Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
the Order Kerney Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Let's get into it.
She's on the Money, She's on the Money. Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money diaries where we get to talk to one of our incredible Shees on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it. This week I got a message and it went a.
Little bit like this.
Hi Victoria, I'm a longtime listener and a long time delayer in writing in I'm a nursing student currently on a five month unpaid placement in rural slash remote Australia.
I just turned twenty.
And I've been working my ass off since I graduated in twenty twenty. I'm really proud to say that between full time UNI placements, travel and a pretty busy life, I've managed to hit one hundred thousand dollars in savings. There's like four exclamation points there, guys. I hit the big one zero zero in November slash December last year when I was nineteen, which was really exciting because my aim was to hit it in three years and I
did it in one year and approximately ten months. Yeah, are you kidding money, diarists?
That is wild?
Thank you? Well, no, I can't really believe it either, to be honest.
One hundred grand that is unrelatable content in this economy.
I know, well it doesn't yeah feel real, but I actually did just crunch the numbers right before doing this interview, and it's increased a little bit.
Since what is it aut You've got to share with us.
One point thirty five right now, so up.
Up and going, oh my god, I feel like this is almost unbelievable. I was talking to some people in the community the other day and about one of our community members saving ten thousand dollars and they're like, that's impossible, Like ten grand is wild in that period of time, But you're saying that since November slash December last year, you saved another thirty five thousand dollars. Like I'm not
even going to ask you the structured questions yet. I need to know who, when, where, why, what when?
How?
Like we need to know everything because this is it's just wild to think that you're doing an unpaid placement, which is a massive financial burden. And it's something that I'm going to talk about soon on the pod because I just think the unpaid placements, they don't have a place in twenty twenty three. Like it is to me absolutely wild to think that you would literally do thousands of hours of work for free to work in healthcare, Like that's such a special space. We should be paying
you to want to work in healthcare. Like anyway, I won't go on and on about that because I got a whole pod coming up on it. But Money Diarist, how the heck do you say one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars as a child?
Well, good question. I mean, honestly, it's just being kind of my grind period, I call it. Ever since I left school, I feel like I've had just like some big financial goals that I've worked towards, and I felt like as time went on and I could see how much I was saving and those goals kind of became closer, I just became more and more motivated and driven. I actually really enjoy my work. I think that's a really important thing to say, because I couldn't do it if
I didn't. I do put in a lot of hours. It is really exhausting. Sometimes it's hard to manage a lot of the time. It's hard to manage with UNI, with social life, with my love for travel, with all that sort of thing. It can be really hard to manage. And I think I couldn't do it if I didn't
love what I do. But yeah, and I should also mention like I have a very supportive family and friends, and up until recently when I moved out to rural slash remote Australia, I was living at home, which did make things a lot easier.
Massive privilege, Massive privilege.
I'm very aware of that. I am lucky, not only like obviously the cost of living. My parents weren't paying for my groceries. I'm not paying for rent yet at their house, and so that was massive privilege. But also just now moving out, I've realized how my time that I saved not living out of home and doing a lot of those things for myself. So I think there were lots of areas of privilege that came into it living at home, and that was definitely something that enabled
me to work as much as I did. But yeah, obviously on top of working a lot, I have developed a bit of a structure for myself for how I spend my money and how I budget, and it's something that I've always been like super interested and super passionate about. I'm a bit of an undercover finance nerd.
Shouldn't be undercover, everyone should be public finance nerves. I'm a public finance nerd, and I don't want to be the only one.
Okay, I'll join you, Thank you, thank you. I don't really know where my love for finance came from, but I yeah, I could talk about taxes, superannuation, budgeting, anything all day every day time.
It's wild. It's almost like I do.
I'm jealous. Yeah, So I think that's played a big role, Like not only my interest in it. But obviously because I've been so interested in it, it's meant that I've learned a lot from things like she's in the money and listening to it twenty four to seven. So I think that that's enabled me to put in, you know, budgets and systems that have helped me sort of stay to a budget. And when I say budget, I mean she's on the money type budget where, well, where my
money goes. It's not restrictive, it's just I know my cash flow and I'm very intentional with that. So it just means that I know where everything's going. And I think that's been huge in saving so much because I can see where my.
Money's going totally.
