She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Student super saver with 60 grand

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

This week we had the pleasure of chatting to another one of our community babies who at just 20 years old has saved an impressive 60K!Joining you on Money Diaries this week is Victoria Devine and Ryan Jon.Do you love the podcast SICK and want more SOTM? Course ya do. Join our Facebook page to share your money wins and money confessions, follow us on Insta for daily inspo to keep you on track and DEFINITELY subscribe to our newsletter https://www.shesonthemoney.com.au/newsletter the written recap of the pod's key takeaways, including some bonus bits you won't want to miss.Finally, if you're in a money mess and need help untangling the muddle - we've got you sorted - simply record your question and send it through to us at [e-mail] and you may just end up on the podcast!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 Victoria Devine and as always for Money Diaries, I am joined by our friend Ryan john now this week's money diary was a bit of a banger we had the absolute pleasure of chatting to one of our community babies who at just 20 years of age has saved a very impressive sixty thousand dollars here's how our chat with her went i'm currently 20 years old studying law and

commerce and working in finance yes queen i currently use for trading some cryptocurrencies which v's always raises an eyebrow no i would love to share my money diary with you i've worked super hard to get to my savings goal, which I've just achieved today, $60,000. Uh, what? How old did she say she was again? 20 years old, studying law and commerce. Hold on, and the number again?

$60,000. Okay, so I wasn't wrong. Carry on. Let's call her. This is ridiculous. I want to call her. Hello, Nicole speaking. Hey, Nicole.

This is Ryan from She's On The Money. How are you doing? Well, thank you. How are you, Ryan? I'm good. I'm here with Victoria Devine, and we're both in awe that you've hit your savings goal of $60,000 at age 20. Is this correct?

Are we reading right? I actually made him read the email to me twice. It is. It is. Yeah, no, I'm really happy with it. It's only a recent milestone, a few weeks back. Yeah, so- Oh, well, if it was a few weeks back, it must just not be that impressive.

Oh, news. Boring now, huh? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, I've heard about it now. That's epic. I love that. I want to know all about that, but maybe we should get through all of the questions and then have a chat about it after. Sounds good. Awesome. Let's dive straight in. So the first question is, can you please describe your

relationship with money? I think I have a pretty good relationship with money. I've always kind of been raised to live within your means and only spend what you really have. I've been fortunate enough to be in a position where I do live at home, so I get to save a lot, which means I also get spending money to do the things I love. I don't feel like I have to minimize a lifestyle just to save money, and that's a really fortunate position for me.

So I love that I'm able to do everything I want to. However, I do believe that I do work really hard. I've been working, you know, since I was 14, trying to save money, even back when, you know, I was earning $9 or something, whatever, an hour, I was trying to do my best to save. So I've always had quite a practical relationship with money. I love that. So what do you do for work and for life? Well, I'm currently studying.

So I am currently studying law and commerce, and I'm also working part time. so I work in finance admin. What do you earn and how much money is sitting in your bank accounts right now? So I earn about 580 after tax per week sometimes it fluctuates to be more if I'm on uni break and I'm able to work more hours and sometimes less you know because I am a casual so if you know I don't work certain days or I go on holidays less at the moment I am currently actually on holiday. So I have a bit more in my spendings account. So I have about $400 or $500 in there. And then I have approximately $60,000 in savings. Which is arguably one of the most epic things I've heard today. But we'll talk about that later. I keep getting sidetracked

on questions. So do you feel confident making decisions around money? I do. In terms of spending and keeping track of spending, I do. However, the only thing I'm not really confident about and would like to learn more is a bit more about investing. I think I have, you know, that amount in savings. I would like to be able to use it, but I feel quite comfortable, you know, spending money and putting it into savings and have a decent amount of knowledge.

