Latest / She's On The Money / MONEY DIARIES: Setting Boundaries & Standing On Her Own 2 Feet
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud Yr
- 0:04Speaker 1: the Order Kerney Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before
- 0:08Speaker 1: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
- 0:11Speaker 1: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
- 0:14Speaker 1: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
- 0:18Speaker 1: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
- 0:22Speaker 1: through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
- 0:27Speaker 1: and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
- 0:30Speaker 1: today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
- 0:33Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
- 0:34Speaker 3: She's on the Money.
- 0:36Speaker 2: She's on the Money.
- 0:57Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
- 1:01Speaker 4: for millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another
- 1:04Speaker 4: one of our money diaries where I get the absolute
- 1:07Speaker 4: pleasure of sitting down and talking to one of our
- 1:09Speaker 4: incredible She's on the Money community members all about their
- 1:13Speaker 4: money story. Let's jump straight into it, because this week
- 1:16Speaker 4: I got a message and it went like this. Hi Victoria,
- 1:20Speaker 4: I'm a twenty seven year old full time agricultural student
- 1:23Speaker 4: and working in an affiliated field who is coming to
- 1:27Speaker 4: terms with no family support after needing to cut them
- 1:29Speaker 4: off in recent years, having studied and needing to take
- 1:33Speaker 4: a break to prioritize.
- 1:34Speaker 2: My mental health.
- 1:35Speaker 4: I'm perpetually feeling like I'm at square one on my income.
- 1:39Speaker 4: I can't save, i can't invest, and I'm feeling stressed
- 1:41Speaker 4: about the future.
- 1:42Speaker 2: Help.
- 1:43Speaker 4: I need financial security asap. Money Diarist, welcome to the show.
- 1:48Speaker 4: I think you're in the right place.
- 1:51Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I think I am too.
- 1:53Speaker 4: I love this story that you want to share with
- 1:55Speaker 4: us because I feel like there are going to be
- 1:58Speaker 4: a lot of people in our community who are going
- 1:59Speaker 4: to instantly recognize that story and feel like they really
- 2:05Speaker 4: related to it. I just think that it's actually more
- 2:08Speaker 4: common than we think it is to have to go
- 2:10Speaker 4: through circumstances where cutting family members off happens.
- 2:14Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. Even in my friendship circle, I'm
- 2:18Speaker 3: not the only one who's had this kind of experience.
- 2:21Speaker 3: So yeah, I think I'm really Yeah, I'm really excited
- 2:25Speaker 3: to share and hopefully other people resonate.
- 2:27Speaker 2: I'm so excited to learn more about you.
- 2:29Speaker 4: All right, let's jump straight in the first question, as always,
- 2:33Speaker 4: is if I asked you to give yourself a money
- 2:35Speaker 4: grade from A through to F, what would it be.
- 2:38Speaker 3: I think at the moment, I would give myself a
- 2:41Speaker 3: c I think, with what I'm earning at the moment
- 2:45Speaker 3: and where I'm at in my life, I think I'm
- 2:47Speaker 3: doing pretty well, but I think there's still some room
- 2:50Speaker 3: for improvement.
- 2:51Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, we'll get into it.
- 2:53Speaker 4: My favorite question, money deris can you tell me a
- 2:57Speaker 4: little bit more about your money story?
- 2:59Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, So I'll start When I was nineteen, I'd
- 3:04Speaker 3: just gotten back from my gap year. I lived abroad
- 3:07Speaker 3: for a year and just had the most wonderful time.
- 3:10Speaker 3: Came back and got straight into UNI, which was sort
- 3:14Speaker 3: of the expectation from my family and where I grew up.
- 3:17Speaker 3: I was studying something that I was really interested in,
- 3:20Speaker 3: but not that passionate about. I was sort of like
- 3:23Speaker 3: going through the motions. And then about a year and
- 3:27Speaker 3: a half into studying, so I was about twenty twenty one,
- 3:31Speaker 3: I started to have memories resurface from my childhood and
- 3:35Speaker 3: some childhood trauma that I'd experienced, and that came with, yeah,
- 3:39Speaker 3: a lot of mental distress. So my mental health really
- 3:44Speaker 3: plummeted at that point. And for the first like, yeah,
- 3:47Speaker 3: the next year or so, I tried to keep up
- 3:50Speaker 3: with UNI, I was doing a little bit of counseling,
- 3:53Speaker 3: and then it got to a point where I was like,
- 3:55Speaker 3: hold on, like I really need to Yeah, I really
- 3:59Speaker 3: need to go deeper into this it's not going away,
- 4:01Speaker 3: and really connecting with that belief that I can get better.
- 4:06Speaker 3: So I'd been on a wait list for some specific
- 4:09Speaker 3: therapy for what I'd experienced for about eight months.
- 4:12Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's such a long time.
- 4:15Speaker 3: It is. It's a really really long time, which also
- 4:19Speaker 3: just goes to show how many people need relying on
- 4:22Speaker 3: that support.
- 4:23Speaker 2: Yeah, my gosh.
- 4:24Speaker 3: Yeah, after that long wait, I was able to access
- 4:29Speaker 3: counseling with a couple of amazing social workers who I
- 4:32Speaker 3: worked with for about two years, getting therapy once a
- 4:37Speaker 3: week every week. And yeah, apart from just the time
- 4:42Speaker 3: that that took, it was also really mentally exhausting. So
- 4:47Speaker 3: I took time off UNI to stop studying completely for
- 4:50Speaker 3: two years, and I was sort of, Yeah, the most
- 4:54Speaker 3: that I could manage working was three days a week,
- 4:57Speaker 3: sometimes four, but yeah, mostly three days a week. So
- 5:00Speaker 3: I sort of continued living on that student budget that
- 5:04Speaker 3: I had had since I was nineteen. So after the
- 5:08Speaker 3: next two years, really doing the work getting the help
- 5:12Speaker 3: that I needed to get better and feel a lot
- 5:16Speaker 3: better in myself and capable in my life. I decided
- 5:19Speaker 3: to go back to UNI to study agriculture, which yeah,
- 5:23Speaker 3: I'm really really passionate about. I get super super nerdy
- 5:26Speaker 3: about it. Yeah, and I'm sort of, yeah, halfway through
- 5:30Speaker 3: that degree. Now I've got another two years to go,
- 5:33Speaker 3: and yet working in an affiliated field now part time,
- 5:36Speaker 3: which is really awesome. But yeah, as I mentioned when
- 5:39Speaker 3: I wrote in part of that recovery journey has been
- 5:43Speaker 3: making a disclosure to my parents about what I experienced
- 5:47Speaker 3: as a child, and unfortunately they did not respond well
- 5:52Speaker 3: to that.
