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.