Change Jar

I have a beer mug from a university event I attended sitting on my kitchen windowsill. This is my change jar and whenever I have a build-up of change in my purse, I deposit it into this jar.

I don’t use a lot of cash (preferring to get the reward points on my credit card but ensuring I pay it off in full). As such, I don’t get to do this too often.

However, I counted it the other day and there is already $10 in there. Admittedly this isn’t very much, but that’s money that had I kept in my purse I probably would have spent on something silly.

And every dollar counts! Does anyone else try the change jar approach?

Why do I find blogging so hard?

The very first personal finance blog I read was The Simple Dollar. I loved it from the very start. This prompted me to find and read other PF blogs and eventually, to start my own.

Trent does an awful lot of blogging. He posts multiple articles a day, every day. While I understand that he no longer works full time and in fact has made blogging a part of his job, I am still struggling to understand how he makes it look so simple.

I cannot blog from work, not even on my lunch break, as my work has strict security guidelines on our computers. As such, I need to do my blogging at night or on weekends.

I have always loved writing. In high school, I used to write a lot of stories and really enjoyed it. So why, now that I actually have a blog, do I find it so hard to write when I get home?

I really want to keep this blog going and grow my readership. However, I just don't seem to have the energy or the motivation to keep it up. I am now closing the blog, but dear readers, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can find that much needed motivation?

Scare

I apologise (again) for the lack of posts. We had a bit of a family health scare which has taken me away from the computer. As soon as my dad is given the all clear (hopefully today), I will resume regular posting.

Cutting Christmas Costs

I love Christmas. The only thing I don’t like about Australia is that we don’t have white Christmas’. However, with a large family (I’m one of four children) and extended family, it can definitely get expensive.

Even though it’s six months away, I think it’s never too early to start planning for Christmas. So here are some small tips for saving money at Christmas time!

- Secret Santa. My family tried this for the first time last year. It didn't save an enormous amount of money (we set a high limit) but it certainly can if you want it to. We also all made a list so we were getting gifts that we wanted. My list had a mixture of wants and needs, saving me money in the future.

- Start saving at New Years. Some banks have Christmas accounts. If yours doesn’t, all you need to do is start an online savings account and put money into it each week. It could be as little as $10 a week but come Christmas time, you will have a nice stash of cash to use for gifts, food and decorations.

- Buy gifts early. I like to buy my Christmas (and birthday for that matter) throughout the year, particularly when I see something on sale! I don’t like the stress of shopping right before Christmas, I prefer to do it slowly and pragmatically. And by either catching things on sale or lay buying them, I end up saving a lot of money.

- Make use of boxing day sales. If you’re not seeing family or friends until after Christmas, put their presents at the Boxing Day Sales. This can save you a lot of money.

Remember, even if you only save $50, that money is better in your pocket than someone else’s.

What are your tips for saving money at Christmas time?

Lending a Hand

I didn't keep to my new posting schedule this week because I was away on business. I thought I'd have a lot of free time but I was flat out. I shall return to my regular posting schedule this week :)

Yesterday I sat down with my older brother to discuss finances. He bought a house around five months ago and is having some trouble affording it. So we sat down and went through things. It seems that he bought more than he could comfortably afford. He is stripped down as bare as he can go so I decided it was now a matter of ensuring he spends wisely with the little money he does have.

I explained to him menu planning and a shopping lists. He was completely taken by it. My brother is very fit and active and thus has a huge appetite. Therefore, unless he is careful, he can end up spending an awful lot of money on food each week.

It was quite funny how excited he got upon hearing these ideas. He actually just called me to tell me what he had put on his menu plan. He's writing his list and then hitting the grocery store.

It actually feels really good to get someone else into frugality! That is what this blog is meant to do but I didn't anticipate the whole lack of readers thing. So this will do in the meantime :)

Money while on business

I am on a business trip this week. I usually come away from such trips having made money. This one will be no different.

Where many people go to the hotel restaurant and spend $20 0n breakfast every day, I buy milk and cereal from the supermarket for around $5 and it lasts me all week.

This trip will cost me a little more than usual, but I will still come out in front. I am on business in the city I went to university in so I have friends here who I'll be catching up with for one or two dinners out. But I will still be frugal in my choices and make the most of being away from home.

