3 minute read
Five Tips To Organise Your Wallet
As busy women juggling work, running households, keeping up with sports commitments and P&C meetings, organisation is essential to our day-to-day. Similarly, maintaining a tidy, uncluttered home helps bring peace and calm to the whirlwind of life, but have you ever stopped to think about that trusty companion you tote around that so often ends up overflowing with unnecessary junk – your wallet?
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An uncluttered, well-organised wallet is not only easier to use and saves the embarrassment of rummaging through trying to find the right card at checkout, but it has an important mental and emotional role to play as well. A clean and clear wallet
represents a high value placed on wealth and pride in the little steps you take each day towards financial freedom. Every time you open your wallet to spend, the well-maintained sections offer a reminder of your commitment to being financially savvy and the symbolic guidelines you place on your everyday spending.
So, what’s the best way to organise your wallet? Here are our top five tips to a clutter-free spending space that will help keep you on track to your financial goals.
1. Dedicate sections
The first step is to select which sections will house which items. Most wallets have several different parts designed for different purposes – organise these in a way that makes sense to you. For example, all receipts should be put together in one section towards the back, and all notes in another closer to the front. Cards you use every day should be positioned front-and-centre as well, while those you need to carry but aren’t used as often can go elsewhere, such as Medicare cards, private health insurance or membership cards. As with the number one rule for keeping your house tidy – put it back where it came from after use!
2. Clear out the unnecessary
It’s too easy just to keep shoving receipts, appointment cards, business cards and grocery lists in our wallets, but it is important to avoid these piling up. An overflowing wallet feels messy, embarrassing and painful to use, so set aside time at the end of each week to declutter and reorganise so you can stay on track. Any items you need to keep, such as business receipts, should be safely filed elsewhere.
3. Use cash
Being organised is not only about the presentation of your wallet, but how you use it for everyday
expenses. Aim to use cash as much as possible instead of reaching for the tap and go. By using cash, you not are not only able to better keep track of your spending (rather than mindlessly pulling out your plastic), but you will also save yourself bank fees! While convenient, unfortunately tap and go attracts surcharges that many consumers are not aware of. This extra charge is either added to the cost of the product or charged as a fee by the merchant. If you do need to use your card to pay for goods or services, use it as an EFTPOS debit transaction by swiping or inserting and entering your PIN.
4. Stash your coins
Lighten the load on your wallet by taking out leftover coins at the end of the week and putting them away in a jar. Once you have a nice little collection, bank those coins in a high-interest account or investment portfolio. Just $10 per week, which you won’t even miss (that’s only two coffees!), adds up to $520 per year. Banked with a modest weekly compound interest of 6 per cent, that gives you just over $3,000 in five years, and over $7,000 in 10 years. Just think what you can do with $15 or $20 per week and a more competitive interest rate!
Lastly, the burgeoning technological landscape we now operate in comes with more opportunity to lighten our wallets and store a great deal of information safely and effectively in digital form. There are some great apps available that allow you to keep payment options, membership cards, tickets and loyalty cards on your phone, negating the need to clutter up your wallet at all! Apple has their built-in wallet on iPhones, and with Android you can now utilise Google Pay or Samsung Pay. There are many other digital wallets on the market; have a browse through your provider’s list and check out the reviews.
