Hello.
My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud your the
Order Kerni Whalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
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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 Millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another shop back Money Diary Monday, where we get to chat to a community member to learn all about them and their finances and all of the fun bits and pieces in between. Victoria, I, Hello, I have a story today that I think is going to tug on the heart strings a little bit. Do you want to hear it?
Of course I do. Let's go our diarys.
Says my husband and I spent one hundred thousand dollars on IVF and despite that, have managed to purchase a house and trim down our debt and we now have three beautiful kids and an emergency fund. Growing up, my parents never spoke about money, so I thought everyone struggled. My husband's money story is very different. We have monthly meetings where we talk about the nitty gritty of our finances. It is not a date night, but an actual meeting,
and this communication is super important. Oh my gosh. Yes, I am somewhat new to the podcast, finding it when I was looking to get ahead of my debt due to IVF and have spent three months bringing the show. It shook me how inspiring the pot is and it has changed my life.
Oh my god, what a queen.
I lovely.
I'm not gonna lie money diarist. I did enjoy that.
It is not a date night, subtle dig like, okay, I see you.
It is one hundred percent not a date night. We have date nights, but there's no spreadsheets on date nights.
No, I get that.
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to hear more about your money diary.
Are you ready to just kick it off?
Sure?
I am all right. Let's go first question as always, I want to know more about your money story. Please elaborate.
So when we were growing up up, it was never spoken about. It was never argued about, like it just it never came up. And it was the oddest thing. When I met my husband then who or even other people in that you know, mid twenties sort of realm where people sort of started being quite open about money. I was like, Oh, is this is this something we're allowed to talk about? M hmm. Not because it wasn't hidden or anything like that. It was just sort of
not spoken. And I remember just a couple of years ago, I was talking to my mum and she said, oh, you know, your sister, she's just like your dad was with money. I was like, what was that? That means nothing. That is not a good reference point. And so I suppose maybe we were shielled a little bit from it. But as we got older, we were sort of told, oh, you know, mum looked after the money because you know, Dad wasn't bad with money, He just had no concept
of like budgeting or tracking money. So I didn't know that until I was in my thirties. My husband, however, is a very different money story. They're very open with money. They talk about it all the time. They talk about budget and finance as though you'd talk about probably anything else. So when I met him and we started talking about it openly, I did to be fair, I did sort of lean in. Initially. There was a lot of oh, well,
we don't really talk about that. But I remember there's this one pivotal moment we wanted to go on a date. We just started dating, maybe six months prior, and I was like, oh, I don't really have that in my budget, and he's like, oh, well that's okay, we can do something at home. And for me, that was like this pivotal moment of oh, yeah, we can talk very openly about this and resolve issues. We don't need to go into debt trying to achieve something we might not have
allocated for. If that makes sense. Yeah.
Interesting.
I feel like it's so pervy when we get to ask, like, tell us about your money story, and it just like dives into well, my sister and then my mum and then this and my dad wasn't good at money, and you're just like all of this stuff is so juicy. But it's interesting because you said I didn't learn about it until I was in my thirties. Why is that you just didn't ask money questions at the dinner table or like, how does this happen?
No, so I have no idea. When you look back, it seems so dumb, like something definitely should have picked up on. But hindsight's twenty twenty. But it's very much so. I mean I didn't even have Okay, don't judge. I mean you probably won't. I didn't have a credit card until I met my husband and we joined a bank together. Like it was never spoken about, but we weren't taught anything like bad. We just saved, spent budget, that sort
of ongoing system. We just never openly discussed investments or you know, there was always talk about like savings, you know, oh you should save you know, ten percent or half of your page, you know, when you work at kmart when you're fourteen, of course, But other than that, it just didn't come up. And I mean, in all honesty, not that I'm trying to like suck up or anything, but when I heard your podcast, I started listening. My
little sister is significantly younger than me. I sent it to her and I bought her the book and I was like, you have to pay attention to everything here because you've got about ten years head start to the rest of us.
Oh my gosh, that's so special though.
Yeah, so it's for me. It's I would tell everybody, Oh, you've got to listen to this, you've got to read this, You've got to understand it. I you know, not everybody would agree with everything. Of course, it's life. Lower your expectations, but it's really important to sort of have access to the information. I suppose, and I just it never would have occurred to me to source this out. I literally, honestly I found you guys on a recommended article on BuzzFeed.
