When Life Throws Curveballs, Here’s How to Smash Your Goals Anyway

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

Let's get into it.

She's on the Money, She's on the Money.

Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money the cast millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money daries where I get the absolute privilege of talking to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their story. Let's jump straight into it, because this week we got a message and it sounded exactly like this, Dear She's on the Money. In twenty nineteen, I was made redundant, started a new

It is so fun, and it's funny. Like hearing it back that it's my life, I'm like, this is.

Whack it is? That is crazy. I mean the fun part is definitely you being laser focused on your finances and like buying property and doing budgeting, not the part where you were on work cover, because that sounds like trash. So before we get into your money story, can you tell me what your money habits would be if you had to rate them from a three to F I.

Think I would be a C, but only in the last twelve months. Prior to that, I was definitely down in the d's.

Okay, so we're glowing up. We're in glow up phase. I love that. All Right, money dires, let's dive into it. Tell me a little bit more about your money story.

So I grew up with a single mum. My parents split up when I was about four, and my dad, while my parents were together, was quiet financially and emotionally abusive. So my mum had a bit of a budget that she was given each month to clothe and feed my brother and I, which was nowhere near enough. So my grandparents kept us financially. So my understanding of money was that if you couldn't afford something, you put it on Pop's credit card. And that's what I learned about money.

Okay, but like iconic from Pop, oh.

Like amazing legend and even today, like I'm thirty one and he's still like, you need my credit card for groceries and I'm like, Nah'm good.

Oh my god, what her honey?

I love lost you. Yeah, So that was my understanding of money. We never went without, but we also didn't have any extra, So school camps, excursion things like that didn't happen really for us. And then my mum started working again, so she was never allowed to work when she was married to my dad, and she didn't go back to work until we went to high school and she just worked in retail. And again, you know, there was no extra, but there was sort of just enough.

I love that. So what does life look like today?

So today we live in a regional area. We moved from more in the city, bought a couple of acres and built our dream home, which we're already ready to move on from no, and go bigger and better.

Yeah, I love that. It's yeah, so common though, people are like, I'm going to build my dream home, We're going to live here forever, let's leave.

Yeah, that's exactly us. We were like, let's do a bit of a tree change and get some land. And you know, now we're like, let's get more land and a cow or something.

I love that though, and I love that you've got the freedom to do that.

It's very cool. And I think the things that have happened to us that have landed us in these sort of financial positions also that a sort of freedom in our life, which you know, a bit of a give and take, but it's been really nice.

It's a compromise for sure.

Yeah, to sort of end up here from where we both were. So yeah, we met at the end of twenty nineteen, and the apartment I was living in at the time then decided no dogs. So we myself and my dog Stephen got the boot.

Steven Stephen, Oh my gosh, that's my husband's name, but that is a great dog name.

He's fantastic. We got the boot, and I sort of said to my husband, you know, can I stay with you just while I find somewhere. And then COVID happened and no open homes, no rentals, so we then just lived there and that was that about three months into our relationships.

So, oh my gosh, go hard to go home, right, I love that? And then what happened.

And then following that, I sustained my injury and that was probably twelve months after we had met. And so my husband's first meeting of my mum was when he picked her up at the airport and she stayed in our home for six weeks without me.

Oh my gosh, that would have been an initiation by fire.

But I have my So my grandmother's engagement ring is my engagement ring.

And oh that's so sweet.

Yeah, my husband knew I wanted that. So when he called my mum to go, you know, you better come, he also asked her to bring the ring, which was so sweet.

Because like, I bring that ring. Yeah, Oh my gosh, I love that but also that would have been so traumatic. Are you comfortable telling us a little bit more about your injury and what happened.

Yeah, I just sustained injury with one of my clients that I was working with, and that injury resulted in a number of reconstructive surgeries and a brain injury. And yeah, an inability to work, an inability to finish my university studies. Yeah, just a whole pause on my.

Life, which I think is important context, not because we want to know the pervy details, but sometimes a work cover thing could be like, oh, yes, I worked in a factory and a box fell off and I broke my leg and therefore wasn't able to work. Like I knew in the background that yours was a bit deeper than that, which is why you needed three years off, And it is an ongoing issue for you that is going to impact your ability to have a career into the future.

