She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Big Below Deck Vibes!

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

After a leave of absence to chase her dream of being a yachtie in France, she came home exhausted (but well remunerated) to return to work as a physio and continue to smash her financial goals! Just wait to you meet this week's Money Diarist.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!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. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are Authorised Representatives of Infocus Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN 47 097 797 049 AFSL - AFSL 236523.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 Shop Back Money Diary Monday, where we chat to a community member about them, their life, their story, their money, and all the interesting bits in between. And Victoria, are you surprised to hear that I have a goodie? No, absolutely not. But I cannot wait because I heard, I heard on the grapevine. You're going to love this one. I heard on the grapevine that this money diary is going to send below deck vibes. And we all know how obsessed I am with that show. So I don't know if that's true or not, but Annalisa

let it slip before and I'm actually like, ooh. Alrighty. Well, let me tell you all about her. So our diarist says, I'm currently 33, living in the Gold Coast, but grew up between South Africa, London, and California in a relationship. And I work as a physio with a few twists along the way. Three years ago, I took a leap of faith to quit my stable permanent government job, working in Queensland health to move to Antibes, France to be a yachtie. The rest is history. I I had a great season on a beautiful 80-meter motor yacht built around 100 years ago. Absolutely the hardest job of my life, but some epic financial benefits came alongside this. I returned home about eight months later to head back into physiotherapy, happier than ever to be in my regular job.

Wouldn't try the experience for anything. Now I know how to fold napkins and have some fantastic bed-making skills. Oh, my gosh. It does throw below-deck vibes. Right? I knew you would love this one. Money, Doris, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you. Thank you. Thanks so much, girls.

Low-key, how was Antibes? Because like we're going there. You're going to love it. It's so stunning and it's such a fun area. Oh my gosh. I have some offline questions, but we really should get into the money diary because I don't think anyone cares about my travel plans. All they care about is your money diary. So let's jump straight into it with the first question, which is always, can you tell us a little bit about your money story. Yeah. So I grew up in a single parent family. So, you know, we were always conscious of money. So I think my whole life I've just been, you know, aware of my spending. I've always tried to save. Obviously going through uni was really tough. I'm paying those fees.

I lived in Melbourne for those three years. So I think, you know, I worked a ton outside of uni. So I think from, you know, from the get go and over the last few years coming into physio, I don't know. I feel like I just have always had a really good saving mindset, but I've always, you know, worked really hard to get where I am. Of course. How cool. I love that. All right. Next question is what do you do for work and how much money do you earn? So I am a physio. I'm a physiotherapist. I work in Southeast Queensland slash Northern New South Wales. So I have three jobs three three I know it was four last year but I had to cut down so I have one kind of full-time job in aged care I locum so I do random shifts at one of the local hospitals and then I'm a sole

trader in the disability arena so I have three jobs and I make about 140,000 between those oh my gosh cool we allowed to ask about our old job here Jess or do you want me to wait till the end I recommend to the end oh I really want to ask now Jess get the people to write you gotta be Sorry, sorry, sorry. All right. I want to know next question. What is your big money goal? I think it's more of a lifestyle goal for me. So I just want to enjoy my life. I want to be able to live comfortably. I want to be able to have enough money to take a good vacation or two time off during the year to enjoy my life. I don't want to be one of those people that waits until they're 65 to be able to take heaps of time off. So I think my money, my financial goal is just

being able to have enough money to be comfortable in order to have the lifestyle and the time off and the flexibility that I want, but still able to comfortably manage my mortgage and those yearly bills. I love that. That's a good goal. How old do you think you'll be when you do want to retire? I really love what I do. And I'm lucky that it's a job that I can probably do until I retire. There's so many different arenas of physio. I mean, the earlier the better, but I'm pretty happy working into my 60s. But that is also being said, like I want to live a life where I can take time off every single year, every few months. So I'd be happy to work into my 60s. But if I could retire in 15 years, that would be great too. That would be an absolute win. That's the ultimate goal,

right? Yeah. But I love what I do. So I never dread going to work. I'm very lucky in that sense that I don't mind working a little bit longer if I can, you know, enjoy myself along the way. That's so epic. Next question. Do you have any investments? If so, what are they? My partner and I have invested money in crypto. I would like to expand that a little bit more into other things, maybe the stock market or things like that. But one thing at a time, I need to learn a little bit more about that and how to go about it and the ups and the downs. But yeah, right now, just cryptocurrency. How did you pick crypto? My partner's idea. Seems to be the way. Yeah, but I'm pretty happy with the decision. It was a mutual decision.

