She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: A Lesson in 4 Legged Investments!

Episode Date: July 2, 2023

This gorgeous and hardworking community member first listened to SOTM while working the farm on a tractor. She's a 3rd generation farmer who at 24 years old is studying to be a Veterinarian, saving to be able to afford to do her rotations and has a thing or two to teach us about diversified investments, of the 4 legged kind!  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 very special money diaries, where I get the absolute privilege of talking to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it went a little bit like this. Hi, She's on the Money. I'm a vet student who is steadily growing my investments, both shares and four-legged, trying to save for rotations while my animals are trying to bankrupt me. I'm a third generation farmer who started listening to She's on the Money on a Tractor and would love to share my story from beautiful rural

Australia. Money Diarist, welcome. How are you? I'm well, thank you. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to hear about your four-legged investments. Like that is, I mean, cool. I'm confused, but we will get there. Let's dive straight in though. Are you ready to do a podcast? Yes. I'm very excited. All right. As always, we start by asking, what grade would you give your money habits on a scale from A through to F?

I'd probably say C. C. All right. Let's learn more about that. My actually favorite question of the entire show ever is, tell us a little bit more about your money story. So Money Diarist, can you give us a little bit of a deep dive? So, like I said, I am a third-generation farmer from rural Australia, and I'm also currently a fourth-year vet student, more than halfway through my degree now, getting to the pointy end. And I've got 12 months left of classes before I head off for 12 months' worth of rotations, which are going to be probably a little bit expensive because we're not paid to do our rotations.

so I've got to start saving between now and then but that's sort of where my special four-legged investments help. My parents or my dad is primarily a farmer and my mom's actually also a teacher. Oh cool. Yeah she works at the local TAFE in town so dad likes to call her his diversification so she's off income. Smart man. And so for the first sort of 10 years of my life we were in quite a severe drought. So mum's income from being a teacher has sort of helped float the farm a lot. Yeah. Wow. So yeah. And then if you don't come from a farming background, I think one of the riskiest things about farming is just how inconsistent income can be. Like income when you're farming can be really, really good one year and then you go through a drought

for a few years and you're just not financially equipped for it. And that doesn't just impact like your lifestyle and you know your ability to save and invest it actually impacts the animals it impacts your crops it impacts the soil for the future sows it impacts you know being able to actually invest in more animals in the future and it's just this very downward spiral which is why the drought that happened more recently was so catastrophic I suppose what happened coming out of that drought was that something that you know really weighed heavily on your family or was it sort of okay or was it something that you knew how to get through like I just want to know a little bit more about that we're probably a little luckier than some other farmers just in where we're

located we're actually located on a creek that we can use to lift water and then irrigate so we've got uh well our farm 17 000 acres and about 1200 of those is flood irrigation so if it wasn't raining and there's water in the creek and dad's got a certain amount of percentage of allocation you can then irrigate and at least have some form of food for um the sheep and the cows and stuff and where because where we live's always sort of there's drought years it's just the ongoing cycle it's either drought or it's good fodder conservation is a big part so we've in the past made silage and then buried it with the hope of never seeing it again but should it become necessary we can always open it and then feed sheep that so like uh would have been 2018

I was doing my gap year and that was quite a drought year for us so um I spent probably six months driving around in the feed trailer feeding out corn and lupins and faba beans to our use to um just give them energy to keep on going and then it did eventually rain and it often eventually rained so it's sort of just a waiting game of sticking it out for long enough and you know some people you can sort of like my grandfather he's been living here for I think it's 60 60 or 70 odd years now so you know he can sort of see the cycles and dad's the same they can sort of say oh if it hasn't rained by this time of the year like this year up until probably two weeks ago was looking a bit dry and we're all a bit worried and then we've had

some rain which has made it a lot easier for us future planning it's just always a continual cycle in the back of your mind like do we need to lighten off numbers sell some stock now and then like you say it's so volatile the market so the wool market and the sheep market and the cattle market at the moment are all sort of down from where they've been but when dad likes to say when you think about it historically it's still up from say 10 or 15 years ago yeah wow I find that so interesting because I just having grown up in Tasmania and I did move over when I was relatively young but having farmer grandparents like I know a bit about it but not necessarily enough about it and I just find it so, so interesting. I remember my mum telling me a bit about how she would get

