Know your fixed costs

Whether it’s a mobile bill, a membership fee or topping up your Opal card, we all have costs that we have to pay every month. We call them fixed costs, because they don’t change and you can’t get out of them. The key to managing your fixed costs is to know what they are and plan ahead to have enough money to pay for them. Saving small amounts of money each week to cover big monthly costs can be a whole lot easier than trying to find the whole amount from one week’s income. So, if you know your mobile bill is going to be $80 at the end of the month, you set aside $20 each week and that’s sorted. Pain free bill payment!

Try making a list of all the costs you pay regularly - a money diary might be helpful here. We will talk more about managing these when we get to budgets.