She's On The Money - Is a Car Novated Lease a Smart Money Move? And the Passion Vs Pay Cheque Career Debate

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Is it really a money hack if it leaves you wondering whether you’re saving money… or just signing up for a fancier kind of debt? This week, we’re unpacking the financial mystery that is the novated lease & whether they’re a money win or just marketing spin. We cover how they work, when they make sense, and the sneaky traps to watch out for. Then we spiral (in the best way) into the classic quarter-life crisis: passion vs pay cheque. A community member is tempted to swap her secure, well-paying job for a career that lights her up and promises all the shiny lifestyle perks... but with kids in the mix, the pay cut comes with a whole extra layer of complexity. So of course we had to give our two cents and ask the rest of the community for theirs too. And because it’s Friday, we’ve got all your favourites; money wins from our incredible community, broke tips you’ll actually want to steal, and a healthy dose of chaos to wrap your week right!PSA: If you want to treat yourself to the $60 facial we raved about from L’Occitane... here’s the link. You won’t regret it. And don't forget the $60 is redeemable on face care products on the day. Money win! Ready for more laughs, lessons, and unhinged money chats? Check out our oh-so-bingeable Friday Drinks playlist. Listen here. Join our 300K+ She's on the Money community in our Facebook Group and on Instagram.  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 - 451289.See 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 nirawaman daman imalan, mumibangada 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 makes personal finance fun especially on Fridays it is our favorite day of the week where we get to get our team together to celebrate you our incredible she's on the money community Miss Jessica Ricci is going to be sharing her favorite money wins. And Beck is back for a little cameo this week in between her little time off. Beck, you've got a number of broke tips for us, which are going to be very good. I feel like we've missed you for a few weeks. You're back for a week. Then you're going to go away for another few weeks, but we will get her back. Don't worry. Don't worry. And we'll be

helping to answer a money dilemma. Whether novated leases are a good idea when it comes to car financing and something that you slid into our dms about this week whether you should stick at a job because of its earning potential or leave and chase your dreams guys how have your weeks been thus far i'm having a lovely week i feel like i've been such a downer lately so i have to say i'm having a delightful week a lovely day it's just been very fun and nice and i'm so happy to be here with my friends and I'm just having a great time. Oh that's so lovely Jess. How are you? Well I just want to say really quickly you can have it down a week as many weeks as you like. Thank you. You know sometimes like you feel like you're you've been down for a certain amount of

days and you don't feel not down anymore be like well people probably think of it by now I'm gonna try and be happy but you can be as down as you like. I mean I would like you to not feel down um no but I've had a honestly I've had like a normal week like it's like not been very eventful I'm officially unemployed so if anyone has any jobs going let me know and other than that I had to have a colonoscopy at the start of the week um which was I feel like I always say it's like scary but it's actually not like once you're done you're like oh there's free sandwiches totally um yeah it's just being chill I love that you I love that oh honestly live love laugh I feel like we have had a good week um I know you've got a money win coming up because we also

got spoiled so like that made my week very very good and I'll leave that to you because I know you were like can I tell them and I was like oh I'm jealous but yes of course but what I do get to share hopefully is a five-star review would you guys like to hear it yes please okay so this one is from beagles oh cute name i hope you have beagles that's cute and they said inspiring i've been trying for years to get my act together with money and just listening to the money diaries and bexbroke tips i have finally started making steps towards getting out of debt and being financially free to treat my family lovely isn't that so cute i love you beagles such a cute name beagles feels like an illegally cute dog name and it sounds so close to bagel like i would love to meet a

beagle the bagel yeah i know that's so cute i would love to meet a beagle called bagel i feel like that is good but i also just really love knowing people's dogs names yeah so the other day i saw in the facebook group that people were leaving photos of their pets and they're like oh pet for pet tax and i'm like sorry introduce your animal what is their name how old are they what are their interests the full bio what are they good at what are their hidden talents anyway i need to know all of that and also guys we get a massive kick out of reading your five-star reviews so if you haven't left one and you've been thinking about it now's the time because we would love our egos to be stroked and honestly every time you leave a five-star review it really

helps the algorithm on the podcasting platforms pick it up and serve it to new people who might also love the podcast. We love and appreciate you. Yeah, exactly. So guys, would you like to get into it? Cause as I said before, Jess has a really fun money win. That's like, I don't know, a team money win. But Jess, what have you got from the community first? Alrighty. So first from the community, I've got a money win from Ashley who said she cracked six figures for the first time this financial year. And then we had a couple of other girlies, Evelyn and Carly commented underneath and said they did too that's sick I just wanted to say that's so exciting congratulations guys yeah congrats next I've got a money win from and she said she modeled some nursing scrubs for

a photo shoot in exchange for a pair of scrubs of her choice and a $250 voucher she said it was a really fun experience it only took a couple of hours and it boosted her confidence plus now she has really fun scrubs to wear at work money I love a fun scrub like I love seeing it as well I love being at the supermarket and seeing someone who's finished a shift or whatever and they're in they're like cutie little scrubs. Yeah, totally. I'm like, you have got your shit together. And I hope someone gives you a free coffee. If you're wearing scrubs, you deserve a free coffee. Yeah, you deserve. Absolutely. Next, I've got a money loss this week from Charlotte who said, unfortunately, she was having the worst day and then smashed her car side mirror onto a pole.

