If you’ve recently lost your job or you feel you’re about to, here are some things you can do right now to make sure you survive during the uncertain weeks or months ahead.
Okay so you need cash and you need to earn it fast.
There are 3 basic things you need to make sure you have secured during this rough uncertain and unpredictable time and that is:
Make sure you have food on the table for you and your family.
You have shelter. A roof over your head to weather out this nasty health disaster.
Protect your mental health and wellbeing.
Here are 5 ways to make sure you’re going to survive;
1If you have a mortgage broker now is the time to make contact with them if they haven’t already got in touch with you to discuss your home loan options.
If you feel you don’t have someone who you can trust in this area then I’ll drop you the name of a broker who is loyal, trustworthy and has the homeowner’s best interests at the forefront.
A point to note is that I don’t have any affiliation with this company, nor do I receive any kickbacks. I’ve just known them for a very long time and they’ve shared many tips with me to help my clients pay down their home loan debt as fast as possible, all without any strings attached.
2 If you’re not comfortable talking with a mortgage broker then get on the phone with your bank or lending institution and negotiate a deal that sees you freezing your monthly mortgage payments for the next couple of months.
What the bank will do in most cases is hold of taking payments for a short period of time, or they may even negotiate with you just paying interest-only payments.
Once this storm has passed, they will get you making small additional payments on top of your regular mortgage payments, once things go back to the “new normal” and you’re earning an income again.
3 Get in touch with your credit card provider and see what they can do for you to hold off making any monthly credit card payments. There may be something they can do to stop the cash bleed going towards paying your debts while your cash is in short supply.
4 If you’re renting then get on the phone and talk to your landlord to see what they will do to help take the strain of worrying about how you can afford to keep the roof over your head.
Most cases they are going to be in the same situation, worried that if you move out how will they afford to keep up their ongoing mortgage commitments on the property you’re living in. It’ll be up to them to negotiate with the bank to see what they can do on the other side to hold off future mortgage payments until things become a little more financial.
5 Now you’ve made contact with your bank or lending institution, next you have to see where you can find some cash or get some part-time work to make sure you survive during this traumatic time.
With the coronavirus pandemic impacting almost every business, some entrepreneurs are thriving and looking at ways to support their employees during this difficult time.
There are some industries that are still hiring and in fact looking to increase their staffing requirements because they’re in areas where they are in high demand during this time.
Supermarkets are one example as soon as they stack the shelves they are empty again. Some of the areas they are hiring and looking for are packers, bakers, customer service staff – check your supermarket’s website to see what they need.
Fast food deliveries have seen an increase in demand due to self isolation requirements and companies like Uber eats have seen an increase where they are looking for more drivers.
There’s a job board I discovered this week called Jora which is an Australian based search engine for jobs. Unlike traditional job boards, individuals can search through thousands of career opportunities, all sourced from many job sites from around Australia.
They list updates every 24 hours with new job opportunities. The site even breaks it down into job type, salary, location and job titles. Go check out it.
Here’s the link to Jora Australia just click on it and see if there’s something for you.
Other ways to get extra cash is;
You could look around the house to see what’s cluttering your home that you could sell online.
Or if you’re crafty and creative, how about sell your stuff online at sites like Etsy.
What about if you’re a cafe owner who a person who can bake. Why not teach someone how to decorate cupcakes, or another favourite baking item of yours and get paid for it by setting up a class online. People are basically in isolation looking for new creative ways to fill in their time.
You could also look to partaking in online surveys or focus groups and get paid to give your opinion.
Another is to sell your expertise online, whether you’re a tutor, teacher or have an expertise that you could share or teach online and get paid for it.
Why not look at some freelance work at sites like Fiverr, Upwork, Craigslist to name a few. Check out these sites as there may be something you’re good at and get paid for.
Affiliate marketing is another way, if you have a blog or website, you could get paid for advertising someone’s business on your site.
6 Okay next look to see where you can cut all unnecessary costs.
Go through your bank statement and see what you’re spending your money on.
What subscriptions do you have that you can go without for a while that will save you any money big or small?
I recently did this exercise as I often have things I’ve subscribed to that I don’t use any more. So because I hate giving good money away, I cut about 4 subscriptions and put $80 back in my pocket per month.
One of these was to suspend my audible account for the next 90 days as I have enough books in my library to keep me going for a year.
It may not sound like much but saving $50 or $100 will make the difference when you need to put food on the table or keep the roof over your head.
If you’ve got an iPhone go through the settings tab on your phone and check out your apple account to see what subscriptions have slipped through the cracks.
