MONEY DIARIES: A Humble & Huge Heart

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 podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money daries where I get to talk to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their financial and life journey. Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got a message

Sounds good? All right.

Let's start with the very first question, which as always is my friend, what grade would you give your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A through F.

I think probably a C plus a C plus.

All right, well, I think that frames the conversation. Now my favorite question, let's dive in money diarists. I want to know, can you tell us a little bit more about your money story.

Yeah, of course. So I grew up with two brothers and my dad was unfortunately an alcoholic. It also had a gambling addiction, so we didn't grow up with a lot of money because he unfortunately, we'd spend most of it after he got his paychecks. But my mum did her best to keep the family running. And then when I was about eight, mum left because of the domestic violence, and yeah, things got a little bit worse from there

Oh my gosh, it would have been so stressful and it ate you kind of only know a little bit about what's going on. That's it, not the whole story, so it feels a little bit ambiguous, and absolutely was it stressful as an eight year old to go through that.

It was very stressful. I think also seeing your parents so stressed is hard. But at the time my dad also was very keen on having my brothers and I know everything that was going on, So there was a bit of emotional you know, reading the court affidavits to us saying how bad our mum was, all that kind of stuff. So obviously, now from a bit more of a tuma lens, I can see that's not appropriate. But when you're young, you just want.

You just don't know what you don't know. When you're young, that's it. You just think, oh, Dad's trying to share with us what's going on. Like to me, that would you know as an eight year old makes sense exactly, But there are some things that you're not emotionally ready for, and that happens to be one of them, exactly.

And then when I was eleven years old, my dad moved into state and left us in my mum's care full time. And that was a bit of a surprise because we didn't know it was coming. He sort of just dropped us off one day and then we were living with mum. And then from there, when I was a teenager, I developed some disordered eating mental health struggles.

Eight dollars that you were probably like, this is the best money I've ever earned in my whole life.

Absolutely, And I think that was the first time because we did struggle with money so much when I was younger, I really felt like I have some control here, you know, I'm making my own money, and that was a great feeling. And then when I was in high school at seventeen, my mom did go bankrupt because she had taken on a lot of debt to look after my brothers and I by herself. That had been really hard on her.

Wow, I feel like that is a rollercoaster. I really want to go and just like grab your mum and hug her. Yeah, she's super supportive, but from the sounds of it, she backs you to the end of the earth, but maybe doesn't look after herself in the same way that you get looked after and you just want to go mum, like, look after yourself too.

Come on, absolutely, yeah.

Oh can I jump back to the disordered eating, Yes, of course I want to talk about that. That's something that I have experienced before, and I guess that's why, you know, opening the conversation up around this is really really important to me. I want to know a bit more about I guess where that came from, because often it's not about being thin, it's not about you know, becoming a model like a lot of people think, where do you think that stemmed from? Was that maybe a

Sure. So I think I was conscious of my way from very early on, and it was actually something that my dad criticized a lot.

He was very canceled. One out of ten that is not appropriate dad behavior.

Yeah, I know, but yeah, he was very fixated on my appearance, you know, my mum's parents, my brother's appearance, and it was always a reflection of him in his eyes. So I think probably from early on I was quite self conscious of myself and wanted to change a lot about my body. I think probably the earliest age I remember feeling unhappy about this something about my body was probably about four.

Oh, my heart, you shouldn't care about your body. At four, you'd be caring about sand castles and chasing people and whether you can have ice cream up to dinner or not.

Absolutely, And I can see all that now, but yes, I think that's probably where it first came from. Is that wanting to be what he thought was enough. And that started with, you know, lots of calory, restriction over exercising, and I think probably the fact that my parents were going through a divorce and then Dad moved into state.

Same girlfriend, cut paste. I mean, I didn't go through the same traumatic circumstances as you. But it's funny because having gone through disordered eating, I feel like when I speak to other people who have had similar experiences, I'm like, oh, my gosh, what about this? What about that? And you kind of go, yeah, the job probably really helped because it gave that sense of control that you didn't feel like you had earlier. Do you feel like that helped you on your recovery journey?

