She's On The Money - My Investment Property Dream Became a Financial Nightmare

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

We’ve all been told property is the “safe” investment. But this week’s Money Diarist learned the hard way that’s not always true. She thought she was making the smart move buying a second investment property. Instead, she ended up with a building so dodgy it dragged her through years of court battles, left her with no rental income, and forced her to sell the first house she loved just to stay afloat. Now she’s picking up the pieces, rebuilding from zero and now has good things coming her way. Listen in to hear the biggest lesson she's learnt.  GET VICTORIA'S BUDGETING SYSTEM: Master your cashflow here.Ready to binge more relatable, inspiring, and downright juicy money stories? Check out our ultimate Money Diaries playlist. Listen now Join our Facebook Group AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+. And follow us on Instagram for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you.  Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha 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 - 4See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Ti, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan. Mumu bangada boma ininyalan waka, gaunan yakarumja, wutunarana. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's on the money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections, bringing

you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. hello and welcome to she's on the money the podcast that lets you be pervy about other people's money habits for educational purposes of course welcome back to another one of our money days where we get the absolute pleasure of talking with one of our incredible she's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded exactly like this. Hi, She's on the Money. I always worked

hard from a young age. Met my husband, he joined the Navy and I became a nurse. We purchased our first investment property the year we got married and a second investment property the year our first daughter was born. Then it all fell apart. The second investment property was a lemon. We were in court with the builder for five years and lost everything. But starting from zero again, 14 months ago, we have saved $100,000 and are now looking to buy a new investment and forever home. Money, Darius, that sounds like a rollercoaster that I don't want to be on. No, I didn't want to be on it either. It was absolutely awful. Non-consensual rollercoaster.

Yes, it was just, it was horrific. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. But we've come out the other side and ready to start again. Oh, God. All right. Well, let's dive straight into it. Before I ask you to tell me a little bit more, I want to know, what grade would you give your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A

through to F? I would say C. All right. That's it. I mean, that's middle ground. That's okay. Yeah. That's all right.

So tell me a bit more about this money story. I feel like that's a relatively stereotypical love story. I met my husband. He went into the Navy. I became a nurse. we had a daughter like how cute tell me more yeah so gosh where to start so grew up in like a normal kind of you know Aussie household parents worked really hard for everything you know I worked from a very young age you know doing the paper round and then babysitting in the street and then you

know started working at Kmart when I was 15 and that's where I met my husband packing shelves um I came up and then yeah we went off and you know went to uni and got our full-time jobs and I remember going to like the brick and brick kind of markets and my dad handing me a book you know the rich dad poor dad book and oh yeah yeah yeah I feel like that had a massive viral moment before virality was a thing yes before all the you know like you guys came along that was the Bible book. And my parents really valued property and shares. And so we didn't have a lot of money. We had like a crappy car and the bare minimum, but they always had investments and that was kind of really drummed into me. So I always wanted that for myself.

So kind of going down the line, we got married and we had saved and got our first investment property in Brisbane. It was a two-bedroom, which was amazing. And then we kept saving and used the equity off that to purchase another property, which we thought, you know, perfect, another two-bedroom in our range. The stepping stone that was part of the plan? Yeah. Well, we were building the plan. We'd been married. We'd had, you know, had an investment property. We had our first daughter, bought second investment property. I mean, all was going fine. It was rented out. We were having good rental return on it no problems so then we were holidaying in Hawaii and we get a phone call from the real estate going the whole place has flooded no and I thought flooded like

what do you mean like a little bit of water and she was like no the furniture is floating and I was like I don't understand what are you talking about we were the bottom unit so half of the unit was kind of built into a hill was that weather related or like did someone flood above like how did this flood happen well it was rain so it had come down the hill and the way that the drainage was done outside the property it was draining straight into a door and that's something the builder absolutely should have factored in with their design that's okay so that's where it kind of began and so it's kind of in a country town so we were having to source water pumps and cup you know to pump the water out and obviously like I'm on a different time zone I'm in Hawaii you know

this had to be dealt with there. And then it was so stressful. And so obviously our tenant had to move out straight away. And then when we got down to the nitty gritty of it, we got an engineer in to have a look and he was like, I don't think this wall that's built into the hill is waterproofed. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, the better block is so damp. And I thought, oh, that's weird. Yeah. Cause like, I don't mean to be offensive. I haven't asked you what you do for work yet but like why would you know that it was meant to be waterproofed either is the builder and the like designer meant to know and you were probably like okay so it's damp well it gets a bit more deep all right I'm listening I'm listening sorry so then all of a sudden he's looking around

he's going I don't think this bathroom is waterproofed either and then he went upstairs to the unit above because we started getting like moisture on the roof of one of the bedrooms and he's like the bathroom above you isn't waterproofed because the shower was leaking into one of the rooms and so then we got a structural engineer in and he kind of went through and said oh my gosh the four units in this strata are shot this builder has just done the dodgy oh no and waterproofing sorry isn't that just I know that I've got no idea when it comes to building but like waterproofing I know that's a thing I don't know how to do it but I know it needs doing 100% how can you have a wet space that isn't waterproofed or have a building

that's built into a hill not waterproofed between the building anyway it was a nightmare and so then when we started looking into it this builder was in multiple lawsuits with multiple different people no and that's like the last thing you want to see because you go this guy this ain't his first radio. No, he is a total con artist. And then when we started going down the line, we realized that the real estate agent that sold it to us was a friend of his. And the building and pest inspection guy was a friend of his. And it was just this massive big scheme. It was just, you know, we got sucked in. Do they all still have jobs? Do they all still work? Well, I got the builder's license revoked. Oh, good job, queen.

