Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Savings?...What Savings...????



I know, we always hear that we should be doing something with our money - save, invest, buy property, stocks, bonds - and we KNOW we should do something about debt and credit, but never get around to it. We never get around to creating a PROPER savings account (the one linked to our EFTPOS account does not count - it should be named 'spendings!'), we never educate ourselves on what investing is and how we go about it.

Well, things are going to change!!!! Finance, well...at least to me, seems like this big dark hole that I know I should look into, but it just seems like such a daunting area - I don't know where to start and I don't know who to ask.

The reason SSS is here is to help us improve in all areas of our lives. Finance being one of them. This is a huge area to look into. I don't have all the answers, well, I don't have many (yet). But one thing I know is that money gives us FREEDOM.

I've 'virtually' met some interesting women who know about finance. One of them is Anneli Knight. She writes a blog for The Age (Melbourne's main newspaper) and I have just bought her new book Flirting with Finance which I am looking forward to receiving this week. She mentioned in one of her emails that don't we "wish we all knew at 16 if we saved $20 every week til we were 21, then $100 every week for the next 5 years after that, then we'd have more than $40,000 saved up by the time we turned 26!"

Well I wish I could have just started something like that rather than waiting for later (2 weeks ago) in my life (I sent that information to my 14 year old sister, let's hope she does something about it! Don't worry, I'll be on her back in a non-nagging, supportive and encouraging way!).

But as they say, it's better late than never! So start an automatic savings plan. They (the experts) say pay yourself first. So save 10% (or whatever amount you can afford) out of each of your pay. Schedule the automatic deduction for the day after your wages normally hit your account (and before you can spend it!). I've set mine up with ING

Go on and do your future self a favour and put some money aside, you can decide later what it is for (a huge holiday, starting your dream business, an emergency fund). Set yourself a timeframe and have your SAVINGS account set up by the end of the week - lock it in Eddie!

Make it what you wish SSSs!

Arienne x

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