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Investing is key to long-term financial success, and one way to do it is by buying shares. Shares can be bought through a brokerage, some popular options include Commsec, NABTrade, and Stake. These brokerages charge fees when I buy or sell shares using their accounts. Traditionally, big players such as Commsec, have dominated the market. However, in the last decade, several smaller companies have emerged, offering cheaper fees and a better user experience through their mobile apps. The table below shows the fee ranges for some well-known online brokers that I compared. If I was going to trade $1k weekly, I could save up to $517 annually by choosing the lowest instead of highest cost broker. If I had more money and will be trading around $50k weekly, the yearly savings might reach $3,120 if I chose the lowest instead of highest cost broker. When choosing the right broker for me, I didn't just focus on fees. I considered other important factors like how fast I can transfer funds, how user-friendly the platform is, its safety reputation, and whether it offers a mobile app.

Woolworth is the largest grocery store in Australia with 37% market share, followed by Coles, Aldi, and IGA. The average household spend on average $8736 per year on groceries, making this one of the biggest living costs ( Source: Canstar Blue ), and it continues to increase due to inflation. Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to save 15%/$1310 per year (or more with a larger household)? Taking advantage of the major supermarket's loyalty programs is one way to reduce the grocery bill. The following is how I achieve up to an additional 15% saving on everything in Woolworth by taking advantage of Woolworth's Everyday Rewards loyalty program. With some initial effort to setup, I have managed to enjoy this savings on an ongoing basis. Read on to find out how I did this. Setting Up Downloaded the Everyday Rewards app and signed up for an account to start earning points when spending at Woolworth or its partners. The base earn rate is 1 point per $1 spend and each Reward point is worth at least 0.5c (0.5%). Signed up to and transferred my existing mobile service to Everyday Mobile and linked my Everyday Rewards card from Step 1 to receive a first 10% discount each month on my Woolworths shop. This 10% discount offer is limited to one in-store Woolworths Supermarket transaction up to $500 per Everyday Rewards Card. Signed up to an Everyday Extra membership using my Everyday Rewards account, which provides a second 10% off one shop each month at Woolworths in-store or online. Between steps 1-3, I now have 2x 10% discount offers to use at Woolworths. I repeated these steps for another person in my household to receive a third and fourth 10% discount offers, for a total of 4x discount offers each month. This provides a 10% discount for every weekly shop in the month, noting that I need to scan separate Everyday Reward accounts to use the third and fourth 10% discount. Separately, I purchased Woolworth discounted gift cards and used these to make payment at the checkouts after applying the 10% discount. These discounted gift cards are generally available under various business' loyalty programs. See examples below and refer to this OzBargain page which has an excellent summary of places to get discounted gift cards. Paying at the Woolworth checkouts I generally boost every offer in the Everyday Rewards app to maximise the bonus points I can earn. I don't really need to know what I boosted at this point, I just boost everything I see. Scanned my Everyday Rewards member card at the counter. Choose “Yes” when asked whether I would like to apply my 10% discount offer. Each member can only have 2x 10% offers per month so I need to scan a separate Everyday Rewards card to get the third and fourth 10% discount in the same month. Select the 'Gift Card' payment option to pay with gift cards I bought beforehand in Step 6 of setup phase, and followed the prompts to complete payment. The outcome of the above is that I: Earned 0.5% from base points, which could be redeemed as $10 cash off next shop once I reach 2000 points. Earned bonus points from boosted offers. The amount varies, and the points can be used in the same way as the above cash off next shop once I reach 2000 points. Saved 10% off the price of my Woolworth shop. Saved further 4% off the bill that has already been discounted by 10%. In total, achieve a savings of approximately 15% off my shop! Once the system is set up and I got used to it, it is very easy and takes a similar amount of time compared to paying the regular way.

My money in the bank should be growing, and the higher the interest rates, the faster it grows. SAVINGS ACCOUNTS The average Aussie has about $45,000 saved up ( Source: money.com.au ). Choosing a savings account with the highest interest rate of 5.5% instead of the lowest at 4.0% could mean an extra $675 a year. It’s crucial to pay more attention to my choice of savings account. TRANSACTION ACCOUNTS It is important to know the difference between a savings account and a transaction account. While banks offer both, savings accounts earn interest, but transaction accounts usually don’t. Banks LOVE it when customers stash their cash in transaction accounts instead of savings accounts because they don’t have to pay customers for holding onto their money! If the average Aussie with $45,000 put their money in a transaction account instead of a savings account, they could be missing out on $2,475 in interest each year. With a quick Google search, I can find several comparison websites for saving accounts. I personally found this savings accounts leaderboard to be super handy and it does not run ads like the comparison websites do. Big thanks to the community behind this for creating and keeping this list up-to-date! When comparing the accounts, I don't just look for the highest interest rates. I also consider other things like: Eligibility criteria (e.g. regular deposits, age, balance caps, withdrawal restrictions, etc.) My preferred financial institution Access to mobile apps or branches According to the leaderboard, some of the savings accounts with the highest interest rates in December 2024 are:

