She's On The Money - When Life Throws Curveballs, Here’s How to Smash Your Goals Anyway

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

Can you go from financial chaos to building the life of your dreams? This week’s Money Diarist says YES. After navigating redundancy, a work injury, and realising they spent $10k on coffee, they built their dream home, crushed debt, and are planning for early retirement. This episode is packed with resilience, real talk, and practical money tips to help you do the same. Hit play to find out how they did it. This Black Friday, invest in you! Our course bundles are on sale—your chance to level up your finances, build wealth, and hit those goals. Click here for all the deets... 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 for millennials who want financial freedom welcome back to another one of our money diaries where i get the absolute privilege of talking to one of our incredible She's On The Money community members all about their story. Let's jump straight into it because this week we got a message and it sounded exactly like this. Dear She's On The Money, in 2019, I was made redundant, started a new job and met my husband. COVID fast-tracked our relationship. We moved in together within months. During this, I finally paid off my debts when a work cover incident left me on work cover for three years, which limited my career options and my income. Despite this, we have built our dream home, managed to secure a

mortgage even with one of us on work cover and the other on a veteran's pension. Now with a baby, we are laser focused on our finances. Discovering we'd spent $10,000 on coffee was a wake-up call. We've restructured our budget, boosted mortgage payments and set new savings goals, all with the plan to eventually buy a bush block with a tiny home for our family. Money Diarist, welcome to the show. This sounds so fun. It is so fun and it's funny hearing it back that it's my life. I'm like, this is whack. It is. That is crazy. I mean, the fun part is definitely you being laser focused on your finances and buying property and doing budgeting, not the part where you were on work cover because

that sounds like trash. So before we get into your money story, can you tell me what your money habits would be if you had to rate them from A through to F? I think I would be a C, but only in the last 12 months. Prior to that, I was definitely down in the Ds. Oh, okay. So we're glowing up. We're in glow up phase. I love that. All right, Money Dyrus, let's dive into it. Tell me a little bit more about your money story. So I grew up with a single mom. My parents split up when I was about four and my dad, while my parents were together, was quite financially and emotionally abusive. So my mum had a bit of a budget that she was given each month to clothe and feed my

brother and I, which was nowhere near enough. So my grandparents kept us financially. So my understanding of money was that if you couldn't afford something, you put it on Pop's credit card. And that's what I learned about money. Okay. But like iconic from Pop. Oh, amazing. What a legend. And even today, like I'm 31 and he's still like, do you need my credit card for groceries? And I'm like, no, I'm good. Oh my God, what a honey. I love him. He's lovely. Yeah. So that was my understanding of money. We never went without, but we also didn't have any extra. So school camps, excursion, things like that didn't happen really for us. And then my mum started working again. So she was never allowed

to work when she was married to my dad and she didn't go back to work until we went to high school. And she just worked in retail. And again, you know, there was no extra, but there was sort of just enough and that's kind of the mindset I had yeah as I got into young adulthood with money not only was there sort of just enough but if there was any extra it would go it would get spent on you know I don't know what um but you know mum would treat us or she'd buy us something there was no real savings there was no real education I guess and then so when I moved out on my own it was like a bit of a struggle for me I ended up back home twice before I finally left for the last time and stayed gone. Just learning to manage my finances myself,

which I hadn't really done until I met my now husband and learned some very valuable money lessons from him, which I'm very grateful for. He's very switched on, which has been really good. I love that. So what does life look like today? So today we live in a regional area. We moved from more in the city, bought a couple of acres and built our dream home, which we're already ready to move on from. No. And go bigger and better. Yeah. I love that. It's so common though. People are like, I'm going to build my dream home. We're going to live here forever. Let's leave. That's exactly us. We like, let's do a bit of a tree change and get some land. And you know, now we're like, let's get more land and a cow or something. I love that though. And I love