Oh, we've made it to busfeed. I want to queize which she's on the Money host to you?
Oh my gosh. Yes, do we get our own BuzzFeed quiz?
Now that would be great.
Who are you? Which which she's on the Money host?
Are you? I think I'm a hybrid, all right.
I like that. I like that kind of.
Be organized, but I also manifest everything in my life so huge.
So what do you mean you like to be organized? That's okay. You don't know anything about me. I am the most disorganized human in the entire world.
Clearly you are.
One hundred percent of Jessica RICKI here is a gold medal. I love it, though, because talking about this stuff, You're right, you just don't know what you don't know. And it's not through you know, lack of your parents trying. They quite clearly tried to teach you to say and budget and all of that's really important, but they just didn't have that financial literacy. And I guess that's why I am so insanely passionate about sharing it, because I'm like,
you don't know of because no one taught you. We didn't learn this at school. You learn algebra and trigonometry and talked about geography, but we never talked about what it means to invest in an ETF. And arguably I could have changed your life with that. But you know, as much as it's important to know where China is on a map, that's not actually going to have a
positive impact on your life in this immediate future. Like, there's nothing better than financial literacy for setting people up for a successful future, and it just it makes me so mad that it's not included. And your story is an absolute testament to your parents doing the best that they possibly could at the same time as just not knowing what they don't know, like how would you know?
And why would you ask? Like if you don't know, it'd be like, you know, trying to remember somebody you had never met. If you don't know, why on earth would you ask? Which is why I'm that with system now harping on a heye gus is really important, Like
I really think you should get on it. And every time I speak to people at work, they're like, oh, because I interact with a lot of different shifts, especially when I work nights, And I was like, hey, man, are you contributing more to souper because now's your peak time to do.
So I love FUS.
Here's the sheet that HR give you on how to do it so I could be that weird friend.
No, no, no, it's not weird.
It's empowering and it's inspired and I adore it. Fun friend, No, honestly, you are the fun friend. Like I would ten out of ten have you at my party, And like that's the power of the community, right, It's not just about you know, us having a podcast, it's now you filtering that down to other people to have an impact. That's far greater than just the pod and it makes me so happy. But we're going so far off track, so
let's get back on track. Quick questions, money, Doris, I want to know what do you do for work?
How much money do you earn?
So? I work for a not for profit and a capital city that basically looks after the families of sick kids. So I really only year with families in their worst or most difficult moments I earn. So it fluctuates a little bit because I do do a little bit of shift work and I work nights. But for that I think it averages out so about fifty two plus super per year that I make. And yeah, so I work part time to be fair, so I make fifty two a part time I work three or four nights per week.
Wow, I feel like I want to say that's such a special job, but I mean it in a that is such an impactful job to have exposure to people in arguably their most vulnerable states and be I guess allowed to support them through that. But it also is so special that you're willing to put yourself in a position where your emotions and your mental health would arguably be challenged on a daily basis like that can't be easy. It's not like going to work, sitting down at your
desk and huh, five o'clock, let's go home. It's like you would carry a lot of weight with that role. And that that's what I mean by special. I mean you are special, not the job is.
I mean they're both special, because I mean being able to assist people and not have them go through it by themselves. That in itself is a lot and there's a lot of my job that's mostly sort of the man behind the curtain. Yeah, so there's a fair bit of Okay. People have arrived from you know, a really really rural place with nothing, you know, toothbrushes, nappies. What do they need? Food? Not like stuff they can actually eat,
not food to make food, actual food, so everything. You know, when you get somewhere and it's like getting to a hotel in the city, you don't know, with nothing else, like nothing, And if I can help in a like I said that man behind the curtains sort of way, I was like, I can get you this, I can get you this, I can get you this. What do
you need? Nobody stays with us for fun. They're there because they have to be, So what can we do to relieve a little bit of that pressure so they can focus on what they need to Yeah, and you know that's a really I think important sort of element. But by contrast, I see, you know, a little bit of tragedy every so often. We see a lot of sad things. We see some DV. We have a great interaction with our police and fire and ambulance officers for
a variety of reasons. You know, staff members hurt themselves and all the time, and like break a foot and so you have to call an ambulance and it's just a relief that it's not for a guest. So there's this huge spectrum of what we see. But I am pretty open and honest about the importance of mental health. I have a psychologist. I do the legwork. We try to avoid compassion fatigue, which is a really big concern. But you know, we do a lot of the work to do so we've got a great program at work
as well. I don't use them. I have a psychologist, I like, I've been seeing her since IVF.
