Do you think we could survive?

[clarebear1983]

My DH and I want to get outa my parents house because its getting crowded and with #2 on the way there is no way we could stay any longer than the end of the year........but DH is studying full time and I am on parenting so there is not much money.

I have worked out the beginnings of a budget by determining how much money per week we will have and then determining the things that already come out of our bank account and things we MUST save for (i.e. Loan for car, rego, education payments, health insurance, rent-worked out by determining we will not pay more than $180pw)............

From what we are paying now we would have $240 per week left over for food, clothes, electricity, telephone, etc. Is this enough to live on?

How much is electricity approximately per week?

I am also thinking about doing the following to save a bit of money:
1. Get rid of the second car cos i barely ever drive it and honestly i can walk to the shops if i need to or wait for DH to get home from uni, or i can take him to the train station and keep the car during the day. Plus mum doesnt work too far from the areas we are looking in. In an emergency she can help or i will take the bus. We could put the money back on our personal loan which would reduce the payments as well (and keep a bit to help us buy some things for DS and #2)

2. Get prepaid home phone and internet so we never spend more than what we have. (I think prepaid home works like a mobile prepaid only u still have amonthly rental fee but its less than a plan).

3. Switching health insurance plans. At the moment we are with medibank private and have blue ribbon extras. Its $30 per fortnight and I figured that the only thing we use is optical and occasionally the chiropractor and dentist. I was thinking that downgrading might be an option based on the fact that we are paying $1039 per year (according to tax statement) for something that only costs $200..............there are also cheaper optical places that i can go to rather than where i am going................there are policies for $13 and $20 per fortnight which would give us the money to buy a tin of formula.

4. Dh can earn up to $230 per fornight gross before getting touched by centrelink on austudy. I thought if he got a job were he was bringing in an extra $70-90 per week after tax (without going over the $230) by getting some casual night or dawn fill work it would be good and will pay for nappies and formula each week. (He wouldnt even have to quit when the bub was born if it was night or dawn work................he might have to take a break after the c-section until im on my feet so to speak but mum could come help too)..........

5. Shop for fruit and vegies at markets and get meat from butchers.

Does anyone else have any advice on my plan or additional ways to save etc? (too bad in WA we dont have aldi to shop at, from what i have heard they are cheap)
Do people think that with our plan of attack we might be able to survive on our own?

[FourAngelKisses]

Just flying by so I've only quickly read your post, but we have $300 a week which needs to buy food, petrol, clothing, bills etc. With 3 kids, it is a bit tight some weeks but we do get by.

I hope you can work it all out and get a place of your own, you need the space and privacy. Good luck with it. Hopefully someone else can help you more than I can.

[Niki]

i think you will be able to get buy, my uncle was studing with 3 older kids and they managed

[maverick]

Try it where you are currently living to see if it will work. What I mean is follow your plan, I gather you are already paying some kind of board to your parents, just up the amount you are giving to your parents to match the rent you want to pay but instead of paying the extra to your parents put the extra into a non ATM linked bank account such that it is not easily drawn on. Ask your parents if you can see the utilities bills then take half of that and work out roughly what you need to put away each week to cover that expense. Place this money into the same non ATM linked account.

After 3 or 4 months you should have a reasonable idea whether you can afford to do what you want or whether you need to adjust your projected expenses.

[chicken]

Hi Clare. First of all, I want to congratulate you on at least first trying to make a budget to see whether you can afford to move out. Its a great start. Personally I know DH and I couldn't survive on $240 a week, but then everyone is different and I'm not saying you couldn't manage it (particularly if your DH will only be studying for another year or so). I'm pretty strict with our household budget, and have been keeping a track of every cent we spend (yes, every cent) each week for the past few years. It works well because there is always money there when big bills come in, and we've saved a lot (should pay our mortgage off in a couple of years). My advice to you would be not to rush to a decision, but to research yourself how much money you actually spend each week (and you'll probably find its a lot more than you think you spend). Things like a magazine here, a 6-pack of beer for DH, or a CD there, or a problem with the washing machine, a day out to the ekka, petrol, a birthday present for someone, etc., - all things you wouldn't think about factoring in to a budget. I'd say keep a record for at least a month or six weeks (that way you won't be kidding yourself by not buying things just because you are tracking them) and you'll see yourself whether or not you can afford it. Good luck.

[jessgray]

we are on the new telstra internet deal half price net for the 1st 12 months :) so our net cost us about $30 something a month for unlimited adsl. we live on about 240 a week too. and pay 180 a week rent.

it is possible to get by on that much :) i have our gas,electricty and telstra account and white goods rental stuff come out of my youth allowance through centapay.
have you though about public housing? they are affordable. office of housing can also help with a bond loan :)

[faery]

hey
my dp is on austudy and i'm on parenting. that plus FTB (full amounts as we're both on benefits) plus occasional work (under the cutoff threshold) and we are okay. and out rent is double yours!!! so you should be fine. getting rid of an unneeded car is a great idea:thumbsup:
see if u can get your FTB fortnightly, rather than a lump sum

[ziggie]

Hi Clare :wave:
I'm sure you will be fine, as long as you stick to the budget!!! :laughing:
Just by trying to sort it out, you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders though... Good luck, you'll love being on your own.

