She's On The Money - Financial Red Flags In Relationships

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Do you have difficulty talking to your partner about money? Do they often borrow money and not pay it back? Has a new partner ever pressured you into opening a joint account? On this episode we talk financial red flags in relationships, what these might look like, how to have healthy boundaries and conversations around money and so much more! If this topic raises some concerns for you, here are some places can get support:Money Smart (links to free legal advice)Lifeline or phone 13 11 14The National Debt HelplineAcknowledgement of Country By Natarsha 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 - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. 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 Jessica Ricci, and today I am here with my favorite finance expert, Victoria Devine. You better not have any other favorite finance experts. I'm just saying. Imagine if I'd said my second favorite finance expert. You should have. Red flag, which is very appropriate. Red flag, Jessica.

Because in today's episode, we're going to be talking all about financial red flags in relationship, which I feel like is a little interesting, a little spicy. We're going to kind of cover two really broad areas of conversation here. So I feel like it's important that we do put a little content warning at the top. I think a content warning here is perfect actually, Jessica, because at the end of the day, this topic can be a little bit painful or it might raise a few issues for you. And if it does, I mean, it's not great that that does, but I'm also glad that they're being brought to light so that we can deal with them. There'll be a whole heap of resources in our show notes as usual. But also if you just want to skip out on

today's episode, there are 300 plus She's On The Money episodes now that you could dive straight into. So if today's not for you, that is totally okay. Absolutely. Now, V, I wanted to kind of start at the top because something we always talk about on the show is the importance of having conversations about money with your partner. And we've had people say to us before, I went to talk to my partner about it, they just shut me down. Red flag. Yeah. So would you say that that is a little bit of a red flag? I don't know. Are there different levels of red flag? Can I have an orange flag, a red flag and a crimson flag? I love it. Thank you. I feel like financial conversations are really hard and don't tend to come up very easily at the start of new relationships, right?

That's because most of the time we're just trying to impress the other person. So you're like taking them out to different restaurants and bars. Maybe you're getting hotel rooms or maybe you're having like weekends away or showering them with expensive gifts. Like often that is a way that we show off, but soon you might begin to notice patterns, right? And we've spoken about this offline a lot. The patterns might be, oh, Jess, sorry, I forgot to bring my wallet. I'll pay you back. And then they never pay you back. Or too many times they're like, oh, you know, it was my turn last time. And you're thinking like in the back of your head, you're like, oh, I feel like I paid for our last date, but okay, like gaslighting central, no worries. But it's one

of those things that red flags can start green and then start changing to orange and then they're red and then you're not sure what to do because you feel a little bit too deep. So I think it is really important to have this conversation today about what a financial red flag actually looks like because sometimes when things seem really insignificant, financial red flags can compound faster than anything could in your superannuation account. So it's really, from my perspective, important to talk about this, especially because the statistic exists that 16% of Australian women have or will experience financial abuse at some point in their lifetime. And obviously, it's an important area to keep your finger on the pulse, even if the flags do seem a little

bit harmless at the time. So it's about being educated and informed and on top of it. For sure. And as this episode goes on, I think you'll see a little bit of a trend that there are certain things that contextually may or may not be a red flag, because in one relationship, something, you know, might seem totally fine. And in another relationship, it can be a bit of a warning bell. And I think that's why it is really tricky sometimes to take a step back and see these red flags. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you said it just before, like sometimes they can be small red flags and they start out as, oh my gosh, I forgot my wallet. Sorry. Can you catch this one? And then they never pay you back, but they can actually very quickly snowball into something

bigger. And I was reading something the other day from a psychologist called Rhonda Andrews, and she has been a psychologist for more than 30 years. And she said that she thinks it's about the rush of getting into joint financial circumstances. And she says that she sees a lot of people suggesting that they set up joint accounts when they've only just met someone. And as innocuous as it sounds, let's have a joint account so that we can save for a joint holiday and be on the same page. It actually can be a massive red flag. So I think it's really important to talk about what this is and what healthy boundaries mean for you and your relationship. I couldn't agree more. So having that initial conversation about money can be a little bit awkward and that in itself isn't

necessarily a red flag. It could just be reflective of your new partner's money story or the experiences that they've had. V, how can we comfortably ease people that we're seeing or interested in dating into having those more challenging, intimate conversations about money? So I think it's important to remember that not every conversation about money has to be personal, right? Like if I go on a date with you, Jess, which I should be so lucky. Actually, let's be honest. I've been out for dinner with you a billion times. I've probably been out for dinner with you more times than I've been out with Steve. Should we tell him? Should we let him know? There's a third person in your relationship and it's me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and Lucy. Yeah, it's good. Anyway, I think it's