So I'm quite attacked, understandably, So, yeah.
And not interested in explaining the whole thing again, to a new person. So when you take on roles of that nature and what you see, you have to either be a little bit detached or be able to separate everything.
Yeah, that sounds really tough. I want to ask you more about that after the break. I'm going to continue on so that we don't get too far off track, but I want to know what is your big money goal currently, What are you currently working towards. It sounds like you've achieved a lot thus far.
Honestly, I feel like we have. And when we sort of, you know, got invited to do a money though, it's extremely excited. We had just had one of our meetings, not dates, and you know, so over the next ten years, we would like to work as a family towards sort of a green home I suppose, not like a completely solar powered, grow your own vegel stable sort of home, but you know, we'd like we have solar, we'd like to do more in the electric vehicle space, you know,
and those are expensive at the moment. So over time, you know, over the next ten years, that's what we would like to be able to achieve. We do have a house, we may or may not look at moving in some stage in the next twenty years. But our children are small, so we're settled for the moment on that. So you know, we've done the big things that we wanted to do.
Good good love to hear it though, because I like that you're like, actually, we have achieved a lot, because sometimes you talk to people who just don't see their achievements as achievements or enough. They just go, oh my god, yeah, like I'm really working towards this and don't reflect on I guess how far they've come. Next question, I want to know do you currently have any investments. If so, what are they.
So we have little investments, so we use Chase Ease and I did use Raise, but the fees, I think we're just becoming less and less healing. So we use Chasse and we use Spaceship Love for micro investing.
We're twins.
See we told you you are Jessica Rickie through.
And at the moment we're saving two So our plane at the moment, because we've only sort of turned this ship around in the last you know, six to twelve months, is to do some proper investing. Once we hit a two grand mark, we'd like to investigate a little bit further, but for the moment, we're happy with the micro investing until we save some more.
Yeah, love, How good is that? All right?
I want to know next, do you currently have any debts? If so, what are they?
Yes, so I have a hex step. Along with most of the population, we do have a bill credit card that we use. So our bills every month are a little over five grand and our credit card is a little over five grand. That's right, that's the balance MATCHI match. The actual physical card gets brought out twice a month, once on Payday to fill up the cars, and then two weeks later to fill up the cars, and that's it. It's not used for shopping or spending or groceries or
anything like that. It's specific to the bills that we have. It gets paid off in full every month, and that's sort of the only reason that we have it. I think initially when we got the card, it was simply because a couple of the insurances that I have that aren't through Super have to go on a credit card. Really, yes, ten years ago.
So okay, I was like, since when I know?
I know, So initially we had that set up so that we could use it in that way. So we're looking at transitioning probably over the next five years to not using that. But at the moment, we shop with Wolworth's, we do the bank. For Christmas, we use the credit card. It's paid off in full every month, it's never gone over. It literally doesn't have the allowance for it because it's
on a budget like everything else. And at the end of the year we convert those into grocery vouchers and we don't pay for groceries in the month of December.
See, that's a really smart way of using a credit card. If you have proven obviously have to be really responsible with it, and you're reaping the benefits, why would you try and get rid of it? Like why would you try and rework that wheel? I get lots of people and cheese on the money.
You're like, credit cards are the devil's plastic.
I get it because also I feel that way mainly because of how detrimental it can be for our community to use them. But girlfriend, if you're using them efficiently and you're in a better financial position because of it, like why we're stopping.
Well, we whittled that down. So when we first got together, like I said, I didn't have a credit card, and my husband's had like fifteen grand was the limit, and over time we've whittled that down to the point where in the last after we had our last baby, I was like, these are our bills every month. We can have a two hundred dollars on top of that for incidentals or a doctor's appointment or anything like that. That's it.
That's what the limit on it is. It's what our bills are, so we can't go over it even if we want it to. It's not like it's ten thousand dollars and we're spending five grand over our budget every month. It's not an option. Yeah, we can't get it if we don't pay some of it off. That's how all of credit works.
It's interesting to learn more about how other people use debt to their advantage, though, because, as I've said before, Jess, we recently recorded an episode on credit cards and how they aren't necessarily the worst thing in the world, but we actually need to make sure that we're using them efficiently.
