing up I loved to, you know, play nail polish and cosmetics and my dad would always be like, do not have that stuff open in your room, rah, rah, rah. And he would warn us and I'm assuming that this person maybe

has been warned like don't have acetone and stuff on the table, like it's a concrete table, you can't do this, rah, rah. If you've been warned and then you do it anyway and you didn't properly protect it and then. Sure. Then it happened. That does feel different. Yeah.

it's not like a like it is an accident and it really sucks but like you did it on somebody else's thing you weren't there helping them or anything it wasn't like you came over and I was helping Beck and I accidentally spilled a coffee on a laptop while explaining budgeting or something yeah like obviously I'd pay for that don't worry but like that would be a different conversation because such a genuine accident as opposed to oh yeah so I didn't properly protect your table and then I opened a bottle of acetone on it. A vat of acid. A vat of acetone in your name. Yeah. That dilemma just takes me back. How funny. Next, I've got a buddy, Winno, from Jack, who said, I finally got to use my Blue

Light Card, which is a program that gives discounts for, she said healthcare workers, but it's actually like a lot of frontline workers. My daughter needed a new phone, wanted to swap from Apple to Samsung. She couldn't trade her old phone in because it was broken. So she used Blue Light Card, which gave her a discount code, and then a Samsung special applied on top of that because you can often stack them. So she was able to get the newest phone, earpods, and a watch for the same price that it would have cost to get just a new phone from Apple. Money wins.

Next, I've got a money win from Cherie, who said, which do you have the best rewards program ever? They sent me $20 reward for new season clothes, and then they sent me another $20 reward because they hadn't seen me for a while. She said she needed work shorts. They were on sale from $130 to $50, then she used the rewards, so it ended up only costing her $9.95 out of pocket, and she doesn't have to pay for postage because she's a Silver Rewards member.

Okay, Queen. Wow. Stacking them up. I was about to say one after the other there. I know. She's really got a role. Very well done. Next, I've got a money win from Chassie who said she saved $20 on fuel by using the free Petrel Spy app. She scouted where the cheapest fuel was and then decided to lock in on her 7-Eleven app when she did her usual market visit.

She got the lowest price and it was $0.25 per litre cheaper than other places. Nice. And the lock-in lasts for seven days. So she did it again immediately after filling up. Amazing. I love, first of all, Petrol Spy, but also this bloody fuel lock thing. A fuel lock is so good. I know, isn't it?

And I think we all need to be using it because it seems like there's going to, there's a lot of warnings around shortages of oil and things like that with everything happening in the Middle East at the moment. So, I would highly recommend everybody, if you're not using a fuel lock or a petrol spire or something, everyone's kind of predicting prices are really going to elevate. So, it's going to pay to shop around, I think. And then lastly this week, I have a money win from a Cursed who said, I got serious about my debt at the end of last year.

This week, I paid off my credit card and I'm on track to be debt free by May. I love this. That's the best. I'm so proud of you, Cursed. That's amazing. That's great. I love it. Well, that was a good little wrap-up, Jess.

Ms. Bec Saez, what are your broke tips? Okay, so this week, as per I have two from the community, the first one comes from Ellie who says, our Dyson stick vacuum stopped working. Instead of buying a new one for $600, we bought a new battery for $58, which is a great idea. It's, like, new. She said she used AussieBattery.com, but there are others too.

So I suppose you could get, like, I don't know, like I've got the little robo back. I'm sure if it broke, I could get little bits from that. It feels very time relevant because this week my Dyson Stickvax head got broken. It was my toddler's fault, but like cracked, you know how they're plastic. And I was like, oh my goodness, I'll buy a new one. And I look it up and because I've got like, I think, hold on. I know what I've got because I looked it up.

I've got the V11 Absolute. Gorgeous. But she's old. Yeah. Like she's at least five years old, but I'm not ready to give her up. Like she's still good, but I need the new head. And I'm not paying $200 for a new thing for my vacuum that's five years old. That makes no sense.

