She's On The Money - FRIDAY DRINKS: RBA Rates & A Wild Goose Chase!

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

You know what Friday means? That's right, it's time we kick back and roll through this week's episodes, celebrate your money wins, solve a Money Dilemma (which you can submit here by the way), and talk about what's been in the news. But this week, guess which member of the team took matters into her own hands and went on a WILD goose chase to remedy the situation? You'll have to listen to find out!And with the recent RBA rates announcement, the girls drill down on its implications and effects.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. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are Authorised Representatives of Infocus Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN 47 097 797 049 AFSL - AFSL 236523.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before we get started, we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They're the traditional custodians of the lands, the waterways and the skies all across Australia. We thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn. We pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness. 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. Today's Friday, which means it is time to sit back with the girls with a bevy in hand to unpack our favourite moments of the week, and of course, to celebrate you, the beautiful

She's On The Money community. As always, we're going to be discussing our favourite money wins, we're going to discuss what's making news in the finance world, and we'll be helping to answer a juicy money question, which this week is all about having awkward conversations about setting boundaries in the workplace. But before we get there, Ms Jessica Ricci, could you let us know, for those of us who missed out, what happened on our Money Diaries episode this week? This week's episode got so much spectacular feedback because this particular woman had left a relationship and a little content warning here talking about abuse. So if that's rough for you, perhaps not the episode and just skip ahead like 30 seconds

right now. But she left an emotionally, physically, financially abusive relationship. It sounded so hectic. And she ended up with a mountain of debt in her name that she had not accrued. It's so unfair. I still think about this every day since we have spoken to her and it just it frustrates me that you can be lumped with somebody else's debt and it's completely legal yeah over a hundred grand in debt she was left with and she paid off every cent plus interest she did it all by herself she's

debt free and now she's truly she's just thriving she has her own job she has a new partner she just genuinely radiated so much warmth and happiness and to look at her and be like you have bloody been through it and you have come out the other side this beautiful amazing person was so so inspirational it was epic i loved her georgia king hello how's your week been my love a good week good week good week not bad yeah she's got to see us jess yeah exactly it's always a good way unlike from the wardrobe of last week it's good to be back with the girlies you're welcome welcome Welcome back to the studio. What happened on our deep dive this week, G King, on tour?

So, Bea, we discussed how to have difficult conversations with your boss. Spicy. So we covered things like salary, your workload, workplace culture, and so on. Culture. Culture. The main thing I feel like that came out of the chat was how to be assertive in the workplace, which is something you're really good at. I'm looking at Victoria for people that can't see.

It's actually Jess. Jess is really assertive. Is she? Oh, 100%. Don't try crossing her boundaries. Is that something you've learned since being at She's On The Money, Jess, or has it always come naturally? Largely, it came from working in a male-dominated industry.

Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think I started that. I would have taught her different. I've gotten better. You have taught me a lot. But, yeah, I think working in a male-dominated industry, like I kind of learned you just got to sometimes do it. Do a damn thing. Get it done.

Well, that's what they do, right? And a big part of that conversation was talking about email etiquette, which we maybe spoke about for too long. one I'm so passionate about. It was so interesting. Vy was saying you should always take the word just out of your emails. I remember that's a conversation we had in like my first two or three weeks of employment. I got you to read over something because I was new and I was a bit like, please help me. And you like read over something that I'd sent and you're like, delete, delete, delete, delete. And I was like, oh, and you're like, I just don't think. No, I just used the

word just. Absolutely not what I said. And you said, I don't think that you should be justifying your language. Just say what you mean. And I was like, oh, okay. And now I feel so much more empowered. I'm the queen of the one line email. Like, you know what? Don't waste anybody's time. I think it's respectful. Yeah. I'm still stuck in a land of smiley faces and kiss, kiss, exclamation marks on the end of every sentence. Hi, so nice to see you. Just wondering if I could have a report, exclamation mark. But like, that's just it, right? And who are we actually appeasing there, is it you thinking you're going to be uncomfortable? And then if you contrast it to a Jess email, which, you know, they're not rude, like by any stretch of the imagination, you are

always kind, you're always like, hey, Victoria, hope you've been well. Here's the thing I need from you. Let me know when I can have it. And I just feel like that's so direct, so clear. And we obviously deal with a lot of different stakeholders in the work that we do, whether it is clients or, you know, talking to our radio station or talking to book publishers or any other people that we're working with, sometimes you just don't need the back and forth. You just need to be like, yep, no problem. Here's the time. Here's the date. Here's what's going to happen or vice versa. You're a bit confused about a lack of clarity because maybe you weren't so clear. You're like, oh yeah, what about like 3pm? No, no, no. Like it's 3pm. Like we are very clear

about setting expectations so that we always have clarity. And I think that the way you write emails just really helps that. And it's, you know, it's empowering to just be like, no, I just said what moment you shouldn't feel bad like don't feel bad about saying or asking for what you want or need or mean like it is such a female thing I think to really put it back on you to handle somebody else's emotions and it's not your job yeah stretching that out though we're obviously going to remove this week from our emails as a community the word just we're going to delete the word that because that is a word that literally doesn't need to be there yeah because it's a filler. No sentence needs the word that. So remove that. And also exclamation marks from

the end of your sentences. No one needs to have a really good day. Like they just don't. No, you know what? I'm very blunt, but you can pry my exclamation marks from my cold dead fingers. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Let's move on. George, before we move on to money wins this week, Jess has had a bit of a money win. Speaking about being assertive, being direct, how about You ask Jess how her weekend was and maybe what she got up to on Sunday. What? You haven't seen her. How was this weekend, J. Rick?

