Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
the Order Kerni 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.
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She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Hello, and welcome on the Money the Podcast Millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another one of our money darries where I get the absolute pleasure of talking to one of our incredible She's on the Money community members all about their journey. Let's jump straight into it, because this week I got a message and it went like this. Dear Victoria, I was widowed at thirty four after my husband died suddenly and unexpectedly. We had just
built our dream home and were planning a family. Overnight, I went from happily married in a new home with two good incomes, to widowed in a financial crisis, relying on sanlink and three weeks pregnant. With the help of good financial preparation and a solid emergency fund and a stubborn resilience streak in me, three and a half years on, I'm happy but tired, solo mama to a beautiful three year old daughter. I earned a six figure salary after
I was headhunted and am thriving financially. Thanks Victoria for reassuring me that it's okay to use my emergency fund to help me through this major life emergency. Your podcasts were a push I needed money. Diarist, What the heck? Look what you've done.
Yeah, it sounds a lot when you read it out like that.
That's heavy and also just like inspirational at the same time. And I just have so many questions. Let's dive into the first question that I ask everyone on the show Money direst If I asked you to give yourself a money grade, what would you grade your habits from A through to F?
Right now, I'd say A B plus?
Who a B plus?
All right?
Now, obviously that was a very heavy entry. We're gonna need to know more, my friend, can you tell me a little bit more about your story?
So I'll start out with mine and my late husband's story. We met in high school. Oh cute. Yeah, so I was eleven and he was twelve when we first met, and we were friends throughout high school. Yeah, started dating when I was fifteen, he was sixteen, And yeah, we went through life together. We grew up together. We bought our first home at twenty one, so we always worked hard and saved. Bought our second home at twenty five. We got married at twenty five. Around that time was
just hectic. I was finishing my PhD. We were working multiple jobs each and yeah, buying and selling homes. And then we decided No, we'd been looking for probably a year, every weekend looking for our drain property and couldn't find it. So we decided to get out of the property market. Sold both homes, and with the equity, we went on a trip around the world.
Oh my gosh, genius.
Yeah, probably not the wisest financial decision, but I wouldn't change anything.
I was about to say. Now we know what the outcome was. Like, that's such a special memory and time that you had together.
Yeah, it was amazing. Then we decided that we wanted to start a family, so we were looking again for the dream home and we bought acreage in regional Victoria and built. So we spent over five years planning and building the dream and it was finally built in twenty twenty and then we moved in right when COVID hit. And then my husband died six weeks after we moved in. Oh my gosh, so I obviously found myself in a bit of a financial crisis. That's our story, my money
story growing up. My parents divorced when I was young. I was just three when they divorced, and reflecting now, it's really interesting to see how different people view finances and money. And my dad was very good with money, but he always prioritized money and work over us kids. My mum left with basically nothing. She always jokes that she got the better end of the bargain she got out with us kids. So growing up, we were raised
by my mom and stepdad on a farm. We didn't have a lot, but we never felt that we missed out. So I learned a lot from both my dad and my mum how to be frugal, how to manage money. But also, yeah, a lot of good habits for my dad as well. But I think the main thing I learned from dad was money's important to live, but it's not everything, and around prioritizing family and other experiences over money.
Money's just that means to live our lives. And sadly he didn't get that because he did prioritize money over us kids.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, I think that's one of the key takeaways for me, and that's prioritizing family now and especially after my husband dying, especially after seeing how much he's missed out on.
Yeah. Absolutely. How old was your husband?
He was thirty four.
He was a baby, still so young. And in your letter into me, you said, obviously this changed dramatically overnight, and you were three weeks pregnant at that time. Did you know you were three weeks page?
Yeah, So we had been trying to start a family, and i'd had early miscarriage. This time around, I was working from home because it was COVID and i'd finished work. I was so tired and I couldn't understand why. And I was so tired, and I had an online exercise class I had to attend, and I thought I just can't do it. So I went out to talk to my husband and say, you know, dinner's nearly ready, come in and I couldn't find him, and I tried calling him.
