She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: A Journey to Abundance

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

This gorgeous Money Diarist immigrated from Ukraine when she was 6 years old with nothing. At 19 she met her soon to be husband, and by 22 they were married and had bought their first home intertwined with family. They now have 2 kids and last week cut up all of their credit cards! We can't wait for you to meet this inspiring member of the SOTM community. Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money.

She's on the money. hello and welcome to she's on the money the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our Money Diaries, where I get the absolute privilege of talking to one of our beautiful She's On The Money community members all about their money story. Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got a message and it went a lot like this. Hi, She's On The Money. I wanted to share my story because it's been quite a journey. When I was six, my family immigrated from Ukraine in 1995. We stayed with relatives and had nothing when we arrived. Fast forward to meeting my husband at 19 on a group trip to Israel, we fell

in love and have been together ever since. We bought our first home at 22, intertwined with family, which makes things quite complex. We renovated and flipped it. We then bought a second home and now have two children. Last week, we cut up all of our credit cards and I have never been more proud. I'm listening to every single episode of She's On The Money and I am obsessed. Money Durst, welcome to the show. Thank you. What did you do when you cut up all of your credit cards? Did you actually get the scissors out?

Well, I didn't actually cut them. I let my kids cut them. So we've always spoken to them about credit cards. And I said, I actually took photos to post on Monday Money Wins. I'm meaning to do that. But yeah, I got my kids to cut them up. Make sure you scribble out the numbers. Oh, yes.

Yep. They're in tiny little pieces. And my children loved that. Yeah. Okay. All right. I just, I don't want any issues if you posted a cut up credit card and then it's like, well, that's not too hard to put back together, babe. Fair enough. Yep. Then we might need to get the

credit card back together and then pay it off again, which would just not be the vibe. It's not the vibe, but I'm so excited for you. Were your kids excited about that? Was that something that you communicated with them about, you know, getting out of debt and what kind of, I guess, accomplishment that is? We have, and I've got a big spreadsheet printed out in color in our laundry that they can access anytime. And it shows how much money we've got saved, how much we've got, what goals we're working towards. So they can always refer to that. And they knew that getting rid of the credit card was number one. So that was a really exciting achievement for everybody. Oh my gosh. I love that. I love how open and honest you are about money communication

with your kids. Has that always been the way? Has that been something that is new or I guess even how do they take that? It's always been the way, the way that I've chosen to parent with them. I read The Barefoot Investor when I was quite young and it really helped me start my financial literacy so I wanted to get my kids a bit of a head start to what I had and so my son has had his little money boxes since he could do his little chores he bought his own skateboard when he was four we ended up emailing Scott Pape about that and he replied saying it was really cool it was really cute so he's really proud of himself and yep so we've always had conversations around there's a difference between money that we save, money that we can spend and money that goes to

say charities or you know whatever else they want to spend their money on. I adore that. I have another pervy question before we actually get into it because I feel like talking to children about money is a topic in our community that can divide a lot of people. Some people say it's too much responsibility to share something like that with kids whereas others say no absolutely share it all. Obviously, you're way more liberal in sharing it all and the journey and your savings and what that looks like. And I think that's amazing. But do you think that there are any negative impacts of that? Or if parents are wondering, how much do I share with my kids? What would your advice be? I think what I've noticed, a lot of my friends have children that

are the same age as mine. So money is a conversation happening in every house because kids will always have wants and needs and they'll want the latest toy or book or whatever else it is that their friends have so no matter what that conversation will come up I think with us it's always been about empowering the children to understand that they are able to save for their goals so it's never been about I've never framed it as we can't afford that as a family it's been we're going to save for that. Here is how we're saving for it. Here's the steps we're going to take. And this is the date that we expect to get to that. And they've seen us achieve so many money goals that for them, it's just a given that, you know, mum and dad said,

