She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: The Pressure To Be Perfect

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

Today's Money Diarist recently a quit toxic (but well paying) tech job to run a small business with her dad. As an immigrant, she has always felt family and societal pressure to achieve and wonders if she should have stuck with the more "traditional" career path. Hers is a totally relatable story of consolidating pressure, and finding her truth!  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. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where I have the absolute privilege of sitting down with one of our incredible She's on the Money community members and talking all about their money story. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded like this. Hi, Victoria. I recently quit a toxic yet well-paying $125,000 plus tech job to run my small business full-time at 24 years old, working with my dad. As an immigrant, I always felt family and societal pressure to achieve, and I'm still struggling with comparing

myself to my peers with a more traditional career path, and I'm second-guessing if I made the right decision. I want to share my story of consolidating pressure and finding my truth with the community. Mani Darist, welcome to the show. What a good story to share. Thank you. Yeah, that was an excellent summary. I am so excited. I feel like this will be a really, really good story to share because background, my producer has told me that you moved here at five from China and you didn't know any English and now you're running a business here. Like, look at her glow up. I love this. But let's get into it. Money Darius, the first question we always ask is if I asked you to give

your money habits a grade from A through to F, what would you grade them? I think I'd give myself a B. A B. Which is, you know, like, I think it's good, but it could be better. Love. All right. My favourite question comes as no surprise to anybody. Can you tell me a little bit more about your history and your money story? Yeah, sure. I think, yeah, you mentioned, like, I am a first-gen immigrant, so I think my story in some parts might be quite, like, typical of, like, a lot of immigrants, but I guess the gist

of it is grew up with not much money at all. Moved here when I was five from China with mum and dad and yeah, I had no English ability at all. And yeah, without like the help of some really nice like ESL teachers back then, I felt like I would have just been, yeah, just way out of my depth. I think it's easier to stomach as a child, really young, moving overseas because, you know, you're sort of like a sponge and you soak everything up. So within a couple of years, I was sort of like any other kid on the playground, but definitely those first years were really tough, especially I think for my parents. They were both like uni educated, but when they came back here to Australia, so when

they came to Australia, they basically had to start from scratch. They were like working in factories and doing like delivery driver jobs and yeah, just trying to, you know, earn an income to support the three of us. I remember when we first moved here, like we were living in like a tiny flat. I think I remember literally sleeping on a mattress on the floor. It was really like bare bones at that time but I think also like benefit of being a small kid you don't like that sort of stuff you sort of you know don't really remember it you don't care it's novel it's new like it doesn't matter that the mattress is on the floor I had a good sleep right exactly yeah and like you know I'm with mum and dad and that's sort of all that matters I remember like despite being in like

a not so great area of town like we had really lovely neighbours and most of them were immigrants as well and they would like leave me secondhand toys and books outside the door that's so sweet it'd be like coming home to a surprise yeah yeah and that was like my first impression as a kid was that this place is great yeah this place is great people just give me free stuff now 100% like if I was five and people were leaving toys on my doorstep I'd be like this place is lit I think they just felt really sorry for us but yeah my first impression was yeah like you know despite people here probably not all having that much like they were all still willing to sort of band together as a community and I guess make you know the newcomers lives a bit easier which I just

found really heartwarming looking back on it that's so kind though that's the kind of I guess community and hospitality that you deserve if you're new to a country like I feel like everyone should experience that yeah exactly well sorry I guess back to the story like my parents uh they did work really hard and I think their hard work really did pay off because um they started a business in importing and wholesaling and bit by bit it started to I guess grow bigger and able to sustain our family. But it wasn't until I was sort of well into my late teens that my family's financial situation improved. And then we were sort of sending my siblings to private schools, family holidays every year sort of thing. But growing up, I did not have any of these

privileges. I like to tell my siblings I walked so they could run. Yes, you did. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. Jokes, but not really. You're like, sorry, not sorry. Also, I'm joking, not joking. So you moved here when you were five and you didn't have any siblings at that point because you said it was just the three of us. How old are your siblings in comparison to you? So I have three siblings. Oh, wow. I did not see that coming. So quite a large family, I think by today's standards. I've got my two sisters are four years younger one's eight years younger and my little brother's actually 12 years younger oh how exciting big age gap and it's funny because I think for the past like 10 years we've always had