AliExpress came in clutch. Has it arrived yet? No, but it was $21 and it had like 5,000 five-star reviews of people being like, this is exactly the same rah-rah. So $21 and I have a new vacuum head coming. That then inspired me to look up other parts for my other appliances at home. And sorry, Bissell, but your filters are too damn expensive. I bought like five for five dollars on AliExpress they're coming I'm gonna trial out those so

talk to me about this later but I did go down a deep dive of all of the reviews everyone says it's really good so I get my little um brushy things for my room bar from Amazon oh there you go it's amazing what you can do like it's not broken like see if you can fix it yes completely agree that's cheap with off-market products I don't know what it is about like vacuum cleaners specifically i get so like attached to them like they're humans and i could hear you guys like saying she and like i'm like me too i i feel so like my vacuum and attached to the best friends wait till i'll tell you later about my wet back okay this next one comes from carly who says you can swap telstra points for woolies and coals vouchers that's so cool that's really good i got

300 worth and i'm very happy and i can't tell if she means she got 300 worth of coals and Woolworths vouchers or she got $300 worth of Telstra points. But anyway, either way, that sounds incredible. Thank you, Carly. And my one for this week, there is an initiative through Brotherhood of St. Lawrence called Saver Plus. If you have a healthcare card and receive Centrelink and you're at uni or you have a child in school through the program, if you save $500 into an ANZ account, they will match

it with another $500. What? Then the money can be used for school stuff. That's so cool. Yeah, it's going to the people who need it the most. Yes, exactly. And that made me think about Dolomites. And if anyone knows where they went, let me know because I'm really broke right now.

And if I can find my four-year-old Dolomites account, you don't have at least $3. Could be $3 in there. Sorry, Dolomites. Also, sorry to us because where is that money? You got done. You got done. Anyway, let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, we are going to go into a community dilemma because a lot of you have questions about property and SMSF, and we're

going to be talking about parents' funeral costs. Who's meant to foot the bill? Don't go anywhere. Welcome back, everybody. Let's take a listen to this week's Money Dilemma. Hi there. Have you got a money dilemma you just can't solve? The She's on the Money team is here to help. Every week, we tackle your dilemmas, both big and small, to answer your most burning money, career and life questions. To get involved, simply head to our website and leave us a short voice recording and you might just find yourself on the show. Now, let's take a listen to this week's Money Dilemma. Hi team, I was hoping you'd be able to talk about self-managed super funds. I've heard of people who've managed to purchase investment properties before preservation age

and have access to that money. I'm wondering how that works, what the logistics are and potentially what the benefits of a self-managed super fund are and whether or not it's only really of benefit if you're older or whether it's something worth looking into now at a younger age for context I'm 25 I've only had a few years of income contributing to my super so wondering if it's something that's worth looking into now or considering further down the line thanks how do I feel about SMSFs I'm going to take a stab and say not a fan No. What do you mean take a stab? I know. Well, I know. I know. Not a fan. So an SMSF is a self-managed super fund. And it's basically where you take all of the money that is

in a retail fund and you move it to, you could honestly have it all just in a bank account. You could have it in cash or you pick your own investments, but essentially you become the manager of that super fund. So no one's picking your investments. You have 100% control. And for a lot of people that sounds so attractive because they're like well I can do it myself and a lot of the drawcard is people will say oh my gosh super fees are so much like it makes sense to run it myself like I'm better at picking I could just do x y or z a lot of people have this idea that buying property inside super is really easy and a really good idea and it can be quite romanticized right like buying property in this economy so hard the idea that you might have I don't know

$50,000 or $100,000 in your super, you're like, why can't I access that for property? It's a good question. But the reality of the situation is that that is for your retirement. And right now, if you're in an Australian super or a uni super or a host plus or a HESTA or whatever you're in, that is going to be well diversified. It is going to be in a fund that has been picked for you, whether that is the balanced portfolio that you probably got when you turned 14 in nine months and got your first job or the growth portfolio you picked because you'd been listening to Shears on the Money and did your risk profile. But it's going to be well diversified. And that is a good position to be in because you are hedging the risk of any different economic downturns. If gold's not

performing, that's fine because you've got some tech. If tech's not performing, you've got some healthcare. There's lots going on. If you take all of that cash out and put it into one asset, i.e. a house, what happens if property isn't performing? We know that property is unable to perform in the way that it has over the last 40 years and be sustainable. You can't look at that and go, that's a reliable predictor of what's going to happen into the future because it's just not. Yes, we are seeing property markets go crazy. Yes, you might see that as a deposit, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Now, I haven't been a financial advisor for a number of years now. But when I was a financial advisor, I would always say to people, if you don't have

