She's On The Money - Your Midyear Finance Health Check

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

New financial year, new you! Most people create their goals and look at their forward planning in January in line with a fresh new year, but how often do you review those? EOFY is the perfect time to do a review of how you've been tracking with your financial goals, or even to start fresh. SO, on today's show we talk mindset and goals,and we also run through a list of practical things that you should be checking in on at this time of year! 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, Kurni, Wolperi and Awadjuri 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 Awadjuri 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. My name is Bec Syed and today on the show and on the eve of end of financial year, we are doing a finance health check with Victoria Devine. On the eve of EOFY. Oh my god, is there a better, more exciting? It's the eve of my birthday, babe. Like there is not anything more exciting than EOFY. I'm so excited. And if you guys don't agree, well, that makes a lot of sense because it is actually kind of lame. And it can be very daunting for some. But like let us have our moment. Like we're allowed to get excited about the content that ignites our fires. I think

it's so funny that you're born on EOFY and that my dad was an accountant. Your future was written for you. It was written in the stars. It was written in Excel code. It really was. Do you want to talk about EOFY? I feel like now is a good time to do a little mid-year finance health check. new financial year new you I feel like we're going to embrace that every single year like why not have it every six months that we do a new year new you vibe because I feel like by six months into the year so many of us have like fallen off the bandwagon and we just we need a little help we're the stepping stool that's going to help you get back on the horse yeah I really agree to help you so most people they create their goals and look at their forward planning like

January in line with a fresh new year, but like we don't review them enough. So we do fall off that little horse. Yeah. We should do an ins and outs list. We should. In for July 1st, 2024 and out. I did that a couple of years ago and it went really well. So maybe that's good content. Are you a content creator, Bec? You wouldn't think so, but I might have it in my bones. You might have it in your bones. You're the next big thing on TikTok, I reckon. Do you think so? Yeah. I mean, And you're really funny. So it makes sense. You're really funny. And I feel like everyone who meets you just wants to be your friend. That is so sweet, V. Thank you so much. It's not even sweet. Like I'm not even being nice. It's just a fact, babe. But back onto the show,

I really like to use the end of financial year to review my goals, make sure I'm on track. If not, reset some new ones. Also review the goals that I set because some of the goals I set, I don't even want that anymore, Bec. I've changed my mind. You grow a lot in six months. Yeah, like I'm a different woman than I was six months ago and I want to give myself like a financial midpoint check-up and we're going to look at this like midpoint check-up like we're servicing our car, right?

Like it's vital to keep yourself on the road for financial security and when the little warning light comes on, it doesn't mean we're completely off the road. It just means you need to top up your oil. Yeah. And like right now, we're just topping up our oil. Totally. We're just giving ourselves some attention,

giving ourselves a little check-in. We deserve so much attention. We do. So it just makes sense. and after the break we are going to talk about mindset and goals but now we'll run through a list of practical things that you should be checking in on yeah well that's very me isn't it to make a list very made it in excel but i've got a list ready for you of all the things to do but my first is that i recommend you make this exercise as sexy as possible beck so maybe you'd

like set yourself up a little date night and get takeaway yeah do all the things make you feel good maybe a red wine. Yeah. A little red wine. That's very me at the moment. Yeah. A milky foot maybe. What's a milky foot? Oh, do you know what? The first time I ever did a milky foot, I like took it off and I was like, well, this did nothing. And so I just assumed it did nothing. Two days later, I'm like, well, that didn't work. Three days later, I'm about to go to a friend's wedding. Like, you know, I'd put on my trainers. I'd gone for a really nice walk that morning. And then I I was like, I'll come back, I'll do my hair and all my makeup, we'll be at this wedding by three, like, oh, good.

Take off my trainers and half my foot was stuck to my sock and I had to change my entire dress because the shoes that I was going to wear were really strappy. And if you've used a milky foot, you know what your foot looks like. I had to, like, go full floor length dress and, like, more of a closed toe shoe because I was like this. A skin sock. Cannot get the dogs out today.

