She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: From Debt Demons to Living the Dream

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

This inspiring Money Diarist had a terrible relationship with money, and after a huge life setback which meant time off work (and going broke), she managed to reset, turning around her whole life and money story! With a little help from SOTM, and a whole lot of hard work she's now well on the way to paying off her debts, is engaged, and her future looks so bright. We are endlessly proud of her and can't wait for you to meet her! Friends! If you loved this episode, then we know you are going to love Victoria's new book, Money Diaries with She's on the Money! This book has been written so you can feel empowered and see that YOU have the power to rewrite your own money story! It's coming in May but you can pre-order your copy now, click here!  Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where I get the absolute pleasure of sitting down with one of our She's on the Money community members and learning all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded like this. Hi V, I've gone from a terrible relationship with money and a huge life setback which meant time off work and going broke to turning around my whole life and money story with She's On The Money. I'm well on the way to paying off my debts. I'm engaged and the future

looks so bright. I wanted to share this with you and our community. Money Diarist, congrats. Thank you. How exciting. I want to know a little bit more about the engagement though, because I love, love. How long have you been engaged? About a year and a half now. So not even that long. Are we planning a wedding or not yet? What's the plan? Absolutely, we are. So at first, we weren't sure how we were going to pull it off. But since I've got my money somewhat on track, we are planning on eloping next year.

Oh my gosh, I love that. And I just got a little glimpse of your gorgeous pear ring. Yes, please. Let's do a money diary though. And let's start it the way I always do. Money diarist, what grade would you give your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A through to F? At the moment, I would give myself a C. That has actually come a long way. Just a few months ago, I probably would have been like an F minus. An F minus. So it's not being harsh on yourself at all. But it's still just a C because I know that I've got a long way to go. But you're on the way and you're excited about it. I'm excited about it. So let's learn more about it. tell me a bit more about your money story. Okay. So as a kid, I grew up in a pretty

comfortable household. My parents have always been amazing with money. However, I did not inherit that gene. They've always been very low income earners, but been really, really good at saving. And I'm also an only child. So I never felt like I was missing out on anything. When I got my pocket money and stuff, I could never save it. Like I would be out at the shops the next day buying potato scallops most of the time. I mean, I'm going to start a fight with you later about the sea, but we can also start a fight between calling it a potato scallop or a potato cake too, if you want. Oh no, because we're in Victoria. Also like an elite purchase. I had one on the weekend and I hadn't had one in a couple of years. And I was like, why have I done this to myself?

this is the best thing I've ever eaten in my whole life. Yum, I need one. Just so good. Anyway, tell me more. I feel like I wasn't really allowed to talk about money. So it wasn't something I worried about, but it also, I wasn't really learning anything either. Like I would ask questions sometimes about mortgages and saving and things to do with money, but it just wasn't allowed to be talked about. So why do you think that's the case? Because you mentioned before that your parents were good at money, but then didn't want to talk about it. So is it just like a taboo topic or was it something where maybe they weren't as comfortable with it? Like, I don't know. We sort of don't really talk about anything deep or serious in my house. So I think that it must

have just been considered one of those types of taboo topics, I guess. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's always interesting asking because sometimes people would respond and be like, well, they were really good with money but I think they tried really really hard with it and didn't want to you know worry me or something that's really hard if it's like we didn't really share much in the way of deep conversation and money was considered that that's just so challenging but I'm assuming lots of people are resonating with it and being like oh my god me too I moved out when I was 17 which was quite young but really good for my mental health I pretty much got through that I was able to access Centrelink like youth study or whatever it was called and I also had a bit of an inheritance

from my gran who passed away when I was younger so my parents had actually invested that and so there was quite a bit more there and they allowed me to access that when I turned 18 so unfortunately I did blow quite a lot of it just on living expenses and living outside of my means yeah but that money still did come in handy later on. I sort of just got through uni really always worrying about money. I never felt like I was earning enough. And even when I did start to earn a lot more, lifestyle creep happened basically. It happens to the best of us. Yeah. And around that time I got into a pretty serious relationship, not the one I'm in now. and at the end of that like just as I started working full-time in my graduate role I actually

lent him ten thousand dollars and I never saw that money again no yeah so lesson learned you know what that's actually a cheap get out of jail free card of that relationship like cost you ten grand to be like you're not my person yeah so he said he was still gonna pay me back and then disappeared off the face of the earth after we broke up. So after that, I feel like my relationship with money just got even worse because that was $10,000 that my grant had left me and it was gone and I knew I wasn't getting it back. And I just sort of went into this really like all or nothing mindset and started to spend everything. Yeah. Wow. And that was when, because I had just got my first full-time job. I thought it would be a good idea to apply for a credit card.