We all have important stuff we need to protect, like our house, car, belongings, health, and income. One way to do this is by getting insurance, which basically means passing the risk of damaging or losing these things to someone else. Insurance costs are in the form of regular premiums we pay, and it can be a big chunk of our household expenses because we insure a lot of things. If we don't keep an eye on these costs, our yearly insurance bills could easily go over ten grand. For instance, a typical single person or couple might be shelling out anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 for the usual types of insurance, and that's not even counting kids or other less common insurance policies. There are a bunch of ways to keep insurance costs down, and one I used is by picking a higher excess on my policy. Allianz explains that the excess is what we have to pay out of pocket before the insurer chips in on a claim. So, let's say I get into a car accident and need $5,000 worth of repairs. If my policy has a $1,000 excess, I'll pay that $1,000, and then my insurer will cover the remaining $4,000. Basically, by choosing a higher excess, I'm agreeing to take on more risk myself. I'm saying I'm okay with covering up to that excess amount if something happens. The higher my excess, the less I can claim from my insurer, which means they'll charge me lower premiums because it costs them less. Obviously, before I make any changes, I need to think about how much risk I'm cool with and make sure I can handle paying a higher excess if I have to file a claim. I did a quick test quote for a new Toyota Camry using a popular insurer. They let me pick an excess between $700 and $1,900. If everything else is the same, going with a $700 excess means a yearly premium of $1,888, but if I bumped it up to $1,900, the premium drops to $1,351. So, I'm taking on the risk of having to pay an extra $1,200 if I make a claim, but I save $537 on premiums, which is 28% less. Even though we talked about car insurance here, I can usually choose excess options on other kinds of policies too.

Superannuation is basically Australia's way of setting up funds for retirement. Aussies have to chip in 12% of their salary into super funds through their employers. They can also throw in some extra cash on their own if they want. These superfunds charge member fees to invest money, and members can only cash out when they hit their 60s. The cool thing is, I can put up to $30,000 a year into super, and it's considered a concessional super contribution, which means it gets a favourable tax treatment. I save on taxes when I make extra concessional super contributions, which I can then claim as a tax deduction. It's pretty straightforward: pay into the super fund, let them know I plan to claim a tax deduction, and then give the info to my accountant to get that deduction. Depending on my income and tax rate, if I'm earning $45,000, I could save up to $4,469 at the 18% marginal tax rate by maxing out the concessional contribution cap of $30,000. On the other hand, if I'm earning $250,000, I could save 47% for each dollar contributed, but it's capped at $588 since there's not much unused concessional contribution left after my employer's contribution.

Superannuation is the way Aussies stash away money for retirement. Basically, Aussies chuck some of their pay check into a superfund, which charges members fees to invest the money, and members can only tap into it in their 60s. Super fund fees can really vary. The ATO's comparison tool shows that the fee difference between the most expensive and cheapest super funds can be up to 0.83%. If I pop $10,000 a year into a super fund with an 8% return, over 30 years, that 0.83% fee difference could mean a $160k difference in my super balance. So, it's important to keep an eye on those fees. The ATO yoursuper-comparison-tool helps me check out different superfunds. It even lets me do a personalized comparison, which is pretty useful, but if I'm in a hurry, I can just go with a non-personalized one. This ATO tool only looks at MySuper options, which is the default option employers use unless employees choose something else. The comparison results were useful for me (see below), but I also checked out other options from the superfunds that aren't MySuper products. Fees should not be the sole factor in choosing a superfund, I wanted to balance it with other considerations like returns and risks to find something that suited me better.