Cannot. So do be careful. Do be careful if you're going to do a milky foot on your finance date night. but if you want to, you do you boo. I was traumatized from one though. I haven't tried it yet, but I will. I feel like in honor of EOFY, I'm going to try Milky Foot. Okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And if anyone's on social media and like trying to draw the conclusion or the connection between Milky Foot and finance, don't worry. There is one. There is one. There is one, but let's go back to my list because I feel like that's a little bit more expected on this

podcast. So first things first, I feel like you're going to see this coming, but we want to review your spending patterns. Costs have gone up across the board and believe me, you guys have been noticing it. You're in my DMs telling me all of the ridiculous things. In fact, I had a conversation with Glenn James from the This Is Money podcast the other day, and he was reviewing his book, which by the way, his book is very good. You should definitely go and purchase it. But he was reviewing his book and he had to update that a coffee costs you five dollars because he's like oh I probably should update that to like seven dollars that's insane that's so gross but it's so true right yeah but costs have gone up everywhere and I'm a really big fan of automation

but you should go through your last three months of bank statements and just see where you're spending money we're not going to judge ourselves we're not going to crucify ourselves for the decisions that we made in the past because like Bec where does that get us nowhere literally nowhere. So we're just going to look, we're going to be insightful and we're going to see, you know, am I actually spending in line with my values or are my values a little bit different to what I keep saying they are? Like we talked about this a little while ago, Bec, and you were like, I just really need to save. And I was like, okay, well, let's look at your spending. And when you did, you were like, turns out I just really like hanging out with my friends. And I was like,

I get that totally. I want to know, have you had a budget? If so, are you actually sticking to it? and if not is it because it's an unrealistic budget like too many times I think we're too aspirational with our budgets and like you know I want to be aspirational but we need to be more realistic than aspirational we need to sit down and be like Bec I know that you only wanted to spend you know x amount on this but you actually really enjoy it and therefore if we take it off you you're going to feel like you're missing out yeah true and we need to balance it with your lifestyle yes so like I'm never going to be one of those financial independents retire early girlies yeah because that's just not going to work for me because like I am not good at delayed gratification

if that's you like all hail like you win I lose but I think that we need to make budgets that are actually realistic so even if you have a really aggressive savings goal if you're checking in today and it's six months into the year and you're like well I haven't met it instead of going, all right, well, I'll just get back on the bandwagon and, you know, aggressively save for the next six months. Ask yourself, is that actually realistic or should I change my goal or my timeframe? Like, should I be going, you know, saving 10 grand by the end of the year? I just know I'm not going to achieve it. So I think the best thing here is to either push the timeframe out on that goal or change it. I mean, if you really want to knuckle down, I've got you. I

want to back you to the hill, but I also don't want you to get to the end of the year and go, oh my gosh Beck I'm so bad at money like I set this money goal and I didn't achieve it when the reality was it's not you being bad with money it's you going oh I want to do too much but I also want to live my life yeah does that make sense like we don't need to set ourselves up for failure let's not do that because the easiest way to be really disheartened with money and think that you're bad at it when you're not is to set goals that are unrealistic for your lifestyle totally like your goal is like 10,000, but you only save two. Imagine your goal was to save a thousand instead of 10,000. You'd be stoked with yourself. Exactly. And then it kind of like plays into

the momentum. Like if you set a goal back of saving your thousand dollars, you'd be like, oh my gosh, I did it. I'm going to move on to the next goal and maybe make it a little bit bigger. But I think sometimes, and this isn't meant to be disheartening, sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. And then when we can't chew it, we're surprised and we're like, oh my gosh, I'm so bad at money. Like my friends, you're not bad at money. We're just not setting goals that are realistic for our lifestyles. And like, it would be so nice to have 10 grand. So nice. Like I want 10 grand. And if I said to you, Bec, do you want to be able to? You'd be like, oh yeah. Like who doesn't want that? But we also need to be realistic because we don't want to make ourselves feel like

trash along the way. Like you don't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. So let's just make sure we're setting enough into our budget aside for groceries and petrol and bills and rent and your discretionary spending while still trying to take account of our goals and what we're working towards because at the moment it's really hard I find for people to be balancing life costs and your goals like you might have life costs and you didn't get a pay rise this year and then you've got these goals but because everything else is costing so much more you're not adjusting your grocery budget and you're just going well why aren't I achieving my goals like I was able to last year. Like sometimes we need to like just move the goalposts a little bit and actually

review it and go, Bec, I know that you only, you know, hypothetically want to spend $100 a week on groceries. And I know you keep working towards that, but every week you're going over it. It's not because you're spending too much on groceries. It's just because groceries are more expensive. We actually now need to budget $130 for groceries. Like that's going to take the pressure off significantly, right? You know, groceries aren't the be all end all. They're not the thing that's going to save you when it comes to saving money, but it's a good example, right? The other thing when it comes to bills is, have you recently done like a service comparison with your provider? So in Victoria, we have the Vic Energy Saver Compare, and we will be getting those rebates