Yes, I did. But then, you know what he did? He went off and started building demountables on his property and selling those, which were dodgy. Yeah, of course he did. So, you know, they find a way, they close down their business, open up a new ABN and start summer fresh. All the organizations and the government, everyone protects the builders. They don't protect the buyer, which is really unfortunate. So, we obviously, because it was a new home, we had the new homeowners, like the seven-year warranty period, that did nothing for us. Long story short, we had to get all the strata involved and take him to court. It dragged on actually seven years now, I look back on it. And during that time, we couldn't sustain having

a property that had no rental income. So, we're paying the mortgage, the strata, the land rates. And so, we unfortunately had to sell our first investment property in Brisbane because I couldn't float them both, but I couldn't sell this one. No, absolutely not. And you had a kid as well, like absolutely not so we lost that property which is really sad because it'd be worth a lot today do you know what we're not thinking about that there is a reason this stuff happens and it's really terrible but like give me 10 years and you're going to come back and be like oh guess what we've done i know best thing ever and that's shit because when the light at the end of the tunnel hasn't been reached yet so it does feel like trash but like i just i think we need to

have a toxic level of optimism sometimes to help ourselves through these situations i'm there now but you know me 18 months ago was in a hole so we sold that investment property we did get a settlement but it had to be split between it was for rectification so they said this is what needs to be fixed in each individual unit this is how much it will cost to rectify it but that was done like say three years ago so by the time we got the money three years later obviously the cost of everything's gone up the cost of labor the cost of the actual building supplies so it it couldn't cover anything so our only option was we stripped the place bare back to its bare bones and we sold it as is and we sold it for half of what we bought it for

no but also that's the best thing the only way we could do it because no one wanted to touch it because all the locals knew the builder they knew that they were buying somewhat a lemon so we sold it with enough to close the mortgage and that left us at zero zero dollars in the bank I had a little bit of investments not much like five thousand here blah blah blah I had to close all those pull everything that I had we had to borrow 20 grand from my partner's mom just to close it but that's just another level of stress yeah but you know what like it's done and it's gone. And we started rebuilding financially. How bloody stressful. I'm so sorry you've gone through that. I wish we could like name and shame and be like, don't talk to this real estate agent.

Don't talk to this building and pest inspector. Like, ew, that's so gross. I'm really sorry that you've been through that. Tell me a little bit more about your family though. You said we had our first daughter yes does that mean that there are more children we have two girls one is nine and one is six oh gorgeous and they are a delight they're really good girls I love that and then tell me more about this like you met your husband he joined the navy I feel like that means that he might have spent a lot of time away like how did that work in your marriage especially when you like first got married like I don't know I wouldn't love having my husband away all the time no I'm needy you say I'm really needy too and I'm actually looking back on the periods of when he

was away was quite dark period but good to talk about because I'm sure that you're not the only one that experiences that no and I I meet so many people you know with partners in defense or have their dads been in defense and they've got stories growing up of you know feeling really lonely it is really hard because you move away from your family so we're originally from Queensland When he joined the Navy, we obviously moved down to Melbourne, down to Cerberus and lived down there, which was fun. But then we moved to Sydney and he went away a lot. And deployments could be anywhere from 12 weeks.

And the longest one he did was nine months. And that was when I was pregnant with my first daughter. So I'm living in Sydney. I'm pregnant. I'm working full-time shift work as a nurse. And you're going home and there's nobody to rub your feet or tell you it's okay or feed you strawberry ice cream or do any of those things that you deserve when you are pregnant. I understand. Driving myself to the hospital with a breech baby where

I can't breathe. Do you know, it was a lot. He came back a week before I had her. Oh, I'm glad. I was about to say, did you drive yourself to the hospital because you gave birth without him? No, no, no. I was very lucky, but I'm a midwife as well. Oh, you were prepared. You didn't even need him. Didn't need him. But there was a few times where I was in births with women whose husbands were in defence and they were just there with their neighbour or a birth partner. But you know what? You're the midwife they needed at that moment because you would have been like, I get it girl. That's my sitch too. Let's do this. Yeah. There would have been some good vibes in those rooms. Yeah. No, we actually, we had fun and we had a laugh. Like it is hard. So we had our first

daughter and then three months later he had to go on a deployment again. And at this time, so we packed up. I packed up my life in Sydney, left all my girlfriends, my beautiful house on the northern beaches and went back and lived with mum and dad in Brisbane. Because like, what was I doing? I was on mat leave, sitting in a house by myself with a newborn. And I was like, I'm not doing this. You know what? That's the best option. And if that's an opportunity for you, like, do you know what? Your parents probably loved it. Yeah. So mum and dad loved it because, you know, my daughter was the first grandchild and obviously my brothers and sisters are all up there. So no it was it was nice but in a way it was good because that's when the whole debacle happened

you know like I was up in Brisbane we went over to Hawaii to visit him on a deployment and that's where it all fell apart so oh how stressful very stressful um but since then we've moved around a bit we moved them back up to Brisbane where we had our second daughter which was really lovely and then we got posted back to Victoria at the beginning of COVID which was like the perfect timing moved down there for lockdown and then we moved to our current location in Canberra the week that lockdown ended oh perfect so you really got to experience Melbourne for its best yeah it was an interesting time interesting time and so now we're up here and my husband's working here in Canberra. He works full time. I work casually, but I still, I do about three

days a week and yeah, we're just living our best lives. So tell me a bit more about your career, because when you are married to somebody in defense or married to someone who has a similar job, there's a lot of compromise that you would have had to make in your career and in your life and in the jobs that you take or can't take to make sure that his dreams are reality, right? Right. So, you know, I don't think anyone who's still married to their partner and still loves their partner is like holding any animosity, but it's still a good conversation to be had. So how has this impacted your career and what that looks like for your income generation? It actually hasn't. And I think I'm one of the lucky ones. Like I know it's a bit like