I feel like all of that makes sense, and I'm really glad that you kind of said yourself, Look, there's a lot of privilege here because I think a lot of people I think sometimes we just need to call like a spade a spade, right, like it is what it is, and I guess acknowledging it and moving on because there's still a lot to learn from this story,
regardless of whether it's a privileged one or not. Because I know so many people in our community who have the exact same circumstances as you better in personal debt. So it's not actually about just the privilege. Like the privilege is a I guess, a diving board like it. It's something that can take you to the next step, or it could mean that you fall off it completely.
So let's get into it.
I want to know more about you because I know that loving what you do is just not enough to be able to save one hundred and thirty five K.
So tell me a little bit about yourself.
The first question I always ask on this pod is what gray would you give your money habits? If I asked you to give yourself a grade from A through to F, I will only be accepting A.
Well, I will probably say B.
Well, as you had just heard that's an unacceptable response.
Yeah, I do think that my attitude towards saving and spending like is quite good for me. It works for me. And as much as I've worked really hard on my savings and I do have big financial goals, I also know that money is a blessing and I know that I don't want my saving goals to create a restrictive relationship with money. So I think that yeah, I've at the end of the day, like I work so hard so that I can say yes to things and so
that I can enjoy my life. And I think I've kind of got to quite a good point with that balance of knowing why I work so hard, having good savings goals, but knowing that at the end of the day and working so hard so I can enjoy my life. But yeah, as much as I'm also a finance nerd, I am by no means perfect, and I feel like I've a lot more to learn, Like I've just scraped the surface. So that's why there's definitely room for improvement.
All Right, I will allow that response.
It seems relatively well thought out and quite intelligent, so I'll see myself out With the next question. I want to know a bit more about your money story. What was growing up? Like, how did that work out? We already know obviously living at home was a big part of this, but like, let's go back a little bit further.
What's your money story?
Like my friend, Well, yeah, as you said, I looked at home until very recently, so up until nineteen oh I moved out the day after my nineteenth birthday, So I think that I've always had a very strong value for money, literally from probably like a primary school age, just being aware of how much things cost and asware that as much as my parents did send me and my siblings to private schools from me five, I know that that was something that they really valued and their
sacrificed a lot to do that. And as much as my parents weren't necessarily super explicit about money, they didn't talk about it heaps. As I gotten older, I think I've always like I've recognized how grateful i am that although we were in a very villged environment, I think they kept us very grounded and we were always aware that they were sacrificing a lot for us to be in the position that we were in. And I've always been very grateful for that. But yeah, very cognizant of
the sacrifices that like that involved. But yeah, I got my first job when I think I was about fifteen, and I was just doing some footy umpiring and working at the local cinema. So that's probably when I started to learn a lot about finance because I had my own money. I was earning my own money, and it was quite exciting to see, Yeah, my own money and to even like crunch the numbers on, like, oh, what
happens if I put aside this much every week? What happens if I put it into a compound interest account? Like I was a bit weird. I wanted to get into all that.
That's not weird, that's very attractive. But where did you learn about this? Because I grew up with a dad who was an accountant, Right, I felt so privileged, But also I just used to argue with him about learning my times tables and anything he taught me about the money that I had coming in the door from my
very first job. I didn't listen to, Like I earned money so I could go to the movies with my friends and then go to McDonald's after and spend my money at Zaprey because I needed to carry around that hot pink tote bag and have.
A mini skirt. That was god awful.
Right, So for me, I feel like I was in a very privileged position but didn't absorb any of that information. Like how were you in this position where you had this knowledge?
I'd fifteen, Well, I mean I think when I say at fifteen, like obviously that's I think when it started and when I started just looking at money more and be more interested and probably doing a lot of my own research came from it. I mean, my dad is like someone who I've always talked a lot of finance
stuff with. He's not in finance, but I think he's probably quite similar to me in the way that it's just been something he's always been super interested in, and he's interested in shares and investment and we sort of always talk about that. So I think he's given me a lot of knowledge. But one thing I will say actually is my previous relationship, which started when I was in high school. We were both quite similar and we
had very similars of money goals. We were both motivated in that way, and we pushed each other a lot in that way, and I think we learn a lot from each other. And I think that being obviously when I was quite young, we kind of grew up together and that probably influenced a lot of my money attitudes, and I just I think we learned a lot from each other. And I definitely learned heaps from him, So yeah, that was probably a big factor. Even his family, I
definitely learned a lot from them. So yeah, a few different avenues as I've gotten older, but I would say initially it was a bit more of like a self research something I was interested in, so it was almost a hobby.