like at least one child in the family in a different stage of like schooling so yeah yeah that's the long haul like that's when people say oh my gosh I can't wait to get out of nappy stage like your parents really did say we enjoy that and then just kept putting themselves back in there Like they didn't even, you know, try and knock a couple together so that you could just do the nappy stage together. They were like, let's just go back to the start, start from scratch. Like we want this to be as hard as possible for us. Exactly. Every four years, it's like, start, start over again. Let's go through that. Yeah, why don't we just do this again? I love that for them. Geniuses. I actually tell my mom that from time to time. You're like, why did you do this?

like I love my siblings, but also you're crazy. Exactly. No, that's so special. Having three siblings must be a lot of fun. I want to know more about now who you are. So, you know, growing up, obviously that was the case, you're now an adult. What happened between being a teenager and your money story changing and today? I'd say because of the way I grew up, I guess I, and like the way that my parents sort of, you know, hustled head down, trying to just make enough money to survive and just like put food on the table. I guess I grew up with that motto of like money's meant to be saved and not spent. And if it's spent, then it has to be like for necessities only, which is, I guess, like a, you know, solid mindset to start from. But I feel like it sort of had impacts on me

later on when I had my own money as well because I felt like I would get like a bit of spending anxiety even on like things that were necessities like bills or like groceries or yeah just like food and stuff like I would like put off paying bills to the last day for example just to I don't know stretch it out even though I knew I'd eventually have to pay it. I feel like that's really common though. I feel like that's so common, especially for people in your circumstance where if you didn't come from money, then finally having it, it's really hard to part with it. And that's often obviously relatively crippling because it doesn't put you in the best possible financial position. Cause I know if I sat you down at the time a bill was due and I'd be like,

it's better to pay it early, right? You'd be like, absolutely Victoria, like get it off my plate. But then in the background, it's this mental anguish of going, but if I pay it, the money's out of my account and what if something happens and I need the money for something and I just I think that's really relatable yeah yeah it's always the um like what if some big thing happens and I suddenly need to take out all this money for that I think like the concept of having an emergency fund has helped me in that aspect so it's sort of like that weight is off my mind yeah That's good. That's good. I really like that. I want to know, you mentioned in your story in that you used to have a job and now you have your own business with your dad. What do you do for work

and how much money do you earn? Yeah. So right now I run a small property management business with my dad as the business partner, my sole business partner. We specialize in short-term and vacation rentals. And we help our clients with everything from like setting up their property and marketing it to like managing bookings and guests and housekeeping. So basically like everything you need to run a successful short stay or vacation rental. That's very cool. And within that, because it's really just us two, we wear a lot of hats. In terms of pay, I currently pay myself 55k plus super plus a 10% profit share. And, you know, although that's what we have on paper, I'm actually thinking of like putting that 10% back into the business instead

of taking it for myself, just because I think like at this point, investing in the business and helping it grow is yeah, really my priority. And I think with the way I live, especially like after taking a pay cut like I don't have a really fancy life or anything like I'm able to sort of maintain my current lifestyle. I like that tell me more about this business like how did you know that you wanted to go all in and quit your big paying job you're on 125 grand and then you're like you know what I'm just gonna start my own business what was that thought process and what made you confident to do it yeah well I definitely wasn't confident to do it just to put that out there and I think I you know mentioned in my submission in that like to this day like I still

second guess your decision yeah like second guessing have doubts come up time to time but from like I guess talking to like you know mentors or other people who have run businesses it seems like they always tell me that's quite common. Oh, it's very normal. I question myself literally every day. I have the worst imposter syndrome in the entire world. I genuinely believe that after nearly 500 podcast episodes, someone's going to listen to my podcast and be like, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Get her off. Get her off there. What the hell? Who let her here? Like who let her out of this house? Like absolutely not put her back in a box, like cancel. She's on the money. It's toxic. It doesn't help anybody, does it? A hundred percent. Like it's, it's

definitely like the imposter syndrome and yeah that's exactly the same spiral I go down you're like I don't deserve to be running a business who who am I what audacity have I got but do you know what I learned a lot about you when you told me what you earned and the fact that you've probably got an incredibly well-structured business and financial plan when you say I pay myself $55,000 plus super organized tax and I also have a 10% profit share how did you learn to structure a business that way so early, my friend, because that's not normal. Most people just take out some cash to pay their bills. They don't pay themselves super. They're definitely not talking about profit share, especially this early on. Like, where's this come from? Why are you so smart?

