She's On The Money - Friend or (Fin) Foe?

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

It's Friday again and celebrate with us as we share your money wins and talk the losses, answer a money dilemma  about budgeting to be paid monthly. PLUS you sild into our DMs about friends who undermine your financial goals, has this ever happened to you? Acknowledgement 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. Today is Friday, my friends, which means it is time to get our little team together and celebrate you, our incredible She's on the Money community. Today, Miss Jessica Ricci, hi over there, is going to be sharing our favorite money wins. And we as a team are going to answer a juicy money dilemma that you've got, which this week is all about budgeting to be paid monthly which I feel is a really big pain point for a lot of people in our community and we are going to be unpacking something that you guys slid into our DMs about which this week is all about what to do when your friends aren't accepting your financial goals. A little bit

spicy but first let's recap the week that was. Bec, how are you? How's your week been? Pretty darn good I would have to say. It's pretty good isn't it? Yeah it's been really really good actually I'm it's my last week in my old role big dog energy and I just feel like you know when you mentally check out but in like the best way possible yeah I'm glad this is happening on Friday so that we uh they don't know yeah they don't know that you've been mentally checked out like what are they gonna do you don't work there anymore by the time they hear this uh it's too late they can't even listen like who knows they probably don't listen exactly they don't exist oh no they do they do that's why they were so salty at me oh okay that makes sense yeah yeah

Jess, how was your week? What have you been up to? You know, just touring around the country. Oh, okay. Yeah, just normal stuff like that. No biggie. Just touring the country. Where have we been this week? So we had our International Women's Day events in Melbourne and then also in Sydney today, which has been phenomenal. Sydney was our last city for the month we did four this year. Best feeling in the world. Absolutely.

Cooked, but best feeling in the world. I mean, we probably should tell some people that we're telling porkies when we say today because we recorded it the day before because right now I'm probably on stage and if you didn't get tickets to the She's On The Money event and you're listening to the podcast at, like, you know, 8 or 9 a.m. on a Friday morning, you'll be like, one of these things doesn't add up. They can't coexist.

The math ain't math-in. The math ain't math-in. But we haven't done Sydney yet. I'm currently doing Sydney as this episode is dropping. But Melbourne was lit. Hometown. Like, you just know the vibes are going to be good. You just knew it was going to be good.

like my sister came 10 out of 10 friends and family are there one of our biggest cities as well which is awesome there was more than 500 people that came on Wednesday which blows my mind like I didn't even know that we'd have a community of more than 500 people I remember when I started the Facebook group which preceded the podcast right and it used to just be this little Facebook group that I started because I did workshops called she's on the money and I wanted everybody who came to my workshop to join my Facebook group so we could continue talking about money and sub-annuation and just all this sexy stuff, right? And I remember tipping over 100 and I was like, guys, well, this is crazy. I've made it. No, but I was just like, there are

100 people that want to talk about money. And I mean, I still, you know, maybe commented on a few too many posts myself being like, oh, wow, this is great information. But to think that we have grown not only to more than 250,000 people in that Facebook group now, which blows my mind, But we had 500 people in one room at one time. Which is all celebrating She's On The Money. Like that's incomprehensible to me still. Like I walk away feeling, you know, when you like disconnect a little bit from a situation

because it just doesn't feel real and you're like trying so hard to absorb it, but you're also just still so, I guess, in awe. Yeah, that was me on Wednesday. That was me on Wednesday and I'm still kind of trying to process it. I love it. I adore it. But it is so funny. But for those of you who haven't gone to the show today, let's move on.

Jessica Ricci, I want to know, what community money wins have you got to share with us this week? All right, well, I'm actually going to start with a money loss from Sophie. She said she went to the pub last week with her friend and she just wanted a soda water and the total for two of them was $9.60. No, it wasn't. For soda water. No, that should be free.

No, that should be free. It should be. It really should be. They're really upcharging for those bubbles, aren't they? And it's like never bottled either at the pub. It's always like the post-mix and you know that that's just tap water coming through the post-mix to make me bubbly water. Like, guys, give water out for free. Like $9.

