She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: a self-described average money story

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

This week's beautiful SOTM member shares her story about approaching 30, getting through some soul-crushing personal debt and is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. She's self-described her story as "average" but as we all know, there's no such thing as average when it comes to money stories. We hope you love this one as much as we did. Have the best Monday angels!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 Infocus Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN 47 097 797 049 AFSL - AFSL 236523.This year our Money Diaries are being brought to you by the legends at Shopback! Check them out at https://app.shopback.com/aus/partner/SOTM and you'll get a cashback bonus when you sign up!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 you're joining us for another one of our shop back money diary mondays where we get to chat to one of our beautiful community members learn about them learn about their story and ask all of the juicy questions that you guys at home absolutely want to know about victoria i've got a really good one for you this week are you ready i am so ready what have you got so our diarist said i am approaching 30 and starting out i have what might be considered an average money story but i am working on it. I've experienced severe soul-crushing consumer debt after making horrible

financial decisions in my early 20s that left me with a terrible credit rating. But I am on the up and up, improving my financial position one step at a time. Although my story might not be super inspiring, I think it's relatable to the Shoes on the Money community to show people there is a light at the end of the tunnel once you accept that you deserve the light. And my heart, can I just tell you. I'm so excited for this chat. Oh my gosh, me too. Money Diarist, you are hanging out in the wings. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Oh my gosh, I am so excited to have you here. And I guess the first thing off the bat, there's no such thing as an average money story. Like, come on, my friend. You've been in the She's On The Money community long enough to know

there's no such thing as average. Every story is so special. Yeah, absolutely. But let's get straight into it. Can you tell us a little bit about your money story? Yeah, sure. So I grew up in a relatively middle-class sort of working family and I was quite privileged to be able to travel really extensively when I was younger. I was never really left out with anything that I really wanted and I think that kind of set me up for the misconception that money's easy money is you know essentially did grow on trees because I didn't see how hard my parents worked in the background to give me the things I wanted yeah which sort of led me into this false sense of you know oh everything will be fine I can have whatever I wanted when I started working so I

started working when I was 14 through high school, just part-time jobs, just to sort of have a bit of extra pocket money on the side. But once I started a full-time role when I was 19, that led me into living way beyond my means and, you know, thinking that that was an acceptable way of living and really, really, really did not think of future self at all. So, yeah. I feel like that's so relatable though. I feel like so many of us work when we're really young and we kind of just don't comprehend money because money diarist. What were you doing with your money when you were working at 14? I feel like what we don't comprehend once we get to 18 or we move out is that that money now has to pay for living expenses as opposed to

disposables. So I'm interested to know what you were doing with your money while the roof over your head was paid for yeah absolutely bulk of it just went to hanging out with friends shopping i had you know just going to things like parties and going out to dinners on a friday night after school and you know gifts for friends that sort of thing i really didn't have to pay for you know things just simple things such as rego when i was you know the 17 18 year old mark i that was something that was always gifted to me and i didn't have to really anticipate that the money that I was earning had to go anywhere else other than fun which yeah then led me into a world of hurt yeah and you just think it'll keep going right you're like that's fine like

I don't have to change my lifestyle but I'm gonna move out I'm gonna get my own apartment it's gonna be so fun right yeah where's all my money yeah exactly so oh my gosh I feel like I did that a fair bit and that's how I ended up in a little bit of a pickle when it came to personal debt when I was younger. But moving on, money diarist, what do you do for work? How much money do you earn? So, I'm a contract coordinator for a large defence subcontractor. So, I work in the defence industry without actually being part of the ADF. So, quite interesting actually. I started off as the receptionist for this company on quite a lower salary and just have taken the opportunities as they've come and moved on to a personal assistant, executive assistant, and now a

contract coordinator. So I'm quite proud of that. I finished high school, but I don't have any further education after that. So I'm quite proud of where I'm at and where I started. Oh my gosh, she hustled her way to the top. I love that. And now how much money do you earn? So, I'm on 83,000 plus super. Oof, plus super. Oh, we love that. We love that. That is so good.