I'd say the 55K, I sort of just calculated the amount that I would need to just live on. And I cut down a lot of my expenses by first of all moving from my very nice apartment in the city to you know into the suburbs of my partner and then I guess having shared living costs that way has really helped with like budgeting as I said before like I don't really have a very glam life apart from I guess like a holiday every year like there's not like I'm not going out to like fine dining or high-end places or shopping a lot. I guess I'm lucky in that my lifestyle has always been quite manageable. I guess the downside is then obviously I'm not saving as much like you know in my bank account or investing as much but I sort of think of it the other way which is like

I'm investing in the business instead and eventually like this is the biggest investment it's hopefully going to have the biggest returns as well in the future. How did you structure this? so you thought all right I'm going to start a business I'm assuming you went onto the government website registered an ABN but how did you know what to do next how did you know what to do about accounting and you know marketing and finance and even HR like what does all of that look like and how did you learn yeah I think it's a combination of my dad already having run a business in the past so he's you know already operating a small business albeit like in a completely different industry so he sort of knew the process of like setting up an ABN setting up an ACN and all of

that and sort of the paperwork behind it already had like a business accountant so we were able to leverage that but also everything else like I think came from like just researching digging through Google and also just like from my past experiences is working in my day job. Since graduating, I've worked in marketing, I've worked in consulting, and then most recently tech. And I think given the structure of some of those companies as well, some were large organizations, some were startups, I was like exposed to like different areas in each business and sort of how they manage their employees and like for example the startup had options for employees to you know buy shares and you know become like part of the business and participate in that profit share

scheme as well so that sort of came from yeah just a I guess an amalgamation of yeah different experiences I had sort of gathered last few years of working but definitely not perfect. No, that's fine. It's just really cool to understand how people start because I think a lot of us have the aspiration of being like, well, maybe one day I'll start a business, but like how? And I promise it's not as hard as people think it is. Running the business is hard, but starting the business is very easy. Why property management, my friend? How did you fall into that? When did you realize that that was something that you were like, do you know what, I think I could make a whole business out of this? How it all sort of started was, I guess, before I started my grad job. So out of uni, I helped my dad set up the first property online. And that was like an investment property that he had originally purchased and wanted to live in after retirement and occasionally use it as like a holiday home. he sort of just asked me like hey do you want me to help me manage this property sort of as like a side thing like then that was really the original intention for it to be sort of like a thing that I set and forget and it's sort of you know just one property runs on its own not that much overhead so I originally started with that and yeah it was really trial and error for like the first few

months I quickly realized that there's a totally different level of risk running like a short stay rental versus like just a long-term lease because a long-term lease is really just set and forget right like you just want someone who pays the bills on time whereas a short stay I realized that this is like a business like there's like communication with like people coming in and out organizing like housekeeping schedules marketing it so you know in the high seasons you can attract more bookings and then the low seasons you sort of have different pricing strategies to sort of shoulder it as well but yeah that's sort of how it started and for a while it was sort of you know cruisy we were trial and erroring it the point where I realized like

oh this is you know like a business this is a whole thing yeah yeah yeah like it's actually gaining some traction is when we started getting noticed by like other property owners nearby asking us like hey who manages your property yeah yeah like would you possibly be interested in helping us manage ours or like you know how do you do it and it was then that we acquired a few more under our management but one thing I'd like to say is at this time like our infrastructure did not support it yeah or like it was really at breaking point like because he had asked me to set up this one property for him when I was just out of uni before I had even started a full-time job yet our operating like processes and procedure were like bare bones it was basically just an

