She's On The Money - The six clever money hacks to help you save faster!

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

Ever wondered what Victoria’s top saving hacks are? Wonder no more! Today acclaimed financial adviser Victoria Devine breaks down her top money savings tricks, with a few stray recommendations thrown in by George. The girls also talk about the psychology behind why some people are amazing savers and others are not, PLUS they discuss oat milk, gyms, glass doors and a whole lot more! So hop to it friend! ALSO! Georgia’s money win this week was Kaya Health Clubs online, check out their amazing classes here. ALSO AGAIN! We mentioned the marvellous Millie Padula from Dietitian Edition in our show, and you can check her out here. Do you love the podcast sick and want more SOTM? We had a feeling that was the case. Join our Facebook page to share your money wins and money confessions, follow us on Insta for daily inspo to keep you on track and absolutely subscribe to our newsletter, the written recap of the pod’s key takeaways, including some bonus bits you won’t want to miss. Finally, if you’re in a money mess and need help untangling the muddle - we’ve got you sorted – simply record your question and send it through to us at [e-mail] and you may just end up on the podcast!  Your hosts are Georgia King and Victoria Devine. 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. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Georgia King. I'm a copywriter and journalism student. And each week I sit down and pick the brains of millennial money expert, Victoria Devine. Victoria, hello. Hello, Georgia King. Now, today's show is one we've had requested a lot, and that is what are the saving hacks we

swear by and how can we change our mindsets to stop spending frivolously and start spending smarter? That is a tongue twister. Now, we will also have a quick chat about the psychology of saving and unpack why some people are good at saving and others just aren't. Then later on, we'll be helping answer a question from a listener who is a little confused about whether she should actually be saving less and start spending more. But before we get there, Victoria, let's chat through our money wins and confessions as we always do. What have you got for me this week? Georgia, you know, when your products just start to dwindle, like your foundation starts to run out at exactly the same time as your moisturizer and shampoo and conditioner, like they never

finish at the same time, but you can guarantee that it's finishing at the same time as something else expensive. And then you're looking at spending more than you wanted to instead of just picking up one product you actually need to pick up three and it's really challenging anyway that's what's happening to me at the moment so i've put in a few orders online for things here and there this week so i guess it's not that much of a money win for that but my money win is i've got a girlfriend who knows what shampoo i use and recently she purchased that shampoo it's not the cheapest but oh my gosh does it smell delicious she purchased it she doesn't like it so she has gifted she lives within my five kilometer bubble Georgia King and she left it on my front

doorstep the other day 95% full and now I don't have to purchase that product so if that's not a money win I don't know what is that's a huge money win my old housemate actually left me all of her um expensive shampoo when she moved to London so that was a perk very similar style winner winner mine is a money win and it's in a very similar vein to a previous win that i've noted on the podcast before oh okay just copy copy glad we were original absolutely well i mean we are running out of ideas over here but that's okay so mine this week uh is kaya online so i have mentioned in the past um yoga with adrian has been my go-to through um covid like mine too yeah yeah yeah so that's the yoga on youtube it's completely free and it's amazing so kaya was the

gym that i used to go to pre-covid and it was just my happy place i went there i reckon like eight times a week not that it shows every single time we would record a podcast you would come to my office in activewear because you'd just come to kaya or you were going to kaya after you are the ultimate kaya poster girl i am i and i love it and i i've just really been feeling for them because they've had their doors closed for six months, yet they're producing this free content, popping it online. It's on YouTube as well. So I'd just really recommend you guys having a go

if you're looking for something new to keep fit during this time. If you're still in Melbourne in lockdown, I could not recommend it highly enough. The trainers are amazing. It's really, there's like options for different levels. And yeah, it's just the best. So we'll pop a little link in our show notes to exactly what that is. It's Kaya, K-A-Y-A.

And yeah, I just love it. I adore it as well. I used to go to that gym. There is one in the Melbourne CBD. It feels really bougie. Like it is so fancy inside, but really reasonably priced given Pilates reformer is so expensive. Normally we've spoken about this on the podcast before where it can be upwards of $30 a class. The KM memberships are a little bit more than that per week, but it works out really well,

especially if you're going eight times a week. Guys, this isn't sponsored at all. We just are genuine K lovers and yeah, here for it. good win georgia king thank you thank you now i mean again let's stick to tradition and move across to the facebook community victoria actually just a little side note there's 92 000 of us in there at the moment i cannot even with you guys there are so many how did that happen i don't know but also shout out to georgia king here guys 92 000 of you and guess who's been adding you all to the group georgia king thank you it takes so long and we do get a lot of messages from people

being like are you still accepting people and it just it does take time to add you all so apologies for the delay but we promise it is worth it as the numbers are showing us people are loving it so that's great anyway on to the facebook community victoria have any posts stood out to you a lot of them this week i feel like so many people have had really great money wins this week in iso but for me particularly i had one that stood out from maddie and maddie said money win since i bought my apartment i've been wanting to switch my balcony door to a glass one because the door frame isn't standard. This was going to cost more than $350. She said that 90% of the furniture in her house she'd bought secondhand or picked up free from the curbside. But she assumed that for

