She's On The Money - They Thought Insurance Was a Waste of Money. Then This Happened

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

This week's Money Diary starts with what should have been a straightforward hospital visit. Her husband was 32, healthy, active, and recovering from glandular fever when doctors spotted something completely unexpected on a scan. A few months later, they received the news nobody expects to hear: it was cancer. What followed was months of waiting, uncertainty and trying to keep life moving while living in limbo. But there's another part of this story that really stuck with me. Just over a year earlier, after hearing countless conversations about money, they finally decided to sort out their personal insurances. Not because they thought they'd need them. Just because it felt like the responsible thing to do. Thank goodness they did.  We talk about the diagnosis that changed everything, navigating a trauma insurance claim in your 30s, what financial security really means when life throws you something completely unexpected, and why this experience changed the way they think about money forever. It's a conversation about planning for the things you hope never happen, and why sometimes the most boring financial decisions end up being the most important ones. SORT YOUR INSURANCE: A big thank you to our partner Skye Wealth for bringing this episode to life. If you're ready to get your insurances sorted, you can learn more about them here.We have a long standing referral partnership with Skye Wealth and only ever partner with people we trust.  CHECK OUT THE SOTM INVESTING HUB: Full of our best investing freebies, resources, courses and podcast episodes here. INVESTING FOR BEGINNERS: All our best beginner's investing podcast episodes in one place here. Ready to binge more relatable, inspiring, and downright juicy money stories? Check out our ultimate Money Diaries playlist. Listen now Join our Facebook Group AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+. And follow us on Instagram for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you.  Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 4451289See 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 yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan, mumubangada boma ininyalan waka, gaunan yakarumja, wutunarana. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's On The Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,

bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast that lets you be pervy about other people's money stories for educational purposes, of course. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries brought to you by our friends at Sky Wealth, where I get the absolute privilege of sitting down with one of our incredible She's On The Money community members and talking to them all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week

I got a message and it sounded exactly like this. Hi, She's On The Money. After hearing countless discussions from the She's On The Money team, my husband and I finally decided to get our insurances assessed and updated through Sky Wealth. Our policies were set up in late 2022 and a little over 12 months after setting it up, it was discovered that my husband had early stage renal cancer. Approximately 18 months after our policies were set up, he was approved for a full trauma payout. Sky Wealth were phenomenal, not only in initial setup, but throughout the whole claims process. I now recommend personal insurances to absolutely everyone. Also, my husband is now cancer-free and doing very well. Money Diarist, what a stressful thing to go

through. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a lot of waiting, a lot of limbo for about six months, but we're out the other side. We're really lucky how it was caught. It was very early, very treatable, and he's doing great now. Oh my goodness. All right. I'm going to dive straight into the questions because I'm going to come back to that. I just have a lot of questions but if I was to ask you to give yourself a money grade from A through to F, what would that grade be? I would probably put myself at about a B. I love that. I'm a lot better than I used to be but still a lot of improvement. Okay, let's dive a little bit further in. My favorite question but I don't know if it's going to be my favorite question this time is can you tell me a little

bit more about your money story and about your husband's diagnosis and everything that went on because not only does that feel like it was really stressful, but you guys are quite young. Yeah. So we've been together a long time. We got together when I was 17. He just turned 18. Just babies. Yeah. Yeah. So most of our money stories together, we earned money and we spent it. We never really thought about it. We did what we wanted to do. We traveled, we had fun. And then about five years ago, COVID hit, couldn't travel and I found your podcast and actually started thinking, well, we might need to do something with our future. So I binged the heck out of your podcast. I love this. My millennial money also got

a good run as well. Good, good. We love Glenn. We love diversity of opinion. And I cannot say this enough, like listen to all of the money podcasts, not just my little cult, like all of them, because there might be something that they say that resonates better. And I don't care as long as you're in a better position, 10 out of 10. Absolutely. But when you're listening to repeat podcast with Phil, you're like, oh, I need to do that now. So I did. We reached out to them. They were amazing. They laid out all the options. We took them up on everything they suggested. Mine was abysmal, what I had set up. So we canned mine, went all newbies with them. Isn't it so disappointing?

Oh yeah, it's terrible. Because you just go, oh, I've been wasting money on, wait, they've been taking my money for that? Yeah, literally. I think I had $50,000 coverage and that was it. That in this economy? Absolutely not. It was nothing. My husband does have a pretty good work policy, but it only covered much smaller amounts than what we wanted. So they did a combo with him. We got it all set up. I think it was finalized early 2023, just with some back and forth medical stuff. And then pretty much bang on 12 months after that, he landed himself in hospital with glandular fever of all things.

