MONEY DIARIES: Military Mum On Balancing Family, Work, & Money

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

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 podcas past millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another shot back money Diary Monday, where we get to chat to one of our beautiful community members to learn all about them, their money, and all of the juicy details in between. Today Victoria Hello, Hello, Let's jump straight in our diarist says I had a family young and unplanned, and have a lot of guilt built into my money story, which I am working through. My partner and I are

I love that I'm excited to learn more.

I hate that she's got guilt though, Money Doris, welcome to the show.

Hello, thank you. I'm so excited.

Oh you're excited, and you're excited. I can't wait to get into it. So how about we just kick it right off? Sounds good, all right, Money Doris. Let's start the way that we always do. Can you tell us a little bit about your money story? Sure?

Okay.

So growing up I had a very good life. I guess we didn't live extravagantly, but I never really went without so private school, overseas, holidays, I did every sport that I ever wanted, and I was always very supported by my family. Everything changed a little bit when I left home.

So I left home.

At seventeen and went and started studying full time. My family moved overseas, so I was on my own, living out of home. The first time, and I really started to struggle to balance that full time study with supporting myself.

I guess with Nursey, if you know much about a.

Nursing degree, you have long periods of like weeks at a time where you do full time unpaid placements. So that was really difficult to try and work and get money on top of all that unpaid work and study. So I never really had enough. I would say I lived paycheck to almost paycheck and just sort of would struggle through the second half of the week or the

Spoiler alert.

Yeah, I don't recommend that approach.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, in those days of putting like five dollars in your car, I remember paying once and the guy at the counter said it's like, oh, you can get these two chocolate bars for three dollars, And I was like, you've just seen me put five dollars petrol in my car.

The chocolate bars read the room, guy read the room.

Yeah, totally. So yeah.

I always also felt like I was receiving a lot of judgment from the people in my life at the time. It may not have been the case. Maybe it's just how I felt. I always felt that I was getting judged that I couldn't manage my own money, that I didn't have the ability to manage my money, and I think I sort of carried that through to adulthood quite

Still, it's a good habit to be in, to always be on top of what you're spending.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess like, in hindsight, I'm proud that I never get stuck in sort of the cycles of credit card or personal debt or anything, which was definitely something that I considered at the time. I considered dropping out of my study completely or cutting back my subjects, but I never did. I just wanted to push through. I was like, this is just a moment of your life. If you can just get through it, everything will get easier.

Good timing family, not you could have done that much earlier to make things easier, But I mean, that's a life lesson, isn't it.

Look I could have gone with them, but I think when you're sort of seventeen eighteen, you think you're an adult and you can do it all on your own. In hindsight, I was just so young when I met my partner. Neither of us had not you in the way of savings, and I don't think we felt like we really needed to because we both had decent incomes and no real responsibilities, if that makes sense, so we

That's so sweet, though, all right, I want to know next question is what do you currently do for work and how much do you earn?

So I am a registered nurse.

I currently have a couple of jobs because I've found it quite hard to balance motherhood and obviously a lot of normal nursing jobs involve shift work, which my partner, as you mentioned at the start, is in the military, so we don't have the option to live near family support, so I'm sort of limited to working within daycare hours, and he can go away quite a bit as well, so I don't always even have him at home to

Oh cool.

Yeah, I work.

Casually as a registered nurse in my local hospital, sort of when my partner's home a bit more.

Ah, I love that.

I feel like that's quite eclectic, but all makes sense given the role that you've got. Like, I feel like you've cutcast all the things that make sense to you and your lifestyle. And I love that you've done that, because so many people would be like, ah, too hard, I just won't do it, or I'll just do something else.

Like I love this so much.

Yeah, it sounds chaotic, but it's the calmest I've sort of felt in the balance, if that makes sense. So if he goes away, for instance, and I don't have the support, I can just do less.

But we also have the option of.

Getting like one of our moms can fly down for a week or two weeks. I can smash out a lot more work and then take a couple of weeks off, so the flexibility works well.

All right, I want to be pervy though your partner, you said, goes away for work, I want to know how much they earn and where they work to be away for so long.

So could be anywhere He's in come sits at around one hundred and fifty k a year at the moment.

Very nice, worth the travel, then.

Where the travel?

Obviously, when if he is away, we have the potential to earn a lot more than that. So I think the way that it works out eightyf When we deploy overseas, it depends on where you're going, how long you're going. But the money you earn when you're deployed is tax free, so obviously that's where we can earn a lot more when he is away. In addition to that, so my income as a reservist, it's also tax free. So it's a bit hard to calculate my annual salary because I don't pay tax on a large portion.

