She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Working Hard & Acknowledging Privilege!

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

This community member is the youngest of 5, in a family where they weren't taught about money. Then her mum and dad began to struggle financially and started to borrow money from their grown kids. At 25 her career in financing in the automotive industry saw her earning 130k a year and she purchased her first home while single. Now at 31, she's engaged and buying another house while paying for a wedding. Her fiancé’s parents support them with money towards their house, and she really wants to discuss this privilege they are blessed with. 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 very exciting privilege of talking to one of our incredible She's On The Money community members all about their money story. Let's jump straight into it because this week our team got this message. Hi, She's On The Money. I'm the youngest of five in a family where we weren't taught about money. Mom is what I would describe as financially loose, while dad is very conservative. When we became adults, mom and dad were struggling financially and began to borrow money from us.

When I was 25, my career in financing in the automotive industry saw me earning $130,000 a year and I purchased my first home while single. Now at 31, I'm engaged buying another house while paying for a wedding. My fiance's parents give us money towards the house and I really want to talk about this privilege with the community. Money Diarist, I also want to talk about this privilege with the community. Thank you for wanting to share this. I think it's so important. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, for me, we're just so lucky to be able to have this help. My fiance and I are extremely hardworking, but if we have the ability to use, I guess, generational wealth, you would say, why not? Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think the

important thing here is first things first, nobody in this situation is being taken advantage of. But then secondly, we really need to kind of break this down because how many times do we, you know, flippantly say things like, oh my gosh, it's the bank of mom and dad. And like, we don't mean it in a super negative way, but that has a super negative connotation. As you guys know, I own a mortgage broking business with my business partner, Kate, called Zella Money. And we see it all the time, right? Like we see people coming in and their parents are giving them the deposit or their parents are helping out with the loan repayments. And there just seems to be, I guess, a lot of shame around that because they're like, oh yeah,

but like my friends don't get this help or, you know, all of these other things don't happen. but I think we need to talk about it because I think the situation should honestly be good on you money, Darius. Like use what's, you know, use what's accessible to you because I guarantee your fiance's parents are like super proud that they're in the position where they can do that for you. It probably gives them a lot of gratification. It probably makes them feel so good about the world. And I just think these things shouldn't be in the shadows. It should just be something where, yeah, no, no, we do have help. Full stop, end of story. Like it's not a judgment thing. It just is what it is, right? I think so. And for us, at the start, we weren't

going to tell anyone. And I think it was because of that shame. Well, we didn't save that money ourselves and things like that. But at the same time, yes, the Bank of Mum and Dad have helped us substantially with a deposit. But at the same time, we're going to pay that back to them as well. So it's not a handout. It's just, hey, we want you to be able to pay less to the bank and some back to us. Yeah. And I'm super glad that you've kind of prefaced this conversation with going, I want to talk about this privilege. Like you already know it's a privilege. It's something that's not extended to absolutely everybody, but we're going to break it down. So let's jump into the actual interview part of this podcast. The question I always ask first

is money, Doris. I want to know, what grade would you give your money habits from A through to F? I would probably have to give it like a C plus. Oh, a C plus. Or like a B minus minus. Or a B minus minus. I've never heard someone give themselves a B minus minus, but let's learn a little bit about it. You said in your letter into us that you would describe your mum as financially loose and your dad is very conservative. Can you tell us a little bit more about your money story?

yeah so like you mentioned I'm the youngest of five so for us my parents had my brother when they were really young and then four kids later had me when they were 20 years later they had me hey yep and they've been married for 52 years oh my heart they're doing something right they're doing something right is the answer just having lots of babies over a long period of time uh I don't know. I mean, it's working. The science says yes. The science says yes. They also work together though. So they own their own business. So for them to live and work together and have five children, I feel as though, yeah, they must be doing something right. Cause that just seems like a rarity. Yeah, no. Oh my gosh. How good. So what did they teach you about money? How did

you grow up around money? Was it something that made you feel good or awkward or was it not disgust at all? Like what was that like in your life? Yeah, it wasn't really disgust at all. I mean, my older siblings may have had a different upbringing to what I did because they are substantially older than what I am. But for my brother and I, we didn't really, yeah, there was no discussion around money. You know, my parents owned their home at the time. They had their own business and we went on holidays. We did all the things. Like I just, we never talked about money. I guess we didn't really have pocket money or anything like that, though. But we never went without.

