She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Managing chronic illness, becoming a mature age student AND saving for a house

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

HELLO ANGELS and happy Monday. Today's diarist is beyond inspirational. Having struggled with a mental illness for most of her adult life - and not having the ability to go to uni till later this diarist thought she'd never end up with a degree - ALAS she's studied Psychology, STARTED HER OWN BUSINESS, Saved enough for a house AND just landed her DREAM JOB. This ones a ride, and we are SO grateful our diarist shared so much with us.CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses eating disorders in-depth, so if this topic is something you'd rather not have in your ears perhaps give this episode a skip and we will see you next week!If you or someone you know needs support with an eating disorder, please reach out to our friends at The Butterfly Foundation. Give them a buzz on Phone 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673), chat to them online OR send them an email by visiting this link: https://butterfly.org.au/get-support/helpline/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!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 to a Shopback Money Diary Monday, our favorite day arguably of the week because we get to chat to one of our gorgeous community members, learn about their story, learn about their finances, get all the juicy deets. Victoria, are you pumped? I'm very pumped but I'll be more pumped when I know a little bit about this diarist's story. So Jess,

Phil, what are we talking about this week? So this week's diarist said, i'm 28 used to have a shocking relationship with money overspending was my poison for self-sabotage until i turned things around in my mid-20s in this time i've put myself through uni as a mature age student while working full-time managing a chronic and expensive mental illness and i've saved enough money to purchase a house all on my own what all of that i know incredible so she has gone through a whole heap of things i'm really excited to learn about them a little content warning before we get into it though. We're going to be chatting about mental health, specifically around eating disorders. So if that's something that's a little bit challenging for you right now,

give this episode a miss because we're going to dive into it. And then there's a little bit more, she says she's super proud, as she should be. She wants to inspire others to do the same. A little bit of background, she grew up with money obsessed parents who spent $600,000 between them on divorce layers because the relationship wasn't great. They didn't want to talk to each other. they wanted to talk to the lawyers and now she's writing her own story which we love to see so sorry 600 grand i can't get it on lawyers like not on the divorce not like oh i lost 600 000 because my ex-wife took it or my ex-husband took 600 grand just for the lawyers to speak to each other just on the fees oh let's get her on the line money diarist welcome to the show

you're on mute all right good start guys it's only up from here oh my gosh no I feel like this is going to be a spicy money story because I want to hear about you I want to hear about your situation I also kind of want to hear about your parents so you let us know your boundaries yes um they're pretty loose don't tell my therapist you just know it's going to be a good one by the way that our diarist enters the conversation they're like what do you mean boundaries like all right in saying that let's get into it with the first question money daris can you please tell us a little bit about your relationship with money yes so um from a young age i guess um earliest memory of money

is kind of getting two dollars pocket money and going up to the milk bar to buy lollies oh my gosh I have one of those memories too back when redskins were five cents um two dollars is a lot of lollies yeah inflation I remember them being like full 20 cents and I'd be like right so the milkos and the redskins which are now called something completely different I think they're called I can't remember what they're called but I mean appropriate change but I still can't refer to them as the new name because it makes no sense we'll need to do that but yeah I remember them being a good 20 cents at some point and that felt like an absolute stooge. Yeah.

I'm still outraged and I think they're a dollar now. Don't, don't get Jess and I started on the McDonald's 50 cents coin. That is not 50 cents. I know, I know. So, yes, I guess money for me growing up was very contentious in my family. I had parents that were very different money wise. My dad wanted to save it. my mum wanted to spend it. Dad is an accountant and fits the stereotype there, very savvy. And

I'm one of six kids, so my parents had considerable living expenses raising us. I guess the biggest point of contention between them was schooling. My dad didn't believe in private schooling. My mum insisted on private schooling. So, that was the first battle, which my mother, who's very headstrong, won. Thank you, mom. And just an example of the sort of things that would happen. Like my dad traveled for work a lot when I was young. And one day he went away for a week on a business trip and he came home to my mom who had remortgaged the house and put in a pool so he'd come home the whole pool was dug so it had to be finished and um yeah so we kids loved it um you know you were like sick mum's the best yeah yeah um but other

than that you know my mum was very savvy as well like they didn't have credit cards she used to say you know if we didn't have milk at the end of the week you had toast on friday for breakfast so they were very savvy and I'm the fifth child of six so my older siblings definitely mum was quite young when she had them so they lived you know like they had well as they always say we only got one new outfit a season you girls get everything so they apparently lived a very tough life and we got more holidays but yeah we had I guess we lived in privilege but my mum sort of always viewed it as the people around us were so much more better off whereas I thought we had everything oh I think it's that keeping up with the Joneses mentality yeah um whereas like for me