excel sheet with like a bunch of random formulas that I had made because that's the easiest thing to do when you just have one thing to do. Exactly. It was like the MVP, right? And it was just like a few message templates I had written up. There was like no chat GPT. So I just, you know, wrote all of them myself. Oh, chat GPT would do amazing things for you now. Right? Right. So. Incredible. Yeah. So it was really, really like bare bones. Everything was like manual on Excel. So when we got a few more properties under management to be honest I feel like I could have buffed up the tech more at that time but because I was also by that time also juggling a full-time job I just didn't have like the time or energy to invest into it so it was really like bootstrapping it for a while

just get it done yeah exactly and yeah then because my intention had always been my my thinking has always been like oh yeah I'm just gonna you know through my day job I'm gonna go and you know start my career and I'm gonna progress along in my career in like a completely different field this is just like a humble side hustle that I'm doing I didn't really invest that much more into it I'd say like the point when I decided that I could go full-time into this business it was because of like several reasons I guess first of all the current job that I was in the one right before this was like I mentioned in my submission a bit toxic yeah and I don't like want to say that word lightly as well because it is like quite a strong word it was

really bad it was really bad like it was it was full of politics a lot of red tape it was a large organisation and just like a poor work culture. And I was just like mentally and emotionally drained every day working there. But at the same time, it was like I was getting paid like a good salary. There's always a trade-off. Yeah. Yeah. So it really took a lot of, I guess, like convincing from, I guess, like my partner and also myself to make that switch. Because I think by that point I was like still so focused on like the dollar figure and like the number and and that would have meant a lot to you as well especially with your background the idea of earning $125,000 at 23 like I don't know if I could have walked away from that I would

have stayed in my little toxic bubble of toxicness and pretended I liked it yeah yeah exactly and I think what it came down to was like after just being so like emotionally drained every day just wondering to myself like is this actually worth it like first of all like my lifestyle isn't like I don't need a lot of money to just live my normal lifestyle like yes I was saving a lot which was good but at the end of the day like you know I think you like you talk about values on your podcast and I think it that's sort of what it came down to is like the life that I want to lead in the future like I sort of I realized like hey I just need to make enough money to facilitate the sort of life I want in the future oh love I love that that's the way you're thinking about it

rather than like just reach like a really high arbitrary figure that you know will never be enough like if I would just focus on a figure I'll go higher higher higher but the trade-off is like work-life balance or mental health and like that's not what I want to see in my future so I guess it was realizing that but realizing that was also kind of painful because it was then like going back and realizing like oh what have I worked so hard for I guess yeah but you learned a lot yeah And you learn a lot about what you didn't like and what you wouldn't accept and I think that sometimes we disregard how much we've learned even though it's not super positive but it'll pay off in the future I promise. Yeah yeah 100% like I sort of you know took it all as learning

experiences but I did sort of upon reflection look back and sort of realize that I had pinned a lot of my like self-worth to my achievements and by like how much I was making or what I was doing and it's like really dangerous I feel to think that way because yeah like when what you're doing no longer sort of fulfills you anymore like I was feeling in my last job your self-worth or like your sense of self starts chipping away as well because it's so like inextricably tied in your mind to your achievements and what you're doing yeah that's so true so it's like your whole reality is like yeah it's questioned yeah oh my gosh I'm so excited that you did it though that's so good yeah yeah so it was definitely like a leap of faith but yeah I think a calculated one yes

hopefully calculated I love that but yeah this opportunity as well to run it full-time also I guess appeared at the right time and place as well because as I said we were sort of at breaking point with how we were managing it like our current like operations our current infrastructure wasn't supporting like the amount of I guess like bookings or like traffic and revenue that we were taking yeah that's fair as well like it was literally the same excel spreadsheet and formulas I had made years ago. Please tell me we've retired the Excel. Oh my gosh, it's really bad.

No, it's not. We all start somewhere. My entire business used to be run on Excel and it was embarrassing the day I walked into my account and I said, I think I've got a legit business and we probably should have accounting software. And he said, yeah, I told you that 12 months ago. So, you know what?

