At Community First, you can rest assured that your money is safe, but during uncertain times, your money isn’t the only thing you need to look after. If you have found yourself working from home as a result of the current pandemic, you may be finding a new set of daily challenges. Making sure you keep your health and wellbeing in check during this time is important, which is why we’ve put together our top tips to look after yourself when working from home.

1. Get those endorphins pumping

Even for those of us who don’t have a regular exercise regime, it’s important to get the blood pumping for your day ahead.  Using the time you’d normally be commuting to work for a little light exercise can really help with productivity throughout the day.  Some light stretching, a walk, skipping or even jogging on the spot are just a few ways to get those endorphins working before we dive into that to-do list!

2. Set a routine

It’s easy to fall into the habit of waking up just in time to take that conference call.  However, setting a routine similar to what you’d do when heading into work really helps keep us on track.  Set your alarm clock, shower, brush your hair and dress in something nice.  This will all help you make that mental association with work and help with your motivation.

3. Structure is the key

You would usually structure your day in the office, but when working from home this can quickly go by the wayside.  Put a schedule together and include some breaks for yourself.  You need to shift gears to remain focussed or else you could burn out.

4. Find your workspace

Take some time to set up a dedicated space just for you.  This will help you focus when working and give you the ability to physically finish work at the end of the day when you clear off or close off that space. Make sure you have the right tools and an ergonomically friendly setup.

5. Stay connected

Connection is key to your emotional wellbeing.  Even the most introverted people need some form of interaction.  We are very fortunate to have many modes of technology we can call on to stay connected.  A quick verbal conversation (not email), some video call or a simple text can make all the difference in your day.  Check in on your colleagues and friends: this is new to us all and some people may be struggling.

6. Make sure you clock off

Although working from home does appear to give us more work-life balance, we can often fall into the trap of losing track of time.

The cues we usually have, such as your colleagues packing up or the cleaners coming through aren’t present at home.  In lieu of these cues set an alarm to alert you to your finish time, you can work past this but at least you’ll be aware that dinner time isn’t far away.

Our friends at National Seniors Australia in partnership with Challenger recently released a report titled Retirement income worry: Who worries and why?

National Seniors Australia are the pre-eminent consumer lobby for older Australians, fighting hard for rights and better outcomes for all seniors. This report which was created in-house by the National Seniors Australia Research team using information and insights from members and focuses on highlighting the worry of people aged 50+ for whom retirement income worries become lived realities.

View the report here

Report Highlights

The report aims to support Australians to better plan and make informed decisions about the financial aspects of their future retirement. A major, current concern is the difference by gender in retirement income which is naturally associated with a greater worry for women.

While there are many reasons why women worry more than men, an in-depth analysis across all respondents found that the degree of worry about retirement income was:

• 68% higher in those not already retired – previous work has indicated that people adjust to their actual circumstances in retirement, whether they planned for them or not
• 65% higher in those who have less than $500,000 in savings – this is as expected, since they may not have the money to pay for a ‘comfortable’ retirement
• 53% higher in those who expect their main source of income in retirement to be the age pension – this is expected because it is a minimum basic income with accompanying worry about ‘making do’
• 47% higher in women – this is after taking out the effects one or more of the previous three factors and may be associated, in part, with expecting greater involvement in caring roles and a real risk of outliving their partners.

There is an urgent need to deal with the high levels of worry about retirement income. Some financial issues cannot be easily fixed in later life, and need to be attended to along the life journeys. This is a message for people of all ages not just older Australians.

As we embark on our 60th anniversary, we recognise members like Mr Kenneth McDonell who has been amember of Community First since the beginning.

Starting with the Sydney Water Board back in 1959 at the age of 20 years old, Ken chose Community First (then the Sydney Water Board Credit Union Co-op), for his everyday banking. He has also trusted Community First with his home loan over the years and continues to remain a member today.

Now you can change your card PIN even if you don’t know your current one with our latest mobile banking app update. You’ll no longer need to order a new card or visit a store to get a new PIN which means you can get back to everyday living faster.

Plus, this feature helps keep your money safe – if you were ever suspicious someone may know your card PIN, you can simply change it via the app.

To change your card PIN via the app, you will need to enter your 4-6 digit passcode that you would have chosen when you installed and registered the app for the first time.

If you cannot remember your passcode, you will need to deregister your device via the ‘Deregister device’ menu option then re-register the app and select a passcode. Alternatively, you can uninstall the app completely, but you will then need to download the app again from the app store and select a passcode when re-registering the app to use.

What else is changing?

• The removal of the ‘Find an ATM’ button – This option only displayed rediATMs for which a direct charge now applies. There are over 10,000 ATMs Australia wide that are direct charge free available for you to use.
• Ongoing support for the most recent mobile operating system upgrades.
• Name change for overseas travel advice functionality from “Overseas notification” to “Travel overseas”.
• Bug fixes

How do I update my app?