Talk to me. We went to a wedding, my partner and I, and we caught an Uber. There was a bit of a gap between the ceremony and the reception. So caught an Uber home, got upstairs to the hotel, probably two minutes between leaving the Uber, getting upstairs. My partner goes, forgot my phone, left it in the backseat of the Uber. Oh, my gosh, no. Call the Uber man, say, hi, I'm so sorry,

my partner's phone's in the back of your car. He goes, yep, I've got it, but I've got a passenger. I'm like, you left me two minutes ago. Like, how? And he's like, I'm really sorry. I'm on the way to the airport. And I was like, no problems. Totally get that.

Okay, you're going somewhere. That's so fine. Can you come back to drop it off later? Obviously, like there's this thing through Uber, you reimburse them for their trip. So it's not like he's out money. Like I will pay you to bring it back. It's my fault or my boyfriend's fault. He goes, yep, no problems.

Is this the best number? I'm like, yep. Great. Call you later. Wonderful. Everything's dreamy. Phone coming back. No, no, no, no. So it's seven o'clock. We head to the reception. It's been four hours at this

point. Haven't heard from him. Starting to stress. Send him a text and say, hey, just letting you know we're heading back out. We're going to be at a different location. Just give me a buzz before you come down. I'll let you know where we are. Silence. We're at the reception. Reception goes late. Of course, it's a party we're celebrating. My phone dies and I start stressing. I'm convinced he's going to call me and I'm going to miss it and I'm never going to see his phone again. so we leave go home charge it crickets still it's like midnight at this point at this point I realize that I have my boyfriend on find my friends for like safety and you know occasionally stalking purposes sure and so I look up his phone great the phone she also stalks me George

it's actually quite detrimental because I'm the type of person that would be like yeah Jess just left the office and she calls me she's like no you did not you absolutely did not I'd be like Sorry, sorry. So I can see the phone. I'm like, okay, great. Well, at least I know where he is. And I kind of monitor it for a few hours. He stays in the same spot.

I go, okay, I'm going to assume that's his house. Just kind of tuck that information away for later. What are you going to do with some dude's home address, Jess? Post it in the She's on the Money community. I know. Sick him, Rex. Anyway, so next day, still haven't heard anything. Call him again.

He's ignoring my calls. Call James' phone. I'd ignore you too. You're obsessed. I called my partner's phone like 16 times. 15 times. Like, I figured, you know, maybe he's driving in his car and he hadn't seen it. Girl, why are you so obsessed with me? He must think I was a psycho. Well, by the end of this story, he definitely did.

Because you definitely are. The whole rest of the day goes on. I get in touch with Uber. I say, hey, I spoke to my driver. He confirmed he had it. Haven't gotten in touch with him since. They tried to get in touch with him and email me back and said, we're really sorry. We couldn't get a hold of him either. Weird. I was like, okay, no problems. But he definitely has it because he told me he has it. Correct. Also, I've been stalking him.

He definitely has it. Yeah, kind of freaking out at this point. So it gets to three o'clock the next day. He's had the phone for over 24 hours. He's not picking up any of my 10 million phone calls that I have left him. And we're kind of at a point where we're like, what do we do? What would Victoria do? Go to the police.

Victoria would go to the police and submit a police report. What did Jess do, though, is the real question here. We decided to jump in the car and drive to his house to get the phone. So we get on the freeway. That's proactive. I love it. That's so dangerous. We are not endorsing this story by any stretch of the imagination.

You can't just turn up to a random man's house. I felt really bad about it. Like it felt a little bit invasive and I didn't want to be that person. But I had tried every other avenue. Anyway, we're driving to his house and then it moves. And I'm like, oh, here we go. Is this about to be like the Amazing Race 2.0 where we're just chasing this man all over Melbourne?

Spoiler, it was. So we see him stop at a subway. Stop it. And, I mean, I see him stop on Find My Friends, not in person. And it's not Find My Friends anymore. It's Find My Old Uber Driver. So I say to my boyfriend, do we just give it a crack? And he's like, well, we didn't come this far to not try.

So we drive to this subway. The subway's on the corner. We're at an intersection. And my partner goes, I'm pretty sure I see the car. And I'm blind. I'm not wearing a mask. I'm like, well, that sounds great. and he's like, I'm pretty sure someone just got into the car.

You would have been screeching too. I know you. Yeah, it wasn't, oh, well, that's just great. It was like, cut him off, cut him off. So we scoot into the parking lot. The guy is getting ready to, like, leave and I say to my partner, park behind him, block him in. Oh, my God.

So what does she do? Parks behind him and blocks him in. He pulls up, I yeet out the car door, run around and I get to his window and he's looking at me like, what is going on? Yeah, who are you? I didn't want to tap on the window because that just felt like too much. Because driving across the city to go to a random man's location is not too much. Oh, my gosh.

Not too much. Don't tap on his window though, Jay. I draw the line. That's the line. He rolls down the window. I go, hi, excuse me. I'm so sorry. You have my phone.

