Spring cleaning finances

[Astrid]

The one magazine DH refuses to live without we now subscribe to, so that has saved us about $80 a year as there is a 47% saving to subscribers. Just trying to get him to stop buying another that he barely reads.

Have put my foot down with juice. I buy 2 bottles a week and when they are gone, they are gone. DH loves his juice with dinner (his waistline is hating though) and to me it is an extravagance.

[~clover~]

School canteen. It might happen once in a blue moon here, say every 3 months if someone remembers.
I only buy new clothes etc for christmas & birthdays. Everything else comes from op shops...unless its a bargain sale & I have spare $$.

ETA: After school sports are great aren't they!! We have it twice a week here!!

[Pretty Butterfly]

I need to cut down badly, but I dont know where.... We are getting pretty far into the red at the moment......

We dont do takeaway, I clean the whole house with bicarb and vinegar, cried poor and got a reduction of school fees.... I just dont know how to cut costs anymore, the accounts are going backwards!!!

Ad is trying so hard to get any work, he applies for at least 2/3 daily.... poor thing.....

[Astrolady]

We did this ages ago. Andrew used to complain that while we cut the crud we still had no money. Little did he know an extra $90 a month was being put onto the home loan. The mortgage is our only debt. He only just found out last week about the extra $90, and I have been doing it now for a good year or so.

We dropped Thursday night take-away, hiring DVD's, & buying magazine's willy nilly including the TV Week. I also stopped impulse buying. The "oh I might just go to the shop and while I am there I might buy a game for the PC, or a brand new DVD or something the boys just have to have but really don't need"

I also at the time cut up Andrew's ATM card. I would notice $10 here $15 there go out of the account once or twice a week. He has since re-gained an ATM card (we changed banks) but I am thinking of doing it again as it is starting to happen again.

[Astrid]

Have credit card debt here, but it is actually cheaper to pay the interest on DH's max out card than to pay it off. Him with a clear credit card is just plain dangerous, I was clearing it every month and it ate all our savings. He would draw cash our of it constantly and also at a local ATM so we were getting hit with so many fees, all because he wanted lunch with a damn juice!!

[maz]

Sammi - yourve inspired me to bake...the kids would go nuts over muffins and thank god we dont have a school canteen.

Kathryn...im the one that needs the cards cut up..im a self confessed shop a holic but im slowly getting better....hehehehe

Ive gotta get back to shoppingonce a fortnight to...I find going to the shop's every 3rd day for just one or 2 things ends up costing $100 a trip.....I do buy bread and milk in bulk, the looks I get when I have 12 loaves of bread and 4 bottles of 3L milk in my trolley

[Olive]

i was also going to suggest cutting up credit cards and using debit only, we have mastercard debit so if we dont have the cash to get something it waits.
we shop at aldi which saves heaps, buy meat in bulk

[Liz]

DH takes lunch to work... saves us heaps, not just because he doesn't buy lunch (well.. he does once a week I think) but because he doesn't feel the need to get so much cash out all the time!

We went through the credit card and got rid of 'forgotten' subscriptions. Things like Choice, various software licences, and other online subscriptions that we had but don't really use or need anymore. It was surprising how they all added up. in doing this I found out that we'd been paying insurance on the car we sold a year ago! LOL.. so that was a bonus.. got $700+ back from NRMA for that!

I buy a regular amount of petrol each tuesday, for some reason buying $30 a week is cheaper than actually using up the tank and refilling it... haven't work out why yet LOL.. but it stays within budget this way. I do need to remind DH tho when he gets fuel not to fill up.. just to get the $30.

I've been getting good at doing weekly shopping and planning the meals for the week. Not sure it's necessarily saving money.. but I can budget for it better. Trouble is having people round for dinners and stuff that throws in an extra shop.. which then has various nibblies and extras in it. LOL. Maybe I need to budget for entertaining.

[Astrid]

I buy a regular amount of petrol each tuesday, for some reason buying $30 a week is cheaper than actually using up the tank and refilling it... haven't work out why yet LOL.. but it stays within budget this way. I do need to remind DH tho when he gets fuel not to fill up.. just to get the $30.
.

Yes, do the same here and it really helps. Took awhile, but now DH will ask how much to put in. Before he would just fill her up and expect me to have the money for it, often it would result in us having no money for milk etc. I do get angry now if he uses my fuel for the week on the weekend for something trivial.

[~Raven~]

I'm also going to do proper menu planning and budget what I need and shop for that to see if it helps to budget better. Going to try to keep my grocery shop at $200 or less. Some weeks I don't spend that much in one hunk but then we end up going back for more stuff and end up spending more

Does Jed take his lunch or buy it?

[maz]

Jed didnt do lunch for 2 years although Ive now gotten him to take mixed nuts and cuppa soups to work. I dont know how he does it not eating until night time.....would make me

I like filling the car with petrol with a certain amount...that makes so much sence. I might start doing that now too

[MrsFabuloso]

We really watch the little things we add to the shopping. DH is the worst for seeing personal stuff he thinks he needs and throwing it into the trolley like deoderant. He has about 6 deoderants going at the moment. Even foods like pasta, bin bags, tissues and tinned stuff he's alway putting in and we have about 4 packets of pasta, 6 boxes of tissues...I'm sure you get the picture! I have told him to stick to the list now!
We were also using the dryer alot through winter even though we didn't really need to we just got really lazy. So now we make sure we only use it if it's raining or if things aren't dry.
We looked at our internet and phone contracts to see if we could get better deals. And our electricity and gas too.

[CrazyLady]

We don't have luxuries. Used to have takeaway once a fortnight but now i'll buy a stirfry veg combo think from the frozen section. just as fast as jumping in the car and waiting for it to cook.

I check out the junk mail from the store i shop at to buy what's on special and try to bulk buy and freeze meats when cheap. I buy one magazine a month for sanity reasons (miss melb shopping). we have NEVER had credit cards!

I used to be really careless with my money and buy loads of make up i'd use once and forget about. learnt quick not to

[~Raven~]

Baking more and buying less lunchbox snacks.

Besides wanting to be rid of the additives, I'm saving stacks! I almost died from shock when I had a slack attack and bought museli bars and le snacks before school one morning and they cost a bomb!

The kids love getting a cupcake or a cookie too.