She called the mechanic to have it fixed and it'll be $1,500, which I'm so sorry that that happened to you. But the girlies came through because there were lots of comments under charlotte's where people said have you tried looking to see if you can replace the part yourself have you done this have you done that and then charlotte eventually said oh i realized i was very stressed in the moment but i think i can just replace a small portion of the mirror and that's going to be a lot more cost effective totally that's actually i did that literally the other day it cost me 40 bucks to get a new mirror ship really and i don't like i don't 1500 i'm like crazy what the hell did say that their partner's a mechanic and that is kind of a going rate if

I'm assuming maybe you have if you have a fancy one or something I don't know sure um but yeah always look into if you can do it yourself because absolutely a few little comments and Charlotte's just saved herself presumably quite a lot of money yeah and then lastly this week I've got a money win from Hannah who said money win hubby found a much cheaper flight back from his trip to Brazil and as a result he's stopping over in Greece for a few days I just wish I was there with him to enjoy it that would be so nice yeah I like that's such a good little travel tip like just stop over somewhere for a couple of days if you can you might what you would spend on the flight you could just spend in a different country true you know that's very true and then

my money win for the week we had a little team treaty this week I wanted to say because I think it's so good you guys if you follow us on Instagram you might have seen we're working with L'Occitane which is delightful because we've discovered arguably the best life hack ever you pay $60 you go in you get a little facial 45 minutes totally customized to you they check your skin they did our moisture they did the whole thing we all did this by the way oh yeah beck your first facial first and i'm it's not gonna be my last that is for sure that was it was so gorgeous just tell us more sorry it was like a little group family trip it was a lovely outing so you have your console and then you get a little in-store facial in their beauty pod they

run you through all of their gorgeous products and the girls were so nice literally i was like can we be friends after this i'm obsessed with the girls like they made the experience so incredible and then you've paid for your facial you've had your facial when you leave you can redeem it on face care products which was my favorite part because I don't know about you about halfway through the facial they were like using this product and the smell of it yes absolutely and they were like putting this all over my face and like they have magic fingers like girls who do facials like your hands are next level but I was like what is that what can I smell why is it so good yeah and I got to take it home with me it's just incredible what a good

money win like you're basically redeeming exactly what you spent on the facial yes for the product which i think is such good value you can only do it the day of we'll pop all the information in the description box select stores but yeah not all of them have the little facial bar so like you can't just pop into any but like the ones that do are next level oh my god 45 minutes is so good perfect little lunch break treat and beck you learned how to say loxotan so like that's a good money win as well i feel yeah because i feel like so if for those listening if you don't know what loxotan is you do know what loxotan is i was saying locotane because it's l-o-c-c-i-t-a-n-e yes but it's pronounced loxotan because it's french oh my god if you will oh my goodness it was it

was so gorgeous it was like the perfect amount of time i i thought i would get like really shy and like awkward but it was like so gorgeous like they're so good at it and i actually ended up being like messaging everyone all my friends being like i need to give you a facial because like it was such an experience i felt so zen after it was just so nice i think my favorite thing was um because we were like snooping around while beck had her facial like her laying in her chair with her like headband on she looked so zen too like it looked i was like she all right like she looks she looks like she's a bit out of it but she had a good time oh yeah and like what a good intro facial as well because like it's not like a massive two-hour thing that you have to commit

or crazy expensive $60 is so cheap I just feel like that's a really nice like I don't know a gateway facial oh yeah um just like now you're probably like oh I'd definitely do it again absolutely I don't think I could have convinced you to go to a massive salon and like booked in for a big deal no but it was holistically like so I was just so zen I'm I'm so excited I actually want to go back after this and I mean you know what was also really good um while you were having your facial just and i went and got your cheese so that was wins all around there you go all right enough talking about how we got facials because i don't know if that's a broke tip it's definitely a money it's a money win like maybe it's a broke tip as well i dare say your boss to pay for your

facial money with you also broke tip you get the facial and then use the products as a gift for your mom yes that's a good tip goodness sorry i won't take your broke tips beck what have you got this week we've got a couple from the community as per so the first one comes from jenna who says i have a light colored hoodie i was going to throw out as it came out of the washing machine with stains on it that happens all the time why does that happen you know what i mean like you put something in it comes out with a stain oh it's a dye running probably from like something else i see that actually makes a lot of sense and so what she did was she got some dye i i did this too with one of my old jumpers i was like it's so it was white it was so stained and then i just bought