on the 1st of July, which is very, very soon and very, very sexy. So make sure you're with the right supplier so that you get a rebate, but you're also saving some money along the way. I also really like to have a look at my plans for the next six months and make sure that I'm setting enough aside for that like yeah beck are we going to meredith yes you know like we got that plan because if you're like oh that's like two or three months off i don't have to worry about that how quick does two or three months come up and i say meredith not to like throw you under the bus but it's a really good example like you had committed to that so long ago you're really excited about it but i bet if i asked you you just feel like it crept up real quick and you're like

oh my god i feel out of control now like i don't have enough for this exactly i thought i would be a bit different this year, but now I'm like, oh, wait, that's actually coming up. And I haven't prepared for it, but I will. Go put it in place, you and I. We're going to sit down and do our budgets at some point. I keep saying that you and I are going to do this and then we don't find time. So wine's on me. Okay. And you don't even drink that much wine, but the spicy water is on me. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'll buy you the bubbly water. Oh, what a treat. Don't worry, I've got more where that came from. Also, once I've reviewed everything that I've just mentioned, I'm then going to set up all of my direct debits so that they automatically help me align with

the updated plan that I've got. So like, again, Meredith is a good example, I think, because you were so genuinely disappointed. You were like, oh, this sucks. Like, I hate this. But if we had set up a direct debit, it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. And then that money is over to the side for that goal at the point in time that you require it. Right. So then it's just set and forget for another six months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. And I think it works really well. And so many times people will say to me, but V, I really want to be in control of my money. And I go, you can be in control of your money with direct debits just always check in on them and make sure that they aren't you know direct debiting for things that you shouldn't be direct debiting for

or like you've got your Netflix account direct debiting but you haven't been using it that's when we need to get rid of it you don't need to necessarily log into your bank every month and make that manual transaction even though you think that that might make you quote better at money if you're not actually going to log in and make the transfer every single month you only do it when you remember. Sure. Because sometimes out of sight, out of mind. Totally. And it kind of feels like when you like see a $10 Netflix subscription fee come out of your regular account, it's like, oh, I've just spent $10. But then when it comes out of the dedicated Netflix account, it's like, huh, that's free money. Yeah. That was already there. It's planned money. I was meant to spend

that. So that leads into point two, which I've just touched on, which is like review your subscriptions and points scheme. So are you paying for apps that you don't use or don't need? So do you know that on your phone, Bec, you can go and you hit settings and then you hit your name at the top and then you hit subscriptions and it will tell you all of the subscriptions that you currently have and what you're paying for and when it expires. So whenever I download like a free trial for something or I've got, you know, at the moment, sorry, Duolingo, I love you. I follow you on TikTok but that's expiring on the 6th of June for me but that's expiring because I cancelled my subscription yeah on purpose so it didn't automatically renew and then if I decide

but wait I'm still using my Duolingo I can then pay for that subscription at that point in time by choice instead of having it direct debited yes so now is the time to go through those subscriptions and basically cancel them all so that you can make those payments by choice because it'll come up like let's say I'm looking at mine right now Bec and I can see that my binge account is going to renew automatically on the 30th of May sorry binge love you still I'm going to cancel it literally right now because if I'm not using it and I go to log in I can repay for it then yes but it might be a little bit of a practice in like do you actually use this yeah kind of like your 24-hour thing yeah but it's with binge when you go to log in you haven't paid for it you're

like I don't really need it yes and it's like that check at that time because like I don't know about you like and this is so off track but sometimes I'm like flicking around I'm like oh Netflix is boring like I can't find anything I want to watch even though there's like thousands of hours of good content on there so I'm like oh just flick over to binge yeah I'll have a check of what's on there maybe I'll find something that piques my interest like if I flicked over and I hadn't paid for that subscription and it said you know you need to update your payment details I'd be like yeah I'm just gonna go back and find something on Netflix oh yeah thanks though whereas binge like I might re-download it later if I'm like oh there's a specific series I really

want to watch and it's available on binge like go do it then I know that that sounds lame but like that's the conversation we need to have because from little things big things really do grow like and it sounds lame but like I know my mentality and Beck I know you're very similar so surely it works for other people as well right oh yeah and it's not just binge if you're doing it for multiple things like it really all adds up exactly and then what's your gym membership doing for you I know you love your gym membership I do but if I was paying for a gym membership that would be money literally being flushed down the drain right so we need to be a little bit real with ourselves are you using it or nah yeah like if you're not using it maybe cancel it

and then when you get your motivation back then you can gift it back to yourself yeah because like what's the worst you go without it for a couple of months and then decide you're back into it, you didn't pay for it for a couple of months. Money win. Do you have some points that are going to expire? If so, can we spend them on something? Or can you email the company and ask them to extend your expiry date on those points? Like we don't want to miss out on anything. And then what are your points or cashback balances? And can you use these to save on expenses that are coming up? It's like, I've got a few dollars sitting in my shop back account still. Like, Could I cash that out and allocate it towards something or cash that out and throw it straight

in my savings towards a goal that maybe I haven't met yet? I didn't realize you could cash it out. I thought you were just using the app. No, you can cash it out. Cashback, like literally on Shopback, is real dollaroos. Whoa, that's exciting. Yeah, but it's like not like fake money where you just like put it towards something else. Sure.

