She's On The Money - She Cried Over a Holiday She Couldn’t Afford… Now She’s on Track to Retire by 40

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

Have you ever wanted to see what would happen if you actually sat down and did that budget?This week’s Money Diarist actually did it and everything changed. After hitting rock bottom, the stress of trying to keep up finally broke her. One “yes” to a holiday with her partner she couldn’t afford turned into tears in the car and the realisation that something had to give. So she did what any of us would do, opened Google and typed “female finance book”. She came across She's on the Money, read the book and decided to put everything into action... and this is her money diary 5 years on (spoiler: she's thriving). SEE OUR BUNDLE SALE FOR UP TO 30%: Where you can get Victoria's budgeting system & learn to invest.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. Tii, gulinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yambina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawakanidawamundamun imalan, mumubangaraboma ininyalan waka, gaunonyakarumja, wutunadanar. 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 diaries 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 an email and it sounded exactly like this. Dear She's On The Money, you guys completely changed my life! Three exclamation points. Four years ago, I was in the worst financial position I had ever been in. My partner was super financially savvy and I just felt like a failure. I took it upon myself to

change my money story and get my shit together, which is how I came across the She's On The Money podcast and book. It was pretty overwhelming and confronting reading the book and felt scary starting from scratch. However, four years later, I am a completely different queen. I have $18,000 in long-term savings, $34,000 invested in stocks, and I also started a side hustle to earn some extra cash. Money Diarist, welcome to the show. And I would say like, welcome to the community, but girl, you've been here for four years. Yes, I have. And I was like, oh, that was my email. You did a good job, queen. Yes. Well, it has changed since that email. I think it's grown more as well. Listening to that, I was like, oh, cool. It's come a long way.

She sounds like a cool chick, but also we've done even more than that. Let's dive into it. Before we get there, I have to ask, if I asked you to give yourself a money grade from A through to F, what grade do you think you would give yourself today? I'd say probably a B plus because you know you can always get better. Yeah you can but I've got a lot to learn from you in this episode so we'll see how that that stacks up by the end of it. Can we go back? I want to know a little bit more about your money story. Yes yes long journey. I don't think I had great role models growing up So lots of debt and gambling issues with my parents. And I guess I don't ever remember having a conversation about money.

I don't ever remember having a conversation about savings. I remember having a conversation about what you should do when you get a job or how to open a bank account or any of the things that I guess I realized that I didn't know as I got older. so I think I from the start I never really had a great foundation and yeah that's I guess how I ended up being like four years ago yeah having a hard look at my accounts and being like I think I probably need to change some things yes so fair so talk to me you said in your email in your like oh my partner was super financially savvy and I just felt like a failure and then like there's

no definition of failure like I'm a very big believer in like you haven't failed you're just starting here but what contributed to that feeling? I just think I was always stressed about money and like not like necessarily paycheck to paycheck but like almost paycheck to paycheck and like try and organize going on our first international holiday and doing all of the things and like I was still at uni working like a part-time job and he was obviously working like full-time and you know just very different positions and I guess I just felt yeah I was like oh I don't think I can do all of the things that he can do and I wanted to be like equal you know and contribute equally so I guess that's why yeah yeah no that makes absolute sense but like it's so interesting

asking that question of people because to one person failure is, oh, well, actually I went through drive-through this week three times. And then to other people, it's like this feeling of like I'm behind and I'm, you know, not living paycheck to paycheck, but kind of nearly close to other people. They're like, for me, I was in $40,000 worth of personal debt. And I was like, you need to have a good cold hard look at yourself, Victoria Devine. So it's just so interesting being like, well, what does that mean? How does that work? Like, what does that feel like? because it's just so different for everybody. What was that like kick up the bum moment where you were like, I have to kind of get my stuff together. Cause like, I feel like we have lots

of things, money's hard. And like, you know, if you're, you know, planning overseas holidays, you're like, Oh yeah, I'll get it together when I get back. But like, why change? I think I remember we were sitting in the car in my garage and I had, we hadn't really spoken about finances at all and I just said I think like this holiday that we're you know booking and is like killing me financially and I really wanted to do it but I obviously didn't probably think about it before saying yes and I think I didn't want to feel like that ever again like I remember crying and feeling like oh girl like you gotta get your shit together because you know I want to be able to do more than just scrape through you know so I remember that feeling

and that conversation and we both still remember it and we look back like obviously that was probably nearly five years ago and we look back and we're like wow that's so different now and it's nice totally tell me a little bit more about like that change because I think a lot of people get to that point and that's so relatable of like I need to get it together where did you turn first because like at that point you probably hadn't heard of She's on the Money and we probably come a little bit later. I feel like the gateway, like the gateway drug of the finance community is Barefoot Investor. We all turn to him and thanks Scotty Pipe, 10 out of 10. But like what was your first experience of like trying to learn a little bit more about financial literacy?