I thought I would need like good credit, but I've learned from the podcast that that's not actually how it works. But you didn't learn about financial literacy growing up. And I feel like that's a fair thing to kind of deduce if you've heard it around. You're like, actually, that could really help me. I'm trying to set my financial future up. And I feel like that gets so many of us, right? You go, I'm here just doing the right thing for me. Like you only know what you know. yeah and I've since learned that I'm not the type of personality that can have a credit card you and me both baby yeah so I got that got a couple of credit cards and then luckily around that time my parents did want to talk about money a bit more and they actually set me up in a really

really lucky position where they actually purchased a house and I actually owe my mortgage to them Oh, wow. How nice. Thank you for not talking about it, but then maybe doing a little flippy flip, like not the worst thing. So that put me in a really, really good position. And I was only 22 at the time. So I had like some money that I gave as a deposit to them, but that's been so lucky because I don't have any interest on that at all. Okay. So that's the sexiest loan I've ever heard of. If your parents are like, look, we really want to do that again. You can go, my friend Victoria is interested. Yeah. So I'm super lucky in that regard. And I think because of that, I'm not in as bad a position as I would have been otherwise. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So again,

once I had the house, I thought, well, I don't have to save anymore. I've got my house. I'm in the property market, et cetera, et cetera. So any savings I did have still started going back out the window again. Yeah. And I had a couple of thousand dollars left and then the hot water system in my new house died. Oh no. And they're so expensive. Yeah. I spent my last dollars fixing that. No. Yeah. That was sort of just it for me at that point. It put me on a really bad trajectory of spending absolutely everything that I earned. At one point I decided to get a bit better. I took out a $10,000 personal loan to consolidate credit cards and buy now pay later and all that however I paid off those things didn't close the accounts yeah okay yeah you can see where this is

going it's one after the other with debt right like I just feel like it just spirals out of control you didn't get your first credit card because you were like do you know what I want to do I want to go into debt that sounds so sexy you got it because you were doing the right thing or you thought you were doing the right thing. And then you were probably consolidating because you're like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get my shit together. And you knew what you were doing at the time, but I feel like it's just such a slippery slope, right? And when you're on it and then you start slipping again, it just feels like trash and you're like, why bother? Yeah, absolutely. And that's such a big thing that I've had to try and change about my mindset.

Yeah. So very quickly, unsurprisingly, those buy now pay laters and the credit cards all went back up maxed out and I still owed $10,000 and yeah, things started to get a bit messy at that stage and it's sort of just been that way. That was about five years ago now. So I would say that probably the last four years of just, I couldn't save anything. Like I literally didn't have a dollar to my name. And that's so stressful. Yeah. And like, I'm in a very lucky position where I'm a pretty high income earner. My mortgage is not very expensive. Very nice. I'm going to ask you about that in a hot second. And yeah, my mortgage is not expensive and I was still getting to the end of every fortnight broke. Yeah. Wow. Getting my card declined over like 20 cent

purchases and stuff like that. And that just feels like you're being kicked while you're down, right? Like it just feels like trash and you get this mindset where you're like, I'm just not good at money. And it's not the reality, right? Like you just didn't have the tools and resources you needed to manage money. And now I'm looking at your little story that you've written in and we don't know enough about it yet, but you've flipped it, right? So you were in a relationship. Now tell me about this new relationship. Where did you meet? How's all of that panning out? And like, is that something that you had to bring up with your partner? Yeah. So we actually met on a dating app, one that not many people have heard of called HER,

which is for like same-sex relationships. Yeah, cool. I met my partner on a dating app, so I'm the biggest fan of them. Oh, nice. I reckon we should be the spokesperson, but anyway. But yeah, look, I can imagine you look really cute together. And also when you're talking about her, you're like smiling and grinning. So yeah, like 10 out of 10. Yeah, she's the best. We fell in love super quickly and moved in together and got engaged pretty early on. It was about nine months in but we're like two and a half years into our relationship now and when we get married it would have been about four years so I always laugh because all of my girlfriends in same-sex relationships are so similar like we're just like you guys go from zero to a million in 0.2 seconds

yeah there's a stereotype for a reason you are actually living up to it like I love it like you know we shouldn't stereotype but if you guys could stop living up to that stereotype time. You're just like, you know what? We're chicks. We know when we know. Exactly. Adore. So obviously started this beautiful relationship and then, you know, you're still in debt. So how did that go? Was that something that you hit at the start of a relationship or was it something that you spoke about or like how did this pan out? We spoke about it pretty early on. So when we met, I was in about $30,000 worth of consumer debt. Yeah. And that's not including, I still have my car on an innovated lease system, which that actually works for me. So I'm happy with that.

