My dad taught me "cash is king" and I still agree with him!

Money opens doors and opportunities. Paying cash, often brings negotiable further discounts. It permits living in relative comfort, rather than surviving on "struggle street'. Saving, even a little of what you earn each pay is both enabling of choices and additional pleasure in the longer term. Debt on the other hand is disabling and prevents those suffering under its all encompassing grip, from living more fulfilling and stress free lifestyles. Money is not generally easy to come by and most of us work hard for our living, often in jobs we do not particularly enjoy and for little, other than the financial rewards our work brings. However, achieving your goals usually does involve making at least some short term sacrifice in order to achieve long term gains and goals. But making those very disciplined sacrifices are well worth it, when you finally gain the keys to your first home, or head off to the destination you have long wanted to explore.

I confess that watching my bank balance grow, rather than deplete, brings me a certain degree of joy. It means I am gaining purchase power towards achieving yet another goal or ambition in my life.

Are you struggling to save for a mortgage, dreaming of a bucket list holiday destination, or even desperate to reduce your debts?

I was able to pay off my home and even improve my "renovators dream" in a little over ten years on a single, medium level income, as well as more recently and previously having managed to travel extensively, both within Australia and overseas, on a regular basis.

 I did not travel, whilst paying off my mortgage. I am not very good at sleeping if I owe money and paying off a mortgage was amongst the most stressful undertakings of my life. I had to be creative to find ways of making my budget stretch and earn a little more cash on top of my wages from teaching, to even consider the improvements my house demanded to remain structurally sound and liveable!

Never travel on credit, you will pay huge interest that may likely cause you stress way beyond the value of your experiences and hold you back financially for years to come. Thankfully I have always been very conservative with my use of credit cards and have only ever travelled when able to fund my travels with cash, I do know instances of people still paying off their dream trip, fifteen years later!

There are times I have struggled financially through ill health, to the point of having to run garage sales and market stalls to find the funds to pay bills and feed myself.  I even used up all my precious backstop funds during those times. I caught up again, having sold my first home and risking a tree change. Had I not, I may yet have been living a hand to mouth existence and struggling with my health and stress levels, instead of living comfortably and debt free, with minimum stress.

Most importantly, always live at least within or below your means. I was pretty good at this, but even so, ill health proved a financial as well as physical and personal challenge. The better at living below your means you are, the more cash you can put towards your financial and life goals, like owning your own home, travelling, or, even having children. So, set aside those contingency funds for when hard times hit you by surprise; they generally do at some point in life!

The following is the best advice I can possibly give, based on my own experience on how to achieve a healthy bank balance, a home of your own and even make it to the places of your dreams!

