She's On The Money - This Is What They Don’t Tell You About Having a Financial Safety Net

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

She graduated top of her class, a had a house, and $200K in savings. On paper, she was set. But then came chronic health issues, three kids, and two cancer diagnoses... and suddenly the plan didn’t matter. This week’s Money Diary is about what happens when full-time work isn’t an option, savings don’t last forever, and success looks a lot different than it used to. Our Money Diarist talks about walking away from an investment property, learning to live with less, and figuring out how to rebuild without burning herself out in the process. If you’ve ever had to make hard calls, slow everything down, or just survive the season you’re in, this one’s for you. 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 Natarsha 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 - 451289.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

hello and welcome to she's on the money the podcast lets you be pervy about other people's money habits for educational purposes of course welcome back to another episode of money days where we get to talk to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because we got a message this week and it sounded exactly like this. Dear She's on the Money, I went to uni to study property economics with the big dreams of working in property development and having my own portfolio. Despite graduating top of my class, life had other plans for me. An operation on my foot, three babies, COVID and reoccurring cancer meant I've never had the chance to use my degree, and the jobs I've held have

never felt secure. Now, I'm feeling stuck. I want to start a new career, but I know how hard that can be when you can only work part-time. But with everything I've been through, the one thing I've learned is that you never know what's around the corner, and sometimes taking life day by day is more than okay. Money Diarist, welcome to the show. I am genuinely so excited to learn a little bit more about your money story. As always, I kick off the show asking all of our money diarists the exact same question. So let's start there. Money diarist, if I asked you to give yourself a money grade from A3 to F, what would you give yourself? Probably currently, I reckon somewhere in the middle for like a C. I reckon I've gone up and down on that at times though.

Let's learn a little bit more about that. I'm not going to ask specifically about it yet because we'll get into that. Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? So essentially, I probably, gosh, 10 or so years ago, studied a Bachelor of Business Property. I hoped to get into property development at the time. I did quite well at uni, got highest GPA in my course, got a medal for that. It was all looking pretty awesome. And I ended up starting to work in a credit union, which definitely wasn't for me. It wasn't my vibe. So I went back to the retail job I had during uni. And then I started interviewing for a few property valuation jobs and found out I needed a bone removed from my foot.

What? Which stopped me working for six months, essentially. And then even after that, I had to ease back. I couldn't stand full time on my feet. How do you discover, oh, hey, money diarist, we would like to take a whole bone from your foot. Like, was your foot sore? Like, what was the...

It was an extra one, like, yeah. You just had a... Did you have bonus bone? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. It didn't really feel like a bonus. It would stop me walking properly. So I had that out. So I've been, I probably should say as well, I've been with my husband since we were probably like

14. So through all of this time, he also went to uni and also got a job out of uni. So he was working through all this stuff for me. And I also did come into a bit of inheritance. So we were able to, once I had gone back a little bit into my retail job, actually no, I'm saying that, I reckon we bought a house before I had that surgery. So yeah, we used some of that inheritance, mostly his job we spent about 282 000 so in today's market quite a quite a cheap house just sort of entered the market so that was a big win for us at that point we were pretty stoked we were very good savers very i don't like to use the word stingy but yeah like we yeah we're pretty stingy we just lived within our means and we were pretty good savers back then we call that frugal

we call that savvy we can reframe that yeah savvy that's the right way yes yeah she's savvy she's smart with her money. She's strategic. Yes, yes. And having studied property like I was all over, I knew exactly what to look for. So that helped us for sure. And then I actually found out while I was still kind of recovering from that foot surgery that I was pregnant, which is very exciting. That is very exciting. Not so good with a sore foot because like it's already not a comfortable experience. Well, I mean, it wasn't too bad. I was starting to get back into it, but it did just mean I couldn't work full time. So I wasn't eligible for paid parental leave. I hadn't been able to get back into working. So in the end, yeah, I just had to, yeah,

just work my few hours a week and try and save enough money to have a baby without any paid parental leave. And then obviously going into that knowing I didn't really have a good job or a career set up with now the challenges of parenting and motherhood and the fact that it would make it quite difficult to get into full-time work, especially within the property sector. I'm in South Australia, not as many options as say the East Coast, for example. So that also limited it, but especially with part-time work. So I would either need to kind of go in full-time and put my daughter in care full-time, which wasn't something I really felt was right for me. So I ended up getting just a sales job when she was about 10 months old.

