So where does our money go?

After yesterday’s post I thought I might reflect on exactly where our money has been going... It’s pretty scary! For the period of Monday April 27th until Sunday May 31st (5 full weeks) our ins and outs were:
Total Income: $10,626.33
Total Spent: $11,098.27

The reason we spend more than we earned is because we had money in the bank accounts from previous months for bills (like land rates) which are quarterly. To make this clearer, even tho our income was less than outgoings, on the 31st of May we had $319.56 sitting in our “spending” account. Also, most of our payments are fortnightly so it feels like there was an extra repayment because most things we paid for 3 times in May instead of usual 2….

The breakdown looks like this:
Water bill (quarterly) $107
Rates (quarterly) $280
Gas (2 months) $41.95
Internet & Phone $60
My mobile $62.07
His mobile $81.35 + $80 as last month’s bill was paid on the 27th of April
Dog food $104.99
Presents $100 (2x$50 vouchers)
Insurances (life, income, house) $142.65
Private Health $128.51
Car Repayment $400
Charity Donation $24
Exercise Bike repayment $26.88
Gym $74.85
Chiropractor $70.20
Clothes $189.18
Medication $26.15
Groceries $409.35
Savings $1500
Mortgage $2850
Credit Card repayments $2216.28
Other spending (eating out, socialising, movies etc) $1850.86
Wedding stuff $200

It’s a pretty big spending list for one month!

Looking at it, I’m trying to figure out the areas we could cut back on. Obviously our spending money is a big area of spending, and looking back throughout the whole year, we on average spend $185-$200 a week EACH on just stuff – so when I said yesterday that we spent $400 a week in recent weeks on just crap, it was annoying to see we’ve been doing that for a very long time, but it’s just only now starting to catch up with us. And it really is just “stuff”. Nothing essential at all. Not on anything that we’ve planned for, just stuff. Like DVD’s. Pizza with friends. *sigh* we need to be better than this! How are we ever going to get on top of it all!?

Okay. That's it. No more eating out. And no more movies until i feel we've got better control of our money. May really hurt us, with the fortnights falling in such a way that we made 3 mortgage repayments in that month but I know we can recover from it with some effort. My biggest concern is my fancy schmancy spreadsheet is currently showing that our current savings/spendings plan will find us $1,200 short on our wedding day... and I REALLY do not want to put that on our credit card, because that would mean FAILING on my first goal for 2009!

I better talk to Mr M about this tonight... it's time to get serious about this!!!

Wedding stuff and other updates

We've finally booked in our honeymoon! We're going to Vanuatu for 8 nights! 7 of those nights are at a beautiful resort called Iririki Island, and then we're spending a night on Tanna Island and doing a volcano tour, before flying back to Australia - although we're not going straight home, we're going to spend another 4 nights on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland! I can't wait... we're not spending as much as we thought we were going to, which is a massive bonus, some things ended up being cheaper than I thought they would be.

We've paid off quite a bit on wedding stuff, but still have about $15,000 to save in 5 months... there's only 4 pay-cheques for myself between now and the wedding which makes it a bit tough, meaning we pretty much need to save my entire wage, but I know we can do it - we've saved almost $15k already!

I'm going to ask Mr M to pull his belt in a bit tighter - we've really slipped lately and I looked at our spending the past few weeks and we're averaging $400 a week in "general" spending. So, not essential spending, like groceries or bills, I'm talking about 100% non-essential spending... dinners out, movies, lunches, wii games etc... not great. Really bad, in fact.

I'm going to up our "allowance" to $100 each a week but I'm going to be a lot more strict about it. I'm really determined to make our money worth more... Do you know, we've paid $55,000 towards our mortgage since we moved in, but the actual reduction in principle is only $10,000. Wow. Pretty heart breaking really...

I was also devastated to receive my HECS (equivalent to a Student Loan) statement the other day and see that even tho I paid $3400 in the last financial year my total debt only reduced by $2000. I feel like this is a debt I'll never repay, and I don't even include in our "debt" statement because I've always considered it unimportant as I automatically pay it like tax, so it means so little...but when I saw that statement I realised I'm going to have to start paying extra towards it otherwise it'll never be gone!! At this rate, it will take me about 15 years to pay it back, and that's 15 years of working - what happens when I stop working to have children?? God, I don't want to think about. But one thing I should consider is that every voluntary repayment I make over $500 actually reduces my debt by an extra 10%.... So if I make a voluntary repayment of $1000, my debt will actually reduce by $1100.... there's some incentive for me!

Once the wedding is over, at the beginning of 2010 I will put together a new debt statement that will include my HECS debt. The only way to ensure I am fully focused and dedicated to eliminating my debt is to be really honest about how much I've got!!! I'll also have to rethink my long term goals... I wanted to pay my car off next year, but with our plans to go to europe and now that I want to include payments towards my HECS debt, it might not happen, but I will definitely make sure I keep making extra repayments towards the car!

I know a lot of you would be wondering why we're having long honeymoon or planning to go to europe whilst we have so much consumer debt, and I suppose the answer is time... we've got the rest of our lives to repay debt but only a couple of years of opportunity to travel. We've solemnly sworn that we will not accrue any extra debt by travelling - it has to be money we've saved up and above our debt repayments. It's not the ideal situation to be in, but it's the one we've chosen, and we are happy with this decision.

End of May Update

Don't have time to do the full update, we are SO busy at the moment!
But the quick update is:

Total Debt is now $293,598.46, down from $294,237.64 which means we reduced our total debt by $639.18. This is not much.... Mostly because we're in the midst of building a pergola and there are lots of things on credit cards which will be paid off before it starts accruing interest so hopefully next month should see quite a big drop!! So this month our credit card debt actually went UP! We started on June with $22,013.93 and now we have $23,008.44 which means an increase of $994.51.

My birthday was also in May, so I got some nice pressies from the hubby-to-be and furry babies, so no doubt I will see a bill with my own birthday presents on there soon! (Doesn't that just ruin the charade!!!) We also went on a big night out on the town, PLUS we went and saw Pink over the weekend, which ended up being a pricey evening out as well!

Anyway, will report more later. Got a heap of stuff to do, more decluttering to get done tonight, not to mention the cleaning that got neglected over the weekend - our shower is disgraceful!

Dear me....

Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote a really interesting post a while back called Ten Things I Wish I Had Done When I Was Twenty which, of course, makes me wonder what advice would I give my 20 year old self if I could send a letter back in time?

1) Start a skin routine! I didn’t develop a daily skin care routine until about 2 years ago, something I suspect I'll regret in a few years, now that 30 is only 12 months away. This is along the same lines as "wear sunscreen"...
2) Save money. Even if it’s only 5-10% of every pay check. That would’ve been $25 a week when I was 20 but if I had started to think that way when I was 20 I might not be drowning in debt now…
3) DO NOT use your credit card. I got one to establish a line of credit (I wanted a mobile phone) and within months it was maxed out on lame things like food and petrol
4) Use your mobile phone in moderation. I was a mobile phone junkie and this is long before capped plans came into force (where you can get $300 worth of calls for a measly $29 or something ridiculous like that) so I often had mobile phone bills that were 100’s upon 100’s of dollars. Not good.
5) Dump that loser! How did a lovely young lass like myself end up with a drug taking/dealing loser with no aspirations/goals, and little to no respect for me or anyone or anything in my life? Oh that’s right. He was cute. And I was stupid. Staying with him is one of my BIGGEST regrets.
6) Study. Not asking for High Distinctions but even a Credit would’ve been nice. I partied too hard all through university and suffered the consequences by taking an extra three semesters to finish my double degree.
7) Consider changing degrees. Think about what you REALLY want to be doing. If I could do this all over again there’s no way I would chose this career. I’d much rather have studied Health Sciences or Psychology and be working in something much more interesting like adolescent health or nutrition. Things that I honestly love learning about now!
8) Look after your car. Enough said. They would’ve lasted another 50,000kms and saved me a lot of heart ache if I’d just maintained them properly.
9) Exercise. Enough said.Quit smoking. Enough said. I finally quit when I was 25 but that was 7 years too late. I really should’ve known better.

Declutter update

The decluttered list so far:

1 - 3 Magazines
2 - Wii Guitar Hero World Tour packaging (been sitting in the study for weeks)
3 - Shoes so worn I can't wear them
4- Jumper with holes in it
5- 4 items from the fridge with questionable additional contents (i.e. furry tomato paste)
6- meat from freezer with freezer burn
7- kitty litter that the cat doesn't like
8- the nutrogena face wash that makes my skin burn and turn red
9- tooth whitening paste that makes me gag
10- BF's old footy boots he hasn't worn since he got his new ones
11- the bath mat our dog chewed
12- black shirt dress i haven't worn since January 2006! (bought it for a friends hen's night!)
13- three tops i only wore whilst bar tending (i.e have COUGAR or Canadian Club across the front!)
14- ugly money tin that a friend gave me
15- dog lead which i left outside and was subsequently chewed by dogs
16- box of old bills
17- 6 CD covers for CD's I haven't been able to find in over 12 months

I think I'm doing alright!
My next plan is to take EVERYTHING out of my walk in robe and only put back the things I like/need. Much better and brutal than standing in the WIR taking out stuff I don't want/need. I go this idea from Teri Hatcher on Letterman, thought it was brilliant!

Which train are you on??

So, you're on the healthy train. You KNOW when you're on it. You're sleeping a solid 8+ hours a night, leaping out of bed in the morning because you're brimming with energy. You have a healthy, low GI breakfast, grab the super healthy packed lunch out of the fridge on your way to work where you drink herbal tea, snack on almonds, eat your sensational healthy home made lunch and don't think about being tired all day. You go to the gym after work, doing a Step Class followed by some weights. You have a healthy dinner when you get home, read a health magazine, pack tomorrow's lunch and gym bag and set the alarm early because you want to walk to work...

