Cute bikini at polyvore.com

I was in a store yesterday already selling bikinis. Bikinis?! Really?! Like Cadbury Creme Eggs spotted in January, and Christmas decorations popping up in September, I swore it was way too early for summer fashion. But no, turns out, summer stock has been in the shops for a little while now, and winter is officially over in a little over a week.

Great! Time to race out and buy stuff, right? Summer sandals, short dresses, singlet tops? I catch myself getting a little giddy and overspending on the summer wardrobe every year, only to find that, strangely, I have almost exactly the same top in my wardrobe from last year. So do a bit of thinking before the excitement of the warmer seasons sees you overspending. Get out your summer wardrobe, take a good look at it, remember what you actually bought last year that’s still in fashion, and do a quick audit of your clothes and shoes. What do you actually need?

I need new sandals, a summer dress with sleeves, and a pair of shorts that can be dressed up a little more than what I’ve got right now. I feel much better about going back into the shops now. And I already have 2 this-season bikinis thanks to trips to the States this year, so there’s going to be no panic-spending from me. See, now that I’ve told you guys, I can’t.

What do you guys need for summer? And more importantly, what don’t you need? A little pre-planning before the shops right now will see you stay inside your budget this year. Good luck.

OK gals, here’s a little more Good Debt, Bad Debt fun. A guy at work is getting married. He doesn’t want to go further into credit card debt for his wedding (yes, so far so good), but he knows he won’t be able to afford it all (bugger). So, he wants to get a personal loan. This is a better option than getting a credit card bill for sure, and it isn’t like he can avoid this spending – he’s getting married and has already committed to the cost.

Now, here’s his major mistake: even though he thinks he’ll need about $8900 according to his budget, he thought he should borrow $10 000, just to kind of round it out, and just in case anything popped up spending wise. Um, no. Right now, interest rates for personal loans are much higher than for mortgages – they’re sitting at about 14 – 16%. Agreed, it is better than the ridiculous interest on credit cards, but not by that much. So there’s no need for him to borrow a cent more than he needs according to his budget – because he’ll be paying that off, with interest, and it isn’t absolutely essential.

If you really have to get a personal loan for whatever reason – not as crap as having credit card debt, but definitely close – don’t borrow any more than you absolutely have to, have a plan to pay it off on time, and find a loan that will let you pay it off early in case you get a pay rise or a decent tax return. Find out what extra fees you’re paying – these loans have establishment fees, and may penalise you for paying out the loan early too. And think pretty hard about a personal loan for pretty much anything. Buying furniture, electronics or anything that loses value quickly using borrowed money is particularly dumb. A better plan for the money you actually have is always way, way better.

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I know, scary headline, right? But here are some posts from those starting to question whether we really need to be spending crazy amounts of our cash on our wardrobes. Some are not buying clothes at all .. others wearing the same clothes over and over (shock, horror, I know) and there’s some links here on wallet-friendly ways to keep buying clothes, just not at retail.

Tamsin Davies in London wore 6 pieces of clothing for a month. My God, how did she know what to choose? I think I’d go for dark jeans, a black singlet top, a black jacket, a white T, black skirt + a my favourite long sleeved coral-coloured top. But this means I only have one jacket! And does the singlet really count as an item of clothing?! Eek! Tough choice …

Heidi Hackemer tried it too – the video of her explaining why she wanted to get involved is great – and she’s stylish enough to get away with her very limited wardrobe for a month.

The Great American Apparel Diet is taking it one step further … asking people to buy no new clothes for a whole year. Eek! I love the Q&A on this on Time’s blog. A whole year?! Seriously, I can’t even think about it. But these girls said they saved thousands and thousands of dollars. What do you reckon you could buy with a years’ worth of savings from not buying clothes? If I included shoes and handbags, I think it would be a small car.

The Clothing Exchange does great, well run clothes swap parties. I’ve been to two clothes swap parties, and I loved them.

This great post explains how to not buy any new clothes for a year … but go nuts on Ebay second hand clothes, and save yourself a fortune.

We’ve already met Marisa … she set herself a challenge to buy only clothes that cost around $1 from junk stores – one a day actually – and transform them into something wonderful. In the last week, she’s been seriously on fire … props to the pink Hawaiian mumu from day 241.

I’ve been travelling overseas a lot lately, and everywhere I go, there’s another Aussie making a rookie error when it comes to exchanging money that is costing them valuable holiday cash.

Here’s what I reckon you need to know about your money before you go that’ll free up some more holiday spending money.