Right, Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, but you have a baby now.

I do have a baby now, which is very exciting.

That is so exciting.

It's so exciting. So she's ten months old and she's just wild.

They are, aren't they.

Yes, I'm solo parenting for the first time this week my husband is away and hats off to single mums single parrot, like, I don't know how they do it.

It's I don't know either. I was saying this to one of my girlfriends the other day. I was like, I have such a supportive and kind husband, and I don't know what I would do without him. Like, single moms are a force to be reckoned with. Like, if you're a single mom, like, hats off to you, you are so impressive one hundred percent. Like they don't get the credit they deserve. And it's not until you're a mom that you're like, oh, I knew that you were

Yes, definitely. We like cross the calendar off each evening when dad's coming back. And that's not for her, that's for me.

Yeah, we're counting down the days. Oh my gosh, So tell me what do you do for work? How much money do you earn?

So I am a youth worker and I earn it'd be approximately one thousand dollars a week. I have three casual sorry a thousand dollars one fortnite. I have three casual positions, so that fluctuates quite a bit.

Hey, that's pretty cool.

Yeah. So my theory was if I didn't get hours at one, I would get out at another, which has worked out quite well. Some weeks are really busy, though, So.

And is it working out having a ten month old and still working, Like, what does that, I guess juggle look like.

Yeah, so our girl's in daycare four days a week.

Very cool.

So yeah, we don't have any family. All of our families into state, so it's just me and my husband. Our closest friends are over an hour away, so it's just us. So I felt a lot of guilt, actually a lot of mum guilt when we first put her in. But everyone talks about the village, and it just happens that our village is our daycare and they're wonderful people.

One hundred percent. Harvey's in daycare and he thrives there, like he is obsessed with daycare. This morning, I was pushing the pram up the ramp and he had his little flappy bird arms because he was so excited. He'd just realized where he was, and I was just like, you have your little job at daycare, and then mum goes to work and then we come back together and

And that's what I absolutely love about it. Like we have three whole days together where it's just us and we don't do washing, we don't do groceries, we don't do chores. We just hang out and it's the best.

I adore that. And what does your partner or your husband sorry.

Do So he is a youth worker as well or youth mentor he works on a school holiday program, so during the week he does it, he does one like support client, but yeah, he just does school holiday work mostly.

So you guys are super special people. I love this, Thank you.

And yeah, and he receives a comwell super pension for his time in defense.

Yeah, very cool.

He was medically discharged.

Yeah, oh, medically discharged is hard, but also like very deserved. I love that. Yeah, I love that. You get that all right, So tell me what are your big money goals? You said before, like, oh, we live regionally, We've built our dream home, but we don't want this anymore. So what do your goals look like?

Well, I discovered mortgage Monster the website. I'm not sure if you're you're probably familiar. Yeah, So basically I went down the rabbit hole with mortgage Monster, which told me that if I made one twenty thousand dollars payment on my mortgage, I would reduce it by five years and like seventy five thousand dollars in interest.

So isn't it fun doing all the coalcs and being like this is fun?

Yeah? Literally, and I'm like obsessed. So that at the moment is our big financial goal is to save that twenty grand on top of our other little things to get that mortgage payment down, and then we would like to use our equity to buy a bush block. We have off road buggies and follall drives and cord bikes and things.

Oh you sound like you're living the dream. I want to complay.

It is so much fun. We have a YouTube channel, so that has kind of lit the fire, I guess for us to get this bush block. And yeah, have our little adventures.

Oh my gosh, Adore, And how has YouTube been going? Is that something that you are able to monetize yet?

Yeah, so my husband was doing it prior to us meeting. And we've had a lot of products. So we've built both of our cars through sponsorship.

What this is so cool. This is not where I thought this conversation would go.

I left it completely out I realized when I submitted.

But and you're like, oh, yes, this is also part of my money story. Sorry, yeah that so, yeah.

We've both built our cars and things like that from sponsorship. We've not received any actual finances, no money itself, but product and trips and that kind of thing.

That's a very good deal.

Yeah, it's very cool.