an $8 dye from Woolworths. I think it's Rye, R-Y-E or something. R-I-T? Rit dye? Oh, Rit, sorry. R-I-T. Sorry, it started to make sense. I use that all the time. I mean, it's not like I dye everything every week, but whenever I am dyeing something, I use the Rit dye. It's really good. Yeah, totally. And you have a whole new jumper. And so this is what Jenna did. Just got some dye, dyed it a darker color and saved buying a new hoodie and it looks brand new. So smart. really clever it's it's so good also side note another brute tip i think i've shared this before on the podcast just like refreshing your blacks sometimes you've got like your expensive lululemon leggings or like whatever leggings you've got i feel like everyone's active wear is always black

unless you're me being able to like pop it in the washing machine with some black dye makes them look brand new takes that like you know how black can be a little bit faded yeah take your black clothes $14 die $7 on sale money win new fresh black that's oh my god that's actually so smart yeah and so much better for the environment you're getting more everything totally and it doesn't stain the washing machine no absolutely not and like I mean I don't want to like give Rit too much air time because they're not paying for this but you can actually get if you go to spotlight not just the supermarket you can get dipods so it's even easier they are a bit more expensive than like you know doing your mix it yourself but you can get the die pod you take all the plastic

off it pop it in the washing machine and it basically bursts while it's in there stains your clothes like have you do you remember ever doing the whites load and then leaving a red thing in there and it ruins your washing this doesn't ruin your washing it does the opposite it actually fixes your washing washes it all out and then you just hang it out to dry gorgeous money win wow seriously wrong section of the podcast what else you got beck next one comes from elise who says for any academics or people doing research and trying to like access any papers if you have access to the author's details try and find them you can email them and usually they're more than happy to send it for free it's not me that loves the idea of them sharing that because they just

like love knowledge they want people to have it yeah i don't know if that's really naive but that seems so lovely to me it totally is it totally is and you guys already know but i don't know if everyone who listens to our podcast knows but i actually have my own money column in the age newspaper and in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, which according to my parents is like actually a really big deal. And like, I think it's pretty cool because I get a thousand words a week to yap and like, y'all can't say anything about it. This is my opinion column to what I want here. But I get paid to do that money win, but I don't get paid per view. I just get paid to write the article. And that's how most pieces of content exist. So I know lots of platforms

don't pay their authors they might say oh like it's for the exposure you'll get more work from this which I don't subscribe to um thankfully I do get paid but usually you get like a set fee um or did you know that you get paid per word sometimes so some people get paid per word in their article anyway interesting I'd be fluffing I'd be adding in words I know oh my god I know I don't get paid per word the redundancy would be honestly rude but that's okay um but they usually get paid so once it's on the platform there's no benefit to the author anymore the subscription and stuff usually goes to you know the owner of the platform they might just do a solid and sneak it over to you yeah yeah my articles aren't paid just to be clear yeah they shouldn't be uh no so worth

a shot anyway and then my one my friend sent me this thing and i thought it was just for merribeck council so merribeck is like you know brunswick and all of that kind of area and they're basically doing a like parking fine refund situation and so it's you may be eligible i for some reason wasn't with your 500 i've had a thousand parking fines i was like surely one of them is eligible anyway none of them were but and then i love a lovely producer i googled it and i think there's like a few councils doing it at the moment so maybe just have a google and see um what is available but for Merribeck in particular all you had to do was kind of you just had to use your rego just chuck it in and if something's eligible then I think you have to prove that you were the

I guess recipient of the infringement but it'll be different for every council it would be different so that's why I'm saying like with Merribeck that's what the process was yeah all I needed was my registration and then yeah for some unknown reason nothing was eligible and I'm like every single day it feels like I've got a new parking fine. So I'm, I mean, I'm going to keep trying. It's worth taking a punt for everyone. Yeah. So give it a go. All right, guys, that is it for this side of the episode. We're going to go to a really quick break because, and quick I say, because I want to get into this so much. We're going to talk about whether novated leases are a good idea when it comes to car finance. And you slid into our DMs

about something this week, whether you should stick at a job because of its earning potential or leave and chase your dreams. Don't go anywhere. welcome back everybody let's take a listen to this week's money dilemma hi there have you got a money dilemma you just can't solve the she's on the money team is here to help every week we tackle your dilemmas both big and small to answer your most burning money career and life questions to get involved simply head to our website and leave us a short voice recording and you might just find yourself on the show now let's take a listen to this week's money dilemma. Hi, she's on the money. First of all, love the podcast. Thank you so much for putting

