MONEY DIARY: From Death & Debt to Dream Home

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 the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where we get to talk to one of our incredible Shees on the Money community members all about their finance journey. Let's jump straight into it because I got a message this week and it went a little bit like this. Hi, Victoria, your recent podcast got me thinking that I should share my story after my husband passed away in twenty twenty. We have two

Money Diarist, what a story.

I feel so privileged that you want to share this with me, Like, that's a wild journey.

How are you It's been pretty crazy few years. Oh my gosh, it sounds like it. Are you okay at the moment?

Yeah?

Oh my god.

I feel like that knocked me for six. When I read it, I was like, oh, I feel like every time I read these people don't understand that I am actually reading it for the very first time. And I read the first part and I was like, oh, far out. And then I read the second part and I was like, oh my gosh. I feel like this story is going to be a super powerful one for the community because you're right. I think seeing other side of having a will and superversus not is actually going to be so

A C to a D, A C to a D.

All right, interesting, let's learn a little bit more about it, money, direst. My favorite question of the entire episode is always this one. Can you tell me a little bit more about your money story.

So I grew up in a family where we've always had a family business. We did talk about money in the house, but we weren't very open about what who went what, or how much things actually cost. It was very secretive, but it was a bit under the table, if you want to put it that way. I was always encouraged to have a job before I got a mobile phone, which these days sounds crazy, but back you know, ten fifteen years ago.

My friend, I'm in that age bracket too, I get it. Yeah, my Nokia thirty three ten was my pride and joy.

Yeah, I've still got my pink Motorola.

Oh, the Raiser was elite.

I saved up for so long to get one of those that was like my third phone, because that was like, way, way too progressive. I think I only ended up with one of those in like grade ten or eleven. So sit down, guys, So what about money when you were an adult?

When I turned eighteen, I got my first job full time, and I wasn't responsible with the money at all, a lot of partying, a lot of late nights out. I didn't have any sort of goals or anything. And that all sort of changed when I met my husband and we decided that we wanted to start a family and get married, have kids and all that sort of stuff. And we still weren't the best financially together, but we may do and we got the job done.

Tell me a little bit more about your husband.

So my husband was an entertainer, so in the nightclub industry, so he worked nights and I worked today, so we pretty much were ships in the night most of the time. He ended up going into entertainment management, managing venues and getting the people that come in the acts.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He ended up getting all the acts to come in and organizing those And when COVID hit, he took that really hard. He obviously all the entertainment industry shut down because there was no nightclubs. Yeah, he was terrible with.

Money, And how did you negotiate that in a relationship. I feel like if one's terrible with money and one grew up in a family where you weren't super open about money, but it wasn't like a bit hidden. That might be a little bit of a recipe for disaster, Am I reading into that?

Yeah, No, that's true. I ended up taking over. I was the financial controller in the house, so I did all of the bills. I paid everything. We weren't left with much at the end of the day. We were still rental tenants. And not that that's a terrible thing. It's great to have a roof over your head, but we didn't have much to play with at the end of the day.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And what happened when you guys had kids? How did your money conversations change in that aspect?

He didn't stop working because he worked nights. It just sort of fell into place really well. So he would work two or three nights a week, and on those nights i'd have, you know, forty eight hours where I wasn't asleep because the kids would keep me up or something. Where he was home, he was up all night because he's so used to it. So it worked out really well that he could continue to work while we started a family.

Yeah, that's actually really cool. I've spoken about it so much recently, just the cost of daycare, the cost of, you know, actually having to get back to work, and knowing that that was a bit more flexible. I feel like that would have been one of the draw cards right to that type of industry, because I feel like when you work in entertainment sometimes it's just always draining.

Like before you said we were ships in the night.

Did you ever feel like that led to any animosity or feeling like, oh my gosh, he's not around or he's not contributing as much as he could, or is that something where you're like, go out earn the money, that's what you have to do.

I guess in the last few years my opinion has changed. Yes, there was animosity. I did want him around, and I was in time that he was never there. But now, having ridden solo, I guess for two years I would be quite happy to do it by myself. Obviously, the kids are older now, so it's a bit different. But when they're babies, you want someone around to just just take this baby from me. It's crying. I can't deal with it.