And he's like, what? He's like, no, I don't. He looked so confused. He knew. I'm so sorry. I was in your Uber yesterday. You called. You told me you had my phone.

And he's like, oh, Jessica? I'm like, yes. And he gave me this look like he just didn't know what to say. And so I just kind of preemptively cut the conversation. I was like, I am tracking this phone. I know that that's how we found you. Can I have it, please? And he just kind of gives me this kind of sheepish look

and pulls it out of his glove box and hands it. And I go, thank you so much. Run, run, run. I'm like, babe, drive. Oh, my God. Screech out of there. That's the best story I've ever heard. If anybody would like a lesson in audacity, just call Jessica on, oh, no.

I regret nothing, but I absolutely wouldn't endorse it. In the future, I can recommend the police. They do a great job. They do a great job, great community service, and they actually have this thing called a police report that you could submit so you don't need to track someone to their house. In saying that, George, the thing I was surprised about was if you pick up an iPhone in 2022, it's going to be tracked. Absolutely. Do you know what I mean?

How did you think you were going to get away? If that was his intention, maybe he was just real busy. Who knows? But if his intention was to keep the phone, why isn't it off? Yeah, I don't know. The whole situation was really weird. And I feel like I should add an important detail here, which is my partner, who I think I've said before, is at uni. He's on placement. He moved that day because his placement was two hours away from where we live. He literally was moving house that night. It was kind of like a now or never situation to get this phone back. Otherwise he was like, I'm going to have to go buy a new phone. And that's like a grand gone. That's so much. So it was like an added level of pressure. And I was just like, I don't want you to have to buy a new

phone. And I also don't want to not be in contact with my partner when he's moving away for placement. Exactly right. So yeah, I got real hectic and just went fully rogue. Please don't do that. Be safe. Would you call that a money win? Money win. I didn't have to buy a new phone. Oh my gosh, let's move away from your creepy, crazy story. Georgia King, what are the money wins from the She's On The Money community this week? Alrighty, we got a couple. Jess's is obviously my favourite for the week, but I'll kick us off with Amelia. So money win. Last night, I was doing some online browsing as I've wanted to treat myself to a few new pieces of clothing, something that I rarely do. Just before I checked out my carts, I decided to follow the rule of

putting 24 hours between myself and my purchases, and boy, did it pay off. Yes, Queen. This morning, I woke up having won a $250 voucher to Universal Store. Okay, that's not normal. You don't usually wake up with $250 in your account, guys. She said, turns out all those little competitions you enter actually pay off sometimes. In combination with a Uni Days discount code, I got $275 worth of new clothing for free. Incredible.

Oh my gosh, money to win. Not bad, not bad. I've got a cousin that is an absolute super sleuth at a competition. Really? Like, she enters absolutely everything. She's won TVs. She's won trips to Hawaii. She's won multiple different flights.

Like, it's crazy. She's so good at it. See, I would just never do it because I'm too pessimistic. Well, that's the attitude, isn't it? No, you've got to be in it to win it, and that is the attitude. Well done, Amelia. The next win comes from Steph. After getting a personal loan at 17, I can finally say at 32 that I have paid it off.

Oh, my gosh. Get it. I love that. The next one comes from Elira. For the first time in my 29 years, I've saved $500 in a month with three kids, overwhelming living expenses and the expensive petrol guzzling trips to uni for a degree that is a 63 kilometre drive from home and then 63km back as well. That's a lot of kilometres.

Twice a week alongside full-time work. And three bambinis. Oh my God, how did you even do that? I know. She said she's pretty proud of herself. Her goal is to get to a $500 a month minimum to go on their first holiday at Christmastime. Oh, my heart. Well done, Alira.

The next win comes from Emily. It's my birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday, Emily. And today I got an email from Boost Juice saying that I get a free smoothie. Oh, my God, guys, sign up to that. That is a hot deal. Birthday freebies are the best. Birthday freebies.

There was a TikToker that went around the city. I followed her. She went around the Melbourne CBD just having a day of free stuff. Like, she got free Guzmani Gomez. She got a free booze juice. Like, I think there was, like, a cupcake shop that gave her a free cupcake. She was just like, free food day. I'm like, I am all here for this.

What a queen. We love. The next one comes from Jemima. I just bought my wedding dress off Marketplace. It's in gorgeous condition and it's already been altered to be exactly my size. Win. The dress looks brand new and I've saved myself thousands. Literally.

And alterations are so expensive coming from a current bride. Are they really? Oh, my Lord. The wedding dresses? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Of course. Insanely expensive.

Like, I nearly spat my tea out when I read the quote. Yeah. Well, well done to you, Jemima. The next one comes from Hannah. I was in Coles shopping today and I found some Veggie Gyoza family packs. Yeah. Normally they retail at $18.50 each. They were on clearance for $2.31.

I took all three that were left. No shame. Now I have meals to last me more than a week for just under $7. Yes. Gyoza are so unnecessarily expensive at the supermarket. Like, I know exactly the one she's talking about because the big white packet, veggie gyoza, $18. I know it.

I know it well. $2.31, though. That's a money win of a lifetime. Sometimes they have 50% off. I'll buy me two packets of gyoza. Two for the price of one, baby. That takes me to our last money slash life win of the day. Imogen bought her first shares.

