Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud Yr
the Order Kerney Whalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Let's get into it. She's on the Money, She's on the Money. Hello, and welcome to She's on the the podcast a millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to my favorite episode of the week, our Money Diaries, where I get the absolute privilege of talking to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members. Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got this message.
Hi Ve.
I'm a twenty four year old six figure income earner with no university degree. My partner and I have bought a house that's nearly finished being renovated. I've also begun my investment journey which feels like a big shift for me, as I used to feel like it was a form of gambling, having experienced family financial trauma. I am so proud of where I am now, Money Diarist. I'm proud of you too. How exciting and you're only twenty four.
Yeah, thank you. It's been a bit of a journey, but really proud of where we are now.
Oh my gosh, I love it so much. Let's dive straight in. At the start of every episode, I always ask Money Diarist or Gig your money habits if I asked you to give them a grade from A through to F.
I was having a think about this last night, and even though I'm earning really well and I feel like I'm doing really well with the house and things like that, I would still rate my money habits I think a B plus. As I'm sure you'll get into it after that, there's some areas that I definitely need to improve.
All right, I am very excited to learn more about that. But as always, I want to ask you my favorite question, Money Diarist, Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story.
So I first started working when I was a legal age. I think that's thirteen and nine months, and I've always had quite a good, strong work ethic. I've always been quite independent with money as possible, as I was in just a single earning income and when my family members
had quite a few of mental illness problems. So I've always kind of just looked after myself and gone, do you know what, I'm just going to work extra hours, even from a young age, to just try and save the most I can and take the most pressure off of my family. I always believe that money isn't the most important thing in life, but the thought of not having that additional financial stress is something that I've always
wanted to have. So even though it's not the most important thing and I do prioritize other things, it's definitely one of the priorities. Even since I was young to kind of Okay, if I work an extra three hours, i can earn you know, this much extra for the week, which then you know, I can either buy something else so I can save that towards a goal. And I've always kind of been money driven, I guess to a degree.
I love that. I feel like knowing that that's one of your mentalities is really powerful as well, because you can kind of harness it. And I think sometimes people go, oh, it's only an extra one hundred and fifty bucks or whatever it might be. But You're like, that takes so much pressure off and from little things. Those things compound and they actually grow and become really impactful in the larger I guess phase of your life.
Yeah, exactly.
That tell me a bit more about becoming an adult with that mentality, Like is that the same today?
Yeah? Same today? So how my structure works at the moment, I get my base salary but also get commissioned. So I'm very much in the position where I can kind of earn as much as I want to earn. To a degree. Of course, there's a bit of luck that comes into it. And obviously I try and keep to my standard hours. But when I'm at work, I'm just at work and I eliminate all other distractions and I'm going, Okay, how can I actually get the most out of these hours?
Which took me a little while to get there? In my adult life, I think, you know, each year is different. If I've got a lot going on in my personal life. You know, last year wasn't as good and I kind of got distracted a bit easier. But this year, especially since we've recently purchased our house, I've just been head down, pump up at work and just trying to smash it out as much as I can.
I love that so much. Do you find because you get commissions as a part of your role that you tend to work more hours? Because I feel like if I was working in a role where you said, oh V, like, if you get comms, you you know obviously can scale your own income. Does that mean that you're working more hours then you should or is that something where you're like, no, V, that's one of the benefits. I love that I can put in additional hours.
When I first started, I was doing additional hours. I think also that's because I was just kind of a trainee and trying to understand as much as possible. But these days, I'm really strict with myself. I won't work an extra hour after work, but if I need to work a little bit through my lunch break, I might, But it's a really day to day kind of thing. The majority of time, I try and take my full lunch break go for a walk. Oh clear in my mind, because you know, when I'm at work, like I said,
I'm kind of head down, bump up. I know, if I go in with that mentality every single day without taking my breaks, I'll spurn myself out. So I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible.
I like that, all right, tell us a little bit more. What do you actually do for work and how much money do you earn.
I've worked in recruitment and I've done this for the last three years. My salary is very much commission based. So last fin etal year, I'm so so proud to say that I at one hundred and five thousand plus super.
Correct the six figures.
Yeh, oh, my gosh. It was the best feeling ever. When I saw my financial statement at the end of the year, I was like, oh, I was so happy killing it. Oh, it felt so good. And that's on a base salary of seventy five thousand plus super so that additional what thirty thousand is in my commission.
