Tips to help you get on top of your finances
IT’S the start of the year when most of us are looking into our empty bank accounts and wondering how we got ourselves into this mess. But never fear, help is at hand in the form of a new RTÉ show which aims to assist us in taking control of our finances.
Money expert Eoin McGee will be showing us the best way to make changes for the better to suit our financial needs. When it comes to saving money, it is hard to know where to start, particularly if you don’t have that much in the first place.
But Eoin says setting yourself financial goals that stretch you can bring great rewards .
‘The biggest mistake people make is that they try to save at the end of the month,’ he explains. ‘They try and cut their costs and then whatever they have left, they save. But that means they have effectively gone through a calorie controlled diet in terms of finances and their reward at the end is they get to save some money.’
But like most diets, this will soon fall by the wayside.
‘It just feels very restrictive,’ Eoin says. ‘The clever way to save is when you get paid say “Okay, I want to save some money,” decide the amount, a bit more than you think you can afford, and then live off the rest for the month.
‘That way you are not then restricting yourself and it is a much easier way of saving. The real trick is to automate any money you want to save. The day you get paid, the money must come out of your bank account so it is removed and put away.
‘Once you are established and doing this for a while, you need to turn this up gradually. If you start saving €100, three months in go up another tenner and again a couple of months later. If you start and then tip it up gradually it makes it much more achievable.’
In the first episode, Eoin meets Kerri and Brian from Cork who are stuck when it comes to saving. They try to save but never seem to manage to get enough for things like holidays, cars or even their own home, which is their longterm goal.
Kerri and Brian love socialising – especially with so many good foodie destinations on their doorstep but struggle to remember where exactly their money goes each month. And Eoin says there are some surprising results on the show when it comes to the weekly shop.
‘You can make a massive difference with your grocery shopping. There are huge savings to be made if you go for own brand stuff. Don’t go to the shop when you are hungry because you will buy more; don’t go to the shop without a list because you will randomly pick up things that you don’t need.
‘Make sure you go to the shops at a good time. If you are really busy, you will throw things in that you don’t need but if you have loads of time on your hands you will also saunter around and be caught out by all the marketing materials.
‘But the biggest thing you can do to improve your shopping bill is stop going every day. Try and do one big shop as it makes a huge difference to what you spend. Remember shops are designed to make you spend money every time you walk into them. The more times you walk into them, the more money you will spend.’
HOW To Be Good With Money , RTE One, tonight, 8.30pm. See enough.ie and prosperous.ie.