She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Work, Live, Play - 5 Hours Away (from a Supermarket)!

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

Save with marley spoon - https://bit.ly/4cWAWD2 or use the code MONEYWIN Having ditched her High School graduation to start work, our Money Diarist has had a job since 11 years old and always had a strong work ethic. At 20 years old, she is currently working in a remote location, where she lives, works and plays all at the same location - 5 hours away from a Supermarket!  With accommodation and bills all covered as a perk of the job, not having these living expenses allows our Money Diarist to save on her salary. Could you manage this lifestyle? Listen to find out! 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 get the absolute pleasure of talking to one of our She's On The Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded exactly like this. Hi, She's On The Money. I live on a cattle station in the Northern Territory, 500 kilometers from the nearest Woolies. I've become a keen saver because I have very minimal bills and obviously don't get to go to the shops much. I would love to share my story and unique lifestyle with the community. Money Diaries, this is wild to me. Like the idea that you have to plan

so much to get to Woolies, like you can't just pop to the shops on your lunch break, can you? No, not at all. How long does it take to get to the shops? Five hours. Like you jump in the car and you drive for five hours? Yep. And how often do you do that? Once a month or a bit over a Oh my gosh. And does everyone just get in the car? Who goes? What's the plan? It depends. Sometimes it could just be me, but then sometimes we'll try working in if we have to go to town and pick up parts or something. We'll just get a store order then. Yeah, that's fair. So I need to know, like what happens if Woolies doesn't have the thing that you drove into town to get? Well, because we do click and collect,

we sort of don't find out till after. So you sort of just got to live without it for another month or so. No, obviously you can't just get an Uber Eats delivery there, can you? You can't just be like, oh, we forgot the butter. Don't worry about it. You'd literally have to basically make your own, wouldn't you? Yes. Yeah. I have a checklist I try to follow, so I try not to forget anything. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I'm sure this is going to come up again. I have so many questions about this life, but before we get there, let's jump into the structured questions that I always like to ask. Money, Doris, I want to know from the top, what grade would you give your money habits if we asked you to give them a grade from A through to F? Probably a C plus, I'd say. A C

plus. All right. For someone who literally can't get to the shops easily, I need to know more about this. Tell me a bit more about your money story. I feel like I'm so excited to hear this one. Well, I grew up in like not small city, I'd say, with five other siblings. So it was a big family. and so we didn't go without but we didn't get everything we wanted because it was like you know a lot of kids to pay for everything so we started working at a young age me and my twin sister we started working when we were 11 just delivering junk mail and I feel like that gave us like a really good work ethic and then yeah throughout school we always had a part-time job saving spending a bit but as soon as I graduated school I didn't even go to my graduation I went

down to WA for the harvest and just saved about 15 grand within three months oh my gosh as a chaser bin driver and then bought my first car and then I moved to the cattle station like straight after that you were like I do not have a plan to graduate thanks just post me the certificate I'll pick it up when I'm in town yeah I'm off yeah was living on a cattle station always a plan like is this a family cattle station or is this you going this is the life I want to live like how did you end up on a cattle station when you grew up in I won't say a major city but like a relatively large city no I don't know I didn't know what I wanted to do all throughout school and I was like oh I don't want to be like I didn't the office job didn't appeal to me and I was like I want to be

like physical active working like sort of hard labor not hard labor but you know physical on my body and then we had a family friend who had a catastation who was like oh you'd be like a really good jitteroo ringer you should come out to mine and see if you like it and then I did and then I really liked it and I was like okay this is what I want to do and then just applied at heaps even though he offered me a job I wanted to go to like a company one with more employees and and stuff like that so and then I eventually yeah got a job. I didn't even know that was a thing so what your family friend was offering was like a family cattle station and then they're like corporate cattle station I won't say corporate but like business cattle stations that have lots of

employees. Yes. How's that work? Some are smaller and they might only have like five employees and then if you like work for a company normally their stations are a lot bigger so there could be like 10 to 20 employees. Wow. So tell me more about this. Where do you live? You live on the cattle station. Do you live with all these 20 other employees? Like how does this situation work? Well, my first year, I was first year ringer and I lived, yeah, it was like a station with 18 employees plus another business, like a helicopter business on that station as well. So that had like 20 to 30 people living there as well. So it was like big, but yeah, so it was like really good you just had like a single room accommodation ate dinner with everyone every night