Yeah, that's so fair.

Talk to me a bit more about that transition of being married with a husband who goes to work and who has any income to finding yourself being a single mum back in twenty twenty.

I might need to let you in. We actually broke up in twenty sixteen, so.

Oh, there you go, there you go. That's a little bit of a twist in the story.

So we split in twenty sixteen, so I had already figured out my own finances and things before then, but we never got divorced, so he was still my husband when he passed away.

Yeah, fair, fair, So what was that like I suppose going, let's like go all the way back to twenty sixteen then, because that's just as much of a financial adjustment, right, So talk to me about that period of time in your life where you were going from being married all the way through to being I guess a single mum.

Working for a family business at the time. So I had to juggle a lot between trying to get the kids from A to B, making sure that we had daycare cofees covered, running my own finances from having joint finances and having a secondary income to going to a single income, and trying to figure out something simple as how much we needed for groceries because I would buy for a family of six, and now I was buying for myself on one week and then three on the next.

Yeah, it must have been really challenging. And budgets are the way forward, I think. I feel like they make you feel most in control. Right, they give you the most amount of power in that circumstance because they think if you don't budget, you get even more anxious. What about on your partner's flip side, you said you were the financial controller in that relationship, and when you broke up, that probably put a lot of weight on him to I guess now take charge of his own financial future.

What did that look like? How did that work?

I got a lot of messages, how was this paid? When was this due? Things like that. He wasn't great at doing it. When it came down to the end of it. One of the saving graces that we had was that he did have income protection and super protection and TPD. So that's the only reason that the kids got anything out of it, because he didn't save any money. Yeah.

Wow, So from twenty sixteen when you broke up to twenty twenty when he passed away. He wasn't like trying to get on top of the finances. He was kind of just getting through.

He was just getting through. He had an inheritance and he bought a car, and then he crashed the car, and then like he just never followed up and never got the car back, so he lost all of the inheritance that he put into this car. So he was Yeah, pretty terrible.

Oh my gosh, how stressful.

So talk to me about how you teach kids about money. When I guess from your perspective, you're like, yep, cool, I'm on top of the budgeting, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And then on the flip side, you've got dad and he's blowing an inheritance and maybe not having the same shared money values. When I'm assuming there was some level of joint parenting involved there, What did that look like?

How did that all work? Ah?

My kids were four and five roughly at the time, so we weren't really focused on money and instilling any sort of rules or anything. It was mostly just trying to get through. It's definitely ramped up in the last two years since we've had inheritance come through and things like that.

Yeah, it's kind of and I won't say a blessing. But when they're that young, they're not that privy. They're like not asking that many questions. They're not in school, so they're not as inquisitive about the workings of the world. They haven't really played shop just yet. It's not like having a teenager. That's why I asked. I was like, how did that work? What did that look like? I mean, that's probably a good thing.

There was definitely no asking for squish mellows or pokemons or anything back there.

No, no, not yet, not yet. Is that a part of the money story? Now? Oh yeah, I'm all across.

I don't have kids yet, but I am all across the squish mellows.

Like I have hunted high and low.

For specific squish mellows, four nieces and nephews, and I never thought I would say something like that, money diarist.

I want to know. Let's be a little bit pervy here.

Your ex partner passed away in twenty twenty, and one of the reasons why you wrote in was because you were like, look, I really want to talk about seeing both sides of having a will and super versus not.

Can you talk me.

Through that process because it's obviously a ridiculously traumatic process to go through to begin with. But then I'm assuming you were lumped because you were still technically married with a lot of the administration, a lot of the process, a lot of the planning because you also had kids. Can you talk us through that process in a way that you're comfortable with?

Yeah, So I was the executor of the will. He gave me power of attorney and the executator role before he passed away. So I hold the money for all four children, and I went through all of his assets and his debts and contacted all the companies and closed his eBay account, closed his PayPal count did all of the things that you wouldn't think to do.

I hadn't even thought about an eBay account.

I just had his email, and I just went through one by one and went close clothes clothes. I did have a lawyer help with it all because we had a large summer of money, so it needed to go through probate. But in regards to the division and the holding of it, I still hold all of the money until the kids are twenty five, because that's what he specified in the will. Unfortunately, one of them did pass away last year, so he did not reach twenty five. So now I need to split that between three kids.