Yeah, that's so funny because my friend had read the Barefoot Investor and I remember going over and we had a few wines and they were telling us about how good this book was and they're like you got to open all these accounts and you know we had a had had a few wines and then next thing I remember in the mail I had the ING bank cards coming and I was like I haven't even read the book that's fine like I'm very excited that you fell into the cult oh I didn't even no I did nothing with the accounts I just closed them after because I hadn't read the book so I was like well this is silly no I actually from that conversation in the car I remember writing like a long list of things in my life that I wanted to change and a lot of those things you know stem

from financial security and you know my partner had read a lot of books and I was like I just feel like I need to do it on my own like I need to find my path that's going to work for me because yeah your path isn't going to work for me yeah and I googled on google at work female budgeting tools or like female budget finance books that's literally and you look hey and then I came up thank you my SEO must be working and I was like oh okay cool I had a look I read the spiel and I was like yeah okay and I started reading and then I basically just did every single thing that you said to do in the book yes from start to finish I think I hyper fixated for a bit good because like I structured that book in such a way that I was like, all right, so you've never picked up a book

before. This can't be overwhelming at the start. I have to make friends with the reader or I have to make friends with you, money diarist, like have to gain your trust. And then I have to be like, okay, cool. And I think in the book, I still, and like, I wrote it so long ago, but I like literally recommend that you need a glass of wine for the next bit. I'm like, babe, strapping. Cause we're going to do an audit that like, I give you the worksheet to do it. I'm not like, oh, just go and have a look at this. I'm like, no, no, no. You're going to fill this in. And I just I hope it and it sounds like I did I took you on a journey of like discovering one thing and another thing and then like okay cool that's the next step and it was a definite snowball the

bank statement one I remember like printing it at work because free printing I highlighted everything and I was like oh my god it's really confronting isn't it oh wait I cried so hard I'm so sorry I'm so sorry but I promise I'm here for you like sometimes we have to cry because we're just feeling overwhelmed. But at the end of the day, it's not good or bad. It's just like, hey, did you realize this is where your money's going? And you're probably like, no, V, I didn't have a clue. I did not. And after that, I was like, okay, so. Do you remember what the most confronting thing was like seeing on your bank statement? Not really. Cause I think it was probably just like the unnecessary spending, like the shopping,

like the things that I just really didn't need. And I was like, well, that's where my money is. like sitting there and like clothes and bedding. I have a bedding obsession. Oh, you and Jessica Ricci and our team. Love some good bedding. Yeah. Love some linen. And I was like, I don't know if I need that much bedding. Yeah. It's really confronting when you look through your house and go, wow, this all used to be money.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's my gas bill in the cupboard. Yeah, exactly. Isn't it crazy? Well, I kind of love that, but you have ended up in the right place which is a really good thing I want to know more about you personally though so tell me what do you do for work now and how much money do you earn yes I currently have two jobs because you know why not in all my spare time I work as a registered nurse in a hospital and I also have like a office job that I had prior to graduating that just pays really well not 100% sure what I do there. You just bop along. Yeah. It's a great office job that lets you do you. I love that. Because we can only work when you first start as a nurse, you can only work a certain amount of

hours. And I've obviously studied for like three years and I was like, well, I kind of want to work full time. Like I just budgeted my ass off during this three years. I did not do this bank account audit to only have this income. Yeah. And I was like, I kind of want to be on a full time wage. Like as I, and I get the reasoning, like the burnout and stuff like that, but I wasn't happy when I did my budget pre-starting with kind of what I thought it was going to look like. And so I was going to quit and then I decided not to, and I work an extra two days there. Oh, very cool. So if we break it down, how many days and how much pay for each job? It's really hard to, like with the tax and the overtime with the nursing, it's so hard to work out. I think it's about a hundred grand a year, give or take, pre-tax. It's probably a bit more with the overtime. I didn't account for that in my budget because it's so flexible and it really makes me uncomfortable, like not knowing.

