ARTICLES > Being PROACTIVE with your Finances Could SAVE YOU Money.
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Being PROACTIVE with your Finances Could SAVE YOU Money.
Here are some tips, to add to all the others we’ve passed onto you, to help you get control and send you on your way to better money management. ► Get proactive! Invest time. Investing the time to learn how better to manage your money is an important step towards gaining financial freedom. Improving money handling, avoiding unnecessary payment of fees, and shopping more wisely are all integral parts of that. We figure, for most people, just 15 minutes a week is all it takes to get on top of, and manage, your finances. Set a plan. What do you want to do with your money? Pay off your mortgage? Get out of debt? Go on an overseas trip? Buy a new car? Most people have vague ideas about what they would like to do but few people turn them into firm goals and formulate strategies to achieve them. However, once vague ideas become firm goals with strategeis attached you have something to aim for and something to measure your progress against. Those plans you have for your money become achievable and you are more motivated to make savings in other areas in order to reach your goals. Like I said already, we suggest you set aside about 15 minutes each week to go over your finances and check that you are on target to achieve your goals. It is also a great time to see what you are spending money on and where savings could be made. You can then decide, is what I’m spending money on a higher priority than achieving the goals I’ve set myself? More about that later. Monitor your accounts. Part of that time investment is to monitor your accounts. You should always have a pretty good idea of how much money is available in your bank accounts – particularly cheque accounts and bank accounts that have automatic payments coming out of them. Writing out a cheque that bounces, or allowing an account to go into unauthorised overdraft is expensive! You should also know what you spend and where. That way you can predict what expenditure is coming up and plan ways of saving money to achieve your goals quicker. ► Some money tips: 1] Never spend a windfall. When we receive an unexpected sum of money the most tempting thing to do is to spend it on some extravagant item we’ve always thought we’d like. Before you do that, STOP! Ask yourself the question, do I want this item more than I want to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself? So, if you receive an income-tax refund, money gifts, bonuses, family tax credits, overtime payments if you receive them in bulk, overpayment refunds and any other unexpected money – don’t rush out and spend without stopping to think. The two best things to do with such windfalls are, firstly, to pay off debt. And, secondly put it into a savings or investment account so that it can be used as part of your strategy to achieve those financial goals. 2] Avoid unnecessary fees Bank fees are the most common fees we pay and they seem small at the time. It’s usually just a few cents here and a dollar or so there. But over the course of a year ATM fees, service charges, and late fees add up. The fees you are charged are usually not worth the reason you incurred them. In fact, many fees we have to pay out are the result of us not being proactive with our finances. That is, we forget to get enough money out of the bank, or we inadvertently allow one of our accounts to go into overdraft. And bank fees are not the only sort of fees we can incur. Every power bill, water bill, rates demand, has a discount applied to it provided we pay within a certain period of time. Not keeping a proactive eye on our finances can mean we miss out on those discounts that are worth having! 3] When shopping a) Buy on sale as often as possible. When you want something wait a week to see if it is going to come on sale, or ask the store when the item will be on sale. For the best bargains, buy items such as clothing out of season. b) Haggle. You never know when someone will be willing to lower their prices or throw in something extra. Just ask – particularly if you are purchasing a large item with cash. c) Throw away your mail order catalogues. We don’t want to stop you buying anything extravagant or having any treats but we need to face facts. Most items we buy from a catalogue are impulse buys and those purchases tend to go on our credit cards. d) Shop less frequently. Each time you go to the store, you increase your chances of purchasing an impulse item. Try to limit your grocery shopping to once a week maximum, prepare a list beforehand and stick to it. You'll be amazed at how much this little tip can save! ► Get proactive – Join The FORTIfi Network. Just as you’d join a gym for your physical fitness, you can join The FORTIfi Network to take care of your financial fitness. The FORTIfi Network has been designed to help you get proactive and do even better with your finances. We’ve partnered with Xero, an easy to use online money management programme that automatically uploads and categorises your income and spending so that you can see exactly where your money is going. Many of our clients have signed up for the Network and are reaping the benefits of being in control of their finances and being able to see their financial dreams coming true. Perhaps now is your time to get proactive. To find out more, click on one of the arrows below. Click here to read our article on The Importance of Saving. |
One of the keywords used by FORTIfi and The FORTIfi Network is proactive. We want to challenge New Zealanders to be proactive about their finances because too many of us simply ignore our finances and wind up bouncing from one debt to the next.
