MONEY DIARIES: Loving the Inner Child

Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud Yr

Let's get into it. She's on the Money, She's on the Money. Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where we get to talk with one of our beautiful She's on the

Thank you.

I'm so excited to talk to you. Before we jump into the structured questions, though, I want to know if I asked you to give yourself a grade of your money habits all the way from A through F, what would you say your money habits are.

I think if you asked me like two years ago, I'll give you like an A, because I was like clean of like saving and like budgeting. And now I think I'm sitting around like a B or a C. I think I really fell off that slippery slope.

Why do you think you fell off the slippery slope.

I think lifestyle creep is a huge thing for me, which is terrible to save. But I think as I started earning more. I started, you know, treating myself a bit too much and going on like really nice holidays, like splurging on really nice facials, dog toys, stuff like that.

I love that you're like holidays and dog toys.

I have no self control, like, especially when I go on holidays toys.

I feel like that's really relatable though, and it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. And then it got to a point I think last year I realized I didn't really save any money. I just spent it all.

Oh my god, were you heartbroken when you worked that out?

I was more concerned, like you know, when you just get horrified about what you've done, and it was all me, so no one to blame but myself.

Yes, I totally do. I have absolutely been there, all right. I feel like I've gotten a fairly good vibe of where you're at at the moment. But I want to know, can you tell us a little bit more about your money story.

I touched on when I wrote in that I grew up with two immigrant parents. My mum was always very strict. She was a typical tyger parent, you know the one that you know her doctor, you're a lawyer or engineer or you're just a disappointment. Oh no, yeah, And my dad was always more like, you know, be happy and everything. So when I finished high school, I didn't go down

Which is a pretty standard starter, yeah.

Which is basically a good starter. Then I left that to earn around sixty and that was post COVID, So I basically got really bored and just wanted a job at home because I quit my job after UNI, thinking I'm going to get travel, I'm going to have the time of my life, find myself, and then COVID happened and shut all my plans down. So I got this job also within the media field, and it was the

Oh my gosh.

No.

Yeah, there was this one instance where I think he was one of the directors who'll go around asking everyone for a coffee. So he'll be like, hey, Victoria, do you want a coffee? Hehs, do you want a coffee? Completely ignore one person in the room and skip them and go the person sitting next to them, and it was just so obvious. I just I think after my first week there, I was like, I need to get

She's great, Oh no, so what do you currently do for work and how much money do you earn?

So I'm currently working in the dart in analytics space, specifically marketing. So I'm a senior mark analysts and I earn one hundred and thirty grand a year plus my super plus a twenty percent bonus.

Oh wow, that's exciting.

Yeah, can considering way from like forty five grand to one hundred and thirty within like a few years. That's pretty cool. I love what I do. It's really it's really interesting looking into like all the data stuff of marketing and like first party data and everything as well. And then I have a rental income of five hundred and fifty a week and my wedding side hustle which is ticking over two hundred and ten grand and becomes our one year anniversary next month.

I need to know what do you do? How are you doing it? What is this company? I just need to know more.

Wedding photography and videography, which is really nice. Me and my partner do it. He's a professional videographer and photographer as a career, so he has all the gear and all the knowledge behind that, and he needs to do weddings as part of his media company. And then after he sold it, people kept coming to him for like shooting their weddings and stuff, and I was like, I'm going to read and I'm going to take it away from the traditional media vibe. So everything's very like soft pinks,

Like one point and I'm very helpful.

Yeah, but yeah, it's a really nice thing we do on the side.

Oh how exciting. That is so cool. So do you work full time during the week and then do that on the.

Weekends, Yeah, which becomes a lot.

It sounds like a lot.

Yeah, but we're really good. We kind of set a limit on how many we do a week or a month, and then we just chop it off and if we don't want to take it on, we don't. It's more important finding the people that you know, suits our vibe, that we get along with, because I think we spend the whole day with you, like we're there the whole day. There's no going anywhere. If you don't feel comfortable with us, it makes for a very awkward portrait session.

Yeah.

One hundred percent. One hundred percent. So you are absolutely smashing it. You've basically tripled your income and you and your partner have this epic wedding side hustle business. Talk to me about what your big money goal at the moment is.