and at that point like I was selling wedding gowns so it was good it was fun it wasn't I kind of liked that there wasn't too much sort of pressure and I could go home and be mom and then bring in a little bit of extra money but at that point then COVID hit and I also was pregnant with my second daughter and she was a much rougher pregnancy but also the bridal store I worked at ended up closing down just after COVID hit oh no yeah they were about to sell the business anyway And then obviously when everything turned, they ended up just closing. So luckily it was around the time I was going on maternity leave anyway, but I knew I wasn't going back to a job, but I was able to get paid parental leave for that time. So we were in a much better kind of standing that

time round. Good. I was like, did you get the parental leave this time? Like, please tell me that you did. It makes such a difference. Cause I know for some people they're like, oh, like it's minimum wage. It doesn't matter. But like, like it's the thing that takes the weight off your shoulders like you just don't feel like you're hamstrung the entire time like it is so powerful yeah and we were able to save half of that so that we could kind of extend it out because we were able to kind of get by on my husband's wage his wage is pretty decent he's an engineer but it did just mean we could put a bit aside as well to extend the time I had off but it was sort of after that point that everything kind of as much as it already kind of felt a little bit crazy it

went even more so. So I ended up being diagnosed with cancer when my daughter was probably just over a year old, I think at that point. So I think I just actually had a big interview at a job I'd really hoped to get. It was full time, but it was really at that point I decided that's the only way I was going to get into property. And I got pretty close to the end. I had a fair few interviews and I unfortunately did miss out. But lo and behold, I think the next day I got the call to say like, we need to take this out it looks like it probably is cancer and if I had gotten that job I wouldn't have been able to do it anyway so I suppose it kind of the universe had a way of just like making it not feel like you missed out and had to say no because of that but like that is just so trash

so you had two kids one was one and what one was three is that right yes that's right and just like doing some mental maths and going okay well she said she had a baby here and then she did this and then she did this. Yeah, no, there's roughly two years between them, yeah. But like one and a three-year-old and you get diagnosed with cancer, that is shit. I am so sorry. Tell me a bit more about that journey. So it was a relatively kind of simple, like I just had to have surgery. They removed it. So it was actually in my neck. It's quite a rare form in my salivary gland. So there's not in a, it's like a double-edged sword. There was no, like chemo doesn't work on it. So there was limited treatment options. So in a way that was good, but also it meant really all they could

do was surgery. So I just had surgery, healed. My next few scans over the following months came back all fine. So they kind of gave me the go ahead when I said, oh, would it be okay? Do you think if I had another baby? And they're like, yeah, no, everything's looking good. You're set. That's fine. I mean, always knowing there was a possibility it would come back, but I think we all felt pretty positive. It was small. They'd got it early. So I did, probably before I got pregnant, I did get a new job working at a car dealership. And again, through COVID, that was a fun time when cars were like 18 month waits. Yeah. You're like, I'm here to sell cars, but I have no cars to sell. Hello. Welcome. Would you like a coffee?

It was, I got the fun job of like updating everyone and telling everyone that they would have to wait another few months and they were delayed even more. So it was quite stressful, but it was also the time we were wearing masks a lot, right? So I started having some symptoms twitching in my mouth. Luckily no one could see me because I would have looked like a complete lunatic but we then went to kind of investigate what was causing that they thought it could have just been a side effect from the surgery but unfortunately well they did a scan actually when I was pregnant with my third child and it looked okay but I did request they do it again once he was born because they couldn't do the contrast and die while pregnant so

I had sort of gone on maternity leave at that point so I was intending to go back to this job and then we found out when he was probably two months old and I had that scan done again that it was back and so this time I had to have surgery again and then also radiation treatment but it was quite a substantial one of the sort of biggest I think I went for seven weeks every day to have radiation um and you couldn't really eat it affects your energy and things so that kind of um yeah and you've got three babies like you've got three little kids at home which is exhausting in itself like you're probably stressed out of your brain because you're thinking what the hell am I gonna do like that all adds to oh my goodness like I just want to scoop you up and be like what

can I do how many lasagnas do you need I know well I mean it goes on yeah weirdly got a bit too used to like it's so normal to me now and in a terrible way but I suppose also I'm at peace with it anyway but yeah so my boss called me I think like just around I'd got started treatment and started wanted to work out when I might want to come back and I did say to him look we just found this out I've got to have treatment he said no worries like call us back when you're all sorted and you're ready kind of to um yeah get back to work so I waited a few months waited till treatment was over and I regained a bit of energy and called them and he decided that there was a downturn in trade and that I would be terminated. And because I was casual, it, yeah, it wasn't a

lot I could, could do about it. And even if I could, I think it wasn't worth the, wasn't worth the energy. I didn't have much energy at that point. I don't want to work for someone who does that. I'm so sorry. But like, if this ever happened to someone in my team, like, and I'm a small business, I would be bending over backwards. Like, and the fact that you called and said, hey I feel like I'm ready to return to work like you just know that people in that situation you would have been going above and beyond because like you're just so excited to get back into work you're like probably so ready like it's just something that you need and for him to do that no trash human we don't want to associate with that yeah essentially kind of I was like yeah I