If you are an Apple user, we recommend that the latest operating system is downloaded for optimum performance. For Apple users on iOS 13 or higher, you will need to click on the app store icon followed by your profile icon to see available updates.

To check your latest software version on your Apple device, tap Settings>General>Software Update to check for any updates. Or, tap on Settings>General>About to check your current software version.

Android users will be notified of an app update via the notifications bar. Android device users can also set apps to update automatically via Google Play. To update apps manually, go to the Google Play Store and tap on ‘My apps and games’ and tap ‘Update’ (Only apps with an available update will be displayed).

Watch out for scammers at tax time! Scammers often impersonate the Australian Tax office and demand payment for fake tax debts. Remember, the ATO will never ask you to pay your tax debt with pre-paid cards or with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. For electronic payment of tax debts, the ATO accepts payment into an account held by the Reserve Bank of Australia only.

For more info about ATO payment options, visit www.ato.gov.au/General/Paying-the-ATO/How-to-pay/

More tips to protect yourself online at tax time: https://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/taxtime19

It’s likely that your home loan is your single biggest expense, so it’s understandable that not being able to meet your repayments, even for a short period of time, would create financial stress. Here are 4 steps you can take to improve your resilience and stay on top of your mortgage.

1. Build up an emergency buffer

If you found yourself injured, out of work or had an emergency expense, you’d need to be able to maintain your regular commitments and living expenses for a period of time. Here’s a good test – if this happened today, how long could you go before you ran out of money? A good rule of thumb is to give yourself an emergency buffer by getting ahead on all your loans (especially your mortgage) by at least 3 months. You can do this by making extra repayments, or make payments more frequently. By paying fortnightly for example, you actually make the equivalent of 13 months of repayments each year, enabling you to build up an extra month of repayments every 12 months.

2. Avoid putting more on credit

The more credit you have, the more commitments you’ll have to manage if you do find yourself faced with a tight financial period. This is a challenge because driving a nice car, treating yourself to something new and making home improvements can be really satisfying.

It might be nice to drive a new car, but will it really make a difference to your lifestyle if you get one 2 years old instead of brand new when your loan could be $10,000 less? When out shopping, enjoying instant satisfaction is great, but if you’re using store credit or credit cards, it can be an expensive habit to maintain. When things get tight financially and you need money to pay for bills, available credit on a credit card is often just too tempting. In fact, if your credit cards are often maxed out, this could be an early warning sign that you’re headed for financial stress. The goal? Forget about what others think, park your pride if you’re serious about weathering a potential storm and aim to live within your means.

3. Pay attention to your home loan features

If you need to redraw payments in advance, can you? If you’re worried about budgeting or rate rises, could fixing your home loan help? Ensure your home loan can offer the flexibility you think you might need. If you’re paying the minimum on your home loan while trying to add money to a savings account, did you know that the interest earned on an average savings account could be nearly half the interest you’re paying on your home loan? Choosing a home loan with an offset account means that you could have your savings working harder for you, even if it’s only a small amount. When you park your money in an offset account, interest is calculated on your home loan’s outstanding balance, less the balance in your offset account. This saves you interest on your loan, plus you can still access your savings whenever you need it.

4. Don’t give up on insurance

Whether it’s your car, your home or your health, having adequate insurance can really help. When things get tight, people often reduce or reconsider having insurance altogether, as it can feel like an ongoing expense that you don’t always see a benefit for. Your home is your biggest asset, and updating your cover is equally important. Sydney has experienced surging house prices in recent years and the cost of building a home has also increased. When was the last time you updated your insurance? Don’t be caught short by having inadequate insurance cover.

With falling property prices and interest rates at record lows, the time is ripe for first home buyers to strike. But buying a home goes well beyond getting a deposit together. In such a competitive market, it’s important to be prepared in the lead up to buying – let’s face it you don’t want to miss out on your dream home because you failed to seek pre-approval, or your credit history wasn’t up to scratch.

But don’t stress, it’s all pretty easy to do if you follow the steps below. If you do, you’ll be setting yourself up for success and putting yourself in the best position to buy your first home.

Maintain a good credit score

This three-digit number can make or break your loan application. If you’re always late with your bills and frequently up the limit on your credit card, you might want to check your credit score. A good score ranges between 622 and 725; an excellent one is between 833 and 1,200.

Lenders will assess your score to determine how risky you are as a borrower. Keeping out of debt, paying your bills on time and minimising your credit applications all contribute to a good score. If you’re unsure what your score is, you canaccess your credit report and view it for free online.

