Fitter finances will pay off in the new year

THE Biggest Loser trainer Tiffiny Hall says there are strong parallels between fitness and finance goals — and now is a perfect time for you to shape up.

Biggest Loser trainer Tiffiny Hall, photographed on set at Terrey Hills

IF your January New Year’s resolution to get fitter is looking shaky, you can relax — another New Year has just started.

Wednesday was New Year’s Day for finance nerds, and getting into financial shape from July 1 is much easier than sweating for hours in a gym.

Tiffiny Hall — author, ninja and trainer on Channel Ten’s The Biggest Loser — says her finance goals this year parallel fitness: “nothing in excess, don’t overeat, don’t overspend”.

“Finance, like fitness, takes diligence every day, every year moving towards new goals,” she says.

Hall returns to The Biggest Loser (now called TBL Families) later this year after writing several books. Her latest, Maxi and the Magical Money Tree, is in bookstoresnow and is a children’s novel about a girl who discovers a money tree at home and deals with issues such as greed and how much happiness more money brings. “I always ask myself what does it mean to be rich,” Hall says.

SMALL STEPS

Hall says both fitness and money are incremental and goal-driven. “You have to expect highs and lows,” she says. “You don’t wake up having accomplished zero and try to be a hero with a 10km run. You don’t want to binge exercise and you don’t want to take big risks with money either when starting out. Invest in good advice — it’s priceless.”

Consumer finance specialist Lisa Montgomery says many people hate the B-word — budgeting — but there are other ways to ensure your money is not secretly slipping away.

She says taking control of money is not painful but many people find it hard to find the time. Winter — when you’re at home more — is a great time to start.

Avoid huge and daunting financial goals, Montgomery warns. Instead, treat it like weight loss with small weekly or monthly targets.

Biggest Loser trainer Tiffiny Hall says invest in good advice — it’s priceless.

BANK CHECK

“One of the first things to do is an audit of your transaction account statement for the last two or three months,” Montgomery says.

“It doesn’t take long but what you might find is you are being charged for things you haven’t bought, or you have direct debits set up and you are not using the service or product anymore.”

INTEREST RATES

One of the world’s biggest money wasters is paying more mortgage interest than you should. Montgomery says you should be paying something around 4.5 per cent at the moment, and should also compare your other rates on credit cards and personal loans.

BudgetWorx founder Nettina Baressi says anyone with a mortgage and cash sitting in a transaction account should use an offset facility for their home loan. “Speak to your bank — this can save you thousands of dollars in interest,” she says.

You don’t want to binge exercise and you don’t want to take big risks with money, says Hall.

SUPER SAVINGS

Think about your superannuation and savings goals. You can choose how your super is invested, so does your mix of assets reflect your life stage?

Younger people can opt for higher-growth, higher-risk investments in super because they have many years left before they can touch it. As retirement nears, it’s usually time to turn down the risk a little.

Baressi says July is the perfect time to start using salary sacrifice, a great way to build superannuation wealth and save tax. “Speak to your employer to see what is available,” she says.

DON’T OVER-COMMIT

“Your resolution is just to visit your financial situation — not fix it,” says Montgomery. “Just knowing will actually save you money.”

Baressi from BudgetWorx says good money management needs the right mindset. “Now really is a good time to reflect on the past year and where you may have gone wrong, and set some new goals for the future,” she says.

Write down your goals, so you have something to measure against, and revisit them every month of the new financial year to see how you are tracking.