My husband hasjust recently gone back to work after losing his job in October last year. I have also left my 1yo in care of grandparents and found work also. My question is how do you budget your money? We went from $3000/week when my husband was working to $2500/ffortnight with both wages.we don't have little bills either as we are quite rural. Any suggestions??? Im so sick from being stressed out all the time.Please help
3 Replies
Firstly, you have to make sure your rent / mortgage is sustainable. I spent years paying $400 a week to keep a place I didn't even love just thinking it was the right compromise to make to get the benefits of living in a city And having a family home. Now I moved to the country, chose a nice beachy foresty area I love and have compromised living space for cheaper rent. We have a great lifestyle though and as we can afford our bills and basic life in general it's made the whole world of difference.
I'd guess because you're going down a lot, you'd be downsizing and I'd look at living a basic life. cut out all expenses you don't absolutely need. anything you previously did or bought that you can live without, at least until you get control of your budget.
Definitely have to make sustainable choices. So sometimes that is the pain of moving to a smaller, cheaper place. Making sure you are not on unnecessarily expensive plans for phones and internet and bill minimization as far as power. If you can, grow your own vegetables. For 30 minutes work a week I grow most of our vegies. So I only have to buy very occasionally. Things like alcohol and smokes are really, really expensive so we don't smoke but keep alcohol right down to a minimum. Dumping foxtel if you have it. Also look at how much meat you are using, meat is expensive and you only need enough meat that fits in the palm of your hand.
My husband and I earn $3000 a fortnight between us, my son attends daycare 3 days a week ( expense you don't have ) and the baby comes to work with me. We have a really nice house ( large mortgage), foxtel, sport commitments and regularly go to dinner / movies etc and holidays each year
It's completely workable on that income! I know it must be a shock from what you were earning before but maybe there's excessive spending you do now that can be trimmed? We don't budget as such and buy what we need when we need it and extras as we want and have savings as well.
Sorry I'm not much help because I don't know what your money is spent on but maybe sit and write it all down and see if there's something excessive there or where you can cut back ie if you eat a lot of takeaway etc