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MONEY DIARIES: From Hard Start to Flipping the Script! · She's On The Money

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Speaker 1: Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr
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Speaker 1: the Order Kerni Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before
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Speaker 1: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
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Speaker 1: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
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Speaker 1: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
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Speaker 1: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
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Speaker 1: through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
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Speaker 1: and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
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Speaker 1: today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
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Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
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Speaker 3: She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to She's on My Me the podcast
1:01
Speaker 2: Millennials who want financial freedom. Welcome back to another Shopback
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Speaker 2: Money Diary Monday, where we get to chat to one
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Speaker 2: of our beautiful community members to learn about them, their
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Speaker 2: money story and all of the fun bits and pieces
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Speaker 2: in between. Victoria, helloy going, I am excited. I've got
1:17
Speaker 2: a fun one for you today.
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Speaker 4: I know because we've been speaking to her beforehand. I
1:21
Speaker 4: don't know what the story is, but she's got a puppy,
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Speaker 4: so ten out ten.
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Speaker 2: We're obsessed with her so let me tell you her story.
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Speaker 2: She said, coming from a single parent home, financial trauma,
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Speaker 2: and young care situation, I've flipped my life around. I
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Speaker 2: now run my own business and only have eighty thousand
1:35
Speaker 2: dollars left on my mortgage after buying in twenty twenty.
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Speaker 2: Sorry what By using a few savvy methods, I want
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Speaker 2: to inspire people who have had a hard financial start
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Speaker 2: or are doing it without help from their parents or
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Speaker 2: a partner to know that if you keep working hard,
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Speaker 2: eventually the seeds you plant will fruit. I'm twenty seven,
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Speaker 2: single and one hundred percent self made, but still always
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Speaker 2: learning and growing. I would love to share my story
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Speaker 2: with the commuit need to help others. Oh my gosh,
2:02
Speaker 2: welcome to the show money Diarist. Are you kiddy? What
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Speaker 2: a story?
2:07
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's a little bit
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Speaker 5: of a rollercoaster ride, to be honest, but a good while.
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Speaker 2: My gosh, let's dive straight in. I'm so ready.
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Speaker 4: My first question off the bat, Can you tell us
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Speaker 4: a little bit about your money story?
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Speaker 5: Yeah? So basically it starts off positive. I was kind
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Speaker 5: of that finance kid that would literally search the house
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Speaker 5: for money and I would put all the money together
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Speaker 5: and at the end of the year I would go
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Speaker 5: to like the two dollars shop and buy my family,
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Speaker 5: like just you two dollar pieces of rubbish super cute,
2:41
Speaker 5: and that was kind of my love language, I suppose. However,
2:45
Speaker 5: in two thousand and seven, this is where it all
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Speaker 5: kind of changed into a negative attitude. I was just
2:50
Speaker 5: finishing primary school and my parents announced that they were
2:53
Speaker 5: getting a divorce. I knew that money was tight and
2:56
Speaker 5: there was always arguments over it, but it was getting
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Speaker 5: even more tight now, and money was now being used
3:02
Speaker 5: to persuade, manipulate, control, and kind of rule my situation,
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Speaker 5: and as a twelve year old I was just left
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Speaker 5: feeling kind of a panic, extrass, sad, and kind of helpless.
3:14
Speaker 5: It took about one or two years when my parents
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Speaker 5: divorced to kind of settle, and eventually Mum and us
3:20
Speaker 5: kids got a family home, which was great, but it
3:24
Speaker 5: came out of really high cost in terms of a
3:26
Speaker 5: high interest rates and high repayments, which were really hard
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Speaker 5: for Mom to maintain as a single parent. So we
3:32
Speaker 5: seeked out a mortgage broker, which is the first time
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Speaker 5: I heard about that, and basically this was the anly
3:38
Speaker 5: way that we could really keep the house with a
3:42
Speaker 5: lot of pressure on mom's shoulders to be mom dad,
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Speaker 5: you know, the sole provider and all that. This experience
3:49
Speaker 5: for her was too overwhelming, so basically she kind of
3:53
Speaker 5: gave up and I kind of stepped in and took over.