something like a door, she'd have to buy a brand new one. But lo and behold, her three years of patience paid off and someone in her neighborhood community Facebook group was selling theirs for $60. So she said, with a little bit of help from my dad and some new carpentry skills learned along the way we replaced it together she said next time you want something for your house don't forget to check on gumtree or marketplace you never know what will actually be on there and she had some really cute photos of her doing said carpentry and then smiling through the glass door and I thought it was really sweet so shout out to Maddie because I think that that is something that is really cool like you can fix it yourself I love that well exactly and it kind of ties into today's

theme which is you know saving hacks a little bit of DIY so that is very impressive and it also of really opens up the house doesn't it 100 looks really cute congrats maddie we will be around for a cheese platter and a couple of wines once iso is over but back to you georgia king do you have a money win or confession that you want to share from the group this week i do be and i'm actually surprised you didn't steal this one because it is oat milk hey so this one is from laura who has an oat milk money win as she's a long time lurker first time poster and like our uh our lord and savior our lord and savior victoria divine wow that's the most dramatic just stop with the junk georgia king i'm sorry i need to pair it back a little bit but that's okay i love you doll thank

you and i appreciate that so like victoria she is an avid oat milk lover and we all know as we've spoken about many times on the podcast oat milk is spenno for those who don't know what that means it means expensive in my language um so instead of spending five dollars she's she's made it she's made it herself she's actually included the recipe there as well but she's written that it costs 45 cents for approximately 750 meals um amazing savings of heaps i can't do the math it's a heaps saving according to Georgia. Georgia's created her own language. It is apparently usually spino and normally it's not. But in saying that, another oat milk money win. Georgia, we should have had this as one of our money wins because I know you know what I'm talking about. You guys know I'm

obsessed with oat milk to the point where this is nearly embarrassing and I'm going to have to ban myself from talking about it on the podcast. But our friends at Minor Figures actually reached out to us this week and they were kind of like, hey guys, why are you so obsessed with me? and are sending us a little bit of a gift and I'm assuming that is going to be some oat milk lattes or something given we have been talking about that but Georgia and I are so looking forward to that and so excited but also this week at Coles I had another money win which I totally could have used their oat milk is 50% off so you can get your own milk for a total of $2.45 for my favorite oat milk guys get on it this is not sponsored it's just we're obsessed with them

we are but you know what what is really sad about this is that this episode drops on a Wednesday and because I'm a savvy girl I know that the new catalog ticks over on the Wednesday so that sale will no longer apply so sorry to break hearts but I'm just keeping it real all right thank you for that it's gonna go back to being spino sorry guys um all right well now let's rip into the main topic of today's show. I think that's a good idea. Honestly, let's keep moving on. So today is all about the money-saving hacks we swear by that'll help get you on top of your finances for good. Now there is a lot of information out there when it comes to money-saving hacks and everyone has tricks that work for them, but today we thought it would be amazing to list some tips

from our lord and saviour. I'm joking, from a pro. Can you just stop? It's getting weird. That was a top six hacks we've condensed it down to, I was hoping you could briefly talk to me a little bit about the psychology of saving and explain to me and to everyone listening why some people are naturally really, really good at saving and why others maybe are not. All right. I am so excited for this topic and you guys ask for it all the time. I know that I get messages to the Facebook group. I get messages to our Instagram. I get messages on my personal Instagram of you guys being like hey Victoria I just want to know how can I save a bit more or hey Victoria I earn x like what should I be saving and I know that this is such a good topic and I'm really glad that we

are talking about it with Georgia King as well guys she's actually a really savvy little saver because I'm a bit pervy and I've asked her what's in her savings account before so I'm excited for this because Georgia has actually a lot of knowledge to share on this because she's a little savvy saver. But in saying that, savings at the end of the day is all about delayed gratification rather than instant gratification, which, guys, in the age of afterpay is what seems to be the new normal. Guys, there is a psych practice, and I don't know if you've seen this before, but if you haven't, YouTube the marshmallow experiment. And it's all about these little kids who get told, all right, I'm going to leave the room. I'm putting this marshmallow on a plate in

front of you don't eat it because if you don't eat it I'll give you three more marshmallows when I come back and you can just see it is hardwired in some kids to go yeah great I love three marshmallows when they come back I'm not going to eat that oh wait there are some kids who just go I don't care about those three marshmallows I'm going to stuff that first one in my mouth and then there are those kids that I think this is me they just like stare longingly at the marshmallow they pick it up and they sniff it and they kind of look at it and they go oh that's that's a good marshmallow they might lick it and put it back down because they can see the benefit of waiting for the long term but they also are just feeling really like they want it right now and I think that that for me

