She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: The Money Diaries That Shook Us In 2023!

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

Today we bring you a very special episode for Christmas and arguably one of our favorites of the year, the Money Diaries that shook us in 2023! Join Victoria and our SOTM producer Annaliese as they share some amazing stories from this year in the ultimate celebration of our beautiful She's On The Money community. 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. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.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. First things first, Annalisa, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I thought you were going to say for millennials who want to celebrate Christmas. V, my present to me is that I get to be on with you today. I adore this. I'm so glad to have you back behind the mic. I guess, guys, welcome back to another one of our Money Diaries. Obviously, Annalisa isn't a voice you hear on Money Diaries very often. But when you do, you know, it's the end of year wrap. And you know that we've got

some stories to share with you to wrap the year that was. There's lots of wrapping being wrapped, unwrapped today, V. So we're doing an audio version, aren't we? Yeah, we're doing an audio wrap. Love it. Watch out Spotify. But I'm excited to talk to you today. I guess today being Christmas, I just want to do a little bit of a shout out if you're listening on your Christmas morning and you're having a great day. Fantastic. Merry Christmas, my friend. If you're listening today and you're feeling a little bit lonely, a little bit under the weather, a little bit like, oh, Christmas is the worst time of the year. I see you. I hear you. I'm sorry. That's the position that you're in. But today is only a season that you're going through. And these things will change.

And just know that I'm thinking of you today. I know that Annalisa is as well. You've got us. We're with you. We love you. We're in your ears. Merry Christmas, if that's what you celebrate. Merry not Christmas, if you don't want to celebrate Christmas and that's totally okay. But today we are wrapping the year that was and talking about some of our favorite money diaries. I'm so excited. We did this last year and the money diary wrap was not only a cool episode, I think, to listen to, I'm biased, but it was so fun to pull together because you get to like reflect on the year that was and all of the cool people we've talked to. And obviously it is no secret that my favorite episode

of literally every single week is always money diaries. And V, I feel like I'm even more lucky than you are, because I kind of get to call all of these people. I was about to say women, but actually like we've had a few men. We're not gender specific on this show. No, I am the she and she's on the money. Exactly. But I kind of get to have a longer chinwag with all of these incredible community members and meet them before I spring them on you in the episodes. And it's everybody's favorite episode. Let's be frank. I reckon it is. Every time I talk to someone, I'll be like, oh, they're my favorite episode.

I'm not sure if they're just being nice, agreeing with me, but usually they say, oh my gosh me too and I'm like yes. It's because we are firstly we are so pervy but we learn through like listening to each other's stories and and sometimes you can be feeling really bad about yourself and then you hear someone else is having a tricky time or that they've experienced like maybe they're doing well now or that they've had their ups and downs and you're like oh yes you know you just learn so much from it so I love talking to these people. Exactly and I think we all love an end of year list like I am list gal at the best of times love a spreadsheet love a plan love to do anything and obviously I love to reflect on I guess the year that was but also

just really celebrate how kind and generous our community has been because these stories aren't easy to share a lot of the time we're sharing tears or sharing laughs and like it's so special like how raw these stories are that we get to learn from so I'm super grateful I feel incredibly privileged to speak to these beautiful humans on literally a weekly basis. And I just think that I always learn something new or gain a different insight or get reminded of something that I might not know about yet or might not know about, you know, or have remembered. And I love this because I get to force you to pick four. We do 52. We do 51, excluding this episode. We technically do 51. And we don't say it's the best because they're all so, so good in their own way,

but like ones that are just, I'm like. I feel like every single week when I talk to a new money diarist, I literally say to them, oh my God, this was the best one I've recorded yet. And next week I'm like, oh my God, no, this is the best. Like I just can't control myself. So let's dive into it. I have the first one to show you and it is called Jail, Debt and Learning to Be Free. Yeah. Like it said, I grew up in a wealthy family. I was pretty spoiled, got what I wanted. We'd go on holidays all the time. And then, yeah, when I was a teenager, I woke up one morning and it was a police officer waking me up, telling me I had to go sit in our living room while our house was raided. And then from that day, it was 14 years until I saw my dad