Long story short, ended up finding him in the shed of our property. He was unresponsive, so I gave CPR. I called for the neighbor to come over and we called the ambulance but it was too late. Four days later, I just knew after he died, I just had a feeling. I just knew.
You were like, this is going to happen, Like, of course it's gonna happen.
Yeah. So I went to the doctors and the doctor said, you know, it's too early to confirm, just wait. But I couldn't wait. So I took a pregnancy test and took another one.
That's what I would have done, Like when I was getting pregnant, I was like doing forgnancy desk before they were due. Like, I was like, I'm going to find out the second this is a possibility. I knew that feeling. Well.
Yeah, So I was three weeks pregnant and we now have a beautiful almost three year old daughter.
Oh my heart. So we did get to live on through her. How beautiful is that?
Yeah, she's very much like him.
Oh that's actually the best. Like, that's so sweet that you still get I guess a piece of him around. And now, what does life look like? You've obviously gone through all of that and come out the other side, the other side of the story you've written. And he said, I earned a six figure salary. I was head hunted, Like this is a complete flip. You're thriving. Tell me about life. What does it look like today?
Yeah? So it was obviously the most difficult time in my life after my husband died, you know, even just dealing with the death admin and just trying to function when you're grieving. I think the shock took about nine months to wear off. But during that time, you know, obviously I was pregnant, so I had to plan ahead and think what is this going to look like. I had an incredibly supportive employer, so I ended up getting eight months paid leave from them, oh wow, before taking
maternity leave. So I think I went back to work for a couple of weeks, but they were amazing. I took twelve months maternity leave paid that was at half pay and plus using annual leave, and then I just wasn't ready to go back to work, and so thankfully, because of my emergency account, I was able to extend my maternity leave by six months and I took that completely unpaid, and I paid myself a wage every fortnight. Still, yeah, life looks very different now. I did end up going
back to my work, and I loved my work. I loved the work I did, and I love my employer. They were great, but it just didn't feel right. I think going back to where I was when my husband was alive, it was just really hard.
You need to change, You need to shake it up and move on from a period that wasn't, I guess, the best period of your life.
Yeah. So I wasn't looking for work, but I was just kind of going in doing what I needed to do. And then I was contacted by my current employer. They'd actually heard about me through work and through people we used to work with, and they said, oh, you know, just reaching out seeing if you're interested. We need someone with your skill set. Do you want to have a chat? I thought, well, what do I have to lose?
I might as well, Yeah, what's a chat?
Yeah? So I took the plunge, and you know, I was walking away from a really secure job. I knew it was decent money. But I haven't looked back. I've been there for almost a year and yeah, I love it.
Oh, I'm so glad. And it's kind of like at that point in time, knowing that someone kind of head hunted you, that was probably a confidence boost as well that you definitely deserved. You were like, you know what, I've still got it. Like, I'm still here, I'm still thriving, and now you have a six figure salary.
Yes, So I was earning well and when they approach me, they said, this is what we can pay you, and I said, no, I might as well stay where I am and so I negotiated up.
Oh and she negotiated it as well, of course she did, what a queen.
Yeah, Well, they offered me an amount and I said, is that including super or plus super? And they said that's inclusive and I said, no, I'll take that figure plus super.
Get it.
So I'm currently on one hundred and thirty nine thousand plus Super plus a nine percent incentive payment, which is like a bonus annually. But I work part time, so that's pro writer.
But that's okay. And I'm assuming you work pro riter because you have a small human being that takes up a lot of your time.
Yes, exactly, and also by choice. Eventually I will increase my hours, but at the moment, this works well for my life. And again, I'm going to prioritize my daughter over work or anything.
Else one hundred percent. I love that you're in that position now. And what does life look like moving forward? Like your daughter you said was three, once she's at school, Like, where's life going to lead you?
