Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
the Order Kerni 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.
Let's get into it. She's on the Money. She's on the Money. Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries when we talk with one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into this one. We got a message this week and it went a
little like this. Hi, She's on the Money. I'd love to share my money story that's interwoven with mental health struggles. I've recently been released from a psychiatric hospital. Stay was married at the end of last year. And have returned from an extended honeymoon and work break. I used to live week to week and was in a bad relationship, but got out and saved my money. Life is a roller coaster and have recently experienced mental health battles and
how money interplays into this Money Diarist. I feel like this is going to be a roller coaster, as you say, but also really relatable. Thank you, welcome to the show. Before we start, I do just want to give our friends who were listening a little bit of a content warning that this Money Diary does contain conversation about trauma, depression,
and eating disorders. So if that is something that you are not ready to hear right now, or it's not the day for it today, we have a million other podcasts you can go and listen to and we will see you on another day. But content warning aside. Money Diarist. I'm very excited to have you on the show today. Thank you, me too.
I'm excited to be here.
Oh how good? All right, we're mixing things up this year and I'm actually starting with our last question. So, Money Direst, do you mind if we dive straight into asking the big hitting questions. Yes, let's go, let's go all right, money Dorus, I want to know, because we're mixing it up this year, what grade would you give you money habits if we asked you to give yourself a grade from A to F.
Oh, I think a C plus, a C plus maybe diving into a B minus.
Oh. I'm interested to hear more about that. So as always my favorite. Now second question is I want to know a little bit more about your money story and your attitude towards money.
Yeah, so it has changed a lot over the past few years. Growing up in my family, we were told never to talk about salary, don't talk about people's money situation. It was just taboo. It was bad vibes to talk about money, and so I had no financial literacy. We were comfortable, but we weren't living luxuriously. We didn't go overseas. We skimped on food and clothes sometimes. You know, my parents worked really hard to pay off their mortgage, pay our school fees, build a new house for us. But
it definitely we weren't living large, that's for sure. So my attitude was when I was fourteen and got my slip signed off by my parents, I got out, got a job and just, you know, wanted my own money, and I wanted to buy my own clothes, and so I've been a spender ever since.
I feel like that's relatable for everybody who's grown up in a similar circumstance. I feel like it goes from one end to the spectrum to the other. Like if you grew up and it was scrimping and saving and you genuinely felt like you were missing out, Sometimes you end up going all the way to the other end. You're like, I'm just going to spend. I don't even care. I don't want to talk about budget because maybe you
don't know enough about it yet. But you just go straight to the other end and you just spend, spend, spend.
Yeah, I'll take my seven dollars from Macers and I'll go buy a new top. That's what I want. And I always strived for a higher salary because I've just wanted more and more clothes basically. But it really changed when I left a relationship several years ago and realized I didn't have much to my name. Actually, despite earning okay money, I was leaving week to week I didn't have anything to show for it. And when I went through my mental health crisis and it got really bad.
I was really lucky that I had changed my ways and I did have some money put aside for that.
Oh smart. So despite what you said before, so you said that you grew up and you didn't really get a financial education, you didn't have much financial literacy because it was taboo to talk about money. I want to dive a little bit deeper into that because I feel like that is really relatable. When you say it was
taboo to talk about money. Is that because you brought it up one time and got shut down or was it just something that you inherently knew you shouldn't talk about, or was it something where you know, you just never talked about money in general. I don't know how did that come to be the situation in your family.
I think it was a mixture of my parents and their backgrounds. I come from a second generation immigrants family, and I think there was this I don't know how it's called, like you'd have the evil eye on you if you talked about money. That stigma And I did ask one day how much does Daddy make?
And I was told, no, that is so rude. Money diarist, you can't believe you'd even try. So growing up you said that you didn't have a lot of financial literacy, and then you got to a point where you had some money put aside. How did that come to be? Like did you just know that you needed it? Did you get to a point where you know you felt, oh my gosh, I never have any cash? Like where were we? How did that work?
It was basically that. So I left that relationship, moved back home, so I had the opportunity to save a little bit more, and I just started making small goals. So at first it was, Okay, I'm going to get this promotion, and with the extra money, the difference between my salary and the new salary that I was getting, I put that away into a little fund and maybe at the end of my contract, I'll go on a
nice holiday or something. I didn't end up going on that holiday because I got promoted again, and it's just this job hopping since then, and I've always just put money away and aside. I got married last year.
