She's On The Money - She Bought Her First Home With a 2% Deposit on an $86k Salary

Starting point is 00:00:00 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, kaanon 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,

Starting point is 00:00:41 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 stories for educational purposes, of course. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries brought to you by our friends at Sky Wealth, where we get to talk 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

Starting point is 00:01:11 it sounded exactly like this. Hi, She's On The Money. This time last year, I was in a not so nice share house situation, to put it politely. On top of that, I felt like I was always going to be renting as home ownership had always seemed so far out of reach. So I moved back home for my mental health, thinking I had failed as a freshly 30 year old and started to save. After eight months, saving $20,000 and making the help to buy a scheme my entire personality, I picked up the keys to my new apartment. The cherry on top is that my monthly repayments are cheaper than what my rent would have been. I would love to share my story on this wild ride I've been on. Money Daris, welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited.

Starting point is 00:01:57 I am super excited because I just feel like the narrative around millennials owning property at the moment is just so negative and there's not a lot of positive stories, but this is a very positive and very exciting one. Yeah. It's definitely, I would say, controversial one for some people because I think if you don't know much about something it's a little scary but after a lot of research it's the best solution for me and I feel like it's really hard as well at the moment because we all have these dreams of like and I'm assuming that you growing up you're like by 30 I'm gonna have 2.5 kids and I'm probably gonna own a whole house on a really big property and like we have all of these I guess stereotypical ideas of what we could

Starting point is 00:02:40 achieve and what is possible. But that's unfortunately not the reality. I don't know if it's unfortunate or just not the reality, but let's learn more about you before I start talking even more. Before we dive in, my friend, if I asked you to give your money habits a grade from A through to F, what grade would you give them? I'm going to give myself a C or a C plus. I think I'm just above average. I think I'm doing pretty well, but I could be better, just like above average. I think I really want to like have a little argument with you later, not now. I'll learn more first, but like be for real. I need to quote you on this after eight months and saving $20,000. Yes. Sorry, that's a C or C plus money behavior. Like be so for real.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Well, I was in a very fortunate position where I could live at home rent free. A hundred percent. But do you know how many people in this community live home rent free, have debt. That's true. I even cancelled out some debt, which is great. I got rid of my credit card. Look at you go. I love this. All right, let's dive in. My favourite question ever, and I think it's everybody else's as well. Let's go back. Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? I think I'd say I've been relatively good about money in my adult life. Like when I moved out of home for the first time, I always prioritised rent and bills, making sure that I could survive on my own pretty

Starting point is 00:04:05 much and meet those kind of deadlines without sort of any financial stress and so I'd always make money for that. What prompted you to move out of home? It just felt the right time like I had finished uni I got my first big full-time job I was like move out. Yep fair very fair I'm always pervy because like I moved out of home when I was like 18 and I had to basically because I needed to for study. Like my parents would have kept me forever. I'm pretty sure. Don't ask them. I don't want to know the actual answer to that, but they would have kept me, but I just had to. And that, you know, is a very big part of my money story, but I'm like, why'd you leave then? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:44 Like if we didn't have to pay rent when we moved back home. I moved out of home when I was 26. So I did uni for quite a long time. I did a diploma and then I went into a degree. So I was studying for about six years with like a gap year in between as well. so definitely a late bloomer. And why why late bloomer what does that mean to you? Oh I think it's kind of like you finish a degree within like a few years and then like you move out of home at like or like when you said 18 or 23 or 22 when you finish so I felt like I was kind of a couple of years behind that but no I was glad that I was in a position where I could move out by myself because it was definitely something I wanted to do as I liked my own space I like to design things

Starting point is 00:05:29 how I like them without other people's furniture. Oh, totally. Yeah. And yeah, minimize that kind of people's expectations. Oh, totally. You don't have a curfew, but you feel like you've got a curfew. Yeah. But like if I, if I had dishes on my kitchen sink, they were mine and mine alone to clean. Yeah. But it's just your space. You don't have to worry about anybody else living in them. Yeah, exactly. All right. So tell me a bit more. I want to know about this housemate situation. And I know you said, oh, it was a not so nice housing situation to put it politely. can we like get the not polite version because that's way more fun i think it was about to backtrack like a little bit it was about mid 2024 i decided i want to

