She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: The 29 Year old who has paid off her house!

Episode Date: January 24, 2021

Hello and welcome to another Money Diary Monday, where today we take a perv into the life of a 29 year old medical professional who’s paid off her house with her high income role. Tune in to hear what her she plans to do next !   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, 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. I'm a financial advisor, a millennial and a woman who is wildly passionate about all things finance in this money diaries episode you'll hear how at just 29 years of age one of our community members has paid off her entire home despite being on completely different pages when

it comes to all things finance with her partner all right ryan you got an email earlier this week do you want to read that one out for us i'm a 29 year old high income health professional my partner and i have just paid off our first home paid it off paid it off and are looking to buy our first investment property i've also just paid off my hex and i'm officially debt free in 2021 at 29 years old it's actually insane when i finished university six years ago i was in forty thousand dollars of consumer debt and i had just seven dollars in my account and no family financial support that wouldn't have even included a hex debt no i was brought up on welfare payments and come from a very low socioeconomic home and i had absolutely no financial literacy it's been a

Tough but rewarding six years. My personal net worth has gone from negative $100,000 to now positive $250,000 in six years. I love her. Can we hear her story? Do you love her? I hate her. It makes me feel like I've done nothing with my life.

No, what a queen. She's so inspirational. It's actually unbelievable. Let's give her a call. Hello, Chris speaking. hello is this the 29 year old who's paid off her own house yes yes oh my god thanks for joining us on the podcast oh thank you caitlin so yeah i'm ryan we got victoria divine here as well hello friend how are you i'm good thank you i am so glad to hear and we've also got jess who has just

started it she's on the money and we just thought we'd make this a group thing because your story was so cool. So let's start from the top. What is your relationship with money been like in the past? It has been horrible. I was a big subscriber to money stories that I was bad with money and I was hopeless with money and that was the general thought process of my friends and family. So it's yeah a really bad relationship with money in the past. And what do you now do for work? I'm a high-income health professional so without being too pervy while still being totally pervy can you tell us how much you earn now and how much is currently in your bank account well i am it can be anywhere between like 220 to 250 or so depending on the year and at the moment i actually only have

1300 i mean that's still a good amount of money for a 29 year old to have in their account so i I wouldn't be too down about that one, my friend. Big amount of anxiety. That's what I get for paying the house off last month and I'm not being paid yet. I totally get that. And what is your attitude to money and what is currently your big money goal?

My attitude to money now, and it's been a big mind shift, is that it can give me choices and I don't need to be scared of it and I'm allowed to enjoy it. And with those life goals, I'm really just working towards that passive income and the freedom of choice with no need to rely on my income. What is your attitude to investing and do you currently have any investments? So my attitude to investing has changed a lot this year because I've just increased my knowledge and read a few books. So I'm really into the idea of having some passive income and I've invested some money in the stock market and I'm looking towards getting a investment property, but I'm not

really very knowledgeable. So I'm still just increasing my knowledge on the topic. So what debts do you currently have? I currently have no debt. Yeehaw. Best answer. and what is your best money habit my best money habit is now paying myself first and automating any bills and things I have been really bad with buying lots of clothes and

just throwing money away because it just burned a hole in my pocket in the past but now I'm better at letting it sit there and not being concerned about it on the flip side what is your worst money habit well now after the last couple of years of being a pretty hardcore saver i have gone into more extreme measures about savings and a little little bit of anxiety around like buying clothes at a full price or going out for fancy meals i used to enjoy that stuff so much but now given like a such a big change in thought process over the last couple of years i'm not as with it as i was that makes sense it does it does make a lot of sense but yeah i mean in the past i used to be shocking with buying like exercise workouts um not even gear like plans that i

never followed and i never used to buy anything and truly have the like get the full value out of anything i used to just be like i'd buy all the skincare and not worry about it and now so much more conscious of everything and what grade would you give your money habits if we forced you to give yourself a grade like maybe an a and what would it take to get to an a plus i think if i i really still need to work on my cash flow and just having more automation like more automation in terms of investments really think about an investment property that paying me that would make me an a plus i feel like i feel like well actually i feel like i'd be an a plus if i had a passive income that covered all my expenses but that's a little

while off yet all right we quickly need to get a quick message in for the sponsors however i'm just going to put it out there the fact that someone at 29 years of age who's paid off their own house didn't instantly give them an a-plus is truly mind-blowing i'm sorry that's just the most unrelatable thing to me um i'm not gonna lie but i'm wildly proud of you so i think it's envy i think that like it's envy coming from me but more questions after a word from our sponsors all right so we've just heard all the details from the 29 year old who's paid off her own house she's still on the phone thanks for sticking around oh my gosh you are so cool i cannot wrap my head around how much you've achieved in such a short period of time thank you

