She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: 24 year old with 100K in savings

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Each week on Money Diaries we take a sneak peek into the financial lives of perfect strangers. Strap in, because this is a goodie (we’re biased, so we usually say this anyway).This week we are talking to a very money-savvy 24-year old who has a whopping ONE HUNDRED GRAND in the bank. How did she do it? Have a listen and find out friend.Joining you this week for Money Diary you’ve got Victoria Devine, Ryan Jon, and the very shiny, very bright, and very new to the SOTM team Jessica Ricci.Do you love the podcast SICK and want more SOTM? Course ya do. Join our Facebook page to share your money wins and money confessions, follow us on Insta for daily inspo to keep you on track, and DEFINITELY subscribe to our newsletter, the written recap of the pod's key takeaways, including some bonus bits you won't want to miss.Finally, if you're in a money mess and need help untangling the muddle - we've got you sorted - simply record your question and send it through to us at [e-mail] and you may just end up on the podcast!The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Victoria Devine. I'm a financial advisor, a millennial and a woman who is wildly passionate about all things finance. In this Money Diaries episode, you are going to be hearing from a 24-year-old community member

who has more than $100,000 in savings. We're also going to hear, one, how she's done it, but two, the importance of having a support system around you and being surrounded by like-minded people. Ryan, what was the email she sent us this week? I've recently turned 24 and I've been working since I was 15 years old. I just got my first corporate job earning around $70,000 per year. That's a pretty good corporate job.

Straight out of uni. Straight out of uni income. I think I'm pretty decent at saving. I've saved around $110,000. Oh, yeah, just pretty decent. That's actually ridiculous. That is unbelievable. I love that she says pretty decent.

Oh, hang on. It gets worse. Worse or better? Worse. So that's her saying she's decent at saving. But I'm actually pretty terrible at being on top of my money in terms of tracking where it goes each month. I highly dispute that.

I'm not going to lie. Oh, I think that the spoiler here is into her savings. I would love to buy a property in the near future, but at the same time, I would also love to live in the inner west or the city in Sydney and live out my hipster dreams, which is obviously quite expensive. It is so expensive in Sydney to live in anything. Well, I'm pretty sure it's a million dollars.

Like, you know, there's always these viral stories, like for a million dollars, you get this rundown shed in the back of someone's house. Yeah, like literally. All right. She currently also has $10,000 invested in an ETF, but at 24 years old with $110,000 in savings... I want to know where it came from.

It's unbelievable. Is that too pervy? No, and it's... I mean, we love relatable stories, but... We also love inspirational stories that drive us to do better. All right, let's call the 24-year-old with $100,000 in savings. Hello, Sue speaking. Hello, is this the 24-year-old with $100,000 in savings?

It sure is. How are you going? Good, thanks. It's Ryan here and Victoria is with us as well. Hi. All right, so let's jump straight in. First question is, what has your relationship with money been like in the past? I feel like my relationship with money in the past has been pretty good and I think I owe that a lot to my parents in the sense that they helped me with building the foundation of good money and saving habits um so i was brought

up to really not buy things unless i had the money to pay for it outright so i like my parents never used credit cards or lay buys or things like that so even up until now at 24 i've never had a credit card or used like the buy now pay later type services and also on top of that uh growing up as well like when when it came to treating myself with things like I don't know clothes and whatnot I never really buy anything unless it was on sale. So what do you do for work now and how much do you earn? So I just finished a two-year graduate program in the telecommunications industry at the end of 2020 earning just under $70,000 a year including super but at the beginning of this I'm starting a new role with an annual salary of $94,000 a year,

including super. And how much do you have in your bank account right now? So in my bank account right now, I have just under $120,000. Wait, hold on. Are you like 24? I am 24. That is epic. We'll have that to that.

I just want to say as well, like I've lived with my family for most of my life, so, yeah, I am able to save on costs like rent and, yeah, I've been working since I could work from legal age. So, yeah, I think that's definitely helped. I love that you threw in legal age there. You're like, no, I wasn't a child. All right. So what is your attitude towards money and what is your big money goal?

