She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: She's a Globe Trotting Game Changer!

Episode Date: September 4, 2022

This Money Diarist is a super hard working, globe trotting wonder woman! We chat to her from her home in the Netherlands all about her conflicting childhood money story (one parent wanted to save, while the other splurged), working to change the script for herself and gain financial independence, supporting her parents through their tough situation as residents of Venezuela (inflation there currently sits at around 500%) and SO much more. We cannot wait for you to meet this powerhouse!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 beautiful community members to learn about their finances and their money story and a whole heap of other interesting things as well. Victoria. Yes. Today I have an international diarist for you.

An international diarist? Yeah, they're coming to us all the way from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which is wild. How cool. I know. let me tell you their story. We've gone international, Jess. Are we global? Is that what we've done? I think so. So our diarist says, I'm an elder millennial who grew up seeing only stress around money due to a lack of steady jobs, poor career and life choices from her parents and grandparents. And that is all the knowledge I had about money. I thought I would live paycheck to

paycheck my entire life and would have to work until I died. However, in the last five to six years, I've managed to turn my life around by moving countries seven times, making better decisions regarding my career and my money. I know how to save, invest, set goals, earn a six-figure salary, and I want to tell my story so that people listening to the podcast who are closer to my age group know that it's never too late and you can turn your life and financial situation around even if you are in your late 30s. Oh my gosh, I want you to tell your story too. Money Darius, welcome to the show. I'm so excited that you're here. Hi, I'm the one who's excited to be here. Super excited.

Oh, my gosh, no. I cannot believe you're in the Netherlands. That is wild to me. Yeah. I had a pen pal in the Netherlands once. You had a what? Pen pal. Oh, that's a blast from the past.

A pen pal. I haven't heard of those in years. It was when I was a child, but it was still kind of fun. Yeah, still kind of real cool, though. Yeah. And now we can tell everyone about our digital pen pal from the show. Oh, my gosh, yes. Well, let's get into it and ask our digital pen pal some questions.

Marnie Dyrus, are you ready to jump headfirst into it? Yeah, let's do it. Lucky, lucky because I am too. All right, let's go. Can you tell me a little bit about your money story? Yeah, so my money story is a bit complex because I come from a household of a mixed race family. So on my dad's side, they're European and they obviously were quite impacted with World War II. So my grandparents were good earners and I think they were very good with money, good savers.

but unfortunately didn't have much time to spend with them. I actually didn't meet my grandmother and then my grandfather died when I was nine. My father is like a little bit on the frugal stingy side and on the other hand on my mom's side they are Latin American and they had a very complicated upbringing so they would live in poverty even though technically they didn't need to, but my grandfather would just waste money on, you know, just bars. He would lend money to friends, things like that. So my mom actually was on the other side of, I want to have a nice life. I want to bring, give things, nice things to my children. And there was always this things like, for example, we would go on a shopping spree with my mom and then she would come home and tell us,

hide the clothes. And if your dad says anything, you know, you say, this is very old. I've already had it for ages. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And basically what I saw growing up around money was just a lot of conflict and stress around it. Also, my parents used to be business owners and they were always looking for like that big million dollar idea that would just bring them to become rich very quickly and it would just blow up on their faces. And on the other hand, also what I saw was that like my Latin American grandparents, they also were hustling until they were in their 80s. And then they were also financially dependent on my parents until, you know, they died. So that's what I grew up seeing. And that's the cycle that I wanted to get away from. Wow. And have you worked

your way away from that? Like what have you been implementing to be on the flip side of that? Yeah, so definitely one of the things like my upbringing had had an impact on different decisions of my life. So one of them is that I don't want to have children and I don't want to get married. I want to be like really, really financial and independent. And I also don't want to become a burden for, you know, potential children later on. So until just a few years ago, I was living not just paycheck to paycheck, but I was actually every time my salary would hit my bank account at the end of the month, I was like in minus a thousand bucks. Wow. So I was always in debt. And if something major would come, I would just have to get a loan. And then that just kept spiraling from there. and it wasn't until I moved from France to the Netherlands that I was able to get out of that cycle because I got a much better salary and I was able to like get some investment that I had in the other country and so on and since then I've been starting to be like more mindful with

how I spend my money and making sure that I save a big chunk of my salary every month. Yeah wow that's crazy to think that it took an international move or another international move to change that with your move was it a big mindset change as well as a physical change it was a mix of things I actually you're not gonna believe it but I actually lived in the French Riviera which I know you're living my dream I would spend a lot of money there too I get it I get it so I was living in Nice and I actually hated it from the moment I went to do my first interview. Really? Yeah. I tell people that it's like dating someone really hot with no brain and personality. After a while, you need more consistency. So I really wanted to get out of