Gym membership is a big one at the moment because you can’t go out so why not suspend or cancel it if you can.
What streaming providers do you need? Do you need everyone that’s on offer at the moment like Foxtel, Netflix, Stan, Disney or even Amazon Prime to name the ones off the top of my head?
Maybe decide on one or two and cancel the rest. Wherever you can save a few dollars do it.
You’ve got to be ruthless and tough. Just as I am sitting here writing this our daughter came in wanting to buy an online game for her iPad.
It may have been only $5 and she said I’ll use my own money. That’s fine but as I said to her do you really need it right now and why not see if you can save that money for a bit longer to can go without for the next month before you decide to shell out your pocket money.
If we can teach our kids now the importance of saving, when a time like this comes up in THEIR working life, they’ll have the skills to knuckle down and not spend on non-essentials.
Now is the time to teach your kids about the value of money and how looking after the cents will amount to huge amounts of dollars later in life.
Look at what you’re spending your money on and see where you can cut down on things.
Sadly, most don’t have 6 – 8 months worth of emergency money so look at ways to get some dollars in the door fast.
You’ll need to make sure you have about 90 days worth of money to see you through.
Your job right now is to get a job if you’re not working and bring in some money to take the pressure off.
This will help keep your spirits high and look after your mental well being and health.
There is nothing more stressful than financial worry and pressure, so do what you can and see if any one of the suggestions I’ve offered above helps you out.
If you need emotional support or looking for more information on how to take the financial pressure off, then join my FB Group where I will be here for anyone needing an ear, as well as, sharing more tips and information.
I look forward to hearing from you.
In the meantime stay safe and healthy.
Reference: Mortgage Broker – Harry Bozin CLICK HERE for more info.
I talk a lot about building financial muscle and for good reason.
Why? Because some people today still don’t have their money working for them and they’re making dumb decisions when it comes to managing it effectively.
My concern is that when these people decide around 65 – 70 years of age that they would like to retire – they’re going to struggle!
Why, because they’re going to have nothing to enjoy their retirement years with, as they’ve spent everything they’ve earned along the way.
Financial muscle as I bang on about constantly, is making sure firstly that you’re hard earned money is working for you and not your bank’s.
And secondly, it’s about having something put away for “just in case” which “just in case” comes up a fair bit during our lifetime.
So how nice would it be to know that you’ve got money and it’s working to your advantage when you need it.
Here are 7 steps you need to know when it comes to building financial muscle and they are:
1 Looking at your spending habits. What are you spending your money on each and every payday? Are you spending it on things that are worthless and while short term makes you feel good initially but then when it comes to paying your bills you haven’t anything left to pay for them?
My guess is, this is when you start to feel stressed out and your life becomes very overwhelming.
The quickest and easiest way to get a handle on what you’re spending is to look at doing a budget. For the first month, you write down everything you spend and then deduct what you earn by what you’ve spent for the month.
More often than not, you’ve used credit to help get you out of a bind, but it’s not working and you’re getting further and further into debt.
2 Next, once you’ve worked out if there’s any surplus, you’ll want to make some adjustments in your spending to put away a small percentage around 10% of what you earn into a savings account.
Now 10% is not a lot of money, but you’ll need to do this first at payday before you pay any bills or use some of your income on other expenditure.
Once you’ve put away 10% or even $20 or $30 into a savings account then put on autopilot, where every payday money goes from your pay into this account. I guarantee you’ll start to think about your money a little differently.
Something magical happens when you know you have some money saved and you start to feel a little more confident and less stressed and it gives you a greater sense of security.
3 Ok the third area where you’ve got to be strict with yourself is to open another savings account, one that is too hard to get access to and start building on your emergency fund.
You’ll need to get your emergency fund up to at least $2000 as quickly as possible.
There are many ways to get this account up to $2000 and the first is to look around your home. What could you sell online that’s sitting around in your garage or shed that’s gathering dust?
The emergency fund is the 3rd most critical aspect to building financial muscle because it takes the pressure off you and your money when those unexpected things arise like your hot water goes on the blink or your fridge packs up.
The emergency fund is for exactly that emergencies that make life very difficult if they’re not fixed or replaced.
Ideally, the emergency fund needs to be at a balance where if you lost your job or you couldn’t work for 6 months, you would have enough money to be able to pay your bills until you get back to working again.
4 The major stress for most people is their ever-increasing debt, whether it be from overspending on credit or the mortgage on your home.