is a really good example of instant gratification versus delayed gratification because we all know that if we don't buy something right now we'll be able to save it's not a secret savings is not magic savings is not something kind of magical that you know I just don't know how to do it like deep down we all know what we need to do to save it just doesn't mean it happens like some people are going to naturally be better at savings which is some people are going to naturally be better at saving which is more often than not a reflection of their money story and just the way they grew up and their you know baseline personality like let's be honest and that's why I wanted to talk about the marshmallow experiment because it's ingrained in us like some of us understand long-term

gratification on a deeper level than others and it's not about intelligence it's not about whether you know or not it is something that is ingrained in us some of us just are better at savings than others but that does not mean that you can't get good at savings it just means you need different tools and resources than someone else might have and that's why I brought up at the start of this conversation as well got Georgia the little savvy saver because she's really good at savings whereas as someone like me I'm being brutally honest I've always struggled to put money away because I love a good bit of instant gratification so I need a lot more structure than you Georgia I need to have you know savings hacks in place I really need to have a really good cash flow set up so that I know

how much I should be saving and I can put a plan in place whereas I know someone like you you just instantly put more money away than you yeah spend and I wish I was more like you but it just doesn't happen and we need to be honest with ourselves. That's exactly right. For me, it is something that just comes really naturally. And, you know, not to toot my own horn, I have a lot of other flaws and I'm definitely not an expert at money, as we've all learned from listening to this podcast. In preparation for this episode, I did go back and listen to the psychology of saving ep that you did with Annabelle in season one, which was an amazing ep. And I would really recommend it in union with this episode, I guess. Absolutely. Go back and listen to it. I think it

was a really good chat but it was also something that we spoke about the psychology of savings and we talked about learned helplessness and we talked about a lot of different concepts but we didn't tell you how to save and that's what this ep's about right Georgia and you you did just mention what I wanted to ask you which was about learned helplessness helplessness rather can you explain that a little bit more to those who might not have heard that episode or really understand what that concept really means so learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced distressful situation repeatedly. Essentially, Georgia, they've come to believe that they are completely unable to control or change their situation, so they stop trying, even when the

opportunity for change becomes available. This could be around millions of things. It could be a relationship. It could be your career. It could be that you think you can't cook. It could be savings. I think that that's the most important part here. So many of us will put ourselves in the basket, Georgia, and just go, well, I can't save. I'm really bad at savings or I'm really bad at X or I'm really bad at Y. So I just don't do it. I'm not going to try. And for me, that's a really limiting belief. Learned helplessness is that state where you have experienced negatives so many times that you now just say, well, I can't do it. And that could be for a multitude of different reasons. And the biggest one is because you weren't set up for success in the

first place. And, you know, we've seen this in money diarists looking back on, you know, podcast seasons. I remember one specifically, I can't remember her entire situation, but essentially she said on the podcast in her money diary, Victoria, I really want to save $10,000. And then she had Invisalign treatments and she had a whole heap of other stuff. And then at the end of the episode, we learned that she earned $40,000 a year, which meant that she was never actually going to be in a situation where she could feasibly save $10,000. And to me, she was setting herself up for failure. And I called that out at the time. And I just think it's worthy of mentioning here because we might all have really great goals. Like I could write down, Georgia, I want to save

10 grand this year. But that actually means that you have to have $10,000 available in your surplus cash flow to be able to spend or save. And if you don't have that, that was never going to happen. And I know that that sounds really disheartening, but at the end of the day, if you want to be saving $10,000 in a year, you've got to have an extra $833-ish per month to put aside so that you can actually achieve that goal. And if you don't have that, I'm really sorry, but it's not going to happen. So for me, budgeting cash flow is insanely important here so that you can understand what's going on. Because at the end of the day, if you set a goal that is unachievable, that is the easiest way to fall off the track, become disheartened, think that you're terrible at it,

no matter how hard you're trying. You might be in a position where you save every single dollar that's coming into your account. But what if you only have $5,000 coming into your account and you've set a stupid goal that, you know, it's not a stupid goal, but it's a goal that is stupid because it's going to make you upset and it's going to hurt you. And it's going to make you feel like you are helpless. And that is what learned helplessness is. It's a state that happens after you experience stress or you experience a letdown, or you see a negative thing happening to you. You just put yourself in a position where you just go, cool, well, I'm never able to achieve that. Instead of putting in place a plan that actually works.

and that's why I want to talk about it now or that's why you've brought it up I am assuming because we have the opportunity for change. We can be good at anything we put our minds to. We just need to create a plan to do that and that's what this episode is about. So say someone comes to you, they're in a graduate role and they're like, meh, I'm not going to save, I can't save.

I'm earning 50k a year, I could never save on that wage. It's barely enough for me to live with. What would you say to that? Sorry for doing a little scream there, I don't know what that was. I like the little la that you added in there. I'm sorry if you're walking on your, you know, Wednesday morning and you've got Georgia King and Victoria Devine literally yelling in your ears. I think that it is really important to set good habits up front.

