centsability_ “Live like no one else so you can give like no one else.” This quote from @daveramsey is everywhere but I love it. Money, in its proper place, is simply a means to an end. What is the end? To serve others.
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Personal finance isn’t about becoming rich in order to show off or hoard money out of greed. It’s about making sound, sensible financial decisions that can provide security for you and your family. It’s about knowing how financial structures work in the world so you know how to play the game.
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It’s about being in a position that allows you to be generous towards charities and causes close to your heart.
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Money doesn’t bring happiness, but it can remove financial insecurity as a source of anxiety, and it can give you freedom to move and make choices.
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Personal finance is about exercising prudence, discipline, wisdom and self-sacrifice – virtues that will strengthen our overall character and benefit us holistically. It’s also about passing on those virtues to the next generation and leading by example.
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“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Poverty can be a refining fire for our soul: it strips the unnecessary and forces us to focus on the essential. For those living in genuine poverty, they will be blessed in other ways. For the rest of us, we can still live out the virtue of poverty by exercising detachment to material goods and being generous to others.
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If you have an abundance of money but do not have the virtues and skills to handle it properly, money will corrupt your heart. It will inflate your pride & ego, it will result in frivolous and unwise decisions, it will slowly consume you, often at the expense of others. Too much money will expose you for who you really are, all your flaws, insecurities, wounds and inclinations towards selfishness or vanity. And eventually, money will no longer be a means to an end but the end itself.
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This is my personal challenge, to talk about money and finances in a healthy way, but not get consumed by it. To always see the end game: serving the other.
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{Rambling, incoherent personal reflection on money}

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To make a tax-deductible donation to help the mission and vision of Lowana please click here.

centsability_ Some people think that “claiming things on tax” means you’ll get 100% of the cost back. I wish! 😃
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Here’s how tax deductions work:
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1. Your “taxable income” is the amount of income you earn which will be taxed at a certain %
2. You can LOWER your taxable income (and thereby lower the amount of tax you pay) by claiming tax deductions
3. This is particularly helpful when tax deductions bring your income into a lower income tax bracket.
4. Income tax brackets are the ranges of income that correspond to a certain tax rate (i.e. the percentage you are being taxed). The lower the bracket, the lower the tax rate. (Swipe to see Aussie income tax brackets)
5. Categories of tax-deductible expenses include: work-related expenses, investment property expenses and charitable donations
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EXAMPLE: Ana’s gross income is $40k. She claims the following expenses: $1500 work equipment; $2000 in interest charged for her investment property; $500 charitable donations.
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Her taxable income is gross income minus deductions: $40k – ($1500 + $2000 + $500) = $36k.
(For simplicity, I have omitted the various levies & rebates)
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She will need to pay tax on $36k, which is $3,382 (refer to tax brackets)
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If she DIDN’T claim deductions, she would need to pay tax on $40k, which is $4,727
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With her tax deductions, she was able to save $1345 in tax and lowered her tax rate from 32.5% to 19% by going down a tax bracket.
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MORAL OF THE STORY: Knowing how to make tax work to your advantage is a great tool that can save you lots of money. For property investors, this is a huge life saver. So claim those deductions! ☺️

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To make a tax-deductible donation to help the mission and vision of Lowana please click here.

centsability_ I’m a bit late to the game, but I only just discovered the ATO’s MyDeductions app. It helps you organise your tax deductible expenses by tracking:
▫️ expenses and deductions
▫️ vehicle trips if you drive for work
▫️ photos of your invoices and receipts
▫️ income (if you’re a sole trader)
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Come tax time, you can then email your data to your tax agent or link it to your tax return which will populate the relevant fields. I haven’t used it yet so I can’t rate it but so far it seems intuitive and easy to use.
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I have complicated tax deductions due to my investment property and shares, so I’m not sure how helpful it will be. I’ll probably have two trackers: my usual Excel spreadsheet for complicated deductions and the MyDeductions app for simpler expenses that I might otherwise forget to include in my spreadsheet.
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If you use MyDeductions, let me know if you like it and if it’s worth committing to 🤔

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To make a tax-deductible donation to help the mission and vision of Lowana please click here.

centsability_ Isolation goal no. 1 done ✅
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I set up my little home office on Sunday night (swipe left). I took home my double monitors, docking station, keyboard, etc from work, bought a dual monitor stand from Officeworks (will claim on tax), and then set it all up with my pink tool kit from ALDI! I knew that would come in handy one day!
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My bro-in-law helped me out with the set up because I couldn’t loosen one of the screws lol #weak
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It’s already made such a difference to my work efficiency. Previously, I was just on my laptop on my dining table and I just couldn’t get things done.
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I really wanted to improve my productivity and professionalism during this period to avoid/reduce any chances of redundancy. Deloitte, a big consulting firm, recommended this to staff recently too, as they looked at ways to keep everyone in jobs. If I can continue to produce good work and demonstrate my irreplaceability, I’m hoping to be in good stead if my company needs to make some cuts 🤞👩🏻‍🏫

centsability_ Dreaming about my future honeymoon in a post-COVID world 🌴
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I made a deal with Dom: give me the wedding I want, and we can go wherever you want for our honeymoon 😁
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Initially, we thought maybe South East Asia because it would be fun, cheap and I’d get to sip cocktails 🍹 by the pool at a nice but inexpensive beachfront hotel.
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Now Dom’s leaning towards Europe because he slightly freaked out when I told him we won’t be able to go on any big overseas holidays for a while if we have kids, and now he wants to tick everything off his bucket list 🤣🤣 Europe is amazing but hella expensive compared to Asia 😱
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So we have to decide between: a fun but cheap trip vs an expensive one that ticks off a lot of bucket list goals before kids come into the picture.
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As long as we save and budget for it, I’m comfortable. And hopefully it’s safe to travel by then 🤞 Let me know if you have any honeymoon tips or even regrets!
📷: from my Philippines trip