Yeah, that's awful.

I am so sorry to hear when you say your partner or your ex partner made you the executor of the will. That's a really big step that obviously on

How did that conversation go with.

You becoming the executor of the will and being responsible for all the children? Like, was this something where you know, I know, I don't want to be too pervy. It's you know, only within what you're comfortable with. But was he in a circumstance where he knew something was going to happen and he needed to kind of clean up his affairs or was this something that you guys were just really progressive about.

Oh, I suppose I haven't actually mentioned. So he was diagnosed with stage three cancer, ourself with dual cancer in April of twenty twenty so, and then then he passed away in November, so we had a bit of time to organize everything, make sure that everything was in place because he was diagnosed with cancer. We did go through the channels and get the will done for free through one of the lawyers in the city that does deal.

That's okay, That's absolutely fine.

I hate asking those questions because I want to be like, hey, can you tell me a little bit more about this, while still respecting the boundaries that you have, because obviously with some people they don't really want to talk about the way their partner or ex partner passed away. And I'm always like, oh, we need to know a little bit more about this, only because, as I said before, sometimes you're only forced to get your affairs in order once there is a big life event that's going to happen.

I'm a crisis person, so I'm good in a crisis, So I was very okay with everything. I made sure all of the boxes were ticked. You have to sort of have your head about you when you go through something like that, when you get more emotional about it, you have to compartmentalize silly.

Yeah, No, absolutely, it's something that's really challenging to go through. But it sounds like you were in good hands. How do you communicate that with the kids? So obviously talking to your smaller children, it's probably not even a conversation you have now, because from my perspective, having worked as a financial advisor, I can't think of talking to a ten year old and an eight year old about you know, inheritance and what that means. But with his other children,

So the older one who passed away, he was aware of the age limit of twenty five, being that he was twenty four when he passed away.

He was just a baby, I know who was just a baby.

He knew that there was money coming in. He did ask for it at some point, but because of the rulings between the will and me being the executor, I had to put the foot down and say no, like Dad didn't want you to have it before this age. There's certain things. The other one, he is thirteen. He is not aware that there is an inheritance. His mother and I communicate. We're very good communicators, we always have been. She knows that there's something there, She's got a copy

No, absolutely not.

Yeah, And anything I do with his portion of the money, I do contact her and say I'm doing this just so you know, because I don't want one day for her to say I haven't done the right thing. And with investing in inheritance, it is not advised that you put it into any sort of share portfolio because of the legal repercussions. If there is a massive loss, you as the executor, are liable.

Yes, And that's something that a lot of people don't understand. And that's why I often deep financial advice is necessary because obviously you would have done the pros and cons of this and made a decision that.

Works for you in your family.

But it's one of those things where as we know the power of investing in the power of money is over time and compounding, and you kind of miss out on that. And that's okay as long as it's an educated decision and you're making sure that everything is good to go. And I think you, as you mentioned before, you're the executor. You're the only one that's going to

There wasn't really a conversation of how he picked me. But I was the only one that he'd been with that was most financially responsible. Having the two youngest kids, I'm going to be the person that holds the money for longest. So he didn't want to give it to anyone else. Yeah, that was the main thing.

No, that makes absolute sense. Can I ask now? I want to know a little bit more about you as a person. So obviously that is a circumstance that I don't wish upon anybody. And we really need to be having conversations like this more often, because unfortunately it happens more often than we would like to think it does. But I want to know what you do, what do you do with yourself, what do you do for work? And how much money do you now earn?

So I both of our kids are actually special needs, so we've got autism and ADHD. So I actually only work part time, not that that's a bad thing. Again, it's good. I'm still working. I am a banking consultant, and during work, I am at work, but when I'm at home, I am the homemaker, organizer, I am everything.

Yeah, of course you are your mom aunt, mom's superwoman.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So tell me a little bit more about your personal situation. Do you have a partner now? Are you currently still a single mom?

Like?

What is your circumstance.

I do have a partner now. He is a truck driver, so he is not home very often because he goes into state all the time. He's actually just left yesterday for a month, so he'll be back.

Oh my gosh, a month.

Yeah, during that time. Side note, we're building a house.