pocket money growing up living on a farm. And to me, that was mind blowing because it was such a different way to get pocket money. Because I guess, side story, growing up, mum was allocated a whole paddock and she had to look after that paddock and look after the animals in that paddock and make sure they were fed and then take them off for sale. And that ended up being her profit and her pocket money for the year. Right. And so that's very different to me doing the chores and emptying the dishwasher. Right. So I want to know, money diarist, I nearly used your name. I'm sorry. I want to know, how did you get pocket money growing up if there was any, and how did you discuss money as a family? Oh, pocket money growing up. I mean, probably didn't really

have pocket money as such properly until we sort of went to boarding school, but it was just like from however old we were always or probably since we could walk we were always outside on the farm like if mum was working she'd throw me and my sister because we're pretty close in age we'd go off with dad and we'd sit in the front of the ute and go feeding sheep or just helping and then you know when you get a bit bigger we're obviously doing all the jobs feeding all the animals at home here and then like helping with land marking helping with the calf marking helping just in the yards and stuff and I suppose because I've been doing it for so long I just that's just my life I don't really see it as any different but yeah it's really just been helping out and like now

I'm a bit older it's I almost say that uni gets in the way of me helping at home but um I come home on like most weekends if mum and dad need a hand around and then all my holidays I sort of spent working at home on the farm amazing all right talk to me the next question is what do you do for work and how much money do you earn? So all my work's sort of casual work because the degree that I'm doing is so intensive that I don't really do any, don't really have time for a job as on top of my studying in order to not fail any subjects and sort of delay my graduation. So yeah, in any of the holidays, all the small holidays, so like mid-Sem and middle of the year I um come home and give mum and dad a hand at the farm so whatever we're doing and um

dad sort of just pays us a day rate which is $250 a day so depending on how many days of work we do we'll get paid and then I do actually in the summer holidays because it's a bit longer I've spent the last three years sitting on a chaser bin for harvest for a family of friends and that's a very intensive job it's sort of big hours sort of averaging a 14 hour day for 30 dollars an hour and then you sort of just keep going until you finish or if there's a wet day you might have that day off or stuff like that and then I'm also fortunate enough I well it wasn't necessarily the choice but I did two gap years so I was able to be assessed as an independent when I went to uni so I've been receiving Centrelink for the entirety of my uni degree which is how did you swindle that

one I was always going to have one gap year and I did that at home and then I was sort of going to the end of the year and I was like oh someone mentioned to me that they were going to go work in a summer camp in America and I was like oh that sounds like a really interesting idea that's cool so I applied for that and got that job so I had two gap years and then coming back the accountant and was like, well, you only needed to have worked for 14 months full time, which I did before I went to America to be assessed. And I mean, Centrelink did give me the runaround as they often do, but we got there in the end and yeah, I was able to be assessed as independent, which was great. That is so helpful, especially at uni. I feel like it really helps you feel a lot more independent,

like less reliant on parents and a little bit more freedom to actually spend time studying and, getting the degree that you want to get done, done. And I mean, at the end of the day, you're going to be a vet. So sorry, money diarist, but you will be paying a fair amount of tax. So kind of what goes around comes around, yeah? That's it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit more about, I guess, your annual income. So what do you think each year you're taking in and how much do you think you have to save to do all of these placements that are coming up? So I did look the other day and for this current financial year today, it's probably been my biggest financial year income wise for a long time. Oh, big dog

energy. Yeah. And it's just sort of sitting just under the $20,000 for, that's just for like my harvest work and work at home. And then obviously Centrelink's around that $18,200 mark. So it's what? 38,000. Yeah. So it's not too bad. And then in terms of the rotations, the 12 months of rotations, they sort of, I think I've heard from years above that they tell you to sort of budget around a thousand dollars a week and it's a fair three week. What? A thousand dollars a week? Yeah. That you're meant to pay for accommodation to get a degree and you're not being paid for rotations. I cannot, like, I know that obviously vets are the same, but the amount of friends that I have in nursing and midwifery, it blows my mind that these placements are unpaid work when