3:56
Speaker 5: So at the age of fourteen and fifteen, I learned
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Speaker 5: very quick clear out interest rates, deposits, equity offset accounts,
4:04
Speaker 5: terms and conditions of praise lenders, house valuations, credit scores, everything,
4:10
Speaker 5: and one's situation was pretty complex at the time, so
4:13
Speaker 5: it took six to nine months, but I successfully financed
4:17
Speaker 5: the family home at such a young age, which was
4:21
Speaker 5: crazy to look back on. So from then on I
4:24
Speaker 5: was very finance focused. I would work in retail and
4:28
Speaker 5: I would basically have my savings as a way to
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Speaker 5: build mum's emergency funds, like I was her emergency funds,
4:36
Speaker 5: and that's how I kind of learned what that was.
4:39
Speaker 5: And then I kept a part time job throughout UNI
4:42
Speaker 5: and university just basically for my family's financial situation, just
4:48
Speaker 5: to kind of give a roof over their heads. But
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Speaker 5: it did come at detriment to my mental health, as
4:54
Speaker 5: I would, you know, work weekends to get maximum pay
4:57
Speaker 5: because of the penalties, but it stopped me from being
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Speaker 5: a social life and kind of having a break from
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Speaker 5: UNI or from school that I would work during the week.
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Speaker 5: As time went on, the family situation got worse and worse.
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Speaker 5: Things got more and more expensive, and kids grew up,
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Speaker 5: so we got more expensive to look after. I did
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Speaker 5: think about dropping out of UNI multiple times to help
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Speaker 5: with money, but I decided to kind of keep going,
5:23
Speaker 5: and even though I was burning the candle at two ends,
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Speaker 5: eventually would pay off. I graduated from university and got
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Speaker 5: a job as a therapist. However, all first jobs were
5:33
Speaker 5: pretty rubbish, so the working conditions are pretty poor, and
5:36
Speaker 5: again my mental health started kind of declining, but the
5:40
Speaker 5: pay was good. So from kind of the financial trauma,
5:43
Speaker 5: I was so financially driven to just kind of get
5:46
Speaker 5: more and more better jobs for high and high pay,
5:49
Speaker 5: regardless of what the conditions or environments were like to
5:54
Speaker 5: work in, just because I was so financially driven to
5:57
Speaker 5: succeed for my family. After a really big rins and
6:01
Speaker 5: repeat cycle and numerous burnouts later, I decided this is enough.
6:07
Speaker 5: I need to flip the script. I need to stop
6:09
Speaker 5: my story from being such a negative story that I
6:11
Speaker 5: had to make it positive. So the first way I
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Speaker 5: did this was to use money to bring happiness enjoy
6:19
Speaker 5: And the first thing I thought was because I was
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Speaker 5: only in my early twenties at this point, I thought
6:24
Speaker 5: I came going to travel, but COVID popped that dream,
6:28
Speaker 5: and so I turned to property, which I knew through
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Speaker 5: and through had given my backstory, and so in twenty
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Speaker 5: twenty I bought my first apartment at two by one
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Speaker 5: with river views. It was kind of the worst house
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Speaker 5: in the best street approach. I spent years renovating it,
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Speaker 5: saving freach Renno and doing as much as I could
6:50
Speaker 5: myself while spending all my money and Renno's I kind
6:55
Speaker 5: of wanted to get some profit back after I had
6:56
Speaker 5: finished it, so I airbm beat it, and to my surprise,
7:00
Speaker 5: that took off, and so now I have full time
7:03
Speaker 5: airbnbit to help with my mortgage.
7:05
Speaker 2: Oh how good.
7:07
Speaker 5: I decided to change my employment story as well as
7:11
Speaker 5: my current job started cutting hours, I decided instead of
7:14
Speaker 5: getting another job and kind of popping that cycle, I
7:18
Speaker 5: decided to start my own business and have to have
7:22
Speaker 5: my mental health and work life balance as the main focus.
7:26
Speaker 5: And I also stepped away financially for my family because
7:29
Speaker 5: I felt like they're in a good enough spot now.
7:31
Speaker 5: So right now, it is a very positive attitude towards money,
7:35
Speaker 5: and I'm finally kind of reaping that fruit from those
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Speaker 5: seeds that I've kind of sewn.
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Speaker 4: Yeah wow, oh my gosh. Well, I want to know,
7:42
Speaker 4: now you said you flipped your employment script.
7:45
Speaker 2: What do you do for work? How much money do
7:47
Speaker 2: you earn?