That's very exciting.

So we're building a house. We haven't got a handover date yet, but the rental lease expires at the end of April, so I am going to be packing while he is gone, and he's going to come back and help move everything.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad that you're doing that, and I'm not. I'm really sorry, but that sounds awful. All right, tell me a little bit more about I guess money. You've got a new partner, You've obviously got a good job. When you are working part time, what is currently your big money goal. What are you working towards. You're obviously building a house, so you're ticking that off. Yeah, I would love to pay off. We've taken out a landlan

Oh my gosh, how exciting.

We've got quite a bit of guard and things to do when we do move in. So I do want to pay off the land loan we're is sitting at one ninety five. That's probably the biggest goal, and then paying off the actual build loan, but we haven't fully drawn that down yet, so that's still in the works still.

TBC, Well, that is so exciting.

With a hectare, you can actually get a lot of miniature donkeys. So I'm very excited about this prospect for you.

We were looking at miniature goats.

Okay, we can get both. Get some donkeys, get some goats. Like I am the biggest pet person in the entire world. I have been on the side of TikTok where everybody has miniature donkeys, and I just they are so cute it kills me.

Yeah, as long as it fits in with a Bernese mountain dog. It's fine.

Ten out of ten can recommend.

I'm going to go to a really quick break because I think we need to reset because all I'll do now is talk about pets. So guys don't go anywhere. All right, money Diarist, we are back. It sounds like you are absolutely thriving. You've got two children with special needs, which you are looking after, working part time. You've gone through a fair bit in your thirty two short years. I want to know do you invest, If so, how and what does that look like for you.

I do have a smaller investment portfolio. I do have five and a half invested in Diverse shares. I started investing twenty nineteen and I've held those shares since and they're like my biggest profit ones, which is great, how exciting. Every time I get a paarcel of five hundred dollars, I do invest it sort of like a miniature version of a thousand dollar project, a little.

Bit more accessible. One thousand dollars I feel like takes ages to save.

Yeah, and I do reinvest the dividends, So anytime I get a dividend payment, it either goes into the account, so I can get the five hundred dollars or automatically reinvest with the plan.

So yeah, cool. I love that.

Are there any other investment things that you play around with? What does your superannuation look like?

My friend my Stuport is sitting at sixty k oh.

That's a nice amount for your age.

Yeah, I feel like working part time, that's pretty good. I do do the voluntary contribution so that you can get the co contribution from the government to sort of boost it up every year. I feel like as a minimum, because I'm working part time, I should That's a priority of mine to always put in the five hundred dollars.

I love that.

I feel like, given everything you've been through and everything you're doing, and all of your financial goals, and the fact that you are about to serve as a building loan and have bought land, like that makes sense that that is your investment journey.

Let's flip it though.

You told us about your one hundred and ninety five thousand dollars land loan and then a building loan.

Do you have any other debts? If so, what do they look like.

I have a two thousand dollars credit card and that's it.

And how do you use your credit card? I feel like people think I absolutely crucify credit cards, but I don't.

I crucify using them inefficiently.

Ah yeah, I a one hundred percent use it inefficiently.

Okay, well we maybe need to talk about that, my friend.

So I cannot get the limit down, so I have actually just blocked the card now, so nothing can come out other than my insurance. So I've got health insurance and home contents insurance that comes out of that, and that's that's all that I'm going to be allowing that to come out of.

So tell me a bit more about that mindset, because for you to go all right, well I'm not using it efficiently, how does that work? How did you come to the conclusion that maybe a credit card wasn't the best for your personality.

I've had it for a fair few years. I did regularly pay it down when I used it because we're building though a lot of our finances are going to building a shed, growing the grass, like building a fence, all this sort of stuff. So any sort of like grocery expenses and things were going on the credit card and that needed to stop. So I just blocked it.

That is very fair, and I think it's very thoughtful of you to do that, because I feel like too many times people just become so dependent on them. So it's obvious to me your level of financial literacy is relatively high in comparison to the level of financial literacy of people who abuse credit cards regularly.

Let's talk about good money habits.

I feel like that was a really good one where you like kind of put yourself back in control and go, nope, I'm going to block that credit card. What do you think your best money habit is being.