I did my stuff in my time and I'm sure you did too. but we're just we're all just trying our best out here okay exactly exactly it's MVP it's you know the minimum viable product it's it's whatever works exactly all right I want to know can you tell me a bit more about your big money goals like what are you working towards yeah so my big money goal right now is definitely purchasing our next home with my partner so in the next four to five years. Do you already own a home? Yes, both of us own a home. Big dog energy. She's a baby. She has her own business. She owns a home. She wants to buy another one. Of course she does. Yeah. So that's our money goal in the next four to five years. So it's still quite a while away. Four to

five years. That's tomorrow. That's so soon. That's so exciting. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, yeah, hoping by then we'll both have enough like borrowing power and, you know, would have saved up a bit as well to make that purchase. And, you know, we might have to sell one or both properties. Depends how we go, I see, I guess. Oh, how exciting. All right. I have a lot more questions for you. We're going to go to a really quick break. And on the flip side, I want to know more about your investments, your properties. I want to know about debt. And I also want to know about your best and worst money habits. Don't go anywhere, guys. All right, Money Diarist, we are back and you slipped in that you might have to sell one or

both properties. Are you trying to tell me that you've got multiple properties? If so, can you tell me about your investments, my friend? Yeah, definitely not multiple. I do have one investment property that I got about a year ago. It's an investment property that I do get rental income from. So it adds about 20K to my income every year. Oh, how cool. But yeah, I did buy it at a very sweet low interest rate a year ago. Oh yeah. And now you feel like you're being kicked while you're down? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm really not looking forward to when that fixed rate period runs out and I have to face the reality like everyone else. You need to talk to the girls at Zella Money to make sure that you're structured well for that so that it doesn't

completely bite you in the bottom when it pops up so that everything is good to go. I feel like all of our clients at the moment are super stressed about that, but with some good planning, it won't be nearly as painful, I promise. Yeah, no, I definitely need to get onto that. Tell me a bit more about this property though. How much did you have to save to purchase it? And how did you decide that that was the right investment property for you? yeah so I had to save the 20% deposit so it was a 570k property so the deposit on that was just over a hundred grand oh my gosh and you saved all of that money and you're a baby how did you do that I would say savings from uni not much at all because I was working part-time of course but also

then working full-time for just over two years and living at home I'd say. Yeah okay so that that makes a lot more sense and as you said before you obviously had a very high income but I'm assuming from the way that we've been conversing you don't spend all of that you have a relatively frugal life is that correct? Yeah yeah and to be honest I wasn't sort of like actively like saving towards this first home like I it wasn't in my mind that like I'm saving towards a first home because I really want to buy a property at this time or by this date and like I was living at home as well which I'm super lucky to have done so I wasn't sort of like paying rent or bills or anything so yeah incredibly lucky for that and I guess you know those two years were lockdown so

2020 2021 yeah and there's not a lot you can do at that period of time exactly so that you know even if I wanted to there wasn't too much that I could blow my money on during that time and like I know like as bad as it sounds because I know a lot of people suffered during lockdown of course like I I don't think I would have been able to like save up for a deposit if it hadn't been yeah unless you were kind of literally locked inside and you couldn't go and spend all your money yes yeah yeah no I think there are a lot of people like that and I mean it goes in ebbs and flows right every single market whether it is a bull market or a bear market there are people who benefit and there are people who don't and that's actually okay it's not your fault but I

can see why you're like oh I feel a bit icky about this because so many people were not doing well during that time but I promise you it is okay my friend yeah yeah and I felt like you know honestly I felt, I don't know, like even a bit guilty at the time. Like I didn't put it on socials. I didn't really tell many of my friends except like my closest. Yeah. Cause you just feel uncomfortable cause so many of your friends might've lost jobs or really been struggling or their partners were losing jobs or they're moving back in with parents cause they can't afford things. And then you're out here being like, actually, Hey, I've achieved something really cool. I completely understand where you're coming from, but it doesn't mean we should downplay your achievements because

