Life After Two Financial Separations

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

Let's get into it.

She's on the Money. She's on the Money.

Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money daries, where I get the absolute pleasure of sitting down and talking to one of our She's on the Money community members all about the nitty gritty of their money story. Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got an email and it sounded exactly like this, Dear She's on the Money. My money journey

Just because I've been listening to She's on the Money and I wish the advice and everything was around when I was younger, and to just give people perspective that you know it can turn it around, even if you have a little rollercoaster rides and a few speed humps.

I love it. You're a business owner, your own investment properties. You've been through two financial separations after that. Some people would have been like, you know, what's never going to happen for me, and bury their heads in the sand and never think about finance and basically bury themselves. But you didn't do that. You have turned it around. Before we jump into it, can you tell me what would you grade your money habits If I asked you to give them a grade from A through to F.

I'll probably give themselves about a B plus, just purely because of where I've come from. But I always see that there's a room for improvement in anything.

All right, well, can you tell me a little bit more about your money story. Let's dive into it together.

So, as I said, started working from my parents at six when I was in a cleaning business. Didn't get paid obviously at six years old.

Literal child slave labor. I like it.

It's not parents. Why you have children?

I don't But okay, I don't know how Harvey's going to get involved in the podcast. But when there is a will, there is a way yep.

And then got my first job fourteen and nine months and then started in hospitality and spent the next eighteen years in hospitality, having my own businesses, did a business degree, and then midlife came and thought I'd try my hand at another job and dived into a government job and that was when I went through my first financial separation. So at that point in time, had two properties and so got one each, took on the dead each and

And then so have you sold it to somebody else or is it one of you bought?

Yeah?

Okay, perfect, Yeah.

So they're buying me out. I'll get half the value of that back. And funny enough, today mar I forgot accepted on a property here.

I am really congratulations. How exciting is that?

Yeah? So that's my next next morku is I'll move into that because with my promotion, I'll lose my house.

Yeah, okay, all right, I mean promoted house loss. You win some, you lose some, don't you.

Yeah, you got to take it win again.

I love it. So tell me a little bit more. What made you go?

All right?

I want to get out of hospo. Eighteen years in hospo is an innings like what made you go? I want to absolutely do a one eighty and have a completely different career. Was it finance, was it value?

Was it? You know?

Where were we at? Mentally?

It was kind of a everyone's always right. You've always got to have on the happy face and be there and the shift work constantly. Even though I've gone back into chiftwork again, it's a little bit different in this job that I don't have to be there at the beck and call of everyone and you know, split shifts and not making the money for myself in the end because I didn't known the last businesses that I worked in.

Like that, especially for a career.

Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I started in hotels, Yeah cool. Yeah, got out and did the jump and thought if it works in this new job, then great, If it doesn't, like you can always get back to hospitality.

I love that. I feel like that's always been my mentality as well. Like I spent years in hospitality, like ten years, and then did like three different hospital jobs while I was at UNI, and do you know what, I adored it, but it's so physically demanding as well, because you're on your feet twenty four seven, whether you're like waiting tables or doing coffee or doing something. You're always running around. And I always think, if it doesn't work out, like I was really good at that, I

You can always get job.

Yeah, it's ten out of ten. So let's dive a little bit further into it right now. I know you work a government job. Tell me what do you do for work? How much money do you earn?

So I'm a police officer currently send you comfortable and getting promoted to a sergeant?

Oh that's so fancy.

So last year I took home one hundred and thirty thousand plus super.

Oh very nice. How did you get into being a police officer?

Like?

How do you go?

All?

Right? HOSPO? I hate the customer is always right? I want to now be a cop? Like what does that career progression look like?

There's something I always wanted to do when I was younger, but I didn't think I had the life experience to be able to do that job, Like to go into someone's house in their forties and tell them how to run their life. And you've got a twenty year old coming in to do that or to you know, console you when someone's passed away. It's just I didn't have the life experience. Really.

Yeah.