No. No. Too much. I was charged $11 once. What? Wait, wait. $12. $12.

I am not playing with you. $6. $6 per soda water. How much was the wine? I feel like the wine was like $7. Like I really should have. Might as well have just got a wine. Just started drinking.

Do you know what I would have done? and would have bought the wine and then taken my empty wine glass to the bathroom and got my own water from the tap. Money you win, potentially a health loss. It's tap water. I might just, like, dig it out of the toilet bowl next time. That might be better. Is that bad?

Like, at home, do you guys, like, drink water from the tap, right? Absolutely. What's wrong with the tap at the pub? I just think you don't know who's touched the physical tap and what ran off. I'm not putting my mouth around the tap, Jess. Yeah, but you get, I don't know, something about it. But you know what?

That's fine. That's a money win potentially for Sophie at the pub next week. That's it. I do remember one time I was in Tasmania at my grandparents' house and they were on tank water. Oh. And I remember one time we were all complaining that the water tasted rank. And we were like, oh, there's something wrong with the water.

And my grandparents were like, just drink it. It's fine. It's rainwater. Like, it's healthy. It's the best water in the world. It's Tasmanian. And then we found a dead possum. Oh.

I'm still alive. It's fine. Stop it right now. Move on. That is so terrible. Move on. Jess, what have you got? Next, money win comes from Emma who said, money win,

I was ordering from a company and their shipping policy said free shipping after you spent a certain amount. However, it wasn't coming off at the checkout. Turns out they had updated it but forgot to update the policy on the website and so I wrote to them and I got a discount code to still receive free shipping. Oh, how good for you. Follow up when things aren't working.

Make sure you get that discount. My next money win comes from Bailey Jean who said, I applied for a job late last year but wasn't successful until a few weeks ago when HR called offering me the same role. Yes, amazing. Just signed my contract and I'm earning 20K more than I was earning this time last year. I feel like that is big dog energy.

Like so many times we'll get rejected for a role and we just take it personally and go, oh, my gosh, like they must have hated me or I could never do that. Like why did I do it? when stuff like this happens, like usually during the hiring process, it's so pragmatic. They might go, all right, I'm hiring. Beck and Jess have applied for this role. Beck's got this much experience. Jess has got this much experience. Loved Beck. Loved Jess. Jess has more experience. Tick that box. It's usually got nothing to do with you personally, but rather the business at

the time needs to pick the candidate who has the most things that tick boxes, right? Because obviously they're trying to fill a role and get a job done. And pragmatically, if someone has more experience, they might be better at it. But if you're ever in that situation and you're feeling a bit flat, go back and say, oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me know. Can you give me a little bit of feedback? So next time when I apply for this role, I'm more experienced or have the right criteria. Like what could I meet? And that might put you one in a better position because you might just go, just needed another year more working. I'm going to go back into the workforce, stay there in that role and then do exactly what this community member's done,

where basically she just sat pretty and waited for the roll to come back in. Dream. Money win. Or you might see something similar pop up and go, no, I am qualified. I can do this because one no doesn't mean no forever. And sometimes they keep your resume on file like they did for Bailey. My next money win this week comes from Anna who said, massive money win. We needed a new couch so we went to Ikea to have a look.

The one that we wanted was $1,300 plus. Couches are so expensive at the moment. So expensive. And I found out that you can change the entire cover on the couch. Very smart. Big fan of that. I did some searching and found a couch in good structural condition on Gumtree for $100. Bought it, picked it up, and then ordered brand new covers from Ikea for $300.

All in all, I saved $900 for pretty much a brand new couch. That's so good. That's so smart. I would never have thought of that. Removable covers too. Only way to go. So I have removable covers on the couch that we currently have and adore, and it's now making it really hard to pick a new couch because we need a new couch.

That's how I feel. and I really love this particular one. It doesn't fit our space anymore but like being able to put them in the washing machine and wash them with three pets is the best but it's so hard to find. So it's good to know IKEA have some arguably affordable ones because I feel like every couch in this dog is now worth a billion dollars. They're so extensive.