we've got a holiday booked for Queensland next March. And they know that we're going in March because that's how long it will take us to save for the flight. So in March, they will go on that flight on that holiday and they'll know that it just took us a little while to get there, but we can still have the power to do what we want. Sometimes it just takes us a bit longer. I love that. I love that so much. Sorry for going on such a tangent at the start of the episode. I feel like I should have been more structured. But when you started talking about kids and money, I was like, oh, can I be pervy? Because it's really fun. Let's get into the questions though, because I feel like I would say that's why everybody comes, but they don't come for the

questions. They come for the pervy dates. But I want to know, if I asked you to give your money habits a grade from A through to F, what would you grade them? I think if I had to grade myself from A to F, I would give myself a B minus. And that's mostly to do with what I've recently realized some limiting beliefs I have around my earning capacity and my ability to grow wealth. So I can see a lot of things that I need to work through and educate myself on, I think, at the moment. I love this. All right. So next question I've got for you, and you gave us a little bit of insight in your message in, but I want to know, can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? I was born in a beautiful city called Kiev in Ukraine. And during the day,

I was raised by my grandparents because my parents were both working full time, but my parents would come over for dinner every night, right before I turned to the Soviet Union fell. And what that meant for our country was a lot of upheaval, especially in the economy. So there was a lot of hyperinflation. I'm too little to remember this, but I've spoken to my parents a lot about it and they would go to work and, you know, for a whole day's work, they would come home and not be able to afford bread. I remember my parents saying that they could only afford to buy meat for me like no one else in the family could afford to eat meat they couldn't afford to buy a car my mum said they couldn't afford to buy things like a radio so economically it just was really really

hard and my grandparents they lost all of their retirement savings my parents were really fortunate in that we'd already had family that had come out immigrated to Australia before us and they were really kind they invited us out and we made the choice to leave mostly so that we could have some sort of economic stability in the future. That was really hard for my parents. They came with nothing. We moved in with my cousins in their two-bedroom apartment while we looked for a rental and I think a lot of my money story is really about what happened at that stage because we ended up renting my whole childhood. All of our furniture was donated to us by charities like the Salvation Army and I've got a really clear memory of walking into a room at a charity and I was

allowed to pick one toy and that was a really special toy and I've still got that little bear but it was always a story of working really hard to make ends meet and it wasn't that we felt poor because that's not how my parents saw themselves they worked any job to make money but we definitely had to be really mindful about what we bought and I remember my parents always including me in the big purchase discussion so I don't mean big purchases like a house I mean when my parents were ready to change the donated charity couch to a leather couch we went shopping and it took us a really long time to find the perfect couch because that was a big purchase and they still have that 20 years later so I was always involved in those discussions they always wanted to know what I

thought and I could understand that we had a certain budget to work towards. And I also remember my parents were never above any job. They would work anywhere, do anything. My dad worked as a labourer. My dad sold things at Vic Market. My mum was a cleaner and both my parents are university educated. My dad's an engineer, but they weren't able to work in their field. When they immigrated here. They couldn't speak the language. So I think that's mostly where a lot of my values towards money come from. For me, money provides choice and stability. It means that we at the moment aren't renting because I rented as a child and we had to move around a lot and I never really had my own space. I had to be super mindful of, you know, putting pictures on the walls.

so I grew up yeah I think I don't know how to go past that point I've got more to say but I don't know how to link it that's fair I feel like that's a really interesting insight as well because obviously my money story is very different to that but it's obvious that your parents have instilled such a good work ethic and understanding of money and values and I don't know I love that you said you know my parents never saw themselves as poor because I do think that poor when you use it in that type of I guess reference is really about mindset like wealth is so much more than just the cash that is in your account and I just think that you had such a rich childhood like it sounds like you were surrounded by so much love and so much happiness and even just so much planning

like the couch I love the couch like I love that they still have it and they probably still think it's like the best investment they've ever made because so much thought went into it, right? So much thought. And then also they involved me in all of the big purchases and they thought a lot about them. But then the flip side of that was they really didn't see certain things as necessary. So I remember I went to year nine camp in the snow and that was just for a couple of days. And my parents thought it was completely unnecessary to buy me snow boots. So I was the only kid at camp that had plastic bags on her feet and runners. I mean, did it work though? It did not work, but I can see where they were coming from. They thought it was a complete waste

