I read an article yesterday about three “successful” women.  Two owned very successful businesses and the third was a 22 year old that owned a house.  “That’s impressive” I thought to myself.  Upon further reading, this young lady didn’t OWN the house, she had saved a deposit and with a hefty loan had her own little house—in essence the bank owned her home and she owned…well, probably her front door!  After reading this I thought “RIPPED OFF…..  I saved for a deposit and got my first house at 20. Nobody wrote an article about me in a national magazine???”

Now, I don’t bring this up just to mock that 22 year old (well, maybe a little), I bring it up to demonstrate how I managed to get a house deposit at that age.  It all goes back to my parents.

When my brothers and I turned 16, my parents had “the chat.” The chat in our household in summary was our parents telling us not to prioritise on working  in order to get some pocket money (like our friends), but to focus on school and doing as well as possible in our grades while staying social and participating in extracurricular activities.  Their thoughts were we would work the rest of our adult lives, why start when we were 16? – be kids when while we could.  Then they then brought up this novel pocket money idea…..

My brothers and I would be given $40 every Friday, but…..we were  to pay for lunches, entertainment,clothes and all discretionary spending. They however they would pay for school stuff and shoes.   That’s it.    I gratefully accepted and armed with my $40 per week, I pretty much blew it every week until my dad came along with “the spread sheet.” My dad loves a good spreadsheet (if you ever want to see his AFL draft one let me know… it’s impressive…)

It was a basic spreadsheet.  The top of it had the $40 per week, and then drilled down where my allocated expenses would go.   I would sit every day when I got home, get my receipts out and allocated where my money had been spent.   It would go into three categories—savings, entertainment, and clothes which I would all tally up every week.  Every month then I would re – tally, do an evaluation on where everything went and determine what went right or what went wrong….

Savings were then kept on a separate spreadsheet where I would have my ultimate goal listed at the top of the page.  What I was saving my money for.   By doing this, I could see that my expenses were spent on going out every weekend, but if I were to have stayed home, I would have achieved my ultimate goal.

My goals were always visible; they were kept front of mind and were always achievable.  As is life; things always pop up and your budget and savings plans don’t always go to plan, but at least I knew where it was all going (to this day I can tell you I SHOULD bring my lunch to save money – but rarely do).   It’s a good exercise to do even if it is for a month.   Even if it is to show you an exact dollar figure you spend on those lunches, lattés and after work drinks.  Think of it as one of those pesky food diaries that the personal trainers love so much.

The moral of my story, as soon as I started tracking where my money was being spent, I started saving.  I figured out my financial shortcomings, and always kept my goals in sight!

By Amy Flett