Yes or no? I think for a while there I did feel like I had more control, and like as a teenager in high school, when I felt like I had more of an identity as someone who did well at school, had a good group of friends, had a nice boyfriend at the time, and things were going well. And then in year twelve, I think might sorted eating really hit its peak. I'd broken up with my boyfriend, and I also put a lot of pressure on myself to get like the most perfect score so I could

So much unnecessary pressure, Like the idea that at sixteen seventeen you're meant to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life when your brain is not even fully developed. You aren't even making good decisions at that point. Why do you think i'd make a good decision about my career, Like, why are you putting this pressure on me? I can't even be trusted to go out on my own at this point.

Yeah, exactly exactly, And looking back now, I'm like, oh, obviously, as I said, well you said at the beginning, took nine years for me to get through UNI anyway, So now I could just laugh and be like, oh, I had no idea of but yeah, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect in every way that I thought I needed to be, and I think, yeah, eating and trying to control my image was definitely one part of that.

Do you think that that's part of your narrative today, Like is that something that you still struggle with or is it something that you have moved beyond, Like what does that look like today?

Yeah, I think I've had a lot of therapy from about age twenty two until now, so five good years, and I think my relationship with food has improved a lot, and also with my body. I think when I was like in the thick of it, it was something that I worried about all the time constantly, Whereas I've gotten to a place now where it might be like a little thought that pops up every once in a while, but it's not something that I feel like controls me. Which now I'm looking back, iack and see I didn't

Ah. I love that you're able to say no, it's not controlling me. I think when you go through circumstances like this, especially disordered eating, it's something that you learn. And I'm so glad you've had therapy because it's not something you can teach yourself, like you actually just need someone to come in and be like, Okay, here are the strategies that you need to implement. This is what we need to do to put you in the best

Yeah.

I'm so glad you're in that position. And you look happy and healthy right now. You look glowy and smiley, and it just I think that you are absolutely thriving. So that is my favorite thing ever. Before I move on to the next question, I just wanted to plug the Butterfly Foundation here. If this is something that you are struggling with. The Butterfly Foundation is one of my favorite resources for disordered eating. You can check them out online.

To be, Yeah, I think definitely waiting til that crisis point.

Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that idea.

Yeah, get help as as soon as you think you're right, need it. Definitely reach out. It's worth it, You're worth it.

So absolutely all right, money, Dirice, I want to know more about you today. Tell me you said in your letter into me that you're finally earning a full time salary. What do you do for work? How much money do you earn?

Yeah?

So I'm a social worker in a child protection state based child protection agency and I earned seventy two tho and ninety one dollars a year.

You earn seventy two that's good for like first year out of UNI.

It is and much more than I've ever dreamed of making, or ever dreamed of making when I was younger. So yeah, I feel a bit strange about it, to be honest.

Oh my gosh, So tell me about these nine years at UNI. So what degree is did you do like did you do them part time? Full time? And kind of what led you to child protection?

So I started off at UNI when I was seventeen.

So a little baby, that's a little baby.

My mum had to sign the permission slips so I could use computers at the university, which is quite funny because I was taking on a lot of debt that was old enough to sign those poms.

But like, so you'll let me go into debt, but you won't let me google it?

Yeah, exactly. And I started off doing a double degree in international relations and arts, and I had kind of dreams of being, you know, some kind of diplomat or maybe going to law later, but I wasn't too sure. But at the time I was also struggling with my mental health and had quite a lot of anxiety and would later be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and depression, but at that time I didn't know. I just thought,

Actually, congratul how exciting you did it.

Thank you. Yeah, I wish i'd been a bit kinder to myself at the time and just done part time UNI and maybe gotten the help I needed a bit earlier. So that's okay. You know, reflection is much easier and we learn exactly.

Hopefully somebody else is listening to this thing gets to learn from your story so that we don't repeat it exactly.

So that was seven years for that undergrad which is usually three.

That's okay.

It is okay, and I did take off a couple of two six month breaks in there as well, and I was really struggling. And then in twenty twenty one, after the whole COVID.

Thing, Yeah, that thing happened, Yeah, that little thing that ways, get this, the first lockdown happened three years.

I know, it's crazy to think about.

