In the 'Financial Confessions' section of the free Sydney Murdoch-owned rag mX on Friday night as I headed out for the night, the following headline caught my eye... "Girls don't have a clue on spending".
Stuffing it in my bag I figured I'd save the guilt for later and share it with my two loyal readers - a shout out to Bek and April for their supportive comments! I can't find an electronic copy of the article on the mX website, so I reproduce it here with the disclaimer - please don't sue me for breach of copyright, I'm not making any money out of this and want to share this important information. The article appears on page 4 of Friday, 16 July 2010's mX newspaper and is written by Torny Jensen (which is a fantastically sounding Viking name by the way!). The article says:
"Almost half of Aussie women admit they have no idea of how much they are spending on a daily basis.
A survey of more than 600 women by the Heat Group found 46 per cent didn't have a personal balance sheet and haven't got a clue about their financial ins and outs.
And more than half of those polled rated their financial performance as just "average". Heat Group managing director Gillian Franklin said women needed to step up when it came to their personal finances, particularly superannuation.
"Women are highly susceptible to financial insecurity," she said.
"Having children and being out of the workforce for long periods of time, earning less than men and lack of financial planning all result in significantly lower superannuation funds than their male counterparts."
The study found almost one in five women felt they would not have enough super to live on by the time they reached retirement.
Alysia Hamilton from Brisbane-based Girls Learning about Money said many women needed more confidence when it came to financial dealings. "Unlike men, women don't boast about financial performance, but also a lot of us don't have a group of friends who we can talk about finances with," Hamilton said. "It really helps if you do have a group of friends who you can talk to about investments and about money in general."
Hamilton advised women to establish firm financial goals and seek professional help.
Any of that sound familiar? I don't know if it makes me feel better to learn that I am not alone or concerned that every second Aussie woman is as financial naive as I am and has no idea of her spending.
Thanks to this exercise though and my decision to get control of my spending I can say that I now have a clue of my ins and outs on a daily basis. There are a hell of a lot of more outs than ins. And even though I am following the budget that my bro J set me, speaking frankly, I still really need to start spending less otherwise I am never going to reach the goals I have set for myself. The goals that every financial article/book/guru/person with a clue says are so important to keep in mind when financially planning.
I've never been good at setting goals because I've never known what I wanted. With the exception of travel. I have always known that I want to see as much of this amazing world as I can, meet the inspiring, interesting and fascinating people (and even the not-so interesting people) who inhabit it. Whenever I start to think about my next holiday, somehow I manage to scrape together the money needed to get on that plane and survive overseas for a few weeks. Often, it's been with the help of a credit card or even a loan. I have always justified the expenditure and the painful months paying it off that follow because travel is so important to me: the exposure to different cultures, environments, attitudes, people, languages is invaluable and immeasurable.
Outside of travel, I have never known professionally or personally what I wanted and so never planned ahead. I've never thought seriously about a 5 year plan. Whenever I have reached crossroads in my life, I have run. I have packed up and moved cities. Hell, I even moved countries because it was easier for me to start from scratch and thereby give myself excuses to explain why I hadn't reached a particular milestone or standard or made a decision. All because I didn't know where I was heading.
I am proud to say that this is changing. Slowly though! One step at a time. For a while it has seemed that a lot of areas of my life required me to think to my future. In order to do my budget, J asked me what I wanted to achieve, all the books I was reading wanted me to set myself goals and of course, work is very big on goal-setting, planning ahead and visualising your future. So I did.
And my future looks something like this:
Be debt free by mid-August. WOOHOO.
Move out from parents into a place in the inner west by end of August.
Learn to scuba dive by end of September.
Spend 5 nights in the Solomon Islands putting my new diving skills to the test between 24 - 29 September.
Have $5,000 in savings by 17 December to take with me to Europe for 3 weeks of fun!
Start saving for a house deposit with the goal of buying by 2013
Save for a 2 week holiday in San Francisco in June 2011
Save for a 3 week holiday in South Africa in March 2012
Have a regular slush fund to buy presents for friends and family and of course to spoil my little niece or nephew!
Be open to meeting someone to share my life with.
Ultimately, run my own business.
I figure this should keep me out of trouble for a little while...
This is my 2009/2010 visualised
