Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
the Order Kerney Whoalbury 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 and millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to my favorite episode of the week, money Diaries, where I get the opportunity to talk to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their money story. So let's jump straight into it, because this week I got a message and it went like this. Hi Victoria, I'm a first time mum with an eight month old
that works full time in the events industry. I've overcome huge spending guilt inherited from my parents' complex relationship with money. Mum was super savings conscious due to some trauma around undisclosed debt of my dad's when they got married, But my husband and I are super open and on the same page when it comes to money. I've just started my wedding celebrant business, and I know how much you love a good wedding chat too, Money Diarist, welcome to
the show. You are not wrong. I would love to talk more about weddings and money stories, two of my favorite topics of this year.
Yay, hello, Thank you so much for having me.
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. You are not wrong. I feel like anyone who's recently been married or is soon to be married, like I just can't get enough of this wedding conversation. Like it's literally my favorite. If I was allowed and could financially afford to have another wedding, I think I would like best day in the entire world.
Absolutely, I would probably agree. There's lots of things I'd change and do differently. And yeah, working in the space now it just makes me want to do it again.
A love.
All right, Well, let's talk about money, because I'm so excited and I'm sure that a lot of wedding conversation will come up before we jump into the big conversation, I want to know what grade would you give your money habits on a scale from A through to F.
I would probably say be minus.
All right, I'm not going to ask too much about that. Let's get into the questions and we'll see where this goes. My favorite question, though, is up first, I want to know, can you tell us a little bit more about your money story?
Absolutely so, It's yeah, great to hear it back. It's like listening to somebody else's story, not my own.
It's a bit weird, isn't it. Everyone says that I said, Oh my gosh, my story sounds so good when you read it back.
Yeah, Like that's me. So yeah. Definitely have always been a.
Big saver, which I was always praised for as a child, which is great, but I think it almost made me feel like I could never spend money, Like I took that to the extreme, almost took that on as my identity, and if I sort of spent money or wanted to buy something, I always had guilt around that. So I remember vividly receiving money for birthday gifts when I was about eight years old and not wanting to spend a
single cent of it. My mindset was very much like I need to save everything and spending is bad, So it's very black and white. Yeah, I didn't learn much about it's okay to like spend x amount of what I received specifically for a birthday present. When it's you know, you're eight years old.
I feel like you shouldn't really be thinking like that necessarily.
But yeah, I definitely took it on as my identity and was praised for it, so I thought, well, this is the thing to do to save every cent.
It can't be that bad. And I mean it's funny because it goes both ways, right, Like if you're praised for something, you're just going to do more of it because you're like, oh, this is what validates me, I'm going to go down this route. And absolutely it makes a lot of sense. How did that manifest as you got older? Like, and now you've obviously got a partner and like you're managing joint finances, Like was that something that caused a lot of friction in your relationship initially?
Yes? It did.
So my husband is much more of a spender than I am and it did kind of freak me out.
Initially, I was like, oh my gosh, like you spend so much money.
For example, I have the same car from when I was seventeen. I've had the same car forever, my little twirty yars two thousand and eight.
If it ain't broke down, exactly, it's my car's from two thousand and six. I stand this exactly. Good luck crying that out of my cold.
Hands, Like I don't need it.
You know, it works, It gets me from A to B and it's an amazing little thing. But yeah, my husband has had about twelve cars in his lifetime. He's only four years older than me. So yes, that that went away went out the window when we were together. But I feel like we've kind of balanced each other
out in a really funny way. So our communication is really strong in terms of you know, before we decided to get serious, we had those conversations, and I know that's really important before getting into a relationship.
And I think, because I was so.
Money focused to the extreme, having those conversations with a potential future partner is really important to me. And I think, yeah, as time has gone on, we've been able to sort of balance each other out really well, where I've been able to know that spending is not as you know,
you have money and it's a good thing. Like you, it's there to be spent on the things that you need and it's okay to spend money, Whereas he's learned to budget better and you know, only you know, be able to save for things rather than.
Like a paycheck comes in and then spend immediately.
So I think we've really balanced each other out in that way, which is a good thing, and it's something that we continue to work on every day.
But I think we've got to a good point with that.
You were right that you were like, we balance each other out like that makes sense now, yes, absolutely makes so much sense. I love it all right. I want to know the pervy stuff. Now tell me what do you do for it? How much money do you earn?