It's also come from my degree where they do teach you about finances and how sort of that works. So I have a little bit of knowledge around it and I'm quite comfortable with my knowledge. It's so funny. I just wrote down ask about savings versus investing because it feels like you're going to get to that stage where you're going to want to branch out and then as soon as I wrote that down you said it yeah yeah that's my biggest kind of debate with myself at the moment to you know do

something with the savings and it's kind of hard because you know you're not taught which share to put your money in you don't have a huge amount you know the financial advisors or financial counselors you're not sure you know if they're for you or if they're you know people with more money and just not really sure where to go. Well, we definitely have some advice when we get to asking a few more questions, but let's continue. So how do you feel about the money that is currently in your bank account? I feel like it's quite good. I'm really happy with how I've saved. I think it sets me up a bit for my future. I would love to start property investing and things like that. I'm quite keen, interested in the real estate market,

just a bit of a hobby. So I feel quite comfortable with it and I'm glad it's there. you know it's such a tumultuous time at the moment and I've been fortunate enough to keep my job but knowing that I have that backing there makes me feel more confident. Awesome so do you currently invest in any way? I started recently investing in a bit of cryptocurrency so it was before your podcast and I don't really know what I'm doing I just I looked into it a little bit and I just invested a small amount you know a few hundred dollars here and there and fortunately you know I picked the right ones not that I really understand how they are working but fortunately I picked the right ones and I've had quite good growth I'm quite happy with it but other than

that no major investments so obviously I'm the financial advisor um and I have a couple of questions that are a little bit off track when it comes to buying crypto so you've obviously saved And I would, from understanding your money story a little bit from what you've already told us, is I would think that you're quite conservative because you don't want to risk that $60,000 that you've saved so hard for. What made you feel confident enough to pick a crypto asset above and beyond every other type of asset that you had access to? I think because I was able to put in such a small amount. So I was only really comfortable putting in an amount, a small amount into something that I didn't really understand. understand and I felt as though shares or other kind of investments type I would need to do a little bit more research so it was kind of a bit of a spur and I kind of did have a look into and

I have somewhat of an idea of how they work but I felt as though it was it was really easy to set up it was really easy to put money into it's a really simple app so I felt quite comfortable using it and I thought I was just going to put in a little bit of money in it and just hope you know that it would work out and I was comfortable putting that small amount but I would never well at the moment i wouldn't put a large amount in there yeah that's fair can i also just add like this isn't the most rational thing to say and probably not technically correct but like the fomo was real with crypto right oh 100 yeah you hear all these great stories and you're like oh i know i shouldn't i don't really get it but this guy made this much yeah you get so envious

yeah yeah i mean kind of off the record i just saw one that i didn't just specifically do this But I saw some influencer on, I don't know, on Instagram being like, oh, you know, this coin's booming. So I was like, all right, put $5 in it and it really did. I love that. Is it too pervy to ask you how much you invested to begin with? $5. Yep, sweet.

And then I started adding in more. And what are you at now? Maybe a couple hundred. Oh, how good. And it's doing well? Yeah, it's doing really well. I think it was one of those just that boomed and I'm not really, you know, sure on how specifically they work but i was confident you know with just putting in a little

bit of money it was if it was if i lost it i wasn't too upset about losing it just you know just give it a shot can we skip ahead i know i said i was going to wait till later but i feel like we're here now uh is it fair to say victoria and correct me if i'm wrong you are the she and she's on the money is that surprise i don't know if anyone knew that uh is it fair to say the philosophy that our money diary today has towards crypto can be the first philosophy with investing in that you don't have to put your whole $60,000 in something tomorrow. You can start with a little bit here and see how you feel and a month later the confidence grows and then you do another little bit.

Totally. And I find that people who have saved very significant amounts of money are far less likely to invest seriously. And when I say seriously, I say that with quotation marks because I mean actually start a share portfolio. They're more likely to do something small like crypto and you hear about your friend who maybe saved $60,000 and they're investing in crypto so you automatically assume it might be you know a safe option or a good

option when in reality it's not they're just testing the waters and having a bit of a play and it's actually not reflective of their money story because they'd never put that sixty thousand dollars at risk yeah so for me i think it's interesting because i see it all the time but these are the people that are more likely to spend a longer time making a decision about a share portfolio because it feels like a bigger more long-term decision and they assume they'll put a very significant amount of money into that. They might not, they might, but they just, they operate under that assumption. And from there, I feel like they then see it as a more serious decision that needs a lot of thought, not just chucking five bucks in crypto. Would you say

