On this page, we talk about how to manage your own money.

On this page:

• What it means to manage your own money
• Barriers to managing your own money
• How you can manage your own money
• Example story

Managing your own money means you can choose how to spend the money you have.

Many women with disability face barriers to managing their own money.

They can also face barriers to:

• having enough money for what they need
• building their skills to manage their own money
• not needing someone else to help them with money.

When you can manage your own money, it can help you feel:

• less stressed
• more confident.

  When you are confident, you:

  • believe in yourself
  • know what you can do
  • can try new things.

It can also help you to:

• support someone else, like your child
• reach your goals, like buying a house
• leave a bad relationship, like with your boyfriend or girlfriend.

  Your relationship with someone is how you are connected to them.

It can also help stop financial violence and abuse.

You can find out more on our page about financial violence or abuse.

There are different barriers that stop people from managing their own money.

For example, women usually earn less money than men for their work.

People with disability also usually earn less money than people without disability for their work.

You might have someone who makes decisions for you about your money.

Sometimes this can be helpful.

But sometimes it can mean that you do not have a say about how to spend your money.

Another barrier to managing your own money is when you do not understand how.

This might be because no one taught you how to do it.

We have some ideas to help you manage your own money.

You do not have to do everything at the same time.

You can find out more on our page about support to manage your own money.

You can open a bank account that only you can use.

This will make sure you have full control of your money.

It can also help stop financial violence and abuse.

A budget can help you know what you can afford.

To create a budget, you need to know how much:

• money you get over a certain time, like each month
• money you need to pay for the things you need over that time, like food and rent.

Once you have a budget, you can work out how much extra money you get over that time.

And you can use this extra money to pay for things you want, like going out to dinner.

Or you can try to save some of the extra money you get.

This could be for something big you want but cannot afford yet, like a holiday or a house.

Or in case something bad happens, like you lose your job.

To save money, you might need to spend less money on the things you do not really need.

It is a good idea to know how much debt you have.

For example, you might have debt to:

• a person
• the government
• an organisation, like a bank or school

You can make a plan to pay off your debt.

You need to decide what debt to pay off first if you have debt to more than one place.

You can find out more about the best way to pay off your debt on the Money Smart website.

If you have someone who makes decisions about your money, you can talk to them.

You can tell the person:

• how you want to spend your money
• what your goals are
• what is important to you.

If the person does not listen to you, you can talk to someone you trust about what to do.

You can also call a helpline.

Helplines are phone numbers that will connect you to people who:

• care about what you are going through
• can give you good advice.

We have a list of helplines on our website.

You can find out more on our page about helplines.

It is a good idea to learn more about:

• how money works
• the ways people use money.

For example, you can do your own research and learn about things like ‘interest’ and ‘assets’.

If you want to earn more money you can work towards finding a job if you do not have one.

You can think about:

• what skills you have
• what you would like to do for a job.

You can find out more about finding a job on the JobAccess website.

We wrote a story to show an example of someone managing their own money.

The story we wrote is about a person called Lucy.

The story and the people in it are not real.

We made them up to explain someone managing their own money.

Lucy was getting payments to help support her child.

Lucy stopped getting these payments after her child turned 18.

Lucy was worried at first.

But she looked at how much money she was spending every month.

And she found some ways to spend less money.

For example, she:

• bought cheaper food
• stopped buying things she did not need online.

Lucy found a job in her area to earn some money.

Taking control of her money helped Lucy feel:

• less stressed
• more confident.