And you don't want to bank on that either. Yeah. And I know that you read my book. So, you know, that a lot of what I do is work on your base income, work on what is contracted, like what's in your, in your contract. I think we should be as a base and then anything above and beyond, like, I won't say it's cream on top and you can do what you want with it. Cause that's not the point, but like anything on top, we will make decisions with as it comes through. Because I think a lot of people, especially nurses, I've got a lot of like locum teachers, people who are creatives, freelancers, like you just

don't know what next month is going to look like. Like you might end up doing heaps of overtime and you're like fine with it. Or you might be burnt out and you're like, no, I can't take on any more days. So you just don't know. But budget with our base. I did my budgets with my base. Yeah. Budget from the base, from the registered nurse job and then from the office job, it's obviously just the same. Yeah. Okay. And what would you bring in on average from the office job? A fortnight. It's after tax, like 980. It's like two days a week. Yeah. Very nice. So how many days are you doing in the hospital? Like if let's just pretend it's this week. So four and then two and then you have one day off. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So you're still getting a little bit of time. It's basically

like you're a real estate agent. They only get one day a week-ish. We'll sometimes split the shifts. So if I do like an afternoon shift at the hospital, I will work in the morning, log on for the day at my office job and then go to the hospital after. So I still get two days off a week, which is nice. Are you always tired? Because I feel like I would always be tired. Not really. Like I have my days, like if it's really busy at the hospital, then yes. But honestly, the office job, I just sit at my desk one day from home and one day in the office and it's very nice. See, that blows my mind in the nicest way possible that there are office jobs where you're like, yep, I just like kind of do what I'm told when I can, but it's like pretty

lax. I can't think as a small business owner, I would actually cry if people were doing that in my business. Like, whoa, I mean, pop off. We won't name them. I won't name you. But you know, you're just like, woolly guacamole. Yeah. They have a lot of full-time stuff and I'm kind of like the only one that does what I do. But I think because it's either like hire someone new and have to train them in everything that I've learned you know in the last I think I've been there five years or so or just keep me I think the easier choice was just to keep me so hey that's cute we're gonna use that for as long as we can so you're about a hundred grand a year ish as an RN and then I would say about $25,000 per year if you're 980 a fortnight as a office

worker in addition, which brings you to about, I would say 125 per annum. And then I'm assuming you have little top-ups here and there from overtime from the hospital and we just make decisions along the way. I think the hundred grand would be including overtime. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That works too. So let's just call it 125. Money win. And that is a great place to be in. Tell me a little bit more because girl, like four years, 18 grand in savings, $34,000 in the share market. Sorry, what are your money goals? What are we working towards? Because you're working hard. Yeah, I'm working hard to retire early. That is my goal. What does that mean? That means by my deadlines kind of 40. Oh, okay. But, you know, if I could do it earlier,

that would be great. But I don't know if I would ever like completely finish more on a personal, my brain would fry itself if I stayed home every single day but it be in the position at 40 to be like I could just work one day a fortnight or I could just do a shift here and there and I'd be so happy with that more just for brain stimulation purposes but I would love to yeah retire by 40 and that's my goal and for those following along at the moment our money is 27 today. So that's exciting. Tell me, not today, like it's not your birthday, but like as well for recording, she's 27. Happy birthday for whenever your birthday is. That wasn't a criteria question. 28 soon, which is good. So you've got heaps of time, but also like at the

same time to achieve a retirement by 40, you've got to be pretty aggressive. So tell me a little bit about what that looks like. If you've got 125K coming in, what are our investing and savings goals each week or each fortnight depending on how you get paid? So I just work on my like base salary for my budget and I think I invest not I think I do invest a thousand a fortnight. A thousand a fortnight is so good. I'm going for aggressive at the moment. I used to do when I was still at uni like the minimum I think I did like whatever my budget could allow which was like $30 or something. I could buy like one share per fortnight. And I was like, you know what? But from little things, big things grow. Now there's like $34,000 in there. And if you're

doing $1,000 per fortnight, that's like $26,000 a year. Be for real. Like that's so good. Like imagine if we could go back and tell baby you four years ago, by the way, not only are you going to get this budget thing sorted, you're going to be an investor and an aggressive one, and you're going to have a retirement goals. You'll be like, ew, David. Yeah, like what? Why would I do that to myself? I know. So I think that's the goal. I save, I have a long-term savings that I do. It's like a smaller amount because I decided to go more aggressive with the investing and a little short-term saver for like things that just I want to buy or come up or, you know, spontaneous things. Absolutely. And are we still budgeting for things like, I know you've got a partner,

are we budgeting for big life events with your partner or holidays or like, what does that look like? Yeah, that is an interesting question because we're not really sure what it will look like. We're both very financially savvy. So like having a wedding, a massive wedding or spending something like that, or it doesn't really align with us. Buying a house just doesn't seem like something that we really want to do anytime soon we're really happy with renting in the area that we want to live in and any extra cash just go straight into investing like any overtime that I actually make so I know what my base is and then everything's automatically transferred every pay straight into the investment account it comes straight out automatically invested