of money because we didn't go to the snow. So they thought, why would we spend that money on shoes that you will never wear again? You're going to wear them once. I totally understand that. Yep. And then also I remember in year nine, everybody got to go to Japan and I was the one kid that didn't. I sat in a classroom for a week alone with a teacher and I never blamed them for that. But I totally understood that it was beyond what they could afford. It didn't match up with what financially they were ready to do. So I just had to accept that. But it did mean that I missed out on a lot of things growing up. And do you feel like that might have changed the way that you deal with money and your children? So if you feel like you missed out, do you find yourself trying to

give them all the experiences you didn't have? Yes. My kids complain and go, oh, why do we have to go to swimming lessons? It's so unfair. And I don't want to turn around and say. Sounds like the worst. Oh, yes. I am so sad for you that you are being taken to this beautiful swimming pool with these lovely teachers. And I'm so sorry that I have taken you on holiday here. i place value on experiences for them and yeah not on if they want things that i don't think they need i'm happy for them to get them as long as they work towards that saving goal themselves i will never say you can't buy that i'm currently holding my emotional support water bottle with cats we've all got one yes it was three dollars at kmart and my son is downstairs with a frank

green that he purchased. And you're like, absolutely not. I am going to be very happy with my $3 drink bottle. I mean, it has cats. Don't judge me and my Frank green that I know you can see, but yeah, you're right. Mine doesn't have cats. Mine is lacking a lot. And I probably need to do a lot of self-reflection at this point as to why I've made the decision I have made. Yep. Came out all the way, but that's the thing. So my son said, I would like a Frank green. And I said, you're welcome to buy whatever you want with your saved money, but you're going to save that yourself because that doesn't align with what I'm saving for for our family. I can't afford a $60 bottle. You've got to work for it and then you're going to start at zero. It's fair. It's

a lot. It's a lot of money. 100%. Especially as a kid as well. You're like, you do not need that. You're probably going to lose it too. Definitely. He's actually, it's probably the one thing that he's taken really good care of. And he's also started to have this identity of someone that has the ability to save for a good quality item. Whereas I will just be happy to get anything if it's cheaper and it does the job, but he will really put the research and time into it. And he's only nine. I love that. I love that so much. I want to know more about you though. Can you tell me what do you do for work and how much money do you earn? I work as a radiographer and I started there over a decade ago I started at the bottom and took x-rays and worked in theater and did all

of the things on call night shifts over time I've specialized so now I am a supervisor of a department and I work part-time I wrote down my numbers because I find it really confusing to work out my salary because I do salary package so I'll say it in a couple of different bits but last year, I earned $69,000 before tax. And then because I salary packaged my mortgage, my taxable income came down to $48,000. Oof, that's so good. It is so good. But what I didn't realize was that salary packaging is not great when you have a hex debt. So when I did my tax return, that's when I realized that actually I still had a lot of money to owe because I think they look at my full salary. Yeah, HECS is calculated on pre-tax income. So it is not calculated on what you take home,

but rather every single dollar that technically comes through your hands, whether it gets paid into tax or not. And that is a sticky point that some people get caught up in every single year. I see it in my community all the time. Come like July when people are doing their tax returns and they were so excited for a return. They're like, Victoria, I found out because I have salary packaging that I actually owe money for HECS. And this was me. Yeah. Yeah. Bites you in the bottom. It's the worst. Yeah. So I owed money because I hadn't realized that my HECS would be impacted by salary packaging. On top of my salary, I also get a CPD allowance, which is an amount of money that my employer gives me every year towards my education and courses that I want

