She's On The Money - I Started My Financial Literacy Journey at 45... It's Never Too Late!

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

For years, our Money Diarist thought she was doing okay financially—bills were paid, life was good, and saving for the future? That was a later problem. But at 45, she read her first finance book changed everything. Suddenly, she realised she had no real plan, no investments, and no idea how to make her money work for her. Fast forward to today, and she and her partner are completely debt-free, traveling full-time, and working just six months a year to fund their dream lifestyle. No mortgage, no office job, no regrets. In this episode, she shares exactly how she turned things around, why she walked away from the traditional homeownership path, and how she’s building financial security—on her terms. If you've ever thought "it's too late to start", this episode will change your mind. 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 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 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, where we get to talk with one of our beautiful She's On The Money community members all about their money story. So let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded exactly like this. Dear She's On The Money, for years I was living the life I thought I wanted, working hard, enjoying the moment and never really thinking about the future. I thought as long as the bills were paid, I was doing okay. But when I read my first finance book at 45 and started my financial literacy journey, I had a wake-up call. All those little

treats and luxuries I never thought twice about were adding up and they weren't getting me any closer to real financial security. That realization changed everything. Now at 55, my partner and I are debt-free, living full-time in our fully decked out caravan and working intense periods of seasonal jobs so we can have the freedom to take four or five months off every year to travel. I'm proof that it's never too late to take control of your money and design a life you truly love. Money Dyrus, this is genuinely so exciting to get you on the show. Thank you for wanting to share your story with us. No, thank you. It's actually very different hearing you read that back. I just sort of

sat there typing when I submitted it. But when you hear someone read it back, it sounds very, very exciting. It sounds so aspirational. And like so many of us don't realize that by documenting our own journey, we can see how far we've come. You don't take the time to reflect on, actually, I did something and it was really, really cool. That is awesome. I adore it. Before we dive further in, because I have a lot of questions, I want to know, what grade would you give your money habits from A through to F if I asked you to give them a grade? Look, I would have to say I'm always pretty hard on myself, so I'm going to go with a C. A C. Okay. All right. We're going to talk

about it. Money diarist, I get to ask my favorite question now. And that is, can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? Certainly. So as I mentioned, like I'm 55 now. So about 10 years ago, everything was sweet. Like we were living, we had debt on our car and our caravan because we had sold everything else. Everything was fine. And I think it was really just like you're in routine so you're in a rut you're just living we were never hard up for money like we we could afford anything we had weekends away all the time so our lifestyle and what we were doing was very good it was only when I started thinking about it and then when I read sort of like my first major book I realized that I had never really thought about the long term and then it sort of hit me how

old I was getting at the time. And I really needed to think about where we wanted to be in 10 years or what level of lifestyle we wanted in 10 years time. So that started a big shift for me in learning about finance and just sort of grabbing onto it and running with it and starting to manage my money as opposed to just using my money. I suppose you could say it like that. And tell me a little bit more about just growing up around money. So is this something obviously you hadn't thought about it before you read your first finance book and changed your narrative, which is so cool. But before that growing up, was it just same easy, like hard? What did that look like? Yeah, it was never mentioned like with my family. It was never something spoken about my

mum and dad. There's two things when I think about this, which I find quite funny now. I can remember growing up that we owned a small convenience store in a small country town and that's where my mom worked. So it was six to seven days a week and dad was a contractor. So he would do a heap of different stuff. But I always remember my dad never wanted for anything. If ever dad went and got something, it was nearly like he had a money tree. There was never talk from mom about like, oh no, we can't afford that or anything. But dad was open slather. If dad wanted something, next minute he just came home with it. And the older I got, I remember my dad always saying one thing to me, and he still says it to this day, is what you want and what you need

are two totally different things. And I think that's probably the best bit of advice I've carried with me with regards to money. Because I do often find myself thinking about that whenever I, you know, I could just go to buy something and next minute I'm thinking, do I really want it or is it just that I need it? So that's probably the most important thing that has stuck with me. But with growing up as a child, and then even in my early marriage years with children of my own, it was really just a week by week thing. We were on good money. We could always pay the bills on time or ahead of time. We never struggled for anything. If the children needed new shoes, then we just got it. I never had to budget for anything, if you know