cliche, a nurse and a sailor, but it actually works really well because, so I obviously like Before I had the girls, I was working full-time. I did me, he did him, and that just worked. With the girls and having kids and moving and not having any support network every time you move, because you're starting from zero with friendships, I'm lucky I'm in a job that's really social and, you know, us nurses kind of, we all gather together and we become our own little families, which is lovely, which I've got here in Canberra. but since I had my first daughter I've stayed casual and I know that has its disadvantages

in regards to obviously like long service and sick leave but in the same breath I do get a 25 percent penalty being casual so in a way it kind of works out and it just means that I work when I want to work and I don't work when I want to work and I can have the school holidays off I can have Christmas I'm not fighting rosters I'm not fighting people you know to get time off and also I think because I do shift work those extra penalties stack them stacks me up so I was really quite surprised when I looked at like I don't kind of look at how much I earn over the year but when I did my tax this year my tax um consultant was like oh you've earned 94 000 this year. And I was like, what? No way. Excuse me? So you're a $94,000 earning casual midwife. Is

that correct? Like when you say that you're a nurse, like you're trained as a midwife or you're like, what type of nursing are we doing? Oh, I'm currently an intensive care nurse. So I work in intensive care. So that's what I've done my whole career. I just got a little bit bored the year before I had my daughter. So I just decided I'm just going to go off and become my midwife it was really hard it's a really like all the nurses out there that want to become a midwife like go for it but that graduate diploma is hard yeah I can imagine yeah you're not only at uni but you're working and there's so much involved and you have to be you have to follow 20 women and be at five of their appointments and then at their birth and then after birth you have

to go to appointments and that's for 20 women not just one so it's like you're working full-time times two yeah that's crazy and like don't get me wrong I'm grateful but it's rewarding but I find my passion is intensive care but the hospital that I work at I get to do both so I work a lot in intensive care but then I kind of can run downstairs and go to maternity and play down there when they're short so I kind of get the best of both worlds I kind of would love that like I hated giving birth, ended up in an emergency seizure. So I just wasn't actually that good at it. Yeah, that's not good. And I also had a posterior labor, which I didn't know about until like when they were doing a C-section. They're like, no wonder these hurt you for 24 hours while you

were refusing all pain relief. That baby is not coming out. That was cooked. Why did you do that? And they're like, oh, I didn't know. So he didn't want to come out. He came out the sunroof, which is absolutely fine. And he's maintained that level of bougie since then. But tell me, I feel like adult intensive care would be a lot, like mentally, physically, like that just sounds very demanding. Yeah, it is. I've done it now for what, 15 years. It is a lot because you kind of, you see people at their most vulnerable. You see people coming to the reality that, you know, they're coming to the end of their life. You see massive traumas and, you know, dealing with things like suicide and, or just, you know, we've had a lot of young mums recently that have needed

intubation because of flu and COVID and having, you know, little kids like five and eight-year-olds in the room bawling. They're like, it's really, really hard. But again, it's the adrenaline. I love, I love the excitement of a sick patient. I know that sounds odd. No, no, no. But like, I want you to say that, like, if I'm in intensive care, I want the nurse to be like passionate about the stuff she's doing not like nonchalant doesn't want to be here can't wait for a break like that's not what I want to hear in ICU no we we get the thrill of and the excitement of you know hearing that piece you know really sick people are coming in getting stuff done and then debriefing after yeah but saying that there's a lot of burnout and I feel like I'm kind

of at getting to that point so I've actually starting a new role in three weeks a working from home gig which is amazing because it means that I can work more hours and longer hours and I'll still work in the hospital I was about to say and you're still casual so you could probably pick up some stuff there and ebb and flow yeah so I'm going to do the working from home stuff in the week and then on a Sunday go up and pick up my double time rates and I was about to say Sunday rates you can't give that up that's just the one shift you cannot give up so yeah I'm just kind of diverting a little bit giving my physical and mental health a bit of a break no I think that that's really smart because that's why I was like oh adult intensive care sounds real heavy like

and don't get me wrong I think it takes a very special person and I'm getting that energy from you that if I was sick I want you to look after me like I just know I'd be in good hands but I just know that that comes at your own emotional cost and your own burnout and like it's really shitty, but like that's the industry because you know what, if nurses, and I don't want nurses to burn out, like that's awful. But also they're the types of people that you want in the industry because they're giving it literally their all. And you're kind of like, well, that's why you guys should get paid more. Like $94,000 a year is great, but it's just simply not enough from my perspective. So tell me a little bit more about your next new role that you start in three weeks,

work from home. What type of salary changes are we going to see? So it's only a few extra dollars an hour but it just means that I can be available to do more days so currently in the hospital I do two 10-hour night shifts a week oh wow okay yep yep and then I do an eight-hour afternoon shift on a Sunday and I normally do an overtime which terrible but it's like an 18-hour solid shift oh my gosh I would simply pass away yeah and that's why I'm feeling a bit burnt out yeah I get that now the money's so good that it's really hard to like say no when they say no yeah so I can only kind of night shifts I can only really mentally do two a week and then you know you don't really sleep very well and then the day after you're absolutely wrecked and so you're kind