that's about right when it comes to actually starting an investment portfolio? A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, exactly how you said it, it was kind of just a play to dip my toes in the water. I wasn't really comfortable in putting a large amount in there. So I just wanted to, you know, see how it works. And, you know, I think for me, even just putting in, even if I lost the $20 or whatever I put in there at the start, I feel as though I learned a little bit more and that was worth it for me just to get an idea. And then I can kind of grow my confidence. So a hundred percent, I would agree. I'm totally all for that. And I think people think I'm so negative on crypto and look, I don't invest in it personally. And it's not something that I have any

interest in because I do have a long-term asset that I am building and I'd prefer stability over not stability but I can see where people are coming from when they're like Victoria why are you so harsh I'm just having a play I'm like no no you can have a play but there are people that get mixed up and they see these great money stories and people who have saved epic amounts and they go oh well I don't know the whole story but Ryan John he's a great saver and he invested in crypto so it must be a good option when in reality like we're making decisions about our personal situations not about something that could create us long-term wealth yeah we could do another episode oh my gosh i could do so many crypto episodes yeah let's go to the next question

so do you have any debts of any kind and if so what are they and if you don't how do you feel about debt i do currently have debt so the only debt i have is my hex debt which i believe is around sixteen thousand dollars i've always believed even working in finance now i get a good understanding of people living within your means so i i've listened to a lot of you know that she's on the money podcast and heard you know there's good debt and there's bad debt and in my mind um hex debt's a good debt i'm investing towards my future yes queen paying um any interest other than inflation, which I don't have a problem with. I don't have any other debts, you know, like personal loans or car loans.

I'm a big believer in, you know, if you'd rather to save up for something and not to have a massive loan because I know how high of an interest they are. However, in saying so, I would love to buy a house, you know, once I finish my uni degree or an investment property, something like that, to get one of my investment, you know, portfolios started. So I'm happy to have something that would grow my wealth and, you know, help me with my money journey. But I'm not interested in, you know, getting a personal loan

or anything like that at the moment just because I have seen, you know, how high interest they are and how much you're paying for it. Yeah, no, straight out don't do that. Terrible idea. Yeah. I love how well-versed people are who've been listening to the podcast because I always ask. I hear it in my own tone of voice.

No, but every time people talk about HECS, I always say, yeah, cool, but what's your thoughts on good debt, bad debt? And today's Money Diaries already knows the question before it's asked. But it's a good debt. I'm investing in my future, and I'm all for it, and it's fine. And the fact that you already know that is awesome to hear. It makes my heart so happy. Yeah, well, I work in finance as well,

so I have a little bit of understanding. I specifically work more in debt, so I have a bit more of an understanding, and I've seen how people's debts work, and I've just heard other people's stories around me about how debt works, so I'm a bit more conscious towards it. And they do teach us at uni,

and you don't know one of the topics is finance, you kind of get an understanding of how the different interest rates work and compound and all of that. So I kind of have a little bit of knowledge about it. She got a head start, Ryan. Yeah, well played. She's treating the system. Well played, well played.

You're ahead of all the listeners. All right, so we're going to jump into the next question, which is do you have any good money habits that you're especially proud of? I feel like maybe I already know the answer to this. I have a very comprehensive Excel spreadsheet that I use. it kind of finds it even as being a bit of a bad money habit because sometimes I'm a bit obsessed with it but I really like it so I split up my spendings and what I'm earning every week and then kind of mapping out what I'm saving

so I don't go down to the cent but I'm just getting a general idea of how much I'm spending on food a week, on my car, on shopping, anything like that so I think that's my best money habit of keeping on track of my spending and seeing where it goes month to month. Awesome, I love that and to flip it on its head, what is your worst money habit? As I probably said, my worst money habit would be being a little bit tight with that spending, you know. I don't really like when it goes over a certain amount,

I get a little bit, you know, conscious and I have to feel in, you know, every single time I spend something and sometimes I feel as though, you know, I don't want to spend money because I don't want to, you know, see it and I'll avoid that. But I also think it, you know, keeps me on track and probably my other not really bad money habit something where I could improve on is the fact that you know I do you know have an amount of savings and I'm not really doing anything with it just because interest rates are obviously really

low in banks so it's not really making me much money at the moment. So what are you currently saving for what's your big money goal at the moment? I would love so I'm probably going to finish uni at the end of this year so I would love to once I get you know something in my field and I get something a little bit more permanent to put my money into an investment property. A bit more of a stay for us. And in my mind, it's something I've always wanted to do just because I know people and family

and they've always had good experiences. So they have a little bit more experience with it. And I think that's what I would be saving for. I was saving previously up for a trip to Canada. I was supposed to move to Canada for six months with uni, but that got cancelled. So no major traveling, but I love traveling. So if we could travel, it would be towards traveling.