what I mean? So, it was more the fact that I didn't really at any point during those very early years, I just didn't give thought to the future. And that's the part that has stuck with me the most. And what was that like when you, you know, decided I'm going to pick up my first finance book? One, why did you do that? And two, how did you feel after you finished that? Because I feel like that could be relatively confronting. I did it because I worked with a much younger lady that I worked with in a very small office, she put me onto it. And it was purely because we were processing pays one day and people with new bank accounts, it was all through ING and that come up with the Barefoot Investor. Yeah. The wave of the Barefoot Investor.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's how I got onto it. And I think I was very excited reading it. And the thing I liked the most, it was very down to earth and very basic to understand. There were it was easy terminology in there as well. And for me, once I got the concept and I knew what I had to do, it actually felt really empowering because it felt like I was taking control of something that I sort of didn't really feel like I had control of before. I was just like on the merry go round, riding it round and round. Now I was in control of it a lot more. And that was the part that really made me feel probably a lot more secure knowing that I was now in control of my future. And I feel like that is really cool. Like it's really cool to have had that, I guess,

coming home moment of going, actually, life's good, but like, it can't always be like this. If I stop working, like, what am I actually going to do? And I feel like that can be, I'm glad that it wasn't too confronting, but for some people it can be really scary because they realize that the lifestyle they have is completely unsustainable. And it sounds like you were living not a ridiculous lifestyle that you couldn't keep up with, but more there was just not a lot of thought for the future and what that looked like and the life you wanted to create for yourself. But it sounds like you've now created it, which is very, very cool. So next question I want to know is what do you do for work and how much money do you earn?

So we have changed a bit. And I suppose our change in work circumstances and travel is also what gets me inspired about my future because now I'm in a lifestyle that I would like to maintain. So, for the last five years, we've actually been, I suppose, what you would call contractors. So, when we left Queensland to travel, we did first go to WA and we did six months in a gold mine over there. Wow. Both of us working six days a week, 12-hour days. My goodness, that's a lot. It was a lot and it was a big, big, it was a big culture shock. But the thing that I like about what we do now is when we stop to work, we actually know the timeframe.

So I knew that that was only going to be for six months. And because of the goal that I had, knuckling down for six months, working those hours and those days, it didn't really feel hard because I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel. And since then, we basically, I class this as contractors. We have done everything from gold mines. We have worked on cattle stations, both of us driving machinery. We have worked for a sapphire mining company and a rare earth minerals company where we do field work or maintenance or machinery driving or processing and looking for sapphires on a very large scale. Have you found sapphires?

Yes, I have. Oh my goodness, is that so exciting? Well, it is, but the drawback is they're very, very small and there's actually not a lot of money in sapphires at the moment. So it's sort of like just like finding something pretty. Yeah, but like I am basically a bowerbird, so I'm born for that. Ah, well. I'm like, oh, shiny.

Yeah, I'd much rather be finding gold, but anyhow. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I mean, we do what we can. What do these jobs pay? like obviously they're short-term contracts and you said you know like short-term goal it's worth it but what's worth it like what is what's the salary like so for last year let me give you last year's example so last year we contracted for a six-month period we are actually set up as a

company so I then like invoice our time and everything out to our employers as such and last year we made $125,000 in that six months. For both of you? Yep. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And was that working like six months, 12 hour days or like what did that look like? No, that one last year in particular was, it was still six months. It was a majority of five days a week, anywhere from let's just say eight to 10 hours, depending on what the day needed. There might've been some days where we did six hours depending on the weather and we couldn't work anymore. But then there were other days when you're right in the middle of it,

we just keep going until dark because we were, you know, so close to finishing something. Yeah. Wow. So yeah. And sort of like my budget and my forecast as such for this year puts us pretty much around the same for when we go to start work in May. Yeah. Very cool. And talk to me about, is that consistent? Like, cause you've decided, I know you mentioned you have set up a company for this. You've decided on like an hourly rate. So it doesn't matter where you go, it'll be consistent. For anywhere that we contract out to, it's normally just a day rate is what we work on,

a flat day rate. The only other sort of variables, I suppose, for example, they supply our food as well. Oh, money win. Because we're normally remote. So we're, well, last year we were, I suppose, two hours from a main town and stuff like that. So there's a few little perks to it as well. When we did work over in WA on the cattle stations, that was the same deal. We were again a day rate, but they supplied food, vehicles and fuel.