Yeah, yeah. Very proud of where I've started to where I was at because when I started in this company five years ago, I was on about the 50,000. So, yeah, I've just been trying to work my way up the ladder. I love that. And you definitely have worked your way up the ladder by the looks of it. Like, that's some pretty good climbing. Yeah, yeah.

Is there a lot of career opportunity to keep progressing that in the same company, like if you stay even longer? Yeah, absolutely. So, it's a huge company and we operate all over the world as well. So, there's lots of interconnecting roles and opportunities as well as the defence sector just obviously just will keep growing and growing. So, even if I step out of the company I'm in now, there is so many different levels within government as well as the private sector. so very fortunate to have landed myself randomly in this field. It wasn't something that I had strove out to really achieve. I was in legal services beforehand. So, yeah, very excited.

Oh my gosh, that is so cool. And to be a little bit pervy, because you did tell me a little tidbit about your life before we started recording. Monita, you're currently on maternity leave, is that correct? I am, yes. Yes. Can you tell me a little bit about how that plays into, I guess, your role and your pay? Like how much paid leave do you get? How did you apply for it? How did you tell your work that you were going to be taking a period of time off to have a beautiful little baby? Yes. So obviously very fortunate to live in Australia with such a, well, I think a good maternity leave system provided from the government. So, I think after tax, I'll be getting about 11 and a half grand,

which is the 18 weeks full pay at the minimum wage. And then on top of that, my supplier provides 12 weeks of full pay. However, they've got a bit of a weird system where you get half of that up front and then half of that when you return to work, which for me will be in September this year. oh my gosh so 12 weeks of full play plus the government time off which means you're taking what like is that about 24 weeks off yeah yeah so 24 weeks of pay and the rest is unpaid which obviously that's a bit of a juggle between what I've received from the government and my work and then my husband's salary as well so yeah the next 10 I'm a super budgeter now which I wasn't in the past. So, I've really like stepped out what we can afford each month. So, yeah, lucky to have

the whole year off, which is nice. Oh, how good. I've got so many questions about that, but we will leave that to the second part of the show. Money Diarist, what is your big money goal at the moment? It would be to buy a larger property. So, in our first home at the moment, but it's a two bedroom, one bathroom little house. So, just to buy the next house And for us in the position we're in, we're going to have to sell this one to afford the next, especially in the current market. So, that's the biggest goal. And second, it's just building wealth in other areas. So, shares, super and just general savings as well is another huge one. Oh my gosh, so many goals.

Yes. Ah, so exciting. Next question is, do you currently have any investments? I do yes so super I have about 120,000 in super sorry what and you're not even 30 yet yes 120,000 in super yeah sorry backtrack how did that happen so I am so guilty of completely ignoring super I had about six or seven different funds across you know from working since I was 14 and swapping jobs um and about a year ago we went and saw a financial advisor heard they're good people yeah yeah and he just moved everything into one fund and just that fund i guess has been performing quite well and yeah i was very shocked about six months ago when i logged in

to find that i had 120 000 there i from completely ignoring it to having such a balance i was yeah, very, very surprised. And yeah. Have you ever contributed additional to super? No. No, you've just amassed it since you were 14 and it's been growing and growing because the average amount of money in superannuation for a woman between the age of 25 to 34 is actually $31,600. So, like you are blowing that out of the water, my friend. I don't know if you knew that, But when you said that number, I was like, hold up, you're not even 30 yet. And the average is literally like 31 grand. Can I ask, because I know that government is really notorious for paying a high level

of super, what percentage is your super? So, it's just the standard at the moment because we're not technically part of the ADF. However, I did work for two years at the ATO. So, yeah, but that again, I was earning a very low salary there. It was like an introductory to work sort of program straight out of high school almost. So, I think I was on about $36,000 a year in that program. Gosh, yeah, you wouldn't have got bucket loads of super for that salary, my friend.

