skip to navigation skip to main content
Work and income | Te Hiranga Tangata
  • Employers
  • Providers

  • Home
  • Benefits and payments
  • Looking for work
  • On a benefit
  • Moving into work
  • Home
  • Search
  • Login
  • Menu
  • Menu
  • Online Services
    • Apply online
    • Apply for NZ Super
    • MyMSD
    • Find a Job
    • Accommodation Supplement issue - online enquiry tool
    • Check what you might get
    • Supplier registration
    • List a job vacancy
  • Looking for work
    • Get work ready
    • CV templates
    • Letter templates
    • Job search
    • Where to look
    • Job interviews
  • Benefits and payments
    • Carers
      • Caring for someone with a health condition, injury or disability
      • Caring for a child with a disability
      • Caring for someone else's child
    • Children
      • Childcare
      • Having a baby
      • School costs
      • Caring for someone else's child
    • Emergencies
      • Civil defence emergency
      • Rural help
    • Health and disability
      • Vehicle modification
      • Contraception
      • Counselling
      • Dental treatment
      • Glasses
      • House modification
      • Medical alarms
      • Prescriptions and GP costs
      • Residential care
      • Travel costs
    • Living expenses
      • Housing
      • Heating and power bills
      • Managing your money
    • You're not working
      • Redundancy
      • Health condition or disability
      • Fired or left
      • Deported to NZ
      • Released from prison
    • Relationships
      • Break-up
      • Family breakdown
      • Violent relationships
    • Seniors
      • NZ Super
      • Veterans Pension
      • Payment dates
      • Payment rates
    • Urgent costs
      • Bereavement
      • Car repairs
      • Fire or theft
      • Food
      • House maintenance
      • Whiteware
    • 16-19 year olds
  • Move into work
    • When you get the job
    • Help when you're working
    • In work support
    • Start your new job
    • Start your own business
    • Stay in work
  • Benefits, rates and forms
    • A-Z benefits
    • Benefit rates
    • Forms
    • Income and cash asset limits
  • On a benefit
    • Changes and income
      • Income
      • Change housing details
      • Relationships
      • Change bank account
      • Child enters or leaves your care
      • Change contact details
      • Overseas travel
    • Re-apply
      • Re-apply for Jobseeker Support
      • Re-apply for Sole Parent Support
      • Re-apply for TAS
    • Weekly wages deduction calculator
    • Wages deduction tables
    • Obligations
      • Jobseeker Support obligations
      • Supported Living Payment obligations
      • Sole Parent Support obligations
      • When you don’t meet your obligations
    • Payments
      • Check your payments
      • Money management for youth clients
      • Stop your payments
      • Stop your childcare payments
      • Getting a Payment Card
      • Using your Payment Card
      • Balances and transactions on your Payment Card
      • Problems with your Payment Card
    • Debt
      • Pay debt from overseas
      • Pay debt from NZ
      • Pay debt when not on benefit
      • Pay debt while on a benefit
    • Childcare
      • Change in circumstances
      • Continuing pre-school childcare
      • Continuing childcare when your child's at school
      • Stop childcare
      • Childcare absences
      • Move to OSCAR
      • Extending childcare
      • Teacher only days
    • Having another child
    • Arrest warrants
    • Your rights and responsibilities
      • Have someone help you
      • Avoid benefit fraud
      • Our service charter
      • Annual review
  • Pensions
    • Get benefits overseas
    • Get NZ Super overseas
    • Moving to NZ
    • Social security agreements
    • Seniors Services
  • Providers
    • Activity in the Community projects
    • Assisting migrants and refugees
    • Projects in the Community
    • Large scale emergency
    • Childcare assistance
      • What's new
      • Registering your childcare service
      • Become an approved OSCAR provider
      • How we can help you
      • Tell us when things change
      • Payment schedules
      • Contacting us if you're a childcare or OSCAR provider
    • Youth Service provider resources
    • Advocates
    • Health and disability practitioners
      • Guides and forms
      • Roles
      • Assisting people into work
      • Medical certificates
      • Health and disability related benefits
      • Designated doctors second opinions
      • Health and disability programmes
      • Medical appeals
    • Forms
  • About Work and Income
    • Contact us
      • Our locations
      • National and regional offices
      • Senior Services International
      • Overseas pension agencies contact details
      • Veterans
      • Report a suspected fraud
      • Other languages
    • Feedback
      • Review of decision
      • Medical appeals board
      • Review of a medical decision
    • Our services
      • Appointments
      • Cheap as data
      • View your letters online
      • Appointment of an agent
      • Information matching
      • Register as a provider
      • Our case management approach
      • Making our offices safer
      • Information for trespassed clients
    • Regions
      • Northland
      • Auckland
      • Waikato
      • Bay of Plenty
      • East Coast
      • Taranaki, King Country and Wanganui
      • Central
      • Wellington
      • Nelson, Marlborough and West Coast
      • Canterbury
      • Southern
    • Careers at Work and Income
    • News
  • About this site
    • Access keys
    • Privacy, disclaimer and copyright information
    • Online security
    • Words we use
    • Site map
    • Change font size
  • Employers
    • Recruitment
      • List a vacancy
      • Hire someone from overseas
      • Hire an LSV graduate
      • Hire disabled people or people with health conditions
      • Shortlisting
      • Work experience
      • Pre-employment drug testing
      • Make an employment offer
    • Extra support and training
      • Flexi-wage
      • Skills for Industry
      • Support once your employee starts work
      • Modification Grant
      • Employer Advice Line
    • Industry partnerships
    • Redundancy support
    • Emergencies and adverse events
    • Employee debt
Home / Benefits and payments / Living expenses / Managing your money
  • Carers
  • Children
  • Emergencies
  • Health and disability
  • Living expenses
    • Housing
    • Heating and power bills
    • Managing your money
  • You're not working
  • Relationships
  • Seniors
  • Urgent costs
  • 16-19 year olds

Managing your money

What budgeting is about and the types of help you may be able to get to help you manage your money better.