that you've got the freedom to do that. It's very cool. And I think the things that have happened to us that have landed us in these sort of financial positions also allowed us a lot of freedom in our life, which, you know, a bit of a give and take, but it's been really nice. It's a compromise for sure. Yeah. To sort of end up here from where we both were. So yeah, we met at the end of 2019 and the apartment I was living in at the time then decided no dogs so we myself and my dog Stephen got the boot Stephen Stephen oh my gosh that's my husband's name but that is a great dog name he's fantastic we got the boot and I sort of said to my husband you know can I stay with you just while I find somewhere and then COVID happened

and no open homes no rentals so we then just lived there and that was that about three months into our relationship. So. Oh my gosh. Go hard or go home. Right. I love that. And then what happened? And then following that, I sustained my injury and that was probably 12 months after we had met. And so my husband's first meeting of my mum was when he picked her up at the airport and she stayed in our home for six weeks without me. Oh my gosh. That would have been an initiation by fire. But I have my, so my grandmother's engagement ring is my engagement ring and. oh that's so sweet yeah my husband knew I wanted that so when he called my mum to go you know you better come he also asked her to bring the ring which was so sweet he's like and bring that ring

yeah oh my gosh I love that but also that would have been so traumatic are you comfortable telling us a little bit more about your injury and what happened yeah I just sustained an injury with one of my clients that I was working with and that injury resulted in a number of reconstructive surgeries and a brain injury and yeah an inability to work an inability to finish my university studies yeah just a whole pause on my life which I think is important context not because we want to know the pervy details but sometimes a work cover thing could be like oh yes I worked in a factory and a box fell off and I broke my leg and therefore wasn't able to work like I knew in the background that yours was a bit deeper than that which is why you needed three years off and it is

an ongoing issue for you that is going to impact your ability to have a career into the future right yes that's correct yeah but you have a baby now I do have a baby now which is very exciting that is so exciting it's so exciting so she's 10 months old and she's just wild they are aren't they yes I'm solo parenting for the first time this week my husband is away and hats off to single mum single parent like I don't know how they do it it's I don't know either I was saying this to one of my girlfriends the other day I was like I have such a supportive and kind husband and I don't know what I would do without him like single mums are a force to be reckoned with like if you're a single mum like hats off to you you are so impressive 100% like they don't get

the credit they deserve and it's not until you're a mum that you're like oh I knew that you were impressive before now I just you are insanely good yes definitely we like cross the calendar off each evening when dad's coming back and that's not for her that's for me yeah we're counting down the days oh my gosh so tell me what do you do for work how much money do you earn so I am a youth worker and I earn it'd be approximately a thousand dollars a week I have three casual oh sorry a thousand dollars one fortnight I have three casual positions so that fluctuates quite a bit hey that's pretty cool yeah so my theory was if I didn't get hours at one I would get hours at another which has worked out quite well some weeks are really busy though so and is it working out having a

10 month old and still working like what does that I guess juggle look like yeah so our girls in daycare four days a week very cool so yeah we don't have any family all of our families interstate so it's just me and my husband our closest friends are over an hour away so it's just us so I felt a lot of guilt actually a lot of mum guilt when we first put her in but everyone talks about the village and it just happens that our village is our daycare and they're wonderful people. A hundred percent. Harvey's in daycare and he thrives there. Like he is obsessed with daycare. This morning I was pushing the pram up the ramp and he had his little flappy bird arms because he was so excited. He'd just realized where he was. And I was just like, you have your

little job at daycare and then mum goes to work and then we come back together and we're all just having a good life. Like the mum guilt around daycare, like I get it. Like you want to spend more time with your kid. But that is a separate conversation, I think, about, you know, having quality time and enjoying your children than having to work and provide and put your kids into care. Like, that's a different conversation. Like, I think we all want more time with our kids. But like, I'm not going to lie. Maybe this, I don't know, definitely doesn't make me a bad parent. But like, I love a bit of a break. Like, I love that I get to go pick up my baby from daycare in the afternoon and he's had his day and I've had mine. And even if he cracks it, I just don't

have that mental load of having had that all day. And that's what I absolutely love about it. Like we have three whole days together where it's just us and we don't do washing. We don't do groceries. We don't do chores. We just hang out and it's the best. I adore that. And what does your partner or your husband, sorry, do? So he is a youth worker as well, a youth mentor. He works on a school holiday program. So during the week he does it, he does one like support client, but yeah, he just does school holiday work mostly. So you guys are super special people. I love this. Thank you. And yeah, and he receives a Commonwealth Super Pension for his time in defence. Yeah, very cool. He was medically discharged. Yeah. Oh, medically discharged is hard, but also like very deserved.