like yeah work live play all together didn't really get a break from everyone but it was like so good but now me my partner he oversees a cattle station so like I'm overseer support so it's just us two on like an out station with normally one employee but we don't have one at the moment oh my gosh so now you just get to work with your partner every day yeah how cool yeah That's a lot. Like, I'm not going to lie. I adore my husband, but I don't think I would be able to say that if we worked together. Lots of people always ask me like, oh my gosh, does Steve help out with business? Because he does work in like a marketing space. And obviously that's important for what I do. And I'm always like, absolutely not. Like keep away from what I do. It will not

be healthy for our relationship. So I'm impressed. If you can get through that, you must be a very, very solid couple tell me more about this you mentioned before like you thought about becoming a gillaroo or a ringer and then you became a first year ringer what is that job how does that work so like gillaroo is like a female station hen like starting out and so like ring is just like a station hen they're just like two different words for it but yeah it was like really hard because I was obviously so green I didn't I didn't grow up on a farm or anything so I had no experience but like if you just have a good attitude and a good work ethic and show that to your employees they'll be keen on you because they can teach those skills yeah 100% I feel like that

is across the board for any area like if somebody has good work ethic like I can teach you the technical skills but if someone does not have good work ethic like it is almost like pulling teeth you're like I don't care if you have the best technical skills if I have to pull teeth with you I just, I can't do it. Whether you are the employer or the employee, like there's nothing worse than working with a colleague who has bad work ethic. You're just like, why am I putting all this effort in? So I can see why, especially when things are a little bit harder, especially when you're remote, like work ethic would be running rings around any type of technical skill, I reckon. Yeah. Most people out here know, like you have to have a good work ethic. So everyone

comes out here to work hard so tell me now about how much you earn and what your job is today so I'm overseas support and I earn 52,500 plus super a year and my job like now that I'm overseas support is like anything like I do all the gardening do like diesel return data entry as well as mastering processing cattle like I just do whatever they need me to do like with my partner help him do put troughs in like I do ball runs I'll walk the grader somewhere like I just do everything and anything really. Wow so it's kind of like you've taken over the farm and you're the boss of the farm like you just have to make sure everything happens is that right? Yeah as well as like cook I'm the cook for us but like normally we have someone here but we might have like

another station ringers come stay with us for a couple weeks so like we like cooking for 10 people yeah oh my gosh and you're doing that as well as everything else on the farm yeah oh my gosh are you exhausted like what are your hours each day when we're mastering it'll be like dark till dark so 12 hours plus and then if it's like yeah not mastering but it's not the off season it could be yeah still 12 hours but it could be like 10 hours nothing really less than 10 hours really. Oh my gosh and are you super tired at the end of the day or are you just enthusiastic about getting back into it the next day? It depends I guess like when we're flat out for like a month mustering you do get pretty tired but then it's like so fun so you're like you just try to go to sleep like

as soon as dinner's finished have a shower and just go straight to bed. Yeah that's so fair so tell me more about this salary because $52,000 is I would say for 12 hour days not that much remuneration do you get paid in any other way so is housing included or like what do your bills look like how does that work? Yeah so housing and food's all paid for so we don't pay anything to do with that and then yeah I literally don't have any bills other than like my car my phone oh how good everything's sort of supplied yeah so everything's supplied and then of that salary that you make you're basically able to save it or spend it on whatever you would like is that right yeah yeah that's right and tell me what does the future look like are we doing this forever you're

obviously in love with somebody who oversees a cattle station so I don't think you're going anywhere too quickly but like what does that look like in the future when it comes to income and what does it look like in terms of I guess lifestyle we're not sure yet like we'd love to do it for a few more years but we don't know if we want to have a break and then have kids and then come back like yeah we're not sure but like it's uh yeah so good but if we did want to continue yeah and you can like look into managing a station which is like the next sort of big opportunity then it doesn't really go much higher than that but like the the pay would go a little bit higher but not like huge but you'd probably get more benefits like your diesel paid from

a car supplied and everything else yeah so when it comes to a job like this I'm making the grand assumption that it's really a passion job like you've got to be really passionate about it and want to be able to do it because I think a lot of people listening and this is not offensive in the slightest I don't think they just go money diarist for that amount of money you could not pay me to do 12 hour days on a cattle station, 500 kilometers from a Woolies, like that just feels like a lot. But for you, like you are beaming right now. You're like, but I love it. Is that right? Yeah. Like it's just for the lifestyle. So different and unique, but so fun. And you get to experience so much, like so different to living anywhere else really. And learn so many skills.