No. The other question I have is actually, look, I'm just being really pervy because I think a lot of people are going to listen and go, what? That's so much super without trying, which is the biggest money win I've heard to date. but the question I think is more around hours because a lot of us do start working when we turn 14 years and nine months old and we go down in my case to the local ice cream shop and get a job and so when we work they aren't legally obligated to pay us superannuation until we hit a certain amount of hours or a certain amount of income in a certain amount of time frame

so money diarist were you working a lot of hours when you were younger yeah I was probably working about 20 hours a week i would say so from the age of 14 so i too went down to muffin break and started out there and then moved moved on oh my god one of my best friends worked at muffin break it was the best we were in grade 10 and she used to bring muffin break for like morning tea the next day pretty much daily it was the best thing ever yeah it was great um and then i moved on to Barnacle Bills, which is a seafood shop down in South Australia. And also Woolworths were my three that I moved around in during high school. And yeah, probably about 20 hours a week throughout that whole period. Which you definitely would have been getting paid super on, whereas I

was only working like maybe a couple of hours after school. Like I definitely didn't accrue 20 hours a week. But the other thing that is playing to your benefit is you didn't go to uni. You just went straight into the workforce, which means you've been accruing a full-time salary worth of super, even though you're saying it was a lower salary, but you've just been consistent and consistency pays off over time. And I just think that that's so often underplayed that you go, oh my gosh, I'm going to be so far behind because I didn't go to uni, but you have all these years on other people of superannuation accumulation.

Yeah, right. I don't know if you wanted me to talk about this now. Talk about whatever you want. You're the boss of this show. Okay. I did go to uni for a few semesters, which has left me with a HECS debt, which is part of my debt that I wanted to talk about because I have $17,000 of HECS debt with no degree. Well, let's get into that because that's actually the next question, my friend. So, Money Dyrus, talk to us about your debts. Yeah. So, currently, I have a $240,000 mortgage,

which we've had for 10 years so just sort of working that that down I also have a $16,000 car loan so I've always been the type of person to just have a $500 car that's just sort of gotten me through and you know no power steering no power windows that sort of scenario so last year I bought my first big girl car and I was fortunate enough to have $10,000 that I put down as a lump on payment and then just $16,000 for the remainder. So, I'm quite happy with that and where that's at because it's given me probably a safer mode of transport than before. And then I have $17,000 in HECS as well. And you were saying before that that HECS is for a degree that you didn't end up finishing. So, talk to me about, I guess, how you made the decision to maybe not

keep studying, but also how does that HexDeck now make you feel? Yeah. So to be honest, a lot of people say, you know, HexDeck is fine. You don't ever worry about it coming out because it's always taken out before you receive your net income. So you won't even notice it. And I found it to be the exact opposite, to be honest. I started out when I left school or when I finished school, my mum was big into you go to uni or you get a job it was you know nothing really in between so I started a nursing degree I did two semesters of that and really really really was not for me so then a couple of years later once I'd had a couple of years in the working force I thought that I needed higher education to get me anywhere in you know the corporate sort of world so because

of that, I started a business degree online. And this is during the period where I wasn't that great with my finances. So kind of just buried my head in the sand, miscut off dates for subjects I didn't even start. So that added on to my HECS. Yeah. So now I have, yeah, the $17,000 HECS debt for something that I didn't even invest myself in, nor did I really care about. And now I'm definitely seeing the negative of that. Yeah, you're seeing it come out, but I'm going to make some assumptions that you learned a fair bit, even if it wasn't for your future career during uni. Would that be a correct assumption? And I mean, a lot of people say like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm paying for a degree I'm not even using, which in your case, you said you did nursing. You're not even working in a space close to nursing. So, I can see how that would feel like a bit of a waste. Absolutely. I feel like we get a lot of life experience and learn a lot about ourselves during that period.