1. Set yourself a savings goal; something you want passionately.
2. Set up a special purpose, low fee bank account. Do not mix up your special goal savings with your general expense account.Open this account when you have enough money set aside to avoid bank fees for a minimum deposit, then add to it regularly.
3. Pay a regular amount into this account every pay.
4. Put every available cent of loose change into a piggy bank. When it fills, add the sum to your savings.
5. Budget to save. Work out realistically,based on your current billls for the past 6 months, how much you need to spend on food, utlility bills, transport clothes and insurance and some for discretionary purposes every pay period and stick to it. Build in even $5, or $10 of savings if you are on a truly low, subsistence income. In better financial circumstances, aim to save about a third of your income every pay.
6. Set aside a contingency fund, for emergencies. Do not begin your goal savings until you have at least $1,000, preferably more, tucked away for unexpected bills, fines, medical, or car problems. Hopefully, these won't all fall at once, while you initially establish your contingency, or backstop fund.
7. Use cash and avoid the temptation of credit cards for non essential expenditure. View your credit cards as needing to be paid in full at the end of each month to avoid paying interest.If necessary freeze your credit card in a take away food container in your fridge and only defrost it in a real financial emergency. Credit cards are a very expensive form of loan!
8. Put any gifts of money, or pay rises straight into your special purpose account.You don't miss what you have never had!
9. Make and take your own lunch to work everyday, this will save an absolute fortune!
10. If you enjoy decent rather than instant coffee at work, keep a plunger or coffee bags on hand. This is much cheaper than going out for a coffee, or buying a take away one. Calculate how much you will save over the course of even one week. Do the same with lunches. Saving lunch money and putting a few dollars a week into my bank account, bought me my first horse. Later I used the same strategy to buy my first second hand but reliable car. After selling my horse I put the funds onto fixed deposit in the bank and there it stayed until I bought my first home!
11. Dine out for special occasions or a few times a month, but eat mainly quality nutritious food, prepared yourself at home. Poor nutrition is bad for your overall health and well being. Stick to a food budget and make good use of fresh seasonal produce and specials, as well as food discount stores to stretch your food budget as far as possible.
12. Build in some treat money. Don't expect to live like a spartan and not want to indulge occasionally, this is where your discretionary money within your budget comes in. If you don't budget for some treats, you are way more likely to blow out your very strict and unyielding budget, a bit like blowing the strictest of diets, so you actually end up gaining weight, because you turn back to your comfort foods. Retail therapy will not get you that house deposit, or dream travel destination!
13. Find fun free ways of enjoying yourself and exercising. Local parks, window shopping, walking the dog, walking around different neighbourhoods and looking at homes and gardens, going out jogging, or cycling, if you have a bicycle, or gardening are all free activities and ways of getting a good deal of free exercise. Gym memberships are expensive!
14. Buy mainly pre-loved second hand furniture, homewares and even clothes. I recently needed some new wine glasses and bought a lovely set of 4 at a local opportunity shop for $2.50. New they would have cost at least $15-20.
15. Cull things you no longer need or use and organise a garage sale or market stall to sell them off. Put proceeds into your special goal account.
16. Accomodate a boarder if you have a spare room. More if your home is big enough.Overseas homestay students pay well and are usually reliable.
17. Consider taking on a second job. People always need good cleaners, baby-sitting, ironing, even basic meals, prepared for them. Dogs need walking and pizzas delivering. Be careful of over-stretching yourself though!
18. If you have a unique skill you particularly enjoy, turn it into a paying hobby. Writing, photography and looking after other people's animals have worked for me!
19. Turn off unnecessary lights, appliances and slightly reduce your heating temperatures. Not only will you save money but help the environment.
20. Always have adequate insurance, to cover the replacement costs of your home, posessions and income or protect you from the worst case scenarios of travel!

I always look forward to my tax return refund!
It represents a form of forced saving as far as I am concerned.
I always have plans to put mine to good use.

Unless you are entirely debt free, the best advice I can give is to use the money to clear some or all of your debt:

• Pay off as much as possible that you owe on credit or store cards
• Put it towards paying off your mortgage
• If you have limited savings, add your tax refund to them to create a financial backstop for when things go wrong, or unexpected expenses are incurred. Ideally try to have between $3,000- 5,000 in savings for unforseen circumstances. It is amazing how quickly savings can erode with a few major utility bills, or extended period of illness.
  

If you are in the fortunate position of being debt free, then and only then, plan to spend it on something you enjoy, from purchasing a new pair of fabulous shoes, to a trip to an exotic location.

Never plan to, let alone spend all of your tax return refund on frivolous things before you even get it!

In an ideal world, your tax return should come as a welcome financial bonus, rather than be consumed by necessities, such as bill paying. Careful budgeting to ensure you plan to live within your means really helps turn that tax refund, into an annual bonus and financial boost!

It is rare to receive a lovely lump sum of money, so put it to the best use you possibly can, that is likely to bring you the greatest long term benefit!

The first time I applied for a home loan I was knocked back by the bank manager. I was in my mid twenties and had what I believed was a decent deposit. His advice was to keep saving.....

Eventually, I was well into my thirties when I decided that it was a case of now or never. I was worried that if I didn't purchase a house soon, I would be deemed too old to take on a mortgage and pay back the loan during my working life. I also was desperate for a garden and animals of my own, something that was near impossible whilst renting flats and units, but I was always wary of becoming a mortgage slave.