You know, we're in a position where we have a little bit of disposable income. So if we lose it all, you know, it's not the end of the world. If something comes from it, fantastic. You know, we live within our means and we don't put in to crypto what we aren't willing to lose so you know see how things go in the next few years good time to buy epic next question is do you have any debts yes I owe a few thousand dollars for we just we're renovating I have seven grand left to pay for my Ikea kitchen exciting yes yeah that's zero percent interest for the first year so I'm happy just to pay it off little by little in the next year but yeah that's it. Just the, just the kitchen. How good. And a mortgage as well. Did you say it before?

The mortgage. Yeah. I was about to say how good and what's the debt on that property you're renovating? Yeah. Luckily not too much, more than we would have liked to have spent, but that's just the market at this point. But yeah, we were very lucky finding the place that we live, where we live. Yeah. We were, we were happy with the price considering the market. So. Yeah, epic. And does your partner have any debt or is it just the kitchen and the mortgage between the two of you? Yeah, just that. Epic. All right. Next question is, do you shop back? Is that like where you go to a shop and you kind of put it on credit and then you can pay it back?

No, we're about to blow your mind. No, no, absolutely not. Okay. Jess, what's shop back? So shop back is a plugin. They also have an app. It's a cashback site. So when you shop online and sometimes in stores, well, you essentially get cash back on the purchases you make. So they get essentially what you could look at as a commission from the platform for sending you there and then they share that with you. So it's a really good way if you are an online shopper to make a little bit of extra money back. Oh, no, I don't. I don't do a lot of online shopping. So I don't know if that's worth it for me. I don't know. It's something I'd not

heard about. So there you go. Now, you know. Yeah. We'll look into it. Yeah. The more you know. All right. Next question is, what is your best money habit? Best money habit is also probably tied to my worst money habit. I think my best money habit is I just enjoy my life. You know, I save enough to be able to go on holidays, go out for drinks, go for dinner with friends. Like I'm not too stressed. I think I have a really good balance. you know I have enough in my savings and I make enough luckily that I can really enjoy my life and I don't miss out on things because I have a savings to pay for that so on a whim I'm able to go on a little holiday or a girls weekend away so I think that money habit of just having money

there all the time and being able to enjoy it enjoy my life I think is a really good habit so just savings and making sure that I enjoy my hard spend money now tell us how does it link to your worst money habit? What is that? Well, I probably spend a little bit too much on takeaway and dinners. I think I could probably pull back on some of that disposable spending of drinks and eating out. So something that I can easily pull back on and that's something that, yeah, I could definitely work on. Some of those social activities or just takeaway, things like that could improve a little, but I do enjoy my life. And at this point, 20 bucks here and there and takeaway is not the end of the world. It's finding the balance, right? Like the things that you enjoy and the goals that

you have. And if it's within your means, it's definitely not the worst thing. Yeah, exactly. All right. The last question in the structured questions that we always ask money diarists is what grade would you give yourself if we forced you to give yourself a grade? Is that like out of five stars? It could be five stars. It could be A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It could be anything. Probably, probably at this point, four stars. I've been really good this last few years about saving. We knew we wanted to buy a house. We knew we were probably going to have to renovate. So I think my saving has really gotten quite good. But I think I could still improve like learning a little bit more about financial literacy, investments. Yeah, just those

little things that are kind of the next level of financial literacy, I think I could improve on. So yeah, I've had a really good few years, thankfully. But yeah, I kind of want to take it to the next level in the next year or two. How good. All right. Well, I cannot wait to get into boat chat and we will do that after this really quick break. We are back, Money Diarist. I need to know, Jess said I had to wait until this segment of the show to ask you, can you tell us about being a yachtie? Like how much do you earn? How much do you actually have to spend and what's it like? It was the hardest job of my entire life. I definitely earned every single penny on the job um so i worked on an 80 foot boat she was about 100 years old she was

actually a warship she was a hospital at one point oh my god what yeah it was really a old historical boat and it was awesome because you could see like old photos of it it used to be a gunship so old photos of it in the war and with all the like old navy guys and stuff on like the photos on the wall so it was amazing it is owned by like a quite wealthy British Italian family and yeah they were really great we had fantastic guests we had fantastic owners but it was really tough we you you'd be doing I mean technically you got an eight hour break but you probably got about six hours of sleep some nights most nights I'd say and you would do like you would rotate between laundry, housekeeping, service. It was amazing, but absolutely have never worked so hard

in my entire life. Scrubbing toilets, making beds, detailing, vacuum cleaners. We were based out of the Mediterranean. So that was amazing. Yeah, it was an amazing season, but it made me very thankful for my physio job oh my gosh how much did you earn doing that I was a green stew so it was my very first yachting job my first and last I'm trying to remember what I earned it wasn't very much I think I was on about 1200 euros a month oh that's not that much is it no we were technically not a charter boat so if you say work on a charter boat where they're renting it out to new guests every week or every fortnight you're gonna make a ton of money and tips that's where a lot of the money is that's what I was going to ask you I'm thinking this is going to be like below deck and