I just thought I had everything because I could do swimming lessons I could do my music lessons so that was sort of the stuff I wanted then when my parents were 13 sorry they weren't 13 that would be worrying when i was 13 when my parents got to the ripe old age of 13 yeah i was 20 years off being born yeah so when i was 13 my parents got divorced um and that was where i guess all the money stuff came to a head so there was a lot of fighting in the courts over money so it was in the court for five years a lot of money was spent and it was very much like the children were pawns in the middle of that so to speak so I then started to resent money a lot and I can remember saving up a lot of money because I worked hard as a babysitter from the age of 13

and then when I'd get to a certain like a thousand dollars would tick over I would spend it all because I'd think I don't want it to corrupt me like my parents so I'd get rid of it all but then it was just yeah so it was very I had a very emotional relationship with money from a young age. And then in high school days, everybody that knew me knew that I was saving up all my money to have a wedding when I was 20. Didn't have a boyfriend, but wanted the wedding and the fairy tales. So, that was what I was saving up for. I mean, to be honest, as someone saving for their wedding, that's when I should have started. I know, right? Because this stuff's so expensive. Yeah. I've changed my tack. Now, I'm not going to have a wedding and I'm going to buy a house.

so yeah okay okay so at least you've got your head screwed on I've decided to have a wedding well ideally I'd like both but with feuding parents still it's um easier yeah easier to just bury your head in the sand and be like what wedding I don't know what you're talking about I'm gonna I'm gonna hide in this freshly bought house yeah yeah oh my gosh that is genuinely so interesting can I assume that you probably grew up relatively wealthy then I know you mentioned like we did grow up in privilege and then I guess we've learned a few tidbits about, you know, spending so much in court and the fact that there was so much arguing that usually doesn't happen over $10,000 for five years. Right. Would it be safe to assume that your family was relatively

wealthy growing up? Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely say we were, um, well off. Yeah. And how, I guess as a younger child at that point in time, were you aware of that or were you just stoked to go to swimming lessons yeah like I money doesn't matter to kids it's like I look at my nieces and nephews I'm not going to splash cash on their presences they don't care they just want your time so for me just never really thought about I never thought we didn't have enough money like we lived in abundance in my eyes my mom I think maybe wanted more or she just wanted to be able to provide for us all I guess when they got divorced things changed a bit because all of us kids were solely with my mum so she went back to work at the age of 40 after having obviously

six kids and she was a total powerhouse and just worked her way up with no qualifications to become chief of staff oh my god but yeah so she was a hustler yeah she was a hustler but also I'm a career boss yeah okay all right mum she's gonna outlive us all yeah so she worked really hard but at the same time I guess we'd had a lifestyle where we had two incomes and private schooling so there was a lot of living expenses I still remember things like little things when she was um when it was just us kids with her like every Thursday she would it would be her payday so she'd come home with Thai takeaway for us all and with six kids like it would literally be a box full and like I just thought we were eating like kings and queens it was just amazing so I remember

things like that and I guess yeah she she never really put it on us that you know she might have been stressed about money but I knew that the divorce was very messy and drawn out like that hung over my head a lot so I guess I became a bit anti-money from that yeah well we're going to get into the structured questions but from sorry no don't be sorry like I'm grateful you're sharing it but I guess one thing I'm picking up from you is just like this overwhelming sense of gratitude like you're so excited about the things that you know a lot of people might go oh yeah we had Thai on Thursdays like you're like oh my god it was the best we had Thai we did this like I just really love you know seeing what people are grateful for and how that kind of like comes out of them

especially when you talk about it and you know a lot of people can grow up really wealthy but it's funny to see the things that kids actually care about yeah like you cared about like the pool was good as well I'm not gonna lie yeah yeah I didn't ever have a pool there's no way we could have afforded a pool you would have been like the most popular kid on the block like yeah oh I would have been asking to come to your house after school yeah anyway next question on the list what do you do for work now and how much money do you earn? Yes so I have just actually graduated as a mature age student so at 28 with a Bachelor of Social Work and I for the last year have had my own cleaning business which has been really great from I guess a sense of financially but also I

