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She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another shop back Money Diary Monday, where we get to chat to a community member and learn about them and their story and their money and all of the juicy details in between. Victoria, how are you going?
Oh? Thanks for having me on your show, Jaz Oh, You're welcome.
Thrilled to have you here. But this week I have a really good story for you, so let.
Me apprize just as the story is good again.
So our diarist wrote, hig She's on the Money. I have three jobs, including my own small business teaching, and have just started an assistant property valuer job. I do this for three days a week and then relief teaching two days while running my business at night. I go crazy. I have three kids and I'm divorced from a relationship that turned toxic. There was no debt in the breakup, as we both had a lot of savings. I also
have a mortgage and ten k in shares. Now that I'm eighteen months into a new relationship, I want to know how to best protect my assets.
Girl, why are you asking us we need advice for you around finance. Welcome to the show. Thank you for wanting to share your story with us.
Thanks for having me.
Oh my god, three jobs, including your own business. Three bambanies. You've booted the toxic relationship and you are glowing up. I love this. I want to know so much more. So let's start from the beginning. Moneyed Diris, can you tell us a little bit about your money story?
So I suppose I started working my first job when I was fourteen, went to UNI straight out of high school, have been a teacher for the last twelve years. Realized I didn't want to teach forever, so I studied UNI at the same time. I'm a Bachelor of Property, had a handful of investment properties over the years just to like in my marriage, and then sold all them off. Recently, I took lee from teaching last year and will my
kids were little babies, I started my own business. I like to be busy, and I think I just needed that mental stimulation. So started hand sewing things from my house when they're asleep. And now I have a little factory in India that I sent my designs and things to and they shipped me and I ship out of my house.
Oh my god, what?
How cool? Yeah? Yeah, it's nice. It's only me, so I don't have I've never had anyone else working for me. It's really nice knowing that you get out exactly what you put in and no one else benefits other than you. But then, being a single mom, I needed that stability of a job. So I had to go back to permanent teaching to get my mortgage and so now I just do it at nighttime.
How cool? Oh my gosh. And you're doing property valuing three days a week now.
Yeah, so that's just as of this year I took leave from teaching, I'm doing that three days a week. But given it to a graduate position, the pay isn't fantastic. So I've done that part time so I can then pick up relief teaching on the other days just to increase my pay.
Oh my gosh, a hustler. I love this.
I suppose if I don't get money, it's the roof over my kid's head, isn't it. So you don't have a choice for a nearly only name.
With the mortgage look totally, but I don't think that there are all that many single moms out there that are like, Okay, cool, I'm going to maintain my small business. I'm going to, you know, start this career for me, even though it's a lesser pay, I'm going to supplement
that by doing teaching. I just feel like you aren't giving yourself enough credit, my friend, like so many people would have just been like, teaching is a really stable job, Like that's a great career, that's got great income if you work full time. But you've put yourself first. I think that's really impressive, Like credit to you. You're right, it's a roof over your kids' heads, but it's not.
It's not just that though, is a Yeah, Well, I suppose I'm only I'm mid thirty, so I do want to be teaching for the next thirty years.
Yeah, I love that for you. So let's get into the nitty gritty of it. What officially do you do for a work and how much do you earn for each of those jobs?
So a properly like an assistant property valuer. Because I'm not yet finished my degree, I've got two more courses somewhere around fifty grand a year. That's full time. Sorry. A senior teacher is on maybe around ninety five a year full time. Yeah, so it was literally half the pay cut. And then really work's about the same as a senior teacher.
So are you doing that fifty thousand dollars a year job pro rata? So you're only doing three days a week over so you're getting Yeah, so you're getting less than the fifty grand, and you're supplementing that with like a teacher salary for the other two days. And then what are you earning out of your small business? Like how much does that end up supporting you?
Well, I don't rely on that at all to support me. I never kind of have. I've always just pumped the money back into the business in the sense that my first order from the factory. Obviously you need like that decent amount of money to do a bug order. So it was only ever my time that went into the business, and I just kept putting the money back into the business to enable it to grow. So I still don't rely on it at all to support me. Really, it just kind of sits there and bomps.
Along on its own, does its own thing, and one day you're hoping it to be profitable or is it one of those things that you're like, no, it's kind of like a hobby. I don't intend to have an income from it, or like, what's the point in the long term?
