She's On The Money - When the Cost of Living Hits Hard

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Feeling the cost of living squeeze? This week’s Money Diarist is too. She’s a vet, a mum of two, and part of a household doing all the “right” things… but still feeling seriously stretched. With interest rates climbing and every non-essential cut (yep, even the home internet), she’s in one of those seasons where money stress is just part of the daily juggle. This one is real, and way too relatable.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 - 451289.See 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. Ti, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan. Mumu bangada 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 habits for educational purposes of course welcome back to another one of our money diaries where i get the absolute pleasure of sitting down and talking with one of our incredible She's On The Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it because this week I got a message and it sounded just like this. Dear She's On The Money, I feel like I'm doing everything right and still going backwards. My partner and I both earn really good money, around a hundred grand each. We bought a home well under what the bank said we could

borrow and we've cut every non-essential from our budget. We've got two kids under two and I even went back to work early to help make ends meet. We're trying to do all of the right things, but we don't feel like we're getting ahead. Money Diarist, welcome to the show. I feel like this is going to be so relatable for so many people in our community. Hi, welcome. I am genuinely very excited about this because, you know, so often we get Money Diarist and like, you know, I'm from overseas and I earn a million dollars or, you know, I've found my way into tech and I, you know, earn all of this big amount of money. And like, that's cool. I love learning from people. But like what we haven't heard on the show recently is like, I feel like I'm doing absolutely everything

right. And I'm not getting ahead and let you clearly earn good money. So let's get into it. I want to know first cab off the rank. If I asked you to give your money habits a grade from A through to F, what would that grade be? I'd say, even though we feel like we're going backwards at the moment. I think our money habits are still okay. So I'd give myself a B plus. I feel like that's a pretty good place to start. Now let's talk a little bit more about it. I want to dive in. Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story? Yeah. So with money, I think it's one of the things that I grew up and I grew up in a family that always had like just enough to get by. Like we weren't necessarily missing out on things,

but we also weren't living lavishly or anything. And I think that sort of growing up, I was good at saving and frugal and things that didn't matter. But I was also willing to spend money on the important things. Though also, I feel that because I did sometimes miss out on a few things growing up, I may spend a bit more than I should on opportunities and experiences now that I'm an adult. I mean, that's not the worst thing. I feel like that's super relatable. Tell me what money looks like now that you are an adult. Because I feel like, I don't know what you do yet and we'll get there but I feel like once you get to an age where you're earning six figures like you feel like I don't know when I was little that in my head was

you've made it and you don't feel that way right now you just feel like you're treading water and in fact you're like no V I'm going backwards. I think for me like travel is something that I really love at the moment it is a case of more just local trips away like a weekend away locally where it's just a few hour drive or something where previous to kids it might have been like either an interstate or occasionally even an international holiday but definitely now it's reigned back in and then other things like just being able to catch up with friends and be able to have like lunches out and all that they're probably more the experiences that I'm spending money on yeah and I feel like they're the things that you're like no sorry I like I've cut everything

I'm not cutting that too. Like don't take my entire social life away. So talk to me a little bit more about, I guess what this looks like, because you said you have two under two and that you and your husband, I'm assuming this was like planned, right? Like, cause you've said, I don't know, it seems very, I don't want to be rude, but very stereotypical. We went to the bank. We have a good loan. I'm married to my husband. We now have two kids under two. Like, was this the game plan? Did you go, okay, cool. Like we're in a really good financial position. And then you found yourself maybe having under budgeted or like, how do you find yourself in a position where you're like, V, I still feel like we're not getting ahead. I feel like we got married and we had

decided to have kids before all the prices in housing and everything went up. So initially, when my husband and I started planning to have kids, we actually did have an investment property as well, which was a good thing because when everything went up, interest rates, mortgage repayments went up as well and meant that we did have that safety net to sell that investment property. In saying that, all the money that we made from that investment property, we lost within the first year or like not lost, but we used it allowing me to be on that leave for six months with my son. Right. And that's so hard, right? Because you're like, oh, this will be fine. And then you're like, hold on, we worked so hard for this and that's not how we saw it in our heads