When you say base salary, sometimes these things are different from I guess company to company. I know that if you're in real estate and you get paid a base salary, the expectation is that you kind of pay back your base salary and then you earn on top of that. Is this just you get seventy five thousand dollars as a base just for turning up to work, and then anything above and beyond that is cream or tell me a bit about how the comm structure works.
Yeah, so like the latter, So seventy five thousand for me just coming to work, and then anything on top of that is like an additional, very nice little bit on top. But with that we are given the expectation that we kind of earn a certain amount for the company. But if we don't do that, then you know, we might go into performance matternent. But I earned over the kind of threshold that they're wanting you to earn anyway,
and majority of people do. It's not very often that people earn less than what's kind of required of them.
Yeah, that makes sense. So I was like, how does this work? Because often when you have a base salary, there's like base requirements and if you don't meet them, it can be a little bit worrying when you say you have a base salary of seventy five thousand dollars. I'm just so pervy when people earn comms, because obviously not everything is given when you're budgeting and doing cash flow and planning. Do you just base it on the seventy five thousand or are you basing it on the hundred?
Like?
How does that all work?
Well, that's the thing is that I haven't got a set budget and I don't really look into these things. And that's what I think my worst money have it is is that I'm earning this money, but I'm not planning where it's going. I've always been a good saver,
and I guess that's where my commission comes in. That whatever my commission is for the month, that goes straight into savings, but in regards to my budget and kind of cash flow, not thinking about those things, which is my next goal is to kind of get a bit of control over that.
All Right, next goal, I want to know what is your big money goal that you're working towards. You mentioned that you've already bought a house, so what are you currently working towards.
We really want to finish our renovations, because we're doing some this year and we're planning to do some a bit next year. Obviously starting to smash out our mortgage. But the goal would be rather than just the house and things like that would be to go on a European trip in the next three years or so. I have been on a holiday for quite some time, so I'd like to save up for that and go there. But ultimately, the long, long term goal is to be financially free, but that's quite a while away.
That takes ages. I totally get that there are interim goals, my friend, because same, I want to know a little bit more about these renos that you've mentioned. So I've just gone through the process and oh my gosh, they blow out so much.
Oh my gosh, they do.
Tell me a bit more about your reno journey, what it's cost, what you'd expected from the beginning, Like is it big reno? Is it a little renot? Like what does it look like?
Yeah, of course. So we bought a small little house. It was kind of one of those situations where you buy the worst house in a night street. We're in this really cute little area, lovely little houses around us, but our house was horrendous. It's only been rented for the last I think thirty years, so you can tell that the people that rented it didn't ridiculously look after it like it was their own unfortunately, so it has
been quite neglected. But we purchased that about a year or so ago, now a bit more soon, about early this year, and that cost us six hundred and fifty thousand, And then because we were doing the renovations, we only put the ten percent deposit down instead of a full twenty percent, so we had that extra ten percent deposit to put into the renovations, which hopefully once these are all done, which we're putting about sixty thousand in this year,
then we can refinance and hopefully have more equity in the house.
Oh love, how did you work out that sixty grand worth of I guess Reno's was going to work out for you? Like did you go, you know, to Bunning's and look at all the kitchens or were you online? Or like where did you start? Because I found it so overwhelming.
It was so overwhelming. We started mostly by getting quotes from people who do renovations, just to see how much it would cost for them to do it, plus the labor, because then if that's kind of at the absolute maximum of our range, then we kind of know what to stick too. Roughly, so we made sure that all of our quotes had a break down the kitchen, you know,
living space, paint, absolutely everything. We made sure they had that breakdown, and then it was just online having a look, reading different forums of people who have renovated their houses, watching different reels of people who do it, and put the prices next to it.
Yes, I do that on TikTok all the time.
Yeah, a bit of a process. But at the moment, where very much like doing well with our budget. So it's looking good at the moment.
Ah, I'm so envso was not so good with my budget when it came to the renos. Let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side, I want to know a little bit more about that budget and also about your debts and investments and to break down that are bad money habit you mentioned just before. Don't go anywhere, guys, All right, money diarist, We are
back and I'm so pervy on your reno journey. Obviously, when you are buying your first home, there's not always a lot of room for investing and doing stuff on the side. But I do want to ask anyway, do you have any investments? If so, what are they.
Yeah, I do have a few investments, have my superannuation which I've slightly increased my risk profile for I didn't realize until this year that you could actually change your superannuation risk profile.
You can and everyone should review it.