I don't advocate anyone who doesn't have one to get one if they just want to try it out, but like, if you're already using it, I just don't see why we would rework the wheel if that wheel's working for you.
I mean, no.
Grocery fees all of December?
Are you kidding?
All of December? Unless we host Christmas? Oh?
Oh yeah, in which case that is epic, Like that's crazy, that's its own problem.
But yes, So between the credit card points, we usually end up with, you know, about six hundred. Because we have a lot of bills, we usually end up with about six hundred dollars. Our bank for Christmas is usually two or three.
That's so good. I'm so impressed.
And they're good groceries too, so sometimes we get the fancy ice cream.
Oh girlfriend, I'm asking you more about that after the break, So let's come back to that.
I want to own next.
You clearly are a good shopper when it comes to getting a bargain.
Do you use shop back?
I have it, but I do use it on occasion. I just don't do enough online shopping.
That's not a thing.
I still use it at every chance.
What do you mean I don't do enough online shopping?
Did you just say in a very weird roundabout way, Victoria, I'm at controlling my online shopping than you are because that's what it felt like.
Well, I have an addictive personality. I know full well I could not control my online shopping, which is why we have the limit on the credit card.
Y'sa fair Know your limits.
Yes exactly. I'm you know, thirty three. I'm hyper aware of what my limits are. I don't pay attention to them all the time, but I do know what they are.
Love, love all right, Next question, my love, what is your best money habit?
So I actually I sat down and I asked my husband about this, because I said, what do you think our best money habit is like as a collective because we do work very much so as a team. And he said that he thinks we've got two, which I agree with. To be fair, I think one's better than the other. We communicate extremely honestly about money and finance, so communication is our top priority across the board as far as money habits go. So he's definitely come home
before and said, oh I've got a UFC. Definitely going to that. It's going to cost this. I've come home and been like, maybe I spent an extra fifteen dollars on a scar at chemist warehouse. It happens, but nothing's hidden, there's no secrets. That's something we're extremely open about. But I believe that our best more my best money habit is I don't pay for a price for anything.
We love to hear it.
How how we thrift everything, so if we can't buy it or fix it or make it, then we find it. So we work very hard. So last year we did nothing new until twenty twenty two, so I left for underwear and shoes, we did nothing new, so even the things for the children. I mean that again, underwear shoes very different. You know, shoes mold to the feet of the wearer, so please don't buy vintaged shoes. It's gross. Then it worked so well. We continued that on this year.
So we don't buy new anything. We try to find it. We try to manifest it on Facebook, Marketplace, love yay. You know, we just did agenda reveal for a friend that's pregnant and everything we did. You open the wardrobe and then it's full.
Of I've seen this on TikTok.
Yes, so we did one of those. Everything was thrifted. Oh my gosh. It was always ussible, good, environmentally friendly. I mean we still use disposable map it's not savages.
We're not savages.
Let's be realistic about the time effort that would put into that that gets to take something else.
Different horses for different courses. It's what's working for you. And I think that it's cool that you have clarity on what you do and don't want.
Yes, so that I think that level of trying to find stuff is probably our best money habit. And I do on my birthday coffee you do not want to be a person around me on my birthday. Free burst, free coffee club, free everything I go. I hit every mark.
I love that.
I feel like that's Genius's money saving Queen Jessica. Let's learn where she's maybe not a money saving queen though, money Darrist, what is your worst money habit?
If we are lazy or tired, that's it. So I don't have really the option of finding something uber eats wise at work at three in the morning if we don't like something. But if I get home on a day that I'm not working and I was like, oh, I've put this on the menu plan, so this is what we're having for dinner. And if the rest of the family is like, yeah, we're so excited, I'm like, oh, forget it, GYG take away whatever. So if we're lazy or tired, then we just get a little bit complacent.
I feel like that's relatable.
Though. I sometimes go home and I'm like, oh, I know I've planned this meal, but I really I just want to sit on the couch and be a zombie and have a man bring a pizza box to my front door.
I totally get it.
Because healthy me did the menu plan, yeah, but tired me is in the situation now.
Oh I'm so inspired when I sit down on a Sunday and be like, all right, Stephen, what are.
We cooking this week?
We're really healthy past me very healthy currently not always making the best, so I totally get it, all right. Last question before we go to a quick break, I wouldn't know what grade would you give your money habits if we asked you to give yourself a grade.