somebody else quote, has it worse. Yeah, I'm realizing that as well, but definitely, yeah, back then it was sort of something I couldn't openly celebrate. And that's okay. I think that just tells us how much of a kind human being you are. I guess so. How I ended up buying that home though was I wasn't really thinking about buying a property, but sort of, you know, lockdowns and stuff lifted. The interest rates were really low I think that was definitely a big motivator and I know like there's risks to that as well because it won't stay low forever and now I'm sort of you know now we're all seeing that but that definitely was like a big incentive to sort of jump into the property market at the time

and I was sort of encouraged by like family as well to do it it was sort of I think for them their mindset was really like why not like you have the deposit and it's a really low interest rate cash is cheaper than ever sort of thing like why not just do it now so like I wish I could say that I thought more about it from that but that was really like how it happened yeah wow I feel like it's nice that you can be so honest about it though because I think so many times people are saving and they just don't know what they're saving for at that point. And then all of a sudden it all falls into place and that's okay. And that's amazing. And that's why we need consistent savings goals. Do you have any other investments? Yeah, I invest in stocks. So like ETFs and

shares. And I started doing that during like lockdown as well. So I think to date, I've got about $22,000 in like ETFs and shares. Oh my gosh, you're a bowler. I did not expect this. That was definitely not the amount I put in. It's gone up a bit from the time I put it in and it was like during the crash. So yeah, I think I'm lucky. Invested at a smart time. In that sense, yeah. How did you decide what shares and what ETFs you wanted to pick? I'd say like for myself it was like a combination of like research articles no sorry not research articles that makes it sound like it was like a medical journal or something but like researching

articles online like friends and family I guess just like conversations with them like oh what do you invest in and what do you think is performing well or going to perform well and like I'm not like a very finance investing person myself. Like I don't like keep up with the stock market or anything. So yeah, I really just rely on like my conversations with the people around me to sort of let me know what's going on most of the time. That's cool to know though. I really like understanding how people make decisions and why they make decisions. And it's so interesting because even if this was your first investment, it's going to be so different to somebody else's first investment and their thought process and what that actually looks like. It makes me,

I just love it. I'm so interested in it. Everyone else is like, Victoria, that's so boring. I'm like, no, it's not. Tell me more. Yeah. It's really interesting. I find it fascinating myself as well. I do too. I want to know now, I know you've got some debt because there's no way you've paid off that whole mortgage yet. Tell me about debts. Do you have any? If so, what are they? Yes. So I do have a mortgage on my property and yeah, like you said, I really should calculate how much my repayments will go up by and yeah, what impact that would have on like my lifestyle. But yeah, I've just been procrastinating putting it off a bit just because the thought seems very scary. The sooner you work out what that's going to mean and when, the easier it will be, I promise.

I know, I know. I promise. So any other debts, just the mortgage at this point? No, I also have my HECS debt, although I'm not loving the indexation on that either. Nobody is, don't worry. Currently, after indexation, it's sitting at just over 8k. Oh, that's okay. That's not too bad at all.

But indexation would have made you feel a little bit sick when you're so close to the finish line. Yeah, yeah. I actually just checked it last night and I was like surprised by the amount. I think like because it had just been like I've just been automatically paying it off like every payslip. It's gone down like faster than I thought it would have been. Oh, that's good though.

I want to know because I feel like you've got a few. What are your best money habits? I think like a combination of having like a high interest bank account and credit card. So I do use a credit card to, you know, just manage my like cash in, cash out sort of thing. Like I use it more as like a financial tool, which is why I sort of don't consider it that much as debt because I've never been late on a payment. No, but that's okay because everybody is, everyone's in a different situation, right? I know if you gave me a credit card, I'd be tap happy and we would not be in a good financial

position at all but someone like you who's using it as a tool to create more financial resources genius so smart I can't be trusted though I think it's also the points that I earn from credit cards like I sort of just see it as like oh free money because I mean technically it is if you're not paying a really big annual fee for your credit card yeah yeah so like on my day-to-day spending like it's money that I would have to spend anyway I sort of use my credit card to get the points but then like I have most of my money for like most of the time in like a high interest bank account so I get the interest but then I also get the points and right before my credit card's bill was due I paid off fully so I don't you know get any fees from that you don't see it you don't get

