How are you doing on one income???

[titti]

Hi ladies...
I don't know about QLD but in NSW you could go to TAFE and have hair, manicure, pedicure, wax, facials etc done for free... You will need an appointment and you need to be understanding since the job is done by students but they are good and the teachers are always there to help.
We are tight in money but maybe not after reading your posts.
I have been back to work since my girls were babies, but I could do it from home and with a lot of flexibility! I would have LOVED to take time off to stay with them all the time, but this arrangement helped me heaps and I manage to work while the little one is asleep or when my partner comes back home. It was hard at the beginning, still recovering from the delivery and slepless nights, but we needed the money so I kept going...
There are heaps of jobs to do when the kids are asleep and hubby can take care of them (in case they wake up), like office cleaning, kitchen hands, etc.
Markets are good, especially if you go close to closing time... they try to get rid off fruit/vegies, so they are VERY cheap. There are also butcher that sell a lot cheaper than supermarkets... I guess though it depends where you live...
hope it helps,
xxx

[Ella]

Yeah I guess that's the problem for us. I'm really really really good at budgeting and going without for myself, but we are so far behind with everything that it doesn't matter if i budget a small amount ot put away for clothes and hair cuts etc, because we are busting just to pay what all the debtors are asking for each week.

I'd love to buy the big washing powder, but I can barely afford the little one each fortnight which is so frustrating because I know how much you save by buying in bulk!!!

Sorry just got off the phone with a company that just declined an application, so feeling a little frustrated and sad

[Pretty Butterfly]

Babe, I hear ya......

One of the biggest money savers I found was switching washing powders.
My son has excema, so I was buying exxy sensitive washing powder...... home -brand bi carb soda works just as well, and is $1.09 a packet!!!!

I haven't been to the hairdresser in 11 years.....
I cut and dye my own hair, and all the kids....

[Pretty Butterfly]

Sorry bout that, Harmony hit POST.....

We have overdue bills everyday.. I dont remember a time when we didn't, but paying a little off them each week at least keeps them off our back, and we dont get massively behind...

Christmas makes things so hard too..... We make sure the kids enjoy the few things we get them, but I always feel a little sad for us... we dont buy for each other or family, we just cant, and I'd love, just once, to but something nice for everyone, and have the big feast without scrimping.... decos everywhere, big turkeys, all the trimmings... *sigh*... at least, for now, the kids dont notice, and just love their little christmas, little darlin's...

H is being annoying, BBL......

[Kazmar]

We're on 1 income, I choose to stay home with the girls fulltime. It's going to be like this until the girls are in school. So I figure the sooner I can make it work the better off Ill be.
Savings I believe is a MUST. We didn't have any for a long time. We did find it hard to build up as we needed every penny for wk to wk. My dad left me money when he passed so we are lucky 'in way ' as if we need it we borrow it, then replace it with paychecks
I would try my hardest to put away 100 a fortnight even 50! Its amazing how it can build. The trick would be not to give into temtation.

Also haircuts for me are a yearly thing a) the money b) the time!

[Ella]

Oh I know what you guys are talking about. I had my hair permed just after DS was born and now I have very long half permed half straight hair, it looks ridiculous! I was thinking about just getting it cut, but I have wanted to get it this long for so long and it looked so beautiful permed... sigh

Yeah Xmas is sad for me this year too, we labyed lots for DS in July and I've made sure to get DF some things, but he always forgets to buy for me, so I'm not expecting much, hence I bought some chocolates for myself so I don't feel bad when the boys are opening theirs.

My one bra that is comfortable had just broken and I'm getting stabbed with underwire hourly lol so that's great.

I'm going to start trying to do the savings thing after xmas, even if I can just put away $10 here and there, it will add up over time.

Ha ha I feel like chucking a little kid tanty. I want I want I want.

Thanks for chatting ladies its definitely making me feel like I'm on the mainland and not some tiny island all by myself!

[Unimum]

I met DH when I was in uni and fell pregnant towards the end of my degree, so we have never had 2 incomes and are therefore pretty good at living on 1 wage.

