Everyday tips to keep your savings on track

Rabobank’s Tiffany Bosco shares practical and comprehensive savings tips.

With cost of living pressures squeezing household budgets across Australia, small, comprehensive tweaks can make a significant impact over time.

Rabobank’s Tiffany Bosco believes there are a number of creative opportunities to claw back your hard earned money, often without compromising lifestyle. 

“There are plenty of obvious opportunities to improve savings – cutting out unnecessary spending on coffees and eating out can represent a huge saving, yet subtle adjustments to spending can have just as large an impact, and often without you even realising.”

See it, to save it

Knowing where your money is being spent is crucial to the savings journey, and Tiffany suggests creating a comprehensive budget outlining all expenses and income.

“You’ve got to be able to see it, to save it, and a working budget is the first step when it comes to supporting healthy saving habits,” Tiffany explains.

“When you have everything in front of you, you can identify where you’re spending and where you could be saving.”

For those unsure of how to create a budget spreadsheet, she suggests jumping online and downloading a template, with a number of sites offering free budgeting resources. 

Review all automatic payments

With a budget spreadsheet proving a comprehensive breakdown of money in and money out, Tiffany believes reviewing all automatic payments out of your account can prove profitable.

“Review and cancel any subscriptions that you’re not using, most are automatically drawn from your account on a monthly basis, and while they may seem like small amounts you don’t even notice, when you add them up annually they can prove quite a large spend.”

“Whether it’s streaming channels, apps or media, it’s time to ask yourself, do I really need all these subscriptions, and assess usage and the value you gain from each subscription.”

Another prudent savings move is to check how much you’re paying for service providers, Tiffany says.

“Whether it’s your internet, insurance, or energy provider, the best way to work out if you’re getting the best deal is to do an old school comparison of quotes.”

“It can be as simple as phoning your service providers and challenging them to see if they can do better, otherwise shop around – it’s a competitive space and without even realising it you may be spending extra when you needn’t.”

A budget also provides an opportunity to review where you could take advantage of grants, rebates or concessions.

“There are plenty of avenues to save money if you know where to look – for example if you spend a certain amount on tolls each year you can sign up for a rebate on your Green Slip.”

“Electricity companies provide rebates for health aids, so you can claim on items such as sleep apnoea machines, which people don’t even realise.”

She suggests Service Australia as a helpful resource to help discover some of these helpful rebates and concessions. 

An old school grocery list for savings

Simple strategies can have significant impact when saving, as a pre-prepared grocery list demonstrates.

“A grocery list is a sure-fire way to ensure you don’t overspend on items you don’t need – all with the added bonus of helping you meal plan and remain organised.”

The Saveful app is another genuine opportunity to save money – and reduce food waste – in the kitchen.

“The average family throws away one in five shopping bags of food each year, which is about $3,000 going straight into the bin,” Tiffany explains. “Of that, 70 percent of what we throw away is still perfectly edible.”

In line with its cooperative roots and rural focus, Rabobank has partnered with Saveful, which is a free app designed to help Aussie families make the most of what’s already in their fridge, freezer, and pantry.

Through simple chef hacks, tips, and tricks, the initiative has the potential to save households each year, as Saveful users simply ‘swipe right’ on tailor-made recipes to make the most of what is on hand based on their specific budget, taste, cooking skills and dietary requirements.

Promoting a circular economy

There’s nothing more sustainable – or economical -  than utilising pre-loved furniture and clothing, with a wealth of websites and social media sites dedicated to selling, or sometimes even, giving away second-hand items.

“Sites such as Facebook Marketplace are a great source of furniture – and as well as being resourceful, there’s great satisfaction in refurbishing old wares.”

Likewise, if you have items you no longer use or need, consider selling them on these sites for extra income.

Rounding up your spare change

Another way to put money aside, without feeling like you’re missing out is by using round up apps.

Tiffany explains that there are a range of apps on the market that capture virtual spare change from rounding up a transaction to the nearest dollar.

“When you link your credit or debit card to the app the spare change from this transaction is tracked, and available to invest – it’s like a virtual savings jar.”

Many of these apps, she explains, also featured further savings tools such as pay splitting functions, or budgeting goal trackers.

“There is a wealth of resources online to help you become more financially literate – from free financial advice services to videos on budgeting and understanding banking terminology – which is another really good place to start.”

Take advantage of current market rates

With more market rate cuts widely predicted, Tiffany said many clients were questioning whether now was a good time to lock funds into an account such as a Term Deposit to take advantage of the higher rates of interest.

A Rabobank Term Deposit is also a useful savings tool, she suggests, as funds are locked away and earning interest from one month to five years – avoiding any temptation to access that money.

“There’s also a Term Deposit 0.10%p.a loyalty bonus, whereby customers get rewarded with the for reinvesting their principal amount, and it may be attractive for some people who want to lock funds away with the potential Official Cash Rate changes looming.”

Another clever way to maximising savings, Tiffany believes, is to separate savings into a dedicated account such as a Rabobank High Interest Savings Account (HISA).

“If you’ve got all your transaction accounts with one bank, and savings account there, you’re probably more tempted to use that money, but if you’ve opened a savings account with Rabobank then there’s a little bit more effort required in transferring that money across to your everyday account where you can just tap and go.”

“With the HISA, there’s no requirement to increase your cash balance, or switch banks – you can keep your current transaction accounts, but if you want to earn that little bit of extra cash every month and have some additional incentives to save, then switching your savings over to Rabobank is a great option,” she says.

“It’s that additional step to help avoid the temptation of spending your savings on something you don’t really need.”

“If your salary is all going into an everyday transactional account, people tend to become a bit lazy moving it across into a savings account.”

She says an automatic direct debit into a savings account means they can ‘set and forget’, or if people want flexibility, they can control it themselves through online transfers.

“Many people set accounts up for a purpose at a point in time, perhaps when their children are born, but without knowing what they’re earning on it – all of a sudden some interest earned over a few years for your children adds up pretty quickly – especially in this good interest environment, compared to earning nothing in a transactional account.”

One of the best features of the HISA, she believes, is that it pays a reasonably competitive ongoing rate, with zero conditions – “You can throw money into it, and draw money out of it, and you’re not penalised.”

Starting with a higher introductory interest rate, then reverting to the ongoing standard rate after four months, she said the big differentiator between this account and those similar on the market is its lack of conditions.

Rabobank’s Premium Saver is another useful savings tool, helping reinforce positive saving habits by encouraging people put even a little bit away, regularly.

“Our Premium Saver enables a higher rate of interest just for increasing your balance by at least $200, excluding interest, each month for personal accounts – both individual and joint. This helps create smart savings habits without necessarily eating into too much of your household budget.”

“For young families, or those who don’t have a lot of savings at the moment, the Premium Saver is reflective of the old ‘piggy bank’ style of saving.”