find it quite rewarding all my clients and my friends and it's great immediate gratification and cleaning especially if it's not your own but I just literally yesterday got a job in child protection which is where I wanted to work and yeah so congratulations thank you thank you look at you fly I love that how much money are you gonna earn tell us about the salary package what's on your contract okay and um I'm already uni yeah I'm so happy with that I know oh my god I would be too my sister who's 10 years older than me said I've never earned that amount of money and I've you know got two degrees and I'm I'm in the wrong job but she's also a social worker so there you go yeah oh my gosh congratulations how exciting and that's like what you've been working so hard to

get to tell me a little bit about the cleaning business though because that that can be lucrative right it is um if I say so myself a lot of a lot of cash stuffed in my mattress no I'm just oh I love that for you so yes I actually moved interstate at the beginning of last year heartbroken from a breakup and ended up in new state didn't have a job had one year left of thought I don't want to do the nine to five because I'd done that my whole degree was quite burnt out so I just joined the local Facebook community because I love communities and put out a post and just said hi uni student study social work so people knew I was trustworthy and just said that hourly rate is $45 you know I'll service this area and anyway within two weeks I sort of

had oh maybe like 10 regular clients what that's so quick and then I got faster and faster at my job so my hourly rate now sometimes is as high as 75 to 100 dollars a good reason yeah and I love it preached yeah so it's really nice and like during lockdown it was it made such a difference because I was in a new state and like when you go out walking I'd see people I know and they'd check in or like I had one client that messaged me and said, I know you're losing lots of work at the moment. Do you want any money? Like, I'd be happy to loan it to you. So, like really lovely people. Yeah. And, you know, I'll arrive, they'll offer me a cup of tea. Like they just treat me with such respect. So, it's lovely. So, I'm sad to give that up as excited as I am. I said to myself,

I would stay a cleaner if I didn't have a 30k hex debt, but I just can't justify. Fair. Are you going to do it like on the side for some extra cash? I am. I am. Oh, a little hustler. I love this. Yeah, totally. Totally. I absolutely am. I've worked out if I could just earn 300 extra a week, that's 15 grand a year. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And that will help my house deposit dreams. Yeah.

Oh my God. That'll help it so significantly. I love that. I was going to say either are you keeping it on the side or are you selling the business? Like are you going to sell the book of clients which you absolutely could do i know look i'm not um really into selling it but i like to think anyway that the draw card is me um yeah it absolutely is like i already want to invite you over for a cup of tea if it means like getting my house cleaned as well like girl walk on in well i also clean as if you know like the queen's coming over i'm very on my hands and knees. Get on over to my place. Yeah. I love that. If your cleaner is just putting toilet cleaner in the toilet and not scrubbing it, they're not doing a good job. Okay. So money

loss from me. I do actually have a cleaner now. Her name is Courtney. I found her through the She's On The Money Facebook group. And she is honestly a delightful human. On Instagram, she's called the fairy god nanny because she like does so much cool stuff oh my god you know Courtney's been to my house because you like go in the bathroom and the toilet paper has like cute folds and stuff she's so bougie it is the best expense I know that it's very privileged to be able to have a cleaner but I cannot tell you the mental freedom that that has afforded me especially because like I'm working so much like I work 60 70 hours a week at a minimum I also then I'm running three businesses like I am so hectic so I feel like this is one of those

things where it's like yeah it's real privileged but it makes sense to give me my weekend back and a little bit more mental sanity but you're right she doesn't just clean the toilets like she reorganized under my kitchen she's organized my bathroom she's like hey VL's thinking next week we'll just go through the fridge I'm like you do whatever you I will pay you yeah you just tell me she's a wizard but oh that's a good cleaner they're few and far between my friend and reliable like if I say I'm gonna show up at 9am I will be there rain hail or shine because I know the burden of the mental load I think that's a female um thing but I I know like if I've said I'll clean your house for four hours and I don't rock up that's your whole day out

especially if you're having people over well moving on you mentioned before that you want to buy a house so the next question is my friend what's your big money goal is it that yes it is so 2022 I am desperate to buy a house just before this recording I actually had a meeting with the bank to find out my borrowing capacity which is never as high as you hope but I don't want to be mortgaged up to my ears. So I'm trying to be conservative. Potentially chat to a broker if you haven't. I know you just said you're going to the bank. Oh, good. No, I'm double dipping. Absolutely. I've got no loyalty. Good. Absolutely none. So we need to have loyalty to our brokers, but not to our banks. Yes, that's what I meant. So yeah, we can be as loyal as we want to our