Starting point is 00:06:07 save more and move into a share house i knew a couple of people they i wouldn't describe them as friends i knew one of them and we were kind of like more acquaintances than friends so i thought it would kind of be an easy relationship there. I think I'll still remain a little diplomatic about it and say that like, I think I'll just like our personalities. We're smart women. We can read between the lines and just tell me what you want and I'll hear what I want. Yeah. I'll say there was a conflict in personality traits. I like that. Is this like the time that I lived in a share house and my vegan housemate threw out all of my meat from the freezer that my mom had like pre-ZipLocked for me because I was at uni and that stuff was expensive. So you like froze

Starting point is 00:06:55 everything. And I came home one day and she just said she couldn't mentally deal with having dead animals in her freezer. Is it like that? Okay. It wasn't that hectic. Definitely not that hectic. Did your housemate borrow your underwear? Because mine did. We respected each other's stuff still. I just kind of felt like I couldn't be within my own house. Oh, gross. No, that's worse. You can throw away my meat and steal my underwear, but don't make me feel not welcome in my own home honestly exactly so yeah I pretty much just breached breaking point and decided that it's not worth my mental health no absolutely not yes I didn't really have any money still like I sort of went in there to with the idea of saving more

Starting point is 00:07:38 but I didn't really end up doing that so my parents were like their bedroom is there you can come back which is so lovely of them yeah that's so good that's such a privilege to have but also just so nice to know that you've got somewhere to land tell me I'm gonna be pervy tell me you moved into a shea house to save money but then you said I didn't really why what happened I think the intention was there but once I moved in I was like oh look how much more money I have to yeah live love laugh spend yeah exactly I totally get it yeah and yeah I had the intention but not really the building blocks to do so at that time and we also we had quite a nice house as well even though like my rent was like four hundred dollars less like we had a cleaner come in

Starting point is 00:08:30 every fortnight to do like the bathrooms and the floors which I'd never experienced before so that was lovely yeah it's pretty nice we had like a bit of like a kitty of like a money pool of like any sort of things that we needed that were shared then we just put some money into it each month or fortnight i forgot how much it was so yeah i think it was uh even though i was saving on rent there were kind of like other creeping expenses in there that i wasn't quite expecting but we're still nice at the time. And it's so easy as well to just feel like, oh yeah, I'll do that. Like a cleaner every two weeks split between my housemates. Like that's not hard. That's good. Yeah. And then it's one thing after another, right? This is why I'm always so, I won't say strict, but very positive

Starting point is 00:09:17 about budgeting and going, no, no, no. Like let's just write it all out. Let's make sure that we document everything because it's the plumber with a leaky tap. Like the second you start to not care that much it just filters away and then all of a sudden you've lived in the share house that you were meant to save money in and you're like where's the money though like I'm not doing much saving but I'm also like I don't even like living in this share house and I don't have any money this is a bad deal I seem to keep ordering uber eats as well so oh that's easy isn't it my weakness yeah fair Yeah. All right. So you've moved out or you've decided to move back into your parents' spare bedroom. At that point, were you like, look, and I know in your diary you said,

Starting point is 00:10:02 I felt like I was failing as a fresh 30-year-old. Did you then go, you know what, I need to whip it into shape. I'm going to start budgeting. I'm going to look at my cash flow. Or were you just like, okay, I've moved in with mom and dad and now just saving is easy. Like what was that process? I really didn't have a clue at first. It was really like figure out my next move, figure out where I'm going to rent next. I'll save up for a moving truck. It really only became long-term once I decided what that money goal was going to be, but it was really my sister. She kind of said to me, don't make living with the parents not worthwhile. I like it.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Let's do something with the money that you're not like spending on rent. Let's not like wither that away. So that was like a huge breakup for me that I could actually, well, I had this opportunity to save quite a lot of money whilst I was living there. Yeah, that is very good advice. So what were your first steps? Was it just put some cash away? Was it make a plan? What did it look like? Especially because you said you knew nothing. You were like, I don't know what I'm doing, like help. Yeah. So I think the first thing I did, I did pretty much an audit of everything that I paid for so seeing as I was no longer paying like internet electricity rent or anything like that I kind of looked at how much I was spending in subscriptions and lifestyle and