Like, Bec, you can put it in your bank account. Once we finish up here. You're going to be running. Oh, yeah. All right. So number three, if you are in the privileged position of having purchased property, we're going to look at our home loan and insurances and make sure that everything is up to date. Irrespective of whether you own a home or not, you need to be reviewing your insurances and making sure that your will is up to date. But the first Tuesday of every month has been like a bit of a dread day for many because of the RBA interest rate hikes.

Right. You probably haven't noticed it's Tuesdays. I haven't. As a finance girly, I am on my phone at about 11am on a Tuesday being like, what's going on? Sure. What are you going to give us? It's been pretty good this year. I mean, they haven't dropped it significantly, which would be a slay, but like they haven't been throwing update after update on us to increase it. But the mid-year point is another really

good prompt to ask your broker or your bank for a discount on the home loan and the investment property loan interest rates that you might have like also if you don't ask you don't get like if you have a mortgage you're gonna save some money if they say yes is that not worth being like hey can you review this totally what's the worst i can say i'm like no like i've heard that a million times totally that's fine so ask the question because it could save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars and what do your insurances look like right do you have the right cover for your life insurance, all of your personal insurances. If not, go talk to Phil Thompson at Sky Wealth. I'm going to put his name and his contact details in the show notes because I don't

know about you, Bec, but I'm wildly passionate about personal insurances and the protection that they give you. Also, some of your insurances, tax deductible. There you go. Money win. Huh. I mean, not all of them, but like talk to them about that because it's nice to know that you can claim something at tax time but then i also want you to make sure that your house and your car insurance and stuff is all up to date and relevant like if you're having an invoice come in from your car insurance company being like beck it's time to renew and you're not calling them up and saying give me a better deal doing yourself a disservice yeah because nine times out of ten they do give you a better deal they're just hoping that you'll pay that amount because yeah you know you sent the

invoice yeah true we always ask and then is your will up to date a bit lame a bit boring a bit morbid but like it needs to be up to date because circumstances can change really quickly and god forbid something happens and your wishes aren't reflected in your will obviously you're not going to be around so like you won't notice but your family will yeah and like it can be a monster of a task to deal with someone who doesn't have a will so a will is a very very good idea okay that's good to know and i imagine you should use at any age irrespective of your age i think everyone should have a will. Okay. That's good to know. Also, it makes you feel like you've got your shit together. Yeah, that's true. If you just want to feel like you've got your financial

shit together this year, that's a really good like big ticket item that you could do. If you want to feel like an adult. And I think I do want to feel like an adult. You want to feel like an adult? I think so. We'll have a will. Soon anyway. I like it. What do you want to know about super annuation, Bec? It's number four. Okay. What do I want to know about super? Can you do anything about it? Yeah, you can. I mean, what we want to do is just review our super. So log into our account and check if your employer has been making the right contributions. Like just make sure that you're dotting all your I's and crossing all your T's, even if you do trust your employer, because sometimes it can get away from them. Maybe somehow they have the wrong details. Maybe they are just

not paying it because they're a little bit cheeky. So we want to do a check and don't forget, guess what? We get a pay rise inside of our super. So on the 1st of July, it goes from 11% to 11.5% because we're on the way to 12. So next year, we are going to get 12% in superannuation. And we need to make sure that we understand our salary package. So Bec, I know you're applying for jobs and looking around at the moment. And when we talk about salary, they could say it's salary plus super or it's a package of all of it included.

So if your employer pays you salary plus super, that's a money win because they won't take that additional 0.5% out of your take-home pay to pay it into super because the contract they have with you is plus superannuation and that would be at the rate that the government has outlined super to be at. But if you have a salary package, and I think this is really sneaky and employers shouldn't do this but they're probably going to do this, they might go, all right, well, Bec, you've got a salary package.

I'm just going to shift that 0.5% from your income over to super. and I would be having a conversation now with your employer about what their plans are if you're not sure. Yeah. Just send a nice message to HR and be like, hey, I'm assuming that you will be increasing my super and not decreasing my take-home pay. Yeah.