Oh, that's a money win as well. How good. So tell me about accommodation. Like you mentioned earlier that you have a caravan. Are you going to these places and then staying in your caravan? Or are you like going to these places and renting? Like how does that work? No, because we have our own caravan, everywhere we go, we basically stay in that. We've lived in our caravan full time for the last 10 years. That's so cool. Yeah. It just goes everywhere with us. So, and as I said, because some of these places or most of them that we work at, we are remote. So therefore the fact that we have our own accommodation is, it's a bonus for the employer because they don't have to try and think of or provide

any sort of accommodation. We have our own with us. Yeah, that is really cool. And I mean, you've probably set it up in a way where you're like, it's home, like it's comfy. Like you come back at the end of the day and you're in your own space. Like, I feel like that would feel significantly different than, you know, if you're on a mine site and you're in the shared accommodation like area, even if you've got your own room, you're just like, this is not my space. I don't feel at home. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And that's a lot of my friends, you know, when we talk about it, I go like, I have my own bed with me everywhere I go. Like, you know, what can be better than that?

you're like, I picked the sheets. I picked the pillows. I am super comfy. I am living my best life. How good. I adore that for you guys. Talk to me about, you mentioned in your submission that you're living debt-free and you don't have any debt anymore. What is now the big money goal? What are you currently working towards? You mentioned last year you earned $125,000 and this year you're going to earn similar. What are we doing with that cash? Where's it going? What are our goals? I do have like my big money goal, obviously, is I've already like we invest through ComSec onto the share market. So one of my main goals is to increase that. And I do plan on setting that up for automation. I have a few things set on automation at the moment, which is

a godsend. I tend to do this though, for the periods of time that we work, because then I have that guaranteed amount that I know each week, and I can just take some out of that and pay it. And I tend to stop that for the periods of time that we travel or we're not working purely for peace of mind. So I'm not overspending what I have already sort of pocketed and saved as such. And that's the beauty of having an investment portfolio over paying something like a mortgage, which if you weren't working, they're still like, well, you have to make your repayments money, Darius. You don't just get out of that. Whereas with your share portfolio, we're going to load it. And then when we're not earning money, take the pressure off. I love that for you.

yeah yeah the flexibility of doing it that way is it's very much peace of mind for us anyhow yeah like ultimately I would like to my first milestone is to get that over a hundred thousand invested I haven't progressed into the foreign exchange yet or international so I would like to increase and sort of play a little bit there but ultimately to have I suppose as they all say passive income, whether it be from my shares on the stock exchange or any sort of investing, that passive income that will then allow me to continue my lifestyle. And it might just mean that instead of stopping to work for six months, we're able to stop and work for four and keep traveling. It's not necessarily that I want to fully retire, but just to have those choices

where if we just want to travel for 12 months, we can continue doing it. But then if we feel we need to knuckle down for four months instead of six. You know, that to me is optimal. That is very cool. I want to know more. My parents have been talking recently about, you know, traveling around Australia in a caravan. And I wonder, what are you doing when you're traveling around? Are you going just site to site, hanging out? Like, is there a whole tour plan? Like, what are we doing when we aren't at work and we are traveling? Oh, it's limitless, really. It is just the best lifestyle. We can be doing anything from, I'll give you a few examples. We were pulled up on a beach in Western Australia and we spent four

days there. And each night we would go down and walk through the rock pools and collect baby octopus to eat fresh off the rocks. No, you did not. That is living the dream. Oh, it was just fantastic. And it's such a different community because we had a young girl who pulled up one day and was camping beside us. And she was the age of my daughter, really. I can't just like not talk to anyone. So next minute she was over with us. She was having dinner with us. We were having a few drinks. We were down with our spotlights on the water. Oh, that would be me. I'm born to yap. Like you want to stop in the supermarket and have a chat? That's me. You're buying something that I'm buying. We're talking about it.

I'm some people's worst nightmare. She stayed with us that night. She had like, she was park right beside us. So she slept in her swag in the back of her car but she had dinner with us she put her beers in our fridge she come octopus hunting with us she hopped up and she had a cup of tea and breakfast and lunch with us and she just stayed with us all day and then she went home and went back to work but you know we could be anywhere from we've been pulled up on beaches we've done national park tours and walks on you know to view the nature's window in western australia we've been to you know museums and beaches and markets in Darwin. It's just limitless. You find so much to go and do.