$200,000 in super, I wouldn't even consider a self-managed super fund. And now I would confidently say, if you don't have half a million dollars in your super, I wouldn't consider it. And the reason is because legislation has tightened up. The compliance of these funds has tightened up because lots of people were kind of taking the mickey. People say before on the show, oh, I bought a Birkin or I bought some art or whatever with my SMS. I did whatever I wanted. Some people are getting it out and saying that they're spending it on one thing and doing something else. So the government is cracking down because it's for your financial future. Like the government wants you to have super. In fact, you want you to have super so that you can be comfortable. But the reality is compliance has increased. And whilst you might not have to pay fees for fund management, you have to pay auditing fees every single year for an accountant to go through it. and audit your account now. And SMSF fees sit between anywhere. Honestly, you could probably get a cheap accountant for five and a half thousand dollars each year, all the way up to

$10,000 is quite normal for what I have seen and know is what is charged. You then, what are you going to do? Invest it into an ETF yourself. You're going to be paying fees on that ETF anyway. You're going to be paying platform fees anyway. Are you going to sort your own insurances out? Like there's just so much to it. And then I'm going to strip the romance off it. So I own a mortgage-breaking company called Zella Money, and we do this all the time. Yes, I do have my team write loans for property inside SMSF. It is very popular. But when people are purchasing them or purchasing property inside SMSFs, they, from experience, they are usually business owners purchasing commercial property to then lease back to themselves or back to their own businesses.

I'm not really seeing a lot of people purchase residential property because the yield on residential property just isn't there anymore. Like the average property price in Melbourne and Sydney is a million dollars and your rental yield is going to be like less than four or five percent. Like you're not going to be able to make back more than what your mortgage is. It's not going to put you in a better position. And at that point, even if you did bite the bullet and buy a residential property, you are putting yourself in a position where you're betting that that property is going to increase in value enough to then sell it, to then be able to fund your financial future. Right. Now, if you're looking at it and going, why can't I spend that money on my first home? Well, if you use your money inside your superannuation, you're not allowed to use that property.

Yeah, so I was going to say it's got to be an investment, right? It's got to be an investment. and it has to be a 100% investment asset. You can't buy a property and then use it on the weekends. It has to be 100% leased out 100% of the time. You can't use it personally. That defeats the purpose of why I think most people in our community are interested in using their super fund money to get into property. So not only is it going to be more expensive in the long run, we are also looking at a situation where we can't guarantee that property price is going to increase enough to make sure that your financial future is secure by making this decision but then

on top of that you think you're saving fees when in reality we know that basic ETFs outperform self-managed super funds and self-managed investments in general every time like a basic ETF is going to run rings around you in the long term and you for some reason and this is maybe me being a little bit judgmental of the situation, you for some reason think that you can pick a better, more diversified investment portfolio than the fund manager whose entire role and probably personality is made up of this? Yeah, this is the only insight or comment that I have to make on this because it's so far of my bubble. But to me, the equivalent of the average person, if I said, oh, I'm going to set up a self-managed super fund because I think I

can do a better job, it's the equivalent of me saying, oh, I could perform ankle surgery better than my doctor. I understand that there is so much knowledge out there and I'm sure that there are lay people who do have a huge amount of information. I don't want to belittle those people. But for the average person, even if you have an elevated interest in finances, even if it is something that you've listened to heaps of podcasts on or I've worked in a finance company for six years now, there's no way that I know more than a person who has studied, who has worked in that specific niche of managing like super funds specifically like I just don't see why anybody would think that that's an easy leap to make like sometimes I think it is best to leave things to