of losing three four days just for two shifts so I thought doing this working from home so it's more like a telehealth kind of thing, which I did previously. So when I was down in Victoria during COVID, I had a telehealth contract where I could work from home. And, you know, like when, I know other people around the country didn't do this, but in Victoria, if you tested positive for COVID, you went on to a register and then a nurse would call you and go through your symptoms and triage you to say, look, you're safe to stay at home or you need to call an ambulance or, you know, or go to your GP. This is kind of similar, but it's more like a health hotline where the public have symptoms and they call in and then we can triage them and it's to kind of

decrease the foot traffic through emergency departments and we still see it people rock up with a cut on their finger or sore shoulder but then why why like go to and this is I guess why there's this whole side conversation about the urgent care facilities that are being implemented I think that is maybe Victoria specific but across Australia maybe we're getting urgent care facilities to take the load off the emergency departments. And they often recommend you can go here and you know what, if stuff's really bad, we'll take you to the hospital, which I think is so, so smart. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's wild. And then you've got the little old ladies who are like, no, it's fine. I feel fine, but I'm basically having all the symptoms of a stroke. Don't worry

about me, ducky. You're like, no. Yep. And you know, that's so true. Like when I was doing the hotline I remember speaking to a man and I rung him and I said oh you know I was doing his health check and he says oh yeah I'm at my parents house and they both have COVID and I'm peering through the window and I can see them both like lying on the floor oh no I said oh well what's that what you know what's their health background like can you tell me the history and he and he said oh they're both diabetic and I said well they you need to get off the phone you need to call an ambulance I'm going to call back in half an hour and then we can go but you know like sometimes people are so nervous to call triple zero to ask for help and you get into situations like this

where yeah you do get people that will just sit at home and deteriorate and it would be like the last second before they call an ambulance and then you have the other side where people just I don't know if they just want some human interaction or it hurts when I press my finger everywhere. That's crazy. That's because your finger has a cut on it. Yeah. We see it all the time. So, yeah. Oh, God. I don't like that for you. That would be very, very frustrating. Let's pivot a little bit. I want to talk about your money goals. So, obviously, you guys are starting from zero again as of 14 months ago. But, sorry, you've saved a hundred grand. So, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. I don't actually know how we did that, but okay. You did though. Yeah. You did

though, that's very, very impressive. So, talk me through like what are your big money goals because clearly you're working towards them. So, we currently live in defense housing and we want to move back to Queensland to be closer to our family. My husband is still contracted to defense for another two and a bit years. So, like I just want that forever home. I've always had investment properties and I've always lived in defense housing where I can't paint the walls like and I can't change the carpet and I can't renovate kitchen and I just want something that's my own and I don't care how crappy and run down it is I just want a house with some land I want chickens you know I just want oh the chickens yeah we need the chickens I want another dog I

just I want space for my girls to run around so really that is our big money goal is the house I really want the house. I love that but like sorry you're working towards that very nicely to have saved a hundred thousand dollars in 14 months is actually unheard of so I don't I don't know how to tell you this but I don't think the house is going to be crappy like I know that that's where your bare minimum is starting but like I think we are going to be okay. Look I just obviously like housing prices have just soared in Queensland since COVID and so like what we thought we could aim for. Seems like it's just in our reach. I actually spoke with a broker last week. I had to pull my head out of the sand because I'm really scared about entering the property market again

because I've been burnt and I have a really big scar and I'm not fully over it. I wanted to ask you about that because I was like, why are you going back into property after property is the thing that burnt you? But obviously, I get it. just want the old Queenslander with a white picket fence. I know it sounds really silly, but like I have everything else. I have the most amazing husband who's my best friend. We've been together for over 20 years. I have my two beautiful girls. I have an amazing dog. We have great careers. You know, we have our health, but I just don't have the house. And it's the last piece of the puzzle. I want the house. I get it. I get it. I get it. And that's where I'm so glad you've

engaged with a broker to start the conversations early because you can dot all the I's and cross all the T's and make sure that everything is where it needs to be before you even find a house, before you even go down that route. And like, I feel like when you've been burnt before, you know what you're looking for as well. The red flags are literally crimson and in the front of your face and you just take absolutely no crap. Well, I have to say, this is what I truly regret. And if when people listen to this, I hope that this is maybe the one thing they take out of it is when I was purchasing that second property, the real estate guy called me, pushing me to sign the papers for settlement. I had the biggest feeling in my gut that it was wrong. I remember

exactly where I was standing. I remember where I took the phone call. Sorry, I get a bit emotional because I'm so angry at myself for not listening to my gut. It's the biggest life lesson I've learned. The most important one, I think, is just to don't go with your head. Listen to your gut. it is so important that gut instinct is built into all of us and just something feels off trust yourself that it feels off yeah a hundred percent so recently I was dealing with two brokers and one guy gave me just the ick and I just said to my husband I'm not dealing with him I flicked him off I engaged with another guy who was absolutely amazing and was so supportive and listened to my story and was like no I'm here for you I'm going to work with you and he rung me

yesterday to say we've got pre-approval to move ahead. Ah, that's so exciting. So I love that for you. And I just know that, oh, it's sunshine and roses from here on in. Like it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard, but it's coming. You know, there was so many years that I was in a dark cave and now I can see I'm out. I'm moving forward. Oh, I love that. Let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I have a lot more questions. I want to talk about investments. I want to talk about potential debt and also best and worst money habits. Because like, I'm not going to lie, we're halfway through this episode and I already don't believe that you're just a C. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, money diarist, we are back. And I

am very excited to talk about this. I want to dive back into the investment side of things because you and your husband, you bought your first investment property when your daughter was born. You told us a lot at the start about your money story, how you got your rich dad, poor dad book, like your parents kind of drove that. Has property been the only investment that you've really like cared about or invested in? Like what does that side of your life look like? To be honest, I never really understood shares or, you know, like what an investment portfolio was kind of until I stumbled upon your podcast a few years ago. I'm glad we met.