That is a very good deal. I love that for you guys, So obviously getting the bush block that long term are their goals to retire early or you know, be able to not work long term or like what does that look like.

Yeah, so we would love to be sort of retired by mid forties. And yeah, when our daughter is old enough to attend high school, we would look to move further away. When she has a little bit more independence, we would look to move to our bush block.

Yeah, I feel like that's a smart way of going about it, because it can be really hard for kids when there's like a lot of I guess connection when it comes to school and their social networks and stuff like that being so far up. But also, I'm sorry, it sounds lit like I would like to live there, and I'm sure she would love it too, So whatever works works.

Yeah, we're in the process of finding a container home to renovate on marketplace to dump on there and spend their weekends in the bush.

So that would be so fun. I am literally going to snoop you later and then follow you on YouTube because I don't want to miss any of this money. Direst Let's go to a really quick break and on the flip side, I want to know about like your debt, your best and worst money habits, and whether you're investing or not. All right, guys, we are back money diarist. I feel like you have a rollercoaster of a story, but it sounds like you are laser focused at the

I only have my superannuation at the moment, which is currently sitting at just over ninety five thousand dollars.

Hey, that's not too bad for thirty one.

Yeah, so I didn't receive super for the three years that I was on workover. You don't receive super, so.

I was about to ask. I was like, hey, pervy question, but did you receive superannuation while you're on work cover? No is the answer.

I did not receive superannuation. However, I previously and they've closed down now. But I was with the super company who had a round up feature similar to our bank, and so every day I would pay for my parking and another fifty cents would go into my super for about five years, so that was a handy little addition. And I also put my own voluntary contributions in every month as well.

That's very cool and also very savvy. Is that something that you I knew Okay, well I'm not you know, earning an income like I was. I'm not getting super paid. I need to be supporting this or is this something that you were just doing for you know, funsies and you knew it was good, but weren't entirely sure, Like how did you fall upon making sure that you were looking after your super because it's so important.

This was something I when I got my very first job. I started working when I was twelve, and I got like the superform and I was like, what is superannuation? Because I'm twelve and it was the only thing I looked into. I didn't know anything about tax or anything like that, and I was like, this is amazing. I don't want to work till I'm one hundred. My little twelve year old mine was thinking. So yeah, I was like I need to save here, and I just kept it up.

I love this because when I got my superformer, I was like, oh, just take whatever box, it doesn't matter. I don't even care. What is this? Why is the government wore my money? Like I had no idea. So I'm glad that you were smarter than me, because honestly, you have more superannuation than I do at this point in my life. All right, tell me a bit more about debt. So you purchased your dream home regionally? What did it cost you? What debt are you currently sitting on?

So my husband is a very smart man. He deployed to Afghanistan.

Yes, he married you, so thank you.

When he was very young. So he was nineteen when he went over, and.

He was just a baby.

He was a baby. And as a mother, now I said to my mother in law, how did you stand in the airport and wave him? I just couldn't anyway, What did you say? Because that would have been so painful. So we don't have any sort of religious ties in our family. But my father in law actually jumped in and said, we prayed every day. Oh my god, I know, horrible.

But he came home. He came home now a dad and a husband, and it all worked out.

Yes, And we're very, very thankful every day. So he very smart. Defense had a scheme at the time where if you purchased a property, they would pay a contribution towards your mortgage, so they would pay half your payment.

Basically, wow, I mean deserved, Yes, very well deserved.

Husband was like, will you pay half the payment if I make the full payment? And they still.

Said yes, so he yes, please.

So he was paying a payment and a half instead of yeah, just the full payment. And that's something we've continued, not a payment and a half, but rounding our mortgage payment up so we have rounded up to the nearest thousand. So while we have been hit with rate rises, our actual budget hasn't changed because we were just rounding up to the nearest thousand anyway. So our current repayment is about nineteen hundred a month and we pay two thousand and have been doing for however long.

I love that. That's so smart and like over the long term it will pay off.

Yes, yeah, definitely, and yeah, just to cover us from any kind of increases.

I guess.

So we sold his property that he owned for six hundred and seventy seven thousand, which he purchased it for three hundred and seventy okay, yeah, so he had two hundred and sixty thousand left on it on the mortgage when we sold it for six seventy seven.

