No. 4 Efforts in money saving aka Non Spending!

This week has been busy.
Kids are home on holiday from school & we have had rain! Lots of rain.

My efforts this week includes;

Staying with relatives for a short break!
It sure was cheap, I didn't open my purse at all! Yet it meant we all came home really tired due to the sleeping arrangements. No complaints though as our hosts were so generous.

Hubby sourced a free sewing machine. He mentioned to friends that he was on his way to buy a new machine to replace my broken one & they gave us their extra one. Bonus! Now I have a functional sewing machine again at no cost.

I was given some postage stamps, a lot of them. This shall save me on writing letters, which I love to do, & have numerous penpals around the place. I may need to spend 10 cents instead of 70 to post each letter, but how good is that to get a free roll of stamps!

Bacon! It was on special while I was away so hubby bought us 10kgs to last a while. I'll portion it out & freeze it Sunday, I love bacon.

Now to keep the birthday party on budget this week & get the house in order, again. I'd like to do some more decluttering as my Aunt had loads of clutter about & being in a cluttered environment always makes me crave clear space.
I love counters with nothing on them, what do you love in your home environment?

Happy non spending!

No.3 Money saving efforts

This year & I shall attempting to be diligent in practising money saving strategies. 
All the little bits add up & shall see us debt free sooner. 

1. Laundry savings. I wash the boys school clothes weekly. Seems harsh yet unless they haave been playing in a wet school yard they don't really come home dirty. We have more than one set if they do & I check it, work on any marks & wash it (inside out) once a week. My hope in doing this is that the uniform we have shall see son 1 through primary school and son 2 most of the way, without having to buy anything else. Our school has also began a regular stall of 2nd hand uniform, which is awesome. That means anything we no longer wear can be donated & I can buy what we need cheap. I also wash everything else in 3 loads a week. Prevously I was washing about 10 loads a week & would look for things to fill the machine. I'm hoping that I have effectively cut my laundry work in half! I only line dry & use our home heating to finish off clothes in the Winter, no clothes dryer unless it is absolutely necessary.

2. Appliance replacement. Our home is older & we are 14 years married this year both of which mean things shall need replacing now or soon. This last month we replaced our dishwasher, we bought a $299 one from Aldi & it works well. Then our oven element burnt out & we have replaced it with a $150 2nd hand one from Gumtree. I replaced our electric frypan yesterday, ours died when we moved here just over 2 years ago. I expect to have to replace more items & had begun saving for them this year.

3. Turning everything off or unplugging it. A seemingly small thing that can save us lots! We have a pedal switch on a powerboard that hubby uses in his office yet the TV & set top box need to be done manually. So I walk around each evening (or morning) & unplug, pick up (off the floor so things are not broken) and turn off.

Just looking back to June 8 2012 from my New Direction post.

I had the following goals 

1. Build our emergency fund of 10K  done October 2013, it took longer than expected yet it is such a huge acchievemnet for us & I have great pride in saying it is still intact.
2. Have a buffer amount in our offset account. Finished 2013 with one & it has gone to already in 2014, hence the strict refousing on 2014. We have had some health challenges that keep on costing $$.
3. Throw all extra cash at the mortgage. Begun this in January 2014 & though it hasn't been smooth it is definately priority. I have redirected the payments from the surveys to go to the mortgage, its something every month & makes a difference.
4. Keep up the house maintenence & repairs, but delay all else. This is where we are at right now!

This means we are on the right track & need indeed to "keep calm & save money". I'm tracking the progress we make with our mortgage each month and keeping myself alert to anything else we can do to save a little here & there. 

It is tiresome at times not to have any spare funds for impulse buys yet I enjoy the forced creativity of working on a goal and we sure do appreciate what we do & have. 

This month we are taking the family to see a production, that will be a treat for the whole family.

Week 2 Money Saving Effort

Ok Ok I know its not been a week since the previous post, its been longer, but here I am. Again.