I love that. Yeah. I love that you get that. All right. So tell me, what are your big money goals? You said before, like, oh, we live regionally, we've built our dream home, but we don't want this anymore. So what do your goals look like? Well, I discovered Mortgage Monster, the website. I'm not sure if you're, you're probably familiar. Yeah. So basically I went down the rabbit hole of Mortgage Monster, which told me that if I made one $20,000 payment on my mortgage, I would reduce it by five years and like $75,000 of interest. So. Isn't it fun doing all the calcs and being like, this is fun. Yeah, literally. And I'm like obsessed. So that at the moment is our big financial goal is to save that 20 grand on top of our other little things to get that mortgage

payment down. And then we would like to use our equity to buy a bush block. We have off-road buggies and four-wheel drives and quad bikes and things. Oh, you sound like you're living the dream. I want to come play. It is so much fun. We have a YouTube channel. So that has kind of lit the fire, I guess, for us to get this bush block and yeah, have our little adventures. Oh my gosh, adore. And how has YouTubing been going? Is that something that you are able to monetize yet? Yeah. So my husband was doing it prior to us meeting and we've had a lot of products. So we've built both of our cars through sponsorship. What? This is so cool. This is not where I thought this conversation would go. I left it completely out. I realized when I submitted, but. And you're

like, oh yes, this is also part of my money story. Sorry about that. So yeah, we've both built our cars and things like that from sponsorship. We've not received any actual finances, no money itself, but product and trips and that kind of thing. That's a very good deal. Yeah, it's very cool. That is a very good deal. I love that for you guys. So obviously getting the bush block, but long term, are there goals to retire early or be able to not work long term or what does that look like? Yeah. So we would love to be sort of retired by mid-40s. And yeah, when our daughter is old enough to attend high school, we would look to move further away. When she has a little bit more independence, we would look to move to our bush

block. Yeah. I feel like that's a smart way of going about it because it can be really hard for kids when there's like a lot of, I guess, connection when it comes to school and their social networks and stuff like that being so far up. But also, I'm sorry, it sounds lit. Like I would like to live there and I'm sure she would love it too. So whatever works, works. Yeah, we're in the process of finding a container home to renovate on Marketplace to dump on there and spend our weekends in the bush. That would be so fun. I am literally going to snoop you later and then follow you on YouTube because I don't want to miss any of this. Marnie Dyrist, let's go to a really quick break. And on the flip side, I want to know about your debt, your best and

worst money habits, and whether you're investing or not. All right, guys, we are back. Marnie I feel like you have a roller coaster of a story, but it sounds like you are laser focused at the moment on smashing down your debt. We were talking about how you'd calculated that a $20,000 payment on your mortgage would cut so much time off it. I want to know, apart from your mortgage and smashing that down, do you invest? If so, what does that look like? I only have my superannuation at the moment, which is currently sitting at just over $95,000. Hey, that's not too bad for 31. Yeah. So I didn't receive super for the three years that I was on work cover. You don't receive super. So I was about to ask, I was like, Hey, pervy question, but did you receive superannuation

while you're on work cover? No, is the answer. I did not receive superannuation. However, I previously, and they've closed down now, but I was with a super company who had a roundup feature similar to a bank. And so every day I would pay for my parking and another 50 cents would go into my super for about five years. So that was a handy little addition. And I also put my own voluntary contributions in every month as well. That's very cool. And also very savvy. Is that something that you knew, okay, well, I'm not, you know, earning an income like I was, I'm not getting super paid, I need to be supporting this? Or is this something that you were just doing for, you know, funsies and you knew it was good, but weren't entirely sure? Like,