- 5:52Speaker 4: Oh no, yeah, I'm so sorry that was your experience,
- 5:56Speaker 4: because it would have been hard to even bring it up.
- 5:59Speaker 2: That's not something that I can imagine was easy.
- 6:02Speaker 3: Yeah, it was awful. It's obviously I wanted to tell
- 6:06Speaker 3: them for a long time. But then yeah, because it's
- 6:10Speaker 3: so shrouded in secrecy and shame, and yeah, for such
- 6:14Speaker 3: a long time. Even like the biggest part of the
- 6:17Speaker 3: recovery was like understanding that it wasn't my fault. And yeah, obviously,
- 6:23Speaker 3: like spending all those years believing that it was my fault.
- 6:26Speaker 3: I couldn't even come to terms with telling my parents
- 6:29Speaker 3: because yeah, if I thought it was my fault, then
- 6:32Speaker 3: obviously they would too. But yeah, unfortunately I didn't get
- 6:37Speaker 3: a positive response from them, and that sort of yeah
- 6:41Speaker 3: led to me making the decision, with support from my
- 6:44Speaker 3: counselors and my support team, to create some yeah wall
- 6:49Speaker 3: like boundaries towards them and yeah, have to cut them off.
- 6:53Speaker 3: So it's been almost three years now since I've had
- 6:58Speaker 3: direct contact with them, and obviously that means, yeah, not
- 7:02Speaker 3: having any financial support, like as well as all the
- 7:06Speaker 3: other stuff obviously, but yeah, I think in terms of money,
- 7:11Speaker 3: that's the biggest thing for me is like knowing that
- 7:16Speaker 3: if I ever needed help financially, it couldn't come from
- 7:21Speaker 3: my parents or you know, even some of my friends
- 7:24Speaker 3: moving back home so that they can save money to
- 7:26Speaker 3: buy a house. That's not an option for me. People
- 7:29Speaker 3: sort of talk about, like when you're in your twenties, like, oh,
- 7:32Speaker 3: just ring up the bank of mum and dad, and
- 7:33Speaker 3: it's like, oh, that's not an option, that's not a thing. Yeah,
- 7:37Speaker 3: And instead of looking further ahead, it's like, oh, I
- 7:40Speaker 3: don't know, I doubt that I'll get an inheritance and yeah,
- 7:46Speaker 3: looking towards the future, bigger things that I want for
- 7:50Speaker 3: my life, knowing that, yeah, I'm not going to have
- 7:53Speaker 3: that support from them, and just like, yeah, it's quite
- 7:57Speaker 3: an emotional burden, like feeling like I have to do
- 8:01Speaker 3: it all alone.
- 8:03Speaker 4: I'm so proud of you, Like I'm just so proud
- 8:05Speaker 4: of everything you've been through because that wouldn't be easy.
- 8:09Speaker 4: And it's one of those things that I think a
- 8:11Speaker 4: lot of people, especially going through traumatic circumstances, would you
- 8:16Speaker 4: say fantasize about. They go, I wish I could do that,
- 8:19Speaker 4: And you've actually done and I'm sure that you're in
- 8:21Speaker 4: a better mental space. And as much as one hundred
- 8:24Speaker 4: of you feel like you've lost something, I can guarantee
- 8:28Speaker 4: they've lost more, Like they have lost so much more
- 8:31Speaker 4: than you have ever lost. And I think that that
- 8:34Speaker 4: is a reflection of them, not a reflection of you.
- 8:37Speaker 4: And yeah, it's just so nice to hear from somebody
- 8:40Speaker 4: who's like, no, I've actually put myself first and I
- 8:43Speaker 4: know that that could impact my finances and could do
- 8:45Speaker 4: all of these things, but I promise there's so many
- 8:48Speaker 4: resources out there that you don't need them.
- 8:50Speaker 2: I promise you don't thank you.
- 8:53Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
- 8:54Speaker 4: It blows my mind that you've been able to do
- 8:56Speaker 4: that because I know that there are going to be
- 8:57Speaker 4: people listening going.
- 8:58Speaker 2: I wish I was as strong as that.
- 9:00Speaker 4: How did you make the decision to go, you know what,
- 9:02Speaker 4: I'm going to cut them off, like we're done here,
- 9:04Speaker 4: I'm going to put these barriers up, because that's not
- 9:06Speaker 4: an easy decision to make, not at all.
