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MONEY DIARIES: Recovering from Financial Abuse · She's On The Money

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: She's on the Money.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: She's on the Money.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Tony
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Lodge and joining me for another shot back money Diary
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: is Victoria Divine.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: Hello, my love. So today we have a bit.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Of a colorful money diary, which I think you're going
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: to love. But would just like to give a little
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: content warning for anybody that we will be chatting about
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  Speaker 3: financial abuse in today's episode. So if that's something that
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: you're not really able to take on at the moment,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: that's totally fine and we will see you next week.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: I love that. Well, let's jump straight in, Tony, could
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: you read me out the week's money diarists email?
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: All right, here we go, Chieldolfano. I've never had a
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: good role model financially. As soon as I hit eighteen,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I started experiencing financial abuse from my mum. Before the
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: age of nineteen, my credit score was totally screwed through
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: bills she ran up under my name and she had
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: me sign a contract with her when I was fifteen
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: that she defected on and ended up running up a
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: total of around eight thousand dollars under my name. It
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: took a long time to get her to pay these off,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: and an even longer time to fix my credit score.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: I'm about to turn twenty five, and my credit score
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: is officially very good. I've always felt super out of
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: control and uneducated when it comes to money. Until last year.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: My method was to buy everything I needed or wanted
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: as soon as I got paid without looking at my
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: bank account, until my card declined, and I'd spend the
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: next two weeks until payday feeling sick about the thought
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: of money. I've started sex work last year and absolutely
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: love it. It's given me the ability to get ahead
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and do the things I need to do for my
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: call of life. I'm finally at the point where I'm
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: ready to tackle how I manage my money. I have
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: an amazing opportunity through sex work to change my life
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: and my future, and I don't want to follow in
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: my family's footsteps. Wealth here I come.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Heck, yes, very cool.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I know.
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  Speaker 4: Money Diarist on the line as always, Hello, Money.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Diarist, Hello, how are you?
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: I am so good. I'm so grateful that you want
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: to share your story with us. To be honest, I'm
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: so excited. I have a few questions, but as always,
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: we should ask the official questions first. So let's start
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: at the top with what is your attitude towards money?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So I'd say that my attitude towards money has like
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: changed a huge amount in like the past like two months.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I used to think of it as something that like
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I had to fight with in, something that I had
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: to like you know, that was a massive stress for me,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: especially because I had literally no if I education at all.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But nowadays I've learned to see it as a tool
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  Speaker 1: to get myself where I want to go, and educating
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  Speaker 1: myself has been like super empowering when it comes to that.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I love that. That seems really recent, like two months.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Your money story is changing, and we are catching you
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: while it's happening.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: How I sent it in.
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  Speaker 4: I'm so excited, all right. So next question is what
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: do you do for work and how much money do
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: you earn?
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  Speaker 1: So I have a day job in retail, which I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: earn about seventeen grand from a year, and then I
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  Speaker 1: am a full service sex worker and I also do
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: sex work online as well. Cool. I actually don't know
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: how much I earn from sex work because with sex
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: work you get paid in cash, and so cash doesn't
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  Speaker 1: work for me because cash is just it just disappears
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and then it's never existed. So I literally have no
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: idea how much I earned for the first year of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: doing sex work, but there is a huge variance depending
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: on the season. Like in June I made a total
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  Speaker 1: of three hundred and sixty five and then last week
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  Speaker 1: I made eight hundred dollars before tax, so it's all
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  Speaker 1: over the place. It's been very difficult to kind of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: understand how much I've made in what I've done with
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: my money because I have no idea, but I'm tracking
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  Speaker 1: it now and that's what matters important.
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  Speaker 4: I love that next question is what is currently your
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: big money goal.
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  Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't know. So since I started like following
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  Speaker 1: shoes on the money, my big money goal was to
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  Speaker 1: get an emergency fund. And I was actually lucky enough
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to receive a payment like a payout for an injury
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that I have, which gave me my entire emergency fund
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  Speaker 1: for three months. And also I got a new bed,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: which is excellent, and so now I really don't know.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about property, and literally the only reason
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I want to buy houses so that I can have
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a dog. That's it.