it out there for all the ladies and everyone else every week. It's very entertaining, very motivating and very educational. So really appreciate it. My question for you ladies is about novated leases. I run a small business and I've recently had an employee ask about the potential option. I don't know much about it, quite honestly. And I was wondering if you guys could explain what a novated lease is, the difference between a normal finance loan and the benefits for an employee as well as an employer. That would be really appreciated. Thank you and keep doing your thing. That's so sweet. Thank you. I don't really know about how novated leases work everywhere, but I just know that in my job, they did butter it up a little

bit. Cause we have a company that is attached to our company that offer this. And it's like, it kind of like comes out, like the repayments come out of your pre-taxed salary. And so I was like, okay, let's have a look. And then I like kind of like inquired and then they sent me like a full breakdown. And it was just, I was like, I just want like a shitty little secondhand car, no more than, I don't know, 10K, which I know is already a lot. And then they sent me the full breakdown and I calculated that my after tax pay would pay the exact amount off, no interest. But then the pre-tax pay was like $60,000. And I was like, are you telling me that I'm paying 60,000? It's something like that. Something crazy. That's insane. On the car. Cause it's like

the benefit is that you barely notice the repayments cause it's coming out of your pre-tax salary. But yeah, it just felt really sneaky. And so I don't know that this is the situation everywhere. I just know that in this particular situation, it was very like, yeah, it was just very sneaky. And I think they did it in a way that was like, look, after tax, you're only paying the exact amount of the car. I was like, no, but I'm paying way more, I fear. So I don't know if that's the case everywhere. I just think be really cautious maybe. I have so many questions. If you're saying that you inquired on a $10,000 car and then it was going to be $60,000, like what the hell novated lease yeah that are using because that's not just crazy that's like illegal no not

illegal like it's not do you know what unfortunately things like that are never illegal if you signed a contract like if you were given the information that said oh you can borrow money from bill and he'll you know charge you 95 interest and you you know maybe didn't know what you're doing and signed it still sorry that doesn't make it illegal it means that they had a really good deal and you got a really terrible deal but you did the right thing doing the math and doing your own research yeah a hundred percent jess would you do a novated lease what are your thoughts i mean i'll be honest i don't know a huge amount we did an episode on novated leases but that was purely from an employee perspective so i'm very interested to hear from you on like the employer but like

why would an employer offer it yeah the other big benefit that i know of for novated leases is it has it will reduce your taxable income money win correct if you're someone who sits in a higher a tax bracket or you're just teetering on the edge, then doing a novated lease could bring you down, which is obviously often quite a big benefit depending on what that looks like for you. I personally, this is one of those things like my parents always said that just has all, it exists in my head and it's not even necessarily correct, but it's just so drummed into me. But like a car loan is one of the stupidest loans you can get. And I know big fat caveat on that. Most people can't afford to get a car up front that is such a privilege to say in the same breath they would

also say buying a brand new car is often stupid because it devalues when you drive it out it's like in their minds those two concepts went hand in hand and that's something that I've just kind of carried on so like when I bought my car it was secondhand and I saved for it in cash and like took me a long time okay big dog I know it was literally every dollar that I had I nearly cried but I did it and I mean I say that it was I think twelve thousand dollars yeah but that's so much money especially if it's all of the money that you had at the time and it's very privileged that I could do that no it wasn't actually it was hard work but I recognize that not everybody you know there might be an emergency people need cars yeah like don't get me wrong I think we sorry I just

really want to derail this completely for you we talk about privilege a lot and like we are so privileged like you and I are sitting on couches in Australia we have so much genuine privilege Jess you and I are white like that privilege is undeniable yeah but I also hate when people say I'm so privileged to be able to sorry you weren't given anything Jess your parents don't fund your lifestyle they have never financially supported you you have always worked as hard as you possibly can to save every single dollar and I just I get quite frustrated when even you do this back and it's so nice because I think that, you know, privilege checking is really important, but like you worked your butt off and I don't always want to palm it off to privilege. Yes. I'm going to

acknowledge my privilege and talk about those things, but I don't think every time we talk about, Hey, I actually achieved this thing. You have to outline the privilege associated with it. I try very hard to make sure, especially on social media and like content to always contextualize it to go hey cool like I am really lucky to have all of this but you worked really hard for that and I think in friendship conversations and stuff like you don't need to go oh I'm really privileged I saved 12 grand for my first car sorry Jess tell me how you did that how did you save 12 grand I worked three jobs thank you I just don't want anyone to think I'm shitting on people who no you're not you're not and do you know what there are a lot of people

in our community who work three jobs and still can't save a frigging dollar and that's really frigging hard yeah totally we hear you and we know you're there and we hope that at some point these episodes are inspiration that you too can put yourself in that position and you too will have the freedom but sometimes do you know what just getting by is enough absolutely and so I think like back to the quote if would I take out it no you're so fine love you bye amen but I think would I take out a novated lease? I would look into it. I would run the numbers. I don't probably talk to you, but I, my preference for me personally has always been where possible to just not take on a loan generally. Yeah. I think a novated lease can be a good option

