She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Moving to Thailand and living your best life

Episode Date: September 19, 2021

Happy Monday friends! Our Money Diarist today shares her tale of the 'standard life' and being 'seemingly happy' to going through a divorce and then taking the plunge on moving overseas.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. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.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. My name is Toni Lodge and joining me for another Shopback Money Diary is Miss Victoria Define. Hello. How are you? I am so good. I'm so ready for this. You've gotten me out of bed early because we've got

someone from Thailand joining us for a Money Diary, but that's all I know. So do you want to take it away and get straight into it and read out this week's Money Diaries email? All right, here we go. I was married at 25 to a guy eight years older than me. we had a house by the beach owned two nice cars a boat and a business and seemingly happy I've gone from separating from him and walking away with less than ten thousand dollars New Zealand to moving to Thailand and living my best life it's been a roller coaster of a few years but I couldn't be happier and I don't have the assets to prove that I am successful oh my gosh what a short but powerful money diary entry I know and we've got her on the line all the way from sunny

Thailand is it sunny in Thailand at the moment uh no it's a little bit overcast today I mean you could have played along with us money it's beautiful give us that um like living vicariously through you in dreary Melbourne in lockdown at the moment you're in lockdown as well but at least maybe you're in the sun I don't know yeah well there is yeah there's some sun sometimes and it's also 30 degrees so I really can't complain oh my gosh it's so cold here I'm like all rugged up and I've turned the heater on and I have a heat pack my house is probably also 30 degrees but not naturally but not because it's nice and humid because we have central heating um all right so let's get straight into the questions because I'm so excited to hear about your story first things

first what is your attitude towards money so I feel like I have a little bit of an up and down relationship with money um sometimes I can be living sort of paycheck to paycheck and then other times there seems to be so much surplus and I'm like why is there no consistency um so yeah I feel like um I have a bit of an all or nothing personality it's like when I really put my mind to it I can save save save and have a really good view around money but then other times it's spend spend spend. That's very honest. Yeah I just feel like I have that personality with everything in my life all or nothing so if I really commit myself to something I've got the motivation to stick to it so yeah that sort of filters into my my attitude around money but

yeah wow I literally love hearing that so next question what do you do for work and how much money do you earn um so yes I am living in Thailand but not for any scandalous reason you might think I am a teacher and so I have a grade five class which are about 10 year olds and I'm also the head of department for literacy in the elementary so a little bit of responsibility which is cool she's fancy tony try to be um and then i earn about a give or take because i earn in thai baht um so i'm always having to convert to new zealand dollars and depends on when i send it home to new zealand how much i'm actually getting um it's about five thousand dollars a month so my salary is about 60,000 for the year and is that when it when you convert it to I guess

Thai baht does that give you a really comfortable lifestyle over there like what's the lifestyle difference I know that I'm going sidetrack on this but we're talking about money so that's a good question though yeah like what what's the difference in I guess living at living conditions yeah so in New Zealand I probably would have been paid a little bit more um but living in Thailand is a lot cheaper so it actually feels like i'm getting paid more um some things like going to the supermarket and buying western type foods is more expensive because i'm not buying thai food um but so but i choose to buy things from the supermarket um and so i'm choosing to spend more uh but things like um living is cheaper and like water i pay like two dollars a month for water

it's ridiculous how cheap that is um electricity is really cheap as well probably like fifty dollars a month and I've got my aircon on all the time like the aircon never goes off so yeah definitely is um less money than what I would be earning in New Zealand but living for a lot cheaper oh my gosh I love hearing comparisons I'm always like well what does that cost you and how does that work and what are being two dollars oh my gosh we got our rates knowing this recently and I can tell you it was not even close to two dollars so is that this might be jumping ahead a little bit but um is does that include do you put money into your super or your kiwi saver as well or no I do like once a year so um I got an and a friendly email um

