Beating the holiday financial hangover

4 / 11 - Category: Blog

So we’ve heard from Ebony about her experience in the ANZ MoneyManager Challenge, now it’s Madelaine’s turn…

I have recently returned from overseas, and like many travellers, my finances were not in the best shape. While I have no regrets about my trip, I was really keen to pay off my travelling debts and start getting in to good financial habits, and thought MoneyManager could help me do this.

I found MoneyManager to be a really useful, user-friendly tool. Since logging on for the first time 4 weeks ago, I have been using it daily to track my spending, check my account balances and review my savings goals. I can see at a quick glance what I’ve spent my money on and can also set budget limits on specific categories that alert me when I am close to going over those limits.

My favourite feature would have to be the automatic categorisation of transactions in my accounts, especially the way MoneyManager remembers my own personal preferences. I’ve found that in only a short time my spending habits have already changed. I realised a lot of the spending I could not account for was money I was withdrawing from ATMs and so I have started to give myself a certain amount of spending money in cash at the beginning of the week and pay for everything else by card. I’ve actually been surprised by how much I have left in my bank at the end of the week which is great.

Since making a real effort to cut down on unnecessary spending I’ve also managed to start putting a modest amount aside each week which will hopefully turn into a nice holiday at the end of the year. I think the beauty of MoneyManager is that I’ve become so much more conscious of where I spend my money and has definitely helped me improve my spending habits.

Madelaine

Wow, Madelaine has definitely had a few eye openers while using ANZ MoneyManager. If you have your own budgeting and savings questions we’ve asked ANZ Senior Financial Planner, Katrina Pulbrook to provide some tips. All you need to do is send in questions to us via Twitter or to our feedback mailbox and Katrina will respond on our blog.