She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Side hustle turned full time job

Episode Date: August 1, 2021

Happy Monday friends! Our money diarist this week shares how she's made hay while the sun is shining, and how she's made turning her side hustle into a full time gig! Love ya xOur fearless leader and money queen B has written a book! You can order Victoria Devine's book right here!!!!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 Shop Back Money Diary is Miss Victoria Devine. Hello, my friend. Thank you for joining me again today on this sunny day. It's not sunny outside.

It's not. It's really dreary. Yeah. You're welcome. It'll do. So we've got a little bit of a different spin on a Money Diary today, which I think you're really going to like. Am I?

And it might cross over into one of our other podcasts called The Business Bible. Oh, will it? Ooh, cute. Yeah, so if this podcast sparks anything for you, you can jump over and listen to the Business Bible and maybe have a look at some small business tips. I'm quite biased, but when it comes to business podcasts, that is probably the best business That's definitely the best one. I don't think there are any others.

I actually can't even think of another one better than that podcast. All right, should we get right into it? Yeah, read out her email, please, Doni Lodge. Hey, she's on the money team. I saw that you were looking for money diarists whose side hustles have become their full-time gigs and I wanted to reach out because that is me I've just done it backwards I quit my full-time job earlier this year to give my side hustle a real go as I knew I wouldn't give it enough thought unless I took the plunge and went all in I do content creation and have been working on and

off as a photographer and in production roles since I was 14 I've always wanted to give media work a shot but was worried about not being able to find enough clients to support myself financially bit of a fickle industry that's actually such a hard industry and i'm so excited to hear that she was like no i back myself enough to know that if i don't have any other option i'm gonna get it done yeah that's so cool i'm super lucky to live with my parents rent free and like so many others was meant to go backpacking around europe last year so i had a ton of money in savings old covid i decided that this year was as good a time as any so handed in my notice started focusing on publishing more of my own photography online and started live to create a creative media agency

with a few friends. We are slowly picking up clients and looking forward to seeing where this endeavor takes us. That's very cool. She's already on the line because that's how this works guys. Hello money diarist. Hello how are you guys? We are so good. I want to know all about your small business and what you've been up to and how it's been going but first we've got the questions that we go through. So we get the bricks and mortar of what's going on so then we can deep dive into it after bricks and mortar yeah that was good wasn't it that was interesting thank you yeah interesting doesn't mean good sorry we'll talk about this later i'm taking this conversation offline and what we're going to talk about is money dosed what is your attitude towards money

so from a really young age my parents did teach us about the value of money so little things like if we wanted something unnecessary like a i mean like a house badge pin at school or something we had to work like extra chores around the house they would afford those little things so they did a really good job of teaching us like money just doesn't grow on trees from quite a young age um and then when I was about 14 I did year 10 work experience as a photographer and got a job with that company straight after and I've been working as a photographer on and off since then pretty much oh that's so young to get into something like so cool and I love that your parents taught you from a young age as well and that you like remember it because so many people

I actually can't remember like when I started having money conversations because when you're a kid you don't care about as long as you can have lollies and you know like buy new toys and stuff you're like oh I don't care about money mom and dad just have it that's that that's what they deal with yeah yeah I'm like it sounds so old like when we're like oh back in our day do you remember getting gold coins and thinking that was sick yeah kids these days are probably like Tony what are we going to do with a coin? Literally. Yeah. Do I get a Bitcoin? No. Okay. I want Dogecoin. All right. So, next question is, what do you currently do for work? I think we already know, but you're going to explain in a little more detail. And how much money do you earn?

So, until earlier this year, I was working full-time as a photographer for a company. I was on $50,000 a year for that job. And then, as I said earlier, I handed in my notice, quit that and started up a side hustle or content creation agency with a few friends and I'm also working at a pub a couple hours a week just to avoid touching my savings and I get about $300 a week from that pub job oh cool so that's enough to I mean you live at home which is really lucky um yeah yeah that $300 a week is is more than enough to pay your phone bill and groceries you get to live at home exactly I could just come as like petrol and if I want to go to dinner I once a few weeks every few weeks with friends pre lockdown and they would go just do that with

