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Young Aussie breaks taboo to reveal savings account balance: ‘Not always easy’

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Young Aussie breaks taboo to reveal savings account balance: ‘Not always easy’

23-year-old Natalie Hale openly shares her finances online, including her savings account balance. (Source: Instagram)

A young Aussie saving up for her first home has shared exactly how much money she has in her bank account. Talking about money and how much you earn or have in savings has long been considered taboo, but more and more Aussies are now breaking the stigma.

Natalie Hale has been openly sharing her finances online and bringing people along on her journey to save up for her first home. The 23-year-old told Yahoo Finance she wanted to learn about budgeting and managing money but struggled to find relatable content online.

“I decided to start openly sharing my finances online because there wasn’t a lot of representation for young people learning how to budget and how to manage money when I was starting my journey,” she said.

“I wanted to learn more but I couldn’t really find anything relatable so I created it.”

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In a recent TikTok video, Hale shared she had around $40,000 in her savings account spread across multiple savings accounts. That included $31,064 saved up for a home deposit, $1,071 for emergency expenses, $1,150 for car expenses and $1,250 for business expenses.

Hale, who works as an independent disability support worker in Queensland’s Fraser Coast, said she was currently trying to put half of her income towards saving up for her first home and the rest towards other expenses that were important to her.

Her income fluctuates but she revealed she earned six figures last financial year. For example, in the last few months, she made $2,330 in one week and $5,521 in another.

Natalie bank accountsNatalie bank accounts

The 23-year-old shared a snapshot of her multiple bank accounts, which totalled just over $39,000. (Source: TikTok)

“I’m currently prioritising putting as much as I can into my house, I keep my expenses small, I don’t have many subscriptions which is the number one killer of young people’s bank accounts and I don’t go out on weekends,” Hale said.

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“Making small changes where I can because every bit of money adds up. It’s not always easy but it’s important to take the steps now while I’m young so future me doesn’t have to worry.”

After meeting with a mortgage broker, Hale aimed to save a $38,000 deposit for a home.

She noted there were a range of government grants available to first-home buyers that could also help towards her goal.

Hale has more than 20 savings accounts with her bank, ANZ Plus, which she uses to allocate her cash towards different specific expenses and goals.

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“I currently budget my money by dividing the bill by my pay cycle and allocating it to that savings jar in my ANZ plus account,” she told Yahoo Finance.

Hale recommended other Aussies “start simple” and break their budget down in a way that works for their lifestyle.

Natalie HaleNatalie Hale

Hale said she is trying to put half of her income towards saving for a home. (Source: Instagram)

“Ultimately saving for something big comes with some sacrifices so it’s just deciding what you can sacrifice and where you can earn some extra money, I do affiliate marketing and online surveys to make some extra money,” she said.

“I have a ‘round up’ feature on my bank account so every time I spend it rounds it up to my savings account and keep my money in a high-interest account so my money works for me.”

While Hale said she received a few negative comments online, she said the positive comments made “it all worth it”.

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The average Australian has $37,915 in savings, according to Finder data.

Men have more savings than women, with an average of $47,398 in savings compared to $27,492 for women.

Savings also vary greatly depending on age, with Gen X having the most in savings at $57,794, while Gen Z had the least at $28,372.

It’s important to note these are just averages. Finder also found a staggering 47 per cent of Aussies could only survive off their savings for one month or less, with just 22 per cent confident they could last six months or more.

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Reeves hails ‘instant impact’ for aspiring homeowners as red tape is cut

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Reeves hails ‘instant impact’ for aspiring homeowners as red tape is cut

First-time buyers are set to see an “instant impact” from the drive to kickstart economic growth, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to say.

More mortgages will be available at more than 4.5 times a buyer’s income following recent Bank of England recommendations that some lenders can offer more high loan-to-income mortgages if they choose to.

This will create up to 36,000 additional mortgages for first-time buyers over the first year, the Government said.

Britain’s biggest building society – Nationwide – announced last week that it is aiming to increase its high loan-to-income lending limit.

