Tight As

I hate money... actually I quite like the stuff it gets you but I hate thinking about it or stressing about it. My lowest opinion is reserved for tight ungenerous people ... cant stand them.

Anyway what with not winning lotto and paying for two high schoolers at Siena and living our extravagant rock star lifestyle... money is somewhat thin on the ground at the moment.

After Christmas David and I did the soul destroying  awesome task of looking closely at our budget. We have always had and followed a budget but I realised this year that I was going to have to trim some areas to make up for other expenses. Grocery shopping, food buying, and clothing shopping for me all got the chop in some way.

These are my new rules and practises.

• I menu plan for 14 days and then buy to the menu.
• I grocery shop online ... its ALWAYS cheaper and we never miss the random stuff that ends up in the trolley when we shop in store.
• I try to come up with dinner ideas with the food I have in the pantry and fridge freezer (and google the ingredients to make something).
• I cleaned out all the bathroom cupboards and gathered together all the half empty shampoo and conditioner, mouse, gel, face creams etc etc that get shoved away when I buy a bright shiny new bottle. I haven't purchase a bathroom product (apart from toothpaste) for THREE months as we are using up what we have. 
• I am not buying any new clothes or shoes for me. I do not need them. I would also rather go to the movies with David or Vyc than buy another top (and its one OR the other this year).
• I have a list of clothes that David, Riley and Lucy need and that is all I am buying. Lucy needs a new school uniform winter jumper and David needs work socks. Riley needs everything because he has grown 3 sizes...
• I don't go shopping as a leisure activity  and if I do I always have a bit of a think about what I really NEED vs what looks shiny and new at the shops. 
• We don't go out to eat unless its for a special occasion.
• I have also taken on extra research work for a project at work to earn some $ for a trip to Darwin in the dry (this is still very much a work in progress).

I realise after reading these rules how pathetic it all seems but its working for me and that is the main thing. I am prepared to live a bit of a frugal life for the next two years (until Bear finishes High School) to make sure all the bills are paid and all our money is going on the stuff we need.

I also want to spend the dollars I save on things like camping, trips away with David and special dinners with the kids.

See ya
Ex

Catherine Comes to Tea

My sis Catherine came for tea last night ... it was ace to see her and I cooked the best tea (if I do say so myself).

 

 

I have been on a very big budgeting curve for the last 4 months. School fees are killing us but they are non negotiable so I am trying to find other ways to save cash (isn't everyone!).

 

I have found a heap of ways to cut down on our grocery bill - I will do a post at some stage!

 

So yesterday I wanted to use up ingredients in the fridge and pantry and not go to the shop (because when I go to the shop to buy a carton of milk ... I spend $50... weird). I turned these ingredients into the yummiest dish.



Curry Lentil and Cauliflower Rice.
1 x onion chopped
1 x Couli chopped
1 x table spoon of curry paste
brown rice and chicken stock.
Cook onion and add curry paste, couli and rice. Add stock and cook until rice is tender and then stir through a tin of lentils. I added mint and lemon at the end. It was delicious (and pretty good for us).

 This was also pretty good for us :-)

 

I hope your weekend was good

Big Love

Ex

Budgeting 101

I have been thinking about our budget since before Christmas and because when an issue starts to stress me I try to "control" it and that usually means blogging or talking about it ... hence this post. Also I hope you all have much better and smarter ideas than me...
From the get go I need to say D and I are so blessed and lucky to have what we have and work where we work...and we get to go away every now and then... so I really appreciate how fortunate we are.
But that being the case with me working part time,I really have to stick pretty close to a budget if I want to keep paying off our house and/or fund holidays and renovations.
I guess the main reason for this post is I really want other people to say "yeah I have to stick to a budget and sometimes its hard"... cos I don't like to feel like a loser on my own!

So some budgeting things that have worked for me in the past:

• I try to only shop for food every 2 weeks and before I go shopping I make a list of all the stuff still in my pantry and fridge / freezer so I don't double up and so I can make up meals from what I have.
• I borrow books, magazines, DVD's and CD's from the library... I actually cant remember the last time I bought a book for myself to read (I buy them as gifts). I know this doesn't work for everyone but I think I must save $1000's of dollars a year borrowing from the library.
• I usually don't buy clothes for me or the kids when they are full price... Target, Sussan and Myer (my main clothes shopping places) ALWAYS have sales on and I just cant bring myself to pay full price.... this drives my Sis mad I'm sure when we go shopping together! D is completely different... he likes to pick his own clothes but only goes to the shops once a year... so once a year he buys shirts, new shoes , new jeans new sunnies etc etc.. and getting all that once a year he spends less than I do buy grabbing stuff every time I go to the plaza.
• Movies are a rare treat in our house. The costs of the family going to the cinema is about $70 before drinks and popcorn... so we usually only go during the school holidays and then only once.

Budgeting things that don't work at all for us

• Shopping at Aldi or buying cheaper meat etc for meals. D starts work quite early so when we have our evening meal we all sit down at the table and turn the tele off... and sometimes its the first time the kids have seen D or spoken to him that day. Our evening meal is special and I try to cook nice things everyone likes (this doesn't always work mind you!)
• Saying no to all fun activities... this just sucks for everyone , moderation is the name of our game.

Now I need to step up my budgeting to a whole new level... I have additional expenses this year such as Bears school fees and a holiday and I really want to keep paying off our house at the same rate we have been .... in order to do this I have decided that my new budgeting / spending $ guidelines will be:

• I need to do a menu plan for each evening meal... and stick to it so that I don't have to keep go back to the grocery shop (because I go to the local shop to get apples and come out with $27.50 worth of crap)
• No more new clothes for anybody. AT ALL. Nobody in our house NEEDS any more clothing.
• Limit our eating out to once every six weeks. This may sound strange but our little fam loves to eat out and the places we go to are quiet expensive (even crappy take away is expensive) so we have to cut back on this.
• No purchasing home wares or any thing to "pretty" up the house. We are planning some major renovations in the next couple of years but because the house is such a eyesore I stupidly think that buying new towels will make it all better... it doesn't help at all and I just have to be patient and wait until I have a decent bathroom / Kitchen etc to "pretty" up.

There is other aspects of our budget that need sorting out (like the kids DVD late fees ) but this is where my head is at with it at the moment.

So what are your budgeting tips? Do you have secret way that I can spend as much as I like and still have oodles of dosh left over? no you don't? ... that's a shame. Tell me your saving tip anyway.