Just a smart cookie who has her head screwed on. I wish I was that smart at fifteen. You're running laps around me. I was forty k in debt by the age of twenty two, and you're here with one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars in savings at twenty.
I stand at no chance. But that is okay. I want to know now.
We need to know now what do you do for work? How much money do you earn?
So at the moment, I'm obviously in a bit of a different situation to what I was back home because I'm out in rural, remote Australia on placement un played placement. I am actually working out here and on the side of placement and UNI, so I'm doing disability support work, which is primarily what I did back home anyway. So I earned roughly. It does vary, and I've always had
varied incomes, so it's hard to crunch the numbers. But I earned roughly like one eight hundred to two thy one hundred dollars a.
Week per week as a student nurse. Yeah, holy moly, no wonder you're good at saving.
Yeah, I mean it does vary a bit, and it's means I am doing a lot of hours. But as I said, I enjoy what I do. But in Sydney, back home, I was earning well. Last year, I earned about eighty thousand dollars and that was probably more than the year before. I haven't figured. I can't remember what
it was the year before, but I'm casual work. I was doing everything with casual work, So I was doing nannying, Disphilly support work, some like sport coaching stuff and a few little things on the sides and babysity and whatnot. So yeah, it did vary a lot, and there were weeks where I was earning nothing because I was away traveling or I was on I did a real placement last year where I was earning nothing, and then yeah,
it would range two. I think my highest ending week last year was two thousand, eight hundred, but yeah, most week's most working weeks were probably about one thousand eight hundred.
Absolutely all right, Well, I want to know a bit more because that to me seems wild and I think that a lot of people are going to think, oh, my gosh, she is a student nurse making between eighteen hundred and twenty one hundred a week. And if I extrapolate that out, right, let's pretend for a hot second that you make on average eighteen hundred dollars a week. Like we've gone with the lower number, that's still one hundred thousand dollar income as a student nurse.
So these things.
Start to add up, right, Like, it starts to make sense that you have good savings and if you're making this while living at home, like the story checks out, that you maybe had a very high savings capacity because your take home salary would have been very very sexy. Right, But how as a student nurse did you get into disability support work? Because I feel like that's an area that I've had a few questions recently about, Well, how do you get into it?
What is it?
What kind of qualifications do I need? Did you need to be a fully qualified.
Nurse to do this? Or took me through how you got into that?
Sure? Well, first of all, no, you don't need to be a qualified nurse. You don't actually need to even be studying nursing. It obviously depends what area of disability support work that you're looking at going into. So some do require some certifications. Some do require you to even be an RN, which I obviously can't even do yet, and the pay and things like that, it does very accordingly. So yeah, it depends on the level of needs of the client, but in general you don't need any qualifications.
I started straight after school. I think i'd finished. They just see like three weeks earlier. And I started with a client who I was quite lucky in the way that it was actually kind of a family connection. It was through a friend that I knew that I met my first client, and I loved that so much. I hadn't intended on going into disability support work, but I love that so much that that sort of is what
started everything. And then I worked for a couple of different companies and then also started to get my own independent clients, and now I just do independent clients so through my own ABN, and you know, with my own insurance and tax and so stuff.
That's so wild.
You're a literal child and you've set up an ABN to do disability support work like you are so intelligent.
It is wild. All I want to know.
You've obviously got one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars saved, but what is your big money goal, Like, what are we working towards here?
Well, ideally i'd love to buy property. That's sort of been a goal for the past a little bit, and I'd love to do that by the end of the year. It is a little bit more complex because I am a casual worker and I do have a varied income, so things like getting alone is a lot harder.
Not impossible though, with the Riot mortgage broke out, like we deal with that a lot variable incomes and casual work and having your own ABN Like, as long as you've got clean financials, it should not be too hard to organize. But not all brokers have that experience, so make sure you find a good one.
Ay, that's why I applied to Zella Money.
Actually, did you actually are ready?
You're on this like two weeks ago. I haven't got round to.
Booking an appointment yet with Kate.