Of one a lot of it.

Yeah, So week to.

Week, like an average I guess week, I think I earn about one thousand dollars a week after tax, but I have the option to add more ships on top of that, if I've got the.

Help, yeah, of course, And how much cash comes in from your partner each week.

So he's only recently got quite a significant pay increase, so we're learning the hard way the tax that.

Comes with that.

Ah, yes, yeah, So we.

Also have so in the ADF.

So we live in a defense house, so our housing gets taken out before we get paid, so the housing comes out first. And we've also got a salary sacrifice car so that comes out as well, and we get about I think fortnightly. It's about three and a half to four k ish after those deductions are taken out, and that's after his super as well, and he contributes extra.

Into that too.

Epic.

So at about twelve grand a month post tax, not bad, not too shabby.

Gives you a lot of opportunity.

Absolutely, yes.

I love adding it up and being like, oh, so this is what it is per month and you're like, I don't know where that money's gone. I don't know how that works, which leads into our next question. I do apologize for slamming you with that and then asking

Free housing and this and that.

It's just not the case, like cash no flitters away so easily. But I want to know, what are your big money goals? What are we working towards.

Yeah, totally so our number one big money goal at the moment is we would love to buy a house. It's a little bit complicated because, like you just mentioned, I guess a lot of people look at defense and there's a misconception that we don't pay tax. Firstly, which we absolutely do. As a reservist, it's a bit different, and when you're deployed it's a bit different because they're not in Australia. But day to day, like Guarantee, we do pay tax. We do pay for housing, although we

You need to talk to a financial advisor, my friend.

I mean, I'm biased, but a lot of my defense clients historically have always rent, invested, and purchased. Even though you might not get the subsidies for first home buyer because you can't move straight into it, because that's a little bit tricky, there are a lot of other subsidies

I wish someone had made it this clear five years ago.

No, you're You're absolutely right. We do.

We do have to and like you said, the revesting. So we live in like a beautiful suburb at the moment, we're in the catchment for some amazing schools, and we couldn't afford to buy here. So when we started looking at areas we could buy sort of close ish by, we were then comparing the schools and our lifestyle and you know, any friends that we have to help out with the kids, we would lose all of that.

So yeah, it's weighing all of that up.

It sounds like such a hard place to be in.

And I'm saying that, I guess because I'm overlaying my own personal experience because I'm such a homebody like Jess and I have just been traveling for work a little bit recently, and we've just gotten home and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful to be home. I'm grateful to be surrounded by you know, my family and my friends. Again, how you know, obviously this is not a question that I should be asking now based on how Jess is looking at me, But how do you

Do that, to be honest, So my dad was actually in the military as well, and so was my partner's dad, So for us, it's very normal. I think, like I honestly couldn't tell you how many houses or states or cities I've lived in I've moved. I think the longest as an adult, the longest I think we've spent in one place like one house, is two years. I think the longest in my life is maybe three or four years in one house.

So you'd be really good at maricondoing. Everything was getting rid of stuff as you move.

I love this. Maybe I should do this.

My partner hates it.

He's like stuff reorganizing everything you sort of have to make home is definitely the people, and you know, I try things so like our kids' rooms. We're pretty good at the temporary things that can make it there. Still so they've got like the you know, removable wallstickers. We to a new house and they've got all their things. It still feels like theirs. Yeah, pre covid I used to say it was no problem Australia, like everyone's just a flight away if you need them. But we obviously

So yeah, air pick all.

Right, back to the structured questions before I get myself in trouble. I want to know, do you currently have any investments?

So we do.

Our Number one would be our supers, which is something that we're both pretty proud of. It's something both of us have consciously put extra towards since we both started work.

I can't claim all the.

Credit because my dad was huge on educating me around this from the time I got my first job, and to be honest, love Yeah, to be honest, my extra contributions were more just getting him off my back than me being financial.

Say, hey, whatever, it takes. Honestly, I'm proud of him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, say, looking back, it's something I'm so grateful for because, especially now that I'm on the other side of a pretty big career break and I'm not working or earning nearly as much as I was before kids, it's something I'm really grateful that I did early in my career because I'm seeing the benefits of that already.

So I checked mine.

My last statement from like July was, I'm sitting at about two one hundred and ten.

Okay, in my defense.

