She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Life Beyond Spending Guilt

Episode Date: June 25, 2023

This first time mum with a tiny tot works full time in the events industry plus has a side hustle as a celebrant, and we ALL know how much V loves a good wedding chat! This diarist has overcome huge spending guilt, inherited from her parents' complex relationship with money. But has changed the landscape in her own marriage and she and her husband  are totally on the same page when it comes to money.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 my favorite episode of the week, Money Diaries, where I get the opportunity to talk to one of our incredible She's On The Money community members all about their money story. So let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it went like this. Hi Victoria, I'm a first-time mum with an eight-month-old that works full-time in the events industry. I've overcome huge spending guilt inherited from my parents' complex relationship with money. Mum was super savings conscious due to some trauma around undisclosed debt of my dad's when they got married. But my husband and I are super open

and on the same page when it comes to money. I've just started my wedding celebrant business and I know how much you love a good wedding chat too. Money Diarist, welcome to the show. You are not wrong. I would love to talk more about weddings and money stories, two of my favorite topics of this year. Yay. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. You are not wrong. I feel like anyone who's recently been married or is soon to be married, like I just can't get enough of this wedding conversation. Like it's literally my favorite. If I was allowed and could financially afford to have another wedding, I think I would. Like best day in the entire world. Absolutely. I would probably agree. There's lots of things I'd change and do

differently. And yeah, working in the space now, it just makes me want to do it again. Love. All right. Well, let's talk about money because I'm so excited and I'm sure that a lot of wedding conversation will come up. Before we jump into the big conversation, I want to know, what grade would you give your money habits on a scale from A through to F? I would probably say B minus. All right. I'm not going to ask too much about that. Let's get into the questions and we'll see where this goes. My favorite question though is up first. I want to know, can you tell us a little bit more about your money story?

Absolutely. So it's great to hear it back. It's like listening to somebody else's story, not my own. It's a bit weird, isn't it? Everyone says that. They're always like, oh my gosh, my story sounds so good when you read it back. Yeah, I'm like, that's me. So yeah, definitely have always been a big saver, which I was always praised for as a child, which is great. But I think it almost made me feel like I could never spend money.

Like I took that to the extreme, almost took that on as my identity. And if I sort of spent money or wanted to buy something, I always had guilt around that. So I remember vividly receiving money for birthday gifts when I was about eight years old and not wanting to spend a single cent of it. My mindset was very much like, I need to save everything and spending is bad. So it was very black and white. Yeah, I didn't learn much about, it's okay to like spend X amount of what I receive specifically for a birthday present when it's, you know, you're eight years old.

I feel like you shouldn't really be thinking like that necessarily. But yeah, I definitely took it on as my identity and was praised for it. So I thought, well, this is the thing to do to save every cent. This can't be that bad. And I mean, it's funny because it goes both ways, right? Like if you're praised for something, you're just going to do more of it because you're like, oh, this is what validates me. I'm going to go down this route.

And it makes a lot of sense. How did that manifest as you got older? And now you've obviously got a partner and you're managing joint finances. Was that something that caused a lot of friction in your relationship? Initially, yes, it did. So my husband is much more of a spender than I am. And it did kind of freak me out initially. I was like, oh my gosh, you spend so much money.

For example, I have the same car from when I was 17. I've had the same car forever. My little Toyota Yaris, 2008. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Exactly. My car's from 2006. I stand this. good luck prying that out of my cold hands. I'm like, I don't need it. You know, it works. It

gets me from A to B and it's an amazing little thing. But yeah, my husband has had about 12 cars in his lifetime. He's only four years older than me. So yes, that went away, went out the window when we were together. But I feel like we've kind of balanced each other out in a really funny way. So our communication is really strong in terms of, you know, before we decided to get serious, we had those conversations. And I know that's really important before getting into relationship. And I think because I was so money focused to the extreme, having those conversations with a potential future partner was really important to me. And I think, yeah, as time has gone on, we've been able to sort of balance each other out really well, where I've been able

to know that spending is not as, you know, you have money and it's a good thing. Like you, it's there to be spent on the things that you need and it's okay to spend money. Whereas he's learnt to budget better and, you know, only, you know, be able to save for things rather than like a paycheck comes in and then spend immediately. So I think we've really balanced each other out in that way, which is a good thing. And it's something that we continue to work on every day, but I think we've got to a good point with that. You were right in that you were like, we balance each other out. Like that makes sense now. Yes, absolutely. That makes so much sense. I love it. All right. I want to know the pervy stuff now. Tell me, what do you do for work?

