She's On The Money - MONEY DIARIES: Young Mum, Young Gun!

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

This absolute queen was married at 18, owned two properties by age 20, and had two babies by 21...talk about busy! She's now working full time to support her family while studying part time. We can't wait for her to explain how on earth she juggles it all at once! Save up to $235 off your first 5 Marley Spoon boxes, head to marrleyspoon.com.au and use the code ‘moneywin’! 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 privilege 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 went like this. Hi V, I was married at 18, I owned two properties by 20 and had two babies by 21. I'm now working full-time to support my family while studying part-time. I would love to share the experience of going from a two-income household to one with the community. Marnie Dyrus, I would also love for you to share that story. Welcome to the show and thank you for wanting to share. Thank you for having me. I am so excited

about this. I feel like married at 18, two properties at 20, two babies at 21, like what the hecking like that is a very condensed time frame that I need to know a lot about. But before we get there, let's jump straight in. Money Diarist, before we start, what grade would you give your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A through to F? I've been thinking a little bit on this question and I've been going back and forth with a couple different grades. I'd say I'd probably place myself around a B minus, but it could fluctuate a little bit depending on how to save myself on the day. Well, we're about to learn a lot more about this. So I'm excited. Let's jump to my favorite question ever. Money Diarist, can you please tell me

a little bit more about your money story? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that I grew up in a fairly like middle income earning households. We weren't super rich, but my parents also made sure that we had everything that we needed and we were still able to enjoy like the occasional family holiday and it wasn't down to the dollar so it was always a pretty comfortable relationship with money I had when I was growing up I would definitely say that when I was younger I wasn't a very good saver I'm still learning how to be a good saver relatable so definitely a bit spend happy. So my parents always sort of trying to teach us how to save a bit of our money, not spend it all in one place, which very few teenagers will listen to that advice.

Sometimes we just have to learn on our own. Sometimes I have to make my own mistakes. Absolutely. To learn that maybe that's not what we should be doing. Definitely. So that was always a little bit of that. And then probably about three months out of high school, two, three months, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. And so that was a bit scary. That's a lot. So how old were you? I was 17 at the time. Oh, she's just a baby having a baby. Yeah. So I was just fresh out of high school. Me and my partner, which now husband, had been together for a little bit over a year at the time. And you guys are still together.

yes I love this so much yeah so we started dating in grade 11 so we've been together for it'll be six years this year and married for three years this year so yeah that was a bit hectic so I had my daughter when I was 18 and we didn't move out of home until I was seven eight months pregnant I was still living with my parents at the time I would have milked that for all of it was worth honestly I would have done exactly the same thing and so we got a little one bedroom apartment we moved into when I was like eight months pregnant I was working in the family business at the time as a trainee so I was on trainee wages they were not very good oh my gosh as someone who's also like eight months pregnant right now moving and eight months pregnant like hoofed no thank you

it was a lot but we had so many people helping us out which was amazing we both have pretty big families. And so, yeah, we had my daughter, I was a trainee at the time and my husband was just working like casually in hospitality. So what were you a trainee in? I worked, well, I worked at a mortgage brokerage, so I was doing a business admin traineeship at the time. And yeah, so things with my birth, my daughter didn't really go as planned. There were quite a few complications after I had her. So I wasn't able to drive for six months after I had my daughter. Oh my gosh. Are you okay now? Yes. Everything's all good now. But so I wasn't able to drive for six months after I had my daughter, which was definitely a challenge. Six months.

Yes. Oh, like low key, like complete side note. I am terrified that I'll end up with a C-section purely because I don't want to not drive for six weeks yeah I'm like that feels like I'll be trapped so six months would have been terrifying six months it was very difficult but thankfully where we moved we were super super close to my parents house we're only like a few streets away so nice with all the complications that happened with my birth I wasn't really comfortable at stay at home by myself just with the baby while my husband was at work. So my husband would drop me off at my parents' house while he went to work because he started a full-time job two weeks after we had our daughter. Oh my gosh, you really do do what you got to do, hey? Yeah. So I was at my

