She's On The Money - How She Went From High School Dropout to $750k Net Worth

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

Have you ever wanted to pack a bag, vanish from your old life? That’s exactly what this week’s Money Diarist did when her world flipped upside down at 21 and she had everything taken away from her, and it became the start of a money story she never saw coming. What began as a running-away chapter chasing her love of travel turned into years of odd jobs, fishing boats, and tour guiding, where lifestyle always came first and paycheques came second. But somewhere between chasing adventure and moving towns, she quietly built the foundation for a financial glow-up that would shock even her. Fast forward to today and she’s earning serious money, living far smaller than her income would suggest, and stacking wealth in ways that don’t make sense until you hear the full story. There are moments in this diary that will have you gasping, laughing, and maybe questioning your own risk tolerance. Ready to binge more relatable, inspiring, and downright juicy money stories? Check out our ultimate Money Diaries playlist. Listen now Join our Facebook Group AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+. And follow us on Instagram for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you.  Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 4See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast that lets you be pervy about other people's money habits for educational purposes, of course. Welcome back to another one of our Money Diaries episodes where I get the absolute pleasure of sitting down and having a chat with one of our She's On The Money community members all about their money journey. Let's jump straight into it because I got an email this week and it sounded exactly like this. Hi, She's On The Money.

When I was 21, my partner sadly died and we had been together for seven years. He had no will and his family got everything, including the house. So I left my hometown and traveled to work around Australia. Now I'm in mining and my taxable income is $203,000 a year which is crazy to me but I can't share my financial victories with my friends or family as they all see it as bragging but my current net worth is $750,000 completely solo. Money Dourist, welcome to the show. Thank you. Also it's not bragging, we are sharing our journey so that other people can learn. Well, that's right. But it is very hard to find people that like to do the same thing. It is true. I think because for so long, like it's been so taboo to talk about money,

but like, sorry, the more we talk about money, especially as women, weird, the more power we have, the more choice we have. Do you know what? They don't like that, do they? No, they really don't. No, they don't like that. And given you're in mining, I feel like that might be a sticky conversation to have, especially if you're a little bit more financially savvy, especially as a female. So before we get any further into it, I need to know, if I asked you to give your money habits a grade from A through to F, what do you think you would grade them? I would say a B. A B. All right. I'm very excited to learn more about this. But before we get into why you've

given yourself a B, I want to go all the way back to when you were 21, because you have said in your diary in, you're 41 now. So this was like 20 years ago, but I can imagine it still feels relatively fresh what is it like when you are 21 and you've been with your partner for seven years which is literally the entire period where you're like forming your personality and yourself for them to pass away it was devastating and it's amazing again you don't know what you don't know so when his family because we both had very rocky family lives when we were younger that's why we kind of clung to each other and we were like we were everything to each other so when they got the house, it was like I'd failed him at the same time as losing him. So could I have fought for

the house? And a lot of people say, yes, but you had rights to the house. Yes, I would have. And I did try to fight for a bit, but my mental state at that stage wasn't there. So I did have the ability to fight for it. I did try, I ended up with a solicitor's bill out of the whole thing. So yeah, there's that. Oh wow, money win. Yeah, yeah. And I remember it was about probably eight or nine months after he died that the solicitor actually contacted me and I'd moved away by then, ran away, which was the best thing I ever done by the way yeah good good job queen yeah but he was like you know oh because workers comps come into it because it was on the way home from work it's now worth a lot of money we're happy

to fight for you and I'm like I wanted the house they're already in there they would have already ruined it so the one thing I wanted I don't want anymore oh do you know what that's so shitty I'm so sorry there's nothing I can say that like changes that but oh I just I really feel for you because that's so formative like being together with someone for seven years at 21 and you kind of like grow with that person and like learn about yourself with that person and then to have it all ripped away like oh and you said that you were from rocky families and you clung to each other like oh that's it's so heartbreaking but nobody thinks when they're 21 that their life is as fragile as it is yeah and it really again you learn so much from that like

if I look back, everything does happen for a reason. And I definitely wouldn't have moved away from my hometown and lived the incredible life I have without that happening. Major learning curve. You know, most people learn it later on in life when they get divorced. Oh yeah. You got that really early. Like, and I can guarantee you right now, he's so proud of you. He's like, girl, like, what do you mean you've done all of this? Like he's so ridiculously proud, but at the same time, like, sorry, let's, let's go back a little bit before all of this happened. you were 21 and owned a house? Yeah. So I was 17 when we bought it. I was 17, he was 19. Oh, okay. Older boy. I like this. Yeah. By two years.