My attitude towards money? Well, I see money as a tool and honestly an ingredient for financial independence and freedom. I really think it's important to save money for a rainy day and use money to build future wealth. So I honestly think this needs to be balanced out with mindfully spending it to enable the current me to still enjoy life, whether that includes like spending money on a holiday or maybe a bougie dinner or something like that. But yeah, with all that being said, I'm not going to lie. There's been times where I've been caught up with comparing myself to my peers and what they earn and what they have. And I feel like I'm gradually learning to shift my money mindset to realize that whatever I'm earning in my digits in my bank account isn't going to determine whether I'm winning at life. In terms of money goals, I'm conflicted between two.

One part of me would really like to sit down my route and purchase a property. So Sydney's property prices really make my eyes water. and then the inner wanderlust in me wants to use a portion of my savings to go traveling or set up myself to work overseas for a bit and use the rest of my savings to build up my shares slash investment portfolio. Awesome. So what is your attitude towards investing and do you currently have any investments? So I just got into investing in the share market last year from the encouragement of my family. I've tried to educate myself on it by reading, uh listening to podcasts like she's on the money and I think watching videos as well helps me

because I'm a bit of a visual learner um but honestly right now I would say I'm still no expert on it by any means and I feel like I don't have a complete and full understanding of it so I can see the value in it and I feel like that's enough I've like lightly looked at educating myself in property investments as well, but nowhere near as much as investing in the share market. But yeah, my only investment right now is about $10,000 just in an ETF at the moment. Also, you do invest. That's quite significant. I hope you're proud of that. So what debts do you currently have? Currently, the only debt I have at the moment is $32,000 of HECS debt from my university degree.

I double-checked my number as well. I logged into my MyScout account and was like, I need to double-check this. So good. And what would you say is your best money habit? I think as I've gotten older, I've become a bit better at being a conscious spender and really thinking about whether I really need something rather than just buying stuff because it's cheap. I'm not perfect by any means, and I still have the odd slip-up zone.

I think I love a Kmart bargain as much as the next person. But I think continually asking myself the question about whether buying this thing is going to make me a happier person and whether it's going to add value into my life has helped me with building good money habits. And also, I think another thing that's helped me is watching the Minimalism documentary series on Netflix. That's really helped me really re-evaluate whether my perspective, helped me re-evaluate my perspective on buying. They've just released a new documentary. Have you seen the new one? Yes, I just watched it not last night but the night before.

Please educate me. What are you guys talking about? Well, there's the original documentary about minimalism. Yeah, I've watched that. I loved it. So they brought out a new one like just last week, like an updated version, I guess. Well, our money, Dara, you probably know more than me.

What is the new one about? The thing is I felt like the new one was pretty – there was definitely a little bit more storytelling telling around buying stuff like like out not needing to buy so much stuff is still very much the core messages that were communicating in the documentary that was so there wasn't it wasn't anything groundbreaking on you but i think it it's nice to kind of i guess just reinforce that every now and again um so yeah it was really good uh i i enjoyed it still so you know and she's on the movie review we'll be uh out later this week i love that i'm not mad about

that. Yeah, let's do it. So on the flip side of that, what would you say is your worst money habit? I would say my worst money habit is that I don't really keep track of my cash flow in a regimented way at all, to be honest. So for example, if you ask me how much I spent on eating out gifts and groceries in the month of December, I don't think I could tell you at all. Or if you ask me the percentage of my income that I saved up just spending on those categories, I'd have no idea i remember there was this great quote and i can't remember i either had it on the she's on the money podcast or maybe somewhere else but it was something along the lines of whatever isn't being tracked isn't being managed and i just remember hearing that and thinking in relation

to me that does sound like something i'm sorry like i'm sorry not sorry but at the same time i think it's a good thing to to kind of have a check-in about because it does sound like you've got an epic amount of savings but to be more realistic like yes not everyone can save a hundred thousand dollars but just because you've saved a hundred thousand dollars doesn't mean you're a absolute legend at money and cash flow and budgeting always but hey I was saying this to Ryan before about your money diary that I'm pretty sure I know where all your money is going and it's asked right into savings my friend um so if we forced you to give yourself a grade what would you grade yourself? If I had to give myself a grade I'd probably say a B plus. I feel

like I have some good money habits in the form of being a conscious spender and just saving money in general because I do live a pretty frugal lifestyle but I know I definitely have some areas of improvement in terms of cash flow management and also top ups to my investment portfolio as well and turning that investment side of things into a money habit rather than having an ad hoc type of approach to it i like that and i like that your justification is quite sound but ryan and i looking at each other across the desk in a 24 year old who saved a hundred thousand dollars or 120 000 and uh has 10k invested rating themselves as a b plus i'm not gonna lie it's gonna rub some people up the wrong way but that is okay everybody is different and i