Starting point is 00:11:28 discretionary things I think I was there for about a month or so or something and then my mom sent me this article saying that you can soon afford to purchase your first home with only a two percent deposit which is a big money win before that it was kind of like oh maybe I'll save for travel like we'll we'll see kind of like where it goes so the the intention of saving was there but I didn't really have like a set goal in mind yet until that article came up and I was like this is what I'm going to do. This is where my focus is going to be. That's very cool. So tell me a bit more about your thoughts, I guess, just on property because you said that the article was the thing that made you feel like you could even think about property. Was that something that you

Starting point is 00:12:17 were like one day I'll own a property or were you just like, nope, it's completely out of reach, that's not for me or like at what point did you ever consider it or was it only a goal because you read this article I always like the idea of owning my sister bought her place a couple of friends bought their place my parents own had the family home and then they sold it for a downsize but I think it just always seems so out of reach financially like I think I'm very privileged on the income that I am on and that I can't afford to live alone as a single person but given the economy I was like it's going to be near impossible for me to even build up a deposit within a certain amount of time or even service a mortgage really so I really had my head in the

Starting point is 00:13:12 sand about it being like that's just not a thing that's going to happen so I may as well not think about it yeah because it feels overwhelming until it became sort of something that I could do yeah which I think is really cool because there are so many options on the table and I guess that's why I'm asking, because so many times, and this goes back to what I was saying before about, you know, we have these stereotypical ideas of what a property is going to look like once we're 30. I feel like in my head, 30 year olds, when I was like 12, those people were proper adults. They had their stuff together. They carried briefcases, you know, like very official adult stuff. And now I'm in my thirties and I could not feel more underqualified if I tried.

Starting point is 00:13:54 100%. What do you mean people let me leave a hospital with actual children that I was meant to look after? There was no signature I needed. There was no vetting criteria. You mean you trust me because I'm an adult? Okay. But when it comes to property, I think that there is this now outdated idea that the only way you can get into property is that you have to have your 20% deposit and also buying a property in Melbourne or in Sydney, it's going to cost you at least a million dollars and I think that that just makes you go absolutely not that's not on the table for me so we don't even look into what our options are but it's 2026 and unfortunately the options on the

Starting point is 00:14:31 table do look different you're not going to be able to buy the family home but you know what you can do you can buy apartments you can buy smaller rural properties you can buy properties that are a stepping stone towards that family home and sorry you're saying it's not that hard because you did it I really feel like if if I can do it anyone can do it that's just it like I'm just a girl how hard could it be yeah I mean as a single person as well I always thought like you needed like a partner or a double income to be able to buy property so I'm really quite sort of proud of myself that I was able to achieve that I'm proud of you and I'm glad that you're proud of yourself, not just going, oh yeah, like the amount of people that I talk to that are in

Starting point is 00:15:19 your situation to go, yeah, but I did use a scheme or they go, yeah, but yeah, it's only an apartment. Like, no, that's sick. You're on the property ladder. Like that is so cool. And sorry, what a money win. You're paying less in mortgage repayments than you were in rent. Genius. Yeah. So I was looking at rent. I bought in Hawthorne and I looked at rent recently and you really can't get a decent or spacious one bedroom apartment for under $500 a week. Oh, no, you can't. Not in Hawthorne. No. Hawthorne, for those of us playing along at home, is a suburb that I would say is inner city in Melbourne. And it is beautiful, like really nice, quite a leafy suburb, like lots of properties that I have clients buying actually, because my,

Starting point is 00:16:06 just for the record, guys, I like it because my offices are in Hawthorne East. But lots of those older art deco style apartment complexes with like six to eight apartments in the building. What kind of apartment did you buy? 60s, 70s, red brick. Yes. About 20 of them. Yeah, good. And good body corp fees? Great body corp fees. Is there a lift in the building? No lift. Yeah, money. I was very kind of set on no lift. I don't want to be paying for those repairs. Right. And once you start looking into the property's face, you often look at apartments, you're like wow that's so shiny there's a pool there's a lift and all I can see is dollar signs