Sorry. When you're 17, that feels like a lot. It does. Yep. And our house price back then was $52,000. Yeah. And the first home buyers grant was $7,000. So basically 13% of it come from the government. So yeah, we got told, you know, put it just in one name because then later on you can get the first home buys in the other person's name. That's the only reason it was in just his name. Ah, like great advice, I think. Yeah. And looking back, I would probably do the same thing again now. You know, if they offered 13% of any home now, you'd jump at it, you know, and put it in one person's name. Oh, take my money. Like, absolutely. I get it. But having that ripped away would have been heartbreaking. And then you made the decision to quote,

run away what's that look like? So I got to the stage where everybody knew me knew about us because it was a small town that we were from so you couldn't go anywhere without anybody bringing it up and I basically went okay I need out so I got another job on the other side of the country and ran away and I literally did I just packed everything and I was like I'm out if I'm honest even to this day most of my stuff is still in storage at my mum and dad's. Oh my god yeah yeah yeah fair and yeah I actually went away and started working on a fishing boat and then from there I kind of got the travel bug and started moving around and started traveling Australia as a tour guide picking up work whatever it was wherever it was and never chased money

funnily enough my mum is a bit of a hoarder I mean she's still got all your stuff yeah 20 years later so stuff really freaks me out I remember when I first moved into a house after being in a van and I bought a fridge and I'm like oh my god I can't just leave anymore now I've got a four bedroom house and it's full of stuff and it's just me. And I'm like, how do I do that? Yeah, that's a lot more tied down. I'm not going to lie, but that's okay. Cause like, as you know, you can just leave whenever you want to leave. Like if you want to be over and out, you can be, it just depends on what you're willing to lose, I suppose. So talk to me more about this because you clearly have some, and I won't get into money habits now, but you've clearly done

a lot in the last 20 years and leaving your hometown to go work on a fishing boat. That wasn't on my bingo card like I couldn't have guessed that that's what you would do was that because you had I don't know experience in that space interest in that space were you like this is literally so different to what I'm doing that's why like talk me through the thought pattern there because like running away makes sense but on the flip side running away to a fishing boat like where did that idea come from so I was a tour guide in my hometown and the fishing boat was a hostess position so it was basically serving cocktails and stuff like that oh that's fun yeah so I was like okay let's do this let's just go I had never really been on a big boat before and I remember

the first day making beds and I was seasick as hell and I was just like oh my god what have I done and my room back then when I because it was literally the other side of Australia nothing there was an old shipping container oh my goodness that didn't have doors or windows or anything basically so it was a big culture shock and it was like really what have I done but I stuck it out and it got better and better from there really. Yeah. Wow. So tell me what happens, like how much do you get paid on a fishing boat? Back then it wasn't very much and I've never chased money. I've always chased lifestyle. And I think that is what I learned from that is that money can be taken away. So I've always made sure that I am protecting myself

and I've got like, I'm very low risk tolerance. So debt is bad to me. Yep. That's okay though. The most important thing is that you know that. That's right. I do know that. So I've always stockpiled money just in case because you never know what's going to happen. I never want to be homeless again. But yeah, getting paid on the fishing boat back then, it would have only been a few hundred a week. My first job when I first left school, because I left school when I was 15 and my first job, I remember my first paycheck was $233 for the week and I was over the moon. That's a lot. Yeah, it was huge. And in my head, even today, I still see myself as only being on 30 grand a year.

So everybody's like, how do you save so much? I'm like, well, I just don't need a lot. You sound like Brooke from my team who recently did an investing money diary with me. And she just like somehow has managed to outsmart lifestyle creep. Like she just lives on the absolute bare minimum and saves the rest and invests the rest. And like, hats off to you. I wish I could be that cool. Tell me a little bit more. I want to get into it. So you've gone from, I guess, not chasing money. We are on a fishing boat. You've kind of gone roll to roll, but like, girl, you're on $203,000 and you're working in mining. What do you do in mining? And like, how is that salary package made up? Okay. So the 203 is my taxable income. So it's

a mix of a lot of stuff. My role in mining is I am an operator. So I drive the dozers, graders, water carts, stuff like that. Oh, that's kind of fun. Yeah, it can be, it can also be really boring. Don't worry. Okay. But like, that sounds very fun. Like that sounds like a cool girl job. It is a cool girl job. When you say to people, you drive the big doses, they're like, wow. And you're like, until you're in them. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I would cry. I would cry. That sounds really scary. And they're not that bad. Honestly, everybody says you're going to not be able to have kids and all of that. They're actually smoother than a lot of other machines.

