How much are we all earning? How does your profession add up? How are women your age spending their money? Is everyone in debt? And is the cost of living crisis biting everyone?
It’s time for some honest, candid conversations about money and budgets as we steer down a recession – so welcome to our new series ‘Money, Honey’, where we’ll be diving deep into the bank accounts of wahine across the country to truly get a sense of what’s going on in our piggybanks.
Up this week it’s Olivia – and click here to see our previous instalments!
Name: Olivia, 39
Location: Auckland
Living situation: I live alone with no kids
Job: I’m self-employed as a freelance consulting and strategy manager
Salary per year: It depends on what projects I have on but last year it was $215,000
Any other income: N/A
Take-home pay per week: $2,800
Investment returns: I have investments through managed funds, which yielded about $18,000 last year. I invest $300 per fortnightly pay.
My situation: I’m single (happily single!) and absolutely love my life. I love my job and the fact that it’s down to me to manage my time and my workload – I’ve been in hugely demanding corporate roles before and I never had any form of a life outside of the office. But the silver lining of that was that I formed really good connections and contacts which allowed me to work for myself. I have an apartment just outside of the CBD which I own and it’s my haven. I’m very houseproud but I also have a fantastic group of friends, so I’m never lonely.
Weekly budget: I earn roughly $2800 a week.
Rent/mortgage: $720
Food: $250
Bills: $150
Childcare: N/A
Investments: $150
Debt payments: I have a credit card but only use it for Airpoints, so it’s paid back straight away.
Savings: $600
Spending:$500
Extra: There’s usually around $400 extra, so I’ll either chuck it into my savings or treat myself to a massage or something to do with self-care, depending on the week.
Anything else: A monthly $100 donation to my favourite charity.
What’s inside your bank account?
Savings: $94,033 across all my accounts – a general savings account I can access, a term deposit with a decent interest rate (around 6 per cent at the moment) and a specific travel savings account.
Kiwisaver: $75,552
How do you approach budgeting?
I’m a high earner and guess what, it’s a hell of a lot easier budgeting when you have a lot to budget with. I came from a poor family, my childhood was amazing but we didn’t have very much, so I’m always mindful that while I don’t have to worry about money on the daily, to still be sensible with it. I make sure everything that needs to be paid is paid, everything that needs to be saved is saved, and I enjoy the rest.
Are you a spender or a saver? A bit of both, I guess?
Do you have any debt, and what is it from? I had debt in my 20s from student loans and general poor decision making but that’s what your 20s are for, so no regrets. I manged to pay off my student loan and my overdrafts by the time I was 25, and vowed to not get into any more debt after that unless it was for a very good reason, like car repayments and of course a mortgage.
How has the cost-of-living crisis affected you and your spending? I feel awful saying so, but it really hasn’t. Yes interest rates have gone up, but it’s nothing that I haven’t been able to absorb. There are times where I feel guilty about how much I earn, but then I snap myself out of it. I work damn hard to earn my money, and my position now is because of so many years of grinding and sacrificing. It’s only been the last two years where I’ve been able to work for myself and I feel like I’m really starting to reap the rewards of hard work.
What are your financial goals? I could be a more aggressive investor so I’m working out a pathway to invest more – it was actually a Capsule story on hiring a financial advisor that inspired me to look into this more, and I have my first appointment with one next month.
What’s the best thing you’ve bought in the last three months? A new luggage set. Travel is my biggest expense and passion, and now that I manage my own time it means I can work from anywhere, and I’ve been really embracing that. My old suitcase was a bit worse for wear – culminating in a wheel falling off as I pulled it off the baggage claim last time – so I invested in a very high-quality matching set of three suitcases and it’s given me so much joy.
What’s the thing you regret buying the most in the last three months? A powered shower scrubber thing I saw on Instagram. I was like, this will be perfect for getting through the cleaning faster but it was an absolute lie and was just plastic junk that did barely anything.
What (if anything) are you saving towards? More travel. I’m not much of a ‘thing’ person. My apartment is pretty minimal and I’m not really that into fashion or anything, most of my clothes come from the high street stores because I just don’t see the point in labels. I’m a pretty independent person, so I’m saving up for a solo trip around Africa later this year.
Aside from the big stuff (rent/mortgage, bills etc) what’s your biggest source of discretionary spending? Travel!
Do you worry about money? No. I don’t need to, and it is probably life’s biggest luxury.
How much money (honestly) do you think you’d spend on an average day? If I’m out and about in the city between meetings I’ll grab breakfast and a coffee, perhaps lunch. I’d probably spend about $100 all up. But when I’m at home, nothing. I love cooking when I’m at home.
Where do you think it’s worth spending money, and where do you think you can save it? Experiences. If you knew you only had one more day left alive, do you think you’d be grateful for the fancy closet or the fancy furniture? No. You’d wish you’d seen more and done more. Spend what you can on travel, it absolutely changes you for the better. Save your money on labels and trends. So many of my girlfriends have wasted money on fashion trends especially – $300 for a top only worn once? Insanity.
Do you have any money-saving tips you’d like to share that work for you? Splitting out my different savings accounts in my banking app has really helped me because you can visualise and see exactly where your money is going and it’s quite motivating for me to achieve my goals. (Can I also say here that not having children definitely helps? Hahaha!)
What’s the first and last thing you would cut from your spending if you had to make some savings? Travel would be last – I’d just modify how I was doing it, if I had to. First would probably be things like my coffee subscription (I like a particular blend but you can only get it in niche shops) and my skincare membership. They’re nice to have and I can afford them, but I could definitely live without them.
If you’d like to contribute to a Money, Honey story (anonymously!) please email [email protected] – the more we talk about money, the more we demystify it!