obviously if you're a nurse, you are probably going to hear this and go, yeah, that's absolutely true. You're doing so much work that should be paid. Like you're doing the work of somebody else and in vet, I'm just going to make a stab in the dark and assume that you're probably doing even more because there's like, let's be honest, slightly less risk because it's not human lives, but also there's less hands on deck. Like you're not in a hospital and I'm assuming money diarists, given the information you've given us, you're probably going to be rural. So you're probably doing one-on-one. You're probably going to be functioning basically as a vet, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's it. Like the last 12 months, you basically, they send you out as a

baby vet and you learn from everyone else and you start doing surgeries and stuff. And you're not being paid for it. Like this blows my mind because there's such, you know, you're doing really well. 38 grand is such a nice amount of money and, you know, we'll get to what you're saving and what you're, you know, investing for the future and all of this. But there's such a privilege to being able to do that. Like there are so many people who would be listening to this and going, I would love to be a vet. I am so obsessed with animals. Like I would, you know, die to do that job, but I just can't afford to do the placements and the rotations. like it breaks my heart that that's the case because so many people would be so good,

but they just can't make that sacrifice. And the amount of planning that goes into you just doing it, wild, like it blows my mind. Have you got friends that maybe are in a similar position who might not be able to study what you're studying or take the rotations that you're taking? Is that a common thing in your, I guess, let's call it an industry or your study? I think the industry, like even though we don't get paid, a lot of vet clinics because they, like this is almost like the year where you sort of can try before you buy for your first job. There's obviously scholarships and stuff you can get to help with it. But they're not guaranteed, right? No, but a lot of vet clinics, they'll either have accommodation for vet students or often like people who work in the vet clinic put up vet students.

or you know if you because you can sort of pick some of your rotations you can pick you know if you know you've got a friend of a friend or a family friend who lives there you can stay with for a few weeks but yeah definitely I reckon because my university is more of a rural university we might have a lot of my friends like we're all sort of thinking about it now because we've got 12 months until then like how can we make the most money especially over summer so that we can, yeah, afford to go on rotations. Yeah, totally. Oh, my gosh, it stresses me out thinking about it.

And, yeah, it just reminds me of the privilege that exists around study. Like it's not just around being able to pay for the actual units. It's like the time and the energy and the effort out of it. And not to mention you're from a farming family. So that time out of the farm as well is time that, I mean, you're probably not being paid on the farm when you're hanging out with your parents doing some work but like that's work that's not being done that your parents might actually have to replace at some point and that can have further financial impact that I think

not many people think about and it's very frustrating but at the same time again I mean they're probably going to be pretty happy to have a fully qualified vet on hand because like my friend farming vets they're spino. Yeah no dad's um he says I can't wait till you graduate so I never have to pay enough cent for a vet bill. 100%. Like that's exactly what I'd be doing. I'd be like, all right, money diarist, I am investing in your future so that I don't have to pay vet bills because that's expensive. And running a farm, they're sick every second week. Like there's something going on. Someone's hoof is upset. Someone else is not eating. Someone else is having a baby. Like everything is going on on a farm. Vets, rake it in. Yeah. No, he's probably

more excited than I am. I love it. I love it. At least he and I are on the same page. We can see the vision. We can see the investment that we're making today. All right. Tell me a little bit more. I want to know, you're obviously saving for rotations, but what is your big money goal? What are you working towards? I'm a bit weird. I don't really have a big money goal. One thing that it's sort of sitting in the back of my mind, talking to a few of the lecturers and stuff is my university accreditation is slightly different to some of the other unis and it doesn't actually allow you to practice in North America once I graduate so and is that a very big restriction for you at this point in time no it's not but um I have been like chatting with a few of the

lecturers at uni some of them have said if you want to sit your North American exams straight after you graduate because that's when you know the most because you've already been studying for your final exams. You've been cramming. So, and then once you sit it and if you pass, then you can work anywhere in the world. So it's sort of half in the back of my mind. I've got a brother who's moved over and is living in LA. Oh, okay. So there is a connection there. I was like, where are we going with this? Like, are you moving to the US? Is this like your pipe dream? You're going to run away from farming life and you're going to live that big LA life as a vet for tiny two hours? No, no. It's more of because I've been to America. I really enjoy the countryside. It's

