5 Steps to Set Up Your Finances When Immigrating to Australia - Part 1

This is the first part of a guest post from Australia. Today we will find out about opening an account and transferring money and next time we will get some useful information about how to rent and buy a house in Australia as well as how to get the best deal on Australian credit cards.

Fred is a personal finance writer at Credit Card Daily. He helps people to compare balance transfer credit cards online.

Immigrating to a new country and starting a new life can be both an exciting, but stressful time. However, to make sure you control as much stress as possible surrounding your immigration to Australia, follow these five simple steps to set up your finances.

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Why Buying in Bulk is Not as Good as You Think

Ask most people for a common way to save money on groceries and household goods, and they may come back with this answer: Buy in bulk. While it can be an amazingly simple way to potentially save some bucks, it can also be a buying trap. Here are the 4 misconceptions we typically attribute to bulk buying, and the truth for each.

Myth #1: Buying a larger package usually means that the cost per unit (ounce, pound, etc) is lower.

Truth: It's one of the many reasons people rush to buy bulk, but it isn’t always so.

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How to analyse your spending and why you need it

When you first decide that you may need to structure your finances and get more control over it you very quickly discover that the corner stone of successful budget is a good understanding of your pending patterns.

When I first started I thought it will be easy! How can I not know what I spend?!

Well, the truth was – I actually had no idea… I knew the end result documented on the month end in a fat overdraft but I had no idea how it came about!

I’ve tried several things and none worked in isolation but together they helped me a lot – so here I am sharing my experience with you!

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Interview: What's your worst financial blunder?

Kelly from Almost Frugal, a great blog with a lot of useful tips, has shared a story about her financial blunder! Do you want to share your story? Just drop me a line!

- what was your funniest/worst/biggest financial blunder?

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Step by step of your first budget - What Would I Do Differently?

I am now in our second month of living adhering to a budget that I’ve set up. Some lessons I learned so far moved me to write this post.

Knowing what I know now – how would I set up my very first budget?

1. Collect / download itemised bank statements for the last two months

2. I would still ask a friend to help me identifying actual spend based on 2 months of bank statements. It’s way too easy to trick yourself into declaring some of your spending a one off or simply “not seeing” them – you need a help of an outsider!

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No, You Don't Need a Large Emergency Fund - or Convince me That I am Wrong!

I recently have written a post about the myth and fallacy of an emergency fund and why I don’t want to have one. This led to a lot of discussion and a lot of people disagreed with my view.
I have just completed a guest post for Penny’s blog about MBTI type and their attitude to money and while researching for that post I also came across an interesting study about the link between the MBTI type and risk.
Since Emergency funds are all about mitigating risks and hedging your bets looking at MBTI type made sense.
Sonya Zichy conducted a survey asking participants about their investment preferences.

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Finances and Economy in Pictures

This Friday it's all about InfoGraphics. It's amazing how the good ones are able to convey a lot of information in a single picture!

Click on the graphic for larger sizer and better resolution image.

Economy and Unemployment

The Geography of Recession

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