So I know for some levels of income, it's really hard to say, like, please do not get me wrong. I don't want you to feel disheartened listening to this episode if you're like, but Victoria, like I've just done my budget and it says I can save $4 or Victoria, it says I'm actually spending more than I'm earning. like girl I get you and I get this and it makes so much sense that that's your situation but you are in a situation where now you know that and you can either change it or you can work with it but we can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend it's not happening so for me it's okay if you're

not saving like it is so fine but what I want you to be on top of is your budget and your cash flow so that you can be empowered so if you are young or you have a low income it is not about how much you can save it's about the plan that you create to put yourself in a position of success so it's about putting together a budget understanding you know where your money goes what comes in each month what needs to go out each month what you need to allocate for future bills what you're spending on your personal spending if you have any debt what those repayments look like but then also saying well do I have anything left over and if you can get that right from the very beginning even if you're saving let's call it a hundred dollars a month that is incredible because when your income

increases all of that additional income that you start earning is able to go straight to savings instead of experiencing lifestyle creep or spending more money on things that you hadn't allocated or aren't in line with your values and goals so for me it's about really outlining what you want to achieve and knowing that this stuff can't happen overnight like I wish savings were magical anybody who has a large amount of savings in their bank account right now will tell you that didn't happen overnight it's something that they have chipped away at and they see compounding over time and then they're like wow it's a thousand dollars and then it's three thousand dollars and then it's ten thousand dollars and they're like wait this feels like it came out of nowhere

but at the end of the day savings takes sacrifice and we need to be aware of that i reckon we can probably get to our hacks now would you like to reveal the first hack even though i kind of spoiled it before our first hack is having smaller savings goals rather than huge unattainable ones and you know i've said it before i often see people who come and see me and say victoria i want to save $20,000 this year, but I work part-time and I earn $40,000. That's a goal that you're just not going to reach. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news here. And this isn't to make you feel flat and I don't want you to feel deflated, but if that is your goal, it is not going to happen. So for me, unless you actually have 40 grand coming in, you live at home and you

have the ability to do that, great. But that is going to make you feel deflated and discourage you and you are less likely to want to continue on a positive financial journey if you set yourself a goal. So what we want to do is have micro goals and aim to put away a really realistic amount each month. Then it is so much easier for us to tick off our achievements and see the goals that we are meeting, which honestly, Georgia, is so much more sustainable than just pulling some figure out of the air that you think sounds sexy that you want to achieve within a year without any roadmap on how you're actually going to achieve that goal. So for me, it's often about working backwards. You want to save $10,000 this year? Fantastic. Your monthly goal is $833.33. Like

let's be specific. And if that is too big and you go, Victoria, I want to break it down even more. Fantastic. Weekly, you have to save $192. If you can do that, you're going to have $10,000 by the end of the year so for me it's about breaking goals down into more manageable pieces and if a goal feels unachievable or too big or too overwhelming break it down even more I don't care what that is even if you are breaking it down to the day this reminds me of that classic metaphor that you can't eat an elephant in one bite Victoria if you're gonna eat an elephant you gotta you gotta cut it up you gotta have it in little bites and that is kind of an analogy for how saving goals works, am I right?

I'm not going to lie. I've never heard that analogy, nor do I want to eat an elephant. But if you say it's a thing, I believe you and it makes a lot of sense. There's no way even if I wanted to eat a elephant that I could do it in one bite. No, absolutely not. All right, Georgia, on that, I'm not sure I love elephants enough to eat them, although I love them as animals. Let's move on to hack number two.

So hack number two is cut down on your non-essential spending. So I need you guys to be making a conscious effort to identify where you are spending your money on non-essential items and see if you can cut that down and put that surplus money into savings. So if you find yourself going out to dinner with girlfriends, not me at the moment, COVID life, on the weekend, more often than not, because that's just what you've gotten into the pattern of doing, why not suggest a dinner at home where everyone brings a plate save some money that way and talk to your friends about it I know that talking about money can be overwhelming but I guarantee you if you said to your friends hey guys we usually spend 50 bucks every time we go out on meals

and then we go out for a drink of rosé and we spend another you know 15 dollars a head how about we put that money aside we all bring a plate we save that money I wouldn't be mad if I had an extra 50 bucks in my savings account because one of my girlfriends came over for dinner winner honest winner but you can also still go out for dinner but I think it's really important to then think about how you can cut that down can you just order one glass of rosé instead of two or maybe don't get dessert or opt for the meal that is closer to $20 than $30 and a really good way of doing this is having a look at the vegetarian options on the menu list obviously not why I don't eat meat but I often find that the vegetarian options are far cheaper than the