really don't want to go back into to that kind of vibe anyway so let that kind of go we at that point, I probably need to go backwards a little bit. So while I was working, while I was pregnant, we did also buy a second house. So we moved to a bigger house. So we essentially, our amazing broker, a really good friend of ours was able to manage to get everything to work so that we could keep our previous house. We refinanced and turned that into an investment, rented that out, which was awesome. Didn't turn out to be very awesome. We had terrible tenants and a terrible property manager and it was just a nightmare. That's being kicked while you're down. You're like, I'm going through a lot right now. I do not need this. Yes. We do have a bit of a running joke

that there's going to be some kind of curse because it would always just come all at once. Yeah, it's crazy. But yeah, to the point, even the property managers admitted they'd done such a terrible job. They did refund us 10 weeks of our property management fees. So that was kind of great. But also, they didn't do inspections for the first six months, I think. And it was yeah we had the tenants were terrible when we got the house back so we did go on to sell it one year after when I lost my job we did interest rates had gone up by that point quite significantly we were just having a third child and as much as you know we're pretty grateful for my husband's income it certainly wasn't enough yeah even with just like the stress no thank you like let's

dispose of this and just take a lot of the pressure off exactly and especially with like added medical expenses and things like that we were just like no it's too much and because we were having such a nightmare with the tenants and them not paying rent and and things like that we decided we just couldn't yeah even if we could make it work financially we don't want to we don't want to yeah so we sold it which was a journey on its own but at least um eventually we did sell and luckily it was after the market had started to take off so we got uh after we refinanced like as i said we bought it for 282 000 and i think we sold in the end for i reckon it was 650 okay that's pretty okay but we had refinanced for about 480 so i think after all the fees and stuff we

ended up with like around two hundred thousand dollars back in our pocket and i thought oh my gosh that's amazing that takes a load off that will kind of give us a buffer i then found out I'd be having, well, essentially it's turned out to be another sort of four or five surgeries since then. So we were like, I won't go back to work. We'll just kind of have that as a buffer. And yeah, so unfortunately though, and as cost of living obviously hit, I kind of kept turning a bit of a blind eye to it. And that money unfortunately got chewed up a lot quicker than I would like to admit. So I definitely do regret not going back and probably making a few changes earlier on to save us a bit of money because yeah, we did go out and buy a new car without a loan. Like that's

always been important to us. We never wanted a loan for a car. That was just sort of one of our values. So we did that. We renovated a kitchen, which took a chunk of it out. We had to pay off a hex debt and a few things like that. So it did get chewed up pretty quickly by a few bigger things as well. Like it's amazing how quickly money can diminish. Yeah. And it feels like it just like falls through your fingers. You're like, hold on, hold on. That was $200,000. How on earth did that get lost? And then all of a sudden you're like, hold on, you do the maths. And then unfortunately the maths checks out and you're like, oh, that's how like, oh. Yes. Unfortunately, I only decided to do the maths on sort of how much, like, obviously I kind of

knew cost of living was going up in that sort of probably about a year there where I kind of just let our finances go, just ignored it, let the bills go up, like without really, you know, checking on whether we could be getting cheaper insurance or whether we were having the best price for all our bills, really. We wanted to get solar, but I put it off for a year and I regret that immensely because we finally got it. And we were paying, I think our predicted last quarterly bill was $1,800 for the three months. And now it's looking like it'll be about $300 or $400 for this quarter. Now we've got solar. So it's massive difference. So they're the sort of things like I do kick myself for not doing earlier you can't crucify yourself for not knowing exactly yes so

it's wasted energy and like we don't have time for that so tell me how are you now because that's a lot like you got to the part where you know the cancer was back your third baby was two months old what happened so so far cancer wise it's been clear I'll have my next lot of scans and checkups they say I'm the most checked patient at the hospital in their department and I don't know if that's a compliment or I don't know how I'd take that either either way it's good that they monitor me pretty closely so so far so good in that regard just dealing with side effects still from from treatment but I also am a BRCA1 carrier so the breast cancer ovarian cancer gene yeah so the other surgeries I've had were for a bilateral preventative mastectomy essentially so

there were complications with the first one no that is not what you deserve like to make that decision to be like, all right, well, I'm going to be here for my family. I'm going to be here for my kids. I'm going to have this very life changing surgery that is preventative. And then they messed that up. Are you kidding? That is rude. Right. So I had to go and do it all over again. They had to re-put these expanders that were called in. And about seven weeks ago, I had the actual, finally, almost a year later, had the expanders replaced for the implants. So hopefully most of that surgery now out of the way and then just last week I had the other preventative surgery for the BRCA1 gene which is a radical hysterectomy so yeah that one was

