Well we managed just fine! In fact it was easy! The grocery bill came in $70 under budget and we still have $6.55 left of our weekend spending money to put towards next weekend.
Saturday we were busy grocery shopping and doing some other running around, but Sunday was lovely. It was the first time in so long that we all got to just hang out at home together. I got to have a bit of a sleep in (it was 8am when I got up but felt like 9 due to daylight savings finishing), we set a timer and all spent one hour knocking over some housework together (Josh kept going and worked for nearly two hours because he was on a roll!), Josh played board games at the table with the kids and they chatted with me as I cooked lunch, then in the afternoon the kids ran around outside with the neighbour's kids while Josh and I put our feet up and enjoyed some quiet time. We got takeaway for dinner, which is where we spent our weekend money, watched a family movie, then tucked the kids into bed for the night. Josh fell asleep soon after the kids while I stayed up a bit longer and had some time to myself.
We're nervous about tomorrow. We've had a lot of trouble with our car, Josh and Dad have done everything they can think of to try and fix it with absolutely no luck, so tomorrow we have a mechanic coming out to (hopefully) repair it. We're pretty sure by now that it must be an electrical problem but we've no idea how much it's going to cost to fix it, if it can be fixed!
We're praying that it does get fixed tomorrow, most importantly because we need it to get the kids to and from preschool and Mum needs it to get to and from work, but we also have a holiday coming up in four weeks. We've been looking forward to it all year, but if our car can't be fixed and we have to buy another one, we might not be able to afford to go.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Til Debt Do Us Part
There's a great show on the Discovery Home and Health channel that I never miss called Til Debt Do Us Part. It's hosted by Gail Vaz-Oxlade, you can visit her site (which contains a link to her blog and information on the show) here. Her website is full of fantastic FREE information on saving money and getting out of debt, it's well worth a look.
Watching her show is what really inspired me to have a look at where our money's going and to get our finances under control once and for all. Some of the people she helps are up to their eyeballs in debt and are on the verge of losing their homes, but she's always able to help them IF they're committed to following her advice.
Josh has watched a few episodes with interest (in other words, without going to sleep!) and he's as eager as I am to make her techniques work for us.
We don't have any empty jars laying around, and we weren't keen on the idea of having money on display in our home like that anyway, so we're using envelopes instead. We've set up a folder with clear plastic sleeves in it and every week we plan to withdraw the money for our variable expenses in cash and divide it up between the envelopes. Each envelope then goes into a plastic sleeve where we also have notepaper where we write down when and what we've spent the money on from that category.
We're easing into the system slowly. We did our first fortnightly grocery shop two weeks ago, to get an idea of how much money to put into the grocery envelope each week, and we were amazed to discover that we'll be saving $100 a fortnight in that category alone! Without all the extra trips to the supermarket we're not tempted by all those things we would normally buy on impulse. We're also saving money because we're more inclined to take our time and find the best price on a product when we're not having to visit the supermarket every week.
We face what I believe will be our biggest challenge this weekend. That is, getting through the weekend on $40 cash. We tend to get very lazy on the weekend and by the time you add up a takeaway lunch on one day, a takeaway dinner the next day, plus drinks and snacks while out, it's not unusual for us to spend $80 or more just on our stomachs!
To combat this, we've got a list of free or inexpensive activities we can do with the kids on weekends and we're going to work together on the housework. Previously all the cooking and cleaning was up to me and Josh would encourage eating out on the weekend as his way of giving me a break...and I was quick to say yes!
Stay tuned...I'll be back on Monday to give an update on our second fortnightly grocery shop and how we went with our first weekend on a budget.
Watching her show is what really inspired me to have a look at where our money's going and to get our finances under control once and for all. Some of the people she helps are up to their eyeballs in debt and are on the verge of losing their homes, but she's always able to help them IF they're committed to following her advice.
Josh has watched a few episodes with interest (in other words, without going to sleep!) and he's as eager as I am to make her techniques work for us.
We don't have any empty jars laying around, and we weren't keen on the idea of having money on display in our home like that anyway, so we're using envelopes instead. We've set up a folder with clear plastic sleeves in it and every week we plan to withdraw the money for our variable expenses in cash and divide it up between the envelopes. Each envelope then goes into a plastic sleeve where we also have notepaper where we write down when and what we've spent the money on from that category.
We're easing into the system slowly. We did our first fortnightly grocery shop two weeks ago, to get an idea of how much money to put into the grocery envelope each week, and we were amazed to discover that we'll be saving $100 a fortnight in that category alone! Without all the extra trips to the supermarket we're not tempted by all those things we would normally buy on impulse. We're also saving money because we're more inclined to take our time and find the best price on a product when we're not having to visit the supermarket every week.
We face what I believe will be our biggest challenge this weekend. That is, getting through the weekend on $40 cash. We tend to get very lazy on the weekend and by the time you add up a takeaway lunch on one day, a takeaway dinner the next day, plus drinks and snacks while out, it's not unusual for us to spend $80 or more just on our stomachs!
To combat this, we've got a list of free or inexpensive activities we can do with the kids on weekends and we're going to work together on the housework. Previously all the cooking and cleaning was up to me and Josh would encourage eating out on the weekend as his way of giving me a break...and I was quick to say yes!