So, you're on the frugal train. You KNOW when you're on it. You're sleeping a solid 8+ hours a night (properly covered so no heating/cooling req'd), leaping out of bed in the morning because you're brimming with energy. You have a healthy, frugal breakfast, grab your super frugal packed lucked out of the fridge on your way out and walk to work where you drink herbal tea (brought from home) and snack on a frugal snack. You walk home, where you feed your chickens and tend to your veggie garden. You make a batch of home made bread and muffins, call your loved ones during your phone company's free time, read some PF blogs and set the alarm early because you want to check the chooks for eggs in the morning...

So, you're NOT on either train. You're not frugal. You're not healthy. You wake up exhausted, with dry mouth, and incredibly thirsty because you left the heater on all night. You're running late so you throw on your clothes and rush out the door forgetting breakfast. You stop at the petrol station cursing yourself for not filling up on the cheap days. You buy a breakfast sandwich ($5) and coffee at the cafe($3.50), as well as an extra red bull ($4) because you are just that tired. You get to work, go to the vending machine for a mid morning snack ($2.50 chocolate bar). You don't have lunch so have to buy a $8 sandwich and a $3.50 iced tea. You also buy a magazine ($8.50) because there's an article on the front about setting a budget. You read the magazine and realise you already know everything, you're just not doing it. You get 3:30-itis and buy a coffee ($3.50) and muffin ($5.50) from the cafe. You realise you forgot your gym bag but that's okay because you're exhausted. You go home and your house is freezing so you turn up the heating and then veg on the couch until you realise you didn't defrost anything for dinner. You dial for take away ($14), and then watch TV until you fall asleep. You wake up at 3:30am and realise every light in your house is on, along with the TV. You crawl to bed, forgetting to turn off the heating on the way... Day's total spend is $58, exercise achieved ZILCH.

Which train are you on?

I'd like to catch one train to work and the other one home.... some how...

I'm currently on neither. I'm not really living like that last version of the story but I'm not far off! BUT...Can you be on both trains? Are you on both?

Tell me your story. How do you balance a frugal lifestyle, and a healthy lifestyle, along with a career, relationship and friendships?

Declutter inspiration!

Over here, Moving on up! is de-cluttering in May... her goal is 50 items in May. I am stealing this idea! (She got the idea from The Simple Dollar so I better mention that too!)

I'm changing this a bit tho, I am going to get rid of 100 things in 100 days. It's now 11:17pm so I'm looking around the room I am sitting in (the lounge room in front of the TV) and trying to find the first thing I can get rid of.... does rubbish count? There are 4 empty stubbies in my lounge (my BIL came round tonight for a beer).... I don't think rubbish counts. There are some things that don't belong in this room (i.e my camera is on the couch and i have at least 3 pairs of shoes in here) but they aren't things I need to get rid of. (I will put them in their correct place tomorrow.... I swear... LOL just kidding, I'll do it now!)

Okay, lets look again. What about this room pisses me off? Looking... looking.... found it. Magazines. There are 3 magazine in here, one is brand new, one was my sister's but i haven't read it yet, and one is a couple of weeks old, and I have read it cover to cover. I will throw out that magazine right now, and put the other two in my bag to take to work and read on my lunch break. And then I will throw them out. I will NOT bring them home.

You might think this is cheating because the magazine is just rubbish but I need to disclose something. I am a magazine hoarder. When I moved out of my parents house in 2006 I had to throw out a full sized wheelie bin's worth of magazines. In the stash of magazines the oldest one I had was a Girlfriend magazine from April 1992. I was in 12 years old when I bought it. I have improved 1000 fold since those days, but there is still room for improvement. Starting NOW!

Item #1: 3 Magazines

aaaaaaahhhh I feel better already!

From bad to WORSE

Nothing has changed in 2 weeks! OH MY GOD what is wrong with me!!!!???? Still spending. Still no planning. Still FAT!

In other news: I found out last week that my job is on the line. They announced voluntary redundancies however, we know after this there will be forced redundancies. It's hard to explain my situation without disclosing too much information/specifics but lets just say my department is made up of 3 specialists - myself, Specialist #2, and Specialist #3,

Issue one:
#2's wife has just have a baby, they also have another child.
#3 has two very young children and a stay at home wife.
I have no children. I have a partner who earns a good wage (and my boss knows this)
I believe that morally, I would be the wisest choice. We would not "suffer" like the other families. I am not the primary (or in this case, ONLY) bread winner in my "family".

Issue two:
I am the youngest in my team (read: least experience)
I was the last to join the team (read: last in, first out)
We all have very different roles. Mine is the most easily outsourced. Their roles are not (read: I am easily dispensable)
I believe that logically, I would be the wisest choice.

The only thing going my way is my company is heavily focused on the area I work in, so it would be seen as unfavourable to get rid of the role which is seen as most supportive of the technical aspect of this role. I am the only one of my kind in the whole company, nationally. I am also the busiest of the team, with the most projects, nationally. I am also the cheapest on my team! (Might not seem like much, but I'm clutching at straws, let me have my final moments of dignity please!!!)

*sigh* I am in a lot of trouble.

So what does this mean?

There is a severe shortage of jobs in Australia, especially in my area of expertise. In my general technical qualification, I can find work, but nothing glamorous i.e. mundane and monkey-ish. And certainly nothing that would progress me in the career path I have planned out for myself.

But even those jobs won't be around forever. If the economy keeps going on this current path, there will be a lot of people struggling for ANY work.

In reality, I know I will always be able to work and earn SOME money. Through university I worked in bars/clubs/pubs, in all kinds of restaurants, I was even a check out chick... I know I can find another "job". My career, however, would come to a very sudden screeching halt and 180 turn...

I need to talk to my boss. I would like to know in advance if I am being considered for forced redundancy. BEFORE I put a deposit on a $10,000 honeymoon! It may change a lot of things we had on our list for the wedding.

This might just be the inspiration I need to get back on the frugal band wagon.

Okay this time for real... I'm back!

I know I keep saying that I’ve fallen off the bandwagon and I keep saying I'll get back on it – but I haven’t. I don’t know where my motivation has gone! I’m not bringing lunch from home as often, I’m not aiming for No Spend Days… in fact the only thing I am doing is tracking my spending! The effects of this are pretty clear – Spending A LOT more and my weigh continues to go up and up as the lack of planning is translating into other parts of my life. I’m not planning exercise either!

Anyway, here’s our end of April Debt Update:
















Wedding Savings end of March: $ 1000.62
Wedding Savings end of April: $ 2,500.62
Still needed to save: $ 20,817.88

I won’t go over my April goal results. Because they’re all rubbish!

But I will set goals for May. They are pretty much the same as the goals I set for April, with some minor changes. You’ll notice that I’m not setting a budget for petrol, and this is because I no longer have to pay for petrol – it’s all going through work now!

In May I will:

Keep our groceries below $400
Repay $800 onto credit cards
Achieve 8 No Spend Days
Attend 8 Exercise classes
Attend 6 Personal Training Sessions
Bring lunch to work 16 times
Eat dinner at home 16 times
Eat a proper breakfast 16 times
Take the dogs for a walk 8 times (twice a week)
Read 2 books (I’ve already borrowed them from the library)
Lose 2kg! (I’ll check my weight tomorrow morning to find my starting point)

I really have to take some control of my weight…hopefully being well organised this month will help me!

Wedding update for those that are interested:
1) The dress from eBay arrived! It’s pretty good; some minor alterations required but it looks like I’ve saved myself about $1500.
2) We have booked a celebrant. She will cost $500, although I budgeted $600 so this is good!
3) We have booked a photographer for $2355. This is bad because I budgeted $1600 but BF decided he wanted all the extra albums and parents albums etc and since it’s his wedding too I thought we might as well do what he wants for a change hehe
4) We have decided to go to Vanuatu and possibly New Zealand for our honeymoon. This means only 6 nights in Vanuatu and then probably 5 nights in New Zealand’s North Island. I don’t know how this will affect our budget yet! But it should work out the same as 10 days in Vanuatu in the 5 star hotels! But overall I have budgeted $8500 for our honeymoon, for all accommodation, flights & spending money. Hopefully that’s enough!

I will try to be a more regular blogger; I don’t think I'll ever achieve any regular readership with the current state of this thing!!

I've been MIA cos I've been SHOPPING!

Where has the last week gone? I've been so busy with Easter and all that jazz, that suddenly, it's Thursday April 16th! I haven't even been tracking my progress altho I can safely say that I shopped out of control like it was going out of fashion... what's with me at the moment?

The good thing is because of the stimulus package that the Australian Rudd government is giving us, we'll be getting a "free" $1800 ($900 each) sometime in the next month which will pay for our expensive Easter and the shopping spree I did on Easter Monday.

Yes I went shopping. Mostly for clothes... Did I need them? Yes... I think I did. I sort of wish I hadn't spent the money but I know it was all stuff that I needed.

I have bought one pair of jeans in over 2 years. They cost me $30. Very cheap jeans. And they are starting to fall apart... I also regularly wear two pairs of black jeans that I bought almost 3 years ago. They're not quite black anymore. One pair has a tear in the leg and the other has a broke zip meaning the fly always comes undone. It's lame... I needed new jeans.

So - when I saw Dotti jeans on sale for $39.95 I bought a cool faded pair. I also bought two singlets for $20 (Three of my existing singlets have holes in them!) and a new cardigan, the same as the one I bought a couple of weeks ago, but in charcoal instead of black. Total spent at Dotti: $89.90 - Not bad for all those things!

I also bought a pair of black jeans from jay jays for $39.95 and a hoodie for $19.95 (Was $29.95 but I got $10 off for buying the jeans) so I spent $59.90 there.

