She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Loving the Inner Child

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

She grew up with polar opposite immigrant parents; tiger parent vs carefree. She found herself earning minimum wage in a toxic work environment, to tripling her income in an amazing job and team. With a profitable side hustle on the go, her most important work to date has been repairing the relationship with her inner child and having the best circle of friends that love and support me unconditionally. Get ready to feel inspired! 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 we get to talk with one of our beautiful She's On The Money community members all about their money story. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it went like this. Hi Victoria, I grew up with the polar opposite immigrant parents, tiger parent versus carefree. I went on to earn minimum wage in a toxic work environment and felt so lost to tripling my income in a job and team that I absolutely adore. I have a DIY investment portfolio, a side hustle in the wedding industry

that had a 150k profit within the first nine months of it starting, but most importantly, repairing the relationship with my inner child and having the best circle of friends that love and support me unconditionally. Looking back, everything I've been through has been preparing me for the life I'm living now. Marnie Dyerist, what a beautiful story. Thank you. I'm so excited to talk to you. Before we jump into the structured questions though, I want to know, if I asked you to give yourself a grade of your money habits all the way from A through F, what would you say your money habits are? I think if you asked me like two years ago, I'll give you like an A because I was like queen of like saving and like budgeting. And now I think I'm sitting around like a B or a C.

I think I really fell off that slippery slope. Why do you think you fell off the slippery slope? I think lifestyle creep is a huge thing for me, which is terrible to say. But I think as I started earning more I started you know treating myself a bit too much and going on like really nice holidays like splurging on really nice facials dog toys stuff like that I love that you're like holidays and dog toys I have no self-control like especially when I go on holidays I buy dog toys I feel like that's really relatable though and it makes sense yeah yeah and then it got to a point I think last year I realized I didn't really save any money I just spent it all oh my gosh were you heartbroken when you worked that out? I was more concerned like you know when you just

get horrified about what you've done and it was all me so no one to blame but myself. Yes I totally do I have absolutely been there. All right I feel like I've gotten a fairly good vibe of where you're at at the moment but I want to know can you tell us a little bit more about your money story? I touched on when I wrote in that I grew up with two immigrant parents my mum was always very strict she was a typical tiger parent you know the one that you know you're a doctor you're a lawyer you're an engineer or you're just a disappointment oh no yeah and my dad was always more like you know be happy and everything so when I finished high school I didn't go down the traditional doctor path I went and I studied media and then I kind of thought that if I got a job

which paid nicely and you know how media is kind of typical for being underpaid especially when you're starting so I thought eventually if I work myself up to make a nice size income it will be something that you know my mum in particular or my parents would acknowledge what I do so when I started within the media industry I was earning I think 45 grand pro rata by the way it was basically which is a pretty standard starter yeah which is basically a good starter then I left that to earn around 60 and that was post-COVID so I basically got really bored and just wanted a job at home because I quit my job after uni thinking I'm gonna go travel I'm gonna have the time of my life find myself and then COVID happened and

shut all my plans down so I got this job also within the media field and it was the most toxic environment I've ever been in I think the red flags were flying off when I first started my interview with the managing director and then it just kind of felt like very mean girls with like 30 year old men and women it was very strange oh my gosh no yeah there was this one instance where I think he was one of the directors who go around asking everyone for a coffee so who'd be like hey Victoria do you want a coffee hey Jess do you want a coffee completely ignore one person in the room and then skip them and go the person sitting next to them and it was just so obvious and I just I think after my first week there I was like I need to get out of here

like I was so unhappy and then that's when I started mass applying to everything and it was like even if I was not qualified at all I just applied anyway like what's the worst that could happen they'll ghost me whatever and then I landed this job here which I'm really happy with everyone's super lovely getting paid more than ever but my mom still doesn't know what I do which is great oh no so what do you currently do for work and how much money do you earn so I'm currently working in the data and analytics space specifically marketing so I'm a senior marketing analyst and I earn 130 grand a year plus my super plus a 20 bonus oh wow that's exciting yeah considering I went from like 45 grand to 130 within like a few years that's pretty cool I love what I do

it's really it's really interesting looking into like all the data stuff of marketing and like first party data and everything as well and then I have a rental income of 550 a week and my wedding side hustle which is ticking over 210 grand and it becomes our one year anniversary next month. I need to know what do you do how are you doing it what is this company I just need to know more. Wedding photography and videography which is really nice me and my partner do it he's a professional videographer and photographer as a career so he has all the gear and all the knowledge behind that and he used to do weddings as part of his media company and then after he sold it people kept coming to him for like shooting their weddings and stuff and