then every week you go down below deck and you count your tips yeah no it's like that on a lot of the other boats but because we were a private boat we got a little bit of tips but it was more we got to go hiking with the families we got to go to dinner with the families you got to go like tubing and swinging from like the boat swings and it was a really nice boat to work on enjoy being there instead of being like on all the time I mean yeah doing that and getting to hang out with a billion dollar family that's pretty good yeah wasn't the worst like they were great yeah get literally getting paid to hang out with billionaires like that's her job Jess well we definitely had to clean their toilets and stuff too so kept you humble even billionaires

yeah but it was great but you know you didn't have to pay for rent you never had to pay for food you always had seven star food leftovers that you could always eat oh my gosh how cool yeah so it was amazing would probably have continued to do it had my personal situation at home been a little bit different I probably would have done another season or two and gone to maybe a charter boat where you can make more money but you know some of my friends they making thousands of dollars of tips in a fortnight. Wow. How did you find this job? Because I'm sure there's probably some people listening going, I can do that. I want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. What I did, I'm really lucky. I had a British passport or have a British passport. So it was

quite easy for me. I didn't have to worry about the visa side of things, but you do have to get a work visa for wherever you want to get a boat, whether America can be a little bit tougher to do that. So I started in the Mediterranean. So I just went to France. I did my training over there. You have to do like a week long, like fire rescue, basic safety skills course. And I actually met a beautiful chief stewardess. She was renewing her training and that was my first training. So we actually met and bonded and she got me a job on her boat. So that was really, yeah, very, very lucky for me but I think what most people do is they would go over there and and I actually did interview for other jobs you'd basically walk the docks so you take your CV with you and you go to

where all these boats are parked you might have to talk your way in or sneak your way in to some of the locked ones and you literally just go knocking boat to boat you ring bells you knock on the doors and you say hi can I speak to so and so the chief stewardess or um chief deck and yeah say hey I'm looking for a job do you guys have any stewardess jobs available so that was yeah also very humbling yeah you have to really hustle up a job don't you yeah you definitely have to work for it there are also other like job agency like yachting agencies that you can sign up for but as a green stewardess there's not that many jobs that I was offered through there it was more you have to like just meet people it's all about who you know yeah so you ended up lucking out and

finding like an epic boat with an epic family how good yeah it was amazing are you still in contact with the family like do you contact them like you spent so much time with them if you're going hiking and hanging out with them is that an ongoing relationship or is it like no it was just fleeting I was only there for a season so I didn't spend you know I was only there for six months so I don't personally but I know a lot of the staff who were there like some of the people on the boat had been there 20 years oh my gosh so that family was like family to them um so yeah a lot of the people on the boat I think do keep in contact with some of them that's so sweet yeah you're still their employee so you have to tread carefully in those kind of scenarios yeah of

course of course yeah was that ever really I guess hard to manage being so on all the time like one of the things that I really value love you Jess is being able to go home and just like curl up in my bed and ignore absolutely everyone yeah you then having to like share rooms and like be with your co-workers 24-7 like how did you distance yourself you live in each other's pockets I was in a like a three-bed little dorm room and I kid you not there was one single bed and like a bunk bed two little bunk beds I think that we had like a foot and a half of space between the beds we had a tiny room but we did have our own bathroom I was very lucky I adored the people that I um shared a room with but yeah you live in each other's pockets they will rotate your break

so some people will break from 11 to 2 some people break from 2 to 4 and so on so you do get a few hours of alone time but yeah you definitely want to value those that you work with yeah everyone really got along on our boat it was a lot of family and a lot of couples on the boat so yeah very very lucky to to have had a very good crew there's always little nitpicky things and people get tired and you get a little bit short with people but at the end of the day you know that like okay well I'm spending the next six months with these people like in a teeny tiny boat so we better kind of resolve any issues I think being on all the time was tough but I really liked to do the laundry and the ironing so you can kind of tuck yourself away in the laundry room

play your music and you could just kind of like hang out by yourself and do laundry and clean for you know eight hours at a time so that was a really nice shift to do because you didn't have to like you know have a smiley hair perfectly done the whole time you could just kind of like relax and get into the groove of things where say if you were doing service that day you would have to like really be on did you ever get to swap your like if you were rostered on service and someone else was on laundry were you allowed to be like hey like can i have your job i'll do i'll do your laundry if you do my service you could kind of tell the chief stews like oh i don't really want to do service like I'd prefer to do laundry we had a girl who was one of the other

stews she loved doing service so that was really good I hadn't had a lot of hospitality jobs before being a stewardess so I was very happy just to do housekeeping and laundry where she really wanted to do service so we just yeah the chief stews would kind of figure who was better at this what their strengths and weaknesses were and kind of allocate accordingly yeah how cool yeah it was awesome so tell us about the nitty-gritty did they tip you when you left you do get a tip at the end of season so it was nice we had a few little guests here and there it was more friends of the owners and they would tip you on our boat not that much a few hundred bucks each at the end of the season it's kind of an incentive to stay on that one boat the whole season so for