What does this mean? Can I negotiate that and see what that means? Because I don't want people to be in a worse position because you're investing for your future. Like future you, going to thank you for that one, I promise. Of course. Speaking of investments fee. Yes.

What's up next? All right. It's investments because you're reading my voice because of my shoulder. You dirty dog. All right. So we want to review our investments. So it's a good time to check in with your investments and adjust any ongoing contributions. So the goal for investments is obviously going to be very different for everybody.

And it kind of segues in from superannuation because as we know, most of us do have superannuation. So we are already investors and is your money. So you have to take care of it, Bec. Like, if you're not logging in, like, Bec, again, I love you dearly, but I know you aren't the best saver in the world. Yes. So, are you currently saving 11% of your income? No. We know you're not.

And that's okay. That's so fine. But you are inside super. And if you were saving 11% outside super, I'm sure you'd be checking and making sure it was a high interest savings account and, like, doing the best thing for it. But we don't do that inside super. Blows my mind. You need to care about it. They're the rules.

It's your money. it's your choice you have complete control over it look at it just log in one time it'll put you in a better financial position i promise but you're going to review all of your other investments and because your goals are different you might want to do a number of different things but you might want to consider whether you can increase your ongoing contributions or we're in the middle of a cost of living crisis beck do you need to decrease them for a short period of time so that you can feel a little bit more financially stable right that's actually a fine thing to do like i'm giving you permission to decrease how much you are investing if it takes the financial

pressure off at home yeah if it means that you're not so stressed about the groceries like just do it do it for this short period of time i know it's still a priority to you but it's going to impact the rest of your finances and your mental health and to me that's really important oh absolutely that's number one life's about balance and sometimes it's a little bit off balance and you can't work as aggressively towards your goals and that's okay it's okay you're allowed that's the right. Next, six. Yes. You're not going to see this one coming. Review your privacy. Use the start of the new financial year to enhance your online security and safeguard your personal information. I know that that should not be something that you hear on She's On The Money,

but the world is getting wild and there are so many scams out there. And it's probably been a while since you changed your password, Bec. Like stop updating your password to the same word with different numbers. How did you know? I just know. I just know. Do you know the most common password still is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? Really? Wild. Well, well, well. If I have ever had an original thought in my life. But I want you to consider changing your passwords and updating that. Consider updating them and enabling that two-step verification for your online accounts and think about whether you need a password manager. So I have one. In my opinion, the answer is absolutely yes but think about whether you need one or not I have two-step verification on my

phone and I feel like that makes me feel really safe even just to like log into my Instagram and my Facebook we're not even talking about bank security at this point because so many of my friends recently like I keep seeing them be hacked and like you know random stuff going up on their Instagram story about Bitcoin and like it's just it's so common like just safeguard yourself we're cleaning our little financial house. And if you can be hacked, it can impact you financially. So we're just not down for that, you know? Or maybe your coach has made you $47,000 in Bitcoin. Oh my gosh. If that's the case. In which case, please carry on posting. That's not a hack, babe. Call me. Yeah, seriously. I think you'd have a conniption if you saw where I stored my passwords,

but oh my gosh. Hey, that's a story for another time. Side note, I went to my parents' house the other day and thankfully this is not a thing anymore. And I saw all these random words sprinted out on a piece of paper on their kitchen bench oh good dad what's that he said oh it's just all my passwords oh good in the communal space no worries what for he's like oh i just didn't want to forget them and i was like well no one else will either no one else is gonna forget that either anyway moving on beck clean up your filing cabinet i don't know if you have one clean up your shoe box or that drawer at the bottom of the cutlery drawer like clean up that bottom drawer where all the receipts and bits and bobs end up going. Because according to the ATO or the

Australian Taxation Office, you should keep financial records for five years. So you can't technically throw them out, but like, let's just have a storage box or a nice container and keep them all together because they're everywhere. And I'm just making it easy for financial you next year. Like it's going to be much easier, I promise. But shred paperwork that is older than five years and then file everything else. So bills, invoices, bank statements, and then remember that any filing system you implement should be quickly and easily maintained so that you're motivated to keep your records in order. So I take lots of photos. You guys probably already know. I started doing that actually. Yeah, I think it's a good way of doing it. And then I just put it into a folder on my

phone. Yes. And then I know where they are. And then also I know that I said, you know, shred financial paperwork that's older than five years. Sometimes the bank still sends me like paper bank statements and like I know that that's easily accessible on my internet banking so I just read those two like just don't carry things you don't need but also if in doubt just put it to the side put it into your filing cabinet if you have one. If in doubt print it out. No don't print it out that's so bad for the environment. That is bad for the environment. Right you're cancelled let's go to a really quick break on the flip side we're going to be talking about re-evaluating your goals and money mindset which I think is honestly going to be the best part of this show so thanks