I then went to Big W and bought Mr M 2 pairs of sports bonds jocks, and a 3 pack of normal trunks, bought myself a 7 pack of undies, a new belt (my old one lost the middle bit which you put thru the hole hehe) and some chewing gum. Total: $64 (I think I've forgotten something off that list)

Went to priceline, bought a 3pack of Johnston face wipes (should last me about 6 months!) and a buy-one-get-one-free pack of maybelline mascara (6 months worth), shampoo (haven't bought any for 6 months) and some boy shampoo for Mr M as well. (Stops him from using mine!) Oh I also bought Mr M a new loofah thingy because his old one is falling apart and looking very sick and tired. Total was about $49, I can't remember exactly because I also used my priceline loyalty voucher which was about $5 worth, so I spent $44-ish.

The part that was a bit excessive was my spending at JB Hi Fi. I haven't bought a new CD in AAAAGES and I was planning to just have a browse but I saw that latest Triple J Hottest 100 (compliation CD of top songs from 2008 for those not in the know) and thought I'd grab it... Also bought an EP I've wanted a while (Tame Impala - it was only $7) and then I remembered Mr M complain that his Nevermind CD doesn't work anymore and I saw it for $9.99 so I grabbed that too. All up I spent $39.

So, on that particular day, I spent about $300. That's not a huge amount, and I'm totally happy that I stocked up on those things at priceline and big w, and I love my new clothes... Haven't unwrapped the EP yet but the other two CD's are already on high rotation.

Verdict? Thumbs up. We can afford it, and even if we couldn't then the stimulus package would easily cover it, and I had fun!

What is our Net Worth?

I read regularly on PF blogs about people’s net worth. I’ve always been so focused on how much debt we have, but I’m really trying to motivate myself to be positive about my life, so I thought I’d have a look at what we’re worth. Keep in mind this is entirely based on estimates that I’ve gotten from looking around at what the current asking price for equivalent homes/cars/etc.

ASSETS (estimates):
House: $340,000
My Car: $15,000
His Car: $8,000
His Boat: $4,000
TOTAL: $367,000

DEBTS:
House: $258,655.69
Credit Cards: $24,544.50
Car: $14,198.72
TOTAL: $298398.91

Total Networth: $68,601.09

I supposed I feel good that that figure means we’re worth something…not entire sure how good or bad this figure is. I should roll over all my superannuation into one account so I can track it properly and see how much I have; I’ve been really slack about grouping it together. I wonder if my original super account opened for my 1st job in 1997 is still open… I’m pretty sure I have about $9,000 in one account, and $5,000 in another. Mr M would have at least 30k… I would hope so anyway! He’s been working full time for 7 years!

Weekend Wagon

I always seem to fall off the frugal and fitness wagons when it comes to the weekend.
I had already been struggling during the week because of bad planning (see last post) and I thought the weekend would be better because I would have the time to plan – but no, I was wrong. (This is also my week’s goals update, but I’m trying to do this in a less boring format!)

Frugal failures: We had dinner out on Tuesday night ($60), but also went out for dinner and movie on Friday night ($80 for dinner, not sure about the movie as BF paid for it out of his allowance) and Saturday I went grocery shopping and managed to spend $188 (holy expensive grocery shop batman, revisited!) PLUS $70 on booze. Holy schmoly. I had to put that all on the credit card, until BFs payday, tomorrow. I will pay it straight away, don’t you worry about that! I only managed one NSD this week, which was Monday.

Sunday I went to see my friends flower display, entry to the expo cost me $20 (!) and I also bought a bottle of diet coke ($4.20! WHAT THE? For sugary water?!) But luckily I managed to score free parking. We went out for dinner last night as well, but that was MIL’s shout, for all the hard work Mr M has been doing on her renovations. He’s saved her thousands so she thought she’d spoil us with a nice dinner out!

Fitness failures: Obviously the biggest failures are the fact I’ve eaten out so much this week! Tuesday was a massive chicken burger with chips, for Friday lunch I had a chicken schnitzel roll (OMG what am I, a uni student???) and for dinner was a (beautiful) 300g steak w greens and a massive bowl of chips and two beers and a wine. Thank god I resisted the popcorn at the movie. Sunday night’s dinner out was fantastic, but the duck was fried (bad bad bad) and the wine was flowing (more bad) and the DEEP FRIED ICECREAM was completely unnecessary and evil but geez I enjoyed it. Oh and did you say exercise? NONE all weekend!! I will give myself credit for the cardio session I did on my own on Monday, plus the weights session I did with my personal trainer on Wednesday, PLUS a cardio/boxing session with my trainer on Friday, however, eating crap all weekend and not exercising at all completely undoes all that good work. I also haven’t walked my dogs in over a month. Poor neglected puppies!!!

Looking back at what I’ve written, it’s pretty negative that I’ve called them both “failures”. Maybe next week I can report on achievements?!!?

What can I do better this coming week?
1) Make salads to take to work for lunch again!
2) Book in 2 sessions with my trainer, plus attend one pump class
3) Commit to taking the pups for TWO walks this week
4) Commit to 6 hours of reading time
5) Commit to 2 no spend days
6) Spend quality time with Mr M without spending money
7) Limit TV to 2 hours a night (one show, plus the news)
8) Cut out as much sugar as possible, except for fruit

I may report back on Thursday night or Friday morning, as its Easter Weekend, and set myself some goals for those 4 days, Friday – Monday. Luckily, Mr M couldn’t get out of his work commitments so we’re not going away with his friends like planned , so that should save some money, and mean I might actually see MY friends for a change!!

Taste of the old life

I'm very aware that my posts of late are a bit.. boring. I suppose I'm not really putting any thought into them, I'm just reporting on my spending of late. I think I'll stop posting weekly goals and plans as this is BORING... So this post is a bit more about lessons learnt...

This week, we've had a taste of our old life - the spending-whenever-I-feel-like-it life. It's a lame excuse but we've been unbelieveably busy. It's amazing how expensive a convenient life is.
On Monday I went out for lunch with Mr M, my hubby-to-be, because we hadn't spent much time together on the weekend. So that set us back about $23... that night Mr M worked at his Mum's place (she's renovating) whilst I went to the gym and he brought Chinese take away home him - another $19.

Tuesday night he had football training, whilst I worked late, and then we went to meet a potential celebrant, leaving her house at 8:30 when we realised we hadn't had dinner. We were near a restaurant we like that we rarely go to because it's across town - so we thought we'd grab a bite to eat - $65 later we headed home!

I have not thought about no spend days all week - and consequently haven't achieved one this week!

So what have I learnt?

1) PLAN PLAN PLAN! I've barely managed to throw together lunch the past couple of days, eating a half-arsed lunch of crackers with tuna and a muesli bar, with a tub of yogurt. Nothing has required any prepartion! We haven't eaten dinner at home yet this week (Wed night and tonight I had functions for the committee I volunteer for) and that's mostly because we haven't defrosted any meat - which is silly, because nothing is stopping us from eating a vegetarian meal for once in our lives! I really need to plan better so there is no reason to eat take away or out. I also need to plan my spending, which helps me make wiser choises. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

2) Spending does not equal more fun! Yes it was nice to be waited on, but I probably would've enjoyed a home cooked meal so much more. The chinese was okay, but my stir fry would've been nicer and cheaper. Dinner out was a very ordinary burger and chips!! You don't always get what you pay for!

3) Spending money is unhealthy! I've been eating so badly, I've put on more weight. I weighed 23.7kg the other morning. WOW. That's over 4 kg I've gained since just before christmas. Monday's lunch was a souvlaki... Monday's chinese wasn't too bad, but I didn't practise very good portion control. I knew I should've picked a nice salad on Tuesday night but I ended up having that chicken burger with chips because I felt like I hadn't eaten out in so long I should have something I wouldn't have at home. Eating out is not a night off from eating well, it's a night off from cooking & dishes.

Weekly Goal Update

The results from this past week:

Monday:
No Spend Day - Done!
Double exercise class - Fail - I stayed back at work, missing the first class!

Tuesday:
Grocery shop and petrol, plus pay this weeks bills Done -but forgot to buy petrol
No planned exercise

Wednesday:
No Spend Day - Fail - Needed petrol
Double exercise class - Fail

Thursday:
No Spend Day - Fail - but can't remember why!
Step class or walk dogs -Fail

Friday:
Planned spending day as we're going out for drink for a friends going away
No planned exercise

Saturday:
Walk dogs - Fail
Planned spending day as we're going out for dinner and drinks for BF's sister's birthday

Sunday:
Walk dogs - Fail
Will attempt to make this a no spend day, as Friday and Saturday night will be expensive! - Fail

I've done TERRIBLY! AGAIN!!!

Time to make my goals a big more realistic. Also, from now one, I think paying bills won't count as spending. Only spending my allowance, unplanned spending, groceries and petrol are counted as spending.

I'll try to keep my weekly goals aligned with my April goals...

This weeks goals are:

• 2 No Spend Days
• 1 Pump class
• 1 Other class
• 4 Home cooked meals
• 4 Lunchbox lunches
• 4 Breakfasts
• Read 3 nights min 30 mins
• 1 Dog Walk
• Stick to $100 Grocery budget
• Stick to $50 Petrol budget
• Stick to $75 Allowance

Lets see how I go...

End of March Update

I've realised that since I track my spending weekly it might be easier to track a month from a Monday to a Sunday i.e Monday March 30 until Sunday April 26 (4 weeks) would be easier for me to track! So today, March 29th is the end of my financial March... if that makes sense. The only problem with this is I will not have paid my March Credit card bills in full until Tuesday so there will be little change to our debt this month.