a few months ago saying if you want to have the government contribute a portion for this year you just need to put in the minimum amount and I think it was about a thousand dollars so I had that money in my savings I thought might as well and then the government contributed some as well but other than that I'm not putting any money in that account at the moment and it's just ticking away building up over time which is quite nice. Yeah cool yeah awesome all right next question. What is your big money goal? Well, I really need to build my savings back up because they have dwindled away recently. I was fortunate enough to be able to get home to New Zealand for a holiday for the last, I had seven weeks in New Zealand. So it was amazing to see friends and

family but i had to pay for quarantine on both ends so three thousand dollars in new zealand two thousand in thailand um flights were twice the price of what they would normally be so they were about five thousand dollars altogether um so there was ten thousand dollars of my savings gone already yeah and um then i also just spent a ridiculous amount in new zealand new zealand is expensive I've forgotten but it's nice that you got to get home and like pamper yourself a little bit see your friends and family like there's nothing better than I assume you've been in Thailand for quite some time now so it was probably such a nice relief to actually be able to get home because so many people can't at the moment absolutely yeah it was worth it I feel

like I would spend that money again just to be able to see them because I've been here for two years and hadn't hadn't been able to get home yet so and this is my first time overseas first time sort of away from family for that long yeah so well I mean I've been overseas traveling but never lived overseas so to go two years it was a little bit of a shock to the system yeah wow all right all right next question do you have any investments well I've got my kiwi saver yes um but other than that no um I'm a reasonably newbie to listening to the podcast and so when I started listening I was like oh I better get into some investing and I did a bit of google a little bit of a research and I just kind of felt like now wasn't the right time for me to be doing it while living

in Thailand um especially with not having my savings as stable as I would like it to be um and I was spending money more on traveling around Thailand and yeah just um didn't feel like it was the right time but I'm quite determined when I get home to New Zealand to look into sharesies and yes we love sharesies yeah and just get the ball rolling that way but um yeah at the moment no I love that you know what you want though and I think that that's the most important thing for me and understanding your situation and what's going on with you and you having the education to know what you want but also knowing you've got access to it because so many people are like oh my gosh I feel left out or behind because I'm not investing and it's like

well that might not actually be the right thing for you at this point in time like the right thing for you might actually be spending it on travel and that's fine but I just want to educate you guys so that you actually understand that there are options and if it's an option that you want to take up right now fantastic if you've got other priorities good that's why we always say spend in line with your values not the values that i hold so i think that that that's awesome i love hearing that next question do you currently have any debts no i don't which was very exciting i paid them all off before i moved to thailand oh that's awesome it was the most satisfying feeling being able to leave the country with no debt like I felt really good so I had my I had my student loan and I had

when I moved into my new apartment I had bought some nice furniture so I was just sort of paying that off fortnightly and when I decided to move to Thailand I was selling my car so I got I think it was about ten thousand dollars from that and so I decided to use that money to pay off my debts and he also the guy that brought the car from me put money into my account but also gave me some cash and so my cash I went shopping with and the money that was in my account paid off my debts so yeah oh that's awesome good oh that makes me so happy that you left the country with no debt especially knowing what you've been through which I'll ask more questions about in a minute next question is do you use shop back no I don't and I didn't know

if I could do if I could access it in Thailand is it something that I can well money diarist Tony told me that you're in Thailand so before this episode I did a little bit of research and it turns out I can't guarantee what it says because I can't read Thai but there is a Thai version of the shop back website which means you probably could access it if you want to do cool well I'll have to learn Thai first and then I'll give it a go it sounds like an international money win to me yeah international money win let's go with that and segue straight into asking you what your best money habit is so I'm really I'm quite good at setting myself up with a budget and sticking to it um mostly um I like to be really organized and planned so I have a budget that I've used for

years and I've set it up for in Thailand with my Thai baht that I'm earning um and so I've tracked it quite consistently for a while but there's just some months that I don't um stick to the what I've assigned myself for that month so I'm really good at planning and that's probably my best money habit but also could be my worst money habit because I don't necessarily stick to it every month is that officially your worst money habit because I'm about to ask you what your worst money habit is yes it is officially my worst money habit um like I said with the all or nothing personality it's like I can go for ages sticking to my budget and going really hard with it and then kind of just fall off the wagon and everything else falls off so yeah something I'm trying to