so i i do have to be a bit pervy and i'm sure that everybody listening is going to have this question as well can you tell me a little bit about how you've managed to pay off your entire home in the last few years given you started in personal debt? Well I must credit my partner because he has always been excellent with money. We made choices at the start that I was a little bit disappointed in. We bought a cheaper house because he thought it was more sensible and it took me a while to get around the idea of paying off the house because I just didn't know anyone who had and didn't really think it was possible but then we just broke it down year by year and work through what it meant for us because we could think about the sacrifice we could make

but we could think about what it meant after it had been paid off as well so i got a question for for both yourself and victoria as well obviously your your ability to save and you're earning a great income is is really impressive did you ever consider just paying the minimum amount and saving the money for something else or because i know a lot of people wouldn't think to pay off the house first they'd be paying that off slowly as they started investing in other areas and stuff like that was that a decision that that you guys had to make actually we sat down and we did the math like a couple of months ago if we had to put the money that we had as a deposit into the stock market versus us purchasing our current house it ended up working out very well for us and

that put me at ease because i did have those very thoughts when i was then think like learning more about investments i was thinking we probably did we make the wrong decision have we not been most financially sensible but then at the same time i know us both well and we probably saved more because we knew that we wanted to reduce our liability and we knew we didn't want to pay interest on something for a long time it was just a pretty one-track mind of just getting it down especially with interest rates being so low it just felt when are we ever going to be able to own a house for so little interest yeah just smash it out so yeah v what's your thoughts on that because obviously it's each to their own and there's all these different ways to go about it

what yeah what would you say if someone was getting advice in that situation i'd say exactly that it is absolutely each to their own but at the same time it sounds like you've been pretty savvy when it comes to making sure that was the right decision from you and i think it's a decision that not many high income health professionals would make to be honest because often you see people trying to buy property in line with their incomes and it sounds like you've bought a property that was actually just really reasonable to be able to pay off together in a shorter period of time instead of putting yourselves in debt up to your eyeballs and having like a 1.5 million dollar mortgage which is obviously not able to be paid off so I think it sounds like you've made the

right decisions for you but again it's going to be different for everybody and I kind of like that you guys have sat down and worked out what the best outcome was for you and I like that Ryan you asked that just purely because so many people listening might be like oh well she should have invested and it's like well actually for some people and this is not a good thing um it's also not a bad thing but for some people a house kind of becomes forced savings for a lot of people who don't have you know the ability to save and they might not be as good at money the second you've got a property it's a lot bigger of a responsibility and you do feel like you need to contribute more to it and i think that that's you know a good thing for some people in some circumstances as

well i like that you sat down and worked it out i would just sit around forever wondering what if and never think to whip out the Excel spreadsheet and find out for myself. I don't think I would do that either. I think we were just lucky the stock market didn't do that well over the last five years. Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, it didn't go through a pandemic in the house?

Hey, I mean, we're meant to be investing for the long term, so you should not have been investing for only five years, but that is a story for another day, my friends. My next question, and V, I don't know if everyone knows this, Victoria has a degree in psychology, so I'm also interested to get your thoughts on this as well. Two. two degrees in psychology my mistake could you believe i got that wrong um when you said

you'd sort of in inverted commas decided that you weren't good with money and then at some stage decided that you could be uh was there something specific that changed besides just educating yourself and and doing it because i think a lot of people have this assumption that oh no people like me don't earn money like that and it's just sort of built in yeah what was the tipping point for you? Well, because when I first graduated uni, I was in $40,000 consumer debt. And I didn't even really know what interest was. I sat down and I looked at how much interest I was paying a month and realized what it actually meant for me. So I really had to take an overhaul and look at all the necessities in my life and figure out why I was spending the money like I was.

It was really strange because it kind of reshaped your whole identity because you're like, why do I feel the need to buy so many clothes every week? Or why do I feel the need to do these things? It was almost like a habit and I didn't realize that it was a habit that I could break and then I could improve and then I could succeed in it. And it was paying off that debt and really getting that down that made me realize that I could be a lot better with money. So V, I see you nodding.

I know when you do or did the hour of power and you get people to do their cash flow and budgeting short course the first thing you do is to figure out where their money is is this something that everyone does is they finally figure out where their money's actually going and go oh my god I think so and I think it's something that you know you can say set goals and you can say do all of this fancy stuff but at the end of the day it's actually about your story and your journey and where you've been and reflecting on that and kind of questioning well why do I make these decisions around money and why do I you know want to spend money on makeup and clothes and shoes is it because I love them or is it just out of habit?

