How we cope as a single income family Pt 2 - Budget and dollar stretching

In part two of the How we cope as a single income family series, I'd like to share the way we budget and the things we do, and don't do to stretch that dollar further.

This is how I do our budget in order:

1.Fixed payments
Any and all fixed payments, such as mortgage, rent, loans etc, is allocated first as this is most important.

2. Bill money
We add all our bills up for the year and divide by 52 (or 26 if you get paid fortnightly, 12 if you get paid monthly etc). We put that figure away each pay into a separate bills acct. This includes everything from phone bills - car registration.

3.Leftover money
Any and all leftover money is allocated between groceries, petrol, play/sanity money etc. We learn to be creative and live off what we have left over.

We find doing the budget this way means we never struggle to find bill money as it's always there, the mortgage is always paid as it's first on the list, and we don't spend ridiculous amounts on groceries and take away because the money just isn't there.

We find free or cheap entertainment for the family. It's amazing just how excited the kids get when we take them to the park and bring along a footy to kick around.

We're fortunate enough to live in a street with lots of kids around my kids ages, so they spend most of their afternoon playing with friends.

Things we do and don't do to save money
Live within your means
Budget
Allocate every single dollar - Rent/mortgage/board, bills, loans, credit cards, groceries, savings, play/pocket/sanity money or allowance.

Groceries
Shop at Aldi
Cook from scratch - a great way to include the kids.
Get out of the habit of shopping because it's 'shopping day'. Look through your pantry, fridge and freezer and use what you've got on hand. Get creative.
Substitute ingredients.
Cook meals your family enjoy and will eat.
Water, cordial and milk are the main drinks - we don't give the kids juice cause Mr 2.5 gets a very upset tummy from drinking it, and to avoid any tantrums we don't let any of the kids have it.
Look around for good deals - We do most of our shop at Aldi, but our local green grocer is better priced with everything we buy except for grapes which are cheaper elsewhere.
I don't buy meat over $10/kg
I get the bulk buy rump steak and use for all stews, stirfries, pies etc, so no expensive diced beef
I use basic ingredients for seasoning's - good old salt and pepper, season all, garlic and paprika. I have more in there which I bought a while back but hardly use. I find I use it just to get rid of it, so that was a total waste of money.

Shopping - Clothing, Christmas/Birthdays, household
I buy on sale/clearance
We buy second hand
We happily accept second hand clothing off friends and family (we received a bag of stuff today, including a gorgeous faux leather jacket and some Ben 10 and Toy story clothes still in excellent condition)
We buy good quality furniture and appliances - We've bought cheap and found they didn't last long. We wasted money replacing with more cheap items. We're better off buying something built to last even if it means paying more (not always the case though).
I put a limit on birthday/christmas pressies
I buy things on clearance throughout the year and keep a gift box to store until needed. This way we've always got gifts on hand, so no last minute dash to the shops.
I take advantage of the layby service
I take advantage of the July toy sales
We don't buy pressies for everyone
We hold regular garage sales.

Babies
I use both cloth and disposable nappies.
Aldi nappies are great, even for night use.
Even before I switched to Aldi full time, I'd use cheaper brand nappies for day time, unless huggies was on a really good special, in that case I'd stock up.
I breastfed for 8.5 months with our 4th (not always possible, I couldn't do it for long with the other 3, my first lasted 5 days).
I reuse what we've got.
We didn't get the lastest and greatest. I did however waste a bucket load on the baby manchester coz it was just sooo cute :)

Car
I walk as much as possible.
Hubby has a little run around for work which costs about $15 a week on fuel, where as his old car cost $50+ a week on fuel.
I only fill the family car up once a month - I have to make it last
I combine errands

Misc.
I do the hair cuts
We don't smoke, and drink only occassionally
We have play money each which is used for whatever we want. If we want something big which is a personal want we have to save for it out of our own money

Energy Consumption
We run the dishwasher after 10pm - cheaper rates
I charge my phone when I use the laptop - saves power.
We have solar water and solar power.
We reuse boiled water from eggs/veggies on the garden
The kids are still young enough to bath together
I shower after 10pm
I chuck all washing in together, unless there is enough 'whites' or 'darks' etc to make a load. I know some people will not do this, but it works for us, I've never had a problem with colours running, coz I always hand wash brand new items first.
We barely watch TV, mainly coz we're too busy, but we don't want the kids being addicted to technology and not have an imagination (this was an issue, but since cutting back on screen time they have great imaginations).
We turn off lights, TV's etc when not in use.