I want to know so much more about this, but that is not a Money Diaries episode. That's just me you're being super pervy. I need to know, what are your big money goals? What are you currently working towards? Well, my closest one will be a new car, which I've got 20 grand in savings for that, but I want a good, reliable four-wheel drive. So roughly going to spend maybe like 40 grand. And then I've also got a house deposit account, which I'm saving for, and I've got seven grand in that. Oh, how cool. Yeah. What does that look like in the future? A house deposit. If you're living out on a cattle station. I'm assuming it's not a property that you're planning on moving into in the immediate future. When are we planning on buying property or do you have a plan for that at

all? Maybe in like three to four years. Yeah. When I have more stable like assets, like my car will be reliable and then I might, yeah, use it as an investment property eventually. Yeah. And is that something that you would purchase with your partner? Like I need to know, like, did you meet him out on the cattle station like how did you two get together because I feel like this could be a cute little remote love story yeah we did actually we met in my first year and he was like a ringer on the station and then like we lived and worked together and then I like we didn't think much of it like I didn't I was just like there to work and like learn so much and then and then a month went by and then we were like started like talking and hanging out and like spending more

time together as soon as we knocked off work and then we're like oh yeah and then we just started dating. And this is the thing. I love it. I love it. And how long has he been working on cattle stations? This is his sixth year. Oh my gosh. And does he have a very similar salary to you or is it a bit more because he's an overseer? Yeah, he's on like 20 grand more than me. And is that like a normal step up? I'm just, I'm trying to like work out what the career progression for your type of role is. Cause you know how you said, oh, you could go up to a manager. What's difference between like an overseer and then like a cattle station manager so like he oversees the property and all the like work that happens and everything but the manager might like do the

financing side and order certain like contractors and stuff like that like proper right yeah yeah it's like the more business decisions when you're a manager right yeah where he does like all the work decisions. Yeah, I love that. I feel like it's so interesting learning about other people's lifestyles and like how that works. Because, you know, even at the start of this, you said, oh, yeah, I was going to be a jitteroo or a ringer. And I was like, I have no idea what either of those things are. Please tell me and don't think I'm silly for asking, please. No, definitely not. Money Darius, let's go to a really quick break. On the flip side, I want to talk to you about

debts and investments. And I feel like you've got some pretty good money habits because you can't get to the shops very often. So guys, don't go anywhere. My need irist, we are back and we are talking about your life living on a cattle station, 500 kilometers from the nearest Woolies. And my next question I want to know about is investments. So tell me about whether you invest or not. And if you don't, do you have a plan? What does that look like in the future? I have $115 in ETFs, but I also salary sacrifice into my super $50 a week. Oh, how cool. How long have you been doing that? Last year, I think I did $40 a week. And then this year I started doing $50 a week.

Oh, how good. And that's on top of your regular contributions. Yeah. Did you make a plan for $50 or was that you just going, all right, I know I need to contribute more to this or I really want to contribute more to this $50 is what I can afford or is that you like working backwards on a specific plan or like how does that work? No well last year I just like was like oh I should just do it because I know I want to have like try to have like four kids if I get that privilege. Four babies? Yeah. You came from a big family so that makes sense. Yes so I was like I'll be out of the workforce for a bit like I need to and while I'm young for it to compound

I was like I'll just do it now like while I don't have heaps of bills and I'm not fussed that it's not coming into my bank account and then I think I got like a little five percent pay rise so I was like oh just put extra in there as well. I really like that you're thinking about superannuation contributions while you're so young and you know how old are you again? 20. So you're 20 and you're thinking about the time that you're going to take off for like maternity or parental leave and that's just ah I love it so much I want to like hug you because it's just putting you so far ahead I could tell from your demeanor that you're like oh I don't really invest that much but like you're 20 you already have some ETFs and you're adding extra to super with the thought pattern that

you're like well I want kids one day and I don't want to be too far behind like do you know how far ahead that puts you like you are so far ahead of most people who are you know much older than you who maybe have a bit more cash but haven't got the plan for it. Like, I think that you're underselling how good you are at money, my friend. Thank you. I'm obsessed with it. And tell me about this kid's plan. Is this something where you've said to your partner,

by the way, four kids, that's the plan? Because that's a lot of kids in this day and age. I know. He's like, oh, three. And I'm like, no, it has to be even. We have to have four. Has to be even, does it? I feel like I'm a new mum.

