Whether you’re paying for groceries, earning an income or filing your taxes, handling and managing money is an essential aspect of day to day life.
However, spending, saving and organising funds isn’t an easy feat.
For eight Inverell residents, sorting out finances will be easier now that they’ve successfully completed the Pathfinders’ Inverell Family and Youth Support Services (IFYSS) budgeting skills workshop on Tuesday.
The free four-week workshop aimed to help locals handle their money more confidently and effectively.
Natasha Brown, IFYSS Family Support Worker, came up with the idea to run the workshop when she concluded the parenting course last November and several of her clients were worried about the upcoming holiday expenses.
“Even though they gained communication and child-rearing skills from the parenting course, several of them were still concerned or stressed because they didn’t have money to buy Christmas gifts or even give their kids a special Christmas lunch,” she said.
“That’s when I told them I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen to them next year by creating a budgeting workshop to teach them strategies to better manage their money.”
Ms Brown said she noticed there were limited resources available and accessible in town for her clients so she devised a course using online and textbook data, strategies and advice.
The four-week budgeting workshop covered practical money-managing topics like planning for the future, the benefits of saving, every day banking and simple tips to budgeting.
Participants brought in their bills, income statements, bank statements and grocery receipts to analyse their money-spending habits and to create an annual budget, fortnightly budget and saving goals.
Upon completing the course, one participant said they most learned “how to see my budget on paper and strategies to save money.”
Another said, “The reality of budgeting is quite simple when you sit down and sort it out.”
Ms Brown gave participants a certificate of completion and told them to keep their workbooks filled with notes and activities to remind them of the work they did this past month.
“We hope to run the budgeting workshop every term to allow community members to come in and learn tips, tricks and tactics to more confidently handle their money throughout the year.”
For more information on Youth Support see Inverell Family Youth Support Services.