I hope this can be useful to someone, as doing these little things has helped us greatly.
If you'd like to know more, feel free to comment or drop me a line on facebook. I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible :)

I am in no way a professional in this area, just a SAHM trying to stretch her hubby's hard earned cash as far as it will go :)

How we cope as a single income family - Pt 1 - Our story

Please Note: I'll do this over a series of posts as I feel there is a need for a bit of background info, to help explain our situation.

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I've been approached by a fair few people now, about how we cope financially on one income, pay off our debts and still live a fun life.

It's simple. I'd rather keep our hard earned dollars in our own pockets than in someone else's.

Background

I grew up in a single income family of 6 in Sydney. Dad worked hard. He did the day shift when we were little, getting up at about 3am and not coming home til about 7:30pm, in which we were already in bed. So we never saw him. In the end, I would get up as soon as I heard him getting ready for work, just so I could spend a few minutes a day with him. As we got older, he switched to night shift. He slept all day and worked all night. Again, we hardly saw him.

My parent's had the usual debts - a mortgage, car loan, credit cards... putting 4 kids through school.. etc

We never went without, in fact when I look back we did quite well. Sure we didn't have everything brand name, but mum made sure she'd get a couple of brand name items for us so we weren't left out.

I did however, feel deprived of time with dad and as a family unit. It was mostly us kids and Mum.

Before I became a SAHM, I was working pretty much full time. Picking up as many (extra) shifts as I could and doing as much over time as I could. To me (and my husband who was also working as much as he could), we thought we were doing the right thing for our family in order to get ahead. But we weren't. We didn't have the right mindset. We were on an excellent combined income, so therefore we had a hideous spending habit, and an even more hideous (growing) debt.

When I was just 21 years old, and 32 weeks pregnant with our 2nd, we bought a fixer upper and within a year we had bought a bigger car, installed a new kitchen, bathroom, driveway, ripped up the carpets and stained the floorboards, installed ceiling fans in every room, ran power to the garage, got built ins, cladded the house, ripped out and replaced all the old windows and external doors, ripped out a wall and replaced with a sliding door, got a new lounge, bed and mattress, flat screen TV, installed another aircon unit... that's not including all the little improvements like painting etc... So in one year we WASTED over $90000 on the house. Did it improve the value of our home? Yep. Did we miss out on most of our 2nd child's first year? Yep! Am I happy with that?? Definitely not!! Did it stop there? Sadly no. We went on to waste over $4300 on a 7 pc dining set, coffee table and TV unit... why? Cause I fell in love with it. Do I regret buying it? No. Do I regret spending that much? Yes!! I can't believe we spent that much!

So why did we spend that much? Because we lived above and beyond our means.We thought we earned enough to support the lifestyle we wanted. We were young, dumb and had too much disposable income which should've been put on the mortgage. But we didn't and now we are paying for it. Literally!

Have we always been this way?

No! When I was 15, I really wanted my own computer in my room so I could surf the net and chat to friends without having to limit time due to siblings wanting to use the computer too. When I got my first job, I sat down with my payslip and a computer catalogue and worked out how much I'd have to work to be able to save up for a computer. I didn't end up getting the computer because I was given an old one :D.. I have no idea what I ended up spending my money on... probably clothes and bags...

As soon as I was 18 and employed, my boyfriend (now hubby) and I moved into a unit (literally across the street from my parents lol). I was always jotting down our incomings and outgoings and working extra debt payments into our "expenses" (I had no idea at this point that I was budgeting lol). We were never late with rent or bills, refused to get credit cards, saved up for things we wanted (except for a medical debt and a computer my husband bought -  he leased that). We furnished our little patch of heaven with pre loved goods from family, garage sales, ebay, second hand stores. We stayed there for about 6 months and then rented a cute little 3 bedder which we were going to buy but the owners wife was too greedy (the owner himself was willing to accept our offer). We had over $10000 saved and were still enjoying our credit card free life. It started going down hill from there. We sold our cars (cash not credit), bought shiny new ones (credit), bought a house and blew most of our savings.

A credit card came with the home loan even though we told the bank we didn't want one. I was going to cut it up, but mum told me to keep it 'for emergencies'. I understand what mum was saying, but I should've gone with my gut and cut it up. We had some money saved, enough to cover an emergency, but I still kept it... and unfortunately the spending started. Hence the debt.

We went from no credit cards to two of those interest free things and one mutual credit card.

I believe you have to have the right mindset to use your money wisely.