there. I wanted to change my lifestyle. And then I was not really even thinking about the money. It was just the moment that they told me how much when they gave me the job offer. And I was just like in shocked to see how much it was because it was a 50% increase of what I was making. Wow. Wow. That is so much money. Yeah. And then on top of that, there is this financial benefit that you get in the Netherlands when you're a high skilled immigrant, you get a 30% discount on your income tax for five years oh my god that's amazing oh my gosh that would make me move there as well yeah it's a reason why a lot of people move here oh I actually had no idea that that existed do you know why they offer that or is it just to you know promote you guys moving and

supporting their economy yeah it's partially that it's a way to encourage people to move because the Netherlands is a very small country and it has become like Amsterdam has become quite a tech hub. There's a lot of job offers and there's not enough people to fulfill those jobs. So they do kind of import people from a lot of places. Yeah. Wow. That's actually really cool to know, especially, you know, a lot of our community have been asking questions recently about moving internationally and where they should go and what they should do. That's a big draw card. I like that one. Money Diarist, I want to know, we mentioned moving for work. What do you do for work and how much money do you now earn? Yeah. So I am a project manager for professional

services in a tech company. So we offer software as a service and I just changed jobs actually. So I was having the same role, but in a different company. And thanks to you, Victoria, I managed to negotiate my salary like i had never negotiated it before oh my gosh yes i'm not quite sure how much is gonna hit my salary at the end of the month but my package is at 160k australian dollars oh my gosh plus a 15 yearly bonus and i also have 11.5 percent pension or super for you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. How cool is that? Is that what you've always earned or have you worked your way up to that? Because to me, that sounds like a lot of money. Yeah, no, I've worked myself up to that slowly, but surely. And one of the reasons also

I negotiated my salary was because in January next year, I'm going to lose this benefit of the tax discount. Yeah. So that has been on my mind from the moment that I moved here is how do I make sure that the impact is not that big? Yeah, no, that makes absolute sense. That's crazy. Because I'm going to be like, for example, I estimate I'm going to get around 10k per month with this new job. And then after February, it's going to be 8k. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh. All right. I want to know with all of that money, what is your big money goal? So my big money goal is to be independent when I'm a senior, when I'm old and have enough money to get me to live comfortably in my retirement until my deathbed. It sounds a little bit catastrophic.

Oh my gosh. So morbid. But it makes sense. It makes sense, especially given your money story, to just know that you're comfortable and getting it done. I think that that's a really cool goal and really clear as well. Yeah. All right. Next question. If we are going to achieve this financial freedom, you're going to need some investments. Do you have any? If so, what are they? I do. And again, this is thanks to you on the podcast because I was terrified about investing, but I decided, okay, I need to start somehow. I currently have, well, my pension, but this is something that I need to look deeper into because it's a little bit complicated having switched countries within the European Union. And so at the moment, there's only one platform where I can see

how much money I really have in there. So for my pension, I have 35 and a half K Australian dollars. I'm telling you everything in Australian dollars because it makes more sense for the audience no it totally makes it thank you i appreciate it so prepared i was like ready to try we were ready to do it for you i already did the math yesterday and already did the queen thank you my pension is 35.5k i have a micro investment platform here in the netherlands where i currently have 9.5k from my previous company i also have shares and it's at 41.2k and I have a guided platform for investment with my bank which is 16.3k so I currently have a total portfolio of 102.5k Australian dollars. Oh my gosh so you are doing well when it comes to working

towards that retirement of yours? Well I think I'm doing a good job although considering my age I think it could be a lot better but I'm not going to in the past I'm going to focus on what I've done in the last few years. Absolutely not. I think you are doing an epic job. All right. I want to know, do you have any debts? The only debt that I currently have is my mortgage and that is sitting at 491K. And what did you purchase your home for? So I was one of those people that thought I could rent forever. I was so happy when I heard you say that, you know, money for rent is not wasted money because i always thought the same i think that this you're paying for something that you are using it's not really going to waste it's a service yes but when i moved here to the

netherlands the accommodation here is absolutely crazy it's really really hard to find a place rents are incredibly high buying is also very very difficult but after the first year here i saw how much my rent increased. And then as a good project manager, I did a forecast of how much is my rent going to be in five years and how much is my salary going to decrease once I lose the tax benefit. So I noticed this is not going to work out. Not good. So I got a mortgage advisor. I looked up my options and then I realized that it was much better to buy. So I have a one bedroom apartment in Amsterdam it's good enough for me and my two kitties my two cats oh my gosh I love it yeah and I was actually very happy to do this move also on my own and