So don't believe everything you hear. And yeah, so my income from that is generally about 160k a year. I do do a lot of overtime. So that pushes it up into the 180s. And then I bought a property last year, a rental property, which brings in quite a bit of extra for me. Oh, very nice. So tell me about the decision to buy a rental property as somebody who's relatively low tolerance and doesn't like debt. So I have been thinking about property for a long time, a very long time. And I bought a property in a mining town that I could buy outright. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I see. I was like, how, like, I'm not saying it's wrong, but you said, look, I'm really, really low tolerance. I was like, and she doesn't like being tied down. So

the idea of a mortgage, it's just, wasn't sticking for me. You bought a house outright. Sorry. I meant to get into this later, but how much does a house outright cost? When, where, how? So the house was 435,000. And you just had that in your bank account? I actually, on the time of settlement, I did. I didn't think I would. Who are you? So I did take an offset loan out and I still have it at the moment, but I'd pay no interest. So over the course of the loan, I've paid, I think $300 in interest the whole time. And that was while

I got it set up in the first month. Unrelatable. I love this for us though, because we get to learn. Is this because you kind of essentially delude yourself into earning $30,000 a year? So is that where this lifestyle comes into it? Talk to me about like, what does lifestyle look like? Because I think that when you say to somebody, I earn 200 grand plus, right? but then I live like I'm on $30,000. A lot of people would say, girl, you're missing out. So tell me, cause like you seem very happy. You have an energy about you that I love. And I just don't think that you're missing out on all that much. I'm not missing out on anything. So I live in a small town, but I was brought up in a small town.

So a lot of people hate this town because it's so small. Whereas I'm like, you know what? We've got a supermarket. We've got a post office. We've got a cafe. What more could you want? Like, I mean, you're right. You're right. I do drive an hour to get groceries most weeks. So other than that, it's not too bad. So fuel prices high, but also life satisfaction high. Yeah. Yeah. And I work seven days on, seven days off. So you can always leave town on your seven days off. So basically that pay check coming in is for six months of the year. Where else can you get that? Okay. Excuse me. So tell me, what are you doing with your seven days off?

Everybody asks me this and I don't actually know. I'm such a homebody. Like this week, I've got seven days off and everybody's like, where are you going? Because I took an extra two days off. And I actually went and climbed a mountain, you know, like that's me done. I went for a hike. So the next seven days I will probably lay in the sun. I kind of love this for you. Can I be really pervy about your personal life? Do you have a partner? Like what does life, like lifestyle at home look like? I do not have a partner. I do have a house, which I live in, which is provided by the mining company I work for. So I pay about $20 a week for a four bedroom house. Oh, that's way too much. Yeah. I know. It's ridiculous, right? Are you

okay. Will you recover? They keep saying to me that I'm going to be the one who knocks the house down because the mine's only got five years left. Oh, that's kind of scary. Yeah. And I'm like, not a chance. It's going on the back of the truck. It's coming with me. So you live in a very regional town. You're like paying like $20. What was that? A week? Yeah. A week for a whole house. What are you doing with the other bedrooms? I need to know because you don't come across as a hoarder. I feel like you are a bit of a minimalist, aren't you? I am, but I do have everything full load. It's, you know, it's got the gym equipment that you don't use. It's got the normal stuff that everybody else has. Yeah. Okay. And I come

home to my puppy dog every single night, but it is just me. So you've bought a house outright for $435,000. You said you had an offset loan. Does that mean that you have other properties or did you just organize a loan for that property? Cause you just didn't think that you would get the finance and the cash in time for that settlement? Well, I done the offset loan just as a, basically a safety net. Yeah. I didn't want to have zero in the bank and that would have taken me back to zero. So it was kind of a safety net, but I managed to make it work. So it was good. I love that. Talk to me. What are your next big money goals? What are you currently working towards? Because you have a net worth of $750,000 just solo. What's next?

Well, this is where my problem is. I don't actually know what I want to do next. So I only got serious about finance about three years ago and started looking and going, okay, what am I doing? Where am I going with this? Welcome to the dark side. Yeah. And financially, I worked out that if I keep going on this projection, I can retire at 52. So that's kind of the aim is to be able to retire in another 10 years or 11 years. I probably won't, but if I can get there, then that's great. We want the option. And then if you want to keep working, I mean, right now you're seven days on seven days off. Like that sounds like a pretty good, like if you're still fit and healthy at 52, sorry, you might really want to

do that. That's right. And a lot of people do. We've got guys who work with me who are 74, 75, because they just don't want to give it up. They love it. Yeah. I feel like that's fair. That's exciting. And so you're just not sure what the next financial goal is, or are you just not sure of where to start investing to like make that 52 retirement age more of a reality? Like, is that a good summary? I don't know. I don't actually know what to do is my problem. So I do invest. So I've got about probably 40 grand in investments, about 10 grand in crypto. And I'm already, since I bought the house in November last year, I've already saved another 70K in cash. Stop it. And you only work basically six months of the year. Oh my goodness. This woman told me,