sprung on me with like a week notice so that one was a lot more to come to terms with. Why was it sprung on you was it just like the public system or like by the way we've got a spot or like yeah okay? Sort of so I did sign the paperwork like two years ago to consent to the surgery but it was all decided hormone wise and everything it's best to do the other surgeries first so it was kind of put off and then it actually changed departments within the hospital so it was a bit of a crazy kind of thing and they could get me in sooner we discussed the end of may but when i they called they said no there's theater closures then when it's cold and flu season we put things on hold so it's either now or probably the end of the year you're like well let's go this ain't my first

rodeo yeah because in amongst all that i actually towards the end of last year was like right like we really need some more income here. We're chewing through that savings. And I applied for a temporary job for the election, doing some admin assistant work. And I got that. So I started that earlier this year, which was awesome. And then when I found out I'd be having the first surgery, I thought, well, it'll probably be in line with the election and I'll probably be finished. But they were really, they were amazing. They said, no, just let us know when you're ready to come back. If there's things you can do without heavy lifting, things like that, we can get you back when you're ready. But then literally the day before I was meant to go back is when I got the

phone call to say, we're going to do this next surgery next week. So I ended up pretty well having to quit because by the time that this surgery recovery period's over, obviously we've had the election now and there was a little bit of work after, but yes, it's pretty much lined up with that. So unfortunately it was an incredible job and I was loving it and I had to yeah, leave that one. So the one positive though is now it's all out of the way. I can hopefully finally get a little bit of time and the ability now to actually get a job and maybe actually start a career. I just feel like that is a lot for one person to carry how are you like because that's a lot to go through my friend. Yes no it has been a lot I to be honest sometimes I think I probably

just ignorance is bliss just ignore it dissociate probably not the best thing to do but no I'm pretty good considering like I grew up my mum had cancer my whole childhood and passed when I was quite young as well so as much as that was terrible it kind of put a lot of things in perspective for me and just seeing her go through it and she was so incredibly strong and resilient I think that set me up to be in much the same mindset really as terrible as it is. No but that's also just like so nice to have had like a positive role model in that space and like I'm not saying that that is good like it is really not I'm so sorry your mum went through that but I can see how that must be really I guess soothing in a way to be like okay cool like I really resonate with my mum

like she's not around anymore but I really feel her presence and I really feel like I'm guided by how she acted and that's kind of in a way morbidly beautiful yeah exactly like yeah a lot of the time people do ask how I do it or how I cope and it's just you just do like it's with any challenge life throws at you I suppose you kind of you don't have a choice you just have to find a way through it but I think the biggest thing has been that I've been able to find the joys I suppose in you know having three kids and watching them grow as much as it's also been incredibly difficult especially on my husband as well because he's been working full-time doing a lot of caring for me a lot of the kids like caring for the kids and you know cleaning and things so

I mean through that year last year where we had that extra money in the bank account like we had a weekly cleaner and they're the sort of things that probably did chew up that money which I don't regret because it did make take a lot off our plates and in that time but yeah it's when you go back and you kind of scan the bank accounts and you're like how did all this money disappear and you go okay there's all these little things that just add up and yeah so we've had to really reassess that now so. So what does life look like moving forward because I'm assuming having a full bilateral mastectomy and also a full hysterectomy stuff doesn't end there like there would be a lot of like hormone replacement therapy and things that you need to go through moving forward and

like I'm glad on the like mastectomy side of things like you've gone through the expanders and now you've got your implants like what are the next steps when it comes to your health now I mean there's still a few I've got a couple of other underlying conditions so for me it'll be I mean even with my cancer it's pretty much a lifelong monitoring for that one it is one of the few cancers that's actually more likely to come back over time so the likelihood of it coming back increases each year so I'll be monitored for life for that so we kind of know that I'm always going to have a bit of that medical scans and you know that big portion just sort of sitting there always going to be a part of my life so I think I've kind of come to terms with the fact that I

will probably struggle to ever work full time, both with the amount of medical appointments I have and also with the level of fatigue and other symptoms I now experience is that it's probably not going to be practical unless I can find the right job, I suppose. You know, nothing's impossible. Yeah, 100%. But yeah, I think I've come to terms with it, especially while I've got young kids taking that pressure of wanting to find a full time job and career. I think the hardest thing is that I'd really like to start a career, but I just, I suppose I don't really know how to do that going into something part-time. So I feel like so many jobs are full-time and totally understandable as to why, especially when entering them. So I think, especially with

anything in my background, I suppose, so or anywhere I have transferable skills, because I don't necessarily want to go back to sales or anything like that. I'd really like to start something new and kind of yeah but if I've learned anything is that you never really know what's around the corner anyway so I think both with money and me thinking a probably year and a half ago that oh yes we don't have to worry about money anymore we've got this money in our savings account we've got that buffer to now kind of having a terrible wake-up call like okay that buffer can disappear quickly if you're not careful and now having to go back into a bit more like living to paycheck to paycheck kind of levels of you know scrutinizing how much money we're