I know. What's up with that? I don't know. Like you just sit. You just sit. You have literally no functionality. I don't get it. Oh, my goodness.

My next money win comes from Linda who said she used up old apples and a carrot and made 12 apple carrot bars for my kids' lunchboxes and she made her own Baker's Delight cheese and bacon rolls as well. Holy dooly. How good is that? I want the recipe. That is so resourceful. I know.

I feel like that sounds so good. Imagine having a little carrot apple bar, you know, some scrolls. I'm on the TikTok side where they make lunchboxes for their kids or their partners. That makes sense. My husband really fancy. Yeah, you have like four kids and a husband, right? Exactly.

so it totally makes sense that I'm there. Yeah, literally. My last money win for this week comes from Taylor who said, money win. We just bought our first home. I'm self-employed. We have a two-year-old daughter and we did it all on our own. Yes. How exciting is that? Congratulations, Taylor. That's awesome. And being self-employed gives you so many more hurdles to getting into the market. Genius. Love it. Yeah, that's awesome. How exciting. All right. Well, let's go to a really quick break because after the break, I really want to dive into a conversation about budgeting when you have a monthly income, which I think is something we all struggle with at some point in our lives. And we have a little dilemma about what happens when your friends aren't

accepting of your financial goals. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right. Welcome back, everybody. Let's jump into one of the best bits of the week, I think. Money Dilemma. I love this part. So good. hi there have you got a money dilemma you just can't solve the she's on the money team is here to help every week we tackle your dilemmas both big and small to answer your most burning money career and life questions to get involved simply head to our website and leave us a short voice recording and you might just find yourself on the show now let's take a listen to this week's money dilemma. Hey, I've got a money dilemma for you. I get paid monthly and right now at the end of every single month, I am strapped for cash. At the start of each month, I put some money away for

my savings, for investing and to pay my bills. And by the end of the month, I am looking for money under the couch. So I'm just looking for some tips and guidance on how I can avoid that because December, January was rough this year. Anyway, love your work. Bye. That took me by surprise that it was a male voice because I wasn't expecting it. But I love that we have men in our community.

We had a few at our events over the past couple of weeks and we had a few that arguably were brought against their will as boyfriends and there were some who listened and I freaking love it. I love that. It's actually the best. It did give me a little jump though. I was like, is this the right recording?

I love this though. I also love this question because I feel like this is something that I used to struggle with. And then I found my way of budgeting. And Jess, I feel like you're probably really good at talking about this because I pay you monthly. Well, unfortunate. But I guess the summary of this is my best advice would literally be the She's on the Money Budgeting Cashflow course. And the reason for that is because there's so much more that comes into budgeting and cashflow and structuring ourselves than just, okay, well, instead of living week to week? How do I live month to month? Because those big costs then add up even more. I feel like they

hurt you more when you're living on a monthly budget than a weekly one. Because if a really big cost comes up, Jess, you go, oh shit, like that's okay. All right, I'll pay it off over the next two or three weeks. And you can kind of justify it better to yourself than if you go, okay, cool. I got paid four and a half thousand dollars this month. And then I have my rego and it's $1,200. And you're like, wow, that's a quarter of my income or a quarter of my budget just gone. And I think that when it comes to budget and cashflow, we actually need to take a step back and not talk about how often you get paid, but rather how many bills and expenses do I have every week, every month, every year? What do those different expenses cost? What do they

look like? If it's a weekly cost, like groceries, okay, we can put it in as a weekly cost, but then it might be a monthly cost like a phone bill and then it extrapolates out to annual bills like you might have some insurances to pay or you might have your rego or your car insurance or something like that, right, that we need to take into consideration. And if it's $1,200 a year for your car rego, well, it's $100 a month that we actually have to put aside to make sure that it doesn't bite us in the butt when it comes time to paying it. So I think it's actually about the system you have and there's not actually a different way of approaching it when it comes to I get paid weekly or I get paid monthly when we start that conversation because we actually need

