Tips To Help You Spend Smart Over The 2024 Financial Year

It’s EOFY season, which means that many of us are likely digging through a year’s worth of financial records to make sure that our tax deductions are all in order. If you’ve been able to keep organised and spend-savvy over FY23, then chances are that you’re feeling very ready to lodge your tax return nice and early.

But if FY23 has been a bit chaotic and perhaps even dotted with impulse purchases or a bit of consumer debt, then the new beginnings provided by EOFY are the perfect time to reassess your spending habits.

If you’d like to become a budgeting and financial management master in FY24, then these smart spending tips can help you get there. Read on to learn how you can spend better over FY24.

Be a sensible credit cardholder

Spending with a credit card is perhaps one of the most common ways consumers make their purchases work for them. Taking advantage of credit card offers can help you enjoy more than just easy purchasing, as credit cardholders have the opportunity to earn points or rewards alongside maintaining their account.

But as is the case with any financial asset, maintaining a credit card can come with its own share of risks. Thankfully, these risks can basically be entirely mitigated by just being a sensible cardholder. This means reading through your credit card statements, paying your due amounts in full, and making sure that you always stay firmly below your credit spending limit. With these sensible practices in place, you can use your credit card to generate some great savings and rewards over the course of this new financial year.

Shop around (and online) for better deals

With eCommerce being here to stay, it’s never been easier to make well-informed purchasing decisions. There is an abundance of deals available to us now, both in brick and mortar stores as well as across online retailers. And with tools like Google Shopping, comparing prices on particular items or goods is as easy as scrolling through a single page of search results.

The practice of ‘shopping around’ has transformed from one that used to take hours or even days, to one that can really occur in mere minutes. By taking a few moments to scroll through prices and products listed on other websites, you may be able to save yourself tens if not even hundreds of dollars, depending on the items you’re looking to buy. So shop around, jump online, speak with some customer service representatives and ask for price matches. You’d be surprised by how much you can save in the process.

Take advantage of retail sales periods

One of the best things about EOFY is just being able to enjoy all the great sales that are happening around you. The end of financial year period sees hundreds upon thousands of Aussie businesses scramble to move as much stock as possible in the lead-up to that June 30 deadline. With all this hubbub across merchants as they try to hit their final sales targets for the financial year, consumers can snag up some really great deals on everything from clothing to big ticket items like TVs and home appliances.

Other retail sales periods that you can take advantage of here in Australia include:

• ‘Back to school’ sales
• School holiday sales
• Valentine’s Day
• Easter
• Mother’s/Father’s Day
• Black Friday & Cyber Monday
• Christmas sales
• Boxing Day sales

Remember too that some brands or retailers have their own unique sales offers. For example, there’s the newly introduced ‘Afterpay Day’, which many big name Aussie retailers also participate in. JB Hi-Fi also run their special ‘Audio Avalanche’ sales semi-regularly, with great deals on speakers, headphones, radios, and other audio technologies. Subscribe to mailing lists and keep an eye out for catalogues to make the most of all these specialty sales offers.

Book flights and accommodation in advance

If you’re looking to do any travelling over this new financial year, then it’s well worth honing your trip planning skills now. You can save hundreds if not even thousands of dollars by maintaining a proactive approach to all your holiday booking. This means buying flight tickets and booking your accommodation well in advance to ensure that you’re not trapped paying any last-minute fees as your holiday window draws nearer.

Consumers are also encouraged to take advantage of off peak or off season travel deals. That way, you can ensure that your holiday budget goes a lot further than it would if you were looking to travel during peak periods. Travelling to getaway locations during their off season can also help you and your family avoid crowds of other tourists. And who wouldn’t prefer a tranquil getaway rather than a boisterous one? You could even sell your kids on it by letting them know there’d be no lines for rides at the Gold Coast! Note: this only works if you are actually taking them to the Gold Coast.

Buy seasonal produce for your home cooking

Buying seasonally has become a hugely popular practice in recent years for a few noteworthy reasons. For starters, the pandemic years put a hold on importations, which meant that we only had Australian grown seasonal produce to purchase. Winter in 2020 is likely a period of time that none of us will forget anytime soon.

Another benefit of buying seasonally, however, is that you can avoid paying importation taxes or even just having to pay for general price markups on imported foods. Buying locally and within season can cut your weekly grocery costs clean in half, which can be a gamechanger of a savings tactic for families in particular.

And if you already are shopping seasonally, then why not take this practice a step further by curating seasonal home cooking menus for your family to enjoy? With a few good recipes up your sleeve, you can ensure that your family stays well-fed and nourished year-round whilst minimising both your grocery costs as well as reducing the likelihood that your family resorts to eating out or ordering expensive (and unhealthy) takeout.

Stay thrifty by buying secondhand

Finally, we can’t talk about being a savvy spender without touching on the value of buying secondhand. Australia is lucky to have plenty of registered secondhand retailers and op shops (or thrift stores) that stock a wide variety of different pre-owned products. By purchasing these perfectly good items secondhand, you can help keep your own expenses low as well as saving potentially tonnes of consumer goods from going directly to Australian landfills.

And op shops are called ‘op shops’ for a reason. They provide countless opportunities to purchase items like clothing, footwear, furniture, and even books or electronics, for a fraction of the price that you would’ve paid if they were new or not pre-owned.

You can even purchase home appliances secondhand by shopping with a reputable reseller. So shop around for deals on secondhand appliances like fridges or even smart TVs from last year before you hit up your local electronics store and consider paying full price for the latest model.

Final Words

As you can see, staying spend-savvy in this new financial year is really all about building healthy consumer habits. So long as you incorporate these tips as standard practices in your daily life, you should find it a lot easier to stay within your weekly and monthly budgets all throughout FY24.