find a bit more of a middle ground to so that there's not some months where I save lots of money and then other months where I spend heaps of money there needs to be more of a balance I like that I feel like it's a good place to mention one of Victoria's favorite things to say which is you know like the same way that with a really strict diet if you're really really hard on yourself then you are bound to binge you know so maybe it's a matter of being a bit easier on yourself during those months where you go like super hard and then you won't you know fall off the wagon as badly when you get to that point yeah I love that I don't even have to turn up to my own podcast anymore everybody else just does it for me I'm sorry do you want to say it instead no

absolutely not like in fact I'm just like educating you guys so well that you don't even need me and that is the sign of a good business right you've made yourself redundant all right last question is what grade would you give your money habits if we forced you to give yourself a grade I feel like I would probably be sitting at a c plus or a b minus like I don't feel like I'm doing great with my money at the moment because my savings don't reflect where I want to be I don't feel like I'm failing because I have lots of lessons I've learned and I've got lots of good habits but I don't feel like um I mean my savings are next to zero at the moment because I just spent so much in New Zealand so um once they start building back up and I'm in a bit

more of a flow and I've got a bit of a better budget happening I'll raise that grade then but yeah all right well I have a lot of questions that I would like to ask you but we're going to go to a quick break and I'll dive straight into them after that so diving straight back in money diarist you live in thailand but growing up i'm assuming you were based in new zealand and then you got married and you bought cars and boats and houses and lived the quote storybook life how did all of that change and how did you end up in thailand this is a big story I'm ready I'm ready yeah I guess um my I did live the standard New Zealand life growing up um my parents separated when I was 14 so that was kind of the first hurdle

um but then I met my ex-partner when I was 20 we were working together we were both teachers um teachers often seem to meet and get together we heard that on our police officer episode yeah yeah uh so he was my first serious partner and I kind of just went into it really quickly we moved in together quite fast um and as I mentioned in the in the email he was eight years older than me so he already had his life set up uh he had he had the boat and the car and he'd already purchased a house he was running a holiday program business and um I was like this is great you know I don't have to do anything or spend any money to already have these things and I've kind of walked into this life um and I obviously loved him too so we um oh yeah that too obviously

i mean i didn't just go through all of this without money diarist was like a man great financial plan easy so yeah um we the traveling was always something i wanted to do and we compromised on um he didn't want to travel or live overseas i should say he didn't want to live overseas but i wanted to travel so we went for nine months which was amazing we had nine incredible months traveling around Europe and we actually came to Thailand for a little bit and Bali and so that was really amazing. Wow nine months is huge. Yeah we were really lucky because we had someone renting the house at home so that was kind of looked after itself and the holiday program business was still running we were doing admin while we were overseas so that

was giving us a bit of an income which was handy good and then when we were overseas he proposed to me and it was all very magical yeah which I was kind of like deep down expecting like people had sort of whispered in my ear it's going to happen while you're overseas and so I thought right then it's going to happen thanks for spoiling it guys yeah I know so rude um and so yeah it was all really lovely we came home we moved cities and we were set up by the beach and this is where we bought a new house right by the beach and I was just kind of going through the motions I guess because it was like all right we've got engaged we've got this house we will be getting married and I think I had some doubts start to creep in but I kind of pushed them

away because you know I thought well they're just nerves you know yeah it's a big commitment everyone goes through this yeah yeah I've never done this before so this must be what it feels like um and so we got married um and I was really happy we had the most wonderful uh wedding day and had all our friends and family there um but it was just after the wedding and um I guess we probably starting to talk about having children and that's when my um I sort of I realized it kicked in yeah I guess so and um I I feel quite nervous talking about this because I haven't really shared this on such a public platform but um I actually cheated on my husband um ex-husband and um it's the biggest lesson I'll ever learn in my life um it's not something I'm proud of and I