So as much as you're paying for it now, is it as big a waste? I don't know. Yeah, look, during the nursing time, it wasn't, you know, I got to live a bit of the uni life, which was obviously really fun and met a lot of really nice people through it. But during the business side of it, I was working full time. I kind of signed up thinking, you know I was going to give myself all these incredible opportunities to earn more money down the track but it was it was a case of me signing up I did a few subjects I failed my accounting subjects so that will give you a bit of an insight as to where my where my money was at at that time and just my mindset around it all so you know I the business side of the hips was just a complete

mistake and yeah yeah I feel like I totally get the regret I don't want you to feel bad about it I feel like you've learned a lot from it and it's helped you become who you are today but I also look at it and I go look at how much pressure you were putting on yourself and how much pressure other people in our community are putting on themselves to go to uni for degrees that they might not even want to work in spaces that they don't even fully comprehend the career opportunities and like obviously if you go do nursing there's a really brilliant career of nursing ahead of that so please don't get me wrong it's not saying it's a waste by any stretch of the imagination. But for you in particular, you have a really great salary. You haven't had to go to

uni for that. I know Jess, you're the same. You haven't gone to university for the career that you are doing at the moment. And both of you are, I would say, wildly successful. So, I think if you're in that position and you're like, I really hate uni and I really don't like it, don't follow something you don't love because it's not going to give you, I guess, the outcome that you think it might. Like, it's not just going to miraculously turn into a high-paying job because the one thing that I do see that you two probably have in common, my friends, is that you have really great work ethics and you work hard and you have direction and you put your head down. And Mani Daris, that has been obvious from the fact that you have progressed so quickly in your career

to different roles and kind of like climbed that ladder on your own. You don't need to do a degree. You can climb your own ladder. Right. And I'm very big on that as well. So, you know, when I talk to my younger cousins who are just about to finish high school, I hate asking the term of what are you going to do next year? Because I just think that if that takes two to three years to figure out what you want

to do, I think that's better than just jumping straight into a career. I know people that have gone and done, you know, a six-year engineering degree and wound up as police officers. So, you know, I just think the pressure to know what you want to do straight out of high school is just immense. And I think it can probably lead people down the wrong path for maybe not such a happy career. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I mean, I've got that from understanding the She's On The Money community and talking to so many people, but even looking back on my own career when I was 18 how did I know that I wanted to do what I wanted to do like I had no idea like I was drinking vodka cruises like if that's that's like a summary

of the life choices I was making at the time how was she little vodka cruiser Victoria how was she picking future Victoria's career because even if she'd tried to predict what I was doing today it wouldn't have come to fruition I feel like year 11 and 12 is also a massive amount of pressure as well that people like if you don't perform well in year 11 and 12 like you won't get into uni and then basically you'll die and that's just not the case at all like so many people on the show as well have been like oh I was a mature age student got a really really terrible ATAR but like you know just entered later and got my dream career once I found that focus like I think we need to give ourselves a little bit more space but moving on because I feel like we could all talk about

this forever money diarist to one of our favorite questions do you use shop back look i do have the app downloaded and i have an account going but i'm not an active user which i should be because i online shop like an absolute fiend so um i need to be better i need to be better in that space i feel like i was really bad at using shop back until i installed it on my chrome browser and now it just automatically pops up. It's like, oh, you look like you're buying something. Turn on shop back. And you're like, yes, yes. Turn it on. Turn it on. So, I feel like until that point, I didn't really shop through the app, but I definitely shop on my desktop. And I probably shouldn't go on about that because if you look at Jess, you'll probably be like, well,

I know you do. You probably should be doing your work, Victoria. Money diarist. Next question. What do you think is your best money habit? um my absolute best money habit which i'm very proud of now because um old me would have again buried my hand in the sand is my budgeting skills so i budget you know every single month and i know exactly where every single one of my dollars is now going old me literally just used my card until it was declined and i had no idea what was coming in and out and but now i'm totally across it got a beautiful spreadsheet that I'm extremely proud of running. And yeah, that's probably my best money habit. Oh my gosh. I love spreadsheets. I would love to see yours. Where did you start?