Yep. During COVID. During COVID, we've been friends for ages. Yes, we have down in Melbourne. So like obviously my dad had given me The Rich Dad Poor Dad and I read it and I understood that was all property driven, like buy a property and use the equity and blah, blah, blah. And then he gave me The Barefoot Investor book and I read that and I did all the things. I opened up 50 ING accounts but had no clue what to do with them. And they still sit there and again, I don't know what to do with them. They're just there. And it doesn't work for everybody. I'm not going to lie. Now I know that you earn what you earn

and I'm assuming your husband probably earns slightly more than you because I didn't ask. That method actually probably doesn't work for your lifestyle. I don't know what to do with it. And this is why I say I'm a C because my husband's had a good income from the very beginning. I've never really budgeted. Can I be pervy? What kind of income are we talking? He's currently on 130. Yeah, good. Great. I kind of just, maybe once a year, this is really bad. I probably should do this more often.

once a year i kind of like go through my bank account and look at all our outgoings and just make like an estimate and i just kind of chuck like oh 500 bucks a fortnight in the bills account and hope for the best that's kind of worked which kind of makes sense if you've never been taught like and that's really hard and like please don't get me wrong like scott paper's done so many good things for this industry and like i swear like i still see people down at the supermarket or like at the shops with their like spend splurge like written on the cards yeah I still see that it's so cute like it is so cute and if it works for you like I love that but there is something about percentage-based budgeting that just doesn't align with my values because you know if I'm putting like

10% into my splurge account well I'm not gonna lie like I just don't spend that like and I'm not I come across as I look sometimes like I'm expensive to maintain, but I'm really not when it comes down to it. So I never know what I'm meant to be doing with that. And it just isn't going to work for me. And then also the percentages, especially in 2025, actually don't work for us. We are on average spending 50% of our income on our accommodation. So like the fact that that doesn't account for any flexibility, you go, well, how do I on my income using this bucket method make it work. And it does work for some people, but it doesn't work for others. And that's why I kind of like, don't like percentage-based budgeting. I am going to actually

set you up. So you and I, we're going to do my budget and cashflow masterclass or my now new money masterclass together. I'm going to send you a login after this, but I have done all of the spreadsheets and you don't have to do any of the work. All I need you to do is put in your incomes and put in your expenses and it will spit out. This is how much you spend on a week, or you can like categorize it however you want. It might be week, month, year, whatever. This is how much the kids cost. This is how much your house is. This is how much you have left over for savings. And it will tell you which bank accounts it needs to go into on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on what you want. So I'm going to set you up with that because if you're

saying, oh, I sometimes do this or that, this girl's going to take it to another level. Also, low key, I made it. So it's aesthetically pleasing. It's going to be pretty. It's pink. Oh, I love pink. But it's one of those things where the dual budget one, it'll be your husband's income and also your income. And it will show you how that breaks up and what that looks like at a top level without you having to do any of the background calculations without being like, okay, well now I know my expenses because I feel like that has always been the block with budgeting. So I could be like, money dice, sit down, let's do your budget. And you're like, okay, well, I can go through my bank statements. I can tell you what I earn. I can tell you what

I spend, but then it's the function of actually facilitating, making sure that you have enough by a specific date for your car registration to make sure that, you know, if we're working backwards on a savings goal and let's say, I know you've got a hundred grand saved, maybe you want 120. I know, and I can give you a date that you will have that. You don't have to do the maths. So I think that that, I mean, I'm biased. I made my own system, but it was based on the fact that none of the other systems were working for me. And I was a financial advisor and I wanted something for my clients that made sense, but I took the stress off them by doing the hard yards like that's what works I think I've just had my head in the sand and I just kind of

avoid it because it's I'm not a numbers person like I'm a practical hands-on task orientated person when it comes to numbers like this morning I was at my daughter's school or like you know that was showing us around the classroom and oh yeah she was like mom we we have to do this times table quiz and I just looked at my husband and I was like I'm out like don't even ask me what five times five is. I can't do it. Like numbers are not like, don't work for me and percentages. And I just don't understand it. So I kind of just ignore it. And that's why I do all the hard work in this. It's all calculated in the background. You also can't break it because I locked it. So you can try, but I have locked it down pretty securely. You can't move anything

around. So the calculations are always going to be correct because I'm the worst. I'll like backspace something and forget I backspaced it or delete something by accident. You can't do it. I just won't let it happen well anyway I feel like I'm trying to sell you on a course I've already given you so like we'll move on from this but I'm excited because I think it'll work I think it'll work really well money diarist talk to me about superannuation as a casual employee what's your super looking like is it a priority is it something you haven't looked at yet is defense really good when it comes to super super is something my dad has again drummed into me. So I remember like back, I don't know, in the 2000s, the government was like matching dollar

for dollar that you put into your super. And so even though I was like only earning like $300 a week, it came out or whatever. He always was like, you put $20 into your super and it's kind of carried on with me through life. And I always have put like an extra five or 7% in. So my super at the moment sitting at 190 oh okay queen and you're 38 yeah you were running rings around the competition you're like oh I'm not doing that well financially sorry what sit down I know it's hard you don't feel like you're in control I can tell that you don't feel like you're in control but like I think that you've got this handled a little bit more than you think you do yeah I feel like because I've got a few little investments here and there but it's nothing big