spending being savvy those sorts of things less impulse purchases which I'm very good at but yes I think there's a lot of things I've realized like yeah money comes and goes things will come out of nowhere we did make one investment in a business that we still have that money sitting there so we know we've got that kind of buffer as well so that's yeah like I feel like we've done like a few good decisions and then we've made a few poor decisions but hopefully in the longer term they'll even out and we can just kind of sit somewhere in the middle and and at least be comfortable and yeah so I don't really know what the future holds it's very much a question mark but yeah just take it each day I don't like each week really as it comes so

totally so tell me a little bit more about your babies how old are they how are they doing like there's three of them you lucky duck yes they're pretty good my eldest is now seven and she so she's in school my middle daughter is about to turn five in 10 days I think so she'll start mid-year like reception is what we call it here yeah it's like kinder here I think like prep yeah yeah yeah I know it's called different everywhere and then my son he is two and he is like I reckon he could put Johnny Knox for the shame like he is there's a reason I've started to go so grey since he was born I think I don't think it's any of the health stuff I think it's the fact that he probably almost gives me multiple heart attacks a day he was born to do parkour yeah

he'll be very good at that 100 always jumping off things he shouldn't be on easter he fell down like a couple of steps onto the concrete got up and kept running i was like i think we should probably like he checked like no he was just off and going like he's not faced by anything that kid like yeah i feel like my son harvey's probably had a call from your son and been like this is how we do it because there's a running joke in my family that there's always something going on with Harvey. Like he's always got like a bump on his head or a scratch or something because he just he doesn't stop. Like the second this kid learned to walk, he was like walking. I'm going to run into things like just ran full pelt at literally everything. And you're just like, why do you have no level

of self-preservation? Like none. Right. I know. They don't like no sense of like fear really. he falls over like your son and I just go are you all right and he's like running off in the other direction and you're like that looks like it could have been a concussion exactly yes I have too many of those moments or my daughters will like to eat him on as well to be honest he's less scared of climbing play equipment at playgrounds than my middle daughter is like no fear at all but he's absolute joy like makes us laugh constantly just also levels that out with a little bit of fear and terror at the same time anxiety oh my goodness so talk to me what big money goals do you have at the moment I feel like we've talked a lot about money but like what are

your goals what are you currently working towards so we like to do a lot of DIY renovating that was a big part of the reason like I love property I always have and while I've been recovering this time around I got back into watching a few like Selling Houses Australia and other renovation shows so I have now got myself back into the mindset I also watched a movie that really inspired me what was it it's called the life list I think oh yes the life list yes and it inspired me so much to kind of revisit especially having cancer like the person I was pre-cancer but also younger me and like what I really wanted to do and where I've kind of ended up versus that and I kind of realized my goals were always really properly related or I always really wanted

to be an interior designer people always said you're so creative why did you end up going into business like why did you go for that business side and I like both to be honest so I don't know I could see maybe a bit of study to try and get me into maybe something a bit more creative or residential drafting like maybe something sort of similar but different and hopefully get myself a job would probably be goal number one but also yeah we've been doing a lot of renovating in both our previous house and this house and we've always said though that we want to own maybe like a bit of land but semi-acreage and my dream's always been to like own a B&B so that's the kind of probably next goal at some point and really I think that would be ideal having some sort of

passive income if my health does ever turn around again having something that we kind of can keep running relatively easily especially because whenever I do need to be at home a lot like at least already be be there I suppose so that's probably a rather like longer term goal definitely not in the short term still got a lot of probably saving and pivoting to do we factored in things like capital gains tax so we because we lived in our last house we didn't need to pay I think like the seven-year rule I think it's called. Yeah so you would have got like a seven-year exemption did you own it for more than seven years? Yeah yeah. Yeah so there would be like a little bit of CGT payable. Yeah and then we yeah sold it like within a year I think so we didn't really

have it as a rental for very long at all so but now if we sell this house within seven years we have to pay capital gains on this house so I always have that in the back of my mind we maybe want to hold it for a little bit longer yeah exactly so this is a much bigger house in a much smaller block so my husband lost his shed and a few things like that which he would really love to have back as a big shed or something so I suppose and the kids we have enough here but it's not as big as what we had before so I think a lot of us we only have three bedrooms so the girls share so I think there's a few things there we would eventually you know next few years like to probably get a bit more space but I like that you're thinking about it as well and you're clearly

thinking about it relatively strategically because I don't think a lot of people think about that CGT rule they don't go okay cool we got an exemption on the first property which means we need to wait for seven years for the second property they're probably listening to this going oh I didn't know that was a thing and that means that I can see your strategy brain working out what's going on and like what your next move might look like? Yes, I've always said at least if I didn't end up in a property job or career that that degree has already paid itself off in the knowledge I had around purchasing and selling in capital gains,