to attend. So I'm doing a master's at the moment and I've been putting that towards the fees so that the master's doesn't get added to my HECS to grow that. Oh my gosh, she's doing her master's. She's fancy. So what is that CPD allowance? It is, now I'm not certain if it's $1,600 a year or if I've used the last two years amount, but this year I was able to use $1,600. Hey, that's pretty good. I like that they're furthering your education and actually giving you cash so you can allocate it towards what you want to do. Tell me a bit more about your master's. So what made you want to do your master's and what's the plan after? I like to learn. And if I don't have a path that's educating me, I tend to just

teach myself heaps of random stuff. And so I wanted something that would help me in the future something that I would be excited to learn. My master's is in public health. So it's teaching me about different health systems and why people make the choices they make and how we can improve systems around them to support them in making better choices and have better health outcomes. I knew that I wanted to do a master's, but I couldn't afford it for a long time because they usually cost between $40,000 and $60,000. And I think that's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. Yeah, I do plan to pay my HECS off, but I did some research and I realized that you can get

something called a Commonwealth Supported Place, a CSP. So even though I wanted to do a master's in a certain field, I wasn't set on the exact university or course. What I did was I found the ones that are Commonwealth Supported Places. And then I looked a little bit further into it. I found the ones that let me do it online and the ones that let me use my degree for credit points because that also reduces how much I owe at the end. So in the end, I think my master's is going to cost me about $8,000. What? How? That's ridiculous. Like in a good way, ridiculous. Yeah. I was credited for my degree and I got extra credits because I got an honours degree. Because it's a Commonwealth supported place, I'm pretty sure it's already half of the amount.

and then on top of that I've been putting my work credits towards that so it's wild like I'm so happy with that it's not going to grow my hex a lot oh my gosh I love this for you yeah I did wonder when you said hey I'm getting a $1,600 allowance because my master's so I have a master's of business administration cost me $78,000 on hex and I want to be sick every single time I think of that. I mean, a bit of that was international study. So I popped that on there too, because obviously when in Rome. However, when you said, oh yeah, we get 1600 bucks and I'm trying not to put it on hex. I was like, the math isn't mathing. How is she not putting it on hex? $1600 is not going to cut it. But it would, it would almost cover your entire degree. There would be such a

small out of pocket. How exciting. It's really exciting. I love it. I adore that for you. All Right. I want to know, so you mentioned before that you're going to Queensland for a holiday in March and the kids know what's going on. You're saving for it and you're planning for it. But I want to know, what is your big money goal? What are you guys working towards at the moment? We have a few money goals. Some of them are short-term. One of the short-term ones was the credit card. So we've ticked that off. That's a big one though. That's a big one. It was really exciting. We've had a credit card our whole relationship. So it was really nice to cut that up. We both have aging parents and at the moment we have a two

story townhouse. All the showers and bathrooms are upstairs and we've got a powder room downstairs. So we're now saving to put a shower downstairs. We've got my husband's dad living with us a few days a week every week. So I think it would be really nice to make the downstairs kind of accessible for them into their old age, but it's expensive to put a shower in. So that will slow us down. It's so spino. Oh my gosh. I didn't realize how expensive bathroom renovations were until I did one myself. And oh my gosh, I promise you right now, Lani Durrest, the next house I buy, it'll be done. It'll be done. There won't be any renovations necessary because it just all adds up and then it's more expensive. And then someone says, oh, you need this fancy waterproofing.

And what about the tiles? It adds up. I totally get it. We bought this townhouse for that exact reason. It didn't need anything done. The first house that we bought was a 1928 Californian bungalow. We had to gut everything ourselves. And after we did that, we realized that we needed to re-stump it, re-do all the wiring, all the plumbing. And that was before we even did anything exciting. So it does add up and we had no intention of renovating the townhouse, but now that we've got elderly parents living with us, it's making sense to make it more accessible for them. So we've got to start saving for that. That was an unexpected cost. Long-term, I think we'd like to save for an overseas holiday when the kids are a little bit older. That will take