Like when it comes to budgeting and spreadsheets, you said before you had your head in the sand and you were getting in personal debt. Like how do we change our mindset to being a spreadsheet queen? how do we do it like where did you start because it feels so overwhelming for so many people yeah absolutely so I just um did the old print out the statement found out what was going in what was going out what was a monthly sort of trend of mine so online shopping um gifts as well so I like I like giving gifts so really budgeting now um I have 150 a month for any upcoming birthdays or baby shower gifts things like that but it was a case of opening my account and really just going through old school about what was in and out and just the monthly trends

um so once you start and then it just snowballed into there into my epic spreadsheet yeah so from little things big things do really grow but it's kind of like a snowball effect but first you have to pull your head out of the sand right is that right absolutely all right to bring the tone of this conversation all the way down. Money Jairus, what is your worst money habit? Would have to be just my, it is much better than previous years, but just my lack of self-control when it comes to online shopping. I was an absolute sucker for Instagram ads and, you know, the junk mail that would come into the inbox and, you know, whatever brand was having a sale. And I thought that it meant if I didn't buy what I wanted in that sale, I was never going to be

how to get it again which is just not the case so no it's not but it's so easy to be like oh my gosh but like it's on sale I really wanted it and now it's like discounted if I don't get it now I'll never be able to afford it or get it or I totally get that sense of urgency yeah so just and my I just had no self-control around that at all um which is it's gotten better but it's it's still there and I do have um quite high taste when it comes to fashion so you know the $20 cotton on dress just doesn't do it for me anymore so I have to I feel like I have to anyway go you know go to the larger more expensive brands feels it's called lifestyle creep my friend we all experience it it is depressing when you start working it out and do you know what's more frustrating

is that I totally get that the $20 Kmart dress would have probably done the same thing Am I comfortable with it though? Do I want that? No. Does that set my heart on fire the same way that the steel dress I have saved on my browser right now does? No. No, I'm going to get the steel dress. Right. And the worst part is, is that I hardly ever wear them. So I've probably got 10 to 12 dresses in my wardrobe right now that I've never worn, but they're just so pretty. Oops. All right. Before we go to the break, Money Diarist, if we forced you to give yourself a money grade what would you grade your money habits I thought about this and honestly old me wouldn't even sat down for the test I would have completely skipped the test wouldn't and just

would have accepted an F whereas now I think I'm sitting in the C minus to B plus kind of range because I've still got a long way to go but I've improved so so much so um yeah C plus to B minus range. I feel like that's fair. I do have a few questions for you though. So, let's go to a quick break and we'll jump straight into them after that. All right, Money Diarist, we are back and I feel like our office is a little bit baby crazy at the moment. So, I want to start by talking about your gorgeous three-month-old. Can you talk us through that process of planning for maternity leave before you mentioned that you're taking some unpaid leave in addition to the paid maternity leave that you're going to get how did you budget for that how do we start thinking about

topics like that I feel like it's so overwhelming when you're in this phase of like this is what I really want to do but then it's like the balance of one do we have the budget but two how do you drop to one income so can you talk us through your mindset and how that works and yeah tell us all yeah sure so we were fortunate that we didn't have to save for any of the IVF processes or anything like that which i know can be a really big expense um so for us the biggest thing you know was buying everything that you needed for a baby and i know a lot of people say that babies don't need much but um it is a huge snowball when you think that you do need everything that's out there so i was fortunate enough to be on a salary that i could save quite a bit so i've i managed to

save um and pay outright for everything that we needed for the baby we also have my husband and i have quite a big savings account to fall back on so we once I factored in what I was going to be getting as the lump sum sort of payment from the government as well as my work I just split that into the 12 months and made that my new salary for the month so that salary combined with my husband's salary just sort of breaks even on all of our bills so I was fortunate for that but then we also did have the savings that we could fall back into but it was just more the preparation that was needed to buy everything the car seat the car it really does add up and I would say that we probably spent about five grand leading into leading into the um him being here oh wow