meat paste options. It's all those little things that can really make a massive difference without causing a dramatic change in your lifestyle. Georgia, another one of these, which I don't abide by personally, but I think it's a hack nonetheless, is having your coffee at home. So not the most exciting hack, we've all heard it before, but making your coffee at home or choosing a cup from 7-Eleven, which is a dollar per cup, by the way, guys, rather than paying five or six dollars a day goes a very very long way for something that often seems quite insignificant even if you just cut back to buying a five dollar latte out three times per week instead of five that's an annual saving of 520 which you can put towards something totally more

meaningful to you if you aren't into instant coffee which let's be honest georgia i know we are both melbourne coffee snobs and they're probably yelling at us right now going like I'm not doing that. That's cool. But you can pick up some decent coffee machines for a really good price online. You can also buy one on Marketplace or Georgia more recently. This is an absolute hack. I was on a podcast recently with Phoebe Parsons from Diary of a Trainwreck, which was totally fun, really interesting conversation purely because I was having a really good time and she was a delightful person to talk to. She introduced me to the new line of Nescafe instant coffees and they do an almond and oat and a coconut latte in sachets and i was really

skeptical when she told me being honest they are completely dairy-free so if you're an oat milk lover like me fantastic option i tried them out money win it didn't taste terrible i honestly assumed that it would taste so sugary and i don't take sugar in any of my coffees so i was like oh this might not be great. Great. Fantastic. Oat milk latte for the price of, well, I think I got like six in a box for the price of one coffee. Winner, winner. That is a winner. That could have been your money win as well. That could have been a money win, but I completely forgot that I did that and it wasn't mine. Phoebe told me about it and then I went to Coles and look, I didn't even need to spend it. I had extra coffee that day. Not a money win, but definitely in the long

term, a great option to have in the pantry. And I love that oat milk gets another shout out there on the podcast we are actually gonna change the name of this podcast to she's on the oatmeal something in that yeah i think it's a great idea yeah it could be a little side project all right georgia king i want to hear some hacks from you what is our third hack this podcast all righty so hack number three is to be a more conscious consumer so this kind of that sounds like a nice thing to do for everybody it splits into two kind of subject areas i guess you could say So the first one is what Victoria always preaches, and that is putting time between you and your purchases.

So instead of just adding stuff to your cart and buying straight away, pop it in your cart, wait 24 hours, wait five days, wait a month, and see if you still really want that product or shirt or dress, whatever it may be, treat yourself. But if you, like more often than not, you're just not going to want it. That's what I find in my life anyway. the other subject area is sustainability and we spoke about this at length in our fast fashion episode I loved that episode by the way I thought that was so fun we need to do more fashion episodes and like beauty episodes and talk about things that we actually spend money on and how we

can be more conscious around those things 100% and the main things that came out of that conversation were to shop for pieces that will last you longer than a season or a week. I think in that chat we uncovered that most fast fashion items you wear a number of seven times and then they get thrown out. Yes, it was like you wear it for a week and then you put it out again. Yeah, and it was ridiculous. And there were so many stats in there about how bad fast fashion is for the environment.

So go back, have a listen if you haven't. The other really good thing that kind of ties into this is to delete shopping apps like ASOS, The Iconic, et cetera. So get them off your phone and then it's just out of sight, out of mind. If you can't see it, you don't want it. So I think that's been really helpful for me as well and I'd really recommend that one as a little hack. I love that and I think it's really important.

Like if it's out of sight, it is often out of mind and I know that that seems like a really silly tip. It's like, oh, just delete it. You're like, well, maybe I'll still spend it. It's like, no, because you'll forget to go and check and you go. there'll be a couple of times I promise where you open your phone and you're about to hit the ASOS app but then it's not there and you remember that you wanted to spend less and then you stop looking for that app and it becomes a habit and Georgia last week we had one of our self-care

webinars with our friend and psychologist Brianna and she was saying on this webinar that it only takes 21 days to form a brand new habit and I always thought that was just a saying but it turns out there's a heap of research behind it. So do something for 21 days, maybe delete all shopping apps from your phone for 21 days and give yourself a little bit of a challenge. You can create new habit. Fantastic. The same with Instagram as well. I had a little spell off Instagram for a few months and it was huge. I just didn't want anything because I wasn't seeing the influencers spruiking the brands and I just didn't really know what I wanted. So mainly I've been wearing a tracksuit for the last six months so looking good but you know saving thank you yeah

all right let's get into our next hack and this fourth hack is meal planning and I love talking about meal planning but meal plan as much as you can to reduce the temptation to order things from uber eats like I am really good at or grab expensive takeaway options I also find that often if I haven't planned a meal I'm very likely to go you know what I'm going to be really quote good and not go get uber eats or take a takeaway but I end up going to the supermarket and being more impulsive and ending up spending more at the supermarket like I'll go and go to get dinner for two people and I'll walk out with a $50 grocery bill and I'll be like how did that even happen I was just meant to get dinner for tonight so for me the more you plan the more you're going to save

and you'd honestly be so surprised at how much you can save. Say, for example, if you're eating Uber Eats twice a week, just yourself, that's probably $60 at least, including delivery. And times that by 52 for every week of the year, that's $3,120 that you've spent over the year when you could have just been a little bit more organized and instead planned for meals that are a little bit more affordable. So for me, that's a massive saving.

