SmartyPig

Whilst reading an article in The Age (click here to read but promise to come back please), I was prompted to reflect upon my own financial position and attitudes towards spending.

As mentioned last week, I am a Gen Y. I have grown up in the age of many great things – slap bands, the rise, fall and subsequent re-birth of leggings, Alf, Happy Meals and The Karate Kid. But somewhere along the way, I, along with many of my fellow Gen Y-ers picked up some fairly nasty financial attitudes. As described in aforementioned article I “want it now – or not at all” and worst of all:

I am not afraid of debt. But I know should be. (Insert ‘dun dun dun’ scary music here)

Debt has all the trade marks of a bad hair cut (strangely enough, I fear this above all else) and yet I still continue to do it:
• It is visible (from the haggard look on my face when I open my next credit card bill)
• You can’t hide from it (no matter how infrequently I look at my balances) and;
• It can take a long time to get rid of (30 seconds to spend it, 3 months to pay it back).

Thankfully, my “necessities” debit is manageable but still far from perfect.

So what have I done about it?

A little over 12 months ago, I began an experiment. I wanted a Chanel handbag above all else; I was willing to put myself into debt to have that super soft leather bag as my own in all it’s glory. But in the spirit of showing support for the product I manage, and a little negative reinforcement from a male friend (“you want to spend HOW MUCH on a bag?!”) I decided to save for it. Every month I put $244 aside for my dream bag until June last year when I hit my goal amount.

Do I have my dream handbag I hear you ask? Is it everything I had hoped and dreamed? Is the leather really that soft? Well, to be honest, things didn’t actually work out how I had planned…

I was more than ready to transfer my money out of my SmartyPig goal, march down to the local branch and withdraw the funds. But I didn’t. I decided to think about it for one month, then two and so on – it seemed much hard to part with my money for something frivolous when I had worked for it. So I have kept my money in my goal, accruing interest, growing a little each month, and for that I feel a small sense of pride.

Although in the grand scheme of things, it is only a small win for my reluctant saver self, it is a win never-the-less. I now know, that I can save, that purchases that seem like a good idea at the time, might not always be and that I can achieve a sense of pride from saving. So next time you want to buy something a little frivolous, give saving for it first a go, and you might find it wasn’t what you wanted at all.

Finally, for those of you wondering – does the positive bank balance make me feel better than walking down the street with a Chanel handbag? I guess I will never know….

1 Apologies in advance to any male readers, as this blog has taken a definite female-skew for this week. Perhaps replace “Chanel handbag” with, “Playstation 3” and you will get the idea.

The SmartyPig account is a deposit product offered by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) ABN 11 005 357 522. ANZ is trading as “SmartyPig”. “SmartyPig is a Trademark of SmartyPig LLC, which is licensed to ANZ.