And that's something that now that I'm an adult, I realize how amazing my parents were. They were just, oh, I have so much love for my parents. They're just amazing human beings. I can tell by the tone of your voice that is the best to hear. All right. Next question I've got for you. Tell me, what do you do for work? How much money do you earn?

So I am in marketing and I earn $110,000 a year plus I have a company car so I don't pay any car expenses. Oh, very nice. Is that included in your salary package or is that like above and beyond the 110? That's above and beyond the 110. Oh, very sexy. We like that. How did you get your career in marketing? Like what did you study and what type of career progression have you had over the years? So I actually started off as a receptionist in the automotive industry which was you know minimal wage and then I worked my way up so I worked in sales and finance within automotive and that's where I started to earn some really good money so I think I was like 23 and I was earning like 110 120 grand my first year and then yeah 130 my second year and it was it was

amazing. And that's, yeah, that's how I bought my first house. What made you go from working in finance, which arguably can be relatively lucrative, and I'm assuming that there was some level of base salary and then a type of commission on top of that. What made you go from that into marketing? I realized probably about two years after doing finance that I really disliked it. That's not my experience, but yes. It was more just, I had no work-life balance I was you know personal circumstances I was quite depressed that sort of thing and I said to my boss one day I said I quit like I'm done oh my god and he said to me he said you can't leave and I said watch this yeah I don't want to do finance and he said well he said I want to keep

you what do you want to do and I said I have no idea and he said why don't you give marketing a go and I said I'm the most uncreative person like that exists I swear like I don't think that I'm creative at all and he goes just give it a go I'm sure you'll like it anyway seven years later here I am absolutely loving my job oh my gosh and are you here to tell me also that marketing is more about strategy than it is about creativeness is that potentially where we're going with this Yeah, definitely. It is. It's, it's completely strategic. The creative is just one tiny component. I love it. I love it. You know, personal anecdote here. My husband works in marketing and he works in the analytics side of marketing. And every time I tell people,

yeah, like my husband works in marketing at this company, they'll be like, oh my gosh, how cool. Like that company's branding is epic or this, that, the other. And I'm like, oh no, no, no. Like it's the strategy side of things. Like I think every time someone thinks of marketing, you think you've got to be really creative, but that's not the case at all. Like it can actually be quite strategic and quite analytical and like quite, I don't know, really, really engaging in a great way. Definitely. And I think that's one thing that people look at social media and they go, oh, that's marketing. And I'm like, no, that's like 5% of my job. Yeah, exactly. It's very minimal of what I actually do. Yeah. So I had been in marketing now for about seven years, but it was

only two years ago or two and a half years ago that I decided to get my degree. So I was working full-time and studying full-time during the pandemic to do my Bachelor of Biz majoring in marketing. Congratulations. Are you glad to have some level of work-life balance back now? Definitely. It makes such a difference. I love my job. I love life. It just makes you feel good to wake up in the morning and know that you're going to a job that you really enjoy. Now, you don't always have to study to work in a specific area. I think there's this big common misconception that you absolutely need a university degree to absolutely thrive. Obviously, you already had the job, like you'd been working in the job,

I would assume very successfully for five years before deciding to do the degree. But what made you want to go back and study and actually get that qualification? I guess, why would you choose to do that after having the job already? I think looking at it, it was more of a self-development for one thing, but also career progression. So I know that when you do want to go for those higher jobs, that they do want to see a degree. But I used it to my advantage. So what I did was I loved working for the company that I work for. So I decided that when I finished my degree, I walked into the COO's office and I said, hey, finish my degree now.