not behind bars anymore. So this was super shocking, obviously, and confronting for everyone. mostly I would say for my mum because she had no idea what was going on like where the extra money was coming from um so she was just in shock and everything was taken away so the lifestyle of holidays and buying whatever you want and all of that was taken away and we had to learn how to navigate that world life without money and my mum hadn't worked for a long time since one of my last sibling was born so that was about 10 years yeah wow so it was going through navigating getting money and going back into the workforce and raising kids alone oh my god what is it like having a house raided it's not nice I can't imagine it being nice it's not the number one

word that I would have used confronting terrifying maybe I wouldn't recommend it for anyone one out of 10 can't recommend yeah no cannot I would say it's scary like even thinking about it now I still get like a bit icky thinking about it all these years later and it's like well they treated us like we were criminals even though we were like little kids and didn't know anything that was going on and yeah they just make a whole lot of mess and leave it and then what happens what happens when they leave like you clean it up or you're not allowed to be there or yeah we just had to clean up the mess and whatever they took, they took. They seized a lot of assets, cars, houses, like all of that. And yeah, we just clean up the mess after. It actually happened more than

once. So more than once. Yeah. I've been woken up a few times by the police. Oh my gosh. So you're like, oh, wow. That's a 5am knock on the door. Must be the coppers. Yeah. Not ideal. So wouldn't recommend. So Annalisa, that was the first cab off the rank. Oh my goodness. I remember this woman. It was incredible. This one's from back in February. It was kind of like an episode that we did at the start of the year. And I just remember being like, holy guacamole. Like it's, you see this stuff on the news, like where houses get raided. And like, do you remember this? Obviously not as dramatic, but I remember like one of the first times that I was like, wow, they raid rich people's houses was the Melissa Caddick story about that dodgy financial advisor which for

like obvious reasons I was very invested in understanding but I just remember being like what does the family on the flip side do and this was the example of the family had no idea what was going on and all of a sudden their house is being raided and they're not allowed to touch anything and they took all their stuff and it turns out dad ended up in jail. This happened several times And can you imagine like being a teenager or a kid with all your kid problems and teenage problems and then you get woken up in the middle of the night and your life changes like that? I mean, the thing is, is that as we talk about this now, I'm sure that there's other listeners identifying with this. Oh, 100% that are like, I've been through that. That's not that weird, Victoria.

And I'm like, yeah, but that's, I guess, my privilege showing that thankfully my dad wasn't a fraudster. Yeah, it was incredible. But it was a very spicy story that I was very privileged to share on the show because obviously if you've been in that circumstance, it's not that common for you to turn around and be like, yeah, no. I'd love to share that with the world. Oh, absolutely. And I think that, you know, that listener really wanted to dispel some of the stigma and also show how she totally has lived her life in a completely different way. She was, I think, in the middle of saving for her wedding and like working really, really hard and being transparent with her finances and changing her money story, which is such a great example. In a way that I don't think anyone would have

expected, but I was so proud of that one and absolutely loved it. So that was the first cab off the rank to share. I have another one, Annalisa. So this second one I'm sharing is called setting boundaries and standing on her two feet. I'll start when I was 19. I'd just gotten back from my gap year. I lived abroad for a year and just had the most wonderful time. Came back and got straight into uni, which was sort of the expectation from my family and where I grew up. I was studying something that I was really interested in, but not that passionate about. I was sort of like going through the motions. And then about a year and a half into studying, so I was about 20, 21, I started to have memories resurface from my childhood

and some childhood trauma that I experienced. And that came with, yeah, a lot of mental distress. so my mental health really plummeted at that point and for the first like yeah the next year or so I tried to keep up with uni I was doing a little bit of counselling and then it got to a point where I was like hold on like I really need to yeah I really need to go deeper into this it's not going away and really connecting with that belief that I can get better but yeah as I mentioned when I wrote in part of that recovery journey has been making a disclosure to my parents about what I experienced as a child and unfortunately they did not respond well to that oh no yeah I'm so sorry that was your experience because it would have been hard