that working out. Was that disappointing or was that like, nope, we're really happy with that because I feel like so many times it felt like we had put ourselves like we had tried to get ourselves in the best position as we could but then it seemed like things out of our control just meant that we couldn't keep those things and it felt like we're going backwards not that we regret having kids they're still like we had a second one after that anyway but yeah you were like, this is actually the best, but it's not the point. It just says, yeah, we weren't able to maintain that good financial position that we thought we were in prior to having kids. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. So tell me a little bit more. What do you

and your partner do for work and how much money do you earn? So I'm a vet. I earn about $110,000 pro rata. At the moment, I'm going back like part-time. so that's $110,000 per hour full-time though I will probably be going back full-time in February next year. And what would your salary look like in February? So going back it will be the $110,000 currently it's I think this financial year is about $67,000 because Matt Lee part-time. Yeah of course of course. So tell me what does your husband do? He's a building designer and he's also on $110,000 a year. Oh okay how cute you're like matching salaries but also sorry you're a vet, you are insanely smart, aren't you? You're a doctor. You laugh, but like, that's actually

very serious. Sometimes I definitely, I feel like I've got my baby brain. Oh, honestly, like I haven't lost mine, which is, you know, a little bit disappointing, but not surprising to anyone who has kids. So talk to me about this because I feel like a building designer and a vet, like that sounds very established to me. I'm like, girl, you have studied for ages to become a vet and I'm sure that your husband had to put in some pretty hard yards to get there. You are 30. Tell me, where did it all start to kind of feel like, V, I'm really not getting ahead? Like, did you have, and this is me just trying to get some context, did you have your heads in the sand before this or have you always been good at money? I feel like you might've always, you had an

investment property. So like, tell me about that and like how then the money just became maybe not enough? I think I was accidentally okay with money. It wasn't very intentional. I think because I wasn't necessarily spending a lot of money on things that I didn't deem important, I did put like unintentionally put money in savings. And I think that's probably my shortfall is I wasn't intentional about it. It did mean because I was trying to save money on tax, I did do salary sacrifice into my super when I was younger, which meant I did actually have, I'm still above average even after taking two mat leave breaks for my age, which is nice. But I think because I wasn't very intentional, it was just more that I knew as long as I spent less than I earned, I'd be okay,

which was fine pre-kids. But now post-kids, it seems like I need to be a lot more attentional to be able to maintain budgets and things. And I feel like that can be a really big mindset shift especially if you kind of go on I don't know you've gone from being like you know very educated and you're like no I worked really hard so I didn't have to be as like I'm assuming strict with your budgeting to like completely flipping and being like okay cool we have cut back literally every non-essential from our budget what's that like because I'm assuming you didn't go great like once we have kids we'll really knuckle down with the budgeting that was probably something you probably didn't bargain for. No, I think because when we first planned kids, the interest rates

were really low and we were hearing that like the RBA weren't going to increase for a little bit yet. And we're like, I think we made the mistake of going, oh yeah, that will work. Like the RBA won't increase interest rates until after I go back to work from that leave. But no, it happened right as I was due that all the interest increases were going up. That's so stressful. Cool. So then trying to sell the house while I was in labor. Excuse me, while you're in labor, you're trying to sell a house? Yeah, I was trying to sell the house while I was in the middle of labor. Like the real estate agent was like calling me going like, these are the offers and everything. So that was a little bit

stressful. Oh my God. And you were answering. When I was in labor, I had my phone on do not disturb. Like I did not have my head in the game. Like if you'd asked me any logical question, I would have been like, yes, whatever you say, sir. Like not an option for me. I did get to the point that I'm like, I authorize you to make these decisions with my husband. You don't have to. The problem was the house was solely in my name. So they kept on calling me and I'm like, I give him full permission to make all these decisions. Like stop calling me. And did this real estate agent know that you were in labor? We did tell them. And I think they did eventually after that point,