all of it's invested into the different accounts automatically and then any extra I see what I need that fortnight is my short term looking a bit you know hey how you going oh yeah yeah and it can it can look a little bit how you going like mine does sometimes yeah if I've had like a few things like you know events that I've had to buy gifts for or things that I've needed I'll top up that account with my overtime. And then if I'm all good at that time, I'll just chuck it straight into investing. Obsessed. I love that. All right. Let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I want to know more about this investment portfolio. I'm going to make you break down the nitty gritty. So I hope you're ready. And then we're going to talk about your

feelings about debt and then best and worst money habits. So guys, don't go anywhere. my need are asked we are back and i am not done talking about investing with you i've gotten real pervy recently on people's investing portfolios and i just want the tea so let's rewind back to four years ago you probably didn't even think you'd start investing what was the i guess we've been talking about gateway drugs what was your gateway into investing like why did you go that's for me so it was probably largely related to my partner who has invested for a long time very savvy kind of introduced me to the world of investing he did make me do a bit of research and look into a few things and good man yeah kind of what I wanted to do and then that's kind of how I

started really. I trusted him and he was open and showed his portfolio and just so I could kind of see how it works and how growth works and what the heck everyone's talking about and they talk about investing or yeah. So that's kind of how I started. I have read your investing book as well now. I don't think back then. No, no, you wouldn't have wanted to pick that one up. Do you know what? I can't even remember when it came out, if I'm being honest. same yeah I can't remember when when it came out but I don't think it was out at the time where I had maybe started yeah probably not I have to google my own book so investing with she's on the money came out in I believe 2023 yes so you definitely wouldn't have been out yet no that's

crazy that I had to google my own book one out of ten cannot recommend my brain at the moment so tell me a bit more so you had a look and you were like okay cool this seems like a really good idea. How did you purchase your first share? Did you download an investing platform first? Did you go direct? Like what did that journey look like? Yes. So I went through ComSec, ComPocket or one of those. ComSec or ComSec Pocket. And I just bought my first ETF share. We always laugh about this because EFT is my contract at nursing and ETF is nursing. And every time I go to say it, I'm like, which one am I trying to say? I love that.

I remember way back in the day, I was so nervous to do a speaking presentation on investing and I really hadn't thought enough about this. I was so worried about like how I was presenting myself and all of that other stuff. And then I realized when I looked back at a clip, the amount of times I called it an EFT. That's me.

No, I was meant to be the subject matter expert and I was calling it an EFT. So if anyone has that recording, just delete it. Like we're friends, like you're meant to have my back. Like let's never bring it up again because I remember being mortified and being like, I have to leave the industry. Like I'm going to cancel myself. Yeah, I quit. The facts about those EFTs, yeah, they were right, but they were about ETFs. So anyway, that's my like, I don't have dyslexia. I have ADHD,

but I'm pretty sure they kind of go hand in hand. They have to. They do. So every time I call it that, I laugh, but it's ETF. Who cares as long as you're investing? Like, you know what you meant. You know what you meant, didn't you? Yeah. Exactly. So you bought your first ETF and why did you pick that ETF? Was it because other people held it? Was it because you thought it was a little bit sexy? Like how did we pick? So my partner invests in that ETF. What is it? Come on, cough up. Oh, you want to know? Oh yeah, of course I want to know. NDQ. So it's like the top tech companies in America. And yeah, I had a look at kind of what companies they held and there's a lot of things going on with AI and

tech in our day and age, in our society. And it just felt like a good fit. It had really good growth. It still does have really good growth. Yeah. And I was just like, you know, this sounds good. And that's where I started. And I do hold a bit of VHY. It's a high dividend paying one, kind of going back and forth of when I do have kids and not working, maybe putting a chunk of my portfolio in there to generate a bit of an income. So I thought I would maybe just see how I feel. I put a bit of money in there just to test the waters before I have kids, you know. No, I really like it. And I think it's one of those things where I like asking you, well, what ETF did you pick? Not because I want other people to replicate it, but it's usually

reflective of your values and what you're looking for and how that works. So it's just like NDQ, I believe, don't quote me on this, is the beta shares NASDAQ 100 ETF. So it's got the top 100 American tech companies in it. So like literally Alphabet, Apple, all those ones that you can think of that would be pretty stereotypical. And the performance on that has been very good. Was that your first share like three or four years ago? Yeah, three or four years ago. So you've probably seen astronomical growth in that ETF. Like I believe if you like zoom out, do not quote me on this, but I know that I'm like very close to the mark. It's had like a hundred percent return. So tell me what's that share looking like in your portfolio in terms