A banking consultant. I'm always talking about rates with people, Yes, Queen, So I have got high interest savings accounts where I work, I do with the kids money. I always make sure that it's invested in the highest amount, rolling over, making sure that we're getting the bonus interest if there is any. And I was luckily enough to fix the one ninety five K at three point five percent.

So oh money, ween, I know.

So that's until twenty twenty five.

Twenty twenty five.

I think that's the sexiest thing anyone's told me this week. Oh, very very envious and obviously have a very boring life.

No, no, for me, it's exciting. Like I talk to people all day about this when I'm at work, so for me to be able to say it, because I can't say that loud to other people because they don't get that.

Now.

No sing that the rates have gone up and up and up. Yeah.

No, As somebody who has a mortgage, I'm very envious of that because I looked at my statement the other day and we are now above five percent, and that just makes me feel a little bit sick.

My friends, our build loan has not fully drawn yet, so we're still unvariable until it draws down. So I'm stuck with that one at a higher rate. Unfortunately.

Well, you know what, you win some, you lose some.

Speaking about losing some, I need to flip the narrative here, what is your worst money habit?

I am a sticker hunter and a hunter shopper.

What's a sticker hunter like?

Markdown stickers?

So if I that's a good thing, it.

Is a good thing. But I will buy things that we don't use, all right, so it can work out in my favor. But sometimes I'll buy things I'll be like, yeah, the kids will like that. Not not with sensory needs and things I should just stick to what we've got, but most of our fridge freezer is stickered, marked down sort of things, especially with the cost of groceries now.

Hey, that's resourceful. I'm going to allow you to have that.

I feel like that's much better than saying, ah, I go to Chadsten and I shop to my heart's content. Like op shopping, let's just see it as you're supporting the local community. You're, you know, repurposing some old clothing.

Like I'm all about that.

I mean, I probably should do it smartly, but like you know, I can reframe anything if you want me to. Let's be honest, money diarist, I feel like I've learned so much about you, and I'm so grateful that you've kind of shared your journey. Obviously you've seen both sides of I guess having a will and having super and

And then we've.

Learned that you were basically the financial control of your family. You are financially responsible enough to have been put in charge of a whole heap of people's inheritance. You genuinely are really good in crisis. You've got savings, you have bought a house, you are currently building, you lock in your rates, Like, do you really think that you're a C to a D, my friend? Because I feel like I might be a little higher than that.

I think that I am a C to a D because of our excessive spending building right now. I think it's situational C to.

D right, it's what you think you are, not maybe what you think you are in comparison to others, which actually is the best way to put it, right.

Yeah, all right, well I allow you to have it.

I think that we're spending an awful lot at the moment with the build and everything. That that's why I put it so low, because we are just you know, fucking out the money.

It's so stressful though, when that happens.

As somebody who's just gone through a renovation, I feel like it's cost on cost on cost, and the quote that they gave you double it even maybe consider tripling it because it is going to bite you in the bottom. So I can understand that feeling of I guess, bleeding money. You could say, it's not a fun feeling, especially when you see your actual savings account go completely down. You're like, this is not what I plan for, this is not what I expected.

Well, yeah, I'd rather see the money sitting in the offset offsetting the variable build loan than spending it.

One hundred percent. Well money, diresty.

It has been beautiful getting to know you and learning a little bit more about your journey. Are there any passing or lasting words of wisdom that you want to share with the community before we wrap all of this up.

Get your will done, yes, Sexy, Yes, absolutely, I got mine done obviously having kids and being the executor and the controller. I got mine done after my husband passed away. But I advise everyone to get one done, even if it sits in a cupboard for twenty years. You don't want to think about it because it is morbid, and you don't want to think about what happens when you're not here anymore, but it needs to happen. And make sure that you have two executors.

Two executors, yes, why obviously I know why, but this is not for.

Me because if one passes away, then you've got a second. Yeah.

Absolutely, And I think that having a backup plan is always really important. And as you said, like these conversations aren't easy. They are quite challenging to have. But there's some of the most important conversations, and once someone's gone, you can't go back to clarify with them. Oh, well, what did you actually want or how did we want to do that? So I think we need to ask while we have the Opportunity Money Dirist. It has been beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Thanks.

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