brokers, but when it comes to the banks, no, sorry, we ain't loyal. Wouldn't give them a dollar. No. Well, yeah, probably already doing. Actually, I refuse to pay bank fees. That's also a very good money habit, which I'll ask you about soon. Yes. Tell us when this money goal might happen. Like, how much have you got in savings? Like, how much are you planning on spending? If you had a meeting yesterday with a bank, like, what's that look like? So, on the cards, I have 100k cash deposits saved up. Oh my God, what? And you've literally only just secured your first quote, professional role full-time after studying who are you yeah well my my I learned from my mother

gotta hustle yeah love it a lot of toilets cleaned in that time yeah good get it um so yeah I've got 100k cash saved um and I don't have any debts aside from my hex um which I don't plan on paying off any earlier than I need to. And then I have yet an income of 81K. So my borrowing capacity, they said is roughly maybe 500K. Wow. But that's a significant amount of money. I reckon a broker would get me a way better deal. Potentially. All right. I'm so excited to hear when you buy a house. So please keep us in the loop. But the next question, my friend is, do you have any investments? No, I don't. And I guess that is where I'm really hoping to also improve this year is get into investing. I very much grew up with the belief that a house is the

best investment because it's a roof over your head and that's the best security. And I do really want that first and foremost but I would love um to get into shares just a minimal amount I guess the only other way I invest is I salary sacrifice into my super which would you mean really other in way that's an epic way to invest who is she no not really also by the way I do salary sacrifice into superannuation which happens to be an investment and a really good long-term one but yeah no not really well yeah I mean I don't see the money so I don't notice it but that's one thing I'm huge on and actually I've just got a new partner and I was having a stern word to him last night in prep for this recording and I said by the way if you ever plan on having

my children you'll be paying my super while I'm on maternity leave non-negotiable yes how did that conversation go so it was I was quite just matter of fact I just said it's not fair I also got up the statistics on the gender pay gap also she came prepared she'd done her research yeah it's like I'm going for a pay rise um at a job interview um sadly my partner doesn't pay me um a wage but he will be paying my super when we have kids if we do I feel like that's a good boundary is set way before on the table early yeah because also by the time you have kids in theory you're gonna spend your life together so it's in everyone's best interest to pay less tax you're gonna retire together you know it's a win-win I don't understand why more people wouldn't

do it um but I really feel for parents like I've got a sister that's a single mom and she's nearly 40 and has less super than me and she's got two young girls so I'm really passionate about that I never want to be in a situation where money is the reason I'm staying yeah no I absolutely agree with that and I think these are conversations we should be having up front not yes okay we're gonna put it on the table by the way now I'm pregnant I was just wondering can we talk about superannuation like no hey here's my boundary here's the conversation so that when you get there there's no surprises I think that that's such an empowering way of approaching things so it's not like oh yeah no I don't know what's gonna happen it's like oh at that point like

we'll work it out because we know we're on the same page that makes me so happy to hear next question money diarist do you have any debts no the only debt I have is hex which is about 30 grand yeah and I guess I just bought a my first car at 28 oh my god so that isn't a debt I bought it with cash but it will be a bit of a money pit it's just a 2009 Yaris but the way I drive around you'd think I've got a Rolls Royce so I'm very happy with that yeah so I don't have any debts no that's so good and I love that you're like no I drive it like a Rolls Royce oh yeah I'm fanging around town now the trick is to keep my license yeah okay like that's a very big like big thing to consider and Toyotas are relatively reliable oh yeah my dad used to work in the car

industry and he'd always be like yeah Toyotas like oh yeah buy a good solid car get a Toyota so like you've picked well you've picked very well I said to my mum I'm taking this car to the grave hopefully it's not the other way around oh my gosh well I still drive a car so I can one up you I still drive a 2006 car so ha well oh yeah I guess 2009 well my um quota for making it was having the automatic lock like i nearly died oh yeah i've got that yeah yeah i've got that yeah so i think i've made it already um yeah second second thing is having a house that can house a golden retriever but that's oh my gosh yeah i actually pimped my car recently with the um the radio thing that goes in the lighter so that you can have bluetooth so my car's pimped