I've been thinking about this one a lot, so I think overall I would say a C because I think there's always you know, there's a lot we want to do, and I always room for improvement. But if you look at us at the beginning of the year and us now ten months later, I would say a B plus. So in the short term, little Pocket, I would say, we've come a long way. But overall I think C even C plus why not treat yourself? Treat yourself.
But also I feel like you've come a long way and you're on the trajectory to being an a relatively quickly given the habits you've established. I just think it's amazing to watch it, and I cannot wait for a check in insane us.
I mean, oh no, no, I know that we did the work, but the has come from somewhere.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
On that, let's go to a quick break because I want to know more about where you got your information.
Straight after this break.
All right, welcome back, everybody, Money Diarist. I want to talk to you a little bit more about your IVF journey because I think that that's something that is a little bit shrouded in secrecy. It's something that often can come with difficult feelings or difficult memories for people, so it can be harder to talk about. But it's obviously something that worked really well for you guys. You have
three beautiful kids now, which is very exciting. One hundred thousand dollars is an incomprehensible amount of money.
That's in says a lot of money.
And I know that a lot of people who do go through the process. Something that I hear time and again is that it is really costly in addition to the emotional drains and all of those other impacts that it can have on your life. Can you talk me through a little bit around how long you did it for? And you know where that hundred thousand dollars kind of went?
Sure? So, so, in fairness, we knew straight off the bat we would need IVF. My husband had the king in here was twenty one. He's fine now, but obviously before they started treatment, my mother in law as a nurse.
Thank god for mother in laws.
They're the best we gain.
Everyone's a win. I've got a good one.
I do too, don't worry. I feel like I've seen the jackpot.
Oh so it's amazing. Everyone needs one. And so basically he froze some sperm before he started treatment.
That's so good.
No, but the foresight to have that at twenty one is definitely not what a twenty one year old mangle he's thinking about. I mean, I've never been one. I've never been a twenty one year old male. But having known a few in my lifetime, that's not what they're thinking about one.
So we knew straight off that we would need IVF, so shortly when after we got married, when we were ready to look into that, we went straight into it. And this was probably i'd say about a year before a lot of bulk billing IVF places came unannoying, I know, but we did. You know, we had our initial and all these doctor's appointments they cost money, like bank So you know, we had our initial consult with an IVF fertility specialist, which costs you know, nearly seven hundred dollars. Wow.
And it exploded from there. So every time we did a cycle it costs approximately twenty thousand dollars.
Twenty thousand dollars a cycle. That's like double what most people are telling us. I mean, you obviously did it before the bulk billing came in. It's just so much money to comprehend.
It's a huge volume of money. So don't get me wrong. We have great private health insurance. We were better off going through Medicare. Yeah, And to be fair, you reach your threshold faster, so once you hit it, you do get more back, So do it at the beginning of the year if you're going to do it, just as a friendly head does. And we did the first one. To be fair, I had a bit of a rough
time with all the drugs. So the initial drugs that you get, you have to get them from a specific pharmacy where we were, not our pharmacy where we've been going for.
The last time years so far.
I went to this pharmacy where it was you know, I think we spent about a thousand dollars on our first lot of injections and medications. And I did that for two weeks, and then we did the egg retrieval and the hospital ran late, and then there was no eggs to retrieve. There are only two left. I had twenty follicles, but they ran late, and they told me afterwards, and I was, honestly, hormones or not, that's not yours. That's all. That's right.
There was no compensation or anything there at all.
I made them pay for the second one.
Yeah, good Like.
I had a meeting with the hospital administrator. I said, I can't spend twenty grand because you can't tell time. That's actually not my fault.
No, yeah, that's a costly mistake for somebody to mate.
It is. And to be fair, so after my second egg collection where we got twenty follow calls.
Yeah, okay, thank you for running on time.
Because everyone ran on time, the head of the hospital was outside the recovery room waiting to check in with me.
Good, oh good.
Afterwards, which, to be fair, she should have been. Yeah, because that was that is a costly mistake. So we didn't pay for the second one. But we did end up doing two additional ones. So, having said that, we got our twenty embryos, and then and it's a numbers game, so you know, twelve of those matured, and then four of those got all the way through the process. And then my husband and I are both carriers for cystic fibrosis. Wow, so we did genetic testing on our embryos in addition
to the PDG testing. Wow.
But what a position for us to be in in this day and age, to go, all right, we carry let's test this like that is very cool.