[clarebear1983]

we are on the new telstra internet deal half price net for the 1st 12 months :) so our net cost us about $30 something a month for unlimited adsl. we live on about 240 a week too. and pay 180 a week rent.

it is possible to get by on that much :) i have our gas,electricty and telstra account and white goods rental stuff come out of my youth allowance through centapay.
have you though about public housing? they are affordable. office of housing can also help with a bond loan :)

Thanks people for all this advice!

I wish we could get public housing. We are on the waiting list, have been for a year, and there is a 4 year long list (seriously when DH went to lodge the application they were only just placing people that lodged in 2002).........but we are going to get a bond loan through them.

Good thing about DH and I is neither of us drink so at least we wont spend any extra money on alcohol and anything. We figured we will survive even if he doesnt get extra work-but he wants to so there arent any major gaps in his resume.

We are also not in a hurry to move outa parents house. Just want to move by the end of this year at the LATEST (preferably BEFORE i go into labour or have the c-section which ever comes first)...............maybe we should move while im nesting so i might do most of the work lol

If faery can do it in a similar financial situation to us with double the rent (my God that must be a lot of rent) then it sounds like we would be able to cope.

Dh and i have definately decided to sell the car-then we can put money on our personal loan and use some of it to buy what we need for bubby and brodie. DH is going to make use of my bike and public transport more than he does to get to uni to save money. Without the second car we will be saving $35 a month on rego savings, fuel for another car and not to meantion the insurance ($12pm) so we will have the money we need for nappies for DS. We are also going to downgrade health funds from $30pf to $20pf ($10 might not be much but it will buy us an extra container of formula a fortnight). SO with those savings and DH getting night or dawn fill we will have a few more savings.

I already know what incidentals we like to buy (i.e Sat and Wed newspaper, quokka paper, TV week, chocolate and cool drink are pretty much our standard...) and kinda figured that we dont NEED the tv week, chocolate and cool drink. I was thinking of getting the cheap shop brand cool drink which should be ok. Other than that we dont really spend all that much (Hence our savings is pretty ok after living with mum and dad once we stopped going out and eatting out all the time. Sell the car and add the tax refund and we will be doing ok).

We havent really lived by ourself since 2004 and thats a long time. Brodie does not know what life is like without his grandparents and needs to know we are in charge not them. DH and I need to get our marriage together without my mother intervening whenever we have a fight (I have getting mad at DH only to have my mother yelling at me for yelling at him so then the fight becomes between her and i-she always takes his side cos she thinks he never gets mad.......haha).

I said to DH a say or so ago when mum offered for us to live with them until the middle of next year when DH finishes studying (like that would work when the house is already crowded, my sister comes down whenever she wants and stays and always picks fights nad makes me uncomfortable and there is only one more room left and when we have the baby he/she will have to go in there so sister will have to sleep in the lounge which will make things worse).........."It might be easier financially but i have to think about my state of mind which i dont think will last another year in that house". I wasnt being rude i was just being honest.

$$$$$ mean a lot but my sanity does too. I think if we put our minds to it DH and i can make it work. We dont have a heavy life style to support and love living simply.

[clarebear1983]

Hi Clare,

It sounds like you've got a good plan and budget.
Just wanted to let you know we too did it hard for 6 years with3 kids and a mortgage whilst my DH finished his studies. I originally worked fulltime but it was actually better for us both to work part time, my DH did morning fill, I worked in the bank doing contract work and also did party plan.
Def get rid of the second car, a huge expense and maybe you could live closer to the uni to save on travel time and cost.
I put away $50 a week for each of the utilities bills.
My opinion on med insurance is that you are better putting the money into a high interest saving account.
You should be eligible for a healthcare card and rent assistance so these will help save money.
It is hard but worth it in the long run.

Living closer to DH's uni would be good but unfortunately there is no cheap childcare out there so what we would save we would spend sending DS to childcare (I need time to do my external studies i am doing).............and i would have to change hospitals which would be an extra burden because i had a bad birth last time and this hospital has my details and is close to the areas we are looking in-this area has great public transport which DH could take to save money though. Also the uni area is very expensive and the cheapest places are units and we cant live there cos we have 2 dogs (houses are like high $200's to low $300's so its impossible to save much cos of the exta expenses. It was a GREAT idea and thanks heaps for the imput but some uni areas are cheap but some uni areas are more expensive than others (dunno why when students need to live!!)

[faery]

buying food in bulk, having staples in the house is good, so you don't run out when hungry and spend $$ on takeaways. we got most of our baby stuff second hand so the maternity payment is still partially in the bank for bills etc.

our rent is high even for brissie, but since i stay at home to look after bubba, i needed to make sure it was in a place that i actually wanted to be in.

i've cut back on the weekly magazines (read em at a cafe so i can still enjoy my coffee). we took out a student loan to get a small fuel efficient car and got rid of our gas guzzler, and being in the city, i try and walk everywhere to save on petrol. we used to live quite a way out and found that the money we spent on transport is now going to rent. and we save by default as there's not a lot of going out at night when bubba is in bed by 7:30!

when i was still working and dp was still working i couldn't imagine being able to make it on just payments. but somehow we have been alright. we did have some decent savings (which are dwindling!) As soon as i found out i was pregnant, all the money i was spending on useless stuff started going into a savings account as i knew it would be tight. so maybe try and live off the smaller budget now and save as much as you can before you move out into your own place. it has taken off the stress when the phone bill comes knowing the money to pay for it is saved away.

[Percy]

We have recently moved out of our parents place as well, and as much as it harder not having the money, it has taken alot of pressure off our relationship.

We get by on $300 per week, and that easily covers food, petrol and the bills.