She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: She Ran Away To Join The Circus!

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

We cannot wait for you to meet this Money Diarist. At the tender age of 23 she has already lived many lives; from spinal fusion surgery at 13 to running away with the circus, studying in Montreal, nannying in Paris, bartending in London! Now she is married with 2 properties...umm WHO IS SHE?!This year our Money Diaries are being brought to you by the legends at Shopback! Check them out at https://app.shopback.com/aus/partner/SOTM and you'll get a cashback bonus when you sign up!Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are Authorised Representatives of Infocus Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN 47 097 797 049 AFSL - AFSL 236523. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another Shop Back Money Diary Monday, where we get to chat to one of our community members, to learn about their money story and their finances and all of the other fun bits and pieces. And of course, I've got Victoria. Hello. How are you going? I'm very excited for this money diary because you said it was a good one earlier and now I want to know. I feel like money diarist, we know you really well because we got to meet you at one of our events this year. So that's really fun for us. Not that anybody else knows anything about it. And they don't know which person that was, which state that was in or even which event it was. So

good work working that one out. No, but exciting for us. But let me tell you all about our gorgeous diarist. She said, from being raised by my gorgeous single mum to having a spinal fusion surgery at 13, to running away with the circus, studying in Montreal, nannying in Paris, bartending in London, performing in the south of Italy, then, as we all know, spicy cough hit. I had to move back home at the end of 2020. I'm now 22 years and thriving. I've bought two properties, married the love of my life, started renovating our home, begun investing, and most recently quit my job to go back to my passion for circus and travel. Is that not very fun? And you're only 22 years old. Money Dyrus, welcome to the show. How many lives have you

actually lived? Feels like 100 at this point. It's been a long 22 years. Well, actually 23 now. I just had my birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you. Oh my gosh, how fun. I cannot wait to get into this. This feels like it's going to be a wild one. So let's start off the way we always do. can you tell us a little bit about your money story? Yes so as I said in my money diary I grew up being raised by a single mum who is like a wonder woman. She left home at 16 and has been just doing her own thing ever since then. She worked full-time, studied full-time and raised me putting me through private school and traveling overseas and whatnot all on her single parent income. So I learned a lot from her. She was an accountant. So she knows a little bit about money

and basically taught me that you can have everything. You just can't have everything at once. So I lived and I still live very much by that, making sacrifices in different areas of my life continuously so that I can achieve the things I want now. And I can also achieve the things I lot in the future. Oh my gosh. I feel like I'd get along really well with your mum. So 10 out of 10 for her. I want to know now, what do you do for work? How much money do you earn? So for work at the moment, it looks a little bit different. I recently quit my full-time job that I had been doing for the last year. So I could take a step back and focus on training to get back into circus, but obviously I had bills to pay, two mortgages and whatnot. So I basically worked out our budget,

and what we needed between me and my partner to pay each week so it comes about $1,300 to cover all bills including tax between the two of us we split that evenly and we're both required each week to make $650 so I do that at the moment through working in hospitality so I work as a catering chef or as a catering waitress at different events I also work at a fast food franchise and I also do uber eats driving so each week looks a little bit different but as long as I'm making that money, we pay our bills. Oh my gosh. I love that you're so specific about that, but you're also so flexible in that you just know how much you need to earn and you do it in whatever way works that week. That's actually so cool. Thank you. Yeah. It's really nice having

lots of flexibility with that. So I can, you know, focus on training or some weeks, you know, we might have extra bills or things we want to buy in particular, and then we work a little bit harder to make those goals happen. Yeah, of course. All right. Next question. What is your big money goal? What are you working towards? So at the moment, overall, big money goal is financial freedom. I feel like most people would love that. And that's just kind of at the moment, little steps because we have some other bigger, sooner goals that are happening, but working in the background on investment properties and investing in the share market, that's still new. the other big money goal is we want to go traveling and potentially move overseas next

