It’s Money Week, and a good time to mention some great tips when dealing with money. Here are five tips we’ve put together, all suggestions about ways to make sure you are saving.
For more information about learning financial and budgeting skills check out our Money Mates programme.
Hide your savings
Setting up a separate savings account will help you to keep savings away from your everyday money. It can be useful to set it up so you can’t access the account on your Eftpos card. If it’s tempting you can always set up the account at another bank so it’s not easy to access.
Make it automatic
Automatic payments are easy to set up so the money goes into a savings account on pay day. Alternatively, some employers can set up a salary deduction so the money goes into a savings account or super fund rather than a regular bank account.
Start early
The sooner we start, the better. KiwiSaver members who are 18 or over get a government contribution called a member tax credit. For every $1 we contribute, the government matches it with 50c, up to $521 per year. This is paid into our KiwiSaver accounts annually. The important thing is that the earlier we start and the more we contribute, the better results we can achieve. There is a cost for delaying.
Save for special occasions
One family shared with us their wonderful school holidays savings scheme, they call it their “adventure tin” and it has pride of place in their living room and any spare change goes in the tin. When friends and other family members drop by they often put a few loose coins in it too. In the school holidays the tin is opened and the family decides how it will be spent, such as movies/inflatable land etc. This is a very creative example of short term savings, and a great way to introduce the idea to your kids.
Save the cents
A good little trick is to round down incoming sums of money and save the little bits of extra cash here and there. For example if you receive a pay check of $153.91, transfer the $3.91 into a savings account. It doesn't seem like much, but after a while it really does build up. Some banks can even do this for you automatically.