When I was running a cafe where I was, I met a couple of boys at the play officers and we started training together doing CrossFit and they were like, nah, you'll be fine, Like boost your confidence a little bit and give it a go. You'll be fine at it. And I'm like, you know what, what have we got to lose?

Exactly? What did you have to lose? Literally nothing? Because now you're a sergeant. Yes, isn't that cool? So you've worked your way up I'm assuming relatively quickly, given it was a complete career change. What does that average day in the life look like when you're a cop.

Well, a lot of them now are in the early twenties that are coming through now. There is a big division. There's a lot of guys that are that are my vintage, but they've been doing it for twenty odd years, whereas I've only been doing it for coming up on nine years. Yeah, so most cops kind of dissipate at nine or ten years and leave the job at the moment.

Because it is mentally taxing doing that job like that, that's a very big mental load. What does an average day for you look like?

So? Yeah, car accidents, domestics, mental health is huge portion of it. Your neighbor disputes your car, park brains, and then just community policing because I'm in a regional area and a small town of six hundred people. It's just making yourself available to them and making sure that they can see you visibly and they know you're around and you're approachable, and you get involved with the things they do around town.

Yeah. How cool? And do you get a lot of fulfillment out of the job. While you're talking about it, I can see that you like look quite proud of what you're doing. Is is that right? Am I reading this room correctly?

Yeah? One hundred percent. I love my job now, Yeah, it's really good. So, I mean, the small town that I'm in is great.

I love when people love their jobs.

This makes it easy to go to work every day.

Oh totally. So tell me a little bit more. You still own a cafe, so you're a cop during the day and then at night or in the morning, you're running a cat. Like, how does all of that fit together, because like, you're not just a cop, you're a business owner as well.

Yeah, so I just prior to this, I just opened the cafe. We close up one o'clo. So it's in the town that I'm in, so it's a small regional town, and they just didn't have anything here. There was nothing during the week to get a coffee or get a toasted sandwich or anything. So a girlfriend and I another police officer around the area, decided, let's give this a go. And we started just in a little mobile van in a park and now we're in a little permanent premises.

Oh so you're giving back to the local community in more ways than one here.

Yeah, it's kind of become the mental health hub of the community because they don't have to go to the pub and have their chats. They come off their properties into town because we have to come into town to get our mail, so most people come into town and we're opposite the post office, so they come in and grab their coffee, grab their mail, have a chat with everyone. And we opened in the middle of COVID, so it became everyone's hour of social interaction.

Oh that's so sweet. I love this, and I love that you are kind of driving this, like protecting the local community but then also fostering literal community within the community. You must be one popular lady around town. I'm like, I just know for sure you are. Tell me a bit more. You've got some big money goals. What are they?

So obviously because of this promotional isma house, I'd like to have my own one that I actually live in this time instead of an investment property. I haven't had a one that I've lived in for over ten years now that I've been paying my own mortgage, So I'd like to smash that down and get it paid relatively quickly, and then keep adding to my super to get that topped up ready to hopefully retire in my fifties.

Retiring in your fifties is the dream. So you mentioned that you've been through two financial separations. When those happened, did superannuation come into the conversation or was it just like the property stuff. For what did that look like?

Yeah, it was the property stuff and the cars and the fun toys, the boats and the caravan kind of thing. Both occasions said no to touching super and no to touching each other's businesses, which were the big part of our lives.

Yes, smart, that's relatively respectful. It doesn't often happen that way.

No, No, not at all. And because there was no children involved, so it wasn't luck there was a separation of the custody issue and everything like that, and who's got to look after them? It was the dog and that was it.

Yeah, there would have been a big fight for me over the.

Dog, let's be honest, there was.

But absolutely that dog is mine.

I've got my own baby now, so I'm quite content.

I love that. All right, let's go to a really quick break on the flip side. I want to know more about these investment properties that you've built up. We're going to talk dead and I want to know the best and worst money habits that a cop has, So don't go anywhere money diarist. We are back, and you have three investment properties, you own your own cafe, and you have a full time job. Tell me more about these investment properties and whether you invest in other areas.