Credit Card 1: $6.94 (I'm still waiting on a 53.55 reimbursement)
Credit Card 2: -$175.40
Credit Card 3: $33.44
Credit Card 4: -$58.12
Credit Card 5: $64.07
Credit Card 6: -$13.41
Store Card: -$49.00
Home Loan 1: -$183.90
Home Loan 2: $397.56
Car Loan 1: -$264.41

Total March debt reduction: $242.23
New debt total: $298,098.91

These numbers are a bit confusing. I redrew $700 off our home loan which was an extra repayment we made a while ago, and I used to pay for something for BF's family, which they're SUPPOSED to pay us back for but I'm not holding my breath. The problem with being the "responsible" ones in the family is we often get stuck with these expenses. Little do they all know that we are in so much debt and really, can't afford it. But hey, that's what we do for the ones we love, right?

But at least the total debt number went down, and didn't go up.

My Goals for Financial April (March 29 til April 26) are:

Keep to the following budgets:
Groceries: $400
Petrol: $200

Pay:
$750 onto credit cards

Achieve:
8 No Spend Days
4 Pumps Classes
4 Other Classes
16 Lunchbox lunches
16 Home cooked dinners
16 Breakfasts
4 Dog Walks
2 Books read
2 kg weight loss

I've added a weight loss goal in there. I haven't been trying actively to lose weight but since I've noticed my trousers are a bit tight, I thought I better add one into the list! I need to make sure I do everything to feel my best on the big wedding day.

12 weeks into the year

I've been tracking our spending all year (except our allowance/fun money) and I thought it might be interesting to see how much we've spent in 12 weeks:

Groceries: $1190.08
Fuel: $487.79
Credit card debt: $3447.37
Dog food+Cat food+grooming/worming: $638.48
Mobile phones: $560.64
Mortgage: $5593.25

We're approaching the end of the 1st quarter, 12 weeks into the year, and what surprises me the most is how much we've spent on our animals! That's not a completely thorough account because I know that I've bought toys and cat food out of my allowance. I can safely expect to spend over $2,500 on animal costs this year. Wow. This doesn't include a new outdoor bed that they need. We haven't bought a new one since getting our 2nd dog, so they squish onto the one designed for just our boy - it's a bit cosy now that our girl has hit 22kg!

You may think this seems like a lot of money on pet supplies, so I would just like to mention that we feed our dogs and my cat Eukanuba -$110 for a 15kg bag of dog food, $40 for a 3kg bag of kitty food - and i got my cat groomed this summer which cost $100! We've talked about potentially feeding them a lower quality food like Supercoat or Optimum but we're really happy with how they look and the results we get so we probably will feed them Eukanuba for as long as we can afford it! Is this silly???

Spending Update

Hello kids!

Today was a planned spending day, so I paid bills, did grocery shopping and bought dog food - BUT I forgot to buy petrol so I'm going to have to break a No Spend Day this week because my petrol won't last time my next spend day (Friday). Bummer!

Weeks spending so far
Groceries: $78.08 (plus $10.98 from Sunday)
Dog Food: $111.99

I got a letter from Credit Card 5 Bank today offering me a balance transfer from any non-them card, 6.90% for 6 months, I'm going to see how much I'm allowed to transfer, and potentially transfer the full balance of Credit Card #1 (Last check was $3737.98) although I suspect they won't let me transfer that much! At least then I can cancel one card, and reduce the number of repayments. Plus, Credit Card #1 has the highest interest rate, 18.99%, so I'll save 12.09% for 6 months and then it will go back up to 12.99% so I will still be saving 6% per annum. Good deal. I'll call them tomorrow and see how much I can transfer!

Reading lots of US PF blogs has shown me some serious differences between there and Australia. For example, your credit score affects the interest rate you can get on a loan - whereas here, what a bank offers is a set thing... that's not to say once you have a credit card you can't barter for a reduction, but generally all loans, credit cards, homeloans have set interest rates and fees. We haven't seen credit cards reducing limits etc YET and as this letter shows they're still offering credit - I think I've been offered it as I've made more than the minimum repayment on the balance transfer every month, and have never been late on a payment. I have a lot of debt but I make all my payment on time, making an ideal customer - they make a lot of money from in interest but I'm reliable!

End Of Weekend Report - Goal Results

We went very well with spending over the weekend, the only things I bought outside of "allowance money" was toilet paper and cordial which I forgot to pick up in my shop during the week. I'll be including that $10.98 in next weeks grocery shop, because I could have bought them tomorrow but it's a planned No Spend Day! I bought a few random things yesterday like a bunch of cheap greeting cards, and a couple of doggie chew toys but that was out of my allowance.

We gave a $100 gift voucher at the party on Saturday, and I also bought a new packet of Yasmin pills, but they were both planned and have been on my budget spreadsheet for months, so I think we went really well. I also returned Eclipse, and I got the girl to refund it back onto my debit card so I couldn't "accidentally" spend it! I also put two pairs of pants on lay-by and paid the $10 deposit out of my allowance! I wanted the pants now, because there was a buy one get one half price deal, so i thought I'd pay what i can afford now, and then pay for them when I've got money! Gosh I'm getting good at this!

So, at the end of the week, I have $19.75 left of my $75 allowance. I have put the coins ($4.75) in my piggy bank and put the $15 in an envelope in my bottom drawer to put towards the wedding. When it gets to $100 I will transfer it into our savings. (Envelope total = $20 as I found $5 in a pair of jeans which I'm sure is change from last weeks allowance) I started the piggy bank a couple of weeks ago, which is where I put my coins at the end of the day - once this is full (it's a small pig!) I'll deposit it into our savings as well.

I'm really hoping all these little things will add up! I know we can afford the big things like reception and dress, but my inspiration for these small deposits are the small things in the wedding - like wedding cars or garden decorations (we have to hire a red carpet/aisle and rose ball bushes) which ultimately are wedding day luxuries. So, if I can give up a few of life's luxuries during the year I'll get to have my wedding luxuries at the end of the year! (And if we save enough it may end up being another round of cocktails in Vanuatu! Or perhaps the beginnings of our savings fund for Euro-trip 2010!)

I'm feeling a bit blah about blogging today.... because I'm feeling really really fat!! I have totally FAILED my food and exercise plan!!! Here's the weeks goal results:

Tuesday:
Food: Fail - because I had a crap load of garlic bread with dinner!
Exercise: 10 min warm up on treadmill + weights session Fail - I didn't exercise!
Other: Pay bills, grocery shopping, read book for min 1 hour Done!

Wednesday:
No Spend Day Fail :( I can't remember why though lol
Same food as Tuesday : Fail - ate a crap load of chocolate
Exercise: Aerobics class followed by Pump class: Fail!
Other: Read book for min 1 hour - Done!

Thursday:
Same breakfast, snacks and lunch as Tue/Wed and dinner with friend - Vietnamese Pho: Fail - ate corn chips for a snack
Exercise: 30mins on exercise bike - Fail - I didn't exercise all week!
Other: Read book for min 1 hour - Fail

Friday:
No Spend Day (Mr.M owes me lunch, so his shout!) Fail - Mr M couldn't meet me for lunch so I had to buy my own :(
Exercise: Personal training session @ 7am - Fail - He cancelled! So I just slept in!
Food: Fail - ate what I planned but drank a crap load of beer at a friends place and then ate chips and crackers

Saturday:
Exercise: Pump class @ 9:30am Fail - cleaned the house and visited my sister
Food: Fail - JUST! Ate all to plan, and even drove to party to avoid drinking booze but then ruined it all by eating a piece of cake!
Other: Read book for min 1 hour - Fail

Sunday:
No spend day! Fail
Exercise: Walk dogs - Fail
Food: Fail - overate at MIL's place
De clutter study - Fail
Other: Read book for min 1 hour - Fail

Oh my god I suck! This is ridiculous, I've GAINED weight these past few weeks because of lack of commitment to my eating and exercise plan!!

I'm not going to make daily lists of food, but my food goal of the week is NO chips/biscuits/chocolate!! I will go an entire week without them... maybe I should make it late Lent commitment? No junk food.... hmmm okay, lets try!

This coming weeks plan:

Monday:
No Spend Day
Double exercise class

Tuesday:
Grocery shop and petrol, plus pay this weeks bills
No planned exercise

Wednesday:
No Spend Day
Double exercise class

Thursday:
No Spend Day
Step class or walk dogs

Friday:
Planned spending day as we're going out for drink for a friends going away
No planned exercise

Saturday:
Walk dogs
Planned spending day as we're going out for dinner and drinks for BF's sister's birthday

Sunday:
Walk dogs
Will attempt to make this a no spend day, as Friday and Saturday night will be expensive!

Let's see how I go....

Books, CDs & DVDs

When I mentioned buying Eclipse the other day, asgreen from Always The Planner asked a very valid question: "Why not get it at the library?". Hmmmm... why don't I? I mean, I'm currently not a member at any library but that doesn't mean I can't be.

I jumped online and saw that there's a library right near my work - they even have Eclipse there! It is currently on loan and there's a reserve list for it, but I can wait! I mean... free is better than $24 even if I have to wait a month or so! PLUS think about all the other books that I can read in the mean time...

I have shelves of books that I've read a couple of times, I should really sell them on ebay or something. Of course I'll hold onto the ones I love to re-read, but there are a STACK which I probably wouldn't even miss.

Unfortunately I can't do this with my music or DVDs. I love CDs. I love the format, I love the covers, I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. For some reason I don't trust the idea of putting all on my computer and then potentially selling them. What happens if my laptop dies? Or my back up gets fried? I'll have nothing! That worries me... I have, between Mr M and I, a good... hmmm... 300+ CDs? Even if I sold them for $5 each, that would be $1500. And some of them I'm sure I could get more for. They're still $30 in the shops, and I generally keep my CDs in top condition! Geez that's almost tempting.

If I sold my 200+ DVD collection I'd get a bit for that too. Geez, I better stop thinking about this. I'm not DESPERATE for money. It's not like I'm homeless.

I'm keeping the CDs and DVDs... but the books... hmmm the books I might sell!