- 9:09Speaker 3: I think it was definitely a journey. I think at
- 9:12Speaker 3: the start when memory started to surface, I was just
- 9:16Speaker 3: in denial for quite a long time and just kept
- 9:20Speaker 3: thinking like, Okay, I can see that these things happened,
- 9:23Speaker 3: but it doesn't affect me. I'm fine. I think I'd
- 9:26Speaker 3: just been living with such an intense level of anxiety
- 9:30Speaker 3: for so many years that I didn't even understand how
- 9:34Speaker 3: unwell I was. And then through therapy, part of what
- 9:39Speaker 3: we looked at was around different dynamics and how the
- 9:45Speaker 3: situation that we are living in, whether it's family or
- 9:49Speaker 3: community or school, like wherever these traumatic experience happened, like
- 9:53Speaker 3: the dynamics within that system that perpetuate that secrecy. So
- 10:00Speaker 3: it was sort of breaking that down and understanding that like, oh,
- 10:03Speaker 3: I couldn't tell my parents up until this point because
- 10:06Speaker 3: of all these other dynamics at play, and then getting
- 10:10Speaker 3: to a point where I felt confident in myself, confident
- 10:13Speaker 3: that it wasn't my fault. I felt like I'd recovered
- 10:17Speaker 3: a sense of myself and who I want to be
- 10:19Speaker 3: in the world and who I can be and really
- 10:22Speaker 3: believing in that. Yeah. And then the next step was
- 10:26Speaker 3: making the disclosure, and I did a lot of work
- 10:29Speaker 3: with my therapists around potential outcomes of that. We did
- 10:33Speaker 3: sort of role plays of like, oh, it could go
- 10:35Speaker 3: this way, or it could go that way, and sort
- 10:37Speaker 3: of helping me feel prepared for whatever the response would be.
- 10:42Speaker 3: And then when it wasn't a supportive response, it was
- 10:46Speaker 3: just yeah, it sounds simple, but it was a matter
- 10:49Speaker 3: of me saying to myself, like, their response is not
- 10:53Speaker 3: my responsibility and there's actually nothing I can do on
- 10:58Speaker 3: my own to help them understand. I've given them everything
- 11:03Speaker 3: that I am willing to give at this point to
- 11:06Speaker 3: help them understand, and yet they just they are going
- 11:09Speaker 3: to have to meet me where I am. And that's
- 11:12Speaker 3: sort of the boundary that I've put up is like,
- 11:14Speaker 3: here am I. Here's what I would like you to do,
- 11:16Speaker 3: and if you would like to come and meet me here,
- 11:18Speaker 3: then I would be open to that. But if not,
- 11:22Speaker 3: it's not my responsibility.
- 11:23Speaker 4: And they haven't stepped up and tried to make any
- 11:26Speaker 4: progress towards meeting you at that level.
- 11:29Speaker 3: I don't know in terms of what they've communicated to me. No, yeah,
- 11:34Speaker 3: the most I get is kind of an emotionally manipulative
- 11:38Speaker 3: email every couple of months.
- 11:40Speaker 2: Oh no, thank you. Absolutely.
- 11:42Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not great, but yeah, I don't respond to those,
- 11:47Speaker 3: and I've made steps in terms of like, yeah, I
- 11:49Speaker 3: have an old email address that they have, which yeah,
- 11:54Speaker 3: I don't check. It's not my regular email address, and
- 11:56Speaker 3: I set up a PO box which they have that
- 11:59Speaker 3: adres but they don't have my home address, mobile number,
- 12:03Speaker 3: personal email, any of that. So that's yeah, been really
- 12:06Speaker 3: really important for me to create that clear separation.
- 12:10Speaker 4: I'm just in awe that you've been able to create
- 12:12Speaker 4: such a clear separation, and like, I want to know
- 12:16Speaker 4: so much more about your life today, because that's not
- 12:19Speaker 4: something that defines you, but I just know that you know,
- 12:23Speaker 4: given that's what you're wrote in about. I just think
- 12:25Speaker 4: it's important to really sit in that for a moment
- 12:27Speaker 4: and go well, what does that mean?
- 12:28Speaker 2: How does that work?
- 12:30Speaker 4: Tell me a bit more about what it means to
- 12:32Speaker 4: you now, Like, have you got really good friends around you?
- 12:35Speaker 2: Like, what does support look like now?
- 12:37Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely looks different to I guess the conventional
- 12:42Speaker 3: sort of idea of Yeah. I kind of laugh when
- 12:45Speaker 3: people throughout phrases like blood is thicker than water and
- 12:48Speaker 3: family is everything. Absolutely not. It's just not my experience.
- 12:52Speaker 3: I love it for people that do have that, but yeah,
- 12:55Speaker 3: that's that's not my life. Yeah. I have incredible friends,
- 12:59Speaker 3: just yet the best, most amazing supportive people who love
- 13:04Speaker 3: and adore me, and I love and adore them, and
- 13:07Speaker 3: they are my family and I treat them like my family.
- 13:10Speaker 3: I have, yeah, beautiful housemates. I live in a sharehouse
- 13:14Speaker 3: with there's five of us, which is.
- 13:16Speaker 2: Just fancy and busy all at one time.
- 13:19Speaker 3: Yeah, so where Yeah, we just have a beautiful dynamic.
- 13:23Speaker 3: I feel really supported in my home, which is really
- 13:25Speaker 3: important to me. Up until February, I went through a breakup, which.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Is a whole thing, but just what you needed exactly.
- 13:34Speaker 3: I had, Yeah, just a beautiful, supportive, loving partner who
- 13:40Speaker 3: was with me through, yeah, through the whole journey. Really
- 13:44Speaker 3: We got together when I was twenty and we broke
- 13:47Speaker 3: up when I was twenty six. So yeah, she was
- 13:50Speaker 3: there through all of it, providing a lot of just
- 13:54Speaker 3: like love and care and emotional support and affirmation which
- 13:58Speaker 3: was amazing.
- 13:59Speaker 4: And yeah, therapists, I just the best, solid tens out
- 14:04Speaker 4: of tens, one hundred percent.
- 14:05Speaker 3: I don't see those same therapists that I saw for
- 14:09Speaker 3: that two year period anymore. I sort of got to
- 14:11Speaker 3: a point where I needed to leave the public system.
- 14:15Speaker 3: So now I see someone who I yeah, is someone private,
- 14:19Speaker 3: so I pay to go and see them. But it's
- 14:21Speaker 3: so so important. Yeah, therapy, body work. Yeah, I'm obsessed
- 14:26Speaker 3: with acupuncture and boween therapy and getting that you know,
- 14:30Speaker 3: somatic system involved. Yeah, so I have a lot of support.