friends without touching my savings account yeah I love that and I mean if you're at home and it's obviously a privilege and like we all know that but I think it's one of those things that if you're at home like make hay while the sun is shining like how much can you set up before you move out and you have all of those really big costs because I know when I was at home and I did move out when I was 18 but like I did not I took it for granted like I did not make the most of anything even at 18 and then I watched my little sister who has lived at home on and off throughout that period and I'm like oh she goes home and she saves and like mum and dad want to support her and I'm just like oh the envy is real yeah anyway next question what is currently your big money goal

so kind of like everyone else my big money goal is to one day be able to afford a property so I do have quite a bit in savings at the moment that's just a long-term savings account for that money goal great and I also really want to buy a van and drive around Australia taking photos as I go oh that's kind of like second plan don't know when that's gonna happen yet but that's been a goal since I was a kid all right but like you said you've got heaps of savings like this is a money diary episode what does heaps of savings mean um I have 55,000 in a long-term account oh my gosh in a holiday fund and then a support yourself fund which is just over two thousand dollars what and how old did you say you were again my friend I'm 24 oh my gosh how did you do that

definitely making hay while the sun is shining like take advantage of it like some people be like I've got five grand saved I can absolutely quit my job and like start this small business oh no I've got $55,000 saved that's so exciting I don't know when I want to save for something I really knuckle down and don't let myself spend money unless I really need to how did you adopt the mindset of like no I really need to save even though you're at home because so many people are like oh my gosh I lived at home and I never took advantage of it was there like a moment in time where you were like oh my gosh like I actually have a great opportunity here to save or like Was it ingrained or like how do other people get into that mindset

and start doing exactly what you're doing if they're at home? Yeah, give us your savings tax. Yeah, give us your golf. I think for me one of the big things was I love travelling. I absolutely love travelling and I know my parents aren't going to fund that addiction to travel. So for me, the second I finished school, I started saving for the holidays and then started uni and got the opportunity to go live overseas

for a year for uni. So I had to fund that entire year up front before I left Australia. And you've done all of that and saved $55,000 plus all of your other accounts in addition to having funded a year abroad already. Yes. Oh, my gosh. So what is your biggest saving tip? Come on. Be really stingy.

Be stingy. I love it. It's the simplest savings hack that there is, is just don't actually spend it. Good plan. Yeah, like if you can avoid spending something unnecessarily, I just don't. or if I know I need something, I try and wait until there's a sale coming up so I can down the track buy it in a month or two a little bit cheaper. So, moving back into questions, do you currently invest?

I actually have recently started investing through Spaceship. So, I have about $1,000 in a Spaceship account at the moment but I have also been looking into other bigger investment platforms over the last couple of months. Very cool. And what are your plans on it? Like are you going to stay on Spaceship for a while or like what other big platforms are you talking about?

I have been looking into a couple of the ETFs that you guys have mentioned over the last couple of months and then also into the six-part platform you guys are talking about. And I'm thinking about taking maybe like $10,000, $15,000 out of my long-term savings to start investing because it's not really earning any interest at the moment in my long-term savings account. Yeah, interest rates at the moment are looking arguably dismal, but that is okay.

so I feel like I know the answer to this but do you have any debts yes I actually have a gigantic hex debt um my hex debt is nearly fifty thousand dollars that's okay um but other than that I've never had a credit card and like even my car I bought a brand new car when I got home from exchange and I paid that up front as well so I've never had any other debts other than my That is really impressive. And I feel like so many people need to see their debt in that way. Like HexDeck can feel really heavy if you're not educated on what it means and what it gets you. But I guess it's one of those things that once you actually fully comprehend, like, oh, actually, that's kind of productive for me to have. Like, I don't need to stress about it.

It becomes so much easier. Or even if you have no other debt, I can understand how it would feel for you to be like, I've got one debt and it's this huge thing you know when you've got a few other debts you're like all right my heck is like the least of my worries yeah but when you've got no other debt you're kind of like oh do I need to deal with this but yeah I think that like you always say Victoria good and bad debt and okay debt yeah exactly so like I'm not stressed about paying that one down or doing extra installments for that one because it is good debt it's not earning much interest I can deal with that as I start earning money down the track yeah fair fair all

right next question that we've recently started asking it's not even that recent now is it Tony it's been weeks yeah it's been a couple of weeks but I like it I like hearing the hacks yeah so do you currently use shop back I don't I've looked into it a couple of times but then every time I go to buy something I seem to just forget about it until I get home and it's like oh I should have looked through shop back but no not at the moment so common it's like one of those things where it seems to be the people that are really good at shop back make it a habit and they like set themselves up so that they only do it through that and Tony you were saying the other day that you'd added it to your browser yeah yeah on chrome so it's just kind of like is it automatic then