I can't stop talking about it. so please excuse me. Congratulations. Thank you. I know a lot of people are always like in the first year don't even talk to me about second babies don't even talk to me about you know when the next one's coming and I'm low-key like so how many of these am I allowed Steve because like I would like more of these like not just yet calm down like don't worry I'm not trying to scare you but like these are real cool. Real fun. They are so fun so I think that's a really cool plan. tell me a little bit more I want to know about debt do you have any debt if so what is it no I don't have any debt at all and you never went to uni so you don't have a hex debt you're completely

clean all you have is all your savings and your ETFs and your super so you're well above I love it tell me about your best money habit I feel like living remotely you're gonna have to have a few of them yeah well because we only go to town you know every so often I try to like look at the specials the week before for the town we do go to get our food only has a Woolworths it doesn't even have a Coles but if we go to the next town over which is another three hours which sometimes we do in addition to that five hour drive yeah so it takes you five hours to drive to the nearest Woolies and then if you're like I'm actually a Coles girl that's like an eight hour drive Yeah, but, like, because, like, that town that only has, like, a horse might not have all the parts we need, so we might go to the next town over if we have to pick up certain parts and stuff.

So then I'll be like, oh, look at the catalogues, as old as that sounds, and go to one shop for, like, our personal stuff, like deodorant, because that's so much money, face wash, body wash, and then I might go to the other one to get, like, toothpaste and stuff just to try and, like, yeah, keep everything. Cut down the costs. Yeah. Especially if you're already heading there, I feel like that's really smart. I have to know, you mentioned catalogues and like, I just remember when I was little going through the catalogues, like I had no idea what I was buying, but like mum and dad would bring them in and just like put them on the bench with their mail. And I'd be like, wow, look at what's for sale at Woolies, like when I was 10, right?

But that has to come in the mail. Are you telling me that out there, the postie drops off the Coles catalogue, but not your groceries? Like what is going on? No, I look on the online catalog. Oh, okay. All right, all right, all right. But we do get the mail plane, so that delivers our mail every Friday.

It's a whole plane? Yeah. What? Yeah. And it just arrives on your cattle station? Yeah, we have an airstrip, so it just lands on the airstrip and drops our mail off and then goes to the next place. And do they stay for like a cup of tea or something, or are they just in and out?

No, they just drop it off, walk back to their plane, take off, go to the next place. That feels so novel to me. can you tell me you probably don't think these things are novels so you might not have any off the top of your head but like yeah how else does life work out there in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated so obviously having the mail delivered I would have just assumed that they didn't deliver it I would have assumed that you had a PO box in town and you had to go in and get your own mail because way back when I lived in Tasmania that's how my grandparents did it like mail didn't happen you had to go to the post office and that's fine but you have a plane that delivers it and I just

didn't see that coming so how else does life work out there that might surprise us yeah well we have to get our own killers so I process all the meat like mince, dice, steak it that so you normally just go to the shops and get your beef like that but we have to do it all ourselves and is that a process that happens and then you just get given the meat to process or are you part of that whole process? Yeah so we'll go put a cow down and then cut her up in the paddock and then hang her for a week or two and then process it. Wow I feel like it's so important to talk about this stuff too because that's literally your livelihood but also I feel like there's this massive disconnect between where our food comes from and how we purchase it.

Like I know a lot of people that would say, well, if I had to do that, I just wouldn't eat meat. And I feel like that's, I don't know, it's not a bad thing to say because that disconnect is protecting us in a way. But I also think it's just really cool that there are people who are so connected with the land and so connected with, you know, the life cycle of something that they can process the whole thing and go all right well now that's in my freezer as a food source in the future you'd also save so much money doing it that way

yeah so when we do order from town we don't we might get like a little bit of chicken and that's really it for me that's fair because you're like we don't have chooks out here yeah we have some that lay eggs but yeah not for eating oh no no and if you've grown up on a farm or ever lived regionally and ever had to process a chicken that is older like you don't want to eat that one like it's not good it's not good they need a lot of slow cooking it's not for me it's not for me tell me a bit more about your worst money habits I know that you said at the start that you're a c-plus and I'm just thinking there must be some bombshell terrible money habits that make you a plus that or we really need to give you a pep talk so you need to talk to me about what you

think your worst money habits are I don't budget which is really bad I think I need to like yeah get on to that and then I also I find it hard to budget because like I don't know when I'm going to town next so I'll get a paycheck every two weeks and then I'm like oh do I how much should I put into that account and then I'll go to town and I'll spend like because then oh no we need this and this and this so it's sort of like hard to figure out what to budget so I just don't and I need to automate my accounts as well I don't do that either I feel like those aren't the worst money habits I feel like I could compare and contrast but we should never do that but I feel like just not being that good at budgeting when you don't have that many overheads is not the worst