of return at the moment? It's looking real juicy. It's looking pretty slick. And we're not promising that. It's just so pervy to like get involved with what like other people are doing, being like, oh good. Cause like you can't replicate that. You can't go back in time and purchase that share and get the same performance as our money diarist. But look at her buying in line with her values. That's so sexy. Because for me, my first ETF when I went into it, I wasn't looking at a sector like you have. I was looking at a top 500 because I wanted heaps of diversification. But I want to know why people pick these things because these conversations drive your own narrative in your mind of how you're then going to pick. You go, oh, interesting. Maybe I could pick a tech one.

I love tech. Like that makes me feel comfy. So anyway, thank you for sharing that. Talk to me about income increases. If you increase your income, is your plan to then just aggressively invest more? Because at the moment, if I do some calculations, because I'm a creep, you said that you're investing $1,000 per fortnight. And like I've calculated based on having $34,000 today and then $1,000 per fortnight moving forward and an average rate of return of 10%. In 12 years, because you said I'm nearly 28, so I was like, okay, cool. There'll be 38, 40. You've got 12 years until you, quote, retire. You'll have an investment portfolio worth about $711,000. What are you doing around superannuation? Because that's good,

but $711,000, I feel like is not where you stop when you're trying to retire. No. My portfolio is now nearly at $55,000. stop it so you wrote this in you said yep I've got thirty four thousand dollars and now it's fifty five thousand dollars I need to eat my words and do my maths again queen stop it but super is invested in high growth international shares with vanguard super and that growth has been cray cray since I transferred it I think it's been like a year and it's done a really good growth which I know it's a bit more risky because it's in the high growth but I thought well you know can't access it till I'm 60 probably 68 at this rate yes so I thought you know in 68

it's going to ride so many waves of up and downs and we'll see when it gets there but I think it's got around 30,000 in it and that'll just keep going up because I'm working full-time now and yeah it's a good amount that's going in I keep an eye on it just to make sure you know everyone's paying what they should be paying but it's important because some people skip that and then it gets too late no so that's not when I think about retiring and I don't even pencil that in because I really want to retire a lot earlier than when they say that you have to retire because I don't think I'm going to make it to 68 to work for the rest of yeah between now and 68 that is so fair. Do you and your partner have conversations around your investing strategy and what that looks

like? Like, I know that you said, oh, we don't really have any big goals of like, you know, a wedding or buying a house or any of that. But does he also have the goal of retiring by the time you're 40? He has the same goal as retiring early. And I think when we think about that, we're very aligned on our goals and what it looks like. And every time I make a decision or I'm like oh you know when I started at the hospital and obviously my going from like part-time to like six days a week of pay he's my little financial advisor because I'm like you know we're doing all the math and the budget tools and the what does it look like if I do x I mean what does it look like for my portfolio if I go really aggressive or if I go middle or if I go conservative we did

all of the numbers and we landed on a thousand a fortnight. There's probably still more wiggle room that I could probably do. But you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot. Yeah. I want to be realistic. Yeah. Yeah. I think that overcommitting means that you would be consistently disappointed if you didn't meet the criteria. Whereas if you set something that's relatively reasonable and you know what, there are probably some people listening to this going, wow, that's $500 a week that she's investing. That's really unrelatable. Yeah, it was unrelatable to me four years ago. But like, that's just it. And I was reading the comments and, you know, this is She's On Money,

so I'm very honest, but I was reading the comments the other day on one of our investing diaries. And I'd actually had one of my team members on the show, Brooke, who had been talking about her investing journey. And she invests about $680 a week. And she has two full-time jobs as well. she's very similar to you in that she didn't come from good financial literacy she didn't have a leg up she didn't have parents who taught her how to invest she didn't have any of those benefits yes I think that there's a very broad conversation about you know just privilege we live in Australia we have access to the ability to do these things and that's fantastic but I would never want to downplay the fact that no no you guys are doing this yourselves like you are creating this

financial freedom on your own because you have the tools and resources and you're harnessing them For most people who are just starting and maybe they're listening to this money diary, let's remember that this money diary literally was in quote four years ago, the worst financial position of her life. Like we're not talking about people where it's like, oh yeah, but she has the free cashflow. I'm sorry. And I'm not trying to downplay it at all, but like you have two very normal jobs. You're a nurse and you have an office job. And the reason you keep your office job is like, you love the income coming in. You love the freedom you're creating for yourself. This isn't like out of reach. It's unrelatable because you're not doing it right now, but it's not