And I think that once you're faced with the truth of why, you can actually put yourself in a position where you are much more confident changing a story because you can see a pathway forward. And if you don't know where you're starting, it's really hard to see where you want to be as well. It feels weird just talking to you and calling you a 29-year-old who's paid off her own house.

You mentioned that you... It feels really objectifying. I'm sorry about that. You said that you start to feel guilty now about sort of treating yourself or spending money because you think, oh, that's how I used to be and that's not how I am now. But I know it's easy for me to say

because I don't earn that sort of money, but I would have assumed that someone who's earning over 200 grand a year should maybe be allowed to have a nice dinner out once in a while and be able to enjoy the money that they're earning. So are you- Just to correct you there,

everyone deserves that, right, John? Well, that's what I'm sort of getting at. Have you tried to find a balance between I want to be a savvy saver, but I also, you know... Want to live my best life. Yeah, I'm glad you said that and I didn't have to. But, yeah, where are you at with trying to figure that out?

I think post-pandemic and post-paying off this milestone, we're getting better at it. It's hard because my partner, he doesn't align with those values. So it's us coming together and having a nice dinner once or twice a year, like a really nice dinner, and then just enjoying things within balance and moderation for us. Yeah, I think it's just something that we've kind of been lucky with the pandemic for the last several months

that we haven't had to worry about it. You haven't had to have those conversations. Yeah, exactly. It hasn't been an option. How do you deal with that, having different financial values with your partner? That was the biggest challenge for the whole way through because he's always been a one-track mind and very dedicated to it,

whereas I could see all the other possibilities if we didn't make this choice. I like that you said dedicated and not stubborn. my partner would call me stubborn oh she's just dedicated yeah she's just dedicated she's definitely not stubborn and controlling but have you have you seem to have been found have found or are finding a bit of a happy medium yeah absolutely yeah and that's where he he has enjoyed a life of being quite frugal but having lots of opportunities come his way so for him to understand what money means to other people has been very helpful because also just like travel

and everything like that or wanting to purchase things and no real good reason other than wanting it has their really big discussions in our household and like about what they mean to us and he knows that I work hard so he's fine about it he just doesn't subscribe to it so it's interesting living with someone who has got that completely different mindset about money They've got no scarcity about it, but they don't think about it in abundance either. Yeah, that's really interesting. So what does the future look like for you guys? I don't think we need to do anything drastic.

We can just keep tripping away. The savings we were putting into the mortgage, we can just put that into looking at investments. And it's weird because I enjoy my job a lot more now that I know that I don't have to work to survive and get a home. Well, you can do what you want with your time rather than what you have to. Is that kind of... Yeah, well, I mean, already I've been able to go from working six days a week to four days a week, so that has had a huge shift in just my general life from being able to focus on, like, health and other pleasures in life.

I've been working and my health suffered and my mental health suffered, but, yeah. That is honestly so inspirational and so cool. I cannot believe it. In fact, it's making me question whether what I'm doing is the right thing. Well, obviously it is because I love it. One of Victoria's big things is... I'm not that financially free. Well, one of your big things, V,

is try not to compare yourselves with others. And we're both sitting here shaking our heads going, how has this girl pulled it off? And look at us suckers in here. Oh my gosh, I know, right? And I think they compare... And I say this all the time, comparison is definitely the thief of joy.

You're thieving my joy, money douris. I'm sorry for thieving your joy, but I think it's one of those things. It's so awesome to hear other people's money stories and how they're doing things. And I always compare myself. Like I say, you shouldn't be comparing yourselves, but I put myself in a position every single time I hear a story like this. But then I think it's important at the end of stories like this to go, you know what, this is totally cool for them.

And I forget the comparison part moving forward. So if anyone's listening and they're not feeling all that crash hot, I get you. I feel you. But at the same time, stories like this help us understand where we want to go. Yeah. 29 year old who's paid off her house. Thank you so much for being a part of Money Diary. and thanks for being on the show.

Thank you. 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 authorised representative

of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietarily Limited, ABN 34132463257, AFSL 339151. And thank you so much to our producer, Ryan John, and Beck, our producer angels for putting all this together for us today can i add something as well of course you can i just called you a producer angel so it better be nice 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 and we're going to be doing one of these every week so we'd love to hear from you we'll see you next week guys

Thanks for watching!