2 minute read
How women can get on top of their personal finances
Women earn less than men and have lower savings on average, but there are steps you can take to improve your financial situation.
You won’t be able to achieve it overnight, but if you regard Christmas as your deadline, this will give you ample time to schedule these tasks into your hectic schedule.
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Download the app for your super fund: Most, if not all, funds offer their members an app to keep track of their contributions, membership benefits and fee changes. Contact your fund to get more details.
Set up your own savings account: Many women, especially if they are married or in a long-term relationship, have joint transaction and savings accounts with their partner.
This may cut costs but leave you financially vulnerable if your personal circumstances change, such as a relationship breakdown or you’re applying for a loan under your name.
Set up custom alerts in your bank account: With scams siphoning millions of dollars from unsuspecting bank customers, it’s time for you to take advantage of some of the most popular features now available in banking apps, such as transaction alerts (to check that you’ve been charged correctly or if the transaction ever happened) and “low funds” alerts (to avoid penalties).
Give it three months
Refinance your home loan: If you haven’t changed home loan providers for two to three years, chances are you’re not getting the lowest rate – a 0.5% difference between your current loan and a new loan through refinancing can save thousands of dollars.
Invest in the sharemarket: Start building wealth by opening a
Some solar owners may lose generous feed-in tariffs if they upgrade their system.
“If you’re on one of the increasingly rare and expiring premium feed-in tariffs, you will lose that if you upgrade in most cases,” says Peacock. Is a battery worth it?
Households looking to upgrade will be faced with another decision: is a battery worth installing at the same time?
For years, the cost has made batteries hard to justify, but that appears to be steadily changing, with the Clean Energy Council estimating that 34,731 smallscale household batteries were installed around the country in 2021 – a 46% increase on 2020.
“They have definitely moved from having a really long payback period that would put a lot of people off buying them to being worth consideration, in my opinion,” says Peacock.
“But that’s more to do with how the electricity tariffs have changed than the actual cost of the batteries coming down.” A battery can also provide a back-up if there is a general power failure.
TOM WATSON
share trading account. There are plenty of trading platforms that can help you get going with as little as $1000.
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Boost your borrowing power: Your credit rating will impact your ability to borrow money and the rate you pay, so aim to have a six-month record in your bank account where a prospective lender can see that you’ve been paying your bills on time and saving a set amount regularly, with a healthy balance at the end of each month.
Pay down debts: If the prospect of paying down a huge amount seems overwhelming, you can seek help from a financial counsellor, investigate consolidating debts under one loan so you only have to focus on one repayment, or make 2023 the year when you focus on paying down existing debts instead of taking on new ones.
MICHELLE BALTAZAR