Why budget?

Budgeting gives you control of your money – and your life. It lets you see how much money you have, what you spend it on and can help you think about ways to make your money go further. Thinking carefully about where your money goes also gives you opportunities to explore ways to improve your situation.

By budgeting, you can:

  • pay off your debts faster
  • keep up with your bills
  • save for the things you want
  • be more prepared for unplanned expenses
  • Do you need a budget?

    To find out if you need to budget, ask yourself:

    • do I worry about money?
    • do I often have no money to pay my bills?
    • does talking about money with my family cause arguments?
    • am I unable to afford the things I want?
    • am I always in debt?
    • have my costs increased for some reason?
    • have I given up hope of having money for holidays or retirement?

    If your answer is YES to any of these, read on – it may be a good idea to start budgeting.

  • Some budgeting ideas

    Budgeting is not just about how much money you spend it is also about where you spend your money. Thinking about where your money goes also gives you opportunities to look for ways to manage your money better.
    Here are some ideas to get you started.

    • open a separate bank account and make an automatic payment into it every time you get paid – ask your bank about this, or
    • take out a set amount of money every time you get paid and leave the rest in your bank account. A good way to save but you need a lot of discipline.

    Pay off your debts as soon as you can because the longer you have a debt, the more interest you’re charged, and the more money you owe.

    An easy way to pay off a debt is to put a bit towards it every time you get paid (but only after you’ve paid your bills). You can organise to pay it straight from your bank account so you don’t have to think about it – and you’re not tempted to use the money for other things. Ask your bank about automatic payments.

    Only buy the things you need if you really want to pay off your debts and get closer to reaching your goals.

  • Budget plans

    Putting together and planning a budget is a big step but it’s just a start to help you understand more about how to manage your money. Everyone can benefit from managing their money better and it’s a good idea to do a budget plan, or redo the one you have, to make sure it’s still helping you.

    Making a budget plan is just a step towards helping you to start thinking about how you manage your money and what things you would like to change for the future.

    There are 3 steps listed below to help you make your plan. You can print these of and use them to make your plan. You should do them one-by-one to build your plan over time.

    linksStep 1 - Your money (PDF 50.44KB)

    You can use this to write down the money you get. This can help you to set goals to see if there are any ways to reduce your costs and money you owe.

    linksStep 2 -Your goals (PDF 47.43KB)

    Setting goals is a good way to start helping you decide how you spend your money in the future. It is about changing the way you manage your money to see if there are any ways to spend less and increase the money you get.

    linksStep 3 - Managing your money (PDF 47.43KB)

    A budget plan needs to change when something different happens in your life so your budget plan should show any new income or costs for you and your family/whānau

  • Joining a MoneyMates peer-led support group or talking with a financial mentor

    MoneyMates are groups that you can join where you will get support from people going through the same things, share ideas about how you can increase your budgeting skills and get more information about things you can do to manage your money.

    A financial mentor is someone who can work with you face to face to help you to:

    • understand what you would like to achieve
    • support you to complete a Financial Plan of Action to help you achieve your goals
    • support you to negotiate reduced payments
    • find other people who may be able to help.

    They’ll also offer encouragement and support as well as give you the right advice for managing your money.

    Get more information about where to locate MoneyMates peer-led support groups and financial mentors on:

    MoneyMates in the Family Services Directory
    Financial mentors in the Family Services Directory

    You could also ask your local Work and Income service centre for information about financial capability services close to you.

    Anything you discuss with your financial mentor will be confidential.

    When you meet with a financial mentor, it may be helpful to bring these things with you so they can start to work with immediate pressures you’re facing straight away:

    • details of your household income
    • bank account statements
    • your regular bills
    • details of any money you owe such as mortgages,
    • hire purchases and credit cards
    • details of any other expenses.

    A financial mentor’s job is to support you - which may include giving you advice; they may also make the most of other relationships and networks in the social sector or your community to support the work you are doing, for example, mental health, addictions, housing, etc. If you need help with these things, your financial mentor will be happy to give you details of people who may be able to help.

  • Extra help with costs

    If you’re finding it hard to meet your costs there are a lot of ways we may be able to help. Talk with us or see:

    Benefits and payments
  • Budget worksheet to help you get started

    Budget worksheet
Ministry of Social Development logo New Zealand Government   govt.nz - connecting you to New Zealand central & local government services
  • Privacy, disclaimer & copyright |
  • Security |
  • About this site |
  • Access keys |
  • Contact us |
  • Site map |
  • About Work and Income

Crown copyright © Ministry of Social Development