And yeah, they did a CT scan because he had a bleeding spleen and they found the cancer in his kidney oh my god so obviously that's horrific to go into hospital for glandular fever like that is awful to begin with yeah but had that not happened you probably wouldn't have discovered this cancer we never would have known because most of them are pretty symptom free until it's really bad pretty much yeah they say that not only is it exceptionally slow growing so it would have been probably a decade before they found it by the time they do find it it's usually you know blood in the urine and stuff but by then it's usually spread usually really bad by that point. Oh my goodness. So what's that like? You obviously go into

hospital for glandular fever, which, you know, horrific to begin with, but also not the worst thing in the entire world. No, like he was bad. You would expect to just go in for a couple of days, come out, have some rest and go home. But you went in and got a cancer diagnosis. Pretty much. And because of his age, he was only 32 at the time, they were really reluctant to confirm that it was cancer. The most common is men over 65. He hit no markers. He's not overweight. He's not a smoker. And he's obviously way too young. So they were really reluctant to diagnose it without a biopsy. But because of the glandular fever, they wouldn't do a biopsy. They couldn't get in there. So he had to wait like four months for that to all go down so they

could actually get in there and biopsy it. So they didn't actually confirm it until I think it was May of that year. So you guys were told, hey, we think we might see cancer, but we're not going to tell you it's cancer. Also, can you wait four months and just have this in the back of your mind for the next four months? Is that how that happened? In a way, I'm really upfront with these things. We just want to know. So we just kept saying to them, we know that there's a strong possibility that this is what it is and that's okay. Don't worry about saying the word. We're okay with it. We'd rather know. Our main concerns initially were he was having problems with his liver and his spleen. And we thought, oh my gosh, has it spread? Is it somewhere else? That was our

main concern. So once we knew it wasn't anywhere else, we were pretty okay with it. He obviously had his moments. It was a rough few months for him. But in the scheme of things, we were okay with it. We knew that it was confined and even having to wait, we knew that surgery should sort it out and that should be enough. So we're pretty pragmatic about it. But just the anxiety and very grateful I've not been in that situation before, right? You know, and everyone says, oh, in that situation, I would X, Y, Z. And you never know how you're going to react in that situation. But for me, I think I would prefer someone to say, Victoria, that's cancer.

And then I deal with it and then then come back later and be like, whoops, sorry, we were wrong. Yeah. Then the opposite. Like, can we just deal with it as the most dramatic outcome first? I know it would be scary, but I'd prefer that than the opposite and then have it missed. That's probably us as well. But I also understand there's a lot of people that probably hear the word cancer and it would really like send panic stations. So I get

why they're cautious, which is why I was just up front with it. Even nurses and stuff, I felt so sorry for them. They're trying to do handover and I'm like, we know that it's there. Don't stress. You don't need to point at your clipboards and stuff. It's okay. If you need to talk about it, just mention it. We're not worried. It's like, we are worried, but not but also thank you nurses for being so empathetic and not trying to freak us out yeah they were trying to be so so sweet about it and so cautious and not make it super obvious that they were trying to tell them about it but I'm like it's okay you can say it it's fine we're comfortable enough knowing that it's there and it's not really bad if that's what it is oh my

goodness and like 32 like that is just so young to go through something like that talk to me about I guess your wider money story like you guys grew up how? I'm an only child I grew up with both my parents working my whole life very comfortable life I never really thought about money it's just if we wanted to do something we did it yeah so it just sort of never really was a consideration for me my husband has a few siblings and he grew up in a single parent home for most of his latter life and so there was a little bit more money issues on that side because his father was the one that paid for a lot of their life growing up. And then later in life, they split up. So there's a lot more on their side. But it was just sort of something we never

really thought about. We just, we went to work, we worked hard, we earned money and we spent it. And it was only, yeah, you sort of hit 30 and you go, oh, we probably shouldn't do this anymore. We probably should actually be smarter than this and have some good foundations, good money sitting there and not be sitting there going, oh, I'll have to wait till pay week next week or whatever totally and I feel like when we're younger we just think that the adult happens to us like we don't build the adult we just one day we'll wake up and we will have probably 2.5 kids and a house and you know two perfect cars in the driveway that's what happens right that's adult like it just yeah you blink and it happens yeah like in my head that was just what was going to