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Speaker 5: I am a therapist in the ndis realm oh cool?
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Speaker 5: I earn about one hundred and eighty five K a year.
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Speaker 2: WHOA one hundred and eighty five K? How epic?
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Speaker 4: I feel like that is one you deserve every penny
8:02
Speaker 4: of that because working in that space is so special.
8:04
Speaker 4: But I feel like so many people wouldn't think that
8:07
Speaker 4: that was possible. I want to know, how do you
8:09
Speaker 4: earn one hundred and eighty five K in that role?
8:12
Speaker 4: Did you have to work up to it? Is there
8:14
Speaker 4: a like specialty that you have because I know it
8:16
Speaker 4: can be super varying.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I do have a lot of year's
8:21
Speaker 5: experience under my belt, Like I'm not just fresh out
8:24
Speaker 5: of UNI. I've definitely got seven plus years of experience.
8:28
Speaker 5: But also I do work very very hard in terms
8:31
Speaker 5: of like, I do a lot of hours at the moment,
8:34
Speaker 5: just because we're kind of kids coming at me and
8:36
Speaker 5: I kind of keep accepting it. But it's one of
8:39
Speaker 5: those things where I think the Ndis Ray is very
8:42
Speaker 5: very good to us. And I don't have any overheads,
8:46
Speaker 5: so I don't work from an office, so I'm basically mobile,
8:50
Speaker 5: so I just go straight to my clients' houses. And
8:53
Speaker 5: I don't have any sort of like people like bigger
8:56
Speaker 5: bosses that kind of take out from that pie. So
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Speaker 5: I just have my bookkeeper and then I can charge
9:02
Speaker 5: the full rate and just basically take that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:06
Speaker 4: Cool, all right, talk to me, what is your big
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Speaker 4: money goal, because it sounds like you've done a lot already.
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Speaker 5: My big money goal is just to basically create numerous
9:15
Speaker 5: streams of passive income by basically owning numerous properties outright dividends, shares,
9:22
Speaker 5: interests on saving accounts, just whatever means possible.
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Speaker 2: Awesome, So talk to me. Do you have any investments currently?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so obviously my apartment is my biggest source of investment.
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Speaker 5: I do have just some safe shares that I've had
9:38
Speaker 5: since I was about fifteen, so they pay me dividends.
9:42
Speaker 5: Every six months, which is great. And I do have
9:46
Speaker 5: a bit of crypto, and I feel like I'm educated
9:48
Speaker 5: enough in that realm, so I kind of just put
9:50
Speaker 5: my toe into it, but not very much there. And
9:55
Speaker 5: I also get like an interest from saving accounts, so
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Speaker 5: I would like to think that's form of investment as well.
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Speaker 4: I feel like at the moment everyone's talking about not
10:04
Speaker 4: getting good rates of return on their savings accounts, what
10:07
Speaker 4: are you using? Are you getting good rates of return
10:10
Speaker 4: at this point in time?
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Speaker 5: It depends to me. In my previous retail jobs, I
10:15
Speaker 5: used to only earn like twenty dollars an hour, and
10:17
Speaker 5: so when I got like twenty dollars of interest, I'd
10:21
Speaker 5: be like, oh my god, that's a whole hour's pay.
10:23
Speaker 5: Who So, I think for me, I kind of look
10:27
Speaker 5: at it. It's more like how many hours is that
10:30
Speaker 5: free money? That makes sense rather than exactly like, oh
10:34
Speaker 5: I made this much or I made that much.
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Speaker 4: Ye know, it's epic. Yeah, I love that all right.
10:39
Speaker 4: I know that you've got a mortgage, but I want
10:41
Speaker 4: to know do you have any debts? If so, what
10:43
Speaker 4: are they?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so my mortgage is my good debt, My okay
10:46
Speaker 5: debt is my student loan, but that should be paid
10:49
Speaker 5: off by next year, and that's basically everything else has
10:53
Speaker 5: been paid in full.
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Speaker 4: You spoke before in your email submission that you had
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Speaker 4: eighty thousand dollars left on your mortgage? How much did
11:01
Speaker 4: you buy for? Because we're all pervy, we want to
11:04
Speaker 4: know how quickly you've smashed that down.