Yeah. So initially we tested all twelve yeah, before we knew that only four got through. But it cost two grand for each embryo to do the test. Oh my lord, and that's only you know, say, I was twenty six when we harvested our eggs and got our embryos. So even other than the fact that my husband likes to tell people I got knocked up by a twenty one year old because that's how oldly, wasn't it. It's like, you have to stop saying that. People know how old we are.
And why I like it.
And so even then, we knew that as we moved through the process, it would come forward in leaps and bounds. So you know, we spent all this money, we did all these tests putting our embryo back in. So we initially we didn't do a medicated cycle. We tracked my cycle and that one resulted in a miscarriage. But from that we learned that I had a short like loot to your phase. My fertility window was like three days,
not five. But we wouldn't have known that otherwise. So then we started to do medicated cycles, which were a little bit more expensive because you have to, you know, take a lot of drugs and a lot of hormones and a lot of progesterone. So and that all obviously costs a lot of money. You do a lot of doctor's appointments to follow up and check how everything's progressing. And then putting the embryo back in is fifty two hundred dollars.
Oh good lord. Wow, You're like, this came out of my body. You're just giving me back what's mine?
Oh?
Why it just.
Blogs to me anyway?
Is it really necessary?
So that was always very difficult. After the first one happened and it worked, and I did fertility acupuncture as well. That was my own accord. That was you know, every week in the twelve weeks lead was one hundred and thirty odd dollars day before, day of day after. There's three hundred and fifty dollars right there. It adds up, and it adds up fast.
Wow.
And after the first one worked and we were like cool, all of a sudden, you know, bug billing IVF came out. I'm very superstitious. I was like, oh, I'm not wasting an embryo based on maybe I will go back to the same doctor.
I would do the same thing, to be honest, Yeah.
The same cost and spend the same money all over again. And I mean superstitious in a weird way. Our embryo transfers happened on a Friday. We see a violent movie afterwards, because that's what happened to be on after the first one.
You're like, this worked last time.
I think it was Jurassic Park haha. And I get a cold diet coke in a quiet room. There's no one talking to me, touching me, or asking me for anything. I'm that level of superstitious. It worked the first time. I'm repeating it again within my scope what I can contry.
I feel like that's important, though, because that's you feeling comfortable with that process, and like, I mean, that's going to mean different things to different people, but I kind of love that. You know you well enough. You're like, this is what we're doing.
This is how the only control I had over it. This is what we're doing. Yeah. Wow, And I do have a supportive partner. He was like, yep, yep, I'll be there on it. So what a legend. He is amazing or he understands what I say. I know it's stupid, but it's important to me because his response to that is if it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid.
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Wise, it's very hard to argue with.
The wise, I want to know how all of this impacted your work, right, So you spoke about the cost, but I think the cost when it comes to being in our child bearing years that we don't talk about enough is the time off work. And we know that taking time off work to raise kids is one thing, but then taking time off work to even try for kids is another.
Like, how did that.
Impact your I guess work life balance and your income and how all of that works, because I feel like with IVF, that's a lot of downtime and you didn't just do it once, you did it multiple times for multiple rounds.
Yes, so I went to part time when we started IVF. It was an available option to me. I was very lucky to work at the time. I worked somewhere else, and I was very lucky to work somewhere where they are very family based. And they don't just say we're family based. They show that they're family based. They let me work from home when I could, They're very understanding. They gave me time for the appointments. They let me swap my days over for embryo transfers so that I
could have the weekend to relax. That was just dumb luck. Being able to coordinate that with my work at the time, and you do. So we took a hit for me to work part time. I'm very lucky my husband works in the IT industry, so you know, we have that sort of buffer as we need. To be fair. We do spend a fair bit on medical things at the pharmacy, you know, his sort of treatments that will be ongoing until further notice sort of thing. So we spend a lot of money at our funt with I think five
or six hundred dollars a month at our pharmacy. We've got it. But is it a tab an account.
Not ongoing account. It's like going to the bar.
Yeah, so that works out really well. Yeah.
I was going to say tab I thinks a bar.
Yeah, I think you did it. I think you started tab at the bar.
Yeah, well we have done that too. Maybe that's just what came to you because it's familiar.
I get it. I get it's still fun.
I told you I'd have you at my party. It is absolutely fine. I think it makes sense.