My gosh, what I've got two supers, I should say, which I know is normally frowned upon. But I've got my military super Yeah, so that's at about two hundred and ten, and I've now got a self managed super fund for my post defense work, which my dad also helps me manage. And I've got about five thousand dollars in that.

Oh my gosh, all right, money dires spild the beans. How old are you?

I have just turned thirty.

So you've just turned thirty and you've got more than two hundred grand in super when the average account balance for someone who is thirty is forty two thousand dollars, sit down and you're worried about your financial circumstances. I think a lot of people are listening to this going like money.

Dire, But I look at his. It puts mine to shame, does it?

Yeah?

It does.

I'm not great with the full ins and outs of gender pay gap, and I could be on the total wrong like wavelength here, but when we first met, our superbalances were pretty similar. We're with the same superfund, and then obviously I took a step back to have kids and we prioritized his career and his is well in the three hundred thousands.

Yeah.

Nice, So it's interesting.

Watching that sort of takeoff. So yeah, we've got our supers, and we've also we started getting into shares a couple of years ago, probably two years ago, and so I think we've got about twenty thousand dollars in shares. And I've also over the last sort of six to twelve months started dabbling in micro investing as well. So I have a raise account that I've got just a small amount that I don't notice going into, and then I've also got my roundups.

So it's interesting like sit and.

Forget and then I have a look and I'm like, oh my god, I didn't even notice that coming out.

So yeah, that's one of my favorite things about automation is when it's all automated, you just really don't notice it, Whereas when things aren't automated, I feel like money just leaves. I know that I should be as a financial advisor the area, aware of how all of this works, but I still believe that money just slips through my fingers like sand does at the beach sometimes, and if there's no plan, it just disappears.

I swear it just is magic, and especially.

The roundups, like I love that because I've forgotten that I've turned it on, and then when you actually go through and look at it all, I'm just like, I would have just spent it, you know, if I had it. Yeah, exit, I don't notice it. So that's our investing. We're also at the moment a majority of our savings is going towards our house deposit, and we're actually we're getting married in less than a month, so our savings is also.

Girlfriend got that sort of We can talk about wedding planning later. We'll come back to that. I want to know next question, do you have any debts. If so, what are they?

So we don't have any personal debts, thankfully, we don't have a car loan, but our family car is salary packaged in my partner's name, so we do have payments that come out fortnitly for that.

But it's also like a tax thing for him.

I think, yeah, cool.

I do have my hex step, which is about twenty six thousand dollars, which feels big because I've done a master's degree and a bachelor's degree, so that's not cheap.

But I have been chipping away at it.

Epic all right. Next question, my friend an oldie bit of goodie. Do you use shop back when you shop online?

So I have an account. I do look now and then, and every time I.

Do, you know what I need to do?

And every time I listen to these episodes, I'm like, I need to work out what this extension is.

Oh yeah, the chrome plugging.

Look, that's my homework for this week is to work that out. Because every time I think of it, I go have a look. The specific thing I want I can't get, but I know that there's so many little hacks that I hear everyone else doing. So I feel like if I do that automation. Automation seems to be the key for me. So first step is the account.

Yeah, look, I feel like automation is the key for me too, and halfway there. I'm obviously obsessed with a shot back and have been for years, but I always found it to be a hurdle to use the app on my phone. I'd always be like, Okay, well I'm a bit lazy. Sometimes I just not use it, knowing that I should have used it, and be like.

Oh, it's fine.

Now that I have that extension, I can't not use it because I just hit the button and it adds it and it's a money you win.

So I'll send you the link later, don't worry.

Yes, please.

It's similar to like when I think about my roundups, Like you'll look at one thing and I'm like, oh, five dollars cash back whatever, But then when everything adds up, that's finishing exactly.

From little things, big things grow, my friend.

Yeah, alright, I want to know, obviously shot back is not your best money habit yet, what do you think your best money habit is?

Though?

All right, So look, I think I'm a bit of a boss on the old Facebook marketplace love that. Yes, I love it so woman after Jessica Riach's hot. A lot of our house is Facebook Marketplace, and I'm not shy about it. So if anyone comes in and compliments anything, I will tell you where I got it from and how much it was if it was a bargain.

Ten out of ten love that energy.

So I feel like I'm a bit of a dinast.

I don't have TikTok, but I feel like instead of scrolling things like TikTok, I'm literally just scrolling Facebook Marketplace.

I mean that's good and bad. I mean good because you're probably looking for a bargain.