unobtainable, which I think is the coolest part of it. At what point did you realize, holy guacamole, I'm doing it myself. Like this is actually a reality. It's not like I have $400 in shares and like, oh, I could leave it maybe. At what point were you like, hold on, hold on. I still log onto my app, my investing app. And I'm like, oh jump scare well because I'm like there's no way that that's mine and I did that so I think I'm very grateful for how far I've come I'm grateful really to my partner for helping me I'm grateful for you guys for your book I used to read all of the Facebook money wins and all of the little hacks the budgets I have everything down to the dollar you know like my budget is just so

every single thing that comes out of my account is accounted for and I couldn't have done it without sacrifice I had to sacrifice you know I went to uni and worked part-time and during that time a lot of my friends bought houses and you know were working full-time jobs so you know I am a bit older as well like you know at 28 to finish uni or like last year 27 and a lot of them had been working in their full-time jobs for already three to four years and are buying houses now so you know it took a lot of sacrifice for me to go back to uni and go yeah to have the vision and yeah to get where I am now it did yeah stop going to bed bath and table oh no don't do that to me I really like bed bath and table and like girlfriend it's coming up to Christmas time

soon and like their Christmas range oh sorry it's a slippery slope so we just don't go there anymore. And I have really good self-control. I remember you saying, I think on a podcast episode that you put 24 hours between you and a purchase. And I do that sometimes where I'm like, okay, it's been three weeks. How good's that? I don't know if she meant I need to put this much time between a purchase, but. No, no, no, that's better babe. I just have a lack of impulse control. So 24 hours is the minimum. The longer you can stretch it, the more you know whether you want it or not three weeks queen behavior yeah I remember I was sitting there looking at this pair of Ugg boots and I was like oh I really want some Ugg boots for winter and I was like

I just don't know if I can like you know justify they are kind of expensive for slippers and I was like you know I'm just gonna wait I waited like five weeks and then I was like you know what I'm gonna just see how I feel when I log back onto the page and then they were on sale ah see good things happen to good people baby and I was like see I waited and I got the sale price so yeah I changed my whole attitude on on that as well like the spending and um going out like not that I really dined out too much but just yeah my values had to shift to remember what I want to do and that's retire and not have to work for the rest of my life and I remember that when I think about why I'm investing aggressively it's for that reason you know yeah and it's funny because

you just said you know I'm so grateful for my partner and I'm so grateful for all of these other things but like you didn't mention you and like at the end of the day you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink I can throw and I do I'm so aggressive about it I'm like so female financially empowered like I'm just like okay cool anyone can do it like you know you combat me and come to me and be like, well, that's unrealistic. I'm like, sit down. It's not unobtainable. This is how we're going to do it. Like, I want you to be able to do it, but it is uncomfortable. You have to do the work. And you said at the start of this episode, and like, I think that this is where I'm obsessed with this money diary. You said at the start,

look, V, I read your book and I did the bank account audit and I cried. Like it was so confronting and so hard. I did not promise that this journey was going to be easy, but I did promise that it would be rewarding and now you are reaping the rewards but like you got to put in the work you've got to do it yourself like I can't do it for you I wish I could if I couldn't wave a magic wand and make every female in this country super shine it's the right risk profile it's perfect I could set up all your investment portfolios like in line with your goals and your value I would but I can't you have to do the work so I hope you're grateful for you too because you're the one that did the work nobody else did that I am yeah yeah I'm glad

that I did it and I had that kind of maybe low point where I did feel like everything was chaotic but now I yeah just you have to do it yourself and you have to be ready for that journey and ready for the sacrifice because it's your money your pay your budget you know no one can do it for you at the end of the day you have to be into it you have to be accountable because it's your money. Yeah. And it's funny because recently I've been saying a lot of people have been like, I'm not ready to invest. I'm not ready to start. And I keep saying ready is not a feeling. It is a decision. Like you just have to pull your finger out one day and be like, guess I'm ready. I guess I've got to do it today. You're not going to have the most amount of financial literacy that you

have. Like I can almost guarantee that if we went back in time, yes, you had a lot of education with your initial share portfolio, but there's so much stuff you'd probably change. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, even just reading your investing book, I was like, oh, that's what that is. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. Oh, I've been doing that and I didn't know that that's what it was. Or yeah. So there's always things that are going to be forever changing and growing. And yeah, I just think it's so important to start like yesterday because I wish I could have gone back. you want to work for me? Like, I'm not going to give you a cushy office job, but you sound like you are on the same page as me. Yeah. I wish I could have started earlier, but grateful that I