I can’t stress enough that when you finally become debt-free life is going to be a whole lot more fun. Things that used to stress you out are suddenly gone and all the pressure of working at a job that you probably don’t like now gives you the power and choice to look at whether you continue working there.
If you’re not working to pay down all your debts as fast as you can – you’re just throwing away good money to the banking institutions that are funding your poor money habits and making them richer while you become poorer.
Map out who you owe, how much you owe and then start with one debt at a time and pay that down until it’s gone. Once the first debt has been eliminated, then use the money that you paid the debt down with to double up on the next debt.
5 Ok, so the next step in building financial muscle is to stop and do a quick financial health check.
A financial health check will look at quite simply if there are any areas within your money that you need to work on, or get more information on, to get you back on track and retiring comfortably.
I have a 5 min financial health check that you can download HERE to get you started.
6 Now you’ve got money being saved, your debts are being paid off, it’s now time to look at your wealth-building strategies.
Your wealth-building will consist of two parts:
Investing and
Protecting
Let’s talk about investing first.
Investing is about growing your money through facilities like superannuation and other investment options.
Superannuation is a way of saving for retirement.
Essentially your employer in Australia is putting away a percentage of your salary into a fund of your choice that invests the money until you retire.
It’s a forced type of saving but brilliant to help those in particular that are not good at saving and will see you have some money at the end of your working life.
This is a big topic that’s too big to cover off in this post, so I will write a post on this and explain in more detail shortly, so keep an eye out for it.
Other investment options for wealth building during your working years could consist of investing in shares, managed funds or property to name a few.
I would encourage anyone looking into wealth building to seek a financial adviser who is qualified to provide advice on what assets or which investment vehicle is best for you and your personal circumstances.
There are many out there so be careful and take the time to ensure they have your best interest at the forefront of their advice giving.
Next, I want to talk about protecting your money. This is a very important topic. Today, I’ll give you a brief summary but like the topic on superannuation, I’ll be writing more about this in another post.
But for now, let me explain why it’s important to have a Will or good Estate Plan.
A Will and Estate Plan are there to make sure your wishes at the end of your life are carried out and distributed properly.
A Will is a legal document that states what you would like to happen with your assets when you die and forms part of your Estate Plan.
An Estate Plan, on the other hand, records exactly what you would like to happen with your assets upon death and includes documents such as your Will, a testamentary trust, superannuation assets and may contain powers of attorney or other such documents that in the event of you being unable to make decisions, someone appointed by you will act on your behalf.
So as you can see from the brief descriptions above it is extremely important to make sure you are protecting what you’ve worked long and hard to build.
If you die without making a Will it means you die intestate and this causes a lot of heartache and headache for your loved ones left behind.
What actually happens here is that your estate is left to deal with either from the Supreme or Highest Court, depending on which state you live in Australia, who will appoint an administrator.
The administrator’s job is to arrange the funeral and distribute any leftover assets after paying any debts and taxes. Sometimes there are fees associated with an administrator taking care of your details which means your loved ones may not receive the full inheritance you had planned on leaving them.
So make sure you have a current Will your priority today because nobody knows when our time is up.
7 And lastly, the 7th step to building financial muscle is to get yourself ongoing financial education and support.
Just like a sporting team, they all use coaches to help them and guide them to their sporting greatness.
Financial coaching is much the same, an experienced coach who knows sound financial education can make the difference between living with financial stress or living your life the way you’ve always desired – happy and stress-free.
If you’ve read to the bottom of this and you’ve followed the steps outlined above then congratulations as you are one who is committed to living a financially comfortable life.
Why not continue with your financial education by working with me on a monthly basis.
I offer several options, but the first is the most preferred as it’s inexpensive and extremely supportive towards you achieving awesome financial health.
As I start the year off preparing for what I plan to achieve and share with you this coming year, I came across an article I wrote 2 years ago but never published.
I thought back and wondered why I wrote these inspirational thoughts?
On reflection, it was because at that time my Dad lost 3 of his brothers (my uncles) and his best mate all in the same year and who were all in their 70’s.
I also realised that last year I wrote a ton of stuff whether it be educational or inspirational but sadly never shared it with you my reader.
So today is the day that I promise to share more financial and mindset content that in the hope helps and benefits people in my community.
Here’s what I’ve learned these past 12 months:
1. Random acts of kindness are rare today. When you do something nice for someone without expecting anything in return, you may have just brightened up their day without knowing it.
2. If someone is unkind to you unless you’ve done something terribly horrible to them – it’s not about you – it’s about them and the challenges they may be facing behind the scenes.