The Price of Health

I have recently been diagnosed with lactose intolerance. This is a mighty inconvenient condition to have, as dairy features in so much. Also, as I'm not used to it, I find I forget an awful lot of the time and accidentally eat something I shouldn't.

Australia recently had a price war on milk and we can now get out milk for $1 a litre, every day at the supermarket. Do you know how much lactose free milk is for one litre?

$2.54.

Needless to say, this is the part I am most annoyed with!

A Change of Scenery, Perhaps

Today I found out that I may be transferred to another city at the end of this year. It isn't confirmed and I have no idea where to.

I am both excited and disappointed. It will be good for my career and I'll enjoy the change of scenery, as I don't really like the city I currently live in (really don't like it, actually). However, my house is here and I'll miss it!

Even though nothing is definite, my personal finance brain is going into overload. I am already contemplating the financial implications of a move and what I plan to do financially in my new phase.

Bittersweet really.

Grocery Update

I did try and carry out my scheduled post last night, but for some reason could not log in. I think Blogger was down. Apologies for being a bit late.

On Thursday, I went grocery shopping. As I said in my last post, I decided to do a fortnights worth of shopping. I came around $25 under budget. I have no idea if this is because I did the fortnight shop or because prices were good this week or because I didn't need as much. But I enjoyed the convenience of only needing to shop once a fortnight.

I actually have a day of cooking planned, all stuff that I can freeze and use throughout the week as I am not a fan of cooking after work.

How do you manage your grocery budget and menu plan? Would love to hear your stories.

Groceries

I live quite frugally but am always looking for ways to live more so. I get paid fortnightly (or bi-weekly) and thus budget my money that way. I usually do my grocery shopping once a week, occasionally picking up milk as needed.

I have decided though, to give fortnightly shopping a go. Again, I will probably still need to make one extra stop for milk, but I think everything else can be purchased once a fortnight.

Does anyone else shop this way? Can you offer any tips? I am off to plan my menu for the fortnight so I know what I need to buy!

Paying Down My Mortgage

In November of last year, I refinanced my mortgage in order to take advantage of a great deal I could get through the company I work for. At the time of refinancing, my mortgage was $302 000.

Now, five months later, my mortgage is at $278 000. I am most excited about this. I have been working hard to minimize my mortgage as much as I can.

I am travelling to France in September and am still saving up for that. But aside from that, every spare cent has been put onto my mortgage. I still have a $9000 emergency fund, so I am feeling good about where I’m sitting.

I do want to buy another property, hopefully soon. However, I want my current mortgage to be as low as possible before I take the plunge and buy another property. I am constantly racking my brain and researching ways to save money in order to put it onto my mortgage.

I haven’t eaten out very much the past five months. I have barely bought any new clothes and I spend most weekends being a homebody. I get a lot of comments on this choice of lifestyle, as people tell me this is the time in my life I should be enjoying myself. I wholeheartedly agree. Travelling is what I enjoy doing, which is why I am going to France in September. I am not willing to sacrifice that, as that is what is most enjoyable to me. So I still put money away diligently for my travel plans, but choose to put much of the rest on my mortgage as eating out and buying clothes is just not as important to me.

And besides, who cares what people think. I know that I am making good financial choices and that is really all that matters!

I Hath Returned

I apologise to any loyal readers I have for my long hiatus. It wasn't planned, life just seemed to get in the way.

However, I have had a realisation recently that life is always going to happen. Life doesn't stop for anything. If I want to have a blog, I have to make a commitment to it and work on it regularly.

So, my dear readers (if I have any), I am pledging to you now that I am going to be a better blogger! I am committing to three posts a week. I plan to post Monday, Wednesday and Friday (Australian time). Hopefully this will increase my readership and also keep all those faithfuls around!

So if there are any readers out there, I'd love to hear from you. Do you have any suggestions on how I could improve the blog? What will make you want to stick around? Any topic suggestions? This is foremost meant to be a personal finance blog, but I am open to branching into other topics.

First post of the new blog will be tomorrow, be sure to tune in!

Silly Mistake Leads to Cost

On Thursday, I am flying to the other side of the country, Perth to be exact. On Wednesday night, I am staying at my brother's house as he lives nice and close to the airport and I can leave my car at his place free of charge.

