I'm really excited to be doing this tutorial because we're getting down into the Money
SMARTS section of MyWealth portal. Now remember, you've got your manual. We've sent you your
manual (in your email), so make sure you get familiar with that cause this is obviously
the full manual in terms of how to get the maximum out of your Money SMARTS set up. But
I'm going to share with you how you can maximise the introduction piece to Money SMARTS. So
here we are, we've got Daniel and Rebecca who is our tutorial clients and I'm going
to click on Money SMARTS. That's going to take you across to your Money SMARTS section
of the portal. Now you can see in here... We've talk about money in, we've talk about
money out and then, we talk about the targeted annual surplus. So this is important because
that's what we're going after. This is an annual snapshot. And then we've
also got that as a monthly snapshot. Now this little arrow here can bring up a nice little
summary that will document all of that money in. And this one here is going to document
all of the money out in terms of all the expense items, whether that'd be bills or also other
expenses or spending attached to that. And obviously we've got what's called a sundial,
um, or sunblast graphs. I'm not going to spend too much time. And then these are pretty self
explanatory as you move around them. They basically give you the information on an annualised
basis. Now remember, Money SMARTS works on a classic jar system. We're talking about
the primary account. In this particular case for Daniel and Rebecca, it's a savings but
we would want that as an offset account for all of us as we set it up.
Okay. So in your Money SMARTS system, we've learned obviously through the book. Pages
46 is a nice little diagram in terms of the banking setup, but also on page 98 and 99.
I'll just go to those now. You can also see a nice big diagram on how money flows through.
So get familiar with those two diagrams. And there's also a guide that we have on the site,
which will also highlight those diagrams as a quick reference for you as well. So, what
do we know? We know that the primary account is the main account and you can see the money
coming in and the money going out. Now the money out of the primary account goes out
to the living and lifestyle jar. The credit card jar, the direct payments jar, which remember,
that's a virtual jar because it lives inside the offset because that's direct payments.
And then you've got the loans jar, which is money going out for your loans. And then the
provisioning jar, which we'll spend a bit more time talking about because that's the
only one we really need to track. And that's why it only takes less than 10 minutes a month
to do. Now you can see, there's the monthly surplus and that is a summary of your master
account. Now we're gonna move down into the living and lifestyle. And you can see a couple
of key things here. Firstly, your weekly living and lifestyle aka your seven day float...
it automatically calculates that. So that's the money and we talk about paying you on
the Thursday before the weekend. That's the money you should set up to pay yourself on
that Thursday. That's the monthly amount, but that is the weekly amount that we want
you to start paying those regular payments on.
Now what's inside that? Simply click on the button for the drop down and that will show
you all of the money that's been allocated for regular payments for you in terms of on
that weekly basis. You routinely make these payments and that's why that money's been
provisioned. That's why we don't have to track it. Okay? So you then know that if you run
out of money, you're potentially consciously overspending and that's going to impact on
your surplus. So that is the living and lifestyle jar. In terms of the credit card jar, you
can start to see where those credit card expense items are placed. Now remember we only spend
on fixed bills. Bills that we know are going to be paid plus our fuel is the only thing
we put on the credit card. Now you will be tempted. You will be tempted to potentially
tap and go with your credit card when you don't have any money, but that's how they
suck you in and that's how you lose your surplus because you are not maintaining the regime
and what the system is meant to do. Remember, Money SMARTS is a rules based system
that works as long as you follow the rules. So we see here that there are all the expense
items and that will be auto swept, um, to get that interest free period on your credit
card. More on those details again in your manual if you don't understand what auto sweep
means and how you can maximise the benefit of the bank's money through your 55 days interest
free credit card. Direct payments and we've got indirect payments. In other words, it's
not feasible to pay them on the credit card because they charge extra fees or you get
a discount for paying with direct debit. This is why you would have a direct debit jar.
Then you also have the loans jar and you can see those loan repayments coming out of the
loans jar. Now remember virtual jars inside the one account. We don't need multiple accounts.