I would love to have my own little home in Sydney that's where I'm based, with a backyard for my dogs, which kind of puts me of like purchase price well into like two meal around there if you want like a backyard, So not the cheapest place to buy a property. I think that's a goal within the next few years that we might tick off, but for now, I really want to travel a bit more.

That's so exciting. I feel like a big money goal like that can be really overwhelming, but it sounds like you're really optimistic about it.

Yeah.

I think it helps with the side dussle.

Oh totally. And to be super pervy, what does your partner do Monday to Friday, nine to five.

He has a media agency.

Yeah, awesome, So he's got his own thing going on, and then you've got this wedding thing together and then you are absolutely killing it in your career. That's all so so exciting, all right, I have so many questions. We're going to kind of really quick break and then when we get back, I actually want to ask you a little bit more about that rental income you mentioned. Don't go anywhere, guys, money diarist. You mentioned before that you have a five hundred and fifty dollars per week

It is my property that I purchased. It's inter state, so the property is in Brisbane. So I purchased it two years ago, which is the anniversary of my fixed rate coming off fix, which is quite depressing.

Yeah.

So my brother goes to UNI up in Brisbane, so he was using like student accommodation for a while, and then it got to a point where we realized he wasn't coming back to Sydney to study or anything, so we figured that I might as well buy it off there. He paid me very minimum rent for the first year that he was there, and then he moved out with his girlfriend and I got like a a tenant in giving me proper rent, which was nice. Do you want to know the finances behind?

Yeah? I was gonna say that is so exciting I would love to know more about how you saved for that first property, given you haven't been in your current role as long as that property has been owned.

It was a lot of saving for my Europe. Chope, it's just my whole Europe funds went into there, So I think I put down I purchased the property for four hundred and forty thousand, so I think I put down around one hundred eighty grand on it.

Oh my gosh, how on earth did you come to have that much savings? I'm so impressed.

I worked a lot when I was in Uni. I think I started, like first year out of UNI, just doing like your typical retail jobs. I mostly stocked cosmetics, so I worked at Sofara and Mecha, which paid a little bit better than normal like clothing retail. And then all the money that I saved from working just all went into that, which made me feel really sad when I like signed all my money away. But it's good. It's a lot in value. I had it revalued recently and it is six hundred k. Now it's quite a

Yeah, no, but all of that works out really nicely to have purchased for four forty and now it's worth six hundred K. You absolutely need to come and talk to one of our Zello brokers to see what you can do as your next step.

Yeah, definitely, all right.

Next question I have for you, so we already know about your property, talk to me about debts. What is the mortgage on that currently and do you have any other debts?

So I have the current mortgage. I wrote this all down for you. The current mortgage three hundred and fifty grand on the home loan a thirty grand hexet. I did a double degree in media and commerce, may have failed the subject or two, so it's not looking pretty.

We won't talk about that. Thirty K for a double degree is pretty good.

Which I think it was sitting at around forty. I think it helps that I earn a little bit higher, so it takes away a bit more so when I get my pay slip if they all lump it into tax, so all my normal income tax with my hextare all come out. Yeah, very sad amount to look at. And then I also salary sacrifice for my car, which costs

I was about to say, so, you're saying it was seven to fifty per fortnite, which according to my calculations is very close to maybe twenty thousand is Ish dollars a year, which if it's a three year loan, that's about sixty thousand dollars. What are you driving? We need to know Mercedes, a fancy girl car.

Yeah. The interior of the car, there's like the whole screen that goes across from the driver to the passenger side. It was very bougie and I couldn't look last.

Well, we all have very different money goals. So do you have any other their debts apart from the hex step that you mentioned and the mortgage and obviously your salary sacrificing a car, which let's call that a debt because it's a consistent repayment. You need to make.

No no other debts.

How exciting?

All right?

I want to know you said before, and so I'm really interested to know what you think this is. You're maybe now a B or a C, and two years ago maybe you were in A So I want to know, now, what do you think your best money habit is.

I'm that person that loves points, So I put all my expenses on my credit card and then I pay it off pretty much as I buy. So if I went to woo work spent two hundred bucks, I'll transfer to two hundred bucks and pay it off straight away. I've gone very strict with myself on that, which I guess also pays for my flights when I go traveling. So I've gotten like pretty nice flights for like one hundred and two hundred dollars because I just pay the taxes.