But yeah, the 30,000 wasn't even including that. And I did tell her pretty early on and actually being with her started just baby steps towards repairing my relationship with money. So over time I stopped using my credit cards and using loans and things like that. I was still just paying the minimum, but I was gradually using them less and less. And eventually, actually, even before I really started this big turnaround, I actually hadn't used my credit cards for about a year. So the loans and the debt was still decreasing. And once we were super invested and I really, really trusted her, and this might sound weird to some people, but this is just really what I needed. I actually gave her the logins to any lines of credit that I have and asked her to

change the password so I can only pay down those debts. You can't go and play with them. Yeah. Oh, that's really sweet that she's willing to do that for you too. Like, I feel like that's a common thing. I've done it for a girlfriend, like, and we're not even in a relationship. She's like, just take it off me, like change the password. And I'm like, okay, no worries. yeah and whenever I explain it I'm like it's not like a financially controlling relationship at all but it might sound weird to some people some people would not be comfortable with it and that is totally fine but like money works differently for everybody right like it's like before you were saying like I can't be trusted with a credit card and I'm like look neither because I've tried

it and I was not so good at it but other people are like oh I'm so good at racking up points and to get all these business class flights. And I'm like, how? Cause like, I just go into debt. Yeah, me too. So she's always been amazing about that. And then we got to last year and this is where things went really bad, but then started to get good. So probably about midway through last year, I actually went through a really serious mental health breakdown, which meant that I couldn't work for, I think it was just under two months. yeah wow that's a significant period of time are you okay now yeah good I wasn't getting paid and it was just such a kick up the bum basically because I had nothing and we actually had to

live off my partner's savings and she's a low income earner like she's a student she works casually sometimes but it was just like she earns probably less than a quarter of what I earn and she was the one that had the savings and she was the one that was able to keep us afloat. What a queen. Yeah, she is. So I'm so, so grateful to that, but it kind of showed me how am I here? I've been working full time in this role for six years at that point and I just have nothing to show for it. Obviously mental health is so closely tied to finances, right? Did that worsen it as well? because you were realizing like, oh shit, like not only am I doing this, like I'm, I feel like

that could have really made it even worse knowing that your partner who's on a quarter of what you're doing is supporting you. Just like, what am I doing with my life? Yeah. And for me until that point, money had always been linked pretty closely to poor mental health for me. I'm pretty impulsive and I would have a tendency to cope with things by just buying so much stuff. So yeah, I guess as I started to go through the recovery process from that really difficult time, I knew about She's On The Money and I had listened to a couple of episodes years ago, but it obviously just wasn't the right time for me. I had a really annoying voice when I first started.

So like, I get it. Well, I was just about to say, I actually started listening right from the beginning. So I'm lucky I'm not up to date yet. I listened to so many episodes, but I'm still like in 2021. one. No, I love that. I feel like I have tried to overwhelm the community with content. Like we went from, you know, in like 2019, 2020, having like one episode a week and that being really easy to digest to me being like, let's tow by charge it. Let's do three episodes a week and good luck catching up. Oh, but I love it. I love that there's so much content. I love that you're

here. I love that this is helping and a part of your journey. So yeah, you binged She's On The money, you're now in a better mental place? Yeah, much better. Yeah. And at first when I started listening, I was obviously sort of motivated, but not heaps. And it took me about maybe three episodes and I was hooked and I was just ready to change everything. Yes. That's my favorite type of feedback. Yeah. So that's what I've done. And that was only a few months ago. So I've still got a long way to go. Here we are. My partner knows how obsessed with the podcast I am. So whenever I'm struggling with something financial or when she is, we have a bit of a motto in our household now where we say

