Do you have adult children living with you? Thanks to housing affordability and stagnant wage growth, more kids are relying on Mum and Dad to keep a roof over their head well into their 20s and 30s. Get some advice on how to foster financial independence in your kids, so they’ll be ready to stand on their own two feet when they leave the nest at last.

Expecting a refund from your 2017/18 tax return? 77 out of 100 Aussies are likely to get one and many could already have plans to spend it. If you’re one of them, find out how to treat yourself right with your windfall and be better off for good.

For most of us, tax refunds rarely come as a complete surprise. In fact, sometimes we might even be using the ATO as an unofficial savings account, knowing we’ll get a quick cash windfall to reward ourselves for getting all that paperwork together and lodging a return.

No matter what stage of investing you are at, it’s important to have a strategy that matches your goals and personal needs and to keep checking that it’s working for you.

Here’s a checklist of issues and questions to help you along your investment journey:

Your destination

Are you clear on why you want to invest and what you want to achieve? For example, do you want to accumulate money to buy a car?

The three biggest drains on our money are paying for housing, food and transport. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it is unlikely we can live without any of the “big three”. Here we look at some ways of how to save on these items.

Saving on rent in the big smoke

It can be hard to save money on rent, especially when you live in the more expensive cities in Australia, like Sydney or Perth.

A handbag that is 10 years old and in “grade-two condition” last month sold in London for $289,338 (£162,500).

For context, less than two weeks later an apartment in inner-Melbourne sold for $7000 less than that. It’s nice, too – hardwood floors, two parking spaces, and so on.

So, which is likely to be the more lucrative investment? Judging by the problematic gauge of past market performance, a case could actually be made for the handbag.

Christmas is a time of joy. It’s also a time of big credit card debt. One way to avoid this is to hold a no-spend Christmas instead. The average credit card debt in Australia was $3223.70 in July.

Last year, Finder.com assessed the average credit card debt after the festive season was $1666 and that 82% of Australians would take six months to pay off their Christmas credit card debt.

In what’s sure to be good news for Australian business owners, legislation to extend the popular $20,000 instant asset write-off tax scheme for another 12 months has successfully passed through Parliament with no opposition.

Whether you’re planning to buy your first home or investment property, or just want to upgrade to a larger dwelling, then it’s essential to maximise your borrowing capacity by fully considering all your income sources