I'm really nervous to come on the show. What? Like, because you'll run rings around all of us. Is that why? Oh my goodness. I'm so excited for you. That sounds really, really cool. so yeah if you can tell me what to do next that would be great you know even better if you can find me the really rich husband or something like that we're open to that okay i i like she's on the money is now she's on the honey and we're going dating um i like it i like it um let's go to a really quick break because i have a lot of questions and i want to dive a little bit further into not only your dating life but also your investments so guys don't go anywhere money diarist we are back and look I haven't thought of any potential dates just yet but

like leave that to me in fact this whole money diary could be a really great dating segment because like we're pitching you so well like sorry I if I was 40 41 and I was looking for a partner and I was male you tell me sorry she's got a net worth of 750k she seems really grounded loves to go hiking, climb mountains. She's got an investment property. She bought that in cash. Like, sorry, you're a dream. Sold. But tell me a little bit more about these investments. You touched on them before. You said in the last like five years, you've gotten serious about your financial life. You've got $40,000 invested. Invested in what? So I have $40,000 in ETFs. And then, yeah, I do have about $10,000, I guess, in crypto. And yeah, I've saved the $70,000 cash. So yeah,

it's what to do with it at the moment. It's whether to put that $70,000 into another property. The issue I'm hitting at the moment is that I done my tax the other day and I got $60,000 that I'd paid in tax last year. So now it's about tax minimization and learning about that because I never thought I would have to worry about that. Yeah. Tell me about your superannuation because that's a very tax effective vehicle. Are you prioritizing that? So superannuation, since I've done my tax return, so only a few weeks ago, I have looked at that and I have always said I don't believe in super because when my partner did die, I was his beneficiary on his super. And you didn't get it. Yeah. And I didn't get it. No, because you can't nominate your partner because they're

not financially dependent on you just for those of you playing along at home. And it can ultimately go to you, but it would have been rejected at a base level. And then his family sounds like they're probably not the greatest. And they would have been like, we don't care about money, Doris. We want his cash. And it would have just gone straight to them instead. Yeah. And this is my issue with super is that if I do pass away, I have no dependence. So then it is taxed extremely highly to whoever I am going to give it to. So that's my downfall. I have just since I started doing my tax last year, started paying into my super. So I now pay $550 a week into super every week just to bring my taxable income down a little bit. But my super currently

sits just over $200,000. Okay, Queen. I was like, oh, if you're not prioritizing it, maybe not too much, but $200,000 is looking good. The one thing I would say here, and this is not advice, it's just things you could talk to your accountant about hypothetically. If hypothetically you wanted to have that conversation, because I'd never give advice, is talking to your accountant about establishing a trust if there's some individual that you want to benefit from your superannuation and then nominating your super beneficiary to be that trust because then they can benefit hypothetically from a distribution as opposed to an inheritance that's not from a family member which is something you could potentially talk to someone about that's really good but i don't have

that person hence why you need to find me the man i'm working on it i'm working on it but even if it goes into a trust like i used to have a lot of clients in this situation where maybe you know they had had a partner who'd passed away and it was just kind of them and maybe they didn't want to couple up again you can actually still have so much control and power over that because you could put it towards a cause that's really important to you or put it towards something but even in that structure it's most tax beneficial like for that charity or whatever it is or who knows what you want to do with it you could literally donate it all to the lost dog's home like that's fine by me but like just having choice and feeling like your money isn't quite wasted I think is really

important because you've worked hard for this. As much as you have said, no, I don't feel like I sacrifice a lot. Sorry, to save 70 grand this year, you did have to sacrifice a fair bit, babe. There's things that you're definitely skipping out on to make sure that that savings account is still looking very healthy, which is not a bad thing. We just need the right structure to help us. Tell me about debt. I just feel like you don't have any at all. It's just your offset, which is like 100% of the property purchase is in there. Yeah, it is. It's actually over 100%. So no debt whatsoever. Oh my God. All right. So no debt and you just feel like that's probably not it because you said, RV, I'm pretty risk averse. That's true. However, my accountant

is advising me at the moment for tax reasons to buy a second investment property because when she told me to buy an investment property, she meant actually take out interest against that property to be able to claim it against my tax. Yeah. I mean, you did it, but she probably didn't give clear enough instructions. I want to play a game of pick on you just a little bit. And I mean it in the nicest way, but as literally the she and she's on the money. You told me before, Victoria, I'm really like risk averse. Girl, why do you own crypto? Where did that come from? Like how does somebody who's so risk averse, doesn't want to carry any debt, is really worried, hasn't really like gotten into the share market, then has like literally, what's that? 20% of your

investing portfolio outside of superannuation, like between crypto and your ETFs is crypto. Yeah. How do we do that? We listen to the people at work sometimes and, you know, they always promise you all the world. I know a lot of boys out here who are really, really into it and 10K is about my limit, but a lot of them are a lot further in than that. Of course they are. And like, talk to me, how's your crypto performing? It's basically sitting even, slightly up, but pretty much sitting even so I'm happy with that yeah we're not mad about that I'm just surprised that as somebody who's so risk averse you're like yeah also crypto I was like what like

that just in like it not in a judgmental way just more in a like if you know your risk tolerance and probably over the last five years you've learned a bit more about like what that looks like you're probably like yeah that's rogue but that's okay we can be rogue like we can be rogue I just want to know about it you know well I have more in shares it's just it was at the time you know people were like is it going to go ahead isn't it no it was you know do you get in now and hope for the best or do you wait 10 years and go I should have so it was a yeah bit of a let's hope it goes ahead yeah no totally get it so talk to me about best and worst money habits because like you don't get into this position without good money habits and I know you said look Vee