And that's not like we don't tend to do a lot of the paid activities or paid sightseeing stuff purely because it can get quite expensive if you were to do something every stop that you went to. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, there's just so much stuff, so much stuff to do. I love that. And tell me, what does it cost? If we're traveling around Australia, obviously, I've got no idea. I've never done this. Like, do you have a budget? If so, what does that look like? And, you know, things are more expensive, but then other things would be much cheaper. Like, how does it all work? I don't necessarily have a budget. I have like a

savings account with a figure in it. You know, it's part and parcel. A lot of the traveling community, people say they work on that $1,000 to $1,200 a week as your budget. However, there's huge impacts on that. The more you travel or the quicker you travel, obviously the more expensive it is based on the cost of fuel. A lot of people, you know, if it's free camping, you could stay a month if you wanted to, you know, that becomes your base. You might just travel into town for a few groceries on the odd occasion. So the quicker you travel, the more expensive it is based on the diesel. But, you know, I just find that I think if you have a budget, you're very restricted and it's very consuming. I did try it once actually when we started a trip. I tried to

record my kilometers, every penny we've spent, where we traveled each day, all that sort of stuff. And within two weeks, I was too busy living my life to remember to go to the diary and write everything down for the day. So yeah, I don't tend to have a budget, but as I said, I do have an amount. And I just watch that closely as to how we're going through it. Yeah. And when you're going, are you prioritizing free campsites or like what does that cost look like usually for you? We do. We definitely look for free campsites. There's a lot more of them in WA than what there is through Queensland. And if not free camps, they're getting a lot more popular are either farm stays or hip camps. Oh, what's a hip camp? Well, they're basically just people who have

small acreage and have opened it up to travelers. Oh, that's so sweet. Whether it be caravans, tents, or something like that. A lot of the time you have to be self-contained. So some do and some don't offer showers and toilets. And they're just a small fee. You might only pay $15 a night versus some caravan parks in peak time have been over $100 a night just for a site of grass. Oh my goodness. $100 for a patch of grass for one night. Yeah. You've got your own caravan, your own water. Some of those can be powered or unpowered, but yeah, during peak season, the prices for caravan parks are getting quite dear. That's crazy. No wonder there's a rise in alternatives. Like that is crazy. And is that

one of the reasons you've chosen to, you know, kind of stick to WA or like the kind of that side or is the weather just better? Like the beaches look beautiful there. The beaches are pristine. They are to die for. No, we spent, well, it was worked out to be roughly 12 months in WA. But no, it's just the fact that free camps tend to be a bit less populated, but not as commercial as a caravan park, if you know what I mean. You are not squashed in side by side like a sardine. These are open areas where you can pick where you park. You can go for a walk down by a creek in the afternoon or something like that. Oh, that's so nice. I'm going to get a caravan now. You're selling me the dream. I'm like,

oh, okay. So you're saying like rock pools, sunset, like say less girlfriend. Yeah. We had a lot of them when we just went up north last year. Oh, and you're like, we've got an Esky. It's full of beers. I'm like, I could get my husband across the line. I adore this. All right. Money Dice, let's go to a really quick break because I'm loving this chat and I have so many more questions for you and we'll get to them in a second. All right, we are back and we have been talking about so much, honestly, about you changing your money story, about picking up your first finance book at 45, now you're 55 and you're living debt

free and you're traveling Australia full-time in your fully decked out caravan. I want to know about the caravan. That is, I would say, an asset. I did not realize how expensive some caravans could be. What type of caravan are we talking about? Are we talking about an older caravan with like, you know, I know you mentioned water, but like no toilet, no shower, or are we talking about like Lux Primo RV? Like, I don't know. What's that look like? Well, even though our caravan is old compared to a lot out there lately, because it is 10 years old. Oh, 10 is nothing in caravan land. I know. When we purchased it, it was one of the top of the range ones. So it's just over 21 and a half feet long. My goodness. As you walk in the door, you have a beautiful

black leather club lounge. Oh, okay. Then we have some benches and overhead storage. You have, obviously the kitchen area is smaller, so sink and I have a full oven and grill and stove top. We have, I think it's about a 220 liter fridge. Then we have our queen size beds with heaps of storage. And then what is the back end of the caravan? We have our en suite. So we have a full size shower and toilet and it does have a small washing machine in there. You've got a washing machine in there? Yeah. I don't tend to use it though. No, but like, it's nice to know that if you're completely remote and have no access to anything,