It's easy for anyone to say they want to save money and/or get out of debt, but without an action plan they won't get very far.

First, you need to work out what it is you want - save $5000 emergency fund? Save for a house deposit? Pay off debt?

Then work our exactly how much you owe, to who, and when it needs to be paid by.

If you have debt collectors chasing you for money, don't ignore letters/phone calls etc, let them know your situation, they are there to help. If you can afford to do so, give them a call and offer to pay 40% of the total amount owing up front and could they waive the rest of the debt.
We contacted a creditor and politely asked the above, they told us to send it in writing, we did and sure enough our offer was accepted. We saved ourselves $510 :)

Work out a payment plan to get those debts paid down/off.

There are many methods out there to pay down debt, such as Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball method, which is to pay off the smallest debt while maintaining minimum payments on everything else and build momentum to pay off each consecutive debt. Hence the snowball. I like his method. It's been working well for us.

Put the payment plan into place and see those debts disappear. It's so invigorating :)


Where are we now?

We upgraded our car in Oct 2010, but this time it was a need as we have 4 kids (well we had 3 kids at that point but I knew we would have the 4th soon :)). We've paid off all store credit cards (interest free), so we finally own all our contents (yippee :)). Hubby bought his little run around with cash, and we've almost paif off the family car. We paid credit for our flights to QLD, but I'm not too fussed over that, because spending a few dollars in interest vs what could possibly be a financial ruin if we move interstate and end up hating it, is definitely well worth it.

Are we happy with our situation?
Yes we are. We wished we hadn't spent so much on the house, and waste so much money over the years, but we're happy. We love our house. We love the fact we can comfortably afford to have a parent home and  still pay off debts.

We now have the right mindset to dig ourselves out of the hole, and get back in control of our finances. We can now recognise needs vs wants and enjoy life the way we want, not the way society says we should.

I enjoy living a thrifty lifestyle, and learning all the different ways to stretch the dollar that much further, or better yet, not parting with it at all. To some people, this may seem "tight". Yes I suppose it may be, with today's world of spending being the norm, but I really don't care what the "norm" is and what isn't, what I'm concerned about is my family and OUR financial situation.

Some older posts that may be of interest:
3 year plan
What do I want out of life?
Debt slashing


In my next post, I'll share how we do our budget, and what we do to stretch our hard earned dollar that little bit further.

Linking up with the lovely Jess @ Dairy of a SAHM for IBOT :)

What are your financial goals?

Woohooooooo Under $10k mark

As the heading states, we owe less than $10000 on our car loan :D

I'm so happy!! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The closer we get, the more eager I am to pay it off quicker.

Only a few short months to go and the car will be paid :)

I'm aiming to have it paid off by Christmas.

Time for a change. Or is it?

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We've been discussing for a while now, about moving to Queensland. We have many reasons for and against the move, most being for the move.

Mostly, we want to raise our kids in a better area and to have a better quality of life. We're from Sydney, born and raised and we don't feel we can do that here anymore (Sorry to all the Sydney lovers, personal opinion :)). A suburb about 12 minutes away is notorious for drive by shootings. The most recent one, closer to home, was only 7 minutes away.

I know crime is everywhere, but not everywhere is like that.

We used to really love our street. When we bought our house, half of the street were elderly, and the other half were young families. Everyone knew everyone, very friendly and safe, but unfortunately the elderly are slowly 'moving upstairs with the big man', and not so nice people are moving in.We no longer feel safe and comfortable, and after talking with a few 'original' neighbours, we found out we're not the only ones.

The main issues for staying are, work, family and friends. Hubby's in a good job with a decent wage and we don't want to throw that away (transfer not possible). My parents, brother and sister in law all want to move too, but that still leaves my sister, nephew, 2 of my brothers, grandparents and all my cousins, aunts and uncles - We all live within 20 minutes of each other. My In laws are 15 minutes away, and of course friends. I don't know if I could move my family away from all the people we care about.

I won't go into all the pro's and con's because I'll be here all night, but I'm really stuck with what we should do. Hubby's not really much help as he's 'not fussed either way' (his words) but he does feel the same about the above reasons. He did say that if he was guaranteed work that he'd love to move... either way he wants to move, local or not.

I'm really excited at the possibilty. I've been looking at houses, jobs, schools etc etc. I'm got a moving mentality, I don't want to buy or bring anything else into the house, I want a major cleanout - if I don't want to bring it with us, it's going. I've stopped thinking about what needs to be done around here in order to suit our growing family and strangely I'm a lot happier than I have been in a while.