I seemed to have forgotten about my big trip when I went grocery shopping on Sunday. I was only stocking up on fresh produce... and it's now all going to go bad while I'm away.

I will probably take it to my brother's house for him to eat, but still, seems like a waste and definitely a waste of money. So if I was a little more on the ball, I would be even further under budget.

Oh well, we live and learn.

Budget Update

This month, I decided to track my spending, every last cent I spent!

My bills and savings are automatically deducted from my pay cheque so I don't even see it. After that, I have three budget categories.

Groceries - $150

Petrol - $150

Other/Fun - $100

So how did I go this month?

Groceries - $116.20

Petrol - $137.40

Other/Fun - $102.17

Not too bad. Though I went over my Other/Fun budget by $2.17, I was well under in my other two categories.

My grocery budget includes toiletries. I like to stock up when things are on sale. So when tinned tomatoes are on sale and I only need one can that week, I might buy five and put them in the cupboard. This fortnight, I bought ten tubes of toothpaste because the price was so good.

So while my grocery budget may seem a little high for just one person, it is so large so that I can stock up when I want to.

Any thoughts on my budget? Too high, too low?

Update: This is my fortnightly budget, not monthly. Apologies for the confusion.

My Net Worth

I decided to calculate my net worth, after seeing it on so many other blogs.

Assets:

House- $390 000

Car- $30 000 (very conservative estimate, is probably actually worth more)

Shares- $6000

Superannuation- $35 000 (approximate)

Cash- $10 000

Total Assests: $471 000

Liabilities:

Mortgage- $281 000

Total Liabilities: $281 000

Therefore, my Net Worth is $190 000.

Not too bad for a 23 year old! This is also not taking into account my one third ownership of an investment property, as I have no idea what it is worth or what the mortgage on it is.

Does this seem alright to everyone?

Worth It

A little while ago, I posted that I had gotten a Woolworths Frequent Flyer Credit Card. Well, that has more than paid for itself. By just putting my regular purchases on that card and never carrying a balance, I booked a flight to Perth (usually around $350) with my points and still have a bunch left.

Glad to save a bit of money for basically doing nothing!

Saving Isn't Always the Answer

I get paid tomorrow. Usually, the night before pay day, I put any leftover money from the previous fortnight's budget into my savings account.

However, at the moment, my city is going through a serious heat wave. I have been sleeping downstairs on a thin mattress because it is just too hot to even be upstairs, let alone sleep. And as a result, my air con has been getting quite the workout.

Therefore, anticipating the higher than usual electricity bill, I am paying that extra money straight to the electricity company. Hopefully that will lessen the blow when the bill comes.

It Seems to Work

Usually when I get up in the morning, I come downstairs and open all of the doors and windows to let some air in. Pretty soon, it is boiling hot and I often have to put the air con on.

Today though, I came down and noticed the place was actually quite cool, despite being very warm outside with the sun shining. I kept everything closed up and two hours later, it is still quite cool.

This seems very strange to me but could it be the answer to staying cool in the summer? Don't let the sun penetrate into the house?

Thoughts would be appreciated :)

Groceries and Toiletries

Except for one or two specialised skin care products, I buy most of my toiletries from the supermarket. As such, my grocery budget has always been designed to include those.

However, I am finding that I am either going well under my grocery budget or well over when I have to buy certain toiletry products.

For example, today I bought my groceries. I usually have a $65 budget for groceries. So I bought the food I needed. Fortunately I didn't have to buy any meat this week as I have plenty in the freezer. I also bought some deodorant, toilet cleaner, starch and batteries. This bought me in just under $65.

However, this week I had to buy new heads for my electric toothbrush which costs $14 for a pack of two. Now these heads last a while, so I only need to repurchase two or maybe three times a year, so they are not a regular purchase. However, when I do buy them, they tip my budget over. Admittedly it's not a huge problem because I always have spare money in my account to cushion it, but what if I didn't.

I'm clearly not very good at purchasing these one off or once every so often more expensive purchases. I was thinking I could make my grocery budget and toiletry budget separate but that still wouldn't help with the more expensive purchases.

Does anyone have this problem? Can anyone offer any advice to get it more under control?

How Much is Enough?