Starting point is 00:16:42 because I'm like cool body corporate maintenance you technically own that lift and have to pay for it no thank you I don't want to own a lift that realization hit hard because like when you were looking at like new builds or something like then they have like the rooftop garden and yeah like you were saying the pool and all of those other things that you need to service is like shared property. It's like $2,000. Thank you. But no, thank you. And also the older buildings. So you said you've got one of the red brick ones, which are fantastic. The rooms in those properties are bigger. Like the walls are actually insulated because they are made of brick, which is obviously great for sound, but also for heating and cooling. Like I could go on and on

Starting point is 00:17:28 about how much I love old apartments as opposed to new build. Like you will not catch me purchasing a new build. Not to say people shouldn't do it, but I just have a very special place in my heart for those like older style, you know, ideally six to eight in the apartment block if I were looking, but 20, I think is pretty good too. I'm assuming it's just like a bigger complex, but no lift, money win. Ground floor, money win. Oh, you've got a ground floor one. Oh, she's lucked out. All right. I'm going to ask more about this in a hot second, but I need to know, you mentioned you've got a diploma and a degree. What do you do for work and how much do you earn? My diploma and degree is in interior architecture and for work, I work

Starting point is 00:18:10 as a retail designer. Oh, very cool. My title is officially interior designer, but then people get confused thinking I'm doing residential and really I'm stuck into the retail fit out space. And it's a lot more construction focused, I would say. Can you give me an example of what that would look like? So you like kind of fitting out shops and designing like how shops are laid out, but you're saying it's more industrial. What does that look like? One of my clients, they're predominantly in Westfields. So they'll, leasing will come in and say, we have a site. Can you please design it and fit it out for us? And so that's when I jump in and do a concept for them of like a space layout with walls and fixtures that they have and all of that it can be for new stores or refurbishments

Starting point is 00:19:01 expansions hey that's cool yeah and so yeah I designed that for them and then that gets approved and then I do the construction drawings which are lighting and electrical and that is very cool get into the full process of it I feel like you're the first like interior designer that we've had on the show, which is very cool. There aren't many careers I haven't had. Tell me, what do you get paid for this role? I recently got a pay rise, which is very exciting. I was just in time for my new mortgage. Oh, congrats. So it is 86 and a half K, including super. Very cool. And is that something that you're like, this is the career that I'm going to have for the rest of my life? Or like, what does your career trajectory look like? What do you want to do next? I really like

Starting point is 00:19:48 the retail space because it works really quickly compared to like residential design and more of that sort of complexity of other interior design like hospitality or that where you're designing restaurants or something I really quite like this but honestly like I don't know where I'll be in five years maybe I'll be more in like a design studio doing hospitality like I just said or maybe I'll still be in the job that I'm doing now, which I'm enjoying. I love that. My manager's actually based in Byron Bay, so I work at home full time. Oh, very cool.

Starting point is 00:20:26 So when you were purchasing the house that you purchased, was a very good work from home space like a priority or are you one of my friends who just goes, I'm very happy to work from the dining table? I definitely considered it being like it has to be a certain size where I feel comfortable been in it the entire day and I'm not going to lose my mind. So yeah, it was definitely consideration. I'm still working at my dining table, but it's big enough to feel like there's separation within the home so I can kind of still switch up afterwards. Yeah. And I feel like you're a designer, so you would know how to lay it out very well. I also have another question, which

Starting point is 00:21:02 is not related to finance at all. Were you really good at The Sims growing up? Because I just feel like that would be hand in hand. I loved The Sims growing up. Yeah. I couldn't tell you if that's where that whole thing started, but I cared more about making the houses than I did creating The Sims. Me too. And then I was kind of done with it after I made that house. Yep. No, me too. But I'm terrible at it. So I used to like look up all the houses on forums and then copy other people's stuff because I genuinely had no creative bone in my body to be able to do that. But I could do the maths and work out like what roof pitch you needed. That's fine. How big the rooms were could count, but could not design them. But it was so fun. And I used to be so envious of the people

Starting point is 00:21:48 that would be like, oh, look at this house I made. I'd be like, how did you come up with that in your brain? So cool. Some of them are super creative. Yeah. So you were one of the girlies that designed the houses on the seams, not removed the pool stairs. I like it. Both. Oh, both. Yeah. I mean, we can all identify as that person. Bring the Grim Reaper to see what happens. I feel like this. Set something on fire. I don't know what that says about us, but I don't want to find out. We're just curious people. So you've bought your first home, which is super, super exciting. What now, after you've moved in, is your big money goal? What are you currently working towards? I think seeing as I've pretty much spent all of my money on this property, it's rebuilding that savings again and emergency fund. I don't have any specific goals in mind at the moment, but it's much kind of like that safety net. Now I have a mortgage.