Congratulations, congratulations, say congratulations to you do. Yeah we have matching wedding years.
Yes we do. And I was putting money away for that anyway. So I use your trick and I read it from your book where you have the different accounts for different.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
So I had a little emergency fund and then my wedding and honeymoon fund and it just was automated and flowed through there.
Yeah, no, that makes absolute sense. I want to ask a little bit more about the mental health side of things, but we might come back to that, because right now I want to know because you keep saying, oh, I got a promotion, I did this. Oh don't know. How much money do you earn? And what do you do for work?
So I work in the tertiary education sector and currently I own about one hundred and forty thousand a year.
Oh my gosh, that is a very good innings. And to give us a little bit of context, how old are you, money, diarist?
I am? I have to look at the date thirty two?
Oh my gosh. Why is it like that. The other day somebody asked me how old I was and I told them I was thirty and I am not. I'm thirty one and my next birthday is thirty two. So I've been thirty one for a while. And am I now at the age where I'm lying about my age.
No, it's because we skipped two years because of COVID.
That's a good point. I didn't even have a thirtieth birthday, so in my head, I'm still twenty nine. This is great, this is great. I'm going with that. So you earn one hundred and forty thousand dollars a year. What were your salaries before that? So you said before something along the lines, I'm like, I worked at McDonald's for my seven dollars an hour. How do we go from earning seven dollars an hour at McDonald's all the way up
to one hundred and forty thousand dollars? Because that's that's a little bit of a jump, my friend.
It's incremental. I was fourteen when I was earning seven dollars an hour, so it's been a good over a decade, over fifteen years. The salary that I was on when I left that relationship was about ninety okay, I think, and just from there, I've just applied for promotions and incrementally just gone up.
Wow. So ninety thousand dollars as a salary when exiting a relationship, I'm going to assume puts you in an Okay, financial position to go. You know what, I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. Yeah, I don't know enough about your history, and we didn't jump into it a little bit here. What were your circumstances when you left that relationship, because I know it wasn't a good one, And how did finances and mental health play into that?
Yeah, the mental health aspect has always been there for me, So I've always struggled with mental health issues. We fought a lot about money, actually, and he was very secretive and closed off about his earnings and money and really maintained that I had to be independent and pay for my own stuff. Even when we were together for a few years. It wasn't my values. It wasn't the way I wanted to be in a relationship. Not saying he had to pay for me all the time, but it
just it was very rigid and not collaborative. Yeah, okay, Yeah, And so I guess we were living quite a expensive lifestyle. You know, the city that I live in is not cheap, and we were renting in quite an expensive suburb and going out all the time and buying you know, clothes and stuff.
And yeah, so you said before that mental health was playing into that, and obviously the way that he was approaching money wasn't aligned to your values of wanting to be a bit more collaborative. What does that do to your mental health during that time, because I feel like that would weigh quite as somebody who also experiences mental health issues ongoing like that would play a lot into from my perspective, maybe my self confidence and my self worth.
And how did that, I guess impact you personally, not what it would have done to me.
It definitely impacted my confidence, my self esteem, my security in the relationship. It made me really insecure, sad, depressed. It didn't feel like it was a fair standing between us, and I think it just really dissolved my confidence in terms of our future together.
Yeah.
No, and that's really common. I find it really interesting having these conversations because sometimes you'll talk to a couple, right and they'll say, no, we have completely separate funds and like we don't mix money at all, and you go, wow, I couldn't do that, but like good for you. Or maybe you talk to a couple and they go, yep, like absolutely everything is shared. We only have one bank account between the two of us, and that's what works for us, and you might flip around and go, wow,
that wouldn't work for me. And I think that the thing that is consistent in those conversations is it seems that both parties in that relationship have the same value set, so they want to share their finances or they've come
to the conclusion that separate finances works for them. But from your perspective or what I'm picking up on here is that it actually wasn't your values and you wanted to share and he was maybe being a little bit distant, which obviously is going to play into you feeling insecure and you're not feeling like you want to you know, you're not feeling that committed in the relationship, which makes you not feel like a good person. So how did you come to the conclusion that, all right, well, our
values are not the same. This is impacting me in a way that is irrepairable, and I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. How did you make that decision? Because just because you're in a bad relationship, it doesn't mean that you don't like the person anymore, Right, Like, at what point did you decide or right over and out? My friend yeah.