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Speaker 5: Interesting sorry for my house was that they wanted it
11:10
Speaker 5: for three hundred thousands, but then obviously COVID here and
11:13
Speaker 5: no one was buying, and the house market was just
11:17
Speaker 5: absolutely crashy. So then they wanted two fifty and I
11:20
Speaker 5: negotiated it for one eighty three.
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Speaker 2: Wow, one eighty three? What are money?
11:26
Speaker 4: I want to know so much about this circumstance without
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Speaker 4: breaching your privacy, Like how did you get an apartment
11:33
Speaker 4: for one hundred and eighty three thousand dollars?
11:35
Speaker 2: That's wild to me?
11:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I think I was really lucky. Like I
11:38
Speaker 5: did go for another apartment, but that fell through, and
11:41
Speaker 5: I was pretty bummed about it. So I kind of
11:42
Speaker 5: knew that I had to act quite quickly if I
11:45
Speaker 5: wanted something. And basically I said to Mom, come with me,
11:49
Speaker 5: let's have a look at it. See what you think
11:51
Speaker 5: and we'll go from there. And we walked in at
11:54
Speaker 5: like three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and by five
11:58
Speaker 5: o'clock I had bought it. And it was kind of
12:02
Speaker 5: one of these crazy things that like it was just
12:04
Speaker 5: meant to be. So the realtor basically was like, look,
12:09
Speaker 5: there is someone looking at this property as well. You know,
12:12
Speaker 5: if you're serious about it, please put an offer in.
12:15
Speaker 5: The lady who sold it to me, I think she
12:17
Speaker 5: had had it for about twenty five years or something,
12:19
Speaker 5: so it was it's a pretty old complex and she
12:23
Speaker 5: just wanted to liquid eye, I think, and she just
12:26
Speaker 5: wanted it to go to a good home.
12:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really sweet.
12:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it was just kind of one of those
12:31
Speaker 5: things like when the realtor kind of spoke, it was like, oh,
12:35
Speaker 5: you know, she comes from a good family, and she's
12:37
Speaker 5: worked really hard, and she has a big deposit because
12:39
Speaker 5: I had I had twenty percent at that point, this
12:42
Speaker 5: is what she's going to put down blah blah blah.
12:44
Speaker 5: And she's like, Yeah, I just wanted to go to
12:46
Speaker 5: a you know, a good home and that someone's going
12:48
Speaker 5: to have a lot of good memories there. And I
12:51
Speaker 5: initially said I offered one hundred and eighty one, but
12:53
Speaker 5: then she was like, oh, I really want one hundred
12:55
Speaker 5: and eighty five minimum, So I was like one hundred
12:57
Speaker 5: and eighty three, was like okay, And then she wrote
13:00
Speaker 5: me a letter just saying like, you know, she wished
13:02
Speaker 5: me all the best and all the I have really
13:04
Speaker 5: good times there, and it was just it wasn't more
13:08
Speaker 5: like a profit sort of thing for her. I think
13:11
Speaker 5: it was just more about finding the right person to
13:15
Speaker 5: give them a start in life sort of thing. So
13:18
Speaker 5: it's a bit wholesome.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it's so wholesome.
13:21
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I had a twenty percent deposit and my
13:25
Speaker 5: mortgage was one hundred and forty six four hundred, so
13:29
Speaker 5: I've paid off what is that like sixty thousand or
13:34
Speaker 5: something like that. God, I can't do quick math.
13:38
Speaker 2: No, that's so fine. All right.
13:40
Speaker 4: You sound like you are pretty good at money. Do
13:43
Speaker 4: you use shop back when you shop online?
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Speaker 5: I do. I'm not a big online shopper though, but
13:48
Speaker 5: I do use it for like travel and flights and
13:50
Speaker 5: things like that when I can, and I do kind
13:53
Speaker 5: of recommend it to friends and family. But yeah, I'm
13:56
Speaker 5: not a big shopper.
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Speaker 4: That's okay, love to hear it next, ques and I've
14:00
Speaker 4: got for you. We want to know what is your
14:02
Speaker 4: best money habit?
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Speaker 5: My best money habit is that I kind of save everything.
14:07
Speaker 5: So everything I kind of have bought, I try and
14:10
Speaker 5: like save in full and then I can pay it
14:12
Speaker 5: in full. So like all my reno's, like I saved
14:15
Speaker 5: and did it as I went, so then I didn't
14:17
Speaker 5: have a debt. And so like my car, like wanting
14:20
Speaker 5: a car, I was like, right, I have to save
14:21
Speaker 5: for it first and then pay it in full. So
14:24
Speaker 5: I didn't have any sort of those loans kind of looming.
