Saving Money & Cutting Costs with your Partner in a Recession
Posted March 23rd, 2009 and last modified June 8th, 2011
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Every Australian is told that in order to save money you need to ‘Cut out purchases you don’t really need‘ yet this is truly easier said than done. We all know that we should ‘eat out less’ and ‘shop at Target’, but how else can we go about spending less other than the everyday run-of-the-mill methods?
What if someone was already living on minimum requirements prior to the economic downturn, and now there’s no room for more frugality?
The difficulty of saving money is subjective to each individual couples scenario. Regardless of income, there are certain avenues and strategies to take advantage of and follow in order to save money as a couple in a recession.
Income Allocation
Begin to categorize all your necessary expenses in relation to your salary/wages. If you work on commission, simply budget expecting the worse.
Most people will have a similar category layout similar to this:
- Groceries
- Mortgage
- Car Repayments
- Petrol
- Children
- Other Debts
- Leisure/Entertainment
For many of us, these categories have either no or little room to change. However practically everybody has at least one mode of cutting back their spending efficiently, and we hope you can benefit from as many as possible from the ideas listed below.
Some classic and creative money saving techniques include:
- Groceries on Special? Leverage it! – It doesn’t take a genius to know that buying products on special will save you money. However, instead of simply enjoying a few dollars of savings on specials, leverage it. If you’re saving $1.10 buying one pack of toilet paper on special, buy twenty packs and save $22. You’re eventually going to have to buy more in the future anyway, and while it’s more money out of your pocket at the time, it will pay off when you don’t need to buy more at full price in the future. It saves times, effort, and ultimately money.
By spending more money on necessities, you’ll become less inclined to dispose of your income elsewhere unnecessary.
- Fixed rates: Apply ASAP – The official interest rate as of March 2009 is at 3.25% – a fact which home owners who went for a fixed loan a year or so ago are kicking themselves for. If you have any chance to opt in for a fixed rate while the official RBA cash rate is at an all-time low, go for it without hesitation.
- Are two cars necessary? – If you have a partner, it’s more than likely that you owned your own car before you met each other, and to this day still own two cars as a couple. If you can share the one car (preferably the one with lower petrol consumption) than do so. Even better, earn a much appreciated boost of money by selling the disused vehicle.
- Cut out traffic – This one is certainly easier said than done. While nobody enjoys traffic, it’s inevitable if you work 9-5 or similar hours. As an added blow, traffic is not only frustratingly time consuming and boring, it can be expensive. There’s no faster way to burn petrol then repeatedly starting and stopping over short distances. If you work in the city for instance and finish at 5, try moving one of your leisure or fitness activities to after work, such as going to the gym.
While the last thing you may want to do after work is a workout or another activity rather than go home, money saving approaches aren’t renowned for being flexible and enjoyable!
- A sneaky credit card annual fee waiver: Requires child full-time student – The most common drawback on a reward’s credit card is the relatively high annual fee. Some Australian banks such as Commonwealth Bank offer an annual fee on their credit cards for students – including their award’s credit card. If you can take advantage of this situation and your child is legible for credit card application, enjoy a credit card which has the best of both worlds – a rewards program with no annual fee!
- Consolidating other debts – Kate and Ryan together own two credit cards, two car loans and a personal loan. Not only is it a hassle for them to juggle repaying all of them separately, they all have interest rates ranging from 11-19%.
There’s a solution which sounds too good to be true: A flexible line of credit offer.
These offers allow you to bundle all your different personal loans & credit card balances into one single low rate. Easier to manage, and a lower interest rate. One of the most popular flexible line of credit products available in Australia is Citibank’s ‘Personal Credit’, which offers a lifetime balance transfer rate of 7.9%.
Find out more about Citibank Personal Credit here.
Crafty Online Shopping
A few of the best sites on the internet for finding the cheapest prices are simply under-rated or under-publicized, such as:
BeatMyPrice.com
Type in a name of a product or brand you’re after, and in seconds the site will scour the internet for the cheapest prices on your query. It works surprisingly well!
Enter the name of a retail item, service or product and in seconds the site will scour its database for all the vouchers, coupons and discounts available for your query. Why pay the full retail price when you can discount it?
Certainly not under-rated or under-publicized, but something practically everyone can benefit from. While older generations may be hesitant or intimidated by selling or buying online, or afraid of being scammed, the potential savings far out weigh the risks. Practically all products are sold by individuals or wholesale, and therefore you can bypass the inherent costs of retail shop-space and gain products at a much lower price.
Where to store all the precious savings?
A high interest savings account is the most secure and risk-free investment for your money. With a current ‘government guarantee’ on bank deposits for the next three years, you can relax knowing your savings are safe from economic chaos.
High interest savings accounts tend to have promotional interest rates which last for months up to a year. Since HISA’s have no application, opening or maintenance fees, you can simply juggle your savings from one promotional rate to the next. When your first rate is over, simply move it to a new one.
Click here for some of Australia’s top high interest savings accounts
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