happen like it was arguably not consensual like I was going to become an adult one day I don't know when that was going to happen but then you kind of hit your 30s and you're like hold hold why are we doing how does this yeah why hasn't this happened yet you mean i'm in control of this well that's not very fair so obviously before your husband's diagnosis you guys were working and hustling and getting stuff together you started consuming podcasts yeah so we had started getting our finances in order first obsessed so what did you do for work how much money were you earning or even now at the time i was earning about 60 000 and my husband was earning about 80 we've both improved a lot since then he's on about 120 now and I'm on about 100 plus super

for both of us so we've improved that quite a lot hold on that's a whole side conversation how do you go from 60 to 100 in that period of time so I worked for a small business for a very long time and I had a lot of perks that went with that like it wasn't it wasn't just a $60,000 job I got a lot with that but as far as the actual earning capacity that was kind of the limit of what the business could afford and what the job was. They retired a few years ago. And so I took the opportunity to look for something else and yeah, jumped into something a lot higher. How cool. And then your husband was on 80 or is on 80? Yeah, he was on 80 at the time that he was diagnosed and just with a few career changes

internally at the company he works at, he's now on 120. Adore. Now, what type of work does your husband do? Is it like office-based? Is it like field-based? What does that look like? He works from home exclusively, which makes me incredibly jealous sometimes. They sent them home in COVID and they've just never gone back. I reckon he sees the office three times a year and it's usually when somebody's retiring and they're having a lunch. I would go in for lunch. Absolutely. I totally get why he does.

I totally understand that. He works exclusively from our office. He is a software engineer. Gorgeous. He's at a computer constant. How fun. So talk me through, obviously going through that diagnosis, you guys had plans, like you'd started consuming content and getting your finances together, which can be super empowering, but also then getting a diagnosis like that, you might spiral and reassess everything that's going on. What did that look like when you got that diagnosis financially? Because you're not

just going, oh, okay, well, I've got insurance, money win, I'll just get a big payout. Like sometimes there's a bit of animosity. And you said that there was four months before he got a diagnosis. And can I assume that he was not well during that four months? He was okay. Mentally, he struggled probably more than anything, just that limbo. He was really lucky. His work was incredible. They were very flexible. He had a lot of sick leave. He's been there a long time, but they were also very flexible with, you know, you just take the time you need don't worry about it we'll sort it out so he was very flexible in that time once the glandular fever was gone he was actually really good so he was probably pretty well for most of

it it was just that dealing with the mental side more than anything yeah and that's like such a really important point to kind of point out is that your husband had cancer and he was acting fine like glandular fever aside like there's no other reasons that you guys would have questioned or gone and done this full medical and even if you'd gone and done a full medical why would you have paid out of pocket for that scan that diagnosed him essentially so that to me yeah is is kind of terrifying but also a really really good reason as to why like you just never know like everyone always says this type of stuff happens to other people it doesn't happen to us like was that where you guys were at when the diagnosis happened a little bit yeah like

everything just stops. Nothing matters. You're just, you're going through the motions. You're in limbo. That was how he described it. He just, he didn't know what to do because he didn't know. He thinks he does, but he can't do anything about it. He wanted it out of him. He really desperately wanted it cut out, but it was just, yeah, like waiting and yeah, just nothing. You don't really remember the time because you don't remember what you did or what you were thinking about or because it's just everything stops. So did your money goals change from pre-cancer diagnosis to post? I think we've probably become a lot better at going, oh, you know, we need to be really on top of this and making sure that we've planned for our future and stuff. Like I said,

we had all of our insurances obviously were set up, but we've been much better at going, okay, we need to reassess now. Incomes have gone up. Family circumstances have changed. We've been much better at going, yes, you need to do that now. Don't wait. Just do it. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And so what do your money goals look like today? What are we currently working towards? Well, at the moment I'm 20 weeks pregnant, so I'm working on having 12 months off. So at the moment we're kind of heavily trying to invest at the moment because we know that's going to take a backseat once I'm not working. The goal is for me to have about 12 months off, which we think should be achievable. I'll be paid probably about 75% of it based on all the different

leaves that you can get and the remaining 25% we should be okay on just his income. And worst case, I'll just go back a little bit early if I need to. Stop it. That's so exciting. You didn't drop that earlier. That is literally so exciting. Let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I want to talk about these investments that you've just mentioned. I want to talk about debt. I want to talk about what you did with your payout. And then we're going to talk about best and worst money habits. So guys, don't go anywhere. Our 1000th episode is coming up soon. And to celebrate, we're giving one clever listener a chance to win. She's stashed the cash. Today's mystery word is minutes. Tune into episodes of She's on the Money between the 17th of June and