any fees you're not paying any interest which is the smart way to use a credit card yeah yeah and because I had like accumulated like a fair amount of points from like some credit cards have bonuses when you sign up for them plus sort of like my like day-to-day spending I've cashed out like four five hundred dollars worth of like vouchers so far money win that's free money that's absolutely free money that's girl math it's it's a hundred percent girl maths and it's so good oh I love that you're so smart when it comes to that see I would just collect all the points and then forget that they were there as well because I had all this new stuff that I bought with my credit card I've been using it on like Woolies vouchers. Oh, smart. Just because like groceries are so expensive

these days anyway. 100% they are. That's such a smart way of using it as well, because that would go so much further. And it also ends up impacting your overall budget instead of you seeing it as like, oh, I can get something new and shiny with this because it's girl math money. You can actually cut down your bills and your actual spending, which ultimately impacts your financial security. so it's genius. Yeah, I guess that's what I've been using it for, but yeah, it's definitely helped with the budget a bit more. I know everybody listening to this is probably thinking there's no way this money diarist has bad money habits. She's so young, so smart, so good with money, but we need to know, do you have any bad money habits? What is your worst? Unfortunately,

I do. Oh yeah. Okay. Here we go. Sorry to break the facade. I think my worst money habit is like going back to investing is not really having like a solid plan for investing. Like I get the basic concepts of like investments and putting money into shares and that, but I keep forgetting to do it regularly or like sort of have a solid strategy for doing it. So like, for example, every time I've invested in shares it's literally because I'll be having a conversation with like family or a friend or my partner and I like suddenly remember like oh yeah I have shares I should probably check in on them it's been a while that's not the worst way to be and then I log on and then I might make like one or two trays and then I just forget about it for the next

six months I'm lucky in that like overall I haven't made a loss but there definitely have been like certain stocks and stuff that they haven't performed as well no have like completely crashed in my portfolio and then like I'm too lazy sometimes so let's like take them out and I don't know I think it's like some sort of weird mental block for me but yeah I feel like if I am a bit more diligent and actually like sat down to do like a you know a real investment plan like I could get better returns on my investments yeah fair fair I mean I will agree that that might be your worst money habit but that's not the worst money habit I've ever heard in fact it makes me think that you're relatively good at money still even though you think that's not a good habit

which leads me to my last question at the start of the episode I asked you what you would grade your own money habits and you told me it was a B. After we have had a chat, do you still agree with a B? And if so, that's cool. What would it take to get you to an A? I think after speaking with you, I'll upgrade it to a B plus. Okay. I love this. You know, you've, you've fluffed me up a little bit. Always. That's my job. So what would it take for me to get to an A? I think, yeah like just having a more solid plan for for investing I think my exposure to sort of investing when I was younger was always like from property like real estate right like that's what I feel like most parents in that generation say but it's not as applicable for many people now and definitely

not very feasible for me to just you know build a real estate empire like it's yeah yeah it's definitely not what it used to be yeah so like looking into other forms of investments and for a lot of people that's shares it's a lot more accessible and yeah I feel like if I actually like you know did more research into it was more diligent with it yeah I could probably get myself to an A. I love that I love that there's a plan though and you know what it will take Money Diarist it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you I feel like I've learned a lot I have felt that you have achieved so much, but you are still only a baby. You're only 24 and you've done all this stuff. I'm just so impressed. But sadly, that is all we have time for today. So

thank you so much for joining us. I'm just genuinely so grateful to share so many diverse stories in our community. Like our community is made up of so many beautiful human beings. And the fact that you want to hang out with me and share your story, it blows my mind. It's literally my favorite thing ever so thank you no thank you so much for having me I feel so happy and yeah grateful to be here I love that thank you and just like contributing back to I guess like yeah like this community as you said it because it's really helped me a lot like your content and like the Facebook group and and everything like I love going in there and feel like I've learned a lot over the past few years oh I love this thank you so much all right have the best day and I'm sure

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