Wanted: A different kind of life

The main thing that made me want to change my attitude towards money was planning the wedding. When Mr M proposed we discussed the idea of eloping, but decided that since we’re so close to our families it was important to have an event they could all share in – and so the traditional wedding was decided on. (Although I’m still not convinced the white gown and $400 cake is really my style!)

We did the wedding budget, and included all the things that most people include… flowers…cake... suits… dress… and the total came to that staggering almost $30k amount you see over to your right under “Wedding Savings”

Wow. How were we going to get $30,000 together in 12 months? A more importantly, how were we going to maintain our expensive lifestyle (including making repayments on over $25k worth of credit card debt, plus car loan, plus mortgage) and still enjoy what we perceived to be “quality of life”?

It became pretty clear pretty quickly that things had to change, and that’s really how this blog came to be: I started reading (and obsessive) over personal finance blogs and wanting to know all the “tricks” and “secrets” of the finance world, and began writing all my own thoughts and experiences with money here.

But what I’ve really learnt is there are no tricks or secrets. And I’m learning and more importantly, believing that the lifestyle I was leading wasn’t letting me have “quality of life”. I always thought the debt didn’t bother me but now I realise I was haunted by it. I was petrified people might find out and ruin my reputation of being a well educated and smart person. I constantly wondered how I would ever be able to afford to stop working in order to have children.

The concept of “money in the bank” was foreign to me. The concept of “saving” for something didn’t exist, instead I believed in paying with credit and repaying it later. If I saw a few extra dollars in my bank account I could quickly and easily find something to spend it on!

Now I’m genuinely looking forward to a different kind of life: a life where I’m not controlled by my debt. A life where I can make purchases with cash, but not on silly home cluttering items, but practical, well thought out and researched items. I’m learning that if I don’t eat crappy take away food constantly I'll be able to have a beautiful holiday every year to a beautiful place with beautiful food, with my beautiful soon-to-be husband. I'll be able to take two years off work to have a baby. Those things are what make a quality life, not Friday night drinks with friends and lots of clothing in my closet. Sure, I love Friday night drinks, and I love new clothes, but once I’ve paid back my debt, then I can really enjoy those things - when I buy the beautiful shoes and handbags I love with CASH and not on a card. God that will be good!

I’m really looking forward to that different life. I can’t wait. I’m impatient that I can’t just wipe the slate clean and start again, but I think the hard slog will make it so much more worthwhile, and will hopefully ingrain this new way of thinking into me permanently.

Holy expensive grocery shop, batman!

Went grocery shopping tonight, and spent $125.86! Woah!

I won't bother with typing out the whole thing but the big costs were:

• $14.98 for 18 cans of Diet Coke with a free 12 can case of Lift thrown in - I bought a can of Diet with lunch today, the canteen has jacked the price up to $1.80 so I've decided to bring them from home and leave in my office fridge. This works out less than 50c a can
• $6.39 Deodorant for Mr Melbourne
• $5.68 Mozzarella cheese for tonight's lasgane (we got 8 serves out of it - 2 serves eaten tonight, 2 in fridge for tomorrow and 4 in freezer)
• $6.20 Parmesan Cheese
• $4.35 Garlic bread
• $4.37 2L Lite Milk (when did milk get so expensive?)
• $5.99 for an Enchilada kit (Mr M wanted it *sigh*)
• $11.14 for mince for lasagne - forgot to defrost the kg in the chest freezer as night *double sigh*
• $5.68 for 2kg of onions
• $4.19 Loaf of bread
• $4.50 card to accompany present for friend's party on Saturday

Now I'm not pointing fingers... but that shop would've been MUCH more within budget if I had gone on my own. Mr M wants EVERYTHING!

Also bought petrol, $45.33, and only other spending was the before mentioned $1.80 on a can of diet coke. No big bills due this week, other than mortgage repayment coming out, so not much to plan. Should be able to have NSD tomorrow no worries!

(If only I could be so sure about my eating. I was pretty good today until I got home and had garlic bread and BEER with dinner! grrrrrrrrr)

This weeks spending, eating and exercise plan

After some thought, I've put together a plan for the week - after today's disgraceful eating performance, I think it's time to make some serious commitments to eating better! Also need to make real commitment to my March goals!

Tuesday:

• Breakfast: weetbix, skim milk, coffee and 1 piece toast w jam
• MT: grapes
• Lunch: salad w tuna and corn thins
• AT: plum & yogurt
• Dinner: lasagne and veggies
• Exercise : 10 min warm up on treadmill + weights session
• Other: Pay bills, grocery shopping, read book for min 1 hour

Wednesday:

• No Spend Day
• Same food as Tuesday
• Exercise: Aerobics class followed by Pump class
• Other: Read book for min 1 hour

Thursday:

• Same breakfast, snacks and lunch as Tue/Wed
• Dinner with friend - Vietnamese Pho
• Exercise: 30mins on exercise bike
• Other: Read book for min 1 hour

Friday:

• No Spend Day (Mr.M owes me lunch, so his shout!)
• Exercise: Personal training session @ 7am
• Breakfast: cereal + milk, no toast
• MT: coffee
• Lunch: Subway ham sub, no cheese!!!
• AT: almonds
• Dinner at friends house: unknown but guessing will involve beer and wine!

Saturday:

• Exercise: Pump class @ 9:30am
• Breakfast: baked beans on toast
• MT: almonds
• Declutter WIR
• Lunch: chicken salad
• AT: yogurt
• Other: Read book for min 1 hour
• Dinner: chicken sandwiches
• Other: Friends engagement party, driving so not much booze, gift $100

Sunday:

• No spend day!
• Exercise: Walk dogs
• Breakfast: Toast w jam
• MT: fruit
• Lunch: chicken burgers
• Declutter study
• AT: yogurt
• Other: Read book for min 1 hour
• Dinner: @ MILs

Do you think this plan is too rigid? I don't want to be unrealistic but I also don't want it to be too easy - it needs to be a challenge and there's nothing wrong with aiming high, right?

In terms of spending there's nothing on the radar that I want to buy, now that i have my new cardigan and shoes. (Although the shoes hurt my feet - do you think it's because they're new or because they're cheap? Only time will tell...) I wouldn't mind some new trousers for work but I think I can live without them for a couple more weeks, and my next pay pay (April 15th) is earmarked for me to buy some new jeans! (That should be a heart breaking experience no doubt - I really struggle to find jeans because of my weird beer gut apple shaped boy-like body!!)

I think I might post too often? I should concentrate on less crap and more concise planning, less chatter and more information and links to other sites. If I want this to be something worth reading I think I'll need to plan my posts better!

I wonder if anyone other than myself will ever read this?

More weekend spending & last week in review

I forgot to update yesterday to add that I also bought myself a cardigan ($29.95) which I wanted, pushing my "unplanned" spending to $90.92. Also, I spotted a copy of Eclipse for $19.85 at Big W and am contemplating returning the copy I bought at Target for $23.99 (it's still in the bag) and then buying it at Big W. Is that lame?

Also, I couldn't find a present for my SIL so we ended up giving her a $50 voucher. So, that $30 budget was also blown, but I can live with that, because it's a present for one of my favourite people! (I'm really lucky that I get along so well with my inlaws!)

Today is a planned No Spend Day, and so far I'm doing well, I just ate my lunchbox lunch (tuna salad) and have no plans to break the planned NSD. Dinner is planned (chicken skewers with rice and veggies) altho I haven't planned any exercise because I've got a meeting tonight for one of the groups that I volunteer with so I don't think I'll have time.

I better put up a meal plan, spending plan and exercise plan later tonight!

Also to review last weeks goals/plans:

Tuesday: Spending Day. Walk dogs, have home cooked meal and read book. FAIL! I had a home cooked meal and read my book but didn't walk the dogs!

Wednesday: No Spend Day – Remember to take light milk and weeks worth of healthy snacks to work from home, tuna salad for lunch, go to gym for double class, home cooked dinner. FAIL! Only did one class... But good for everything else!

Thursday: No Spend Day – Brown bag lunch, take the dogs for their walk after work, followed by home cooked dinner and read my book. FAIL! Didn't walk the dogs

Friday: My pay day – Personal training in the morning, breakfast at work, pay bills, no Friday lunch out, brown bag it instead (to make up for today), meet friend for cuppa at her place after work, walk dogs, home cooked dinner and quiet night in with some wine, read more of book. BIG FAT FAIL! Cancelled my PT session, had a take away lunch, didn't walk the dogs, didn't read my book and went out for dinner.

Saturday: De-clutter wardrobe, Pump class, breakfast lunch and dinner all at home, try and read more book. FAIL! Didn't declutter robe, went SHOPPING instead of to Pump, had lunch out and didn't read book. I suck at this!!!

Sunday: De-clutter study, walk dogs, breakfast lunch and dinner all at home, read book. My goal is to finish book by end of weekend! FAIL AGAIN! Didn't declutter, didn't walk the dogs and ate lunch out (altho i didn't pay for it, it was at church) and didn't come close to finishing my book because I didn't read it!!!

So to review my last week - I failed on pretty much every single goal! Shocker! The dogs, to this day, remain unwalked in the month of March. My goal for march was to walk them 10 times, so I'm going to have to start walking them every day to make up for it!! I'm also going to have to power read through April Fool's Day and Eclipse (once I return it and rebuy it) to finish both by the end of the moment.

Better get crackin'!

The weekends damage

We've been really good lately and decided to try the new Asian restaurant near our house for dinner last night (Friday) as we haven't gone out, just the two of us, for a while. So it was a bit of a treat... Unfortunately it was a bit more expensive than I was expecting, $20+ for mains, so with a couple of glasses of wine the bill was $65, plus we left a $5 tip... (Even tho we don't have to tip in Australia, I still like to leave something!)