You know, what are you going to pay me? Ah, no, you did not. How do you have that audacity? Please give us some. Honestly, we have such a great relationship. So I just went, you know, like he'll know that I mean this in the best way possible, but I also now know my worth. I've just spent, you know, $50,000 on a degree. So. To take it to the next level. Now I need to recoup those costs. Oh my gosh. I love that you just walked in and said, hey, it's me. Look at me. I have a degree. What are you going to do about this? like that's the audacity we all need like I think that that's so powerful obviously later in this

chat we're going to get into talking a little bit about family wealth so before we get there I need to be even more pervy money Doris what's your partner do how much does your partner earn I would have to say we're extremely privileged between the two of us of what our income is so my partner's an operations manager for audio visual and he earns $145 a year. Oh my gosh. Very nice. Yeah. So between the two of us, obviously we have a very comfortable income, but we also, I guess, spend way below what we make because, well, we try to anyway. I call him the bankrolling bougie boyfriend or now fiance. Yeah. Okay. I really like that. Congratulations, but also lock that down sis. Because he loves to spend money. So whereas I'm the one that's sort of

like a little bit more conservative, I guess like my dad, I'm more conservative, whereas he's more like my mom, which is so funny that we're in this relationship again. I really do believe that in every relationship there is a spender and there is a saver. There's no such thing as having two genuine savers or two genuine spenders? There's always one of each and that's what causes the most conflict. Is that something that raises a bit of conflict in your relationship? Surprisingly, it's not. Our communication style is really open. So we don't have, I guess, arguments or conflict around money because it's very much, we have separate bank accounts, but we also put money into a joint bank account. And then obviously with our wedding savings and

stuff, we both have a common goal, which is to pay for our wedding and to pay for our honeymoon and things like that. So we keep our extra money separate or us, you know, the extra money that we earn separate. And that way we can just do what we want with it, whether we saving it or spending it or, or whatever. So. I love that. I love it so much. I have to be slightly rude and ask another question, which you're probably not going to like all that much, but I think is really important. so money often is a really big pain point in relationships because there's not enough of it and obviously you said you have a really great salary your partner has a really great salary he's a bit of a spender but to be honest like looking at your personal situation from the

outside like you're probably in a pretty good position so it doesn't really matter if your partner is a bit of a spender right do you think that if you didn't have such high incomes that could become a pain point in your relationship? I think yes, definitely. So my previous relationship prior to meeting my fiance, I was the, I guess the breadwinner as tradition tells us, and my partner earned minimum wage. Now I didn't have an issue with that. He enjoyed what he did. So that was fantastic. However, he had a real issue with the ability of me earning my money the way that I did and that's I think that was the issue is because it was more of that that traditional gender role yeah yeah okay it's just interesting to ask because I know you know there are going

to be a lot of our friends in the car driving to work this morning listening to this podcast and they're like mate of course you're not going to fight about money because you have so much of it but I think it's really interesting I guess asking a pervy question like that because it does make I guess our money diarist reflect on it and go well actually I've been in a situation where that's not the case. And now it's just, you know, a lot easier. And I think that it's just nice to have these open, honest conversations because money is stressful and money can be overwhelming and obviously gets slightly easier when you have more, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't argue about it. You often just argue about different things. And I feel like, yeah,

having these conversations is just super, super important. You touched before on, yeah, we have shared goals. We're both saving for this house. We're both saving for this wedding, which is super exciting. Let's dive into that though. What are your big money goals? What are we working towards this year? So this year, so we've recently just obviously bought our house. Congratulations. Yes. Very exciting. It's our dream home. Oh my gosh. What was it like signing the contract? Were you like, this is surreal? Yes. So we'd actually, we were going to build a house and we put a deposit on a block of land you know we did all of that sort of stuff and then I had a freak out I went this is so much got cold feet I said this is so much money and I

don't think we should be doing this and this is before interest rates were rising and I'm so glad we didn't go that way but we end up looking at existing houses and my fiance said how about we look in our dream area. And I said, there's no way we can afford a house in our dream area. Yeah, of course. He would have thought that you were crazy. We walked into the house and I said to my fiance, this layout looks really familiar. And it ended up being the exact same layout of the house that we were going to build. No, it wasn't. Yes, it was.