right before COVID because like things have gone absolutely crazy and it took me longer to make the decision but then once I decided to buy the apartment in two weeks I already had an apartment so I feel very lucky. Oh my gosh how cool is that I love that you as a project manager were like yeah all right so what we're going to do is we're going to map it out we're going to do some forecasting we're going to work it out because I feel like so many of us just guess or so many of us just go oh that's not going to be feasible or that's not going to work but I love that you've put the numbers behind it and said you know what I didn't want to do this but I worked out the financial outcome of this and what that means for me and put myself in the best position that is

very cool yeah i do have to say that there was a big advantage as well here in the netherlands you can get up to 100 the loan of the value of the property so here is very very difficult to get a place and you usually have to bid for apartments and houses yeah so you usually have to overbid. So for example, I had to overbid around 50K more for my place. Yeah. As long as whatever you overbid doesn't go over the market value of the place, then the bank will loan you a hundred percent. So I only had to save the money for buyer's cost, you know, for the notary and all of that. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh, Jess, I've worked it out. She's a plant. She's a plant from the netherland government and she's here to tell us all to move to the netherlands because

like 100% loans discounts on tax like i'm here for it this sounds epic it's pretty cool all right money diarist next question is what is your best money habit well besides putting everything automatic to be paid including myself first and most like all of my savings my investment and so because I'm also from the ADHD club so I really need to get that done the coolest club to be a part of yeah another one is roundups so I use roundups for as much as I can and one of my favorite money habits is I have a bank account where I have a savings account for holidays and what I do is whenever I travel, I use the card from that bank account. And then as I spend during my holidays, the Roundup saves back to that same account. Very cool. So it means I, well, I travel

and I spend, I save back for my holidays, my next holiday. Yeah. Very cool. All right. Well, I want to know the opposite. What is your worst money habit? So one of my worst money habits is not being able to budget very well for my parents' needs. So like I said before, my sister and me, we are supporting my parents entirely where they live. And whenever there is an unexpected expense, I just struggle to tell them to wait. So I'm usually like, okay, how much is it? Okay. I'm sending the money right away. And, you know, it's interesting because I hear so many people freaking out about inflation and and i know like it's also affecting me here in the netherlands but like where my parents live the inflation just this year has been 650 percent what

where are your parents they live in venezuela oh my gosh that is crazy so the situation in venezuela has been a humanitarian crisis for many many many years now more than two decades and uh yeah it's just uh quite crazy it's absolutely insane oh my gosh both of us screeching wash at the same time that is that's actually insane i have so many questions about that we'll do it straight after the break but that is such a special thing that you do for your parents before we do get into the thick of it though i want to know what would you grade your money habits if we forced you to give yourself a grade so i would give myself a b minus because i think I still need to learn a lot more about investment. I want to be more independent, not just have these

self-guided platforms. And also I need to learn better where my pension money is, what are they doing with it and how would it be consolidated once I retire? So yeah, I still think that there are things I can improve. So B minus. Yeah, cool. All right. Well, don't go anywhere because after this break, I want to ask you all about how you're supporting your parents and have moved so many times internationally. Don't go anywhere. All right, diving back in, you mentioned before that you and your sister completely financially support your parents, which is a massive undertaking for anybody. How did that eventuate? Tell me a little bit more about that. It has been a lifetime of poor decisions, let's say.

Like I said before, my parents never really liked working for someone. So they would start businesses that would then fail. And it just went on like that for their entire lives, basically. And then the last decision that they made was to move to Venezuela when the political situation of the country was already bad, even though it kind of made sense for them at the time, because with what they had, they would really be able to survive better in Venezuela, financially speaking, let's say. but then yeah things just went from there and now they're they don't work anymore they are already in their retirement years it's just even if they did work in Venezuela the minimum salary is $20 like American dollars per what per month oh wow if you go to buy groceries for like three people in one week you spent more than $200 what how do people there survive that's insane yeah

that's a very good question so I there is a mix of people having families abroad like my parents with us and then there's like hustling so people hustle a lot like in the black market let's say For example, if somebody does a mani-pedi, they can get $15 with the mani-pedi in, you know, like an hour and a half versus a schoolteacher that would be making like $20. And this was actually the minimum salary that they put for this year. But last year, they would be making $2 a month, a schoolteacher. What? That is blowing my mind. I had absolutely no idea, which is probably speaking to my naivety on global circumstances. Yeah. And it's really sad when you go there and see the situation of the country also because,

