MONEY DIARIES: A Vet With a Vision!

Hello.

My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr the

Let's get into it.

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

Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Victoria Devine and we are back for another one of our shop Back Money darries where we get to have a very exciting conversation with one of our She's on the Money community members about their money story and the journey that they're on. And this week, as always, we have a beautiful one for you, So let's dive straight in.

Oh?

My gosh, all right, I want to know. Can you tell us a little bit more about your money story.

So I guess we can start where I, like I grew up. I grew up very comfortably.

Like I said, dad's very comfortable with money, sort of discussing it my family. Both my parents to work full time. They both have higher degrees. That's got to pitch. Gee, mum's got higher degree as well.

Oh not the only doctor in the family.

No, no, yeah, Dad's the first doctor. So we always were extremely comfortably. My sister and I went to good schools. They weren't private schools, but they were you know, well known public schools that you had to try really hard to you know, get into. They've always had We've got investment properties or the family has investment properties. It's my parents super and they've got their own businesses. Everything with

I love that. Does he want a job? I feel like he would love that. I feel like there are a lot of people in our community that need this as well. Ten out of ten Dad behavior.

Oh, he loves a good spreadsheets. I don't want there. I inherited that from him.

The other part of my money story, I guess, is that I have a twin sister, and we've taken very different life paths at the moment.

So my degree was.

Seven years in the end, it took me to finish met school where she is a paramedic who's in London now, and she finished in three years, moved straight to London and made really good money, literally traveled the world. So we've always sort of competed against each other growing up. So she's obviously got a lot of savings and she can, you know, travels freely and just living life, especially in London, whereas I've sort of always been like in the countrytown and working for.

Very minimal wage usually until now. But yeah, wow, basically where I've come from.

How interesting. I feel like, that's really like, it's interesting to see twins go in two different ways.

Oh, it's just it's scary to look at.

No, it's not. We'll come back to that. We are going to come back to that, all right. I want to know what do you do for work now and how much money do you earn.

So I'm a VET.

I started in GP, and like I said, I was making six figures. Eventually, after a few months I got a good pay rise. Then, in the height of COVID, I actually took a big paycard of about forty to forty five thousand dollars to be a Vetery intern, which means when you graduate from VET, you come out as a general practitioner, so you can get paid okay, but the award's about fifty something, so not a lot.

Yeah, So I was doing well, took a.

Big pay cut, and now I've started after my internship, I've got a residency, which means I am treating to be a specialist, and I'm on about ninety a year, roughly a bit under.

So I was just looking at my paychecks.

Then actually, I've done your course, so I've got all the bits and pieces spilled in.

So I make.

Twenty two hundred and seventy eight dollars a fortnight after.

Tax, not bad, not bad.

And then you have to take into accountable work expenses.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, look, let's not take that there right now. I want to know what you're working towards though. Can you tell us a little bit about your big money goal?

Yeah, so I've got as for your pregnant again, I've sort of split up all my little money goals.

Oh so you do the full blown trees on the money budgetings flow system.

Yep, I've literally done it all. So I've got like my short.

Medium, and long term goals.

Yeah.

With my short term goal at the moment is just to get out of essentially personal debt as quick as I can, which we'll.

Get into later.

I guess we've got a fair bit of a little bits and pieces and they sort of all add up.

So that's my first one. And then because of my.

Training program, I actually get to go overseas. I'm not allowed to just train in the same clinic, it's the same specialist hospital. So I'm going to go to Queensland, Hong Kong and hopefully the UK to do some training in the next couple of years under some big, well known bets. But that's going to cost a lot of money.

That's all right. The experience is going to be there, and the way your eyes lit up when you explained that to me tells me you cannot wait.

Oh, I'm very excited, really excited.

And then I've got my medium term goal, which i've put so my first short term I've put sort of one to two years because I know a lot of my savings are going to go into my externships. My medium term goal is to save a very solid emergency fund, which I know I should do earlier, but it's just realistically, I'm paying so much debt down and i know it's

It's just it is what it is.