So I work in the events industry for a government organization full time. I earn at K before tax At the moment, I'm working part time though, about twenty.
Two hours a week.
Just pro rada yes, correct, yeah, pro rada yeah, col rata how good? And do you have you mentioned before? You've just started your wedding celebrant business. Tell me about that. Is that an earner yet or is that just a startup? I want to know more.
Yes, so it is an earner. I'm actually really surprised at how well it's been doing. So I've been making bookings for six months and I've just done my tenth wedding on the weekend.
So it's oh my gosh, congrat thank you.
You're in double digits now, I know.
Very exciting and yeah, starting to get more comfortable with the process.
Every wedding's different.
It's a lot of fun and as of Yeah, once the end of financial year hits, I will have received you've thirty thousand in that business.
So yeah, for how good? And you nearly almost didn't tell me that. Yes, what are you doing? Yes, I'm obsessed? How good? And is that something you mentioned before obviously in your letter in you said I'm a first time mum with an eight month old and you've got like a husband. Is that something that you want to take full time? Is this, you know, just to bring in some more cash or like what prompted you to get into a side hustle like this?
Yes, I decided to do everything all at once, have a baby, work and start a business.
How to go home baby.
Yep.
So that's been I've actually been really enjoying it. It's just juggling all the things. So when I was planning my own wedding two years ago, I didn't know that a celebrant was a thing. I'd only ever been to like church weddings and things, and I really wanted it to be like like a fun like party, kind of setting the tone for the reception. I didn't even know if that existed, and so when I was looking for young females that are celebrants, I was shocked to discover that
they do exist. And Yeah, I just had such a great relationship with my own celebrant, and I kind of dawned on me. I'd always wanted to start a business, but I didn't know what I wanted to do, which always kind of was the stop sign for me. I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I know I want to do something, but I have no idea what that is. So when I had such a great relationship with my celebrant and sort of went through the process with her, I was like, Oh, I
wonder if I could do this. This is pretty cool. Like even though I was pretty nervous for this, today I am comfortable speaking in public and I love to know, you know, the pervy things of like how people met and all of those things. So yeah, I just sort of decided to go ahead and jump right into it.
So yeah, I would love that job. Literally, I feel like that would be so fun. Like you, I'm relatively comfortable public speaking, but I also I just love love, like I love seeing other people in love. I love talking about it. I want to know how you met. I want to know like your favorite things about your partner. I want to know all of those pervy things. So I think that that is right up my alley. And you're right celebrant honestly not to be too dramatic and
makes or breaks the ceremony. And like we were so particular. We got married in November last year, and I was so particular about picking somebody that worked really well, and my husband was exactly the same, and we landed on Megan, who I'm still obsessed with, Like I still follow her content,
I still interact with her. I love her like she just became such a good, you know, part of the wedding and we actually invited her to m see the rest of the wedding because I was like, I don't want that to fall on somebody else, and like, her vibe was just so good and I just knew she'd kill it that. I was like, I know you probably don't usually do this, but would you do this? And she's like, yeah, you're right, I don't, but let's do it. And so she did, and it was like the best
thing ever. I could not recommend her, you know, more highly, because she just made me calm, made my husband calm and like and just did it in a way that was so us because we're not traditional and we're not that type of you know couple that wanted a church wedding, and I mean there were things that I wanted in the ceremony that made sense to me, Like I was like, okay, we need an acknowledgment of country, Like that just makes sense.
We're getting married, he we're having an event. And she was just all over it and made it so easy and just it was so beautiful. So I was obsessed anyway. I could talk about weddings all day, but that is not why we are here. I want to know what are you working towards. Obviously, you're killing it as a mum of an eight month old, side hustle bringing in thirty grand. You're on fifty in your quote full time job. What's your big money goal? What are we working towards together?
So we have a mortgage at the moment, so I think that's the main money goal, or that was the really main money goal for a really long time, was to buy a house, which we've done. Don't recommend moving house when you're eight months pregnant, but that's.
What we decided to do.
Sounds terrible, Yeah, don't do it.
But big money goal would be probably to pay off the mortgage. And as I was thinking about this question a little bit more, I feel like that's a very big, long term goal and I should probably think.
More about a big goal. But that's not that big.
Just to kind of tourne it down a little bit, something that I do want to do is invest a little bit more. That's something that now that we do have the mortgage and we paid for the deposit, I'm keen to get my teeth stuck into a bit more investing.