to even bring it up that's not something that I can imagine was easy yeah it was awful it's obviously I wanted to tell them for a long time but then yeah because it's so shrouded in secrecy and shame and yeah for such a long time even like the biggest part of the recovery was like understanding that it wasn't my fault and yeah obviously like spending all those years believing that it was my fault I couldn't even come to terms with telling my parents because yeah if I thought it was my fault then obviously they would too but yeah unfortunately I didn't get a positive response from them and that sort of yeah led to me making the decision with support from my counsellors and my support team to create some yeah wall-like boundaries towards them and

yeah have to cut them off. That one was I thought about that for days after listening to that and I just I remember when I did that I was pregnant I knew I was pregnant I don't think I'd shared it with the world at that point and I just remember being like I always want to be a safe space for my child I cannot imagine you know a child coming to their parents and them not being believed about such a significant trauma happening to them and I just I wanted to pick up our diarist and hug them and like make it better and obviously that's like not not the answer um it's what I guess instinctually you want to do, but it's not the answer. And I just remember going, this is so powerful to share with our community because so many people go through circumstances like this

and they just stay quiet because they're so worried about rocking the boat too much or upsetting someone or it happened so long ago, what's the point? And our diarist really showed that she got through it. She made some very healthy boundaries, some very wall-like boundaries, I believe she called them in the episode and she's thriving because of it like we all deserve to thrive and if it means going through arguably a very awkward conversation where the conversation doesn't land where you think it should or it actually should yeah that you can still back yourself and I think I just thought that was so important to me to share that and go no like you are worth more you're worth more than people not believing your story like I just yeah that really

heartbreaking and also so empowering. I mean, what I took away from that episode was that diarist wrote in saying, I feel like I am behind everyone on my savings. I don't have any investments. I have these debts. I'm behind with you. Well, like it took me so, I spent so much money on studying because I was, once I was uncovering this trauma, I was stop starting, stop starting my degree. And then I had to take time off it to work and try and take care of my mental health and your message to her was you are not behind look at all of this work that you've done to set up these boundaries and you will now this money stuff like this will sort out because you are on the right track because you've done this really really hard groundwork deep work that

needed to happen and like if it didn't happen now it's what ends up burning people out and having them end up honestly having to take years off work not being able to do what they want to do because finally that stuff they were repressing, it catches up with them. Yeah, absolutely. It's, oh gosh. And I still occasionally think about that diarist and anyone out there in that situation. It actually kills me. But yeah, I was really, really proud of her, really proud of her story that happened in August.

And I just wanted to remind people that it was their really great story. And honestly, a really beautiful message of backing yourself. Let's go to a really quick break. on the flip side. I have two of them, one from January and one from October to share with you. Here we are. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Annalisa, we are back and this has been so nice. Oh, I love these. I'm going to feel so emotionally heavy after this episode because we're recapping all of these beautiful episodes that I feel like have had a massive impact on our community this year. I have another one for you.

are you ready? Oh, I'm ready. I'm loving this TV. All right. So this one is called One Step at a Time After Losing the Love of Her Life. Oh, I remember this one. Yeah. But yeah, I got my situation together. I was lucky enough to meet my partner and my partner is really financially minded. He loves talking about it, which is great because it wasn't a thing that I had anyone to speak to about before. He loves talking about all things money. And so we just had this really lots of discussions and we just were able to grow together. Did he grow up in a lower income household or like what was his money story like? I wouldn't say that was a lower income household, but he was one of many children.

And so, you know, that has a lot of costs associated with having... Budgeting comes into play when you have multiple children. Yeah. And I know his parents did have times that they had quite a lot of financial pressures, but generally speaking, they were quite, their parents were quite educated about money. His grandfather was quite educated about money. And so this sort of filtered down to him. And so he was very good with his money. He was very frugal. What a catch. Oh my gosh. Yes. Oh, she's on the money dream boat. Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So I was in a legal position and we were looking at buying a house because we were both earning over six figures. We both had decent savings. He also