really important to realize that if you're going out for dinner with someone or going on a date with someone, money conversations can happen in a non-personal way. Like we can talk about your salary. Great. Really personal. But we could also just talk about inflation. We could talk about the interest rates. We could talk about how much dinner costs. We could start with really small things to get an understanding of somebody else's general attitude towards money and start kind of like teasing out how different their money story could be to yours. We could talk about financial goals. I don't have to have a conversation, Jess, with you about, oh my gosh, how much money do you earn? To, oh my gosh, are you working towards anything big financially at the moment? And they

might say, yeah, I'm actually saving for a house, which is exactly what you would say. Oh, are you close? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'm talking to a broker. I'm so close. This is such an exciting conversation. That question too, though, could be really scary for someone to be asked if they're in a mountain of debt. Because I know, Jess, if I asked you that six or seven years ago, you would have shied away and run for the hills because you're like, please don't ask me that. That's none of your business. So it's really important to talk about money in your relationship, but make sure you're taking baby steps. You don't get to just dive in and go, how much do you earn? What do you spend? What do you earn? What do you owe? Yeah. Do you got any debt? What does it look like? How do you

feel about your hex? Do you reckon your parents would go guarantor on a future property if we ever, you know, decided to do things together? Can't go full Victoria Divine on your first day. No, I didn't know. But I do think that financial intimacy is a thing. And I think that in the same way that you might not dive straight into bed with somebody, I mean, you might, you might ask them how much they earn, but it's all about reading the other side of the table and going, are they going to be comfortable with this? Am I asking a question that maybe isn't actually related to the conversation we're having? Or is it just on the right path and I feel comfortable? Because I've had so many conversations, mostly in my DMs with people being like,

oh V, like you said on a podcast that you would never ask on a first date and ha ha ha, it came up in the first 10 minutes of our conversation. That's so fine. I think it's more about respecting somebody else's boundaries and if they're being really evasive of money conversations, not to pry. It's not your position on a first date. Whereas if it comes up and it's just naturally flowing conversation, I don't see that as a red flag. I think it's really important to have these conversations, but really reading into what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. And that can be flipped to the other side, Jess. Like if you consistently asked me about my income and what that meant, but I was clearly showing you evasive signs and I didn't want to have that

conversation, I'd say that is a red flag, not just a financial red flag, but a you can't read the room red flag. Yeah. And I think what you said there is really relevant when it comes to the conversation, because I think if you're just meeting someone and you're trying to put on your best face, it might catch you a little off guard if I said, oh, how's the Brussels sprouts? By the way, how much debt do you have? It's a really jarring experience. Are you actually ordering Brussels sprouts on your first date? I mean, you love the ones at Chin Chin. I do. I'm obsessed with them. I just wasn't sure. But that could be really disarming for someone who wasn't prepared for it. And particularly in the early signs of a relationship, you maybe aren't as comfortable

having those conversations. So I think warming into those things, working your way up is a really good way to approach it. But also understanding that people's reactions aren't necessarily reflective of a red flag immediately. Like if you ask someone about their finances on, you know, your first couple of dates and they seem taken aback, that's not necessarily a red flag because they don't want to talk about it. They might have just grown up with a different money story to you and money was never discussed in their families or in their past relationships or in their friendship circles. I mean, the more I'm in this community, the more conversation I have about money. Like Jess, we've just gotten back recently in the last month or so from a finance conference.

All we did was talk about money. Can you imagine going to a lawyer's conference, how often money would have come up? Like nobody in that space that I'm aware of openly discusses their salary. And they more often than not, especially in Australia, don't discuss their salary because there's salary secrecy clauses in most lawyers' employment contracts. So for different industries, it's going to mean different things. Whereas Jess, I know you've got a lot of friends that are similar to mine and they are nurses. They're on an award. They're like, oh, how long have you been working? Oh, where do you work? Oh, that hospital. Yeah, the pay grade is X, Y, Z. Like there's such an open conversation around that.