And wat Yeah. So I bought first bloc land when I was twenty two and build a house on that with my first partner, and I've still got that house. I kept that in the separation, so that is valued. It'd a value the other day one point one. Oh okay, the dead on that's four ninety eight and it's rented for nine twenty a week.

Okay, so in my head, the quick maths tells me that that rent actually covers the mortgage. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Oh very nice. I like that. Tell me about the second property, second.

One, I bought four two fifty, but it's now m valued at four forty. The mortgage on it's two seventy five because I did some reno's and that's rented at three fifty a week.

Okay, all right, that's pretty good. So you're tipping a bit of cash into that one, but it probably evens out with the first property.

Yeah pretty much. Yeah?

Cool? Cool. Number three and.

Number three is the one that I'm about to we're about to split and separate. That one is valued at three twenty five there's no mortgage on that, and the rent that we get is four fifty a week.

Oh okay, that's really nice. But you're being bought out, so you're going to get half of that. So you get what one one fifty one sixty.

Yeah, one sixty two and a half yeah.

Yeah, okay. And then you just said earlier that you've just been accepted on another property. What does that look like?

So that's four hundred and thirty thousand. So I'm just working with my broker at the moment as to what we do in terms of the loan situation.

And are you sitting on any cash for that or are you expecting to use the sale of the three twenty five k property to kind of fund that.

Bit of both. I've got thirty five thousand in savings sitting there.

Okay, very nice.

Might use that, but we'll see how we go.

Yeah, very cool. And you have this business, what kind of I guess debt exists in a business? Like, what type of investment was necessary? What does that look like?

So we both put in five hundred dollars each.

To start only five hundred dollars each yep, like a week a month in total.

No, No, that was in total to start it up. My gosh, there's no debt for the business. Last year it took one hundred and seventy five thousand in turnover. Yeah, very cool, and twenty thousand in profit.

Yeah, very cool. Do you know what in the first year even having any profit is very impressive.

Yeah, it's done pretty well. I'm very surprised at how it went to be.

Honest, I love that. But also I know you're saying you're surprised, but are you Your community didn't have that hub and now it does and people come around that, like, I just think that that makes so much sense.

It's been great support from the community. So we're just expanding now to We've bought a van like a trailer to go on the back of my ute to expand into the mobile area again.

Oh how good. So with that, will you do events and stuff like that or are you going to I don't know what's the plan.

Well, there's a lot of paddic weddings out here, so we do a lot of the corning after yes, so smart. You know, the sporting tournaments and things like that around each little regional area and festivals that they have. So we just pick and choose the days that we're going to do it, and we request those days to have off police work to be able to take that out.

I love that you've found a way to make it work altogether. Like that is not what I expected in my head. And I know that being in the police force is a super demanding job. I just assumed that having another job as a police person would be really challenging. And I'm sure that you make it work. But was that something that you had to put forward to them and be like, this is the type of business I want to run. Is that okay with you guys, because I'm assuming there'd be some rules around that.

Yeah. Absolutely. I had to go through secondary employment applications and put down everything that I was going to do and make sure there's no conflict of interest in relation to it. And I think it bridge the gap between the police and the community out here anyway, to be able to see that where you know, we're normal human beings. But most police officers have a little side hustle really, yeah, because you do twelve hour shifts and you have four twelve hour shifts and then you get three or four

That's so cool. So you're telling me that police people are literally the ultimate hustlers they can.

I love this.

So earlier you mentioned that you really like buying bricks and mortar, and I mean, you've proven that you have literally three investment properties at this point in time, and I'm sure that there are more to come. What about other types of investment? Is that something that you're interested in or you're like not, the property is for me, and clearly it's working.

No, I've started because of she's on the money looking at shares and investing that way. So I've downloaded chasies, got my ten dollars, congrats, put one hundred in. How good?

Wait, so you downloaded it, got free ten bucks and then you're like, I'm going to put one hundred dollars into this. So you are a sharing investor. I love this.

Now I've set up just an automatic transfer every payday to put one hundred dollars to start off with every fortnight and see how it goes from there.

I love that. And is there like a bigger plan with that? Like, is you want an investment portfolio or are you just playing with it at the moment, playing.

