She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: From Hard Start to Flipping the Script!

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

This week's Money Diarist came from a single parent home, financial trauma and young carer situation and has since flipped her life script. She now runs her own business, has 80k left on mortgage after buying in 2020 as a single. Get ready, her story is all set to inspire!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. 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 Shop Back Money Diary Monday where we get to chat to one of our beautiful community members to learn about them, their money story and all of the fun bits and pieces in between. Victoria, how are you going? I am excited. I've got a fun one for you today. I know because we've been speaking to her beforehand. I don't know what the story is, but she's got a puppy, so 10 out of 10.

We're obsessed with her. So let me tell you her story. She said, coming from a single parent home, financial trauma and young carer situation, I flipped my life around. I now run my own business and only have $80,000 left on my mortgage after buying in 2020. Sorry, what? By using a few savvy methods. I want to inspire people who have had a hard financial start or are doing it without help from their parents or a partner to know that if you keep working hard, eventually the seeds you plant will fruit. I'm 27, single, and 100% self-made, but still always learning and growing. I would love to share my story with the community to help others.

Oh my gosh, welcome to the Show Money Diarist. Are you kidding? What a story. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's a little bit of a rollercoaster ride, to be honest, but a good one. Oh my gosh, let's dive straight in. I'm so ready. I know. First question off the bat, can you tell us a little bit about your money story? Yeah. So basically it starts off positive. I was kind of that finance kid that would literally search the house for money and I would put all the money together. And at the end of the year, I would go to like the $2 shop and buy my family, like just, you know, $2 pieces of rubbish.

Super cute. And that was kind of my love language, I suppose. However, in 2007, this is where it all kind of changed into a negative attitude. I was just finishing primary school and my parents announced that they were getting a divorce I knew that money was tight and there was always arguments over it but it was getting even more tighter now and money was now being used to persuade manipulate control and kind of rule my situation and as a 12 year old I was just left feeling kind of panicked stressed sad and kind of helpless it took about one or two years for my parents divorce to kind of settle and eventually mum and us kids got a family home which was great but it came at a really high cost in terms of high

interest rates and high repayments which were really hard for mum to maintain as a single parent so we seeked out a mortgage broker which is the first time I heard about that and basically this was the only way that we could really keep the house with a lot of pressure on mum's shoulders to be mum dad you know the sole provider and all that this experience for her was too overwhelming. So basically she kind of gave up and I kind of stepped in and took over. So at the age of 14 and 15, I learned very quickly about interest rates, deposits, equity offset accounts, terms and conditions of various lenders, house valuations, credit scores, everything. And mom's situation was pretty complex at the time. So it took six

to nine months but I successfully financed the family home at such a young age which was crazy to look back on so from then on I was very finance focused I would work in retail and I would basically have my savings as a way to build mum's emergency funds like I was her emergency funds and that's how I kind of learned what that was and then I kept a part-time job throughout uni and university just basically for my family's financial situation just to kind of keep a roof over their heads but it did come at detriment to my mental health as I would you know work weekends to get maximum pay because of the penalties but it stopped me from having a social life and kind of having that break from uni or from school that I would work during the week. As time went on the

family situation got worse and worse as things got more and more expensive and kids grew up so we got more expensive to look after. I did think about dropping out of uni multiple times to help with money but I decided to kind of keep going and even though I was burning the candle at two ends eventually it would pay off. I graduated from university and got a job as a therapist however all first jobs were pretty rubbish so the working conditions were pretty poor and again my mental health started kind of declining, but the pay was good. So from kind of the financial trauma, I was so financially driven to just kind of get more and more better jobs for high and high pay, regardless of what the conditions or environments were like to work in, just because

I was so financially driven to succeed for my family. After a really big rinse and repeat cycle and numerous burnouts later I decided this is enough I need to flip the script I need to stop my story from being such a negative story that I had to make it positive so the first way I did this was to use money to bring happiness and joy and the first thing I thought was because I was only in my early 20s at this point I thought okay I'm going to travel but COVID popped that dream and so I turned to property which I knew through and through given my backstory and so in 2020 I bought my first apartment a two-by-one with river views it was kind of the worst house in the best street approach I spent years renovating it saving for each reno and doing as much as I

could myself while spending all my money in renos I kind of wanted to get some profit back after I finished it. So I Airbnb'd it. And to my surprise, that took off. So now I full-time Airbnb it to help with my mortgage. Oh, how good. I decided to change my employment story as well. As my current job started cutting hours, I decided instead of getting another job and kind of popping that cycle, I decided to start my own business and to have my mental health and work-life balance as the main focus. And I also stepped away financially from my family because I felt like they're in a good enough spot now. So right now it is a very positive attitude towards money. And I'm finally kind of reaping that fruit from those seeds that I've kind of sown. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh. Well,