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  Speaker 4: That was my motivation to my friend. Literally, my partner
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: wanted to buy a house because it was a part
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: of his goals and things he wanted to do, and
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to invest in shares. But I lived
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: in a rental and knew that a dog would be,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: you know, a bit challenging unless we owned. So the
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: reason I was literally so motivated to say for a
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: home deposit was so that I could get a dog.
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  Speaker 4: And look at me. Now, I'm living my best life.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: I have a dog. Guys, Yes you do. All right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: So next question, because this is absolutely not about me,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: but if you want to talk more about dogs, here
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: for that too. Next question is do you currently have
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  Speaker 4: any investments? Oh?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, so I'm very excited about this O. So I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: started on visiting with Cheersey's just as like a way
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to kind of learn how it works. I still don't
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: really understand how it works, but I keep doing it
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: anyway because consistency and longevity. That's what I've been told
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  Speaker 1: by you.
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  Speaker 4: I'm glad you are taking what I say is gospel
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  Speaker 4: very important.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, what else am I supposed to do?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know anything about any of it.
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  Speaker 4: It's probably also why one of your money goals is
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  Speaker 4: a dog like I like that. That's important. She's taking
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  Speaker 4: this quite literally, Tony.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: No, that's good, yes, exactly. So I've just started putting
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit into Chersias every fortnight. But I've got
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: like my Kiwi saver, I recently changed it. You can
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: choose how much you contribute to it, so I recently
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: changed it to contribute ten percent of my income. So
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I've got almost eighteen grand in there, which is really yeah,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: really exciting, look at you go. Yeah. And then I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: also recently found out that when I was a kid,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I had an investment account set up with my EWI.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So that's something that I've just discovered. I knew, I
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: knew there was something there, but I didn't know what
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  Speaker 1: it was, and it had like one eighty put into
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: it like in two thousand and seven, and it's just
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: been left alone pretty much and just reinvesting everything on
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: its own taking away. So I've got about two grand
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in there, which I didn't know. Really good, yeah, So
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  Speaker 1: I've started contributing to that every fortnight as well.
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  Speaker 4: Exciting. It looks like you're on top of that. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: can't wait to see where you are in twelve months.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Your turbo charge. This I know out of the water.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I know. I get obsessed with everything, and this is
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a great thing to get obsessed with.
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  Speaker 4: I love it, all right. Next question is do you
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  Speaker 4: currently have any debts?
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  Speaker 1: I have about five grand on a student loan, but
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  Speaker 1: other than that, no debt, not a single bit. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of myself with that.
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  Speaker 4: I'm proud of you as well. I bet in your
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  Speaker 4: face as well, you're like, heck, yes, no debt.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that all right.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Next question is do you use shot back?
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I don't actually know what shotback is.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Well, if you haven't heard of it, shot back is
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: a cashback rewards program that is actually available across Australia Pacific.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: I know that it is very popular in Australia, maybe
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: not as much in New Zealand, but hopefully can increase
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: the awareness in New Zealand. So essentially, shot back works
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: by giving customers a percentage of their purchase money back
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: each time they make a transaction with its partner merchants
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: through its website. So for each transaction that goes through
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: shop back, the merchants actually pay a percentage like a
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: referral fee, and then shop back shares that referral fee
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: with you, which I think is a pretty good money
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: win because it doesn't cost you anything and all you
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: do is download the app. Kind of a money win
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: if you are an online shop.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he has.
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  Speaker 4: But let's move on, because I want to know what
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  Speaker 4: your best money habit is.
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  Speaker 1: So my best money habit now, I suppose, is educating
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  Speaker 1: myself like crazy. Yeah, so I'm learning as much as
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I possibly can about literally everything I don't really like,
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  Speaker 1: I haven't really been doing it long enough to develop
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: those good like cash flow habits, for sure, but I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: am doing my best to learn every single thing that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I can and put that into practice, which I'm already
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: seeing the impacts of which.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: Is I mean, but you will get you there. We
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: are going to turbo charge your cash flow system. After this.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: You and I are going to have a chat money darrist,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: you and I.