I think it was the point where we were no longer communicating civilly about it, and it was the point where there was no compromise whatsoever. When I wanted to talk about our future and possibly having a joint fund to pay for joint bills or joint groceries and that kind of stuff, it was not on. It was absolutely shut down, and I just I didn't want to be in a relationship with someone who didn't value my opinion, or respect my opinion, or even want to work with
me on it anymore. So I think that was, amongst other things, obviously, but that was one of the tipping points.
I think it makes my heart really happy to hear you say like, no, I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't have the same values as me, and that to me is really important. But I want to know talk me through what happened when you did move out. You moved back in with your parents, obviously, like if you've been in a relationship with somebody moving back in with your parents and feel like a step backwards,
talk me through that process and how you felt. I know you said you saved money, but it doesn't always mean you were super happy to be there.
Right, No, I mean I love my parents.
I adore my parents that too, adore them like love spending time with them. Should I move back in with them? Absolutely not.
Yeah. I felt a bit defeated about it, but I gave myself a goal. I said, look, I'll move back home, I'll save some money, I'll go on a nice trip, and then I can think about moving out with a
friend maybe in the next year or so. So I had something in my future that I was looking forward to and I never ended up doing that because I met my husband, my future husband to be back then things moved pretty fast with him, I will say, just because we were so aligned, like we have the same money like thoughts ethos in everything, not just financial.
But we just clicked when you know you oh money, diarist, when you know exactly that was like Steve and I zero to five thousand overnight, basically when you know you know yeap. So I want to know you obviously saved and wanted to go on a trip, and then you met your partner, But what are your current big money goals, like what are we currently working towards? Because you got married last year and that's usually did a pretty big money goal to tick off the list.
That was the money goal, the wedding and the extended honeymoon, which was also a big money.
Chunk, money chunk. I like that, yep.
But the next plan is I've got to it's to buy my own investment property because my husband had one prior to us getting married. So we're paying that off together to buy my own. And I want to set up investment accounts for my future children.
Oh.
I love this, so that.
You know when they get to eighteen or whenever, they can either put down a deposit on a house or something or go for a nice big trip.
I love this all right. So you want to invest for your children's future, But I want to know do you currently best for yourself? I do, yes, Tell me about it? How when and where? Why when did you start?
I started when I started listening to you actually on this podcast. I have a six Park account, yes, created it, love and I have around as I checked this morning, twenty three thousand.
Oh who are you? That is an epic amount to have invested. She's on the Money's podcasts only three How good? Oh my gosh, I love that? And do you have any other investments. You've got six park, but are you dabbling in anything else or talk to me about your Super.
Yes, I've got one hundred and forty three two hundred and ninety four in my super.
And you're thirty two and you've got one hundred and forty grand in super. That is epic. But also you did say you work in the touistiary sector, which means that you have a very very sexy superannuation guarantee, which is what is yours because.
They very seventeen percent.
Yeah, so you get seventeen percent super. That is very very nice. I'm very envy, so envioused that I have to go to a break to calm down, and then when we get back, I'm going to go through debt and talking about your best and worst habits and diving a little bit more into how you got through your mental health issues. Don't go anywhere, guys, All right, money, Darist.
We are back and we have been talking literally everything from you getting married in twenty twenty two to mental health issues to you earning seventeen and a half percent Super, which is definitely big dog energy. I actually want to railroad this conversation slightly. How did you save up for your wedding, and what were your wedding values, Because I feel like I'm still in this bubble of really enjoying absorbing other people's wedding content and their budgets and how
they did it. Talk to me about it. How long were you engaged? Like all of that information, I'm going to need it right now.
So we got engaged at the end of twenty twenty. We were supposed to get married in twenty one, but COVID life, so we were engaged for two years. As soon as we got engaged, I cordoned off a little bank account and I just started throwing money into it. Sat down with my husband first and we worked out our maximum limit, and then I went away and organized.
It all basically, so you were also the resident wedding planner. I like this.
I was.
I was.