So you'll go overseas for a few months at a time and you won't make any money. So the next goal is the medium term goal, So I've just sort of put an arbitrary amount about fifteen thousand.

I'd like to be able to get a few months of.

Expenses saved, and then my long term goal is which is ten years plus. I've decided that I want to get into investment properties like my family. But given the market at the moment, and my wage and my debt from that school and all that, I just think there's a to do that anytime soon.

Still happen in the future, though, that's the plan. If we make a plan, we are halfway there exactly. Oh my gosh, I love it. All right. You mentioned debt before, but I want to ask first about investments. So do you have any investments? If so, what are they.

I only have my super at the moment, which I checked before.

It's at about seventeen thousand, which I.

Think is pretty good for technically only working full time for two years. I've only done sort of casual shift work well at UNI.

That's the only investment I technically have at the moment.

I did have a raise account then I figured, I mean, it's nice to get into it, but I had so much debt that I ended up taking the money straight out of that when it had increased a little bit, just to pay down the debt.

Quicker. I was paying so much, so much interest.

Yeah, wow, all right, well let's talk about debt then. I want to know you mentioned before that you have debts, So what are they and what are they for?

All right, we'll go through my little list. It's a very daunting but I was like, I need to have it.

I haven't actually saved in my computer because if I don't have it right in front of me, then I sort of bury my head in the sand. And one of these people that are just sort of lived. I do live paycheck unfortunately at the moment. That's because I'm trying to put everything towards payment debts off. So at the moment, so I did initially pay my help blown off, which was nice when I was working with my six figure job.

And then I went back and did a post rate certificate.

So that's sitting at about eighty six hundred, which is not too bad, but it's still there.

That's not bad debt exactly.

It was about seventy thousand.

I think that the school ended up being Wow, and you paid all of that off.

I paid a part scholarship part with my own work.

So wow, that's a very big feat on its own.

I know, but look, there's better places I could have put my money, but it made me feel good to actually pay some of it off.

Yea one hundred percent, and now it's not coming out of your paycheck each and every single month as much as you've already done it. Like, I don't think it's the worst decision.

And I've got my car break down, and I had basically no savings though, so I still have a car alan I think it's sitting.

Just over eight thousand an hour roughly.

Yeah.

I also how could I have.

I have got a credit card debt, which I consolidated recently, so that's down to four thousand. But I put all my little twenty debts into that. A. I did a balance transfer zero percent interest because I felt like the accounts that I did have, I was spending more in interest per week, per month, and I was actually putting back into the payment so.

I wasn't getting anyway. And then I.

Had the fine repayments that is about thirteen hundred dollars. Le've done that so drive one hundreds or sent car.

I didn't realize that.

Oh no.

And then my workplace also didn't text me correctly in the last year, so I had about sixteen hundred initially on that, and that's about down to.

I've paid a bit of that off. It's about thirteen hundred.

Oh my gosh, so is that a total of around fifteen thousand dollars worth of debt? I'm sorry to add that all up.

No, let me actually, let me keep this spreadsheet. It's all along here loan repayments. This is the daunting part. It's a just under twenty four thousand.

Okay, all right, not too bad. Honestly, that is not the worst place that you can be. And I think it's interesting that you said, look, I just bury my head in the sand. But it kind of is what it is, right Like, we don't need to we recify ourselves over debt. We just need to go it's there. We need to make a plan for it, full stop.

Yeah, no, definitely not. And I think, look, it's eye opening. Like I did the course, I've got it in front of me, and I literally keep a list right on my computer where I check every day, and.

It's sort of nice because once I pay a little bit more, I'll just sort of knock the price down on my little It's just like a little note on my computer so I can visualize it every day and be like, look, this is actually a lot smaller than it used to be. And since doing that, I've been like, Okay, I'll pick a couple shifts up in the er department, or I'll start another job very soon, just on the side, which will make me. It could make me another fifteen hundred per week potentially.

Oh my gosh, she'll smash it off in no time.

Yeah, that's the aim.

Oh I love this figure. That is so exciting. All right, let's move on to the next question. I want to know when you're shopping online, do you shop back?

