Spring cleaning finances

[maz]

After some lots of thinking time on our holiday recently Jed and I decided it was time to buckle down and get ourselves out of debt.

I have written a list of expenses with having the most important at the top and the least one the bottom. The least important was getting the paper home delivered....Jed is devistated and says he misses it. hmmm I dont know how he could cause he only use to read it every second day and somenights it was still wrapped up on the kitchen table.
SO have decided it is on expense that is GOING!!!!
WOrked out that it is $4.40 a week = $17.20 a month = $114 a year
now whilst that doesnt look like alot..that small amount can wack the interest on our car loan quiet a bit.

What other no essential expenses do you consider choppable?

[Tinks]

For us it's Basketball. DH used to play 4 times a week at $8 a pop! He also used to travel an hour for 1 game a week. So when you factor in petrol etc it got quite expensive. I've just worked out that he was spending $1664 a year on bball not including petrol. Now he plays twice a week.

[*charmalea*]

take aways ... got the chop from us aaages ago ... unless we are desperate

cleaning prodcts were a waste of $$ for us , so we do enjo now

toys & clothing , we now buy once every 3 mths , instead of here and there .

magaziens

i agree with the paper , DH gets it every day ! i reckon its a waste when you can read it online these days

[Mak]

Been thinking about it here too. The newspaper is a waste too for us, I can't remember the last time I read it but DH is adament he *needs* it. Lunches out at work are a big spend, the project car that hasn't been touched for 3 years, Foxtel (no time and nothing on) hmmm what else?
Mobiles have been changed to prepaid as we don't use them much, signed up for loyalty rewards with gas/electricity companies recently, reduced our internet plan to match usage.....
My DH feels like it is all his stuff that is getting the chop (fair enough too as it is, but I don't exactly spend stuff on me very often) - tricky to balance the needs and wants isn't it? Good luck on your quest - I am slowly chipping away....

[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.

[maz]

We use to have takeaway every fortnight but with 6 of us in the family it was costing us $50+ (3 boys eat like horses)
SO I now make our takeaway and the kids love it. It will only cost us $10 max and the kids get so much out of making it.
Pizza with pita base bottoms, taco's another night, our own KFC.

Probably much healthier too

I cant get over $8 a game of basketball tink...OMG that is unreal!!!!
Niklolaus played last season and it was $4 a game....ive decided to let him do the after school sports program through the school again....it cost nothing and he's nice and itred when he gets home after school .
Ive also taken to doing bingo duty at school to save $60 per boy attending of our school fee's.

I might have to look into enjo now.

Mak - I joined the loyalty programs throught my gas/electricity...should be coming into fruitition this summer to put us ahead

Ive gotta get at jed to finsih cleaning down the side of the house so I can expand my vegie gardern too
Ebay might get a big influx of some of my excess goodies too...im on a mission lol

[~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!!

[~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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[~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

[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.