A Time for Eating Chocolate, Watching the Cricket and Pondering Life for 2025

At this time of year, when you only know the date and day of the week by checking your phone, there’s a stillness to ponder life a little, while working through the boxes of chocolates you’ve received over Christmas. The relaxing and sugar high ends up starting conversations about finances and any plans for the year that involve your finances. Are you watching the tennis or the cricket and scrolling realestate.com.au?

· Will you be renovating?

· Do you want to update your car?

· Are there holidays on the agenda that you need to save for?

· How are you coping with your current loan repayments – do you have a comfortable spending buffer, are you right on the line, or is life a bit of a struggle right now? And are there ways to reduce the load a little?

There may be ways to reduce your monthly loan repayments to keep more cash in your pocket. If your income vs liabilities allows it, refinancing your loan could help. Some banks are offering great rates to new customers, so another bank may provide cheaper interest rates than where you are at currently. With the current uncertainty of interest rate reductions, you may want to consider fixing your loan for a year or two, as fixed rates are currently lower than variable rates.

If you have had your loan for a few years and right now just need the repayments to be as low as possible, refinancing your loan can sometimes allow you to spread out your loan repayments over a new 30 year loan period. Depending on your age, there are some banks offering 35 and 40 year loan terms.

If you are thinking of renovating or buying a car, do you require a personal loan, or is there sufficient equity in your home to increase the loan amount to cover these items? The interest rate on a home loan is cheaper than a personal loan, so if you aim to pay that portion of the loan off in say a 4-5 year period, you’d pay a lot less interest than if you applied for a personal loan with a similar loan term.

Are you thinking further into your future, and want to start investing in property? What is your ideal investment property, regarding price, location, or the rent you’d like to receive for that property? Having a plan is a good starting point to bring to your broker/banker to give them an idea of what you’d like, and if it is achievable.

I am available this week and the next if you have any questions or would like a chat about anything that has come up in your financial conversations. If nothing more, I can assist with a more concrete plan to work with, and to set goals of when you could be in a position to move house/buy the car/do the renovations/buy an investment property. Or potentially create a plan to save you some money along the way. My phone number is 0414670151 and my email is jennifer@jblhomeloans.com.au

Enjoy the rest of your holidays.