you know, it's a country that has a lot of sanctions from the US. It's insane. But the thing is, getting them out of there would be way, way more expensive and complicated because we would need to you know apply for visas yeah wow having them here would just completely blow up our budgets so while they are there they have a house you know they are overall they are in comfortable conditions like even if there is no running water we can send money for them to get one of those trucks you know that bring water yeah of course so we have the advantage that we can send money here and it just goes a long way more than if we had them here with us because it's also three people. My aunt also lives there. So yeah, it's been stuck between a rock and a hard place

sometimes. But yeah, luckily we make good money and we can provide for them. I'm sure your parents are so incredibly proud of you and how you're able to support them. That is an epic achievement for anybody. But I want to know, how did you pick your career? How did you go, all right, well, you've obviously got a really good income. How did you end up down the path you're down? So I studied software engineering as my bachelor degree. And then most of the countries I lived in was growing up. But as an adult, I've only lived in my home country where I finished uni. And I also started quite late. So I moved to France in 2008. I became financially independent in 2009 once I had my internship from my master's degree. My master was in project management. So I was

always very determined and stubborn, I'd say, on what I wanted. So I set very clear goals for myself. And I knew, for example, regarding my career, that I didn't want to do anything that was not linked somehow to project management. And I'm very happy because two years ago in my previous job, I finally got the project manager type of role that I always wanted. So it took a while to get there. I had a variety of jobs, but everything was, you know, around software development manager, release manager, things like that, that require a lot of project management skills and yeah I think that that was it I have been following a bit as well my intuition and just being very determined with the goals that I set for myself and just not giving up on on that

I can see you're very determined everything you're doing is telling me you're incredibly determined thanks I had a question about your I suppose journey you know you've lived in seven different countries, which is incredible. How have you found managing finances? Because as we've just heard, obviously the financial situation in where you are now compared to here in Australia, compared to where your parents are, it's all very different. How have you found navigating a whole new financial system every time you start in a new country? Yeah. So like I said, I did most of my moving around when I was younger and when I was financially dependent. But I think what I've noticed the most nowadays is that I actually

had no idea about finances. For me, it was just like, okay, you get a bank account and they pay your salary in the bank account and that's it. You try to budget throughout the month. I do think that nowadays, if I move again, which I'm pretty sure I will be doing at some point, one of the things that I would take into consideration when I move is not, do I like the city or the country? And, you know, does it seem like a cool place to leave? Because that was before kind of my goal is just like, oh, I would really like to live in Paris, you know, and I really want to live in Amsterdam. But I think now I am more conscious of taking care of those things. Like what are the finances? What are the pension plans? How will I manage to get

the pension plan if I move to some country in Asia? How am I going to be able to compensate that yeah with what I have now so I think if I can give an advice to myself and other people that are expats and move around a lot is definitely investigate research more about how finances work and what advantages you can take like for example if I decided to move to Australia I would know so much that's so good well come over we can be best friends yeah i think that doubts it it does change quite a lot and it's something that you definitely need to to research in advance and be more mindful and make sure is this really going to help my financial goals especially if you're already in your 30s it's something good speaking of those

goals you just said that you're pretty sure you're going to move again where did you want to move and why do you want to move because you've obviously set yourself up you've bought your apartment that you've got for you and your two little gorgeous kitties. What makes you feel like you will want to move again in the future? I am a nomad at heart. I mean, the first time that I moved to another country, I was four years old and I just started getting itchy feet. So it's going to be five years in January that I live in the Netherlands. I've been wanting, for example, to live for a while somewhere in Asia. So I would love to live in South Korea. I'm not sure if that's gonna happen because it's complicated not speaking the language for the job that I do

yeah but I would definitely like to leave for a year or two somewhere in Asia so I can also take advantage of that time to travel around Asia and you know Australia well APEC in general yeah wow okay but what will you do with your apartment if you leave will you rent it out or will you sell it I would rent it out because like this is a gold mine to have property in Amsterdam so there's no way I would sell it. I did wonder. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. So I would definitely rent it out. And potentially, if I do sell it at some point, I would do it towards, you know, my retirement and buy somewhere something else. I don't want to retire in the Netherlands. That's something that I know for sure, because the health system here is not that great compared

to other european countries so i will probably move back to either france or spain for my retirement and yeah buying a house or an apartment there is much cheaper all right money diarist and jess i think that is all we have time for today money diarist thank you so much for joining us all the way from amsterdam in the netherlands you're welcome thank you very much for having me i'm so excited that you took an international monitor oh my gosh i'm so excited too thank you so much with that though jess unfortunately it is time to wrap the boring but important stuff take it away don't forget guys 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 a financial decision and we promise victoria divine and she's on the money are authorized representatives of In Focus Securities Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 47097797049, AFSL 236523. See you on Wednesday, guys. Bye.