how much money do you earn? So I work in the events industry for a government organization. Full-time, I earn 80K before tax. At the moment, I'm working part-time though, about 22 hours a week. Just pro rata? Yes, correct. Yeah, pro rata. Yeah, cool. How good. And do you have, you mentioned before, you've just started your wedding celebrant business. Tell me about that. Is that an earner yet or is that just a startup? I want to know more. Yes. So it is an earner. I'm actually really surprised at how well it's been doing. So I've been making bookings for six months and I've just done my 10th wedding on the weekend so it's oh my

gosh congrats thank you you're in double digits now I know very exciting and yeah starting to get more comfortable with the process every wedding's different it's a lot of fun and as of yeah once the end of financial year hits I will have received 30,000 in that business so yeah for six months. How good. And you nearly almost didn't tell me that. Yes. What are you doing? Yes. I'm obsessed. How good. And is that something you mentioned before, obviously, in your letter in, you said, I'm a first time mom with an eight month old and you've got like a husband. Is that something that you want to take full time? Is this, you know, just to bring in some more cash or like what prompted you to get into a side hustle like this? Yes. I decided

to do everything all at once have a baby work and start a business go home baby yep so that's been I've actually been really enjoying it just juggling all the things so when I was planning my own wedding two years ago I didn't know that a celebrant was a thing I'd only ever been to like church weddings and things and I really wanted it to be like like a fun like party kind of setting the tone for the reception I didn't even know if that existed and so when I was looking for young females that are celebrants, I was shocked to discover that they do exist. And yeah, I just had such a great relationship with my own celebrant and it kind of dawned on me. I'd always wanted to start a business, but I didn't know what I wanted to do, which always kind of was the

stop sign for me. I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I know I want to do something, but I have no idea what that is. So when I had such a great relationship with my celebrant and sort of went through the process with her, I was like, oh, I wonder if I could do this. This is pretty cool. Like even though I was pretty nervous for this today, I am comfortable speaking in public and I love to know, you know, the pervy things of like how people met and all of those things. So yeah, I just sort of decided to go ahead and jump right into it. So yeah. I would love that job. Literally, I feel like that would be so fun. Like you, I'm relatively comfortable public speaking, but I also, I just love love. Like I love seeing other people in

love I love talking about it I want to know how you met I want to know like your favorite things about your partner I want to know all of those pervy things so I think that that is right up my alley and you're right a celebrant honestly not to be too dramatic makes or breaks the ceremony and like we were so particular we got married in November last year and I was so particular about picking somebody that worked really well and my husband was exactly the same and we landed on Megan who I I'm still obsessed with like I still follow her content I still interact with her I love her like she just became such a good you know part of the wedding and we actually invited her to emcee the rest of the wedding because I was like I don't want that to fall

on somebody else and like her vibe was just so good and I just knew she'd kill it that I was like I know you probably don't usually do this but would you do this and she's like yeah you're right I don't but let's do it and so she did and it was like the best thing ever I could not recommend her you know more highly because she just made me calm made my husband calm and like and just did it in a way that was so us because we're not traditional and we're not that type of, you know, couple that wanted a church wedding. And I mean, there were things that I wanted in the ceremony that made sense. Like I was like, okay, we need an acknowledgement of country. Like that just makes sense. We're getting married here. We're having an event. And she was just

all over it and made it so easy and just, it was so beautiful. So I was obsessed. Anyway, I could talk about weddings all day, but that is not why we are here. I want to know, what are you working towards? Obviously you're killing it as a mum of an eight month old, side hustle bringing in 30 grand. You're on 50 in your quote full-time job. What's your big money goal? What are we working towards together? So we have a mortgage at the moment. So I think that's the main money goal or that was the really main money goal for a really long time was to buy a house, which we've done. Don't recommend moving house when you're eight months pregnant, but that's what we decided to do. Sounds terrible. Yeah, don't do it.