kind of a bit of fun to, you know, go over there for a year or two. The option. Yeah, that's it. Financially, what does that mean for you? Like, are the exams expensive? Do you have to go there to sit them? Like, what does that look like? They are expensive. I haven't looked it up exactly, but when talking to lecturers, they said it's probably about 15,000 Australian. just to do the exams yeah fifteen thousand dollars yeah and I've actually there's a local vet who's from France who's having to sit his northern Australian accreditation to be licensed to work in Australia yeah and he's he failed one exam and he's got to re-sit it and so you got to pay to re-sit it again no what is it in Australia in comparison oh I'm not even sure

That's not even a study. Like that's like worth, what, a unit's about five grand-ish, give or take, depending on what university you're going to and what you're studying. That's three units just to sit an exam. Yeah. That's like a whole semester nearly worth of money that is just going to be flushed down the drain so you can write on some paper and get an accreditor. I can't, I can't. That's so expensive. Yeah, no. So your big money goal is to sit the North American exam, potentially? Yeah, potentially. Failing that, I might buy a new horse or something instead. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, if I don't do the exams, I'm just going to buy a horse. Do you already have horses?

We've got five horses at the moment, but they're a mix or bag. I've got two that are sort of being able to be ridden and then an old retiree or two old retirees and a miniature pony who's basically just a companion. Oh, I love old horses. I feel like they have so much attitude and they kind of already know. They're like, you're not going to ride me. You're just going to feed me and you're going to pat me and you're going to brush me and I'm going to live my best life. And also I'm going to have the attitude of a young horse. I love them. That sums up our 30 year old horse. Exactly. They know. It's like they're way smarter than we ever are. They're like, we've gamed the system. We've gotten to this age and now I'm going to live my best life.

that's them horses are expensive though is that something that you have to allocate in your personal budget or is that like a farm expense or how does that work it's sort of between the two if I want to go riding at events or anything that's personal yeah same with any gear that I need to purchase I sort of I kind of own well I do own two of the five outright and then the Others are more of like they're able to be, well, they're stock horses, so part of the farm. Sort of we go 50-50, but like a lot of the time farrier costs, which are every six to eight weeks, it costs probably around the $500.

And is that for each horse or is that for? No, that's for all five. That's for all five. So it's about $100 a horse every six to eight weeks. That's an expensive haircut. So for those of you following along, farrier costs are where a farrier comes in and like cuts the horse's nails and puts new shoes on and makes sure that they're all okay they're kind of like I don't know a horsey pedicure you would say yeah yeah

that's it so 500 bucks that's so much money and that's probably cheaper than a lot of other people pay costs vary depending on where you are in the country but it's not a cost that you can skimp on because obviously horses are big animals and if their feet aren't right then they'll go lame and yeah no absolutely and you mentioned before you might buy a new horse I'm just gonna take a stab in the dark and make an assumption that most people listening to the show right now have no idea what a horse costs so could you tell me how much does it cost to buy a new horse well just for the horse itself it really varies in depending on what you're looking for you could get a horse for free but often what you pay is what you get I'd probably be wanting to buy a new stock horse

And at the moment, prices are a bit ridiculous. And they kind of like use car prices at this point? Yeah. I feel like that's relatable. Yeah. That's exactly it. They're probably for something that's not too old, had a bit of experience.

Your sort of minimum would be $10,000. $10,000? Yeah. And then they cost you $500 every six to eight weeks, or $100, let's be honest, every six to eight weeks. and I'm assuming you don't have any adjustment costs because you keep them on your own property, right? No, I don't have any adjustment costs at home, but I do take one horse back to uni with me. They go to uni with you? Yeah, I take one to uni with me.

