If the words ‘assets’ and ‘liabilities’ are in your mind on par with advanced trigonometry, we feel you. Penny-pinching can be an extremely hard (and uber unglamorous) feat. for avid lovers of smashed avo and soy lattes. Lucky, we’ve got Canna Campbell of SugarMammaTV to coax us out of the savings rut.
She’s like a Grown Up’s version of a piggy bank, spouting the do’s and don’ts of growing your cashola on her Youtube channel. And with her new book, The $1000 Project, there’s now a tangible bible of savvy strategies for you to pore over before the next European getaway – so you can shout everyone’s Aperol Spritz… (surely that’s the reason we save, right?!)
Before you hit the tome, we’re walking you through her fast top ten tips for hearing some more CA-CHING in your life…
1. Add It Up
Write down a list of your financial position – including assets and liabilities. This gives you a clear snapshot as to where you stand financially and gives you a point of comparison to improve from this moment on.
2. Budget Baby
Do a budget of all your living expenses. Match it against your calendar so that you know what bills are due and when. You can use my Sugar Budget App which makes this a lot easier to set up and maintain. Check you budget every couple of weeks to make sure you are staying on track.
3. Review to reduce or eliminate
Look at each expense from your budget and question whether you love, value, use or appreciate each expense. See what you can reduce or eliminate.
4. Traffic Control
Any savings that you can create or find – make sure you direct to a new seperate savings expense. For example, say you decide to cut down your clothes shopping from $500 per month to $300 per month – put that $200 savings per month into a seperate account. This will make sure the $200 doesn’t get used up for something new that might sneak into your budget.
5. Go Go Goals
Sit down and think about some financial goals that you would like to achieve – but make sure they are your financial goals, not a society financial goal. The thought of achieving this goal needs to make you feel excited about wanting to get started on it.
6. Immediate action
As soon as you have decided that goal, immediately start putting the action in place – even if it is $1 transferred into a new savings account or $10 transferred to a credit card debt. It doesn’t matter because you are building momentum and new financial habits which have a powerful effect in the long run.
7. Read and review
Remind yourself of your goals every day. Look at what you are working towards and creating, think about the feeling of how empowering it is to actually be doing something that is taking you closer towards the successful achievement of that goal, and then the next goal you can set for yourself once that is achieved. Look at what strategies and habits are working well and which ones can be tweaked and improved for even more efficiency and success.
8. Educate
Learn more about money and how you can manage it better. My YouTube channel has over 300 bite size videos to help explain how to do this. I also have a list of recommended books which help make this a fun experience.
9. Super Dooper
Make sure your Super is in one account and is invested in the portfolio that is right for you (the default balanced option isn’t necessarily right for you). Know how much you have in Super and how much you need to retire. For example, if I am 37 years old and want to retire at age 65 on $60,000 p.a. for a retirement period of 20 years, I am going to need at least $1,200,000 in Super or other investment asset sources in order to be able to survive financially. Never neglect your Super, and if you can – get formal financial advice about the option of regularly contributing to it beyond your employer contributions.
10. Passive Aggressive
Look to build an investment portfolio of passive income outside of your Super. You can buy shares with as little as $500. But shares is only one of the many investment options available. You could look at property, ETFs, Managed Funds, LICs – the list is long and you don’t have to choose just one, you can spread your assets across all of these.
Click here to purchase your copy of The 1000 Project.
All images via: SugarmammaTV | Intro by Genevieve Phelan
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