• Stop being a consumer and buying things on a whim

Plan all your expenses from week to week or month to month. If you have cable TV, disconnect it. If you have a boat in your backyard and you only use it two times a year, sell it. I you have a high level mobile phone plan down grade it.

Use this money to pay off your credit card or put the money off your mortgage. Don't go shopping if you're bored as you will spend money on something that you didn't need a day before.

• Account for all your money

If you can't account for your money from pay cheque to pay cheque, you need to STOP and take control of yourself and your spending.

This doesn't have to mean giving up everything you enjoy in life. Just write a list of exactly what you spend your money on. This exercise will amaze you. You will see exactly where all your money goes and then you have a conscious choice to buy that new pair of shoes or decide that the old ones are just fine!

• Don't buy things you can't afford NOW.

If you have to put it on credit, you don't need it.

Unless of course it's an emergency, like your car has broken down and you're in the middle of nowhere, that's an emergency but a new big screen TV that you would just 'die' without is not an emergency. Can you see the difference?

• If you smoke - give it up!

This is a huge expense to you and can equate to $100 or more a week which could be funding your next investment or reduce your personal debt. Remember Bad debt vacuums your wallet?

This is also the case with heavy drinking or going out to nightclubs 3 nights a week. Sure, have a few drinks with friends but understand the amount of money you are actually spending.

• When buying a new car...

...never ever, never ever buy brand new - ever! The value of a new car as it drives off the lot drops by 20%. If you have always bought new cars you are wasting money at a great rate. Yes, I know the old saying that car sales people use “if you buy a second hand car you are buying someone else’s problems”. Don’t listen to this ploy, all it really means is much higher commission for them not a better deal for you and it's definatly not giving you freedom down the track.

The very best way is to buy a near new car e.g. buy a demo vehical or last years stock for it will still have a new car warranty and in reality you are the first owner and that is what will be in the log book if that is important to you. Be very heavy on the negotiating for they really want to sell them not keep them.

I have done this three times before and saved 10’s of thousands of dollars. The money that you have saved can (if you are paying cash) go towards an asset that makes you more money, or if you have borrowed money for it, you are keeping your lending ability for other lending at a better level - but you would only borrow money for a car if you can claim the tax benefit wouldn’t you?

• Buying clothes & furniture

As nice as it is going through the mall and buying all new clothes, the best place for clothes and small furniture items is the Salvos or St Vinnies outlets. If you hunt through all the old stock you will find some very good quality, modern, near-new items. Remember “Quality not Quantity” is the key with clothes, so even when you are buying clothes for children, the thing that usually happens is they grow out of it before they wear it out so why buy new.