I have recently started reading Corporette, a fashion and lifestyle blog for professional women. I really enjoy it and as a bonus, every so often there are money related posts on there.

This post was one of them. Here, Kat delves into the idea of what does it mean to be rich, or as I like to phrase it, how much is enough?

I would love to be able to buy whatever clothes I wanted and go out to dinner as much as I wanted. However, to me, that is not what being rich is about. Rich isn't even the right word. For me, enough is when I don't have to worry about money and when my money is working for me.

I am only 23 (birthday last week), so obviously it is going to be a long time before I don't have to worry about money. However, the sacrifices I am making now and the hard work I'm putting in is ultimately not because I want to go shopping, but because I want to be worry free, allowing me to enjoy life even more.

How much is enough for you?

Please. Give What You Can

As I'm sure everyone has probably heard, Queensland, an Australian state, is currently being absolutely devastated by floods. The death toll is rising, as is the truly destructive nature of the water. I have been brought to tears from the TV footage. I have seen many tragedies on the news in my life, but none has moved me as much as this.

If you can, please dig deep and make a donation. So far, $32 million has been raised but so much more is needed. Queensland is a huge state and the majority of it has been devastated.

You can make a tax deductible donation at http://telethon.smartservice.qld.gov.au/.

Your thoughts and prayers would also be appreciated!

Unplanned Splurge

I know I said I was done with the spending, but I bought one more thing this morning. Now I'm done.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my New Years resolution is about getting fit and healthy. I am actually required to pass a fitness test as part of my job, so this resolution is actually also an investment in my career. However, over the last six months I have really let my exercise and diet slide, so much so that in December, I failed my fitness test. Not a good thing!

A few days ago my mum called me to tell me that she had bought an exercise bike for $149 at Aldi for her and my dad to use. I did a bit of research and this is a great price. My brother is qualified in fitness training so I spoke to him and he said it's definitely a decent bike, especially for that price.

So this morning I got up early and went to Aldi to buy one. Though it is mainly running that I do to keep fit, in bad weather that's not possible. Also, in the winter months when it is dark, I don't like running around my neighbourhood on my own. As I live alone, it would take a while for someone to notice that I was missing, so it's not something I like to do. The exercise bike will solve that problem as I can use it no matter what time it is and no matter what the weather is like.

Now I'm done spending, I swear!

Doesn't Seem Like Much

I have just done an absolute bare bones budget. I cab only afford to save $150 per fortnight. To me, this doesn't seem like very much at all.

Thoughts?

Feeling Better

Thanks to Maureen and Chris for their words of encouragement after my last post. I'm definitely feeling better about it. It was just a small stumble and now I'm right back into saving.

I am hoping that by around October of this year, I will be ready to purchase an investment property. This is my main financial goal for 2011. I will be using the equity I already have in my house to purchase it and then have renters in it. I am planning to buy in a rather expensive area but also one that has high rent returns. I think this is a good financial decision for me as I am buying where I want to live in 5-8 years, giving me the added bonus of having a place to live when I do eventually move.

So why am I waiting until October? Well, I would like to build my emergency fund up to around $20 000 to cover any expenses I will have as a landlord and to cover mortgage payments if I am unable to rent it (highly unlikely in that area but something I want to be prepared for just in case).

As such, I will have to live extremely frugally this year. Every spare penny will be going into my emergency fund. I'm excited about finding new ways to save while still living a good life (I'm of the belief it can be done!).

So if anyone has any tips, articles or blogs, please send them through!

Bad Juju

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

And that is where my good cheer ends.

Lately, as in the past two weeks, I have been hemorrhaging money. It wasn't intentional, it just sort of happened. I ready a lot of personal finance blogs, and so I know most people have gone through something like this. For some, it goes on for years.

However, it has never happened to me so I am feeling very guilty about it.

But, it is a new year. My resolution has to do with health and fitness, which I doubt anyone wants to read about. However, I have also made a decision (not a resolution, a decision) that 2011 will be an extremely frugal year for me. I will explain the reason for this in a post to come but wanted to come clean about my crazy spending. I have had to dip into my emergency fund to pay off my credit card, something I never thought I would have to do.

Needless to say, I'm very disappointed in myself.

This year can only get better... right?