for sticking around thus far. Welcome back, everyone. So we're talking about our mid-year financial health check. Now let's talk about money mindset and goals. What should we be doing this time of year? All right. So I've given you a list of like checkpoint things that I think you should be doing. But one of the most important things I think is re-evaluating your goals and your money mindset. So we touched on this before, like maybe your goals have changed. Maybe you're not working towards it as aggressively. And we need to do a little bit of inner work and go, well, Beck, you said that you wanted this, but do you really want this? Like, is something else more important? And that's okay if it is, but we just need to be honest

with ourselves. And I think that being honest with ourselves is the best way to be moving forward. You don't have to tell anyone else. Like, you don't have to say, oh, I don't care about this anymore. Like, we're not having these deep conversations with anyone other than ourselves. like do your goals still serve you are you still excited about working towards them like you know you might have had a holiday planned and you were so excited about it Beck and you're like yeah yeah and then all of a sudden you're like I just don't care anymore like I just I don't want to go anymore so you like follow through on the motions of it and you might still go on the holiday but you're like well I could have gone without and I like much would have preferred to save for a house

yeah and like that's not saying that you have to do that but you might have like rediscovered a different goal or discovered something new that you want to invest your money in and it's okay to change you can cancel do you need help from a professional is also a really good question here because sometimes we're in a bit over our heads right do you have debt that is completely getting in the way of your money mindset is it something that you need to call our friends at the national debt helpline and just go all right well what am i doing like i feel stuck in the mud here how can you help me i promise they are the kindest people in the entire world they are used to helping people. And I know that this is not what they want me to do in terms of their branding and

marketing, but they're not paying for this show. But Beck, if you called, I can guarantee they've seen people in worse situations. So like, it's not that bad. They're not going to pick up the phone and be like, wow, that's embarrassing. Like they're going to go, oh babe, that's easy. Let's work through this together. And you'll be like, oh my gosh, I feel so much lighter. Like I feel like I can do this now. Like sometimes just reaching out and getting a little bit of a helping hand is a really good idea. But the other thing I want to talk about is the key to achieving any goal is to be really smart about it. That's clever. I know, right? Smart goal methodology, but I'm not going to talk about the smart goals. I'm going to talk about the SOTM goals because

they are podcast goals. So obviously being specific is important. We need to be really clear and define our goals. The next is optimistic. So we want to be optimistic because if we're not excited about a goal. Why are we working towards it? We also need to be optimistic because we want to back ourselves. Like Beck, if you don't believe you can do it, why are we here? Are we being optimistic? Is this goal reasonable? Is this goal something that you can actually achieve? Like, do you think you're on the right pathway? Have you worked backwards and been like, all right, well, if I want to save $10,000 this year, let's break it down into the smallest possible. That's $27.50 a day. That does not seem like a lot actually. No, but if it's $27.50 a day,

can you achieve that? And you go, well, maybe I can. Like if you break down a big goal into very small manageable bite-sized pieces, it seems a lot easier, right? Yeah. Like if I said to you, Bec, let's be really aggressive and save $27.50 every single day, you might go, well, that's achievable. Whereas if I said, Bec, save 10 grand, you'd be like, but beyond me, not happening. no thank you absolutely not no thank you but also the goal might feel overwhelming just because it's so big yeah so I think it's important to understand and be optimistic about what you can achieve and find a way to be optimistic about it because like Bec if I said are you optimistic about saving 10 grand you'd be like no way no not keen but if I said do you reckon you could do

$27.50 a day go I reckon I could do that I reckon I could do $15 every half a day $15 every half day Start of the day, end of the day, $15. But isn't it wild how much they add up? Yeah. It's actually really confronting, right? We should do a whole podcast episode on like $5 a day on the way to wealth or something. That's actually a really good idea. Yeah.

Let's talk about that later. Like it might not be $5. It might be like a bit more than that. Whatever you can do. Maybe we can do lots of different ones. Like what $2 a day would get you. Yes. How good.