but big money goal would be probably to pay off the mortgage. And as I was thinking about this question a little bit more, I feel like that's a very big long-term goal. And I should probably think more about a big goal, but that's not that big, just to kind of tone it down a little bit. Something that I do want to do is invest a little bit more. That's something that now that we do have the mortgage and we paid for the deposit, I'm keen to get my teeth stuck into a bit more of investing so yes I love that I want to know more about it though what would it mean to pay off your mortgage so what does that currently look like and like what would paying off your mortgage get you apart from owning a house outright I think the financial pressure

probably of like you know currently everyone's talking about the interest rates and all of those things just the pressure around that I'd love to be in a position potentially with my business or you know what I'm sort of building up towards to be in a position where yeah the mortgage wasn't such a big thing or like a stressful thing. I like that I feel like so many times I talk to people and they say we just want to pay off the mortgage and I go yeah why they're like oh so we can own a house outright and I'm like yes but like let's think about why we might want that and what that means and I feel like diving a little bit deeper into what you said before you were like taking off the pressure and you know maybe

investing. I think that right now is probably a very big season in your life. You've had a baby, you've probably taken some significant time off. There's a lot going on where financial pressure would probably be really loud in your life. So I feel like it's a good goal. I really like it. But you're right. I think having smaller goals along the way so that we're enjoying the journey is also very recommended. Before we continue our chat though, let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I want to talk about investments and debt, how much that mortgage actually is, and your best and your worst money habits. So guys, do not go anywhere. All right, Money Diaries, we are back, and I want to know, you mentioned before you have a mortgage,

which can be an investment, but do you currently have any investments? If so, what are they? Yes, so I have a small amount, $5,000 in ETFs currently. That's a big amount. What are you talking about? Yeah, I suppose it is. It is. It's a big amount. She's chunky. Like, that's good. Yeah. I think it's, yeah, it's that mindset thing. Definitely. You'll probably see the theme of that mindset, of that money guilt. It definitely still, yeah, pops its head up every now and then.

So how did you decide that that was the right, I guess, asset class for you and get started on your journey? Like, what did that mean and how did it work? Absolutely. So I started using Spaceship first. I was on there for a little bit, which I think helped my confidence with investing. I was really hesitant initially because I didn't know very much about it. I didn't grow up learning about it. But after listening to She's All The Money, I started to get a little bit more confident about, oh, like investing can be a really cool opportunity to have my money work for me rather than just sitting in my savings account. So yeah, I started playing on there initially and then got my confidence up. I'm

quite risk averse. So I thought an ETF instead of doing into like one specific company, for example, would be the next logical step for me personally. So yeah, I had a look into some ETFs and chat with my husband as well about, you know, what he wanted to do and all of that. So this is sort of a joint thing that we're doing together at the moment. So yeah, $5,000 felt safe for me to start with. You're good. Yeah. So it's been good. I've had a really positive experience with it and looking forward to doing more of it now that we've bought our first house. Love. I want to know more about that though. You said you picked an ETF in our community. There are always lots of questions

about how do I pick the right ETF for me? What process did you follow? Like how did you want, you obviously decided an ETF makes sense. Great. But how did you pick which one made sense for you? Yes. Great question. So I tracked how an ETF had been doing for like the course of its life, I suppose. So for five years, I sort of had a look how it was going, which really comforted me to know these things go up and down and it's okay. Like that's the way that things happen. It's going to be that way and it's fine. And something that you've said that really helps me is not to look at it every day, for example, and be like, oh my gosh, like it's lower. I've lost X amount of money, but to know, okay, I've popped 5,000 in there and that's what

it is, but it's going to fluctuate and that's okay. But in picking the one that I did, I did a lot of research about to be completely transparent. I feel like I still have so much to learn. No, we're not expecting that at all. I just want to know one of our community members journeys, because it is so challenging to pick. And I feel like we all get analysis paralysis. And the more I can hear how you picked it as somebody in our community that's not a financial advisor. How did you do that? Because lots of people are going to listen to this and be like, yeah, I felt this too. Or yeah, I'm overwhelmed. Or oh my gosh, I've been looking at that one. Maybe I'll have another look at it. So I think it's important. Absolutely. Yes. So I was looking