So I worked part time while we did all that, and that was enough to take the pressure off for what we were doing, so I didn't need additional time off to do the processes. I worked somewhere where we were able to slot it in within those working three days. Yeah, that's epic, and that was very beneficial for us. When our children were born, the place that I worked does not offer maternity leave. Yeah.
Wow.
So I went back to work at four months with the first two children.
Yeap.
And I was in a different job when I had my third baby and they offered maternity le so I took that. I think it was like seven weeks at half pay, so an additional fourteen weeks just to take the edge off. So that was very beneficial for us. To be fair, my first born was born twelve hours after I've finished work on the Friday.
Oh my gosh. Well, at least you're getting it done. I respect that.
Oh I was supposed to be my baby shower, so we haven't let that one go.
Apparently, according to my family, families are the best for stuff like that, aren't they they are?
His birthday is baby shower day because I was too busy birthing him to attend my baby shower.
Oh well, good, I mean, at least you've got a healthy, happy baby. I have one more question before we wrap, because I feel like I have been talking to you for ages and I could continue to do so, but
I want to know. Obviously, you're now part time with your work, and you've got a beautiful, supportive husband, and I want to know how you're prioritizing your future financial security though during a period of time where you're not earning as much as you probably could be because you're part time and looking after kids and doing all of that, Like, how are we still making that a priority?
So there are a couple of ways that we do this, and we do work very much so as a team. We can only take on one big project at a time as off of course, so we understand that. So I work part time. But the reason I work nights is so that I can work that extra fourth day. Yeah, if I work, I have to put the kids into daycare that day. Yeah, it's one hundred and fifty dollars per child per day.
That's so much money.
It's so much. It costs money. We chose a job where I could work nights and get that extra day because it leads on from or into a weekend where he's at home with the kids. So that's something we do.
That's really smart planning.
Yeah, your genius.
Yes, So I work Sunday night to Wednesday nights. He has the kids all day Sunday so that I can sleep, so that I can work that night. Yeah wow, And then that would not have been an option on the other you know, I couldn't be able to work four days and pay for four days of daycare. That would basically make my salary redundant.
Yeah, of course it would.
We salary sacrifice from my job to the mortgage. We salary sacrifice to my super. So does he to my super not his own, so that we are all working hard to make sure no one is left out of pocket, I suppose for doing what we're trying to do. We have touched on a number of times. I'm working towards my MBA. I am so part time work, part time study to try and sort of better myself.
And three kids under five? Are you kidding me, money diarist.
No, we don't do things by halves.
Oh I'm noticing.
So I'm doing that now because I can work part time with the kids, and because I work nights, it gives me the opportunity to be able to sort of focus on that as an option. Yeah, so that's why we do that. We've touched on me working full time. We've run the numbers, we've done the math. It's not worth it. Yeah, it's really not that. For the same reason, it's also not worth me doing school hours five days a week, so I might work five hours in that day, I got to pay for twelve hours daycare.
Yeah, daycare can be absolutely crippling. And I feel like you guys have really thought about it. And I like asking that question because I think that it is such an important question to ask in a relationship when going through this period of time. It sounds like you're an absolute hustler, and I don't expect anybody else in our community to bite off nearly as much as you can chew. But that is okay. We can learn from your story. So with that money, darist, I super appreciate the time
you've taken today to share that with us. Thank you for coming and thank you for sharing.
Oh my goodness, thank you. I've listened to so many money does. I was like, I can relate to that. I understand that. Oh I don't know that.
Oh how good.
There'll be a lot of people listening to this feeling the exact same way exactly.
I mean, I don't know how many other people are going to be like, oh, yeah, I work part time, I do my NBA. I also have three kids and I'm a hustler. Ali great, great, thank you for making unrelatable content.
I didn't realize how common IVF was until we were in it.
Yeah, for sure.
True.
I mean I've had people from work who were doing IVF reach out to me and go, I don't know you did IVF? What do you know about this? And I was like, hell, get ready, I know it.
Sit down, my friends. I feel like it is so common, but for a very long time it was kind of seen as something that shouldn't really be talked about because it's like, you know, if it's not working naturally, like oh, don't tell everybody about your bodily processes. Like and that's not the case at all. I feel like you guys need as much, if not more, support, Like it's just so important.
Anyway.
With that Money Diarist, thank you for joining us, and we will see you on another episode of Money Diaries next week.
See you, Thank guys.
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