Whereas you flip it to different industries, it means different things. So I think you need to be really aware that there's no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to money conversations, but I think it's about once you get to know them a bit more and you understand their money story and you understand where they're coming from, that's where red flags start to mean something. For sure. Now, in my mind, red flags go one of two ways, particularly when you are dating. So there's the red flags that go, okay, you and I, we're not in the same place. So I'm a saver and you're a spender, or I want to buy a house and get married and have children and you don't want any of those things. And those are indicators that

neither of you are necessarily doing anything wrong, but there's a misalignment there that potentially could mean that a relationship isn't going to work out in the long term. And I mean, there are so many different examples of that, right? Like you said them before, but it doesn't even have to be financial. It doesn't even have to be the big things. Like you might be a vegetarian and you hate the fact that your, you know, person that you're dating eats meat and then you realize you would never want to live in a house with someone who cooks steak every second night for dinner. Like there are so many different things and reasons a relationship might not work out. But I do think at the crux of it, money can be one of the hardest

things to get on the same page about. Yeah. So there's those kind of little misalignment things. And then the second kind of red flag is something that signifies that there's some toxic behavior going on. So red flags that perhaps there might be a history or a future of financial abuse or financial control, which is obviously something thing that we are very passionate about. And we don't write that. Not at all. We've done a full episode on financial abuse. If you're not up to speed, I would really recommend giving it a listen. And I want to talk to you, VD, about how we kind of differentiate between the two. Yeah. Okay. So first to differentiate, I would really want to define what a financial red flag

means. I think your two perspectives actually make a lot of sense. But from my perspective, a financial red flag is an ongoing money concern that's either causing a problem right now or has the ability to cause a problem a little bit later into the future. So if it is either of those things, which I think you've defined, I've just done it in like one sentence, apologies. Love your work, Jessica Ricci. I feel like yours makes more sense. Mine's a little bit more clinical, you could say. But red flags are, as you said, not always a relationship deal breaker, but if they're not addressed, they probably will create a pretty significant relationship and financial strain which means the sooner Jess you're able to identify any red flags in a

relationship the sooner you can work to address and resolve them so I guess that's why we're talking about this today so that we can actually understand some of the common financial red flags what you can do when you see those red flags and also be able to identify what it means when it goes beyond just being a red flag because at the end of the day a red flag is just an indicator that something might be wrong sometimes we get false reds but of course not every single partner who displays a red flag to us is going to be a financial abuser, right? Like at the end of the day, just because we have different red flags. I mean, if you look at my financial circumstance, I'm sure we could find some. Absolutely we could, but it could just mean that someone is bad with

money and doesn't know how to end the cycle of like credit card debt or making poor money decisions. It doesn't mean that they're abusive, but in some circumstances, it does mean that. And we need to be really clear when that happens, what we need to do. What we need to do is get out of that circumstance. So what indicators are there that the red flags that we're seeing might be a symptom of a large issue? As we discussed just in the episode about financial abuse, we believe that you're in a financially abusive relationship if your partner does any of the following. So if they give you allowances or budgets without your input, if they require you to account for each and every single dollar that you spend, if they pressure you to quit your

job or sabotage any of your work responsibilities, if they feel entitled to your money or your assets, if they spend your money without your knowledge, they control how or all of the household finances are spent without your consent, they limit your ability to attend job training, pursue higher education or otherwise advance your career, or they limit access to your own bank accounts or joint bank accounts. and obviously there are a heap of other indicators of financial abuse. However, as we discussed in that episode, it is financially abusive if it is beyond your own personal control and you don't feel like you have a say. So it can actually be a whole heap of things. Like Jess, it could be

threatening to cut you off. But at the end of the day, it means that you are not in control of your personal financial circumstances. And if that's the case, it's not a red flag. It is financial abuse. Yeah. Okay. That's really solid. And I feel like that gives us a good basis understanding of where that line in the sand is. Obviously, like we said before, you really need to read the room. And sometimes it does take a couple more dates to figure out if something is just them doing something you don't agree with versus something where they're trying to be controlling of you. So I think let's digest that. Let's go to a quick break. And then when we come back, I want to talk through some of the other general red flags that you might want to

keep an eye out for. Don't go anywhere. All right, VD, let's talk through some of the red flags that we can expect to see in a relationship and why we might need to be concerned about them. That we can expect to see in a relationship. I hate that. Well, that we should keep an eye out for in a relationship, maybe a little less harsh. All right. So number one I have written down is that your partner refuses to talk about money. So I feel like this is an interesting one. I get it. Talking about money sucks. It is hard. Nobody likes it, especially when you're trying to keep things sexy at the start of a relationship, but I think there's a really big difference between feeling a little

bit uncomfortable when it comes to talking about money and outright refusing to have a conversation regardless of how long you've been with that person. From my perspective, a partner who actually refuses to talk about money could be doing so for a number of reasons and all of them leave room for concern. Yeah, for sure. And that's kind of what we covered off earlier when we said, it is a little bit of a bad sign if they're not willing to talk about it at all. And there is definitely a big difference between being uncomfortable versus flat refusing to get involved at all. And the flat refusing is to me the red flag. It's not just being uncomfortable. Everyone gets a little bit uncomfortable with pervy topics. I think it's the flat out refusal.