And no, I'm not getting my hopes up, because there's a very high chance it won't happen, but it's still nice to dream :)

Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT :)

3 year plan

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I'm a planner. I'm always planning things, setting goals, working out things and more often than not I do my head in lol.. if only this would actually help to keep me organised... but sadly it doesn't...

I'm not adding in little plans/goals, just the big ones.

Here's the plan -

2012

• Pay off car loan
• Sell 2nd car and buy a ute
• Have a small get away in Sept/Oct
  

2013

• Either a getaway to Queensland in January, or a muchly muchly desired holiday to Fiji in June/July (Or both would be even better :)).
• Pay extra onto smaller mortgage (no rush to get it paid off)
• (Possibly) Start plans for extension - ground floor or second story depending on costs and approval.
  ..OR..
• (Possibly) An attic conversion - again depending on costs and approval.

2014

• J Man (Mr almost 4) Off to school :(
• Extensions done
• Fiji - if not done (was original plan as it will be our 10 year ''dating'' anniversary in July 2014, and we wanted to do something special ).
• Get a pool
• Maybe Baby... :)

2015

• Mr 2.5 off to school :( (they grow up too fast)
• Hubs 30th - got something big in mind :)
• Carport
• Maybe Baby - if we decided not to try in 2014 

We know things don't always go to plan, we originally planned to have 2 kids close in age, have a 5 yr gap, get a house and then have two more kids. Well that plan went out the window when Mr 2.5 surprised us :)

It'll be interesting to look back on in a few years time and see what we've accomplished.

What are your plans for the future?

Linking up with Jess @ Diary of a SAHM for IBOT

Sorting out our lives pt 2

In my last post, I mentioned how I wanted to look at different areas in our lives that needed work, and to focus on them. You can read it here.

While catching up on other blogs, I came across Organising Queen's blog. Her most recent post A life service is pretty much what I'm talking about.

This is from her post
Answer these questions honestly
How happy are you with the state of your health, family, home, career, friends, etc?
Are you at the point where you thought you'd be at this time of the year?
If not, be honest with yourself and say why or why not.
Are you making excuses for anything? (Remember You get to choose )
What do you need to let go of?

I'm going to answer these honestly...

How happy are you with the state of your health, family, home, career, friends, etc?

• Health - 6/10 - needs a lot of work.. I'm always tired no matter how much sleep I get. I need to exercise more and not be so hard on myself.
  
• Family - 7.5/10 -I love my family, they are the most important thing to me, but because I'm always tired, I don't feel I give as much as I can (yes I'm being hard on myself). I need to spend more quality time with the kids, I need to listen more, interact more, play more and stress less. I want more time for hubby and I, but it's hard, especially with him working so much, but we sneak cuddles and kisses where we can and talk a lot. My me time consists of falling on the lounge, pulling out the laptop, surfing the net for a little while and having a long hot shower at about 11pm. I want to get back into yoga, and simply have a chance to think and relax.
  
• Home - 7/10 - The decluttering is definitely paying off, and I'm enjoying my house more and more, and I don't feel embarrassed anymore. There's still a lot of unfinished jobs, but when the budget allows, we'll get other people to do it, we'd rather spend our time together as a family.
  
• Career 9/10 - I'm a SAHM (previously a work away from home mum) and even though I miss the money, Í'm so much happier and relaxed, therefore a better mum and wife. I take my job/role seriously and I'm really interested in learning as much as I can about home ec, to improve the lives of myself and my family.
  
• Friends 6.5/10 - I really need to catch up with my friends more. I usually see friends once a week, and a weekend catch up once or twice a month, but playdates/catch ups are often being post poned due to both parties being too busy, too tired, or im my case, time restricted due to hubbys work hrs and school drop off/pick up. I'm using the school holidays to catch up with friends as I won't be so restricted.

I'm adding this one as it is mentioned in my last post and very important to us...

• Finances 7/10 - I hate debt! But having said that, I'm pretty happy with our situation overall, as we're in our 20's, with 4 kids and our total debt including mortgage is less than the total debt of a few couples I know that are only years away from retirement.

Are you at the point where you thought you'd be at this time of the year?Yes I'm content with where we are.

If not, be honest with yourself and say why or why not.

Are you making excuses for anything?
I do need to spend more time with friends. I've gotta stop post poning.

What do you need to let go of?
Physical and Emotional clutter

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Going by the answers, I need to work on interacting more with my kids, just ''being there'' isn't enough. I need to be kinder to myself, and I need to spend more time with my friends.