so I've got 190 my husband's obviously defensed so his is quite good he's got 570. Okay no worries that's more than what most people retire with. Yeah so that's why we've kind of stayed in because obviously the perks of just the super alone keeps us ticking over. Did you say before I'm just doing some background thinking did you say before that you were making voluntary contributions to your superannuation? Yeah. Yeah you can probably pull some of that out if hypothetically you wanted to pull that out for the first home super saver scheme to top up your house deposit hypothetically if that was interesting to you. But we're not first home buyers. I would have a look at the rules and regulations around that because they are a little bit more flexible. You have to have not purchased

a house within a certain period of time. Talk to your broker. Talk to your broker and see what that looks like because also if you've experienced financial distress, sometimes they're a little bit flexy on that and I'm pretty sure we could write a pretty good user case for you. Well, that's interesting. I mean, if you get told no, I'm glad you asked. If you get told yes, you owe me a fee. Definitely, I would owe you a fee. No, but it would definitely be worth looking into and just going, well, what does that look like? What's the flexibility here? Is there any? Because sometimes it'll just be a hard no because you might have too much in terms of assets or income or whatever that looks like but there's always a question yeah okay we'll do I'll ask him this week but

when it comes to super you guys are looking pretty good like having more than what that's like 700 and something like great fantastic like we are on the route to being comfortable in retirement irrespective of the investments that ultimately were lemons yeah and that's I guess that kind of was the only kind of security I had in the back of my head was like the money is there like you know if worst case scenario and we have to be in a defense rental for the rest of our lives at least we know that when we get to retirement that we are going to be okay yeah so tell me about these little investments that you're like oh they don't really count but i know they count so tell me a little bit about those i have two so i was listening back in melbourne

i was listening to your podcast and you were speaking to grant hackett about a three generation life. His investment bonds, yeah. So, at that time, I opened two children investment bonds for my daughters. I was putting money into it every year. Obviously, once we lost the house, I kind of stopped. I wasn't focusing on it. So, each girl has five grand in their little investment bonds sitting there and I do intend to start putting back into it. I just need to kind of figure out how that looks. You can't pour from an empty cup though. And like, it's nice to have things for your kids. Please don't get me wrong. That's incredible. They're way above and beyond what other people would be at. But like, you need to set yourselves up financially. Like the best

investment you can make is in yourselves. And then if we've got some extra, fantastic. The kids can have their own investments, but like you come first a thousand percent. Yeah. So I kind of put everything on hold once that all happened. Cause I really just wanted to focus on building a deposit and every penny that I could find going into that. That's so good. You've really been around a while because that episode is so old. But it was really great. It really just kind of pushed me into it.

I always wanted to do something for them. I had bank accounts where I was getting, you know, my relatives would just go, oh, look, here's money for their birthday. Buy them what they want. Well, they have everything. So I was just chucking it into like a savings account. I was doing nothing. And then that episode came on and I was like, oh, this one is for me.

And so I rung Gen Life and spoke to them and got it all set up and it was really great. And they're gorged there, you know, obviously not advice because that would be illegal for me to give and I wouldn't do that, but I can share my personal experiences and that is what I set up for my own child, Harvey. So Harvey has a child builder as well. And it just to us makes sense, like from a tax perspective, from just a structure perspective, like there are lots of different options and listen, this is just like a side note for everybody listening, please listen to our Investing for Kids episodes because there are lots of different options. This is just one that might work. And apparently, for money to arrest and die, it works well. Yeah. So, I have

those. And then just before we lost the property, I had put some money into EFTs. So, like just the Global 100, about two grand or something. And then I forgot about it and then remembered at the start of the year that I had that sitting there. And then I think maybe it was in April this year when old Donald brought in his tariffs and dumped the stock market, I just said to my husband. I think that's a good opportunity. Yeah, it was. I just put five grand in there. Oh my God. I didn't have any free cash at the time. And I was like, I would love to have some free cash right now, but all of my stuff is tied up and I'm watching this opportunity go past.

So tell me, what's that worth now if you put five grand in? Nine something, nine thousand something. Oh, I'm so envious. That's very nice. So, I've made two and a half really on it currently. So, these are little investments. That's good. That's so good.

So, they are the two kind of investments I have. I did have a spaceship account back in the day, but obviously, like I had to pull the money out of that. But I just this week downloaded the Sharesies app to think maybe I'm in a position where I'm like, do I just pull every single penny to put into this deposit or do I put 50 bucks a week into a sharesies account or into, you know, to buy more FTs or, you know, share, I don't know. I wish I could give you an answer to that, but that would constitute financial advice. I think it's really around your timeframes, right? So when we talk to people who are like, oh,

I don't know how to split it. It's really about, okay, well, what would that extra 50 bucks a week be doing towards your house deposit? And then once you've got the house, will you have the free cash flow to then invest a little bit more? You've got to ask yourself a heap of questions around like, Does that suit your lifestyle? Are we aggressively saving as much as possible towards the house or maybe are we happy to put that off another few months because we are also investing at the same time? I think it's totally up to you. I think, and again, listening to my gut, and this is probably why I haven't done it and I haven't been putting extra into the girls' child builders, and it's just because I know that really we should put in, and it's only for a short

period of time, putting everything we have into getting the right deposit so that we can get that house. And then once we rent it out and we're getting that rental return, we'll definitely have the cash flow to then to invest. So I know the answer. I think I just doubt myself and I think a lot of people do. Oh, we all do. And that's why you need to do the money masterclass because that's going to show you exactly what that looks like. And then you can kind of like key in a few things and be like, oh, what if I, because I also have investment buckets in there as well. What if I put 50 bucks a week into this and it will show you what amount that would equal and then you can decide. So, instead of just going, should I, shouldn't I, let's just get

