6 Tips for Building Better Financial Habits

How are your financial habits? Good? Excellent? Could it be better? Shockingly awful? Would it shock you to learn that one in five Australians have less than $1,000 in savings and half have less than $10,000 squirrelled away?

There are many reasons why people might not be financially secure: major life events, poor financial literacy, or other hardships and bad habits that impact how they view money and the choices they make.

But wanting to build better money habits and overhaul your finances will never be a waste of time, far from it. The following suggestions are ways you can build better money habits and get yourself back on an even footing financially.

Make Some Goals

Write down everything you want to be able to do or want to happen as far as your money is concerned. Be it a random train of thoughts or pie-in-the-sky ideas, anything and everything should be written down. From here, you can turn your thoughts into tangible and realistic points and split them into long-term and short-term goals. Short-term goals are paying off that credit card debt, saving for a car purchase, or investing with SMSF providers; long-term goals can be eliminating debt entirely, saving for a mortgage or retiring. Give your goals priority statuses and a realistic timeline to achieve them, and check back on them regularly.

Start Saving

Experts suggest putting aside 20% of your income to your savings. This is not always realistic for many people, so starting with smaller, more insignificant amounts can be a gateway to building a savings pot that you can use to increase over time. Make your savings contributions automatically on payday, and then you are less likely to miss the money or be tempted to not transfer anything at all. Make sure you put your savings in a high-yield savings account so you can benefit from interest earned on anything you do manage to save.

Use A Budgeting App

You need to know where your money is going and what you're paying out. So downloading a budgeting app might be helpful to clearly see everything you need to pay out, what you get in and what is left over. This can help you see the bigger picture and ensure you keep on top of everything. 

It will also be instrumental in identifying any savings you can make on bills, frivolous purchases, and essentials so you can make changes and reduce your spending where you can.

Reduce Debt

This is a given when building better money habits. You need to address your debt and work to pay it down. Start with your highest-interest debts and get those cleared first, as you will be paying more back from interest the longer the account is active. Then, once the first is clear, use the money you were paying the debt off towards another one.

Remember to maintain your minimum payments on all your debts and allocate any extra money to the highest-interest debt to clear it faster. This is called the avalanche debt method and pays down the debt costing you more first to help you save money.

Check Your Accounts

Checking your accounts makes you responsible for your spending and forces you to take accountability. Check your accounts daily; look at what you have been spending, what payments have come out and what is left in the account. The more aware you are of what you have in the bank, the amount you have racked up on credit cards, etc., the easier it will be to make better financial decisions and avoid overspending as you will be faced with the consequences of your actions as opposed to not checking and avoiding the reality of what you might be doing with your money.

24 Hours

If you have an impulse spending issue, you need the 24-hour rule in your life. Essentially, what this does is put a hold on that purchase and delay the spending by 24 hours. This allows you enough time to think about the purchase and, if you really want to make it, and why you need it. If you still want it after 24 hours and can justify the spend, go ahead, but if the desire has waned, then you have saved some money. This doesn't apply to necessities, just impulse purchases that don't align with your financial goals or will eat into your finances for that particular period.

Making better financial decisions and building good money habits can take some time and practice to get right, but making a start and looking at what you can improve and change how you deal with your income and spending can help you to get things under control and finally have your finances under control.