So how does one give more to be kinder to others, yet give less to be kinder to oneself?

Sorting out our lives

With the new financial year fast approaching, I decided to look at not only our finances, but other areas of our lives that need some work. I'm using the new financial year as a clean slate.

Area's in which I want to work on are:

• Debts
• Kids quality time
• Routines
• Housework/organising/decluttering
• Me time
• Mummy, Daddy time
• Family time
• Friends

I'm going to sit down and work out ways in which I can improve on each of these areas. For eg. With Debts, I want to get the car loan under $10000 by the end of July (It's at $12400ish at the moment). Easy to say, but is it doable? I really hope so!

I will do another post once I've made a plan, but for now the best thing I can do for myself is to get some sleep :)

Priorities.

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In my last post, which you can read here, I stated that Family is what I want out of life. My family IS my life. In saying that, I want to prioritise me life.

As I'm typing this, my little man Mr 3 gets out of bed and asks for a drink of water. I gave him a little drink, and he gives me a big cuddle tells me he loves me and walks to the lounge..

"I'm sitting on the younge with my jink and I'm going to wait for Daddy."

(mistakes intended, that's how he talks :))

I was thinking of sending him back to bed, but then I thought why not let him stay up with me? He's no trouble. It'll make him happy and I'm sure he'll be asleep before Daddy gets home anyway.

My Priorities:

My children.

My children are my absolute number one priority. They come before anything and anyone in this world (The husband would like to think he comes first but nah lol).

Being a good mum to my children.
This explains itself

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My husband and myself.
I do tend to put everything and everyone before myself, I think it's what us mums do, but I'm making myself a priority, and start taking better care of myself. The husband - I want to spend more quality time with him, a date night is near impossible, so even a romantic dinner and a movie at home will suffice.

Friends and other family (mum, dad, siblings, cousins etc).
With four kids, I don't have a lot of time to catch up with everyone all the time, but I try to talk/text/chat with friends and/or (other) family on a daily basis, and catch up with closest friends every week.

Having fun and living life.
Again, this explains itself.

The House.
I would love to have a self cleaning house, but I'm yet to get that button working, so for now, the housework, decluttering, organising and general maintenance is an ongoing thing. I want my house to be a haven where my family can feel relaxed, and guests can feel welcome.

We have lots of plans for our house. We've completely renovated it, and we're planning more projects in the future. We were originally trying to pump any and all extra money onto our car loan to get that paid off asap, so we could get the extra room built and have another baby  our kids can have their own rooms (yes we will be having another bub in a few years :)). We've changed our priorities, and feel so much happier and calmer :)

Finances.
Money is a necessary evil. We're earning less but living more :)

What are you priorties?

What do I want out of life?

When I was little all I wanted to be was a vet and help save animals. Through high school, I wanted to be a criminologist or obstetrician. I still wanted to be a vet, but I didn't think I'd have the heart to put animals to sleep, even though it would be for the best.

I was in high school when my husband and I started dating, and I still hadn't decided what I wanted to be. When I turned 18, I got a job at a local club and worked very hard. It was then that I decided what I wanted. We wanted to move out and start the next phase of lives together.

We moved out when I was 18, got married at 19, had a baby at 20, bought a house at 21, had baby 2 at 21, had baby 3 at 23, quit my job at 24 and had baby 4 at 24.

It was such a hard transition at first, as I was always independent and refused to ever financially rely on anyone, especially my partner. It was hard watching mum and dad struggle raising four kids on one income, and I didn't want that for us. Hubby on the other hand, wanted me to stay home once we had our first bub, but he was happy with what ever I decided.

In order for us to afford for me to stay home, we had to completely change the way we lived. We always bought new and always bought quality when it came to the big things like furniture. Bigger was better(so we thought) and we thought we could do it all. The house, the cars, the kids, the jobs. We were always doing something to the house, we never stopped. When I look back now, we wasted so much money. So much time. So many important moments with our children.

How things have changed.

All I want out of life is my family. I want to have a big family and to be surrounded by love and happiness. I would love to stay home with my babies for as long as possible. I want to give my kids a great life, and let them experience and enjoy being kids. I want to be able to help them when they're older and have their own families.

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Life has greatly improved since we've made the change, we're all so much happier. My daughter said to me the other day,

"Mummy, when I grow up I want to be a mum just like you."

That made my heart melt!

We don't need the rushed life, the debts and the material things, we just need each other :)

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Linking up with Diary of a SAHM for IBOT

Plans for the new Financial Year.