I want to know now, you said you flipped your employment script. What do you do for work? How much money do you earn? I am a therapist in the NDIS realm. Oh, cool. I earn about $185k a here. Whoa, 185k. How epic. I feel like that is one, you deserve every penny of that because working in that space is so special. But I feel like so many people wouldn't think that that was possible. I want to know, how do you earn 185k in that role? Did you have to work up to it? Is there a like specialty that you have? Because I know it can be super varying. Yeah, I mean, I do have a lot of years experience under my belt like I'm not just fresh out of uni I've definitely got seven plus years of experience but also I do work very very hard in terms of like I do a lot of

hours at the moment just because work kind of keeps coming at me and I kind of keep accepting it but it's one of those things where I think the NDIS rate is very very good to us and I don't have any overheads. So I don't work from an office. I'm basically mobile. So I just go straight to my clients' houses and I don't have any sort of like people, like bigger bosses that kind of take out from that pie. So I just have my bookkeeper and then I can charge the full rate and just basically take that. Yeah, cool. All right. Talk to me. What is your big money goal? Because it sounds like you've done a lot already. My big money goal is just to basically create numerous streams of passive income by basically owning numerous properties outright, dividends, shares,

interest on saving accounts, just whatever means possible. Awesome. So talk to me. Do you have any investments currently? Yeah. So obviously my apartment is my biggest source of investment. I do have just some safe shares that I've had since I was about 15. So they pay me dividends every six months, which is great. And I do have a bit of crypto. I don't feel like I'm educated enough in that realm. So I kind of just put my toe into it, but not very much there. And I also get like an interest from saving accounts.

So I always like to think that's a form of investment as well. I feel like at the moment, everyone's talking about not getting good rates of return on their savings accounts. What are you using? Are you getting good rates of return at this point in time? It depends. To me, in my previous retail jobs, I used to only earn like $20 an hour. And so when I got like $20 of interest, I'd be like, oh my God, that's a whole hour's pay. Woo-hoo. So I think for me, I kind of look at it, it's more like, how many hours is that free money that makes sense rather than exactly like oh wait I made this much or I made that much yeah no it's epic yeah I love that all right I know that you've

got a mortgage but I want to know do you have any debts if so what are they yeah so my mortgage is my good debt my okay debt is my student loan but that should be paid off by next year and that's basically it everything else has been paid in full you spoke before in your email submission that you had $80,000 left on your mortgage. How much did you buy for? Because we're all pervy. We want to know how quickly you've smashed that down. Interesting story for my house was that they wanted it for $300,000, but then obviously COVID hit and no one was buying and the house market was just absolutely crashing. So then they wanted $250,000 and I negotiated it for $183,000. wow 183 what a money I want to know so much about this circumstance without breaching your privacy

like how did you get an apartment for 183 000 that's wild to me yeah no I think I was really lucky like I did go for another apartment but that fell through and I was pretty bummed about it so I kind of knew that I had to act quite quickly if I wanted something and basically I said to mum come with me let's have a look at it see what you think and we'll go from there and we walked in at like three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon and by five o'clock I had bought it and it was kind of one of these crazy things that like it was just meant to be so the realtor basically was like look there is someone looking at this property as well you know if you're serious about it please put an offer in the lady who sold it to me I think she had had it for about 25 years

or something so it was a it's a pretty old complex and um she just wanted to liquidize I think and she just wanted it to go to a good home yeah that's really sweet yeah and it was just kind of one of those things like when the realtor kind of spoke it was like oh you know she comes from a good family and she's worked really hard and she has a big deposit because I had I had 20% at that point this is what she's going to put down blah blah and she's like yeah I just want it to go to a you know a good home and that someone's going to have a lot of good memories there and I initially said I offered 181 but then she was like oh I really want 185 minimum so I was like 183 just like okay and then she wrote me a letter just saying like you know she wished me all the best

and all the I have really good times there and it was just it wasn't more like a profit sort of thing for her I think it was just more about finding the right person um to give them a start in life sort of thing so it's a bit wholesome yeah yeah no so wholesome yeah so I had a 20 deposit and my mortgage was 146 400 so I've paid off what is that like $60,000 or something like that. God, I can't do quick math. No, that's so fine. All right. You sound like you are pretty good at money. Do you use ShopBack when you shop online? I do. I'm not a big online shopper though, but I do use it for like travel and flights and things