if the tax benefits are big enough, but if you're paying 60,000 for a $10,000 car, then I just think that's crazy, but I feel like you're a much better place. Yeah. And I'm going to stop talking about other stuff and I'll actually tell you about a novated lease and the name should be something that you consider as well. We're talking about a lease. We're not talking about you purchasing a car. It's not a car loan. It's not a car loan. And my favorite way to think of a novated lease is a three-way. Yeah. It's a three-way and it's between your employer, it's between you and it's between a leasing company. So your employee, they lease a car and then the employer agrees to take on the lease repayments using a mix of the

employees pre-tax and post-tax salary. So if Jess, you came to me and you said, I want a novated lease. And for some reason it made a lot of sense for you personally. And I was happy to do that. I would just organize for your pre-tax and some of your post-tax income to go to that company. But the company is involved to basically take care of all the admin and the finance side of things. And like, honestly, the car maintenance and you can deal with that after that. And it's sometimes known as salary packaging. So we've talked about this before. And I mean, for the employee, there are a number of benefits. So say you don't have a car and you need a car, you don't have 12 grand to buy one, right? There are tax savings. So kind of money win,

like lease payments are made partially from your pre-tax income, which reduces your taxable income, as you were talking about before, Jess, which potentially could result in more take-home pay. potentially like if you did your numbers right and to be honest you'd have to be on the cusp of a salary band for that to make sense and there's a very small amount of people that I think would hit that convenience salary packaging a car like putting it on an evaded lease it's bloody easy like the car repayments the fuel the maintenance the insurance your rego all into that payment and you can trade it in if you're someone that likes those things right Yep. And I mean, it's relatively cashflow friendly. Like we would say that it reduces

the upfront cost of you having to save 12 grand. Like you don't need a deposit. That's kind of a money win. You could probably, and I'm not trying to pitch this to you, but like, you know, if you had five grand as a deposit, the car you could buy for five grand is very different to the car that you could potentially afford through an ovated lease. So maybe you're like, oh, I could afford to buy a newer or a better car than purchasing a five grand one outright. And there's no GST. So GST on the purchase price and running cost is often not paid by the employee because the leasing company claims it. And that's where their benefits start to kick in. Yeah. If you flip it, like you come to me and say, Hey V, I want a novated lease. Like what

are the benefits for me as an employer? It's a valued perk. Like you're probably going to be like, Oh my God, through my work, I can get this novated lease. Lots of companies, bigger companies usually find an ovated lease partner. So in their salary packaging, they can say, and we can give you this because it sounds shiny. Yeah. I don't love it because I think that that means that talent and people that want to work for you maybe think you're attractive when that's not actually the biggest perk ever. Doesn't cost me a cent. It does cost me a little bit of admin. I mean, I've got to set it up with the leasing company. I would have to organize your pay, but once that's done, that's fine. And to be honest, Jess, we have a bookkeeper at She's

on the money that like organizes all of that. I still do the pays. Like I process them manually still cause I'm good trolling. But like somebody else would do the calculations for me. And then each month tell me, Hey, you need to pay X here and Y here. And then Jess's salary leftover would go into her bank account and I'd be like, okay, cool. And then FBT. So you might've heard of FBT before. And I was having a conversation with my friend Shelby the other day, actually, She's a business owner as well. And we pay a lot of FBT in this business and that's okay. But FBT is fringe benefits tax and it's 47% and fringe benefits tax is something that we pay on benefits to an employee that are above and beyond what the government deems to be like the minimum.

and like this is not me complaining in fact I'm proud of the fact that we pay FBT because we do go above and beyond it she's on the money to like reward staff and you know gift them things that we think that they would really like as opposed to going oh I can actually only spend a top of $300 on my staff member each year like that wouldn't work yeah with all of the lunches and the dinners that we go to, we do gifts, we do a lot of travel. That travel sometimes like has to be split between, okay, well that really was kind of a holiday for everybody. Like we took a few days to go to Disneyland. We can't claim that on tax, but we can claim the part where we were at the conference, right? So FBT kind of adds up in our business. And I'm just giving you context, I think

because it's pervy. It's just interesting. And you might go, oh, well, why would they do that? but often it's fbt neutral so usually it's offset via the employee's post-tax contributions so the employee pays not the employer so like fbt not my problem yours jessica ricci i mean i feel like i've sold it i've made you go oh do you want a novated lease now you're probably like slay like i can see beck's face she's like oh interesting we're gonna have a conversation later so let's just point out a few of the red flags um girl you would be locked into a lease not a loan repayment a lease you're borrowing the car from them if you leave your job you actually have to take over the payments in full in your post-tax income yourself or find another employer who would take that over