But the part I was very proud of was neither of us has spent much of our allowance this week so we had plenty to cover dinner and then some. We didn't have plans to go out at any other point in the weekend either so we shouldn't fall behind. Normally I would've put that kind of dinner on a CC in order to "free up" money for the weekend, with the best intention of paying it back, but really, just end up leaving it and then paying interest on it - or as I said in my last post, I'd end up paying for it twice.

Today I've sort of fallen off the bandwagon in terms of spending. I accompanied my sister on a shopping trip and ended up buying a few things for myself that I've been thinking about for a while. I knew this would be potentially dangerous, as I LOVE strolling around the shops which is why I've avoided them for months now!

I ended up buying the new shoes I wanted (on special, only $23.99) and the third book in the Twilight series, Eclipse (also $23.99) and a DVD (Underworld 1&2, $12.99). The shoes were planned, but I really should have waited til Eclipse was on special... as for Underworld, that was pretty much an impulse buy. I've seen it in the shops for a while, and it had always been about $30 so when I saw it for $12.99 I snapped it up. Also went to the supermarket for groceries and I'm starting to realise that $150 shop at the market we did at the market a couple of weeks ago may have meant we won't be buying red meat for a few weeks, but there are still so many other things we need! Today I managed to spend $88.69 at Coles on pretty much nothing fresh! The list is:

• 4L of extra virgin olive oil - $24.00 (about half price!)
• Kit kat family block $2.00 (on special)
• Paper towels (3 rolls) - $4.00 (on special)
• 2 x gluten free spaghetti - 2 for $6.00 (on special)
• 5 x tuna cans - $6.00 (on special)
• Fresh milk 1L - $2.36
• 2 x UHT milk - $1.88 each
• Moccona coffee - $11.50 (on special)
• 4 x Skinless chicken breasts - $10.58 (on special $10/kg
• 2 x Carmen's muesli bars - $4.00 each
• Omo washing powder concentrate 1kg - $6.50 (on special)
• Ground coffee - $3.99 (on special)

Pretty much everything was on special, and on the list I wrote, except the kit kat (obviously lol) and the ground coffee which was such a good price i knew I should grab it. I shouldn't have bought the chocolate because I ate most of it tonight while watching a movie!

I also stopped in at the Warehouse and bought 3 x 500g packs of Optimum weight management cat food for $1.97 each (very cheap!) plus an oil/diffuser for our bathroom ($7.99) and another tub to collect shower water in ($2.99) so the total was $16.90, but I paid for it out of my allowance this week. I've got about $20 to last til Monday but I know I've totally cheated as the DVD and book really should have come out of my allowance! But I mentioned a couple of posts ago I had given myself a $100 budget for new shows, a cardigan and a lint remover - at least I got the shoes! I might see if I can pick up a good lint roller/remover online!

Good news is I won't need to buy anything until Tuesday when we'll probably need some bread and fruit which I could probably grab for less that $15.

What makes me happy is that even though I made unplanned purchases this week, I didn't put anything on a credit card, and my budget for the next few weeks is still looking good, with nothing going into the red!

P.S In an added bonus, Mr Melbourne's brother paid us back the $200 odd dollars that he owes us! Yes! Straight on the credit card!

Paying for it twice

I love the name of the blog I've Paid For This Twice Already because it reminds me of my weight watchers days where they always said "don't lose the same kilo twice". God, I hate paying interest! I hate that I pay over $3000 a month onto debt and only half goes to paying principal amounts... grrr! The strange part is, I've had this debt for a long time and whilst I've never enjoyed paying interest it's never bothered me as much as it does now. Maybe because I want a different quality of life? Maybe it's because I know for every year I hold onto this debt, it's another year before I can stop working and raise a family?

When I think about all the smallish purchases I've put on credit cards, like petrol, restaurants, cheap flights I feel sick to my stomach... those things have cost me a fortune in the long run, as I've paid for them over and over. Not just twice, but quite possible 5 or 6 times over. The last time we got cheapish flights they were about $80 each, each way, so we spent $320 on airfare plus a few hundy on hotels and another few hundy of spending money... I wonder how much that holiday to QLD really cost us! Really, I don't want to think about it. I'm just going to move on, and focus of paying it back.

I stopped carrying any form of credit card a few weeks ago, and had my everyday ATM card changed to a Mastercard Debit card, so I can use my own money but have the convenience of a credit card. I'm really really set in the fact that we will not accrue any more debt this year, and I\we will achieve my\our goal of reducing our debt by over $10k this year PLUS pay for a $25k+ wedding. I know it's a lot of money but there's no reason why we can't.

We were discussing redundancies the other day, as most people are discussing lately. The company that I used to work for, in the automotive industry has just let go almost 200 staff, and some of my old pals in my old department were in that group - I'm glad I wasn't still working there. But there's no more job security in my current industry (construction) than in automotive and I suspect my current department could very easily be disolved as we fall into a project management sector of the company, and what we do could be easily outsourced/contracted out.

But, to tell you the truth, I'm not worried about losing my job. Not because I think it's secure, but because I know my work ethic, and I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not saying I'd WANT to look for another job, but I'm just saying I know I can find more work. I don't care if I have to wait tables or pull beers for a living, I'll always do what's in my power to earn a wage. There are still jobs in my field being advertised despite redundancies country wide, so it's not an entirely dry river of opportunity.

I often wonder about what the unemployment figures in Australia are in comparison to the number of jobs are being advertised on seek.com.au or mycareer.com.au - there are always stories on television about how Australians are slackers and would rather get the dole than work for money, soour unemployment rates are innaccurate. It should be a job-seekers rate, so instead it would say i.e. 4% of Australians are looking for work, as opposed to 6.5% of Australians are unemployed. Just something I often wonder about!

Don't earn to spend, and don't forget about generosity!

I was reading this article about the "Five Habits of Millionaires" and points 1 and 5 really stood out to me. Point 1 because it's something I need to do, and Point 5 because it's something I already do and will always do.

1. Avoid the Earn-to-Spend Mentality

I don't think it's ever occurred to me NOT to earn to spend. When you're a teenager you get your first job because you want extra money. I can't speak for all 17 year old but when I started working in the fast food industry I wasn't saving that money. I already had a car, and paying for my uni degrees upfront didn't even occur to me. I earned that money to spend it. And not wisely!

I look back now, and really regret not listening to my mother's wise words: "Save SOME money". She didn't mean all of it. She always said to me "even if you only put away $10 a week you'll end up ahead" but I foolishly thought $10 a week was lame. If I had saved $10 a week every week since I started working in October 1997 I would have very close to $6000 today. Not a HUGE amount of money but when you consider we owe $25,000 in credit cards, that $6000 would be nice!


And if I had started saving then, maybe I would've developed healthier money attitudes and I would have learnt to appreciate the value of money sooner and not have "wasted" it or accrued credit card debt! I need to learn that I earn money to provide necessities for our lives, not to "spend". It's the same as attitudes towards food. If you can learn the difference between "every day" food and "sometimes" food, then you can have a healthy attitude towards food.
If i can learn the difference between necessary spending (i.e for food, shelter etc) and luxury spending (new handbags, shoes etc) then I will have a healthy attitude towards money. Just cos I earn that money doesn't mean i get to "spend it".

Once I've mastered this, then one day, yes, I will be able to have those luxuries more often. And achieve life long dreams like travelling through South America. Right now I would HAPPILY swap all those dinners I put on my credit card for 2 months of back packing through Europe.


5. Be Generous

Looking after others is something I can never stop doing. Just yesterday Mum called and said she was having some money troubles and I offered her some money to pay a couple of bills and to send to her mother overseas. Of course, she proudly declined the money for her own bills but was thrilled that I would send some money to my grandmother.

It's for this same reason I sponsored two of my friends this week, one is doing a 100km walk to raise money for Oxfam, and the other, a lovely girl I know is shaving her head for Save For A Cure (Leukemia Foundation) and I sponsored each of them $25.

We also give to charity every month, even though cancelling it and saving that $24 a month seemed appealing when we realised how much debt we were in - but I just can't justify it. We still have a lot of luxuries that I could cut back -- until there is no more blood to squeeze from the stone, there is always some to give, right?

So... where does that leave me now? I've just got to learn to think that the money I earn isn't just to spend... I need to make it a priority to repay debt (blah dead money) and start saving!! And always, ALWAYS, have room in my budget for giving. Either way i just need to stop spending!!!

Although... today I am breaking my No Spend Day to buy myself some new shoes for work! The ones I've been wearing have stretched so much it's dangerous to walk in them - that'll teach me not to buy cheap shoes! These $20 ones from K-mart have only lasted me about 6 months. Oh and I HATE to say it but I really need some new work clothes. A colleague actually mentioned to me how faded my black cardigan is. With the cold weather approaching I could really use a nice new thick one. And I noticed today that all my pants are getting lint balls on them, so I also want to buy a good quality lint remover! If I can revamp my existing clothes I won't have to buy so many new items. I'm giving myself $100 limit, as I've assessed our budget for the coming month and we can afford that, especially with all the overtime Mr Melbourne (i.e BF) has been doing lately.

I feel guilty shopping! The bright side is it's my sister-in-law-to-be's birthday so I get to buy her a nice present as well - don't worry, it's been in my budget since January!

Damage control update

Well, I didn't walk the dogs like I had planned but I did get some grocery shopping done! Didn't make the wisest choices tho, as I forgot we still had some stuff in the fridge and re-bought them! Also bought my petrol and paid some bills.

Today's spending:

Lunch: Subway $6.85
Petrol: $47.14 (including some chewing gum for the car)
Electricity Bill: $219.11
Transferred $220 to credit card to make up for weekend purchases, including $74 for this months minimum repayment
Internet/phone bill: $62.43
Groceries:

• 4 x cans tuna $5.00
• Corn thins $1.96
• Bread Rolls $2.25
• Loaf of Bread $4.99
• 1L Rev milk $2.39
• 1kg bag of carrots $2.29
• Cherry tomatoes $1.99 (Still had TWO punnets at home!)
• Broccolini $3.99
• Chinese Broccoli $1.99
• 2 x peaches $2.35
• 4 x plums $1.97
• 2 x nectarines $1.90
• 2 x sweet corn $1.00
• 2 x Lebanese cucumbers (Had 1 at home)
• 1.2kg White seedless grapes $3.49
• 1 x lettuce (the worst part was there was 2.5 at home!!!)
  