So yes, I love that. I want to know more about it, though, what would it mean to pay off your mortgage. So what does that currently look like? And like what would paying off your mortgage get you apart from owning a house outright.
I think the financial pressure probably of like you know, currently everyone's talking about the interest rates and all of those things, just the pressure around that. I'd love to be in a position potentially with my business or you know what. I'm sort of building up towards to be in a position where, yeah, the mortgage wasn't such a big.
Thing or like a stressful thing.
I like that. I feel like so many times I talk to people and they say, we just want to pay off the mortgage. I didn't go yeah, why, They're like, oh, so we can own a house outright, And I'm like, yes, but like let's think about why we might want that and what that means. And I feel like diving a little bit deeper into what you said before you were like taking off the pressure and you know, maybe investing. I think that right now is probably a very big
season in your life. You've had a baby, you've probably taken some significant time off, There's a lot going on where financial pressure would probably be really loud in your life. So I feel like it's a good goal. I really like it. But you're right. I think having smaller goals along the way so that we're enjoying the journey is
also very recommended. Before we continue our chat, though, let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I want to talk about investments and debt, how much that mortgage actually is, and your best and your worst money habits, So guys, do not go anywhere. All right, money Diaris, We are back, and I want to know you mentioned before you have a mortgage, which can be an investment, but do you currently have any investments? If so, what are they?
Yes, so I have amount five thousand in ETFs current.
That's a big amount. What are you talking about?
Yeah, I suppose it is. It is. It's a big amount.
She's chunky like that's good.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's. Yeah, it's that mindset thing.
Definitely. You'll probably see the theme of that mindset of that money guilt. It definitely still yeah pops its head up every now and then.
So how did you decide that that was the right I guess asset class for you and get started on your journey? Like what did that mean? And how did it.
Work absolutely, So I started using spaceship first. I was on there for a little bit, which I think helped my confidence with investing. I was really hesitant initially because I didn't know very much about it.
I didn't grow up learning about it.
But after listening to ses on the Money, I started to get a little bit more confident about, Oh, like.
Investing can be really cool.
Yeah, opportunity to have my money work for me rather than just sitting in my savings camp. So yeah, I started playing on there initially and then got my confidence up. I'm quite risk, so I thought an ETF instead of doing into like one specific company for example, would be the next logical step for me personally. So yeah, I had to look into some ETFs and chat with my husband as well about you know, what he wanted to
do and all of that. So this is sort of a joint thing that we're doing together at the moment. So yeah, five thousand felt safe for me to start with.
And yeah good. Yeah, So it's been good.
I've I've had a really positive experience with it and looking forward to doing more of it now that we've bought our first house.
So love, I want to know more about that though you said you picked an ETF. In our community, there are always lots of questions about how do I pick the right ETF for me? What process did you follow? Like, how did you want? You obviously decided and ETF makes sense? Great? How did you pick which one made sense for you? Yes?
Great question.
So I tracked how an ETF had been doing for like the course of its life, I suppose, so for five years. I sort of had a look how it was going, which really comforted me to know, these things go up and down and it's okay. That's the way that things happen. It's going to be that way and it's fine. And something that you've said that really helps me is not to look at it every day, for example, and be like.
Oh my gosh, like it's lower, I've lost.
X amount of money, but to know, okay, I've popped five thousand in there and that's what it is.
But you know it's going to fluctuate and that's okay.
But in picking the one that I did, I did a lot of research about To be completely transparent, I feel like I still have so much to learn.
No, we're not expecting that at all. I just want to know one of our community members journeys because it is so challenging to pick and I feel like we all get analysis paralysis. And the more I can hear how you picked it as somebody in our community that's not a financial advisor, how did you do that? Because lots of people are going to listen to this and be like, yeah, I felt this too, or yeah, I'm overwhelmed. Oor oh my gosh, I've been looking at that one.
Maybe I'll have another look at it. So I think it's it's important.
Absolutely, yes.
So I was looking at a few different ETFs on self wealth so that you can see like the graph of everything, and this one felt like the safest option. So don't very much about it, but it felt like a safe option and I've been happy with it so far.
So yeah, that's how I picked.