The path to home ownership, for me personally, was a path of sacrifice of almost all of life's pleasures but gardening and having a cat of my own. I could not afford to travel or take a holiday. Dining out was limited and there were always unanticipated expenses to do with the house of one sort or another.

The following strategies are the ones I used to pay off my mortgage within fifteen years of purchasing my home, on a single and very average teacher's income:

• Buy the home you can afford, even if it means compromising the area you purchase in a little
• Save up as big as possible deposit
• Establish a good credit rating and savings record

• Make fortnightly repayments, in order to save interest
• Always pay back more than the minimum required payment, every penny extra helps to reduce how much you eventually pay for your house. If you can't afford to do this, then you probably should not purchase a home in the first place. I always aimed at paying at least $100 more a fortnight than was required by the bank.
• Split your loan, I did one half on variable interest rates, but took out the other portion as a fixed rate loan to hedge my bets against inflation.
• I took in one, sometimes two international homestays to occupy spare rooms and give me some extra income for much needed renovations,
• Establish a mortgage offset account, that serves to reduce interest through savings held within it. This is where I banked money earned through my boarders and saved up for renovations.
• Put earnings from every pay rise staight into the mortgage; you don't miss what you have never had.
• Avoid redrawing from your mortgage in anything but a finacial emergency
• Forget fashion. 
• Pray that you will not need any major dental work
• Make sure you have adequate home, contents and health insurance. Especially vital when you are living on a limited income,
• I lived on and left myself about as much of my pay as someone on unemployment benefits lived on, whilst I was paying off my mortgage. This meant budgeting carefully to cover food and utility bills.
• Enjoy motgage statements showing how much you owe is reducing.
• Forget holidays, especially in the early years of your mortgage. Instead stay at home and paint or work on your garden, or simply catch up with friends and family during breaks from work.
• Living as close to your place of employment as possible saves a fortune on petrol and public transport. My home was within a three minute drive, or, because of the hills, a twenty minute walk to my workplace. 
• Savings on travel time gave me more time to prepare yummy food at home, as well as grow food in my garden.
• Take advantage of freebies, like cuttings and bulbs from family and friends to establish a garden.
• Do what you can yourself to improve your home. Labour and skilled trades work is expensive, but can be a necessity. Tackle things like painting yourself.
• Put up with shabby furniture, carpets and less than wonderful decor or bathroom fixtures until you can afford to pay for them with cash.
• Never increase your loan to purchase a new car. Keep amd maintain the vehicle you have, or buy a secondhand replacement if it dies.
• If you have a brand spanking new car, sell it and get a cheaper, but reliable one.
• Do without a car altogether, as one of my friends did. Ride a bicycle instead.
• If you have the good fortune to come into extra money, as in gifts, holiday loadings or tax return refunds, put it straight into your mortgage.

Many people will not like my advice, as they "want it all and want it now". Instead be grateful for and make the most of what you have. Do not despair at the thought of renting well into your thirties. Do not expect life with a home of your own and a hefty mortgage to be bliss. Weigh up whether the sacrifices are worth it!

Personally being "owned by the bank" and in debt was not an experience I found easy. At times I hated my house. Prior to my mortgage I led a pretty charmed life, with regular interstate and overseas travel. I collected and enjoyed wines from cellar door sales and was always up to date in my apparel and footwear, although I have rarely bought new furniture, other than white goods.I went to a lot of live theatre and major music concerts. My mortgage lifestyle lacked most of those comforts.

Paying off that first home involved enormous sacrifice on my part. I managed to stretch my single income by taking in boarders, which was not always easy, or convenient. Had I taken more time my lifestyle may have been a bit easier, but the sacrifices I made then and frugal lifestyle I led, set me up to be able to take advantage of the bounty of life by the time I was in my early fifties.

Even finding a liveable house I could afford was a challenge. Housing affordability has always been an issue for single women; it is not a new phenomenon!