how did you fall upon making sure that you were looking after your super? Because it's so important. This was something I, when I got my very first job, I started working when I was 12 and I got like the super form. And I was like, what is superannuation? Because I'm 12. And it was the only thing I looked into. I didn't know anything about tax or anything like that. And I was like, this is amazing. I don't want to work till I'm a hundred. My little 12 year old mind was thinking. So yeah, I was like, I need to save here. And I've just kept it up. I love this. Cause when I got my super form, I was like, oh, just take whatever box. It doesn't matter. I don't even care. What is this? Why does the government want my money? Like I had no idea.

So I'm glad that you were smarter than me because honestly, you have more superannuation than I do at this point in my life. All right. Tell me a bit more about debt. So you purchased your dream home regionally. What did it cost you? What debt are you currently sitting on? So my husband is a very smart man. He deployed to Afghanistan. Yes, he married you. So genius. Thank you. When he was very young. So he was 19 when he went over and- He was just a baby. He was a baby. And as a mother now, I said to my mother-in-law,

how did you stand in the airport and wave him? I just couldn't. Anyway. What did she say? Because that would have been so painful. So we don't have any sort of religious ties in our family, but my father-in-law actually jumped in and said, we prayed every day. Oh, my heart. I know. Horrible. But he came home. He came home.

He's now a dad and a husband and it all worked out. Yes. And we're very, very thankful every day. So, he, very smart. Defence had a scheme at the time where if you purchased a property, they would pay a contribution towards your mortgage. So, they would pay half your payment, basically. Wow. I mean, deserved. Yes. Very well deserved. My husband was like, will you pay half the payment if I make the full payment and they still said yes. So he was paying a payment and a half instead of, yeah, just the full payment. And that's something we've continued, not a payment and a half, but rounding our

mortgage payment up. So we have rounded up to the nearest thousand. So while we have been hit with rate rises, our actual budget hasn't changed because we were just rounding up to the nearest thousand anyway. So, our current repayment is about $1,900 a month and we pay $2,000 and have been doing for however long. I love that. That's so smart. And like over the long term, it will pay off. Yes. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, just to cover us from any kind of increases, I guess. So, we sold his property that he owned for $677,000, which he purchased it for $370,000. Okay. Yeah. So, he had $260,000 left on it. on the mortgage when we sold it for $677,000. Okay what a king. We had about $300,000 in profit

by the end I think which gave us a really hefty deposit. We had a land and a house mortgage because we built our home so we bought our land for about $234,000 and we spent $414,000 on our build. That is so good. So what debt do you currently like what is your mortgage sitting at today? So our current mortgage sits at $307,935.08. That is very cool. And do you know what your property is worth? So we had it valued a couple of weeks ago for $975,000. However, our neighbor's house just sold for over a million. The difference being they have a pool, but we have more land and a big shed and other features and things. Oh, we don't need a pool. Whoever buys your property, they can put a pool on it if they want.

That's right. So, yeah, I think we'd sit roughly even with them just based on the market and what they got. At about a mil. How nice. I love that for you. You guys are sitting very comfortably to be able to like achieve everything that you want to achieve. I need to know, though, I feel like you've had to be savvy over your lifetime when it comes to money. What is your best money habit?

My best money habit, I would say I've only developed in the last 12 months, and that's knowing where our money goes. I said when I wrote in that we spent $10,000 on coffee and I nearly hit the floor. How did you do that, by the way? Because that's like $27.50 a day. Yeah, it's a lot. So. Like that's not just for coffee a day, babe. So it was like coffee and treats. And a snack and like a little treaty treat. Yeah. Look, I'm not mad. I am just interested in people having complete visibility over their cash flow. And if you turned around and said, V, that's what I want to spend my money on, pop off queen. Like I want that for you. But you looked into it and said, absolutely not.