- 14:34Speaker 4: Oh I'm so so glad to hear that. All right,
- 14:37Speaker 4: I want to know so much more about you as
- 14:39Speaker 4: a human being, not about what you've been through.
- 14:42Speaker 2: So tell me.
- 14:43Speaker 4: Let's get into the nitty gritty of it. What do
- 14:45Speaker 4: you earn and what do you do for work?
- 14:47Speaker 3: Yeah? So in my degree, my major is in soil science.
- 14:52Speaker 3: So I got a job this year at a soil
- 14:57Speaker 3: and environmental science consulting firm. So I'm working in the
- 15:01Speaker 3: lab there, which is really really fun. So that's what
- 15:04Speaker 3: I do for work three days a week, and this
- 15:08Speaker 3: semester at UNI, I made the decision to drop back
- 15:10Speaker 3: to part time because that had credits from previous study
- 15:14Speaker 3: that I can fill in some of those elective spots.
- 15:17Speaker 3: I've been able to create a little bit more space.
- 15:21Speaker 3: So yeah, doing part time UNI and part time work,
- 15:24Speaker 3: So that's yeah, Monday to Friday what I'm doing. And
- 15:27Speaker 3: I still am on sentling I actually, which yeah, some
- 15:31Speaker 3: people might not know, but yeah, you get youth allowance
- 15:35Speaker 3: from twenty one depending on your circumstances, but you transition
- 15:41Speaker 3: out of youth allowance when you turn twenty five and
- 15:43Speaker 3: move on too oz study. But because both of the
- 15:47Speaker 3: degrees that I've done are undergraduate degrees, they only give
- 15:51Speaker 3: you three and a half years of student support payments.
- 15:57Speaker 3: So at the beginning of the year, I got a
- 15:59Speaker 3: lot from Centalinks saying that my odd study payment time
- 16:04Speaker 3: had run out, which was hell is.
- 16:07Speaker 2: Stressful, I guess it sounds it, but yeah, I was.
- 16:10Speaker 3: Able to talk to them and I was able to
- 16:12Speaker 3: go on a different type of payment, which yeah, has
- 16:15Speaker 3: been great. So I still get senlink. But between senalincn work,
- 16:18Speaker 3: I own about one one hundred dollars a fortnite.
- 16:21Speaker 2: What does that look like?
- 16:23Speaker 4: So you were saying in your letter into me, like, look,
- 16:26Speaker 4: I can't say if I can't invest, I don't feel
- 16:29Speaker 4: like the one one hundred dollars a fortnite goes that far.
- 16:33Speaker 4: Does that mean that you're really constricted? Like what does
- 16:36Speaker 4: your budgeting look like? Because obviously there's things in your
- 16:39Speaker 4: budget that might not be in mine.
- 16:41Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, well, my biggest expense is rent. That's
- 16:45Speaker 3: about a third of my income. I yeah, obviously pay
- 16:52Speaker 3: for groceries, bills, incidental things. Now that I'm paying for therapy, again,
- 16:58Speaker 3: that's an expense. I have a gym membership. I try
- 17:02Speaker 3: and not restrict myself too much. So I still like
- 17:06Speaker 3: to buy myself something nice every now and then, or
- 17:10Speaker 3: ye go out to dinner with my friends or my housemates,
- 17:13Speaker 3: or go and get drinks. So I try to have
- 17:15Speaker 3: a balance of like making sure that my material needs
- 17:20Speaker 3: are met and then also yeah, being involved in life.
- 17:26Speaker 3: But yeah, there's just not really any room to try
- 17:31Speaker 3: and save a lot of money. I do try and
- 17:34Speaker 3: build up an emergency fund, but yeah, I often have
- 17:37Speaker 3: to dip into it.
- 17:39Speaker 2: So that's okay, that's so fine.
- 17:42Speaker 3: It feels kind of demoralizing sometimes.
- 17:45Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
- 17:47Speaker 4: What you've got to remember is this is a season
- 17:49Speaker 4: of your life, Like life is not going to be
- 17:51Speaker 4: like this forever. You're not going to be studying forever.
- 17:53Speaker 4: You're not going to be on Stendling forever. You're not
- 17:55Speaker 4: going to have this income forever. And if you can't
- 17:57Speaker 4: save right now, do.
- 17:59Speaker 2: You know why? Because it makes sense.
- 18:01Speaker 4: It makes sense that you can't save with that. It's
- 18:03Speaker 4: not because you're bad at money. It's not because you're,
- 18:05Speaker 4: you know, maybe not good.
- 18:06Speaker 2: At navigating things. It's because, babe, there's not enough of it.
- 18:11Speaker 3: It just makes sense.
- 18:13Speaker 4: And the fact that you even prioritize an emergency fund
- 18:16Speaker 4: tells me that you are so financially literate, like you're
- 18:20Speaker 4: ready to take all of those next steps, and like,
- 18:22Speaker 4: look what you'll be able to create when you do
- 18:24Speaker 4: have more income because of the priorities you've set up.
- 18:27Speaker 2: If you're dipping into your emergency fund, that's what it's for,
- 18:31Speaker 2: to make sure you're not going into debt. Don't let
- 18:33Speaker 2: that be demoralizing.
- 18:35Speaker 4: Let that be something that you go so glad I
- 18:37Speaker 4: put that to the side because I completely forgot this was.
- 18:40Speaker 2: Coming up this month. Look what past you did for
- 18:43Speaker 2: future you? Like that's kind of sexy.
- 18:45Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is. Okay, that's so much nicer way
- 18:49Speaker 3: to think about it.
- 18:50Speaker 2: One thousand percent it is. Don't think it's a bad thing.