WWVD. What would V do? Like sometimes not the right thing. So. Well, it's more about what you would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I like that. What my community knows is that I'm a do as I say, not as I do kind of gal. Like, I don't want you thinking that I'm perfect to finance, but like, if you're struggling, here's what you should do. But I empathize if you don't do that. Like, I get it. Well, yeah, it's been really helpful because it's also been like, if I've slipped up a bit, she'll be like, well, Victoria would say that it's fine. And you know, you just keep building up from here. You don't have to blow all your money. All right. She's my new best friend. I love her. You let her know I love her too. Everyone I introduce her to loves her more than

they love me. I think that's a really good trait in a partner. And I'm sure she says exactly the same thing about you. I feel like the ultimate relationship, like the pinnacle of a relationship is when each person thinks they're getting the better deal. Like where you both are like so hyped about each other and you both think, no, no, no, I'm the one batting. Like, I just feel like that works so well. Money Darius, tell me a bit more about your work. So what do you do for work and how much money are you earning? So I'm a special education teacher and I'm currently on about $114,000 a year. Oh, very nice. Which I believe is the second highest pay step in my state. Yep. I think I started on 60 something and have... Worked your way up to there. What a queen.

I love this. And a special ed teacher, like you're such a nice human. And then you go, And I'm a special ed teacher and I'm like, of course she bloody is. You're just too nice. All right. Tell me, I guess, a bit more about your money goals. You've gone through a lot in the last 12 months. You have said as well, look, I'm engaged. My future looks so bright. What are your big money goals right now? So I have some really nice clear ones, which is a really nice place to be in. That's very sexy. I love this. What are they? Well, the first one is I'm on track to be completely out of consumer debt by November this year.

Yep. Oh my gosh. And then you said you were getting married next year, so you're going to be debt free. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's really nice. I didn't want to get married until I was debt free. That was really important to me.

Adore. Around the same time, so about September this year, we will actually have enough saved to pay for everything wedding related, even though we're not getting married for about another year after that, but we'll be able to pay for everything for the wedding and honeymoon around September. That'll take so much pressure off. Like that'll be really nice. Yeah. That's a big goal. After that, our goal as a family is to save towards having kids. Yeah. Yeah. Which is super exciting. And obviously babies are expensive anyway,

about being in a same-sex relationship we might rack up some fees trying to get the baby yeah it turns out you need to do a bit more work and it's a lot financial but yeah which is rude if you ask me but anyway I think it is really rude like yeah but do you know what that's going to cost you like or have you done anything in the process towards that so we know it's going to cost a lot but basically the plan at this stage is to get all the debts cleared and the wedding savings out of the way and then start speaking with doctors and things like that to make a clear plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a girlfriend in a same-sex relationship and she's going through that at the moment. And I didn't realize how much was involved. I'm dumb. So like, I just thought

you just kind of trot down to the sperm bank and go, these are my criteria. Could I please have something to help me create a baby? But they're doing all of these tests and genetic testing to see, you know, which egg is going to work and which body is going to be better to carry the baby and I'm like oh this is very science yeah so that's a bit overwhelming but that's okay one step at a time we're super set on that goal lastly after that so within the next 10 years but I'm not exactly sure on time frames we would like to purchase a bigger house my house is sort of falling apart and very tiny so we would like to move yeah and you're gonna have babies so we need a bigger house. Yeah. Move somewhere that's more suitable for a family and hopefully do that before

we at least have a second child, if that's in the cards for us. Yeah. Oh, how exciting. You guys are going to be the best parents. I love that so much. All right. Let's go to a really quick break because I, at the moment, could talk about babies for literally ever. And on the flip side, let's talk about investments. Let's talk about what debt you have left and your best and worst money habits. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Money Diast, we are back. And I want to know, obviously you're in debt, but that doesn't stop you from being able to progress your life or start investing. Are you investing? If so, what in? If not, like, do you have a plan?

Yeah, so at the moment, my only investment is my super. Yep. And my super's sitting at about $53,000 at the moment. Hey, that's pretty good. Yeah. Once my debts are paid off alongside saving, I'm pretty determined to get into investing a bit more and my plan is at the moment my roundups go towards an account that pays off my debt but I would like to start by having my roundups go to micro investing learn a bit more about that and then branch out bigger I had no idea about investing before the podcast even though

my parents did it and I've recently bought the she's on the money investing book and it's like sitting in my bookshelf ready to go for when I'm ready. She's ready. So I'm super excited about that. I love that. And you're going to be debt free in November. And I kind of love that you're putting it off. I know that some people want to do it at the same time. And like, to be honest, each to their own, it's what engages you and keeps you excited about money, right? But paying off debt is an investment in itself because you probably have a not so sexy interest rate on that. and the more dollars that you're sending towards that, the more you're saving, the more you're actually cutting it down. But you're also proving to yourself that you can allocate money towards