to understand every single dollar that comes into our account and what job it has and making sure that we have a banking structure and that's why I always talk about this concept called a cash hub where every single dollar goes into your cash hub and it sits there in waiting for you to give it a job. And every single dollar that comes into your account gets given a job. So it might come in and it might be for your food, fuel and fun account, which I call that because it sounds way more fun, but that's basically your everyday expenses and your groceries and things that you'd tap a debit card for. You might say, okay, Victoria, I spend a total of $250 a week on food, fuel and fun. So you take that $250 from your cash hub and pop it on your debit card on a weekly basis. And I

recommend that regardless of whether you get paid weekly or monthly or fortnightly or however you get paid. We set up a direct debit. Mine personally is on a Thursday because I want to withhold all of my money till closer to the end of the week. Because if you give me $250 on Monday, it's going to be gone. It's going to be gone. That's exactly it, right? And it's exactly how I function because I can't be trusted. Why do you think I have such a strict system that enables me to work in the way that I work, but also takes into consideration the fact that I literally have ADHD. So if the money's there, I'm going to spend it. It's just going to happen. So I transfer it on the Thursday because often if I'm going to go out for drinks, it might be on a Thursday or a Friday night after

work. And then I know that if I've got the weekend coming up, okay, well, if I have brunch on a Saturday, I then look at my account, make sure that I've got some money left over. And you know, that time of the week is when I do my groceries, right? So I have that money that goes there. But then I also have all my direct debits coming out of my cash hub. So the money that is sitting in that cash hub is kind of laying in wait, you could say, to be allocated to an expense. So it might be my monthly phone bill, and I know that that's $45 a month, and that's going to come out of my cash hub.

So that money doesn't need to be put to work in the interim. That money for me, that job of that cash is to sit there and wait so that it can pay my bill later in the month. and I think that there's this misconception where every single dollar needs to work as hard as you do for it but when I say that I don't mean it needs to be making a massive return I mean it needs to be taking some pressure off you or feeling good about that or you know it's working hard for you so that it can pay the bill that you have foreseen coming up right yeah and then every single week or you could do this monthly or fortnightly or however often you want we then

transfer out our savings amount and our investment amount if we're in the privileged position to be able to do those things. So they're pre-allocated. That money's already put into other accounts that we can't touch, we can't talk about. And then if you have a mortgage, which I know is going to be a question that people will ask, one of the best things that you can do, not advice, just what my clients have been doing for a really long time, is making that cash hub an offset to your mortgage so that your cash that is laying in wait to be given a job is actually offsetting the money that you are meant to be paying on your mortgage. Very smart. Which means even when it's kind of laying in wait, not doing anything, at least it's kind of working a little bit hard.

If you don't have that system set up, you don't have a mortgage, that's totally okay. It could just be a savings account that you get paid into that might have some type of return at this point in time. Not that likely, but it's a good idea. It's a good thing to think about. But every single dollar needs to be allocated for. So regardless of whether you work monthly or you work fortnightly or weekly, or if you are someone who has a really inconsistent income, and I know lots of people in our community work casually and maybe over Christmas, they take over heaps more shifts because they're at uni and they can do that. And then when they're, you know, back at uni during the year, they can't do as many shifts. This system works for you as well, because it tells

us how much we spend each week and we need to allocate to our spending fund. So what that looks like is going, okay, cool. I'm working my butt off over these Christmas holidays. I've made triple what I usually make. That doesn't mean you spend triple. That means that we actually have a baseline of spending that we know we meet and that cash hub might get a little bit juicier. At which point we go, all right, should I be, you know, treating myself? We can treat ourselves sometimes. That's absolutely okay. But we really need to think of it like making hay while the sun is shining. So if you have some extra cash coming in, can we put it into an emergency fund? Can we put it into savings or an investment to get ourselves ahead so that when we are back in the groove of things

and we don't have that flexibility that we had over Christmas, can we actually make use of those funds then to take the pressure off in the way that you thought you were going to have those work for you? Does that make sense? That makes sense. That does make sense. So it's one of those things that I find really challenging to articulate by a podcast because like the way that I've always taught it is to you know go all right Beck let's sit down and I'll draw out a cash flow system on a whiteboard and this is where this goes and what are your values how does this work and maybe Beck and I will do that actually because I've told Beck that I'll I'll do her budget and cash flow very soon thank you because you got a new job you have to be on it no I need to be on it right now