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  Speaker 3: But you've already got heaps of investments set up. You're
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: organizing your Kiwi Saver, which like is your superannuation over
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: in New Zealand, and all of those things. I mean,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: it sounds like you're on a pretty good track to me.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I don't think that you sound like you don't know
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: what you're talking about at all.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Well, when I sent the email, I didn't know what
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I was talking about. But now I've listened to pretty
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: much every single episode and read every single thing that
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: there is, and I'm doing my best to teach myself
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: as much as possible.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: That's as much. I love that so much. All right,
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: on the flip side, what is your worst money habit?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so I think it used to be just sticking
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: my head in the sand and ignoring the fact that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: money existed and just going and buying what I needed
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: or wanted and then being stressed out about it. I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: think my worst money habit now is I wouldn't say
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: it's like a bad money habit, but I just do
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: not know how to manage variable income because it is
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: so variable in the sex industry, And there's something that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I really do struggle with, like when it comes to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: cash flow, because of how variable it is.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's something that a lot of
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: people with variable income struggle with. And if you're listening
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: along and you struggle with this as well, something that
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: I think is really important to remember is always function
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: off a base income, So like, what is the least
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: amount of money that you will bring in each and
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: every single month, and try and budget around that, because
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: if you do that, you're going to put yourself in
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: a position that everything on top of that it's not cream,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: but it's a bonus, and we can save and invest
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: with that money while still completely understanding what our fixed
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: costs are and what's coming in and what has to
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: go out. So variable income can be really confusing because
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: some months you feel really rich and some months you're like,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, like I have literally no money. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: it's actually about changing our mindset so that if we
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: have a month where it is really prosperous and we
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: actually make some extra cash that we didn't think we
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: were going to make, it's not about treating ourselves. It's
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: actually about protecting future us and going, Okay, cool, I'm
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: going to put this one aside because I know in
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: a couple of months there's going to be an off
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: season and I'm probably going to need that for my
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: electricity bill, the top up my groceries, or to pay rent.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: So it's all about understanding your budget and what fixed
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: costs you actually have and what the base amount of
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: income you need coming in each and every single month
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: is and then to finish off my rant. My friends,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: it's about creating an emergency fund that would cover a
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: certain amount of months to make you feel really secure.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: So if one month you don't actually bring in the
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: income that you thought you would, you go It's fine.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: I've got some stuff off to the side that I
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: can pay for my bills with, and I think that
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: that's a really good way of functioning. But you and
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: I can take this offline, but this podcast is not offline.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: This is for everybody having buffer of your emergency fund
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that you've got worth three months, So that must help
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: with that so much. I've been a freelancer in audio
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and I can't do it. I'm just not someone that
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: can work on variable income. I just I need to
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: know how much is coming in. So I can only
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: imagine that having that little buffer is just such a
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: big help.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. I suffer from chronic migraines, so
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I find like stress makes them much worse. And as
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: soon as I had that emergency fund just sitting there,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I stop getting migraines every day.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, how powerful.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Literally overnight, it was quite it was really something else.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And I've never seen more than a thousand dollars in
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: my bank account, so seeing three months worth just sitting
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: there as like, oh my god, I'm safe now.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's crazy. But it's also so powerful to
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: realize the impact that money has not only on your
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: financial health, but your physical health and you're well and
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: your ability to create income in the future. Like, the
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: more financially secure you are, the healthier you are in
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: every other aspect of your life. And it is crazy
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and it makes no sense that people don't care about
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: it more from my perspective, because it could actually put
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: you in so much more control, but we don't prioritize that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, being stressed out about money leads to me being
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: incapable of actually going out and making more money.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: So that's the rock in a hard place, it really is.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: So having that emergency fund there has been like such
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a blessing.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I love that, all right. I have so many questions
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: for you. But last question in the list of our
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: questions is if I forced you to give yourself a
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: money grade, what would you give yourself?