14:27
Speaker 4: Epic and to flip that up on its head, what's
14:30
Speaker 4: your worst money habit?
14:31
Speaker 2: Oh?
14:32
Speaker 5: Okay, So basically I kind of focus on the want,
14:35
Speaker 5: like I want to save this much money a week,
14:38
Speaker 5: rather than I can save this much money a week.
14:41
Speaker 5: So even though I'm like I want to save like,
14:44
Speaker 5: you know, two hundred dollars or something like that, so
14:47
Speaker 5: I can't because I've got like big bills coming in,
14:49
Speaker 5: I kind of get like really stressed and like it
14:52
Speaker 5: makes everything really confusing. So like that everyday budgeting is
14:56
Speaker 5: kind of really murky because I have like this sort
14:59
Speaker 5: of like I want to do this, but then that
15:02
Speaker 5: realistic I can only do this is tricky to manage understandably.
15:08
Speaker 4: So and last question before we go to a quick break,
15:11
Speaker 4: what grade would you give your money habits if we
15:13
Speaker 4: forced you to give yourself a grade.
15:15
Speaker 5: Or I would probably do a B plus just because
15:19
Speaker 5: of that worse habit, which is like the everyday budgeting
15:23
Speaker 5: is not super clear or realistic or automative. I would
15:26
Speaker 5: like for that to be more clear to decrease the
15:30
Speaker 5: stress I have around finance.
15:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair, fair, I like that, And I like that
15:34
Speaker 2: you told us why you would want it to change.
15:37
Speaker 2: That's really powerful. All right, I've got a lot of
15:39
Speaker 2: questions for you right after this really quick break.
15:46
Speaker 4: All right, Jessicataci, let's jump straight back into it. Money
15:49
Speaker 4: dist you have such an interesting money story. I feel
15:53
Speaker 4: like you have lived the lives of a thousand She's
15:56
Speaker 4: on the money community members. You've been in a care position,
16:00
Speaker 4: you have refinanced your family home at the age of
16:02
Speaker 4: like fourteen or fifteen, You've bought a home, you've paid
16:05
Speaker 4: off a significant percentage of the mortgage, and now your
16:07
Speaker 4: airbnb in your room's out to make even more profit,
16:11
Speaker 4: which is so savvy. It's not funny, but I want
16:13
Speaker 4: to go back. I want to be a little bit
16:15
Speaker 4: more pervy. On your family circumstances, how did you find
16:19
Speaker 4: yourself in a position where you were fourteen fifteen and
16:22
Speaker 4: having to deal directly with a mortgage broker to refinance
16:25
Speaker 4: your family home, Like why do you think that you
16:29
Speaker 4: ended up being the driving force in that circumstance.
16:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a good question, basically, Like I do have
16:37
Speaker 5: an older brother and two younger brothers, but I think
16:40
Speaker 5: when it came to responsibility, it always kind of felt
16:43
Speaker 5: on my shoulders. I always was one that I think
16:47
Speaker 5: my parents knew that I was really financially driven. I
16:51
Speaker 5: knew about the basic things. I knew how to say,
16:54
Speaker 5: I knew what interest was. When I found out about
16:57
Speaker 5: compound interest, I was like, what is this magic? I
17:00
Speaker 5: think that just when push came to shove and I
17:02
Speaker 5: could just see Mom not coping, and I knew that
17:06
Speaker 5: basically this was either sink or swim sort of thing.
17:09
Speaker 5: I knew that, all right, I don't know what I'm doing,
17:13
Speaker 5: but I'm going to give it a go. And I
17:16
Speaker 5: had a really really good mortgage brokeer like kind of
17:18
Speaker 5: identified the situation in my family and what was kind
17:22
Speaker 5: of happening, and my older brother was not at all
17:25
Speaker 5: savvy with money, he's only two years older. I guess
17:28
Speaker 5: it just kind of fell on my shoulders in terms of, well,
17:31
Speaker 5: this person knows what she's doing, I'll walk her through it.