- If you plan to exchange a decent amount of cash before you go overseas, shop around for the best rate of exchange online, and pick a day when the dollar’s relatively good to exchange your money. Take as much time as you possibly can, and don’t get stuck having to use the airport’s exchange bureau … their rates are always crap, because they’ve got a captive market. When exchanging cash, exchange as much as you feel comfortable travelling with – you don’t want to pay two lots of exchange fees to exchange twice or three times in as many days.

- Find out what fees you’ll be charged for using your debit and credit cards overseas. Remember that these fees are per transaction, so it might not be the best option to put a $US8 cab ride on your Visa. If you only get charged, say, $4 for a foreign ATM, consider that as a strategy for your foreign exchange (at your destination) if you only want a small amount of cash.

- Never (ever) exchange money at your hotel. Their rates are terrible.

- Travellers Cheques are a bit old school these days … you should consider a prepaid Visa or Mastercard if you’re worried about taking cash with you. Your bank will sort you out with that, do some Googling. Check you can use it first at your destination, especially if you’re going somewhere weird and wonderful. You can only spend what you load onto the card, and this can often be the cheapest option for a short holiday to, say, the UK or US.

- Don’t neglect your bank account at home – remember you’ll be getting direct debits and fees taken out of your bank, so don’t leave it too empty.

- If you want to buy duty free on the plane while on holidays, always elect to pay in the currency you’re travelling in (as in, pounds if you are on British Airways or Aussie dollars if you’re on Qantas), because the airlines all have their own (woeful) daily exchange rate if you elect to pay in a different currency.

Worried about a house deposit? Don't look through all your bills at the one time.

We’ve heard so much lately about property prices being so on fire right now – great news if you already own a place, a nightmare if you’re trying to crack into a market that’s so hot right now it’ll burn you if you try to get a hand on it. Anybody see that derelict house at auction yesterday in inner city Sydney fetch more than $800K? Really?! Give me a break.

And the biggest problem right off the top in an expensive market for a first home buyer is not rising interest rates – although that’s got the potential to be really tough down the line – but scraping together enough of a deposit to satisfy the lender. Enough to get over the magic loan-to-value ratio. Enough to keep the mortgage insurance monster at bay. (Never pay mortgage insurance by the way, ever. It doesn’t actually insure you, it just sucks).

Seriously, saving the kind of cash you need to put a decent whack down on your first place is a big ask. If you’re an average earner, saving 10% of your net income each and every week, it’d take you more than 3 years to squirrel away enough to money for a deposit. And it’s kind of tough to hear that your friends got their deposit from a very generous mum, dad, or grandparent, when you’re still sweating away week-to-week.

Getting a chunk of money together without spending it is hard. Real hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re saving for a car, a holiday, or a house, putting away a decent sum each payday, deciding where it’ll earn the best interest, and then not touching it when you want to buy something fun instead (read: shoes) is sometimes just too much of a test of our spending willpower.

So, is a deposit even do-able? Or should we make like the Parisians and Manhattanites and merrily throw our home ownership dreams to the wind, renting forever because even with the Government’s assistance, the deposit’s still so out of reach?

Nope. That’s not Aussie. We want to own a place. We kind of like the savings struggle, then the regular mortgage repayment that makes us believe we’re not ‘throwing away’ our ‘dead’ rent money. We even like to moan about it with our friends.

Mortgage Moaning isn’t new. But Deposit Desperation is a sure sign that the sheer size of the deposit that’s now needed is getting further and further out of the reach of us Normals. And that means saving more every pay, for longer, to reach that elusive target. In a rising interest rates medium term future. I know, gloomy. Sorry about that.

This blog I wrote appears on Ninemsn Money’s website. Check it out and comment online - people are getting fired up about this one!

Young women can spend a fortune on cosmetics, clothes and treatements all to project the illusion of success. But how much is too much?

I was at a Thai restaurant with some girlfriends on Saturday night when we started talking about getting our hair permanently straightened. My friend Kate had just had it done in the city, at a “bargain” of a place … for 300 bucks.

Kate’s started getting her manicure and pedicure there too, because they do it a little cheaper than her ordinary beautician – although she still confesses to a mani-pedi habit that costs her around $800 a year. She gets a spray tan once a month or so for special occasions like the races or a wedding for $40, gets her legs waxed and her eyebrows shaped, her hair highlighted, wears nice jewellery, gorgeous perfume, looks after her skin, has a typical girl’s makeup stash, has a couple of good handbags, and is eyeing off a pair of boots for winter – and wondering if she can afford them at just under $300.