It triggers me. It triggers me so bad. It reminds me of how I carried my computer screen home and thought it was just going to be two weeks. Yeah, and then like a month later, it's like two pm in the afternoon and I'd ask my partner, do you want a wine? And that was normal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it feels like a long time ago, but also yesterday, And so I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. I didn't know if I wanted to do, honest, because I was quite interested in looking at like women's portrayals or portrayals of women's madness in literature and how that plays into society's views of women.

That would have been so cool. Did you do that?

I didn't. I studied social work in Stace.

That's okay, that's okay. It's an interesting topic none the less.

Yeah, and I think given my experiences growing up and witnessing my dad be very cruel to my mother, and he used to say, you're mad. You know. There wasn't really a lot of awareness of mental health from his part. It was just you're crazy if you're struggling. So I think that's definitely fueled my interests in that and also maybe my reluctance to get help until I was a

Oh my gosh, my whole heart. Knowing your background and where you've come from, and that arguably you were a child at some point that needed protecting. Ah, Like, do you feel like this is your way of kind of like protecting kids that might have been in similar so ccumstances to you? Like, this is heavy, I think So.

I think I don't know if I would have even considered this work as an option if I hadn't maybe done some reflecting on my own experiences as a child and noticed or recognized with help that there was abuse there, and yeah, wanting to help other kids obviously it's quite different in child protection, but knowing that maybe I could help protect them and ensure that they're safe, and also work with families to make sure they have the right

So tell me more about this role, because I feel like we often gloss over rolls when we say children's protective services. That could be a lot of things, right, There are lots of different categories of how people in these roles work. But can you tell me a little bit about what your day to day job looks like.

Yeah, so I've only been in it for about four months now, and I've actually had two different roles in that time. So the one I'm in at the moment is an assessment based role, So that involves when notifications are screened in and theirconcerns raised about maybe the safety of a child, we will go out and speak with the parents or whoever maybe involve speak with the children, and then may or may not open an investigation from there, and yeah, then the whole investigation process will start and

Oh my whole heart. That is so heavy to do on a day to day basis. How are you looking after you through these things?

Yeah, I think it's something that's evolved my self care routine. At first, I had this whole list of you know, like I will come home and do meditation, or I will make sure that I'm doing yoga three times a week, and those things are all really good. But I think the best thing I've done for myself is form really great relationships with my colleagues, making sure I'm still attending therapy for myself.

Yeah, one hundred percent.

And when I get home sometimes I just need to go into the back lawn and just lie on it and just look at.

The sky for a little bit bit grounded.

Yeah, that's why my big things, kick off my shoes and just go lie on the grass and be like it's okay. I'm still a person. I'm here like the world's bad, but not everything's bad, you know.

Yeah, Oh my gosh. I don't know if I could do a role like that, I feel like it would break me. I feel like it takes such a special person to be able to do it. And we need you, like we need people like you who are looking after kids, and I wish I was as special as that. Like I just feel like the emotional energy that you give to your job, I often feel so grateful that I

Yeah, I think it's not something I entered into lightly, and it's that I'm actually quite new at their investigation and assessments role. For a couple of months previously, and where I actually did my social work placement was working with children who were already in long term care, so we children in posticcare and that's quite different on the

I feel like we need people like you in those roles because things like that happened. We need people like you are so aware of those things. I think it's so close minded and shallow when people don't do things. Or I heard someone the other day they're like, yeah,

Yeah, and I think there is, you know, colonization. I think we're taught in school, if we're taught at all, as something that happened in the past, but it's really the effects are still ongoing. The stolen generations are not that long ago at all, so it can't be blind to it as non Indigenous people. And you know, I think that's really irresponsible and harmful.

So I couldn't agree more. All right, let's move back onto money topics, because I could have actually rant about this all day, and I'm sure you could as well, but I want to know. Let's go back to you personally. What are your big money goals? What are we working towards? My friend set the moment.

My biggest goal is just building up my emergency fund. So it got depleted while I was on placements. So you have two four month placements where you're basically at the placement site full time but not earning any money, So just wanting to build that up again. That's my biggest money goal. And also I'm planning a trip to Japan and South Korea next year.