the numbers on a paper. Do you want this or that? And you'll be like, oh, okay, that or this. And I think that that's really helpful to have something right in front of you that goes, well, this is the decision. Do you like it? No. Okay. I'm going to change it. No, that sounds really good because that's where my head's at. It's just like a big jumble of what ifs and money flying around and I need it to be structured. So I think that would be perfect. Totally. So tell me, are there any other investments floating around? No. That's more than I thought there would be. I'm not going to lie. No, it's just honestly, just the two, the kids and the EFTs at the moment. Yeah. So talk to me about debt. Do you have any debt? If so, what does that look like? Okay. So I went back

and did another post-grad last year specifically for intensive care. So I have like $1,200 in a hex debt, which I'm big dog. So when I get my tax back, I think I'll just dump it on it and just get rid of it. But you should have got a nice little 20% discount on that too. Cheers, Albo, because he has the 20% hex. Oh, yes. I don't know. Yeah. Has that been applied yet? It would have just been applied. I'll have to go back in and check it. Maybe I won't pay it until the 20%. Oh, no, no, no. Do not pay it until you've got that discount. Okay. Good to know. Yes. So I have that. We've owned both of our cars. We've never, I don't believe in taking out loans for anything besides property. So we've owned both of our cars outright saying that my car, I had a problem like

the airbags. So there was an airbag light and I couldn't fix it. And the dealership was telling me it was going to cost me thousands to replace these airbags. And I thought, oh, I can't deal with this. What a coincidence. You also have a new car to sell me. That's crazy that you would push me down that route. Yeah, a hundred percent. So I took my car back to Queensland to my husband's dad and I said, can you try and fix it? And in the meantime, we were kind of stuck because we only had one car. And so reluctantly, we got a novated lease car through my husband's work. So 50% of it is pre-tax and 50% of it's post-tax. And we have that for three years. So we've got it for another 18 months. But then my wonderful father-in-law fixed the car within a few days.

Of course he did, because he doesn't work for the car dealership. Yep. So we potentially have two of our own cars and a novated lease. But that doesn't mean you can't dispose of one of those cars and get some cash. And like, I think the other question I have around that novated lease is what's happening at the end? Are you giving the car back? Are you buying the car out? What would that look like?

I don't particularly want the car and I don't think the balloon payment at the end is worse. Yep. You know, the car. So probably, yeah, we'd probably just send it back and say, hey. Great. Look, the only good thing about that car is it's got heated seats and in Canberra it is freezing. so that's the cherry on top for that car and my girls love the sunroof yeah that door that makes

it fancy when I was little anybody who had a sunroof rich they think that we are balling so but yeah you are you are you have a sunroof like you got good super like girl I think you are doing okay like ask your kids yeah so besides that we do have a credit card it's only got a six thousand dollar limit and we hardly use it so it's at zero I just it's there for an emergency but we don't have any debt I love this for you but I don't believe in it like I'm really like I'm one of those people like if someone buys me something I'll like send the money straight away like I don't like owing anybody anything I don't know what it is but it just I have an aversion to it as well it literally makes me feel sick it like it gives me the ick when people try and pay

for me for things and I'm just yeah no I've got it my dad always said to me like you know like it's lovely to be in a relationship and but you always have to be financially independent for yourself icon dad is an icon he is the best he's really that's the og feminist all my money habits and pushed me into property and pushed me into super and pushed me into investing and oh get it so yeah no debt thankfully I adore this so tell me what do you think your best money habit it is? I don't know. I'm not materialistic. So I don't really, the older I get, the less I want. Like I don't want stuff. Like in my twenties, like I wanted the best makeup and a nice car and all this. And now I just want to build wealth. So I guess, I don't know. I love doing a bit of

overtime and getting extra money to put in my savings. That's what makes me happy. Your work ethic, like let's talk about the fact that you know what you and your husband have in super. So you're across all of that. All your numbers have been real clean. Like, you're not like, oh, I think I have about, no, no, no. Like she knows what's going on. Like, I know that you said you're not on top of budgeting, which I think might be your worst. I don't know what you're going to say, but we'll get there. But like, you're also investing. Like, girl, there are a lot of good money habits that you've set up. And talk to me slightly off topic, but what do you teach your kids about money? Because I have a sneaky suspicion you might be a cookie cutter version

of your dad yeah I well my older daughter who kind of understands because she's she's always saying when are we going to buy a forever home like when do we get a forever home my room's going to look like this and it's you know because she's used to moving all the time so um they're good little savers I've told them you know like you know like they've got their money boxes in their room and I you know they know that they've got like a little bank account where I put money And I just, you know, try and say to them, you know, you need to save for the bigger picture. Like everyone wants that instant gratification and I think it's so easy

because my younger daughter was like, oh, mum, I really want this. Can't you just get it on Amazon? It will be here tomorrow. And I'm just like. It's a good point, babe. It's a very good point. I could but I'm not going to. Yeah, 100%.

And I always try and deal like give them cash so they, you know, like they know that you just it's not like a card that just with inevitable money you know like never-ending money I don't know just being honest and present with them really and I love this it's something that I've been thinking about a lot now that I have a child I'm just like how am I going to do this like what does this look like and in 2025 when money is all digital like how do you teach them the value of money at the same time as trying to also teach them to keep up like yes she's right we do have amazon but that's instant versus delayed gratification and there's a bigger conversation around that and like how much money do you have and yeah it's it's an interesting and

fickle conversation to have because like there's no one-size-fits-all approach i find it hard as well because like obviously like i grew up in a family of four you know my mom had like just a part-time job and my dad worked full-time and did overtime on a saturday you know we really didn't have much you know we went out and played in the street we didn't have computers we didn't like we didn't have anything fancy we didn't go on trips to the snow you know so and I kind of feel like I'm in a way making up for that so my girls say oh mum can I have that I'm like of course you can like I want to give them everything and sometimes I think I'm teaching them nothing like my daughter the other day went mum I'd really love a Tamagotchi and I was like yeah

let's go to Kmart. That's me. And bought her a Tamagotchi for $50. And now she's obsessed and wants a $200 Tamagotchi. And I'm reeling it back and I'm like, no, let's count our pennies. We're going to save. She wants to now do jobs around the house to kind of like earn a bit of extra cash. It's hard though, because like, that's not, I was like, oh, I'm going to be fine. Like, I'm always going to say no, like I'm pretty good at this. And my kid's only 18 months old, But when he looks at me and he goes, one more, I go, oh, my God, yeah, you can have 50. A hundred percent.

