Poll: Are you disciplined with money?

Poll: Are you disciplined with money?
Jennifer DukeDecember 7, 2020

It seems that one of the big issues for Australian households trying to achieve their financial goals is, simply, a lack of discipline with their money, according to a new survey.

ME Bank’s Savings Intentions and Behaviours Survey, which queried 1,500 adults across the country in December 2014, found that 59% of Australian households do not consistently set a budget.

A further 41% set a budget but do not stick to it, while only 38% of households keep written or electronic records of their monthly expenses over the past six months.

ME Bank head of deposits and transactional banking, Nicolas Emery, said that commitment to detail and discipline are necessary for good savings habits.

“But it’s easy to resolve: you just need to track the real costs of your household expenses, set a realistic budget and commit to every single detail, consistently,” he said.

However, this wasn’t the only alarming statistic they found.

Around 46% of Australian households reported they were ‘credit card revolvers’, where they rarely or never paid their debt off completely. A further 20% failed to pay household bills on time.

“Real problems start to occur when you get stuck in a roundabout of not paying your credit card or bills on time,” said Emery.

“We strongly advise anyone struggling with credit card debt after Christmas, or anytime of the year to address the issue as soon as possible.”

He suggested that consolidating debts through a personal loan can remove you from the “interest payment roundabout”.

Interestingly, it was Gen X and Gen Y that came out the worst, with 72% of Gen Y not keeping a record of monthly expenses and 67% not setting a weekly or monthly budget.

Across the age groups, it seems that most are cautionary or conservative with financial goals. The majority of the top goals related to paying off debt, with the top being paying off mortgage and/or debt or small savings goals. This included saving for a rainy day, saving for a holiday, car or other non-home related expense.

{mijopolls 73}

 

Jennifer Duke

Jennifer Duke was a property writer at Property Observer
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