Budget truisms hit home
There is not much new you can say about budgeting. Pretty much anything that you say about the subject has been said before and generally with about the same minimal effect.
Sure you can harangue people with the importance of budgeting (true), that you cannot get ahead until you have a budget surplus (true) and that you should make it easy on yourself by taking the ‘‘pay yourself first approach’’ to budgeting (true).
These things, and many more besides, have been talked about for decades. There is no lack of information or support on budgeting, but it remains very hard for people to do.
And then along comes Canna Campbell, an Australian woman who has had considerable success with her own personal budgeting, and who shares her experiences to good effect online and to a global audience.
A telegenic young woman who does not look like she spends her time figuring out how to reuse tea bags, Campbell talks about practical issues and to her own generation.
Campbell has an old message, but it is delivered appealingly; largely by short videos which are shot at her home. The message is important, but the messenger and the way that she delivers it is even more important for audience acceptance and action.
Campbell talks about real issues with the kids yelling in the background and the dogs wandering about. She talks a lot about being a working mum with two kids and how exhausted she is, which is a very real and authentic message.
I think Campbell’s success has come from three things. First, she has successfully budgeted herself. Campbell knows and empathises with her market, what it wants and what her peers find difficult in life.
Second, she talks a lot about ‘‘lifestyle love’’ – fashion, makeup, health and wellbeing. Budgeting has a purpose and that purpose is lower stress, better health and bigger lives, along with designer handbags and the right makeup.
Third, she uses mental accounting, telling people to break down the savings target to little steps. Campbell’s ‘‘$1,000 project’’ means saving $1,000 at a time in any way you can, and when that amount is saved, it is put off to a share portfolio, and you start on the next $1,000.
She has enjoyed success, and I hope she gets more of the same. She has turned her own budget story into a financial advisory business but, above everything, she proves that budgeting and finance are always much more about what’s in your head than what’s in your wallet.
Martin Hawes is Chair of the Summer KiwiSaver Investment Committee. He is an Authorised Financial Adviser and a disclosure statement is available on request and free of charge, or can be found at www.martinhawes.com.