Oh my gosh, they'd already built it for you. So this one was about three years old, but it was the exact layout that we wanted from the exact builder. Like we knew. Yeah. I said to my fiance, this is meant to be like, we have to buy this house. And it all just fell into place. Oh my gosh. Our offer was accepted straight away, which for me was. Mind blowing. Mind blowing. It's meant to be hard. Everyone talks about property being hard. What do you mean you just accepted it? Isn't there meant to be an argument and like another bidder or something in the background trying to outbid us? Like, I don't know. Yeah. So, but nothing like that. It was like, yeah, your offer's accepted. And yeah,

we'd already had, we'd spoken to a broker and we'd already had our finance approved and things like that. So it was really easy that that whole process was really easy. So that was our goal. But now our goal has moved to our wedding. So we have savings for both our wedding and our honeymoon and yeah that's we're we're just excited to to have that as our big goal how exciting all right i need to know how far away is the wedding and where is it going to be um and where are we going on honeymoon so our wedding is in casarina which is northern new south wales so just over the queensland new south wales border stunning yes absolutely amazing and it was the again first venue that we looked at and we just went this is us why why do we need to look anywhere else so

and it's in March 2024 oh heaps of time to continue preparing you would think so wouldn't you but things just well you would know from I planned a wedding in like less than 12 months and I cannot recommend that process to even one individual one out of 10 you absolutely need more time than that you think a year is a long period of time it is not and weddings are expensive Mm-hmm. Definitely. And we didn't realize how expensive a wedding would be until we started the process. And I know speaking to other people, they say, oh yeah, I'll only spend like 10, 15 grand on a wedding. And then that becomes unrealistic really, really quickly. Yeah.

And I said to my fiance, look, I'm comfortable in spending 40 to 50 grand on our wedding. Yeah. you know, it's one day that we'll do. I'm really excited. You know, I don't want it to be completely over the top, but I want it to be everything that we, that we both want. Yep. And so we, we're now currently sitting at about 58 grand. Oh my gosh. It's always the way, isn't it? How did you and your partner come to a number that you were comfortable with? So obviously you said 40 to 50 grand and did he go, oh my gosh, money, Darius, that's so much money. Or did he go, oh yeah, I want to spend more. Like

what was that conversation like? Again, I sort of had to rein him in a little bit. Ah, I love this narrative. Yeah. So he, like I said, he's a bit bougie. Fancy boy. Yeah, definitely. And I had to say to him, this is what I think we could save within that time. And that's what we've sort of kept to. So we do have a wedding planner, which does increase the cost but at the same time she is saving us so much time and money. I was about to ask so tell me how much your wedding planner is and then tell me how the savings go because I also had a wedding planner and I think that that's something that you know my wedding was a bit over the top so please don't use mine as a benchmark but the amount of money she saved us

on just like vendors and stuff was a very worthwhile investment. So how much does a wedding planner cost, my friend? So our wedding planner is just over five and a half grand. Wow. And how much do you think she's saved you along that journey? I would probably say she's already saved us at least five and a half grand. And that's not even including the time that we would have had to spend on doing things for the wedding, which for me is massive. My fiance and I both work pretty long hours so we don't have that time and we didn't want to have that stress so that's why we thought that the wedding planner would be a good investment. Genius I love it I feel like wedding planners the second you say oh I've got a wedding planner they're like oh my gosh you must