I would love it to be profitable, Like initially the goal was so that I could stay when I was married, so that I could stay home and do you know, work from home and work the hours that I choose. But being a small business owner trying to get homelands and things, so I suppose I don't have the time these days to put into it what it needs to
be super profitable. So at the moment it's just running along in the background because it was my little passion project that I could never sell or give up or and maybe one day or have enough time to put some more time inefity to it.
I suppose I love that. That's so sweet. I want to know now about your goals. Tell me what are your big money goals.
I'd love to pay off my mortgage eventually. I would probably like to either move sometime over the next maybe five or ten years, or bidl vestment property or something. And they just keep building up my shares so have a little passive income there. And in the long run, I only want to work three days a week, especially while the kids are still at school. Like the working five days a week is rough.
And how old are your kids to be pervy? What are we looking at? They're eight, seven and five, so they're small sends.
Yes, so my baby just started school this year.
Oh my gosh, so sweet. So before you said you have some shares and that's one of your big money goals, talk to me about the investments you have made and what that looks like.
So for my eighteenth birthday, my dad was like, what to do on for your birthday? And I was like, just a thousand Hollis to buy some shares. So, being eighteen, I just bought some bank shares because they were safe. So they've kind of obviously grown well over the last fifteen years or something. And now I have some like exchange trained funds, like they're my safety little shares, and I've just and then random other little ones that I
think will be fine, and I've just at it. In my super fun I've put some money in my self managed not a super fund, but the investor. Oh yeah, you can choose your own shares.
Yeah, so the segment of your super fund where you can control it. Yes, yes, then.
You seen do twenty five percent of it or something. You can't do that with your whole super.
No, you can't. But it's cool that nowadays you have the ability to kind of control it and watch it. I feel like it engages you a lot more and you feel a little bit more in control, which is very cool.
Yeah. And I think given my age too, and that's lucky. I suppose in my job that like my super has always been good. As a teacher, yeah, apic.
So take me back to when you were eighteen for a hot minute. I'm sorry, I just want to know how at eighteen were you like, you know what, on a thousand dollars for some shares and I'm going to buy some bank shares because they're pretty safe. Like, how did you know that? Where did that information come from? I don't know, to be fair, you were like, I was just listening to ABC Radio one morning.
Yeah, I made by Google all the time, like the safest shares to buy, and I just picked one from the top five or something, and like because of the bank shares were in the top five. I remember at the time common off bank shares with thirty dollars and I was like yeah, and I was like, they're too expensive. I'm not buying them. And they've now hit over one hundred dollars or something.
And you're like, oh, I wish i'd bought them.
Yeah, do your family invest? Is that how you kind of knew? Were their conversations you'd had before?
No, my family, my dad owns his own little small business, So maybe it's seeing the other end of that that at his age, he doesn't have super yeap and he doesn't have that kind of backing behind him. And my mom just worked for the small business, which I suppose makes me want that lifestyle of she was always there for our school stuff because she could just leave work whenever she wanted. Yeah.
Yeah, cool. I love finding out I guess the needy, greedy of people's lives, like, oh, how did you get to that? And what was your thought process? And like then you find out that your mum worked in a small visit and you're like, that makes so much sense as to why you would have seen that lifestyle and then had an aspiration to have something similar. So it just makes sense. But I'm so impressed that young you was like, I want shares. I don't know anything about them.
I also have never had anybody role model that to me, but we're going to do it. I love that for you. How good last money darist was looking after future money darrest with that one.
Yeah. And the thing is, I don't think I could ever retire And people are like, do you want to retire earlier? I'm like, no, I'd probably like go crazy. It's not I suppose I want the option to work, not that I want to chill out from the time I'm fifty.
I feel like that's the difference these days about mentality though, So we look at retirement as an age where you give up your job and you go, all right, well, I'm going to go on gardening leave now igarden, I go to the cafe and walk my dog. And from my perspective, retirement's not so much, you know, an age
or like an outcome. It's more a financial position where you're in a position of financial freedom where you could stop work tomorrow if you wanted to, but if you don't want to stop work, you can keep working because that's going to be me Like, I can't imagine someone saying, Victoria, you're not going to have a job, like you won't have to go to work anymore, And I go, Yeah, that's the dream.
I don't want that.
I want the ability to choose that if I choose that, But I don't want to stop working because I love working. I love being a part of a team, I love building stuff. I feel like my brain just wouldn't deal well. So I totally get where you're coming from with that. Next question is money, Diarist, Do you have any debt?