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I would probably say about a C plus at the moment,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: like I'm learning, but I haven't done anything yet, you
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: know what I mean.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I feel like you could definitely be a bit more
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: generous with your Yeah, I.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Think so too. What are you doing?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's been such a short amount of times.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I understand. I'm the kind of person who like when
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I get like, when I learn about something, I've become
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: passionate about something, I'll just completely blast it and be
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: obsessed with it and then I and then I drop it,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to. This is one thing that
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I don't want to drop, and this is one thing
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get bored of.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: And it's one of those things that you can actually automate,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: so like it takes the groundwork to set it all
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: up and get your bank accounts in order and understand
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: your KEYW saver or your superranuation and what you're actually
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: trying to create, but we can actually automate all of
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: this once all of those things are set up, so
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: even if you do drop the ball, there's a really
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: great framework for everything to fall back onto. And I
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: think that that's the most important thing because so many
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: people just assume that financial wellness means putting lots of
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: time and energy and effort into it consistently, when in
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: reality that's not the case. You actually just have to
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: set it up right, create your goals, create your system,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: and it works long term. It's crazy, but it's true.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: And now that you've been on cheese on the money,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I feel like that's just one of those pillars of
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: concrete that you'll be. You'll be financially savvy forever because
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: you've talked to Victoria I hope.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: In fact, I heard that all money diarists just go
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: upper rank immediately just having been money diarists. So you
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: were a C plus, now you're a B plus just
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: purely because you're a money direst.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: You know what, I will take it. I will take congratulations.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: Congratulations. Let's chat a little bit after this break. Okay,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: money diarist, we are back, and your money diary is
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: a lot to swallow. Like, I don't even know where
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: to start. I don't know where to break it down.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: She's laughing. I don't know why, but don't you actually
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: We're going to start at the very start, and we
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: are going to ask you about your relationship with your mum,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: because that seems wild to me that as a minor,
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: somebody under the age of eighteen, you could rack up
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: debt in your name and you could end up in
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: such a sticky situation, and that your mom put you
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: in that situation.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: So can you talk to me a little bit about
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: how this eventuated? And I guess what your relationship with
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: your mama is like now, because I'm sure that that
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: is has stuck.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So it all kind of started when my parents
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: decided to divorce and Mom and I decided to move
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: home to New Zealand from Australia. I think that was
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: kind of the start of a slippery slope for Mom. She's,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: at the best of times, super gullible, like you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the whole Nigerian Prince scammers. She was all over that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: when through eBay and all of that kind of stuff
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: before we moved back, and once we moved back, she
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: was very vulnerable, I want to say, like she met
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a guy online, he flew down to meet her and
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: then moved down after meeting her once. This guy is
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a well known scammer with about over one hundred convictions
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and so yes, and this isn't even the main scammer.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: This isn't even the main story. Tony we've just uncovered
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: this when our money dires told us before we were
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: recording that her story is a triple threat. She wasn't lying,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: So money Dires, how old were you at this point?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So when we moved back, I was I just turned sixteen,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and that was when things really started. So the contract
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that I had signed when I was fifteen, I shouldn't
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: have signed it, and she shouldn't have let me sign that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And then she met another scammer, and it kind of
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it became very much like she met him in person
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: once and that was the only time she met him
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: in person, and was kind of like in this toxic
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: online relationship for about I want to say about six years.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Gosh, six years in an online relationship with someone super toxic.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, she was giving all of her income to him
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: at certain jobs. She was working under the table so
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that she could just get like, you know, not have
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to worry about tax or anything. And so that really started,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: like she would she sold quite a few assets and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: then invested all of the money in this guy's business.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And she knew straight away that I was not a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: fan of this guy I have.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Then it sounds like you had the nouse to know
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: that maybe that wasn't kosher, or maybe it wasn't the
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: right thing. Even at such a young age.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I have a very strong intuition, and Mum was very
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: much like it, you just don't want me to be
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: happy after divorcing your dad, which was like, Mum, that's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: naughty it I actually care a lot about you, yes, exactly,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: like I could not hear less about the divorce. To
