It's Plain Simple: Time to Save Up

Money When it comes to money management I am totally pathetic. I am the perfect person for retailers who can be easily mesmerised by their typical marketing campaigns. But couple of months back I realised it’s time to stop thinking about the latest and greatest stuffs that comes out in the market and start looking at my life more seriously. You might be saying – oh yeah … at the age of 39 you are getting serious!! But hey it’s better late than never and I don’t want to look back at my financial disaster at the age of 65. But why I am blabbering about this cause I believe I am not the only one who is in this situation but many others. Most of them might be in their early 30s or late 20s and thinking that I am too young to think seriously about my financial plans. I thought in that same direction and I realised today I should have really stick to tight stringiest spending habit. The Superannuation here in New Zealand is so bare minimum that surviving on it would be a nightmare. By the time you have reached that age you should have investment income which will pay for your council taxes, bills and other expenditures.

I did not mention anything about having good time – say you want to travel or hang out in restaurants or pubs from time to time then you obviously need to have access to cash in-flow either from fixed deposits or some less effortless income. If you want to continue taking some tension then obviously you can go on investing in shares or debentures.

I don’t want to point out that nowadays people all around the world has found out as a family they can financially be better off if everyone does their part to chip-in for family financial freedom. Two earnings are always better than one and can help anyone reach their goal much earlier than anticipated. Besides that – financial institutions feels safer to lend you out when they see two source or more of earnings. I guess I have blabbered enough and I am pretty sure what I mentioned is common sense and everyone knows about it. But knowing all about it is no answer. To act and react accordingly is much more important thing.

Every bank nowadays features different sorts of financial planning and step by step articles on their websites. Tell me honestly, have you ever paid any attention to those articles. Like me – you probably visit the bank site only to do your online banking. But other day I stopped and read couple of articles. Some of them are brilliant. In my opinion ASB Bank’s website stands out from most for not only online facilities but the quality of articles. Pay a visit to their site even if you are not their customer. You can check their website at www.asb.co.nz.

Next best thing in sorting your financial plan is SORTED.ORG.NZ. The idea of the site is brilliant and it was born to teach Kiwis about something called financial goal. Gradually over the last several years the site matured and has been judged one of the best personal monetary management site. The articles and calculators are just brilliant. Go check them out and do a personal finance health check. You can find SORTED at www.sorted.org.nz.

SORTED will guide you about making your plan – but there is a site which has taken the teachings of SORTED to next level. I am talking about Uncle Percy financial site. The design and approach of the site very soothing – which I guess is important specially when you start talking about saving money and control the habits of spending more than you can afford! Anyway – the site actually helps you to reach your goal by creating a plan then tying that plan to your actual bank account so that there’s a forced savings. The money taken out from your account lands up in your account at Uncle Percy’s. Which by the way gradually grows and if you stick to it – on the stipulated time you reach your goal. Pay a visit to Uncle Percy at www.unclepercy.co.nz.