5 Top Money Worries Solved

You don’t have to be on the verge of bankruptcy to be stressed about your fi nances. It’s often the basic concerns like managing the day-to-day costs of living, dealing with unexpected expenses and trying to save enough for retirement that have people worried. Money has lined up experts to offer tips to help you overcome the fi ve common money concerns.

1.COST OF LIVING

You don’t have to make huge sacrifices to cut the household expenses. A few small tweaks can bring significant savings.

Enjoy the good life minus the debt

Rising electricity costs, rising gas costs, rising rents, rising property prices and rising interest rates – yet stagnant wages. If you are feeling that the cost of living is going up, you are not imagining it.

Meanwhile, spending expectations have increased. For instance, we now use and rely on more gadgetry in our lives than we did a decade ago. I fret if I am without my smartphone for more than an hour. And my kids have tablets for computer games and spend much more time on them than I would like them to.

What to do? Can you still enjoy a good lifestyle without going into debt?

Yes, you can if you are savvy with saving money. Here are six of my top tips:

1 Maintain an abundance mindset

When economic times are tough, it is easy to panic. If we feel stressed about lack of money, if we constantly talk about not having enough money, it is hard to think of creative ways to attract money. Overall, we are lucky to live in Australia. When I lived in South-East Asia, you could always pick the Aussies on holidays – we were always the best dressed! If you are like me, you probably already have an abundance of things (some would say clutter) in your life. Celebrate what you have with a spirit of gratitude. Value yourself and think creatively about how you can get more money. Could you negotiate a raise? Drive an Uber? Sell off some of that clutter? Let out that (now decluttered) spare room on Airbnb? Sell craft at a market stall or on Etsy? Start investing using advice in this magazine? Focus on the joy rather than the doom and gloom, and watch your abundance grow.

2 Negotiate a better deal with your energy provider