Keep in mind that having a good credit score is just part of the assessment process. Lenders will also look at factors like the deposit amount saved, affordability of the property, loan-to-value ratio (LVR), your employment history and your general savings.

Get a deposit together

This might sound obvious but did you know your deposit should be around 20% of the property’s overall value if you want to avoid forking out for lenders’ mortgage insurance (LMI)? For a property worth $460,000 for example, you’d need to save around $92,000. Make sure to have your funds sitting in ahigh-interest savings accountto speed up the process.

Avoid common money sinkholes

We’re all guilty of splurging on Uber, food delivery or online shopping from time to time. But if these purchases are popping up in your transaction history all too often, it’s time to rein it in if you want to conquer the property market. To help put it into perspective, we’ve crunched some numbers:

• Two weekend Uber trips at $13.90 per trip will set you back $1,445.60 per year
• A daily flat white at $4.00 will set you back $1,460 per year
• A cafe breakfast once a week at $20.00 will set you back $1,040 per year

By avoiding these money traps and putting the funds in a savings account instead, you could be saving an extra $3,967.50 per year without even trying! Future homeowners, it’s time to break up with your barista.

Remember your (hidden) costs

Buying a property goes beyond the sale price. You’ll need to budget for a stamp duty fee as well as a loan establishment fee. You may also be up for Lenders’ Mortgage Insurance if you need to borrow more than 80% of the property’s overall value. Smaller costs can include things like valuation fees, solicitor or conveyancer fees and removalist hire. Planning for these costs ahead of time means you can make room for them in your budget, and you won’t fall short when it’s showtime.

Consider a guarantor

If you don’t have enough money saved to reach a deposit of 20%, a guarantor can help you out if you’re lucky enough. This is usually a parent or family member, and a guarantor can use the equity on their own property as security against your loan. This means you can avoid forking out for LMI and enter the property market quicker (so remember to be nice to your parents).

The equity offered by a guarantor doesn’t cover the entire loan amount, only the portion needed to get your loan-to-value ratio to 80%. Once you’ve paid off enough of your loan to cover the 20% deposit amount, you can release the guarantor.

Seek pre-approval

Once you have a sizeable deposit stashed away, seek out pre-approval from your lender. This will give you the power to act immediately if and when you find the right home. You’ll be able to put in an offer straight away, rather than spend precious time scrambling around for finance. Pre-approval also gives you a solid price range to stick to and can help with negotiating. If you ask the seller to lower the price, they’ll be more likely to do so if they know how much you can afford and see that you’re serious about buying.

Entering the property market can be a challenge – albeit an exciting one! And remember taking small doable steps to set yourself up now, can make a huge difference in your ability to buy a home in the future. 

PayID has been designed to provide more reassurance during the payments process. A key benefit of PayID is the payee confirmation step that enables the payer to see the name that the PayID is registered to before confirming the payment.

The payee confirmation step is aimed at reducing the number of mistaken payments, as well as some cases of fraud, which is why it has been, or is currently being, adopted in other countries around the world with real-time payments systems.

It’s also important to remember that a PayID cannot be used to withdraw money from an account and a PayID on its own cannot be used to create a false identity.

When a person chooses to create a PayID they do so with their full consent, informed by the terms and conditions of their financial institution which outlines how the PayID service operates and should be used. At the same time participating financial institutions are also required to have measures in place to ensure PayID is not used by customers or customer applications to mine data for fraudulent purposes.

Do I have to use a PayID?

No, you still have choice. If you are not comfortable creating a PayID using your phone number for example, there are other PayID types, such as an email address, you could use. Or you can decide to not to use the PayID service and instead continue to use your BSB and account number and still receive the benefits of faster payments offered by Osko, without the added benefits of PayID.

Australians racked up billions in credit card debt over the Christmas period so it comes as no surprise that many people will be spending the coming few months paying off debt and trying to recover from the silly season. And if you’re still trying to find cost effective ways to entertain the kids in the school holidays, are paying off a holiday, or are preparing to be hit with school fees next month, January can understandably be a time of financial stress for some. But with a little planning and forward thinking, you can take some of the stress out of the next Christmas Holiday season with our Christmas Saver account.

Simply set up an automatic credit to the account from your pay or other account, and we’ll make sure you can only access it between 1 November and 31 January each year^. That way you won’t be tempted to dip in.

Just $20 a week from the start of January to the start of November will give you $880 (plus interest), so you can hit the shops ahead of the rush in November and give yourself a financial head start.

Make it $40 and you’ll have a healthy $1,760. For some, that could make all the difference next Christmas.

Find out more about our Christmas Saver account here.

Calculate your savings by using our savings calculator here.

^Early withdrawal will incur a fee. Refer to our fees and charges for further details.