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Well it's that time of year again, time to reassess our financial goals for the 2012/2013 financial year. It doesn't seem that long ago that I wrote last years post.

Our financial goals for this year are:

• Pay off the car.
• Pay off the Credit card.
• Put extra on the smaller mortgage.
• Put money into savings.

Apart from financial freedom, we're aiming to get an extension on our house in the next couple of years and will hopefully be able to get it done without going into more debt, or at least minimal debt.

Our income was reduced temporarily throughout May, so therefore only minimum payments were made. What also made it harder, was from May-August we had/have 2x Car Rego's, 2x Car insurance, Home and Contents Insurance and Rates. We put bill money aside every pay so thankfully we didn't have to rely on credit or scramble to make ends meet.

Our income had since been corrected and we'll get back on the wagon and continue putting extra on the debts.

2011/2012 Financial Year.

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Last year I did a post on our financial goals for this year, which you can find here. Our goal was to have the car loan paid off by 30th June 2012.

This was completely doable, and we were sticking to our goal, but after a few incidences, long discussions and a few headaches later, we decided to shift our priorities a little bit.

We had been wanting to completely fence off our yard, as we're on a sloping block which slopes down towards the road, and no matter how careful we are, kids, bikes and sloping driveways do not mix! So we agreed that getting the fence was a priority. So we saved up for it and got it done :)

We also decided to take the family on a long deserved holiday to the Gold Coast. We also saved up for that and treated ourselves to a beautiful, well needed getaway :)

We don't regret our decision at all, but it is a little disheartening to think that we could've been paying our last payment this month, but that's life :)

We're aiming for the car to be paid off by my birthday this year, which is 31st December.

Under $14k

As of yesterday, 30th April 2012, we are under $14000 on our car loan. Yaaaayyy I can see the finish line :) :) I'm hoping to make it to under $13000 by the end of this month. The lower the amount owing gets, the more keen I am for the debt to be gone and for the car to be ours :D

Happy debt paying peoples :)

Today's chores

I was supposed have a Drs appointment today, but have rescheduled due to my husband working night shift. He has been covering for the night shift superviser on and off for the past month as he has been on leave.

The extra money has been great and we've been putting extra onto the car loan. The downside of the night shift is not having hubby around. I'm used to doing the afternoons on my own and have got a routine in place, but I'm not used to having hubby not here during the day.. Well he is here but he's asleep :) So I've been trying to keep in control.

I've also taken the boys out of preschool due to the constant sickness and also to save a bit of money. I'm really gonna miss my Fridays being just bubs and I, but it's not forever and once the debts are paid off it'll be worth it.

My days are spent chasing my tail when Hubby is on night shift, I drop Missy off at school, come back try and do as much as I can of what needs to be done, then it's time to pick Missy up from school again.

So today I want to set myself some To Do's which hopefully will keep me on track.

• a load of washing  done
• run dishwasher done
• fold yesterdays washing done
• put away yesterdays washing - done
• general tidy morning done
• wipe over bathroom done
• check Missy's bed is made and room is clean done
• general tidy after lunch - done
• Get washing off line - done
• fold washing - done
• put away washing - done
• get dinner ready - done
• sweep kitchen floor done
• sweep loungeroom floor
• fill washing machine ready for tomorrows load done
• make Missys lunch for tomorrow
• lay out clothes for tomorrow - done
• read with Missy - done
• pay phone bill - done
• Catch up on Missy's baby record book, 5 y/o page  done
• have 5 glasses of water had - done
• take time out for self
• exercise - walk to pick up Missy - done
• general tidy night - done
• unload dishwasher
• load dishwasher
• fill out Missy's Take home reading journal - done

Under $15k mark

As of Friday 30th March 2012, we are officially under the $15k mark on our car loan. We're not quite half way yet, but I'm thrilled to have made it to this amount.

One of our financial goals for this year was to completely pay out the car loan.

We originally wanted to pay it out by the end of this financial year (30th June 2012), but we have now given ourselves to 31st December 2012. Reason being - our yard slopes towards the road, and no matter how careful or quick we are, toddlers, toys and sloping yards towards roads do not mix. So we have decided to fully fence the yard so our kids can play safely, in turn, the car will be paid out at a later date.

Update on my journey

My two older kids are at preschool, and both the younger ones are having their naps. As much as I'm enjoying it, I'm a little lost lol.

As I stated in my post yesterday, the past couple of months have been rush rush and have quickly blurred past me.