3. Don’t judge anybody or any situation – you never know what someone is going through. Just because they put on a brave and smiling face, it doesn’t mean they are having a good time at life!
4. True friends are the ones that after months of not seeing them – don’t get upset or offended but greet you as if they just saw you the other day.
5. If people don’t acknowledge you – it’s ok. They may not have seen you like you think they have or if they have – possibly have a lot on their mind.
6. Money may not grow on trees – however if you work not only hard but smart – you will be growing your own tree that will look after you for many years to come.
7. Treasure the loved ones in your life – as you never know how long they will be here for.
8. When you look at exercise in a different way, other than to lose weight – amazing transformations happen – not only physically but your mind becomes super fit and sharp. Now that’s a bonus worth exercising for!
9. Love where you live – no matter on the size of your house or location. When you really love where you live – happiness appears from the corners of each room.
And, stop and smell the roses – I mean REALLY stop and smell the roses and get out in nature. It’s God and the Universe’s way of showing you all the beauty that surrounds you daily!
So while I wrote this 2 years ago, it still rings true for me today and has become even more important for me to follow the steps to achieve more happiness and fun in my life.
What have you learned over the past 12 months that you’ve decided you don’t want anymore and long to bring more of this year?
Leave me a comment below as I’d love to hear.
So until next time, wishing you more health, wealth and happiness this year.
Overwhelm is on the rise and it’s happening more and more to us good folks.
It’s not just because we’re approaching the end of the year but emotions are high with more of us feeling increasingly stressed out for various reasons.
The months leading up to Christmas can be a very stressful time as you may know, with so many things put into high speed to finish off before we break for the holidays.
The feeling of overwhelm is so stressful that at times feels like your head is about to explode.
Overwhelm can come from many areas. It can come from how you’re feeling about your money, your relationships, your work environment and overall the expectations you put on yourself. Yes, it can come from a whole variety of areas.
A little while ago, I was feeling very overwhelmed and it came from a place of sheer exhaustion from work and what I had expected to happen. I had put myself under enormous pressure and because I hadn’t hit my goal of being at a certain place in my business I just broke down.
My husband David I don’t think has ever seen me like this. Normally I’m the one that keeps things ticking along, I’m also the upbeat, happy and positive person in our family, but this wasn’t the case that day.
I just broke down from tiredness, doing too many long hours and trying to figure out how I can get everything done before we break for the Christmas school holidays that was fast approaching.
Having a feeling of overwhelm can bring on anxiety or panic attacks and issues like anxiety can have a detrimental effect on our health.
It’s where everything just feels like it’s on top of you and there is no way out.
One of the ways to identify if you are feeling overwhelmed is to look at what you’ve got going on in your life.
You see we are often pulled in so many directions whether this is in our personal, family, work-life, or even with maintaining our friendships.
Let’s not forget about the pressure to fit in exercise and healthy eating choices so that our bodies are nourished and looked after to ensure we live a long and healthy life.
I know part of my overwhelm is the constant pressure I put on myself to eat healthily and fit in some form of exercise so I can feel better about myself.
One of the major areas for overwhelm is when it comes to our money and it tends to be the number one stress for a lot of people.
For some, it’s the feeling of overwhelm or helplessness on how to improve their financial position that gets extremely overwhelming.
Part of my overwhelm was not only putting myself under work pressure but feeling frustrated that I have pulled much out of our savings account to start a business and get it to the stage today where I am able to become self-sufficient from coaching gorgeous clients.
That for most business owners is a major stress – managing cash flow and ensuring their business is making a profit at the end of the day.
By not dealing or identifying when we are feeling overwhelmed – it can quickly escalate and take its toll on us not only emotionally but physically.
We may sometimes lack confidence in the ability to achieve what we’ve set out to do.
And we become very irritable and unhappy when this occurs.
Like I mentioned before there is the potential for our health to suffer in the process, whether stomach complaints or the onset of anxiety and depression.
The very first thing to do is understand why you’re feeling overwhelmed?
Are you trying to be everything to everyone?
Could you be trying to focus on too many things at once? or
Possibly you’re being too optimistic about how much time it will take to do a particular task.
Maybe you’re just not saying “NO” to people who may be taking up more time from you than you have to give at the moment.
For me, it is trying to do everything and be everything in my business.
So take a look at what’s causing you to feel overwhelmed and see where you can make life a little easier for you.
After you’re clearer what’s causing you to feel overwhelmed start with these 5 simple tips to get things back under control and in balance.