Anyway, moving on. The next is T. So timely. we want to set a time that you want to achieve this goal. Is it a fair time? Like, cause if I said, Beck, you need to save this 10 grand by tomorrow, that's not going to work. Like, but if we've broken it down into small enough goals and we have the time, it'll be achievable. And then the last one is measurable. So we need to ensure that it is measurable so that we know when we've hit that goal. So if your goal is, I want to save more money, that's not specific

enough. That's not measurable. Like, I don't know if you've been able to save within your capacity or not. I don't know if you've actually achieved it. Like, at what point do we start celebrating? Like, how do we pop the cork on a bottle of champagne? If you set the goal, I wanted to save. And I keep using $10,000, which is probably a really rude number at this point in time, because we're in the middle of a cost of living crisis, Beck, and then you might go, V, stop saying 10 grand. That's so overwhelming. I don't think we're ever going to get there. It's just an example, right? Like, and it's not meant to be. And do you know what? I was at a speaking presentation the other day and someone put their hand up at the end of my presentation

and they were like V how much like should I be saving in percentage like you never talk about percentages and I was like yeah and I'm glad you bring this up because I will never talk about you need to be saving in terms of percentages because Bec if I turned around to you and said you need to be saving 10% of your income I mean we talk about this 11 and 11 and a half percent when it comes to superannuation but that's because it's government mandated and we don't actually have any control over it, right? But if I said to you, Bec, you need to save 10% of your income. If you were earning $400,000, which is astronomical amounts of money, is that reasonable? I guess it depends on your circumstances.

Yeah, but like $400,000, save 10%, Bec, I'd be like, oh, can't you save more, Bec? Like if I sat you down and did your budgeting cash flow, like we're not talking about, you know, your mortgage repayments and stuff. But if you're on an income of 400 grand and you're saving not 10%, I'd be like, well, where's that money going? Like, you've got a lot of it. We need to just get our stuff together now. Like I would actually expect someone on $400,000 as an ex-financial advisor, you're saving more than that. Guarantee. Like that's just how it works, right? Unless you are blowing it all on hookers and coke, which to be honest, as an ex-financial advisor, I have seen, but I probably have a little bit like I have high expectations for you on that salary right

but if we flip it and you are a mum and you are single and you are earning $40,000 is it fair to then say you need to be saving 10% of your income right no you can't do that in fact if you're in that season of your life and you're not able to save a dollar I get it like I fully go well that makes sense of course you can't save a dollar because you're in that season of life where you're putting food on the table for your kids, you have a low income and it would be bloody hard. I'm not going to come out and say, all right, well, you need on average to be, you know, saving this percentage and investing this percentage and this percentage goes to your fun things. Like that just skews it in a way that you're setting unrealistic expectations

for what you can achieve and what's fair. Like if you're in a season of life where you can't save a dollar, slay queen, like at least you have a budget and you know that that's your current situation. It's not going to be your situation forever. And that's okay. And we'll work towards it. But if you're comparing this percentage system and going, well, V, I'd really like to have a goal. And it's like, I want to save 10% of my income and you're on 400 grand, babe, make it higher. Like I expect a bit more from you. But if you're in a season of your life where your income is equal to your output, I get it. And I think we need to touch on it there too, because it needs to be measurable when it comes to goal setting but that's so that you know when

you're achieving a goal and whether it's achievable for you because if we go through this methodology and you go s-o-t-m you go you know specific and then you've gone optimistic and then it's time bound and then you look at measurable you go well I could set that goal but I'm probably not going to be able to achieve it in that time frame because right now money's tough exactly well that's okay be kind to yourself like give yourself a little bit of slack like you don't deserve to be treated like trash by yourself yeah like ew no we're talking to ourselves like we are our best friends now Bec that's great that's a great idea like if you would say it to me you can say it to you but if you wouldn't say it to me then you can't say that to you it's a great rule to live

by I think it's a very good rule now just shifting gears a little bit because I'm hoping I'm getting a tax refund this year and I'm thinking about like what I should spend it on or like you know and I think it's the wrong mindset obviously but I'm like already I know what am I spending it on yeah I know you instead of what am I saving for and that's okay we're all different right like and I think it's best to actually sit down and go all right so when I get a tax refund I'm not going to make a decision immediately because I think we get a little bit spendy like you see the money and you're like let's go let's go baby like lock it away lock it away for a week while we make a decision that is the best decision for you in your personal situation because there's no

right answer, right? You could have a thousand, let's pretend you get a thousand dollars back from the ATO. That would be nice. And you have a thousand dollars zip pay. Maybe you want to pay that off. Or maybe you owe your mom money. Maybe that's more of a priority. Or maybe you're going on a holiday and you want to put it there. Maybe you have an emergency fund and you want to top that up or, or put it in your offset account to offset your mortgage. Like there are so many different things that you could do with it. And I don't have the answer back. Like I wish I could be like, all right, so the best thing to do is to X. Well, that's the best thing in my mind for me and my personal situation. But everyone has like all these different moving parts. And like, again,