at a few different ETFs on self-wealth so that you can see like the graph of everything. And this one felt like the safest option. So I don't know very much about it, but it felt like a safe option and I've been happy with it so far. So yeah, that's how I picked. How good. No, I love hearing more about that. It's literally my favourite to be super pervy. But how? But how? But where? It's just, I feel like we learn so much as a community through shared experiences and it doesn't matter how many podcasts I do on what an ETF is and what might be the top performing ones and why you'd pick one and what fees look like. I feel like so many times the feedback we get from our community is they learn the most from shared experiences, which I totally understand. But that's why I'm

always like, hey, tell me, tell me, we need to know. I want to know now though, you mentioned a mortgage. So the answer is yes, you do have debt. But what are your debt levels like? What do they look like? Sure. So the mortgage that we have at the moment, I checked, is $587,000. So quite a big number. Cool. What did you purchase your property for? We need to know that. Yes. We purchased the property for $701,000. Oh, how good. Why one? 701. Where did that come from? Did you get in a bidding war with someone at auction? No. It's actually a funny story. So my husband the range was 700 to 770 my husband offered 685 they said no they have another offer the highest offer that they had was 699 750 so he said 700 and then they said no it needs to

be higher and he said 701 and they accepted no they did they did they did how good is that I love the audacity on him being like all right you can have another thousand dollars you get what you get. He was very proud of himself. No, I love that. I'm proud of him too. I'm obsessed. I think that's so fun. I want to know though, how much deposit did you have and how long did it take you to save? Yes. So this is our second house. So yeah, we purchased a property. She's a fancy pants. So when I say second house, we don't, we sold our first house and then we purchased this place. So still fancy pants. She's had a property journey. Yes. So we purchased our property, our first property in 2020 when it was very very low and we decided let's buy a house so we did

and then that's when the interest rate was really low the house that we purchased initially was I want to say 520,000 and then we were able to sell that and we made a profit of 100k so that then helped us with this oh my gosh yeah which is crazy how quickly did you so if you bought that in 2020 did you sell it when we sold it in 2022 oh my gosh and you made 100k prop what I know. I know. Crazy. See, I should have put that in my little intro. That's interesting. That's why I ask the questions I ask, my friend. So yeah, we were shocked that that was the case. Money win.

Yeah, money win, for sure. And you held it for more than 12 months, which means you didn't lose all of that on capital gains tax. She's a smart cookie. Correct. Correct. And we actually ended up contacting our real estate agent and being like, hey, the person that we purchased the property from initially. And they said, oh, like I actually have somebody that is interested in buying it for the price that we wanted. So we didn't have to pay any fees like in terms of real estate fees and all of that for advertising. So it just worked out really, really well, which is great because I was quite heavily pregnant at the time and I was

like, what are we doing? Over and out. Yes. Yeah. So now we've moved closer to family, which is really lovely. And yeah, that helped us with the deposit as well. So in selling that property, we were able to, I believe we did 10%. So yeah, 70, 70, 70K. Yeah. 10%. Yeah. That would make sense. And did you have the help of a broker to do that or did you DIY? DIY. Yeah. Very, very cool. All right. I have another question. I'm so obsessed with this. I feel like you have so many good money habits and like, honestly, my friend, I'm already questioning why you gave yourself a B minus, but we'll talk about that after these questions. I want to know as a savvy saver, what is your best money habit? I feel like I'm very good at putting aside. So when a

paycheck comes in, I divvy up my funds. So I use UpBank, which I just adore and I can split out. It's really fun to use. It's really pretty. And I have different accounts. We love an aesthetic app. Exactly. It's so good. So yeah, I've got my bills account. I've got my savings account. I've got my, what other accounts do I have? Like tax account, all of that. So I've got all the things there and I just sort of, yeah, it's really fun. When I get my pay in, I just feel like I have a good system of like this is where things go.

So I haven't automated it but I also feel like it's kind of my, maybe I'm weird, but it's like my reward to like put things in their places and have my little fun money account for the fortnight and all of that. Yeah. So you see being able to do your budget every month as a reward. Yeah. Is that weird?