had quite a lot of investments that he at that time was ready to pull out and, you know, just pay off a substantial part of the mortgage, you know, a deposit upfront. And he was 28 and he's got investments, six-week income. He was getting it done. And he had his own side hustle business as well. So just a king of it. Of course he did. Absolutely king of it. And I decided I wanted a career change at that point. So I resigned from my job at that time, but I wasn't concerned about that because in the work that I do in the industry that I am, there's a lot of opportunities. So I wasn't too concerned about that however literally a couple of days after i finished that up there he passed away in an accident so all of a sudden i just a world imploded and yeah

and elisa that one killed me oh my goodness they had their entire life ahead of them and it got ripped away in an accident yeah it's it's the story of like oh it'll never happen to me it's the story of that always happens to other people definitely not us definitely not me and to me really drove home the importance of financial literacy for everybody in the relationship and making sure that you have all of your ducks in a row when it comes to personal insurances and knowing what that looks like and thankfully she was a very intelligent woman but it's just it was such a story that I just went oh my gosh like I cannot believe you're going through this I remember crying on the phone when I was speaking to this money diarist and I also my memories of it too

was that she was particularly savvy with her situation and had stuff set up but there was some sort of little clause in her insurances that meant that because she'd taken some stress leave yeah that that that they were like oh you have to wait for the payout and it took a really long time it broke my heart but I was also so proud of her because to go through that and come out the other side, like she was still obviously grieving and going through the motions, but she just had such a plan and you could tell that she was going to live this really beautiful life. And from memory, when we spoke to her, she was starting to get back to work.

Yeah, she was. She turned a huge corner. She was like finally dipping her toe in the water and trying to get there and you just know, I should check up on them actually. We should do like next year, obviously no pressure, Annalisa, but like a where are they now for our earlier diarists. That would be great. All right, let's try and organize that. But that's not the plan for today. The plan for today is to

share our final money diary with you for, I guess, our wrap of 2023. The diaries that shook us in 2023. There were so many. This one's from October and it is called Turning Life Around After Addiction. And this is one of my faves. Honestly, I'm just so proud. Can you tell me a bit more about what that gateway was like? Because obviously going from, you know, the short money story we've heard of like, yep, I was getting up at 4am milking the cows. I was getting paid in livestock all the way through to look, 21, 22, I got mixed up in some stuff that, you know, I'm sure you'd wish you didn't, but how did that happen? It was actually my family. So I was around it for two years before I actually tried it. I

I went into the wrong pathway from family influence. I think they all feel pretty bad about that, but we were all in a bad situation and we're thankfully all of us out of that now too. Love, love to hear that. Yay for us. But yeah, so it was the wrong pathway to go down and I happened to get into the wrong place, wrong time with family and we're all looking up now. So what did that look like when it came to, I guess, your money story? Obviously, when you're purchasing substances like that they're not cheap how did you fund that what did that look like so there's like friends of friends you've got different platforms where

you can find it and people just want to hang out with you and supply the drugs majority of those are men unfortunately yep I had a sugar daddy too so he was this is going to be the spiciest money story. I cannot wait to dissect this even more. So he was involved in the drug game too. I just love to spend time with young females and supplying as much drugs as he could. He was pretty well off. Where does your work-life balance come into that? You've mentioned you've got a young child there in daycare and kinder. You, you know, are driving 45 minutes each way from work. You're doing side hustles on the weekend. Do you have a personal life? Are you like dating? What's going on there? I'm in an actual polyamory relationship. Okay. Didn't see that coming. Yeah. So I have a

girlfriend. She has a partner. Yep. And I can date if I like to, but not really interested in it. We've been together nearly two years now. Oh, very cool. Can I be real pervy and ask about how the dynamics of that work? What does that actually look like? So if your girlfriend has a partner, do they live full time together? Like how do you interact? What does that look like? She has a primary other. They live together. They're engaged. But we all get along really well.

It was bumpy at the start. I go up to their house and I stay all the time and my daughter stays in their spare room. We get along really good. It works really well. How good. This was one of my favourites of the year. I'm not going to lie.

The transformation that you just got to see unfold, I feel like I didn't even know what to expect every two seconds. Oh, I agree. It changed. We were just like, what? Wait, what? How? And like her money diary when she wrote in obviously outlined the like big milestones of the diary, but it definitely did not tell us as many twists and turns as she shared. And I was super grateful because she was so open. Like these topics, especially drug addiction are often shrouded with shame and you hide it. And if you've moved on from it, you don't really want to go back to that place to talk about it.

