She's On The Money - MONEY DIARY: From Death & Debt to Dream Home

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

This Money Diarist has navigated the death of her ex-husband and one of his children, being the executor to his estate, all while raising a young family and continuing her career. She is now managing the family budget, moving into her ‘forever home’ with her FIFO hubby and reconciling with the past. 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 we get to talk to one of our incredible She's On The Money community members all about their finance journey. Let's jump straight into it because I got a message this week and it went a little bit like this. Hi, Victoria. Your recent podcast got me thinking that I should share my story after my husband passed away in 2020. We have two kids and he had two from previous relationships. In 2022 we also had one of these two pass away. Having seen both sides of having a will and super versus not I

thought it might be interesting to share with the community. Money Diarist, what a story. I feel so privileged that you want to share this with me. Like that's a wild journey. How are you? It's been pretty crazy few years oh my gosh it sounds like it are you okay at the moment yeah oh my gosh I feel like that knocked me for six when I read it I was like oh I feel like every time I read this people don't understand that I am actually reading it for the very first time and I read the first part and I was like oh far out and then I read the second book and I was like oh my gosh I feel like this story is going to be a super powerful one for the community because you're right? I think seeing the other side of having a will and super versus not is actually going to be

so good to talk to the community about. So let's dive straight in. Before we ask about your money story, I want to know a bit more about you. So if I was to ask you to grade your money habits from A through F, what would you give your money habits? A C to a D. A C to a D. All right. Interesting. Let's learn a little bit more about it. Money Diarist, my favorite question of the entire episode is always this one. Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? So I grew up in a family where we've always had a family business. We did talk about money in the house, but we weren't very open about what, who went what or how much things actually cost. It was very secretive, but it was a bit under the table if you want to put it that way. I was always

encouraged to have a job before I got a mobile phone, which these days sounds crazy, but back 10, 15 years ago. My friend, I'm in that age bracket too. I get it. Yeah. My Nokia 3310 was my pride and joy. Yeah. I've still got my pink Motorola. Oh, the Razr was elite. I saved up for so long to get one of those that was like my third phone because that was like way way too progressive I think I only ended up with one of those in like grade 10 or 11 so sit down guys so what about money when you were an adult when I turned 18 I got my first job full-time and I wasn't responsible with the money at all a lot of partying a lot of late nights out I didn't have any sort of goals or anything and that all sort of changed when I met my husband and we

decided that we wanted to start a family and get married have kids and then all that sort of stuff and we still weren't the best financially together but we made do and we got the job done tell me a little bit more about your husband so my husband was a entertainer so in the nightclub industry so he worked nights and I worked a day so we pretty much were ships in the night most of the time he ended up going into entertainment management managing venues and getting the the people that come in the acts oh yeah yeah yeah he ended up getting all the acts to come in and organizing those and when COVID hit he took that really hard he obviously all the entertainment industry shut down because there was no nightclubs yeah he was terrible with money and how did you

negotiate that in a relationship I feel like if one's terrible with money and one grew up in a family where you weren't super open about money but it wasn't like a bit hidden that might be a little bit of a recipe for disaster am I reading into that uh yeah no that's true I ended up taking over I was the financial controller in the house so I did all of the bills I paid everything we we weren't left with much at the end of the day. We were still rental tenants and not that that's a terrible thing. It's great to have a roof over your head, but we didn't have much to play with at the end of the day. Yeah, absolutely. And what happened when you guys had kids? How did your money conversations change in that aspect?

He didn't stop working because he worked nights. It just sort of fell into place really well. So he would work two or three nights a week. And on those nights I'd have, you know 48 hours where I wasn't asleep because the kids would keep me up or something but on nights where he was home he was up all night because he's so used to it so it worked out really well that he could continue to work while we started a family yeah that's actually really cool I've spoken about it so much recently just the cost of daycare the cost of you know actually having to get back to work and knowing that that was a bit more flexible I feel like that would have been one of the draw cards right to that type of industry because I feel like when

you work in entertainment sometimes it's just always draining like before you said we were ships in the night did you ever feel like that led to any animosity or feeling like oh my gosh he's not around or he's not contributing as much as he could or is that something where you're like no go out earn the money that's what you have to do I guess in the last few years my opinion has changed yes there was animosity I did want him around and I was angry at the time that he was never there but now having ridden solo I guess for two years I would be quite happy to do it by myself obviously the kids are older now so it's a bit different but when they're babies you want someone around to just just take this baby from me it's crying I can't deal with it yeah that's

so fair talk to me a bit more about that transition of being married with a husband who goes to work and who has an income to finding yourself being a single mum back in 2020? I might need to let you in. We actually broke up in 2016. So. Oh, there you go. There you go. That's a little bit of a twist in the story.