Yeah, but I've started. But yeah, so in an ideal world, I will do that by the end of the year, sooner rather than later. But if it works out that I need to have a full time contract before I can secure a loan. Then it will have to be started next year. But yeah, so that's kind of my money golf for the moment. But I'm also twenty and I love travel and that's a big priority for me
at the moment. So my focus is to do the whole house property thing when I feel like I can balance the priority to like travel and live life as well. I would like to be quite confident that I can serve as a mortgage whilst living the lifestyle that I want to live, because it's a big thing to take on a mortgage at twenty years old, and I don't wanted to ruin my life.
No, absolutely not. I'm so proud of you. I have so many more questions. Let's go to a really quick break, and then after the break, I am going to dive straight back in to absolutely grilling you.
Guys.
Don't go anywhere, all right, money diarist, we are back. I want to know you mentioned before that your dad was into stocks and kind of like being on the share market, and that you learned a bit from there. Do you have any investments, If so, what are they?
Yes, so, I my dorky finance side stop.
Calling it dorky. I'm a cool mom, not a regular mom.
Finance side. My cool finance side meant that I've always been interested in shares. I remember always sitting in class at school and doing like research on shares. So I bought my first ones when I would have been seventeen.
When I have a kid one day, I want them to be like cut paste of you.
Stop. That's the biggest commment I go.
I want my kids at school to be in trouble for not doing their work, and when their teacher goes Victoria such and such, they're in trouble.
They don't do any work. All they do is research shares. I'll be like that, it's my child.
Yeah, well that was me. Yeah. My first ones I bought when I was seventeen, and that was obviously under my dad's name because I wasn't eighteen.
You're a minor.
I wasn't mine exactly. But now I have I use Superhero and I have about forty six thousand dollars invested there.
In addition to you one hundred and thirty five.
No, oh my god, I thought I was going to have to fall off my chair.
No, no, no, no, I count my investments as my.
Savings yep, stunning.
And then I have another eleven thousand dollars in spaceship, so I do regular investments with them that I've just set up to automatically do it without me having to think about it. And then I'm probably looking at investing another twenty thousand at the moment, just because my money may as well work for me instead of sitting in
a savings account that's earning not much. So yeah, and then I plan to do my first home super saviors do some contributions to that before and after tax time, right, Yes, of course you thought of that.
I would never give a device or talk about it.
I'm glad you came up not one d per clear on all of it. But I know that you have your oh what's it called that it's us with C.
Word concessional contributions.
Sessional contributions. Yes, so I know that there's concessional contributions, and so I'm hoping to actually be able to make a contribution for the last financial year because I didn't use up all my concessional contributions.
I don't know that your accountant should be able to tell you that. But also the girls that Exela money will be able to tell you what you can and can't put in, because turns out they are completely across the first time Super Savis game. Oh so that five times really really quickly, and you get an award.
But that's so exciting if.
You're going to and I want to ask this question because I think other people are going to want to know as well. So you've got forty six thousand invested in Superhero, You've got eleven grand on Spaceship, but you're considering investing another twenty grand. Where how are you doing that research? What are we looking into at the moment, and where are you thinking about putting that?
Well, yeah, I'm not entirely sure yet, but I generally sort of think about some companies that might be in the right industry at the right time, So I generally go for more like blue chip top two hundred sort of thing. I'm a bit of a safe investor at the moment, so yeah, I'll generally research particular companies based on the climate and what industries I see is good to invest in at the time. But yeah, I will also talk to my dad about it, and I have
a friend who's actually really into shares as well. So we usually discussed that, but yeah, I don't have I'm no professional at it. I tend to just look around now, of course not.
It's just so interesting to see what people in our community are doing and how they're doing their research, because I feel like so many of us get what I call analysis paralysis, like we over analyze and then we look at it, and like, I love knowing what our community is choosing because it's just helpful on our journeys. Right, So I want to be even more pervy. I'm really sorry.
So you've got eleven grand in Spaceship, which is a micro investing platform, So when you invest on Spaceship, you basically go into their portfolio and you would have picked one of their I think they've got five or six or even maybe seven now options that you can pick from based on risk profile. So you don't actually get an option of what you're investing in. You just get
to choose your risk profile. But then you mentioned that you have about forty six thousand dollars on Superhero, which is a platform that the Sheese on the Money community also loves and has spoken about a number of times. What have you picked on there and why?
So A lot of the companies I have for under Superhero relatively big, like top ASEX companies, And I think I'm diversified across about eight different or maybe ten different companies.
So individual stocks, not eating yes, like you've gone, Oh, she's bougie, she's fancy.