the experts yeah and in my opinion your super fund generally speaking probably would be one of those things unless for some reason your financial advisor has recommended that it's a good choice for you in which case they would probably be advising you on what choices to make anyway so it's like you're not really making the choices yourself yeah I yeah I did a deep dive really long time ago because when you're the CEO of a listed company you have to be quite transparent on your own investments so tell me why none of those big dog superannuation fund managers have SMSFs and that tells you everything doesn't it why don't yeah true and I know a lot of people in our community have probably seen the seminars or been to a seminar or had someone somewhere

somehow try to sell them an off-the-plan apartment and it's okay because it's going to be a great investment and you you're going to be able to fund it through super and we'll get the loan all sorted and they like do everything and they add every single bell and whistle tell me how off the plan apartments have been performing recently they're in the bin they are not good at all really yeah and it's a great sales tactic like you're telling me that you can take somebody who doesn't have any deposit saved at all you can convince them to set up an smsf with probably a dodgy accountant who's making a buck on the side because they're getting the referral fee yeah they'll set that up for you you come back to the investment company and buy one of their off-the-plan apartments

like they're making clients out of non-clients but you can't live in this off the no you can't no no it would be an investment yeah and therefore they'll be like it's great because it's going to increase in value it's in the middle of the melbourne cbd that's that's not how it's going to work. I could go on and on and on about it, but an SMSF from my perspective is a very risky play unless, as I said before, you have like half a million dollars in super and you're a business owner and you're like, I would love a commercial property in there and I'm going to buy my own commercial property because there's like a loophole there that you can buy your commercial property inside your super fund and then you lease it to your company, not your individual. But you can't

even lease your own property back to you if you were to buy an investment property. That's not how it works you can't even lease it to your partner and then live in it that would be against the rules as well wow it's just it's not a thing yeah I think so many of us go oh it would be beautiful because then I would have an apartment and if everything hit the fan I could go and live in it you cannot wow you would still have to pay the mortgage on that and be homeless that's insane it's just a lot and I get that there are some narratives out there at the moment because I've seen a number of them of people being like this is a great opportunity for you to get ahead financially how's that going to perform better than my diversified index portfolio inside my

superannuation fund that's consistently managed actively yeah okay anyway thanks for letting me be really negative and calling me out on it please all right enough of me being negative and yapping about smsfs but if anybody wants to have that conversation again i'm all ears would you like me to read you out the dm we got this week absolutely yes please all right Hi, she's on the money. Interesting money topic that's never been something I've ever had to think about. My parents are getting on in age and my father has been quite unwell of late. I jokingly asked him if his funeral was paid for, to which he replied no. This got me thinking, is it my responsibility as a daughter to have to pay for funeral expenses? My parents have never been good

with money, so I don't foresee there being much money set aside to pay for these things when they do arise. Bit of a morbid topic, but we all are going to have to face this at some stage. Thank you so much. So really valid. I actually do think about this a lot because I also don't have much money. My mom doesn't have much money and I'm like, who pays for that? And I do know that it can be really expensive, upwards of $5,000. Yeah, it could be up to $10,000. Obviously, there's far more cost-effective solutions, but between $5,000 and $10,000, I would say it's average for a funeral? That's very scary because you can't like if you know and like touch wood like that it just would be a shame like if some unexpected expense came up and it was five or

ten thousand dollars you'd just be like like well consider me out of the game you know but so I do think about this a lot I don't know whose responsibility it is that is a really good question I think it's like the families that in general like it wouldn't be just the daughter or just the the other parent if they're still with us or their parents like I think it's the families do you think I don't know yeah and I would just like to caveat this I would like to this you guys can disagree with me if you want but I would like to try and take the emotion out of this conversation yeah like oh my mom and my dad would want like let's just be really pragmatic about the facts here we're just talking like I know that your situation is like oh your dad's

sick and whatnot but like to have the most productive conversation I think we need to just be like let's just spit some facts here who owns what and where and how does this work as opposed to like not not bringing kindness but like tippy-toeing around it if that makes sense so in that you actually don't have to have a funeral so like that's why I'm like oh I feel bad saying this but technically you don't have to have a funeral you like don't have to do that at all it is technically an event that is not compulsory that sounds terrible because I think everybody should be afforded that option. But I don't want to say it this way, but it's kind of like a birthday party. Your birthday can pass and you not have a party because parties are expensive