for you so before you ever take on an evaded lease please check if you can afford it post-tax because you don't want to be stuck in a job and we'll get to this in our perfect question but you don't want to be stuck in a job because you can't afford car repayments. It's also not always cheaper. So depending on your income, your car choice, how much you use it, how much fuel goes into it, it can actually be more expensive. And I mean, you touched on this before Bec, than just buying it outright or going and getting a car loan. I'm not recommending a car loan as just a, you can have a new car every couple of years. Like I am very much on the, what would you say i'm on the team of buy a car thrash it drive it into the ground drive it into

the ground i know a lot of people go oh but you want to like resell it like i'm not buying a car for resale value most of the time i'm buying a car because i need to get from a to b and you best believe i am getting the most out of this vehicle completely like i would want it to last as long as possible and jess you know this but i don't think beck knows i drove my car that i bought way back when I have my very, very first job until I had a baby because I couldn't fit a car seat in it. And then I was like, damn it, we need a new car. I was annoyed by that because I was so excited about how economic that little car was. Girl, petrol was so cheap. If you have a cheap car, that is a flex. Like, I don't want to see your big, bougie, expensive car. I want to see your

cheap car and I want you to be like, I'm a big dog, look at this. But anyway, just keep it clean. all right like just keep the shit inside your car clean we can be proud of it irrespective of how much it is worth also with leases because it's a lease not your own vehicle there are kilometer limits and wear and tear costs that might come into it and rules that you might not be aware of and you actually don't own the car unless you completely pay out the lease and sometimes you get to the end of the lease term and then they go oh that's great beck um so to buy the car now did you want to buy the car? And you go, I thought I did. Yeah, it's actually another $17,000 to buy that car outright from us. Oh my God. And that's where things, you know, add up. But I mean,

it doesn't really matter how it really impacts the employer. As I said before, admin, it can make exits complicated. Like if I want someone to leave the business or someone wants to leave the business, you need to work out lease transfer and like logistics. And what if they don't want the car in any way it can be quite complicated and then it can also be a little bit confusing so if a company and this is not uh oh for me personally it can be confusing it's a if this is not communicated properly and you have been given a salary package back or Jess and it says you can get an ovated lease sometimes you might think that you get a car with your job yeah and you don't necessarily get a car with your job. You could pay for a car and they give you this

structure to buy a car. But like, I have seen people in our community who have no vated leases and they're like, oh, it's great. It comes with my job. Yeah. Well, actually it would have been better for you to take the cash. And they didn't know that was an option. They just thought that they had to get a company car quote. Yeah. And I think that that is a bit of a red flag because it's not well communicated. Be clear in your comms with whoever. Yeah. So whether or not it's a good option is completely up to you. I remember growing up, my dad always had an ovated lease through like the business he worked for and it just made sense for them. Like, because my dad was a car guy and loved it. And like, it just made sense for me. If you just purely base it on

the financials, I'd say no. But that's just me. Should we head into the Juicy DM? Oh my God, I can't wait. All right. So the Juicy DM this week has come in and like already had our community and our team talking. Hi, she's on the money. I need your help. I'm in a job where I could earn really good money, but it'll take time to climb that ladder. I've always wanted to be a teacher. I'd have more time with my kids during school holidays, the option to work anywhere and perks like discounted school fees, which is honestly a money win in this economy. But the idea of going back to study for a few years and taking on another $40,000 worth of debt is making me second guess literally everything i keep thinking the more i earn the more i'll be able to give my kids

the life i had growing up but what if i chase that and ignore a job i've always dreamed of i have three kids and i'm so anxious i won't be able to support them financially like my parents did for me and my sister what would you do what would you do with your three kids beck this is so when you first like teased us at the start i was like follow your dreams girl but now i'm like like i kind of a little detour but like what do you actually do if you can't afford school fees like like there's public school fee like public school options oh so there's like private school and that's with but there's no fees with public there are fees for the public school they're very low and then there's a support for people who are in lower socioeconomic areas or people

experiencing financial hardship whereas at a private school i mean there can be scholarships and things but it's generally much more expensive also just to but in their elbow recently announced that they are now fully funding all public schools in australia amazing which is actually very exciting because for a while they're always like top ups and things that had to happen and obviously that is not actually possible for a lot of people so fully funded schools like not private schools obviously um that would be great i'm team public school i'm gonna start a whole debate public school I don't think I turned out that bad I completely agree yeah same I don't it's a conversation and I mean no totally but it's a conversation that my husband and I have

been having recently because we have Harvey well we're like well what do we do are we meant to like you know and we thankfully and very again privileged to be in this position where we are having a conversation where I'm like okay we have this cash flow should we continue to invest it? Should we redirect our investments and our, you know, life savings into a private school? Is that something that is of value to us? Or should we be going down the route of a public school? I mean, I went to public school. My husband went to public school. He ended up going to like a private school for like year 11 and 12. But like before that, I believe it was a public school. I don't think we turned out that bad. I don't, I actually don't know what the difference