start talking to my husband instead. Okay. But like leave the whole family alone. Oh, I'm mad about this. I'm like, sorry, your husband had a job in that moment and it was to support you. Not reply to the real estate. Oh, anyway. So tell me when you say, look, we've cut every non-essential from our budget. What's that like? Have you gone and done a really big spreadsheet? Are you doing it on the back of an envelope? What does that budgeting process look like? I did. I like Excel sheets. So I went through one year of all my bank details. so the offset account as well as our spending account and I put everything into excel and then I divvied it up into like categories so from there like we cut out gym memberships we've even

gotten to the point that sorry that's my girl oh hi baby hey so we got to the point that like we've even cut out like internet because we have so much phone data so so literally everything literally everything and we've given ourselves like a $50 a week discretionary budget that we can spend or like $50 for discretionary $50 for takeaway and that's it so like if we want to do like a family outing or something and it's going to be like $100 we either have to take from like one of the other like next week's budget or like allowance or take it out of the takeaway allowance like we're trying to cut way back. Yeah. Wow. And is that having an impact? I feel like you mentioned, look, it just doesn't feel like we're getting ahead. Is this like a forever thing? Do

you think interest rate drops are going to help or when you go back to work, like where's the light at the end of the tunnel? Like what are we looking towards? I think because with my job, there does seem to be a bit of a high demand. I think once I'm back at work full time and I can potentially pick up extra shifts. Hopefully our budget won't be as tight. I did a budget for this year while I'm on mat leave and it's not possible to break even with all our expenses. But next year, once I'm back full time, we should be able to actually start to put money aside and savings or investments again. Yeah. It looks like you've got a plan. What does it mean to not break even? Does that mean that you're relying on credit cards or relying on savings? Or you mentioned you sold

that investment property. What does that look like? Savings. Yeah. I mean, that's a good position to be in. Like, I'm so glad you've got them. We currently are just relying on our savings and our savings account. We're not dipping into it too much and it hasn't got below like our emergency fund level, but we have been like dipping into our savings. Fortunately, we've been able not to rely on personal loans, credit cards. I do have an overdraft account, but we haven't needed to touch that either. See, that's it. I know that you don't feel like you're getting ahead and I know that it feels, I don't know, it always feels really personal. But at this point in time, I feel like so many of us are just treading water. We're waiting for interest rates to come

down or the cost of living crisis pressures to like literally ease up. And it just, it feels like we're not getting anywhere. Are you able to, in this period of time, have big money goals or are you like, no V, we are treading water until I get back to work and I have like a little bit more freedom? I do have big money goals. Our big long-term goal is to pay off the mortgage, be completely debt-free, as well as invest enough that when we get to 50, we have the option of just working part-time and hopefully get to the point that we can live off dividends. I mean, we haven't started properly investing yet, but it is something that I would love to do long term and short term just want to get us to the point that we can start saving again and

we want more than two kids so we want to save up enough that I can afford to go on that leave again I love that what are we looking at are we looking at just like maybe one more for three or are we doing five like I wouldn't ever ask someone how many more kids do you want but like you opened that door not me yeah ideally we would love four kids I love that so much like literally I have one baby and I'm like, give me all the babies. Like I love it so much. Pre my son, I was good with two, maybe three kids. And then after I had my son, I'm like, I want four. I want them all. I love that. I've got one of my girlfriends has four and like chaos. But at the same time, I'm like, that just looks so fun. Like when people are like, oh, you must be so busy. I'm like,

girl, you must be having so much fun. Like imagine that. So cool. Also in a cost of living crisis, the idea of four children gives me like anxiety, but we can talk about that later. Let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I have a lot of questions for you and I really want to talk about your super. So guys don't go anywhere. All right, we are back. I'm Money Diarist. I want to talk about investing. So you mentioned when you were a little bit younger, you said, look, I wasn't very intentional and I also wanted to like, you know, make the most of my tax situation. So I was really loading my super. What's your superannuation look like at the moment? It's just shy of a hundred thousand. I think last I checked, it was like 98,000.