yeah that is pimped that is yeah yeah i'll send you the link later i want it yeah well i want some subtle like pink interior lights. I don't know how that would work. Oh, no, that's very fancy. I wouldn't even know where to start. I'll just keep with my Randy O. Well, my boyfriend's a petrolhead, so he'll do it for free. All right. Well, get on that. Yeah. Get on that. Maybe you could buy them on Shopback. And that is the next question I have for you. I love Shopback. Okay. I don't even need to ask. Do you use Shopback? I absolutely use Shopback. It's the best it's a no-brainer I don't understand why you wouldn't it's inbuilt in my computer I should be on their advertising team but yeah like I feel like we're paying you for this yeah but it is so

good because I literally will get like a chunk up and then I'll transfer $50 into my account and be like sweet that's coffee for two weeks it feels like free money yeah like it's so nice I just yeah and then when I buy something I go okay well I'm gonna get twenty dollars back from that purchase so yeah it's it's just a no-brainer and they send you when the sales are on like you do not have to do any of the work they do it all for you oh my gosh I don't I think shop back should absolutely reach out and be like we're looking for new promo girls do you want to be one all right our next question is and might be shop back given how excited we were about that is what is your best money habit? Oh, I would say best money habit. I probably have a couple, but I would say

it's shopping the sales at the supermarket. Yeah. Because when you think about it, your supermarket bill each week is one of your most considerable expenses aside from, you know, maybe your rent and whatever else but I think just shopping the sales really half price is your best friend and if something that you always use is half price buy five but don't be an animal and leave one left on the shelf yeah so I think are you the guy that's coming for all our toilet paper yeah no I don't stock toilet paper I can tell you yeah so everything so not just food but but when i buy clothes gifts anything like that buy it on sale and are you are you planning your shopping around the sales or are you just going to the supermarket and looking for this or like

how do we learn from this because i feel like i want to do that too but i'm literally the worst like i'll go to the supermarket and be like all right i'm gonna make mushrooms stroganoff or whatever i'm gonna make and then it's not on sale but i already have in my head that we're having that so I just still buy it even though mushrooms are expensive that week yeah so look I'm not about going without like life is a bit too short for that but I will generally just go and look when I'm there in saying that like it's only me to think about so I don't have to really take too much into consideration in terms of meal planning yeah but I also get weekly emails from Coles and Woolworths with their half price specials so if I'm trying to kill time I will go through the

catalogue and go oh I'm gonna get five of them this week they actually both have on the website if you're on like the Coles website or the Woolies website there's actually a section where you can see half price specials so it'll just show everything that's half price because I'm not interested if it's 20 cents off like no you want the 50% discount 100% that's a lot easier and if you like if you're someone who likes to pre-prepare you can just make your little list online and see what's half price yeah I didn't even know you could do that oh Victoria what company have you been keeping I hang out with Jessica Ricci she's good at money I promise my other last money hack is I love coffee and I recently bought a coffee machine

again on shop back hello and you're like duh yeah duh is there any other way so I bought that and then I put up a piece of paper next to it and said earning back my coffee machine and I divided the amount that it was by five dollars which is the cost of my coffee and I would tally it every time um I'd save my coffee by making it home so satisfying I was like this is the best and now I've already paid it off, but I keep telling it just so I can be like, I can redistribute that money. Yeah. I'm, I feel like I'm making money. I've got a girlfriend who worked out how much milk cost and then worked out how much per cup it was. And she's like at brunch the other day, being like, so I've worked out my coffee's cost me 48 cents. I'm like, how did you even?

But like, how good is that? It's not even necessarily that you're saving the money. it's the excitement that it is and the gratification that you get out of it like your little tally wouldn't have saved you anymore let's be honest no but ticking it off you're like heck yeah i feel good factor priceless exactly to take this down a notch though the next question is what's your worst money habit so please share with the group yeah okay um i would have to say without a doubt is my childhood which has led to a lot of therapy oh my god you're like my childhood was my worst money habit yeah pretty much um i have a meme on my wall that says thanks mom and dad for giving me everything now i just need a therapist to take it all back

um there's a bit of humor laced into it i feel like dark humor is sometimes if you don't laugh you'll cry yeah the only way we should be dealing with things and if that's the way you're dealing with it who are we to judge like at the end of the day I'm grateful that you're sharing your money story we'll get to it after the break as to exactly what it is and how it works but therapy is your worst money I feel like that's a good investment though I would argue with you that it's not a bad money habit that it's a you know a not so great situation to have found yourself in but like the fact that you pay for it and that you're getting it like you're above and beyond a lot of other people in that situation who aren't doing it or people who are listening