From Wednesday, eligible first-time buyers can apply for Nationwide’s Helping Hand mortgage with a £30,000 salary, down from £35,000, and joint applicants with a £50,000 combined salary – down from £55,000.

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It is estimated this will support an additional 10,000 first-time buyers each year.

The changes will sit alongside the creation of a permanent mortgage guarantee scheme, delivering on a manifesto commitment, and a review of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) lending rules that could allow prospective buyers’ records of paying rent on time to be used to show they can afford mortgage repayments.

Reforms will be outlined in Leeds ahead of Ms Reeves’s Mansion House speech on Tuesday evening.

Speaking in the City of London, the Chancellor is expected to say: “I welcome the recent changes the (Bank of England) Financial Policy Committee has announced to the loan-to-income limit on mortgage lending, which the PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority) and FCA are implementing immediately.

“With an instant impact for consumers, such as Nationwide offering its Helping Hand mortgage to more first-time buyers – supporting an additional 10,000 each year.”

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Ms Reeves is expected to add: “Today, I have placed financial services at the heart of the Government’s growth mission.

“Recognising that Britain cannot succeed and meet its growth ambitions without a financial services sector that is fighting fit and thriving.

“And I have been clear on the benefits that that will drive.

“With a ripple effect that will drive investment in all sectors of our economy and put pounds in the pockets of working people.”

Nicholas Mendes​​​​, mortgage technical manager at broker John Charcol, said: “The decision to widen access to Nationwide’s Helping Hand mortgage by lowering the income thresholds will offer an immediate and practical benefit to a group of people who have often found themselves just on the wrong side of affordability criteria.

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Fulton Financial Earnings: What To Look For From FULT

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Fulton Financial Earnings: What To Look For From FULT

Regional banking company Fulton Financial (NASDAQ:FULT) will be announcing earnings results this Tuesday after the bell. Here’s what to expect.

Fulton Financial beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.8% last quarter, reporting revenues of $318.4 million, up 20.6% year on year. It was a very strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and a decent beat of analysts’ tangible book value per share estimates.

Is Fulton Financial a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Fulton Financial’s revenue to decline 5% year on year to $318 million, a reversal from the 22.4% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.45 per share.

Fulton Financial Total Revenue

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Fulton Financial has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates twice over the last two years.

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With Fulton Financial being the first among its peers to report earnings this season, we don’t have anywhere else to look to get a hint at how this quarter will unravel for banks stocks. However, there has been positive investor sentiment in the segment, with share prices up 10.3% on average over the last month. Fulton Financial is up 11.2% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $19.80 (compared to the current share price of $19.11).

Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we’ve identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefiting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link.

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What drives financial fraud? It can come down to one emotion | CNN Business

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What drives financial fraud? It can come down to one emotion | CNN Business



CNN
 — 

Editor’s note: Watch CNN Original Series “Billionaire Boys Club,” detailing the greed-fueled landscape of 1980s Los Angeles where a group of young, ambitious men set out to make their fortune — but their lavish dreams quickly spiral into a web of deception, fraud and murder.

It’s the 1980s, and a group of young men have dreams of making a fortune.

When Joe Hunt reconnects with his former high school classmates in Los Angeles, he has promises of a new business venture that will make them rich. With visions of wealth and success, the young men are lured into what becomes a web of fraud — and a cautionary tale that devolves into murder.

CNN Original Series’ “Billionaire Boys Club” recounts this tale of greed from Wall Street. It’s a dark example of a kind of fraud that has reoccurred throughout modern financial history. It’s also a reminder of how aspirations of wealth can be exploited.

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Ahead of the series premiere this evening at 9 p.m. ET, CNN spoke with three experts in economics and finance to better understand why greed is persistent in markets, what hidden risks might linger and how to protect your finances from fraudulent schemes.

After Hunt reconnects with his former classmates, including Dean Karny and Ben Dosti, the group starts a new social and investment club. At its core, greed drives their pursuit of wealth and power.

Greed has driven people’s actions throughout history, including in the world of finance, said Anat Admati, professor of finance and economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“Greed is about wanting things to own, to consume,” Admati said. “It’s pervasive.”