Okay, what a king.

We had about three hundred thousand dollars in profit by the end, I think, which gave us a really hefty deposit. We had a land and a house mortgage because we built our home. So we bought our land for about two hundred and thirty four thousand, and we spent four hundred and fourteen thousand on our build.

That is so good. So what debt do you currently like, what is your mortgage setting at today?

So our current mortgage sits at three hundred and seven nine hundred and thirty five dollars and eight.

That is very cool. And do you know what your property is worth?

So we had it valued a couple of weeks ago for nine hundred and seventy five thousand. However, our neighbour's house just sold for over a million, the difference being they have a pool, but we have more land and a big shed and other features and things.

Oh, we don't need a poll. Whoever buys your property, they can put a pool on it if they want.

Right, So yeah, I think we'd sit roughly even with them, just based on the market and what they got.

At about a meal. How nice. I love that for you. You guys are sitting very comfortably to be able to achieve everything that you want to achieve. I need to know, though, I feel like you've had to be savvy over your lifetime when it comes to money. What is your best money habit?

My best money habit, I would say I've only developed in the last twelve months, and that's knowing where our money goes. I said when I wrote in that we spent ten thousand dollars on coffee, and I nearly hit the floor.

How did you do that? By the way, because that's like twenty seven dollars fifty a day.

That's a lot.

So like, that's not just like coffee a day, bab.

So it was like coffee and treats and a snack.

And like a little treaty treat.

Yeah.

Look, I'm not mad. I am just interested in people having complete visibility over their cash flow. And if you turn around and said, Vibe, that's what I want to spend my money on, pop off queen, Like I want that for you but you looked into it and said, absolutely not. What is this.

We're not doing this.

Yeah, we're not doing this anymore.

Being able to go to the supermarket or get fuel, do something now and not require retreat has been a real game changer for me, to do adult things without treating myself.

What. No, I'm not past that.

I still get on the day the one day that I actually go into work that I don't work from home, I do get myself a coffee on the days that I go to work. It's my little Yeah.

There has to be some level of balance. You can't just go cold turkey, especially on coffee.

Well, we did buy a coffee machine, which I didn't learn to use for about eighteen months. Was just a very expensive kettle.

But I've said lunch and now now we use I love that though. I feel like you're doing all of the right things. I feel like you're moving in the right direction now. Not spending twenty seven bucks a day on coffee and where is that reallocated too?

Yeah, So we now have like a set budget that we you know, each week we aim to spend this much on groceries. And you know, for a long time my head was in the sand about the cost of living. So I'm like, why can't we buy groceries for our hundred bucks a week? Well, because that's not the time we live in.

It's a hard realization to come to, isn't it, like, Cause you're like, no, no, no, I'll do it for one hundred though, and then it just it never comes out in the wash.

No, And my husband never had a budget prior to us meeting. He's like, why do I need a budget? I have plenty of money.

It must be nicer. But that's not the world we live in now.

Well, I think trying to manage the two incomes at the time as well, like we could you know. So yeah, so now having a budget, knowing where our money goes. And we're really really good at paying off debt. So we paid privately to birth our daughter and we paid that on a credit card, and we took out a twenty five thousand dollar credit card just in case there were any complications and things like that, and yeah, it cost us just over nine and a half and we

That's very cool. Can you tell me a bit more about that, because birth there's so much more expensive than I had anticipated it to be, right, And that might be a little bit delulu from me, I suppose, because I had, like, you know, my private health insurance, and then I went and got my obstetrician. But like, I ended up paying her ten thousand dollars out of pocket.

So we had no private health insurance? We did, And then I was well, I had private health insurance. My husband's covered under DBA, so he doesn't, but we when I had pregnancy and birth cover and I rung my insurer. Turns out the pregnancy and birth didn't cover the actual birthing.

Yeah, isn't it insane?

And that was me and my young naivety just assuming that pregnant. I didn't read it. I'm not pregnant. I don't want a family. You know, Pregnancy and birth is pregnancy and birth, you know, but it's not so you know, it covered other things, but not that. And so we decided to save the money that we were spending on private health insurance and put towards the cost of birthing. We had had a loss prior to having our daughter, and so I'm sorry, yeah, I know you can. You can relate to that.