Yeah, I know. I think I have one ETF, but primarily individual stocks. And I sort of like my dad always taught me to diversify with your industries that you're investing in. So I did a lot of investment into travel during COVID.
If I could wine back time, I would have done a lot more investing in travel. I just feel like I went into crisis mode during that time managing my client's portfolios.
Didn't even look at mine.
It was just in this crisis mode, and I thought all my clients are gonna lose.
Their absolute minds. Do you know what? They didn't.
They were all like, oh, like we're in economic downturn, Like why are you stressed?
But you would be well.
I mean, I wish that I had invested more in travel back then, as we all do, and I think I was in quite a good position that Obviously I was young and just starting my investment journey. And all that when it was the middle of COVID. So I wasn't, you know, I wasn't a retiree who was stressing about getting into safe investments. I was like, look, I'm in the position now to take the risk. If you know, this pandemic continues and they tank even more, that's actually okay.
In it for the long haul. So yeah, I have a lot of travel at the moment. And then I diversified across a few different industries.
When we say you've picked like, what eight to ten different companies that make sense to you, are we picking niche companies that we've never heard of, or are these like blue chip stocks that kind of everyone in Australia is going to know and love. And when I say blue chip stocks, they're usually the tried and true, big companies like you would think of the big four banks as being blue chip, BHP would be blue chap Woodstock
would be blue chip. And these the type of companies or are you kind of taking a punt on these eight to ten or are you a little bit more conservative?
I'm probably more like conservative.
Same girlfriends, same don't worry.
Yeah, they're generally they're bigger blue chip ones. And that's honestly solely for the reason that I don't know where to start looking for smaller ones. I could relate to the analysis paralysis, like where do you start? How do people find companies that are smaller, riskier ones or you know, startups or whatever. I don't know how to I'm not I love shares, I'm so interested in it, but I don't have the time to commit to researching that, and I wouldn't even know where to start if I did
have the time. So yeah, they generally are blue chip ones that I'll literally just go through the list of like ASEX top one hundred or two hundred, and I will Google search that company name, and I will look at their share price over the past however long they'll give me, and I tend to invest based on like
my strategy is generally getting when they're low. If it's a blue chip top two hundred, I personally feel like it's not a massive risk to get them when they're low, and they may be like they're tanking comparative to their usual price they've tanked, most people will go eek, don't want to invest in that. What's going on there? And unless there's a specific reason as to why they've tanked
and it's something that could continue. That's generally when I'll choose to invest, because I see it as an opportunity. If they're a blue chip, trustworthy company and it's unlikely that they're going to go under, that to me is getting shares.
On sale, very very exciting.
I love asking questions like this, just confirming you said, do you want to be a nurse not a financial advisor? You're not interested in working for Zella at any point in time, Just confirming.
I mean, if that's a opportunity, I'll give you my resume.
But turn out a ten. We'll talk after this.
Recording my life, I've always said in another life, I would study finance and have a Korean finance and I think that I love nursing and I love health and that's what I'm really interested in. But I think my second career could be in finance, and I would love that. And there has been times when I've had doubt or whatever about what I'm doing, as we all do, and I have gone on to university websites and looked at finance degrees. So it is something that I would love
to do in the future. But at the moment, it's just a bit of a passion and a hobby.
No, I love it, keep it up.
I also love this concept that you're literally not even an RN yet you're already talking about your second career. It's so gen z to be like, Okay, my first career is going to be in nursing, and then my second career, I'm going to go do this Like we're not even just talking about job hopping here. We're talking about like complete pivots career.
I'm obsessed with it. I love it. I could talk to you all day.
I need to get on with the questions though, and the next question I already know the answer to, but we're going to ask because formula is formula.
Do you have any debts? If so, what are they?
No, I don't have any debts.
Nobody saw that coming. That is so surprising.
I hope I won't have any debts apart from good ones in the future. Obviously a plan to get a mortgage. I don't have any hex at the moment, and I won't with this degree. But yeah, I could go back to union study finance, so I might have some ex dentdings.
We don't have to do a thousand hours of like volunteer work, So that's like a bonus if you want to kind of like segue before I get to the last two questions. Obviously, having so many savings is making the journey of becoming an as so much easier, I would assume than it is for a lot of You know, a lot of my friends went through this process when we were at UNI, and I remember talking to them about having to do all of these like internships and all of this placement that you weren't paid for.