Me, red flag. Yeah. Next one is when your partner is being super secretive about their spending and saving and investing behaviors. I think that that to me is a little bit suspicious, especially when you get deeper into a relationship. So it's obviously really sexy to think that, and I keep using the word sexy because relationships should be, but I think it's nice to romanticize that your partner might hide some funds away to one day purchase an engagement ring, right? Like I've thought about it, my partner did it, money win, it was very exciting. But while all of that seems really romantic, it's less romantic when all of their spending and saving habits are hidden. secretive behavior is obviously a massive concern if you have joint accounts or you're working

together towards a common financial goal like you're saving for a house and their secretive behavior is actually completely throwing you off the rails to being able to achieve that goal or something that they're spending their money on doesn't align to your financial goals and you're like well where is this going to me it's not necessarily about having different money priorities it's actually about the secretiveness of it and this can lead to obviously bigger issues like it could lead to a gambling addiction or it could mean that they have a credit card that you weren't aware of or maybe they're carrying debt that they didn't bring up earlier and didn't know how to bring up with you. I think it's a really worthy conversation but I do think that another red flag

is when someone is super secretive about their spending habits. I think particularly as well even just beyond the financial aspect of it your partner is arguably the person in your life that you know the most intimately or if not one of the most intimately. And so if they're not in a position where they feel comfortable opening up to you or you don't feel comfortable opening up to them, I think that you need to consider whether you are in fact comfortable with that person to the level that you want to be. And I guess we maybe should define this at the top, but when we're talking about these red flags in relationships, we're talking about long-term relationships. Yeah, not like first date red flags.

Yeah. It's not necessarily for someone that you're going to go on one date with and never see again. Have a good night. Thank you. Wham, bam. Thank you, ma'am. It's more about, okay, well, if you're planning on potentially spending the rest of your life with this person, if you can't get comfortable enough with them to be honest about your debt that you're embarrassed by, I've been there. Yeah, absolutely. Or if the roles are reversed and they're not comfortable enough with you, is the level of trust that you would hope to see in a long-term partner, does it exist? Because yeah, it can be embarrassing. It can be confronting to talk about these things.

But if you're not in a place where you can do that, are you in a place where you can get married? Are you in a place where you can have children or grow old together? Because I think that it's important that you are able to get on the same page with these things because they impact your financial well-being really significantly. Yeah, 100%. And that leads into my next red flag when it comes to money in a relationship, Jess, and that is that your partner's financial values don't actually align to your own.

And to me, this is a red flag. It's not a be-all, end-all, end-of-relationship conversation. but I think it's really important to be one aware of your partner's financial goals to a point where you deeply can overlay your goals and go oh we're on the same path or we're not and I've openly discussed before that prior to meeting Steve I didn't want to buy property I didn't think that that was aligned to my own financial goals I was you know scared of it I didn't want to take on that amount of debt I didn't want to owe the bank that much money I was obviously a financial advisor when I met Steve and I was so excited about the share market and that's where all my

wealth was. And so for me, yeah, our financial values didn't align, but what it meant was we opened that conversation up, had a chat and realized that relationships are about compromise. How do we both meet our financial goals? So to me, it's a red flag in a good way. It's an indicator that you need to have deeper conversations, but it goes back to the other issue where if your partner then doesn't want to compromise or then your partner doesn't want to have the conversations around money, that red flag becomes crimson. So I think it's about, are you willing to be flexible? Are you willing to have a conversation about how to get on the same page? Because you're never going to meet someone that you're a thousand percent on exactly the same page as. Like life is