1 First and foremost take a deep breath.
2 write down every task, project or event whether for work or family and get it down on paper. Then look to see if you can delegate any of the areas that you feel you just can not handle anymore. If you’re a working parent or stay at home parent and just can’t seem to get on top of things around the house – maybe you could consider hiring a cleaner once a week or fortnight to help. This is one area that doesn’t cost a fortune and will take enormous pressure off with the many other tasks busy people & parents have on their plate.
3 Next focus on what’s important to you and what priorities you need to get done. Most importantly look to decide what your priorities are any learn to say NO without any guilt associated to any colleague, family or friend you feel maybe encroaching on the limited time you have to get your stuff done.
4 Ask for help when you feel those overwhelming feelings come up. Never be too proud to ask someone to help you when you start to feel overwhelmed. You will be surprised at how many people will offer to help out when you’re feeling under the pump.
AND then…
5 Be kind to yourself and remember you only one person and can only do so much.
To help when those feelings of overwhelm come up, I have a worksheet you can download that will get you thinking where your time is being spent and how certain areas within your life may be overloading your brain and the ability to achieve more in your life.
With Christmas and the holidays just around the corner, it’s important to understand how to use your credit card wisely.
For some, the best way to use it is to not use it all.
Especially for a lot of you who get yourselves in financial trouble because you spend more than you earn.
Understanding how your card works is key to managing it effectively.
Some have up to a 55 day interest-free period. Which means from day 1 of your credit card cycle you could have 55 days of so-called free money & spending without costing you a cent.
This is where some of you may get into trouble because when your statement arrives you’ve realised you’ve overspent and have no way of paying the amount racked up back to the zero balance.
So here’s where the bank loves you because now they’re going to slog you anywhere from 19 – 22% interest.
Here are 6 tips that will make you more mindful for when using your credit card:
1. Keep track of your spending. If you’re not good at this then go get yourself a visa debit card which uses your money not the banks and stops you getting into financial trouble.
2. Pay your card on time. This may seem obvious but for a lot of people they forget to pay the balance or minimum payment by the due date and this ends up costing them more. This is where the bank slogs you around $15 for not paying on time.
3. Pay off your outstanding balance as quickly as possible. Banks love when you don’t pay the balance owing in full off because they can then start charging you interest on the amount racked up anywhere from 19 – 22%.
By getting into the habit of sweeping off what you’ve spent on your credit card every month – will save you thousands of dollars. You see every year you don’t pay off your balance sees you going further into debt.
For example; here’s a really frightening statistic that I got one client to read on the back of their credit card statement to shock them into how NOT paying the balance off in full is costing them. In this example, the balance owed was $5000 and the client was paying just the minimum monthly repayment around $95. This client if they didn’t get their butt into gear and pay the card off in full they would be paying it off in 72 years and owing over $25k in interest charges!
4. Check your statement monthly to make ensure there are no transactions that you didn’t authorise. Today there is too much internet fraud with online purchasing that starts with a $5 or $10 amount then next you know someone has swiped you for a couple of thousand dollars. This is how they do it small and slowly and go unsuspecting. So check your card statement regularly to ensure there are no unsuspecting amounts on there.
5. If you’re buying on the internet be aware of a fee called the “foreign transaction fee” which is a fee that occurs when you buy something from the internet and it’s in a different currency like US because your bank will convert this cost back into your currency for example; Aussie dollars and you’ll be slogged a foreign transaction fee.
This doesn’t seem like a lot but today the trend is to buy online and these amounts add up if they’re not in your country’s currency. So an option to get around this is to look at a credit card that has “no foreign transaction fees” attached to the card. For me, a lot of the monthly operating expenses in my business are from the US and because of this, I have a credit card that doesn’t charge the additional foreign transaction fee which saves me hundreds of dollars per month. Look at your bank or financial institution to see whether they offer this type of credit card, and lastly
6. Don’t buy items you really can’t afford with no way in hell of paying them back by the end of the month. This is not good money management and is seeing your hard-earned dollars going to others and not you. You work hard for every dollar you get so make it count and if you really want that particular item save up for it – because it makes it all the worthwhile knowing you actually own it not the bank!
That’s it for my 6 tips on how to better manage your credit card. If you’re looking for more training and education in how to work money to your advantage then check out a money program that’s super affordable and will get you back in the black.
How To Keto Your Money is a 21-day kick start program designed to get your money back in shape. Find out more HERE
Any questions leave me a comment and if you enjoyed this please also let me know.
Until next time here’s to your financial health, wealth and happiness.