We did sit down and I said what's most important to you? And he said music and food? And I went, Okay, what's most important to me? Flowers and venue and dresses. And then we went and sourced proposals for those big ticket items and then came back together saw how much was left in our pot basically of our budget, and then did the.
Rest yeah, airpic, Can I be really perfy and ask what your wedding cost?
You know what? I don't know exactly?
Neither do I. Neither do I because my head is buried in this. And let's call it an approximate amount, Like was it a five thousand dollar wedding? Was it a fifty thousand dollar wedding?
My cap originally was about twenty five YEP. I think it probably creaked closer to thirty.
Hey, I think that's still under the average for Australia. So you must have been a pretty good little wedding planner. Yeah, so I want to know how did you come to that budget of twenty five thousand dollars? Like you sat down with your husband and you just said, hey, I
think twenty five grand is good. Or did you kind of do some research on what flowers and you know, the food and the music that was important to you was going to cost, and then work backwards, like how did you come up with the number, Because it's interesting how everybody comes up with them in a different way.
I think I researched the venue first because I knew that was going to be the big ticket. Yeah, the most important and the most expensive I knew what the flowers would roughly cost and how much I was willing to give to Floweryeah. Fair, And then I kind of went to my husband said, this is what it's going to cost for these items. I think we should set X amount. And then he balked and was like no, And then I talked him through all of the life.
I mean basically, yes, oh how interesting. Oh my gosh. The way that you're smiling when we talk about your husband means that I know you married the right person, which is really really sweet. But I want to go back. We were talking earlier about you know, we've put a trigger warning on this episode. We talked about you know, trauma and depression and eating disorders and all of those things like they just like it sounds awful, but they
just don't leave you. Like, as somebody who has experienced in eating disorder and also has depression and is an on an ongoing management plan for depression, I'm assuming that you might be in a really similar position. Wedding planning can be stressful. How did all of this play into you know, your depression and the eating disorder you had
and managing stressful situations? And now what I'm assuming is a relatively stressful job, Like you don't earn one hundred and forty thousand dollars and have no pre sure on you, so I talk me through. I guess how all of that plays into your money story.
Yeah, I think it wasn't so much the planning a wedding that was stressful, because I'm a good planner and I had it all done in a few weeks. Anyway. It was more so COVID coming in and disrupting my plans and when I wanted to get married and all of my other plans that I wanted to do after that. My job is also really stressful, and I think I just got into a spiral where everything fed off one another and I just broke down. And that's when I
had to go into the psychiatric facility. And I was really grateful that I had some savings behind me so that I could one pay for the facility, pay for the health insurance to go into the facility, but also to be able to take some time off work as well. And I think that's really important that everybody has, you know, a little emergency fund or just a little bit of something, because you never know what's going to happen in life.
In that year, I had deaths in the family, I had you know, as you say, wedding stress and trying to plan replan a postponed wedding. I have quite a very stressful job. I do like it, but it does play on my mental health especially, and it all just fed into one big depression monster and I needed to take some time off.
How did you get to a point where you were happy to accept the help? So I feel like a lot of us get to this point of burnout and everything becomes all consuming and we bury our heads in the sand. But I feel like you've done it. We won't say the right way, but in a way that's put you in the best possible position to be your best self. And I think often psychiatric help and going especially into a psychiatric hospital often shrouded with you know,
judgment and feeling like that's a level of defeat. And I don't believe that for a second. But how did you go? Do you know what? This is what I need? Because a lot of people that that is suggested to say oh, absolutely not, and they just continue struggling. On what point did you have to get to to go?
Yep?
That's absolutely what we need to do, and I'm really happy.
To I got to a really low point. I was having suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts, and it was actually my husband and my psychologists, so my psychiatric team that said, think about yourself, think about your husband, and they really just talked me into it. I did need talking into it.
Yeah, Yeah, that's what real support is often about.
Yeah, it was really me just opening my ears, if you will, yeah, and listening to the very heartfelt and sincere wishes of my family, my husband, and my friends to say it's okay to take a break.
Take a break, one hundred percent it is. And I'm so glad that you were surrounded by that support during that period of time because it can be such a challenging thing. How was it coming out? How was it coming out and having to go back into real life, like get back into work and get back into life and you know, obviously finish the wedding planning, which you obviously have done. What was that transition?