to this and going oh my god I bloody wish I could afford therapy yeah yeah um well it's affording it and it's also getting into a therapist but that's really hard for another day yeah and really sad um yeah people that need it but I'm lucky my therapist calls me one of her lifers i reckon i've paid off a good chunk of her mortgage but oh my gosh you are so kind yeah i agree money well spent um if you want to pay off mine let me know yeah yeah you just need you do have an undergrad in psych so you're halfway there yeah like i could pretend to be your therapist yeah great all right on to the last question before we get to ask even more questions not as though this entire money diary hasn't been an absolute shamble which i have

adored but if we forced you to give your money a grade what would you give your money habits out of 10 I would say maybe eight oh why an eight eight because I think I've really transformed my money story and habits in the last sort of seven years and I think I don't ever feel like I go without but I'm consciously saving and growing my wealth so that I can leave behind well live a good life first and foremost and then leave something behind for the people I love and that is a b if we go on percentages oh yes okay b yeah oh my gosh but also the fact that you want to leave a legacy oh we should do a whole episode just on leaving a legacy and what that means at some point. Cause I love that. I actually, I'm leaving all my super to my brother.

I've got six siblings though. So like bit contentious, but one of them is getting the whole, the whole bit. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, let's go to a quick break and then I want to ask you about your childhood and your siblings in a hot minute. All right, money diarist, we are back. And I think that we should talk off the bat straight away about what you called your worst money habit. You said that you had a serious mental illness and you spend a lot of money on therapy for that. Jess and I agreed that we don't believe that that is a money loss. It's actually a very good investment into your mental health. And you seem pretty level-headed and super grateful and like the type of person that we want to come into our office and like be our

best friend. But tell us a bit more about that and that process and how much it costs you and all of the juicy details well i'll start by saying you've definitely never been in the therapy room with me if that's your rap okay well that's probably a good thing i haven't been spying on you um so look i um yeah i've had a mental illness for i guess the better part of 15 years i don't know how much you want me to go into it but you can say as much as little as you want like i just never ask what it is or how it is because like that's not my story to tell and you get to open up as much as you want or as little as you want yeah so I have had a mental illness for 15 years um being a diagnosed eating disorder and depression and so that over the course of my

teens and twenties has led to several hospital admissions and weekly therapy. So that is my biggest expense, but in agreeance with you and Jess, it's the best money I'll ever spend. You're nothing without your health. I'm such an advocate for that. And I think a lot of people look at me and go, well, God, you've been in therapy for ages. You're going to do that forever. But really the alternative is to be miserable and why would I want that and I really wish people would go to therapy not because they have issues but because they want to learn about themselves and improve so that's the other benefit for me and yeah so it's look I still see a psychologist weekly that's the biggest expense for me I haven't been into hospital for a number of years so that's no longer

an issue thank you how good is that yeah well look it's I think it's more because hospital's such a terrible place for eating disorders so I wouldn't recommend but yeah look it is it is good and I think with age I'm learning how to manage it better I've got more control and autonomy over it like for example when I was first sick as a 13 year old you're reliant on your parents to get treatment. Whereas now it's in my hands, which can be daunting, but you've just got to take charge and keep showing up, which is what I do each week. And yeah, it's the best investment I can give myself. Oh, I'm so proud that you see it that way. I do have a pervy question because obviously this plays into our money story and our upbringing, but how did this manifest for you?

eating disorders I don't believe are understood in the way that they should be understood and I think a lot of people make the grand assumption that you have an eating disorder because you want to be skinny or you don't love your body and yeah exactly and so talk to me about where this kind of like stemmed from and how that played into your growing up and now how it impacts you know I'm assuming that maybe this has something to do with you going back to uni at a later age like how's this impacted your life hugely yeah in some ways I'm grateful for it in some ways I'm still a bit heartbroken by it but yes eating disorders are massively misunderstood and the stigma that is attached to all mental illness is terrible but particularly with eating disorders

it's really tough because anytime you socialize anytime there's a celebration it's around food and that you know you if you have a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction you can take that away but with an eating disorder and I'm not to say they're comparable at all but you are fighting your poison every day because you have to eat to live so mine manifested when I was 13 when my parents were getting divorced I just remember feeling an immense amount of shame and guilt and not having an outlet for it and I was so unhappy and sad inside but nobody could see it so I said to myself well maybe if I look different they'll start noticing and so I started to lose a lot of weight and my eating disorder was always bulimia so although I lost weight it