and you still tick on in age. Yes, there are going to be some costs associated because there's going to be, you know, either a burial or a cremation. There's probably going to be like, you know, if you're in a cemetery, cemetery costs and stuff like that, but it doesn't have to be a five or $10,000 expense. And that sounds terrible. And that's why I wanted to take the emotion out of it because I think when you then start speaking to families they'll go it's not an option to not have a funeral and I get that I do but I think that that's where we have to that's where we have to have this conversation of it's actually a choice to have a funeral I think everybody should have one a thousand percent but I also that's why they charge like and that's why so many different

places make money from hosting these events and yeah I think that we just don't talk about it that way because it is really morbid but as somebody who grew up with a mother who was a coroner i'm used to morbid conversations right yes i just have one question if you can't and when i say no money i mean no money because some people might be like oh you have savings whatever no i'm saying someone has no money and someone in their family unfortunately passes and you decide not to have a funeral maybe you have your own little family thing do they wonder what the costs after that like what do you do end up taking okay charge of that very interesting you don't get to choose though you won't get them back okay that makes sense there's yeah there's a lot to it

but like it's essentially like i believe they're like jeremy's pauper's funeral where it's not really a funeral at all it's kind of like the government's like great i'm gonna do this and they're gonna dispose of the body because it's yeah like with cremation i'm not super versed in but there's still like quite a high fee or a fee that surprised me with how expensive it is because exactly as you were saying, the fees generally like your bare minimum are you need to put the body to rest somewhere, whether that is through cremation or whether that is you pay for a burial plot.

When you pay for the burial plot, you can choose, do you have a headstone, do you have a marker? So there's lots of like tiers of things. I see. But the bare essential is laying the body to rest somewhere and if the government does it, they will take care of that. But it's, as Victoria was saying. it's complex and like you kind of I believe it's like abandonment of the body kind of vibes like

you leave it at either the funeral home like because like you actually don't have any obligation to go and pick that person up right like and this is where I'm like I don't want to have an emotional conversation here like let's just be really blunt about what it is and yeah that kind of sucks but to to zoom out a little bit if you don't have the money it will usually come from their estate and this is where things get really got you really dicey right so I had a had a situation last year where one of my friends had someone really close to them pass away and that person didn't have a lot of money they didn't have a lot of money but like to pay for the funeral had to come out of my friend's pocket because access to the estate hadn't been opened up yet like we couldn't access

that person's superannuation or their savings or anything to kind of pay for it I see so you can you know do that we ended up having that person take it from their savings and then we well documented it and then after that case and the estate was opened and were able to access those funds it was paid back I see but like that was a messy situation but maybe they don't even have that but yes usually it does come down to the family and that's why I'm saying like I don't want to be morbid about it but like it's also a morbid topic and yes at the end of the day it's a choice and that sounds so terrible and i don't mean it that way but like that's why the funeral is kind of the family's financial burden yeah i've heard a lot of ads i remember

what company it was but i've heard ads run on like radio for example for a some kind of funeral company might be like a white lady or something and their like tagline of their campaign is you as an individual should start paying money like into an account of some sort ahead of time i'm assuming an account with them so that your funeral cost isn't a burden on the people you leave behind yes which I like the concept of it is like hard because you kind of go well you would just assume that it would come out of the estate and it is hard because as Victoria was saying like it's you know that's not accessible generally speaking for a little bit of time it kind of gets locked down usually like pretty quickly I mean unless it's like again morbidly like a husband and wife

and they had shared finances and they could access that but still that's going to be the partners yeah it takes some time there's some red tape and all that sort of thing whereas you know getting somebody to somewhere you know while the body is I don't want to say fresh but you know what I mean like getting things taken care of in a prompt manner is kind of time is of the essence yeah and so it's yeah I can see that that is really appealing so I'm planning for it but if somebody hasn't planned for it like your dad and I'm so sorry to hear that he's sick and I'm so sorry to hear you guys are having to have these conversations because they are really tough if he hasn't planned like maybe that's something you can talk about because you have the benefit