Starting point is 00:22:43 Yeah. So fair. And have you worked out what that looks like? Have you gone, oh, that's $3,000 or is that, you know, $10,000 or you just go, oh, I don't know. I just need some savings V. Do you know what that looks like? Don't know what it looks like at the moment. I have some money in my offset account that was from the buffer that my conveyances didn't use on settlement day. Money win. That's pretty much my starting point, which I'm happy with. Like that's not leaving that account anytime soon. So it's a good starting point to have, I think. All right. I'm going to set you up with my money masterclass so you can work that out. And it will

Starting point is 00:23:18 basically like take you through all of your expenses and you'll be able to say what you're spending each month to work out what kind of emergency fund you want to set up. I'm going to do that after because like, girl, I can't have you living in your new house, not knowing what you want in your emergency fund. That is a no-no. But I also have a heap of questions for you. So let's go to a really quick break. And on the flip side, I want to know more about this purchase. I want to know about what you spent on the property, what it cost you, how long it took to find. I've just got a million questions. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Money Diarist, we are back. And I feel like you are honestly so inspiring. This

Starting point is 00:23:56 is such a great Money Diary. You are single. You've just purchased your first apartment on your own. You're not some millionaire. Your income is $86,000, which I think a lot of people in our community are on. And you were saying before Money Durst, you were like, well, if I can do it, anyone can do it. Why do you think that? Why do you think that if you can do it, other people can do it? Because you only need a 2% deposit with the scheme that I'm using. 100%. I know that it's very limited, but I think for the place that I got, I only needed probably 9K for a deposit. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's crazy. So tell me about that process. So your mum sent you an article and it was about the 2% deposit scheme, which is called

Starting point is 00:24:39 the help to buy scheme here in Australia. And it is open to all first home buyers up to certain financial caps. So you can't go buy like a $2 million property on this help to buy scheme, which is absolutely fine because it's helping the people that need it. So you found a good mortgage broker and then what? I actually found him on TikTok. You found him on TikTok? I took a gamble because he was the only mortgage broker talking about the help to buy scheme.

Starting point is 00:25:06 And it was the best gamble I had ever made because he knew the ins and outs of every other scheme. He was very sort of scheme specific. There wasn't much information at the time. This would have been maybe May to June of last year. So barely anybody knew about it. Even real estate agents didn't even know what I was talking about. when I mentioned it. And he just helped me out from the get go saying, this is what we know so far. He was great with any kind of communication. Yeah. Very cool. And like, he would phone me up

Starting point is 00:25:43 being like, we have new information. Here's what you need to know. But yeah, he sorted everything out for me. We were really unclear on dates. The government wasn't giving us any kind of information on dates. I was ringing up Housing Australia every week being like, is there new information of when this is going to be released? And their answer every single time was end of 2025, end of the year. Then there was a little hiccup where they kind of announced that it would be March of this year instead. But then randomly, I got a call from my broker one day in December and he's like it's opening next week how good's that and like we were all ready to go I didn't have pre-approval yet because he couldn't get pre-approval without the approval of the scheme

Starting point is 00:26:32 he had to apply for them at the same time yeah absolutely so yeah it was crazy but in in preparation for that like I was making spreadsheets of different scenarios of what I could do with my borrowing capacity. He was looking up what banks were most likely to be with the scheme. I went to a first home buyer night held by Emily Wallace, who's a buyer's advocate. I couldn't afford a buyer's advocate because they're 15 to 20 grand or something like that. This info night cost me probably $50 and it was one of the best resources I got from this whole journey. That gave me my conveyancer, sort of like word of mouth from her of who to go with, which is really good. And yeah, just a lot of podcasts, so many podcasts on property and money, how to save money better,