For the first few weeks after having bub, I didn't continue with anything to do with my journey to regain control of my house and finances, in fact it was quite the opposite. My plan of being strict with money and paying out that car went out the window, the house seemed to return to the state it was when I was working and the clutter seemed to breed like crazy...

I wasn't too concerned with the house and clutter as I know life can be crazy with the arrival of a new bub and would soon be dealt with once things settle down, but I was really concerned about the money side of things, as with the arrival of bubs, we're even more desperate for extra space and another room.

We can in no way afford an extension on the house, or to move to a bigger place at the moment, so we decided to get built ins in the kids rooms to free up some storage space. This has been heaven sent. Miss 4's room is tiny, but since having the built ins has made her room look larger. We've also put some shelves up, and by doing so we were able to get rid of her little table which housed her pretty things. She has so much more floor space now.

We haven't yet removed the old wardrobes from the boys room yet, so I can't comment on how much space it has free'd up. But I do love the built in :)

Over the past few weeks, I've started getting back into decluttering. I've managed to get rid of about 7 bags from home. We also held a garage sale, and with the promise of not bringing the left over stuff back into the house, I filled more bags and actually got my mum, aunties and cousin into the decluttering spirit. Between us, we managed to fill bags and boxes the length and width of a massive 8 seater dining table (It was stored there until dad could take it to the op shop. He's the only one with a car big enough to fit it all lol). That's great considering my mum and aunties hold onto things until they finally sell. Which in one case was 8 years lol.

Even with the house looking like a bomb hit it, it's so much quicker and easier to return it to a state of order. So those months of decluttering and organising has definitely paid off :)

We're still paying extra onto the car, with a minimum of $50 a week. Most weeks we put a lot more on it, but I found when we pumped so much money into the loan, we'd fall off the wagon. We're now under the $20000 mark on our loan :)

Plans for the New Financial Year

With just over 3 weeks til the New Financial Year, I thought it was about time we had a look at our finances and work out what we could do to improve that area.

As of yesterday, we're FINALLY out of our 3 year fixed rate of 8.95% on our mortgage! I can't begin to say what a relief it is! The loan automatically switched to the variable which was at 7.8% and a saving of $56 a week. Beautiful! And seeing as though we've "packaged" our loans, we get a discount of .7%, taking the interest rate down to 7.1%, Total saving of $87 a week from what we've been paying the last 3 years!

We are re fixing the main loan (we have 2 mortgages, one which is the actual house loan and a smaller one which is a consolidated loan, we couldn't put them together without paying the hefty exit fees/break costs) and keeping the smaller one variable, so when we want to extend, we can without paying the break costs on the fixed rate. The fixed rate will be at 6.99% for two years :) If I remember correctly, we will be saving another $5-8 a week.

We've decided we will allocate all the money we are saving, straight onto the car loan. We're used to paying such a high amount on our mortgage every week, and seeing as though the car loan is the killer (more than $150/wk) we're aiming to pay that off by 30th June 2012.

Here is our plan:

• All moneys saved from the lowered interest rate will be put straight onto the car. I'll set up an automatic transfer so I cannot ''forget''
• Living within our means so we'll be living off hubbys wage and all social security, tax, overtime etc will go straight on the loan.
• Baby Bonus - Car loan

So all extra money will be put on the loan. We will be allocating ''Sanity Money" as we believe that is highly important when trying to stick to a budget or working towards a goal.

We've worked it all out, it's definitely doable within that time frame, its a matter of self discipline and motivation to see if we can follow through.

I would love one of those money/debt progress bars to put on my blog so we can all see how we're going with our goal. I've seen them on a few blogs but can't remember which blogs and/or where to get them from, so if anyone knows, could you please comment and let me know, many thanks :)


What are your plans/goals for the New Financial Year? I would love to hear about them :)

What's planned for the month of June?

During May, I wanted to focus on learning about and putting into action, Time Management. This went pretty well. We're in a relaxed routine, at the moment. We know where the time wasters are, the kids have set bed times, eating times etc, I have daily must do's. The only thing I haven't really done is set up a weekly cleaning list - what house work to do on what day. I have yet to do this as personally it doesn't suit our family just yet. Once bubs is here and things have settled down I would love to set up a good cleaning schedule.

During June, there's a few things under way. As you know in previous posts, I've mentioned the odd jobs and reno's that we'll be doing, hopefully all of which will be done by 25th June, which is the day of my baby shower.

Along with that I plan to get a strict budget under way and stick to it. It's kind of like budget "rehearsals" for the new financial year, in which we will be starting fresh and tracking are spending.

