For Aussie seniors, learning how to be spend-savvy naturally comes with a myriad of benefits. Being able to stretch your pension a little further means more budget for getaways, entertainment, and other activities that can enrich your everyday life.
But with costs on the rise, sustainable senior spending has naturally required a bit more strategy. Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities where seniors can use their senior concession card to snag some great discounts – and we’re talking about getting deals on more than just your weekly shopping list.
If you’re an Australian senior pensioner, read on for a few of our best budgeting tips about how you can adopt a sustainable spending mindset–-and where to start spending sustainably.
Life presents many challenges at any phase of life. However, whilst we may be more prepared to contend with these challenges in our working years, eating into emergency funds is naturally going to be more complicated for pensioners.
This is why so many insurance providers offer speciality discounts on policies for senior concession cardholders. With your concession card, you can snag special seniors car insurance, home and contents cover, and even specially tailored health insurance policies.
Car accidents, property damage or even unexpected hospital stays are basically always guaranteed to be stressful events in life. But they don’t have to result in financial loss. With the right insurance policies in place, Aussie seniors can safeguard their wellbeing and preserve their emergency funds, ensuring they never have to eat into their savings to deal with any of life’s less pleasant surprises.
A business insurance pack can provide cover for your business premises and contents, against loss, damage, theft or financial loss from an insured interruption to the business.
Car accidents, property damage or even unexpected hospital stays are basically always guaranteed to be stressful events in life. But they don’t have to result in financial loss. With the right insurance policies in place, Aussie seniors can safeguard their wellbeing and preserve their emergency funds, ensuring they never have to eat into their savings to deal with any of life’s less pleasant surprises.
Did you know that seniors are eligible to apply for special senior concession travel cards for public transport networks? This means you can enjoy cheaper senior travel rates with your pensioner Opal or Myki card in Sydney and Melbourne.
Alongside cheaper public transport rates, senior concession cardholders can also often enjoy special offers with travel agencies. You can enjoy international tours that are specially designed with senior travellers in mind, ensuring that you can not only travel on a budget, but also see the world with the utmost safety, security, and access to healthcare services, if required.
Then there are senior discounts on experiences like museums and galleries. Just as toddlers get free entry into a lot of family-oriented attractions, grandparents can also tag along for less by simply flashing their senior concession card. So be sure to make full use of those senior discounts wherever you can!
Downsize for more sustainable living
If you’re an empty nester who’s still living in the old family home, you may actually be spending more than you need to on utilities. That, and the upkeep required for larger properties can also take a big chunk out of the weekly schedules for retirees. You don’t want to spend your golden years saving up to pay your quarterly bills, or vacuuming two or three extra rooms. These are just some of the reasons why so many Aussie seniors opt to downsize, trading in their larger family home for a more affordable, low-maintenance two or three bedroom property.
Yes, it can be a little daunting moving out of the home you and your family had lived in, but there are actually a surprising amount of benefits to downsizing, and not all of them are financial. For starters, downsizing provides opportunities to live somewhere new. If you’ve always dreamed of living by the coast, for instance, you can easily find a rental property on ground level that offers either waterfront views or is just a stone’s throw from a stunning beach.
Another benefit of downsizing is that seniors could potentially maintain some rental income by renting their old family home out rather than putting it on the property market. You could even turn your property into a short term or holiday rental, if there are opportunities to do so. The rental income from your family home could easily supplement your pension, providing seniors with a little extra to spend in their monthly budget.
Another aspect of downsizing is decluttering. After all, you’ll need to clear out at least a few rooms’ worth of furniture and decor if you’re looking to move from your family home into a smaller property.
This is also why many Aussie seniors embrace minimalist living in their golden years. The less you purchase, the less clutter (and decluttering you’ll need to do) in your home. By adopting a minimalist mindset, you’ll be able to live more agile, with smaller home insurance policies, and improved peace of mind to leave your home and go on holidays without having to worry too much about all your valuables back at home.
Living with a minimalist mindset can also organically inspire more sustainability-oriented spending, which is ideal for seniors who are looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Simply put, by becoming a conscious buyer, you’re promoting a healthier, cleaner lifestyle, and the green effects of your minimalist shift will undoubtedly ripple outwards. As minimalism also supports improved mental and emotional health and wellbeing by removing the visual stresses created by clutter.
Forge more sustainable consumer habits
Keeping on the thread of sustainable consumer habits, you’d be surprised by just how much a sustainable shift can bulk up your personal budget over time. Sustainability and sustainable spending can help save you a lot of money in the long run as these practices promote an upcycle, recycle and reuse, less-is-more lifestyle. Making the switch to solar power for your home or even electric vehicles is a good example here, as over years you can stand to save thousands of dollars in fuel and gas/electricity usage.
But you don’t need to buy a new car or take out a solar loan to start living sustainably. There are other smaller changes you can make with minimal upfront costs. For example, you might decide to reduce waste, such as avoiding single-use plastics and reducing food waste. This might mean you limit your takeout orders in a week from three to one.
Or you may consider planting a veggie patch to start living a little more self-sufficiently. Not only will you be eating greener and enjoy gardening as a great, heart-healthy hobby, but you can also cut your grocery spend down significantly.
Finally, Aussie seniors should always keep in mind that they are eligible to receive government assistance through a range of specially curated financial services. With government initiatives like Rent Assistance to support pensioners living in rental properties, and bill paying services like Centrepay to support Aussie pensioners with the life admin of bill payments, seniors can save both time and money by utilising the services available to them.
Alongside these rental and bill support initiatives, there are also government-funded financial services designed to provide seniors with access to financial counselling solutions. With these financial skills building resources available, Aussie seniors can learn how to maximise their money and live comfortably all through their retirement years.
Optimise your spending as a pensioner
By utilising these budgeting tips, Aussie seniors should be able to live sustainably on their pension and any other additional income streams they can utilise throughout their retirement years. For more information on any of the concessions, services, and strategies we’ve outlined here, don’t hesitate to speak with your trusted financial advisors and brokers. With the right insights on hand, you can tailor a sustainable budget that perfectly caters to your lifestyle.
General Advice Warning: This advice is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether the advice is appropriate for you and your personal circumstances. Before you make any decision about whether to acquire a certain product, you should obtain and read the relevant product disclosure statement.
All information above has been provided by the author.
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