but what I want you to do for every time you say no to Uber Eats or a coffee, I want you to take that money that you were going to spend and transfer that straight into your savings account because at the end of the day, if you are leaving your savings that you have saved from not having Uber Eats and not putting it to good work, it's a waste because you'll see it in your spending account and you'll just spend it on something else. So we want to take it out of that situation and put it in a place where we can actually save it. If you're saving $60, you know, every single week, that's $3,000. Georgia, that's a holiday. Do you want Uber Eats twice a week or do you want to go on an extra holiday each year? Like, which would you like? Obviously, I want you to be

investing that in your future financial freedom. But let's be honest, like we can actually create a life that we really want when we put our head to it, if that makes sense. So I think that's really important. The second thing here is work out what reasonable and affordable swaps you can make. And Georgia, I know you love Aldi cheese. Surprise guys, Georgia's obsessed with Aldi cheese. No, but honestly, Georgia's obsessed with Aldi cheese. And I think that I was so surprised with Aldi and the amount of things I could swap. It's probably been really good because an Aldi has actually opened up in my suburb in the last I think six months probably longer than six months now ISO just feels like it's all one week and I've been going there far more and finding I'm spending

far less so for me I was really surprised at the quality and I was really surprised at how easy it is to save with them but then also they have catalogs and most supermarkets have catalogs let's be honest but they are super fun to look through and see all of the specials that are going on this week children i know you know the catalog day because you're a catalog fiend but i am not but i've recently gotten into it and i just i don't know i like seeing what i can save it's so fun it's weird even like dishwashing liquid and like dishwashing tablets because i'm an adult like i actually wait until they're on sale now to purchase them i'm like i am not buying that full price i know in a couple of weeks it'll be on sale and then i'm like checking to see if it

is on sale so that i make sure that i go down that aisle if i'm at the shop exactly there's something really satisfying about it anyway just to plug it in here we will be releasing a budget healthy eating ebook and doing a whole episode on how to budget for groceries really really soon so do watch this space we are working with Millie who is an absolutely fantastic dietitian maybe we'll actually link her in our um insta stories this week she'd love that so people can get on board early but she has been so delightful she's actually a friend of George's that I've roped in to do some work because she's on the money. But I'm really excited about this because I want a budget healthy eating ebook where we can actually work out how much each meal is and, you know,

maybe all save some money. Imagine if we could all save 60 bucks a week. Oh, it's a massive saving. Yeah. And people do ask about how they can save on their groceries a lot. So that'll be a great little episode. Victoria, next hack. We're up to hack number five. Hack five is make the most of the amazing tools that are out there. Things like roundup apps and templates cough she's on the money templates to help you save Georgia apps that help you round up without knowing it mindless saving is honestly the best and you guys know that I use these apps myself so round up there's it's not a new idea there are a fair few apps that do a lot of

different things we've spoken about a fair few of them on the show you guys would have heard of shop back which we adore you would have heard of raise which I really love it's an investment app that I personally use. You would have heard of Wiser, who are a new podcast partner for us. They are delightful, but they round up and they pay off debt, which honestly, if you're in debt, savings isn't a thing. Like you need to be getting out of debt before we think about savings. But these hacks, guys, these can all apply to paying down your debt faster as well. So if you're listening to these and going, but Victoria, I can't save. That is fine. But what I want you to do is apply these same things to get out of debt faster. You would have also heard of Sephora which

is a roundup savings app but we've spoken about them before but they are honestly so powerful because they automate it. They make things easy for you to do additional savings and you would be surprised about how they add up every single year. Also using templates can be really powerful to put money away each month or week to meet your goal and it's really fun seeing progress along the way as well. I know we've created a number of the coloring templates where you can color in a box each week and transfer that amount. Guys, we do have some templates that are being reworked at the moment. People request them so often, but if you want to use the ones that we've already got out there, you can find them in our Instagram highlights or in the Facebook group. Visuals

really help us see the cumulative impact of small savings achievements and can help you stay motivated and on track georgia the amount of messages we get from people being like oh i used your five thousand dollar savings hack or the other week i had a beautiful message from a lovely woman who said victoria i've just used your ten thousand dollar savings hack i bought a car outright i'm a single mom i didn't even know that this was possible and i just love that there are just different tools out there that can help us achieve things that we didn't think we could before Anyway, Georgia, I think it is now time for our sixth and final hack and you can take it away.

What is it, Georgia? What a privilege. All righty, guys. So don't be too over the top though. Hack number six is pretty much the most simple one here. Simply to be smarter with how you shop for your essential items, like your groceries, like your petrels. So essentially refraining from buying anything full price

is a really good idea, as we know from our fast fashion episode. Like the amount that those retailers put on top of the actual wholesale price of the product is ridiculous. So if for no other reason than to save yourself money, just don't buy things full price. Make the most of op shops, vintage sites and stores, markets, etc. Bulk food stores. I think we spoke about that last week or the week before on the show. Oh yeah, the spices.