I'm moving we won't tell we won't tell people what you're earning but we can talk about the system and I can teach you and like share that. That seems quite fun. And then Jess, what tips and tricks do you have as somebody who lives in the situation of being a monthly payee? I actually quite like it. I don't know if I'm the anomaly here. I prefer monthly pay. Why? I think because I'm a very visual person. So for me at the start of the month, and I mean, the money is the same, right? Whether you're being paid twice a month, once a month, every week, whatever it is, the amount of money that you have coming in, or at least in this situation,

for me personally, because I'm on a salary, it's the same. And so I really like that I have the full amount and I can then do my breakdown, which for the most part stays the same because I have my budget as my baseline. But if I go, oh, this month I have two weddings and I want to buy a dress or I need to allocate money for a gift, I can look at all of my money for the month as a whole and figure out what the impact is. Whereas I feel like if you're going week to week or fortnight to fortnight I haven't had that for a really long time because I think monthly is more common in corporate work but when I was doing that I was always falling into the trap of being like oh I'm going to spend this money and I'll just put extra back in next pay whereas I think when you're

going month to month I'm not going to have any additional funds for four to five weeks and I feel like that makes me better and being very visual I haven't I've said this before but I have accounts for everything that I spend on on the month I have one for clothes I have one for beauty I have one for groceries and I put my money in there for the month and I go, that's what I've got. And when that starts to get low, I go, oh, I need to pull my head in or I need to really think about my purchases. And that works for my brain, I guess.

Do you like monthly pay? I can definitely appreciate that. I think that I like seeing it as well as a whole and seeing like, you know, I can pay my rent in one go. I don't have to be like, okay, this week I'm putting, you know, yeah, it feels good. So there are some bills that I like to just get out of the way. But then budgeting for the next few weeks, like this is what my fun fuel and what did you call it? Food fuel and fun.

Food fuel and fun. I will set you up. I'm going to film me drawing the diagram. Yeah, I would really love that because right now I don't know what I'm doing. So that would be amazing. I got you, boo. I got you. I also feel like, do you think that we get paid more?

This probably sounds ridiculous, but because we get paid monthly, it's like when you pay rent monthly, it's a little bit more than if you paid it weekly. so I feel like it's the same if you get paid monthly. Yeah, it kind of works out that way. It's kind of a little bit more. Yeah, it depends on what system people work on. So Jess's system, I hope you don't mind me sharing this, I'm not telling people what you get paid but my moment is good. The way it works for us is two weeks in arrears and two weeks ahead

so it's never actually January's pay if that makes sense or February's pay. It falls in the middle of that month and it's kind of like two weeks in arrears, two weeks ahead and that seems to work for us quite well. So for Jess, it would be consistent basically every time or should be every time just because of the way it works. Obviously, if someone is paying you quote on a monthly basis and you have to work an entire month and then get paid, February has 28 days. So that would be less. And then all the months that have like 31 days, you'd get paid more. So it really depends on how your, I guess, bookkeeping works. But I'm going to say something really spicy that I don't know everyone is going to love. People who like monthly

pays are usually more responsible when it comes to budgeting and cashflow. Makes sense. It's all triggered out. Yeah. So like if you're getting paid monthly and it stresses you out, I don't want to pinpoint, but more times than not, when I sit down with that person, I will find that they aren't across their budget. They don't know how much they spend. They don't know how they can save or how they can invest because they've never really done that before and they've always just operated out of, I guess, anxiety and gone, okay, well, I have all this money and I know that, you know, my rent might be $1,200 a month

so I can't spend that and then it's a free-for-all for the rest of it and I'll just work it out and it'll be right. Oh, it's a week until the end of the month. Oh, crap, all right. Well, I just won't go out for drinks with my friends. Like that's kind of how I find. That is literally me. But it's my experience with people who get paid monthly