You don't need to, you know, set up all these different bank accounts. They'll drive you
crazy. This basically have it all in the one primary account. Obviously, the living and
lifestyle is a secondary account. So now we're looking at the provisioning jar. Now inside
the provisioning jar, these are the expense items that we need to track because they are
irregular. But also, over the 12 month timeframe, we've said we're going to spend this money
over that timeframe. So you can see, here's some examples in regards to we've already
spent some of our money. Now if I wanted to edit that, when I check in at the end of the
month, I can add things like flights to Sydney, I can do all different types of things in
terms of what that looks like. And you can see those previous flights that I've added.
And then if you add those, you can then delete them by using this delete column here as well.
So simply add, you click the add button and that will give you the add amount. So you
can add that in and record that and then hit the Save button. And once you get the Save
button, that will then register as an expense item that you're doing. Then you've got car
maintenance, whatever you choose to do. Now you're probably wondering... Why it's taking
me this long to explain to you. Well how do I get those items into each of the different
categories? Well, you do that over here in the expense area. So if I've got spending
by way of example, so I'd come over here and you can see I've got things like holidays.
Because holiday is being provisioned for, that's why it appears there. So if I was to
change this category crazily, and you would never do this, but let's say you put it into
living and lifestyle and I'll hit save and I go back into Money SMARTS... And I save
that and I go back in here... All of a sudden, my living and lifestyle.
You can start to see the holiday expenditure going in here now because that is a monthly
out. It's $250 of the $3,000 that we sit. So of course we don't want holidays in there,
but that's exactly how you move things around. So we'll go and reset that back and go back
into spending and depending on again, which category you use... So we go into holidays,
put that back for provisioning for, so that'll go back into provisioning for, and then you'll
also then see that back in the Money SMARTS. We save that and we'll be back down here in
provisioning. Now what you will notice that because we changed that, we lost all the history.
All right. So that's why you want to make sure that you are keeping the provisioning
jar true to it being ad hoc spending. And it shouldn't. That's why holiday should never
go in there. And because I hit the save button, the system
automatically reset that for us. So that's a tip for beginners. Don't be playing around
with your provisional jar. If you're already under way in terms of running your Money SMARTS
system. Now Money SMARTS is all about checking in at the end of each month. There's two things
we need to do. We need to have a start date and then we also then need to check in on
our primary bank account that we add the balancing. So we put the date, the month, and the balance,
the starting balance, and then what was, you know, that closing balance. Once we get that,
the starting balance and then also the closing balance plus the closing balance of the credit
card, the system does all the heavy lifting for you. If I show you the tables, for those
people who are interested in tables and is detailed, all the information is in here around
what all of those definitions are in regards to
the systems and the tables and how they work and, and also the definitions.
So they're also available in the book for you. And then we've got the tracking. Okay.
In terms of how you're progressing, um, what moms should be, not one, what months you been
down. Cause the critical part about this is if you have... This is why budgets again don't
work. If you have lots of spending in one month, then you might feel like your budget
is blown. But it's not blown. It just means that the rest of those months over that 12
month cycle are going to readjust. And that's what this system is designed to do in terms
of all the technical pieces. You don't have to worry too much about that. All you've gotta
do is stick to your living and lifestyle and make show you are checking out monthly and
in less than 10 minutes a month, you put those two statements in. You add any of the spending
that's been ad hoc and make record of that. That's why it only takes 10 minutes. And once
you've saved that, you have your summary and your update in regards to how you're progressing
on the accumulated actual surplus. Now of course, this particular model that I'd built
before, um, I've lost all of those holiday spins. So that's why it's looking even better
than what it is. But once I reload all of those holiday spins back in, you'll get a
sense of what's going on. And that is Money SMARTS. That's it. That's all it is. And it's
so simple to operate. You go and allocate your expense items inside here. Now... Another
important tip, we have preset the default categories in terms of Money SMARTS. The categorisations
for all the preset defaulted expense items that are listed in the system. So if you're
not sure where to start, then just don't change the Money SMARTS categorisations. Just start
with those and get familiar with that, right? The book is helpful. It'll get you started
in terms of where you need to be. And that is the introduction to Money SMARTS. Go on,
get in there and kick the tires on it. Have a go. In our next tutorial, I'm going to be
talking about Money FIT, which might give you that little bit of motivation to get started.