year. So hopefully by June next year, we will be off traveling and then how long we go traveling for and whether we move depends on what income we can save or what income we can produce while we're overseas. Love. All right. Talk to me. Do you have any investments? If so, what are they? Yes. So I have one investment property, which the rental income on that covers the mortgage as well as the property management fees and rates. So basically water and body corporate fees aren't covered, but majority of it is. However, we pay the mortgage ourselves through our own budget on that property so that the money can just go into the property to pay all the other bills and just sit there in case something comes up we also have our home that we live in but from next year

onwards it will be an investment property and the rental on that one looking at the moment should cover everything surplus so cover all bills and mortgage on top of that then we have about a thousand dollars in shares that's still new we put about a hundred dollars a week into our shares to count just to kind of play with the market a little bit, which has been fun. And then I have super, it is really low because as I said, I spent a lot of time overseas. So my super really has just been the last, you know, two years that I've been back in Australia. So that's about $5,000. Oh my gosh, Jess, I'm not going to lie. When I asked a 22 year old, talk to me about your investments. That is not the response I was expecting. I'm very envious of where you are.

it seems like you're doing incredibly well. I'm just so impressed. I want to keep asking questions. I'm like, what is going on? Save it for after the ad. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. All right. So next question, you mentioned mortgages before. How much debt do you have and what's it made up of? Yes. So I definitely have more debt at the moment than I'd like, but we have two mortgages. So one of them is $205,000 and then the other is $167,000. So they were smaller properties. So the mortgages on them aren't too bad. And we pay about $250,000 a week on one and $210,000 on the other. And then we have recently installed solar panels on the property we live in and we're paying that interest free for five years. So that's about $9,800. Then we have a

personal loan at the moment which is kind of new we got that a couple months ago just to help us with our renovations we have like a lump sum in one of our accounts that we don't touch and that could have gone towards renovating but with me deciding to take a step back from working and focus on training I was a bit nervous to put all that money into our renters and then not have anything if something worse was to come up with either properties or just life in general so for us it made more sense to pay the extra I think over the two years of the loan which is 10 grand we pay an extra 500 and I was happy to put an extra 500 into that to save us that extra money on the side in case something did come up we do have our small emergency fund but that's kind of

an additional I have Invisalign so I've been paying that off for the last two years a little bit each week interest free it's four thousand dollars four thousand dollars for Invisalign that is a money win just that side note not quite that's what I've got left to pay so in total it was eight grand okay yeah all right story paid off four but yeah I've got yeah four to go and then I have hex so that's about six grand I did a couple subjects while I was overseas by correspondence and yeah that's the hex left on them yeah very cool that story didn't check out as a recent Invisalign graduate and Jess being a current Invisalign student. We were like, four grand? That doesn't check out. I know, I was about to be like, give me your dentist's phone

number. Give me your dentist's details. Like, we need to get in contact with them. That stuff cost us eight grand each. Absolutely not. But moving on, I want to know, you seem pretty savvy when it comes to money. Do you use Shopback when you're shopping online? Yes, I do. I heard about it. Of Of course she does. And it took me a little while after listening to the podcast to get into it, but I have been getting into it. I don't shop a lot online, which I hear often in your money diaries, but I do my best. I have the Chrome extension and the app. So whenever I am shopping, it's being used. So I've got a few things pending at the moment, but I've got about $25 in that's been approved. And I've been keeping an eye on the gift card percentages to buy some

more Bunnings vouchers and Jetstar gift cards for our renovations and our travels. Did you use our code when you signed up to get yourself $10 as well? I did, yeah, which was nice. Genius. Smart. That's free money. If anyone doesn't have ShopBack, S-O-T-M, that's the code. I used it when I signed up to get the $10.

Like, you might as well. I didn't. I didn't get it. Maybe I should hit them up. I had to get it and test it and then tell them I wanted to work with them. They didn't give me $10 for signing up. Sucks for you. Yeah, what a stooge.