be absolutely just pouring money at this and to be honest I had I don't know if this is going to come as a surprise to anybody but I did a budget on a spreadsheet and I worked out what things were going to cost and how, you know, we wanted to invest in the wedding and what that would look like. And then I started talking to a number of different planners and a lot of the time they were like, okay, cool, but we have a number of recommended vendors. And if you use those vendors, you'll get like 15% off or you get 20% off or they'll negotiate something different. And another thing that I found really helpful, which is absolutely money-saving, but also just really smart on my planner's behalf was that they talked me out of a lot of things that I thought I

needed that I didn't need. A lot of the time she said, do you really need that? Like, why are you saying that we need to organize this? You don't sound excited about it. Why are we doing it? And I'd be like, oh, well, I guess we don't. And she, yeah, just helped put a lot of things in a lot of perspective that meant I made decisions that were really aligned to my values. And, you know obviously it is a privilege to spend five and a half thousand dollars on a planner because that's some people's entire wedding budgets but if you're going to have a more expensive wedding it would definitely be worth looking into somebody who could help you along the way because like you do still feel in control right you just don't have all the stress of

finding the vendors definitely and I think the quality of vendors that they've found us within our price range we wouldn't have been able to search for them ourselves yeah you just don't know what you don't know. No, you don't. So yeah, that's been really amazing. So yeah, that's our wedding planning so far. And then we just booked our honeymoon. Congrats. How exciting. Where are we going? So we were going to go to a couple of different, well, we're thinking about going to a couple of different places, but we've ended up settling on Turtle Island in Fiji. Stunning. How exciting. Yeah, definitely. And again, it's one of those things that we've gone, okay, well, what can we go without in our budget to make sure that we can A, afford our honeymoon,

but B, go to something like Fiji that is for us, yeah, once in a lifetime. Yeah, really lux and having a good time, but it's still not Bora Bora, which is like a $30,000 trip to begin with. I looked at it because I'd seen it all over TikTok and Instagram and then I ran straight away because I saw the price and yep, we went to Queensland for our honeymoon. Yeah, that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at. It's all about values though. And that's the coolest thing, I guess, about getting to talk to people like you. I get to understand your values and you get to understand mine and we just get to, you know, be really open and honest about it. Obviously you wrote in and you said, look, my fiance's parents do give us money towards the

house. Have they helped out with the wedding or in any other aspect of your life or is it just with the house? So it's just been with the house for us. They're the most loveliest people, my in-laws. And we call our parents B1 and B2 because our parents are pretty similar or we call them the parents. So yeah, they're like both sets of our parents are absolutely amazing. And my fiance's parents aren't assisting us with the wedding at all. Obviously the ability for them to contribute our deposit has been more than enough of a gift. So we haven't asked or wanted, I guess, assistance in terms of paying for the wedding or the honeymoon. No, that makes absolute sense. It's always just super pervy to ask my friend. All right, let's go to a really quick break because

I have a whole heap of questions right after this. All right, Marnie Dyrist, we are back and I want to ask even more questions. First things first, do you invest? If so, what do you currently invest in? So we don't actually have any investments or sorry, we just bought $500 worth of shares. So you do have investments, my friends, and you have super. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, actually. She's an investing queen and she didn't even know it. I do have super. So I have, I think I have about $65,000 in super. Oh, that is epic for your age. Epic. I didn't actually think so, but then I started to, I guess I Googled the average super for my age. And what did it tell you? It said it was half of that. So, which blows my mind.

Exactly. And so you are doing really well. It's sometimes really not. And I mean, I talk all the time about putting some blinkers on and, you know, not comparing yourselves to others because it doesn't really help. But something that does genuinely help me is benchmarking. Like I want to know, technically, if we look at the average, where am I meant to be for my age? So Money Dice, how old are you? I am 31. She a baby. So the average amount of super for a woman between the age of 30 and 34, my friends, is $42,240. That is obviously still a lot of money. And if you're sitting on that or below that, like, I wouldn't worry too much. You're still so young. It just means we need to have