the 3rd of July and listen out for the hidden code words. There are five in total. The first person to arrange the code words in the correct order will win $1,000. Entries open on Friday the 3rd of July with details shared live on the pod. Good luck and happy hunting. Money Diarist, we are back and you are 20 weeks pregnant, which is just so exciting. And also, can I be really pervy because it's obviously anonymous, but after a cancer diagnosis, was that something that you were like, we're not sure if that's going to be a reality for us or not? We were assured that there would be no issues with that side, but we were really worried about the genetic component. So we did do a lot of pre-testing to make sure that things were okay. We're also a little bit

older and not old by any means, but we were a little bit older as well. So we were concerned that maybe there could be some genetic issues that might pop up. So we did do a bunch of that pre-testing. So what type of genetic testing did you guys do? Did you just go to like a fertility expert or did you like Google it? Like what did that look like? So we had a chat with our GP and we went through it all because she's been through it all with us. She suggested a few different options. So I went through all of the scans where they go in and check egg count and all that sort of stuff. They also did quite an extensive blood panel on both of us that was done through a genetic testing lab. So it's relatively expensive. It's not super expensive, but it's not cheap

either. But from our perspective, we really wanted to confirm it, especially from my husband's side that there's nothing that was technically there that was going to be passed on or if there was we were aware of it we could do about it exactly like it's obviously a privilege to be able to do that but at the same time like I think for me because I also did the same thing not because we had a similar circumstance I just had worked in the space for so long but I was like it's the devil you know right like having gone through claims processes with clients and having seen things happen, I'm like, what can I do to make sure that my babies are in the best possible position? And for me, spending the money just made sense. Same for us. But we did the full

blood panels. I remember spitting into a cup and they did genetic testing on that. Yeah, they did do that too. I was like, why if you've got my blood, do you also need my saliva? But anyway, that for us was like a really big peace of mind thing. Cause I was like, okay, cool. We're okay now let's talk about investments because you said that you'd started your like journey and like you guys are trying to invest right now yeah have you invested your trauma payout is that what's going on here or like what does that look like no not entirely so I started out investing a few years ago with your stuff I used to do like surveys and stuff like that and any extra money I get from that would be what I would invest okay and even like I love this collecting like bottles

and stuff like that for your 10 cents and I would just add all that up and once I hit a certain amount of money, I would just invest it. Same if I got gifts or anything like that. Like my man a few years ago when she passed away, she'd left me a little bit of money and I put that in and stuff like that. But anything I wasn't expecting, that went into investing. And then when he got the payout, that was when I was transitioning. We knew that I was going to be finishing at that job that year. And we were planning to go overseas for four months. So at the time, we had been saving and it was fine. And then we made a few bunch of changes with that and we ended up spending more on that trip from that payout. We didn't spend all of it, of course. We spent probably

10%, I suppose. It was a fairly small amount of it. Small, but still, that's a lot of money. It was, yeah. And then there was a small amount of it that went into maintaining our life when we got back and before I could get another job, which was only just over 12 months ago. we still have a fair chunk of it but we're yeah we're sitting on a fair amount of it still in cash but that is a really nice place to be like obviously you guys went through so much and it would always be in the back of your mind as well like could it come back like obviously there's a lot of animosity around you know a relapse and that's okay but just to know that you're going to be in a better position financially to support yourselves going through that yeah to me that's

the biggest money win. And I think part of keeping a fair amount of the cash is you sort of have this worry of like, Oh, what if something just changes overnight again? And yeah, we just, yeah. So we have a fair amount of it sitting there. Part of that is not knowing what's going to happen with maternity leave that we figured that we'll keep some of it there for that. But ultimately we will invest what's left. Yeah. That's so exciting. Now tell me when you started your investment journey, how did you start? Like, did you download an app? Did you go straight to the Vanguard website? Like what were you doing to get your journey kicked off? I went with ComSec Pocket and I went with Global 100 and Aussie Top 200 because I thought that's boring and that's stable and that's me.