17:34
Speaker 5: I'd run down and get mums sinnature and come back
17:36
Speaker 5: and then kind of thing. So it was kind of
17:40
Speaker 5: just something that I think always happened, like when Mum
17:44
Speaker 5: was ill, Like I said, I'm a young kerr. I
17:46
Speaker 5: would always be the one, you know, taking her to
17:48
Speaker 5: the hospitals or taking her to her medical appointments, or
17:51
Speaker 5: making sure the family unit was still running. So I
17:54
Speaker 5: think because I had that responsibility on my shoulders, I
17:57
Speaker 5: think that it just kind of fell into my lap.
17:59
Speaker 5: And I think also like there's a part of me
18:02
Speaker 5: that just wants to sort of fix everything and save
18:06
Speaker 5: everything for my family's sake.
18:08
Speaker 2: So that sounds like a really big burden to carry.
18:11
Speaker 2: Are you okay now with that? Like how do you
18:14
Speaker 2: feel when we reflect on that?
18:16
Speaker 5: It was really interesting to reflect on it at the
18:18
Speaker 5: beginning because I was getting quite like emotional about it,
18:22
Speaker 5: and I was like, wow, I've forgotten that I did
18:25
Speaker 5: all this, and in a weird way, I kind of
18:27
Speaker 5: normalized it all. And so when when I was looking
18:31
Speaker 5: for an apartment, like, I already had lots and lots
18:33
Speaker 5: of experience behind that, so I already knew what I
18:35
Speaker 5: was doing. But then I talked to my friends and
18:37
Speaker 5: they'd be like, they wouldn't have the knowledge so that
18:41
Speaker 5: I had. And I kind of found that always really strange.
18:44
Speaker 5: But looking back, you're like, Oh, that's why you have
18:47
Speaker 5: that knowledge, and that's why that experience shaped you the
18:50
Speaker 5: way you are. And I guess I'm very determined on
18:53
Speaker 5: using hard experiences as a way to flourish. I suppose,
18:58
Speaker 5: you know, taking like, Okay, this whole situation happened to you.
19:01
Speaker 5: You know, you were forced to step into a kind
19:04
Speaker 5: of co parenting role and adult responsibilities. But you know,
19:09
Speaker 5: let's try and use that to your advantage, you know,
19:12
Speaker 5: later in life. So I can I answer your question.
19:15
Speaker 4: No, it totally answers the question. I always feel bad
19:18
Speaker 4: when I'm like asking really pervy questions that involve other people.
19:23
Speaker 2: It's so easy to be.
19:24
Speaker 4: Like, oh my gosh, money dires like you did X,
19:27
Speaker 4: Y and Z, tell me about it. But when there's
19:29
Speaker 4: a caring role in there, there's often a sense of obligation.
19:33
Speaker 4: And we're not saying that you had to, but like
19:35
Speaker 4: there wasn't anyone else in your circumstance, I'm assuming that
19:38
Speaker 4: could step up and take that role. You're usually thrown
19:41
Speaker 4: into that circumstance and obviously you didn't have any other
19:44
Speaker 4: option but to embrace it.
19:46
Speaker 2: But I think you did it beautifully.
19:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's one of those things that I think
19:50
Speaker 5: that I have to always remind myself, you know, like
19:53
Speaker 5: you did that. You're amazing, Like that's incredible. And I
19:55
Speaker 5: think now that I'm getting older, I'm sort of really
19:58
Speaker 5: making sure that I do a appreciate myself and I
20:01
Speaker 5: do look after myself. And I think from your previous
20:05
Speaker 5: podcast like identifying, Yeah, you do have financial trauma, Like
20:08
Speaker 5: what you went through was not just your typical like
20:13
Speaker 5: you know, twelve year old life and kind of working
20:16
Speaker 5: through that and I do get psychological help and I
20:19
Speaker 5: do pack it a lot. And it's interesting because it's
20:22
Speaker 5: like a love hate relationship with money, Like I love
20:25
Speaker 5: kind of earning it and building it and you know,
20:28
Speaker 5: using it to travel and to build my investments and
20:32
Speaker 5: things like that, But then there's also like this trauma
20:35
Speaker 5: around do I have enough of it? Am I working
20:38
Speaker 5: hard enough? Is it all going to block tomorrow? Sort
20:41
Speaker 5: of things. So it's kind of like still work in progress,
20:45
Speaker 5: but definitely doing a lot better and just kind of
20:47
Speaker 5: taking those mental breaks when I need them to kind
20:50
Speaker 5: of be like, Okay, don't check the mortgage numbers today,
20:53
Speaker 5: and don't panex so much about only having this much
20:56
Speaker 5: in your savings, so kind of putting those boundaries around finance.