Yeah, so you can just shop a little bit more creatively and you can save so much money. facebook marketplace is another great one ebay gumtree etsy you know there's there's just there's smarter ways that we can be shopping markets are another good one was there anything else v oh actually i wrote down here libraries as well and our libraries are so underrated georgia that is exactly the word that i was going to use sorry no no it is fine but libraries are extremely underrated they're not nerdy they're very cool but you know they've got everything they've got I mean, they're not nerdy, they're very cool, coming from two gals who run a finance podcast.

Like, I'm just not sure if you can trust our recommendation. But, guys, if you take one thing from this set that isn't a savings hack, it is honestly that libraries aren't underrated. If you have a library card, and I hope that our editor puts that song about library cards in the background of this conversation. All the thoughts and dreams of people throughout history and all you need is this little card to borrow them for free. A library has access to books, it has access to DVDs, you have access to e-books more often than

not and if you have a library card yeah exactly you will have a login to their online portal to listen to e-books for free and I think that that is awesome. So yes Georgia great hack but then also once we're out of COVID life a lot of libraries run mum and bub sessions as well so they'll have like reading sessions for young kids or babies and I just think that they have so many underrated resources that we just don't talk about enough and i know that there are a fair few librarians in our she's on the money community as well so shout out to you guys because you just don't get the credit you deserve if i'm being honest 100 um so i hope you guys enjoyed our hacks today but to kind of round out today's conversation victoria if someone came to you

and said hey victoria i'm useless at saving i always have been i always will be uh in a slightly deeper voice than mine what would you say to them i'd say why are you using a slightly deeper voice than george's but i'd also say stop thinking like that you absolutely can do it and you are as capable as anybody to start practicing good money habits and start taking control of your finances you need to just start small take on board a few of the hacks that we've provided today and when you fall down just get back up again don't beat yourself up and the sooner that you're out of that headspace the sooner you're going to start seeing the savings reflected back in your actual bank account for me it's more about just getting up and getting on with it don't judge

yourself past use mistakes like you use the tools and resources that you had at that time and I think you know talking about learned helplessness here was really important like choose to just try something different pick a new tool pick a template do something but don't try and do it all at once either because it can be a little bit overwhelming, let's be honest. Very well said. Before we head into today's listener question, I will be posting a little thread in our Facebook group today so that you guys can share your money hacks, tell us what you think about ours, and I might even splice them together and make a little blog for us all to have a little purr batch. Yes, please. All right, listener question, let's go. Hi girls, I have a question about saving and what I'm meant

to be doing at my age. So I'm 24 and I have $60,000 in the bank, but I'm not really saving for anything in particular. It's more that one day I'd like to buy a house or something, but at the moment it's like I'm addicted to saving. Sometimes I feel like I restrict myself too much and my friends do often call me tight, which is annoying. And I know most of them have nowhere near as much money as me, but I just kind of feel like I should keep on saving if that makes sense. Am I being a bad person by prioritizing my savings? Should I like spend more when I'm young? thanks girls all righty babe what should she do I think this is really important for her to remember that she's done an incredible job and I think she needs to give herself some credit for that

often when we start doing something though I know she said it can feel like she's addicted to it that's totally a thing we become so set in it it's all or nothing it's that kind of like all or nothing mentality where if you're not going really hard you're not good at it and it's kind of like that's not the case at all we actually need saving to be really sustainable and it is not realistic to expect to always be able to save that much and that aggressively and I think if we put that level of expectation on ourselves all the time we'll be really let down in the long term so I think she needs to remember one you're doing an incredible job but two we all need to live a bit like I am definitely not and this sounds hypocritical because one of our savings tips

was literally have a coffee at home. But like, I only want you to do that if that's in line with your goals and your values and something that is going to prove useful to you. I don't want you to be compromising your lifestyle because old age, let's be honest, is a grace that is not given to everybody. And I think that we need to enjoy life along the way and have a little bit fun. You've done a great job at saving and clearly you're incredibly good at that and also at delayed gratification, but life is there to honestly be enjoyed and you're working to earn money to pay for life, but also to enjoy your life. So I'm not saying don't be YOLO, but definitely, you know, give yourself a little bit more slack, like enjoy life, make sure it's in line with your goals and

values and go from there. Hi, I'm the 22 year old restricted traveler, and this is my money diary. now it's time for everyone's favorite part of the show a sneak peek into the financial lives of perfect strangers it's time for money diaries my attitude to money is that i guess i'm really good at saving when i have a goal in mind and i've got something i'm working towards but most of the time my goal is travel so i will go on these big extravagant holidays and i love it because that's what i love to do but yeah i'm really good at saving all my money and then going on these big trips and then coming home with nothing so I'm kind of working on changing that at the moment but yeah I'm working on it so what does our restricted traveler do how much does she