Thing is, Kate’s not an unusual for a city girl, and she’s certainly not overly primped and preened. She likes the latest fashions but she doesn’t wear designer head-to-toe. She’s never had botox or an expensive spa treatment like most of the girls we know, and she gets the bus to work.

Kate and I gave up somewhere around the green curry working out how much she spends each year on looking pretty much the same as every other woman working in her office, at a law firm in the CBD. Kate joked that every time she gets a pay rise, there’s another new piece of essential ‘upkeep’ that’s conspiring to keep her broke, and a long way from putting a deposit down on a unit – something she’s been trying to save for since she graduated six years ago.

Thing is, I think Kate’s drama is a common one. We’re now expected to spend so much looking good, that we almost have to work to keep up the illusion that we’re successful. Because now, success has a ‘look’. And it’s an expensive one.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. Just give up on all the expensive trendy beauty and fashion trappings, girls, and save the spoils? You’re just copying Hollywood, Kate, surely professional city girls here don’t have to spend a small fortune to simply keep up appearances? You might be half right, but the awful truth is that there’s an enormous amount of money per year that goes into keeping women looking good enough for them to feel confident and secure in their workplace. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying that it has never been more expensive to be a professional woman in this town.

It’s no wonder men are more likely to own property younger. And die with more money. They’re not dropping $150 every time they see their hairdresser.

We ALL love a freebie, right?! It doesn’t seem to matter how old or wealthy we are … anything for free’s a bonus. I read with glee this article about getting a free airline upgrade, and it has led me trawling all over the ‘net to see what other tips I could source about getting stuff for free, or at a discount. Here’s what I found;

More guff on getting an upgrade … this article’s full of practical advice.

I like this one … Ten Ways to Get a Better Hotel Room Free.

Lasttix.com.au is the Aussie place to go for discount last minute show tickets.

And for the tightarse I know lives in all of you, check out whypayfullprice.com.au - discount vouchers a go-go.

One of my favourite travel websites, www.mrjetsetter.com, has  all kinds of good travel money saving tips. And you can add your own too.

Here’s an article I wrote on Using Frequent Flyer Points to buy Funner Stuff than Air Travel.

Freecycle rocks. Did you know there’s a big Freecycle group in Australia? Good for the environment, plus you get Free Stuff.

This list of 30 Websites Offering Cheap Air Tickets is cool. Not all available for Oz Travel, but plenty are international.

If you think a shop is too upmarket to ask for a discount, The Guardian says Think Again.  Are you ever game enough to ask for a discount in a posh shop?!

Oh, and I love DealsDirect, Pharmacy Online, and it is always worth checking Catch of the Day (a clever website with one super-cheap item every 24 hours).

Now, what are your fave money saving sites and tips? And has anyone ever managed to wrangle an upgrade by sweet talking? Let us know below.

Righto, this ISN’T one of those dumb personal finance columns that starts with having one less coffee a day and how rich it’ll make you in 99 years time. Those

Image via msmoney.com.au

make me want to go out and buy an extra large latte just to spite whoever the stupid columnist is that’s actually suggesting something like that.

But sometimes, I think we have to sit back for awhile and actually work out what we do in day with our cash. Do you buy turkish toast + coffee at work, go eat a nice takeaway for lunch, eat out for dinner, then raid the corner store each evening for snacks? Do you catch cabs when you can’t be bothered getting the bus twice a week, buy 3 cocktails at eighteen bucks apiece on weekends, pay for an expensive gym you hardly ever use, and shop at the expensive local deli instead of a local supermarket? See, that kind of lifestyle is totally fine if you’re earning a massive income, but how many of us are?!

Have a think about where and when you spend all your money. If you’re having trouble keeping track of where the $200 went you got out of the ATM three days ago, chances are you’re buying takeaway food, using an expensive means of travel and just generally living way above your means.

Think carefully each time you shell out the cash, and pretty soon you’ll find yourself more aware of where and when that cash is disappearing. Or you could consider keeping a money diary if you really can’t fathom where you lost your fortune.

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You may not have seen these recent JoGirl videos. Check ‘em out.

Get a Good accountant and Top Financial Advice. Stat. from Jo Townsend on Vimeo.

Also, check out this recent video on Treating Your Tax Return Like  a Second Job.

And you might also get something out of Don’t Listen to Your Parents When it Comes to Your Money!