If anyone else wants to get $10 when I couldn't go for it, 10 out of 10 can recommend as a solid money win. Next question I have for you. I feel like this is going to be a goodie, Jess. What is your best money habit? So I think my best money habit is that I'm continuously working on my budget and kind of the money that's coming in. Working in the various jobs I have over the last couple of years, I haven't been earning a set income weekly monthly yearly at all so I have a hundred different notes pages on my computer writing out different budgets and all of our bills and when they come out each week or whether they're paid monthly and yeah we adapt we have at the moment we have three different budget styles one is if

we've just made the minimum that week and it pays our bills and a little bit towards investing a little bit saving and our emergency fund and then there's comfortable and then there's like extra plus and then our money gets divvied across the different areas of our budget depending on how much money we've made each week so that definitely I think is probably one of my best money habits is that yeah I'm just always on top of it and trying to make my money go as far as possible that's a really cool idea for people who are living with a variable income having like a traffic light system almost for your your budget of where it's at because we get questions a lot about variable income. And that's such a smart way to do it because like your base level would be

bare minimum covering costs. That's the most important thing any of us need to do, right? But then on the times or the weeks when you do have more money, it's nice to know where that's going because otherwise that's when we tend to just like spend it on whatever and it just disappears. Exactly. Yeah. In your mind, it becomes like extra money. Exactly. But it's not extra money. You've actually made more this week and it should go somewhere. You're 100% right. Yeah, I learned that word on this podcast, fungible. Yeah, I know. Do you know what? That word gives me the ick. I know it's legitimate.

It sounds like fungus. Yeah, it's just, it's gross, right? Like it's a gross word, like fungible. Like, could you guys not have thought of something cuter? They could have, but they didn't. Yeah, one out of 10, do not recommend. All right, I want to know, let's flip this narrative on its head. I ask every week, what is your worst money habit? Give us the goss because I feel like you're good at everything. My worst money habit is definitely, I would say impulse buying. It looks a little bit different

to other people. When I really want something, I will just buy it regardless of whether I've like, you know, I could have saved up for it. Like, I don't know if you can see in the background, this little tank here is my snake. Oh my gosh. And I just bought it one day. You just came home with a snake? Because I wanted one. That is very funny. How did your partner feel about just coming home to a snake? well he actually is studying to um be a zookeeper so he's in the circus he's at the zoo like what it's like a match made in heaven i'm obsessed with this couple i want to know so much more last question before we go for a really quick break what grade would you give your money habits

if we forced you to give yourself a grade i think i'd give myself a b plus i think i've been set up and I've continued some really good habits. But when it comes to a little bit more of a structure, because I haven't had one before, I do struggle with that, especially, you know, when I have had full-time work or structures like, you know, increasing super for the future. I think that is where I need a lot more work. Yeah. Okay. I like that. But I also feel like as a woman who is 23 now years old. Like, Abby, I'm not, nah, like I'm just throwing you straight in the bin there. You are very close to an A plus, my love. Let's talk more about your zookeeper partner straight after this break, though. All right, we are back and I want to dive straight in over the

top of you, Jessica Ricci. I do apologize. This is a bit pervy, but I want to know more about your zookeeper partner where'd you meet how'd you meet like how long have you been together you're already married and you're 22 so to me this is just wild because at 22 I was not the most responsible human if we put it like that so if I do say so myself we have a cute little love story oh we wanted to know all of it then so we met in Sunday school when we were children oh my and became best friends and we're inseparable for many years and he actually told me when we were 12 that he would marry me and I was like you little creep stop it boy jams but then you know through life we hadn't seen each other for about six years and

mainly due to my traveling and I hadn't seen him or his family or had any contact and then on Valentine's Day last year we ran into each other and then yeah basically within that week We were like, we're still as obsessed as we were when we were 12. And then we got married August last year. So there was about six months between us meeting and getting married, but obviously we did have that history. Yeah, because he told you when you were 12 that he was going to marry you. Did he say, I told you so for that one?

Yeah, like, did you have cute vows? He did in his vows. Oh my gosh, my heart. Very cute. Do you know what? Anybody else would have seen that as a red flag. Like our money director is like, straight on in, let's go, let's marry this man. That's so sweet.