So we split in 2016. So I had already figured out my own finances and things before then, but we never got divorced. So he was still my husband when he passed away. Yeah, fair, fair. So what was that like? I suppose, going, let's like go all the way back to 2016 then, because that's just as much of a financial adjustment, right? So talk to me about that period of time in your life where you were

going from being married all the way through to being, I guess, a single mum. I was working for the family business at the time. So I had to juggle a lot between trying to get the kids from A to B, making sure that we had daycare fees covered, running my own finances from having joint finances and having a secondary income to going to a single income and trying to figure out something simple as how much we needed for groceries because I would buy for a family of six and now I was buying for myself on one week and then three on the next. So it was very interesting to try and reorganize everything. Lots of budgets. Yeah, it must have been really challenging and budgets are the way forward, I think. I feel like they make you feel most in

control, right? They give you the most amount of power in that circumstance because they think if you don't budget, you get even more anxious. What about on your partner's flip side? You said you were the financial controller in that relationship. And when you broke up, that probably put a lot of weight on him to, I guess, now take charge of his own financial future. What did that look like? How did that work? I got a lot of messages. How was this paid? When was this due? Things like that. he wasn't great at doing it when it came down to the end of it. One of the saving graces that we had was that he did have income protection and super protection and TPD. So that's the only reason that the kids got anything out of it because he didn't save any money.

Yeah. Wow. So from 2016, when you broke up to 2020, when he passed away, he wasn't like trying to get on top of the finances he was kind of just getting through he was just getting through he had an inheritance and he bought a car and then he crashed the car and then like he just never followed up and never got the car back so he lost all of the inheritance that he put into this car so he was yeah pretty terrible oh my gosh how stressful so talk to me about how you teach kids about money when I guess from your perspective you're like yep cool I'm on top of the budgeting, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And then on the flip side, you've got dad and he's blowing an inheritance and maybe not having the same shared money values when I'm

assuming there was some level of joint parenting involved there. What did that look like? How did that all work? My kids were four and five roughly at the time. So we weren't really focused on money and instilling any sort of rules or anything. It was mostly just trying to get through. It's definitely ramped up in the last two years since we've had inheritance come through and things like that. Yeah. It's kind of, and I won't say a blessing, but when they're that young, they're not that privy. They're like not asking that many questions. They're not in school. So they're not as inquisitive about the workings of the world. They haven't really played shop just yet. It's not like having a teenager. That's why I asked. I was like, how did that work? What

did that look like? I mean, that's probably a good thing. There was definitely no asking for Squishmallows or Pokemons or anything back then. No, not yet. Not yet. Is that a part of the money story now? Oh yeah. I'm all across. I don't have kids yet, but I'm all across the Squishmallows. Like I have hunted high and low for specific Squishmallows for nieces and nephews. And I never thought I would say something like that. Money Diarist, I want to know, let's be a little bit pervy here. Your ex-partner passed away in 2020. And one of the reasons why you wrote in was because you were like, look, I really want to talk about seeing both sides of having a will and super versus not. Can you talk me through that process? Because it's obviously a ridiculously

traumatic process to go through to begin with, but then I'm assuming you were lumped because you were still technically married with a lot of the administration, a lot of the process, a lot of the planning, because you also had kids. Can you talk us through that process in a way that you're comfortable with? Yeah. So I was the executor of the will. He gave me power of attorney and the executor role before he passed away. So I hold the money for all four children and I went through all of his assets and his debts and contacted all the companies and closed his eBay account, closed his PayPal account, did all of the things that you wouldn't think to do. I hadn't even thought about an eBay account. I just had his email and I just went

through one by one and went close, close, close. I did have a lawyer help with it all because we had a large sum of money, so it needed to go through probate. But in regards to the division and the holding of it, I still hold all of the money until the kids are 25 because that's what he specified in the will. Unfortunately, one of them did pass away last year, so he did not reach 25. So now I need to split that between three kids. So I'm doing a bit of juggling now with that. Yeah, that's awful. I am so sorry to hear. When you say your partner or your ex-partner made you the executor of the will, that's a really big step that obviously on She's On The Money, I talk about the importance of all the time. Like it's important to have that. It's important to