How are you funding that? Is it through your savings?
And how are your friends, in the same course funding that, Because I feel like it's such a backwards theory that you're the one that has to pay in your time and energy and you know, loss of income in every other aspect of your life to actually become a nurse. To me, that's such a backward system. How are you and your friends managing that?
Well? Yeah, frankly, to get serious, I just I hate the idea of unpaid placement. I agree that, Yeah, I think it's just fundamentally wrong. There's a huge gap in our need for nurses and healthcare workers in general, so it is baffling to me that in order to become a nurse you need to do unpaid placement, and I have seen so many people drop out for that reason. I've seen people I've got friends now who've dropped down
to part time because they cannot. At the start of the year, they said, I cannot financially do full time this year because I can't support myself through placement. I personally like at the moment in my degree, we've only ever had two week placements at a time, and I've worked throughout that, which has been really challenging and I probably wouldn't recommend doing. It's definitely led to burnout. At the end of those two weeks, I'm exhausted and was
definitely sleep deprived. So yeah, it definitely hasn't been easy. Placement is really tricky, and I know a lot of people find it to be huge burden financially. But yeah, I've worked throughout, obviously at decreased hours to what I'd usually do, and it is that extra challenge of, Yeah, it's frustrating going on placement and knowing that, oh, I'm just going to have to give up work to be, you know, at a hospital full time doing unpaid hours.
So yeah, it is really frustrating. It's hard to manage. It doesbviously mean that my income takes dip, but generally I work throughout and that's just sort of how I've managed to not go into my savings when I'm on placement.
That's awesome to hear. I want to know a bit more about the placement. I guess the nature of placement you could call it, because when I was younger and I was in my first degree at university, I didn't unpaid internship, and at the time I thought it was like the best opportunity in the entai world. And if you've listened to lots of podcasts, you've probably heard me talk about this before, where at the time I thought it was like the best opportunity.
But in hindsight, I'm like, ah.
That's unpaid labor that you probably should have been paying me for and the product that I created while working for you you now sell and make a whole heap of money off. Like we're not going to name and shame, but like I remember being so excited about the opportunity because they'd told me the dream, right, They're like, you're going to get so much out of this, you're going
to do this, this, this, and this. But when you're doing an unpaid placement here in Australia, technically you're not meant to contribute to the work as an unpaid intern. You're meant to just like watch on and watch people do things and learn, you know, just through seeing them. If that's the nature of the placement. But I know that's not true for nurses, right, Like you're not just going into a hospital for one thousand hours and standing around and watching the doctors and nurses work.
Are you?
What are you doing on that unpaid placement?
Yeah? So in an ideal world, yes, that's placements meant to be learning. You're meant to go in there. And I believe we actually technically pay for placement through our university piece.
Oh that's good. Yeah, that makes absolute sense. That checks out right, pay for the privilege.
Yeah, exactly so in theory, I believe that's why you pay for replacement, because you're meant to go in and learn from them, and they're meant to like have the staffing to facilitate you just being there to learn. I don't think I've ever been in a clinical environment where that is the case. It varies depending on where you're placed and depending on the staffing. But in this current climate, like in our health system, and not to out it too much, but it's a bit of a disaster with nursing,
and I've seen it firsthand. I didn't believe it until I was on placement and I was like, this is a disaster. Like the ratios. Everything is just a disaster. And I had to be an extra pair of hands.
Okay, absolutely, And.
If you're there, standing there, you know with obviously it's your degree progresses, you have more and more skills. So especially now where I'm almost well known, kind of almost graduated, got the rest of the year to go, then I'll be graduated. You know, they will see me as an extra pair of hands and they will use me. And that's an important way to learn. I want to learn. I want to be there to do that and I
want to help out the nurses themselves. But it is a little bit for the system that we are seen as an extra pair of hands and that we have to be an extra pair of hands because it's so understaffed. So yeah, and it's to be on placement and doing what the nurses are doing and.
Not being paid for it one hundred percent, you.
Are sometimes doing the exact same And don't get me wrong, they have years more experience and they.
Know what they're doing, oh of course, but.
It is frustrating to sometimes be doing the exact same thing and you're not being paid. In fact, you're paying to be there, and obviously they're getting paid. So yeah, it's flawed. I don't know exactly how to fix it, but the system is flawed.