us a few years. We are salary packaging a car, so we're saving to pay off the bubble at the end of that. I think that'll be about $14,000 in a couple of years. And very long term, we'd like to pay our mortgage off before we retire. Yes, so exciting. I feel like paying off your mortgage before retirement is a really good goal because it gives you so much more financial freedom during retirement. And it's not something that a lot of people think about because they go, yeah, we'll just pay it off all the way through. And then all of a sudden you get to retirement, you might need to take some money out of super to just extinguish the rest of it. And it just doesn't feel as good. It doesn't feel like you're achieving as much, even though you might have

planned it that way. But I think it's a very good goal. All right, let's go to a really quick break, because on the flip side, I have so many more questions for you. Don't go anywhere. all right money diarist we are back and I want to know a bit more so before the break you said that you've got some aging parents obviously one of your goals is to put a bathroom or a shower downstairs so that it can kind of be a bit self-contained and older parents don't have to go up and down stairs moving forward what does that caregiving role look like I guess for your partner and for you, does it look like, you know, your partner's dad moving in full-time? Does it look like your parents moving in full-time? Like what does that look like? That's a really good

question. And that's something we've been speaking a lot about. My in-laws have just bought a couple of acres pretty far from where we live, a few hours away. So I don't anticipate them moving into our home, but at the moment it just makes sense for them to live with us because they're still working in the city, I would expect one day my parents to possibly want to move in and even if it's not full-time to come and stay with us when they need help. I grew up in a multi-generational family. I believe that if we've got room for anybody in our home, they're welcome to use it. But I just want to make sure that that's really comfortable and accessible for them. So I think long-term, I just want to have everything ready and should they need in illness or in health to

come and stay with us. I want them to just know that that's there for them. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. It's interesting as well, because I feel like I've got a couple of friends who are Ukrainian and that's very common to have parents move in with them. And it's kind of like expected. Whereas in the Australian culture, it's not as expected. I feel like often we palm off our parents and like, I would love for my parents to live with me. That's always been something that I have said to them. I'm like, yeah, one day I'll chuck you in the granny flat out the back and then you can come and look after my kids. And like, it's one of those things that I think would be so special, but it's not the way everybody sees it. Have you and your partner always been on the

same page about this idea of multi-generational households? We've been really open and fluid about it the whole time. My husband's one of six kids. He's the second oldest. He's very much a caregiver. And even choosing to have kids in our twenties was such a wild choice compared to our friends who are all going to Europe and whatever, I can't even name it because I didn't go clubbing when I was younger. Yeah, I think we've always moved in and out between their homes when we've needed to. We've been really privileged that they have the same attitude. So when we were renovating our home, we moved into a spare bedroom in his parents' house and we lived there for a couple of years while we were putting all of our money into the renovation and we're kind of giving back

now. So they're welcome to come stay with us if they need to. I love that so much. You mentioned before that you had kids in your early twenties, and that was a decision that you and your partner made in your letter into us. You said, I met my husband when we were 19 on a group trip to Israel. How old were you when you decided to have babies? Like, and what type of decision was that? Was that hard? It wasn't hard. I think the way that I was raised, everyone in my culture has kids really young. I've got cousins. All their children are the same age as mine, if not older. I actually met my husband when I was 18. I finished high school. I thought, I'm free. I'm going to go travel the world. And then I went overseas two weeks later, met him, and that was it.

Sold. Sold, done. We did long distance for four years. So while I was doing uni, I was working part-time so I could pay for flights. We flew back and forth every month, Melbourne to Brisbane. It's been a long ride. Oh my gosh. But that is so exciting and so wholesome. I actually love when I get to ask people like, oh, when did you decide to have babies? Because even in my thirties, now I think about having children. I'm like, what are people going to think about this teenage pregnancy I'll have? Oh, that's right. They'll definitely think that's really irresponsible of me, even though I am married, own a house and my husband and I have both spoken openly about wanting children for a very long time. I still feel like that's really