But we love a boring investment portfolio. And have we changed? What does that look like now? Not really. I still do have those. We also do have some tech and also we have BDHG as well. I love that. I feel like we never recommend it, but like everyone I talk to in the She's money community is like, hey, BDHD. I'm like, yeah, yeah, queen. I see where we're going. We all have similar tastes. Yeah. Just my dad has always drilled into me that boring is great. Just can't go wrong with that. And then after my own heart, talk to me about debt. Are you in any debt? If so, what does that look like? Yep. So we have an investment property, which has a debt of about 480,000 at the moment. And yeah, we just don't really pay too much extra

offer. We do have the cash sitting in the offset to help with the interest, but we just sort of let it do its thing. Cool. Talk to me about investment property as a decision, because obviously that's another form of investment, but you don't own the house that you live in. You've rent vested. So sort of. We purchased a property that we lived in. We lived in it for four years. And then my mom decided to retire a couple of years ago and they wanted to travel a lot. And whenever they traveled, we always looked after their house. And I said to them, I said, I have no problem with you doing that. But if you're going to be away nine months of the year, I don't really want our apartment just sitting here. Yeah, literally. Because I knew they were

going away for four months. So it's like straight off the bat. And so yeah, we moved home. We moved in with my family. Perfect. Sorry, we moved in with my parents, but also my parents don't go here. Money win. Yeah. Yeah. So they're here maybe four months of the year sporadically. Sometimes it's four months at a time. Sometimes it's a few weeks here and there. So they're back and forth all the time. I love that for them. Yeah. So they can work for everybody. When they're here, it's completely fine. We get on really well. The house is laid out in a way that's really easy for dual living. But yeah, so they can get up and go whenever they want and they can go for however they want and they don't have to worry about it. That is actually incredible. To be

pervy on their money story, was that always something that they had planned? Were they like, when we retire, we're going to travel the world or was it? They've always been huge travelers. Like my whole life, we've always traveled. As they've gotten older and had more money, they've obviously traveled more and more and more. But I don't think it was necessarily in their plans that they'd never be here. They do have a holiday home that they do go to quite regularly as well. But it just means they have a lot of freedom that they can just get up and go whenever they want. If they decided they wanted to go to their holiday home next week, it's not a big deal. They don't have to worry about it. That's actually the dream. Like you're just

selling me on the perfect retirement. They can travel whenever they want. They can do whatever they want. They've got a little holiday house that they go to. Like when I grow up, I want to be your parents. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Like iconic from them. Now, the next question I was going to ask, but we know the answer to that is, do you have personal insurances? Yeah. But I'm actually going to ask, how has that changed? So obviously you've probably got your full suite of personal insurances set up and still ticking along, but your husband has claimed on his trauma. So what does that look like now for him? He had the payout two years ago, I think it was. And then, so there is then a period where he didn't have that trauma insurance. I think it

was 12 months from memory, but he reinstated it as soon as Sky let him know that it was ready to go. He just has a caveat on it now. Yeah. So essentially if he gets the same cancer again, he won't get a trauma pay up but if it hypothetically moved anywhere else he will right I believe so yeah unless they can directly link them in some way yeah but yeah if something completely unrelated happens to him again then it's back up and running that's such peace of mind especially now that you're like we're also planning a family like we're having a baby I want to make sure that you are absolutely covered in this circumstance talk to me about guy wealth Let's be pervy on them for a hot second. Because I think that a lot of people just assume that

you go, you get your insurances set up, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, you leave their ecosystem. But that's not how it works, is it? So what happened with you guys once you got a diagnosis? Did you call Phil up? Did you send them an email? Like, what did that look like? So I emailed them to sort of explain, hey, we think this is what's going on. we don't really know what to do here. Is this something that's claimable? Because at the time, I mean, even though you think that these things are what they're for, you don't really know exactly the ins and outs of what you've got to do. But I emailed our advisor at the time was Trent. We emailed him and he immediately got it straight to the claims team. They sent everything through.

They said, obviously, we need to wait for confirmed diagnosis. They needed some doctors things and whatnot. But essentially, it was like, you email us the details and we'll take care of and they did. They dealt with everything. I think there might've been the odd bit of paperwork here and there that Craig had to sign. And that was it. How good. And I feel like that takes a weight off you because you're not dealing with the insurance companies yourself either. You're just forwarding all of the information onto them. They're like, Hey, can we get a quick signature here and there? But like, they're the ones hounding the insurance company and following up and being like, where's that payment? What's going on? What else do you need? Because that's.