Starting point is 00:27:30 faster. Yeah, very good. More efficiently. I love that. And what did you learn through that process? Have you changed like your whole banking system or are you just like, this is more about mindset or what were you getting out of the content that you were consuming? It was really a lot about mindset. I really wanted to know as much as I could about the market as well and what I was kind of getting into. And I think for the money bit, like I went into a high interest savings account, which was great because the more money I put into it, the more interest I got out of it. Yeah. Money that your money makes, makes money. And that is a good deal. Exactly. I'm a person who really loves organization and planning. And if I really have my

Starting point is 00:28:12 mind set on something, then like I want to know every single little bit about it. Like my financial literacy was at like an almost zero this time last year compared to what it is now. I love that. But also I wish you had more sooner, but we find financial literacy at the time that we need it, I think. So, talk to me if you're into financial literacy. Do you have investments? If so, what are they? If not, what's the plan? I do have super, actually. That is one of my investments. I downloaded Sharesies last year whilst I was saving with the intention to dabble in it, but I got a little overwhelmed, so I didn't. That is okay. That is okay. And I feel like let's just focus on one big money goal at a time. Let's

Starting point is 00:28:55 to property first, okay? Exactly. I'm like, let's just focus on actually saving for a place now and then we can do shares later. And so, is the plan to get back into shares or is it, I feel like right now your priorities are probably emergency fund, some more savings and then we can probably talk about it. Definitely. So, it's definitely emergency fund at the moment and then, yeah, building up some savings. So like if a big bill comes from body corporate or something, then I'm not scared of it. But then like, I've also been looking into like Vanguard and maybe going into like getting some shares out of that or. Very fair. So now I want to ask about debt. So I'm going to rewind and not ask about your house first. You said you had a credit card and like

Starting point is 00:29:45 when you moved back in with your parents, you got out of a little bit of debt. What did that look like? I got a credit card, which looking back, I'm not sure was the right credit card. It was like one of the Commonwealth ones where there was an interest. It was just like a monthly fee that you paid instead of interest. But that had a $3,000 cap on it, which I was happy with. I think the $3,000 was a good cap to have for me because it meant that it was easy enough to get out of it if I needed to, compared to like a $20,000 cap, which is a little hard. Oh yeah, 100%. But did that still make you feel stressed? Like were you using that whole $3,000 and paying it off monthly or were you, you know, carrying over some debt? If so, what was it for?

Starting point is 00:30:35 I didn't max it out monthly, but I still kind of did minimum repayments where I could. So it was always kind of lingering and then you're paying like the $25 for not paying off the full amount at the end of the month and that so it was just kind of sitting there for quite a while and I wasn't really using it too much because I already had that kind of almost maxed out debt on it but when I moved in with the parents I was like it reduces my borrowing capacity if I have a credit card. So I was like, I'm going to pay this off first before anything. Absolutely. And then start saving. Absolutely. Now tell me about the property purchase. You paid off your credit card. You started saving. You told me before that you probably only needed a $9,000 deposit for this

Starting point is 00:31:32 property because you used the 2% help to buy scheme. Tell me, what did the property end up costing you? So the full property is $450,000. I only really needed a $9,000 deposit with the 2% scheme, but I actually ended up giving a $15,000 deposit to be more competitive and flexible with the vendor. My mortgage broker as well, seeing as the scheme was quite new, we also got a deposit bond to make the vendor feel more comfortable with that kind of size of a deposit. And so my borrowing capacity was $340,000, deposit $15,000. And with the full mortgage being $450,000, the government gave me $95,000. So it was about 22%, 21% instead of the full $30,000. Yeah, which is insane. So tell me more about this $95,000. How does that work for you?