like all that sort of stuff, like that knowledge in itself has definitely helped. Not to say that you have to study a property degree to kind of be able to do well in property, of course, by any means, but it definitely helped. No, but you don't know what you don't know. Having the benefit of understanding is very helpful. Money Doris, let's go to a really quick break

because on the flip side, I want to talk a little bit more about investing and debt and then like what your best and worst money habits are. So don't go anywhere. All right, Money Doris, we are back. And you, I feel like your life has been an absolute rollercoaster. Like, and it's probably felt like that

from your perspective. And you are so positive. Like you are literally so like, oh no like I've just come to terms with it I asked you how you were doing she's like yeah I'm fine kind of burying my head in this like how you are carrying this I don't know and it like reminds me of that quote like just because it's heavy doesn't mean it's easy to carry and I think a lot of people think that you know oh well she says it's fine like it must be like I just I'm in awe of you like I'm just like can we go have coffee or something when I'm in the same state like I just

want to be friends with you you just seem like a hustler like even to be like oh cool like I went ahead and just had a bilateral mastectomy. And I also had a full hysterectomy. Like those are giant surgeries. And I know to have made that decision that wasn't a like, oh yeah, I would love to do that. It was a, oh, I'm going to do that for my kids. Like you a thousand percent weren't thinking about you in those moments. And I just go, this person is a person I want to know better. Like she's just, she's just wholesome. She's the type of people that you want to be surrounded by. Right. But we are getting to talk to you about your journey and about money. And it's been a privilege, but talk to me about investing because I feel like you've got a

strategy brain. Do you invest? What does that look like? What are your thoughts? Well, I suppose with my background, having studied property, my love of property, previously our investment was really largely based around property. My goal for a long, long time was to kind of purchase a house, renovate it, keep it as a rental, move on, purchase another one kind of keep working ourselves up use the equity but unfortunately life kind of made that tricky and then obviously with COVID and the housing market and interest rates that all kind of happened as well and made it very hard I really wanted to kind of get to the goal of having three properties so that we'd have one for kind of each child they could either

live in it or sell it off or whatever they wanted to do that was kind of the back of my mind is like that was my goal and then that obviously became a bit unattainable and it was a little bit hard to break away from that and realize that that's at least for this point in our life, it's not achievable. But then we kind of pivoted. So I feel like I'm still relatively, even though I did study a fair bit of business and investment, I still feel like I know very, very little about shares in the share market and really any other form of investing. We were lucky enough to stumble across an acquaintance that was starting a business we were able to invest in that business for her to kind of set up her like premises and it actually paid off for us as well as we were getting a 10%

return on that money and then we also got free swimming lessons out of it for three kids which if anyone has kids knows swimming lessons are not cheap so that saved us so much money and And yeah, so it's been pretty cool to have kind of done that. We started to get our returns and stuff back. That period's almost finished. So we were a bit like, oh my gosh, what are we doing? Like, is this the right thing to do? For us, it paid off and we were pretty keen.

I don't know if we'll go down in much more business investing. I'm glad because you're right. Like in some of those situations, it just goes belly up and people are just like, oh my goodness, like I wish I never and we destroyed our relationship and like it becomes dramatic. but I'm just well luckily we weren't I suppose like I don't think I'd ever do it with someone close like family or close friends because yeah I could see like that was my fear but luckily we were far enough apart that we didn't have to worry too much about that and because it was also going towards property we also had the added like kind of um security that that could be sold off like

I think most others I probably wouldn't have gone ahead I would have been like that would have been too risky for me but because we knew we had that buffer it was all in the contract and everything that if for some reason something went wrong, the property would be sold off and we'd get paid back. So I'm glad that worked out. And as well, I've got these like really recently started, I actually downloaded Sharesies as per your recommendation. And we've only got not very much money in there,

but it's starting to kind of grow each week. I just put a little bit in there, like literally only $60, like I'm talking, like I've only been very, very cautious trying to learn things, like trying to get my head around it all. I feel like you, of all people, are going to love REIT. which are real estate investment trusts. Like that's where you want to live. Yeah. So that's still very new, but I think especially going forward, because I do like

that we can just gradually add to it. It's not something like property where you really need to have a big lot of money and really a lot on the line, a lot at stake and a lot more stress really, I suppose, in managing. Even if you're not managing the property, there's still a lot that kind of goes on that you have to worry about, make decisions if maintenance issues come up. I think we probably did have a slightly more difficult experience probably than many people have, but I think going forward, yeah, property wouldn't be the top of our list personally anymore. I think anything that's easy is kind of my life motto at this point, whether it be food preparation or cleaning the house or investing, it is whatever's nice and simple.