wasn't you know extremely noticeable I wasn't malnourished so to speak so it was became this like I still never forget the first time I made myself purge it becomes this outlet of you eat all this food and it's like a temporary arms wrapped around you source of comfort and then you're so disgusted in yourself and you go and make yourself sick and then it worked for me because it was a secret outlet if I cut myself or self-harmed people would see it but people don't see eating disorders as much they're concealed and I very much grew up in a catholic family where we sweep things under the carpet and you know if you can't see it as long as you present well and you've got your white picket fence then the rest doesn't matter so that hugely impacted me it took

away a lot of my youth and yeah just a lot of hospital admissions and just even like you know people go oh you know don't give the last piece of cake to tori we know where that will go so you kind of become the butt of jokes sometimes people are well-meaning or they say no you don't look well yeah i know are you joking yeah it's not fun so it is one of those things that is tough because once you disclose it to people they're always monitoring you around food and that is really overwhelming if you've got an eating disorder or had one so yeah it is really misunderstood and I wish that I talked about it more openly earlier I still struggle with it now and I'm sure I will have friends that listen to this podcast that have no idea

about that struggle and yeah I think I guess with age you become a bit more self-assured but there's a lot of shame attached to it and misunderstood yeah wow thank you for sharing that with us and being so open and honest about what that is and what that means because that's not something that's super easy to talk about like that's something that is you know such a part of you that is usually so guarded that you know you don't let it go and the fact that you've told us and not some of your friends like oh my gosh I feel so special or so honored that you would be so open with us what has that meant for you as an adult to be able to earn a living obviously you sound like from my perspective an absolute hustler like you've had a business

you saved some epic amount of coin yesterday you literally got your dream job and you are moving into that like it sounds like you are flourishing but just because on the outside you look like you're flourishing doesn't mean you are how has that impacted your ability to you know go to uni start a career start work like what kind of like roadblock did that put in for you yeah um quite a big one i was just too sick to study when you're not feeding yourself you can't concentrate you can't retain things um so yeah that's I guess why I really went to uni not until I was 25 um and I did feel a lot of pressure because by that age all my friends had done law degrees and they were graduating and had full-time jobs and here I was going back to be

a poor uni student so I remember feeling a lot of um kind of shame around that but I look back now and I'm like thank god I didn't come out as a 21 year old social worker um not that seven eight years is much difference no it totally is yeah I mean yeah it's a quarter of my life so um yeah I'd like to think like if I could redo it I wouldn't change it it's worked really well for me but yeah I think there was this big fear of like will I ever do it and will I ever finish and I'm nearly 30 and all the rest of it but now that I've finished I'm like oh why did I you know worry what was I worried about yeah like even now they my new job said when do you want to start you can start as soon as you can I'm like oh I probably want like another month of freedom

of bumming around and oh my god my cleaning how good yeah so yeah it's definitely impacted me but I think going to the profession I am that there's a lot I can bring to the table to help other people and empathize with them yeah definitely and I think you said before that you haven't felt comfortable necessarily sharing your journey in its entirety with some of the people in your life and I just want to point out that by doing what you're doing right now and sharing right now it's just the three of us having a chat but you're gonna be in the ears of probably close to a million people yeah I was trying to tell my boyfriend last time I was like the reach of this podcast i'm typing into google she's on the money stats yeah we don't have them publicly no

you have to ask us i know well you need to yeah but the impact that you're going to have because there will without a doubt be people in our community who identify with you and your journey and the struggles that you've had and it's so special that you can share that part of yourself and genuinely help other people. Because I think that it's a shiny example of you're working really hard on yourself and you're going to therapy every week. And we stan a woman who puts herself first and who works through the tough stuff to really ensure that she's looked after. And it's just a shining example, I think, of pushing through that really, really challenging stuff to create a better life for yourself so don't feel bad about not sharing with people because you're doing it

right now and I promise you I know that we will get messages from other women saying I feel seen I feel heard I feel understood it's so lonely out there and you do you feel like you're alone and nobody understands and I always think with all my struggles in life if I feel I have someone that has my back or knows what I'm going through you can face anything generally um and so yeah I think with eating disorders and mental illness it's that loneliness that we really need to eradicate but it's so true and at the end of the day you don't actually owe anybody anything like you don't owe as much as they might be your friends or your family you don't owe any of them an explanation of what's going on inside your head and I think that's a really good message to be taking out

