How She Rebuilt Her Life After Losing $38k to a Scam

Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr

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 podcasts that lets you get pervy on other people's money stories for educational purposes of course, Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where we get to talk with one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it. We got a message this week and it went like this, Dear, She's on the Money. After a few brutal breakups and falling victim to a scam, I've had to start over

Yes?

Are you insanely proud of yourself? Because, like, I'm really proud of you.

It's probably something I would say. That's when my weakness is giving myself some credit, Like I just constantly push and don't. Yeah, Like I have friends say it to me. They're like, oh my goodness, I'm really proud of you and then I think I need to sort of pat myself on the back.

Yes you do, like it's cool for me to be proud. Great, but I actually didn't do any of the stuff like you did all of that, and you're the one that has to be proud of that. So definitely need to Let's start the diary as we always do money Doris, I want to know what great would you give your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A three to.

F, say currently like a B to a C.

Okay, all right, I'm not going to argue with you yet, but we'll get there. I want to know a bit more about your money story. Can we dive head first?

Okay? Amazing? So where would I start? So when I was about my first relationship I had, I was about twenty one, and my partner left me with like a nice beautiful loan and I went to the mines and I paid it all off. It was about my twenty five grand, oh my god. And I paid it all off, walked away with about twenty It was about twenty five grand when I was about twenty two to twenty three, paid it all off and then had that in savings.

Why did he get so much of it?

Well, he wasn't very good with money. I was the money. Like in the relationship, there's usually one that's better than the other, and I was the one that was. Yeah, I've always ended up being better alone financially for some reason. And then I saved up over two three years, sacrificed a lot work weekends, like hustled hard, politely said, and saved and invested about thirty eight grand.

Into Oh my god, yeah yeah.

So like live paid rent everything. Oh it was during COVID. I actually invested in shares with comsex, and then I also bought into bitcoin and then I had like term investment with some of my savings. And then I put an offer on property and it fell through. And then I saw a Facebook link about investing in day trading, and I was like, oh, I understand a bit of day trading, not a problem. And then I invested a little bit of money and then saw a bit of

Was fake, and they like lulled you into a false sense of security by giving you some small returns when you were doing small things, and then when you did a big amount, they were like catcher gotcha.

Literally like no, the whole thing was fake. Lost thirty eight grand. No, like yeah, so the best thing? What do need to say? The best thing? But like go to tax exemption for that with ato as a loss, and then had to start all over again with my son. I think was about it was just about to start school, so third time round. Then sacrificed again and got into my current property now on the two percent scheme and moved in with my mom for six months to save smart.

I feel like that's such a good support to have in the background. Tell me about the two percent scheme because I feel like we've heard about it in passing on the podcast, but we haven't ever spoken with somebody who's done it. So how did that work? How did you get involved in the two percent scheme and like, why did you go? This is for me?

So I'm currently based on the Gold Coast and the market is wild.

It is so like the price.

Difference of renting and owning, to be honest here is not much different as in price depends obviously what you're living in. So I went down the two percent scheme because I was like looking at the market and going the longer I'm out of it, the harder it's going to be for me to get in. And what is the quickest way that I can get in? So I went to a broker and they went over my salary.

So I love that. That's actually so exciting, And now you want to start your own buyers agency? Tell me about that.

Yeah, So I've just completed my real estate license. I am an active renovator, so I renovate also while owning living in Renovations can be a juggle at the same time, but I love it and at the end of the day, I look at it as everyone needs somewhere to live. To me, it's an essential. You can't compensate a roof over your head for anything.

So yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So talk me through what you do now for work and how much money you earn, because I feel like you've had a colorful history of like literally doing everything that you could possibly do. What do you do now? What do you earn?

So I'm a marketing manager for two businesses in construction, and I earn sixty five grand a year and I work part time and then I so like occasionally help like my brother or whatnot if he has a little bit of tiling and whatnot. But that's pretty much my primary income for the two businesses in marketing.

And is that sixty five thousand dollars then pro rata because you're part time or is that what you earn after like doing just part time?

That's what I would earn just after part time? Yeah?

Cool, cool, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, that's not bad. And so like what does part time look like for you? You're doing like a couple of days, four days, Like, what does it look like in terms of work life balance? Because you're a single mum, there's lots going on.

There is a lot going on. I would say I work five days a week and then when my son's with his data work longer days, which is fantastic. So it works out.

Well, So what do you mean you work five days by your part time? I feel like I'm a little bit confused. Are you doing like half days?

Yeah?

So it works Okay, that makes more sense. I was like, what what do you mean five days part time?

Yeah? So when when my son's with his dad, work like eight till four and then when I have him, I'll work nine till two thirty.

Okay, cool, Hey that's a good flexible workplace. Did you have to negotiate that or like how did that come to be? Because like that's the dream.

