My husband and I both work and bring in about $1600-$1700 per week after tax. Most of which is his income as I only work 15hours a week. We dont even have a mortgage yet we are broke by the end of the week and scraping for money or borrowing off my mum. We pay $350 rent a week, electricity is paid off fortnightly, insurance once a month, car payment fortnightly, phone bill once a month and internet once a month. by the time we buy food and fill up our cars and pay all the bills we are left with next to nothing for the week. I seem to be the only working mum in my sons class, yet when I go to their birthday parties they have nice furniture, nice houses that they own.. I just dont get it. We do smoke but we smoke rollies and get the cheapest of the cheap.. even if we didnt smoke with the amount of money we spend on them we would still be broke come payday. Any advice/tips? We just got pre approved for a home loan but I dont think we are going to be able to take it as repayments are more then what we pay in rent and we are already struggling as it is.
10 Replies
You really need to look at your spending real carefully.
Start keeping a diary of everything you spend. If it's all in front of you, it'll be easier to see where it's all going.
Call your Internet provider and ask if they have a cheaper deal. Same with any phone plans you might have. They may have a very similar plan for a very different price tag.
Start setting yourself a budget with groceries and shop around if you have to. My husband and I get meat from a butcher and spilt the rest of our groceries between Coles and Aldi.
Look at buying home brand. I've seen many home brand products that are actually healthier than name brand (less fat and sugar). And they taste pretty similar, too!
Look at budget friendly meals. Spaghetti, quiches, curried sausages, shepards pie, pasta or vegetable bakes, fritters... there's so many meals you can make for a family of 4 for less than $20. And you don't need to be a chef to make them, either.
Just load whatever meal up with vegetables so you don't spend as much on meat and start doing meat free nights. You'll start saving a fortune!
For school lunches, try and avoid those packet foods. Buy the bigger bags and put them into freezer bags. It'll cost less.
I make vegetables muffins that make a great lunchbox alternative to a sandwich and only cost about $5 for a batch of 12! And you can add whatever to them.
Use Google for some budget friendly lunches and dinners.
My family lives on less than 900 a week, and quite comfortable, so it is doable.
But, keep in mind that these people might be driving around in fancy cars and living in nice houses, but they might also be in serious debt from living outside of their means.
I would love to give advice but have no idea where to start... I am a single mum and earn just under $1000 a week working FT. I budget to the cent literally and when I mean everything I have 2 dogs so I put away $1 a week for their rego LOL). I divide all bills into a weekly amount and set up a direct debit for the main ones. All the little ones like council rego for the dogs rego get transferred to a spare account until it needs to be paid. I only have 1 child but seems like there is at least some wastage if you guys are earning 1700 per week. Not sure if it matters but my rent is 370 a week so not cheap. If you want a "template" I can help. Let me know :-)
Also once this is set up you'll be asking "what bills?" You will only ever have to update/modify.
firstly you don't know where they've had help from, how much debt they have etc and how they eat and spend there money behind closed doors and wether someone gave them a leg up with house deposit etc.
I have lovely new furniture but it's all ikea, bought on sale, or fantastic furniture that I have saved for and I earn a lot less than you do.
I am really strict on the use of electricity so our bill for electric for the quarter is around $200. We turn things off at power points, don't leave lights on, have aircon switched to timer and run at 24degrees. Gas is about $200 but that runs hot water. I could get it down if I tried.
We pay a total of $75 a month on phone and Internet. We keep under our limits strictly. If we need to or want to download something big we do it at library or similar. If we run out of data we have run out of data too bad, too sad.
Food we eat 3 meat free meals a night using an alternate source of protein that night. We cook casseroles, noodles, pastas etc as abything where you need an entire portion (steak/chicken breast etc) per person is unnecessary. I allow about $60 per adult per week for food and cleaning supplies.
I only use pineoclean, dish washing detergent and vinegar and bicarbonate to clean with as dirt cheap and do as good a job as expensive cleaning supplies.
We keep clothes etc to a minimum. Kids only need 4 outfits for summer plus school uniform, and 4 outfits for winter plus school uniform. We have more than that as adults but that's because we don't grow so clothes carry over longer.
I do my own nails, colour my own hair, don't pay for waxings etc. I pay Max $30 per haircut and leave it as long as possible, wear it up if I can't afford to get it changed.
Petrol for each car $30per week and chose cars with low fuel use. We paid cash for cars.
That's a lot more than I make, over double, and rents about the same, I think you need to look at your bills and spending.
Wow! Thats alot to go through in one week. I agree keep a diary of all expenses. We live off 1100 a week on one income. Our mortage is $400 plus our kids are in private schooling. Our only debt is our mortgage and a very small credit card (1k). We have all the same bills but add on rates and house insurance. We also manage to pay extra off our mortgage every week. We are a family of 5, i only spend $150 on groceries a week and we get get all bills except car rego direct debited weekly. We can also manage to afford a family holiday every year. It's totally possible to live much more comfortably then you are. Good luck.