is. So a lot of people argue that private schools are better resourced. So there's, I would say I believe a misconception that private schools have better education levels, that they're, you know, often the classes are smaller. So, you know, you can have more attention on each student, things like that. And yes, they are better resourced because they charge a lot more for people. They've just got more cash. And I mean, more money means more resources, right? But like, you know, if you look at test scores as a big thing. So the public school I went to was in an area where there was, I think, four private schools and one public school. And so obviously the public school took everyone who couldn't afford to go to private school which

is the bucket i fell into and the big thing for our area was the public school tested better every year by far than any of the private schools cool so good that's such a flex yeah but i think like private schools often have like fancy i remember one of them we went to their theater they had fancy atrium and they have all of these cool things but like who cares yeah it doesn't people care a lot no such like that's what I mean like no I mean parents would care but like as as like when I was when I was learning like you don't know I would never I would none of that would ever have changed how how much I cared in school I did not care in school and so you're like I didn't care if you paid more for this I'd care less yeah that's the case for probably a lot of kids but

anyway sorry it's a whole conversation yes it is a whole conversation I am going to make the assumption and put it on the table that this person clearly wants to pay for private school yeah they're saying they get the discount that would be my assumption yeah this person has clearly decided that's a value to them and pop off yeah like that's fine totally okay that's good because i i i didn't understand the school fees thing i was like i like that just seems really mean that they're anyway but this makes more sense now so i think in that situation god it's so hard with kids being involved because usually i would be like just follow your dreams because in like 30 years time. But you now have responsibilities. I know. And that's a challenging situation to be

in because you feel this responsibility to give your kids absolutely everything and the best of the best. But if you're not your best, how are you giving your kids everything if you're unhappy? That's what I mean. And so like, sorry, as I say, like, I think that if you, yeah, usually I would say follow your dreams and all this kind of stuff. And I'm, I usually, my advice would be like in five years time, you could be five years closer to your dream or exactly where you are and maybe making more money, but like not very happy. But I think that really the best thing to do would just be like kind of figure out what your finances look like. And really just like, I know this sounds very boring and also, I don't know, but just like write down everything that you can possibly see

coming up in your future financially and figure out if it's actually going to be doable. And if it isn't right now then in the future maybe when your kids are a little bit more independent or maybe when like all those school fees and things like that you don't have to worry about anymore even if that means you have to wait until they're like 18 19 just know that eventually you will be able to do that and be able to live your dream and pursue that but if it's not feasible right now I think do the financially smart thing crazy yeah but you you've got a response and I can see where you're coming from like you've got this responsibility and it's crazy because I know both of you don't have kids and I do. And I was always like, I'm just going to be me. Like, I'm always

going to like, want to do these things. But like, once you have a kid, you're like, it's so crazy. And I never thought I'd be this person, but your priorities shift. It's not just like, oh, I want to spend more time with my kids. It's like, I would give up everything for that kid. Like if you're telling me he can't have something, I'm telling you right now, I'll bend over backwards to make sure he can. And it's not about entitlement or spoiling your kids. But if someone said, this is the best option for your child i'd be like okay well we're gonna have to do it yeah what would you do you've got three kids yeah i would say i do agree with beck's perspective i am someone the majority of my friends are teachers interestingly and feedback they teach

you give teacher vibes that you'd be a great teacher thank you i always loved miss honey growing up i think that i would say talk to some teachers because my friends teach in both private and public. And across the board, the feedback on teaching that I personally heard, not great. It's an underappreciated, under-resourced, underpaid industry based on what everyone has told me. People are exiting the teaching profession en masse at the moment. Like they're putting bonuses in to encourage people to be teachers because there's almost a shortage because so many people are leaving the profession. Not to say that you will not enjoy teaching. plenty of people do research do your research can you volunteer in a classroom can you get a

teacher's aid role or something that oh yeah that's a good one yeah yeah something doesn't require you to have a qualification to take on the hextet etc but can give you a bit of a taste of what it's like because I think you know my friends were all they went into teaching because they were really passionate about you know the next generation and they have so much love to give they want to nurture they want to do all of these incredible things but the reality of what that is sometimes doesn't always line up. And of course there's lots of teachers out there who love their jobs. And you know, I'm not saying that you wouldn't like it, but I'd say before you take on this debt, particularly because it's something you're stressed about, can you test the waters

first? Yeah, I would agree with that. I have had a friend move from a corporate role, a very corporate role, had babies and decided that teaching was for her, went into that. And like she adores it. She was born to be a teacher, like absolutely through and through the conversations I'm having at the moment. I caught up with her for dinner a little while ago and she was saying like, she's really struggling because she's quite a creative person and like likes to give a personal experience to each child. Cause as you would know, lots of kids need more and some kids are quite autonomous and like, you know, everything happens in a classroom and she's in a public school. So it's quite hard, but they're moving to a model where the principal was saying that you would