I never chased money but like clearly you're attracting it how so my best money habit is clearly my savings. And that is just because I don't need a lot to live. I really don't like my food bill generally is about $150 a fortnight. A fortnight? Yeah. What are you a budget? What are you eating? Just rice? I barely ever have rice. Actually, I have a lot of salads and stuff because we drive so far to the supermarket. I just do one big shop and that does me for the two weeks, the week on and the week off. But I don't budget. Everybody finds it amazing that I don't budget. But for the last couple of days, I've been away with friends. So, you know, I probably spent $2,000. I don't look at that and go, that's bad. Cause I know I won't do it again for another

six months. Yeah. And that's like part of the journey, right? Like in the journey, you need to kind of zoom out and be like, well, actually that's what I'm living for. Like, so that I can have a really good time with friends and I can, you know, splurge here and there and not worry about the pub meals that we have, but more day to day, those expenses are low. Why do you think you've never budgeted? Is it just because inherently I would say that you're pretty good at money and you're like, well, I actually don't need a budget because I'm pretty good at, you know keeping costs low in general or is this just something you'd be like obviously I avoid it like what does that look like? I think see growing up my mum was very tight with money to the point

where even if we got school pants she would write it down and we would have to pay her back for the school pants and stuff like that. Okay mum. Yeah exactly she's still like that. Okay perfect and you say you moved away that's so strange. Yeah I know very strange and I've just always been you know like if you want something you should have it in the same way as I don't want to be like her and that sounds horrible but she is a hoarder and I go to the house and there's stuff everywhere so I'm not a stuff person and because I did live in my van for a long time when I traveled Australia I always had this thing if you buy something you've got to get rid of something because you don't have the space so even now when I buy stuff for the house it's kind of a but do you need it

probably not because then it's hard to get rid of it for anybody who's moved house you know when you go to move and you're like, now I've got to get rid of it. And I loved it when I wanted it. Yeah, don't. So talk to me more about, I guess, worse money habits. Do you even have bad money habits? Yeah. So my worst money habit is definitely my low risk tolerance for debt. So in COVID, I grew up with my great uncle around. He went through the depression. So their money got taken from them in the depression. So it was always, you know, for him, his pension every week, we would go down and draw it out of the bank. So he built into me. If anything goes bad, take your money out of the bank. Do not trust the bank.

So you've inherited his money trauma. Yeah. So come COVID, I withdrew a couple of hundred grand and buried it in the backyard for a couple of years. I actually love you. You're so funny. This is so good. So you just had like a couple of hundred grand. Sorry. You took it out in cash and then you literally buried it in your garden. You are killing me. I just want to be friends with you in real life because you like I'm sorry just the way you articulate yourself you are so smart I can tell you're just so smart and then it's like yeah buried all my money in the garden what are you doing you're only 41 like what are you 86 I love this but did you know what did that make you feel secure it actually made me feel more

secure there you go I know I thought I would feel worse about it but I actually felt more secure and I went to that because I like detecting for gold and stuff on my days off not that I ever find anything, it's more about the history for me. And also like getting outside, Perth. Yeah. So I went out and bought plastic containers so that metal detectors wouldn't pick it up. I'm done. I am obsessed with you. So tell me, sorry, did you like by chance just video you digging this up at some point? And also if you bought plastic containers, so just confirming this is no longer in your garden? This is no longer in my garden. It's now in my house. So you bought a house with it. So you put it in plastic containers. How deep are we burying this?

like how do we is it shallow is it like marked with a cross like did you buy a chest I don't know well you're kind of right I did actually put a mark on where roughly I buried it and then when I went to dig it up I couldn't find it straight away I would have died so the hole got bigger and bigger it wasn't very deep though it was kind of my thought pattern was it needs to be deep enough so that if everything burns down around it it's not gonna of melt. Okay. Yep. She's logical. I love this. Yep. But no, and when you take money out of the bank, you have to give them an excuse these days. So when I said to them, I'm taking it out because I don't trust the banks, I've been told not to trust the banks. They're like, yeah, we've had

so many people come in and do exactly the same thing. Well, you didn't even lie to them. Yeah. I would have lied to them. I would have been like, no, it's for an exotic car. I just, I laugh so hard. So one day you go and you dig it up and what, you took the containers just directly into the bank and slammed it on the bench and said, put this back in the bank. I need it. Basically. Yeah. So I had photocopied the receipts of when I'd taken it out of the bank because I knew that they'd want proof of me putting so much back in. So I made sure that I had all that documentation so I could go in and be like, Hey, here's the money. Yeah. Well, you're not money laundering, are you? Yeah. I wasn't laundering this. It's actually really

dirty. It's been in my garden. It was very clean. I had it very well protected. It was very well wrapped and everything. You know what? I'm not surprised. You bloody glad wrapped that, didn't you? Like you went around, you put it in plastic containers, you solidified it, then you put it in other containers. Like, I just know, like, and you said before you have no dependence. So if something had happened to you, this money would have just been buried in the garden. No one would have known about it. And then like years from now, when this house of yours that you currently live in gets knocked down, someone would have been like, what is that? And found a hundred grand. Yeah. But what a cool story for them when they found it.