20:59
Speaker 4: Which which is really important, really really important. I want
21:03
Speaker 4: to know, at what point did you realize that the
21:06
Speaker 4: circumstances you had been through were traumatic. So obviously trauma
21:11
Speaker 4: carries a lot of different meaning for other people, but
21:14
Speaker 4: obviously on the podcast, as you said before, we've been
21:17
Speaker 4: talking a lot about financial trauma, and I don't think
21:20
Speaker 4: people realize how significant it can be. Was that a
21:23
Speaker 4: bit of a jarring experience when you're like, wait, no,
21:26
Speaker 4: that was a traumatic circumstance as opposed to just how
21:30
Speaker 4: you grew up?
21:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean I kind of flagged financial trauma
21:35
Speaker 5: actually a couple months before I heard your podcast. And
21:37
Speaker 5: when I heard your podcast, I was like tic, tic,
21:39
Speaker 5: tick me me, me, Me. And it's kind of interesting
21:42
Speaker 5: because when you look back on your behavior, you think, oh,
21:45
Speaker 5: that's just me, but then you're like, actually, no, there's
21:48
Speaker 5: a reason why I have a bookkeeper and I don't
21:51
Speaker 5: want to know anything about the financial so I'm just like, yep,
21:53
Speaker 5: you guys thought it. Oh God, just tell me how
21:55
Speaker 5: much tax to pay. It kind of like it is
21:58
Speaker 5: one of those things where like I'm very big on
22:02
Speaker 5: kind of figuring out why things are making me feel
22:06
Speaker 5: the way I'm feeling. Like I do have anxiety, and
22:09
Speaker 5: I've been battling and managing that for many, many years,
22:13
Speaker 5: and I think that's what came first. So kind of
22:16
Speaker 5: that time that I said back in my money story
22:19
Speaker 5: around I didn't know whether I wanted to stay in
22:22
Speaker 5: UNI or if I should drop out and go full
22:24
Speaker 5: time and retail to help the financial situation, that was
22:28
Speaker 5: really where my mental health kind of broke, because it
22:30
Speaker 5: was like, what do I do. Do I help myself
22:34
Speaker 5: or do I help my family? And I felt really
22:36
Speaker 5: uncomfortable with kind of letting my family down but also
22:41
Speaker 5: kind of pursuing me, And so then I started getting
22:44
Speaker 5: psychological help instead of managing that and my anxiety grew
22:48
Speaker 5: into what you call generalized anxiety, which means that it's
22:51
Speaker 5: not just triggered. It means that you're in this general
22:54
Speaker 5: state of anxiety all the time. And I think I've
22:57
Speaker 5: worked really hard at kind of like understanding why. But
23:01
Speaker 5: recently I came around the topic of financial trauma and
23:04
Speaker 5: I was like, what does that mean?
23:05
Speaker 2: What is that?
23:06
Speaker 5: And I realized that my anxiety is very much built
23:09
Speaker 5: on that, and so that was really interesting to sort
23:12
Speaker 5: of be like, oh, here's a light bulb moment. A
23:14
Speaker 5: lot of your anxiety around finance is because of basically
23:19
Speaker 5: not having a lot of it growing up, and it
23:21
Speaker 5: always being used as a like way to sort of
23:25
Speaker 5: like control your situation or dictate your situation, and you know,
23:30
Speaker 5: if you don't have it, you're going to lose everything
23:31
Speaker 5: you and lose the house, You're going to lose this,
23:33
Speaker 5: that and the other, and always making sure that I
23:35
Speaker 5: had plentiful of it. So it was one of those
23:38
Speaker 5: things that when I kind of found out about it,
23:41
Speaker 5: when the light bulb kind of came on and I
23:42
Speaker 5: realized this is what I had, it was upsetting at first,
23:46
Speaker 5: because you know, no one likes to have trauma in
23:48
Speaker 5: their life, but as well, it was kind of like, right,
23:52
Speaker 5: how do I unpack this? How do I kind of
23:55
Speaker 5: grow from this? How do I use this as a strength.