you're like, I can wash my knickers. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And what does a caravan set you back? Like if people are thinking, oh, this money diarist is selling the dream. I know that wasn't cheap, but what are we looking at? 10 years ago, we had a few extras added to ours. We have three water tanks, solar panels, et cetera. 10 years ago, that cost us about $85,000. Wowee, that feels like a lot, but at the same time, not that much for the lifestyle that you get to live and the flexibility and even just the creature comforts you've explained? Yeah, definitely. And the thing I love about it is

all the maintenance and the upkeep and even just to be able to say, oh, I can clean my whole house in less than half an hour from top to bottom. That's a pretty good deal. You know, like that to me is just, yeah, that's perfect for my liking. I love the idea of that. You are very slowly selling me. Earlier, you mentioned that you had a share portfolio, you're investing on ComSec, your goal is to get to $100,000. Talk to me about investments. Is that your only investment? What does your superannuation look like? What's the plan for retirement? So that is not my only investment. No, we have ComSec. So at the moment, we've got about 10,000 in shares, which that's my goal this year to work on an increase, putting more into that.

I have 2000 invested in raise online investing, which I think that's what they term the micro investing. So that one is just set up 50 bucks whenever you'd like every week or every month, whatever it is. I just sort of log on and watch that grow. And then we did dabble. We still are dabbling in a bit of crypto. We had a bad experience with one and we lost probably close to $4,000. Yeah, it gave us a bit of a bad taste in our mouth for a little while. But at the moment, we have about $3,500 in crypto. And then my super, I have about $250,000 in it. Very nice. Yeah. And about $215,000 in my husband's super. And then we have a savings account with

cash in it of $15,000. How good. So talk me through your superannuation because superannuation is fickle, right? Like it creeps up on you. Lots of people don't pay attention to it, but you're looking pretty good. Have you been making additional contributions to superannuation or like, was there a plan? How did that work? Strangely enough, I haven't. I will be this year though, after talking with my accountant, that's one thing that we will do with the company structure this year is make self-contributions into both of our supers. The last time I had employer contributions was about five years ago. And since then, obviously when I did the Barefoot Investor,

I did a full-on super overhaul or revisited my super. I checked on the fees and did some comparisons to see if I was in the best super fund. And did you move to Host Plus like everybody else that read the Barefoot Investor? No, I didn't actually. I stayed with who I was with because I was sort of pretty pleased with the results from that investigation. So I just stayed where I was. The only thing I did do though, is the superannuation fund that I'm with offers like free one-on-one consultations with their advisors. So I took the opportunity to have one of those probably 12 months or more ago now, and I actually changed my investing strategy. So what was probably deemed conservative is now I've moved it into aggressive for a little bit.

I figured I know it's risk-taking. I'm okay with taking a bit of risk because I do feel that I still have time. And that's probably the one thing I have learned through all of my trying to educate myself financially is everything is about time. It's not a quick fix or anything like that. So I'm okay with moving that up to aggressive for a couple of years. And then yeah, the plan will be this year to make those self-contributions into both of our supers. Yeah. And I think that that, obviously it's a smart idea for you because it's in line with your risk profile and you got advice on it and that's fantastic. First thing I wanted to say there is if people haven't taken advantage of the free advice that is being offered from your super fund, please do, because obviously

money dice, that's going to have put you in a significantly better position. Like the rate of return of a growth portfolio on average is sitting at about 9% at the moment. And that's going to mean that after about seven to 10 years, the money in your superannuation by the time you're 65 should be looking closer to $500,000. And that is a very attractive position to be in. And then in addition to that, reminding people that you are already paying fees for that advice. So yes, it feels free, but you're paying superannuation fees that pay the salaries of those advisors that you're engaging. So you are paying for them. Please utilize them. Have conversations. If you decide to do nothing after that conversation, perfect. If you decide to make a small change

that ultimately, like the difference between a conservative portfolio and a growth portfolio, you might go, it's not much fee. It's like 4% maybe. But that is actually going to mean that instead of your money doubling after 15 to 20 years, it's going to double within 10. And I think that that puts you closer to your retirement goals. That puts you closer to financial freedom. And while that might not be aligned to your risk profile, in your situation that worked and like how good that you got the advice. I also jump on, like they sometimes, well, they send me emails obviously, but whenever they have webinars, you know, they offer them to their members. So I sort of try and jump on the ones that interest me just so I can stay