Yeah, I feel like that makes absolute sense. And I mean, on the flip side of that, exactly what you're saying, right, Like if I was doing an internship or if I was doing a placement, especially in healthcare, where so much of it is not really about the theory. It's about the practice. Like you've got to get the theory right, and that's why you go to university, but obviously the practical is so important that they make you do these placements. Right, I would want to be being hands on. I feel
like I'm a hands on learner. I want that experience, But at the same time, I genuinely believe you should
be remunerated for that. Do you feel like there's this I guess legacy kind of attitude in the hospitals or just with other nurses who maybe already have all of the experience and are now being paid that well, you're an internal you know your on placement, you have to pay your dues kind of vibe, because I feel like that would exist and is one of the flaws of the system where you know, well, you can clean all the bed pants, because when I was a on placement,
that's what I had to do, and you kind of cut your teeth right.
One hundred percent. There definitely is that sort of attitude of like you're at the bottom of the food chain, like you've got to do the dirty work. I think when I particularly when I was first starting out, when I was started my degree, on my first placements, I was just willing to do anything. I wanted to do anything. I wanted to learn as much as I could out of the placements. I was happy to do whatever, and
that didn't bother me. Now, well, I can really see the nurses who genuinely want you to learn and the nurses who want you to do their dirty work. Yeah. Absolutely, and it is very obvious. You really notice as well when you're with a nurse who wants you to learn, And I've had I've been partnered with incredible nurses and teachers who may not even have been in the like in nursing that long, and they will just do everything
they can to teach you. And I've had nurses say to me, no, no, no, you don't need to do that. You don't have to do all the dirty jobs. I'll do it, like, you don't just have to do that, And I was like, no, I'm happy to. And I think when you're with someone who really wants you to learn and who's treating you really well, you don't mind doing the dirty work. You're like, it's almost like thanking them on.
One hundred percent because it's a respect thing.
You're giving them a hand, Like you don't become a nurse because you don't want to do those like no one wants to do those things.
But at the end of the.
Day, it's helping your patient and it's putting everybody in a better position.
So you just want to get it done.
Don't want to feel like someone's taking advantage of your kindness exactly.
It's all how it happens. I think if someone's taking advantage of your kindness, and someone is taking advantage of having a student who they can force to do the dirty work. Then that's when it's frustrating. When you're with an amazing nurse who genuinely wants you to learn and is putting their time and effort into you. Then you're like, well, I'll do whatever I can to help out you, and like, obviously they're for the patience if it's going to help
them too. Absolutely, of course there's no issues with it. So yeah, it is all about the approach.
I think, Yeah, it's so interesting to have these conversations. I'm sorry I have. I guess segued into that, But at the moment, while doing a lot of research on this, it's just it's grinding my gears so much more than it did before. Like before I was like, oh, you know, I was in their similar position, But I'm looking at it, I'm like, healthcare, what do you mean?
Like, you, guys, we learned through.
The pandemic just how essential first responders and people on the front line are. Yet we're still taking advantage by making them work harder than the average bear to even get into that job, Like it's some sort of privilege, Like it is anyway, I won't go on and on.
Yeah, it's amazing how our approach to getting healthcare workers hasn't changed since the pandemic. It's amazing that we're not like the process to become a nurse is. I don't know why they haven't tried to make it easier. I don't know why they haven't tried to enumerate us for our placement hours. There's so many things that are stopping people along the way, and it's like, no, wonder we don't have any well, not enough nurses.
There would be so many beautiful people that we're missing out on having in that space just because they simply can't afford it. But they're probably the right people to be in the right position, So it's arguably a privilege to get that far. Like, it's such a deep conversation that we will definitely go into even further on the podcast very soon. Money arrest I want to know, though, I feel like you've got so many them, So I'm going to make you pick a best What is your best money habit?
I would probably say tracking my spending. It's a pretty simple thing to do, and I think it's made the biggest difference to me. So I, yeah, I have an Excel spreadsheet sexy. It doesn't have any fancy formulas or anything in it. I just simply track down where all my money's going. I need that as well for as I'm like partially self employed and obviously do all my own tax and stuff, I actually need to keep track of how much I'm earning as well from each job.