What are your plans for when you're traveling with the circus? Is that like, will you be traveling, you know, state to state? Because that's how, you know, circuses generally will perform on like a roving schedule where they're traveling around. What does that look like for you and your partner? Because I'm assuming being a zookeeper, there's a little bit less flexibility there and he'd probably be based in one place. yeah so the circus I've yet to work in a traveling circus it's definitely a goal of mine

but I've worked in more like corporate spaces of circus so if you have a big corporate event people hire performers for those or I've worked in like stationary shows or like ones that have like residency contracts so that does make it a little bit easier for if I was to get a contract that's traveling we've already talked that he would you know come with me and he would either be a roadie and help you know with pack up pack down that kind of like manual labor side because he's done that in the past he worked in sound and lighting prior to working with animals or I am trying to convince him to do a circus act with me oh my god he yeah he's not so keen he's done knife throwing in the past and I don't know if you've ever seen but there's a you guys

I just came home with a snake oh yeah my partner gonna be a zoologist what do you do oh I'm in the circus and my partner throws knives yeah but all of that supported by good financial underpinnings like what you've got mortgages as well live your best life live your best life I want to be you when I grow up what would you guys do together and also what do you do because there's like a lot of different areas within like I guess the spectrum of circus that you can specialize in right yes so I'm an aerialist so that's my main thing so I do anything that's in the air silks trapeze lira etc so I've worked in the circus professionally since I was 15 so I took a year off school did a full-time course and then started working in the circus did go back and finish

school. But yeah, I've been working since then. So that's like my main thing. I do a little bit of ground stuff, but I'm a bit clumsy on the ground. My safe place is in the air. Oh my gosh. I'm obsessed with you. I love this. All right. When it comes down to it, I want to know, how did you end up with mortgages so young? Can I be a little bit pervy and ask? Because obviously when you're 22 and you obviously have quite varied income, it's not as easy as going to the bank and saying, hey, I have a 20% deposit, give me a loan. So I feel like there might be a little bit more backstory there that I would love to know a bit more about my love. I'm glad you asked because I love telling people how I got into the property market because it's

a little bit different. And the kind of asterisks I'll put on it is that I was not looking for my dream property and I was happy to be flexible with what I was finding. So that gave me a lot more opportunities but when I was overseas I was uh studying and I was one day I was just sitting in my room and I was like you know what I want to move back to Australia I want to buy a house which is really weird I was really enjoying living in Europe and never thought I would ever come back and so I on that contract it was all the expenses paid so what we earned from that contract just went straight into savings we didn't have any bills which was really amazing uh for that nine months that I was on that contract. And so I saved up a pretty penny, but then COVID hit and

I was stuck in London during majority of like the first stint of COVID. And so all of that money went down the drain. So that was a bit sad because that was meant to be, you know, my deposit for a house. So when I came back, I was feeling a bit deflated. I only had, I think I came back with only about 2000 Australian dollars. Understandably so though. Not going to get you very far. on a deposit for a house but I came back and I started working at a restaurant as soon as I got back and I worked as many shifts as they would give me so I think I was working 56 hour weeks towards the end of that I took a second job on the side I was living with my mum so I was really lucky not to have to pay for rent and I would mainly just eat you know the carcasses of what

groceries she was buying so I didn't have to buy a lot for myself and I took the bus even though I had a car to save on those expenses and I saved about 20 grand and I went to the broker when I only had about five saved and said hey this is my plan I'm fast tracking to save 20 grand in the next three months right now I only have five but I promise you I will get there what mortgage can I get and what like do I need to set up my finances to make sure that that will happen early next year and so I started looking for properties about four months after I got home and I had that savings but as we all know the property market's been a bit crazy so a few of my offers were rejected but finally I found a place that was about 100 grand less than they

said they would loan me and I was like perfect because it's a much more affordable mortgage each week so I'm glad I did that and I bought the property on my own so my now husband wasn't a part of that at all we kind of met during that process but that was my thing and I saw it through on my own and then the second property we did buy together we used that equity on the home I bought on my own to pay for everything for the other property so we had to put no money towards that we had quite a bit of equity I think it was about 50 grand in those six months between when I bought this property and when we were looking at the other property that we had to play with so holy moly that was really nice do you guys share your finances fully as a couple yes I know that lots