irresponsible, even though it's not. I think for me, it's always been this really clear vision where I wanted to have them young so that they could experience life with me for as long as they could. So I wanted to go on holidays with them and I wanted to grow up with them. And I think I've been really lucky to do that. I love that. I love that so much. All right, let's get back to money I want to know do you have any investments if so what are they if not why not and when I have my super I checked it the other day it's at 69 000 which I'm pretty happy with that is very exciting it is exciting but I've just written a big assignment about the super gender gap and I got really fired up about it and then I looked at how much my husband has and it is

way more. So I would love to grow mine. I called my salary sacrifice company the other week and I'm going to start making extra contributions because I'd like to pump it up. I want to use all the compounding that I can while I'm young. And I've got a Sharesies account. I used the She's on the Money code to sign up and I invested $100 into a lithium company just to see what that's like. And now I have $36. Oh my gosh. But lithium, where did that, I guess, idea come from? Because obviously she's a little bit temperamental. Didn't realize how temperamental, how to look at shares. And it said risk profile seven. And I thought YOLO. Go hard or go home. Go hard or go home, which has always been my attitude anyway. If you're

going to do it, you just do it. I think I listened to one episode of Millennial Money and they were talking about core lithium. And I just was like, done. Yep. That's my in. Great. No worries. No worries. I'm going to have to have a good chat with Glennie James. Going to have to let him know that that was a terrible option. It was. I literally, every time I open it, I just watch the graph go lower. It's just a very steep down, but I haven't sold any of my shares. So I'm just going to hang in

there and one day that little share will climb. I feel like that is definitely what I guess the advice would be is to sit and wait and see when it climbs back up and potentially, not advice, but potentially consider disposing of it when you're breaking even and maybe pick a more stable asset. Has that given you anxiety going straight into shares and picking an asset that kind of just went straight down and you were like, oh, I don't know if I'm very good at this investing thing or has it scared you off or is it made you feel more empowered or educated? Or I guess, where are you at with your mentality for investing now? When I bought my shares, I felt like queen of the world. They were heading up.

I was showing my kids. I was going, look at this. I've made $12. This is the best day ever. Money win. Money win. And then it just plummeted. It hasn't given me anxiety. I've listened to so many of your podcasts. And it's about time in the market, not timing the market. So I've just decided to hang in there and it's fun to open the app and watch it. It's really good practice watching it go downhill. 100% it is. I expect one day to see that happening with bigger investments that I have. So it's just mentally preparing me for when I've got money to invest more. Love. All right. Tell me about debts. I know you have a mortgage that you haven't paid off.

what does that look like and what other debts have you got the earliest debt that i got was by hex and that is sitting at 29 000 it was a little bit lower until i got indexed at seven percent so that's pushed it up again yes so all of the stuff that i paid off kind of came back yeah thankfully that was the once off and hopefully indexation next year is much lower so it doesn't sting nearly as much yep on top of my hex we took out a salary packaged car loan because we couldn't afford to buy a bigger car but we had completely outgrown our little hatchback and we were tired of telling the kids they can't bring their bikes and we can't go on holidays because we just could not fit anything in that little car we have a couple of years left to pay that off and I think

that would be $14,000 as a bubble when that time runs out. And then our biggest debt is our mortgage, but we have about 50% equity now. So. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Because we flipped our house, we ended up having a lot of money to put down when we bought our townhouse. And also we chose to go many suburbs out from where we were because we wanted to make our money go further and we knew we wouldn't be buying again for a long time and townhouses have gone up in value so we've been really lucky yeah but I have to say when we bought our home to renovate we actually had to buy it with my husband's parents on the mortgage on the title and I hadn't realized at the time that when you want to buy someone out you actually have to pay stamp duty you do and you've got to pay them

out at market value so we actually ended up I don't want to say losing a lot of money because we wouldn't have bought without their help. But it wasn't the situation you'd envisaged. That's right. And it really slowed us down in selling because it took such a long time to buy them out. We would have moved a long time before that, but we were just restricted by the steps we had to take first. Yeah, fair. And it's always good to discuss that upfront. I don't know the conversations you had before that, but if you were about to do something like that, I would say, please sit down with a good mortgage broker. I mean, I know some at Zella Money, but please sit down with a good mortgage broker and go, well, what are the pros and cons of this? If, you know,