Money loss, they immediately tanked. But then she said, luckily, I'm in it for the long haul. Oh, my heart. Well, no one followed a man in an Uber home, so, I mean, they're great money wins. Exactly right. So good. All right, let's go to a quick break, and when we get back,

we are going to be talking about setting expectations with your workplace, and Jess wants to talk about the interest rates. Alrighty. I want to talk interest rates because we pre-recorded a little early last week because of scheduling, which not great for us because then the RBA rates got announced and we hadn't chatted about it.

We're also admitting that we pre-recorded our episode last week. Spoiler alert, we don't record it at 5 a.m. on a Friday morning. What do you mean? I know, crazy. Can you not tell them that? With a bed in hand. We've got to drink, guys. I think I just snorted while I laughed.

Let's move on. So for those who don't know, I'm pretty sure you would have seen at this point, but the RBA or the Reserve Bank of Australia increased the official cash rate from 0.1% to 0.35%, which was the first increase since 2010, which had a lot of people in a bit of a tailspin. People going, oh my God, this is crazy. This is ridiculous. How is this going to impact me? The ultimate idea of it, and correct me if I'm wrong, Vee, it's aimed at reducing inflation, right? Yes, sir. And essentially that is because commercial banks will be paying this higher rate of interest on

the money that they borrow on their short-term loans. And then they then pass that increased expense onto us, the consumers. So that will mean that if you have a loan with a bank or if you have a credit card or any line of credit, more likely than not, you're going to be paying more. And so if you're paying more there, people are more likely to be saving in their savings accounts, which hopefully we'll see a little bit of an increase as well. Not required, but we can hope. We lay in hope. We do. We're hopeful people in this office. And that reduces spending, which reduces demand, which consequently reduces inflation.

It's a whole big, long, slow effect. My economics teacher in year 10 would be very proud of me right now. But, V, we put up a post on Instagram summarising this. So if you're a visual learner, I would highly recommend going and having a look at that. And we got some really good... A bit biased. You did make that.

Indeed, I did. I would really appreciate any and all compliments and feedback. But please tell me that was a pretty post. We got some really good questions. So I thought maybe we could just chat about it, talk about the outcome. Epic. I know as well you personally, V, have a perspective on this

that is a little bit different from what we've been seeing pumped out in the media. So I want to hear what you think. I always feel like I'm just going rogue. I'm like, I don't care. And everyone's like, you have to care. And I'm like, it's not as important as you seem to think it is. And it is totally important.

I get it. But I feel like the media jumps up and down and makes things sound terrifying when in reality they're not. And we'll get to that. Why don't we ask some questions so that I don't go on a Victoria Devine rant. My favourite part about this, G, is she hasn't prepped me on these questions, so these are rogue answers.

Really nice from Jess this week. thank you for the preparation. You're so welcome. So a lot of people are saying that they just don't understand how making loans and other things more expensive is going to reduce inflation. They say it seems a little bit counterintuitive to be like, hey, everything costs more. Let's add on the cost of your loans to that as well. Yeah. So the economic consequences of that, like that's purposeful. Essentially what they want to do is increase interest rates because increased interest rates lead to a downturn in economic activity. So you're going to borrow less money, you're going to be transacting a little bit less, you're probably going to save a bit more, create a bit

more economic stability. And that's the point. That's why they're increasing the rates. That's the point, right? The higher the interest rate, the less likely you are to go and get a mortgage, right, Jess? This is helping with inflation because the costs of goods and services won't increase when the interest rate is so high. So they've done this on purpose, but the flip side of that is it could actually end up impacting unemployment and wage growth as well. So it's kind of like a two-sided coin where you're like, yep, this is good. We need to slow down inflation because up until March this year for the last quarter, we've actually had the biggest increase in inflation. And I think they're freaking out a bit and just going far out. We can't keep that up.

And it's actually in our best interest to increase the interest rate because it means that bread and milk and all of these consumables are not going to increase as dramatically and as rapidly as it could if we didn't have some kind of cap to put on it. So they're kind of trying to put a lid on it in a way. So does that mean, V, that the price of groceries and petrol and stuff, will that actually decrease? My friend, keep dreaming. That is absolutely not how it works. No, it doesn't make it go backwards. I'm really sorry, but what it will mean is that it'll stay stagnant. And we want stagnant when it comes to inflation. We just want things to sit pretty and not increase. I've seen a lot across

Instagram about what inflation means for hospitality. And at the moment, it just feels a little bit scary because it's small things that really add up. Like they're saying a $5 latte in the Melbourne CBD is going to end up being $5.50. And I know for a lot of people, you're going to go Victoria. $5 for a latte is already ridiculous, but it's that 50 cent growth that's happened over three months that you go, well, if that happened over a year, that's actually $2 and that's actually a lot of money. Imagine if this time next year, if we didn't cap inflation, we'd actually be paying $7 for a latte. So like, I think we need to see what we're trying to stop and not go, oh my gosh, they're trying to increase interest rates and the property

market's already so hard to get into. It's like, no, we're actually trying to make it so that you can afford your life still and you can still afford to put food on the table. Yes, the property market will be impacted, but not as significantly as you seem to think it is, or as the media seems to think it's going to be impacted. On that note, the other thing that I'm seeing a lot of people talking about is their mortgages and people being really concerned about the impact that this increase in the rates is going to have on their repayments. What's that going to look like? It's not as bad as you think it is. It's still obviously something that we need to budget for. So on a $500,000 loan, each and every single month, you're looking at a difference

