Setting your New Year’s resolutions is the easy part. It’s actually following through on those goals that tends to be where a lot of us slip up. Now that we are in March here are three helpful tips for taking control of your financial situation this year.
Cut back on unnecessary spending
In the interest of saving money, many Australians are planning to limit their spending on frivolous purchases. Galaxy’s research found that 47 per cent of Australian millennials were planning to save money by spending less on eating out or buying takeaways. Meanwhile, 32 per cent of all Australians intend to reduce bills by minimising energy consumption, and a savvy 23 per cent intend to switch to cheaper providers or seek loyalty discounts.
Consolidate your credit card debt to a streamlined product
If you have stacks of credit card debt making it difficult to see the path towards financial freedom, you might want to consider consolidating into a single personal loan.
This works by taking out a single loan in order to pay off your various cards. Your finances are then simplified to a single product, making it easier for you to keep track of things and helping you to save money on interest.
For this to be worthwhile, the new loan should have a lower interest rate than that of your existing debt. Talk to our team of loan specialists to work out which personal loan is right for you.
Review your home loan structure
Believe it or not, your savings goals can become a reality in the long-run by spending more now.
Say you’ve borrowed $300,000 at a fixed interest rate of 3.99 per cent — to pay this off over 30 years, you would need to pay the lender $1,430.52 each month and, if the same rate applied for that whole period, by the end you’d have paid $514,986.08, according to our mortgage repayment calculator.
By increasing your monthly repayment, you can reduce the length of your loan and thereby save on interest. For example, using the same loan as above, if you were to pay an extra $100 each month after the first year, the loan could be paid off in 26 years and 8 months and you would save over $25,000 in interest.
You can also save on interest by switching to a variable loan while rates are low. Find out more by getting in touch with our team today.