your bigger tip you have to wait till the very end of the season and then you get tipped I think I got a few thousand dollars maybe three thousand dollars oh that's not bad thank you we'll take that yeah I was happy with that I mean no complaints granted I was definitely you know I was on a lower earning boat because one I was a green stew two I wasn't too picky about my money just wanted it for the experience and three we weren't a charter boat so we had the owners on board most of the time if you do work on a charter boat you'll earn literally like six times the amount. Wow. So it's really, you know, if you're in it to make a ton of money and make bank, which you absolutely can, work on a charter boat, you're going to, I don't know how you would work

Tripoli as hard, but you do. You really, really, really, you earn every single penny that you make. It's really tough. I have to ask though, I didn't grow up in a family with a yacht. Jess, did you? No, no, you haven't mentioned it before. Us peasants over here. Us peasants over here a season what does that mean so is that like the family goes and like spends a season on the boat like or is it like a week or is it a month is it like an entire year like how does it work do these people just go stay on their super yachts yeah summer yep yep so generally I mean not that I'm like a yeah a nodal about this but you would generally have your like your Mediterranean season and that may be from you know May until October and you would generally be around you know around

Europe so whether that be like Croatia or you know France Italy that area for their summer and then you would generally the flip side of the year you would be most of the boats would generally be around Florida and the Bahamas so you would do like a U.S. season so in between like the boat is going to be on the dock getting fixed or any little you know things that need to be upgraded our main dock was in Barcelona so we were you know renovating the boat and tidying things up for the first few months of my season but you know some of the boats they might be like an adventure boat and they may go to like Iceland or they may go South Africa it really depends on the boat you're on but I would say the large majority they would have a Mediterranean season for the

european summer and then the flip side of the year they would be around florida and the bahamas and these families just stay on the boat year round is that so yeah how does that work we had maybe four or five primary guests like primary like so it was all one family but they kind of used it like a timeshare so one of the siblings and her family and her guests they would maybe come on for three weeks and then you might get like a week off you'd have to flip the boat you'd have to clear out everything to a deep clean big detail of the whole boat and then you might have like another extension of the family you may have the other brother his family and all their guests they'll come on for a week and a half then you'd have to flip the boat detail it have two weeks off

to do that and then you may have like the other extension of the family or like and their guests so you can't you know you might have a few weeks for one section of the family and then you know different guests you it's nice you get a variety of people but it's very long to have um the boss on board for several weeks at a time that would be so challenging you're going at a hundred percent a hundred miles an hour for weeks on end yeah just to impress them oh my gosh also flipping an entire like resetting an entire boat every time someone leaves higher boat it's giving me really strong flashbacks to like when my mum would have people come over to the house and she'd be like we must clean every and you're like shoving things into cupboards and but you guys are doing

it on like another whole level literally right no shoving things into cupboards on the superyacht no you're detailing the cupboards and you're folding every single you have to like fold and color coordinate all the rags everything was clean with like q-tips what clean with q-tips not just your ears I'm gonna get no I'm gonna get slammed for that obviously you shouldn't put q-tips in your ears children don't do that but oh my gosh that is wild it's it's interesting to ask pervy questions about how the other half live because I'm it's just so foreign to me yeah let me tell you like I've been to France I've been to the south of France I'm very very lucky and grateful for that experience but yeah I stayed in hostels so when you said bunk beds I was like

yeah I get bunk beds I totally get bunk beds yeah it was nice because like we had to try out some of the beds and make sure you know before the season like officially started we had detailed everything and we had to make sure that everything flowed perfectly in the rooms so our chief steward said okay everyone pick a room you get to spend a night or two in there make sure the air con works make sure the tvs work make sure the music works make sure the beds are comfortable everything's clean so you kind of got a 48 hour luxurious experience sleeping in the guest cabins don't mind if i do Back to bunk beds after that. I'm happy to test anybody's guest cabins on their super yachts.

If anyone needs a hand, you just call me. I've got your back. Jess, are you in? Manifest that. Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. Jess is in as well. Putting out the vibes.

Super yacht. Putting out the vibes. Super yacht vibes. That is the coolest story ever. Thank you so much for coming on to share it. So interesting. Thank you so much for coming. I've super, super appreciated it.

What an absolute dream. But as always, I do think that's all we have time for today, Jessica Ricci. It sure was. But don't forget, guys, that the advice shared on She's on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision. And we promise Victoria Devine and She's on the Money are authorised representatives of Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 47097797049, AFSL 236523. See you on Wednesday, guys. Bye.

Thank you.