parents' house every day with my daughter and I was like, well, she's just a newborn. She's just sleeping. I'm kind of bored. So I went back to work two weeks after I'd had my daughter. Oh my gosh no what are you doing also low-key your parents probably loved having you and her around oh yeah often it was great we were the first grandbaby on my side and my husband's side of the family so it was absolutely spoiled 100% yeah so I didn't really take maternity leave after having my daughter I was just working from home at my parents place and pretty much like a drive again or I would go into the office with my family because we all worked at the same place and then so yeah that was that and then come into the end of 2020 so I'd had my daughter

in September and come December we were like look we're not going to be in this rental property forever. We'd only signed the six month lease at the time. And we were like, the rental market isn't great. The real estate market, I kind of knew what was going on. And I was like, the housing market is going to be going up if we don't take advantage of it now. We're never going to be able to. And we were obviously in a privileged position that my family was able to give up loan us money to be able to purchase a house. So we found the one house in our area that was within our price range it was an off the plan you were like i'll buy this one because this is the only option the only option yeah it was an off the plan and we were like we need to have a

contract signed by the end of the year so we can get all of these grants and everything so it was very on the whim signed it like a week or two after we decided that's what we were doing and then that was built by june of 2021 we moved in june 2021 and that was our first house so we were there for a year year and a half but the property market as i said went up really really quickly so we bought our house and within like six to twelve months it had gone up by like at least $100,000 in value. Oh my gosh, money win. That's some nice equity. It was some nice equity. So I was like, look, we could take out some of this equity and we'll see if there's any investment properties that we'd be interested in buying. I was like,

we're on a roll. Why stop now? So we were able to take out some equity and find a little studio property that was super cheap and already had a tenant in it and everything and we purchased that at the start of 2021 and then that could have sort of just plotted along there wasn't really anything to do with that and then i found out that i was pregnant with my son in december of 2022 and it was just a little bit of a whirlwind so we'd had both the houses and we were like look what is the plan so we sort of sat down looked at our finances looked at everything and we're like we can make it work staying in our house but at that point both my husband and I were studying and so we decided probably not the best financial decision unless we want to be

counting pennies. And so again, we were in the privileged position that my grandmother had heaps of room at her house. And so I had my son in August, 2023. Again, I didn't take any maternity leave because I was just like, I'm too bored to sit at home with a newborn. I'll just go crazy. As someone who's about to have a baby and honestly, your work ethic sounds like mine sometimes people are like oh my gosh that's so admirable and I'm like no I would go up the wall if you didn't let me work like I will go crazy like I need to do this I can't imagine and like I'm lucky that I've been around so many newborns and I know they do sleep a lot like what am I going to do in that period of time I know people say you need sleep but I'm like I don't

sleep at the best of times so I don't know how this is going to work was going back like in hindsight at two weeks was that too early were you like no no no it just all worked out and I like balanced it or like, what did that actually look like? I think with my daughter, it was okay because I was just working from home and there were so many people in the house that was able to help. Even when my daughter was like awake, I wasn't breastfeeding with all the complications. So it was pretty easy. I could like get someone else to feed her if I was busy doing something. so with my daughter that was good with my son I definitely think I pushed myself a little bit too hard I was working up until the day that I got induced I went to work on the Friday morning

worked a half day then went to the hospital on Friday afternoon to get induced I feel like that will be me I regret nothing already yeah and then I was planning on just going back to work on Monday, but I was still in the hospital on Monday. I was still in the hospital on Monday. I got discharged Monday and Tuesday morning, I was working on my laptop with my son. He's like three days old, but I think that people think I'm going to be bad. I'm not going to be that bad. Like that's bad. I'm like, I think that was like, it was definitely pushing it. I mean, I still feel like it was the right decision for me at the time. I don't think I'd necessarily change it but I definitely think like future children now that we would have like three or

more kids I would definitely take the time to just take my fair share of maternity leave but but yeah no I think looking back on it in hindsight it definitely was what I would do even if I went back I mean I might give myself another week or two but I just think I would have been too bored yeah fair fair so you've had your second son you started in mortgage broking what are you now studying like where are we at today so at the moment I'm studying I'm doing a double degree in business and psychology I've just started uh this last summer semester I'm finishing my first semester at the moment so I've just gone back into it but yeah i'm just doing that part-time and i'm no longer working in mortgage brokerage