So I have repartnered. I repartnered about eighteen months ago. Oh good. Yeah. My new partner's also widow. So I was actually interviewed about my husband's death because my husband died suddenly and unexpectedly and we don't actually know what caused his death.
Yeah. Wow.
So he saw the interview that I gave and reached out to me and he said his wife died the same way.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, So we connected that way, and turns out we were both part of the same widow group.
You're gonna make me cry, you can't. It's like your partners have brought you two together.
Yeap. We've recently, very recent as in a couple of weeks ago. We've just bought a house together and we've moved in, so blended family. He has children, yes, well gorgeous. So we both sold our homes and brought together and moved in together.
Now I'm so happy for you. That is literally such good news. Like I mean, it doesn't change how heartbreaking everything else is, but even and the idea that you're with someone who fully comprehends what that grieving process looks like, it can be incredibly supportive having that and I'm sure you're a part of that group because it is hard and now you have someone who just gets it, like, Oh, I'm so happy for you. Money, diarrest, I want to
ask so many more questions. Though you've told us what you earn, what you do, I want to know now what are your big money goals? What are you currently working towards? Like you just said, you've bought a house, which is so exciting. What else is on the horizon?
So short term? The house that we've bought is an older house, but it's good. It's on acreage, it's in a beautiful area, not far out of Melbourne. But it does need quite a bit of work. So short term, we're looking to do quite a few improvements to the house and property. We've budgeted around two hundred and fifty thousand for that, so i'd like to have that in savings ready to go.
Ye.
Hopefully plan for a baby this year, but we'll see what happens.
How exciting.
Yeah, so i'd like to plan just be able to take twelve months off, yeah, fair, and then long term obviously to continue to invest in myself and continue to learn and educate myself, but also to increase investments to build long term wealth and just to create that passive income later in life, and also to build a nest egg for my daughter for when she's older.
Oh my gosh, I love this just knowing that you're on this trajectory and everything is like working out for the better. Like you're just in this place where you are. Literally you didn't lie. You said you're thriving financially. I'm like, yes, you are, Queen. I love this. Let's go to a really quick break on the flip side. I want to talk more about this property. I want to talk about investments and debts and good and bad habits. So guys don't go anywhere all right, money Diarist, we are back.
I am so grateful that you're sharing your story. I feel like this is something that hopefully not that many people in our community can resonate with, Like I just hope that this isn't a story that they go that's me. But I also I just think it's so important to be sharing stories like this because it can happen. And thirty four years old is so young, Like, no one plans for that. It's always that's the stuff that happens on the news, that's the stuff that happens to other people.
Were you guys financially prepared when this happened? Like did you have insurances and stuff organized?
Like?
What did the I guess admin side of life look like?
Yeah, good question. And this is something that I really want to stress to listeners, the importance of being prepared and having a good will. Because we grew up together, we shared all our finances, everything we had, we earned together. When we bought our property, we went through the Barefoot Investor method and read that and from there I started reading different books and listening to podcasts.
So slippery slope, that's financial literacy thing, isn't it.
It is interesting it's good.
Yeah.
So thankfully my husband did have life insurance and it was enough to cover the mortgage.
Oh good.
Yeah, I was very grateful for We just updated will, so everything was good to go. But in saying that, because my husband's death was unexpected and there was no known cause of death, it was a reportable death to the coroner, so we had to go through the full coronial process, which took about eighteen months, and in that time you don't get a death certificate until they know cause of death, so I had to wait. I think
it was about eight months. I ended up getting interim death certificate from the medical investigation to say his cause of death was unascertained. But in that time, keeping in mind, I was pregnant and it's just what you needed, right, Yeah, no idea what the future was going to look like. It took about eight months to get that certificate and to get the insurance paid out. So I'd contacted our bank and they the mortgage of repayments on hold, so
that was a relief. Oh good, But we owed the builders still a lot of money which we were paying ourselves, not through the mortgage. Yeah, my husband had an ovated car through his name. I ended up negotiating that and ended up saving about sixteen thousand dollars from that, so I could pay that out, just.