of about $65. So it's a lot, but at the same time, it's not like your mortgage repayments have tripled. So a current mortgage repayment on half a million dollars is going to look like $1,967 and the new mortgage repayment will look like $2,041, which is not massive. But when you start to look at what mortgages around Melbourne actually look like, the average property price in Melbourne and in Sydney is more than a million dollars, right? Terrifying. Terrifying. Can you imagine telling your parents that 20 years ago? Like when your kids want to buy property, it's going to be more than a million dollars. They wouldn't have believed you. No, I don't think they would. They would have all started investing more in property. Yeah, 100%. But a million dollar

mortgage is looking at about an increase of $131 monthly. So as much as that sounds really scary, and yes, that's absolutely going to be in some way, shape or form passed along to us. I think the important thing here is not jumping up and down about your mortgage rate increasing. It's actually about going, do you know what? Am I putting myself in the best possible position right now? Have I spoken to a mortgage broker recently and actually said, is this the best rate and structure for me? Because so many people that have DM'd me over the last week to talk about interest rates have asked about their mortgage and they've been like, V, are my interest rates going to increase? This is ridiculous. I can't afford that. And I just go, okay, I totally get

that. Quick, perfect question. What are you paying right now? And they're like, oh, my mortgage is it like three and a half percent I'm like no sis like when was the last time you revisited that and they're like oh like four or five years ago and I'll be like at the moment interest rates are sitting at about two and a half reasonably go and get that refinanced and you're actually going to be even better off so I think this from my perspective is a bit of a kick in the bottom to make sure that one you're not oversubscribed to you know streaming services and having a look at your budget and seeing what you can cut out of there and having a look at refinancing your mortgage if it's time to do that. I think that we can be far more proactive than we are. Please

don't get me wrong. It is a lot to ask, you know, if you had half a million dollars left, hey, Jess, can you find another 65 bucks a month? Like that is hard. But I think that there's a lot of things that we can do ourselves to put ourselves in the best possible financial position. And those numbers we're sharing are based on an initial rate of 2.5 and an updated rate of 2.75. Obviously, it's going to vary depending on where you start and where you finish. We do have a handy dandy. Again, a great little piece of content up on the Instagram. That little cheeky picture. Some clever gal. But that gives you a really good overview if you're a visual learner like myself. Yeah. So on the flip side of this fee, I feel like I've heard that maybe this could

be good for potential first home buyers because maybe people that can't afford their mortgages will fold and then there's an opportunity for first time buyers to enter the market. Is that true or is that false? That's absolutely true. It could happen. Like if you think about it, there are a lot of people around Australia who are struggling to pay their mortgages and this is going to add a really unnecessary level of pressure that they have to deal with. So it might mean that people do choose to sell their properties because they're like, you know what, unaffordable, can't do it anymore. And there are going to be people in that position. Does that mean that there's going to be an influx of properties that are suitable for first home

bias? Maybe. And the reason I say maybe is because more often than not, the more expensive your property, the less likely you are to struggle financially to pay that mortgage. If you've got a $2.5 million property, G, very likely you've got the cash flow to support that. And like, you know, $131 or $262 a month on your $2 million mortgage is probably not that much of a stretch. But when you have a $300,000 mortgage and, you know, you're up to your eyeballs in personal debt, you've been trying to pay all of that off. It is a massive stretch. So yes, it could free up some property, but does that mean the property prices are going to decrease? Maybe, maybe not, because property prices are driven by demand. So there are already so many first home buyers. We're sitting

at a table with one. Miss Jessica Ricci is desperately trying to find a property. Do those first home buyers demands go away? Absolutely not. So I don't know if it will mean that there is going to be a reduction in price on the properties, but rather an increase in saturation and an increase in being able to access them. But I don't know how much that will impact how much you end up paying for that property. Does that make sense? Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens. There's been talk that this increase is the first of more to come. Do you think it's likely that we're going to see more over the next year? And if so, is there anything we need to be doing to prepare? Look, I think always having a tight budget and cash flow and being really aware

of what's coming into your bank account and what's going out of your bank account is always going to be the basis of what I practice and what I preach and what I jump up and down about. Yes, it is very, very likely that our rates are going to increase again. Is it fair? Yes. Is it going to increase soon? Potentially. Do we have any idea of what that looks like? No. The RBA are going to be meeting again on the 7th of June, which means that's when we'll get a little bit more clarity on what that looks like. But the thing I want to share here is actually what inflation looks like around the world because Australia at the moment, we kind of live in a little bubble, right? Like our media isn't as broad as it is internationally. We always see Australian media outlets. They're

obviously going to get a bee in their bonnet about what it means to increase inflation. And we're like, this is horrendous. It's the worst in the last three months than it's been in the last 20 years. And you just go, great. What does that actually mean? So let's contextualize this a little bit. In Iran, their inflation rate is sitting at 29.9%. Turkey, 16.3%. Nigeria, 12.1%. Then we go down and down and down, and Australia doesn't even make the top five. So I think to contextualize this a little bit, yeah, it does suck. Yes, it is going to impact us, but we've been living in a world where our government during COVID has really tried to cushion our fall from this to make sure that we're not feeling inflation as much because we

