What playing with Lego taught me about managing money

Until recently, I was also opposed to the trend for Lego to come in specialist kits. Back in my day we mostly had plain Lego bricks and the whole point was they could make anything. I've read that free play with all-purpose Lego bricks helps develop children's imagination and autonomy and I instinctively feel that made sense.

But my views changed in the school holidays when I took my children to spend a week in the country at my mother's house. At the airport I bought a Lego Friends kit to make an aeroplane.

My kids have plenty of imagination and an over-developed sense of autonomy, so my main goal was to find an activity that would be fun and might help with fine motor skills.

It turns out that making a Lego project with an exact blueprint and specialised pieces is incredibly satisfying. Building the aeroplane kept myself and one of the twins absorbed for days; the other one was mildly interested and happily dipped in and out.

The finished aeroplane was spectacular, with thrilling details such as wheels and a complete cabin fit-out with reclining seats and armrests, a television, overhead lights, and a joystick in the cockpit.

I understand better now why some adults are serious Lego collectors, buying two of each limited-edition kit: one to build and one to store unopened. Apparently it stacks up quite well as an investment if you have an eye for choosing the right kits.

My experience with the Lego aeroplane has also persuaded me to try a different approach to money.

In life, I am more an improviser than a planner and my financial strategy boils down to "don't spend more than you earn". It mostly works, but I've been inspired to try something a little more bespoke and detailed.

It's the difference between doing what feels right in the moment versus having a detailed plan. I just need to swap the Lego instruction booklet for a financial plan and the specialised pieces for tools and investments.

I've used spreadsheets to write budgets in the past, but after reading this week's cover story I decided to try some apps. I looked at You Need A Budget (YNAB) since it has so many devoted fans, but found Goodbudget better suited my needs because it has more obvious flexibility over the time period. I am paid fortnightly so I liked that I could make my budget to match my pay cycle rather than hacking it to fit calendar months and I also found it more straightforward to account for weekly, fortnightly, quarterly and annual expenses.

Both systems offer a mobile app so you can track your spending and tweak your budget on the go. Tracking everything you spend is useful if you are living pay cheque to pay cheque or targeting stretch goals. It's the financial equivalent of a dieter keeping a food diary and counting calories.

However, I doubt that most people could keep it up long term. An alternative to hardcore tracking would be to use Pocketbook or an equivalent app to find out where you actually spend money currently.

Either way it's valuable to budget for a month or two to discover underlying patterns or test your hunches. You might be surprised.

A friend of mine assumed that she was bad at managing her money. Instead she's decided she needs a job with better pay, after she found she was always within budget for everything she regards as a "want" but over-spending on "needs" such as medication and doctor's appointments.

For me, the process put a dollar value on the fact that we suddenly have the luxury of savings and the strategic decisions that go with that.

My clever husband is finally working again after completing a PhD and the kids are now at school rather than expensive childcare. I could already feel we had a bit more breathing space and see the savings building up in our offset account, but I hadn't done any detailed analysis.

Our next step is to talk to a financial planner to come up with a strategy. Should we pay down the mortgage, play catch up with super, invest in shares … or start collecting Lego?

Caitlin Fitzsimmons is editor of Money.