Total: $40.79 - if you recall, i had budgeted $30 but I failed to include fruit, milk and bread in that estimation so overall not a bad shop. BF likes the expensive bread and I "wasted" some money by purchasing things already at home.

Ate dinner at home (check for home cooked meal!) and have plans to read my book as soon as I press "Publish Post".... ciao!

P.S Got a letter from private health fund informing me it was going up to $128.51 a month - up about $5 a month! Not good!

Late start damage control

You’d think after the weekends horrible attempt at keeping to a budget I would have gone grocery shopping as planned last night and have made plans to be on my best behaviour this week but no… It’s like I’ve morphed into a much uglier version of myself!

This morning I jumped on the scales to see the damage that I had done over the weekend. It was bad. 72.8kgs. Ouch.

Armed with that knowledge you’d think I’d organise to have a healthy day. Two weetbix? Good start. Topped with full cream milk? Not good. Downing three (full fat) coffees before noon? Double not good. (We ran out of light milk at work.) And then, the bitter cherry on the top was I had Subway for lunch. It was a 6’ ham sub (good) but I couldn’t resist the cheese (bad). Plus the sub and a sprite zero left a tidy $6.85 dent in my wallet (ugly).

So. It’s time to do some damage control – I need to plan the rest of my week.

Rest of today: pay week’s bills, buy petrol (budget $50) and groceries (fresh veggies and stuff for lunches only – Budget $30). Walk dogs, have home cooked meal and read book.

Wednesday: No Spend Day – Remember to take light milk and weeks worth of healthy snacks to work from home, tuna salad for lunch, go to gym for double class, home cooked dinner.

Thursday: No Spend Day – Brown bag lunch, take the dogs for their walk after work, followed by home cooked dinner and read my book.

Friday: My pay day – Personal training in the morning, breakfast at work, pay bills, no Friday lunch out, brown bag it instead (to make up for today), meet friend for cuppa at her place after work, walk dogs, home cooked dinner and quiet night in with some wine, read more of book.

Saturday: De-clutter wardrobe, Pump class, breakfast lunch and dinner all at home, try and read more book.

Sunday: De-clutter study, walk dogs, breakfast lunch and dinner all at home, read book. My goal is to finish book by end of weekend!

So that’s my plan. Let’s see if I stick to it!

We’ve got a few big bills to pay this week; annual car insurance ($906) and BF’s overdue speeding ticket ($226.50 – terrible!) but I’m still planning on putting $2500 onto wedding fund. BF got a bigger than usual pay check this week as he’s taking some leave and gets leave loading – an extra $500, which makes this weekend just gone less painful.

In other exciting news, I had been thinking of upgrading our laptop with the stimulus package us Aussies get in April ($900 for those who earn under $80k!) but BF’s boss has decided to buy it for us instead as a bit of a bonus for BF… NICE. I might just slide that $900 straight onto a credit card instead!

Expensive Weekend

We had an expensive weekend. A VERY expensive weekend.

We had planned the long weekend away water skiing and I really should have anticipated an expensive weekend. Petrol for the 3.5 hours drive each way, take away food, dinner out one night, other food, booze for the three nights, plus the accommodation, fishing stuff etc. We were going with BF's best mate and his wife and another friend, and it's always a big boozy weekend with that crew.

I had pretty much cleared out our bank account paying every bill due for the next week and we were left with about $250 -- so we withdrew that, and it covered food ($60), accommodation ($70), dinner out ($70), food on the go ($30 on crap), and I've got $20 left in my wallet... Notice that didn't include everything I mentioned earlier... we put $120 on BF's credit card for a slab of beer and a slab of bourbon cans, and another $50 on his credit card for fishing tackle and bait. OUCH OUCH OUCH.

I'm going to pay back that extra credit card cost this week so our debt won't go up, but all up we spent $420 on a weekend that I didn't really plan for, which puts us $420 behind on potential debt repayment, and that actually hurts me more.

In other news, I think we've decided to down grade and sell my car! We bought my car last year for about $17,000 and we've started to realise that we're not using the mid-size 4WD for what it's designed for regularly enough to justify having it. It drinks about 13L/100km and I drive about 250km a week, so I'm filling up the tank with about $70 of petrol every 10 days or so.

Now that BF's boat is out-of-order, we never use my car to tow it, or anything along those lines. A quick look on the internet has shown the economic downturn has hurt my car's value quite a bit, as no one wants a thirsty car! But I should be able to sell it for $15k if i move quickly. I'm looking at buying a 2.0L 4 cylinder 4 door mid-size sedan so even I can keep it for a few years until we have a family. (One child will be okay in a mid-size car but two would be a stretch!)

I'm hoping to spend less than $12,500 and I'll put the extra straight onto the car loan which will take it down to under $12,000 so I won't have put us into negative equity in terms of cars - but I'll save in petrol and most likely insurance straight away! So over a few years, it'll make a big difference. Later on, when we have more play money, we'll consider buying an old 4WD to tow the boat... assuming we ever decide to put the money into it that's required to get it running! (I'm really grateful that BF isn't pushing the idea of getting it fixed - it'll cost about $5000 and since the wedding is as important to him as it is to me and we both need to make some sacrifices this year - I'd be happy to elope but he wants a big family event!)

Anyway, today is a public holiday (Monday) and we've spent money today, and tomorrow I need to go grocery shopping and buy petrol so it'll also be a spend day. I'm aiming to have a no spend day on both Wednesday and Thursday so I shouldn't fall too far behind my goals for March!

My other goals are not moving along very well - still haven't finished my 1st book (April Fools Day by Bryce Courtney) and I still haven't taken the dogs for a long walk. This week I'll do a double class on Wednesday and walk the dogs tomorrow and Thursday. I promise!!

Unplanned spending and budget decisions

Today was supposed to be a NSD but I forgot that it's my bosses birthday and we'd agreed to put in some money and get him a cake - Of course, the guys were all too lazy to get it, so I went and picked it up. It was $25 for the mudcake, and they pitched in $5 each... shame there's only 3 of them, meaning I got $15 from them, leaving me to cover the remaining $10... I'm not bothered by this, but I'm trying really hard to keep to my allowance budget of $75/week and it just means I've got less to play with!

This is the first $$$ I've spent this week and I was planning on not spending anymore till the weekend but my sister called me a couple of hours ago wanting to get take away food tonight together - she's home alone and my BF is also at night school so I agreed to hang out with her - we've barely seen each other lately! I'm predicting I'll spend $15 on dinner and probably $6 on a DVD to watch. Altho... BF didn't return the last DVD on time (I didn't even realise he'd rented it until they called to remind us it was late) so there's an outstanding fine on the card - probably another $6! Meaning tonight will probably cost me $27 and I'll have $38 left for the weekend... hmmm... not liking those odds.

Might recommend watching a DVD we already have and letting BF pay that fine since it is his fine! And I'll choose carefully and give myself a $10 budget for dinner. So I'll have $55 left for the weekend. Not GREAT... but more liveable.

I'm glad that I'm thinking about these things though... 2 months ago I would've spent that money without a second thought. I feel like I'm genuinely forming a healthier relationship with money (or debt in my case!)

The only person happy about house prices

The guy across the road has a very similar house to ours - in fact, almost all the houses on this street are almost the same, because we all bought House & Land packages built by one particular builder.

Anyway, the guy across the road put his house up for sale about 2 weeks ago, and I was pretty excited to see a big "SOLD" sticker across the board when I got home from work this afternoon. Why? It's because I had a nosey on realestate.com.au the other day and saw it was up for $320,00 - $340,000 and I'm hoping the fact it sold after two weeks means he got atleast $320k for it. This is good news. Great news in fact!

I know for a fact that his house is the 3 bedroom version of our 4 bedroom + study home. Sure, this means there's less block available for gardens, decking, pergolas etc... but we still have all three of those, whereas he has a pergola and dead grass with a couple of trees.

So... I'm hoping this means our place is worth $320k... at least. We paid $280,000 for the house in 2007, so the prospect of our home value going up $40k is very exciting to me! Granted, we still owe $260k on the house, but that means we potentially have $60k of equity in the home. Very. Very. Cool.

P.S Tuesday was a designated spend day, but the only thing I spent money on was paying bills that were due - Feels so good that it's almost Thursday and I haven't spent a cent of my allowance. I don't plan on spending any tomorrow either. I didn't buy petrol because I have enough to last me till next Monday (which is not a NSD as it's a public holiday and I will be away) and I didn't buy groceries because we bought so many at the market on Sunday. Feels good to have spent nothing all week.

End of Feb Debt Update

Another thing I should do is update at the end of the month how much has been paid off the debts! The numbers for the end of February are:

Credit Card 1: $ 73.29 (Bought food for work function and still waiting for reimbursement)
Credit Card 2: -$ 83.34(I also put $1500 on this card as wedding savings!
Credit Card 3: -$ 312.50
Credit Card 4: -$ 63.11
Credit Card 5: -$ 193.28
Credit Card 6: $ 127.86 (This is BF's card -I'm going to have to ask him about this one!!)
Store Card: -$ 75.92
Home Loan 1: -$ 154.62
Home Loan 2: -$ 746.50
Car Loan 1: -$ 261.95
Total February debt reduction: -$1,690.07
New Debt Total: $298,341.14

Some of these numbers won't make sense because the starting values aren't from a month ago, most are from mid Feb, so some of them hadn't accrued interest for the month, where as others had etc etc. But from now on, if I report the debt status on the last day of the month then it'll be more consistent.

