New mum Ebony takes the MM challenge

26 / 10 - Category: Blog

Remember our ANZ MoneyManager Challenge? Well here is the first blog from our participants – Ebony Caldicott – who became a mum for the first time and has felt the pinch with the additional costs involved. Ebony tells us about her four week experience using ANZ MoneyManager….

Before using ANZ MoneyManager my partner and I never paid much attention to our budget. We often left bank statements unopened and never took the time to analyse our expenses.

I recently became a mum and my partner and I have felt the pinch with all the additional costs that come with starting a family. As I am on maternity leave this year, we have found the transition to a single income pretty hard.

Signing up to MoneyManager has helped us gain an idea of our financial situation. The first thing that struck us was the amount of money we could not account for and the amount we spent on entertainment, gifts and eating out.  We also realised that we have left very little for savings. Seeing where all our money was going has made us determined to tighten up our frivolous ways and get a budget in place, especially as we are on one wage this year.

I found MoneyManager to be a really simple and easy tool to use. It was eye-opening to review our finances for the first time and has been a wake-up call for my partner and me to think more carefully about our spending habits.

 Ebony

Thanks to Ebony for sharing her story with us. 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.