What is this? We're not doing this. Yeah, we're not doing this anymore. Being able to go to the supermarket or get fuel or do something now and not require a treat has been a real game changer for me to do adult things without treating myself. What? No, I'm not past that. I still get on the day, the one day that I actually go into work that I don't work from

home, I do get myself a coffee. On the days that I go to work, it's my little, yeah. There has to be some level of balance. You can't just go cold turkey, especially on coffee. Well, we did buy a coffee machine, which I didn't learn to use for about 18 months. It was just a very expensive kettle, but I just learned and now we use. I love that though. I feel like you're doing all of the right things.

I feel like you're moving in the right direction, now not spending 27 bucks-ish a day on coffee. And where is that reallocated to? Yeah, so we now have like a set budget that we, you know, each week we aim to spend this much on groceries and, you know, for a long time, my head was in the sand about the cost of living. so I'm like why can't we buy groceries for 100 bucks a week well because that's not the time we live in it's a hard realization to come to isn't it like because you're like no no no I'll do it for 100 though and then it just it never comes out in the wash no and my husband never

had a budget prior to us meeting he's like why do I need a budget I have plenty of money it must be nice though but that's not the world we live in now well I think trying to manage the two incomes at the time as well like we could you know so yeah so now having a budget knowing where our money goes and we're really really good at paying off debt so we paid privately to birth our daughter and we paid for that on a credit card and we took out a $25,000 credit card just in case there were any complications and things like that and yeah it cost us just over nine and a half and we just smashed that and got rid of it so we're really good at yeah smashing down debt when it appears. That's very cool can you tell me a bit more about that because birth is

so much more expensive than I had anticipated it to be. Right. Like, and that might be a little bit de lulu for me, I suppose, because I had like, you know, my private health insurance and then I went and got my obstetrician, but like I ended up paying her $10,000 out of pocket that wasn't covered by Medicare. And I am grateful that I could afford that, but I was really shocked that that portion of, you know, the birth cost was not covered. I was like, sorry, what? Like I already have private health insurance. So when you say you paid to birth your child privately, do you mean that you didn't have private health insurance and you paid as just like a paying client to pay to birth in a private hospital? Or were you talking about additional costs that also exist?

So we had no private health insurance. We did. And then I was, well, I had private health insurance. My husband's covered under DVA, so he doesn't. But we, when I had pregnancy and birth cover and I rung my insurer. Turns out the pregnancy and birth didn't cover the actual birthing. Yeah. Isn't it insane? And that was me in my young naivety, just assuming that pregnant, I didn't read it. I'm not pregnant. I don't want a family, you know, pregnancy and birth is pregnancy and birth, you know, but it's not. So, you know, it covered other things, but not that. And so we decided to save the money that we were spending on private health insurance and put towards the cost of birthing. We had had a loss prior to having our daughter. And so I'm sorry.

yeah I know you can you can relate to that it's real shit like it's the shittiest club in the entire world and we found out falling pregnant with my daughter that there was a very simple reason that we had lost our previous pregnancy that could have been very much avoided had the blood test been done and so yeah that was really difficult for me and I just said we're paying like I'm not having an oversight happen again you know and that I'm sure there are great public health care workers you know where those things don't happen but oh 100% 100% yeah that was our experience and I wasn't prepared to do that again. But if you're in the financial position to make that decision and that's what makes you comfortable, it's kind of like going shoe shopping,

right? You could go to Kmart and you could be really happy with that. Or you could go and buy a really fancy pair of shoes, like same outcome. You're wearing shoes, full stop, end of story. But like, it's what makes you comfortable and no one can tell you how to feel. No one gets the power to go, well, actually, Marnie Dyrist, you should have just done it this way. No, no, no. I picked what I felt comfortable with and was within my financial realm. It doesn't mean that you think that your situation is what everybody else should do. Like it's, it actually drives me insane when people are like, so you think that everyone should go private? And I'm like, no, I think you should just make a decision that works for you. 100%, 100%. And I have endometriosis and a few other