like that when I can. And I do kind of recommend it to friends and family. But yeah, I'm not a big shopper. That's okay. Love to hear it. Next question I've got for you. We want to know, what is your best money habit? My best money habit is that I kind of save everything. So everything I kind of have bought, I try and like save in full and then I can pay in full. So like all my renos, like I saved and did it as I went. So then I didn't have a debt. And so like my car, like wanting a car, I was like, right, I have to save for it first and then pay it in full. So I didn't have any sort of those loans kind of looming. Epic. And to flip that up on its head, what's your worst money habit oh okay so basically I kind of focus on the want like I want to save

this much money a week rather than I can save this much money a week so even though I'm like I want to save like you know $200 or something like that so I can't because I've got like big bills coming in I kind of get like really stressed and like it makes everything really confusing so like that everyday budgeting is kind of really murky because I have like this sort of like I want to do this, but then that realistic, I can only do this is tricky to manage. Understandably so. And last question before we go to a quick break, what grade would you give your money habits if we forced you to give yourself a grade? I would probably do a B plus just because of that worst habit, which is like the everyday

budgeting is not super clear or realistic or automotive. I would like for that to be more clear to decrease the stress I have around finance. Yeah, fair, fair. I like that. And I like that you told us why you would want it to change. That's really powerful. All right. I've got a lot of questions for you right after this really quick break. All right, Jessica Ricci, let's jump straight back into it. Money Diaries, you have such an interesting money story. I feel like you have lived the lives of a thousand She's On The Money community members. You've been in a care position. You have refinanced your family home at the age of like 14 or 15. You've bought a home, you've paid off a significant percentage of the mortgage and now you're Airbnb-ing your rooms

out to make even more profit, which is so savvy it's not funny. But I want to go back. I want to be a little bit more pervy on your family circumstances. How did you find yourself in a position where you were 14, 15 and having to deal directly with a mortgage broker to refinance your family home? Like, why do you think that you ended up being the driving force in that circumstance? Yeah, it's a good question. Basically, like, I do have an older brother and two younger brothers. But I think when it came to responsibility, it always kind of felt on my shoulders I always was one that I think my parents knew that I was really financially driven I knew about the basic things I knew how to save I knew what interest was when I found out

about compound interest I was like what is this magic I think that just when push came to shove and I could just see mum not coping and I knew that basically this was either sink or swim sort of thing I knew that all right I don't I don't know what I'm doing but I'm gonna give it a go and I had a really really good mortgage broker that kind of identified the situation in my family what was kind of happening and my older brother was not at all savvy with money he's only two years older I guess it just kind of fell on my shoulders in terms of well this person knows what she's doing I'll walk her through it I'd run down and get mom sitting and try and come back and then kind of thing. So it was kind of just something that I think always happens. Like when mum was

ill, like I said, I'm a young carer. I would always be the one, you know, taking her to the hospitals or taking her to her medical appointments or making sure the family unit was still running. So I think because I had that responsibility on my shoulders, I think that it just kind of fell into my lap. And I think also like there's a part of me that just wants to sort of fix everything and save everything for my family's sake so that sounds like a really big burden to carry are you okay now with that like how do you feel when we reflect on that it was really interesting to reflect on it at the beginning because I was getting quite like emotional about it and I was like wow I've forgotten that I I did all this and in a weird way I kind of normalized

it all and so when when I was looking for an apartment like I already had lots and lots of experience behind that so I already knew what I was doing but then I'd talk to my friends and they'd be like they wouldn't have the knowledge that I had and and I kind of found that always really strange but looking back you're like oh that's why you have that knowledge and that's why that experience shaped you the way you are and I guess I'm very determined on using hard experiences as a way to flourish I suppose you know taking like okay this horrible situation happened to you you know you were forced to step into a kind of co-parenting role and and have adult responsibilities but you know let's try and use that to um your advantage you know later in life so I can answer

your question no it totally answers the question I always feel bad when I'm like asking really pervy questions that involve other people it's so easy to be like oh my gosh money dyrus like you did X, Y, and Z, tell me about it. But when there's a caring role in there, there's often a sense of obligation. And we're not saying that you had to, but like there wasn't anyone else in your circumstance, I'm assuming that could step up and take that role. You're usually thrown into that circumstance and obviously you didn't have any other option but to embrace it. But I think you did it beautifully. Yeah. And it's one of those things that I think I have to always remind myself, you know, like you did that. You're

amazing like that's incredible and I think now that I'm getting older I'm sort of really making sure that I do appreciate myself and I do look after myself and I think from your previous podcast like identifying yeah you do have financial trauma like what you went through was not just your typical like you know 12 year old life and kind of working through that and I do get psychological help and I do unpack it a lot and it's interesting because it's like a love-hate relationship with money. Like I love kind of earning it and building it and, you know, using it to travel and to build my investments and things like that. But then there's also like this trauma around, do I have enough of it? Am I working hard enough? Is it all going to block