I read all of your comments and I start to feel a lot better - that there are other people out there and we aren't alone. My husband comes from a very fortunate family and therefore our circles or friends are all high income (old money) earners.

We (for instance) we given our house and 2 cars from his family - that said I still have to budget VERY hard to get through the pay fortnight. Even without a mortgage or car repayments, I have to watch every dollar in order to stay on top of the bills that flow in weekly. I feel like we are always behind and our savings have taken such a hit this year that they are pretty much non-existant, I don't understand how 1 income families are meant to be able to rent, eat decent food, drive a safe car and keep a clean decent house on any wage that is less than $50k. (and that's above avaergae!!) Rent in Perth is absolutely rediuculous, 3x1 in semi decent suburbs are $350+ a week. That's half an average wage? Where is the room for food and petrol? Let alone clothes, bills and savings?

I knew a family who moved to a victorian town so they could afford a house to raise their boys in?

Sorry for the rant, but I just wanted to say that there is obviously something wrong with our economy if single income households can't survive, even on basics.

P.S. to earn extra money to do mystery shopping... you get $20-30 a report and all you need is the internet and an ABN. I only do 2-3 shops a week, but that extra $80 REALLY comes in handy and I don't earn too much to effect family assistance payments! AND I CAN TAKE BABIES!

xxx

[Ella]

Hmm that sounds liek a good idea, luckily I don't have very heavy periods so I only go through one pack a month!

How is everyone else doing at the moment? We are still pretty stuck but we are waiting on a little lump sum that should come the start of next week and let me pay some bills and do a bit of a bulk food shop.

[squidipa]

hi ella year were alright we got through christmas and now it school books and bits lol. But doing alright.

hubbie applied for a job and is so hoping on it i hope he gets it to as its very local for us.

[Ella]

Squidipa- that job sound great. Yeah we had a very rough Christmas both financially and with MIL being horrible to us. Thank goodness it's over, next year will be better!
Glad we haven't got school books to worry about so I'm trying to stock up on some bigger clothes for DS when we get this money that way I won't have to worry too much when we are flat broke!
I know this is terrible and I have asked before, but are you close to us or are you up north more cause I would love to catch up sometime, you seem like my kind of person!
PS DF suprise me the day before Christmas and sent me to get my hair done, bless him! I felt so different after getting it done.

[tiggerandpooh]

I'm a single mumma with three kids, and constantly juggling. Feeling the pinch now especially after christmas, and the fact that my eldest (dd) turned 14 yesterday as well. I regularly have to "shop" from my pantry. In other words, I do a stock take of what I have in my pantry, fridge and freezer, and plan my menu around that, and ONLY buy what I need to to make that weeks menu. Will have to do this for the next couple of weeks, so I can save $ for buying school supplies... sigh.

Rent for me is the killer. I pay 320 a week. which doesnt leave a lot left over. having said that, it has made me very creative in how I cook, and what I do for gifts, and how I buy clothes. Op shopping, sales, ebay... Vege patch (which I will be starting up again now that the rain is finally here!!) helps immensely. I have to think outside the square constantly.

Hair cut - check out your local TAFE for hairdressers, and volunteer yourself as a model.

[ttcanxiety]

With the groceries i can't recomend aldi enough! we used their washing liquid when finances were tight and meal planned and got everything from tehre, the meals were great and i felt better ebing able to provide a decent meal.
As for tampons and pads and stuff - don't be affraid to email the makers of them for samples they very often are happy to send them out...
De jour send out a decent 8 pack!!!

[Liviam]

We are really struggling after Christmas so I'm going to have to sit down when the kids are in bed tonight and search through and preen out budget again to see if I can get it down some more. Groceries are my killer so that is my goal for this month. I'm going to go searching for the thread on here about shopping cheaper and cutting down the budget tips. It is so much help to talk to people going through the same. This is the first time we have struggled in years and years so we have been incredibly lucky but I'm having so much trouble getting DH to understand how we don't have enough money to pay our bills and need him to stop spending/wasting money.