did start when I did. And yeah, it's, yeah, I try my best to like anyone who asks me like in my life, my personal life or whatever, I'm like, have you read She's On The Money? Have you? That's so sweet. Thank you. Do you invest? Do you do, have you got a budget? And you'll never believe how many people tell me that they don't have a budget and I was like that is wild you work full-time what do you do with your money how does it what happens when it hits your account does that not stress you out they spend it it's crazy and I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's hard yeah it's hard but once you get on the budget train I think a lot of people are evasive of it because they are so scared that a budget is going to be restrictive and not feel good and it's you know going to stop

them from living their best life. But it's actually a tool that helps you understand every single dollar that comes in, every single dollar that goes out, making sure it's in line with your values, your goals. Like it's just making your money work hard for you. And like you don't go to work for 40 plus hours a week so that you can be in a worse off position. No, you might as well just sit at home because that's too much effort. Exactly. But yeah, I think the budget is so important because it's not restrictive. It's scary. And I think that's why a lot of people don't want to do it. And I didn't have a budget four years ago, which, you know, obviously was the problem. And it's not restrictive because I've been on the holiday every single year since

I made that budget because it's important to me to travel and it hasn't been restrictive. It's been freeing. Yeah. Tell me as well, because like you said, I was in the car with my partner planning this holiday and I just realized it was financially ruining me. Like I just couldn't do it. Tell me about the feeling you now have when you go on holiday versus the lead up to that holiday. That lead up was grim. I was very stressed and like, yeah, I was very daunting to go. Now I'm like a bit more savvy when we go. We, you know, we don't always have to go for the nicest thing or the most expensive thing. Not that I did before, but, you know, we're a bit more conscious you know because we want that goal of retiring early but we do want to travel

so it's like where can we meet in the middle and how can we do it in the smartest way and you know often we don't drink alcohol like that first trip we did and I reckon we spent so much money just on drinking and we're like never again you know we don't do that anymore and it's so much nicer to have that extra money in your account. You know, that's just something that we've decided when we go on trips. That's one thing that we can cut out that makes a huge difference. You say, nope, sorry, I love you. And that is so fantastic that that works for you. Love an Aperol. My God, I don't think it's a secret. Queen, I love an Aperol. I love a little in the afternoon,

a little pina colada by a pool. Oh, say less. I definitely can relate, but we're just, I think. But that's in my budget and we budget based on our values and that's the best part. Like mad respect that you know your budget and I know mine, but like the best part is once you get to this stage, we're not comparing. We're not looking at yours and going, oh, well, she saves more money than me on that particular thing. Like it all comes out in the wash in the best possible ways.

Can I be presumptuous and assume you don't have any debt? No, I just have a hex debt. Yeah, no debt. I had credit cards back in the day which I think was about five grand but that felt like oh my god that felt so crippling and did you max out that credit card yeah and I was like never I once I paid it off I cut it up and I was like oh that I'm never doing that again so no debt no car loans no after pay I don't have an account no no debt no not after like my growing up lifestyle no debt for me the hex is probably oh god I can't remember it's like around the 40

grand mark hopefully with that big index payment that we should be getting oh we're all waiting for that in the she's on the money office we're all watching our our hex debts getting very excited yeah I'm like oh hopefully soon but honestly I'm so comfortable with that it's going to pay itself off and I'm not too stressed about it. I don't really make any contributions to paying it off. I'd rather invest it in my shares and let it grow. And yeah, I feel like that will pay itself off in good time. It just plods along. So now tell me, what do you think your best money habit is? I feel like you might have a few, like the fact that you cut out alcohol because you were like, we looked at how much that cost us and now we just don't drink it. I couldn't pitch that to

my husband. I'm so sorry. That's just not going to work for me. But what do you think your best money habit is? Best money habit is probably all the automatic transfers because that system is just so to the T and every dollar goes somewhere. There's no lull in my bank account, which is nice. And the automatic investing that I've set up on beta shares, it's so easy. It just comes straight out of my bank straight into the wallet and invest automatically and I don't have to think about a thing I think that would be my best money habit the thing that annoys me the most is that I can't guarantee how much my overtime is going to be every week to automatically invest that that peeves me off I have to do that manually but that would be my best no but that's so good that it's