It's I think like being a parent. It's like it is a marathon, it's not a race. And you've got to look at like your core values. I think to sustain somewhat of a balance and one of my big core values is being there for my son. Because I only have one, I'm not going to redo it, and I get really sad if I can't be there for him. So that was one of my things I went in looking for employment. I was like, aligning with my core values and I was like, I love construction, I love

Yeah, that's really cool, and I like that you are talking about going and finding a job that really aligns with your values. Like I know that a lot of people will be like, well, I just need any job, and that's really valid too, But being able to find one that aligns with that means that you're going to get the work life balance that you want. I feel like so often we're like, yeah, just not putting that

So my big money goal is my ultimate goal would be so I'm thirty five, by the time I'm forty, I don't want to have a mortgage.

Oh five years? What are you doing? That's crazy.

So there has been a unit in my block that has just sold for two hundred gram more than Oh it's on the market currently for two hundred grad more than what I paid for mine. So next step I'm looking out possibly getting another property or what the step forward will be to using that moving forward? Yeah, yeah, either renting this out and then getting something, So that's sort of where I'm at would be my next stepping stone.

That's really fun. And how are you planning on working that out? Are you going to do it yourself to get some advice? Like is it just like some maths in the background, Like what's the process? Because I feel like that could be overwhelming.

It is overwhelming, because yeah, I think it's definitely getting advice talking to people that I want to be in their position as well, because I ultimately would like to probably buy and flip another couple more properties, but I don't think many lenders like that, so that would probably be the route that I'd be looking at, would be speaking to the right people and seeing what can be done.

Yeah, totally. You mentioned before that you're renovating and oh my gosh, I hate renovating like it is the worst thing ever, But you're like, no, I'm living through it. It's so fun Like it's obviously different horses for different courses. Like I remember the journey like being real rocky, but because I'm a finance girlie, like I had spreadsheets through the kazoo right, like I was making sure that I wasn't over capitalizing on my property and like that everything

So it's pretty funny. So when I bought my place, like the main wall was fluorescent orange, like almost the orange of your background that you have, stunning. I was just like the contrast with like a baby blue wall. It was insane. My place needed to be like fully

And it's funny how quickly you just get used to doing something that then you realize, oh, hold on, I probably should fix this.

It's so true because even in my head, I was like, if I get a plumber to come out to fix my I'm ripping out my sink anyway, So like that's money that I don't need to spend, so then I just may do for a long time if that made sense. And then it was quite funny because even like one day I was used to going into the laundry to use my sink, and then when my friends was over and they're like what are you doing? And I was like going to fill out my kettle. I'm like right next to the brand new.

Sink, and they're like, what.

Are you doing? I was like going to fill out my kettle like it was normal, like the pattern of it. But yeah, like going in, I was like, okay, well I did see the potential with it. It's solid bones in the sense it's all brick. It's close to everything. So even if I was to rent it out, the rent would cover more than my mortgage, so like it'd be running at a slight loss if I was to rent it out, which is not a bad position to be in for like a first year, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. I like that. I love asking people perfect questions, like so what's this mean? How does that work? Like this is my favorite job ever, like getting to ask you like, so what does that mean? Why did you do that? Oh? So good? I actually have heaps more questions. Let's go to a really quick break and on the flip side, I'm going to ask

I have invested, Yes, I used to use Perla a lot. I use the perlast starter at the moment for my son, it's like the kid's investment money, which is really cool when he gets really excited over it. But currently, moving forward, majority of my money has been going towards my renovations. But in saying that, I definitely will invest once that chapters sort of come closer to the end.

Yeah, totally. And I remember at the start of the episode you said that you'd saved up thirty eight thousand dollars and you had actually invested that and then you took it out to buy property and then you got it all taking away from you in that scam originally, how were you investing that? Like, what did that journey look like? Is that same you were on Pearler and like you've just come and gone from that platform over time or like what did that look like?

So I used when I'm very first on investing. I don't think Perla was around.

Now it's pretty new.

Hey, yeah it is, and it's great. I love the use of side of it. It's fantastic, and I think it simplifies investing like immensely. Not sponsored or anything.

No, no, of course not.

But I did listen to like a lot of podcasts and read about shares and whatnot, and then I sort of just diversified my money had it been a bitcoin, because I was, and then I still had money, Like I guess, when you invest it, there is a slight risk, and I wanted to minimize it. So I sort of spread a couple of my investments out and then had cash there in case.

Yeah cool. I like being pervy about what people are investing in or what they're not investing in. I want to know what is your debt looking like? So you've got your first mortgage, I need to know what's you purchase your property for? What is your current loan at? What do you think the value of the property is. We need to know.

Okay, so I purchased my property at it was three fifty, and I think on that like three I haven't paid much down. It'd be like three twenty or three thirty three twenty.

That's pretty good. When you say I haven't paid much down, like it's new. I wouldn't have expected any of that to have been gone yet.