How good? No, I love hearing more about that. It's literally my favorite to be super pervibi but how but how where It's just I feel like we learn so much as a community through shared experiences and it doesn't matter how many podcasts I do on what an ETF is and what might be the top performing ones and why you'd pick one and what fees look like I feel like so many times the feedback we get from our community is they learn the most from shared experiences,
which I totally understand. But that's why I'm always like, hey, tell me, tell me. We need to know. I want to know. Now though, you mentioned a mortgage, So the answer is, yes, you do have debt. Yes, what are your debt levels?
Like?
What do they look like?
Sure?
So the mortgage that we have at the moment I checked is five hundred and eighty seven thousand, so quite a big call.
What did you purchase your property for? We need to know.
Yes, we purchased the property for seven hundred and one thousand dollars.
Oh, go good. Why won seven hundred and one? Where did that come from? Did you get in a bidding war with someone in an opho?
It's actually a funny story.
So my husband the range was seven hundred to seven seventy. My husband offered six eighty five. They said, no, they have another offer. The highest offer that they had was six nine nine, seven fifty. So he said seven hundred and then they said no, it needs to be higher, and he said seven hundred and one, and they accepted it.
They did, They did, they did?
How good is that. I love the audacity on him being like, all right, you can have another thousand. You get what you get.
M He was very proud of himself.
No, I love that. I'm proud of him too. I'm obsessed. I think that's so fun. I want to know, though, how much deposit did you have and how long did it take you to save?
Yes, so this is our second house. So yeah, we purchased a property.
Fancy pans.
So when I say second house, we don't. We sold our first house and then we purchased this place.
So I still fancy she's had a property journey.
Yes, So we purchased our property, our first property in twenty twenty when it was very very low, and we decided, let's buy a house, so we did, and then that's when the interest rate was really low. At the house that we purchased initially was I want to say, five hundred and twenty thousand, and then we were able to sell that and we made a profit of one hundred K. So that then helped us with this God, yeah, which is crazy.
How quickly did you so if you bought that in twenty twenty, did you sell it when we sold.
It in twenty twenty two.
Oh my gosh, you made a hundred krag prop.
What I know, I know, crazy, So I should I put that in my little intro.
That's interesting when I asked you the questions, I asked my friend.
So, yeah, we were shocked that that was the case. Money win, Yeah, money win for sure, and you held it.
For more than twelve months, which means you didn't lose all of that on capital gains tax was six month correct, correct?
And we actually ended up contacting our real estate agent and being like, hey, the person that we purchased the property from initially, and they said, oh, like, I actually have somebody that is interested in buying it for the price that we wanted.
So we didn't have to pay any fees, like in terms of real estate fees and all of that advertising.
So it just worked out really, really well, which is great because I was quite heavily pregnant at the time and I was like, what are we.
Doing over and out.
Yes, yes, so now we've moved closer to family, which is really lovely, and yeah.
That helped us with the deposit as well.
So in selling that property we were able to I believe we did ten percent, so yeah, seventy seventy seventy k yeah, ten percent.
Yeah, yeah, that would make sense. And did you have the help of a broker to do that or did you dydy Yeah, very very cool. All right, I have another question. I'm so obsessed with this. I feel like you have so many good money habits, and like, honestly, my friend, I'm already questioning why you gave yourself a b minux, but we will talk about that after these questions. I want to know, as a savvy saver, what is your best money habit.
I feel like I'm very good at putting aside. So when a paycheck comes in, I divvy up my fund. So I use up bank, which I just adore, and I can split out. It's really fun to use. It's really pretty, and I have different accounts.
We love an esthetic exactly.
It's so good.
So, yeah, I've got my bills account, I've got my savings account, I've got my what other accounts do I have, like tax account, all of that. So I've got all the things there and I just sort of, yeah, it's really fun.
When I get my pay in, I just.
Feel like I have a good system of like this is where things go, so I haven't automated it, but I also feel like it's kind of my Maybe I'm weird, but it's like my reward to like put things in their places and have my little fun money account for them that night.
That.
Yeah, so you see being able to do your budget every month as a reward?
Yeah, is that weird?
Probably? No, No, it's not that weird. There's no such thing as weird in money. I just happen to do my budget and then give myself a reward for doing the budget. So, like, we are definitely different people, but I really respect that, and I think that that is how I should see it. And maybe, just maybe I would have been able to buy a house sooner if I had the same mindset as you.
I don't know.
Sometimes it does stress me out, but for the most part, I'm like, yay.
I got paid.
Like, let's start allocating.
I love no. I want everybody in our community to be as passionate about being able to do their budget as Yeah.
