Budgeting workshop in Ramingining

Bula’bula Arts in Ramingining asked our East Arnhem Money Support Hub to run a workshop for their artists. The focus was to help the artists better manage their money over the end of year period when the centre shuts down for six weeks and income from artwork sales stops.

Fiona Carter is a financial counselor with Anglicare NT and has spent time recently working out of the Nhulunbuy office. While offering money matters support in Ramingining, she ran the budgeting workshop at the Bula’bula Arts Centre.

“I’m not afraid of the word fun and I believe if we make learning about money engaging and fun, more people will learn the skills they need to control their finances.”

Budgeting can be practical and simple

“The cards in the picture come from the ANZ Money Minded program, and I’ve found using the cards when talking about basic budgeting is better than sitting down at a computer with an Excel spreadsheet and asking what they spend their money on” said Fiona who ran the budgeting workshop last month in Ramingining.

“On the cards are pictures of all the things that you would spend money on, like petrol, food, baby needs, gambling – everything. I go through the pack, hold up the card and say ‘food, anyone need to buy food?’ We do that with all the cards as a group and end up with a random pile of cards.

Very important, important and not important – budgeting is about choosing

“We tackle the pile of all the things that need to be paid for by separating them into very important, important and not important piles. Some things will be very important for some people and not important for others. Because this session was about savings, we also added a little pot for savings.

“I have a whole bunch of gold coins to represent money. It’s a simple exercise where, as a group we take the biggest amount of money and put it with the very important cards and then take a smaller amount and put it with the important cards. Then we look at leftover coins and talk about putting them on the not important pile, or into the savings pot or a bit in both for example. Then I encourage individuals to re-run the exercise from the beginning, creating their own money story (budget).”

For Fiona, this process reveals many things, but something that stands out for her is how different everyone’s money story is, and why budgeting is a personal thing that requires thinking and choosing. “This process isn’t about wrong or right answers, it’s more about thinking about money and where it’s going” said Fiona.

On a quest to make budgeting fun

“Money is something 100% of us have to deal with in our life, like it or not, but we’re not taught how to manage money early enough” said Fiona, who wants to break down the stereotype that to be good at finances, you have to be a whizz mathematician, or accountant. “Actually budgeting is practical, it isn’t rocket science and can be easy when you’ve been taught the skills and given some encouragement” she said.

Massive thanks for Bula’bula Arts Centre for sharing their photos and inviting the Money Support Hub to your centre.