my parents go on the mortgage, what are my exit strategies? How will that work? So that it can all be mapped out because as much as it sounds like sunshine and roses at the start, and even if everyone's on exactly the same page, there are legalities about it. Like no one wants to pay stamp duty twice. And that's unfortunately what you had to do. Obviously it got you a bit ahead, but it wasn't the pathway that you thought it was going to be. And I think that the best thing in these circumstances is to be super educated and on top of what that means and how that works. Cause I'm not saying it would change your decision, but it could potentially change how you make that decision or when you make that decision or what those timelines look like. And I

think that everybody deserves to have that upfront. So make sure if you're thinking about it, not necessarily you money diarist, but people who want to learn from this, you actually have a really good conversation with a mortgage broker who can do all the numbers for you and explain, okay, cool. Well, if you disposed of it here, here's what stamp duty would look like. Here's what it would cost to buy them out. Here's what your mortgage repayments would look like after you do buy them out, if you've got enough equity and all of that other fun stuff. So I think it's, yeah, it's a very important thing to happen, but you now have your actual townhouse that you love and have 50% equity in. So it's not like you're doing badly, my friend. I'm really happy with

how we're doing. We couldn't have afforded the mortgage at our other home after we bought his parents out. It pushed it up so high that our hands were tied. We would have had to sell it either way. And at the current interest rate, there's no way we could have serviced that loan. So we're really lucky at the moment. It's not easy. Every dollar is accounted for, but we're not in a position where we have to sell. Yeah, fair. All right. I want to know, I feel like you've probably got some very savvy savings tips, but I want to know, what do you think your best money habit is? I think my best money habit is I am open to being uncomfortable to reach my savings goals. It isn't everyone's ideal to move into a little

bedroom upstairs at their in-laws when they're newly married, but it's the only way that we could renovate a home and build our future wealth. While we were renovating, I took on every on-call weekend night shift that I could, and then I would still go off to work and scrape paint and rip up carpet and put the hard work in. So I think my best money habit is I'm always thinking about how to set us up for the future. And if that means that we miss out on a holiday now, but long-term we're feeling safer, then that's something that I'm really happy to do. I love that. Can we flip the narrative though? Have you got any cheeky or naughty money habits? What's your worst one? I definitely have one. And my husband

and points this out all the time. I have a joke that my house is a hobby graveyard. I tend to get really excited on hobbies. A hobby graveyard. Yeah. And that sounds really awful, but my hobbies. Have you just got a graveyard in your backyard that we need to like, do we need to talk about this? Oh my gosh, no. It's more that I get really excited and hyper fixate on something and I decide I'm going to be the best at it. And I'm not just going to buy like a little cheap keyboard. I bought a piano and guitars when I decided I was going to learn guitar. Okay. This is making a lot more sense now. You have a graveyard for your hobbies that have passed away. Your hobby is not graveyards. No, no, no. I just have a museum of hobbies that I started and I was certain that

I would love and do them forever. And I've got a sewing machine and a treadmill and a piano and guitars and all sorts of things that were really expensive. And now I just get to smile at them as I walk by. I love that. I love that. So you're saying that they still spark joy. So is it a bad thing, husband? They do spark joy. Exactly. Sit down. I love that so much. I feel like I can relate to that. I very much think that just got this idea that if I see something on TikTok or if I see something online, I'm like, I could do that. I could be great at that. And then I get it. And obviously you have to get all of the things for it because you have to go all in and then yep, you don't use it. Oh, I get all the accessories and I'll never get like the entry

level because I'm going to be really good at piano. Exactly. We are very good at the things that we do. I don't know where this audacity comes from, but I've just decided, you know what, I'd probably be good at that. And that's my home. You can just walk around and it's like a tour of all the hobbies that I've picked up and then lovingly stepped away from. If we ever go into lockdown again, I think I might move in with you because I feel like it would be a very well-resourced home to have, you know, a little bit of a wait time. It is. And you're very welcome to move in. You can bring your kitties. I have two cats of my own. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Yes. I've got a kitten. He's divine. My boys are not social. They're social with each other and with humans. The second you introduce a different pet, they're like, get out. We are the kings. That's fair. All right. I need to know, at the very start of this episode, when I asked you, hey, like, what do you think your money habits would be graded? You gave yourself a B minus. And then you said, ah, but that's because I have some self-limiting beliefs. I want to know, what are those self-limiting beliefs and how did you identify them?