My mortgage?
And what does that look like?
So I have about a four hundred thousand dollar mortgage.
So four hundred thousand dollars mortgage? When did you get it? And is that how much the property that you own is worth?
No, it's probably, I'm not sure, maybe around six hundred thousand you're in a small town, so like the market didn't go crazy like where you guys are. I'm sure, and that was maybe a year ago. I got that.
How exciting.
Yes, it was very exciting. It's very exciting knowing something is only yours.
Yeah, it's yours and it's nobody else's. I love that, all right, money Di's next question on our hit list is do you use shot back?
I really do?
Oh my gosh, you actually I like it. I love that You're like, I really do.
Last week's my sister, everyone and I've heard you say before. We just love to know. And I was telling my girlfriend about it yesterday and she was like, oh, it just sounds like an excuse online shop and I'm like, yeah, I think I've got like forty dollars in my account at the moment, only in two or three dollar a little, but as up, doesn't it?
It's genius. I have been and I've said this on the show before, so worry if you listen to all the shows and you've heard this. But I've been adding mine up so that I can use it at Christmas time on all the groceries because I feel like that's the area that I always end up blowing out on because I end up going, Oh, well, groceries. That's fine.
I have a grocery budget. I never allocate it. So I'm going to pull it out at Christmas time and then use that towards a Christmas budget because I feel like that's going to be I don't know, I feel like it's just the most useful there.
Yeah, nice extra funds.
Yeah yeah, it's very helpful.
Yeah.
Next question, money diarist, what's your best money habit. I feel like you probably have a couple of these for us.
Any extra money, unaccounted for money, as in random little bits that I come across, I put straight into my mortgage epic. I also pay at so the interest rates came down over the last year whatever, I'm still paying the maximum interest rate that I had initially, So I think it's an extra eighty dollars a week or something. And just so I know now that if.
Interest rates rise, you're comfy.
I'm comfy and I have that's its force savings effectively. But that's my goal at the moment, is my mortgage. But also have really bad money habits.
Tell us about those. That's literally the next question. Spill the beans my friend, I like.
Can I take away coffees, which I'm trying really hard to stop because I'm well aware of the money going down the drain and I like expensive clothes. But in saying that, I feel like I don't buy many things. I just buy expensive things, so it kind of evens out in the long run.
I tell myself that often too, don't.
Worry, and then they resell so much better they actually do than in a year's time. It's like you're making money.
You're a woman after Jess is hard because Jess literally there was this dress you wanted recently and you were like, okay, so if I buy it, I can resell it for this And I was like, you, you're on the money. Are you thinking about it?
Like? Was it? I'm the same.
I love that. Oh my gosh. All right, Well, I've got a fair few questions for you after the break, but I want to know before we get there, what grade would you give your money, Habits if we forced you to give yourself a grade? Maybe seven, A seven out of ten, seven out of fifty where we sitting my friend?
Seven out of ten? Sorry?
Why?
Because I think I'm okay? I think I know things Sometimes I don't actively implement them, as in, I still have really bad money habits sometimes my takeaway copye, my expensive clothes and things. I do also love a good holiday, but I'm also i think, aware of how to make the most of my money.
Maybe yeah, fair, Fair, let's have a chat about all of this right after this quick.
Break al Right it money, Doris? I want to know you mentioned in your little write in to us that there was no debt in your breakup because you both had a lot of savings, which I feel like is a great position to have been in.
Such a good place to be when you're like, all right, this relationship isn't working out, let's split. Like how many couples can say they have positive income? Yeah? How did that work?
Did you both just kind of go Okay, well I've got my own savings account and you've got your own savings account. We're just gonna go our separate ways.
No, everything was joined, yep, and then we had things to sell effectively. Yeah, so then in it we just sold everything that we had, which meant that we both had cash, I suppose. Yeah, so we cleared all out.
Incredible, And is that why you're now thinking about protecting your assets from partners in the future. Did you just find that process kind of challenging or is it just now you're kind of forward thinking, you know, should you find yourself in a situation like that again that you want to be a bit more prepared.
Yeah, And I suppose being a bit older now as well, like I was.
Nineteen, Oh you're a baby.