I was like I'm gonna rebrand it I'm gonna take it away from the traditional media vibe so everything's very like soft pinks rich burgundies very nice it also helps I have a background in marketing so like paid marketing is like one point very helpful yeah but yeah it's a really nice thing we do on the side oh how exciting that is so cool so you do work full-time during the week and then do that on the weekends yeah which becomes a lot it sounds like a lot yeah but we're really good we kind of set a limit on how many we do a week or a month and then we just chop it off and if we don't want to take it on we don't it's more important finding the people that you know suits our vibe that we get along with because I think we spend the whole day with you like we're there the whole day there's

no going anywhere if you don't feel comfortable with us it makes for a very awkward portrait session. Yeah, 100%. 100%. So you are absolutely smashing it. You've basically tripled your income and you and your partner have this epic wedding side hustle business. Talk to me about what your big money goal at the moment is. I would love to have my own little home in Sydney. That's where I'm based with a backyard for my dogs, which kind of puts me of like purchase price well into like two mil around there if you want like a backyard. So not the cheapest place to buy a property. I think that's a goal within the next few years that we might tick off. But for now, I really want to travel a bit more. That's so exciting. I feel like a big money goal like that can be

really overwhelming, but it sounds like you're really optimistic about it. Yeah, I think it helps with the side hustle. Oh, totally. And to be super pervy, what does your partner do Monday it a Friday nine to five. He has a media agency. Yeah. Awesome. So he's got his own thing going on and then you've got this wedding thing together and then you are absolutely killing it in your career. That's all so, so exciting. All right. I have so many questions. We're going to go to a really quick break. And then when we get back, I actually want to ask you a little bit more about that rental income you mentioned. Don't go anywhere, guys. Money Diarist, you mentioned before that you have a $550 per week rental income. How did that come to be? How did you

end up with a rental income? Is this your property, you and your partners? When did you first purchase? I want to know all the juicy details. It is my property that I purchased. It's interstate, so the property is in Brisbane. So I purchased it two years ago, which is the anniversary of my fixed rate coming off fixed, which is quite depressing. so my brother goes to uni up in Brisbane so he was using like student accommodation for a while and then it got to a point where we realized he wasn't coming back to Sydney to study or anything so we figured that I might as well buy it up there he paid me very minimum rent for the first year that he was there and then he moved out with his girlfriend and I got like a proper tenant in

giving me proper rent which was nice do you want to know the finances behind yeah I was gonna say Like that is so exciting. I would love to know more about how you saved for that first property, given you haven't been in your current role as long as that property has been owned. It was a lot of saving for my Europe trip. It's just my whole Europe funds went into there. So I think I put down, I purchased the property for $440,000. So I think I put down around $180,000 on it.

Oh my gosh. How on earth did you come to have that much savings? I'm so impressed. I've worked a lot. When I was in uni, I think I started like first year out of uni, just doing your typical retail jobs. I mostly stuck to cosmetics. So I worked at Sephora and Mecca, which paid a little bit better than normal clothing retail. And then all the money that I saved from working just all went into that, which made me feel really sad when I signed all my money away. But it's good. It's gained a lot in value. I had it revalued recently and it is

$600,000 now. It's quite a bit of equity, which is nice. I'm hoping I can use that. Oh my gosh, what? Yeah. I think I bought pre-COVID. Yeah, no, but all of that works out really nicely to have purchased for $440,000 and now it's worth $600,000. You absolutely need to come and talk to one of our Zella brokers to see what you can do as your next step. Yeah, definitely. All right, next question I have for you. So we already know about your property.

talk to me about debts what is the mortgage on that currently and do you have any other debts so I have the current mortgage I wrote this all down for you the current mortgage is 350 grand on the home loan a 30 grand hex debt I did a double degree in media and commerce may have failed a subject or two so it's not looking pretty we won't talk about that 30k for a double degree is pretty good which I think it was sitting at around 40 I think it helps that I earn a little bit higher so it could it takes away a bit more so when I get my pay slip it they all lump it into tax so all my normal income tax and my hex debt all come out yeah very sad amount to look at and then I also salary sacrifice my car which costs me around 750 a fortnight oh cool yeah but that

pretty much 750 that pays for the car pays for my petrol servicing tires any insurances green slips and stuff like that. So the car is salary sacrifice for three years. I did go for a bougier car. I was about to say, so you're saying it was $750 per fortnight, which according to my calculations is very close to maybe $20,000-ish a year, which if it's a three-year loan, that's about $60,000. What are you driving? We need to know. A Mercedes. A fancy girl car. Yeah. The interior of the car, there's like the whole screen that goes across from the driver to the passenger aside, it was very bougie and I couldn't look at the rest of it. Well, we all have very different money goals. So do you have any other debts apart from the HECS debt that you mentioned and the

mortgage and obviously your salary sacrificing a car, which let's call that a debt because it's a consistent repayment you need to make? No, no other debts. How exciting. All right. I want to know, you said before, and so I'm really interested to know what you think this is. You're maybe now a B or a C and two years ago, maybe you were an A. So I want to know now, what do you think your best money habit is? I'm that person that loves points. So I put all my expenses on my credit card and then I pay it off pretty much as I buy. So if I went to Woolworths, spent 200 bucks, I'll transfer 200 bucks and pay it off straight away. I'm very strict with myself on that, which I guess also pays for my flights when I go traveling. So I've gotten like pretty nice

flights for like $100, $200 because I just pay the taxes. I feel like I need to be better at this because everyone talks about how they're getting all these free flights. And I just had to book flights recently for a trip that I'm going on and I didn't get anything. I think I put some points towards it that I had and I was like, what do you mean I only get 50 bucks off? What is this? Everybody gets free flights. I want free flights. You need to book the classic reward flights. Otherwise it becomes like ridiculously expensive. There's like selected types of seats that they have open. I need to get everybody's tips and tricks. I booked business class tickets to Europe for this year and it only cost me like three, four hundred dollars return. So. Oh my gosh.

