How I started my Finance Journey

How I started my Finance journey, what tips and tricks that I wish I knew sooner. Start saving for your goals today

Louise Paton

11/26/20257 min read

To start my finance journey, I found some amazing resources to aid me in being smarter with my money.
I worked in hospitality & customer service based jobs before starting a job with a significant income increase to what I was used to. This in turn led to major lifestyle creep for a little while, spending money mainly on online shopping on things I did not need.
I reeled in the impulsive spending and learnt to spend my money more wisely and I have now also built my own home.

The Barefoot Investor

The first book I brought about finance and saving was none other than “The barefoot investor” by Scott Pape. You may of heard of this author before, his methods really do work. The way his personality shines through and how he shares his personal experiences makes this book very informative but relatable and easy to read. Definitely give this book a read it will help immensely.

Some key takeaways I got from this book:

The importance of high interest savings accounts and super
Credit card advice
The bucket method of filling your financial buckets and what percentages to save per pay check
Domino your debt by paying them off one by one lowest to highest

Using the methods spoken about in this book was a major kickstart in learning to save once my debts were paid off. I had debt to zip pay and after pay and a small amount still on a credit card which I’d used for furniture at the time. (I definitely learnt my lesson on high interest rates first hand). After clearing these it was time to save!

Savings Accounts

Adapting an understanding of better money habits and goals the first thing I did was open accounts with banks that have good interest rates. The two I went with at the time were “ING” and “UBANK”, it was roughly 2018 when I opened these accounts. They both still have good rates.

Rates as of November 2025
ING – 4.80%pa activate this bonus rate for the following month by making 5+ settled card transactions, Deposit $1,000 from an external source (if you have your wage go into the account it’s the best way to achieve).

UBANK – 4.35%pa activate this bonus rate: Until 30 September 2025, all you need to do is have a Spend account and deposit $500+ per month into any Spend, Bills, or Save accounts (not including internal transfers) to get the bonus interest rate.From 1 October 2025, to earn bonus interest, as well as having a Spend account, you’ll need to grow your combined balance across all your Save accounts (excluding accounts that are linked as offsets at the end of the month) by at least $1 each month. A reminder that interest doesn’t count towards this $1.

I find having a savings account with UBANK it makes it easier to set a transfer to it each week and forget it exists whereas if i had it in my ING account I am more likely to transfer it back to my spending account and use it. Saving for my home loan was quite a lucky coincidence really, I used the COVID benefit of having access to my super for majority of the deposit for it. There happened to be a block for sale that I could afford in a decent part of town. Because of COVID the build could not start for a few years because of the scarcity of materials and builders work load. The price did rise significantly for building materials in this time which sucked but it also gave me more time to save for the building loan. I was paying rent and my block loan at the same time. My house ended up starting in 2023 and I moved in New Years Eve and First day was 2024 New Years Day , what a way it was to start the year!.

To save I used the UBANK account so that it was out of sight and out of mind as my ING account is what I use for my primary banking. The bonus interest rate was very handy in helping me save. To do my home loan applications I used a Mortgage broker who helped me with my block loan and also my refinance to a building loan which the block and building loan are combined into. Definitely recommend a mortgage broker to get you into the market they will help you by finding suitable banks without you having to do that groundwork. Jason Pannunzio at Assured Home loans is who I used.

Another savings app that I do use is called “Up” it is I’d say a very user friendly app.
You can create savers and add goals to them if you wish, its just nice to categorise them I have ones listed as:

Christmas (for food and gift buying every year)
Holiday
Emergency fund

I also participate in their feature of “save up $1,000 in a year” which is a fun thing to do, you just pick an amount each week to save and it is an untouchable account that you get back when it's reached the goal.

They also have mortgage savers which you just open with the prompts of how much you want to save and it lays out how long it would take etc, quite handy for new home buyers. You can also refer friends to the app for you to both get money added to your account ($14)my link is: https://hook.up.me/louisepaton

Podcasts

Two podcasts that have been a massive help for so many tips and tricks are “She’s on the money” and also “Money Money Money” (formerly my millennial money).

She’s on the money has helped me so much I’ve got a better understanding of shares and investment portfolios and apps that are extremely helpful for money goals and finance. It’s also very inspiring listening to the successful stories of other women that have done well for themselves often starting from nothing.

Money Money Money is very similar in topic both cover shares, mortgages everything finance pretty well. Definitely recommend giving them a listen.

Make your money work for you

Salary sacrificing is a great way to set yourself up for your future! Personally I salary sacrifice 3.5% of my wage to my super. Being with Hostplus super means my workplace have to add an additional percentage as well so it’s definitely a boost. Finding a great super fund is highly beneficial if you don’t find a super that has the best benefits for you, your workplace will just allocate it to their standard industry super. Definitely take the time to see where your super is, make sure to roll all supers into one account so you don’t have any lost super in old accounts that are wasting away to account keeping fees etc. You can do this on the ato website. Link for ato roll over

Travel points

If you like to travel, make sure you have a Woolworths rewards card and Flybuys card. I cannot stress this enough! I will write a blog on travel hacks using these cards for travel points. Everyday rewards points can convert to Qantas points and Flybuys converts to Velocity points which is Virgin Airlines point system.
Scan the cards at all participating outlets.

Woolworths rewards cards:

Woolworths
BWS
Woolworths fuel stations (gain points and get fuel discounts of 4c per litre)
Big W

Flybuys:

Coles
Bunnings
Kmart
Office works
Shell fuel stations (gain points and get fuel discounts of 4c per litre)

There are many other ways to gain points for these two cards and businesses which I will write another blog on as well including which businesses provide bonus points such as origin energy get rewards pints for paying your bills!

Online Shopping

A big online shopping hack for earning money just for purchasing things through the apps interface are ‘SHOPBACK”.

Essentially type a store you are wanting to shop at into the search bar of the app, click the link to the store you want to shop at on the app and make your purchase and checkout. The app will track the cash back from the store you’ve brought from and you will get money back from using the app.

So far I’ve been able to earn $347.27 on Shopback just from simply purchasing what I would have been buying online just through the app instead. You can withdraw the money straight into a nominated bank account.
Receive $20 into your ShopBack account by using this code: Link here
note you must make a purchase of $50 within the first 180 days of signing up