let's go back to the mum example that I had before. Let's say you've got a mum earning 40 grand back. She has two kids and she's putting them through school. Money's really bloody tight and she has a thousand dollars come in. If I said, use that to pay off your debt, like, cool, that's really good advice. Like it's solid. There's nothing bad about it, but she's had a really shitty year back. Maybe she needs to spend a hundred dollars, take the kids out, go to the movies, like finally take a little bit of steam off. She's still got $900. Put that in your bank account. I know you've got a really big zip pay, but maybe what she wants to do is not pay off her zip pay, but have an emergency fund so that she feels comfy. So she's spoiled her kids a little

bit. They've taken the steam off together. They're really excited about that. She has some cash in her bank and she still has that debt but like life just feels a little bit lighter yeah do you think that that is for her maybe a better decision than paying off that debt in its entirety it sounds like it but at the same time is that right for everybody no and I can't make that decision that's not my advice that's you know you and this is why we set goals this is why we keep budgets this is why we dive deep into our situation so that we can go okay well this looks like this and this but money is inherently emotional. So I can't just go, oh, well, technically the best thing would be to pay off your debt. It makes sense. But like, if you're telling me that having an

emergency fund is going to take that pressure off, and I genuinely believe that everyone that has a debt needs an emergency fund, irrespective of whether the debt's paid off or not, because that emergency fund means you're not going to go into further debt. Like something else comes up, well, you're not whacking it on your afterpay, are you? Like you're actually paying for it with cash. And you know what that does? Creates this cycle of going, oh my God, I paid for it in cash. Yeah, I've got some debt over there, but like I paid for that and I did that. And historically I had to lean on my credit card for that. Like that is queen behavior. That is putting future you first because you're starting to build up your confidence when it

comes to money. Exactly. How about future goals? All right. So we're going to sit down and we're going to decide what you want to achieve in the next year. Now, from my perspective is the perfect time to be taking stock of where you're at financially. Perhaps you'd like to start paying off that debt we were just talking about, Bec. Or maybe you're commencing a new savings plan because you just really want a new family car. Maybe you want to buy a house. Maybe you want to go on a family holiday. Like, I don't know what your goals are. I support all of them. But the main thing is to be really decisive. So we can't just be wishy-washy with our goals. My favourite thing in this entire world is an emergency fund. And I think that everyone needs

one so like you know my advice is to stop there because I think that that gives you financial freedom immediately like don't get me wrong you can't quit your job just because you've got an emergency fund but if you know that you've got five hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or some people have like twenty thousand dollar emergency funds if you knew that was sitting there life just feels a little bit more cushy life feels easy that's like the first step towards creating financial freedom is this kind of like emergency fund which I think is the gateway drug of financial freedom and being in good financial standing like it gives you that taste of like oh I can do this for myself that's slay I think that's slay yeah yeah yeah I feel like this is

my year for that I think it is too I feel good things for you Bec you think so oh no I know so thank you so much I know so now V do you have any final words yeah I think we're nearly done we're nearly done but do you have any final words um yes I do so I would love everyone to just do one thing to educate yourself on making some money outside of your job. So like out of your nine to five Monday to Friday or like outside of it, like what can you do? Whether it is like signing up for an investment newsletter or like reading a book or you are, you know, learning something about investing as accumulating knowledge, it takes time, you know, just going to like automatically be able to create money outside of that. But like maybe Google investing in shares

or watch a money show or like listen to more podcasts or, you know, knowledge is at your fingertips and it is free these days, which is wild. Like you can literally listen to every single one of my books for free if you have a Spotify membership. Like that's a money win. Like I know my books are pretty cheap at Kmart nowadays, but like free or cheap. Like I still want to go with free. I get it. And I wrote those books not so I could make money because Lord knows you do not publish books in Australia to make bank like that is not how it works sadly Bec I did it because I want you to be in a better position so I want you to absorb more content because if that means that you're learning about selling things on Facebook marketplace or just

like decluttering your house or you're talking about like you know taking up shifts on Uber or like you know investing so that the money that your money has made starts making money like I just want you to be in a better position so you've got multiple sources of income everyone deserves that that's very sexy to me so do one thing that educates yourself about making money outside of your job that's great that's what we're going to do great advice knowledge is power knowledge is power we love this for us anyway i think that that's a good enough rant about putting yourself first this coming financial year and that's a really good little mid-year finance health check i reckon i love you did all that slay queen you've made it here you're a little

bit ahead of a lot ahead 30 minutes ago a lot ahead i love this for us all right well we will see you on friday guys for a little bit of a catch-up on the week that was have the best remainder of the week we love you bye guys 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 MoneySherpa,

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