We've been getting better with our budget since paying off some of our debts, and the past couple of weeks we have been sticking to it quite well.

We've got a set budget in place, but each pay day, I'll check the acct and see what the pay is - usually it's a set amount unless he does OT. With that pay I'll tweak the budget a bit, for eg, allocate more to savings or debt reduction if the pay is more. Look at areas in which we can cut back if the pay is less than expected (this can happen quite a bit even though he's on a set pay, sometimes it's only $1 or $2 which we don't really notice, but last week it was $11 which put us out, luckily I didn't need to go grocery shopping in the end)

I'll put a copy of this budget on the family notice board so my husband can see how much he can spend on what.

Hopefully we can get this budgeting down pat before the new financial year :)

It pays to check your accounts

We are currently in the process of redoing our mortgage as the fixed rate expires in a week. We have opted to go on a package which gives a discounted rate plus waives any and all fees, including application fees etc. But with a higher yearly fee.

I checked my acct balance today only to notice that my loan was $500 dearer. I was baffled as I knew interest was charged last week so where has the extra charge come from? I checked the history and to our horror the bank had charged us a $500 switch fee!

I rang them up and the guy was really helpful. It was very obvious he was frustrated at the operator who took my call last week and dealt with the loan, as apparently she has made an error in how she's doing the loan. She told me it'll be a 2-3 step process, but he said it should only be one and has emailed her and told her to waive the fee!

I'm happy with how it was handled and will be checking regularly in case this happens again. I'm not happy with being charged the extra interest for their stuff up though.

Let's hope the rest of it goes smoothly!

Debt Slashing

2011 has been a pretty good year so far for us with paying off debts. Even though most of the debts were paid out with my claim money and with selling the 2nd car, it has shown us we've come along way from where we were 2 years ago... or even 1 year ago.

Every time we'd have money whether it was a loan increase, or paying out a debt which free'd up more money we would do something to the house... new windows, doors, kitchen, bathroom, the list is never ending, and as a result we were drowning in debt.

Last year when we knew the amount of the claim, straight away we thought about a deck/new blinds/carport. Then I thought well what do I want more out of life? Keep working at a job that makes me miserable, barely see my kids, have a messy and stressful household, but on the up side have a deck, OR, Quit work, use the money to pay out debts, have a happier, calmer household and eventually SAVE for the deck? Well, you know which I chose :)

So the amount we've paid out so far is as follows:

Joint Mastercard:

Limit: 4000
Balance: 3962.45
Current Limit: 500
Current Balance: 0
Actions Taken: Completely paid out the debt and lowered it to the lowest possible limit.


Hubby's Mastercard:

Limit: 8500
Balance: 5673.77
Current Limit: 2000
Current Balance: 0
Actions Taken: Paid off all interest bearing debt, Lowered limit to 2000, then recently paid off the interest free debt. Will cancel card when hubby gets a chance.


My Credit Card:

Limit: 2750
Balance: 790
Current Limit: 0
Current Balance: 0
Actions Taken: Paid out balance in full, Cancelled and cut up the card



Grand Total: 10516.22 :)


Here's what it looks like now :)

We Have a Legal Debt from hubby's teenage days with a balance of 860. We've contacted them and offered a lump sum payment of 40% and for the rest of the debt to be waived, to our surprise and joy, they agreed. We have until the end of May to come up with the $350, or the balance remains at $860.

There's 4 more debts remaining after this legal debt has been paid out, but I won't give figures just yet.

Computer: Has about 17 months remaining
Car has 4 years remaining
Mortgage 2 which is a small mortgage which was a few debts consolidated
Mortgage 1 is the main mortgage and still has a while to go lol

We're very pleased with how far we've come and can't wait til that car loan it gone, that's next on our hit list :) :)

(we aren't paying out the computer debt early as it's a tax thing for hubbys work)

There's always something to pay

Why is it, that when you save a bit of money, or receive a bit of money, some how something pop's up that takes the joy and the money away...Whether the fridge dies, or an unexpectedly high bill comes in or something of the like...

Today, I received a letter from my solicitor with a cheque for the sum of $261.45, for reimbursement of medical expenses. With another cheque to come covering more medical costs. Yippee, I was over the moon... Until I opened my next letter which was for Rego renewal on our Klugar - $446...Argghh!!! $100 extra then we budgeted for, but luckily the cheque came when it did or else we'd be in trouble lol..

Hopefully the next cheque can come in time to pay the green slip of $680 :)