Yeah, So like we both had nothing, so it was fine, we didn't have to consider these things. But just being a bit older and both of us having things, and again like now I have three of the little people that I have to consider at the same time, not just protecting myself. So just the best way to go about that, I suppose.
I find that such an interesting question, and I will address it in just a second. But I find it's such an interesting question because people who are in relationships in there eighteen I still think that they should be considering these things, because Jess said on a recent podcast, you prepare for the worst, but you expect the best. And I don't even think it's necessarily about going, Okay, let's sit down and have a binding financial agreement, because
money dirist. You're right, like you probably started that relationship with nothing. You probably just came out of home and you're like, let's get married, Like this is so sweet and that's such a romantic story. But at the same time, I think if you're in that situation, no, you don't really have to be thinking about binding financial agreements. But I think that women, particularly because we're the ones that always end up suffering the most from breakups. I'm not
saying that men don't. I'm not saying that you know, there aren't people with that situation hasn't happened to them because of their gender. But I feel like women are always on the back floor because they lack financial literacy. And I think that regardless of your situation, even if you don't need it, you need to know what that looks like and know, okay, cool, these are my values, and this is what banking is, and this is how to make you know a payment and this is where
our bills are. And even if you aren't in charge of the budget, understanding the budget in your relationship is so important and making sure that everything's equal. Someone might, you know, wear the pants in the relationship and pay all the bills, But that doesn't mean you should just bury your head in the sand and not know how to.
I think it's a very different situation. But when it comes to starting to protect yourself, it's about putting yourself in a situation where you're protecting your assets, especially because you have those three little people. And I think it's about setting boundaries and thinking about things like binding financial agreements for next relationships. I don't know if it's necessary to go down the route of having trusts set up, but you could always think about a trust being set
up sets sit in that. But it is an expensive way of going about it. But I'd be really careful of the relationships that you form, not saying, oh my gosh, the relationship's bad, but about the boundaries in that relationship. So what does it look like, how often are they staying over? What are the expectations financially from both sites? And we recently did a really good episode with Georgia and I where we talked about what happens when your partner has kids and they're not your children, how do
you pay for them? At what point do you bring up shared expenses. I think it's being really conscious of these expenses and drawing the line in the sand. Thankfully, you mentioned that you got a house and then a partner, so you would have had pre marital assets, so assets that pre date the relationships starting, which is quite important
in I guess the eyes of the law. But at the end of the day, it really depends on what that relationship looks like into the future and whether you're planning a big future with them or you're planning to, you know, just date casually for a while. I have no idea what that looks like for you, my friend, So talk to me about how you would want to protect your assets having gone through that situation.
Well, I think that's the hardest thing about it, isn't it. Because when you're in a relationship and you're at that point with someone, you're like, oh, I love you, this will never end, and let's do all these things together and buy these things together and do what I mean, like, yeah, totally glasses on. But then you have your good friend in the yather ea saying oh, you never thought X would be like this, but.
Yeah, and it must be heartbreaking being like, that's not the person I knew, That's not the person I trusted to make those decisions, Like, I'm not going to put myself in a position where I you know, have children with somebody that I don't trust and see a future with, right, Like, you don't go let's have a baby and then break up? Yeah,
jes like, let's go do no one does. Yeah. You always expect the best, but I think as Es was saying, you need to also prepare for the worst and always know, all right, well, if this didn't work out, this is the backup plan? Would you say in your last relationship you just didn't have that and you just had to deal with it as the blows came as you actually just structure yourself and you're like, well, let's sell this stuff. I guess that's the next logical step.
Yeah, and I'm very much a jump and the net will appear kind of person as well. So I was just like, all right, this has happened, Like let's just do this. But when you're nineteen, you don't go into relationship thinking that in the end plan.
Of course you're thirties, and you know what if you're nineteen as well. I really doubt if I had turned around and said, money, do I sit down, let's have a chat about what if this doesn't work out? You'd be like, excuse me, we're in love. We're in love forever,
and I don't need your help. Like nobody at the age of nineteen wants financial advice when it comes to that kind of thing, because you go, no, this is true, you've never felt this, like victoria, you might not be in love with your partner as much as I am, Like, I totally get that. As somebody who has had a long term relationship before my current partner, Steve, I didn't know that was going to end, and then it did and I was like, oh, what is has This is
shocking for everybody involved. But I think it's such an important thing to put your own financial literacy first, because what's the worst thing that could happen if you're educated, what's the worst thing that could happen? If you know your rights and you know that you can have a binding financial agreement, and you know you can have all these things structured. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to do anything or put a binding financial agreement in front
of a guy once he starts sleeping over. I think it's more about going, all right, well, these are my things, those are your things, And it's about the open, honest conversation that you have throughout that you know the beginning parts of that relationship.