I sure do.

I've been using it for years. I've totally forgot I had it until you guys, I'm talking about it on the podcast again. And then I went back and it turns out I had about thirty dollars. So I made a new account that they let me merge it.

I use the cheating my money, oh money win.

The other day, I think I got sixty dollars out of it, so, but I can't remember when I put it towards I paid something with it, but I was like, I may as well take money from that, and use it while I can, and if I buy it all my dog food, anything that I can, I try to buy a lance.

So yeah, how good. I love that You're like, oh, I still got the discount code even though I wasn't the one that introduced you to it. Like that's a money win itself. I think you're a genius. Ten out of ten good money hack. The next question I have for you, I want to know, what do you think is your best money habit.

I think it's like that again.

I think I'm just good at getting the best price I can. I used to be very I would just buy things if I saw it and I wanted it, Whereas nowadays, because I'm so I know how much debt I have, I actually step back and you know, the time between my purchasers, Like generally I will be like do I really need this? When I go to purchase something.

Definitely, that is a good habit. I want to bring the mood down, though, I want to know, now, what is your worst money Habit.

Probably putting my head in the sand, especially when it comes to like grocery, some little purchases. I was adding them up the other day and I spent like an extra two hundred dollars over when I bunted it just between like.

Drinks and coffee and buying food out.

We've got a put across the road from work, soonce's had a crap tea, a lot of us will be like, oh, let's go to the pub and have a drink, and.

It adds up totally, totally, all right. Last question I've got for you before we head to a quick break, I want to know what would you grade yourself if we forced you to give yourself a money grade.

I'd probably say like a sea at the moment, mainly because I obviously have the death still and they don't feel very financially.

Free yet, and that's what I want to achieve.

And I don't want to be living week to week off paychecks, which I'm doing at the moment because I'm trying to pay them. So once I get on top of that and probably get on top of my depth a little bit, more and have a bit of a saving space. Then I probably increase it a bit. But with my where my career will go totally. That will happen in the next five years.

Yeah, oh my gosh. All right, Well, I have a lot of questions for you. I want to talk to you about growing up as a twin. I want to know what it's like mentally to work as a vet, and if it's actually Victoria Devine's dream job, because that's what she thought she wanted to be when she was little. But I have a heap of questions for you. But we're first going to go to a really quick break. Don't go anywhere, guys, All right, money diarist, We are back,

That's what most people think. No, I love it. I do. I do.

I really love my patience, and I think the work itself, like the science behind everything's very very interesting. It's just a very taxing job mentally and financially. Like I was saying before our award, which is dramatically improved in the last five years. When you graduate, I think you're on about fifty seven thousand, like, which is not a lot of money compared to like my friends.

That finish med school and thereon, they.

Can be close to double that as soon as you come out. So in that way, it's quite taxing as well, especially like living in Sydney, so everything's way more expensive now. It's also it costs a lot of money just to keep up, like to keep up with continuing education. I think it's spent about seven thousand last year and that was a minimum on CPD points and things like that. But like I said, I do absolutely love it, and

Oh dogs are more special though, I am convinced like there's something so wholesome and space about an old baby.

I just love it because everyone in the ear like when they transferred to me in the specialist department, they'll give me the old crosses because that's all I want to deal with. That's actually where I've taken my new job with a Paletti of care business as well in Sydney.

So, oh my gosh, that's so wholesome.

We'll go around to people's house, isn't either. It sounds really depressing, but it's quite nice. I actually put their dogs down at home around their family, or perform paliative care practices at times they don't have to come into the clinic.

But yeah, no, I love. I did not see my career going in that direction at all.

I thought I just wanted to be a general practice set or even work with cows. I didn't actually think I'd be ending up working with old crossings. But yeah, that's where my career is safe in me at the moment, and I'm absolutely loving it.

But yeah, like every job, it's got its substance down.