Like who was going to tell me that I would become such a pushover? I know because I was very much like, you know, I was brought up to just like suck it up, drink the mint, get on with it. Life is tough, push your way through, and it's worked for me and like I've been very successful in life besides that lemon. But I know my kids come to me and my mum said, no, no, no, no, no. all my life. And so now I feel like I'm rebelling and I just go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. That's literally me.

So yeah, that's, it is a tough one, but I'm learning slowly to try and teach them that like, you just can't want something and it just lands on your lap. Would you say that's your worst money habit? Could be. Yeah. The other day they swindled me at the corner shop. I've taken my older one to the physio because she'd done her ankle at netball. And she said, oh, well, if we're really, can we go into the IGA and get a lolly? And I said, yeah, of course you can. And she swindled me into a $20 plushie toy. And I was like, how did it go from you can have something for under $2 and I spend 20 bucks? Yeah, this woman, she's smart.

She is a smart girl. Do you want to hit her up? Give her my details because I'd like to know how to do that with lots of people. I don't know. She's got the outer persuasion and I just can't say no to them. I like how we all, and this seems to be a common theme in my friend group, we all say that we're swindled by our kids. Yeah. A hundred percent. I walked out and I was like, I tapped my card and I was like, $20. What was $20? And then I looked at it and I was like, she got a cheeky little monkey. But she got it and she won and it worked. And she always wins. I love it. Money diarist. Now that we've talked, I think we need to reflect a little bit on this C

because like you said, look, I'm a C and I was like, okay, at the start, like I can see how that might happen. A little bit skeptical because you have saved a hundred grand. I can't be that part of money, right? And then take yourself out of this story, right? So gorgeous couple, met, he was in the Navy, she's a nurse. They've got two beautiful kids. It fell apart. The investment property didn't work out. It was a lemon, but they've been rebuilding. They have like 700 grand to their name in superannuation. They've saved a hundred grand over the last 14 months. They're not really sure how they did it, but they have done it. They're starting to look at their forever home. They're able to buy their kids $20 soft plushies when it makes sense

to do so. So like they're giving their kids the life that, you know, they want to give their kids. The kids actually have child builders. They've got their own investment bonds and you contribute to them when you can, as you should. This couple, she's dabbling in investments. She's got like some ETFs, you know, she's got another five grand that she decided to drop when Trump was jumping up and down about the tariffs. Like the wife, get this, she went back and did this postgraduate intensive care unit so that she could get paid more. And she's only got $1,200 left on her hex. How good is that? She's probably going to be able to pay it off with her tax money if she wants to. Downloaded shares. Doesn't know if she's going to invest more or buy her dream

house sooner. But what a conundrum to be in. How good. Love this money decision that they're making. But then when I spoke to her, she was like, oh yeah, also, by the way, we own our cars outright. We do have an evaded lease, but it's making sense. Still able to save a hundred grand. but then she goes yeah I think I'm only a C at money does that make sense to you if you put it like that maybe not it's not making sense to me either and I know you know what I'm gonna blame this on you you said you weren't a maths person I get it you just miscalculated you're like a yes you could get up and at it with budgeting a little bit more like you said that you weren't as on top of that and I feel like that's probably what's leading you to feel a little bit out of

control but like sorry when I asked about debt you have a credit card you don't even use it's just there for emergencies but you've also got a heap of cash so you probably don't even need it like there's just a lot going on here that makes sense and like yes you had an investment property that was a lemon but you're also only 38 yeah like we're doing well oh thank you yeah I guess look I guess if you put it all together maybe it presents a bit better than it does in my head I think a lot of the investment stuff I do it but I don't fully understand it and I think maybe that's okay you're on the journey that's why I feel like maybe I rate myself as a C because I feel like I just kind of jump on things and kind of start it and then hope for the best

strategy's been working so far I mean yes the property got screwed over but it wasn't because you didn't do due diligence it was because other people screwed you yeah like when you start to dig into it you're like I did my building and pest inspection and the first thing I thought was like oh my God, he deserves to be sued. But he was in cahoots. They all were. That was structured to take advantage of you. It was never structured for you to be successful. And I'm really sorry, you were never going to be successful with that no matter how hard you tried. And I think the best thing we learned was you just need to listen to your gut a little bit more. Yeah, 100%.

Expensive lesson. I wish you didn't have to learn it that way. But I mean, we've come this far, so let's just commit to it. Yes. Money Diarist, this has been an absolute pleasure. I have loved this Money Diary from talking about you being a midwife to losing your house to talking about ETFs and investment bonds. There's just been a lot going on in this conversation. And I know the community is going to have loved this episode as much as I have. So thank you so much for spending so much time with me. It has been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. And yeah, it's been really enjoyable. And it's actually

got me excited about my financial future now. I feel like good things are coming my way. They a thousand percent are. Oh my gosh. I have loved this. Thank you. The advice shared on She's on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy 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.