think that you know what like at the same time as people being like oh my gosh no should be an a like you've got things that you want to change personally and like we could never put a grade on you ourselves so ryan just before we head into having a really great conversation with you about your money diary we will just slip in a little word from our sponsors we've just heard details from the 24 year old with a hundred thousand dollars in savings and it's actually a hundred thousand dollars plus in savings 120 yeah it's like 120 and then a ten thousand dollar investment how often do you do you check it every day if i had that much money in the bank i would look at it every day do you look at it that often i do not look at it that

often only if i need to transfer money from my life savings account to my everyday spending that's probably the only time that i really kind of see it other than that i just believe it there so um i'm curious to know and i'll get these thoughts as well i've got so many questions yeah so with 120 000 in savings and obviously at the moment the interest rates aren't that high have you considered moving that money into investments or other areas of your life or why is it that it's just sitting there in the savings account uh so i've been looking at purchasing my first property actually i went to a house inspection last saturday um an apartment inspection sorry something i'm interested in doing getting into uh purchasing my first property but then at the

same time i think it's just because it's such a big purchase i'm really i guess i'm apprehensive about kind of laying that much down even for a deposit for a piece of property and i feel like it's so daunting and i feel like as well i still have so much more to learn and i know i'll never get to that perfect level and full complete understanding but I think it's because it's such a big ticket purchase that I am testing the waters and seeing what's on the market I like that so can you just to be like really pervy how much are you saving every week what's your your take on savings and how did you at 24 get to 120 000 in a savings account to be honest I I have no idea how much I put away in terms of savings each week

after I take out all my expenses and things like that because I still live at home and thankfully my parents do buy the groceries and things like that. So I'd say I'm lucky in the sense that my expenses are pretty minimal and I definitely acknowledge how privileged I am in that sense. And I think on top of that, I live generally a pretty frugal lifestyle as well like I don't I don't I'm not too flashy when it comes to clothes and bags and whatnot even with things like makeup and skincare and whatnot like

I never wear makeup so I think that's one big expense that I don't have to pay for on a regular basis skincare I keep it pretty basic use a cleanser and a moisturizer and that's pretty much yet and then um in terms of even having no holidays as well has helped with saving money because i can't really go anywhere um a lot of people have found out with covid that it's been forced savings and they've actually ended up a lot better off than they might have absolutely and i think yeah that's definitely helped my group of friends as well we're pretty low-key when it comes to hanging out like we're not we don't do anything super flashy like we might go out for dinners and things like that but other than that we find quality time just spent just

hanging out at someone's apartment or something like that or their flat well you're hanging out at a friend's house right now yeah pretty much yeah so we don't really go out like we do go out occasionally to celebrate and just treat ourselves but in terms of spending quality time together just hanging out at someone's place is all we need i definitely acknowledge sometimes you know if your friend's doing with a bougie lifestyle you do feel like you need to keep up with the joneses a little bit um but yeah i think i'm fortunate that um yeah my friend group where we're a pretty chill low-key bunch and i think that's helped as well with saving victoria how much do you think you've spent on beauty makeup skincare in your life i agreed to uh do a podcast

not to be personally victimized by ryan john well i just find a lot of i know it's such a dude thing to say but a lot of people spend like it's a really expensive crazy industry i'm not And I'm not going to lie, I spend a lot on skincare as someone who had acne as a teenager and literally till I was like 26 or 27, skincare has always been something I've spent a lot of money on. So I think that it's naive of me to say like, oh, everyone can save the same because genuinely my confidence was based on the skincare I would purchase because I'd just feel so much better if I didn't, you know, have the acne that was there. So I think it's, I think it's important to acknowledge that. But also, I think what I'm hearing from you as well is that you're surrounded by like-minded people and that actually helps so much to be on the same page and have good savings habits. Would you say that your friends are, you know, similar when it comes to saving? Yeah, I think it definitely helps being surrounded by like-minded people.