have held a lot of shame and guilt around it um i'm i feel like i'm letting that go now and i'm able to move forward but definitely don't condone my behavior but i can see how it happened i was just not i didn't want to be in the marriage and i didn't see an easy way out of it so i took um the terrible way out i guess um yeah so we we tried to make it work for sort of two or three months and I could just see it wasn't going to happen and I also knew deep down that I didn't want to um see it continue working so I made that was your way of kind of you know finding a way out of that relationship from yeah a psychology perspective that's actually really common I mean you're right like we don't condone that but it's actually a way of people going

everything's perfect I feel like I have to break it so I can leave because you don't want to be there and you know it's an awful situation to be in and I'm sure people in that situation do harbor guilt like you are but you know it is actually more common than you think and it's kind of like you trying to be a rebel you know yeah and I can definitely see and understand that now and at the time I was just like why did I do this like I wrecked this beautiful life that I had but I'm thankful that the the path has led me to where I am um so yeah I moved out of my lovely beach house and I I moved in with my mum at the time was really really lucky because she just moved to the same um city as me so it's like perfect timing I moved in with her and then

probably about six six weeks after that decided nope can't live with my my parents anymore you like no no no you're like thanks but no thanks mom so um she gave me the six weeks I needed to kind of like rest and recover actually yeah I I got really sick during that time and I was so run down just from the months of stress of the crying and the arguing and all of that leading up to us actually separating so I moved into a house with another flatmate and um then my ex and I had to start deciding how we were going to split up assets and things and also while all of this was happening I had friends come back from overseas and said that they were teaching overseas and that they think I would love it and I should look into it so I jumped on the website

I filled out my profile and I started looking for jobs overseas and I thought this is crazy but exciting all at the same time. And so that was about January that I was starting to look for jobs, but I didn't get anything. And by March, April, I was sort of resigned to the fact I was staying in New Zealand and no one sort of gets jobs that late in the year because school starts in August. And so I thought, okay, well, this is done. And then in May, I saw a job for Thailand and i thought ah let's let's apply for it i've been to thailand before i know that i like it there um this could be a fun little adventure and sure enough i got the job so within two months wild what a huge risk for you to take like yeah that's massive there's not a lot of people that

could comfortably go you know what i don't really speak the language but i've been there once and it was fine it was lovely i loved it but i think i needed that risk and i needed uh to do something drastic so within two months I was definitely packing up leaving New Zealand and getting to Thailand um but during all of that happening I was um working with my ex to try and sort out our stuff and so because I was still holding a lot of shame and guilt around what happened um he didn't make me feel bad for it but I guess I did feel bad and so I said to him because he was still keeping our house I said look I know you can't pay me out at the moment so let's just do let's just do minimal I will take what I contributed with my KiwiSaver and say a little

bit more and so that was about ten thousand dollars and when I went to the lawyers and she said, you know, you have a right to have about $150,000 out of this because of how much your house has grown and appreciated over the time that you've had it. Are you sure that $10,000 is all you want to take? And I said, yeah, look, that's all I feel like I'm owed because I just felt so guilty about the whole situation. And so he had said to me, you can take anything that you want in the house I didn't really have anything that I could take with me I didn't have the space to take things so I took some kitchen stuff loaded up my car and that was about all I took from the whole situation and I also was mindful that he had a house before I came into the relationship

and we didn't sign anything there was no pre-agreement to say that he would keep the house if we were to separate but I just had that in the back of my mind that I didn't earn any of that he already had that beforehand yeah so the lawyer wasn't happy with me because she knew I was being cheated out of a lot of money but I knew in my heart that I just I couldn't take any more than that so ten thousand dollars I also just feel like it's different situations for different people and that at that time worked for you and I actually really respect that like I really really respect that you were like no this this is what feels right for me and even though you had a lawyer saying no i can get you more money we can argue this you're like no actually like for me and