obviously have a bit tighter purse strings during COVID and everyone's financially impacted. And now they actually need to start letting out that inflation so that we can go back to what is going to be COVID normal, right? So they do need to increase it slightly. But I think the important thing here is context. And it's going, look, it is increasing. Does it suck? Absolutely. But look could I run? Like look at what's going on around the world. Inflation is very normal. It does not mean that our government is doing the wrong thing. It's actually an outcome of a healthy economy and this is a good thing. So during the midst of, you know, we have had announced this week earlier on Monday, I got an email, I don't know if you guys got it, that said that early voting's open and

obviously right now our media is completely saturated with political paraphernalia. Let's call it that. It's not propaganda, but like they do sledge each other a fair bit. Jess, you and I were talking about this. We were having this conversation earlier. It's insane to me that they can just be so mean to each other. It's so childish, isn't it? Yeah. Jess, you were talking about a YouTube ad. Yeah. There's a YouTube, George, I don't know if you've seen it. There's a YouTube ad that's running at the moment and I am not going to name names because I just don't want people to think we're fooling one side or the other. No, we have no opinion here. We have a platform. It is not

our place to tell you what decision to make. Correct. But it was obviously an ad put out by one of the major political parties and it was, did you ever watch the TV show Angela Anaconda? Where it was like that weird black and white paper. I don't know what type of media you would call that. It was done in the same style and it had the, you know, a premier of a state and one of the political campaigners depicted as a marionette doll. And it was just so dystopian. I was like, why are we having these people build their platforms, sledging other people rather than just sharing what they stand for because somebody would have spent so much money to produce and run that ad and I go I know you're just like you paid for this sir I found it a little bit gross and I

feel like you know a lot of people are focusing on the wrong things instead of saying what they do stand for they're just trying to make other people look bad and it just seems for them and they are naughty naughty naughty like I feel like that is so true but I'm bringing that up because I want to just preface that this is going on alongside an election, which means that people are automatically going to one, make a bigger deal out of it, but two, make it look like the other party's fault. But at the end of the day, this is just economics and this is how it works. And yes, they are going to try and drag it in and talk about it and make it look like they're going to do so many things and stop this and stop that. And they're going to put you, Georgia King,

in a much better position when in reality, like they don't have a lot of control over that. So I being really cautious of what people saying at the moment is really important and a few people have slid into my dms being like v who are you voting for like i think that you'll know who to vote for and i'm like nope i'm not sharing that that is not my place i actually promote you guys living by your own values and there is a website it is votecompass.abc.net.au which is a fantastic website that you can go to and you can find out how your personal views compare to australian political parties so that you can make the right decision for you. And I would absolutely recommend going to that. That's obviously not sponsored, not indoors. They haven't asked us to do that.

I just really want you guys to be voting with your genuine values, not what you're seeing on social media or not what you're seeing, you know, a YouTube commercial slander someone with. So I think it's really important to know our own values and that Vote Compass website's actually really good for that. But let's move on, friends. All righty, guys, I think it's time for a money question, a money dilemma. Who's with me? I want a hotline song. You know, like Drake, I want that hotline bling. Word on the street is it's brewing in the background. I've heard that. It's been worked on. I'm pretty sure that's copyrighted. We won't have that. We will have the poor royalty free version.

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 quick voice recording, and you may just find yourself on the show. Now, let's take a listen to today's Money Dilemma. Hey, chicks. I'm just wondering, what is your advice or commentary on workplaces that normalize things like not taking a full lunch break or not taking one at all, or places that expect you to stay back late, way beyond your contract hours regularly, or even expect you to do overtime for free. I find myself in these places far too often and never want to

get the boss offside, but also think these things are unreasonable and want to advocate for myself. This one's spicy. You guys are employed. I feel like I have a lot of audacity and I would say a lot of colorful things to an employer who expected that of me. But before we get there, I don't know our money diarist from a bar of soap. She's obviously a fabulous member of the She's On The Money community. However, I do think before we start this conversation, we need to outline the fact that if we're going to talk about this, we are talking about unreasonable. I don't know. I feel like if you're in a nine to five Monday to Friday job, like there is a thing called reasonable overtime where, you know, if you've just got a really busy

workplace, you do have to do a few extra hours of work one week and you're not going to find yourself in a position where you're getting paid overtime. I feel like there's this ebb and flow nowadays where Gen Z or what are they called? The TikTok community. I feel like a boomer right now. But you know, like the younger, the youngins these days seem to think that any type of overtime is ridiculous and any minute of my lunch break that has been, you know, eaten into is absolutely ridiculous. And I totally agree that boundaries need to be set in a workplace, but I think we're talking, this is beyond reasonable over time and it's beyond, you know, maybe one time missing your lunch break. We're talking about consistency here and boundaries being overstepped and maybe

you're feeling really uncomfortable about it. Is that a fair thing to disclaim it with? Yeah. I mean, that's an inclusion in a lot of contracts nowadays is that you work your hours up to and including what they deem reasonable. And I think the point here is that some workplaces more so than others take the piss a little bit. I definitely do. That's why I needed to disclaim it so that you guys can't pipe up and be like what do you mean what's a lunch break this happened on my own show yeah so I think like yeah there's a big difference between oh my gosh today there's this one big project and if I leave at five o'clock on time like I'm supposed to someone else is going to have to stay back by themselves to finish it yeah rather than a

