Whether you’re a first-time home buyer, upgrading, downgrading or investing, your mortgage is almost guaranteed to be the biggest outlay of your personal budget. The decisions you make here affect all aspects of your savings capabilities. Here’s some of the questions you’ll need to consider:

Whether you buy or rent, a roof over your head is perhaps one of life’s biggest expenses. Low interest rates over the last few months have made real estate an attractive investment and when it comes to the ‘rent versus buy’ property argument in Australia, ‘team buy’ seems to drown out the detractors with gusto. But is that changing with more volatile markets? Here’s our guide to weighing up some of the options.

All too often we get fixated on ways we can create income in an effort to improve our finances. But you can also save money by reducing financial wastage. Guest writer, Nick Petrovic, talks us through four ways to stop leaking money and start saving.

We often hear the phrases “buyer’s market” or “seller’s market”, but the reality is that homes are bought and sold all year round, whether it’s a great economy or a highly unstable one. What is more important, however, is understanding when you are ready to buy or sell, and realising that every situation is unique.

Who hasn’t dreamed of winning the lotto at some point. We have even thought about what we’d do with imaginary jackpot payout. How good would it be?

But getting back to reality, it got us thinking about the average living costs for Aussies. Even without a boat or mansion there are a lot of expenses to consider. Guest writer Erik Bigalk talks about some of the big ticket costs of the Australian dream; which unless you win lotto, probably mean you need to save more for the future.

Australians are missing out on more than $4 billion in unpaid interest each year by keeping their money in low-interest bearing accounts.