Like?
It was really weird, I will say, but it was really gentle and soft. I had really great friends and family and even my colleagues and my work was really supportive. So I'm really grateful that everybody was so understanding. It really made me rethink the stigma around mental health that I shouldn't be so ashamed. No feeling a lot of shame. Yeah, but everyone was just so understanding and empathetic and compassionate. It was It's really touching.
Oh, I love that. I love that that's your experience of it, because I think if people are listening to this and they're just at that point, or maybe they don't have the support that you had, there's nothing to be worried about. In fact, you will find the support the more you seek it. And I feel like at times like that, you often don't want to put your hand up and say you're drowning, and a lot of people only say that they are drowning once they have
pulled themselves out of the water. But you don't have to, like, we can actually all be in it together and be really supportive during a period of time like this, And I think that's one thing that I know this shouldn't come as a surprise, but it's really shocking to me, especially having been through mental health issues, how supportive people are when you go, oh, I'm just having a bit of a rough time and they go, oh, Victoria, well and you go, oh, that's not how I thought the
conversation would go, because I think in that moment, you really feel like a burden and you're not. You're not a burden at all.
Absolutely, I feel the same way as you do. I'd say nine points nine times out of ten when I have a conversation with someone about mental health, they are understanding and they say, oh, me too, and then we just have that shared understanding. It's really great. It's only that point one point zero one percent where it goes.
Hey wire, yeah, one hundred percent. All right. I want to get back on track or more on track with money diaries. So let's segue back into those structured questions. We haven't asked about debt. We've talked about investment, we've talked about your money goals. I want to know do you have any debt? If so, what is it.
I don't myself, though my husband has a mortgage. It's our mortgage now, so we're paying that off, yep, for his property. But I don't have any other debts apart from that. I paid off my hex debt completely last year, which is really great, really freeing it's so freeing. It's nice to see my paypacket go up slightly and then be taken back for tax.
But we won't talk about that part. At least you don't see some of it just going towards tex I totally get it. I totally get that, or I want to know of it. About your shopping habits as well, what do you think is your best money habit?
I set up accounts for each of my goals and requirements. So I had my wedding and honeymoon fund, which I'm now converting into investment property fund, bills spending an emergency, and once I put those automatically into their I lock
them away like I don't dip back into them. And when I am feeling particularly impulsive, which I was during when my mental health was at its worst, because I was just using that crutch, you know, shopping to make myself feel better, I would give all of my accounts to my husband and be like, don't give me any money.
I love that. That's a very good level of self awareness.
Yes, I'd be like, Oh, I'm feeling spendy today, can you.
Just take just hide my money for right now?
Yes?
Love?
Would you say that's your worst money habit, If not, what is it?
That's probably my worst money habit is the impulsive shopping.
But I feel like you're self aware of that in that you literally have strategies to make sure that that's not happening. How good is that? Yes, it is.
I should give myself props for that.
I'm going to give you props for that. I really really like that You're like, all right, well, if I'm feeling a bit spendy, this is what I do instead of just going, yeah, I get really spendy and I don't have a strategy to deal with this. Like that is very not head in the sand behavior. We like to see that over it cheese on the money. I'm going to wrap this up because I am very aware that I have been talking to you for a long
time and I'm so so grateful of it. But at the very start of the episode, I asked you to grade yourself and your money habits, and you gave me a C plus. And throughout this money diary, you've told me a lot about your investment and your savings and how you paid for your wedding and how you're saving for an investment, and you have a banking and cash flow plan, and that you know, obviously you're quite self aware when it comes to spending. Do you still think you're a C plus?
Probably not.
What would you give your spending habits if we now asked you to give yourself a grade.
I'd say we're creeping up to B plus.
I like this. I like this a lot, and do you know what it shows me? It shows me that the more money conversations we have, the more likely we are to be kind on ourselves when it comes to money habits. So this has been good. This has been really good money diarist. Thank you so much for joining us for a money diary. I feel like I've learned a lot. I also feel like I've related a lot to a lot of your story, So thank you for joining us. I know that this is going to go down so well in the community.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Of course, all right, guys, we will see you on Wednesday. The advice shared on Cheese on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria, Divine and She's on the Money are
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