@sarahrachel Great progress in the past few years!! Also your necessary expenses look great.
Idk if it’s obvious or not but this structure would be best for your credit score (used to do mortgage & property consulting, these are what helped my clients):
- budget your weekly income after taxes. Personally what gets me is turning these numbers into percentages to realise just how much I’m spending/wasting/saving.
- take care of overdraft or GEM first-depends on which has the closest due date & higher interest rate
- stay at your job, or increase pay for at least another 12 months. The more stability you show the better
- avoid large debts, as in things you can’t pay off in one months time unless it’s completely necessary like health, or family emergencies
- always pay 1-2 weeks before due date for debts if you can. To raise credit score you can intentionally go into low debts simply to pay off quickly
- raise KiwiSaver % if you can depending on your budget. KS matches your contribution by a $521.43 if I remember correctly annually depending on if you’re able to pay $1,043 a year (if less than the govt pays less-it’s 50c matching for every dollar till the cap of $521.43).
- if you have someone trustworthy around you like a family member then try partnering up with them to increase chances for buying a house. It increases your chances significantly but imo only do this if they’re really trustworthy. Not like someone you’ve dated for 1 year haha
- your car is under your grandma’s name, what a GC for taking it on her name, so continue paying the interest off.
- your student loan will & should always be slowly being paid off on the side-last priority out of necessary/debt expenses since it has no interest & you only need to show that you’re taking the initiative to pay it off when you can.
Habits:
- don’t be a normal consumer. Don’t buy into ads & what’s in front of you, always judge on if it’ll benefit you in the long run. Eg. If you want to buy a camera is it only bc it’s on sale or is it bc you’ve been wanting to practice photography skills for a while now and plan on sharing your art? Maybe could end up freelancing photography in the side-just saying small plans to maximise the purchases you make really help
- if you’re going out for the night find a good liquor store, drink up at home w/ friends before going out to bars/clubs
- buying things in bulk-only the necessities- can really help, eg. Protein, toilet paper, cleaning products