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The Savings Habit

Lately, I’ve read a lot about the interest rate going down & who the real winners & losers are. It makes pretty interesting fodder during my lunch break.

I thought I’d share a bit about the my savings habits throughout the years, which I think might help out. Please read this with a pinch of salt, what works for me, might not necessarily work for you & bear in mind that I am not a licensed financial planner or do I even work in finance. Now with all the legalities out of the way, here’s my tips on building some savings.

1. Write down your earnings & spending
Do this how ever you are comfortable with – pen & paper, app or even a wall chart. I started out documenting it all in a simple notebook when I first moved to Perth & it’s evolved since, but now I use an app to quantify things. Being able to see what I spend my money on is usually the first step in constructing a functional budget.

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2. Save at least 10% of your earnings
This might sound hard, but trust me it is possible. I worked 2 days a week during uni & saved 10% then, which was quite a big portion as a student. Having that 10% in a high interest savings account & term deposits (back then it was almost 7%), made my meagre savings work for me. I have a modified version of that savings plan currently. All my excess money sits in my mortgage offset account, making my money work for me again.

3. Work out a functional budget
When I say functional, I mean don’t tie yourself down with being rigid about everything you spend each week/month, but be flexible & allow yourself some leeway to buy things or services you might want every now & then. For example, I lobbed my hair off over the weekend, which isn’t normally in my budget but I allow a small amount of money to be able to do stuff with. A girl’s gotta live ya know!

Hope these tips help somewhat in sorting out your finances!