Oh, okay. And you're only 30. That is looking very attractive. Yeah. So I'm glad past me did that because yeah, I have not been topping up my super when I've been on that leave. Yeah, honestly, fair. And at this point in time, you, I can almost guarantee you said you have a four month old. You gave birth before the 1st of July, which is when the contributions to superannuation kicked in for people on mat leave, which honestly, I just think is rude. I know. And then the fact that they don't start giving it even after the 1st of July, you have to have your baby after. Yeah, rude. So rude. Like I just have thoughts and feelings. I mean, I'm glad we've got it. But like, if you're already on mat leave,

come on, cough up. Yeah, I wish. Now, Money Diarist, I want to know more about your investing plans because you mentioned before my husband and I would love to be part-time by the time we're 50 and live off dividends etc but we haven't started investing like properly yet what does investing look like for you guys are you having conversations about it obviously right now we just don't have extra cash so it makes sense that we're not but like where are the conversations at yeah so at the moment it's just the micro investing with shares as part of like the non-negotiable in our budget, I had been putting aside $20 per child into their bank account. So I've now actually switched that to putting that into like Sharesies just to try to build up what I would have been

paying anyway. So at the moment it's yeah, $40 a week, not much, but the Sharesies account is at about $1,200. Yeah. And I mean, that's very good. Like the fact that you're investing already and you are like not feeling ahead. What you're telling me right now is maybe you're a little bit more ahead than you think you are? Because at the moment you're in the middle of that season of life where you don't have as much of an income and you are going, I guess, a little bit quote backwards, but you're going to jet forwards, which is also really exciting. So talk to me about debt. You said that you had an investment property, sold that, used the profits for your first maternity leave, but you also own a property at the moment. And I guess interest rates are what's really like

keeping you guys a little bit back. Tell me about what that debt looks like. What did you purchase? When? Where? How? So with the house, we purchased Gold Coast, which is nice. And we purchased at the end of 2021, this house, and we sold our investment property in 2023. Fortunately at that point, the house values had both risen, but there was a little bit of problems with the investment property with getting it sold because problems we weren't aware of came up. As far as debt, the mortgage that we currently have $595,000 remaining on the mortgage. I think at the time we were allowed to borrow up to I think $1.1 million, but we only borrowed $650,000 for our house because we wanted to borrow a lot less than we needed to. Honestly, smart. And I'm sure that

you are thanking past you for that decision because I can't imagine the financial pressure you would have been under if you had borrowed $1.1 million at this point in time. Like chaotic, I feel like you might have been forced to sell. So tell me a little bit more. You borrowed $650,000 for this home. What do you think it's currently worth if you purchased it in 2021? From what we can see like on realestate.com, it's worth over just over a million now. Yes. Okay. See, this isn't as bad. I feel like the more I get into your money story, the more I'm like, okay, cool. Like it probably feels like you're drowning and you're just like not getting ahead. But as time's going on, you're like super's ticking away. I'm sure that your

husband has a relatively healthy super account doing what he does. You've got a nice amount of equity. Like girl, if you've got $595,000 remaining, you've got nearly $400,000 worth of equity. And that doesn't mean that we are cashing it out and borrowing more, but how good if like, let's be honest, the SH1T hit the fan and you needed to sell knowing that you'd be sitting on a nice amount of cash. That takes some pressure off. Yeah, it definitely does. Absolutely. And then also in the future, once you go back to being on your like full-time, because you mentioned before, you're like, look, pro rata, I'm earning what, like $67,000 this last financial year, but you're going to go back to 110. You're going to have some more wiggle room. We probably have