up to date with as much as I can. I love that. I've done a few webinars for different super funds before. And they're always really fun because the people that join them are usually really motivated and really excited to like learn more and do more in the comment sections. Just go off. I love it. Money Diarist, you mentioned before that you are completely debt free. When you went back and you picked up your first finance book at 45, what type of debt were you in? Was that something that you're like, oh my goodness, like I'm so stressed about this? Or was this something that you were like, oh, I can get out of it, but maybe I can turbocharge it, get out of it sooner or like talk to me about your debt journey. I was never stressed about it. I've never

really been stressed about debt because I think I've always been in a situation or in employment where I could very comfortably make those repayments back. After reading the Barefoot Investor or at that period of time, we only had two debts. One was our caravan and one was our vehicle. So after reading the book, basically what I did was I simply knuckled down, increased everything or all the repayments and for example I think I had on both of those debts I would have had roughly about a year and a half to go before they were paid out I paid them both out one within six months and one within eight months after reading the book oh my goodness yeah that's so exciting though that you just get that level of freedom and like that would have felt so good

Oh, it did. Because it was the first time, I suppose, the first time really in my life, you know, prior to that, there was vehicles and, you know, children. So there was always expenses, but it was really the first time that I could comfortably sit back and just, you know, really take that breath and go, I actually have no debt. Yeah, that's very attractive. Yeah, very exciting. And throughout your journey, you haven't purchased property or planned for property purchasing. Talk to me about that because I feel like so many people, especially in my demographic and your

demographic are all like, we need to own property. That's the key to financial success. And you haven't even mentioned it once. So talk to me about that. No, it's actually not on our radar at all, purely because I suppose having the last eight to 10 years of being debt-free, if there's anything I don't want to do for the rest of my life, it's going to debt again. so that's the main contributing factor for us not wanting to buy properties I just do not want to go back to being you know settled down and making regular repayments so that's one thing but the other is I just don't think well we don't have the need for it we have so many friends family people that we have met all of who have said to us ah you know when you're coming by ring up let

me know, come and park your van at my place. You can stay as long as you like. So I just don't feel the need to have that, I suppose that commitment, because that's how I see it is more of a commitment. Absolutely. And I think people forget that. I think people think that it's the key to financial success. And more often than not, especially these days, it's just not. And that can be a heartbreaking decision for people. But you guys look like you've sorted it out and been like, actually, that's not for us. Have you seen the very cool life that we are living? And I'm like, so excited for this episode to go live because it just, it questions so much about expectations that have been set and, you know, showing that there is an ability to live an

absolutely brilliant life while, you know, working really hard for a couple of months and then going back out, live your best life. Like, how good is that? Like, I want to take a leaf out of that book and maybe have these like knuckle down periods of time where I'm just work, work, work, and then I can have a little bit of time off. Like that just sounds so good. I feel like over all this time, you would have gotten together a few good money habits though. Talk to me about what you think your best money habit is. I was giving this a bit of thought and I would have to say, even when we were in debt, the best thing I have ever done is really just automation. if I can automate something I don't have to think about it I'm not stressed about it

and I don't have to get extra stress if I forget to pay it and I don't miss it that's the biggest thing I just don't miss it because I don't see it and I don't get it in my hot little hand and then have to part with it so that's probably the best thing it's a little bit of a challenge when you are traveling though one of the other things that I do try to do is I try and use the cashback app. Yeah. Amazing. Just on general savings. But the thing is with traveling, I don't have a lot of big purchases and sometimes I just don't know where I am or if I'm going to be in a town for the next three months. So I don't sort of have to buy a lot of stuff. And I think the lifestyle that we live is very much for me, it's a good money habit because we've been in the van, as I said, for 10

years now. So I do very much class myself as a minimalist. Oh, you would have to be. Otherwise, you're going to live in a very, very cluttered caravan. Yes. And I'm always getting told about the weight of the caravan. You've got to check the weight. We need to get rid of some of this or some of those clothes or some of this. Because it does add up. It does. It does. So I think that habit of being a minimalist has certainly helped a lot of the savings as well, because i suppose just an example work clothes so you know it's standard like we have three to five sets of work clothes and they get worn until they can no longer be worn and then they will be replaced it's not a free-for-all and we don't have excess of anything really laying around

everything gets used and you might even find there are times that we might be a week or a month without it because we're not in a position or we're not located close enough to be able to go and buy it. Yeah. And that means that you have to be ridiculously well resourced because otherwise you'll find yourself in a pretty big pickle. Yeah. Yep. So flip that narrative for a hot second. Have you got any not so good money habits apart from spending a hundred dollars on patches of grass sometimes? Yeah, no, I don't do that one either. This is situational based on our lifestyle. The biggest for us, and I think you will find a lot of travelers will say it, is every town you go to, it's a bit of a traveling thing where you have to try the bakery.