earn and how much is sitting in her bank account I'm a customer relationship specialist in a bank I make around $69,000 per year so it turns out to be uh $2,000 in my bank account every fortnight and how much money is in my bank account right now. I think total, I've probably got around $4,000. What happens to her income once it hits her account? First of all, my rent will come out. So I live with my parents, but that money comes out straight away. Then I've got $1,200 of it goes straight to savings. And then about 150 goes into like my expenses account for the fortnight. And then the rest will go into investments and just other savings accounts. What is her attitude to investing? I would like to do more investing. I was with Raise for a little while

but I've just taken all my money out of there and opened a spaceship account so I've got about $400 in there and I put in $15 a week into my spaceship account but yeah I'm kind of in a consolidating all my savings at the moment kind of mood so I would like to dabble in investing a bit more in the future. Does our restricted traveler have any debts? I have no debt right now. As of last week, I paid off my student loan in full and my account was closed yesterday. So I'm debt free. What is her best money habit? Being able to save really well. I'm really good at putting a goal in place and working towards it. And not a lot will sway me from that. But other than that, my biggest thing at the moment is having gone zero waste. I used to spend so

much money on skincare and beauty products, but since going zero waste, my spending on those things has drastically cut and I'm saving so much money. And what is her worst money habit? My worst money habit is probably traveling. I'm a really chill traveler, so I don't ever plan anything. And it always bites me in the butt because I miss the sales or I miss the good deals and stuff. So I think if I was a better planner, that wouldn't be a money fail. What is her big money goal? I've got a few right now. The next one is buying a car. So I want to buy a car with cash. Following on from that, I've got one more year of uni left and I want to pay uni fees upfront. So I've got

to save for that as well. And then third one is moving out. So I want to have a good set of savings behind me before I move out of my parents' place. And finally, what grade would the restricted traveler give her money habits? So I think probably 12 months ago, I would have been a B just because of my travel spending habits. But as of now, I feel like I'm finally getting my finances in order. So I'm going to give myself an A minus just because I haven't dabbled in investing as much as I would have liked to. Alrighty. Victoria Devine, talk to me about today's restricted traveler. I really liked this money diary because I feel like it's pretty relatable. She's quite young. She obviously loves travel, but doesn't allocate enough time to

planning for it in terms of savings I know that a lot of us are in a position where you know let's be honest not a lot of us are in a position where we travel a lot and we just are a bit loose about it but I do think that she was quite self-aware about you know needing to be a little bit more planned which I think is really important the more we plan the more we can save and the more we can allocate and honestly if we can budget for a good holiday we come back feeling far more empowered because we know we've still got some savings in the bank we know we are financially stable. And I think that's something that, you know, people stress about on holidays. We've all been on a holiday at some point and been like, oh, is that a good idea or not? And I think that

it's really important to remember that you're going on holiday to escape and have a really fun time. And the last thing you want to think about is money. So instead of not thinking about it on the trip and not before, think about it before, plan it before. So when you are on the trip, you know that you're fully okay. The second thing I wanted to mention is she's out of debt. She's officially debt free apparently as of yesterday, which I think is so fun. Like she paid off all of her student loans. She sounded like she was from New Zealand. She had a Kiwi accent. I love that accent as well. New Zealand is one of my favorite places, but I think that their loan schemes are completely different to ours. So she's not talking about ex guys. She's talking about an

actual student loan, but to be debt free. Amazing. I love that for her. I thought her rating was absolutely fine I do think that she could be a little bit more structured in terms of what she was you know planning on holidays with but at the end of the day that's in line with her values and I think it's really important that people are spending money in line with the things that are most important to them and she clearly knew that travel was something that was really really important to her so I love that and yeah that's that's the wrap of it from me Georgia King brilliantly said V the only thing I would mention as well that I thought it was really cool that she's gone for the zero waste option which is something I've been kind of thinking about

doing too so maybe I'll have to get in touch and pick up some tips but I thought that was yeah a great really neat little money diarist so I reckon it's probably time to wrap up the show now V what do you reckon absolutely let's go but before you decide to wrap up the show on me I would just like to acknowledge and pay respects to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples the traditional custodians of the lands waterways and skies across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay respects to the elders past and present and we share our friendship and kindness the advice shared on cheers on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual

circumstances cheers on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision and stress less we promise victoria divine is an authorized representative of australia pacific funds management propriety limited abn 34 132 463 257 afsl 339 151 and as always thank you to the big man brian john for putting up with us and for putting together today's podcast putting up with us is absolutely correct i feel sorry on a weekly basis but we would love if you joined our facebook group where our community shares money tips and tricks every single day free of judgment search she's on the money on facebook and join us if facebook's not your thing you can also find us on instagram we're at she's on the

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