Yeah, I want to ask you about how are you looking after yourself? Because being a mum could be a full time job in and of itself, and then on top of that, you are working full time across two different jobs and drunning a business. I don't know how you have enough hours in a day.
Frank Yeah, I don't sleep. Yeah, no, I go to bed when my kids go to bed. Some days it's seven o'clock.
Oh my gosh. I feel like that's smart. That is a smart mum.
Win.
You've got to look after yourself.
I'm a morning person, so when it's busy, I'll get up at four and get a good two or three hours in before the house waits.
Oh my god, Oh my goodness. I could simply never.
Mum's super honestly, like you've got you give birth and you've got superpowers.
It's just it's like magic. How do you go about prioritizing because you've got your own small bees on top of you know, kids need attention twenty four to seven and you have three of them, and you're also you know, out of the house working at your jobs. How do you prioritize everything and make sure that it's all ticking away. Because having a small business, there's a lot of small business owners in our community who will attest that that is a big time suck. You have to put a lot into that.
I think as soon as you have kids. And I had my eldest vis yet to turn three when my third was born, so they were all there was three.
Within round of three. Oh my gosh, she's crazy.
To Jess, it was, it was crazy. But my one word of advice always was you lower your expectations at each kid, and you realize that a lot you're never going to be as good at everything as you were at one thing. You kind of just have to appreciate that some nights, my kids might have chicken nuggets out of a box, but we're eating them. We're fine, and that's going to be okay. And then some nights I have to call and seek to work, but I'm getting paid and I'm fine, and that's going to be okay.
I think it's just accepting that you can't be perfect at everything all of the time, and knowing which ball to drop, as in, when you have a hundred balls in the air, it's sometimes okay to drop some and things won't break. So it just being aware of which ones drop.
That is a great mindset.
That is a really really good mindset. Also, I hate you think that chicken nuggets aren't like a really good job.
Because that's definitely a dark choice that I have made recent days.
All organic, of course I.
Don't even know what are organic. Definitely highly processed. I think they came from the drive through.
Yeah, I.
Love the balls to drop analogy and just knowing which one. Obviously I never know which one is okay to drop, and then it breaks. I'm like, oh, maybe it wasn't that one. So you got together with your partner when you were nineteen and then obviously no one foresees a relationship breakdown. But sometimes, like you know, I don't know your situation. I'm not even going to ask about it
because that's not the point of this diary. But sometimes you just need to get out of a relationship and you know you're just like so committed to that relationship, especially because of tenure. There are going to be people listening to this going, oh my gosh, she's done all of this and gotten out of a relationship that wasn't the best thing for her. What advice do you have to those people who are in that situation, who are listening along, going, oh, I just don't know how to
handle it. What do you wish someone sat you down and said, all right, money to dires, This is what you need to know before you go through this situation.
Honestly, one step at a time, and it's always harder in your mind than it is in real life. It was easy then I thought it would be. And I think a lot of women are always like, I can't do this because he will, I can't do this because of this, and I'm like, one step at a time, and I think it's always harder in your mind than it is in real life.
Yeah, I feel like that's good advice, even for every other situation, especially at three am, where everything seems like the actual worst, Like that seems to be the time that everything for me compounds, and it's always harder in your mind that it is in real life. I really like that. That's such a good place to probably leave this. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us. I'm so grateful that you wanted to share your story
with us and share our money. I feel like that's been so interesting and also made me feel wildly inadequate, like three kids, three jobs, hustling, has a mortgage once to Wie have a property like you are killing it And I am so wildly proud that you are part of our community. So thank you so much for.
Being here, Thank you for having me.
Oh my god, of course I love having you. Thank you so much. But as we always say that, unfortunately that is all we have time for today. Jess, would you like to wrap our show? Absolutely? Don't forget 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 making an investment or a financial decision, and we promise. Victoria Divine is an authorized representative of Infocused Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN four seven oh nine seven seven nine seven fort nine AFSL two three six.
Five two three See you next money Diary.
Bye,