Savings accounts are a popular way to stash my cash and earn some interest. Right now, we’re lucky to see savings rates over 5.5%, but there have been times when these accounts paid less than inflation, meaning my money's buying power was shrinking. That’s why it's smart to look for other ways to keep my cash. Investing in the stock market can boost my wealth and buying power, but it's riskier and takes time. So, what are other ways I can get better returns on my cash? In Australia, homeowners with loans have a nifty option called an Offset account. These are basically transaction accounts linked to a home loan that helps cut down interest expense directly. Home loan interest is a big expense for most families. With the average Aussie home nearing $1 million, and assuming a loan of $800k at a 6% interest rate, a typical household might fork out $48k a year just in interest expense. With an offset account, I can cut down on interest expenses instead of earning interest from a savings account. Here's how it benefits me: First off, home loans usually have higher interest rates than savings accounts. For example, a home loan might have a 6.5% rate, while savings accounts might offer around 4% to 5%. Second, the interest expense reduction from offset accounts aren't taxed, so every dollar of benefit is mine to keep. On the other hand, interest earned on savings accounts gets taxed at my marginal rate. Let's break it down for $100k in cash: If I stashed it in a savings account with 5% rate, I'd earn $5k in interest income a year. But, if I'm taxed at 47%, I'd only end up with $2,650. If I put it in an offset account for a home loan with 6% rate, I'll cut down my interest expense by $6,000 a year. This reduction is tax-free, so I pocket the full $6,000. This makes the offset account about 2x more appealing than the savings account for me. Remember, the perks and eligibility of using an offset account depends on personal situation and other factors. For instance, I need a home loan (and a house) to have an offset account, and not everyone has that. Plus, if my tax rate is lower, the appeal is less since I pay less tax on interest income.

In the past few decades, mobile phones have become essential, and everyone needs a mobile plan to make the most of this modern convenience. Telecom companies make a lot of money selling mobile plans, which often come with features people might never use. For instance, these plans usually offer way more data than someone will ever need and throw in extra perks to get people to sign up. Long Expiry Prepaid Plans With prepaid plans, I pay upfront, and the long expiry options usually last 6-12 months. These plans let me buy just what I need and I get the flexibility to manage my data usage throughout the year. The best deals often come from smaller providers, like Kogan. Big telecom companies used to have the edge with better networks, but now the difference in network quality does not seem that noticeable. Smaller players often use the big networks anyway, like Kogan uses Vodafone's network and Everyday Mobile uses Telstra's. Before switching providers or opting for a long expiry plan, I had to check with my current provider to make sure I'm not stuck in a contract. If I was, I would've needed to wait until it's over. Here's an example: Kogan sometimes offers a deal where I can get 500GB of data to use over a year for $300. For most folks, 500GB a year is usually plenty. It's pretty close to what the big telecom companies offer in their lower-tier plans, which is 600GB a year. I find it hard to use up all 600GB, so that extra 100GB might just go to waste. When I stack Kogan's long-term plan against these other options, I could save anywhere from 35-60% ($168 - $480) a year.

In Victoria, taking public transport in zones 1 and 2 will set me back $5.30 for a two-hour trip, $10.60 for a weekday, or $7.20 for a weekend. If I'm using public transport every weekday, I might end up spending over $3,500 a year if I'm not careful. Plus, the fares keep going up annually. A quick online search shows that back in 2022, the daily fare was $9.20, meaning there's been a 15% hike in the last two years. So, it's definitely worth figuring out how to manage and cut down on these costs. There are plenty of ways to cut down on public transport costs, and I've summed them up in the table below. The best option will depend on the personal situation. In a nutshell: If I'm eligible for student or concession fares, that's would've been the best bet. If I'm a working professional commuting daily, an annual Myki pass is the way to go. It's even better if I can snag a discount through my employer's Commuter Clubs. If I'm an early bird, I can save even more by traveling before 7 am and using Myki money for the trip home in the evening, however this option is only marginally better than the annual myki pass from the Commuter Club!

Melbourne folks are all about their coffee. It's not just about the caffeine—it's a whole vibe. Whether its catching up with friends or making business connections, coffee is where it's at! Coffee prices have gone up a lot. It used to be under $4 for a regular cup, but now we're looking at $5 before adding extras like alternative milks or extra shots. If I'm spending $5 on coffee every day, that's over $1800 a year. Luckily, there are ways to enjoy the daily brew for less. HOW TO SAVE ON COFFEE Option 1: Liven I checked out Liven to score credits at my local cafes. For example, Plus Coffee & Co in Melbourne CBD offers deals that can save 20% to 33% ($365 to $608 a year)! Plus, I can also use the credits for any other food at the venues. Option 2: Coffeepass I also checked out Coffeepass to buy passes that can be used at any café in their network. Each pass generally covers any black, white, and alternative milk coffees at any café. Matcha & large sizes are often included. Here is the list of partner cafes on their website . With Coffeepass, I could save between 16%-20% ($292 to $365 per year). Option 3: 7 Eleven If I'm feeling indifferent about the quality of the coffee, 7-11's regular coffee is just $2, saving me 60% compared to the usual $5 coffee! That's up to $1,095 saved a year with this option!