of he's still with you yeah so you say okay like you can make it so beautiful yeah like how do we honor your wishes what does that look like you know should we be putting money aside now or can we allocate something that is accessible in the time that you you know you do leave us so that it is something that we're able to take care of it's not a burden on me or on everybody else or you know it is a hard conversation but I think an important one because as you know you were saying, Bec, I think it is, if you had no money, it would be really tough because it is such an emotive thing. Do you know what I mean? Like you don't want to ever feel like you're disappointing someone or, you know, there's a whole big conversation around, you know, different

religions and the different practices that are required to honor those that we love and better to have it now to get it sorted while you can, I think is my take on it. But it is, yeah, I think it is ultimately, unfortunately, the responsibility of the people who were closest and then it's more complicated again if you're estranged from your family oh yeah it's actually crazy and like no one wants to face their own mortality like a lot of people don't want to talk about this and it's like it's quite jarring as somebody who has done their full like estate planning and like will and whatnot with their husband and I've updated it recently because I had another baby so we had to go back to the drawing board and be like okay cool let's update

this I'm sitting across from my husband it's like on a Sunday morning having a coffee I'm like so you still want to be cremated yeah yeah like what yeah he's like what do you want I'm like yeah I want to be cremated as well um can you do this that the other like we've got a whole plan like but that's why estate planning is also really really important because it makes us think about okay cool like where would this be funded from what would that look like because I don't want to be a financial burden on my family and I don't think many people do anyway we asked the community and we asked a few questions. So the first was, is this a conversation you have had ahead of time? And 40% of you said, it's actually never crossed my mind. 30% said, yes, there is a plan. 17%

said, yes, but there's no plan. And 14% said, nope, we have avoided it. We then said, who should be responsible for funeral costs? 66% of you said, their estate. 23% said, the individual and 11 said their family interesting so i i in my head also think that the individual and their estate is the same thing because even if you don't make a funeral plan like it can come out of your estate like after you've passed away like that money can be drawn out of your estate to pay for that cost if everybody who's a party to that maybe inheritance agrees but then it could become a big issue and if they have lots of debt i'm assuming the debt would probably be prioritized over the funeral would that be correct yes no depends on the type of debt who the debtors are

whether honestly whether you get to their savings account first and spend it before the debtors come like it just that's terrible advice but like that's the reality of what some people have done and then obviously we went to the community said guys give us your two cents first person said if the estate can't cover it it's up to the family it's all about respect next person said girl if you want to be buried it can cost between 15 and 25 000 you need to be prepared if you want specifics oh this is the thing it's like they charge so much i've heard for yeah i don't know about 25 grand i feel like that's taking the mickey there's yeah and it's one of those you know with the pillars you know you got that big oh yeah it's one of those ones maybe it's like

a full mausoleum and like i also wanted to like fill the entire room with only red long stem roses but i could make a funeral real expensive just so you guys know next person said after my mom died when i was 22 this is now a normal conversation that we have in our family next person said i got iced out of our dad's death and estate by his wife and we have to talk about it we must make a plan oh my god i'm so sorry awful yeah it's so sad next person said and this is a two-parter. This is a great opportunity for her to sit down with her parents and nut out what they want and if they are organized. It also makes sure that there is medical power of attorney set up. Next person said, recently I lost both parents. CommBank released the funds

required from their account for a funeral. That's great. That's very cool. Yeah. And the last one was at 18 my estranged father passed away as his only next of kin i wore the five thousand dollar debt his estate couldn't cover i feel so unfair that is unfair and you literally didn't sign up for that no i mean there's a whole other conversation i was thinking when you were talking before about it's like we are not money and if you pass without money or people in your family don't have money and you you are kind of like abandoning the body it's like i just don't like this whole topic kind of makes me uncomfortable because it's like we're worthy of respect and love and all this there should just be like a baseline plan for anyone who passes because they're worthy

of all of these absolutely and if you want extra cool i'm really sorry to hear about your father and i hope everything goes well just you keep having those conversations and yeah well that was a morbid end to what was a really great episode thanks for sticking with us guys it has been a beautiful start back to getting into 2026 podcasting for me thank you but we'll see you guys next week on monday morning bright and early for a money day we'll see you then bye guys 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 and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy

a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa, PTY, LTD, ABN, 321-649-27708, AFSL 451-289. you