Oh yeah. Okay. You've sold me. I love a meat pie. Oh, I love a salad roll from a local bakery. Nothing hits as hard as a very good salad and ham roll from a small bakery. I'm sorry, you are correct. So yeah, pies and vanilla slice apparently are the go-to for travelers There's even a Facebook page on the best vanilla slice in Australia. Really? Yes. Where is it? Come on, give us the cost so I don't have to-

I don't know. Actually, I don't know because I don't- I'll look it up. I'm going to join the group. I need to know. Yeah, no, I'm not quite sure on that one, but I have seen the page. But yeah, that for us is the biggest thing is, you know, like when you do travel, you come to a new town and of course it's a novelty.

Oh, let's just find the bakery. and the other thing for us which again I think or for me is based on our lifestyle is when we are working depending on where we are because we do have such big days our habit or our bad habit is choosing to eat out for the simple fact that where we worked last year we had to travel two to three hours to get to town if we went to town for a day to pick up parts or whatever farm, it was very easy for us to go, oh, while we're in here, let's go here for lunch. Let's do this. Yeah. Cause you kind of just think of it as activities rather than a money suck. Yeah. True. True. You're just like, oh, what else can we do to get out?

Exactly. And that's what it was like. Yeah. I mean, that's not the worst thing. I don't think I've ever had a money diarist on the show who said, honestly, it's the vanilla slices that bring us down. And I just feel like that's a really good bring down. Like if I'm going to be brought down by something, it better be a good vanilla slice. Yes, definitely. Marnie Darius, this chat has been gorgeous, but now that we've talked and gone through everything, I'm not going to lie. I'm really questioning that C you gave yourself at the start because one, it sounds like you are living like literally your dream. Like I think the goal for so many people, it's not just, you know, get rich and have lots of money and have big investments. Like

if we really drill down, the reason people want these things is to have freedom and to experience the world or be able to choose what they do with their days. And I just really feel like you're doing that. And to have no debt and to be building towards your financial future, you're clearly on top of it when it comes to superannuation. You're clearly on top of it when it comes to investing. You've got a really clear investing goal that you're working towards. And I mean, you've got savings, you know, on average what it costs to get around in the caravan. So you're like, yep, cool. Like we've got about this amount of time. You were so clear on all of that. Like I often talk to people and they're like, oh, I'm not sure how much is in that. Or I don't know how

much it costs to do this or that. And like, you've obviously got good money habits. Automation is a fantastic one. Vanilla slush, not such a bad habit to have after all. But after hearing all of this back and hearing the story that you wrote in, let's take you out of it. Do you feel like this money, Darius, we've just spoken to is a C. I could probably bump that up a bit now that you say it like that. I feel like I'm not going to tell you what to be, but I feel like you've done a really good thing. You've like reset your money story. Like you spoke earlier about creating passive income and your big goal is, you know, to get that investment portfolio to that amount. And I just, I have no doubt that that's what you're going to be able to do. But then the like

shiny cherry on top is that you're not just like at home working away to a job that you're not enjoying. Like you told me that a couple of weeks ago you were on a beach in WA going down to the rock pools at sunset to get fresh baby octopus. What? Like that is living the dream. That doesn't sound like a sea money diary to me. True, true. So maybe have a think about it. Maybe reassess with yourself. But my dear guys, I've loved this. I have adored this conversation. I feel like it's given me a lot of food for thought about lifestyle and what even I want to achieve and I just know that if it's done that for me it's probably done that for a lot of people in my community and I'm just so grateful that you were so willing to share your story so openly so thank you for that

and I'm so glad that I got to share you with my community oh no thank you thank you a lot it does mean a lot if anything yeah I do hope that it does inspire some people because yeah life is honestly too short to be constrained by sort of stress and worry over money and not doing what you want to. It's so true. Thank you so much. Thank you, Bea. 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 financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards

your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.