about compromise and change and being flexible. And a partner who doesn't share your financial goals could be an indicator that they're not on the same page as you long-term, which inevitably is going to put you in a position of frustration and lack of control and feeling upset and maybe even heartbreak down the line. How do we differentiate between things that we shouldn't shouldn't compromise on and I know shouldn't shouldn't is very definitive and it's really personal but I mean you know when you're in love and you're in those early days and you're so you know you're in the moment and you're in your little rose-colored bubble I think it's really easy to go oh you want to buy a house that's fine we can buy a house because I love you and I want

you to be happy. How do we figure out where the line in the sand is between things that we are okay with being a bit flexible on, like I want to live in the city and you want to live in the country. So maybe we live in the middle versus the things that are us fundamentally changing our wants and needs out of love in a way that won't necessarily make us happy. So I think it's different for every single person, but the way we did it was having a conversation about the importance of those goals. It wasn't just Steve going, I want to own a house, full stop, end of story. Like we quite literally were like, how important is it to you to have a house? And, you know, it didn't happen overnight. It happened over a number of years where we came

to the general consensus that yes, buying a house made sense, but it made sense because his love and want and goal of buying a house was far stronger than my want to be in the share market for the long-term. So I think it was about the importance and where you value it. Whereas house ownership was sitting quite low on my priority list, but it was very close to the top for Steve. And as his partner, I want him to achieve those things. So for me, I wanted to be on that journey with him because it was no longer about just the property. It was about helping my partner achieve his life goals. And so I think you need to take it a little bit further and really weigh up the pros and cons of it. Because hypothetically, if we were in a different financial circumstance,

that wouldn't have made sense for me to support that because I could have been like, great, but it's going to take us another 10 years and we don't have the income to support a mortgage. And, you know, there could have been a million stumbling blocks, but I think it's about having open, honest conversation. And for us, it was actually about saying, let's put aside your feelings, Victoria, and let's put aside your feelings, Steve, and go, what does buying a house financially look like? What does it mean for us? How would this work? How would it impact all of our other goals? And that's kind of how we came to the decision to actually buy because we're like, all right, well, now we're on the same page about exactly what that means. It was a less

emotional decision. So it was, yeah, taking the emotion out of it, being able to have a pragmatic outcome and then overlaying the emotion again for me to go, yep, it's still not like my number one priority, but I can see how much that means to you. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. The next red flag I have, Jess, is borrowing money consistently from family and friends. I think this is a massive red flag. And like I get it, things happen. It's pretty common to have to borrow money from a friend or a family member at some point, sometime, somewhere. But I think the problem arises when it's pretty consistent. So every single weekend, they're borrowing money from their mom, but they have a full-time job or they're always borrowing

money from friends. I just think that that is an indicator of poor money management and obviously not only does money come as a massive burden, I'm very against lending money to your friends or your family where you can avoid it because I think that it plays into a far bigger issue and often a power dynamic. But I think it also just shows that your partner is not very good at money management. And to me, if you want a financially secure future for future you, that to me would be a red flag of like this person needs to get it together. Would you say that excessive usage of credit cards and buy now, pay later services kind of comes into the same category. That's actually my next one. So to whip

up the rest of that point, I also think it's a bit of a lack of respect for your friends and family's generosity. And also, they just don't have clear financial boundaries, which I think is again, red flag. But the credit card thing, yes, if they're overusing a credit card or racking up a heap of debt or falling behind on credit card payments or opening a new credit card to pay off the old credit card, I just think that that's an even bigger problem that needs to be addressed that if you end up in a relationship with that person arguably becomes your issue too and I'm not saying that that is your responsibility to pay it off but at the end of the day if you're in a relationship with someone who has pretty significant personal debt that's going to stop

you moving ahead in the future. It's arguably a bit savage Jess but it is the truth and I have one more financial red flag before I ask you if you've written down any and my last financial flag is and this has come from previous experience in an old relationship that we won't mention ever again after this episode and that's when your partner is overly frugal with their money but super frivolous with yours. So I hated this so obviously we know that oh my god honey I left my wallet at home can you get this and then they never transfer you the money back but something that and this is so niche I hope no one resonates with this but often when I was staying over at a previous partner's house when we were you know seeing each other and it was all well and good

we'd go to the shops and if we were buying ice cream and it was at his house and he was paying it would always be home brand but if he was at my house and we were going to the shops to get whatever we were getting and maybe we're getting like a little dessert and wanted some connoisseur vanilla ice cream somehow it always made it into the basket that I was paying for but if I put it in his he'd be like oh it's not on sale oh we can't do this and always go for the cheaper option And to me, it was a massive red flag that he would be overly frugal with his money, but not very frugal with my own, because I felt like that was generally disrespectful of my generosity and my financial boundaries.