Wow, I would love to earn that much. I lost my job twice and still paid all bills for around a year all up on 800pw(1500 per week when I work with me working 24-30) with double your bills . Try save, as on your wage I said for time out of work in savings . Do you have savings?
Wowsers... if anyone needs a budget it's you. :) OK, firstly, you need to honestly and openly sit down with your hubby and see where your money is going. Someone is pissing it away, somewhere. We get about $1400 aweek between us. Our mortgage is $450 (we pay extra), plus we also have rates/insurance/water etc, that you don't have when renting (allow at least another $100 a week for that when you buy). 3 kids... and I can still save, albeit not much. An extra couple of hundred a week for us would be easy street! Smoking is obviously taking up a chunk of your pay. Do you drink? Drinking is literally the difference between a friend of mine on the same income not owning a house and us owning one. She was so shocked when I helped her with her budget one day and she realised between her hubby ducking to the bottle-o and her wines.. they were racking up $100-$120 a week in booze. That's nearly 6K a YEAR. We don't drink or smoke... so I know that helps us. Try, try, try to quit! You may aswell start a bonfire at the end of the week and go put some cash in it. Next one that I think a lot of people fall into traps with is high mobile phone plans. How big are your plans? If you're paying over $50 a month each, you're paying too much!! There are sooo many cheap deals at the moment. Mine is $38 a month, new phone, $1000 worth of calls, unlimited texts (Woolworths mobile - new deal still going). Do you have credit card debt? Or other personal loans? If so, no doubt that's at least $100 a week... And the first thing you need to look at working towards getting rid of. If you have a couple of little things floating around, see if you can transfer to a credit card with interest free for 24 months and try to get rid of all the debt. What do you spend on grocery shopping? Meal planning really helps and not buying junk. We spend about $250 a week for a family of five and a dog. We eat really healthily. And I think the most important one for big spenders is what you spend on takeaway/coffees/treats/ etc etc etc. years ago, before I became a budget master, haha, we pissed at least $100 a week away on coffees and buying lunches (mostly hubby). I did a complete ban and saved a tonne! I don't buy my kids food when out, I take snacks. We still get the odd coffee, but it's now seen as a treat and not an every day thing. And hubby's daily lunch buys... are now once a week. If your hubby has a job where he can reheat at work, the best thing I've found, is just making extra at dinner and sending him with leftovers. My hubby loves this more than takeaway he said. Always has a delicious meal for lunch. Seriously, just sit and go over every, single dollar you spend with a fine tooth comb. Budgeting soon becomes an easy way of life and you don't feel like you're doing it at all. After your back on track, I'd give your Mum a bit of extra cash or pressie for helping you guys out.
The first step is to work out where your money is going. You can do this using an app, spreadsheet or pen and paper. You need to write down every expense! It doesn't matter if it's just a coffee it needs to be counted. Once you know where your money is going you can work out where you can save money. Shop around for deals. Tell companies that you will go elsewhere if they can't match a cheaper price. Start shopping at places like Aldi and local markets. I visit 3/4 shops to do my shopping and I halved my shopping bill. I also only shop once a fortnight and buy in bulk. The less your in the shops the less money you will spend. If you can help it do the shopping alone. You will be surprised how much you save when the kids and hubby aren't there. Buy things second hand or get inventive with decorating. Repurpose old items with a coat of paint. Cheap days out can be a lot of fun. Most families really feel the pinch around Christmas time so I avoid it by buying presents all year round when they are marked down. There are a million ways to save money once you start really looking at what you spend your money on. My family earns half of what you do and still have similar bills but I am so careful with the money that I somehow manage to have a little left over each fortnight to buy something nice for the house or do something fun together.
I was in a relationship where we had a mortgage and very few expenses. But my partner at the time had a car loan. But it was only 400/month
We were always broke, to the point where he went backwards 20k in around 4 years (without my knowledge)
I earned 1600 a fortnight and he was around 2000. I paid an additional 20k into joint stuff (yes that means an extra 10k behind for him). I was broke stressed and didn't eat because I couldn't afford it.
Dumped that lazy money waster, bought out his share of the house (still on my 40k a year) and I can now save around 10k each 6 months
I guess my point is, it may not be him, it may not be you, but someone is wasting money in your relationship. Take away, gym memberships, public transport, ice break at the servo, unecessary driving, leaving lights on, $18 movie tickets... Etc
Find where the money goes, then you will know where to cut back
Btw if you have approval for a house, you must have been able to save. Saving is good. Could this be why you're broke?