so in october we moved in with my grandma um and we put our previous house we were living in also up on the market and then in november i started my new job so i'm working in a government agency now in like debt and so that is Monday to Friday like 8 30 to 4 30 so uni just kind of revolves around that at the moment how cool and you said that you now have a one income household does that mean that your partner is not working yes so my partner is now a full-time stay-at-home dad he's also going back to full-time uni in a couple weeks so the kids um when we moved because it was just such a big shift we figured we'd take the kids out of daycare for a little bit and just let them settle with one change at a time so just give them a couple months to settle into the new

environment so both of the kids will be going into daycare in the next two weeks the start of February and my husband will be going back into uni mid-feb. So they'll be in daycare three days a week and then let him the other two. Yeah, cool. I love this for you. All right. So that makes me want to go back into the structured questions that I always bring to the table, but get completely sidetracked on. What does that mean you earn? If you work for a government agency in debt, what are you earning? So at the moment I'm on $67,577 a year. That's not very specific. No. Yeah. Very, very broad. And my super, I completely forgot to check, but it's like 14, 15% super on top of that. Very, very nice. And you've bought and sold properties. You've had

babies. You've already gotten married, but what are your big money goals at the moment? What are you and your partner working towards well we'll dive into it like a little bit later as well but the moment we're just trying to pay off most of our personal debt so we are actually in debates in the moment about selling one of our investment properties to be able to just wipe out slate and be pretty free while we're still on one income but that's still in the debating stage but yeah at the moment, we're just focusing on paying down debt and we've got quite a few big family holidays planned over the next few years, which will be quite expensive. So we're saving for those as well. Oh, exciting though. Yeah. How fun. All right. Let's go to a really quick break. And on

the flip side, you mentioned some personal debt. I want to dive into that. I also want to know all the pervy details about what mortgages you still have and what you owe and how all of that works. so guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Money Diarist, we are back and we are going to start with investment. I want to know, obviously you've got investment properties, but do you have any investments? If so, what are they? Please share. Yeah, of course. So yeah, obviously we have our two investment properties. So did you want like values of them? Oh, I want as much detail as you'll let us have like have you ever listened to a money diary and been like damn I wish she didn't tell me how much she owed on that no no that's totally fine so our first property

that we ever bought which was our owner occupied homes for a while is probably worth between like 500 and 550 at the moment and we've got owing on that about 415 000 okay that's pretty good it's still sitting on some nice equity yeah it's not bad and then our second property we bought it for eighty six thousand dollars no you didn't yeah eighty six thousand dollars yeah how it was a little studio up in like north queensland so we bought it for 86 and it's probably like between $130,000 to $150,000 now. No, it's not. How good is that? Yeah. And that one, we've got about $78,000 owing on it. That's a nice position to be in. Yeah. So there's some good equity in both of them. And then obviously I've got my super. So my super's sitting just over $16,000 at the moment.

How old are you now today? I'm 21. Yeah. So you're still a child and you've got $16,000 in super. You've got two properties. You've got some nice equity on it. Like how? At 21, I was drunk. I definitely wasn't thinking about this. Yeah. So my goal is I'm hoping to get to $25,000 in super by the end of the year. Yeah, you will. Don't worry. I know that I'll get to 20, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get to 25. I haven't sat down and worked out the numbers exactly. and then i've also got a sharesies account has just over six hundred dollars in it at the moment how did you get involved with sharesies like and like what did you pick how did you pick it

what did all that look like well i heard about sharesies on the show whoa revolutionary previously all my investing information had come from all of the men in my life so it was use this super detailed app and you have to write down this 27-word secret password and do all of this thing. And I was like, that's too much for me. No, thank you. So yeah, I heard about Sharesies on the podcast

and I just downloaded it. And I don't know, I kind of figure all of the money that I'm putting in it at the moment. Obviously, the goal is for that to make money in the future. But at the moment, I'm only putting in little amounts. I'm really just sort of playing around seeing what I like so I've got kind of a mixture of like more safe things I've got some like ETFs and all that kind of stuff and then I'll just put in like a few dollars here and then to companies that I'm just interested in following and seeing how they