- 18:52Speaker 4: I feel like so many times people crucify themselves for
- 18:57Speaker 4: being bad at money, when the reality is that just
- 19:00Speaker 4: isn't enough of it in that season of life for
- 19:03Speaker 4: you to do all the things.
- 19:04Speaker 2: That you prioritize.
- 19:06Speaker 4: So I think everybody says things like I really want
- 19:09Speaker 4: to save, I really want to invest like we do,
- 19:11Speaker 4: because if you're listening to this podcast and you're part
- 19:13Speaker 4: of my community, you know the value of that.
- 19:16Speaker 2: You know what that can do for future you.
- 19:18Speaker 4: And it does feel like you're missing out when you're
- 19:21Speaker 4: not able to do those things. But I think we
- 19:24Speaker 4: have to be reasonable right now, Technically, my friend, you
- 19:27Speaker 4: could go out and get a full time job. You
- 19:29Speaker 4: absolutely could, but you're setting yourself up in a career
- 19:33Speaker 4: that you're going to love, a career that you're going
- 19:35Speaker 4: to have a really good time in while making good income.
- 19:39Speaker 4: But we've got to study first. We've got to go
- 19:41Speaker 4: through this to get out the other side. And that's okay. Yeah,
- 19:45Speaker 4: it's so okay. But I do have a dumb question, Yes,
- 19:50Speaker 4: what is soil science? And how did you get involved
- 19:53Speaker 4: in that? How does someone wake up one day and say,
- 19:55Speaker 4: do you know what? I'm just so interested in soil science? Yeah,
- 20:00Speaker 4: where would I use that in my everyday life?
- 20:02Speaker 3: It's a great question. In most people's everyday life. I
- 20:06Speaker 3: just don't think you would use it.
- 20:07Speaker 2: I'm glad because I've never heard of it.
- 20:10Speaker 3: If you've got some pot plants, you might want to
- 20:13Speaker 3: know a few things about soil, But yeah, for most people,
- 20:16Speaker 3: it's not part of everyday life. Basically, what it is
- 20:20Speaker 3: is a series of sort of things that make up soil,
- 20:24Speaker 3: so the chemistry, the physical structure, and the biology and
- 20:28Speaker 3: how all of those things interact and then how they
- 20:31Speaker 3: interact with plants and the broader environment. So yeah, I'm
- 20:36Speaker 3: really interested in things like sort of helping stop erosion,
- 20:41Speaker 3: which causes huge problems for the environment. In Australia, we
- 20:45Speaker 3: have very old soils, so they don't have a lot
- 20:48Speaker 3: of nutrients in them compared to other places in the world,
- 20:52Speaker 3: so it means that when we're growing food, we have
- 20:54Speaker 3: to apply a lot of fertilizers, and then if we're
- 20:58Speaker 3: not being responsible with how we're applying those, it can
- 21:01Speaker 3: leach out into the environment in our waterways and cause
- 21:04Speaker 3: all sorts of issues there. So it's a pretty Yeah.
- 21:09Speaker 3: I feel like it's really important.
- 21:10Speaker 5: That's very cool.
- 21:11Speaker 2: I'm glad I asked.
- 21:12Speaker 4: I feel smarter because I asked, Oh, that's good, and
- 21:15Speaker 4: that's something that's so necessary. And here you are being like, oh,
- 21:18Speaker 4: I don't think I'm doing that well, and you're basically
- 21:21Speaker 4: saving our planet.
- 21:21Speaker 2: Ten out of ten you.
- 21:24Speaker 3: Thank you. Vin.
- 21:25Speaker 2: All Right, I need to know more. What are your
- 21:28Speaker 2: big money goals.
- 21:29Speaker 4: I know you said I'm not able to save, I'm
- 21:30Speaker 4: not able to invest, But talk to me about what
- 21:32Speaker 4: your big money goals are and what we're working towards.
- 21:36Speaker 3: At the moment, my biggest money goal is to travel more.
- 21:41Speaker 3: I yeah, did a gap year and it was amazing,
- 21:45Speaker 3: And one of the most amazing things about it was
- 21:48Speaker 3: meeting incredible people who, yeah, I just my people, but
- 21:52Speaker 3: they just happened to live very very far away from me.
- 21:56Speaker 3: So I haven't seen two of my best friends in
- 21:59Speaker 3: all most five years. So I really really want to
- 22:03Speaker 3: go and see them ones in Mexico and the other
- 22:05Speaker 3: ones in England, so.
- 22:07Speaker 2: Not bad places to visit, not at all.
- 22:10Speaker 3: And there's yeah, a bit of a UNI exchange that
- 22:15Speaker 3: I'm looking at for next year over my winter UNI break,
- 22:19Speaker 3: so it would be summer in Europe where I want
- 22:21Speaker 3: to go. So I would really really love to do that,
- 22:25Speaker 3: But obviously travel costs a lot of money. And then
- 22:27Speaker 3: thinking longer term, I really would like to have kids
- 22:32Speaker 3: one day. And I'm gay, so that makes it a
- 22:35Speaker 3: little bit more complicated and expensive than for our hetero friends.
- 22:40Speaker 3: So yeah, that's sort of something that I think about
- 22:43Speaker 3: for the future. And yeah, I think just being able
- 22:48Speaker 3: to move outside of the paycheck to paycheck mindset is
- 22:52Speaker 3: yet a big goal of mine.
- 22:54Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's going to be so easy once you
- 22:56Speaker 4: have a full time job. I feel like you're in
- 22:58Speaker 4: the right mindset.
- 22:59Speaker 2: I love it.
- 23:00Speaker 4: I feel like you've come so far. Let's go to
- 23:02Speaker 4: a really quick break. And on the flip side, I'm
- 23:04Speaker 4: going to ask you about maybe if.
- 23:05Speaker 2: You have investments and then invest and worse money.
