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.
3 comments:
I love these tips! Great ideas. Thanks for sharing!
Shelley
Can I just say I so relate to your last bullet point about always trying to "pretty" up the bathroom with new towels when really you need to save for a new bathroom. That is the story of my life. We are finally giving our kitchen a facelift and pouring some money into it but that means I have to seriously cut back in other areas of my life.
We first decided what the priorities are. For me, I only have one priority beyond the kitchen renovation and it is eating out here and ther. I just can't give it up entirely. But we are only eating out about once a week now instead of all the time.
On the other hand, stuff like cable television and the latest technology in cell phones and such do nothing for me. We can cut all of that out. We don't spend a lot on entertainment, books or clothes either. I do splurge on clothes for the kids here and there but like you, I don't ever buy something not on sale.
I think one of the hardest things in a marriage is deciding what are prioties. For Sam, it is going to Disneyland and trips every other year and for me, it is the house renovations. We are definately doing the give and take because everyone needs to be happy. My goal this year is to cut out all of my little purchases that don't even make me happy because I forget what I bought at Target by the next week. I'm focusing on just buying the essentials and making the house pretty this year. We'll see.
Great post. I'm excited to read others' ideas.
E - This year we decided to go from our once a month "big" shopping trip with small ones in between to going every Friday night. We meal plan for the week and our grocery bills that were once $800 a month have gone down to under $500 and we are hoping to get it even lower. We do 75% of our shopping at Trader Joe's is very inexpensive compared to the big grocery stores.
We do cloth diapers which was about $400 upfront but has saved us from going to Target every week and buying way more than just that box of diapers we needed. Plus diapering two kids was super expensive.
They only thing I can pay full price for are jeans. I like expensive jeans. But I don't buy them often. Everything else I buy on sale. It kills me to pay full price. I buy any clothes the kids need on clearence at Old Navy. Luckily I think I may have only spent $100 on clothes for Siena since I have been given insane amounts of baby girls clothes as hand me downs.
Our commute to work is minimal (8 miles each way for both of us) so we don't spend a ton of money on gas. Mike doesn't come home for lunches and he brings his lunch every day.
We bundled up a lot of our services (tv, phone, internet or home insurance, car insurance, life insurance) so that we get as many discounts as possible. We also got rid of our $100 a month cell phone bills and each got onto our parents family plans so we now don't have to pay for it.
Our goal this year is to get completely out of credit card debt (anything that is not interest free). We are saving minimal at this point but after this fall everything should be gone and then we will be saving to take a big trip when we turn 35 (4 years).
Because of having young kids we don't have the opportunity to go out much so we save a lot of that. We maybe go to one movie a year, but we pay for Netflix ($8 per month) and get unlimited movies sent to our house with no late fees. LOVE NETFLIX!!!
We do all of our home projects our selves so we don't have to pay for labor. We have saved quite a bit there.
Hope some of that helped!
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