Capitalism and markets are profit-driven by design. While that framework can produce remarkable wealth and growth, it can also be taken advantage of by bad actors. In the case of the Billionaire Boys Club, Hunt goes down a path that eventually spirals into deception.

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Greed can be particularly pervasive in finance because promises of wealth can manipulate people’s emotions, Admati said. This can sway them to believe in get-rich-quick opportunities — and fall for Ponzi schemes.

“Money is a source of power and admiration,” she said. “The culture of wanting wealth and financial success is strong. Then it meets the human psychological feature of wanting to believe things, or wanting to trust people.”

While there are many cautionary tales of deceit, people often fall for fraud because they don’t think they could be the one who is being duped, Admati said.

“People are more likely to be tricked into believing things when they don’t understand the way claims that are being made to them can be manipulated at the backend,” she said.

The 1980s was an era known for greed on Wall Street, as detailed in the “Billionaire Boys Club” series; books including “Barbarians at the Gate,” by journalists Bryan Burrough and Joe Helyar and “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis; and the 1987 movie “Wall Street.”

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In the 21st century, varying degrees of financial deceit — from the Enron accounting scandal to the devastating consequences of massive Ponzi schemes like the one run by Bernie Madoff — continue to impact people across the country. Just last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had charged a Georgia-based company with running a $140 million Ponzi scheme.

David Smith, a professor of economics at Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business, said it’s often the same, recurring themes of greed that take place in different frameworks.

“As an economist, one of the things we study very carefully is incentives and how they drive human behavior,” Smith said. “Individuals are driven by different motives, but one of them is to acquire wealth.”

Pure greed and the desire to acquire more wealth or experiences of financial hardship are reasons why a person might commit fraud, Smith said.

Bernie Madoff, known for bilking thousands of investors out of billions of dollars, arrives at Manhattan federal court on March 12, 2009.
Energy trading firm Enron's headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's 2001 bankruptcy filing was the largest in American history at the time.

And the rise of cryptocurrencies has opened investors to a plethora of new risks and potential scams, according to Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University.

While bitcoin and other crypto have proved profitable for some, there have been numerous instances of memecoins — a functionally worthless asset that trades on hype and often results in investors losing cash. Victims reported more than $5.6 billion in fraud related to cryptocurrency in 2023, a 45% increase from losses reported in 2022, according to an FBI report.

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“There’s no good reason for it to have value other than the fact that you think that someone else will buy it from you in the future for more than you paid for it,” Allen said. “And that’s pretty Ponzi-like.”

From Wall Street in the 1980s to memecoins in the 2020s, a lack of oversight and regulation can create opportunities for bad actors, Allen said.

“Greed is not new, and greed in financial services is particularly not new, because that’s where the money is,” Allen said.

In April, the SEC announced it charged an individual for orchestrating a fraudulent crypto scheme that raised $198 million from investors. Ramil Palafox misappropriated $57 million of investor funds to purchase Lamborghini cars and items from “luxury retailers,” the SEC said, in addition to engaging in a “Ponzi-like scheme” until the fraudulent project collapsed.

“Financial markets are at least relatively transparent, whereas cryptocurrency, even though it claims it’s built on the backbone of full verification and public display of the blockchain, there are still a lot of opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of the lack of information that exists,” Pepperdine’s Smith said. “There’s also the lack of regulation.”

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Greed can underpin wild stories of corruption and murder, including the Billionaires Boys Club. But greed and fraud can also arise daily, from phishing emails to online scams.

There are steps people can take to better protect themselves, Smith said. “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

As for why people are drawn to learning about stories of greed and financial fraud, Smith said it gets to a core of human emotion that people can relate to. “I think we can all empathize with the allure of an opportunity that sounds like a shortcut to something,” he said.

Individuals have to gauge their own risk tolerance for investing in anything, whether it is stocks or crypto, he said, but “it’s always good advice not to expose too much of your underlying financial wealth to a new opportunity.”

“Make sure that you seek good financial advice before you do anything,” he said. “Talk with a financial advisor, your friends or family members. Oftentimes, the worst financial decisions are made in isolation, where people don’t vet their ideas or what’s being proposed to them with others.”

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