systemic work through lunch break stay back late every day because if you don't you're not seen to be working as hard as other people it's that culture and I used to work in that culture and it's disgusting. And I feel like it's really bad for your mental health. It's arguably very bad for your physical health. But I want to hear before I, you know, put these people on blast, what would you guys do? Jess, I know you've worked incredibly corporately before. Have you run into this before? Yeah, I have. And it's interesting. I think like how I would handle it now and how I would have handled it when I was younger, you know, older, more confident, more assertive, as we discussed earlier. I think when I was younger, a lot of the time I just kind of copped

on the chin and then complained about it to my friends. I was kind of like, well, I'm going to do it because I don't want to piss anybody off. Yeah, well, I'm going to do it, but I'm going to talk about it, okay? Correct. Whereas now I think it's about having a conversation because, I mean, maybe your employer or your manager or your team aren't realizing the amount of time that you're putting in. Should they be paying attention and noticing that? Yes, but let's not make assumptions. Maybe it is just as simple as raising it and saying, hey, like, can I get some time in lieu for all of the time that I'm staying back or is there something that we can do? But the flip side of that is, and I feel like we really have to say it because I don't want

to be like, yeah, girl boss, tell them, put them in their place and then have someone experience negative repercussions. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a tough conversation to have, right? And there is the chance that if you do start raising these issues, if the workplace you're in has a poor culture. And they are actually toxic. There is a chance that there will be negative ramifications for you.

And it might be that you are put on some kind of notice. It might be that you're told that culturally you're not the best fit for them because you're not meeting their expectations of what they deem is reasonable. Is that shit a thousand percent? And I would say if that is the case, probably not a workplace you want to be in long term. Absolutely agree. But you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot when you really need to have your job. Well, and that's it.

That's why I think it's important to just say, hey, should you stand up for yourself a thousand percent? but also I don't want to be the reason that somebody says something and then goes, oh, my God, I lost my job. Yeah, absolutely. From an employee rights perspective, though, can you lose your job for asking if you can have the lunch break your entire day?

Theoretically, absolutely not, Georgia. That would be illegal. But they can blacklist you a little bit. Oh, George, you're just not a good cultural fit. Yeah. They're not going to say it was your lunch break. No, like you're culturally not the best fit if you're on probation as well. It's a really easy thing for employers to kind of, you know,

be like, oh, you know what? it just didn't work out. See you later. Or like performance management, there are all of these tools that yes, there are, you're right. Like they couldn't just turn around and be like, Georgia, you're taking a lunch break every day, you're fired. But with that being said, especially having worked in a couple of somewhat toxic workplace cultures previously. She's on the money. No. There are definitely things that an employer can do if they want to, if they are dissatisfied like that. And if you are experiencing anything like that, a thousand percent hit up your union,

hit up Fair Work Australia. They are a fantastic, fantastic resource because nobody should be experiencing that. But it's one of those things where it's really hard, I think, to police to the fullest extent because you can have one opinion and you can say, oh my God, I know that the reason this is happening is because I stood up for myself because I didn't want to do that over time. But then your employer could turn around and say, oh, actually, they weren't getting along with other people or they didn't culturally quite fit in or the positions become redundant or any other number of things that you go. And we don't mean to scare you, but I think it's a really important preface to make because I would hate for someone to walk away from this. That's a lot

of tickets on ourselves. Imagine just assuming that people are going to walk away from listening to our content super empowered. Like, oh my God, I listened to another She's On The Money episode and now I'm going to take over the world and tell my boss to jump. Like, that's a few tickets, but let's assume that that's the case. But I think it's also about setting really healthy boundaries and starting to you know not necessarily be super confrontational but if your boss gives you a task at 4 30 in the afternoon and you know that that's going to take you past your 5 p.m finish and you know you might have something booked or a drink with a friend or you might just want to go home to sit on the couch with your cat I think setting really healthy boundaries and

just going hey Jess thanks so much is it all right if I get to that in the morning and they might go why and you'll be like oh well I just don't have enough time today to do it like I've got to leave at five. And unfortunately this looks like a two hour task. And I think it's about starting to set really healthy boundaries where they know that you're just not willing to take that on. I think that there's a very big difference between, hey, you're willing to take on the work and like, oh yeah, she just leaves at 5pm on the dot. Like that from my perspective is potentially not what we're trying to look like, but we're trying to set healthy boundaries. So instead of, you know, leaving at five, like you mentioned, you're leaving at seven, like that's really unhealthy.

so I think being a bit people pleaser-esque can be to our detriment as well so I think setting healthy boundaries starts with setting healthy expectations so going hey did you need anything else this morning I'm actually gonna pop out for lunch at 12 and starting to set boundaries where maybe you're not necessarily saying to your boss hey so I don't get lunch at all and I think that's ridiculous like you could potentially get them offside with that can we find a softer way to start introducing these boundaries into your daily conversation where instead of going, I think it's ridiculous, you just go, do you know what? I deserve my lunch break. I'm going to go at one. Hey, I'm actually leaving at one to go for lunch. Was there anything you wanted me to

pick up on the way back? To just set that boundary. And I think that that is a much healthier way of starting to see how they respond to it because confrontation is not always the answer in these circumstances. Like sometimes it's absolutely necessary though. And in that case, I would be looking at making a list and just keeping track of things and taking the emotion out of the conversation that you need to have. We're not talking about like, I just feel like I'm not respected. I am not respected. We don't feel things. They are things. When you're at work, it needs to be pragmatic because I promise, and this is going to sound really harsh and terrible, and I promise guys, this isn't how I feel about you, but I promise your boss just doesn't care