Yeah, that's really relatable. What does that cost you? That costs me for a single paddock, it's $40 a week. $40 a week doesn't sound too bad. I mean, it's cheaper than a gym membership at this point, but do they have to share their paddock with other horses and like what kind of care and upkeep happens there like do you have to visit every day and feed them mine's a private paddock so it's just my horse in the paddock I do typically go out daily just to double check I'm luckier than some in that we produce our own hay here so if I need to take supplementary food over to her I just take hay from home but if I didn't have that option you'd probably be looking

like a big round bale of hay, which might last a horse a couple of weeks, that could be anywhere from 60 to a hundred dollars. So I'm very, very lucky in that being from a farm, it reduces the costs of my horses dramatically compared to people who aren't as fortunate, but they're still a very expensive habit. They are. And that's why I was like, all right, tell me a little bit more because they are so expensive. And it's one of those things that adds up all the time. And if you don't live on a farm, that cost can be astronomical. And I'm assuming, Lani Dyrus, that because of where you're going to uni, because you're going to uni regionally as well, it's much cheaper. Whereas I've got friends, and this is probably going to shock you, who live closer to

the city and they're paying $500 a week for a paddock close to them because they obviously, you know they're in a city and they want to make sure that they can ride all the time and i'm like that privilege is showing my friend yeah no that doesn't really surprise me at all because yeah well my adjustment place is someone's farm around the um town where the uni is they have taken advantage of a bit of land they weren't using and divide it up into horse paddocks and obviously because the uni's there you get an influx of um kids who've got horses so it's a bit of extra income for the farmer. Absolute genius. I love that so much. All right, let's get back on track. I've got a lot of questions for you and we're going to get to them right after this break.

All right, Money Diarist, we are back and I am loving this conversation. I feel like it's very educational, but it's also very wholesome. Like it's very salt of the earth. I'm very excited to learn a lot more about you and your, I guess, journey. In your letter into us, you said, that you are steadily growing your investments both in shares and four-legged investments. So my next question is, what are your investments? How do they work and how do they walk? So I have a couple of shares accounts. I have one with Westpac that I've got about $1,000 in. And then I also opened a Sharesies account this year just for that ease of the smaller transactions whereas Westpac's obviously limited to a $500 minimum buy. Yeah that's hard

hey especially as a uni student on a lower income it's like well that's not that common guys. Yeah no I thought I love the idea of you know investing with as little as a cent from shares is. It's pretty sexy isn't it just the idea that you can just like it's not even coffee money it's less than coffee money like the coffee I'm drinking right now $5.50 what an absolute roar do you know how many shares I could have bought. I know. It would have been awesome. I love shares for that. I also love, I've set up, so I've got about, I think it's a check this morning. It's worth $980 at the moment. And I've set up a auto invest for $10 a week, which I've divvied up into, I think it's a dollar per 10 shares that I've gotten there. And they're mostly dividend shares.

I love this so much because you just told me that you have a Westpac investment platform, right? And there's a thousand dollars on there right now, which means you've probably invested, let's say twice, or you've done like one big lot, right? But you said, oh, I went to Sharesies because I couldn't afford the Westpac, but you've basically got the same amount on Sharesies as you do on Westpac, because I'm assuming you didn't realize how quickly things would add up and from little things, big things really do grow. So it's basically going to overtake what your Westpac is if you keep doing that auto-invest of $10 a week, right? And it just feels so much more, I guess, palatable and easy to invest. So I'm making a grand assumption here that your Sharesies account

is going to overtake your Westpac account, and then it won't make a lot of sense to invest at a $500 minimum because you're like, well, I've got the same things on both platforms. Yeah, no, it is. I used to look at Westpac a fair bit, but now I'm sort of almost giving it a flick at the minute and focusing on shares because, yeah, it's just exciting watching it grow. And the platform, I mean, I obviously work with them, so I'm quite, you could say, biased, but I also invest on shares. I just feel like it's so aesthetic, like it looks cute. I feel like a pro investor that's like aesthetic at the same time. It's 10 out of 10 for me. Anyway, what else do you invest in? Because I know it's not just Westpac and Sharesies.