This week was the start of April & as we get paid monthly I budget monthly.
April's budget is tight!

Yesterday I;

Did week 1 of 5 food shops for this month & came in under budget by $4.90

Got my son new shoes for $30, under budget by $60

Re-balanced the budget today, which I have never done, in attempt to stay on track!

And finally we collected our eye glasses today & were out of pocket $0! Yay

Goals this month;

Find $50 for Christmas fund & then another $50 for last month's contribution which we didn't make.

Find $100 to start May's sink (or bills) fund start off well.

Add some extra, no matter how small, to the mortgage.

Every dollar brings us closer to freedom!

Enjoy the journey!

Week 1 Money saving efforts

Well, long time no post here.

I have been up & down, like most of us, and am hoping to re-focus on day to day savings.

This week's money saving efforts;

1. I rang my Car Insurer to see if they could better the price on my renewal & was rewarded with a discount of $104.
2. Aldi opened in our little town & I shopped there first getting a better deal on most purchases
   except for celery, which turned out to be cheaper at Coles.
3. I bought a pair of jeans ot the op-shop to make a hanging planter bag for the plenty of strawberry runners we currently have. This is only a saving if I actually put the plan into action, I was thinking I could sell the planters of strawberries at the school fair later in the year.
4. I asked for & recieved free cutlery for work. This was a good lesson in asking! I am now considering asking for a scholarship to do a course I have been wanting to do for some years in order to seek employment.
5. I came in under my food budget. I am very proud of this & now have the challenge of coming in under budget for the month. I have $100.75 left! I declare it doable.

Lets see what I can manage for next week & the rest of this one.

Focus 101

Focus 101

I lost some focus this week. Only 1 day and I am aware of it. I read an article about how one family lived on $14000 and that reset my focus. I know I can do it and that I need to focus daily, and make that a goal for each and every day.

What are the benefits of that?

I'd then have the cash to make purchases that are neccessary, like;

• school pants for my boys
• singlets for me
• shoes for Hubby
• new mattresses all around
• a new kitchen frypan
• replace the water filter
• new glasses for hubby
• podiatry for me
• our fixed up bathroom

All those are worthy & affordable purchases, provided I focus.

I have attained a part time job which starts in May.
That will take time & energy to establish and will bring in some extra funds.
Its exciting & challenging.

How will I remind myself to stay focused?

1. Write about it.
2. By seeing the progress with purchases
3. Goal setting
4. Clearly defining each item, its cost and working toward each purchase.

Time to go clarify goals!

The little book of Thift by Paul Lonergan

I borrowed this from the library, a book of tips to live thirfty.

 Today I implemented;

• I diluted the hand soap.
• Switched to rechargable batteries for AA

I find that I alwaya have something to learn and enjoy reading tip books.

That is 2 wins today. 

Wonder how many more I will find in this little book.

It is now lunch time!

It's almost the end of...

Its almost the end of...

the month. I like the end of the month as that is when interest appears in the bank account, both from us and to us. I also get to make a new budget which perversely I enjoy, especially if we have funds to budget. Its more fun than budgetting imaginery money.

Its almost the end of...

Summer. It has seemed a long hot Summer. We have had a long dry stretch that has left the earth here parched. It is raining today so Summer will end a little less dusty. Maybe the kookaburras will replace the magpies in our yard again.

Its almost the end of...

the Business Course that I am doing. It finishes next season and there is some work to go but it started last Autumn and I have been learning lots of useful things. I have especially enjoyed meeting with grown ups each fortnight.

It is almost the end of...

our being in the three thousands for our emergency funds. I am planning on getting to 4K in March. Having started our emergency fund in 2011 I feel like we are making snails pace progress. We have even gone forward and backward a number of times. Or worse still, I got discouraged and stopped even trying to make progress.

Yesterday I did the grocery shopping and put cash into the various envelopes. The enveloe system is working well for us.