Welcome to community&environment

Hi and welcome to the new community&environment, Savings & Loans' new blog!

Do you think there is more to be done with linking business and community? Are you worried about the health of our environment? Do you feel strongly about certain ethical issues? Would you like to see more done in the way of sustainable development? Is there an issue in your community we should know about?

Great! We want to hear from you!

community&environment is open to all members and the wider community and will be moderated and comments responded to by the Corporate Social Responsibility Team members, Lisa and Fran.

How we go about our social and environmental responsibility is indeed a contentious subject. It is through debate, that progress is made and society moves forward. Discussion is a wonderful and important medium.

Something we’re passionate about at Savings & Loans is financial literacy and arming people with the tools they need to make the right financial decisions.

Around this time of year a lot of people will notice Christmas expenses being due and with a new school year upon us many of us are facing the additional costs of school fees, uniforms and books etc.

Saving for Christmas throughout the year is a far more effective way of filling the cupboards with festive fair than purchasing overpriced Christmas hampers which are so often filled with items that we would not normally purchase and don’t always get used.

Although it seems like the last thing you can afford to do, a few dollars a week deposited to a Christmas savings account direct from wages or benefits can ensure a fun Christmas without the debt hangover in the new year – exactly what many people will be experiencing now.  These accounts were so popular in the past but are rarely used these days.

One of our community partners, The Salvation Army, experience an increased demand for their services each year at this time, so why do so many of us fall into the same trap each year? Why have we as a society moved away from a savings culture which was so strong in previous generations? And why don’t we seem to plan anymore, and rely heavily on credit cards to get us through?

Is it because as a community we don’t have the same financial skills as our parents had? Is it because banking has become too complicated? Or is there simply not enough money to go around?

Is there any way that Savings & Loans can help its members to plan and understand money better?  It would be interesting to get your feedback on this issue, or any other community-minded issue.

Lisa

Comments

[Pip]

You have missed the point completely in your wondering if there "isn't enough money to go around".

The true problem is our consumer way of life, where "bigger and better" is what we all aim for and think we "need"! Our society that is based on "disposable" products and obsolescence.

For anyone interested in reducing the money it costs for their household to live should check out the Simple Savings website. Built by a young Australian couple, it now has over 12,232 ways to save money on all kinds of things. The list is huge. To read the contents page go to: http://www.simplesavings.com.au/vault/?preview=1

You can buy a membership to access all this valuable information for $47. You only need to use one or two of the 12,232 hints to recover
your money. You can even try it for a month or two and if you don't like it they will refund
your membership cost!

Take the challenge! See how many of the Simple Savings tips you can use and in the process reduce both your family budget and your effect on our environment :)

[Michael Dwyer]

There seems to be a groundswell of environmental concern in SA. And there is now a motion to form a Select Committee on world oil supply and how it will affect South Australians. This motion in the Legislative Council needs all the encouragement it can get.

Many thanks to Savings & Loans for helping with the Green City Festival at Elder Park. A really great line up of environmental displays and information.

So great in fact that I think you should do it again. Perhaps next spring. Only can you pick a day that is a little COOLER than the last.

Cheers

[Ally]

What a top photo! :-)
Ally

[You can call me 'AL']

Does anyone know of any Green shopping sites?

Would certainly make it a lot easier to make purchase decisions.

Oh BTW, good to see you guys are green blogging.

[SinisterDexter]

Hi

Personally I think one of the main reasons we don't save is because economic circumstances have been good to us for so long we've forgotten we need to! It seems that easy credit has been so easy to come by that people haven't felt like they need to save.

People in my age bracket particularly (30) have never really had to deal with a bad economy, so we have grown up and become self-sufficient when credit is easy to come by and savings are almost unecessary.

What a lot of my peers are about to find out, however, is that economic circumstances are not always so good.

The banks have to take some of the blame though because it is there that easy credit originates. They, more than anyone, should understand the dangers and should have been curtailing their provision of credit in the expectation that the good times would not last forever.