So that's probably made the biggest difference for me, because I can see where my money's going. And I think for me, I've always had the approach with money of being intentional. I don't mind spending a whole bunch of money on travel or on things that align with my values. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm a stingy person, because I'll happily spend a lot of money on what I want
to spend my money on. So I think by tracking it, I can see where my money's going, and it does reinforce, like it just shows you where there's maybe gaps, like where is my money going where that actually doesn't align with my values and I don't want to do that anymore. You can sort of see it more clearly.
Love flip it on its head.
Though you seem incredibly good with money, so I just don't know if you're even going to have a response to this, what's your worst money habit?
My friend, I definitely do.
I'm by no means perfect. I'm sorry if I've given off that impression.
But no, I'm taking the mickey.
I think that you are very honestly, from my perspective, really well balanced. Like the way you're approaching this, the way that you're acknowledging the way privilege has come into your money story as well as you know, even just the hustle of working through your placements, Like it's obvious that it's not just privilege that plays into this, it
is hard work as well. And I think you know, at a time like now, when people are probably going to be honestly, there are going to be people who are going to be triggered by hearing that you have so much in savings. But I think that that's more of a reflection of them feeling a little bit insecure
than downplaying what you have done. And I think that it's really important to talk about it that way because if people are listening to this going, oh my gosh, she's perfect money, can't believe she has a bad money habit, Like we all do. It doesn't matter if you had a million dollars in savings, you could still have bad money habits.
So my friend, what is it?
Well, I would probably say, like most people, I'm a sucker for a sale. Yeah, a sale gets me in. I am a marketer's dream.
Oh so am I straight down the rabbit hole.
But also as well my super, I think that I have done contributions to Super, and because I've had work that's been through a company like I haven't done. I haven't been self employed for it. I've obviously had super that's been contributed on my behalf through them, but because I'm managing it now at the moment, I'm completely self employed, my souper is completely my responsibility and that is just
hard to manage, honestly, just timing wise. Like to sit down and go through my super and do the process of making my own contributions. It takes time and I'm probably a little bit slack with it. So yeah, I hope that I get a little bit better with that. That's definitely something I can work on.
I feel like.
That's very fair and that is something that most small business owners or people who are self employed are going to resonate with like, we've all been terrible at doing our own super. I guess the best tip I have there is when I do it for me personally, I just do it quarterly. You might be doing basses, and if you're not doing bases, that's okay. But bass time seems to be a time to kind of like reconcile all my accounts, get everything up to date, and make a super contribution.
And I feel like if.
You lump it all in with that, it becomes process as opposed to trying to find a time in the month to actually do that. And there might be a lot of people to go, oh vi, but I want to do that weekly or I want to do that monthly, and that's so fine, because there's going to be different
systems that work for different people. I actually need the structure of going, okay, cool, it's time to do all my reconciliations and make sure my bass is on point and everything is good to go, and I also do my super then, so maybe that will help, but who knows.
Yeah, I think some structure would be very helpful because at the moment, it's just like when I think of it and can find.
Time exactly no, I just remind myself a fast time
to do that. Anyway, at the start of this episode, you gave yourself a financial grade of B, and I really I told you at the time like unacceptable response would only be accepting as but learning a bit about you and you know what your thoughts and feelings and I guess values are when it comes to money, Like I feel like that does in a way check out, but it's not a comparison to other people who might say that they're a B. And I think that's important to recognize as well. But I'm not going to ask
you the standard. Do you think you're still a B? Because I feel like you have thought about this a lot. But question I have is what would it take to get to an A plus for you?
I mean, my big money goal, as I said, would be to get a property, and I think that if I could do that and have set it up in a way that it's an investment that's generating me passive income, that to me would be a situation where I could be hopefully in A plus going into a career like nursing knowing that I'm probably going to be earning less than I do now as a university student, which just crazy to think about the idea of having a passive
income on the side that's supporting me. Yeah, that would probably be what it takes to get me to an A plus. But yeah, I definitely do feel like, particularly in relation to property, I've a lot more to learn. So I think going through the process of buying a property and setting it up so that it can be a passive income would probably mean that I have the knowledge and then that income. That wouldn't mean I'm hopefully close to your name Love, Love.
Well Money diarist.
I have loved having this conversation with you. I'm so grateful that you have I guess shared this journey with us and shared your stock tips and tricks and how you've been investing and what your savings looks like and broken it all down, but also shared with us the highs and the lows.
Thank you so much for joining us. It has been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me. It's a bit of a dream come true.
Love.
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