If we had a dollar for every money diarist or person in the community, I was going overseas. I would be so rich. So how would you rate yourself if I forced you to give yourself a financial rating? I think I would give myself an A minus slash B plus because I think I have some good money habits in keeping on top of my spending. I also quite am realistic and good with transferring, you know,

my money into the account it needs to be in once I receive my income every week. I love that. Ryan, what did you think of that money diary? I just think it's really impressive. Yeah, me too. I'm also impressed with how blasé you are about it. You're like, yeah, it's good. I'm like, no, no, no, no, friend, that's epic.

That's really good. Like, that's really, really good. So, no. And are you proud of yourself for achieving that or is that something you're like, no, no, no, like, I've got so much further to go or are you just like, whoa, I never saw this coming? How do you feel about having so many savings at such a young age? I feel really good.

I think it's setting me up for where I want to go. I've always been raised, you know, to be quite practical with money and have, you know, something for a rainy day. It's never been, I've always had that kind of mentality to be wise with my money, but I am really proud of it. You know, starting off when I finished high school, I was just earning, you know, the minimum rate and it was hard to put in savings

and then I was lucky enough to get some more of a, I guess, a grown-up job. Not that, you know, other jobs aren't, but somewhere, you know, where I was able to get my five days a week, work my nine to five and start building up from there and I guess also being around other you know people a little bit older than me they're a little bit wiser with money and were more kind of aware of where their money was going and I think that helped me and as well working the finance industry made me more

conscious of it but I am really proud I mean I know it's quite a privileged position to be in but I'm really happy with where I'm at. I love that so like off track I know you're studying at the moment and you're working in finance what do you want to be when you grow up if we ever grow up that is um i really um want to work in marketing so my commerce nature is marketing so i'd really like to work in something like formula one marketing or one of formula one marketing that's really specific and random left field here i am being like oh my gosh she's like got a finance background she wants to work in in marketing like that's perfect fit for She's on the money and you're like, I want to work for the Formula One.

Or something. Or she's on the money. Or she's on the money. You're like, if you have a marketing job, you know. But, yeah, something around marketing, even different brands. I'm like, I've just kind of looked into grad jobs, maybe something like Meta or I'm not sure if I'm a let us say a specific brand.

You totally can because, like, they might contact me and be like, hey, that girl, we've got an internship. Like, let's name drop. Yes, somewhere like that. Mecca, Sephora, I'm really into that whole beauty industry as well. So a bit specific, but anywhere in the marketing kind of PR field I'm really interested in. I'm not 100% sure you know about the law yet,

but I know I really love marketing. You'd be surprised how convenient it is to have those law skills, but you don't have to be a lawyer. I think there's a big assumption that you get a law degree, you become a lawyer, but it's actually valuable in so many different fields. I mean, you deal with legal stuff all the time. We're good friends with the people at Adore Beauty, so actually send me another email if you want an internship.

We'll see if we can hook you up. Oh, my gosh, imagine if we could. I would be obsessed. I listen to their podcast. I'm obsessed with Adore Beauty. I spend half my paycheck there. I love that. Did you hear the episode when they were on Shiz on the Money

and I knew nothing that was said over the whole hour? Yeah, you were like, what? New phone. I think I did hear that, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I also love Hannah and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say. No, you totally are. We're actually friends with them. Hannah and Kate?

Hannah and Joe I'm obsessed with them I love their podcast Kate started Adore Well speaking of internships Or I guess first jobs I'm just randomly curious Your first job was $9 an hour

When you were 14 or 15 What was it? It was working at a bakery Just at one of the local bakeries Down the road from me Maybe it was $10 or something I don't know Here's the challenge

For people in the Facebook group My first job I used to push trolleys At the Eltham Like Woolies and Coles and stuff And I got paid $7.20 an hour and I wonder if anyone can beat that in terms of how low can you go. I already can.