but I do want to know about I guess your grocery budget so if you're going into town you said maybe once a month or just over once a month how big is your spend at the shops like what does that look like and what are we like are we purchasing all fresh stuff I feel like it would all go off within the first week like I've just got lots of questions about this process so first tell me about the budget and then tell me about the strategy to keep fresh things fresh yeah so roughly would spend like maybe or like 700 800 a month but like it also depends on like the expensive stuff that we've run out like oil or coffee or stuff like that and then the fresh stuff yeah we buy but it does like go off after around two weeks but we try and like wrap it in paper

towel and like as soon as we get the store and head back home I'll like go through it all and try and make it last even longer like do things to make it last even longer wash it all and then wrap it in baby towel put it in sealed containers and stuff like that yeah that's fair I feel like you'd have to get really crafty with that because I don't know I'd feel like by the end of that month I'd be just really craving fresh stuff I'd be like oh my gosh like just put some lettuce on my plate does it get like that yes it does when you go to town you're like oh I'll get raspberries like you just you do crave fresh fruit and veg yeah that's so fair so tell me about the planning that goes into your grocery list like is it very extensive or do you now have a down pat or does

it take a few hours like I know you're going through catalogs to work out what you need to purchase I just feel like that would be a lot of planning that I've never had to do that far in advance yeah it is so I have like a list on the fridge of whenever I run out of something like condiments or whatever that I might not buy every time I write it down there and then I also have like a checklist that I print out every time when I'm doing my store order which will have all like the basic necessities that I make sure I add every single time and then go through the catalogs while I'm on the computer and I'll like look at what's on sale and I might get this this time and not the next time depending what's on sale and stuff. That's fair I feel like that would just be a lot

of work in addition to all the work you're already doing yeah so I need to go back you said at the very start like obviously part of your role is mustering and you know basically doing everything around the farm but then you said I also do all the cooking so tell me when you're doing all the cooking is that your job to plan or is that your cattle station plans all the meals and you just cook it like how does that work if you've got 10 people to cater for like is that then your job as well yeah yeah I've got a plan breakfast lunch smoko dinner oh my gosh and you're basically the chef around here as well that's crazy yeah I can't even think of what I'm having for dinner when I don't have my marley spoon in the fridge and you're here being like well I've planned every single

meal for 10 people Victoria sit down to me that's terrifying I love it though but we need to talk about this C plus. So tell me a bit more about why beyond, you know, not budgeting and maybe needing to automate your accounts, like what else do you need to improve? Because I feel like C plus that feels harsh, my friend. Maybe like with my investing, like ETFs, I need to be consistent with them and do it every week or every month. Probably. I feel like you're maybe being a bit harsh on yourself you're still 20 which you know to me is a baby and I don't mean that in an offensive term I mean you've got so much life to still live and so much opportunity ahead of you I'm like oh my gosh she's only at the start of this journey because I know we've obviously lived 18 years

but you don't have a full-time job you're not contributing to your super properly before then you're not like you know thinking about investments and what our life will actually look like I just feel like you're at the very start of this journey and you've just got such a bright future ahead of you C plus I feel like is really I don't know I feel like you need to be kinder to yourself I'm going to make it a bit easier though because I am going to gift you our budget and cash flow masterclass so that you can budget and you can plan and it will tell you how to automate and it will let you budget literally everything into it and I feel like because it's flexible and I'm not trying to sell you on it because I'm literally giving it to you for free but it like allows you

to budget on a fortnightly, weekly or monthly basis. So you can kind of like plan around like, all right, well, groceries are monthly. So pick that from the dropdown list or, you know, that's actually a weekly cost for my phone that goes out. Like you can like be a little bit flexy and hopefully that makes you feel like you're a bit more in control. But I just feel like C+, I'm not going to argue with you and say you need to grade yourself higher, but I feel like C+, my friend, you're not in any debt. You are saving for your first home already. You've already got like $20,000 in a savings account for a first car or a new car sorry because it's obviously going to be a bigger one you're putting extra into super because we're already thinking about

these four kids that you want to have in the future and you're like oh I don't really want to get behind on my super like that's important I just think you're so far ahead and I think you're really harsh on yourself and I don't love that but again I don't like arguing with our diarists I just want them to see their value and I want them to see their worth. Thank you. Maybe a B, but yeah. Maybe a B. Yeah, I've got a bit to do.

All right. Well, I'm going to let you do that because unfortunately that's all we have time for. I've adored having this chat. I'm just so interested in learning about the way people live differently to me. I feel like it adds so much value to our community. I feel like we've just had like a chat with a friend who's just out on a remote cattle station and that's really cool. like you don't get to do that every day so thank you for sharing that with us but also thank you

for sharing you with our community because i know that they're going to have loved hanging out with you for the past half hour as much as i did with you so thank you money diarist thank you so much for this thank you 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.