And she just provided so many beautiful, valuable insights for our community to learn from that made me just go, wow, you are one special human being to go from deep drug addiction to finding out you are pregnant and cold turkey. Cold turkey is hard at the best of times, but she did it. And now she is this incredible mother that shows up for her baby, is living her best life, you know, has this really healthy relationship that she's really proud of. I'm in awe of how people can actually transform their own lives and for the better. Like you just go, wow, that's, it's just so impressive.

And to me, it was a really beautiful, I don't know, note to finish this conversation on to go, Annalisa, isn't that beautiful? It was amazing. And then to find love in a polyamorous relationship. And I remember when we aired that episode, that actually sparked a bigger conversation in our community about people, other people got in touch kind of behind the scenes. and I think we had something in one of our Friday Eps about the financials of polyamory.

We had so many people reach out. Those sorts of relationships. Yeah, and like it wasn't. It's so interesting. We're just sharing it because it's part of our community. Absolutely. Like there is no judgment in this house. Like I don't care what you do as long as it is respectful

and as long as it is consensual. I could not care less. Yeah, unreal. They're the two boxes to tick, baby. You want to tell me about it? Cool, I'll listen. I'd love to know about it. Let me ask some perfect questions though because sometimes,

because I've got no experience in this, I just like to know how that works. especially your finances like when it comes to a polyamorous relationship are you kidding I do want to know how you split your budget I already know how hard it is to split between two people how are you doing that with three or more yeah so it's really pervy but really beautiful but you're right a lot of people reached out behind the scenes and they were like oh V I'm in a polyamorous relationship haven't told my family or haven't told my friends but it was just so nice to see that featured in mainstream media not that we're that mainstream but in a media

platform that I already consume and just know that this is a safe place for me and I was like I wish I had thought of bringing this to the show before it was brought to me by a community member and obviously that's a really good lesson to me that I need to really think about what other stories are we going to share in 2024 what does you know the future of money diaries look like because it is such a privilege as I've said before but such a beautiful opportunity to share so many diverse stories not only so that you and I Annalisa can learn from it because like we're very boring at the end of the day like we're not that interesting yeah but there are so many beautiful stories in our community that we can learn from yeah but also so many beautiful stories

that can be shared so everybody feels heard and feels validated and feels like no no no like my story is normal my story is part of the mix it's oh yeah and and you know i can guarantee you you know i know you're not a gambling woman either in my v but okay i bet you like a grant a thousand bucks you're gonna bet me someone someone was into the episode and going oh having to wake up at 5 a.m to milk cows don't relate to that but do relate to the polyamory or or vice versa you know what i mean every combination of everything can relate to being a reformed drug user or maybe someone who's at the start of that journey of trying to you know trying to quit and see figure Take that out or find a sustainable way of getting through it.

A hundred percent. I think one of my favorite parts of that was just how enamored with life she was. She was just like, I'm so happy. I'm just, I'm living my best life. I have this gorgeous daughter. I have this beautiful life. You know, my finances are on track. I think I remember she had a side hustle too.

Oh yeah, she's a little queen. She's a true Susan the money queen. But I thought that that was a pretty good way, Annalisa, to wrap the year. That was, I feel like we all leave on a high going, yes, she did. we're so proud of that but we're so proud of every single money diary that goes on the show but also I guess thank you to everybody who's also reached out to share their diary we get so many submissions and unfortunately they don't all make the show because as we know there's only 51 episodes a year that we can do but we try our best I promise and we always get back to you but it's one of

those things that I just I'm in awe consistently with how many generous souls live in our community who want to share and want to teach others. And what a Christmas gift you've wrapped up for us on this episode, V. How gorgeous. I love it. I can't think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than with money diaries, honestly.

Again, a little bit biased, but that's okay. Guys, have the best rest of the day and we will see you on Wednesday because the hustle doesn't stop, guys. The hustle does not stop. Bye. 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 if you do choose to buy a financial product read the pds tmd and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.