Life, Money

7 ways in 7 weeks: Save More & Start the New Year financially fit

Published on December 17, 2018 12:42 am, by Jen Bakker

Christmas can be crazy busy and costly. If you’ve overshot your budget, or if you’re just keen to start the New Year in a good way, we share our top (not too hard to achieve) 7 tips for getting ahead. Here are 7 things that you can do for 7 weeks (or more) and make a happy difference to your bank balance:

Drop a habit

Anything you want! Think about where your money goes, and what you can sacrifice for 7 weeks to build up some funds.

• Drop a bottle of wine a week at $15 a pop, $105 over 7 weeks
• Give up that weekday chocolate bar, save $3 a day, also $105 over 7 weeks
• Buy the weekday chocolate bar at Coles or Woolies, save $2 a day, $70 over 7 weeks
• Have one less takeaway coffee a week, that’s $28

Downsize your daily commute

How much do you spend on traveling to work, study or going out?

• Exchange a weekly taxi or Uber for the bus
• Walk a bit and get off the bus a zone earlier or on a zone later
• Ride your bike instead of drive, walk instead of catching the bus

Make money from stuff you don’t use

Take a look around your house, in your cupboards, and at the back of your drawers. Do you have things stashed away that rarely or never see the light of day?

• If you have lots, have a garage sale
• If you have a little, make eBay, Gumtree or Buy/Sell/Swap sites work for you

Bring your lunch to work

We hear this all the time…. right? We are talking about 7 weeks here.

• Exchange bringing for buying one day a week, and that’s about $70 over 7 weeks
• Do it 2 days and that’s $140
• 3 days and it’s $210, you get it right?

Earn more

You heard it! If you want to find some more money, but don’t want to give up your luxuries, is there anything you can do to earn some extra cash?

• Overtime at work, maybe even helping out another team after hours
• Babysitting, dog walking, mowing lawns, delivering catalogues
• Market research, mystery shopping

Grocery shop smartly

How many of us, hand on heart can say that we always escape impulse buys? Anything from that tub of ice-cream through to that new pair of shoes……

• Try online grocery shopping through the catalogue – take advantage of half-price specials
• See if you can spend one week using up tins, pasta etc. from your pantry or do some baking
• Find a supermarket that’s not in a shopping mall & go there instead

Review your bank statements

It’s amazing what you can find!

• Ask the bank to waive the annual fee on your credit card
• Compare interest rates, and if yours isn’t competitive, ask for lower
• Check your statements for automatic debits going out for services you no longer use

To make this even easier, check out the Optimise my Banking feature in MoneyBrilliant. If you’re a customer and haven’t checked in for a while, there might be some new suggestions for you to consider.