Totally. So talk to me about debt because you currently own the property that you live in. What does that look like? So we do have a mortgage still on this house. So we put all of the money originally that we had into, we just had it in the home loan so it could offset some of the interest, but we did redraw that back down. And so we're still sitting probably with about a $400,000 loan, I think, off the top of my head. The property now would be worth around $8,000 to $8,500. So I know eventually we'll have a bit of equity sitting in it, which I'm pretty keen for. Yeah, that's so nice. Because like, I know that your plan is to like, go to a bigger property and get a little bit more space. And like, maybe this is part of your investing strategy. And you might get to keep hold of this property and lease it out and then make your way back to planning on having three properties for your kids. Like, I don't see that as too far out of reach.

one day yes exactly that's like if i've learned anything it's just that nothing's impossible even if yeah it just might be finding a different way of getting there or even if you decide to change strategies like there's nothing wrong with that so i had to kind of come to terms with the fact that yeah property wasn't going to be our main thing at least for a little while and that was very hard for me to break out of that very set mindset in my head but i realized look it really doesn't matter like we felt like a bit of a failure after selling it after only having it as an investment for a year and we kind of eventually yeah realized like I think it was our broker that sort of said look you've just got to do what you've got to do at that time like just

because you make a decision doesn't mean you have to stick with it if it doesn't work out there's nothing wrong with that and that goes for you know most things in life so I think that was a bit hard to get my head around but I've definitely accepted that more now so I think yeah otherwise debt wise we've always tried to not really have too much debt every now and then I do get myself into a bit of an afterpay trap which I did do again when we were renovating and then over Christmas so I'm trying to get that gone so yeah I think that's really about it and hex so we paid out my husband's hex debt we had to pay it out to get our loan for this current house we wouldn't get approved without paying that out so we paid his out but I still have mine which these I find

quite frustrating because I've watched it grow and grow and grow like crazy and not been able to work and really paid off so we literally put like I think it's for like ten dollars a week into it at the moment just to try and slowly chip at it watch it completely keep going up it's probably really only covering the extra sort of CPI increases but and I mean Albo's just come back in and he promised to give all of us a very nice hex cut so I'm sure you're looking forward to that I very much am. When I saw that, I was like, oh, yes, please. Yes, please. That'll take a little bit of pressure off. I mean, I don't know. Shout out to Albo. Would it be okay if you just get rid of all of our HEX debts completely?

Like, we don't want a discount. We just want you to get rid of them. Yeah, that'd be lovely. I would not complain. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, they're our main debts. We don't have any others. We've never had a credit card. So, I'm probably kind of glad because I don't think I could trust myself with a credit card. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. I feel like for everything that you have just shared with us that you've gone through, like, girl, you are in a good position still. Like, it's clear that you are very intelligent. Like, and I think everyone can hear it. Like, the way that you're speaking,

I'm like, this woman, she's smart, smart. Like, she knows her shit. Like, I know that you said, oh, yeah, like, I can't believe 200 grand got away from me. And like, that could feel a bit silly. But like, I'm sorry, 200 grand didn't get away from you. You already explained it was a kitchen, you know, you bought a new car because you didn't want debt. I don't know if you know this, but you went through a very, very, very significant health event and to come out still owning your house, massive win. Like I think that we really undervalue being financially stable when coming out of these situations. Like so many times, like I see families financially ruined and this is why I am so passionate about insurance. Like I just, I want to jump up and down about it consistently

and be like, these things happen. Like you're listening to this money diarist who has three small babies. Like I can almost guarantee that when you found out, oh, I'm pregnant for the first time, that wasn't on your bingo card. Like that wasn't the plan. That wasn't, you were like, all right, well, I'll take a bit of time because, you know, we're going to have a baby and then I can be, you know, a career girl in property. And it just, that's not the way the cookie crumbled. And I think that it does remind you consistently, yes, insurances are important, but like, yes a career would be so nice but like time with your family like that is the most important thing and like the decisions that you're making especially around your health like I can tell

that you just care so much about your babies and your husband and putting them first because of the decisions you're making are not small like that's a massive life-changing thing and like that's a lot and I'm just I'm so glad they have you like they're so lucky oh thank you sometimes i probably don't think that there's moments where i'm probably a little bit too too cranky or too high maintenance i'll wait until they're teenagers they won't say that they won't say that but like live in the moment for now exactly i want to know i feel like you know with your diy renovating and like you seem pretty savvy what do you think your best money habit is oh that is a good question i feel like my best money habit is also sometimes my worst

money habit in a way in that I have spent an awful lot of time probably because I also have had a lot of time perfecting when things go on sale, for example. So like I know exactly per hundred sheets what I'm willing to spend on toilet paper. So I won't buy if it's less than, you know, whatever it is per hundred sheets. It's the same with things like Peter Alexander sales. If I decide we're going to splurge on some pajamas, I know exactly when to wait. So yeah, like I've worked all these little hacks out and I do not buy like anything full price. I genuinely get the sweats if I have to buy something full price, but obviously in times in the past that has led to buying things that I probably didn't need and therefore, you know, spending money that