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: be completely honest, it's better. It's better for everyone. Like
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: nobody in the family was happy, especially like myself and Mum.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: We did not want to live in Australia. Sorry, no offense,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that was fine. Oh my gosh, no, it's too warm
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: over there for me.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: I guess. The next question is like, how, like how
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: did you end up signing something and how was that
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: legally binding it such a young age.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: What it was was Mum decided she wanted to, you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: start this business breeding horses, and I was like, well,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you're chronically ill, so if you die, I want that horse.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I want that horse, goddamn it. So I signed the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: contract at fifteen. But when Mum defected on the contract
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a few years later when it was going through the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: courts process, she said that she was representing me in
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the process, and I was not there, and she for
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: some reason didn't say, hey, my daughter was fifteen when
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: she signed that, and so by doing that, by the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: time it had already been through the courts, I went
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: through the courts about twice. I think, honestly a large
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: part of that is because she she might not have
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: just like thought about the consequences of of me being
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a literal minor when I signed that contract. But also
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if she thought about protecting me at
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: all in that situation. So when she defected on the contract,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: it ended up, you know, she was in the wrong
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, of course I spoke to community law
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: or and that kind of thing to see if there
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: was anything I could do. Yeah, and they were like, well,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it's already been through the courts multiple times, like they've
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: decided they've made their choice either way. So I ended
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: up because Mum was working under the table because she
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: wanted to give all of her money to this scammer.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I ended up being the only one with like a
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: legit job where I pay taxes and all of that stuff.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: So I received a letter to my workplace being like, hey,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we're taking this money off of you and U I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: was about six grand Oh my gosh, yep, So that
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: ended up being garnished from my wages for quite a while.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: And how much, like, sorry, I don't know how that
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: works in New Zealand. Obviously that makes a lot of sense.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: But would they take one hundred percent of your wage
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: when you worked or would they take a percentage or
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: how did that work out?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So they initially applied to have them take one hundred
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: dollars per week, and the courts went, no, that's too much,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and so they agreed to let them take fifty dollars
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: per week, so that automatically gets deducted from my paycheck
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: before it even hits my account. So it ended up
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: being one hundred dollars a fortnight. And at this time
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I was working part time, not on a living wage
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: all of this kind of stuff, So that was a huge.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Chunk of so much money at that point as well,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: especially because you said before, like your current like full
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: time job in retail is what seventeen thousand dollars a year?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Obviously key, we Yeah, nowadays I'm doing I only do
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: my day job part time, but before, when I was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: doing it full time, I was earning about thirty thirty
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: four K a year, which is still not.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Much, and one hundred dollars a fortnite is a lot
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: of money to live off, because I'm assuming, this is
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: a very big assumption here that like, your mum wasn't
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: really providing you with any financial support, and there was
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: a lot going on with you doing it on your own,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Like that's not much money to be trying to find
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: your way on your own, right exactly.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: And so it got to the point where every single week,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I would like every paycheck, I would have to hassle
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: my mom to give me the money. And you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: it could have been on automatic payment, just sought that out.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: But when she was still in this toxic relationship, it
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: led to her not having the money because she was
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: giving it all to this random guy. And so there
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: was not a lot of well good, healthy communication between us,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: uh huh, and she was on very thin nights. The
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: only reason she was still in my life was because
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: she owed me money and I was not going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: be paying that debt for her because when she did
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: sell this asset, she gave him all of the money. Yes,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: so when she sold her assets, she's probably I would
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: estimate that she gave this guy probably close to one
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars, so like, because she was giving this
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: guy all of her money, there was I wanted, you know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: we moved to a new house and I was like,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: can we get some internet set up? But she has
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the worst credit ever, so they said no. And I
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: had just turned eighteen, so she was like, well, if
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you want the Internet, you have to go and sign
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: it up for yourself and I'll pay it. And I
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: didn't really think twice about it because I was an
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen year old just doing what mums.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: And you were like, I just need the internet, mum,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: So yeah, cool, I'll just organize that exactly.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And that happened with a couple of different companies. So basically,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: by the time I was nineteen, my credit score was
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: very bad m h. And I wasn't able to get