yeah so you just download it as like a um like an extension an extension yeah I was gonna say add-on but you uh seem to know all about it money diaries um and then there's like that little puzzle piece in the corner and when I go to check out it'll be like oh shop back has found like three for you or whatever um and it's so much better and I've actually this is my little hack um I've actually started telling myself that I'm not allowed to buy things on my phone yeah like I'll if I'm gonna buy something I have to like grab my laptop just because then there's that like one extra step because if I'm just sitting on Instagram while I'm watching TV at night time I'm like oh yeah I'll buy that but if I'm like okay no I've got to get my laptop then I know

that i'll add in the shop back as well yeah and i know that i can't just sit there and like mindlessly spend while i'm watching tv yeah it's i think it's yeah and i found that i wasn't as good at shop back when it was on my phone and i had to like then open the app yeah it was weird like and stuff yeah exactly it's so easy but i'm just like so forgetful yeah it's easy but like i'm so lazy when it comes time like oh another hurdle but reduces the hurdles i like that I feel like we're like the perfect poster people for shop back because we're like yeah save your money get it and I'm like use your laptop so that you're not just mindlessly spending on your phone I'm so smart yeah anyway moving away moving away from that next question is

what is your best money habit I don't buy anything unless I can afford it up front so I like I said I don't have credit cards I've never really needed them because I've always forced myself to save the things beforehand so even like with my 12 months overseas I worked really hard and I was working like three or four jobs at one point to save enough so I wouldn't have to get a loan or anything to fund that 12 months I wish I'd done that when I went overseas and got myself in a whole heap of personal debt at uni I wish I did that when I bought a brand new car and I bought it up front instead I wish I'd spoken to you when I was planning to go overseas I do not regret that it has helped me become who I am but I always look at people I'm like you smart cookie yeah I wish I

knew that um and and again it's such a simple thing to say like oh you know and obviously everybody's situation is different sometimes to you know manage your cash flow and and manage what you need to do like you need a credit card or you you know you work well with after pay or whatever as we've said before sometimes they are that necessary evil or they're the best way for you to control your your cash flow but I think it's really cool that you say like no well if I don't have the cash for it um I don't have the cash for it I saw this thing on Instagram once and it said if you can't afford to buy it twice don't buy it yeah I like I like that too I never I don't listen to it but I really liked the idea it's a great quote how often do you see quotes on

the internet and you're like that is so good I remember that my phone is full of yeah and you You take screenshots. This is my screenshot, yeah. You've never seen it again. Yep. And then sometimes you're like looking for a photo and you're scrolling through it and you're like, oh, yeah. Why did I like that again? Because it was 3 a.m., Victoria.

You liked it at 3 a.m. All right. The next question is what is your worst money habit? I don't budget at all. When I had a full-time job, I had a rough budget going. But since I've quit that, I just honestly wing it most weeks. I chuck straight away $60 goes into my spaceship account. But other than that, I put a little bit into, like,

my long-term savings, a little bit into, like, the support yourself fund and a little bit to my holiday fund and just kind of hope that the remainder gets me through the week. But more often than not, I have to go into my support yourself fund and get a little bit more, like, a little bit out because they would pay for, like, capsule or groceries or something each week. Yeah, so do you need to work on, like, is that something you would say

that I just want to be better at, like, I want to work on it because if you're going into, like, different funds to move money around? Do you find that stressful or is that not a stress because obviously you don't have overheads of living at home? Like how does that feel? It is a bit stressful because I don't like dipping into my funds. Like once they're out of my what's on my smart access, I don't like touching them again. So it does get a bit stressful when things pop up and I do have to go back into it.