Stay tuned...I'll be back on Monday to give an update on our second fortnightly grocery shop and how we went with our first weekend on a budget.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Money, Money, Money
Who can't relate to ABBA's Money, Money, Money song? My children walk around singing that song every day, not only because they love Mamma Mia the movie, where they first heard it, but because to them money is fun so why wouldn't they want to sing about it? They know that people have to work to earn money, and I've tried explaining to them that it pays for our food, rent and other essentials, but I think that's a bit over their heads at the moment. All they know is that money buys them treats and toys in the shopping (way too many to be honest) and they get to have fun putting coins in their money boxes.
I was thinking back today to when I was a kid receiving pocket money. I carefully planned every purchase, wanting to get the best value for my money. Granted I used to spend it all on junk...but I did a good job of it! It didn't take me long to realise that if I bought chewing gum the enjoyment would last longer then if I spent all my money on lollies or chocolate that would be gone in an instant. And by the time I was ten I'd calculated that buying the big multi packs of gum would stretch my money even further.
It was also during those years that I had my first taste of what it's like not to calculate your expenses and budget accordingly. I remember going through the checkout with a friend. I was buying several things to share with her but when I was told the total I came up a dollar short. A kind lady overheard my dilemma and gave me the dollar I needed, but it was an embarrassing moment for me and I knew then that I'd have to be more careful in the future.
Unfortunately it was a lesson I pushed to the back of my mind once my relationship with Josh started. I always paid my bills first but the rest of our money was frittered away on crap. Lets just say we didn't eat at home very often during those early years of our relationship and I didn't think twice about spending $20 on morning tea, lunch and magazines at work every day. We should of been saving every penny we could, but unfortunately we learn some lessons the hard way.
Before our first year together came to an end we found ourselves short of money to pay a fine that had caught up with Josh from the previous year and the easy solution was to get our first credit card to bail us out. Soon after that along came the kids, then our first car that we purchased with the funds from our first personal loan, then another credit card, then our second personal loan. Today we're just over $9000 in debt. To some that might not sound like a lot, but to us that's huge. Especially when you consider our debt has increased by well over $1000 for each year we've been together.
Now we have to face up to reality. We can either continue on with this trend of steadily going further into debt or we can tackle it face on before it drags us under.
What makes things difficult is our list of fixed expenses, they account for about 70% of our income:
Rent
Preschool
Speech therapy and medical
Sponsor child (I've been her sponsor for 8 years and wouldn't give her up unless I was on the brink of bankruptcy)
Union fees
Utilities
Phones and net
Car expenses (fuel, repairs, rego etc)
House expenses (repairs, appliance replacements etc)
That leaves us with our variable expenses. Somehow, and it will be tough, we need to lower these to not only fit into our budget, but leave us with money leftover for debt repayment. I've broken them down into four categories:
Groceries
Gifts
Clothes (including shoes and haircuts)
Entertainment
With an income that can vary by up to $300 a week, it's not going to be an easy task. It's going to take a lot of commitment and it means we'll all have to make sacrifices. Josh has already reduced how much money he spends on smokes by more then half, but we need to do a lot more then that.
I was thinking back today to when I was a kid receiving pocket money. I carefully planned every purchase, wanting to get the best value for my money. Granted I used to spend it all on junk...but I did a good job of it! It didn't take me long to realise that if I bought chewing gum the enjoyment would last longer then if I spent all my money on lollies or chocolate that would be gone in an instant. And by the time I was ten I'd calculated that buying the big multi packs of gum would stretch my money even further.
It was also during those years that I had my first taste of what it's like not to calculate your expenses and budget accordingly. I remember going through the checkout with a friend. I was buying several things to share with her but when I was told the total I came up a dollar short. A kind lady overheard my dilemma and gave me the dollar I needed, but it was an embarrassing moment for me and I knew then that I'd have to be more careful in the future.
Unfortunately it was a lesson I pushed to the back of my mind once my relationship with Josh started. I always paid my bills first but the rest of our money was frittered away on crap. Lets just say we didn't eat at home very often during those early years of our relationship and I didn't think twice about spending $20 on morning tea, lunch and magazines at work every day. We should of been saving every penny we could, but unfortunately we learn some lessons the hard way.
Before our first year together came to an end we found ourselves short of money to pay a fine that had caught up with Josh from the previous year and the easy solution was to get our first credit card to bail us out. Soon after that along came the kids, then our first car that we purchased with the funds from our first personal loan, then another credit card, then our second personal loan. Today we're just over $9000 in debt. To some that might not sound like a lot, but to us that's huge. Especially when you consider our debt has increased by well over $1000 for each year we've been together.
Now we have to face up to reality. We can either continue on with this trend of steadily going further into debt or we can tackle it face on before it drags us under.
What makes things difficult is our list of fixed expenses, they account for about 70% of our income:
Rent
Preschool
Speech therapy and medical
Sponsor child (I've been her sponsor for 8 years and wouldn't give her up unless I was on the brink of bankruptcy)
Union fees
Utilities
Phones and net
Car expenses (fuel, repairs, rego etc)
House expenses (repairs, appliance replacements etc)
That leaves us with our variable expenses. Somehow, and it will be tough, we need to lower these to not only fit into our budget, but leave us with money leftover for debt repayment. I've broken them down into four categories:
Groceries
Gifts
Clothes (including shoes and haircuts)
Entertainment
With an income that can vary by up to $300 a week, it's not going to be an easy task. It's going to take a lot of commitment and it means we'll all have to make sacrifices. Josh has already reduced how much money he spends on smokes by more then half, but we need to do a lot more then that.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Pigtails
How she insists on wearing her hair every day now.
Matched with her new favorite top and she's one happy girl.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