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: credit for anything, which actually, in hindsight, the amount of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: things I went to the bank and was like, Hi,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: can I get a loan for this? All that? And
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: they were every single time they were like no. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm actually so glad that my credit was ruined by
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: that point because that meant that I couldn't go and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: get myself into debt.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Funny how the world works, isn't it Exactly?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I would say that i'd probably be I would have
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: gotten like twenty K and debt by this point if
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I was able to just go and get money from
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the bank whenever.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: That is crazy. And so talk to me about how
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: you got out of that debt, Like what happened once
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: you were out of it, Like how's your relationship with
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: your mum now? Because money can make and break relationships completely.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So mum, at one point she came clean. She
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: finally managed to you know, dump this guy and get
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: away from him and just like cut her losses and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and just left. And she came to me
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and she told me everything that she had done, and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: she was honest with me for the first time in
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like six years. And she had, you know, she set
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: up an automatic payment all of that stuff, so I
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: wasn't having to hassle her for the money. And so
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: we were good for a few years. But especially now
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that I'm like learning about money and education, I didn't
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: know that financial abuse was a thing. Like I knew
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that she had done some really messed up stuff to me,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: but I didn't I've never even heard the term financial
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: abuse until I started learning about money. I knew it
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: was bad, but like, she really did some stuff that
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a mother should never do to their child. And when
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I discovered that second investment account through my EWI, I
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: found out that she had tried to access that money
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. She had gone into that when I
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: was an adult by that time, but she had gone
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: into it to try and see how much money there
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: was in there and to try and access that money
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: while she was still in this relationship with that scammer.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And I only found that out very recently. And that's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: just another another thing. I don't talk to my mum anymore,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: even though you know, like she paid off all of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the debt and she you know, cleared everything, and she
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: finally she is still manipulative and she is still a
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: gas lighter, and she still doesn't treat me the way
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that I deserve to be treated. And I realized that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: there is nobody else in my life that would even
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: think to treat me badly or to manipulate me, or
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to do anything like that. And I realized, why on
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: earth would I allow someone to stay in my life
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: if they're going to be treating me like that, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: so I went no contact with her. She doesn't like
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that very much. She has tried every single thing she
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: can to get to me or get to get me
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to respond and everything, which is just not going to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: happen because my boundaries are important.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: And she held that. I'm so proud of you, money Dires.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you. It's been quite a hard road, of course,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: But I also for the longest time, I didn't really
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: realize how bad it was what she had done. I
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: was just gonna like, this is a thing that mom,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: did you know?
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: But you don't know until you know, right, And it's
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: one of those things that kind of like hits you
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: really hard in the chest when you learn what financial
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: abuse is, and this goes for everything beyond financial abuse,
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: like especially when people learn about emotional abuse, they're like,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: hold up, like my mum or my parent or my
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: guardian or the person I was with never hit me,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: so I was an abuse And then they learn that no,
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: actually there's a number of different forms. They go, oh, well,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: that's why it felt that way. That's what I was
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: going through. And at the same time as it being
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: really nice to have a label to put on it,
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: it's really upsetting to find out that actually you were
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: going through something really real and you just didn't have
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: the education that you deserved to know what that was.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: And yeah, it's it's a challenging position to be in,
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: but it sounds like you are in the better position now,
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: my friend.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and like my well being is my priority. And
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I've always since I moved out, I've always felt like
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I have no safety in there. I can't call Mama and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: ask for help or anything like that for anything really,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and I've always felt very like independent. But then I
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: do see, you know, especially with COVID people getting all
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the support from their family, and it is kind of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: hard to know that I am my only safety in it. Yeah,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: there's nobody else that I can fall back on if
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I'm in trouble.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: But I guess after everything that you've been through, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: probably this is maybe the first time that you've ever
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: thought about all of the horrible things that you've been through,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: but are also reflecting on the amazing things you've done since.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Does that make you feel.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Really proud of yourself that you've gone through all of this?