Starting point is 00:32:33 It works for me in that I have a mortgage that's $100,000 less than what I would be paying in monthly repayment. Yeah, but like what are the catches? I feel like a lot of people are going to go, hey, that's fantastic. The government gave you $95,000. Like I'd do a lot for the government to give me $95,000, but they don't just gift it to you forever. yeah there's like a little something something tell me about that with the 95k you can buy out

Starting point is 00:33:08 the government eventually if you want to in five percent increments i think which is definitely my goal to do to own the property fully one day but it just means that if you don't pay them their 30 percent back it means that when you sell they also get a 30 profit with it as well yes so they're kind of like a co-owner of your property. Yeah, exactly. And for people playing along at home, you can have the government co-own up to 40% of your property. I don't believe you've got that though. What's your percentage? My percentage is 30%, but if it's a new build, you can get up to 40%. Yeah. So, at the end of the day, there is like a little bit of a catch, but you can pay them

Starting point is 00:33:53 off over time. And a lot of people that we talk to are planning to pay them off right before that they sell because it's just pay off the amount, then sell it and you keep your own profit. But if your property has increased in value and then you sell it and you haven't paid the government back, you have to give them their profit as well. So, I feel like it's a kind of good deal because if you can't afford to pay them back, well, no worries. They can have some of the profit as a thank you so much for joining and helping me get to here. Otherwise, no worries. But also, if you don't make a profit, you don't have to pay them any of the profit, right? Yeah. My perfect scenario is the market dropping and that's when I pay them back.

Starting point is 00:34:34 That would be great. I feel like that's genius, like bold move. And like so many people are saying that the market's going to drop. Fingers crossed. I mean, I don't know many homeowners who are like, can't wait for my property to decrease in value. This is going to be elite. So I can pay back the government. Hey, we don't need to add that part. We can just be a little bit delulule about it. So what is your property worth now? Because you bought this last year for $450,000. Is it still worth that?

Starting point is 00:35:02 You haven't done a valuation or what are we looking at? I bought it just before Christmas, so it's still very fresh. She's fresh. I put in a split system, so maybe it's like a grand more than what it was originally worth. Now tell me about the process of finding an apartment because the area you purchased in, so we know that you've purchased in inner city Melbourne. It's very competitive. Finding not only an apartment in Hawthorne is hard, but finding one that would fit the criteria of any scheme is even more competitive because there are lots of people who want that exact apartment. How did you do it and how long did it take? pure luck no so I started looking in June when just for research purposes because I knew that

Starting point is 00:35:50 I still had to build my savings but I wanted to see what I could get for any kind of amount of money I went to auctions as well to see how people did that but in doing that it really kind of developed a criteria of what I really wanted within a space and then from that everything laid right into place for me at the perfect time because I think it was you can say lucky because I feel like we know what you mean the government announced that the scheme was going to open up in a week and then I found the perfect off-market property again on TikTok and it was just the perfect place I was initially eyeing this like 40 square meter place in Hawthorne which was like a newer build so higher body corporates in that as well and then

Starting point is 00:36:44 I actually put in an offer on another place and showed my cards too quickly so I lost it I got really nervous when they were like we have another bidder and I was like take all my money you're like ah I'm glad you lost out because it came to this one yes exactly and it really is the the perfect place. So yeah, I did like a couple of inspections. There was a bit of back and forth with negotiating with the vendor. There was somebody else who was also eyeing the property as well, but I just ended up being the winner of this time. I love that. I also love that you used the term luck after telling us how long it took you to research the scheme, work out what that looks like, working with your broker, saving really

Starting point is 00:37:35 hard. You had been looking for a property since June and then obviously bought in December. And then you're like, oh, but it was just luck. I didn't do all of this work. It's crazy how lucky we get when we work. It was a lot of planning and then it just kind of fell into place. Nope. Do you know what? I totally get it. And I call myself really lucky all the time, but I feel like that undermines the fact that you put in a lot of time and energy and effort. And do you know what that means? You were prepared to seize the opportunity, but if you hadn't done any of that preparation, that opportunity would have just gone straight by because you wouldn't have been able to seize it. Yeah, definitely. So it's almost like it wasn't

Starting point is 00:38:12 luck. This was very strategic planning. Exactly. She's got strategy. All right. I want to know next, one of the things I talk about all the time that is really important to me is insurance. How are you protecting your wealth? How are you protecting your home, your income? have you got personal insurances? If not, why not? So in my super fund, I have a little bit of personal insurance, which is actually in review at the moment because I just adjusted my numbers to be able to protect myself better and my income. Good girl. And so that will be income protection and TBD and I forgot what the other one is. But yeah, so that's currently in review with the insurance company so fingers crossed that comes through soon look at you go the amount of people