I love it.
I love it, love love love. Let's flip it, though, Let's bring this conversation back down and humble you. What's your worst money habit?
My worst money habit?
Is that those restrictive habits still linger sometimes, so in terms of doing that budget, I'll be like, oh, yeah, like, I'll put one hundred dollars in my fun money account for two weeks and i put way more in my bill's account because I'm like, I have to be careful, So I'm very like worst case scenario, rather than like, oh, it's actually okay to like put a little bit more into or I like will save more than I need to, like, and then I'll start dipping into things that I don't
need to. So I need to be more generous to myself. Maybe that's the right word. I need to allow my like it's okay to spend more and you've got enough in your bills account at this amount, like you don't have to overdo it.
Yeah.
No, that makes a lot of sense. I feel like I fully expected you to say that that was your worst money habit, not because you'd identified it already, but often when I have people in our community that I get to talk to about their you know, money habits, and they say, oh, I'm a really good saver and I've always been a saver. And at the start of this conversation, you said, oh, like it kind of became a personality trait, like it became part of me, like
I identified that way. Often people in those circumstances find the restrictive habits are I guess number one for them, because obviously that's what gets you to become a really good saver, right restriction, But then on the flip side, it can actually be a little bit negative. The next question I've got, which is my favorite, lucky last question, is, now that we've talked, what grade would you give your money habits from an A through to an F? You
gave yourself for B minus at the start? After talking, after reflecting on all of this, how's that feel? How does it fit?
Probably feels like I'm not being very generous to myself if we go back to that word.
I couldn't agree more. Why is that?
I think, considering my money habits are quite good.
I'm making my grade lower than what it.
Probably should be because I feel that I'm quite restrictive. But in terms of the actual money habits itself, I do have great systems in place and it's working really well for me. And I'm looking back, I can see that I've achieved the goals that I've set, so yeah, probably at least an a minus.
Maybe.
I love this. I like the reflection, I like the left room for improvement. I think it's just it's so interesting. I guess setting a term of reference at the start and then getting to revisit it at the end because I think it's a good I guess learner, because do you know what I know. I know that they're going
to be people and hi friends. You're in the car and you're listening to this Money Diary and you heard b mins and you're like, yere okay, noorries and you start listening and you're like, no, that's such a good money habit. No, this is great, No, that is great. Oh she's investing, she's got a house, she's sold a house. You sold a house. I'm got one hundred grand profit. My gosh. She's like so confident. She started her own business. Like they're yelling at the TV basically being like, excuse me,
Money Diarist, but you're absolutely killing it. But I think it's such a good reflection point because we all have our own journeys and they're not benchmarked against other people's journeys. They're benchmarked against our own expectations. And learning that you are such a saver. It makes sense that you're like, oh, my restrictive habits are this that the other, and I don't think I'm doing as well as I could. It's such a type let's call it type money saver trait
to go. It's not good enough, it's not good enough when in reality you're actually killing it, and you need to give yourself a little bit more credit or to your language, a little bit more generosity, like you need to be kinder to yourself, my friend, because you're absolutely killing it and I love it. Would it take, though, to get you to an A plus? What do you think you could do in your own mind that would mean that you, you know, confidently would be like, yeah, I'm actually an A plus at money.
I'd love to learn more about investments.
That's the next sort of thing that I'd love to just feel a bit more confident with. You mentioned decision paralysis or analysis paralysis earlier. I feel like I do fall into that category and had to just sort of dive right in to get that experience. So I'm yeah, looking forward to going on that journey a little bit more. And yeah, I think just the restrictive sort of mindset stuff. I would love to be able to shake.
A little bit more.
And I think now having a baby as well has helped me realize, like, yeah, you've got to spend money to like, you know, provide and all of that. And like the money that I'm making is able to provide for my family now, So I do see that my mindset is shifting in that way as well.
Yeah, I love it, Oh my gosh. And do you know what my favorite part about that? It's all so achievable, Like none of that is beyond you know, what your capability is or what you can achieve. All of that is so capable and so like a che I love it. I love it so much. Oh my gosh, money. I wish we had all day to talk, but unfortunately that is all we have time for today. So thank you so much for joining us. I have absolutely loved this.
I wish that we could talk weddings all day though, Like there should be more wedding chat in this So thank you so so much for sharing your very gorgeous story with our community. We love it.
Thank you so much for having me.
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