can I ask um you just said obviously it's really hard and I would totally be this person who is I must have everything to be as prepared as I can be. Was there anything that you purchased pre-baby that now that you have your little one, you're like, that was so unnecessary? Oh, such a good question. Yes. And I have a very good example because I just sold it on Marketplace. Oh, money win! Yeah. So, there is a particular brand of, and I call it a baby coffee machine so because we're formula feeding it basically makes a bottle in 30 seconds you press one button and it's done so no thermos yeah it's it's it's amazing that exists yes so I bought it about three months before the baby was here and had it all set up on my kitchen bench

ready to go and once he was here and we started the process it was just much easier I found anyway to use the old thermo and scooping the formula out of the tin yourself it took about a minute to make a bottle whereas this $450 machine did it in 30 seconds and I and I didn't even turn it on so I sold it on marketplace only last week yeah oh my gosh that's so expensive as well it was like yeah I didn't even know that was a thing a little baby coffee machine but it does formula not coffee like what yeah they think of everything like I only recently learned of that snoo thing that like rocks your baby and I'm mind blown that there's like a device in a bed that rocks your anyway yeah probably sound very naive in comparison to a lot of people who are listening

to this podcast who are seasoned mothers and they're gonna be like Victoria you don't know what you're in for one day yeah when it came to buying stuff for baby as well did you find that you had to make up a budget at the start or did you collect things as you go like how many things do you think on average a new mum would have to buy like was that five grand an average baby shop or was it a oh well actually we got the cot and the pram for free like it was a hand-me-down or like what I guess scope did that five grand include yeah so again I had a queen of a spreadsheet going that had everything listed to what I wanted and how much it was where I could buy it where was the best deal so I was very prepared in that sense but I probably just took it to the next

level in terms of as just said I felt like I needed absolutely anything just in case I needed it so I probably spent a thousand dollars over what I probably needed to in a lot of the gadgets that are on the market at the moment and they really know how to target mothers in particular I think, that you need this to make sure your baby is sleeping well overnight and is happy. And it was just all of those products I have actually used, I really, really did not need. So in terms of the five grand, I probably only needed to really spend about four on the essentials. So the biggest one was the pram. So my husband's six foot four, so he needed a pram that sat up quite high and unfortunately that meant for us that it was the most expensive one um but it was

just it was just worth it for saving his back and my back I mean I'm five foot ten so as well so I'm quite tall so you know just that for us was a necessity item and then we unfortunately didn't have a lot of friends that had babies before us we didn't have things like hand-me-downs or secondhand. And I know you can buy a lot of things on Marketplace, but they sometimes advise just to buy new for the safety side of things as well. Yeah, of course. Of course. I feel like I wouldn't even know where to start. So asking questions like this is just personally very helpful. So I appreciate it. But let's pivot away from baby stuff. I want to know about savings while you are on maternity leave. So you mentioned before that you've worked out your budget and like your

husband's income can help you cover bills and stuff like that are you saving while you're on leave or is that something that you're like nope we've just put that to the side that's not happening while we are doing this yeah so and I think this sort of touched back to you know my old self and what I feel like I need to do to make myself happy really um is the method of paying yourself first so I actually give well my husband and I both give each other $350 a week for our play money which I know sounds excessive but that's just what we figure out we need because we're both quite social people so we do have quite a large play money bucket that we dip into every week so there is an opportunity for us to save but that hasn't been our goal while maternity leaves so

we have quite a big amount of money that we can use every week just for you know going out to dinners and things like that but if we can save money after that point then that's great if we don't, we haven't put the pressure on ourself to as well. I think as a new mum that you can't undervalue as well, giving yourself the opportunity to do something for you. And this is applicable to any, I guess, new parent who is, you know, primarily caregiving. You're the one on maternity leave. So I'm assuming in this situation, you're the one who's with bub the most. I think that as much as you say, it seems really excessive. You're not getting to go out to work every day. Like you would normally and have those adult interactions. You're not getting time away