have it up to date. But often people don't actually start that process or even think it's important because you're young right like you're 32 so you are literally my age and this is something that people that are my age just let slip by like we don't even think about it how did that conversation go with you becoming the executor of the will and being responsible for all the children like was this something where you know and I don't want to be too pervy it's you know only within what you're comfortable with but was he in a circumstance where he knew something was going to happen and he needed to kind of clean up his affairs? Or was this something that you guys were just really progressive about? Oh, I suppose I haven't actually mentioned. So he

was diagnosed with stage three cancer, esophageal cancer in April of 2020. So, and then he passed away in November. So we had a bit of time to organize everything, make sure that everything was in place because he was diagnosed with cancer. We did go through the channels and get the will done for free through one of the lawyers in the city that does deal. I forget the name of the company. Sorry. I'm trying to rack my brain as I talk. That's okay. That's absolutely fine. I hate asking those questions because I want to be like, hey, can you tell me a little bit more about this while still respecting the boundaries that you have? Because obviously with some people, they don't really want to talk about the way their partner or ex-partner passed away. And I'm always

like, oh, we need to know a little bit more about this. Only because, as I said before, sometimes you're only forced to get your affairs in order once there is a big life event that's going to happen. And it sounds like that was the circumstance you were in. But obviously, if this was an emergency, like previous money diarists, we don't have that foresight because it only happens to other people, right? How did those conversations go? Like, I'm sorry, but that sounds like a really shitty process to go through finding out that your ex-partner the father to your children is maybe not going to be around anymore how do you have those conversations that I think the general public would deem relatively morbid I'm a crisis person so I'm good in a crisis

so I was very okay with everything I made sure all of the boxes were ticked you have to sort of have your head about you when you go through something like that when you get more emotional about it you have to compartmentalize. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's something that's really challenging to go through, but it sounds like you were in good hands. How do you communicate that with the kids? So obviously talking to your smaller children, it's probably not even a conversation you have now, because from my perspective, having worked as a financial advisor, I can't think of talking to a 10 year old and an eight year old about, you know, inheritance and what that means. but with his other children how was that communicated did they expect an immediate

inheritance or did they understand that there was an age of 25 that they needed to reach or what did that communication process look like so the older one who passed away he was aware of the age limit of 25 being that he was 24 when he passed away he was just a baby I know he was just a baby he knew that there was money coming in he did ask for it at some point but because of the rulings between the will and me being the executor I had to put the foot down and say no like dad didn't want you to have it before this age there's certain things the other one he is 13 he is not aware that there is an inheritance his mother and I communicate we're very good communicators we always have been she knows that there's something there she knows she's got a copy

of the will she's seen everything like it's very transparent because I don't want to have any arguments later on no absolutely not yeah and anything I do with his portion of the money I do contact her and say I'm doing this just so you know because I don't want one day for her to say I haven't done the right thing and with investing in inheritance it is not advised that you put it into any sort of share portfolio because of the legal repercussions if there is a massive loss you as the executor are liable yes and that's something that a lot of people don't understand and that's why often deep financial advice is necessary because obviously you would have done the pros and cons of this and made a decision that works for you and your family but it's one

of those things where as we know the power of investing and the power of money is over time and compounding and you kind of miss out on that. And that's okay as long as it's an educated decision and you're making sure that everything is good to go. And I think you, as you mentioned before, like you're the executor, you're the only one that's going to see all sides of that story. I want to ask another pervy question. Why are you the executor of the will as opposed to obviously his other ex-partner that he has other children with? Like how did that come to fruition? Was that okay, you're the most trusted person in this circumstance, or you're just better with money. Like, was there a conversation about how he picked you?

There wasn't really a conversation of how he picked me, but I was the only one that he'd been with that was most financially responsible. Having the two youngest kids, I'm going to be the person that holds the money for longest. So he didn't want to give it to anyone else. Yeah, that was the main thing. No, that makes absolute sense. Can I ask now, I want to know a little bit more about you as a person. So obviously that is a circumstance that I don't wish upon anybody and we really need to be having conversations like this more often because unfortunately it happens more often than we would like to think it does. But I want to know what you do. What do you do

with yourself? What do you do for work and how much money do you now earn? So I, both of our kids are actually special needs. So we've got autism and ADHD. So I actually only work part time. Not that that's a bad thing. Again, it's good. I'm still working. I am a banking consultant and during work, I am at work.