I do have about almost $10,000 in my super at the moment. Oh, what? That's so good for your age and so good for the fact that you've worked internationally and haven't really worked, let's say, like full proper jobs, you could say. You've been doing a lot of farm work, which often is a little bit cash in hand, a little bit on the side. How good's that? 10 grand how have you managed that oh I don't actually know I suppose it was probably most of it's been kicked in from the 18 months of my first gap years I worked full-time at home yeah and then obviously I do get a fair chunk that goes in when I work with dad every year and then harvest as well so it's just been exciting to watch that grow how good and is that something that you have had an

eye on or is that something where you're like oh I just know I've got 10 grand in there have you actively chosen your super account and what's going on there or is that just something that's just kind of like rolled on well up until recently it was something I just signed up for a while ago but this year chatting with an aunt of mine who's been a bit excited about talking investments with me I love her yeah no I love her too I've actively changed it this year to uh the lowest fees still with a growth, 75% growth account through Host Plus. So trying to minimize costs and maximize growth. Oh, how smart. All right. Four-legged investments. Tell me a bit more about how that works. Are you trying to tell me that you are classifying your horses in investments? No.

No? I mean, they're not because they're costing you $500 every six to eight weeks. And I mean, they might increase in value, but you'd have to sell them. And judging by the look on your face when you were telling me about your horses, I don't think they're going anywhere, my friend. No, no, they're definitely a cost rather than an asset. No, my four-legged investments are actually my cows, which I have 15 of currently. How does that work? Did you buy the cows? Did you get given the cows like what what's the process as somebody who has never owned a cow as an investment so in my first gap year 2018 it was a drought-ish year and just by chance when our cows were calving there was one calf that none of the cows wanted we didn't know if she was a twin or

if her mother had just rejected her oh you just found her out in the paddock all alone yeah my grandparents found her and were sort of like oh we don't actually know whose mum she is oh bubba I was gifted her by my grandparents because she was out of one of my grandparents cows to raise as a potty calf and then a couple weeks later another cow had carved but the cow had died so the calf was without a mum so I got her as well so now we're at two cows two cows and then a couple months later neighbors who um were selling some cows who had just happened to have carved but they didn't weren't going to sell the calves he rang me and was like hey i've got a calf here for you so i told him i wouldn't mind one of his so i got another calf for the price

of a rum slab for oh that's a pretty good deal it is so that's like 80 bucks or something and then the other two for free and then obviously raised those three and then because they're all females they were whatever age they were ready to be joined were joined and every year since then they've all had a calf for me which is pretty exciting oh my gosh so you've just been multiplying your little calves yeah that's it and so if we have a girl if you ever have a calf she stays here and is bred when she's old enough but if they've had um boy calves they all get sold to the feedlot so I'm at 15 now which is five adult cows with five calves at foot and then five sort of teenager wiener cows four of which are heifers and one is a steer who's actually due to

be trucked out tomorrow so that'll be a bit of money in the bank but everyone else is um there'll be nine joined this year for so potentially nine more calves born next year so it's sort of growing itself. Oh my gosh, they're multiplying. So tell me a bit more about the financials of this because I think farming is really important to have a bit more transparency around because I feel like a lot of it is lacking and I feel like a lot of people are going to be confused and go, but Victoria, you're a vegan, you don't eat meat. And I don't, but I fully believe in good farming and making sure that the animal is respected. And while I might not eat it, this is people's livelihood and we aren't going to be talking about, I guess, whether you would

or wouldn't, like I'm not against it by any stretch of the imagination. So I want to know, what does it cost to raise a calf? And then obviously if it's a girl, it stays with you and then it grows into, I guess, a cow that can produce more calves. But if it's a boy, it gets sold off. What's that cost? What are we making here? Like what type of investment returns have we got? Should like we at She's On The Money start considering cows as an investment asset well the first the original three probably were the most expensive in terms and they were all girls weren't they yeah all girls they were probably the most expensive because they were orphans we were feeding them milk replacer for the first couple of months and that stuff isn't

particularly cheap it's around I think 100 to 200 for a 20 kilo bag oh my gosh what yeah sort of It only lasts, I don't know, a week maybe or two. It's been so long, I can't remember. This is going to sound really dumb, really, really dumb. Why are we buying milk replacer? Can't they just drink milk? Can't we buy milk? Like is that an option?

Not really. Sort of got to feed them milk replacer. It's got all, you know, proteins and fats that are very similar to what they would have been getting on their own mother. I told you it was a dumb question. Because obviously it's nice and warm when I make it up. You make it up with warm water for them. So it's a luxury.