of other couples don't but for us it just makes it easier he is happy for me to take the reins with that when we met he didn't work very much he had a lot of after pay and zip pay debt and we kind of worked together to get better habits and he's now like super interested but by putting it together it just gives us a little bit more money to work with each week and stretch a bit further. It's just whatever works for you like there's no right or wrong like you said for some couples that doesn't work but for you guys it does and that's awesome. Yeah. I love it so much. So what's the property plan moving forward? Is the plan to build up some equity and purchase some new houses or what are we doing when it comes to creating passive revenue yes so that is the plan

we um planning on sitting down with a broker again in a couple weeks to just see if there's a potential for us to buy another property before we go overseas next year and see if that's something we want to do so obviously our finances don't are definitely not in a position at the moment to buy somewhere but by the end of this year we'll be ready to go back to full-time work and so we'll probably sit down with them and ask okay like what do we need to be earning what does our bank need to look like how much equity do we need to have on the property to buy a third or a second investment property and just see if that's something we want to push ourselves to do or if We'd rather just relax and not, but we're definitely keen

if we can do it, to do that just because once we go overseas, we won't really buy for a few more years. So, yeah, there's definitely the opportunity to get another property. The valuation on the house that we live in has gone up since we bought the other property, so there is a little bit more equity to play with again, which is quite nice. But, yeah, just play it by ear at the moment and working

with someone to see if that's a possibility. Oh my gosh. I'm obsessed. Like that's crazy to me that you're in such a strong financial position because, you know, me being me knowing enough about mortgages and how it all works, I genuinely thought you were going to come in and be like, okay, cool. Like there was some family help there, but you're a little stellar saver and I should never have doubted you. What a queen. I love this. Well, there was a little bit of family help, you know, having your bills paid for and not having to pay, you know, rent and groceries every week definitely, you know, makes it much easier to save a deposit. So very grateful for that at the beginning. Of course, of course. How did you find working overseas in terms of

income and tax? Because that's something we get asked a lot. A lot of people are really interested, I think now, especially after being locked up for a couple of years during COVID, people want to know about, I guess, that more nomadic lifestyle where you do get to travel around and do things like that. Did you find it really complicated, you know, living in one country, earning money, but then obviously like you're Australian, so you've got tax responsibilities here. How did you navigate that and figure out, you know, what the right thing to do was? So I buried my head in the sand. I ignored it. Yeah, honest answer. Probably not the best method I think kind of end of last year I finally did all my tax returns for the last you know six

years or whatever I had but hadn't been done but the kind of benefit of me doing that or how I was able to do it without getting into too much trouble with when I was overseas I was under my British passport so I'm a dual citizen yeah okay so most of the time when I lived in Canada I didn't work so I didn't have to worry about tax implications there and then the rest of the time was in Europe so it was under my British passport there's definitely a few things that I am due to look at over there in terms of like I'm pretty sure one of our contracts we had some sort of like insurance or taxes that were under like a Germany umbrella and we have some money that we were owed back but it was all in German on the piece of paper and so I just never looked at it

but I'm sure I've got some money over there that either needs to be paid or I need to get back yeah yeah definitely wasn't the best attitude I had towards it but yeah definitely moving forward when we go overseas next year we're kind of already setting up how that will look and how we're meant to do you know the right thing rather than you know me just you know putting my head in the sand and hoping for the best yeah okay great plan I like the sound of that oh my gosh I think that's all we have time for today Jess unless you had some sneaky last minute questions no that was such a fun diary. Thank you for sharing with us. That was just so interesting. I feel like we were on a roller coaster, literally, or we'd been thrown literally into the circus. Love. Love.

Thank you for having me. All right, Jess, unfortunately, it is time. Can you wrap the boring but important stuff? Of course. Don't forget, guys, 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 a financial decision and we promise victoria divine and cheese on the money are authorized representatives of in focus securities australia proprietary limited abn 47097 797 049 afsl 236 523 see you on wednesday guys bye