a think about what that looks like in your future. But what did you feel like when you were like, oh, the benchmark actually says that I'm ahead? I think it was like a realization that it made me actually investigate it a little bit more because I went, okay, so if I'm, let's just say I want to retire at 60, then I only have 29 years to do that. So, and it's already been 10 years of my working life that I only got 60. So how on earth am I going to get a couple of hundred more thousand or whatever it is that you need to get to retire? So that made me think a little bit more about investment. Yeah. And I mean, I want to say you're a baby still because like you are so young, but ultimately most people and most women, they retire with less than $300,000

in their superannuation accounts. And if we looked at yours, right, if we looked at $65,000 and I'm just using a simple compound interest calculator, if you didn't contribute anything to your super for the foreseeable future and in 30 years you looked at it, your super would actually grow to a total of about $613,000. So even having $65,000 in it right now puts you so ahead of the game and like literally in a position where you're going to have double what the average female retires with now, but we know that you're going to contribute to that for, you know, probably the next 30 years. And that's going to put you in such a good position, like on your actual income, we know that you're on about what you said, $110,000 to $120,000. So let's say

conservatively every single year, you're adding at least $10,000 to super. You're going to end up with, you know, obviously a significant amount of money, but if we are compounding $65,000 with a regular contribution of $10,000 annually, you're looking at having $1.6 million in super when you retire. My friend, that's good money. That does sound pretty good. And I guess that's just mine too. Like my fiance, yeah, by the time, well, we'll be husband and wife by then, but you know, adding his as well, which would be, yeah. Amazing. I'm obsessed with it. I think that just doing the numbers can make you feel relatively secure. So obviously you didn't think it was that good. And then when we extrapolated out, we're like, holy moly, that is actually

really good and puts you in such a good position. I want to know, you mentioned before, I'm not really investing, but we just bought our first shares. How did you buy your first shares? Why did you make that decision? And what made you feel super comfortable to do that? So it actually is a little bit of an interesting story. We invested $500, which was the minimum you could invest but we invested it into shares in a platform called gather now it's like the uber of private catering I guess is the best way to explain it but I actually met the founder when I was at university and I interviewed her for my entrepreneurship subject and I just fell in love with her concept so much and I've used the company a few times that

I went, this is such a great idea. And then when shares opened, I went, you know what, 500 bucks, like she's just expanded to the US. Oh, how cool. It just seems like such an awesome organization. So that's how we invested. I know it's a bit of a weird one, but. No, it's why we ask these questions because everyone has a different journey. Everyone has a different thought process. And I'm just so grateful that I get let in on like, how did you make your decision? What does this look like? And you're just like, oh my gosh, I'm so passionate about this. I looked into this, like that's information that we wouldn't have got anywhere else. Thank you. How cool. Yeah. And I have set up a Sharesies account.

I just haven't like delved into it yet. How exciting. You're at the start of your journey. Money Dyrist, I want to ask now about debt. So you've recently purchased your dream home, which is so exciting. How much debt do you have and what is it? How is it broken down? so I actually just sold my investment property so as of last week oh my gosh I didn't even know you have one that's baller for a baby so that was my first house that I bought when I was 25 living in Queensland I bought it for incredibly cheap so I bought it for like 290 yeah when I was 25 and then I recently just sold it for 370 oh my gosh did you actually how exciting what's the profit look like on that so that was just over a hundred grand

in um gosh and how many years did you hold that for like seven so oh my gosh so seven years did you live in the property I did so you didn't even have to pay capital gains tax on that hundred grand no so it was always my principal like place of residence I guess like I did move out but in saying that I never owned another property at that time. So. Smart. I love this. It's so pervy. What have you done with that hundred grand? So it is just sitting in my bank account at the moment. Obviously some has gone to. Is it in an offset account to your mortgage? When we set up this mortgage for our new home, we went on fixed and that was purely because it was so turbulent. Good decision to have made my friend. Yeah. And we're really lucky we did that because otherwise