Bad because maybe you're getting bargains when you didn't need to be getting bargains. Yes, that's all right, that's all good. I want to know, though, is that your worst money habit or what is your worst money habit?

I think to be honest, so when I do my scrolling on I don't actually buy too much. I'm very considered when I spend, which is also I think possibly a bad thing. So that's what I think my worst money have it is I've got a lot of anxiety around money that I am trying to shift. Like I said, I get I can't spend large amounts or even sometimes small amounts of money without feeling that anxiety and needing to check through my bank account and make sure it's

To shift that.

Yeah, okay, So my partner's pretty good.

He's always like, pay them the day they come, pay them the day they come.

But it's just if you.

Have any anxiety around it. Oh, I want to ask more about that later. Last question before we go to a really quick break, what grade would you give your money habits? So if we forced you to give yourself a grade.

I think i'd want to say maybe be minus. I think as a family, we've made some really good changes. The last sort of four and a half years and we've achieved a lot of goals that we've set out for ourselves. But I think I've got a lot of improvements to make as well.

All Right, well let's go to a quick break and after that, I want to know a little bit more about your money anxiety. Don't go anywhere, guys, all right, diving straight back in. Jessica usually bring this in, but I'm really excited to ask some questions about money anxiety.

Money diarist.

You mentioned before when we're talking about bills, you were like, Oh, sometimes they come in and I knew they were coming in, and I still get really anxious about them, even though we heard earlier your partner's got like three hundred grand in super you've got two hundred grand. Like, clearly you're not doing badly. Where does this come from? And why

Yeah, I think, to be honest, I had a great upbringing and I had a lot of good habits instilled in me. But I think I was also possibly quite sheltered when it comes to a lot of real life managing, like managing your real life. So I think I was almost blindsided quite a bit when I left home at a young age and I had all of those expenses hit me and I genuinely couldn't pay them. So I was sort of I'd get bills and I would just have that anxiety because I didn't have the money to

Get paid again.

Yeah, then you'd get you know, your gas bill would come in and suddenly I've got two bills now and I can only afford to pay for one. So you'd sort of just have to I would just manage what was going to be worse. Yeah, they're going to kind of my electricity. Cool, I'll pay that phone gets cut off.

You know.

It was just sort of like a bit of a cycle of that, and it's really hard to shake it. I know. I've actually learned a lot from the podcast and the thing that helps me the best is budgeting and going through my expenses and looking at it all because generally what I think in my head is like the problem never usually is, so going through things makes me feel a lot calmer. I also like to have different accounts for things because then that removes a lot

And then we've got our bills account.

Yeah, so that really helps, a lot of the feelings are still there, though, so I just have to consciously. I try and tell myself, you know, you say things like money flows naturally to me, and I try to remind myself that we've put a lot of hard work in. Once again, it can be difficult because we had kids quite young. For I guess what's the average age nowadays?

How old were you exactly when you had your first one?

So when I fell pregnant with my son, I was twenty four, so obviously a lot of our friends weren't in that same space.

So a lot of our.

Friends have, you know, like the dual income, no kids, and are all buying their homes and you sort of look at it and you're like, oh, we're like a step behind. But you've got to reframe it a bit because I'm like, We've already started raising a family, and I've already taken that career break and we're starting to build up again. So yeah, that comparison sort of brings those feelings.

Back in again.

Yeah.

Absolutely, I can see where you're coming from at the same time as wanting to jump through this screen and absolutely shake you like I love you dearly, I promise, but knowing how well off you are, your cash flow looks really good. You're not in any serious debt at all. All you've got is your hex and you know this novated lease and then you've got really great super like you are a million.

Times ahead of so many people.

But it's interesting talking about this because even though I say that really pragmatically, you're like, yeah, okay, but that doesn't mean that we are where we want to be or where we thought we would be at this age. So it doesn't, you know, change the circumstances you said something earlier, when we're talking about super, you said, I don't know much about the gender pay gap, but when my partner and I got together, our supers were really similar.

Yeah, I think there's one thing so, not even just so, but our finances in general, a big decision that we made. So we hadn't been together all that long when I felt pregnant with our son. We wanted to do it together. We wanted to enter it as you know, that stage in our life as a unit as a family, and I was staring down the barrel of my once again very privileged to have the maternity package that I had, so I was full time defense when both our kids

That's so good.

Yeah, yeah, very lucky.