some more investment opportunity and we could even potentially talk about investment property. You guys aren't so behind that, oh my goodness, I don't know how we're ever going to get back. But it still doesn't feel good, especially when you are two incredibly educated human beings who are doing their best and you're like, I can't even work out how to do this. How are other people doing this? Because I'm giving myself literally 50 bucks a week and if I want to do stuff with the kids, I've got to use that cash. So we're asset comfortable and maybe cash flow poor at the moment. Yeah, that would be it. I feel like that's not the worst position to be in, but also not the most fun position. Given you've had to really knuckle down over the past little

while, what do you think your best money habit is? I can be very disciplined with money when I want to be. So once I realized that we were cashflow poor and I put in the budget, we've been really good at sticking with it. So we put that in place back in May and May and June were like the first months that we actually spent less than we budgeted to spend. Which is very cool and very exciting. Do you think that will continue? Yeah, I think so. Now that we're both being a lot more mindful with how we're spending money, I think that will definitely rein in the amount that we're losing or spending. Absolutely. And I feel like I talk to people all the time about budgets, right? I'm like,

okay, obsessed with budgeting and cashflow and finance. I don't think that's a secret in this community, but it's really interesting going through your budget and realizing where your money is flowing. What do you think was the most surprising thing that you were going through your budget and going, hold on, that's costing us what? Because I don't think it's surprising when you go, oh, I'll cut out this like gym membership. But like, was there a spending category that shocked you? It's one that I hear all the time on money diaries, but I think it's the takeaway. The amount that we're spending on takeaway was almost half our grocery budget, which was ridiculous. Like my husband and I, we enjoy like our thing to do together would just be to go to a nice cafe and

spend some time together at a cafe. So I think we did a lot of takeaway. So now we're just being a bit more mindful, but it was probably half of our grocery budget we're spending on takeaways. yeah when I went on my like very short but when I went on maternity leave with Harvey I was tracking all of my spending and like I hadn't tracked my spending as aggressively as I had until I had you know a little bit more breathing room and I was like oh do the budgets because like any normal person on their mat leave that's exactly what they want to do it's not but I was very excited about it I was shocked at how much and like I should know right like we're smart people but like the little coffees, the fact that I would go to the cafe and like use it as my like,

oh, Harvey and I going out, like, you know, I've got a four week old baby. I thought I was on top of the world, you know, even getting out of the house in the morning for a walk on my own, by the way, because like, to me, that was a big feat. You telling me like, I'm walking the dog and pushing a pram at the same time by myself, like to me, that was massive. So I would get to the cafe. What do you mean an almond croissant is $9? And at the time I was like, yep, just an almond croissant and a latte and then I'd reflect on my like budget and I'll be like, hold on, this is like getting a bit embarrassing. And I was like, Steve, did you know that we spent like, you know, over this week, I think it was like $250 or something at cafes. And I was like, this is

just a week. And he's like, well, how did that happen? Because he didn't believe me. And I was like, well, you know, we spent $60 on the Saturday and then on the Sunday we spent $30 because we both had like a little, you know, treat and a coffee and I've been spending some money during the week and then your coffee's added up. Like it just added up. And I was like, that's a bloody grocery budget. That was so embarrassing. Like cut that out. Don't worry. But it's really confronting, isn't it? It is. And it's so easy to do. I know. I feel like they're the little treats that I'm like, no, surely that doesn't eat into the budget too much. And it really does. So I'm not cutting out coffee I think I've said that on the show before not cutting that out but I will cut out

the additional little sweet treat or maybe we can have a few pieces of toast before we go for our walk and just have a coffee yeah so yes going out with the pup and the bub together is a big feat when you're a new mum too I feel like people underrate that right like I remember my husband came home and I said guess what I did today and he was like what and I was like I went for a walk with Lucy and Harvey and he was like, um, congrats, I guess. And I was like, no, no, no. I walked the dog and pushed the pram. And he was just like looking at me like I was crazy. Sorry. I felt so naked. I was like this dog that is incredibly well-trained for some reason in my head was going to be the worst trained dog in the entire world. She was probably going to run across a main road