Yeah, so it's gone down slightly, which is fantastic. And then interesting enough, I've had agents come through going you could easily sell it at like five hundred. I could put people through what Yeah, because I've consider possibly going if I don't renovate the bathroom, like the bathrooms a full ripout, and I'm like looking at the cost of the time, slight inconvenience because obviously I'm going to have to rip a share out toilet everything.

So yeah, yeah, and that takes a while.

It's a consideration. But then if I was to pay for it, I could probably go like an extra forty grand.

Then how cool? That is so interesting as well. So talk me through how you landed very recently a property that's what law. You paid three point fifty, which money win for a property that is now worth five hundred. How did you stumble across that one?

Funny enough, I've done a bit of research, and I have lived on the coast my whole life. A lot of people have gone, oh, you live in that area. But then I've also looked at the rental yield of what even if I bought it and didn't do much to it, it would be close to positively get not far off. So I was like, okay, long term that I'd be fantastic regardless, my prime focus was just getting housing stability and just getting into the market.

Yeah okay, and it was just lucky that it's now worth a bit more. But you were originally, So did you find it on real estate dot com? Or did you have a buyers agent?

Like?

What was the process? Because I feel like when you're going through the two percent scheme, the second you get approved, you basically have like three months to purchase a property, like you get a timeframe and that could be really stressful. So like when you got approved, obviously very exciting, but then you have to find the property. How did you do that?

So I pretty much went on real estate dot Com and there was a lot of pressure trying to find something before it expired. So I hounded a lot of agents like weekly, I went on every single night, and then I also contact them to be like, hey, do you have anything coming up? I also did a letterbox drop. I went to one area and I did a little slip and put it in and actually had a lady did contact me ironically, which was great, but it was

Yeah, I need stability now.

Yeah. And then I actively also, which I reckon was probably like one of the best tips was during Christmas, a lot of people have their quiet period and they're not actively pursuing property. And I actually looked at this property. It was on the twenty eighth of December last year, so I knew not a lot of people would be looking.

Oh my gosh, yeah, so many people would have hung up their boots for that period of time.

It's almost like it reduced the competition of people viewing because I went to one and there was like about fifty to sixty people were in a queue to go view this property. And so I was like, okay, well what else can I do? And I was like, well, I can go when people are on holidays and go look at properties that was in the area, at what they've sold at, and see what's a realistic number to

Oh good. So it all worked out.

So it did work out, and I was really glad because there was quite a few people coming through. There was maybe like a handful, but I already put my office through before these people, which was great, I think, which also worked to my advantage. It was a little bit risky, but I was also like, what's the worst case scenario?

I don't get it. Yeah, oh my gosh, I love that. All right, So talk to me about money habits, because having had to start over three times, not once, not to expect there are three times, you probably have some good money habits to share. So I want to know what do you think is your best money habit.

My best money habit, I would say, I think tracking, like I do have a spreadsheet of my expenses, food budget allocation. And also I can have a tendency where I'm too strict at times where I will sacrifice fun. So also having I guess like somewhat of healthy balance to set staying to have long term goals, like even planning something small like financially to help you fill other cups of your life in order to get to the big goals. I think it's a big thing.

Yeah, well, what does the flip side look like? Have you got any bad money habits that you could share with the fam?

At times, I could be too tight with money.

Yeah that's hard.

Yeah, Like I feel bad at time spending money on myself. So I think that's why I've sort of allocated some money for myself, like small rewards or if you hit like a little milestone, you're like, Okay, I can go get a facial done. Oh, I can go out for lunch or get small rewards.

And I think that that's important because so many times we don't look after ourselves and then everything kind of goes down the drain, which is not positive at all. Tell me a bit more before you know. I know that I'm running out of time here, But when you wrote in you said that you had to like restart three times. And it's been a massive role coaster of setbacks, and I'm sure that there are people listening going, oh

Think I'd look at things as lessons? How can you learn from them and do different? But life is short, so you picked your heart, Like I see constantly single moms going, look, I'm trying to find a home, like

Pick your heart is kind of fun. I won't say fun, it's just kind of like it's a smart way of looking at it and just being so like nope, like no one's going to come and save you. You actually have to do it yourself and pull your finger out and like you don't have an option. You actually have

Being an A? I think perhaps like having more of a buffer financially and being able to understand a lot of people go like, you live off like you're fifty percent, then you save like twenty and like the ratios is like having that little bit more of a buffer on those ratios would be fantastic. I think that would be the best way of looking at it, because I look at money as a long game, not a short game. So yeah, that would be the best way. I'd probably say an increasing my income.

So I like it, And that's something so achievable, Like you're on track. It's not something that you're like, yeah, I'd have to be a completely different person like that, I have to change myself entirely. I feel like you're on track and you're going to do that, which is so exciting money Darrest. Now that we've had a chat, I just, I mean all, I think that you've done such a good job, Like you're setting this good example

Oh, thank you, my total pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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