Me? No, no, it's not that weird. There's no such thing as weird in money. I just happen to do my budget and then give myself a reward for doing the budget. So like we are definitely different people, but I really respect that. And I think that that is how I should see it. And maybe, just maybe I would have been able to buy a house sooner if I had the same mindset as you. I don't know. Sometimes it does stress me out, but for the most part, I'm like, yay, I got paid. Like let's start allocating. I love, no, I want everybody

in our community to be as passionate about being able to do their budget as you are. I love it. I love it. Love, love, love. Let's flip it though. Let's bring this conversation back down and humble you. What's your worst money habit? My worst money habit is that those restrictive habits still linger sometimes. So in terms of doing that budget, I'll be like, oh yeah, like I'll put a hundred dollars in my fun money account for two weeks. And I put way more in my bills account because I'm like, I have to be careful. so I'm very like worst case scenario rather than like oh it's actually okay to like put a little

bit more into or I like will save more than I need to like and then I'll start dipping into things that I don't need to so I need to be more generous to myself maybe that's the right word I need to allow myself like it's okay to spend more and you've got enough in your bills account at this amount like you don't have to overdo it yeah no that makes a lot of sense I feel like I fully expected you to say that that was your worst money habit, not because you'd identified it already, but often when I have people in our community that I get to talk to about their, you know, money habits and they say, oh, I'm a really good saver and I've always been a saver.

And at the start of this conversation, you said, oh, like it kind of became a personality trait, like it became part of me, like I identified that way. Often people in those circumstances find that restrictive habits are, I guess, number one for them because obviously that's what gets you to become a really good saver, right? Restriction. But then on the flip side, it can actually be a little bit negative. The next question I've got, which is my favorite lucky last question, is now that we've talked, what grade would you give your money habits from an A through to an F? You gave yourself a B minus at the start. After talking, after reflecting on all of this, how's that feel? How does it fit? Probably feels like I'm not being

very generous to myself. If we go back to that word. I couldn't agree more. Why is that? I think considering my money habits are quite good, I'm making my grade lower than what it probably should be because I feel that I'm quite restrictive. But in terms of the actual money habits itself, I do have great systems in place and it's working really well for me. And I'm looking back, I can see that I've achieved the goals that I've set. So yeah, probably at least an A minus, maybe? Yeah, I love this. There's room for improvement. I like the reflection. Yeah. I like that you left room for improvement. I think it's just, it's so interesting, I guess, setting a term of reference at the start and then getting to revisit it at the end,

because I think it's a good, I guess, learner. Because do you know what I know? I know that there are going to be people, and hi friends, you're in the car and you're listening to this money diary and you heard B minus and you're like, yeah, okay, no worries. And you start listening and you're like, no, that's such a good money habit. No, this is great. No, that is great. Oh, she's investing. She's got a house. She sold a house. She sold a house and got a hundred grand profit. My gosh, she's like so confident. She started her own business. Like they're yelling at the TV basically being like, excuse me, money diarist, but you're absolutely killing it. But I think it's such a good reflection point because we all have our own journeys and they're not

benchmarked against other people's journeys. They're benchmarked against our own expectations and learning that you are such a saver, it makes sense that you're like, oh, my restrictive habits are this, that, the other, and I don't think I'm doing as well as I could. It's such a type, let's call it type money saver trait to go, it's not good enough. It's not good enough. When in reality, you're actually killing it and you need to give yourself a little bit more credit or to your language, a little bit more generosity. Like you need to be kinder to yourself, my friend, because you're absolutely killing it. And I love it. What would it take though to get you to an A plus? What do you think you could do in your own mind that would mean that

you, you know, confidently would be like, yeah, I'm actually an A plus at money. I'd love to learn more about investments. That's the next sort of thing that I'd love to just feel a bit more confident with. You mentioned decision paralysis or analysis paralysis earlier. I feel like I do fall into that category and had to just sort of dive right in to get that experience. So I'm looking forward to going on that journey a little bit more. And yeah, I think just the restrictive sort of mindset stuff, I would love to be able to shake a little bit more. And I think now having a baby as well has helped me realize like, yeah, you've got to spend money to like, you know, provide and all of that. And like the money that I'm making is

able to provide for my family now. So I do see that my mindset is shifting in that way as well. Yeah, I love it. Oh my gosh. And do you know what my favorite part about that? it's all so achievable like none of that is beyond you know what your capability is or what you can achieve all of that is so capable and so like achieve I love it I love it so much oh my gosh I wish we had all day to talk but unfortunately that is all we have time for today so thank you so much for joining us I have absolutely loved this I wish that we could talk weddings all day though like there should be more wedding chat in this so thank you so so much for sharing your very gorgeous story with our community. We love it. 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 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 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289. Thank you.