And in terms of savings habits and things like that, yeah, I think my friends are pretty good at saving. based on what i know at least i've never seen my friends go nuts on spending crazy amounts of cash on really frivolous things all the time what i loved is when you said when you're considering a purchase you think to yourself will purchasing this make me happier and it seems like that's a really cool thing it seems like such a simple thing to ask but a be quite powerful and b i'm guessing it's had a huge impact on you being able to save as much as you have yeah i think it's i'd say that I've really only started asking myself that question recently um I think having watched like a couple of documentaries on um industries like fast fashion and things like that I really

learned that you know sometimes when I do have those cravings it's just I'm just really after a bit of a dopamine hit right and um I don't need to buy stuff to fulfill that void I look back and think oh even if I had bought that dress I don't think you know I would have really enjoyed it probably within the first week but then afterwards it's a bit like oh you know you kind of get over it a little bit that makes sense that is so true and I think that level of introspection is something really rare in someone so young I know when I was 24 I wasn't thinking like is this purchase going to make me happier am I doing the right thing for me like what are my goals like I wasn't thinking that way at all so when I meet people who do think that way I'm always like wow how cool

would have been if I did that when I was younger at the same time as knowing that my money story is my money story and like I'm just on my own journey so that's actually awesome do you think that growing up did your parents teach you that or is that something that you just have always had ingrained in you like my parents never really taught me but I think just watching them and being around them and seeing how they spend their money has definitely influenced me that they haven't directly influenced me but more so in an indirect way yeah that's really cool growing up were they just having money conversations around the dinner table or was it something a bit more hush hush is that how you've become so open with it we didn't really have open conversations about it

around the dinner table it wasn't hush hush either i'd say um i i'm pretty open about talking about my finances to my my family and my really close friends i think it's important to help one another and it helps to talk about it even like when it comes to work and things like that to know what how much roughly you should be asking for um in terms of salary and things like that and also it's a good way to educate yourself and learn from other people as well it's never about bragging or anything like that that's certainly not my objective of being open about it at all but i think yeah it's definitely just that sharing of information or not knowledge is power when you're trying to speak to an employer or something like that yeah question you mentioned buying a

house we read that you wanted to live your hipster dreams and live in the inner west of sydney um how much and this isn't a knowledge question but just a curiosity because we don't live in sydney how much is it for a smallish two-bedroom you know in inverted commas first home in the inner west in sydney uh so most of the properties that i've kind of looked at in the inner west to probably around about $700,000 and upwards. And what do you get for $700,000? Yeah, so most of the companies that I've looked at, which are around $700,000, are two bedrooms,

one bathroom and one car park. And they're around, yeah, so anywhere along, I guess, the inner west train line, as we call it in Sydney. So, yeah, it's definitely... So expensive to be alive. You know, I was looking at property prices in Melbourne because my wife has an office in Melbourne as well and I was just like, oh, these are still eye-wateringly high prices,

but I think it's a little bit more affordable than Sydney. But, yeah, I guess we'll see. Can I tell you something that will annoy the both of you? Okay. I don't know if I want to hear this. My first house that I bought was in Bunbury, which was a few hours south of Perth in Western Australia. It's where I met my now wife, Bridget.

hey now why thank you uh it's a purchase on the beach right on the beach two bedrooms one bathroom 210 000 it costs wow sorry uh our one of our producers jess just looked at me and whispered get she's so classy i love it yeah she's from the west here in melbourne yeah she knows what's up she knows what's up uh does that hurt your soul to hear money diarist hurts my soul yes it does Wow. Oh, that's fun. Can you imagine like $210,000? No, get in the bin.

Yeah. The stamp duty was like an extra $3,000. Oh, my gosh. Wow. All right. He's fired. Before I keep bragging, V, is there anything else we want to ask our Money Dice? Because thank you so much for sharing so much.

It's been enlightening and very impressive. Yeah, you're fun to talk to. So, thank you so much for coming on. I think you've given us so much information and it's just been a really interesting story to hear especially because you don't exactly know how you've done it you've just you know always been a good saver and obviously from little habits big things grow and you know obviously being surrounded by like-minded people is really important as well and yeah I love it it's been awesome talking to you guys thank you for having me on thanks for coming friend have a beautiful

rest of the day all right so it is now time to wrap the show just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respects to australia's aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples the traditional custodians of the lands waterways and skies all across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness now guys keep in mind that the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision and we do promise i am actually an authorized representative

of australia pacific funds management proprietary limited abn 34132463257 afsl 339151 and again thanks to ryan john and to beck our producing legends who whipped this show into the show that it is yep if you've got a great story that you think the community would appreciate send me an email ryan.john at she's on the money.com.au and maybe you or someone you know can be on an episode in the future thanks for joining friends see you next week