Starting point is 00:39:00 I talk to they're like oh no I'm too much of a paranoid person to let that slide I love that all right too anxious you did tell us earlier that you think you're only a c or a c plus and I've just heard so many good money habits what do you think your best money habit is I touched on it a little bit with the offset account but I create kind of rules for myself so like when I was saving my high interest savings account was labeled do not touch good girl in caps lock but it worked did it actually work did you try and go in there and then you saw and you went damn it passed me really foiled that plan it worked you're like you know a lot of touches and I changed the name of that before pre-approval so the bank wouldn't laugh at me but yeah I just set sort

Starting point is 00:39:44 of rules for myself of like I'm never allowed under a certain amount in like my bank account just so I don't feel like financial stress. Yeah. Just like many rules like that, I think is my best money habit. So you make rules that only you follow, that only you know, and it works. Yes. I like it. Picasso, tell me, what is your worst money habit? So I think I haven't done this for a very long time because I have been living at home and have had the fortune of my mom's cooking. That's the best type of cooking. But my worst money habit would be Uber Eats. Why Uber Eats? what are we ordering? Why is it such a bad habit? I'm a girl of convenience. I don't cook a whole lot. That's about to change because I can't afford that lifestyle anymore. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:40:28 But previously I would definitely say Uber Eats and I wouldn't be surprised if that creeps back in a tiny bit. I feel like you need to budget for it still though. Cause like, as you said before, you're single, you live alone. I'm not going to lie. Back when I was single, even though I lived in a share house situation, I wasn't cooking for anybody else. The motivation required to cook a meal and go to the supermarket and buy all of the stuff required. And I just knew I wasn't walking out of that supermarket having spent less than $30. I'd in my brain just be like, oh, I probably should just get takeaway. Like I can justify it for you. So call me. And then it's like, you also have a meal for five people. So you've got leftovers for the rest of the week as well.

Starting point is 00:41:11 so you have to eat it every single day. Exactly. You're like, that's not what I want. I can only have so much curry. Exactly. I make a really good curry, but I only want it at least twice a week. Yeah, exactly. And there's only so much freezer space to save all of the portions before I forget what's in my freezer. Yeah. And sometimes restaurants just do it better than home cooking. They really do. I get it. I do. But at the same time, we need to be good at this stuff if that's what we want to achieve. All right, Money Diarist, we have gone through you being an absolute weapon at being able to save and you've gotten your financial literacy butt kicked over the last 12 months. You've gotten rid of your credit card. You've paid it off. You're rebuilding your savings.

Starting point is 00:41:53 I really think that you have a very positive money story and I'm so excited for our community to learn from it. But what I want to know is, do you really think that after learning all of this about yourself or even just having a chat about it? Would you go, oh yeah, that person's a C or a C plus? Maybe, maybe like a subtle B still. Yeah. I still feel like there's room for growth. You're allowed to let there be growth, but I feel like if you heard this money story back before you had done it yourself, you would have been like, that girl's so smart. Like, look at all the stuff she's done. She got it together. She's killing it. I think you would have given yourself a bit more credit. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe for the last year,

Starting point is 00:42:36 I'll give myself an A. I'll give that version of myself an A. And we'll continue it. We'll average it out over the next five years and then it can absolutely be super easy. Yeah. We'll buy out the full property. Yeah. And we're going to have a decline in the property market. I like it. Yep. Full dip. I love it. This has been an absolute pleasure getting to know you and having a chat about the scheme that you used and what you're getting up to, because I just think we don't talk about what accessible home ownership looks like enough and stories like this absolutely make it so much more motivating

Starting point is 00:43:08 for people our age to go actually sorry she's single and killed it I can absolutely do that so I hope it inspires even just one person to go maybe that's for me so thank you so much for joining us it's been an absolute pleasure and also a very huge thank you to Sky Wealth for making this episode possible I'll chuck a whole heap of information about them how to get in contact what they do, how they do it in the show notes for you to check out. 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

Starting point is 00:43:52 a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.

She's On The Money - She Bought Her First Home With a 2% Deposit on an $86k Salary

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