that. So every time you make a debt repayment, it should be exciting because you're like, oh my gosh, come November, that's actually going to be investment. That's going to be savings. That's going to be financial freedom. That's going to be baby making. How exciting. And that's exactly how I like to look at it because at the moment, a huge, huge chunk of my pay each fortnight goes to that debt. And in my mind now, I'm like, oh, I can be investing this soon. Exactly. And I feel like sometimes when we look at these big amounts coming out of our income each month or each week or fortnight or however you get paid, it can be really disheartening because you're like, it feels like I'm just tipping it down the drain, like I'm wasting so much money. But

with a very simple mindset shift, we can become really excited about this because it is actually constructive. It is a really good money habit. It is a good behavior to start because you end up in the best possible position at the end of it. Like November, oh, I can't wait for you. You deserve the biggest bottle of champagne to crack open. Money, Doris, debt. How much debt are we still in? What does that look like? And can you tell me a little bit about your plan to become debt-free? Why November? Like how have you calculated this out? Okay. So firstly, the amount of debt I'm in, I've still got about $7,000 of consumer debt. I have a HECS help debt of about $21,000 remaining. I'm a bit crazy and I'm about to start online uni alongside work.

No, that's okay. That's exciting. That's constructive. Yeah, exciting, but that one's not going to go down anytime soon. And I owe on my mortgage about $321,000. And I also have my novated lease, but I'm not sure exactly how to calculate how much that is, but that takes a few hundred out of my pre-tax pay each fortnight. With your mortgage, you said $321,000 left. Do you know what the property's worth? The best sort of estimate I could find was about $650,000. Oh, very nice. So you are sitting pretty at the moment. That is not a bad position to be in when you're 27. Yeah. I love this so much. All right. So tell me now, what do you think your best money habit is? My best money habit is definitely I've made a

spreadsheet for my budget and it's all color coordinated and automated and pretty. And it tells me exactly where every single dollar of what I'm getting paid, exactly where that's going. That's hot. I don't know if you know this, but I do like a spreadsheet. Yeah. I have fully been meaning to do like your cashflow masterclass. So I'm hoping that when I eventually get around to that, I'll do it even better. No, I'm going to gift it to you now. If you want to do it, you're doing it. I will send you a login after this. Honestly, as a spreadsheet girly, I think you're going to love it, but I will gift you the Budgeting Cashflow Masterclass. I've rebranded it to the Money Masterclass.

Sorry, you can tell that I've been listening to the old episodes then. It is fine. I still can't remember what I've rebranded it to. The girls often listen to our episodes and they're like, Victoria, stop calling it the Budgeting Cashflow Masterclass. We changed it to be simpler. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm stuck in the past. So no, I'll gift that to you. I'll send you a login. I think that you will love it. And you're obviously on the right trajectory. So I think that this will hopefully turbocharge it and we'll turn that C into an A really quickly. But tell me more. So that tells me where everything's going and it prioritizes paying down my debts, first of all, and then prioritizes savings. So obviously last year,

I realized very quickly that I need an emergency fund. So that's slowly building away in the background. Oh, good. Which that's another money goal that I forgot to mention. I really want my emergency fund to sit at about $15,000, which sounds quite high. But after having that time off work and mental health treatment is extremely expensive. Yes. I figure that that's comfortable. Yeah. But if you go down that route again, you'll be feeling so much better about it because you You know, you can support yourself through this and what you actually need during these times. Money, it doesn't need to be the stressor if you set yourself up properly.

And hopefully that means that there'll be less time out of the workforce. There'll be less time that you're struggling. Like that's a money win to me. Yeah. And along with my budget spreadsheet, I have lots of different accounts set up because that's what works for me. I have a bills account where obviously everything goes for bills and I have a groceries account that both my partner and I use for groceries. I have an account for my pets. Oh, you didn't

mention you had pets. What pets have you got? Come on. I've got a dog called Toast. Oh, hi, Toast. A cat called Vegemite. No, you don't. This is so cute. Another cat called Simba. And because I just love matching names, I have a fish and a water snail called Gomez and Thing. Oh my gosh. Adore. Adore. I love this so much. So you're a pet girly as well. I knew we'd be best friends. When we started this, I was like, we are absolutely best friends.