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: You know, these situations with your family who were supposed
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: to be able to rely on that You've gone through
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: something that most people couldn't even comprehend. And look at
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: you now, you know, like you live in your own flat,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: You're doing everything that you want to do. You've got
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: this amazing emergency fund. You're contributing more than you need
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: to to your superannuation to make sure that your future
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: is taken care of. Like, think about all the amazing
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: things that you've done just through empowering yourself with knowledge.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, you should just be so proud of yourself.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Like does that feel amazing?
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: It honestly does. When I check my credit score and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: it finally said very good and that way, yay, that
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was something I was really really proud of. Like I
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't really have a choice but to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: do nothing. And I'm so glad that I didn't have
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a choice but to just not make any dumb money
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: decisions because that has really set me up. I am
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: really proud of myself forgetting to where I am. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I've always been a very independent person and I can
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: only rely on myself. But like I feel a lot
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: safer now. Having this education is really empowering.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: Of course, and it sounds like it just sounds like
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: you're so emotionally intelligent beyond your years. Like it just
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: sounds like, you know, when you meet somebody and you're like,
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: you're an old soul, like you've been here before. Like
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: I genuinely think when you meet someone you're like, wow,
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: you are so intelligent and so emotionally switched.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: On the emotional intelligence and awareness. That's just the trauma.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It's just the trauma. But it has really worked in
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: my favor. I am who I am because of what
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I've been through, and I really do not want to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: follow on the footsteps of my family. Like you know,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Mum's attitude towards money is horrendous. But you know, Dad,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: for example, has never been good with money either, and
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: we never had conversations about money. Those conversations about money
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: didn't happen at all. Like I was thinking about my
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: money story, but I can't remember any time when money
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: has been spoken about in a way that is factual.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: It's more emotionally driven based on my parents. And at
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, money can be such a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: useful tool to get where you want to go, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I actually do have the power to get myself there.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I really didn't expect to, you know, like especially growing
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: up and you know, the house in crisis and everything,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: like owning property. I never thought I would be able
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to do that. And I mean it's still not like
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a huge goal for me, but this stability and security
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: is important to me. And I've found that I also
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: don't really know how to set goals because I've never
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: had the option like some people save.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I will teach you.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I have got you.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Like some people. I'll see, like my peers just like
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: save up and go to France and stuff like that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's astonishing to me because that's never
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: been an option. Like I've never known how to save
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: for something big. So I'm still kind of learning that
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I can save up and go somewhere, or I can
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: save up and do a thing. I'm not quite used
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to that yet.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: But you are well on your way.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And this has been such an amazing money diary for
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: us to be able to share, because I'm sure that
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: there's people that can relate to that of having, you know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: not a great relationship with money through their childhood and
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: now getting to a place where they're able to look
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: to the future and actually feel excited about it. So
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for sharing your story with us,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: because honestly, it's really amazing to know that you came
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: through the other side and you're like, just at the
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: beginning of this amazing life.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I've got a life so great. Sure, yeah, you're so welcome.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, it's so special learning about other people's
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: money diaries and money journeys. It feels pervy, but you
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: do feel like you've learned a bit and you can
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: take away something from somebody else's money diary that you
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: can apply to another situation. And yeah, it's so special
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: to me that we get to share these stories, and
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: without you wanting to share them, we don't get to.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: So thank you.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: You are so welcome. Thank you so much.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: But as always, just before we head off, we'd like
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: to acknowledge and pay respect to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: straight to peoples. They're the traditional custodians of the lands,
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: the wadways and the skies all across Australia. We thank
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: you for sharing and the caring for the land on
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: which we are able to learn. We power respects to
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: elders past and present, and we share our friendship and
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: our kindness.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: The advice shared on shees On the Money is general
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. Shees
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: On the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: not be relied upon to make any investment or financial decision.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And we promise Victoria Divine is an authorized representative of
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Australia Pacific Funds Management for Prietary Limited ABN three four
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: one three two four six three two five seven AFSL
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: three three nine one five one.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: And we'll see you next week for another money diary. Friends,
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: Babe