track over the years and do you find it easy or hard or like obviously I feel like people are overwhelmed right people are so overwhelmed when they're like oh an investing app absolutely not but like is it easy with shazies or hard yeah shazies is super super user-friendly and so obviously at the moment I haven't been putting any extra money into it really but whenever I just hop on every now and then and if I've gotten paid a little dividend from one of my investments I'll just put it back in yeah cute yeah I love that you're learning about it all as well in like a way that you're like no this makes sense like I like it and I get to have a play like yeah ah I love it. All right. Let's flip the conversation because I want to know about debt. Before the

break, you said, oh, my partner and I, we're going to be paying down some personal debt. So tell me about your debt. You told us about the mortgages. So we know that on your first property, you have about $415,000 owing and about $70,000 on the other one. But what's this personal debt? Tell us. So at the moment, I've got a car loan. So shortly before I had my son, we had had two cars and we sold I had a little car we'd sold that and we were just like look we only are gonna need one car when we move in with my grandmother so we'll just keep my husband's car and we kind of just assumed at the time it would be big enough and then we got my son's car seat and the double pram and I was like there is no way that this car is big enough absolutely not

so we kind of had to purchase a car i was like we don't really have car money but our son is due in three weeks that's the only option we have so we had to get a car loan so that one's sitting about 20 000 now and we ended up actually just keeping my husband's car because like a bit off track but my grandmother lives on an island on an island yes so we have my husband's car on the island and we use that as just like our island car because it's owned outright there's no debt against it or anything so my car on like the mainland has the car loan against it and then we've got a credit card as well that's six thousand and that's mostly maxed out at the moment with moving costs and baby costs yes and baby costs are a lot a lot so much wait so you've

moved to an island you you failed to disclose that part before that sounds bougie the fact that you have an island car and a mainland car how do you get from the mainland to the island like you just drive home and then go for a little swim like what are we doing so there's a ferry and a barge so the ferry is like walk-on passengers only and that operates from sort of like five six in the morning up until 10 30 at night and it's like an every half hour basis so it's pretty regular and then the barge just operates really during the day so it's again it starts pretty early around six but only operates for about like three or four and that's you can drive your car onto but you can also walk on if you'd like so you have to go from the mainland park in the little car park that

everyone parks in and then get onto the ferry, take the ferry home to the island. And then you can like drive up to the house from there. Oh my gosh. So you've kind of got a curfew at home. What if you have a party or something on the mainland? What do you do? At the moment, really, like if we have anything that we know we're not going to make the last ferry home, we'll just plan to stay with my family that night and I'll just go to work and then we'll go home the next day but we aren't exactly packed out with social events for two kids so it's not a massive problem but we me and my husband are definitely both concert enthusiasts yeah so we definitely have the occasional concert that we kind of have to ship the family over to

my parents house to stay in that's all right how cool yeah I love that that is not what I expected when you're like yep we moved oh we we kept the other car and I was like oh fair enough like I wonder why um and you told us that it was because you live on an island and that makes the most sense I couldn't have guessed so tell me a bit more about that car loan how much is it and how long is it going to take you to pay off that one is it's sitting at about 20,000 now I think we'd originally set it as a seven-year loan term just so you can have the minimum repayments because we can definitely pay it off faster but I don't want to have it too short and then be strapped for cash and be worried about a higher repayment so that one I mean we only got it

later in the year last year so it's still got some time on it but it's costs I think the four miler payments are about 190 bucks so it's not too bad all right now I want to know what do you think your best money habit is like you don't own two houses before 21 and have babies and get married without some good money habits I know you say oh like we sometimes make mistakes I'm like yeah but not really hey so what are your best money habits okay I'd say my best money habit is I don't like paying full price for anything neither do I don't worry that's a little bit change but i will like search every corner of the internet like a discount code or like wait for it to go on sale or wait for the shop back cash back to be like increased and try and add up all these