But also before I quit my full-time job, I put my last two or three paychecks straight into the support yourself fund. So then when things like my retro came up, I wouldn't be able to afford that with my pub job but I had the money there so I wasn't going to my emergency savings yeah that's smart and I think it's I think it's interesting yeah I think it's interesting because so many people will say like oh but she has so many savings like she shouldn't have to stress and it's like well no just because you've got savings like money management can still stress you out because yeah I haven't got this yeah definitely and it is so stressful if you're like oh my gosh there's

not enough money on that card to pay for petrol I have to quickly transfer it and then you feel guilty. Which is the worst feeling. Yeah you're transferring it from like what you thought were savings and you're like oh well I'm saving less and it's not even a problem like it's not a bad thing it just mentally is this massive hurdle that you have to jump over and you're like ah like I if I did that differently you wouldn't have those feelings and that's I guess what budgeting does for you but we can work on that together my friend. So final question what grade would you give your money habits if i forced you to give yourself a grade i'd probably say a b plus because i think in order to get to an a i want to start investing my money smarter than how i currently

am and i need to sit down and redo my budget with my current not earning much money fund i think that's fair enough yeah i think that's more sure enough i love that yeah i love that i'm really excited about that but after the break i want to hear all about your small business and how you started that up so we are back and I am so excited to ask you about your small business as a fellow small business owner so how did you make the jump how did you know what was time like so many people always like when should I start my small business like when should I quit like how did you work that out yourself so I've been doing freelance work on the side for a couple of years like very very odd jobs like here and there maybe a couple a year um and then a couple of my

friends and I were talking about we all want to do something similar we all want to quit our jobs go all in and give it a real shot um and then earlier this year I just kind of said now is as good a time as any and handed in my notice and was going to continue going freelance by myself and then it just kind of fell into place like the other people that I'm working with now we're in a similar similar situation and we just started working together and started all pulling in clients from different parts of our own lives to start our own business and it's been a slow process but we're getting there slowly and it's been really exciting so how many friends you in business with there's four of us in total now and how did you decide that going into like

because that's like a fickle area right like going into business with a friend how did you like test the waters or set those boundaries or like make that decision and know that going into business as a group was a smarter idea than you know staying a freelancer and building up your own profile I think for us the biggest thing was we've all got very different strengths so I've got a degree in video production media production but I'm not good at editing videos whereas one of the other guys I work with is a gun video editor and then flip side like I'm really good at photography and some of the others like they might not be as strong with photography so we've all kind of realized that we all feel each other like the gaps in our own skill set we feel for each other so it just worked

really well like from the start our first client um it just worked like we worked really well and set together to film a commercial and just kind of going from there it's been pretty smooth sailing so far so you kind of got to test the waters a little bit before going let's establish a business yes smart yeah yeah it must have been so exciting so I've worked as a freelancer as well I'm sure that most people that are listening have and not only is it super exciting when you get jobs but like when you start getting those clients where you know they call you every year because they've got an event on or whatever um so it must have been so exciting for you guys to land that first client like it must just felt amazing yeah it was awesome and it was like it was at a beach near

out near our houses so it was just a fun day in the sun oh so cute commercial so it was really really good oh my god that's awesome so I know that before you said that you um really want to strengthen your skills at budgeting and you know organizing your cash flow and stuff like that do you guys do all of the the money side of things for your business as well or is that something where you're like oh I could definitely sharpen up for the business and personally um definitely could use some a bit of work in both um both areas of my life at the moment um but at the moment because we are still so new and so small as a business everything we're earning is going straight back into the business so it's not like we're having to worry about like

trying to pay salaries and stuff just yet in terms of the business side but I think budgeting could be something we could all definitely work on in that business as well it just seems so simple but like it makes so much of a difference just that that mental load of going oh yeah I do have to transfer money over or no I actually know that there's going to be enough money in there when I have to pay my red jaw or whatever yeah I'm more pervy when it comes to money and businesses because I know it can be a point of contention for a lot of small businesses like if I had a business with you Tony and we were putting everything back into the business like at what point do we take a salary and how do we pay that like so do you guys have a plan for that like are

you going to at some point all take salaries and if so will they be equal and at what point is that going to happen we've had a couple of conversations about it we still haven't really figured out exactly when but we've said we're going to go the first 12 months putting everything straight into the company and then from there we'll sit down and kind of figure out well i'm working full-time on this company so i'll take a certain salary and then one of the other guys for example might be working like three days a week on it he'll take like a pro-rated rate for that like how much work he does on the company yeah that's quite cool so you've got to get through that very very rough time yeah it's awesome that you guys have been so open about your finances which