How do you deal with that mentally? Because I actually think that that is it's a really special position to be in. Having had pets that I have had to put to sleep before, it is heartbreaking and one of the hardest things ever. And you know, the idea that you can do it at home, I don't think was an option available to us when we did that. I remember our first dog had to be put to sleep on Christmas Eve one year when I was twelve, and it was heartbreaking. And now I can't drive past that

Well, I feel like that's the It's like again, it sounds really funny, but it's I was talking to someone calling about this the other day actually, and that kind of things actually called it filling my vet cup. Because the families are so grateful in most cases, beautiful family Like in your situation, it's usually you know, the family's first baby that they're putting down and they're just very appreciative.

And if it's like a pallid.

Care type consult At least we know that we're making a plan and making the animal most comfortable and doing the most, you know, the best respectful thing we can for them. Same when it comes to euthanasia, because so we obviously I will go out or even in the clinic, will tell them if it's you know, we think it's actually a time because we have to be an advocate for the animal.

It's all about mindset.

I really don't mind doing it if I think it's genuinely the best decision for both the animal and for the client. Especially it sounds like bad money obviously comes into it a lot, especially working in a specialist clinic. Some animals, some treatments cost tens of thousands of dollars, and people course can't afford that. Especially in this day

If euthanasia is a feasible option, as bad as that sounds, Yeah, and as for keeping myself and my mental health under control, I feel like doing.

The at home stuff it fills my cup because we're doing something really sweet for the family, and most animals hate going to the vets anyway, especially when they get to fifteen and they're in pain and they're.

Experiences at the vet before, whereas doing.

A lot of my normal everyday work doesn't because I just get a lot of abusive clients as that as it sounds just because of the money started thing and just the nature of the practice that I'm in, so it sounds awful, But when I explain it to people, I get they generally understand where I'm coming from.

So if you just have to put yourself in that position.

Yourself, yeah, it doesn't mean that you love doing it, but I think that getting the best outcome for the animal and the family, like that's, you know, at the end of the day, a dream role. And I just I don't know, I've got a lot to say about that space because I just think that humans should be extended that same grace. But we won't go down that path at this time. I want to pivot the conversation. Actually, you said something at the very beginning of our conversation.

Yeah.

So, literally, if you was a kid, obviously, even to the same primary school, we had all the same friends, just to people Cindy.

Suburb, so it was like from the get go. And I think it's just.

Our personalities in the family we grew up in just super competitive, whether it came to like just extracurricular.

Activities or school grades. Usually school grade when we were school age, that was the main thing. Oh my gosh, I just said a very bad memory of school.

Actually, in our hc SO year twelve, Dad put together this is probably where some of my she's going from. Dad put together a payment scheme depending on what a tire you got.

She's probably not the best thing you could do for like a.

Young Oh the pressure, no dads.

I know.

So we both ended up splitting from our regular high schools, which didn't solve a lot of issues because then we weren't constantly competing against each other at school, and obviously we're both quite academic.

So she went to our local selective school.

I went to one out west, and my school actually ranked better. We played the HC game a little bit, and I obviously got better marks probably well.

I did well in some of my very well in some of my subjects.

But I probably got a lot of good My ati in general was better just because at the school I went to, because it was ranked high, so I think everyone pulled my marks up.

So in that case, my sister probably got ten points below me. I think it ended up being and I don't.

Even think she made it technically onto dance scheme, which was just awkward in general. So he literally for every mark, he had a different amount of money than he would pay us if we got that mark, or if it was over like ninety.

Nine, he would buy us a new car, which we both didn't achieve. But it's just got a pressure growing up, obviously, So that's my I mean this is my money story as well.

Yeah, Dad, we need to sit down and talk about toxic behavior. We really need to have a chat. I'll talk to him later, I know.

I mean it's only to be.

My psychologist is multiple times as well, because she's like, that's that's not normal, and I'm like, oh, I'm weare of it now.

That's a lot. I'm so sorry that was your experience. HC. Or you're eleven twelve.

I can look back and laugh at it now, like I no, it's it's not like that.