So I had that, But still for your salary to be cut in half is quite a scary thing to be facing. And at that time we had separate accounts still, so we had a conversation and our money was pulled at that time, but it was still paid into separate accounts that we didn't have access to each other's money. We made that decision that if I was taking that step back from work, then our money was pulled, especially if he was going to be going away and I

But.

That mentality straight in the bin.

He wouldn't have everything he has now. If I hadn't made the sacrifices that I have In saying that as well, I wouldn't have the life that I have now with my family if it wasn't for how hard he works fast as well.

Yeah, because you're a team, Like, there's nobody else involved in that. Some other women you're going to I can't, I can't, you're calling me. It's a team effort, right, Going back to Super, how have you navigated that conversation? Is he contributing to your super so it's equal or is this something to be like, oh wow, I haven't really brought that up, or I just want to know what do those conversations internally look like.

So we have had conversations. So when we got our did our tax return this year, he had jumped up a quiet a break of a bracket. Yeah, so we really saw that tax hit us. So we started talking about ways that he could bring down his taxable income. And the first thing we thought of was contributing extra into Super. And I was like, well, what about contributing into my super instead of yours?

Yes?

Please sir.

Yeah, So we did talk about it, except because in my income was a certain amount we couldn't take his pay and contribute it to mine. So that wasn't an option because I don't get SUPER taken out of my reserves pay. We take a certain portion and contribute that separately. But like I said, all of our pay is we consider it pulled anyway. So he's just going to look after me when he's older.

So the conversation you're having with us right now is really free flowing. So I say that because you're like, yep, we just chatted about it. Whereas for a lot of couples, bringing up should we put money? Am I super or your super is actually a really big pain point because people feel really awkward. Have you always been really open and honest with your partner about money conversations or is

It's not something that was natural for me. I think it's something that either we've worked on or it's something that's natural for us as two people, because I've certainly had relationships in the past where I've felt a lot of guilt around money and those partners, and I've felt like I had to hide or I've felt like I shouldn't be spending money on myself because they've made comments about my spending habits and things like that, even when I don't think.

That they were that bad.

He's very like, I remember before we had our kids and so we had a lot less responsibility. His tagline was we worked too hard to not x YZN. So he's probably not quite as free with that now, but he's very If I say something means a lot to me, he's like, cool, let's do it like He's very open with it. And he definitely doesn't see money as he's in mine because he can see the sacrifices that I've made in my career, like the job that I joined

Yeah, I've had issues like it.

In the past with other people, but I think it must be a him, And I think I remember when I was pregnant the first time, and I was really, really nervous about it and about money. But as soon as we had that real, first initial conversation about it and opened everything up, everything has flowed pretty well from then.

I love that.

Do the conversations that flow so easily between you and your partner also flow into the conversations you have around money with your children.

So it's yeah, it's interesting you say that when you talk about money stories. Alo I hear people talk about money stories and their own money stories. I'm very conscious of the fact that we're writing theirs as well now, So sometimes you sort of catch yourself kids and the age that our kids are at the moment. They're at that age where they just hear things and they hold

Like they can't quite do that yet.

It's more that feeling of I want that, Okay, well you can have it, we have to save up for it. Sometimes they get some boosters from us if we want them to get there.

Sooner, if you really want them to achieve that goal sooner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They've got short attention stands as well. And I also don't want to hear about that toy every day.

Next you're like, I'm over at you when.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can have it. I don't care that much.

We do try and be really conscious about the language we use with them, because I wouldn't want them to grow up sheltered and not understanding that you have to work hard to be able to pay for things. But I also don't want them to feel guilty if they do.

Want something nice.

Yeah, of course, of course.

I love that approach to it, where you're like, look, we're trying, but it's just what works best for our family, and we can be flexible with it. And I'm sure you are writing beautiful money stories for your kids.

I literally love hearing about it, all right.

Money Diarist Unfortunately, I think that's all we have time for today. I feel like I've learned so much about you and your story, and that doesn't matter how much you earn or what your family is going through. You still have an underlying sense of money anxiety, if that's how you grew up around it. But I think you are writing beautiful money stories for your children. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to come. And I can't wait to use my new chrome cut what is it chrome cast chrome extension? Yes, thanks dinosaur.

Honestly, I'll send it to you because it took me ages to work it out, and then I realized it took two seconds.

So I've got you, I promise.

But with that, Jesse Gotachi, can you please wrap the boring but important stuff?

Of course, don't get guys, the advice sheared on She's on the Money is generally nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the money exist purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make

See one Wednesday, Guy bye,