Yeah, because it would have made no sense. What was she doing? Selling drugs? Like that's giving drug money, my love. I am in a mining town. That's very possible. Exactly. I would have been like, now I'm scared that I found this money. Is the like cartel after me? But no, reality is money, Doris just buried it because she felt like that was a good place. Do you know what? I love talking to people about money because before you were like, oh, like, you know, I can't really talk to my friends and family about this. They would find that hilarious. These are the stories that I want to hear at brunch. So that's maybe not your best money goal or sorry, your best money habit. You said like, obviously it's low risk tolerance.

Do you think that you'd date money out and bury it again? Like a re-changed woman or like, what does that look like nowadays? Cause you said this was prior to you like getting on your financial journey, I suppose. It was probably at the start of it. Yes. So now I am learning or leaning more towards, you know, trying to make every dollar work for me rather than just having that. And obviously now understanding that inflation is making that money go backwards instead of forwards. So I am at the stage now where do I get another investment property? Do I put it into shares? And really I need to look at the tax deductions more than anything at the moment. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm going. Talk to me about advice. Cause like at the end

of the day, you're really wealthy. Like as an individual, like you are killing it. You have such a good like trajectory to even become even wealthier and on a regular trajectory your income or not your income sorry your assets if they're well invested should double every 10 issues and so like you're going to be worth millions and like this is very cool to think about because you said oh I'd love to like retire by 52 and that's what 11 years from now like go we are on the right track that is very exciting but have you ever thought about not just talking to your accountant but talking to a good financial advisor about like, okay, like V, tell me what to do. And like, unfortunately I can't do that, but like an advisor could. I think about it all the time and I

research it all the time. And I actually listened to a different podcast the other day who was, you know, cause it's so hard to find somebody who wants to give you one-off advice. And that's what I want is just somebody to go, this would be your best option. I've got someone for you, Everest Wealth in Perth. There you go. Perfect. And you know what, if it was money, money, money, which is owned by Glenn James, he would probably say the same company. Okay. If that's what you were hypothetically listening to, because we both really love the boys who own that. And they're one of the only practices that give you one-off advice. You can go back to them, but like, they don't try and, I don't know, I feel like a sales person when I

talk about this, but like, they're not going to like lock you in for monthly installments or like monthly fees. They'll just be like, here's your plan. You're completely competent. Go do it yourself. Yeah. Cause I did go to a financial planner probably about 10 years ago now when I first got into mining and they just didn't do it for me. It was very one-sided. They were just trying to sell their products. So that kind of put me off a little bit. Yeah. Well, if you are interested in listening to more podcasts, this is just like an unsolicited recommendation on my side. I did a Q&A with a financial advisor recently called Daisy and Daisy actually works at Everest and she is delightful. Like a lot of my clients have gone to her. Now I'm not an advisor

and they rave about her. So if you want to maybe dip your toes in the water again, I think that that's a good recommendation. And I'll obviously like shoot you an email after this with her details. I'll leave it all in your court. But I think that that could actually put you on the best possible trajectory because when you are a little bit more risk tolerant, you want an advisor and this is not just about Everest. This is just like in general, you want an advisor who not only like helps direct you and says, okay, money, Darius, like, yeah, how about shares? That like gives you all the pros and cons and the benefits and like does a comparison of, okay, well, if we put it into this property, this is what this would look like. And they can like

project out the tax advantages. They can talk to you about superannuation and making sure that you're more comfortable with that. Because at your age, with the income that you have, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the things that they recommend is every single year, maxing out your super contributions. Because at the end of the day, you got the cash. It's not like, oh, should I, shouldn't I? My lifestyle is going to be compromised. You're already telling me you have massive tax bills. And that's a way to not only get a little bit of tax back money win, but a way to avoid a fair bit of tax because the tax environment inside superannuation is 15%. And like with your income, girl, you're on the highest marginal tax bracket, which is very sexy,

but it doesn't feel like it when you're having to pay that much tax. That's right. And I never thought I would be in this position. And even up until this year, I'd never reached that top tax bracket until I got the house really. So it's never been a consideration until this year. And even when the tax accountant said to me, hey, you've made $203,000 this year. I was like, excuse me, I dropped out of school at 15. Can you repeat that? And she's like, repeat what? I'm like, how much did I make? But isn't that kind of cool? Like, I just want to go back and I feel like the period of time that we spoke about before, like you're 21, your partner died. I feel like that would have been chaos and you would have been like, well, what's my life