The most depressing part about that is whilst our debt went down by $1,692.07, we paid $3,240.41 towards debt... that means, essentially, that $1550.34 was spend on INTEREST. Bloody interest!!! I suppose I should be happy our debt is going down and not up....

As I mentioned earlier, during Febraury I added $1500 to wedding savings (it's sitting on a credit card to help reduce interest) but also spent $500 on personal training and $255 on an ebay dress so:

Total saved: $5940
Total spent: $3595
Balance of savings: $2345
Expected remaining costs: $25,715
Total amount required to save: $23,370
That number, $23,370, is pretty scary, but I also know there are a few things I have overestimated the costs on so it will definitely be less - I just don't know by how much!

March Goals

Following on from my post about having goals, I’ve decided to set myself some goals for March. These are not all PF related, but to me, being organised and achieving these goals are all aligned with taking control of my life, and my finances.
No Spend Days – I’m going to aim high, and aim to have 10 NSDs in March
Exercise – 5 pump classes and 5 non-pump classes in March
Reading – Read 2 books in March
Lunch/Dinners – Enjoy 20 home cooked meals, and 15 brought from home lunches.
Kids – Spent more time with the dogs – 10 long walks in March
Breakfast - Eat breakfast 15 times in March (15 times is a big deal for me!)

I’m going to count back to Sunday as that was the 1st of March, so, so far I have achieved

NSDs – 1/10
Exercise – 0/5 Pump, 1/5 Non-pump
Reading – 0/2
Lunches – 2/15, Dinners 2/20
Kids – 0/10
Breakfast – 1/15

I’m looking forward to those numbers going up and up and up!

Loving the No Spend Day

I've made a really good attempt at NSDs and am actually pretty proud of myself!
I turned Thursday into a spending day, making the NSD on Friday. The only thing I bought on Friday was a slab of beer with BFs money! It really helped me keep focused when I really really wanted a diet coke at lunch time but just ended up having another glass of water... and when I went to the video shop with my sister and BIL and resisted getting the Janeane Garafalo DVD I have been wanted to watch for a while, so I was pretty happy with my efforts.

On Saturday BF wanted fish and chips for lunch, and even tho I suggested making something he wouldn't budge... so I spent $17 on food for lunch. I really should have let him have F&C and just made myself some beans on toast. But then later that arvo my sister called us to go out for Indian for dinner but because we'd had take away for lunch BF and I decided to stay home and cook - I don't know how long it's been since we've eaten IN on a Saturday night! I also kept my mind off spending money on Saturday ( I was dying to browse the local shops) by cleaning my entire house!

Sunday we went to the market, and spent $150 on fresh veggies and LOTS of meat. We came home and figured out we have enough meat for 14 dinners for two! Our grocery budget is normally $100 a week, but now I'm so excited that we won't have to buy meat for probably 3 weeks! The veggies won't last more than a week, but I know last week I shopped at Aldi and bought a few packets of frozen veggies so that should tide us over for a while! Total spend at market: $150 meat and veg, $11.50 on lunch, $8 on coffee and $3.60 on donuts

The only negative part was there were still a few items we needed from the supermarket: milk, mustard, new sponges (the old ones were about to walk out of the kitchen!), Easy Off Bam (ran out on my cleaning spree on Saturday), olive oil spread, gherkins and some bread. Oh and BF wanted a pair of sports socks and I couldn't say no! Total spend at supermarket: $31.40. So total spend on groceries for this coming week is $181.40, but I'm confident we will greatly underspend on groceries for the next two weeks. I'll keep you up to date!

Today, Monday, I had allocated as a NSD. And it was fairly easy! I brought lunch from home (morning tea: grapes, lunch: tuna salad and some corn thins, afternoon tea: banana plus two coffees during the day) and went to the gym after work and then straight home! Again, I really wanted a diet coke, but resisted and distracted myself with a coffee! (Note: I don't pay for coffee at work - we have a pretty cool coffee machine and the boss pays for all the consumables)

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and is a spend day - I will buy petrol and pay our bills for the next week. I'll also buy milk and bread again, which we won't need for a couple more days but as Wed and Thurs are NSDs I have to buy them tomorrow! BF’s boat registration is due ($68 for boat and trialer) and we have phone/internet and BF's mobile phone bills due. I'll also pay that speeding ticket I racked up a month ago... THAT was really frustrating, as it's $142 that I could be spending on our wedding.

Our electricity bill arrived for the last three months and I was very excited to see that in the Nov/Dec/Jan quarter our Electricity bill was only $19 more expensive than the quarter before - the reason this is so exciting is we had an air conditioner/inverter installed and it's been a very warm Melbourne summer, a few days over 45 degrees! I can't believe I'm getting excited about an electricity bill...

Speaking of bills, I called my mobile phone provider and added a $4.95 internet package to my $49+insurance package, which gives me 25MB of browsing where as before I was spending $20 a month of non-subscription browsing PLUS i get that $4.95 in extra call credit! This means my next bill should be about $62 assuming that I don't crack my cap... not too bad!

My Debt Goals: no moving the goal posts please!

Reading through more and more PF blogs I’m starting to see something frequently which they have that I don’t – Goals. I think set goals are an essential part of seeing improvements and changes. You can’t blindly work your way to being better without knowing where you want to go, right?
So… what should my goals be? Do I need to have short term goals or just long term/annual goals?
Ultimately my goals are to pay off our debts, but that will take more than 12 months. Especially with the wedding in November!

So, after a bit of thought, my goals are:

2009: Pay for my wedding and accrue no debt. Based on my wedding budget, I will nominate $29,310 as my wedding savings goal. I will be doing this via credit cards, as I mentioned in an earlier post, but I will be closely tracking to make sure that I make repayments PLUS pay the wedding savings onto there. I will only spend on wedding related items. I will NOT carry a credit card with me unless I am going to pay for a wedding item! I will track this goal upwards regardless of what I spend on the wedding.

2009: Get our debt under $290,000 by the end of the year. This means paying off $10,000 in debt and also paying for the wedding as per above goal. (Note, our home loan interest will mean that only $5000 of the $24,700 worth of repayments will actually go towards debt reduction. The other $5000 will be off credit card debts and my car.)

2009: Start an emergency fund, and have it at $1000 by the end of the year.

2010: Go to Europe without having to borrow money or accrue additional debt. This means saving approx $20k between November 2009 and August 2010, as we want to do to Europe in September. This means the same saving that we’re in now for the wedding as it’s about the same amount of money in the same amount of time.

2010: Pay off my car in full by end of year

2010: Pay off another $5000 off credit card debt.

Okay, I have 3 shortish term goals (i.e. this year) and 3 longish term goals (i.e end of next year). I reserve the right to review these goals at any time lol but I don’t think I will. I like the idea of being debt free, and it is in the back of my mind constantly… how good would that feel!

P.S And my non-PF goal is to go down a pants size. I’m currently at 71.2 kg and wearing size 14 pants. I found a couple of kg over Christmas and haven’t been very good at losing them again. This goal couldn’t be a number i.e. 5kgs because now that I’ve taken up Personal Training I suspect I may gain some muscle…. That’s the plan, anyway!!!

No Spend Days

So I’ve been reading on other peoples PF blogs about these things called a “No Spend Day” (NSD). Pretty straight forward, you just plan days which you won’t spend any money.

I’ve been making a half-assed attempt at these, and have realised how easy they are to muck up. Like I'll buy a $1.40 can of diet coke with the lunch I packed… whoops spent money. I'll get to the gym and have forgotten (AGAIN) a water bottle… whoops spent money. I'll plan a NSD and realise I’ve planned to go grocery shopping and know if I don’t do it that night, I'll end up buying lunches… so I go and there goes my NSD.

So I’m going to start doing them properly by laying out the ground rules and putting some planning into place.

1) Grocery shopping and petrol purchases ARE included as purchases.
2) Direct debits are NOT included as purchases (for obvious reasons)
3) Bill paying IS included as spending, so must organise to pay bills in advance if due date falls on a planned No Spend Day
4) There is no reason why I can’t have 3 NSDs a week.

That last one is my logic talking but I’m not sure if it will work.

Generally, I have lunch with BF once a week. We have a budget of $20 for both of us, and it’s normally spent on Fridays. We are typically so busy during the week that this is important to us, and as of yet, I haven’t seen any reason to stop doing this since we’ve basically given up all take away and eating out during the week. (We used to eat take out for lunch or dinner several times a week!) So that rules out Friday as a NSD – which suits us because we often catch up with friends on Fridays, or have to buy additional groceries for the weekend once we’ve planned what we’re going to do, so that would rule our a NSD too.

So my commitment is to bring lunch the other 4 days a week. And I will stop buying diet coke from the vending machine. If I think I NEED a diet coke at work I will fit cans from the supermarket into our grocery budget and BRING THEM with me. Simple… in theory hehe

I will commit to doing grocery shopping and petrol purchases on the same day. I’m thinking this is going to be on Tuesday, while petrol is still cheap, and is also my rest day from the gym so I have the time. The only problem with this is I have to make sure I buy enough stuff on Tuesday (or on Friday!) so that we have lunches on Monday and Tuesday. If I can do this, then technically I can still manage 3 NSDs during the week. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

How about the weekends? I really need to be realistic, and for now, I will rule out weekends as NSDs. I'll see how we go, and might intro Sunday as a NSD. It’ll be tough, but I can’t see it being impossible!

So, it’s agreed. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday will be NSDs.

Although, I’m breaking this already, as today is Thursday and I’m having dinner with a friend tonight. Dammit. Maybe I should organise lunch with BF for today and make tomorrow (Friday) a NSD instead. We’re not planning on seeing anyone tomorrow night, so it’s do-able!!! DONE!