top of page
Back to Top

SAVERS

Money Saving Ideas

Making Family Life Easy 8

​

Credit Card

​

I can't tell you how many people my age are unable to retire and will be working late into their sixties or even into their seventies to get out of debt. Many in their sixties have not paid off their mortgage so should they need to retire, paying off their mortgage comes out of their superannuation fund leaving them meager funds to live off. Or they have to resort to living on an aged pension.

​

And I know when I was young, I never thought planning for retirement was all that important. I expected my health and vitality to remain well through my fifties and into my sixties so I'd be fine to keep working. But that did not prove to be the case.

​

I found the constant bending, (which was an integral part of my job working with young children) caused me to experience a level of back pain I was not prepared to continue working with... And I never thought it would happen to me.

​

Luckily, my husband and I had made investing for our future a priority from our mid-thirties on so I could retire relatively early.

​

​​

Garden Path

Some of the big things related to income were:

​

  • Maintaining a consistent double income over thirty years.

Other than during maternity leave I worked full-time. Over years that made millions of dollars of difference to the amount of money that came into our home.

​

  • Setting up superannuation to retire early on.

​

  • Setting up a passive income stream.

Purchasing property and share investments for long term investment.

​

  • Buying an expensive home as a tax-free safety net so we can trade down  if we ever need to. Timing the market helps with this.

​

  • Getting an accountant to do our tax.

Claiming all legitimate deductions (which I would never have been aware of) and keeping all receipts.

​

​

Minimal Office

​N.B. All information on Best Parenting Advice.com is what worked for me. It does not mean that it will necessarily work for you.

 

You will need to consider your own financial situation and I suggest you find a financial planner to assist you to create your own financial plan to cater for retirement.

Flower

​

For more information go to Reducing Repetitive Costs below:

​

  • Financial issues often cause significant strain on people personally, and on their relationships

​

  • To save people can choose to increase their income, or reduce their spending. And it is usually best if they do both

​

  • Without an investment plan, independent home ownership, or a passive income to retire on, become less likely

We chose to do a number of things differently and it was the combination of those things with the compounding effects of time that helped set us up.

​​

Woman on Phone

Our spending patterns were different to many others. Some of the things that made the biggest differences included:

​

  • Paying down our mortgage as quickly as we could manage it and then using these savings for investing.

​

We made fortnightly payments and then used a home equity loan which meant any savings came off our loan.

​

  • Reducing child care costs with help from supportive family.

​

Parents and in-laws minded our children so we didn't have to pay expensive child care fees. We did send our children to preschool the year prior to school for three days a week. And we had to pay $14 for 20 minutes of afternoon school care while our children were in primary school.

 

We will also assist our children with child care and hope they will do the same as our parents did for us for their children.

​

  • Having our children attend high quality public schools rather than private schools.

​

They received a high quality education for a minimal price. Many of my children's friends are now professionals: particularly doctors, lawyers, engineers so my children had a supportive cohort of aspirational friends to go through school with.

​

  • Paying cash for second hand vehicles rather than getting loans for new ones.

​

The old saying 'Drive the worst car your ego will allow you to,' in our case saved us heaps of money.

​

  • Living off our credit card and totally paying it off at the end of every month, allowing more money in our bank account to offset our home equity loan.

​

This enabled us to pay off our loan more quickly.

​

  • Buying second hand furniture rather than new. It is usually a third of the price of new.

​

Fairly recently both of my sons furnished their homes with great quality second hand furniture. They both bought black leather lounge suites in very good condition for $300 and $350 off Gumtree. One suite contained two three-seater lounges. The other a three-seater, four-seater and chaise. They were beautiful. This saved them at least $1500 each.

​

  • Looking at our large repetitive costs and reducing them.

​

Some of the following links go into greater detail and I hope you find them helpful.

​

Best Parenting Advice.com is a high quality parenting website designed with child and family success in mind. It highlights what successful parents do differently to those who struggle. Best Parenting advice.com provides free online resources for busy parents who want the best practical advice on: how to give kids a best start in life, better tips for parenting toddlers, effective child rearing strategies, behaviour management tips, successful goal setting and organizational strategies for successful families, easy family dinner recipes, self-care tips for time-poor parents and free kids learning games. The aim of Best Parenting Advice.com is to provide quality practical parenting tips and advice to best help children and families succeed, using the convenience of a website.

​

This website provides examples of what worked for me over decades and you are welcome to use these ideas as you see fit but you do so at your own risk. Best Parenting Advice.com does not provide any guarantee that this information will work in every circumstance with every family or with every child. It is your responsibility as a user of this website to ensure that you adhere to any recommended safety suggestions either implicit or explicit on this site and supervise your children while playing any games suggested. Similarly users of this website are advised to follow any recommendations for seeking professional advice as all information on this site is generic. Best Parenting Advice.com is an independent website and is not affiliated with any other groups, clubs, religious organizations or educational systems.

 

Best parenting takes time. The best parenting advice ever is simple: Do your best, don't give up and love your children, no matter what.

bottom of page