This is how the rules of money changed in 2020

The Coronavirus shutdown this year has changed the rules of money in a number of ways.

Here are 3 key ways in which the rules of money have changed.

1. Low-Interest rates here to stay

The Reserve Bank in Australia has signaled that interest rates will be stuck at the effective lower bound for years to come.

And it’s not just the cash rate.

Yields are also being pushed down further out along the curve, with the 3-year bond yield being a particularly important funding benchmark in Australia, so mortgage rates are also falling to the lowest level in history.

Central banks and governments want you to go out and spend, invest, and build businesses, and incentives will be put in place for you to do so.

2. Cash is dead

The cash economy was dying before 2020, but the shutdown effectively sounded the death knell for cash as a means of payment and exchange.

The latest usage data showed that retail spend on credit cards is now actually higher year-on-year, and this in spite of the shutdown:

Money these days is an abstract, depicted by electronic figures on a screen, and increasingly we pay for goods using plastic rather than physical currency in the form of notes or coins.

This trend was well underway before 2020, of course, but the shutdown has accelerated the trend and catalysed the death of the cash economy.

3. Clear any mental obstacles

More than ever before, it’s important to be mindful and attentive towards your money, but it’s also critical to remove the silent mental obstacles towards growing your wealth and bank balance.

As alluded to above, central banks are effectively creating new money at an unprecedented rate.

With the growth of social media and online commentary it’s become abundantly clear that many infer you can somehow only have more and become more at the expense or to the detriment of others.

To be blunt if that’s your world-view, and how you view money and self-development, you’ll never sustainably be able to have more wealth.

Money is, after all, inanimate; it does not and cannot care what you think of it.

Perhaps the majority of the barriers to growing wealth are beliefs held internally, often being stories constructed in people’s heads or passed on to them by people who didn’t know any better.

About Pete Wargent Pete is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Secretary and has a Financial Planning Diploma. Using a long term approach to building businesses, investing in equities, & owning a portfolio he achieved financial independence at the age of 33. Visit his blog