- 23:07Speaker 4: Habits, because I feel like you've probably got a few
- 23:10Speaker 4: good ones up your sleeve.
- 23:11Speaker 2: Don't go anywhere. Guys.
- 23:17Speaker 4: All right, money diarist, we are back, and I want
- 23:20Speaker 4: to know first cab off the rank. I know you
- 23:22Speaker 4: said you don't have money to invest, but do you
- 23:24Speaker 4: have any investments?
- 23:25Speaker 2: If so, what are they?
- 23:27Speaker 3: I do listen to your podcast, so I know that
- 23:29Speaker 3: superannuation is an investment. This is where I was going.
- 23:35Speaker 3: I looked it up before this. I have almost ten
- 23:37Speaker 3: thousand dollars in super.
- 23:38Speaker 2: Well that's good.
- 23:40Speaker 3: Yeah, it is good. Yeah. I think having that and
- 23:44Speaker 3: knowing that I've got that also helps me understand investing more,
- 23:48Speaker 3: which is really cool. Looking at my little graph of
- 23:50Speaker 3: how much my money has grown is really fun. But
- 23:53Speaker 3: I would like to invest more. I'm just in a
- 23:55Speaker 3: situation now where if I have money in investments and
- 23:59Speaker 3: I'm on settlink, it'll mess with that whole thing and
- 24:03Speaker 3: might mean that I get kicked off sent a link.
- 24:05Speaker 3: So yeah, just super at the moment.
- 24:08Speaker 4: Yeah, now is the season of your life where you're
- 24:11Speaker 4: supposed to be learning about investments, maybe not investing immediately,
- 24:15Speaker 4: maybe not like kicking it off, but putting yourself in
- 24:17Speaker 4: a position where you're ready you can do it. You
- 24:20Speaker 4: know what you'd want to do, how it would work,
- 24:22Speaker 4: what that would look like. You're totally across your super
- 24:25Speaker 4: and how that has been performing and working over the
- 24:27Speaker 4: last few years. And I think that too many of
- 24:29Speaker 4: us when we listen to the Sheese on the Money podcast,
- 24:32Speaker 4: immediately go I really need to be investing, and yeah, great,
- 24:36Speaker 4: Like I want you to invest as soon as possible too,
- 24:39Speaker 4: but I want you to invest as soon as it
- 24:41Speaker 4: is financially feasible and doesn't put additional pressures on you.
- 24:45Speaker 4: I think that a lot of people get FOMO, and
- 24:47Speaker 4: if that's the case, there are so many resources out
- 24:50Speaker 4: there where we can learn about it for free. Listen
- 24:52Speaker 4: to the pod, hang out with us for a while.
- 24:54Speaker 4: I don't care if you haven't invested yet or not,
- 24:56Speaker 4: like there's going to be a good reason why you haven't,
- 24:59Speaker 4: and that's totally okay. But I just know the second
- 25:02Speaker 4: you have your full time job and you hit the
- 25:03Speaker 4: ground running, oh my gosh, you're going.
- 25:05Speaker 2: To kill it. It's going to be great.
- 25:06Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 25:08Speaker 4: Next question I have my friend is do you have
- 25:10Speaker 4: any debts? If so, what are they?
- 25:12Speaker 3: Yeah? I do have debt In terms of my hex
- 25:17Speaker 3: I've been really careful about taking out personal loans, just
- 25:22Speaker 3: because I know that I don't have a backup plan
- 25:25Speaker 3: if that starts to snowball. I do use after pay
- 25:29Speaker 3: every now and then, but yeah, I really make sure
- 25:33Speaker 3: that I am going to be able to pay it off.
- 25:35Speaker 3: So my HEX set at the moment, combined with the
- 25:40Speaker 3: startup loans that I've received over the last few years,
- 25:42Speaker 3: is almost thirty four thousand dollars.
- 25:45Speaker 2: Pretty standard, which is a bit scary now pretty.
- 25:48Speaker 4: Standard, especially if you're halfway through your degree. There was
- 25:52Speaker 4: one point in my life where my HEX s deet
- 25:54Speaker 4: was more than six figures. I think that gave me
- 25:57Speaker 4: mad anxiety.
- 25:58Speaker 2: But you know what you get what you get.
- 26:00Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, next question, I feel like you've got
- 26:04Speaker 4: probably a few good ones up your sleeve.
- 26:05Speaker 2: What is your best money habit?
- 26:08Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about this question. I think my
- 26:12Speaker 3: best money habit is prioritizing my mental health. I always
- 26:19Speaker 3: prioritize spending money on therapy. I go to therapy regularly,
- 26:25Speaker 3: but if I'm having a particularly difficult week or fortnight
- 26:28Speaker 3: or month, I prioritize booking in that extra session. Yeah,
- 26:33Speaker 3: going to acupuncture, getting a massage, doing simpo, and like
- 26:36Speaker 3: all these things that I have in my toolbox to
- 26:40Speaker 3: help me stay mentally well, Yeah, if it means eating
- 26:45Speaker 3: beans and rice for a week, because I've spent money
- 26:49Speaker 3: on therapy instead, I'd always rather spend that money on
- 26:52Speaker 3: my mental health. Yeah. In terms of other money habits,
- 26:56Speaker 3: I do have a budget, which I try stick as
- 27:00Speaker 3: close to as possible. But I really like to visualize
- 27:05Speaker 3: where my money is going because it's so easy for
- 27:09Speaker 3: me to just tap on my card and let it
- 27:11Speaker 3: fly away.
- 27:12Speaker 2: So relatable.
- 27:14Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just so easy. If I yeah, I'm thinking
- 27:19Speaker 3: of buying myself something I do really like to treat myself.
- 27:23Speaker 3: But I do have that conversation with myself of like, Okay,
- 27:27Speaker 3: can I afford this right now? Can I afford this
- 27:30Speaker 3: in a month? If I buy this now? What else?