[squidipa]

I'm going to go searching for the thread on here about shopping cheaper and cutting down the budget tips.

I have a tip if you shop weekly meaning every 7 days push that to 8 days.. if its every 14 days push it to 15 days and every time puSH it by one more day you will be surprised at how easy it is:d and you do save in the end we were and are shopping monthly AND SAVING HEAPS we buy in bulk on sale items

[tiggerandpooh]

There is a brilliant web site called simplesavings. google it. It has fantastic savings ideas. you dont have to join to access a whole lot of stuff. I was a member for 2 years before paying for membership, which meant I could then access the forums for more tips. really is worth having a look at it.

[Faithful Mumma]

Yeah, we are finding it a bit tough after christmas, more so because we had a car break down before christmas that ate all of the savings that we were beginning to build, and then because I work for myself, and haven't worked for the last couple of weeks, I don't get paid, and we live of DH's wage!! I have been watching every penny.
I am so, so glad that I set up automatic payments to ALL of my utilities in my Net banking ages ago. It means even though we might not have much cash at the moment, I know my bills are up to date which is a big relief.
Every thursday I have:
$55 come out for Net, Mobile and Home Phone Bill.
$15 come out for Water
$11 come out for Gas (bill smoothing with AGL)
$28 come out for electricity
$50 come out for rates.
I found that because it is automatic, they all actually get paid each week, where as if I had to do it manually, I would keep putting it off and procrastinating and then use the cash for something else... I actually set this up at a time where I had loads and loads of bills, and didn't think it was really a good time to pay bills "that didn't really need paying yet" because they were not overdue, as opposed to paying the overdue ones, but it was the best thing I have ever done.


And, I have been trying to do my own $21 challenge, and was so proud of myself the other night. All I had was some chicken, no casserole bases or vegies other than carrots left. Normally I woul hot foot it down to the supermarket and buy something for dinner along with $50 worth of other stuff I didn't really need...
But, I didn't, instead I made the BEST chicken stir fry I have ever tasted with chicken, soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, a tin of pineapple and the juice, fresh chives and fresh lime juice, fresh carrots. It was DELICIOUS. I would normally use a jar of Chicken Tonight etc. But I had ALL the ingredients in my cupboard. I served it on rice.

I start back at work this week, and will be back into the full swing of it in Feb, so I know the cash will start to flow again, and I am very blessed to be able to work it around myself and the kids and school etc, so I am not complaining. Anyway, I am totally believing in God this year for supernatural restoration of our finances.

[Mummato2]

We are a single income family as well. My husband runs his own business - it does pretty well, though we struggle with cash flow mainly because we can go without money coming in for a month at a time and then all of a sudden get $15k in one week - but at that point we have a fair chunk of that going back out in payments!

- We made sacrifices on "wants" until we had a buffer in our account at all times of one months worth of bills so that direct debits don't get bounced (causing dishonour fees) and so that the phone calls get become an issue if we're late. Essentially the income for the current month is for the next month's outgoings (if that makes sense)

- If an unexpected bill falls and we aren't able to pay by the due date we ALWAYS give the creditors the heads up so that we can arrange an alternative date and avoid the fees

- The only credit card we have has a $2k limit and this card is only ever used to pay for Trade Accounts (husbands business), rego or anything else unexpected but we always pay it back within the 55 days to prevent interest accruing

- We pay quarterly bills like the rates, water, electricity etc in monthly allotments so that when the quarterly bill falls, it's always just a little one or we are in credit

- We never pay for something on finance. If the extra cash isn't in the account and above our minimum balance - we don't buy it. The exception is my DH's work ute, his dirt bike, mortgage and our credit card. These are the only things we have that are financed.

That's how we manage cash flow, but spending is a bit of a different story.