who maybe aren't on top of it and it actually doesn't matter what you earn. You could be earning $40,000 a year, you could be earning $400,000 a year and that same system is going to mess you up regardless. And I think a lot of people often think, oh, I don't earn enough and if I do my budget, I'll feel really overwhelmed and this will really suck. It's not like that at all. You'll actually feel more empowered because you go, yep, sick, all my bills are there. This is what I can spend without getting into trouble. And if you're not on top of your budget and cash flow, ultimately you'll start spending more than you're earning and you will end up in a pickle. So it's, I don't know, I feel like budgets can be really restrictive and that's why people avoid

them. But from my perspective, it's actually just a little bit of insight. How am I spending my money? Am I okay with it? It's not about comparison. It's not about restricting yourself. I don't restrict myself in my budget at all. Like I get really sick of people and I'm seeing a lot of TikToks at the moment. I feel like I bring TikTok up every single Friday, but that's because that's where I live. I live on TikTok, guys. That's okay. That's okay, right? No judgment. But people are like, I save 80% of my income. No chance, babe. None. It's just not going to happen. Yeah. And I need to be really honest about that. Yeah. What do you live in a cardboard box? Yeah, like if you come to She's On The Money to save 80% of your income, you do you boo,

but I will not be teaching you. Yeah. It's just not going to happen because I'm not about restriction. I just think that that ultimately leads to burnout and putting yourself in a pickle position. But do you reckon we've spoken too much about budget and cash flow? I'm just so excited about it. And I believe it's been off for a little bit, but I'll turn it back on seeing as we're harping on about it right now. If you want to do the budget and cash flow. You guys should get something out of the fact that you just listened to all of that. If you want to do the budget and cash flow masterclass, which is the system that I use, the budget we're going to get back on as well. And it comes with a very handy dandy automated budget that does your full. She's sexy.

It is pretty good and it does it all for you if you're not a math scale like myself. Very handy. use the code POD50. I'll turn it back on today. It'll be up for three weeks. I'm going to make it four weeks. Oh, she's generous. She's in a good mood. Oh no, she's in a bad mood again. No, four weeks, four weeks. I said it. We'll stick with it. All right, all right, all right. Next four weeks, you can use the code POD50 because if you're paid monthly, then even if your payday was today, you can work into your budget for next month. Yeah. Okay. That seems quite kind of you. I'm not that nice. I would have been like, oh, I forgot about the discount code, YOLO. You're a much nicer person than me. Let's move on though. How about we have a chat about

our community concern, which looked like this. Hey V, Jess and Beck. Oh, you've been invited into the community by our DMs. I feel partnered with them. I'm loving these chats and I'm hoping you can help me with my dilemma. I have an amazing group of girlfriends. We met at uni and have stayed friends now into our twenties. However, my goals are starting to shift and I really want to save for a house. I told the girls that I want to stop going out and then in brackets says, because let's be real a night out is bloody spino and they've just been really annoying about it they tell me you're only young once and don't be boring but I genuinely don't care anymore about spending my money on a night out and I get so much guilt when I look at my bank account the next day

how can I approach this with them they are aware so I need help I understand it's been a bit of a pillar of our friendship so I'm worried that they'll stop being so friendly with me please help. Kiss, kiss. Many layers, many layers. Like an onion. Like an onion, I would say. I know that like my friends would never pressure me to go out and, you know, but I guess if you've... Good friends. Yeah, good, yeah, good friends. I have really good friends and we all should have friends that don't pressure us to do things that we don't want to do. Absolutely not. Are they really your friend if they're pressuring you? Exactly. But I also know there's this thing that you're only young once, you got to go out and live it up and hopefully it's coming from a good place. Hopefully

it's not just like hey you're our fun drunk friend so you got to come out all the time hopefully they're like hey i am that is the way i'm back that's not true i'm so annoying i go out and i think this might be because i'm in my 30s now jess can probably attest because she might be in her 20s but she acts like she's in her 30s we'll go out and we'll be like do you want a cocktail yep want a cocktail do you want to be in bed by nine yep want to be in bed by nine bye The best of both worlds. Best of both worlds. Get me drunk and get me cozy in bed.