things going on. So it's like, I'm not, you know, I feel comfy here. Let me stay. That's right. I'm like I want to be able to go to the doctor and they know my years of history and surgery and you know we can just get it all sorted so yeah we took out our credit card on the off chance that our baby ended up you know needing special care or anything like that we would be able to cover it luckily we didn't need anything like that we were very lucky so yeah she ended up coming via emergency c-section and we stayed for three days and that cost us just under nine and a half thousand dollars and then we paid our obstetrician about a hundred dollars a visit getting half of that back from Medicare yeah cool yeah how good I love that that was good for you I mean emergency

c-section sucks as somebody who also had an emergency c-section I don't rate it but like we're both happy we're both healthy we're both here yeah definitely and you know my daughter still doesn't play the game when we've got somewhere to be so she wasn't playing the game than either. So yeah, look, neither does Harvey. Don't worry. Do not worry. Money directs it on the flip side. What's your worst money habit? My worst money habit is, and it might be a bit of a funny one, I guess. I don't like to spend money. So like if I, if I need something, I'll buy the cheaper option, probably having to replace it in a month and buy it again. And I'm starting to do that, slow down and make more purchases that are more sort of quality and might be that higher

price point. Do you think your money story plays into that? Like, why do you think that that's a decision that you're always like, I'll just get the cheap one? Like, where does that come from? Yeah, I think definitely. There was a time before I met my husband where I slept a little bit rough and had to, I lived in a friend's investment property that had nothing in it. And, you know, I had to just get the cheap of the cheap kind of stuff because that's all I could afford at the time. And I think I've just carried that with me. I carry a very sort of scarcity mindset around money and I'm trying to really flip that. Yeah. And I feel like that's so powerful, but at the same time, you need to understand where you've come from and where that might

be coming from to go, actually, we're not there anymore. Like we're allowed to move past this, but how do I do that? That's a different story. Yes, definitely. And that can be really challenging, but I'm so proud of you. Look at you go. Like you have absolutely killed it. You've got a beautiful daughter. You're focusing on your finances. I mean, you're not spending $27.50 a day on coffee, which is a massive slay. You're saving. I'm so excited that you mentioned Mortgage Monster because it's so fun working out what your, I guess, repayments could be or like what additional contributions look like and how you can get out of debt sooner. Like it's just so motivating. Like that is very exciting. But I just,

I love all of this and I also love our conversation about daycare because like I think there's so much shade being thrown around about like oh I don't have to have somebody else raise my children it's like get in the bin literally get in the bin like my kid loves daycare I love daycare daycare is our village and everybody here is thriving thank you for asking yeah I love it money diaries now we've talked and you've told me how much of a hustler you are like you grew up with a single mom in a not so great situation. You learned a lot. I feel like you've been through the trenches and now you're out the other side and you are absolutely pulling your socks up and getting your money storied together. You've got 95 grand in super, be for real, like that's so much money. I would

not have expected that, especially when you said, look, I went through a work cover incident, was off for three years, obviously limited my career options and how that's going to grow. But you've got like nearly $100,000 in superannuation. Like it sounds like you're killing it, but you also said that we're a C. What would it take to get to an A? To be confident investing in more than just my super. I'm very much, and this comes from that scarcity mindset, like a bricks and mortar kind of person. I would buy an investment property before I would buy a share. But in saying that, the bank of pop who always had the credit card ready came from shares. I love that. You're like, maybe there is something to that.

yeah definitely but yeah I think just investing and trying to find I guess consistent income for me would get me more to that a I think work cover is a tricky beast to be involved in and there's a lot of additional costs and things that they don't kind of share with you so that's impacted us a fair bit yeah that's really stressful well money diarist unfortunately that is all we have time for today it has been a pleasure thank you so much for sharing some of your story with us i love where you're going and i hope that in a couple of years you're like hey v can we do an updated money diary because everything has changed i just feel like that will be so cool yes we'll have to do it in person on the bush block yes please please i want to explore so

thank you so much for joining us i know that the community has adored this just as much as i have and i hope that we get to cross paths in person at some point perfect thank you so much 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.