we'd be looking at you know five six plus interest rates on our current mortgage whereas we're sitting in the fours still yeah smart when will that rate expire like when are you going to have to make another decision about your mortgage so it'll be in March 2024 which bad month for it because you're getting married are you also going to get slapped with an interest rate hike we don't know yet we don't know yet do we so that's going to be interesting for us but it works really well at the moment because while we're saving for our wedding, we don't need to worry about the interest rate rises. Yeah, that's really helpful. And all of that money that we've got from the profit of the sale is sitting in a high interest savings account. So she's working hard. We like

this. Okay. So when you wrote into us, you explained to us that your fiance's parents give you money towards the house. I want to know how much money did they actually give you and tell us about this house purchase like how much was it how much of a deposit did you have what did that actually look like in reality yeah so we purchased the house for seven hundred and five thousand and we received two hundred thousand from my fiance's parents which obviously is money that we are paying back to them just interest free so how good so have you got a payment plan with them to do that? Or is this at some point in the future or what did that look like? Did you have to sign a contract? We did. So we did it all legitimately. We got a contract drawn up and we

got solicitors to sign it and to review it just so that if anything was to ever happen, that we're all covered. And I think that's really important. Obviously, we don't like to think about what could happen because we don't think it could, but it's just there to protect everyone just in case it does. I like that. I always used to say to my clients who are in similar situations, let's plan for the worst, but expect the best. Like let's pretend that the worst might happen and actually just plan for it, but like we don't want it to happen. So I think that that's the best thing that you could have done. So I'm assuming then your mortgage is around $505,000 then? Yeah, correct. It is. Yeah. And are you being aggressive in paying that off or are we

just doing the minimum? Like what's the plan? Like how much are we paying back on this $200,000 versus this $500,000 mortgage? Where are the priorities at? So the $200,000, we pay back, I think it's like $118 a week or something on the $200,000. And then our mortgage repayments, I think they're like about, I can't remember right now, but I think they're about $600 a week. No, $700 a week. That feels about right. I feel like that's really exciting. So with your calculations, how long will it take to pay back that, I guess, $200,000 loan from the in-laws? So it's a bit of a funny one because we put it over the same time frame as our mortgage. So we did put it over 30 years. Jokingly, obviously, my in-laws have said, oh, well,

you know, the day after you pay that back, then, you know, we'll probably cark it or something, but not before so yeah it's it's a bit of a joke between them but we're obviously willing to pay more of that back as well after we've finished saving for the wedding so I'm glad you have that flexibility are there any other debts that you or your partner hold no nothing else that is it only good debt yeah we recently got credit cards to get the points for our honeymoon which is fantastic because we got our flights to Fiji return in business class for no money. We didn't have to pay a single cent. I feel like this is what I need to get on. Obviously I've done episodes on this show of how to points hack, but I don't do it because I just haven't trusted myself with

a credit card yet because like she's spendy. Like I'm a bit spendy and I just don't know how I'd feel with a credit card. I just can see it being a really bad idea. But then I hear stories like this. I'm like, maybe I should, but maybe I should also talk myself out of it because business class flights are not worth my future wealth. So who knows? Who knows? Well, we did get rid of the credit cards. So as soon as we got the points and had the minimum period of which we needed to keep the credit cards for, we have got rid of them. So they are gone. You're so smart. I love this. Maybe I should do it that way then. Look, I'll look into this later and share on social media are what I get up to. Money Diarist, I feel like you might have some good tips to share. What is

your best money habit, do you think? So it's, I take after my dad with this one and it's price checking. So whether it's at the grocery store and I'm holding up, you know, two lots of rice and I'm going, okay, per a hundred grams, this one's cheaper than this one. Good money habit to have, I feel. Very good. Cause I don't do that. I'm just lazy and I want to get out of that supermarket, it is overstimulating and I have to leave. Definitely. And I guess that's now extended to, so we use like cashback programs or I look at cashback programs before I purchase something to know if I buy it in the store and I don't get the cashback versus I buy it online and I get the cashback. I am so good at that. That's also my money habit. And then I get real salty

