Putting your financial future on autopilot
Life's hectic enough, so why don't we make our finances a little easier?
👋 Welcome to the latest issue of How To Money by Kate Campbell – the newsletter that talks about all those money things you wish you had learnt in high school.
✨ If you’re a new reader, thanks for stopping by. You can learn more about How To Money here.
📬 To get future issues delivered to your inbox, enter your email here:
Dear Reader,
Tax returns every year, getting a good interest rate on your savings account, funding your retirement, oh my!
If you’ve ever felt exhausted by the effort required to stay on top of your finances each month, then this is for you.
If you’re anything like me, there are plenty of other things you’d rather do during the day than manually move money between your accounts or work out how much you’ve spent at Woolies this month - like planning a vacation to London! Thankfully, there are many ways to automate your finances these days and make life that little bit easier.
I’m a big fan of automating the things that will have a positive impact on your financial future (like debt repayments, savings goals, and super contributions) and adding some friction to the things that will take away from it (Apple Pay, anyone?).
💸 Budget like a boss
Understanding your income and expenses is crucial to managing your finances and making informed decisions.
If you’ve been manually calculating your budget and spending each month, there’s an app for that.
Try a platform like PocketSmith to gain a clearer picture of your spending and make informed financial decisions, or have a look at whether your bank provides some budgeting tools.
⚙️ Save without lifting a finger
Are you tired of making manual payments in and out of your savings account each month?
Get this set up on autopilot.
My secret weapon to reaching my financial goals is setting up systems that run in the background, no matter how busy or messy my life gets.
Keep the money for your financial goals out of touch and out of mind (until you need it). Most banks allow you to set up automated transfers between your accounts.
📖 Learn on the go
Make boosting your financial confidence a habit, and don’t leave it to chance! If there’s something you do regularly, like catch the train to uni, drive to work or walk the dog, use this time to focus on building your money skills.
Whether that’s through podcasts, books, videos or articles, make sure you put time aside for future you.
🎧 My go-to podcast recommendations include:
Money For Couples (US)
Afford Anything (US)
Money With Katie (US)
🔮 Investing in your future
Technology is your friend as a long-term investor. These days, setting up a regular contribution plan and putting your investments on cruise control is relatively easy through automated investing tools or direct debits into your investment account.
Consider if there are any ways that you can automate your investments.
If you haven’t already heard, learn more about the magic of compound interest here. If you’re ready to take it a step further and see where you’re at financially, try the Money School Financial Independence Calculator.
🦸🏼♀️ Super stars are born here
Adding extra to your super makes a massive difference over time; just look at the impact adding an extra $100 a month has over your lifetime!
There are multiple ways to automate this process, including:
setting up a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer,
setting up a recurring direct debit with your super fund or
scheduling a recurring BPAY payment into your super fund.
✅ Over to you
Get creative and experiment! Figure out what tools and automations make your life easier. How are you automating your financial future? Let me know in the comments below ⬇️
Also, on the topic of the future,
recently mentioned that you can create an AI-generated book review podcast using NotebookLM (it even puts in an ad break 😅). Obviously, I had to load my book Buying Happiness in to see what would happen. It’s a little creepy but it’s also amazing to see how far this technology has come and how it pulls out the key ideas.All the best for your financial future,
Kate
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading today’s issue of How To Money. If you enjoyed what you read, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend, family member, or colleague who you think might like it too.
✨ If you’d like to support my journey, the best ways are to:
Buy a copy of my book, Buying Happiness: Learn to invest your time and money better through Booktopia, Amazon or order it through your local library.
Subscribe to my podcast (The Australian Finance Podcast) and leave a review.