- 27:33Speaker 3: What do I have to sacrifice? Because my income is
- 27:35Speaker 3: so small. If I am spending money in one area,
- 27:40Speaker 3: it might have to come out of another area, So
- 27:43Speaker 3: I try and be quite conscious of that.
- 27:45Speaker 2: I love that.
- 27:46Speaker 4: I love that you're so thoughtful in your purchases because
- 27:49Speaker 4: so many people on similar income just go eh, I
- 27:53Speaker 4: don't care or deal with it later. And this idea
- 27:55Speaker 4: of your asking yourself can I afford it?
- 27:57Speaker 3: Next month?
- 27:58Speaker 4: Is this something that is going to be compromise? In other areas,
- 28:01Speaker 4: people don't ask themselves these questions. I've got serious issues
- 28:05Speaker 4: to take up with you after about why you think
- 28:07Speaker 4: you're only a set.
- 28:07Speaker 2: But we'll get there in a minute.
- 28:10Speaker 4: I want to know next, though, what is your worst
- 28:13Speaker 4: money habit?
- 28:15Speaker 3: Yeah, my worst money habit. I think it comes with
- 28:20Speaker 3: the territory. But I always make plans for when I
- 28:24Speaker 3: have extra money, which just doesn't really happen. So it
- 28:30Speaker 3: sort of keeps me in this cycle of like always
- 28:34Speaker 3: feeling like I don't have enough and always wanting for things. Yeah,
- 28:39Speaker 3: and I sort of when I do get a little
- 28:42Speaker 3: bit more money, like yeah, I just recently sold a
- 28:45Speaker 3: bunch of clothes that I don't wear anymore, and I
- 28:47Speaker 3: already had in my head like, oh, I'm going to
- 28:49Speaker 3: spend this money on this, this, and this, which yeah,
- 28:53Speaker 3: is probably fine, but because it it's sort of like
- 28:58Speaker 3: this idea I have of like, oh, this is extra money.
- 29:01Speaker 4: It's that girl math that's going around. I feel like,
- 29:04Speaker 4: have you seen all of those tiktoks and those instagrams?
- 29:07Speaker 2: It's a girl math.
- 29:08Speaker 4: If it's on a gift card, it's free money. If
- 29:12Speaker 4: I sold an outfit. It's free money. Like I laughed
- 29:15Speaker 4: so much, because that is our mentality. I mean, we
- 29:19Speaker 4: as women are smarter than that.
- 29:21Speaker 2: But I don't know. Sometimes you need to give yourself
- 29:23Speaker 2: a little treaty treat and that's okay.
- 29:25Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, yeah, it does create extra stress sometimes
- 29:31Speaker 3: to be like, oh I need to Like I had
- 29:34Speaker 3: a righty pair of Doc Martins that I'd had for
- 29:36Speaker 3: like eight years and they were just disgusting, Like I
- 29:40Speaker 3: just it got to the point where I just like
- 29:42Speaker 3: would be out wearing them.
- 29:44Speaker 2: They were well loved, Yeah, I would.
- 29:46Speaker 3: Just feel like embarrassed to have them on my feet.
- 29:50Speaker 3: And they're expensive shoes, and I was always like, oh,
- 29:54Speaker 3: when I have a bit of extra money, I will
- 29:57Speaker 3: buy that pair of shoes. And then when I did
- 29:59Speaker 3: get a bit of e X your money, I was like, oh,
- 30:00Speaker 3: actually I'm going to spend this money on this instead. Yeah,
- 30:04Speaker 3: it's a bit of a trap.
- 30:05Speaker 4: So where are we at with the Doc Martins Now
- 30:07Speaker 4: we're still wearing my loved ones?
- 30:09Speaker 2: Oh good way.
- 30:10Speaker 3: No, I found some on marketplace for about half the
- 30:13Speaker 3: retail price, so I was very happy with that money.
- 30:16Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, she's savvy with those shopping too.
- 30:21Speaker 3: Uh huh. Yeah. I think the other like money habit
- 30:26Speaker 3: that I thought of, which, yeah, I don't know if
- 30:29Speaker 3: it's as much of a habit as it is a mindset,
- 30:32Speaker 3: is that because I don't have that connection with my family,
- 30:36Speaker 3: I know that whatever money I earn, or whatever big
- 30:41Speaker 3: financial decisions I want to make in the future, it's
- 30:43Speaker 3: all going to come down to me and like money
- 30:45Speaker 3: that I personally have. So it's sort of this belief that, like,
- 30:52Speaker 3: no matter how much money I have, or how much
- 30:55Speaker 3: money I save or invest, it's never going to be enough.
- 30:58Speaker 2: That's not true, though, is it.
- 31:00Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 31:00Speaker 4: I feel like that's such a commonplace to be. But
- 31:04Speaker 4: I mean, I don't want to compare circumstances because everybody
- 31:08Speaker 4: else's circumstances are different. But there are so many people
- 31:10Speaker 4: in our community who have really great relationships with their
- 31:13Speaker 4: parents and still can't rely on them financially. And I mean,
- 31:17Speaker 4: it's so nice to think that, you know, you've got
- 31:19Speaker 4: that support in the background. But I am a very
- 31:23Speaker 4: big believer that family has made and you can create
- 31:26Speaker 4: your own and there are going to be you know,
- 31:28Speaker 4: at the end of the day, if sh one t
- 31:31Speaker 4: hits the fan. I promise from what you've told me,
- 31:34Speaker 4: there are people around you that would support you through
- 31:37Speaker 4: anything that you were going through. And that is more
- 31:40Speaker 4: than what a lot of people have, even if they
- 31:42Speaker 4: have relationships with their parents. So I think it's one
- 31:45Speaker 4: of those things where it feels really lonely and it
- 31:48Speaker 4: feels really awful because you're comparing to a reality that
- 31:51Speaker 4: you thought was going to be yours, but in the
- 31:55Speaker 4: grand scheme of things, it's not. And now you're creating
- 31:57Speaker 4: your own financial freedom, and you know you've got the
- 32:00Speaker 4: big goals. You want to have kids, and I'm assuming
- 32:02Speaker 4: that if you want to have kids, you probably want
- 32:04Speaker 4: another partner at some point, and then there'll be a
- 32:07Speaker 4: dual income and you get to create your own reality
- 32:09Speaker 4: and your own family and have you know, the respect
- 32:13Speaker 4: that wasn't afforded to you in that family. And I
- 32:15Speaker 4: think that that that's so beautiful, Like that's better than going, oh,
- 32:19Speaker 4: we might get an inheritance, or we might get some cash,
- 32:22Speaker 4: or we might do.