Get rid of it, get it done.
Yeah, I wanted to keep the car. I didn't want to give it away. When I took maternity leave, I wasn't getting an income, so I was eligible for single parenting payment. I never thought i'd be reliant on centilink. We always worked hard and saved well, and.
I was going to say that would have been really confronting as well, like having to go through that process and not only having to go through that process and be like, wow, I'm relying on sentlink. I never thought i'd be there. But even just like the naming convention of that payment, being that single parent, that's not what identify as, Like, that's not what I wanted.
Yeah, exactly, I identify as a solo parent.
But no, I get it as an ex financial advisor, like you deal with people in crisis. And even just like the way it works, it's heartbreaking. It's like being kicked while you're down.
I was actually thinking about it, and I know this is probably opposite to what many people would say. I was grateful for the COVID lockdowns because it meant that I could just look myself away. And I am quite an introverted person, which only came out after my husband died. I didn't think I was. But I didn't go anywhere. I didn't spend money. So in that time I was able to save a lot.
Yeah, and I was.
Able to build my emergency fund back up again. So that's currently sitting just over twenty thousand, and I like to keep it at that amount.
Yeah, throughout that time. Please tell me you had a really smooth pregnancy. Please tell me you weren't like going through like hate she and stuff like this in addition to greathing, an addition to doing life admunity, addition to sent link and everything else. Like, is there a light at the end of the pregnancy tunnel for you? Or was it awful?
Pregnancy wise? It was okay labor and birth And I don't want to tell you this because I don't want to freak you out, but I nearly died. Yeah, I had postpartum hemorrhaging and lost about two and a half liters of blood.
No, that's not what you need.
Yeah, I went into surgery balling my eyes out after they'd done. I think it was four Code pinks and two Code blues on me, and I've got my daughter sitting with me, and I remember I was just hysterical and I was convinced I was going to die. And I even said to the anethesis before I went in, I said, no, I don't want my daughter to be an orphan. And I can laugh about it now because I know I was just a bit delirious.
No, but that's also really valid. I'm sorry, Like, that's exactly how I feel like any reasonable person would have been having that many Code pinks and that many cod blues and then going into surgery after having given birth, Like that's a terrifying experience. We tried to downplay that and be like, oh, you know, in hindsight, no, no, no, in hindsight, that was traumatic.
Yeah, it was traumatic. I have very supportive family, though, and my mum and sister were both there and very good friends. So yeah, I got through.
Oh I'm so glad, And.
Now we have a beautiful almost three year old little terror so cute.
Such a good age though, all right, tell me more. Obviously you've got property, and you've just purchased a new one. But do you have any investments. If so, what are they.
Yeah, so, my partner and I both owned our homes outright, so when we sold, the property we bought was of higher value, but we still had about five hundred thousand left over from the sale with the properties. So that's currently sitting. I know it shouldn't be, but it's just sitting in a bank account until we figure out what to do with it long term. But we will be looking to invest it after we've used part of it towards improvements.
When you say just in a bank account, Pervy Financial Advisory in is like, is it offsetting anything? Is it at least in a high interest savings account making a tiny bit of money covering its own bar like, No, it's just hanging out.
No, just hanging out.
And if you're happy with that, I'm happy with that.
I'm not. And I have been saying to my partner, look, we need to break it up because I know the government only guarantees up to two hundred and fifty thousand. We need to break it up and get into a separate high interest savings account. We just haven't got around to doing it yet. Life's just being chaotic.
It's life had mean, you have a three and a half year old, your partner also has kids, Like, I feel like I'll give you a little bit of leniency here.
Yeah. So investments, obviously, my super and I have been doing this for a long time. I contribute three hundred of Fortnite into my super.
Now you do know what you're doing.