Yeah, they're all cozy. Oh, my God, that sounds perfect. But we asked the community a few follow-up questions, and one of them was, have your financial goals changed in the past few years? And 95% of people said absolutely. Character development. Yep, and 5% said, yeah, nah, stayed the same.

So 95% of our community, because that was a pretty good sample size, said, yeah, no, we change. The next question we asked them was, did you have any friends slash family that you felt you needed to justify these goals to? Which I find really ick, like that was why we asked, but I hate the idea that we feel like we need to justify ourselves. 59%, so that's pretty good, said absolutely not. It isn't their business. But 41% of you said, yes, it was something I felt was necessary. Ick. And then we said, do you sometimes feel uncomfortable telling your friends you can't afford a night out because you're saving for something else. 40% said, yep. 27% said, no, my friends are really good with this. And then 33%

of you, so exactly a third said a bit of both. So I just find that from my perspective, really interesting, especially because we are right now, we're sitting in a community or a room full of women who are very akin to finance conversations. Like if Jess said, I can't afford that, I'd be like, yeah, sick, no worries, we'll work something out. Like, it doesn't even cross my mind that there's a layer of judgment that might be there. Like, I feel like if I said to you, Bec, something and you said no, I'd be like, yeah, right, no worries, let's find a different solution. Like, it's not, why not? Oh, but you can't, I would feel horrendous. And I feel, is that starting to trickle into your friendship conversations, Jess? Yeah. And I don't know, as you said,

if it's an age thing, I would be really interested to know the ages of our, and obviously we're doing it on Instagram story. So like the data is not perfect, but I think definitely, as you get older, I think firstly, you care less, love that. But also I think those priorities really do have to shift because I've had a friend within the last couple of months say to our group of girls, hey, like, is it all right if we ease back on the things that we're doing because our mortgage has gone up and we've got a kid and this and that. And every response immediately was, of course, what can we do come to our house we'll cook you did like there wasn't even a beat of thought where you would ever say no what are you doing so I don't know if that's because as you get older

generally people do take on a little bit more of a financial burden but also I think that the mindset of her friends sounds very like selfish and that is again something that's typical of all of us when we're really young right it's that no I want you to be there because you are my best team we have so much fun and we're gonna get drunk we're gonna do this we're gonna do that and that is fine, but I don't think they're thinking about the impact that it's having on our listener. And that it is hard to be the person who's like, oh, I'm the boring one. And I was always the boring one. Like, oh, like I've got responsibilities or I've got things I want to do or whatever. But as you said, are they your friends? Because again, if you're young and

I'm making presumptions here, but you do tend to outgrow people. Like there are sometimes people who are just there for a season of your life, people that you would go out with at uni or people that you were in class at school with them and I think that if you get to a place where your goals don't align and if you get to a place where they're not willing to be flexible on their expectations of you maybe they're just not the right people for you anymore and that's not a bad thing it's funny isn't it as you get older and I guess now having been through my 20s I reflect on it and it's it's just so interesting because I remember my mum saying to me some of your friendships will actually end up being situationships and you might be like good friends

with them because you both work at the same cafe and you text each other all the time because you've got this like commonality between the two of you and the second one of you leaves the communication is just going to stop you're not going to talk to each other ever again despite saying oh my gosh I talk to her every single day I opened the cafe with her at 5am every morning we were so close when in reality you just had something in common that bonded the two of you together. And I just find that so interesting because I was like in my late teens being like, whatever, these are my best friends for my whole entire life.

And now I'm like, I do not want to surround myself with those people. What are you talking about? You are not like supportive or kind or whatever you are that I want to surround myself with now. And it's interesting because it can be heartbreaking at the same time because the loss of a friendship hurts it can suck but I'm not saying that that's what this you know listener should go through but I think it's just an interesting I guess segue into I guess conversing back again about just stick to your boundaries like create boundaries