about having to wait for it because I know if I just went to Meijer, I could pick it up. But if I got it online, I'd get an extra like four or 5% back and that's worth it. So then I sit there and I'm like, I'm waiting for this package, but like I'm quite impulsive. So then the, yeah, it's a very fun process for me, but I'm doing the right thing. Definitely. And I think that's what then leads me into my worst money habit. Oh yeah. What is it? I think I'm very much like UV and I can't, I don't put enough time or I forget to put enough time between purchasing or like thinking about purchasing something and then actually purchasing it. So I sometimes go out on a bit of a whim and I'm like, oh, I love that dress. Let me just buy it now. And then I buy it and

then I go, oh, should I really need that? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm a bit impulsive. And when I say a bit, I mean a lot, which is why I'm always telling you guys, put 24 hours between you and your spending. And I do that because it's like a consistent reminder to me that I need to do that. Like if you guys think I'm really good at money, like, I'm sorry, we're a bit wrong. It's a do as I say, not as I do kind of show, you know? Yeah, definitely. And I think that's like, I'm trying to do that and I'm trying to get better at that. And it's really funny because my fiance is, he's really good at doing that, but then he will just buy it anyway. Still be bougie. Yeah. He's like, babe, I did think about this. We're still doing this. I like

that. He's got conviction. That is a very attractive quality, I believe. Yeah, definitely. No, we like him. Marnie Dyrus, now that we've had a really good conversation, at the start of this episode, you said, oh, I think I'm a C plus or like a B minus minus. We talked about you. You have sold your investment property. You made a really good profit on that. You've just bought your dream home. You've just started investing. You're saving for your wedding. You are doing so many different things. Do you think that that grade is reflective of where you are at after having this conversation? I would say probably it would improve in them, like maybe improve a little bit,

maybe to like a B. We'll call you a B. Why would you say it's improved after our conversation? I think knowing that I'm doing the right things in terms of investing or I'm on the right track for investing is a good thing. And I guess thinking about it, you know, I have no other debt and that that's very sexy yeah yeah and I think if you'd spoken to me you know five years ago and I did have a lot of debt that would be a very different like me I guess so the position that I'm in now is really different and you know that's a contribution of my fiance's parents helping us out it's a contribution of us saving our money really well and living not beyond our means yeah so I think a B on my way to a B plus. I love this. What do you think it would take to get you to an

A plus? Probably delving more into where to put all my savings. So like working on, yeah, utilizing that savings money a little bit better, whether it be, you know, in, in a high interest savings account or whether it be into further investments for like long-term strategy. How good. Oh my gosh, Marnie Dyrist, I have loved talking to you. I feel like it's been really relatable, but also super interesting to, I guess, hear a bit about how you borrowed money and then what that looked like from your in-laws without, you know, destroying a relationship or, you know, making sure that we're planning for the worst, but expecting for the best. I think it's just such an important conversation that we need to be having more transparently more often. So

thank you for sharing that. It has been an absolute privilege. Thank you for having me. I've, yeah, I've really enjoyed it. And I think if we can just sort of get rid of the stigma of using mum and dad or using relatives for assistance, if they're more than willing to help, then yeah, I think that's, that's a good thing for us. I love that. I think to me, the most important thing when going through circumstances like this is just acknowledging privilege. I think being able to have these conversations is great, but it's not the expectation that these things happen. So I think what I've loved most is you going, oh my gosh, it's been an absolute privilege. I'm so grateful. And to me,

that's kind of what changes the narrative. It's a very different circumstance than being like, well, my parents are rich, so they should help me. Like, I think it's a very, you know, different and very she's on the money way of approaching things. So yeah, I'm just really super grateful to be able to share this on the pod. And I know that lots of people will either feel better about their circumstances or just learn a bit more about how the world works and that's exactly why we exist yeah thank you so much 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 MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289. Thank you.