Yeah, but if you don't laugh, you'll criy. So I feel like that circumstance like HC and you're eleven twelve are just such traumatic periods of time as it is like you are a teenager still you're a hormone or you're putting so much pressure on yourself to pick a career and how want would you know what career you want to do if you're still a child, like you

So, like I said, my sister, well, now she's in London as paramedic and she's making very good money, especially because they get a lot of overtime, whereas I spent more than twice the emailt of time at Union. I'm very dependent on my parents and at time and to get literally to get by. Like I said, I really don't have any savings at the moment because of all the deaths that I have, But I can't help that.

So it's just it.

Gets very awkward when she's like, come and meet me in Greece, and I'm like, we want money, and then she's like, we'll pay for you, when I was like, but then I'll own like five thousand dollars and I just don't have the money to pay that back and I don't want to do that.

To us either, And then oh, and then I've got obviously i've got my friends that are all the majority of my friends.

Are teachers and nurses that they came out of UNI a very similar time. To her, and they're all pretty well at the stage where I think my girl group has bought a house now and then probably half of them now are getting engaged, some of them have babies, and I'm obviously at a very very different time point in my life.

To them at the moment.

Of course, it's obviously very difficult when they're talking about buying houses.

And I was like, I love all listening to all these stuffs, but I listen to podcasts and I love reading. I just love financings in general.

But I just know that it's going to be like a good ten years before I'm in that position.

Yeah, And do you know what, that's okay? And I think that that is a really hard position to be in because in a way, you might assume or feel that you all had exactly the same start point because you're graduated from the same place and kind of have been friends. I'm assuming that economically you probably have very similar families and backgrounds and experiences. So that can make us feel really behind. But I guarantee you there are people listening to your story right now, going, my gosh,

And I think the big thing is like, like, because my friends will listen to the podcast as well, and so we all like we literally all listen to it, and so we have these conversations and we talk very openly, and I'll obviously openly expressing like a very freaking broken moment just with the debts that I have to pay off. But then they'll all obviously turn around and be like, doctor.

Yeah, you're a doctor, Like that's crazy, but I don't.

Look at it like that obviously, so but they then they say, you know, put me in my placement, but you're actually doing big things, and residence is very hard to get, especially in the early stage of your career. So I'm doing I am doing well, but it's just hard to obviously force myself to think like that.

Yeah, And I think that, you know, going back to you saying that you're doing my budget and cash flow, my class, I think that maybe go back to that and go resell all your values and your goals and maybe pop some blinkers on and just focus on that and what you're up to, and maybe put in place not only a plan to achieve that, but a plan to celebrate the small things, like what are you going to do when you pay off your four thousand dollars

So I've got a nice little timeline.

See, she's got a plan, she's probably got a spreadsheet.

Maan, I found a six year contract, so it's already in me. I'm still in the same place. But so I do my residency. In that residency, I do my externship, and what I do is I complete it then I'm a registrar for a few years and I do lots of study, lots and lots of extra study, sit my fellowship exams, and once I've finished that, so that's in about five to six years, i'll probably sit my fellowship exams. When I'm accepted to the college, I'm going to be a small animal internal medicine specialist.

Wow, I'm lucky because I've.

Got some supervisors that are very keen on my ideas. I actually want to be a geriatrician for animals, which isn't a thing yet, but I feel like in.

The future it needs to be. I think we do it in people, why.

Wouldn't we do it in animals, especially when we can keep them alive longer.

So five to six years, hopefully one of Australia's first juristricians. But old doggos, that's the plan.

Oh my gosh, that is so wholesome and so special. But also look at that career trajectory, like that is so cool to have that clarity. I need you to give yourself a little bit more credit, my friend, Like I feel like you are not giving yourself nearly enough.

Yeah, I feel like sometimes I just need to step back and be like, you know what I've actually I have achieved a lot in twenty seven years.

Absolutely have. I'm so impressed by you and so proud of what you've done already and cannot wait to see where you're going. Oh I wish we had more time to keep talking, but my love, I think that that is all we have time for today. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and being a part of our little family here at Cheese on the Money. I am honestly so grateful and so in awe of you.

Thank you so much. It's been so good.

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