But when I'm at home, I am the homemaker, organizer. I am everything. Yeah, of course you are. Your mum, aren't mums super women? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So tell me a little bit more about your personal situation. Do you have a partner now? Are you currently still a single mom? Like what is your circumstance? I do have a partner now. He is a truck driver. So he is not home very often because he goes

interstate all the time. He's actually just left yesterday for a month. So he'll be back. Oh my gosh, a month? Yes. During that time, side note, we're building a house. That's very exciting. So we're building a house. We haven't got a handover date yet, but the rental lease expires at the end of April. So I am going to be packing while he is gone and he's going to come back and help move everything. Yuck. Well, I'm glad that you're doing that and I'm not. I'm really sorry, but that sounds awful.

all right tell me a little bit more about I guess money you've got a new partner you've obviously got a good job when you are working part-time what is currently your big money goal what are you working towards you're obviously building a house so you're ticking that off yeah I would love to pay off we've taken out a land loan separate to our home loan we've bought a hectare of land so we've got quite a bit oh my gosh how exciting we've got quite a bit of gardening and things to do when we do move in so i do want to pay off the land loan which is sitting at 195 that's probably the biggest goal and then paying off the actual build loan but we haven't fully drawn that down yet so that's still in the works still tbc well that is so exciting with a hectare

you can actually get a lot of miniature donkeys so i'm very excited about this prospect for you We were looking at miniature goats. Oh, okay. We can get both. Get some donkeys, get some goats. Like I am the biggest pet person in the entire world. I have been on the side of TikTok where everybody has miniature donkeys and I just, they are so cute. It kills me. Yeah. As long as it fits in with a Bernese mountain dog, it's fine. 10 out of 10, can recommend. I'm going to go to a really quick break because I think we need to reset because all I'll do now is talk about pets. So guys don't go anywhere.

all right money diarist we are back it sounds like you are absolutely thriving you've got two children with special needs which you are looking after working part-time you've gone through a fair bit in your 32 short years i want to know do you invest if so how and what does that look like for you? I do have a smaller investment portfolio. I do have five and a half invested in diverse shares. I started investing 2019 and I've held those shares since and they're like my biggest profit ones, which is great. How exciting. Every time I get a parcel of $500, I do invest it. Sort of like a miniature version of a thousand dollar project. A little bit more accessible. A thousand I feel like takes ages to save. Yeah, and I do reinvest the dividends. So anytime I get a

dividend payment, it either goes into the account so I can get the $500 or it automatically reinvests with the plan. Yeah, cool. I love that. Are there any other investment things that you play around with? What does your superannuation look like, my friend? My super is sitting at $60,000. Oh, that's a nice amount for your age. Yeah, I feel like working part-time, that's pretty good. I do do the voluntary contribution so that you can get the co-contribution from the government to sort of boost it up every year. I feel like as a minimum, because I'm working part-time, I should, that's a priority of mine to always put in the $500. I love that. I feel like given everything you've been through and everything you're doing and all

of your financial goals and the fact that you are about to service a building loan and have bought land, like that makes sense that that is your investment journey. Let's flip it though. You told us about your $195,000 land loan and then a building loan. Do you have any other debts? If so, what do they look like? I have a $2,000 credit card and that's it. And how do you use your credit card? I feel like people think I absolutely crucify credit cards, but I don't. I crucify using them inefficiently. Yeah, I 100% use it inefficiently. Okay, well, we maybe need to talk about that, my friend. So I cannot get the limit down. So I have actually just blocked the card now. So nothing can come out other than my insurance. So I've got health insurance and home

contents insurance that comes out of that. And that's all that I'm going to be allowing that to come out of. So tell me a bit more about that mindset because for you to go, all right, well, I'm not using it efficiently. How does that work? How did you come to the conclusion that maybe a credit card wasn't the best for your personality? I've had it for a fair few years. I did regularly pay it down when I used it. Because we're building though, a lot of our finances are going to like building a shed and growing the grass, like building a fence, all this sort of stuff. So any sort of like grocery expenses and things were going on the credit card and that needed to stop. So I just blocked it. That is very fair. And I think it's very thoughtful of you to do that

because I feel like too many times people just become so dependent on them. So it's obvious to me your level of financial literacy is relatively high in comparison to the level of financial literacy of people who abuse credit cards regularly. Let's talk about good money habits. I feel like that was a really good one where you like kind of put yourself back in control and go, nope, I'm going to block that credit card. What do you think your best money habit is? Being a banking consultant, I'm always talking about rates with people. Yes, queen. So I have got high interest savings accounts where I work. I do, with the kids' money,