Yeah, so I've actually made that a little bit more aggressive considering that I'm only twenty four at the moment, I've got a long way to go, and hopefully it'll even out and should be fine over time. Love. I also have a Raise account and a spaceship account, which have about two thousand dollars spread across them. I started them when I started listening to the podcast so well I love this yeah Yeah, And I have a share scheme with the company that I'm working for, where they
contribute one hundred dollars a month from my paycheck. And then I've also started dabbling in the share market myself. So I have five investments at the moment, some blue chip, someone a little bit more of the riskier side, which add up to around the eight thousand dollar mark.
Oo look at you go.
Yeah, something I'm so proud of because this was a huge step for me. I always saw investing as more of something gambling. I was never educated on it ever, and I just always thought, oh my gosh, why would you invest like you're throwing your money away, You're going
to lose it. But my partner was into investing when we met a little bit, and he kind of taught me about and then, obviously listening to the podcast, starting to do a bit more of my own research, and I kind of got rid of that stigma and I thought, I'll just give it a go. I'll just put a little bit into, raise bit into And then I built that up and I love it. Now I'm really interested in like, yeah, yeah, it's great.
Oh my gosh, I love it. I feel like raising Spaceship kind of like the gateway drug of the investment community, because you end up just going all right, well that feels like a little bit less risky, a little bit more controlled. I'll give it a crack, and then it's the gateway and now you have five different investments. I want to know though, because obviously coming from such a mentality where you're like, look, I really thought that investing
was actually a form of gambling. Education is the key here. But how did you then start to pick those five investments? What made you confident enough to pull the trigger and put money in it? Because a grand that's a lot of money.
It is a lot actually for the blue chip ones. I just knew companies that I've heard of a lot that I felt were quite stable, did some research into it from the investment side, and I felt comfortable with them. For the ones that were on a little bit more of the riskier side, there's a couple people at my work that really really into the share market and they kind of throw around tips between each other, and this is when.
You're like, let me in. I want to hear your tips.
Exactly that if I wasn't telling anyone that I was kind of into it at the moment because I've had that little bit of a stigma, so I was a bit worried. So I was just like, oh, I'll just listen and see what happens. And then they were talking about it, and one day I was like, I'm just gonna try and if I lose money, I lose money. If I gain money, I gain money. I just want to give it a go. At this point, I had
my blue chips. I was feeling confident. Obviously listening to the podcast, I understand that it's going to be up and down. It's not going to just keep being up for the duration that I have it, and I don't plan on taking anything out anytime soon. So I gave it a go, and one of them worked a bit more than the other. But I feel really confident now
that it's not gambling. But I feel really confident now, you know, looking into other stops and going, oh, I might put a little bit on that and just see what happens. Or this is a bit more of a safer option, I'll put a bit more money into that and you can play flip my mentality there.
I love it. I think it's so good because so many people do feel that way. And then it's really about education and exposure that makes you understand how it actually all works. You go, wait, this is really different. This is actually about wealth creation and creating financial freedom. I have another question about investing, just because I'm so brvy,
so I apologize, but I'm not that sorry. When you did decide to pull the trie gul, you bought your blue chip stocks first, how did you pick a platform to invest on? Like, what did you pick and why did you pick it? And why did that make the most sense for you?
I went with concept, and that's only simply because my partner had invested in concept. I didn't really look into which platform too much. It's just I knew he was with it. I knew a couple of the people from work were in it s they were with a couple others as well.
But I just thought, okay, just this works, it makes sense, tried and true. Some other people have done it, so therefore it can't be that bad.
No.
I love that. I always ask because there's always a reason why someone picked their platform. It's not oh v yes. So I googled it and I looked at this chart and it compared it, and so I picked off that there's always like some other reason that people were like, Oh no, I felt comfortable with this, and I just love hearing it.
Yeah, that bank with Commonwealth as well. So I was kind of like, oh, okay, that's fine.
Yeare easy, all right. I want to know now about debt. You mentioned before that you purchased your home for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but I want to know what debt are you in, how much and how does it break down?
Yep. So I am very proud to say that I don't have any bad debt at all.
Very sexy.
I had my year and a half of my university degree that I started but didn't end up finishing because I absolutely hated it. I paid off that Hex's debt that was kind of my main financial goal before the end of financial You just gone because I understand it. It was going up for seven percent with inflation. I was like, I do not want to keep paying this off.
So you're here telling me like, heyve twenty four and six figures have no Hex debt. You also have a mortgage paying for my renovations going to Europe. I love this. I'm obsessed.
Yeah, I think sometimes I think you for myself enough credit. I get a bit of imposter syndrome sometimes.
