They say money makes the world go round. If we’re not busting our butts trying to earn more of it, we’re thinking about how to spend it well or save it better.
The thing is, loads of us feel overwhelmed by money talk and in turn, convince ourselves we’re ill-equipped to make smart choices in this space. That really doesn’t have the be the case (ladies who think finance and investing are only for the dudes, I’m talking to you).
Victoria Devine spends a good chunk of her time focusing on precisely this. The founder and host of the She’s on the Money podcast is a multiple award-winning financial adviser who wants to help people, women, in particular, feel more confident with their financial decisions.
If you’ve listened to her podcast or seen her floating around Instagram, you’ll know that Devine is filled with neat hacks that help people save money – so being the home of hacks, we at Lifehacker were immediately intrigued when we heard she’d written a book. There’s a second on the way, too.
She’s on the Money: Take charge of your financial future is Devine’s first book. It was written to “help you hit your money goals without skimping on brunch,” and it dropped in mid-2021 (details here).
The go-to guide on practical saving offers a long list of useful tips, and here are some of the best examples we found while reading.
How to be a better saver
In the chapter ‘Save, Sister, Save!’ Devine writes that “It only takes $27.40 a day to spend $10,000 in a year”. I don’t know about you, but that floored me just a little bit.
Here, she shares practical tips that will help you become a savings master. Things like making your money “less accessible;” ensuring that you’re not blindly accepting fees and charges because they come your way and spending the time to renegotiate costs like your rental rate (she suggests spending no more than 30 to 40 per cent of your income on rent).
Perhaps one of the simplest hacks she offered, however, is her savings bingo card.
In this section of the chapter, Devine shares that “One of my favourite digital assets to share with my followers are the She’s on the Money savings grids.”
“Simply pick an amount from the grid each week, move it into your savings and check it off like on a bingo card.”
She suggests taking the money from your spending allowance or looking to options like selling items or picking up a side hustle.
Taking the bingo card approach means you’re only ever focusing on saving small digestible amounts of money each week, and it also offers a clear structure to follow. Plus – it kind of feels like a game.
The way it’s been crafted is that the bingo card is divided into 52 boxes, representing the weeks in a year.
In each box is a different number, and the total sum is your savings goal (in the case of the example in the book, it’s a $1,000 goal). You can find examples of these on the She’s On The Money Instagram page, or by downloading Devine’s finance freebies from the website here.
Is it just me or does anyone else feel like reading this book might just help them sort out their lives?
This hack comes from She’s on the Money by Victoria Devine. Published by Penguin Random House, RRP $32.99. Pre-order Investing with She’s on the Money out September 20 now.
This article has been updated since its original publish date.
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