I didn't need to spend just because I saved some money. So I am very aware of that. But at the same time, I now have a list on my phone of things that I know we will need coming up. And then I keep a bit of an eye out so that's been able to curb that a little bit in the sense of overspending so I think I have yeah spent a lot of time perfecting it to be honest but I know all different stores you know when their sales most likely to happen when yeah a lot of stores go on sale around like the click frenzy times or like after payday and even though even if I'm not really using those platforms I still know that there'll be a lot of good sales and a lot of the time I won't buy anything unless it's even like a further percentage off the sale price but you do

obviously run a lot of risks of you might if it's something you really want and you wait that long it might not be there it might not be the size you need those sort of things but I'm pretty okay with that and yeah to be honest I probably waste a lot of my time doing that which sometimes drives me nuts and I'll shop across like supermarket specials each week for example which can just waste time so sometimes if like when I have been working and a bit time poor I'm more likely to buy things at higher prices but I'm okay with that because you know convenience yeah exactly so I've had to balance that out but I dare say that the amount of effort and time I put into making sure we don't overpay for anything at all has been yeah other than maybe at the time there with

bills I don't like bills I'll ignore bills no I feel like that's fair so what do you think your worst money habit is is it that probably I would dare say I've had different worst money habits like for a while there it was I just would eat take out or coffees for that year we had that money sitting in the bank account without even thinking about it and I think for a while there I just got way too blasé with purchases and that I've reined right in so I'd say yeah currently probably it just always feels like so much effort having to go and change and make phone calls I hate making phone calls to try and see if we can get things lower or this and that so I dare say yeah that at this point probably is my worst habit because I just really avoid it yeah I feel like I

hate making phone calls as well but when you get on a roll and you get one yes you're like I could get the rest of them I'm gonna keep going on this so I feel like I need to like push you a little bit to go why don't you just do like the car insurance and then see what happens yes exactly yeah I do find like if I make one full phone call I'm like yeah okay I'm in the right energy in rights and mental state now and I'll just make a whole heap of phone calls. I hate making phone calls. I just don't like it. Like if there is an option to email someone, I've already emailed you, but that's exactly how we're communicating. Money Diarist, at the start of this episode, I said, what's your money grade? And you said, look, I reckon I'm like middle

ground. I think I'm a C. I don't know. I want to kind of like argue with you on that because I think you're just, you're better than a C, but I'm not going to argue with you because like that would be borderline disrespectful. So I want to know, as someone who's gone through the journey that you've gone through, and you have three beautiful babies and a loving husband, and you've bought property and sold property, and you've clearly got some good equity in the one that you've got. And I know that you said, look, we went through that figure really quickly and we lost the buffer that we had. I don't think that defines it. I think that you actually used it how you bloody needed to use it at the time. That's exactly what your family needed. Yes, you could

have done something else with it but at what cost like at the cost of not having the comfort during a really stressful period of time at the cost of not having somebody that came through and cleaned your house and took away that mental load at the cost of all of those other things right do you genuinely think after having this conversation you're like oh v i still think i'm a c no i must say i do like after you pointed out a couple things i definitely don't feel as bad about it as i probably did yeah 30 minutes ago oh look i'm glad i'm very glad but like i don't know if I'd put me in an A, but I'd at least up me up to a B. We can be a B, but what in your eyes is like an A? Like what would that take to get you there? Is that you owning those three properties

for your kids and like, you know, having paid off all of your hex and doing all of those things? Or is it like a mindset? What does that look like? I think for me at the moment, I would feel a bit more like the A if we could, like, I feel like I've got a few, like another short term goal is at the moment we are expending still a little bit over my husband's wage. So I'd really like to get that at least to begin with back to like breaking even that what we're spending is the same as his wage so we're not kind of going into that savings that would be my first kind of I think if we got to there I'd feel a little bit like we were getting closer to the A but I think longer term to do that and be saving then I'd be happy like I don't think I necessarily need to get to those

three properties to feel like I'm at the A I just think I'd like to at least know that we are either saving or investing just a little bit to begin with like I'd be happy with that I'd still obviously have the longer term goals but if we were able to yeah just manage our spending enough that we just were at least saving a little I think I'd be happy at that point for us anyway I can get behind that and I feel like you're perfectly on track for that like that is not that far off I feel like with your brain like I can just see that you've got lots of places to be and lots of places to go Lenny Doris it has been an absolute privilege to learn more about you about your journey and like the idea that you're happy for me to share your journey with

our community so that they can learn and they can you know be better at money because you were so willing to share I'm obsessed like thank you it is really really valuable and I'm just I'm very grateful that we got to cross paths no thank you thanks for having me of course oh my gosh I've adored this. 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

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