my mental health and my sanity and the stuff we've been through together like i don't i don't want that and you know that's a really big decision is that a decision that you regret sometimes yes especially because uh so after spending money on the lawyers as well i i probably ended up with about six and a half seven thousand which didn't even cover what i contributed for my kiwi saver um but i i sometimes regret it because during oh no it was about three or four months after that i went did a bit of stalking on facebook and had a look at his profile to just see what's been happening and i found out that he actually was preparing the house to sell and so would have had more than enough money to pay me out um the how much the house had appreciated during that time

so I was disappointed and I and I I don't regret the decision because I made the decision at the time for what I needed to but I just wish I had that knowledge that actually he was kind of behind my back trying to sell the house and um wanted to just take the profit for himself which I understand um but yeah a little bit disappointing i guess yeah did you find it hard so obviously you guys got together when you were 20 and they're like really pivotal years for when you kind of are discovering yourself and learning how you are with money and all of those things and did you find then that it was hard when you were on your own you're like oh my gosh all of a sudden i'm in control of my entire financial life and my own personal life as well did you find it hard to

deal with money by yourself after that i actually didn't i um had quite a different experience so i was always pretty good with my money and then when i met this guy we um we joined bank accounts quite early on and i guess he kind of taught me the ropes like i was seeing what was happening with the business and the money coming in and I was seeing the bills being paid and sometimes I would do it sometimes he would do it it was quite a shared approach and it was me that created the budget for us and we went through that every fortnight once we'd been paid we went back and look and filled in our budget and yeah it was quite a team that's really cool yeah so when I did when I did have control of my own finances I already knew what I wanted to do with them and

it was actually quite an exhilarating feeling I was like oh this money is actually just mine now I don't have to worry about paying the whatever bill and I can spend it on what I want and not have to check with someone else like you've got complete freedom nobody has to know about this like it's not anybody else's decision it's really empowering doing your own finances yeah yeah it really was so yeah and it was also very empowering when I did have my own money to then be able to pay off my own debts and and also leave New Zealand knowing that I had finalized all the deals with my ex-husband and we'd sorted out that situation and I've paid everything I need to and I just I left New Zealand with everything that I I needed so it was quite nice and it finished

well I guess yeah wow I just I feel like that was a journey that we just got to go on with you with ups and downs and oh my gosh what a story to share thank you I feel like it's such a special space where you're like okay cool like I haven't really told people this but I'm gonna tell you guys and I'm really grateful for that thank you no worries it's nice to share this um and it also helps me with healing and moving forward as well because the more I talk about it the more perspectives I get on it and I can just um not justify it because I don't justify um my actions but um understand why some things might have happened and how I've got to be being in Thailand and I love living in Thailand I love the life I have here unfortunately with lockdown it's not as

great as I would like it to be at the moment of course um but I have learned a lot about myself and like I might have missed out on some of my 20s actually getting to know who I was and exploring but I'm doing that now and so that feels really nice to have that opportunity 20s my friend exactly and it's never too late to learn who you are like you just never ever have gone past the point where it's possible and I really hope people listen to this and feel inspired to take that plunge I know that right now with COVID moving overseas might be the the plunge you can take but you know that there's just it's never too late to take a chance and that's just super inspirational I hope people feel that the same way that I do after listening oh my gosh I love it and

like that's such a journey and you sound like such a special person and I think that it's one of those things where there's no judgment from outside of the table like we all go through situations that we might not have wanted to be in and I think that it's one of those things that I just want to know that you've grown as a person I just want to know that I can support you through that and be you know part of the journey and that it's not some kind of recurrent thing that you're like okay cool like this is just who I am like it's not it was like your way of dealing with a situation and that's okay and yeah I just think that some people are gonna listen to this and be like oh my gosh that was me and that's actually okay I went through that I just need to learn who

I am and go through this I mean maybe they don't need to be as dramatic as you were and literally leave the country but i think it's definitely about learning who we are so thank you oh my gosh what a story yeah thank you for letting me share on your platform oh so grateful for it but sadly i do think that that is all we have time for today so 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 respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness

the advice shared on she's on the money is generally 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 any financial decision and we promise that victoria divine is an authorized representative of australia pacific funds management proprietary Limited, ABN 34132463257, AFSL 339151. See you next week guys. Bye.