Oh, so they're spoiled. Yeah, that's it. That's why potty calves love whoever's raising them. Yeah, because they're getting the good stuff. They know what's up. They're not silly. Yeah, no, it's not silly. So probably to raise those three might have been a lot of time

we weaned them off the milk. It could have cost up to sort of $1,200. Oh, my gosh, that's so much money. But factoring in that they were all females, sort of an average price you get for a steer who we sell to the feedlots, we sell ours into a, it's a specialty program for shorthorn cattle, which are the breed that we have. and they're sort of branded their end products like the steak and stuff is branded with a special like thousand guineas program which basically says that it's of a certain quality so we're probably getting a slight premium yeah because they grew up on milk replacer like they're no little cows yeah so obviously the price fluctuates but i'd say on average for maybe a 300 kilo steer

which is sort of 350 kilo steer which is the weights that we're sort of sending them off at it could be depending on the year between a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars for a steer but all my steers if they've come from mum they don't cost me a great deal in terms of productions it's just sort of management costs that go in so vaccination and drench which might be roughly maybe thirty dollars a head oh okay that's not too bad and I mean you obviously already have this set up so this isn't something that normal people can do like you've already got the paddock you've already got like a farm yeah it's all good to go from there and this is yeah obviously an absolute privilege but I find it so interesting to know the difference between genders

is that normal so is that what everybody else does like if we are eating steak is it very likely to be male as opposed to female because females are kept to breed yeah it actually is and the feed lots want the males for sort of growth rates and i'm assuming they're bigger right yeah bigger grow a bit faster and you actually get premium for male carcasses when they go through like an abattoir or something yeah i don't really want females oh so like the gender gap exists even in the farming world interesting that's it i'm just rallying for everybody now not just our two-legged friends i'm also rallying for our four-legged friends. But yeah, I'd rather be a female. Yeah, same. I want to know next, do you have any debts? If so, what are they?

My only debt is my HECS debt, which is quite substantial at the moment. It's sitting at around, after indexation the other day, it's almost $39,000. And what did you think about indexation? Obviously, it's a bit of a shock to be told, all right, HECS and HELP debts are going to be indexed at 7.1%. What was your thought pattern around that because at the end of the day $39,000 is basically your entire annual salary. Yeah like I mean it's obviously not ideal like I think ours went up by almost two and a half thousand dollars was the indexation but for me at this point of my life I don't see that help debt as being such a bad thing because I know I will find a job once I graduate and I will start paying it off

obviously I'd prefer it not to be so high but probably fortunate in that position that I'm in an industry where there currently is a shortage of vets so I'll be able to find a job and negotiate a pretty good you know starting salary because people just need vets. What kind of salary do you expect that to be? Well, just looking around at the moment and a lot of new grad jobs that are sort of being offered at the moment, I think a lot of them are starting at that $70,000 a year upwards, depending. But if they can't offer you a great salary, like, well, if they've got a certain salary cap, a lot of them have extras like a work vehicle or even some might have accommodation

and stuff like that. Yeah, okay. That can sweeten the deal. How good. I'm finding this genuinely so interesting. I want to know now though, what do you think your best money habit is? Sometimes I think I don't have any. I beg to differ. Like having heard a lot of your story, you wait till we get to the end of this episode. There will be some debate around that C, my friend. I've probably actually setting up like my auto investments with shares and then I've also got I've set up whenever Centrelink comes in I send $40 into my savings account and just sort of maybe taking an active interest in what my money is doing and just trying to think about ways where I can grow either the savings or the investments yeah and what do you think your worst habit is