So I'm here to be your like official personal hype girl. I'm like, get it, COI in, this is the best ever.
I just struggle to kind of like it sounds great in my head, but it doesn't. It does feel good. I don't know, it's hard to explain. I guess I liked. I just feel like I have imposter syndrome sometimes be like, oh, yeah, it's good, but you know, I'm sure I could be doing more of this.
We all think that though, right, the grass is always greener on the other side, and impostera syndrome is something I can definitely relate to because I get it all the time, and it's like the dumbest thing in the entire world, because like, I know what I've done, Like I know that I'm a good person doing good things. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. It doesn't matter what I've achieved or what I haven't achieved. I look at it and I go, I'm a good
person doing good things. No one is actually going to come for me and kick me out and be like you don't know what you're talking about, Like, you know, get out, you're not a good person. But it's something that I think we should actually talk a lot more about, because it doesn't matter whether it's your career or whether it's your investing journey or you've bought your first house. Like how many times do we just gaslight ourselves into thinking it's not good enough. You're like, Oh, I bought
my first house, but I live in it. I don't have an investment property. You're like, wait, what, Like where's this mentality coming from? Or you look at it and you go started investing. You know, I've really thought about this. I have, you know, my blue chip stocks, I have rays, I have spaceship. I'm actually doing a really good job. It's only eight grand though, that's not very good. Like why do we do this to ourselves?
I know, I have no idea why. And to be honest, I think it's as like majority of female thing as well.
Oh yeah, it's not a male thing one hundred percent.
Like everyone I speak to be like, oh yeah, you know, this is so great about me, This is so great about me people at work, and I'm just sitting there like, oh yeah, I guess.
No, absolutely not. We need to start talking to ourselves as though we're our own best friends, because like I would never talk to my friends or anybody like, oh my gosh, yeah, you're right, that's not that good. Like I'm here going, holy moly, you're twenty four. You've done all of this good stuff, Like talk to yourself that way. Just go, oh, what would Victoria say to be? And then say that because that's going to put you in a better position.
Yeah, okay, that's my new goal. That's what I'm going to do all the time.
Now, All right. Earlier in the episode, you mentioned that you think that your worst money habit is that you, you know, earn a lot of money, but you're not really sure where it's going. Let's talk a bit more about that, but first I want to know what is your best money habit. Do you think.
I am a good saver? Like, if I have a goal, I will absolutely work so hard smash it out, and once my money is in that savings account, I will not touch it like I will starve and I will not touch it like I've got my emergency account, which is good, but I will never ever ever touch it until obviously I've achieved that going and paying for it. So I'd say savings are really good money habit for me.
I love that. I think that that's really clear. Tell me a little bit more about this worst money habit. You said it was earning money, you're not really sure where it's going or what it's doing, but you're good at saving. How does that work?
What I'm doing at the moment or when I was saving kind of for my bigger money goals is I would just put in a figure out when I want to achieve this goal by kind of break it down in months as to how long it would take me. You know, when I want to do it, how much it'll cost me, and kind of figure out the monthly amount that I would need to put into my savings, and then I would just do that and I just put that in and the rest of the money would
be between my other accounts. I have an emergency account, which is good, but my other accounts that kind of just sit there and I'll just, you know, once one goes low, I'll keep topping it up with the other. But there's no thought actually behind it, and I'll just kind of like, oh yeah, I'll food shopping, not thinking about it, spipe my card. I don't go shopping much, but if I did, you know, I look at the price and if I can afford it, I'll just swipe
my cards. Like, I don't really have much thought process behind you know, this is my budget for food, this is my budget for eating out, this is my budget for absolutely anything. Like I don't have that thought process behind it, which I really want to get, Like I want to make a budget. I want to be so organized in that space. I've just I've tried in the past, like a few years ago, and I just had no success at all. And I think that was I was
younger obviously, but I just I don't know why. I've just I really want to get there.
I feel like that's really relatable though, because I look at it and go, you know, everyone budgets in a different way, Like budgeting means something different to absolutely everybody. And from my perspective, looking at you know you from the outside in and having had this really beautiful conversation, I go, well, does she really need a strict budget? Like she's achieved the goal of buying her house, she's investing,
she's doing all of these things. What do you think you'd achieve if you had a budget set in place and were more organized.
I think it would be good for my saving habits because I think I could probably say more or put more money towards a mortgage, or more money towards, you know, a holiday in the future, rather than not thinking about and not having that structure. A bit of control would be nice. And I don't feel like I have that control over what's coming in what's going out.