So oh so fun. Can you tell me more about this emergency fund? Yes, how have you calculated how much you want in it?

Like?

Is it a month's worth of expenses? Three months worth of expense? Like, what's going to make you feel most comfortable?

It is three months worth of expenses, and then I put two thousand dollars on top because that just made me feel better.

Hey, I like, yeah, I really like that. All Right, I'm going to go to a really quick break because this has become very quickly a very long episode. We need a hot break, and after the break, we're going to talk about debt, investment, best and worst money habits. Guys don't go anywhere money Diarist. We are back, and I feel like you are such a special human and I am feeling so beyond grateful to be able to share you with our community. I want to know, though,

I do invest just a little so I have about one thousand dollars in spaceship.

What do you mean a little? A thousand dollars is a lot of money, my friend, And.

A lot of that was from when I was a student. I was actually only putting in about five dollars a month, and it was more like an investment in my financial education. But it's grown over time.

I love that. That's such as sheeesel on the money phrase, you're obviously an og.

Yeah, og, yeah definitely. And then I have super as well.

How good. I feel like that's actually the perfect example of why investing small amounts just makes sense. Like you're now able to say, yeah, I've got a grand invested. Most of us who are working our very first job out of university don't have a thousand dollars in an investment portfolio. But you do, and it's from all of those tiny amounts that you were saving during university. Yeah, Like,

And I think also, you know, the market has been quite brutal the last couple of years. You gave me that confidence of seeing the market go up and down and knowing it's okay. I can ride this like and have more confidence not to be can withdraw any money in the future, I think?

Yes, Love, All right, talk to me about debt. Do you have any If so, what is it?

I have a lot of hextep Yes.

Nine years at university will do that. I'm so sorry to spoil that.

That will so I have seventy four thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars in HEX add ten one hundred and seventy one dollars and fifty five cents in startup loans, which if you're getting any kind of centering payment while you're at university, you can also opt in for a startup loan of one thousand dollars at the start of a semester and that can go towards costs for you know, university items or education.

Items, textbooks, everything. I feel like that's a really helpful loan scheme as well, because obviously there's no interest on it, so that makes it very attractive. But also university is so expensive beyond hex, like the textbooks, Like I did psychology, and a lot of the coursework in psychology overlaps with social work. I could not believe that my social work subject course books were like one hundred fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars to help other people like what what?

That's it? Yeah, I did use some of that money to kind of boost up my income. So when I was really struggling with anxiety and not able to work, that did go towards having making sure I could pay like my phone bill and for petrol for my count five percent.

I love that you had access to that. That makes me so happy to know you were supported. Question though, what are you doing about that debt?

So?

Are you just letting a tick along? Are you planning on making additional repayments?

Like?

Have you even thought about this?

Yeah? So at the moment, I'm just letting it tick along. I did just want to quickly say, if anyone is struggling at UNI and is you know, failing topics because of mental health or first circumstances at home, you can actually reply for remission of some of your topics if you meet the criteria.

Yes you can. That's such a oh, thank you for bringing that up so smart.

So I wish I knew about that a bit sooner. But that basically means that if you meet the criteria and your apply and it's approved, the debt will actually be removed for you.

Yeah.

Do they just delete it? They say, all money, direst no worries. We totally get it. And the government go, we're going to remove that unit or that course. Like, I don't think I've ever seen it happen for an entire degree, no, but if you're on it. I do know someone who had literally four subjects in one semester credited because they were like, look, I went past the

Definitely.

Oh, I'm glad we're talking about that. That's so helpful. I feel like that's a really good money tip. Though I wouldn't know what is your best money habit.

I think I'm quite resourceful when I don't have a lot of money. Obviously, I'm in a really good position now, but I haven't always been, so I'm quite happy to sell things online. When I was little, my brothers and I used to ride around on our bikes and collect cans because of the state I live, and you can recycle them for money. Yes, yeah, and sometimes that would help us get dinner for the night, especially at Dad's house when there was a lot of money, but very resourceful.

Talk to me quickly about your money habits in general. I'm going to dive into your worst one in a hot second. But given you were so good at being resourceful and arguably very frugal, I love this. How have you gone from that style of lifestyle to having a seventy two thousand dollars income, because obviously that's good money. Are you a wizard of budgeting now?