Well, just big picture, horses is probably my worst habit, my most expensive habit. Sometimes I go for a bit of an impulse buy. It's either, actually, no, I've weaned myself off horse related impulse buys in the last few years and instead impulse buying of a garden, so plants and stuff like that. Feels. Yeah. I'm a sucker for a good plant. I can relate to that. Absolutely. I wish I would stop killing them because they are becoming very bad investments. Money Diarist, we have talked a lot. This is going to be a very long episode. I apologize. But if you're still here and you're still listening, you've probably found it just

as interesting as I have. But at the very start of this episode, I asked you, what would you rate your money habits? And you said a C. But then you went on to tell us about how you've been casually working and absolutely hustling and doing farm work and doing casual work. And then you told me about your two gap years and how one of those gap years, you know, you were earning a full-time salary and you're currently saving for rotations and you care about your superannuation. Like, you've even gone and put it into another account. Like, you've set it all up so it makes sense for you. You're currently investing in Sharesies and in Westpac and in four-legged friends. Like, I feel like you arguably have your shit together, my friend. Why do you think you're a C? And if

you still think you're a C, what do you think would get you to an A? I probably think I'm still a C just for the fact. What? So many people are yelling right now, my friend. Can't you hear them? It's probably more to do with, I probably don't save enough of my money from the Centrelink that comes in fortnightly. I think I sort of am often in that first week spending it on a lot of things, whether it be food that I don't need impulse buys at the supermarket and then so by the time I get to the end of the second week it's sort of like oh do I need to transfer out of my savings account to make it through and yeah I think horses horses horses are the bane of my savings account at the moment because just when I think I've grown it back up someone will need some kind of emergency

vet bill that brings it back down again. That's farm life, right? Like it just can't all go well. I understand horses. They're a very expensive habit. I understand impulse buyers. I feel like we could rein that in a little bit. Everybody could, right? Like I am so good at the supermarket if I'm not hungry. If I'm hungry though, oh my gosh, I buy absolutely everything. But you said something before that I think is really important to touch on. And I mean, you are in a very different position than a lot of people just because obviously like you've got the farm work, you've got a lot of other stuff going on but you said you're not saving enough of your Centrelink and I just need to reframe that and you're probably not going to like this and please

know this is coming from a place of love but if you are getting Centrelink you're not meant to be saving it like you are and that's great because you're obviously like saving up for rotations but I don't want people listening to this going oh my gosh if I'm on Centrelink I should be saving often Centrelink is not nearly enough to save and invest and create a secure financial future It's enough to get by. It's enough to do the grocery shopping and put a roof over your head. And that's kind of the intention of it. And I mean that in a really nice way. I promise, Money Diarist, it's like a take a little bit of pressure off yourself because you're not meant to in this season of your life be able to save and invest and be a baller and do all of those things

on $38,000. Like, unfortunately, that is not nearly enough to create the life that you've told me about. Like the idea that you're going to have to budget a thousand dollars a week for rotations blows my mind. Like that is so much money and it's actually so much more money than most people in our community earn each week. Like that to me is insane and I'm so glad that you're doing it, but I don't want anyone listening to this and feeling like, oh my gosh, like, oh, I'm on Centrelink and she's saving. That's so great. Like obviously for our money diarist, there's so much privilege and that's really beautiful and it's really great, but money take some pressure off. Like you're at uni, you're being a bully in general. You're going to become

a vet and vets, my friends, they do quite well. So we're going to be okay. I mean, you might not make a lot of money if you just do all of your work for your dad. So we probably need to negotiate that because I have a sneaky suspicion he has no intention of paying you. And if I was your father, I wouldn't either. You know what? Like you were born into a farming family. Like you didn't come here to get paid, my friend. But I just think everybody needs to take a little bit of pressure off themselves, and this is one of the first times, they don't want to be like, no, you can put your C in the bin because I don't believe it. Usually I tell people, oh my gosh, like I would never argue with you over your grade. Like your grade is your grade. My friend, nah, you're off

the mark. Absolutely not. Yeah, no. No, I'm absolutely in a privileged position. I just feel like I think I need to not so much just save the Centrelink, but maybe even move half of it so that I don't spend it all at once. Yeah. So you can like, you've got a lot to pay for in the future. So I can completely understand where that anxiety is coming from. I just didn't want anyone to listen to that and go, oh my gosh, I should be doing the same because that's not the intention at all. But Money Dice, this has been a beautiful episode. I am so grateful. Unfortunately, I do have to run away, but thank you so much for your story. Thank you so much for your time. I am so grateful that we got to spend arguably this whole hour together. No, thank you so much for having

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