I think I identified them when I saw jobs come up that I think that I'd be really good at and they pay well. And I instantly felt so uncomfortable about asking for more money and being worthy of earning more. And I think a lot of that comes from being raised in a way that I was always taught how to save money and be really frugal. I was always taught to turn the lights out. We never had the heater on when I was growing up, things like that. But I've never been given the tools to feel comfortable growing my wealth. And I think when I get offered money, I just freak out and I think, no, I've got a salary and it's a safe job and I've got bills to pay and I'll just stay here because it's comfortable. And I'd really like to be able to be uncomfortable. I'd really

like to be brave and take those risks and know that I'm worthy of earning more. You 100% are, like a thousand percent are so worthy of earning more. I feel like it's so good that you've been able to identify that. It makes me a bit sad because obviously from my perspective, I'm like, no, no, no, you definitely deserve it. Like go for that promotion, go for that other job, put yourself out there, obviously within reason, making sure that like everything's okay. But the worst thing someone can say is no. And is that the worst? Them saying, oh no, thank you. there was a better candidate. You go, yeah, no worries. I put my hat in the ring. That's actually a really good thing. I love that. I want to know what steps can you take? So if you wanted to be

an A plus, what steps would you have to take to get there? Oh, to get to an A plus, that's totally thrown me. Sorry. Oh, that's okay. I thought you're going to be like, what is your, what would you give yourself? And I'd be like, oh, maybe a B. Oh, no, no, no. We're going hard. And then I'm going to make you regrade yourself after sit down oh my gosh okay how would I get to an A plus I honestly have no idea I don't know I feel like we need to do some inner work on believing in ourselves my friend yeah because everything you've told me like I adore it like you are obviously so caring and so kind and want to look after your you know parents and have people move in with you And your money story is honestly so interesting and I guess complex that I can see why you feel

that way. But also look what you've done. Like you're already investing. You are completely across what you have in super. You're already talking about adding more so that you don't have such a big gap between you and your husband. Like you're so clear on what your mortgage is and what, you know, salary packaging a car actually looks like. And I mean, your salary packaging your mortgage. So to me, I'm like, she's killing it. Like she's doing so well but obviously you don't feel that way because you know you've got some stuff that you want to work through and this is one that I don't want to argue with you on because I go oh well that's really valid like if you feel like you've got heaps of space to go then you've got

heaps of space to go and so much of the time a grade is just it's so different for each and every single person because I could say oh I'm an A plus and people would smile and nod and agree but I don't feel like I'm an A plus. Like I'm good at money, but my gosh, I definitely could be so much better. But from the outside looking in, I think everybody would think I'm incredible, right? Like where she's on the money, obviously I must be good with it. And I am in principle, but do what I say, not what I do, I think is definitely more the lesson here. So I'm not going to argue with your B minus, but having heard your story back, having had this conversation. Do you want the opportunity to change it? I think I might bump

it up to a B. I like that. I feel like that feels a little bit more comfortable and that's not that far to an A plus, my friend, at all. All right. Unfortunately, that is all we have time for today, Money Diaries. This has been a pleasure. I have loved learning about you. I have loved learning about your money story and how you grew up and all of the stuff in between. So thank you. Honestly, thank you so much it has been a pleasure thank you victoria i listen every morning so it's going to be really exciting to listen to today's episode when we're done recording i can promise you that when you listen to it back you're going to be like oh i'm an a minus now you're going to upgrade yourself again i promise the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does

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