I think that's my best money habit. And then like your Coles, your Woolworths, your Qantas points and stuff. I'm with Medibank for my health insurance and they have this thing called the Live More app or Live Better or something like that. And you earn points which you can use to take money off your premiums. So I've been doing that and it saves me like two, three hundred bucks a year. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. For like stuff you do, like getting your steps in or like reading a book. Yeah. Smart. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, flip it on its head. I want to know, what do you think your worst money habit is? I get hyper fixated on something and I won't stop until I get it. And most of the time, that thing that I'm really fixated on is like a nice

handbag, but it would be like a nice Chanel bag, which does not come cheap. I think if I want something, I would get the best that there is on the market for it. In my head, I try and rationalize it. In your head, you try and rationalize it. How do we rationalize a Chanel bag? Oh, the values increase heaps. So great investment. I feel like everybody says that, but if I'm going to buy a handbag, not only am I going to use it, but there's no way you're going to pry that off me and make me sell it. Like, yeah, it might increase in value, but I'm going to keep that. Nobody's going to get that off me. It makes me feel better. I was like, if I wanted to, I could, but I'm not going to.

That's fair. That's fair. Speaking about investments, and I mean, Chanel is probably not the best investment in saying that when it does come to the financial return of Chanel bags, I do believe over the last 10 years, they have performed better than the share market, which is a bit wild. But I want to know, what do you currently invest in and how do you do that? Just mentioning on the Chanel bags, I bought a bag in, I think, 2018 or 2016 or something like that for $3.5 and now retails for $7,000. So just putting it out there, not bad. Okay, that's good. But the real question here is, are you selling it? No, but does it make me feel better? Yes.

You're like, no, but it does make me feel better that it's worth that amount. Yeah, like I'll never part with it, but just knowing. That's very fair. I want to know, though, tell me all about your DIY investment portfolio. So I think I have like 15 or 20 grand sitting in it. It's mostly ETFs and a few shares that I just picked out because they sounded cool at the time. I think my first one I bought was, I had no idea what I was buying.

I was on the ComSec app, on the ComSec website. And you know how there's a section that goes trending shares? I picked one that was trending and I bought it. Yeah. And it actually was like the best performer in my portfolio for a year. Solid investment strategy. Yeah. Other than that, it's just like your usual ETFs, like the very common ones I've been

putting money into. I was introduced to shares from pretty much after high school and uni. I think it was something that my boyfriends at the time were really into. So I dated someone that was an options trader. So that's all that he would talk about. And then other people that were like in the investment industry. So I learned a lot about different strategies and different, what your different options are through them, which forever grateful, even if it didn't work out, at least I learned

something and moved on. I also have the investment property in Brisbane, which is at 600K and super, which is 30K. Yeah, so good. I love that you've lumped in, even though you have a DIY investment platform, you've still included superannuation because it's so important to still see that as a proper investment. And that is actually putting you in a better position to working towards financial freedom. Now that we've had this chat, I feel like I've learned a lot about you. I feel like we're on the same page when it comes to valuing Chanel bags, but also maybe not wanting to part

with them. I want to know, you said earlier that I'd probably give myself a B or a C when it came to money habits, but I feel like you've got it pretty sorted out. You've got a really good income. You're earning 130 plus super plus a 20% bonus, which to me is wild. You want to buy a home. You've already got an investment property. You're investing in shares and Chanel. Do you still think you're sitting at a B or a C? Would you want to change that at all? I think still a B or a C, like all that money that I made last year was all spent. So not the best on my behalf. That's very fair. I feel like being honest about our situations means we can put ourselves in a better one in the future. Marnie Durst, I have loved having this conversation with you. I feel

like it's so interesting to talk to people, especially people like you, where you said, I've grown up with immigrant parents. They were completely polar opposites. And it's so interesting to see what like types of personality traits you might've got from either of them. Because now that you're talking about it, you are so structured and you are so good with it. And I don't think you're giving yourself as much credit as you could, which maybe leans towards your tiger mom, But then you're also kind of carefree, which leans a little bit more towards your dad, which is so beautiful to see it coming out in different ways. That's so nice, I think.

Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Unfortunately, that is all we have time for today. And I'm sure we'll speak soon. Thank you so much for your money diary. Thanks 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 MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.