tomorrow sort of thing? So it's kind of like still a work in progress, but definitely doing a lot better and just kind of taking those mental breaks when I need them to kind of be like, okay don't check the mortgage numbers today and don't panic so much about only having this much in your savings so kind of putting those boundaries around finance which is really important really really important i want to know at what point did you realize that the circumstances you had been through were traumatic so obviously trauma carries a lot of different like meaning for other people but obviously on the podcast as you said before we've been talking a lot about financial trauma and I don't think people realize how significant it can be. Was that a bit of a jarring experience

when you were like, wait, no, that was a traumatic circumstance as opposed to just how you grew up? Yeah. Well, I mean, I kind of flagged financial trauma actually a couple of months before I heard your podcast. And when I heard your podcast, I was like, tick, tick, tick, me, me, me, me. And it's kind of interesting because like when you look back on your behavior, you think, oh, that's just me but then you're like actually no there's a reason why I have a bookkeeper and I don't want to know anything about the financials I'm just like yep you guys thought it all good just tell me how much tax to pay it kind of like is one of those things where like I'm very big on kind of figuring out why things are making me feel the way I'm feeling like I do have anxiety

and I've been battling and managing that for many many years and I think that's what came first so kind of that time that I said back in my money story around I didn't know whether I wanted to stay in uni or if I should drop out and go full-time in retail to help the financial situation that was really where my mental health kind of broke because it was like what do I do do I help myself or do I help my family and I felt really uncomfortable with with kind of letting my family down but also kind of pursuing me and so then I started getting psychological help and sort of managing that and my anxiety grew into what you call generalized anxiety which means that it's not just triggered it means that you're in this general state of anxiety all the time and I think

I've worked really hard at kind of like understanding why but recently I came around the topic of financial trauma and I was like what does that mean what is that and I realized that my anxiety is very much built on that and so that was really interesting to sort of be like oh here's a light bulb moment a lot of your anxiety around finance is because of basically not having a lot of it growing up and it always being used as a like way to sort of like control your situation or dictate your situation and you know if you don't have it you're going to lose everything you're going to lose the house you're going to lose this that and the other and always making sure that I plentiful of it so it was one of those things that when I kind of found out about it or when

the light bulb kind of came on and I realized this is what I had it was upsetting at first because you know no one likes to have trauma in their life but as well it was kind of like right how do I unpack this how do I kind of grow from this how do I use this as a strength now I can't undo the past but I can't change the future how do I sort of manage this how do I use it as a strength, basically. I love that. I think that's so important. What would you say to those people who are going through a circumstance, you know, that either replicates or feels a little bit similar to yours, but maybe hasn't reached out for help yet? Reaching out for help was the hardest thing that I had to do. It took me a lot of time for me to reach out and say, hey, I need

help. Given the family situation that I was in, I was always the one that, you know, when stuff hit the fan it was we go to me and I never felt like I couldn't not be okay and it took me a lot of time to like pick up the phone and call a counsellor and eventually I did and then I kind of like got used to being like you know what I can ask for help all the time and I can always express my feelings and being a therapist I'm very good at kind of just communicating this is how I'm feeling this is what I'm and doing and and starting to normalize that between my friends like hey this is how I'm feeling today hey this is what's going on hey this is kind of where my headset is at I think for anyone that's in a similar situation to me is to always value

your mental health like there were times where I was like very financially focused and it was like keep working in this job even though it's got rubbish conditions and you're shaking all the time and having panic attacks don't worry you'll pay off because you'll get a bigger amount of salary in the next job but I think looking back I really wish that I could just have a bit more patience and just be like okay you need to sort of like just stop look after your mental health it might take another six more months or it might take another year to get where you want to be financially but that's not the important thing the important thing is your well-being your important thing is that you feel okay when you wake up in the morning and that you feel happy and that you

don't feel like this heavy chest feeling. That's what is the most valuable thing and that should always be your focus. So it's kind of one of those things of just reaching out for help but also re-evaluating what's important to you. So I think valuing finance is super important but valuing your mental well-being is is going to get you everywhere finance is a long-term game you know it's not a short term as much as you might be going through really hardship it's a long-term game oh my gosh well i think that that is a beautiful place to leave it thank you for that thank you for sharing your money story with us we loved it thank you thank you so much for having me guys i very much appreciate it and i hope that my money story can inspire other people or if

anyone's going through that situation, that they can, you know, get some help or just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, always. I am absolutely certain it will, my love. See you on Wednesday, guys. Bye. 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 MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289. Thank you.