Like?

What's that look like?

I think I'm quite a bit better at budgeting than I used to be.

More money does help, doesn't it?

It does?

Yeah, like a little bit. Like we can all be good at money, no matter what income, but it feels easier when you have a little bit more to play with.

Yeah.

Less stress, right.

Yeah, a lot less stress. I think that's probably the main thing. I think probably though I was very aware of lifestyle, but at the same time I knew that I, you know, lived quite a restricted like a privileged but restricted life previously because there was a lot of money coming in, so I wanted to make sure I gave myself enough money to do some nice things, but at the same time not spend all of my money. So yeah,

Have you actually have?

Yeah?

Oh my gosh, really did it help?

It did a lot. Yeah. So I have a very fancy spreadsheet, which I'm very pleased with.

It's really sexy, isn't it is? Yeah, definitely very sexy. I don't mean to be biased. I am completely biased, but this spreadsheet is my favorite thing in the entire world. Yeah, like it does it for you, right, Yeah.

It's amazing and that's good because I'm not great at maths in general. So yeah, I think probably my best thing with budgeting is just making sure that I'm on top of it.

Oh my gosh, I love it. Ah, so good. I hate to bring down the mood. What's your worst money it?

My friend stress spending definitely guilty of avaiable. I think there's actually in one of your early episodes not to be a creeper.

No, I love this.

You talk about how sometimes when you haven't had a lot of money growing up, there can be that tendency to spend it when you have it, And I've definitely felt myself kind of default that if I'm not on top of my budget, or if I'm not kind of looking after my mental health and being aware of my self care needs, I can just stress spend.

You're so tired, aren't they. Yeah, it's crazy. I cannot believe that. I mean, obviously we've been talking about it at She's on the money for the past four or five years, but I just really don't understand why historically we haven't spoken more about the relationship between mental health and spending and just self care and spending and what that looks like and how your mentality and how you're feeling actually impacts the way that you allocate money and

Absolutely, and I'm the same way that is my default when I'm really stressed. I've used that as an opportunity to, as I said, check in with myself and have a bit of self compassion, which is a hard thing to learn. I think if you're naturally quite hard on yourself. Yeah it's crazy, but yeah, being like, okay, what's going on for me here? And then you know, taking that as an opportunity to self reflect, to go a bit deeper instead of beating up on yourself because you know you're

No, couldn't agree more. All right, last question, now that we've had a chat, I don't know. I'm not going to tell you how I feel about this. You're going to tell me how you feel about this. You told us at the start of the episode that you think your money habits or c plus, but you're working on your emergency fund goal, You've got an investment, you're really

I think I'm the C plus this week? This week, this week because I did some stress spending, so I think it varies.

Sweet, we don't change out grade based on that, no, no, no, no, okay, no that's too high school.

No okay, okay, Probably in general, maybe a B.

Then all right, what would it take to get to an A? My friend?

I think maybe more consistent investing. I would like to do that once I've got in my emergency fund to a level I'm happy with, and then I think I'd be pretty happy.

I don't even think you have to change anything to get to Honestly, obviously, your goals are really important, and when you achieve that, you're going to feel more like an A. But you have everything in place to be in that position, it's just going to take time. Like how cool is that to think the fact that you are already in that position to be in a The only difference is, Okay, it's just going to take some time because to build up your emergency fund, that's going

And I do have to say thank you to you. My financial literacy is all thanks to Sheet's on the Money. Honestly, my journey. My friend sent me an episode back during the first season. It was the one about Hex and yeah, from there, I feel like I've just the world has opened up and I just yeah, so it's really all thanks to you.

Ah, that makes me so happy. We need to stop talking about it, though, because I end up crying.

Hey sorry, and that's.

Not that sexy on a podcast. But I'm so grateful. It makes my heart so full to know that not only have we created content that impacts people, but they like love it too, Like it's just it's so nice. Anyway, thank you so much. It has been a beautiful experience having a chat with you. I feel like I've learned so much about what you do and how you do it, and I feel like we are richer having met you. So thank you so much. I'm so grateful, thank you