It's real shit, like it's the shittiest club in the entire world.

And we found out falling pregnant with my daughter that there was a very simple reason that we had lost our previous pregnancy that could have been very much avoided had no blood has been done, and so yeah, that was really difficult for me. And I just said, we're paying like I'm not having an oversight happened again, you know, and that I'm sure there are great public health care workers, you know, where those things don't.

Happen, but one hundred percent, one hundred percent.

Yeah, that was our experience, and I wasn't prepared to do that again.

But if you're in the financial position to make that decision, and that's what makes you comfortable. It's kind of like going shoe shopping, right, you could go to kmart and you could be really happy with that, or you could go and buy a really fancy pair of shoes, Like same outcome. You're wearing shoes full stop, end of story. But like, it's what makes you comfortable, and no one can tell you how to feel. No one gets the power to go well, actually, moneyed diarist, you should have

One hundred percent. And I have endometriosis and a few other things going on, so I was like, I'm not, you know, I.

Feel comfy here, let me stay that's right.

I'm like, I want to be able to go to the doctor and they know my years of history and surgery, and you know we can just get it all sort of. So, yeah, we took out our credit card on the off chance that our baby ended up, you know, needing special care or anything like that, we would be able to cover it. Luckily, we didn't need anything like that. We were very lucky.

Yeah cool, Yeah, how good. I love that that was good for you. I mean, emergency SEA section sucks. As somebody who also had an emergency C section, I don't rate it. But like, we're both happy, we're both healthy, we're both here.

Yeah, definitely. And you know, my daughter still doesn't play the game when we've got somewhere to be, so she wasn't playing the game than either.

So yeah, look, neither does Harvey. Don't worry. Do not worry, money director. On the flip side, what's your worst money habit?

My worst money habit is and it might be a bit of a funny one, I guess I don't like to spend money, so like, if I need something, I'll buy the cheaper option, probably having to replace it in a month and buy it again. And I'm starting to do that slow down and make more purchases that are more sort of quality and might be that higher price point.

Do you think your money story plays into that? Like, why do you think that that's a decision that you're always like, mmm, I'll just get the cheap one. Where does that come from? Yeah?

I think definitely. There was a time before I met my husband where I slept a little bit rough and had to I lived in a friend's investment property that had nothing in it, and you know, I had to just get the cheap of the cheap kind of stuff because that's all I could have fought at the time. And I think I've just carried that with me. I carry a very sort of scarcity mindset around money and I'm trying to really flip that.

Yeah, and I feel like that's so powerful, But at the same time, you need to understand where you've come from or where that might be coming from to go, actually, we're not there anymore, Like we're allowed to move past this, But how do I do that that's a different story. Yes, definitely, and that can be really challenging. But I'm so proud of you. Look at you go like you have absolutely killed it. You've got a beautiful daughter, You're focusing on

Yeah, I love it.

Money di is. Now we've talked and you've told me how much of a hustle you are like, you grew up with a single mum in a not so great situation. You learned a lot. I feel like you've been through the trenches and now you're out the other side and you are absolutely pulling your socks up and getting your money story together. You've got ninety five grand in super

To be confident investing in more than just my super I'm very much and this comes from that scarcity mindset, like a bricks and mortar kind of person. I would buy an investment property before I would buy a share. But in saying that the bank of Pop who always had the credit card ready came from shares, So.

I love that, You're like, maybe there is something to that.

Yeah, definitely, But yeah, I think just investing and trying to find. I guess consistent income for me would get me more to that A. I think work covers a tricky beast to be involved in and there's a lot of additional costs and things that they don't kind of share with you. So that's impacted us a fair bit.

Yeah, that's really stressful, well, money direst Unfortunately, that is all we have time for today. It has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing some of your story with us. I love where you're going, and I hope that in a couple of years you're like, hey, b can we do an updated money diary because everything has changed. I just feel like that will be so cool.

Yes, we'll have to do it in person on the Bushblock.

Yes, please please, I want to explore so thank you so much for joining us. I know that the community has adored this just as much as I have, and I hope that we get to cross paths in person at some point.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

The advice shared on She's on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are

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