from your little one who, of course, you would love immensely, I have no doubt. But I think that you need to remember that there is so much value in giving yourself space because you deserve that as just a human being. And yes, it might be costing you money, but I think maybe for your mental health, particularly because you said you're a super social person, I do think that it's really important that you're recognizing that and it's really admirable you've gone okay well right now this is what I need yeah absolutely and um we said before that before we started trying for a baby that um we wanted the baby to fit into our lifestyle rather than change our life to suit baby and we were just fortunate that we had a salary that we could maintain our

lifestyle while me being on maternity leave just to we didn't want to miss out on things and feel like that we had to give up that aspect of our life just because our baby was here. So, again, quite a fortunate position to be in. And I definitely don't take that for granted. But that's just the conversation that my husband and I had that we wanted to still maintain what we wanted to do and not feel guilty about that. Marnie Rose, we've talked about budgeting for baby and planning what was going on. And earlier in this episode, you actually said that you saw a financial advisor about 12 months ago. Was that trigger point of seeing a financial advisor potentially having a baby? Is that

where we were at mind frame wise? Like what was the trigger point for saying an advisor, I guess is what I'm trying to get around to asking. Yeah, absolutely. So there was two, one was definitely planning for a family. The other one was just learning more about the um the shares and investment market so we had a comsec account going and we just weren't sure if that was where we needed to be for the best financial outcome or if we needed to move that into um you know the other areas of investing so we just wanted to get advice on that really um and then that sort of rolled into combining you know consolidating supers and what we need to do for wheels what we need to do for you know setting our child up for the best future that he

can have as well um I'm really concerned should I say concerned I'm not sure but concerned about um the housing market you know when he's 25 years old so I'd love to have the opportunity to give him a um you know a bit of a house deposit already sitting there so I just wanted to get the ball rolling really on how that all works I love that and I feel like financial advice is something that people often have triggers for so you'll go ages not even considering it and then there's some kind of life change and you go we should we should talk to an advisor now like we probably should get it together and have that chat but the next question I want to ask you is actually about super so you talked about rolling super together and while you're on maternity leave you wouldn't be

contributing to super through your salary, because that's not a part of it. But have you and your partner, and I mean, maybe not because you do have a pretty healthy looking superannuation account, but have you and your partner talked about what that would mean for you to miss contributions to superannuation during that time that you're off for a year? Look, we haven't had the discussion, but I've been very aware of it because it's quite a hot topic in the mothers, online mothers group that I'm in that has, you know, 3,000 members and a lot of people do talk about this we again didn't have the conversation and I'm currently not contributing to super again I think it's also because I did have the larger balance sitting

there so I felt like I maybe wasn't really missing it over the next 12 months and I knew that when I go back to work I'm going back to almost a full-time salary as well so I could not make up for the time but I you know it's not like I'm only going back part-time where again I would miss the next 15 years of um contributing the same sort of amount yeah so yeah you've thought about it but it wasn't the biggest priority I feel like potentially that would have changed if you'd looked at it and had like twenty thousand dollars in super you'd be like oh actually maybe we need a plan around this but yeah financially I think you're doing fine because it sounds like you've turbocharged your career. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of career, just before we head off, I wanted to swing it back

around. I know we've been chatting about baby because we're all baby crazy, but just to chat about you. And super Jess. And super as well. I wanted to just chat about you a little bit and ask as a fellow degree list person who has worked their way up in this industry, how did that look for you? You've obviously sat at one company for many years now. I mean, you came in on kind of a more entry-level role. How did that career progression go? Did you put your hand up? Were you talking to managers, asking for promotions? Did you just wait for the right opportunity? How did you take those steps? Because I think there'd be a lot of people in a similar boat who maybe don't have the degree to back stepping right into a big role,

but have big aspirations to do what you've done. Yeah. So, definitely, it was seeking out other opportunities as they came up. I didn't really wait around for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say hey do you want to do this that has happened once in that in that career stepping stone and I was very lucky for that because that landed me what I'm in the role I'm in now however I just yeah again just took the opportunities as they came up I consulted with the HR team at my current employer as well obviously the industry I'm in as well is a largely male-dominated industry. So, for instance, in my team of 25, I'm the only female. There was a lot of opportunity sort of given around those lower level sort of roles to really just take little