automated yeah I love it takes the emotion out of it you know doesn't leave me going oh should I put this into, no, it's going into investing and it's going into long-term. Yeah. Yeah. It's already gone. Sorry. Did you mean to make another decision? Cause, um, we already made it for you. And I feel like in my head, I'm like, once it's in there, it's illegal to take it out. Like, sorry, it's illegal. Like I've, I've got to make a law book. And one of the, she's on the money laws is that you cannot take out of your investing platform. You can, by the way, don't, don't feel stressed. But in my head, it just feels like it's not mine anymore. And it's a very weird concept because I obviously know that. But yeah, I just, once it's in there, I'm like, oh, I couldn't take

it out. Then I'm stopping it growing. Never. I could never do that. So that would be my hot tip. And you have to do a budget to do that, team, just to break it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You and I are on the same team. Do your budget. And do you know what the best part about this is? it's free on my website go and download it you don't have to do anything and it will auto calculate at the bottom that's very sexy and very peachy that would be my hot tip also maybe like I every time I get like a bill and that's increasing like I always like I don't know how many times I've cancelled my insurance and re-signed up like my car insurance probably 10 times so every year they're like oh it's going back up and I was like for what I didn't even do anything yeah I didn't

even have any bingles what are you talking about yeah and they're like oh um you know 10% off for new customers I was like hello I've just been paying you for a year how about me so I cancel things and re-sign up all the time for anything phone bills car insurance any bill that yeah we have any subscriptions i use as well i threaten to cancel even without making a phone call to cancel it right and adobe is probably going to be mad that i'm saying this but i did this the other day to my adobe subscription i like went on the website and clicked cancel subscription and then it came up with a last minute offer and it was like oh we hate to see you go here's 40 off the next six months and i was like wow that's nice thanks yeah yeah actually because i was gonna

cancel subscription and just see what happened and then I was going to re-sign up anyway I find with phone bills if you ask to be transferred to the cancellation team they can always give you a better price than even just negotiating with the people on like the phone you'd be like no I'm cancelling I'm unhappy and then the cancellation team have a better price that they can offer you so gotta swindle every dollar you know love you are a woman from my own community um tell me though flip the narrative what's your worst money habit have you even got any at this point I've tried really hard to think of one and I definitely had a few back in the day my worst money habit would be oh god I don't know I would say maybe travel like even though that's not

no it's not you can't because you don't even drink when you travel sorry you're too savvy for this show but that's okay but I have to ask a pressing question because like you know at the start I told you we're going to loop back to this you said I'm a B plus what kind of B plus person says they don't have a bad money habit like a person who says no straight out the gates I'm an A plus and then if they said I don't have any bad money habits I'd be like do you know what I believe you but sorry what's the B plus for then why not A plus if no bad money habits I don't know I didn't want to like highball myself and then we have this comma and I was like oh actually oh no sorry in this house we back ourselves I think there's always room to grow which is why I did B plus

because like I want to strive to be the best but sometimes you know things happen we can't guarantee every single thing's a sure thing for the rest of our lives till I retire but I love it yeah I'm probably an A yeah I know I know like I just heard your money story baby cakes I know but I do want to ask though if you've not got a bad money habit you have to tell me what was the last thing you impulse purchased I feel like it was just yesterday because I've been on annual leave and I'm looking for things to do around the house and I bought a new monitor from marketplace for my desk like at home so now I have two screens for my home office I didn't really need it I had one and my laptop but I was like oh you know if I'm gonna work from home for a while I could get

another one. That's good. I love it. See guys, even her like impulse purchases are on bloody marketplace. She is savvy. She's an A, she's an A plus. I love it. Money Dirst, this has been a pleasure. I am just so glad that you not only wanted to share your story, we had a really great chat. I feel like this is going to be a very fun episode to listen to, but then also you just, you're so part of the community, the book, the podcast, like you're investing, you're saving, like you're an icon. I love it. And for anyone listening, who's like, that's unrelatable. No queen. It's not unrelatable. It's just not currently being done. Like you're just not doing it. You can absolutely create this yourself. And I just think that's the coolest part of this

money story. You did this yourself. I love it. Thank you. I would read the book, you know, the little people's stories when I was first reading the book and I was like, oh, that could just never be me because that seems so unachievable but well here I am I guess it's small steps in the right direction and I think that all the time we get so overwhelmed and like social media does not help because social media definitely shoves down our throats narratives of people who are genuinely unrelatable like don't get me wrong not all of us are going to become multi-million dollar tech founders and you see their stories like yeah I get why that's unrelatable but sorry we have a 27 year old from melbourne who didn't come from wealth who is creating it herself that is iconic

thank you thank you i love it all right i wish we had more time together but alas we do not thank you so much i just can't wait for the community to get their little hands on this episode because they're gonna love it as much as i did thank you so much for having me 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 authorized representatives of Money

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