is something we spoke in the she's on the money community a lot should you be open about that to talk about your finances and you know especially with a few mates and you're going into business it's kind of one of those things where it's like oh it'll all work out guys we'll figure it out when we get to it but i love that you guys have actually talked about it and i feel like victoria you'll maybe expect i know that i was expecting you to go oh we're just gonna figure it out but you've actually talked about which is awesome yeah I love I was kind of like oh how's this gonna go um when it came to setting up a business like nobody knows where to start who did that how did they do that what were the steps that you guys took to I guess establishing an

official business instead of just saying hey Tony you don't work with me yeah like what do you do after that like what were your steps obviously I do know but I want so we're actually really lucky that we're really lucky one of the guys that we work with his dad has a small business so his dad was kind of mentoring us all with the whole how to register for a business like an abn how to register your business name with the registry and i'm not the business side i'm not across the business side of it all um so yeah the boys have been really good talking to the dad and trying to figure out like what we need to do so we do it legally so we're not kind of skipping stuff and remember one of your business bible episodes you said to register for gst at the start so then

clients don't see that you're earning less than 75 000 a year so that was one of the first things you did yeah so like i made sure the boys did that and yeah it's been good so far already you do know what you're talking about i was about to be like oh yeah and totally you listen to the business bible obviously but yeah no i i really liked that episode actually because i wanted to be like this is what I do and obviously it's not advice it's just more I did it for these reasons because when you start off as a small business you kind of feel a little bit self-conscious that people will know like that maybe they're one of your very first clients and you're trying to impress them it's just a way to make you feel a little bit more confident because they'll see that

and go oh like they're legit and like I know it's it's not lying it's not fake like it's actually really good to set that up at the start and set the expectation with your client as well because gst which is goods and services tax is 10 and if you then at some point then say to your client like oh hey tony like i know it was a hundred dollars um but next invoice is actually going to be 110 you vocally have to go to your client be like cool i'm now earning more than 75 grand and that can happen really quickly for some businesses and it can take a really long time for some small businesses and like sometimes it just feels real awkward going to a client that you've worked with for two years and be like oh I've finally gotten over 75 grand which is so

exciting for you but at the same time you don't want to have to have that conversation with a client either to be like oh I'm charging more and I've worked with freelancers historically who have said that to me and I'd be like oh my god yes queen like you are now killing it yeah but you know I know that for them it was kind of awkward because they're like it's going to cost you more and like for a business it's left pocket right pocket like if I am a business paying invoices I'm actually receiving it it all works out in the end but it's one of those things that just feels a bit awkward and if you can avoid it why not yeah for sure yeah exactly yeah so what would be your biggest money tip for anyone wanting to start a small business oh that's tricky um I think

be realistic with the money goals like i would love to have been able to afford to actually continue my lifestyle that i had pre-quitting my full-time job once i quit it and was doing the side hustle but i've had to be really realistic and say like but i can't afford to go to dinner every week if i want to go to dinner right now because i don't have as much money coming in as i used to at a full-time job um and kind of being realistic that you do have to spend money to make money in a small business you do have to do things like your website and there's all the little things you add up yeah but that's a really good tip in the long run yeah that's awesome it's actually really realistic yeah like so many people want to be

and it's not a bad thing to just be like oh inspirational take the jump it's kind of like well actually work out what that's going to look like for you and be realistic yeah yeah and if you can cop the lifestyle change yeah or not you know like because if I left my full-time job here with she's on the money side of you know my own business it would be pretty different so yeah I actually really love that tip I feel like it's really relatable and actually something we can all adopt like you can start planning for a small business before it starts like I think so many people think that they have to take the plunge quit their job and then figure it out like have the entire game plan and what that looks like financially and like even just where are you

going to work from make the entire plan before you take the plunge so you know what to expect done yeah definitely yeah as always i i do think that's all we have time for today but thank you so much money dyrus it's been amazing chatting to you and having you share your your little tips and tricks for small business thank you so much for having me guys and hearing how much of a ball yeah thank you so much and 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 i promise that victoria divine is an authorized representative of australia pacific funds management proprietary limited abn 34132463257 afsl 339151 and we'll what were you gonna say was it gonna be good no it wasn't actually i was gonna say do you reckon the people that listen to the disclaimer every week know all those numbers off by heart i'd like to hear it if you know them all off by heart send us your voice memos and we'll start editing them

into the podcast yeah you can do our disclaimer for us perfect I mean that's a lot of work for me that's not my problem but okay great see you next week guys