yeah it just takes the admin totally off you exactly and i feel like during that period of time that is the last thing that you need now talk to me about your best and worst money habits because i feel like you said you're a b but you've got stuff pretty sorted like talk to me what do you think your best money habit is i'm very good at having a baseline so i work in shift work so i have a base pay that i earn and then anything over that i'm very good at going no that's what we invest. We don't need to, that's our extra money. Let's budget based on our base pace. So anything extra, I'm very good at differentiating and just putting it straight aside. And if I invest it straight away, then I won't spend it. Fair, fair. And was that something that took a bit of like

mindset shift to get to, or is that something that you were like, no, it just made sense. Cause I feel like so many of us that do shift work in our community are like, no, that's extra money and I blow it like that's my fun money no I deserve that because I worked late I was really worried I would do that and I think that's why I did it that way I was like if I'm getting double time for working on a Sunday just save it or do something with it and investing it means I won't spend it if I just put it in an account I would find something I could spend it on yeah and I am also like that not that I do shift work but like I have to allocate it or I will spend it I will find something for that. I'm very good at that. I'm a resourceful queen on asos.com at the moment.

Literally any website, Instagram ads, they just, they kill you. Oh, TikTok ads get me. They're so bad. Money Diaries, tell me, what is your worst money habit? If I want it, I'll do it. If I say, oh, let's go on a holiday somewhere, it will happen. Some way or another, it will happen. And that's not always most financially smart decisions. And I don't tend to skimp or yeah I won't necessarily cut back if I want to do something a certain way it will get done that way come hell or high water yeah okay I kind of love that because it looks like you've like supported yourself well and I mean you've got an investment property like you're structuring yourself really well but also you're saying that's gonna happen regardless yeah pretty

much yeah and there's certain things that I will skimp and save on like I don't want to pay for parking at work and I don't want to buy that extra cup of coffee, but I want to go to Europe. Oh yeah, that'll happen. We'll find a way. Fair. And now that we've spoken, at the start of the episode, you were like, I'm a B. What would it take to get you to be an A? What would that actually look like for you? I need to be much better with my budgeting. I think that as good as I can be with saving and putting money into investments and things like that, as I said, I'm very good at just going, oh no, let's just do that and we'll just spend the money anyway. I think if I budgeted better, that probably wouldn't be such a hit as often as it is.

And what does your budgeting system look like right now? What would make it better? Is it a spreadsheet? Is it a back of a napkin? What does that look like? Spreadsheets. Yeah, I like spreadsheets. I probably just need to be a little bit better at not trying to overextend and going, or leave a little bit of room for movement, or maybe actually assessing what things cost a little bit better than what I sometimes do. and just actually allocating money a little bit better. But that's confronting, like having to look at it and go, oh, groceries don't actually cost that.

They cost $50 more than that. I don't want to know. Like I do. And obviously I would say that I'm a budget queen. Like I'm in my spreadsheet every second day. I actually have mine saved on my desktop of my computer. And whenever I see it, I click it. I'm like, oh, yeah, where are we at?

Has anything changed? Because I love updating it. But I'm going to gift you my money masterclass, which has the budgeting spreadsheet that I've built in it, which is going to force you apologies in advance to actually go through what everything costs. Cause then it spits out, okay, if all of this costs, this, this is the accounts that those need to go into. This is how much you're spending here. Like tells you everything. No, that's amazing. Yeah. I probably need that. So I'll set you up with that as a little thank you for doing such a good money diary. But I also think

that it will really help you. If you're like, oh, I just need to like do it. I'll give you a new shiny one to do it with. Yeah. And sometimes all you need is new and shiny and that makes you do it. Right. Like, and it's pink. Like I'm here for it. Your husband might not love it as much as you do, but it sounds like you're in control of that anyway. So sit down. He could not care less. Yeah. Sit down. He just looks at it and goes, oh, okay. Why are they like this? Yeah. He just looks at it and goes, yeah, you do whatever. Thanks, King. I love that for us.

Anyway, Money Dirst, it has been a pleasure sharing this time with you and just getting to know your money story. But also, thank you for sharing so much about arguably a very vulnerable journey. Like, that's a lot. And to come on a podcast and be like, hey, I'd like to talk about my husband's cancer diagnosis and what the insurance process looked like. Like, that's not little. So I really do appreciate it because I just, my hope for this episode is that people go,

I've been thinking about it. I know I need to do it. And then they actually do it because we all think it's going to be someone else. Like we all think, oh, that'll never happen to me. And then it is you. Absolutely. And even just the quick 15 minute chat with them, have a chat. They'll hook you in. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, have a good rest of the day. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a

financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's on the Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.