in my head. I did it. And I don't think we talk about that enough because to me, I got out of that. And do you know what? I was wearing clean, active wear. That's also an achievement. Do you know what? I had it made. I had it made at four weeks. Yeah. I think sometimes just washing your hair when you have the new bum is an achievement as well. Do you know what? I reckon that that needs to be the priority. You need a partner, a birthing partner, a friend, come over, watch my baby for the 20 minutes that I'll be in the shower. You come out, you feel like an entirely new human being. Sometimes you just need a shower and to step away from the baby for like 10 minutes. I know you don't want to,

but you will be 6 million times better as a mom after you've had that shower, I promise. It makes such a difference. Now, Money Dice, we need to flip the narrative here. What do you think your worst money habit is? I think because we both were earning a decent amount before I went on bat leave, it was so easy to have lifestyle creep and just justify it. Like if I picked up an extra shift before having my bub, I would just be like, oh, well, I bought this extra shift. I'm having more money. That justifies me having takeout lunch and a coffee or all those things. So I definitely think lifestyle creep unchecked definitely ate up a lot of potential savings. Yeah. And I feel

like it's nice to reflect on that, but also, sorry, I enjoyed those things as well. Money Daris, at the start of the show, you said, I reckon I'm a B plus because like we might not have heaps of cash at the moment, but like we're not bad with money. What do you think it would take to get you to like an A or an A plus? Like what would have to change? Is it just an increasing cash flow or are there like things you're like, nah, I would need to do A, B, C and D. Like what does that look like for you? I think at this point in time, an increasing cash flow will be the majority of it. And the other thing will be sticking with the budget longer term because at the moment it's got like a lot of momentum having had the budget for about three months and been

doing well but I know previously I've done all this done the budget and about the six month mark I get a bit sloppy with it and lifestyle creep starts to creep back in and so I think for it to get higher I need to be better at re-evaluating sticking to the budget and then tweaking it as needed. I've been saying this to my team actually we need to get like a little group and I don't don't even know how to facilitate this, but like maybe a reminder where we all get every three months are, hey, we know you're starting to slip off your budget train. Now's the time to redo it because we all do it. I'm guilty of it. Like I get in a mood and I do my whole budget and I am perfect for a week. And then things start to slip or there's something that popped up in my budget

that I forgot to budget for. And then I'm like, I'll fix that later. And then all of a sudden it's three months and I haven't looked at that spreadsheet. I feel like we're all guilty of it. So we need to find some way in this community to foster more group accountability because that would be, I don't know, for me, a lot more motivating. Yeah. Have the Monday money wins and every three months budget. Need to come up with a catchy phrase for it, but. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not even sure if money win is like that catchy, but I've said it so often that people who've just adopted it and we're just not going to question it. So I'll think of some kind of catchy, like accountability, something, but there's no day of the week that starts with an

A. So I've got to get crafty. I might ask my friend chat GPT. Money Diarist, this has been such a good money diary. I feel like it just is really relatable. Like so many people in our community are earning what you're earning and feeling just as stuck. And I feel that it is a point of maybe not contention, but a point where you're like, oh, I feel a bit embarrassed because like you're not a low income earner so you don't want to be seen to be like complaining but you also are working really hard for the money that you've gotten gotten to that stage and you go hold on but I want to talk about it as well and make sure that I'm on the right track and doing the right things and it would be so nice to be able to share this load with somebody but then

you don't want to because you feel like oh I know I'm not in the worst position ever right so this I think has been the perfect little conversation. So many people are in your position, my love. Thank you. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to share your story. Thank you so much. And I know the community is just going to love the fact that this was just so relatable.

I hope that we get to cross paths at some point in person too so that I can meet that little lady who's been snugging you the whole time we've been doing this money diary. Well, thanks so much. It's been so much fun. 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.