little discounts to be able to like purchase something like i'll always when everyone's like oh shop that kind of seems like oh well you got like a dollar there a dollar here i'm like it adds up it adds up when I look back at my lifetime earnings on shop back I'm like who am I I'm so good you're a money-saving queen that's what you are yeah my shop back lifetime earnings is just over a thousand dollars uh yeah that's a thousand dollars you didn't have before you used shop back and it was free money like yeah can't complain yeah and I think I've only been using shop back for like a year or two so I'm like she's using it well I like it you're a fan now flip the narrative what is your worst money habit I would say my worst money habit is I'm definitely a bit spend

happy when it comes to gifting gifting is definitely my love language and when you have a husband and two kids you will get tracked down the rabbit holes I'm like oh my daughter would think that would be so cute I should get that for her and it just spirals so it got me into a bit of a sticky situation for a while with afterpay because I was just putting everything on afterpay but I paid off and closed my afterpay today oh my god no you didn't yeah oh congrats yeah and I was like oh it was just such a weight off my shoulders because I've been in afterpay cycles like a year or so. So I was like, wow, there you go. Yeah. And it's so easy to just rely on, isn't it? Like it's a slippery slope. Like once you realize how, and this isn't me saying it's

good, but like once you realize how easy it can be to use, you're like, oh, well that's easy then. And then you slip down the slope and realize, oh, this is actually enabling me to spend money I shouldn't be spending. You don't really want to get rid of it, do you? Yeah. Oh, I'm so proud of you. And I can't believe you did that today. How well-timed is that? yeah oh my gosh that's actually I reckon a very perfect place to leave it but before we go you've just told me all this cool stuff like I cannot believe what you've achieved and you are still in my eyes as a nearly middle-aged someone in their 30s obviously that's me being dramatic but you're 21 so to me I'm like you are younger than my little sister that doesn't make sense

because my little sister in my head, although she's like 29, she's like, I don't know, at least 18 in my head. That's where she's living. But you're a literal young, young adult and you've smashed it all out. You own two properties. When you said, I have some personal debt, I was like, oh, what is it? And then you said it was a car loan and I was like, okay, well, you know, that's still technically an asset. Yes, it's a depreciating one. So like, we don't want to see it in too good of a light but at the same time for your personal situation that made sense you're saving you're investing you worked in mortgage broking like you now have a government agency job in debt like what's it going to take to get you from a b minus to maybe even just an a or an a plus like what

would that actually look like I think for me I'd like to be able to one I feel like once I've paid out my car loan and then i've got a credit card i don't think i'm going to close the credit card because i'm using it for points and stuff but once i'm not using money that i don't have on that kind of stuff and have paid out my personal debt i think that's definitely a good place to start i like that yeah so i'm like i think i just i want to get a little bit better living below my means and not getting as crazy about trying to keep up the joneses which can be difficult when all of your friends like out partying and going on holidays and you're like oh I'm just at home with two kids yeah but it's such a different circumstance because you wait

till you're like 39 40 and they're still at home looking after the other kids and you're like we are having our best lives right now yeah but yeah I think once we've wiped out our personal debt and we're just at a little bit more comfortable spot where we're not having to count all of our dollars. I'd like to be able to just go out, go to the shops, do my stuff and not have to be checking my bank account to make sure there's enough money in there. I think that's where I'd like to be and investing a bit more regularly, which obviously is sort of on the back burner. But all of that is so doable. Like there's nothing that's completely out of reach that makes me so excited. So I'll just like check in with you in a couple of years and be like,

where are you at now? And she'd be like, babes, I'm at A plus, clearly. I love it. Money Diaries, thank you so much for sharing this. This has been super interesting. I'm very, very proud of what you've achieved and how far you've come and like all of this stuff that you're doing, but also just this idea that you're like, no, no, no, I actually know what it's going to take to get me to an A plus. Like that clarity is so powerful. But thank you for sharing with the community. I've loved this. It's been a fun chat and I think our community are going to love it just as much as I did. Thank you so much for having me. Also, a side note before I finish, that my baby brain is so bad that I literally told you I'm 21 and I am 22.

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. Thank you.