What is financial wellbeing?

Every day we make choices with our money. Each of these decisions, small and large, impact our lives on the whole. These decisions also impact what we call financial wellbeing.

That’s because our choices can impact how we manage expenses and debt, how prepared we are for large unexpected expenses and whether we are able to build up our savings and get on track for longer term goals.

When we aren’t on top of our finances, it can feel as if our money is making choices for us. Our financial wellbeing can suffer and our dreams for the future can feel unachievable when we are unable to regularly work towards them.

What is financial wellbeing?

Financial wellbeing is different to financial wealth. While wealth might be about bank balances and net worth, wellbeing is about how the way you manage money affects your life on the whole.

It’s about being able to meet your financial obligations, be financially prepared for an unexpected event, able to save for future goals including retirement and having the financial freedom to make choices that allow you to enjoy life – now, in the future and under adverse circumstances.

Put simply, financial wellbeing is:

• Meeting your every day finances and managing debt responsibly
• Being prepared for a rainy day and being able to bounce back
• Managing your one day finances to achieve medium and long-term goals

Where can you start?

You can start to improve your financial wellbeing today.

Take two to three minutes to get your Financial Wellbeing Score and you’ll get an action plan with suggestions to improve your every day, rainy day and one day finances.

The financial wellbeing score is based on the Financial Wellbeing Scales, world-first bank data research from the Melbourne Institute and the Commonwealth Bank, which measures the state of financial wellbeing in Australia.