Yeah, that's currently sitting around one hundred and seventy two thousand. Just after my husband died, we talked about investing, but we just didn't know enough. I think we were a bit scared to take that step. But I opened up a stock Spot robo investing account just because I needed something that was easy set and forget. So I've got
just over forty thousand in that. So each fortnight I transfer two hundred and fifty dollars into an online savings account, and then when that hits a thousand, I transfer it into my investing. That's one thing I'm really proud of because that's one thing I have been able to just chip away out and say that's consistent. Yeah, and that's my own yep. And obviously the money that we've got left over from the sale of the properties, we will be looking to invest that as well for the long term.
I love this. And then are there any debts hidden anywhere?
No.
I've always had the mindset of if you don't have the money there to spend, don't spend it. So the way I structure my money is I've got my everyday account, which I always liked to have about two thousand dollars float in there. I have my spending account, savings, and then investing and then emergencies. Obviously we did have a mortgage, but that was paid out from my husband's life insurance. Never had a car loan, never had a credit card,
never had after pay. So all right, well, tell us, as I guess one of the smartest financial cookies, what is your best money habit? Probably my best money habit is that I'm good at automating my money. I know exactly what comes in what goes out, and I've set everything up so bills are automatically paid, all my transfers every pay week are paid into the separate accounts. But I'm also very frugal, so I don't pay full price for anything. Oh as find a bargain and yeah.
I love that. That is a very good money habit to have. Do you have a bad money habit. Like, from what you've told me, I feel like there aren't that many bad ones. You've made some really good financial decisions. But let's dig deep here. What's your worst money habit.
I've given this a bit of thought, and I think it's that I'm probably too rigid with my finances. I know the money's there to be spent. I have a lot of anxiety around money, and it makes sense from what happened my husband dying. But if I don't have the money sitting there, I get really anxious. So unless that money has been earmarked for something, I'm very hesitant to spend it. So I think I need to just let go a little bit and let myself spend a little bit more.
That's fair, But it also makes a lot of sense that that's the case given your circumstances. I want to know, obviously, rogue question at the end. You've got a nearly three year old. Is she showing any interest in money?
Like?
How are you planning on teaching her to be as good at money management as you are.
She's not. I think she's probably too young to understand the concept.
I've got a two and a half year old nephew and he came up to me the other day and said, do you want a latte? And I said yeah, and then he tried to charge me fifty dollars for it. So I feel like they might not have a good hold of what real value is, but like.
Maybe, yeah, No, she hasn't shown any interest yet, but I guess I haven't really pushed that. She does help out a lot around the house. She tries to do the dishes and she tries to clean.
Oh that gives me anxiety. Yep, it's not very good.
But no any advice, so I'm happy to take on board.
No no advice. I just like asking. I love when kids start to understand money as a concept. And even my nephew trying to charge me fifty dollars in this economy for a latte. I was like, do I get oat milk? And he just shook your head and was like no. I was like, oh, that's just for cow's milk. Oh, sheez, Louise. It is probably gonna be like one hundred dollar latte if I ask for any kind of alternative milk. This is wild, but kids are yeah, fun, and I'm obviously
a bit pervy on it at the moment. The situation you've been through is horrendous, and I am so sorry that you have had to go through this. But I also look at it and I'm like, holy Molly, I am so proud of where you are now. Like it is obviously the worst thing that you can go through and then to have come out the other side. And even just the way you've written it, You're like, I am financially thriving. I'm like, yes, you are, Like I like that, you can see that. I love that you've
found a partner that's supportive. I'm obsessed with the fact that you're on a six figure salary and during a time that you were probably still grieving pretty hard. There you are renegotiating the contract. I'm like, yes, Queen, you are as she's on the money, member, I can see you. I love this. But if someone is in a situation they're like, this is never going to happen to me, what would you say, is I guess the one thing that they should be looking at beforehand. Obviously we don't
want this to happen to anyone in our community. But like you said before, I'm glad he had his insurances and like his will and stuff. But to you, what was the thing that helped you through that process the most, I'd.