going to look like if I'm not going to live it with him? And I'm like, we're not on this trajectory and I'm going to be really stereotypical for a hot second. And I'm assuming that if you got together you'll be together for seven years the next trajectory was probably like marriage and then maybe children and like working in the small town and so like just living that life this is not what baby you had envisioned she'd be stoked yeah and I it was actually his 20th anniversary yesterday for his passing which is why I climbed the mountain yesterday yeah oh my goodness and the 20 years wasn't about you know grieving that it was 20 years ago it was about how far I've come in 20 years and what I have overcome in 20 years because there's been bad times and good times in

between and you get to that stage where you're like okay this year because some years it still really rocks me and then other years it doesn't affect me at all so it's about how far you've come in that 20 years yeah I was speaking to a team member today who lost a very close family member in the last week and I said to her grief is the price that we pay for love and I think that that's a good price because it feels like trash, but it just means that that relationship was clearly a good one. Like he was clearly a good man. He was clearly a good person. And like, I'm telling you right now, if he wasn't after 20 years, it wouldn't rock you. And I think that that's just like so special that you're still saying, you know, it still rocks me sometimes. And I don't

want that to be good. I don't, I really wish he didn't have to go through that. But like, do you know what? If I pass away, I hope that in 20 years, people are still talking about losing me is a genuine loss. Like that's a good position to be in, right? Like he'd be pretty stoked. He's like, still on her mind. It's been 20 years. I'm still there. Like that's where I want to be. I don't know about you. Muddy Diarist, talk to me a little bit more about this grade that you gave yourself because I'm so sorry. B? Yeah, definitely B. B. Okay. B for real. Why a B? How do we get you from a B to an A? Is that just about kind of like pulling your finger out a bit, like maybe getting some financial advice and getting those like goals organized? Or is it you just

don't feel confident with money? Like tell me a bit more. So to get to an A, it would be financial advice. It'd be to know what direction I'm going in because at the moment I just kind of go, okay, I listened to a lot of stuff, but I never know, you know, his shares, the way to go, his property, the way to go. And I always question it. So to have the, you know, I guess more clarity on which way is the right way or what to go or what to do next. Yeah. And to be a little bit pervy, and I feel like lots of people, I have lots of friends who are in their like late 30s, early 40s, who are still single. No, they haven't gone through situations like yours, but like they just still haven't found their life partner. And I find that

a lot of them are putting big decisions off or like not really wanting to solidify goals because they're still kind of like really hopeful that they'll find that person that they could then build those goals together with. Do you feel like you're in that limbo of being like, well, I really hope I meet someone and then it can be us. It can be our goals. Or are you kind of like, no, I'm a strong, independent woman. And like, look at my dog. Like, I don't know what, how do you feel about all of this? A bit of both camps. So it would be lovely. And it's been 20 years of going, you know, cause I've had relationships within that 20 years. Don't get me wrong, but it's always, do I feel confident enough to put somebody on my will? And for

somebody who got burnt by not having a will, I only made a will when I got the house because I was like, I've got nobody to leave stuff to. Does it matter where my stuff goes? So basically my parents were on my will anyway, because I've got nobody else. And that's who it would have went to if I didn't have a will. So I would love somebody there just so I could be like, yes, I can make a plan now because I know who's going to get everything I've worked for. But when it's just you, you kind of go, well, I've got enough to live. Once I die, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Look, it's very true. And I find it like, obviously I don't want you waiting around for like some knight in shining armor to come and like sweep you off your feet, like slay. I would

love that for you. Like I'm manifesting that very hard and I hope that it happens. But at the same time, this is going to sound so morbid, women actually outlive men. So at some point, even though if you have shared goals, the likelihood of you outliving another partner, that is if you're completely straight and you decide that a male is the right fit for you, you're more likely to have to go back to being that strong, independent, single woman again at some point in your life. So I'm like, girl, set it up right. Let's get it all organized. They can come in, but they're just a piece of the puzzle. They're not like, they get to do some goals with us, but we're actually fine. We're actually set up and we're good to go. But it can be like feeling like you're in limbo because

it might change the trajectory of your life. It might change that, but that's kind of okay. We can redo, like I promise you right now, you're not going to be mad if you do all your financial planning, all your eggs are like in the right basket. Then you meet someone and you're like, damn, I have to see a financial advisor again because we've got new goals. You're not going to be mad about that. But then the other issue is, and I have a lot of friends in the same boat, once you're financially stable, somebody else comes in, you do worry about that person taking what you've worked for. Are we getting a binding financial agreement? Yeah, no, screw them. Premarital assets, like we are protecting ourselves and that's what a good financial