of this money diary today is that we started it talking about, you know, your parents, $600,000 divorce, and there was so much money and, you know, you grew up and you had all this privilege, but that does not mean in any way, shape or form that you didn't have any struggles. You didn't have things that you needed to get through. And often if you're not going through something financial, you might be going through something personal and everyone has their own journey and everyone has their own journey to success. And just because you might be disadvantaged in one way shape or form growing up doesn't mean you can't change your life and doesn't mean you can't change your situation because look what you've done because it was so crippling and it is so

ingrained in what you are and I think before we you know I've got a few things that I want to say but I think it's really important I guess um what would you say like fact check this and just like share with you guys if you haven't listened to every single episode of she's on the money and you might have missed it that I have struggled with eating disorders for a very significant portion of my life. And that's not something that I believe I struggle with today. And it's something that I believe I have quote, gotten through the worst of it with, because I now look back at, you know, 15, 16 year old Victoria, and it's like a different person. Like it's looking at this person that I just can't comprehend existed. Like I can't from this perspective,

and this is again, money diarist through lots of years of therapy, because that is a very good investment but I look at it and go I just don't understand her mindset I don't understand her mind frame that's not her value and I wish I could scoop her up and remind her of that and I guess that's you know really important for me to preface before I continue this discussion because I hate it when I hear people talking about topics that maybe they haven't experienced or having opinions on things where you're like well you don't know what it's like and this is one of those topics where yes, my friends, I actually do. And it's not, um, you know, it's not something to gloat about. It is not something that should be glorified. It's not something I ever wish

anybody experienced, you know, I wish I didn't experience it, but I, I have been hospitalized for it. And it's unfortunately something that you don't shake. So like an eating disorder and Marnie Dyrus, you said earlier that, you know, you're a lifer with your, with your psychologist. and I laughed a little bit because same because you don't shake it it's one of those things that kind of sticks with you and that unfortunately you will deal with for the rest of your life and you will actually you know go through ebbs and flows and during periods of stress maybe those things resurface and you need a little bit more therapy or you know you might find yourself in a position like I'm in at the moment where I'm not struggling with it at all in fact I believe I have

a really really healthy relationship with food at the moment however it ebbs and flows and the thing that I find so interesting about it is that other people don't understand that other people don't see that that is maybe a stress point for me and it's interesting interacting with my parents for example if I say I'm really stressed at work they'll be like are you eating well like it always comes up do you find that that's something that you know you just can't escape in your family as Yes, a hundred percent. And like, it's annoying because when they ask, it's probably not the time I'm going to give a truthful answer anyway. I know, I'm going to lie to you through my teeth. Yeah, exactly. But it's also like, yes, mum, I had to eat because like, you've got to eat,

you can't not. So yes, it is always the scapegoat of the problems. Oh, it must be eating. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really, really frustrating, but I think something that we should talk about so much more openly because these things as you mentioned before you weren't nourishing yourself enough to concentrate so you couldn't go to uni yet and that's not something I think a lot of people might think when you know well I'm struggling with mental health yeah like that's a big part of it like you need to nourish yourself you need to care for yourself and uh it just makes me so happy to know that you're putting yourself forward and that you're in this situation where you've got your dream job and you've got this house deposit saved and you've hustled your butt off to get to

this position but it's not without struggle and I think so easily people at the start of this money diary might have been like here we go a privileged money diary who had a whole heap of money and no worries in the world when that's just not the case yeah I think everyone has their own struggles and it's all relative to what you know so sometimes I tell people about my child and they go oh well god my problems aren't as bad as yours and I'm like that's not true it's it's what you know and it's your, yeah, your struggles. So you can't, there's no hierarchy. No, exactly. And I think it's really important to understand that just because somebody else had it worse, quote, doesn't mean that your, yeah, it doesn't make your struggles invalid. And I think we really

need to approach life that way that she's on the money community that way. Like, yeah, you're right. Someone could have had it better. Someone could have had it worse. It doesn't mean that your struggles aren't valid. And I think a lot of the time, personally, people take it on themselves to be like oh like I need to stop complaining because somebody else had it worse it's just not the way we should be treating ourselves like we need to respect our own journeys and to do that we need to acknowledge them so oh thank you so much for sharing all of this with us money diarist we are oh we are so grateful and so honored to have had you on the show and to yeah have had you be so open with us I know that it's going to impact so many people in the best of ways thank

you it's been an absolute pleasure um to see you both and yeah thank you for having me i've loved it oh my gosh of course but unfortunately i do think that is all we have time for today but just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to australia's aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples they're the traditional custodians of the lands the waterways and the skies all across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn. We pay our respect to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness. See you next week, guys. Bye.