With it and learning? I'd say, because I don't really have much education in that space, so I'm kind of just playing and tinkering and seeing what I can do and how it works and kind of get my head around it.

Yeah, that is so exciting. Tell me a bit more about debt. So you obviously have some mortgages, your first mortgages covering itself. The second is you're tipping a bit of cash into that each month, which is fine. The third one you're currently working out with your broker. Do you have any other debts outside of the property.

No?

Nothing, Well, very fancy. I love to see it. I feel like you've probably had some really good money habits. The fact that you have been through two financial separations and managed to along the way have your own businesses and now you currently have a cafe with your friend. You are currently owning three properties, like, that's not usually what you see from people who have been through two financial separations. Tell me about your best money habit, What do you reckon?

That is probably budgeting knowing what's coming in and out of my bank account so every fortnight you get your pay and you know where it's going, and then putting the money into the mortgages when I can, when I know there's a bit left over, and knowing that you know you've got your rejo coming up, so throw that money aside and make sure that it's there.

I love that, and I'm not surprised. I was like, you have to be good at budgeting to have one staged so on track, but to have achieved what you've achieved. On the flip side, is there something when it money that you're not so good at? What do you think is your worst money?

You have it splurging on things like massages and nails too often because I work very hard, and I'll go to the city or whatever and or a bigger town and I'm like, ah, I've earnt this, I'll just have a sneaky hour massage.

You absolutely have, though, Like you work hard and you earn good money and I'm always talking about enjoying the journey, Like who doesn't love a massage?

Yeah, So just little things like that, just probably not so often. And the set and forget situation with like insurances and stuff. Once it's set, like I should be researching it every year. That's one of my goals for the year is to, you know, when they come up time for the policy to be renewed, actually sit down and take the time to have a bit of research and see if there's a better product out there instead of just letting it roll over.

I just did that with my car insurance, and honestly, the year before I just assumed, Okay, it's going to be exactly the same, or like, I'm not going to worry about it, even though on the podcast I'm always telling people like check it's kind of like how the plumber always has a leaky tap. And I actually this year when it came through, I checked it and I changed it and I saved myself like six hundred bucks on car insurance. And now I'm kicking myself that I didn't do it last year.

Yeah, but you did it anyway.

Yeah so silly, but yes, I'm glad I did it. But I'm also like, m do as I say, not as I do, kind of vibes money darist. At the start, you said I'm a B plus, but then you went on to tell me so many cool things about you, and I just I don't know, is a B plus genuinely reflective? What would it take for you to get to an A plus? What would that look like?

Oh?

I just think there's always room for improvement. You can always do things a little bit better. So I guess getting this house and actually living in it and smashing down that mortgage would be good, and not going through a financial separation and another one would be great.

Yeah, but I feel like you can't avoid that, And like, ah, I don't know what are you going to do? Never love again? That's not a good plan. That sucks, No, that absolutely sucks.

Just maybe not buy property again with that person for a while.

Yeah, Yeah, I feel like maybe we could just be a bit more cautious before we do that. But in saying that, like, you don't buy a house with someone because you go China, What I'm going to buy a house with you because we're probably going to separate in twelve months? Like, that's not how it works. You think it's the be all, end all, and you're like, we're creating wealth together. Like, I get it. We just have to be smart about it. And it sounds like you have been.

Yeah, there was a plan and it just didn't work out, so we move on back.

To ground zero.

I like it.

I love it. I have loved this money diary. Thank you so much for spending so much time with me and getting everything up and running. I know you mentioned earlier that you really want to be better at investing, so I'm going to add you to my investing master class so that can be like a little thank you, and I feel like that could push you closer to the A plus so that we can start investing together.

Oh. Absolutely, I love them and the fact that I've told them that I've got this promotion, which means i may have to leave town, but I'm not going too far so I'll still keep the business and keep it running, but I'm not going too far away. I love it.

I'm so excited, and I hope that you're so proud of yourself because it sounds like you're killing it, like you're just so impressive. I love it.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

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