- 32:22Speaker 2: Now we don't need that. We can do it on
- 32:24Speaker 2: our own.
- 32:24Speaker 4: We don't need other people to come in and save
- 32:27Speaker 4: us when we're completely capable human beings.
- 32:30Speaker 2: And I think that that is a very hard.
- 32:32Speaker 4: Pill to swallow, especially if you grew up in a
- 32:34Speaker 4: family that, from the outside looking in looked really loving
- 32:37Speaker 4: and kind and supportive and all of those things, when
- 32:40Speaker 4: in reality they've shown you that that's not what they are,
- 32:43Speaker 4: and that's heartbreaking.
- 32:44Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 32:44Speaker 2: So no, oh my gosh, no bad money habits.
- 32:47Speaker 4: Last question I have for you, at the very start
- 32:50Speaker 4: of this conversation, when I asked you what your money
- 32:54Speaker 4: habits were graded, you said, I'm a C. Can you
- 32:57Speaker 4: expland a little bit more on why you think curiousity
- 33:00Speaker 4: and if after this conversation you still think you fall
- 33:02Speaker 4: into that bucket, and if you do, why.
- 33:05Speaker 3: I thought I was a C. I think exactly what
- 33:09Speaker 3: you just talked about. I think I was comparing myself
- 33:11Speaker 3: to what I thought I should have and because I'm
- 33:17Speaker 3: in my late twenties now, so are all my friends.
- 33:20Speaker 3: I'm looking at my friends who have been working full
- 33:23Speaker 3: time for you know, like five plus years, and looking
- 33:27Speaker 3: at their investments, terrible comparison to get to spend money on. Yeah,
- 33:32Speaker 3: so I was sort of like, oh, I think I'm
- 33:35Speaker 3: doing all right for where I am. So I'll give
- 33:37Speaker 3: myself a C. But I definitely feel a lot better
- 33:42Speaker 3: since this chat. I think I would even I think
- 33:44Speaker 3: I would give myself an A.
- 33:46Speaker 2: I would give you an A too, I absolutely would.
- 33:49Speaker 4: Like I just feel like hearing this story and what
- 33:52Speaker 4: you've been through and what you're like currently going through,
- 33:55Speaker 4: and what you earn and how you're allocating it, and
- 33:56Speaker 4: how thoughtful you are with the way that you spend
- 33:59Speaker 4: your money in the act that you budget, and you
- 34:01Speaker 4: just have this level of reflection that a lot of
- 34:04Speaker 4: people don't have when going to make purchases. I just go,
- 34:07Speaker 4: there's no way you're a C like, absolutely not. And
- 34:10Speaker 4: I think that sometimes we grade ourselves lower because we
- 34:15Speaker 4: think that to be good at money we have to
- 34:17Speaker 4: have lots of it, and you don't have to have
- 34:19Speaker 4: lots of money to be good at money. Like, from
- 34:22Speaker 4: my understanding, you're killing it basically, And that's really cool
- 34:26Speaker 4: because do you know how many full time people have
- 34:29Speaker 4: incomes of six figures and also six figures of personal debt?
- 34:34Speaker 2: Yeah, like my friend, they think they're killing it.
- 34:37Speaker 4: And I don't mean to throw shade at that, but
- 34:40Speaker 4: there's just this demographic of people who you might look
- 34:42Speaker 4: at and go, wow, I really can't believe that they're
- 34:45Speaker 4: doing so well and they're you know, absolutely loving life,
- 34:49Speaker 4: but you.
- 34:49Speaker 2: Don't see what's going on under the hood.
- 34:51Speaker 4: And I think it's just so important to put those
- 34:53Speaker 4: blinkers back on and only look at your journey and
- 34:55Speaker 4: how well you're doing for you and stop comparing yourself
- 34:58Speaker 4: to friends.
- 34:59Speaker 2: I do it all the time. It's so toxic. One
- 35:01Speaker 2: out of ten cannot recommend doing that. Terrible strategy. Yeah, yeah,
- 35:07Speaker 2: it sucks one out of ten.
- 35:08Speaker 4: All right, money, Darrist. Unfortunately, that is all we have
- 35:11Speaker 4: time for today. I have a door getting to know you,
- 35:14Speaker 4: have a chat with you, and really just shed some
- 35:17Speaker 4: light on a topic that we hadn't discussed on the
- 35:19Speaker 4: podcast before. As I said before, I'm so ridiculously proud
- 35:23Speaker 4: of you, and I just know you've got so much
- 35:25Speaker 4: to achieve and you're going to go so far, and
- 35:27Speaker 4: I hope that you keep in touch and keep me
- 35:29Speaker 4: updated and let me know what goes on.
- 35:31Speaker 3: Thank you so much for it's been awesome chatting with you.
- 35:34Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, right back at you.
- 35:42Speaker 5: The advice sheared on She's on the money is general
- 35:44Speaker 5: in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's
- 35:48Speaker 5: on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should
- 35:52Speaker 5: not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
- 35:55Speaker 5: If you do choose to buy a financial product, read
- 35:58Speaker 5: the PDS TMD and obtain a appropriate financial.
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