I feel like I need to be better at this because everyone talks about how they're getting all these free flights and I just had to book flights recently for a trip that I'm going on and I didn't get anything. I think I put some points towards it that I had and I was like, what do you mean? I only get fifty bucks off what is this? Everybody gets free flights. I want free flights.

You need to book the classic reward flights otherwise think it becomes like ridiculously expensive. There's like selected types of seats that they have opened.

I need to get everybody's tips and tricks.

I booked business class tickets to Europe for this year and it only cost me like three four hundred dollars return.

So, oh my gosh.

I think that's my best money habit. And then like your calls, your Wi words, your Quantus points and stuff. I'm with Medibank for my health insurance and they have this thing called the Live More app or Live Better or something like that, and you earn points which you can use to take money off your premiums. So I've been doing that and it saves me like two three hundred bucks a year.

That's pretty exciting.

Yeah, for like stuff you do, like getting your steps in or like reading book.

Yes smart, Oh my gosh. All right, we'll flip it on its head. I want to know, what do you think your worst money habit is.

I get hyper fixated on something and I won't stop until I get it. And most of the time that thing that I'm really fixated on there is like a nice handbag, but it would be like a nice Chanel bag, which does not come to you. I think if I want something, I would get the best that there is on the market for it. In my head, I try and rationalize it.

In your head. You try and rationalize it. How do we rationalize a Chanel bag?

All the values increased? Heave so great investment.

I feel like everybody says that, But if I'm going to buy a handbag, not only am I going to use it, but there's no way you're going to pry that off me and make me sell it. Like, yeah, it might increase in value, but I'm gonna keep that. Nobody's going to get that off me.

It makes me feel better. I was like, if I wanted to, I could, but I'm not going to.

That's fair. That's fair speaking about investments, and I mean Chanelle is probably not the best investment. In saying that, when it does come to the financial return of Chanell bags, I do believe over the last ten years they have performed better than the share market, which is a bit wild. But I want to know what do you currently invest in and how do you do that?

Just mentioning on the Chanel bags. I bought a bag in I think twenty eighteen or twenty sixteen or something like that for three point five in our retails for seven grand. So just putting it out there not bad.

Okay, that's good. But the real question here is are you selling it?

No? But doesn't make me feel boder Yes.

You're like, no, but it does make me feel better that it's worth that about.

Yeah, it'll never part with it, but just.

Knowing that's very fair. I want to know, though, tell me all about your DIY investment portfolio.

So I think I have like fifteen or twenty grand sitting in it. It's mostly ETFs and a few shares that I just picked out because they sounded cool at the time. I think my first one I bought was I had no idea what I was buying. I was on the Comsec app on the Comsex website, and you know how there's a section that goes trending shares. I picked on that was trending and I bought it. Yeah, and it actually was like the best performer in my.

For a solid investment strategy.

Yeah. Other than that, it's just your usual ETFs, like the very common ones I've been putting money into. I was introduced to shares from pretty much after high school and UNI. I think it was something that my boyfriends at the time we were really into. So I dated someone that was an options trader, so that's all that he would talk about, and then other people that were

Yeah, so good. I love that you've lumped in even though you have a DII investment platform, you've still included superannuation because it's so important to still see that as a proper investment, and that is actually putting you in a better position to working towards financial freedom. Now that we've had this chat, I feel like I've learned to lot about you. I feel like we're on the same page when it comes to valuing Chanell bags, but also

I think still a BEER or a C. Like all that money that I made last year was all spence, so not the best on my behalf.

That's very fair. I feel like being honest about our situations means we can put ourselves in a better one in the future, Money Direst. I have loved having this conversation with you. I feel like it's so interesting to talk to people, especially people like you. Where you said, I've grown up with immigrant parents. They were completely polar opposites, and it's so interesting to see what like types of

That's so nice.

I think, thank you, no, well, thank you so much. Unfortunately, that is all we have time for today, and I'm sure we'll speak soon. Thank you so much for your money diary.

Thanks for having me.

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