about the emotional side of it. Your boss just cares about getting the job done and you being a good employee and I'm really just, I don't care how you feel about it. Like I care pragmatically what that means. And, you know, as somebody who is an employer, I'd be heartbroken if my team thought that I was, you know, crossing their boundaries or not respecting them. And I would, you know, it's 2022. I would hope other bosses feel the same way too. So I think it's also really healthy to be like, Hey, I don't know if you know, but like, I literally don't have time for lunch. I'd be horrified, Jess, if you turned around and said, I just don't have time for myself. I'd be like, um, what? Like, I'm so sorry. And I think when you're having those conversations as well,

there's probably a little bit of power. And I have done this in the past where you just kind of- With me? No, no, in a past job. I'm going to say it and you're going to be like, oh no, that hasn't happened. This is about me. It's about me. It's all about me. But just keeping track of those things. So rather than just saying, I feel like I never get time for lunch, saying, hey, in the last three weeks, I've only been able to take my full lunch break twice. Or in the last month I've worked 18 hours of overtime and having something I think a little bit more solid to put in front of somebody shows one that you personally are really feeling it and taking it seriously and wanting to present them with information that they can digest but on their end

if you go oh my god like that's a whole three or four extra days of work that you've done that's mind-blowing I think that that also can have a little bit of an impact and a lot of times if it's a bigger business, sometimes things have to be run up through different managers. Or if you're in a bigger business, obviously as a small team for us, it's really easy if I have a problem to be like, hey, this kind of cooked and you're like, no problems, let's fix it. But in big business, it can be a little bit more challenging. And so recognizing that you might need to have something that your boss can take to their boss or their boss can take to their boss so that they can reallocate resources to ease your load. Because that process isn't always as

direct as simple as it really should be. So on Wednesday's episode, Jess, we spoke about the importance of keeping a paper trail. So if you're up for a promotion or something like that, just having that evidence on hand so you can present it to your boss is very helpful because otherwise they can just dismiss you and, you know, pretend it hadn't happened. And it's so hard to advocate for yourself when you haven't really done it before. And I promise evidence is that thing that's going to feel like that crutch when you walk into that meeting. You're like, no, I have my stuff sorted out. I know I deserve this. I know I can advocate for myself in this conversation, not just, oh Jess, I feel like I deserve a raise. Like that's just, it's not the way things should

go. The other flip side, I guess, from the employer's perspective, and you know, as I said, I'm a bit, I don't want to say good boss. I think I'm bloody brilliant. But like, I just, I get really anxious that I would take advantage of people and I would never, ever want that. So I think from my perspective, it goes one of two ways. If you're working overtime with me, there's two things that could go wrong. I've either allocated you too much work for the amount of hours that I have you each and every single week, in which case that's a me problem. And I really need to reallocate that or think about a way to lift that workload. Again, it's not on my employees. It's on me as an employer to make sure that you're allocated tasks that are in line with

your job description and your capabilities. And if not, cool, we need to reallocate. Sometimes your boss might not be privy to the fact that, you know, hey, G, can you just organize this spreadsheet? In their head, it might be a 10 minute job. In reality, it might be a three hour job and you just need to sit down with your boss and be like, do you realize that like these things that you're allocating me are taking so much longer than you think they are? In which case, is there a way we can automate it? Or can we just reset realistic expectations of what this work looks like. Or on the flip side, I'm allocating you work, you're staying back to get it done because you don't actually have the technical skills to do that work that I have allocated you.

In which case, I need to have a look at it and go, okay, cool. Is there any training I can give you, Jester? We need to do some stuff that could help you. Or is that the right role for you? In which case, you need to have a think about it and go, am I really struggling here and I just don't understand the role or am I not passionate about it? So I'm putting it off all throughout the day to work on it at night to get it done and I'm staying back not because I'm not good at this because I just really don't like my job and I'm just not doing it when I should be doing it. So I think that from my perspective those are the two ends of the spectrum where I go it's either absolutely me or it's my team member that I need to be supporting more. Both outcomes are it's my

responsibility to manage that as your manager. So I think it's important to look at that as well and potentially give your manager or your employer the tools to understand that. Like I think it's about having those open, honest conversations and just feeling out what that means. Because like confrontation, if you're making a TikTok, like sounds really good. Like I'm not going to put up with anything. In reality, it's a bit of a different circumstance. So definitely go back and listen to Wednesday's episode about how to have those hard conversations and yeah, really recognize that it's a case by case basis. We don't want anyone making any rash choices and finding themselves in a sticky situation but also if you're being asked to do something that's unreasonable

that's not cool and that is something that your employer should be fixing and if they're not maybe it's time to look at your other options maybe you need to say sorry for your loss and they'll say what loss and you'll be like me toodaloo all right that is all we have time for today georgia king can you wrap the boring but important stuff let's do it okay 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 a financial decision.

And we promise Victoria Dubine and She's on the Money are authorised representatives of In Focus Securities Australia, Proprietary Limited, ABN 47097797049, AFSL 236523. See you next week, guys. Bye, guys. Thanks for watching!