The five clever money hacks to help you save $5000 in 2019.

Hands up if you’ve ever been personally victimised by your own bank account.

Keep your hand up if you’d like to save $5000 by the end of the year, but have no idea where to start.

We’ve all been there.

At Mamamia, we’ve spent the first few months of 2019 talking about saving money, because let’s face it, we’ve all had money blowouts. But what’s talk without action?

So, we’ve road-tested a bunch of clever money tricks and tips to see what actually works. Using the ME Bank savings calculator we figured out we need to save $13.70 a day in order to reach our savings goal of $5000 by New Year’s Eve, and we don’t want to give up our Sunday brunches or the occasional Friday night drinks.

Here’s what the Mamamia team are using to get on top of our finances in 2019 – while still enjoying our avo toast. Note: These savings habits may not make you Rihanna, but you’ll feel absolutely empowered to save towards goals that make real sense.

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1. Open a dedicated savings account.

Have you ever noticed that if you have chocolate in the fridge you have to eat it?

If there’s a half a bottle of wine left over from the weekend barbecue, you just need to finish it off over dinner?

And if you have any money left in the bank before payday, you just keep spending it?

You see, like me, you probably need to hide things from plain sight so you forget about them.

Put the chocolate in the laundry cupboard, hide the wine in the washing machine, and squirrel your money away in a separate account.

Accelerate your savings by opening a dedicated online savings account, like this one from ME Bank, that you can transfer money into whenever you get the urge or have five bucks to spare.

Make sure your savings account has no account-keeping or ATM fees, and ask them if they’ve got a high interest rate. ME Bank ticks these boxes so give it a go.

2. Make your saving automatic.

Here’s a simple hack you can start today.

Research shows that almost one in two (49 percent) of us only make a deposit into our savings account when we have spare money, but this can be a risky approach to saving. It can be all too tempting to treat yo’self at the end of the week with that extra $25 you have left over. A better way to start building regular habits is to ‘pay yourself first’.

Set up an automatic transfer that sweeps a set amount to your savings account each pay day. It doesn’t matter if you deposit $20, $50 or $100, just make it a regular thing to help your savings constantly grow while you’re barely noticing.

That way, you can grow your nest egg by giving savings top priority.

3. Sell anything that doesn’t ‘spark joy’.

Here’s another great reason to go full Marie Kondo on your possessions.

You see, you could actually make a tidy little profit from the junk that’s lying around your house.

According to the 2018 Gumtree Second Hand Economy report, Australians have a whopping $4200 worth of useless clutter taking up space in their homes.

In fact, we’re basically a nation of hoarders with 89 percent of Australians possessing unwanted, useless items sitting in their homes collecting dust.

The main problem causers? Clothing, books, homewares, electronic goods, games, DVDs and CDs.

So get decluttering, then sell anything that could ‘spark joy’ for someone else on websites like Gumtree, and then deposit your earnings straight into your dedicated savings account.

4. Get your highlighter out.

After you’ve Marie Kondo-ed your home, it’s time to declutter your bank statements… with a highlighter.

The ‘highlighter money trick‘ was first shared by financial advisor and author Manisha Thakor on Refinery29.

Basically, Manisha says the idea is to track your spending for a month, and then go through and physically highlight any purchases in your budget that didn’t bring you joy.

Anything that didn’t make you happy, you can cut from your spending without feeling like you’re missing out.

You might find you can trim the fat from your budget just by cutting out impulse purchases that just don’t add any value to your life.

Marie would be proud.

5. Do the maths.

The 50/20/30 rule is the perfect budgeting plan for anyone who wants to save money without giving up their avocado toast and Netflix binges.

Basically the rule is that you should spend 50 percent of your income on the essentials, you should save 20 percent of your income, and you should spend the remaining 30 percent on the fun stuff.

The fun stuff will vary from person to person but could include your Netflix subscription, those morning coffees, your gym membership, and your Friday night margaritas.

Yes please.

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Now, every person’s situation will be different. But, with these tips on your side, you could have $5000 in the bank by the end of 2019 without giving up on the things you love.

Do you have any other savings tips? Tell us about it in a comment below.

This content was brought to you with thanks by our brand partner, ME Bank.