Yeah, I love my pets. I don't know if you follow me on social media, but same. I am a crazy pet lady. Those are very good money habits. But let's bring the tone back down. What's your worst money habit? So this has changed a lot and it's still something I'm working on and getting better at. but I am very very impulsive that's who I am as a person unfortunately now we like impulsive people

they're fun we just need to be good at managing our money yeah look most of my pets were bought impulsively so and we love them and they weren't bad decisions so it's not really a bad habit yeah true I'm really trying to change that I've been trying to take photos of things make wish lists etc but I can still be swayed very easily especially when it comes to food that's something that I find really difficult because I hate cooking and luckily my partner likes cooking but it's still very easy to just accidentally get takeaway a lot yeah yeah yeah and along with that sometimes that means that I take money from my savings accounts then I have like a list of what I owe to my savings and I do pay it back, but that just puts me in a bit of a negative sort of

frame of mind because it feels like more debt. I've come a long way with that, but that's my worst money habit. Something that's helping though is that I often used to buy a lot of clothes, particularly if they were on sale. And in 2024, I have set a goal that I'm not purchasing any new clothes shoes or bags and that's really helped so far oh I love this do you follow Emma Edwards on social media so she has the username the broke generation yes I do yeah I found her straight after I set that goal which was weird yeah she just finished a whole year of not buying any fashion and I just found it so inspirational because I couldn't ever do that and I think that if you're planning on doing that,

please make sure you're following Emma but she's also a friend of the show so I was like, go hit her up. She's a bloody legend. I love that. So let's just do a little quick recap, right? So you wrote in and, you know, you've turned your life around.

We've learned so much about it. You've been so generous with your time. You've got this beautiful money story. You might go, oh, I don't really like this part. I get it. But like you are now engaged to the love of your life. You're getting married. You have these epic goals.

You're going to be out of debt in November. you own a property you're gonna have some beautiful bambinis at some point you've got your wedding done you're gonna be ready to pay for it in September and you're not even getting married then you've just got all this cool stuff going on for you but at the start of the show you said V I think I'm a C so we've had this gorgeous chat do you think that that is accurate if not what does it change to? If so, what are you going to do to get to an A plus? I think I still don't feel like I'm a high grade, but maybe I could push it to like a B minus. I think that that might be fair.

But in order to get an A plus for me, that would involve having an emergency fund, being out of consumer debt and starting to invest. So you're going to be an A plus at the end of the year? I'm hoping so like you've got the goals you've set them up they're happening yeah and I feel pretty good about that because I think I'm not going to be like loaded at the end of the year but as long as I'm on the right track you're still a baby we're not going to be loaded ASAP true and as long as I don't have access to any lines of credit I will feel pretty damn good yeah and I think that my favorite thing is your positivity like you're just like no I'm on this

I'm working towards it. Like, I think it's fair if you're like, yeah, I'm in heaps of debt, but I'm not doing anything about it. Like I've got my head in the sands. Like I'm not working towards this. Like, I just think anyone who is going through, you know, the situations like you're going through, who's actively working towards it, like immediate A in my eyes. I'm like, you are good at money. You just don't have heaps of it yet. We are what I would call a Henry, a high earner, but not rich yet. Oh, I love that. So like, you're going to be really wealthy with these habits but let's just take it back a step you're also only 27 my friend yeah she's just a baby we're not going to be millionaires right away like that stuff takes time yeah something

I forgot but I think it's important to mention is I'll also feel like an A plus once I have insurance sorted out I wish that I had found the podcast a long time ago because it's actually quite hard getting insurance with my history. But once I've spoken to like an insurance advisor or broker, I don't know the difference. You need to go talk to Phil at Sky Wealth and have a chat with him. Yeah. So once I've done that, I'll feel better. And just for anyone listening, like please listen to Victoria and get those insurances sorted early because I don't like to have regrets, but that's something that will impact me. And I mean, it's hard, right? Like, especially with mental health, like you don't feel motivated to go and get your life sorted

out because you're like, what's the point? But getting it sorted out sooner rather than later means you won't end up with an exclusion. And unfortunately, if you've been through some mental health challenges, as you've alluded to, and you've sought mental health treatment, it's very likely that that will be an exclusion. However, it's still worth it because you get covered for everything else. So I think it's still a good thing to do, but the sooner the better, honestly. sooner the better yeah exactly oh my gosh what a good place to leave it money diarist I have adored having this conversation with you this is again one of my favorite money diaries I feel like I say that all the time and then I meet someone new and I'm like oh no no no this one but you have

been so generous with your information so generous with your time and I know our community they're just going to fall in love with you they're going to go oh she was great so I really appreciate it thank you so much thank you so much for having me 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

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