be able to walk around all of the grade three classrooms and at the same time every single day every single teacher would be teaching exactly the same thing yeah which is like I understand that and apparently that's becoming the norm and lots of schools are structuring this because they're like no the curriculum is this and like it kind of makes sense to have yeah standardized and like you know if you step back and go yep it would make sense that every single student gets allocated the opportunity to learn absolutely everything like but then you go personalized experience like there's just so much to it and I can tell that's frustrating her so I like that I'm gonna talk more I'm gonna assume you've done your research I'm gonna assume that you know you

want to be a teacher I'm not going to question your decision there I wouldn't worry so much about the hex I'd worry more about the work-life balance because the hex you know what that's not life ruining. That is money that you're investing into your education. And I never think that's a bad thing unless you're just going into a degree and you haven't done your research and you're like, oh, I wish I didn't do that arts degree that literally got me nowhere. Cough, victory, divine started there. That's why I transferred into psychology after one year. Anyway, I think it's really important that you're thinking about work-life balance. You've got three kids. How are you going to fit in study? Are you doing it full time? Have you talked to your partner? What does

your budget look like? If that's the case, could you do part-time study? I mean, you could break it up. I believe you have 10 years to do a teaching degree. So you could literally do it over 10 years. And then once your kids are in high school, then you can go into that. And I mean, if this is something you're wildly passionate about, maybe doing a unit here and there, it doesn't feel like as much work as, you know, it would, if you were doing something that you don't love, but I'm very much a believer in chasing your passion. I would hate for you to get to 60 and be like yeah I really wish I had a different career I really wish that I didn't do these things and I mean yes you've got to provide for your kids like let's work out your budget and

what that looks like and how that could work but I also just think that there are a lot more markers of success that the research basically says that if you read to your kids every single day they will have a higher IQ than anybody who went through a private school. I'd believe that. If you give your kids like one of the markers of success of a happy child is a happy mum. Like I do so much research into this space and I just look at it and go, cool. So you're saying that if I give Harvey a happy mum, he is more likely to be happy. If I give Harvey a calm mum, he's more likely to thrive. Fantastic. Like how do we achieve that for you? Is it engaging you in something that you're really passionate about because like I feel like the answer might be yes

what did everyone else oh my god we all had opinions so we asked the community yes we said would you take on more study and debt to chase your passion and a better lifestyle 52 of you said only with a solid plan to make it work 40 said 100 life is too short and eight percent said no wouldn't deal we then asked what matters more to you in a career long term 58 of you said flexibility and lifestyle, 29% doing something you love, and 13% said earning potential. Now, as always, we said to the community, and I've got a few that I'm going to read out, we said to them, what are your two cents? And we not only got your two cents, we had a lot of conversations in your DMs. And now this is going to sound very negative. And I

promise I'm just sharing anecdotally what has happened in our DMs over the last week. And that is a lot of messages from a lot of teachers and I would say that 80% of them are saying don't get into teaching. People would say things like it took my passion. They would say it's not what I expected. They would say you're under like exactly what your friends are saying, undervalued, underappreciated, underfunded. A lot of teachers were saying that, you know, especially in the public system, they are having to use their personal money to buy things like pens and textures and drawing utensils and things that haven't been provided for them in the classroom that due to their curriculum they still need and I just that really broke my heart because I was

like what do you mean this is because I'm obviously not a teacher I only have a handful of people that I know are teachers and it's not that often that I go so tell me what are the negatives of your career yeah why would I ask that at dinner you know so I think that was really eye-opening to me but I don't think to you Jess who you've probably heard it a lot I've heard it a lot yeah so the two cents from the community first person said not 40 grand it's commonwealth supported and there are lots of grants you need to do a lot of research because more teachers are needed next person said also the reason teaching is a dream career have nothing to do with the actual job yeah next person said discounted school fees aren't a

guarantee and they're only for very specific private schools yeah so maybe check the place you and I wouldn't I didn't even know that make like was a thing but that's a money win if that's the case someone said your kids will remember the wholesome moments not the money made moments that's very true next person said speak to some teachers before you jump ship the reality is not as good as the ideal someone else said I'm a teacher and you do earn decent money in leadership within schools and I mean you still get the holidays off so win-win another person said teaching has changed a lot in the past five to 10 years. Maybe volunteer in a classroom first. This feels so negative. And if you're a teacher who loves their job, I hear you as well. But I

think it's so important to just boots and all share what we are seeing. This is not our opinion. It's more just sharing the communities. Next person said, and I'm going to leave it at this actually. Last person said, currently doing this right now, just started this term. It's been 10 years in the making i'm loving it just do it congratulations so i think that's a good place too absolutely positives there's negative incredible career i'm sorry if that confused you further yeah good luck let us know what you decide yeah anyway unfortunately that is all we have time for today so guys we will see you bright and early on monday morning for our money diary Bye, guys.

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