What? I was scooping ice cream on the main street of Dramana at the age of 14 years and nine months. I can't remember the ice cream store name, but for those of you who live local, it's the one that used to be beside Two Boys. Everybody knows Two Boys, if you know what I'm talking about. Well, we don't.

Nicole and I have no idea. If you know, you know. And how much? And I earned $6.50 an hour. Look out. I was a big dog. Big dog and $6.50. Do I have any of that money still?

No, because I had terrible savings habits. I know we touched on it earlier. Well, we spoke a lot about it earlier about the savings versus investing. And obviously, we can't give specific advice to you personally legally. But V, if someone came to you with an amount like that and they weren't sure, what is an amount that you might say, here's a bit to, even if it's not about the money, it's about educating yourself. What's a first little entry point? What's the next step for someone in similar to Money Diary's position? Oh, like hypothetically, if I was dishing out advice to someone who hypothetically had a large amount of savings, I would recommend that they start just doing their research.

And I know that that sounds so bad. And Ryan, you actually yelled at me the other day and you were like, Victoria, do you know how many people, their research is listening to your podcast? They're doing their research right now. They're doing their research right now. They're learning. and I'm like yeah they are but I don't want people to only have my opinion as the only one because we're all different and my opinion might not be the right opinion for you so like listen to other podcasts like equity mates like my millennial money go online read the smart money

website read all of the blogs like start learning so that you can start taking the first step and just like you did or just like hypothetical money diarist with buying the crypto jump into something that you think might be the right fit. You don't have to put all your life savings on board. Lots of ETFs are very accessible now with lower entry points. There's lots of micro-investing platforms that exist that give you exposure to learning about what investing is like and there are lots of options on the table that don't mean

that you actually have to put your life savings up. Yeah, and money, Darius, again, this isn't advice, but having just chatted about it and thinking about it and knowing that you know it's not all your money or nothing do you feel like you could have the confidence in the next few months to invest a little bit in a micro investing or something even if it's just starting with a 500 or a thousand or so dollars just to learn and see what happens yeah i think so um i have even you know listening to the last few podcasts just about those um micro investing platforms looking into them and i would feel a little bit more confident

I think my major issue is not knowing where to invest into the bigger ones even though you could have the capital I just wouldn't know where or specifically what to invest in so I think the micro investment platforms is something I do want to start looking into in the near future just so I can get a little bit more exposure and then building a bit more confidence from there Yeah, it is a really good place to start

and we actually, even though last week or the week before I'm not sure when it came out but there was a great investing episode that Victoria and Georgia did But last year there was a couple of EPS answering lots of questions about micro-investing platforms and stuff. But Money Diarist, very impressive. And you're very humble about it, which makes me not like you even more because it's so calm to have that sort of money.

It's like the saying, you don't make friends with salad. Yeah, you don't make friends with savings. No, no, no, you just don't make friends with things that are really good for you, like good advice like this. Yeah, and it's really impressive how – and I know you acknowledge that – you know a very privileged area and the living situation but still the discipline to be able to save how much you have is really quite impressive yeah and i think that that's something that a lot of people do underestimate like it obviously is privileged do not get me wrong

lots of people couldn't achieve that and it wouldn't be reasonable totally understandable and you shouldn't be comparing yourself to the money diarists that are on the podcast these are just stories that you know we share one because we're proud of our community but two you can learn something from everybody even if your situation is different but there are so many people who have been given all of the same luxuries that you've been afforded and not made the most of it so it's so nice to i stayed at home till money dire stage and i did not have sixty thousand i love that but that's so true and so many people are going to be listening be like oh my gosh i have not made the most of this situation victoria would kill me well congratulations and thank you

so much for sharing your story we really appreciate it thank you so much for having me just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respects to australians aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples the traditional custodians of the lands the waterways and the skies all across australia we want to thank you for sharing and for caring on 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 and let's remember the advice shared on money diaries and she's on the money is general in nature and it 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 and we promise i am actually an authorized representative of australia pacific funds management proprietorially limited abn 34132463257afsl339151 and thank you so much to our producer ryan john who's sitting in front of us and beck our producer angels for putting all this together for us today ryan.john at she's on the money.com.au if you've got a great money story or a great money diary that you think the rest of our community would love to hear shoot me a note we'd love to hear from you we'll see you next week guys