Now You've got a mortgage is important too.
Yeah, And I'm such an organized person and this is not on brand with what I'm like.
This doesn't suit the vibe, like this doesn't master the vibe check. No. I love that, and I think it's important because we want every dollar that comes into our account to be working as hard as we do for it, and sometimes if we don't have enough clarity or structure, it's just not It just comes in and it just does whatever it needs to do, but it's not working hard. I just have so many questions about this because I just think it's so relatable. I want to ask another
one about the budgeting aspect. You said you tried a couple of years ago and it didn't work. What did you try and why do you think it didn't work?
So my cousin is like the Queen of budgeting. She is down to the scent, absolutely crazy. I love it really, like, Okay, can I sit down with you, can you show me how to do it? Run me through it? And I did it for a few months and I just completely got not couldn't be bothered, but I just lost that want to do it, and I guess that being stripped with myself for doing it, and then since then I
just haven't really tried again. So I think also how she kind of had it laid out, she had it on Excel spreadsheets, which was great, but I think it really suited her. Yeah, and obviously she's only thinking from her, whereas for me, I tried making it better for me and making it a bit prettier and things like that. So then I want to do it, but it just didn't stick.
I need to know when you did it on Excel spreadsheets. Did it then become a super manual process? Like every single week or a month, you'd have to go in and actually like look at the spreadsheet and then implement that in your banking system and then switch things around. So it was like a lot of work or was it something where you just had your finger on the pulse every month?
Yeah, it was definitely on the manual side, and especially because I'm not an Excel with in the slightest, so I had one notes for how to do things and how to add your formulas and things like that. But then I would just slip my mind or I'd have to google each month to make sure I'm doing the right thing, and it just got way too manual for something that should just be a quick numbering numbering.
I totally get it, Like, obviously you're not in this situation, but I have adhd. So if it becomes a manual process, it's not happening. Like I won't do it. It has to be taken off me. I don't often do this, but I'm going to gift you my budget in cash Flow master Class or the New Money Masterclass, because it is all automated and if you're not a spreadsheet girly. I was explaining it to someone the other day and they were like, I don't get Excel or you know,
Google sheets, fee like it doesn't work. I'm like, it's actually kind of like a software inside Excel that I've built because I am a spreadsheet girly and I am a nerd. But what you do is you put all of your budget in and then it tells you what you need to automate in your banking system. So you just set up direct debits and yeah, you just re reflect your budget in your direct debits, and then your job is to just like check in every month, make sure that you know if there's a new expense that
you forgot about that's included. But like that's the extent of the budgeting, if that makes sense. So I can't wait to hear what you think of it, because I think it's going to really really work. I think it'll be so much No, no, no, I just think after this conversation, I'm like, this is gonna work so well for you.
I'm going to give it to you. I'll also pop a cheeky little discount in the show notes for anyone who wants to join as well, because obviously, if I'm talking about it, you might go they like, what about us? I just think it'll work so well, especially because I was like, oh, like, why I didn't it work? And you can like share it with your cousin. I'll allow that. I think that's fair because I think she'll be really impressed. If she's a spreadsheet girl, they're like me. But last
question I've got for you. Obviously, you said that your money habits are a B plus and you know you really want to work on your budgeting, but from my perspective, you're already killing it. After this conversation. Do you think you're still a B plus? And if so, that's fine, but if not, like, why have you changed? But also what could you do to get to that A plus? I guess credit.
I would maybe shift myself up to an A minus.
Oh I love this.
Yeah, I think, like you said, I just need to give myself a bit more credit and go. You know, even though I feel like I can be doing more to just sit back and reflect and go. But do you know what I've done so well so far?
One hundred percent.
Yeah, Like, I'm proud of what I've achieved, and I guess I need to think about that a bit more. But to get to that A plus, I would say the budget side of things would definitely give me a bit more control, So that would one hundred percent assist me in getting to that A plus level. And then also I'd like to continue to add to my investments and kind of build that portfolio so that hopefully one day I can be financially free or as close to it as possible.
Adore. Oh my gosh. I wish we had more time to chat, but unfortunately that is all we have time for today, So moneyters, thank you for joining us. Thank you for this chat. I feel like I'm now your personal hype girl, as I am for absolutely everybody in our community. But I have adored this. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Be so nice to finally meet ya. I was so looking forward to this.
Oh my gosh, I love that so much. We like besties who hadn't met yet.
Maybe one day next time you come to Western Australia.
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