I always make sure that it's invested in the highest amount, rolling over, making sure that we're getting the bonus interest if there is any. And I was lucky enough to fix the 195k at 3.5 percent so oh money win i know so that's until 2025 2025 i think that's the sexiest thing anyone's told me this week oh i'm very very envious and obviously have a very boring life no no for me it's exciting like i talk to people all day about this when i'm at work so for me to be able to say it because i can't say it out loud to other people because they don't get that now. No. Being that the rates have gone up and up and up. Yeah, no. As somebody who has a mortgage, I'm very envious of that because I looked at my statement the other day and we are

now above 5%. And that just makes me feel a little bit sick, my friends. Our build loan has not fully drawn yet. So we're still on variable until it fully draws down. So I'm stuck with that one at a higher rate, unfortunately. Well, you know what? You win some, you lose some. Speaking about losing some. I need to flip the narrative here. What is your worst money habit? I am a sticker hunter and an avid op shopper. What's a sticker hunter? Like markdown stickers. So if I... That's a good thing. It is a good thing, but I will buy things that we don't use. Oh, right. So it can work out in my favor, but sometimes I'll buy things. I'll be like, yeah, the kids will like that. Not with sensory needs and things. I should just stick to what we've got. But most of our

fridge freezer is stickered, marked down sort of things, especially with the cost of groceries now. But op shopping is probably the worst thing. Like if I'm having a down day and I've got free time, I will go out and op shop and I won't need anything, but I will find something. Hey, that's resourceful. I'm going to allow you to have that. I feel like that's much better than saying oh I go to Chadston and I shop to my heart's content like op shopping let's just see it as you're supporting the local community you're you know repurposing some old clothing like I'm all about that I mean we probably should do it smartly but like you know I can reframe anything if you want me to let's be honest money diarist I feel like I've learned so much about you

and I'm so grateful that you've kind of shared your journey obviously you've seen both sides of I guess, having a will and having super and being in the best possible position. We've spoken about, you know, you being an executor, which is a massive responsibility and it will continue to be a responsibility until your youngest child reaches the age of 25. And even at that point, they're probably still going to have questions about how things work. Like it's not a responsibility that's put on someone lightly where, you know, someone unfortunately passes away and then that's a job for six months. It's often a lifelong job. And I think that whilst it is really important, it's also, as I said, a massive responsibility.

But it sounds like you are kind of killing it as well. And I want to reflect on the start of this conversation before we even had those chats. And you said, I think I'm like a C or a D. And then we've learned that you were basically the financial controller of your family. You are financially responsible enough to have been put in charge of a whole heap of people's inheritance. you genuinely are really good in crisis you've got savings you have bought a house you are currently building you lock in your rates like do you really think that you're a c to a d my friend because i feel like it might be a little higher than that i think that i am a c to a d because of our excessive spending building right now i think it's situational c to d right it's what

you think you are not maybe what you think you are in comparison to others which actually is the best way to put it right yeah all right we'll allow you to have it I think that we're spending an awful lot at the moment with the build and everything that that's why I put it so low because we are just you know forking out the money yeah it's so stressful though when that happens as somebody who's just gone through a renovation I feel like it's cost on cost on cost and the quote that they gave you, double it, even maybe consider dribbling it because it is going to bite you in the bottom. So I can understand that feeling of, I guess, bleeding money, you could say. It's not a fun feeling, especially when you see your actual savings account go completely down. You're like,

this is not what I planned for. This is not what I expected. Well, yeah, I'd rather see the money sitting in the offset, offsetting the variable build loan than spending it. 100%. Well, Manny it has been beautiful getting to know you and learning a little bit more about your journey are there any passing or lasting words of wisdom that you want to share with the community before we wrap all of this up get your will done yes sexy yes absolutely i got mine done obviously having kids and being the executor and the controller i got mine done after my husband passed away but i advise everyone to get one done even if it is sits in a cupboard for 20 years you don't want to think about it because it is morbid and you don't want to think about what

happens when you're not here anymore but it needs to happen and make sure that you have two executors two executors yes why obviously I know why but this is not for me because if one passes away then you've got a second yeah absolutely and I think that having a backup plan is always really important and as you said like these conversations aren't easy they are quite challenging to have but they're some of the most important conversations and once someone's gone you can't go back to clarify with them oh well what did you actually want or how did we want to do that so i think we need to ask while we have the opportunity money diarist it has been beautiful thank you so much for sharing your story with us i know that the

community is going to get genuinely so much out of it thanks 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.