with it and say okay cool well I've worked out my budget and I can probably go out like once a month so you know if there's a few things you want to do let me know like what's your fave and like I'll make sure that I come to that one or even just sharing the goal be like oh my gosh I'm saving thirty thousand dollars and I'm going to be doing this over the next three years by saving ten thousand dollars and oh my gosh if you break that up that's twenty seven dollars fifty a day and oh my gosh that just falls through your fingers so easily I think really contextualizing it and I don't think anyone should justify anything to anybody we've spoken about this on the podcast before. You do not owe anybody an explanation for anything. But as a people pleaser, I love doing

that. So let's give you the tools to do that properly, but it is not an expectation. I think being able to quote justify it in a way and just say, hey, like these are my goals. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I want to do. Well, maybe make your friends see that you are far more serious about it than, oh, she's just got in her head that she wants to buy a house. It's not going happen. Whereas, you know, walking the walk can often make people see that, oh, Jess is serious. Yeah. And they adapt to this new version of you. Yeah. Yeah. Slowly, slowly. And we can all change and be different people and change our goals. Like 95% of our community said that their financial goals have changed in the last few years. Yeah. And I think that's

really cool. But then also, who knows, you might get halfway down this home buying journey and save half a deposit and be like, I don't want to do that anymore. That's totally okay. I think we need to be accepting of that as well. But I just think friends should support friends. I think there's the difference between FOMO, like your friends just don't want you to miss out and I just really want Jess to come to the party. I just really want Jess there because I bloody love Jess. And then there's judgment. And I think those two things are very different. And I think that we need to be able to decipher them so that we don't feel like our friends are judging us for being, you know, oh my God, I can't believe Jess is not doing that. She sucks so much. And oh,

my friend actually just really wants me there. Maybe we could find a common ground. Why don't you come to my place before? We'll have a wine while you get ready. And then, you know, I'm not going to drink that much. I'll drop you to the train station. Like I can still have that quality time with my friend. So I think really working out what the underlying driver of that conversation is, is going to really help. Because if it is judgment, get in the bin. But if it's not, it's really around, oh, I just really want to spend more time with you and I only have the weekends because I work all week. Oh, well, what could we do? How can we spend more time together in a way that services both of our goals? Yeah, absolutely. That's really, yeah,

really good point. And I think that if, let's say, this community member didn't actually say that they wanted to go out still, they kind of are prioritizing saving money. But let's say hypothetically that's also a priority of theirs you don't have to really go out and drink you can maybe i know this is really boring you can go have a soda water or six bucks though six just have tap water um or you could just like have like house gathers try and shift it from going out house gathers she's always been way cooler than i'll ever be thank you i thought Gather was a lame word, but here we are. No, I've just never been invited to a house gathering. Oh, I'll invite you to one of mine. Thank you. I would love one. Absolutely. I would

love that. Because that's a lot cheaper. You know, you grab a six pack of beers, you sit around a bonfire. It's so much cheaper. So maybe like just compromising with your friends and be like, hey, let's just go to mine this weekend or let's do something, let's go to the park. Let's do something where we can buy drinks at an alcohol store instead of going out and paying $12 per her behind at the bar. Pick somewhere that does a special, like a lot of places will do like two for one Tuesdays or stuff like that. Like, can you find if you really don't want to give up that experience of going out, if that is what you want to do. Dig around, like most places these days will do like a discount night or a ladies night or something. Make the patriarchy work for

you. Ladies night, cheaper drinks, sign me up. Absolutely. You guys are talking about alcohol and I'm over here. I'm like, oh yeah, like taco Tuesday, two for one tacos, 10 out of 10. So it It doesn't always have to be about alcohol. We could go get the cheap tacos, right? Absolutely. Cheap Tuesday at the cinemas. Oh, my God. So good.

Oh, cheap Tuesday. Forgot about that. That's a good one as well. And if you wear a big hoodie, you can sneak your snacks in. And I don't care what people say. I will do that till I die. Absolutely. I think that's all we have time for today, though, guys.

It has been a pleasure, as always. Thank you for coming to our International Women's Day events, if you came to those. Happy International Women's Day week. Happy International Women's Day week. I'm making it a month. I love it. International Women's Month.

It's going to be long. Yeah, like I don't care what people say. We are rallying for that over the next few years. But have the best weekend and we'll see you guys on Monday. Bye, 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 MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289. Thank you.