Say my family. Obviously they helped me through of course knowing that we did have a good will. My situation now is a lot more complicated, so we again need to get legal advice on how that could work moving forward. But also just making sure that we did have enough insurances to cover all expenses. So we were lucky. We did make sure that we had enough to cover and that we only increased the amount of our life insurances because we were building, so we needed to make sure
it would cover the cost of the build. So many friends I speak to you now, they don't have a will, they don't have life insurance, they have no idea what's going on with their super. So yeah, I think I'd really like to stress to listeners the importance of making sure that you do have your life insurance or your personal insurances, you know if it's income protection, disability, and
making sure that your super is set to binding. Yes, And also, yeah, the will, it's probably the most important thing.
We'll put links in our show notes to make sure that everyone can get hold of that. Obviously, I talk a lot about the importance of sperances and personal insurances and making sure that you set up your will properly. And it's not very sexy, like it's not fun to have these conversations, and you always like, what's the point. But I really do hope that for everyone who takes action and actually sets up their life insurances, I really hope
it's the biggest waste of money. Like I hope that it's not something you ever have to rely on, because a circumstance like this you wouldn't wish upon anybody. But if it does happen, at least you're in the best possible position you can be. And I think that that is, to me, the most important thing money. I'm obsessed with this chat. I'm so so grateful that you wanted to share so much of yourself and your partner's journey, and
getting to learn about you has been beautiful. I do want to know, though you seem to have all of your finances in order. You said at the start of the show, I'm a B plus. What would it take someone like you to get to an A plus?
Like?
What does that potentially look like?
I would say to continue to educate myself around finances, and i'd like to maybe step up into big girl investing.
You are a big girl investing, not through.
A robo investing platform.
So actually get an investment platform.
It is and it's been great for the situation I was in. But yeah, I guess learning more about the investments and choosing them. But then again, I don't really have the time, So I.
Think that you are investing perfectly fine at the moment, like that compound interest. She's just working away in the background. I promise you.
That probably also to start investing for my daughter when she reaches twenty one. I want her to have a good little nest egg there so she can go out and buy property or travel the world if she wants to, or do whatever she wants to do.
I love this.
Can I just add to the question you asked previously? Of course, I'd also just like to stress the importance of having that emergency fund.
Yes, that is a very good addition.
Yeah, I could fall back onto it when I needed it. I was really hesitant to tap into it. I didn't want to and off for a very long time. I was actually binge listening to your podcasts when I stumbled across them and In one of them, you did talk
about emergency funds and the importance of them. I can't remember exact wording, but there was just something you said and was along the lines of, you know, it's okay to use it, and that's what I needed to tell myself, that it is okay to use this money, and that that's what it's there for, that's what its purpose is, and that I could always top it up again when I'm in a more financially stable position.
One hundred percent. I think that there seems to be this real big block for a lot of people when it comes to emergency funds and spending them. They feel like they've failed I guess in you know, having an emergency fund sitting there, but that's what it's for, to be spent in an emergency where you do need to support yourself. I'm glad that you found that at that point in time, because I'm sure that would have been
a really hard thing to wrap your head around. But I feel like we often do need to give ourselves permission to look into that. And I know that I've been in circumstances where I'm like, really don't want to spend my emergency fund I'm like, but I'm really glad I have it because now I don't have to go into debt. Now I don't have to be, you know, making decisions that I otherwise would have had to make if I didn't have access to cash. So I'm glad that it helped. That's a good place to leave it,
Like set up your emergency fund. I don't care who you are, what you do, what your plan is. If you don't have an emergency fund, you are not putting future you first money diarist I said before, this has been a beautiful chat. I am blown away by how open and honest you have been with us. I'm really really grateful to be able to share a story like this with our community, because I think it is so smart to be able to learn through other people's experiences
and go, wow, this is really important. I do need to get my stuff together. And just knowing that you and I sharing this means that there are going to be a fair few people that sought out their life insurance because of this. I know that it's so impactful. So thank you for that, and I can't wait to see where you are in five ten years, and you'll be thriving even more than you already are.
Thank you.
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