- I used to put Cooper in Huggies for all his nappies, now it's Huggies at bedtime, if he has a nappy rash (rare) or if he has a tummy bug (rare)

- I now use the Aldi Mamia nappies on him throughout the day but change them a bit more often than I would a Huggies - this has saved us heaps! I am so not a good housewife - I hate housework and cleaning so cloth didn't appeal to me

- I buy baby wipes, washing powder, washing conditioner, shampoo/conditioner, liquid dishwashing, stain remover etc all from Aldi. This is the most expensive cost in our shopping so we've essentially halved it by going to Aldi.

- We shop for our groceries online - this has cut a LOT of impulse spending because I now plan our meals etc out a fortnight in advance, have a monthly budget on shopping and am strict within that budget. I only buy what I need for the menus (and some treats if I have money left over once I've bought what I need). The $9 delivery fee is worth it because we used to impulse shop around $400 per fortnight and I now do our shopping for around $250 per fortnight doing it this way.

- I use a pre-paid mobile and allow myself $30 credit each month. If I run out too bad! My DH has a post-paid because he needs it with work.

- We've consolidated our insurances to get a 10% loyalty discount and used the same company that we get our business insurance through - so this has resulted in a big saving over the year

- We've consolidated ADSL and home phone and taken it away from Telstra - that has halved that bill each month

- We run 2 cars, but I limit my use to take Cooper to playgroup, swimming, gymbaroo and make sure it's all local driving.

- I go to an aqua class and a gym session a couple of times per week, but buy a pre-paid book of 20 sessions and make those sessions stretch out for 3 months..... this way I can get out of the house weekly and feel human that I have "me time" - I also have a fabulous DH that understands that SAHM's need a break too!

- I get my hair done once every three months BUT I colour myself and go to Just Cuts.

- Any little bit of money that our expenses come under in our budget, goes into an envelope and this is how we afford the extras....we never use credit! (I can't stress that enough - credit for "wants" = disaster)

- I take one full day per month to go out alone! I usually get together with my best friend, we go to the shops and "wishful window shop", stop in at Borders books (has a Gloria Jeans cafe at the back) grab a magazine from the shop (it always goes back on the shelf) and have a coffee. This is cheap and is great for some relaxation.

I keep an excel spreadsheet with incoming, outgoings and ALL spending - and I mean ALL. If we spend something, the receipt needs to come in and I log it in excel. If we are under budget then I don't mind, but this was a good way of seeing where our spending was going when we were at the roughest point in our finances (at times we just couldn't account for chunks of money). Now it's just become habit to keep logging it and it helps me with DH's BAS and Taxes because I can see what expenses we can include in the business that I had missed in the past.

At our lowest point we almost lost our home (when I first stopped work and we dropped our income from almost $200k per year to half that) and it wasn't a choice for me to stop work - we had to. My DS didn't take to Day Care - to the point he was making himself sick on Day Care mornings.....so I just quit my job and figured we'd do it. My son is first priority.

We are now almost 2 years into being a single income and in that time we went from having around $60k in personal debt to $20k (not including the mortgage) and we did this by talking to ALL our creditors at the time, freezing the interest, making lump sum payments to pay off the entire balance at a reduced cost (so if a debt was $5k we'd offer $3.5k and they'd be happy with that as final payment).

Once we finish with the last couple of financed bills and are only left with the mortgage we will remain with just the mortgage for another 2 years save as much as we can and then we'll look to an investment property.

I think the thing in all of this is when we were at our worst, we always knew it wasn't forever then you just need to change old habits otherwise your situation just doesn't change. Once our situation became ok, we looked at what we did and just kept going. Now our situation has gone back to comfortable and we can afford the little extras and for that I do not feel guilt - we worked really hard for us to get to this point.

We just need to keep our eyes on the next couple of years, not let impulse buying and finance get the better of us and know that once we get the next house we will again be in a better position.

My plan is to be a SAHM until my youngest is in Year 2 and then go back to work. I used to be in Business - but once I had Cooper started my Teaching degree - so will go back to that.

Good luck Ella - I hope that in a few years time with some budgeting and hard work you'll also be looking at what you've achieved and just be so proud of yourself!!!

[Mummato2]

OMG - I've just looked at the size of my post. I am so sorry for the novella