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.