23:57
Speaker 5: Now I can't undo the past, but I can't change
24:00
Speaker 5: the future. How do I sort of manage this? How
24:03
Speaker 5: do I use it as a strength?
24:05
Speaker 2: Basically, I love that.
24:06
Speaker 4: I think that's so important. What would you say to
24:09
Speaker 4: those people who are going through a circumstance you know
24:12
Speaker 4: that either replicates or feels a little bit similar to yours,
24:16
Speaker 4: but maybe hasn't reached out for help yet.
24:19
Speaker 5: Reaching out for help was the hardest thing that I
24:21
Speaker 5: had to do. It took me a lot of time
24:24
Speaker 5: for me to reach out and say, hey, I need help.
24:26
Speaker 5: Given the family situation that I was in, I was
24:29
Speaker 5: always the one that, you know, when stuff hit the fan,
24:31
Speaker 5: it was we go to me. And I never felt
24:35
Speaker 5: like I couldn't not be okay. And it took me
24:40
Speaker 5: a lot of time to like pick up the phone
24:42
Speaker 5: and call a counselor, and eventually I did, and then
24:47
Speaker 5: I kind of like got used to being like, you
24:49
Speaker 5: know what, I can askly help all the time, and
24:51
Speaker 5: I can always express my feelings and being a therapist.
24:56
Speaker 5: I'm very good at I've kind of just communicating this
25:00
Speaker 5: is how I'm feeling, this is what I'm and doing,
25:03
Speaker 5: and soon to normalize that between my friends, like, hey,
25:06
Speaker 5: this is how I'm feeling today. Hey, this is what's
25:08
Speaker 5: going on. Hey, this is kind of where my headset
25:12
Speaker 5: is at. I think for anyone that's in a similar
25:14
Speaker 5: situation to me is to always value your mental health.
25:17
Speaker 5: Like there were times where I was like very financially focused,
25:21
Speaker 5: and it was like, keep working in this job even
25:24
Speaker 5: though it's got rubbish conditions and you're shaking all the
25:26
Speaker 5: time and having panic attacks. Don't worry. You'll pay off
25:31
Speaker 5: because you'll get a bigger amount of salary in the
25:33
Speaker 5: next job. But I think, looking back, I really wish
25:36
Speaker 5: that I could just have a bit more patience and
25:39
Speaker 5: just be like, Okay, you need to sort of like
25:43
Speaker 5: just stop look after your mental health. It might take
25:46
Speaker 5: another six more months, or it might take another year
25:49
Speaker 5: to get where you want to be financially, but that's
25:52
Speaker 5: not the important thing. The important thing is your well being.
25:55
Speaker 5: Your important thing is that you know you feel okay
25:58
Speaker 5: when you wake up in the morning, and that you
26:01
Speaker 5: feel happy and that you don't feel like this heavy
26:03
Speaker 5: chest feeling that's what is the most valuable thing, and
26:07
Speaker 5: that should always be your focus. So it's kind of
26:11
Speaker 5: one of those things of like just reaching out for
26:13
Speaker 5: help but also reevaluating what's important to you. So I
26:18
Speaker 5: think like valuing finance is super important, but valuing your
26:22
Speaker 5: mental wealth being is going to get you everywhere. Finance
26:26
Speaker 5: is a long term game, you know, it's not a
26:28
Speaker 5: short term as much as you might be going through
26:30
Speaker 5: really hardship. It's a long term game.
26:33
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, well, I think that that is a
26:35
Speaker 2: beautiful place to leave it. Thank you for that. Thank
26:38
Speaker 2: you for sharing your money story with us. We loved it.
26:41
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. Guys.
26:44
Speaker 5: I very much appreciate it. And I hope that my
26:47
Speaker 5: money's theory can inspire other people or if anyone's going
26:50
Speaker 5: through that situation, that they can, you know, get some
26:53
Speaker 5: help or just know that there is a light at
26:56
Speaker 5: the end of the tunnel always.
26:58
Speaker 4: I am absolutely certain it will. My love see you
27:01
Speaker 4: on Wednesday, guys.
27:02
Speaker 2: Bye.
27:08
Speaker 4: The advice shared on She's on the Money is general
27:10
Speaker 4: in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's
27:14
Speaker 4: on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should
27:18
Speaker 4: not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
27:21
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27:24
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