baby steps to sort of get where I'm at today. Incredible. And how do you find being the only female in a team of 25? Because that's not an easy position I wouldn't imagine to find yourself in. Yeah. So, before going into this industry, I actually worked in legal services where there was a majority female team as a legal secretary. So, I really enjoy the different side of things and obviously heading into maternity leave as well. They were very supportive and it's a very different environment, but an enjoyable one as well. Incredible. Jess, I know that you thought that was going to be your last question and it was maybe your last question, but when we were introducing our money diarist. She had explained that she was in debt and offline, we had been

talking about credit scores and I feel like I want to finish there. Money diarist, when it came to debt and credit scores and being in a little bit of a pickle, you were saying you were pretty severely impacted by, you know, not having a very shiny credit score. Can you tell us a little bit about that and I guess how you got out of that situation? Yeah, sure. So, growing up, I really didn't even know what a credit score was and by the time I knew what it was it was too late so I'm in my early 20s I had gotten myself into about 12 grand worth of credit card debt and really just buried my head in the sand so I was the type of person that was ignoring the calls ignoring the mail I knew I would be getting a letter from my bank and I would just rip it up

and put it in the bin yeah which is horrible no it just feels like I can feel that stress like when you say I'd rip it up and put it in the bin it's like I didn't even want to look at it like just get it out of sight out of mind if it's all ripped up it doesn't exist absolutely and I was the type of person which I know has been spoken about heaps in the community as well is the just living for that moment and not really caring about future self and I was the person that you would always see going out traveling and eating at fancy dinners and having all of the fancy clothes But behind the scenes, I was in a really bad place financially where I didn't look at my bank account. I did not log into my bank account.

I did not log into any of my debt portals, nothing like that because I was just ignoring it, which just impacted my credit score massively. And by the time that I realized what impact that had on just day-to-day lives, so phone plans, things like that, it was too late for me. I couldn't get it back up. So, once I accepted the debt and I just accepted that first phone call from the debt company saying, hey, you know, and they weren't as scary as what I thought they would be. I thought they were going to get on the line and just completely almost destroy me. But they were very friendly to do it. No, they're usually super kind.

Yeah. And they were very, all they wanted to do was just to make sure that I was aware of what I had and how can they help me get to where I needed to be, which was really positive in the end so that all sort of started sparring when I was 22 23 and now 29 and only as of about two months ago my credit ratings back up to where it should be and I don't have any defaults listed anymore and I just I think I just wanted to say that it is a long process but you know the years tick by so quickly and so I'm not even 30 yet and I have the opportunity now to go out and get you know the house that I'm I'm in now is under my husband's name because I

couldn't yeah I couldn't do that I didn't have a credit score so yeah you literally couldn't even do the home loan thing with your partner because your credit score was just not having a good time yeah and again by the time I realized what it was and what impact it had it was too late so oh my gosh I feel like that's really powerful though and what you just said before about how the years go really quickly it's both ways like they go really quickly if you're not acting on a debt either like they go really quickly and you're like oh my gosh I can't believe it's been like three or four years and this is still sitting there but like we could have used that time to get out of debt so I feel like the sooner you just pick up the phone the sooner you put a plan in place the sooner you

pull your head out of the sand the better for you because now you're 29 and you've got all of these wealth creating opportunities ahead of you and it's not the worst thing in the entire world whereas if you'd left this for another 10 years or another 15 years which lots of people do you would have been in a pretty big pickle absolutely and I didn't want to have the conversation with anyone didn't want to have the conversation with myself with my partner with anyone about it so I just ignored it and I probably ignored it two to three years longer than what i should have um yeah i feel like my friend that is a really good place to leave it we have covered so much in this money story so thank you so much for your time but unfortunately

i do think that is all we have time for today so just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to australia's aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples they're the traditional custodians of the lands the waterways and the 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. 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 promise Victoria Devine is an authorised

representative of Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 47097797049, AFSL 236523. See you next week, guys. Bye!