advisor will do for you as well. Like, sorry, you can't come in and pretend to be a knight in shiming armor and then just be a Trojan horse. Like, absolutely not. You're not getting my stuff. no like we're going to protect our assets with the right structure so if someone comes in that's fine I can share with you I would love to build a life with you but if I decide that you're not here for the long term you don't get anything you didn't come this far to only come this far and in the industry I am in you know because a lot of the boys work away from home and stuff like that it is very common for marriage breakdowns so you hear a lot of bad stories out here and it does put you off and I am very much because of what I went through what's mine

is mine and what's yours is yours rather than sharing. And it takes a lot for me to trust people and go, okay, let's do this together. Yeah. I feel like you would benefit again, hypothetically from having a conversation with your accountant about a trust setup. And that's not a recommendation. That's just something, go have a chat with them about like what the pros and cons of that are, because that can actually protect your assets even more than a binding financial agreement because I think we've all heard it like binding financial agreements are great but they can actually be challenged if someone is as committed to getting your money as you are to protecting it like the likelihood of it going through the courts and like

you know maybe you're not getting what you want is quite high but a trust can actually protect a lot of that especially if it was established prior to the relationship beginning. Okay that's good to know because I actually had a conversation with one of the people out here the other day and he's got a couple of properties and a business and everything. And he went to his accountant and she said, no, there's no trust because there's no dependence. Yes. But it's more about like protecting future you and like hopefully future you meets that person that you're really comfortable with. And then there's no like second thought in your mind of like, oh, do I need to like have a chat before, you know, he stays over too many times and becomes a de facto or do I need to

like, no, no, no. It's already like set and forget and you don't even need to tell them what you own. Like you can just be like, oh yeah, like I just paid 20 bucks a week for this house. Yeah. Full stop at a story. Live, love, laugh. And then maybe when we trust them, we can tell them. And that's the thing. Everybody sees us buying a house outright as this amazing flex. And it's like, yes, I am proud that I'd done it. Me is pretty good flex. But for me, I also know that it's hypervigilance from what I went through and that I stockpiled money and, you know, saved myself. So to them it's flex, but I can see both sides of it. And I think that's why I'm like, there's no right or wrong. Like, was that the wrong decision?

Absolutely not. For you, I think you feel very confident. Was burying your money in the garden a bad or a good thing? Doesn't actually matter. Did you feel good? I felt good. Exactly. So I feel like it's not about what is right or wrong, but more what works for your situation. And that's what's so beautiful about this. I'm glad it has all worked out and that you're in a good position, but it's also about like what structure is going to make you feel most confident. Cause like, I'm sorry, going into these and like, I've got girlfriends who have been divorced and they're going into new relationships and like, Oh, what do I do? Because like I have a house that, you know, thankfully I got out of the divorce, but like, I don't want my new partner

getting it because I have kids. And if something happened, like it's all complex. Right. And that's where we just want to get good advice so that we can sleep at night and know, okay, well, you know, if the proverbial hit the fan, I'm actually fine. Like I'm actually really good. And I can walk out of this as wealthy as I walked into this. And that's what I want for you. You didn't work again. you didn't work this hard to only work this hard, you know, like your plan of retiring at 52 can and will happen. And ain't no man getting in the way of that. And something else you will be interested in my $435,000 house makes $850 a week rent. Stop it. That rental yield is so sexy. Tell me, how did you do that? Was that why you purchased it? Or did you just go, oh, it's just like kind

of in the same town that I'm living in. Like, what do we find? Cause like take my money right now, you're going to have $435,000. I would actually have to get a loan for that. That's okay though, because I'm not as risk tolerant as you. I would happily take out the loan for that amount of rent. Where, when, how? So it is in a mining town. It's in Moranbar in Queensland. Obviously with coal, everything's up in the air at the moment and everybody's worried. So kind of like people say, you know, well, people are scared by them. So that's what I'd done. Because I am in coal mining, I know that what you hear on the news is not actually what's happening out here. Not the reality. It's almost crazy, isn't it? It's almost like the news

just makes up things to be entertaining. So I know that my job is secure. As much as my mine's going to shut, I know that I can leave mine, go to another one straight away. So yeah, so high rental yields because nobody really wants to live there or buy there because they all think the coal's going down. Mount Isa is another one you hear about all the time at the moment. I've got friends out there. They're all like, guys, it's one mine. We're running 30. Why are you worried if one opens or shuts. Yeah. Oh my God. I love this and that little insight. I feel like that's a little investing hot tip if you're looking for investing properties. Money, Darius, this has been beautiful. I have loved this. There's been so many like surprises in this

conversation that I just honestly didn't see coming from you being like, look, I have really low risk tolerance. Hi, I have crypto. To you talking about your COVID journey of like literally burying your cash in the garden. I'm obsessed. The fact that you've built yourself up to this in the last 20 years and like I just feel like it's such a timely conversation because obviously yesterday you were reflecting on the passing of your partner literally 20 years prior girl you've come so far I'm so excited that you're in our community I'm so excited that you've shared your journey with us like what a privilege thank you no thank you the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your

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