But I also think that it was a little bit deeply representative of his lack of respect for my time, energy and effort that it took to earn that money. And he obviously respected his. So to me, I'm like, oh, Victoria Devine, you should have seen that earlier. Oh my gosh. Yeah. A thousand percent. So Jess, what red flags would you like to bring up with the team? I think you covered them all really well. The one big one I think for me that I think it's important to hit home is if you see a disconnect between the words of what your partner is saying and their actions, that's a huge red flag for me across the board in finances and

in other aspects of the relationship as well. When it comes to finance, like you were saying, if you're talking about, oh, we want to buy a house together and we have this big goal, but then your partner's going out and, you know, dropping a couple hundred with the boys every weekend at the pub or things like that. I think it's important that absolutely you both have room to do things that are important to you and nobody should be accountable to anybody else for every cent that they spend. But I think if your partner is saying one thing and doing another, it's a symptom of a bigger issue. So if they go, oh, I'm really trying to save money, but every date you go on is it a five-star restaurant you go you're not though yeah exactly right it makes me question

their self-awareness whether they know what they're doing and they see the disconnect or whether they don't recognize the problems that they have it makes me question the validity of what they're saying as well like are they just telling me these things because they want me to believe them are they saying I'm really frugal because they know that's important to me but ultimately they're not so are they lying to me and ultimately I just think you know that there's that old saying, actions speak louder than words. And maybe they aren't comfortable having those money conversations like we were talking about at the top of the episode, and that's okay. But if you're saying one thing and doing another, it says to me that there's a

disconnect either within yourself or with me. And either way, that's a big issue. I agree. And I think one of the most important things to come out of this episode is not just the red flags, right? Like red flags are going to be different to everybody. Like a red flag could actually just be an icky feeling that you get about a circumstance that if you wrote it down, you'd be like, that makes no sense. But I want you to know that that is a really valid icky feeling and you can hold onto that and think about it and you can look deeply into that. But I think the one thing that I want you guys to get out of today is to know when to walk away from a situation, a relationship or, you know, anything that is not serving you any longer. And I mean,

we live in a world where women are often encouraged in a way to stay in less than ideal circumstances in exchange for financial security. And that's not what we want for the She's On The Money community. We want you to be empowered and we want you to have your emergency funds and we want you to be able to say no to anything that doesn't respect you or the circumstances or what you have worked towards, right? So you personally, each and every single one of you deserve to be in a relationship that serves you, one that aligns to your goals and your values for the future and prioritizes your well-being and your financial well-being and a relationship that is built on mutual respect and trust. And I feel like these red flags are all

indicators that those things aren't there. And so from my perspective, I think that such a significant part of this episode is just knowing your worth and knowing that you don't have to put up with financial red flags and we can say, no, thank you. This doesn't align to my goals or my values. And as much as walking away can be super, super difficult, it's a way of protecting you and your financial health and your financial future. And you need to give yourself the respect you deserve. And I think that that's what I want you to get out of today. Not just, oh my gosh, here's a particular red flag. Like, yeah, the red flags are a bit of a fluffy catchphrase way of being like, hey guys, listen to this episode. We want you to know your worth. Absolutely. And

going back to the conversation at the start of the show, if you are unsure about anything you're experiencing, if you're feeling like your relationship might be taking a turn for the worse, please have a look at the resources that we've got linked in the show notes. Talk to your friends and family as well. I think sometimes your girlfriends or your boyfriends are a really good sense check for you to be like, hey, my date did this. Cool or nah? Cool or nah? Usually nah, if you have to ask though. Usually nah for sure. But if you're going, is it just me blowing something out of proportion, which I think as women, we sometimes do a lot. No, not the blowing it out of proportion. We

just assume we're blowing it out of proportion when it's usually a crimson flag. Yeah. Don't gaslight yourself. Talk to the chicks. Talk to the dudes. Get a bit of a sense check on it. And if in doubt, chat it out. Oh, I love that. I love that. We're keeping that. Get me out of here. I think we are done. As always, it is paramount that you connect with your friends and support networks. If anything has been brought up in this podcast that you would talk about, obviously you can chat with our friends from the National Debt Helpline and there are going to be a heap of resources in the show notes of this episode, so please check them out. See you on Friday, guys. Bye. 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. Thanks for watching!