Saving Money any tips??

[Kaileysmum]

Hi

I am really bad with money, so is DP. Id really like tips on how people save money in day to day living? Any budgetting tips and advise? How you organise your finances, so you can live well and put away money when theres only one income and a tiny bit of family assistance? HELP!!

[Mummabear]

Hi,

We're shocking with money too, so I find that if I don't budget we end up in all sorts of stife.

I created an excel spreadsheet (very basic one) and every couple of weeks I sit down and do some more. I keep our budget done for 6 months in advance. Start by writing down all of your expenses. Sounds daunting and hard (did to me anyway), but if you put some time aside for it and just get it done then it's all over. I have a little book that I keep record of when all of our major bills are due....

Car Insurance
House Insurance
Home Phone Bill
Mobile Phone Bills
Internet Bill
Car Loan
Gas
Electricity
Any other loans you have

Then I also make a record of everyone's birthdays and budget in for buying their presents. Each week I budget for food, rent, petrol, pet food, spending, saving, and expenses as above.

Then I know exactly where I am and how much money I have for stuff. I find that things still manage to creep up, so as they do I alter the spreadsheet to reflect what is really happening.

If you want I can email you a copy of the spreadsheet that I use so you can see what I mean. PM me if you want me to.

It can be a full time job to keep on top of finances when you're on one income with a young family. I wish you luck.

Larissa

[drewid]

I spreadsheet too, much the same as Larissa. It works brilliantly, and its much easier to contain the urge to splurge when you can see in black and white (or pretty colours!) how much money you have left after paying for the essentials.

I find that we don't save much, but we are no longer living on credit (yay!), and we can live within our means. Savings are a happy bonus!

[Irish Dad]

My advise for saving money is to sleep in seperate beds. Before I had kids I had loads a money now I got 3 and another on the way I got none :) But I'm happy to be poor, now I have madness and a crazy house instead of cash theres smiles :D

[sugar n spice]

mine is much the same as larissas i update mine frequently as i pay things and spend money. I from anywhere from a month - 7mnth in advance so i can prepare and shuffle things around if need be. I find this really helps. If you would like to see one of my budgets let me know.

It actually makes budgeting fun as you can see what is coming up and how much you can put aside to buy that nice piece of furniture or something.

[ChristineM]

I used to be a shocking saver, was always going to but never got around to it. Now I do all my banking online and I have saved heaps for our family and individually for my kids. I opened a high interest online account for myself and each of my kids and every pay day I transfer money into each of them. I like ING, the interest rate good, no fees, no minimum amount and I can view all our accounts anytime I like. I love looking at the beginning of each month to see the interest that has gone in,,,money for nothing, it's great.
I am also a budget person: My DP's wage is paid quarterly and if left in the bank just gets eaten away on who knows what. I withdraw the total amount, put money into different envelopes for each different cost ie: groceries, petrol, phone etc etc. Anything left goes back into the bank to save or for emergencies. The key to budgeting is budget for everything big and small. Kids pocket money, extra money for milk, bread etc.

Good luck, and happy saving

[Maghan]

I reckon you just don't spend it, works for me, but not for hubby!

[Kaileysmum]

Thanks for the replies. I find it hard to budget, never seem to stick to it, but I suppose to save money we will have to. Is there anything you guys do to save money in day to day life e.g grocerys, petrol, presents. Id love to know any tips.

E:o

[whatwasithinking]

My advise for saving money is to sleep in seperate beds. Before I had kids I had loads a money now I got 3 and another on the way I got none :) But I'm happy to be poor, now I have madness and a crazy house instead of cash theres smiles :D
ROTFLMAO :D

[Mummabear]

ewells1983 - as far as tips go, this is all I have to offer, I'm still in search of the holy grail of savings, lol.....

DH gets paid cash so I work out what I can pay with cash for the week and then bank the rest. If your pay goes into your account, work out what you can pay with cash and then make 1 withdrawl per week. ETFPOS incurs fees. We were getting charged near on $40 per month in bank fees due to not being smart about how we did things. Direct Debits are charged at $1 per transaction by our bank, and Bpay is 30c each but credit card transactions are free. So I have a list of what is due when and where possible I make credit card payments over the phone. This keeps our fees down - money better in my pocket than theirs. I hate credit cards, they're just a trap for DH and I, so we got a VISA Debit card, which is linked to our every day account - we can only spend what we have.

I also have a separate savings account that doesn't have a card attached to it. I transfer money into it via the internet. I try and put some aside each week, even if it's only $10 - once it's in there I can't spend it so every small amount adds up.

I detest paying for petrol so I walk places as much as I can, or save up all of my erands and do them all in one afternoon, I try and pick a cooler day so I don't use the aircon in the car.

I switched to cloth nappies for when we are at home. I still used disp when we go out though. I've found cloth a lot easier than I had anticipated.

Another good tip for buying presents that someone told me is to buy stuff as you see it on special (especially kids stuff) and then stash it at home. They have a present cupboad and whenever they need a present for someone they look through the cupboard and pick something out. I'm going to start doing this. However I do budget in for everyone's birthdays.

Hope that helps a little.

Good luck

[Lunar]

I think the trick is to only buy what you NEED.
Easy place to cut back for us was groceries, we only buy what we need and stopped buying junk and alot of brand names. Buy things when they are on special and if it is a big saving, buy bulk so you don't have to pay full price for a while and usually by the time you have to buy more it's on special again;)

Also I have avoided 'just looking' in stores as I can NEVER do just that and end up buying something we could live without.

Just keep track of your money and avoid taking out more cash from your account that you need. Also avoid taking you keycard or credit card out with you if you only want to spend X amount while your out, this will avoid temptation and over spending.

Good luck with your savings!

[Lunar]

Oh and also what we do every year is put our change in a money box (one you have to cut to open) and at the end of the year you have money for Chrissie or rego or insurance, whatever. You'd be suprised how quickly it adds up. The first yr we did it for only 6 months and we were putting gold coins in it and we had enough to buy a new bed and have money to spare for birthdays etc.

[Scout]

There is a website - www.simplesavings.com.au - if you want ways to find a few extra $$$ per week in your budget with groceries, fuel etc it has loads of tips on every subject you could imagine. You pay a fee for a 12-month subscription but it is quite easy to get that back if you go through some of the advice.

I'm a shocker at budgeting and have found this site to be really useful.

Happy Saving.

[miss_moe]

some little tips:

- turn electronics off rather than leave them on standby
- use cash, save coins. each purchase is with a note and any coinage is saved
- buy fruit, veg and meat at markets
- make lunches

[Jaileth]

Dh has started calling me the change hoard. When ever we get coins as change, I take them out of our wallets and put them in a 'change jar' at home. We've managed to get almost $200 in there over about five weeks! :eek: Comes in handy when you need change for bread and milk and the like, and at the end of the month, I bank what's left over.

Also, at our last place, all our pay went straight into the bank. Each pay day, I'd jump on the net, pay our rent, and pay a set amount into our phone bill and energex bill, (eg, our phone bill works out to be about $100 a month. Divide that by the amount of pays you have in a month (we used to have two). So it works out to be $50 a week. I'd add an extra 10 - 20% - so $5 - $10 on top of that so we would have extra on the account, just in case) and any other regular bill - include stuff like laybys as well. After that, I'd set aside some in our savings account. Just a little bit, but it's fun to watch it grow.

Then, at the end of it all, we knew exactly what we could spend - cause that was all we had left. It worked out really really well.

I too do up an excel spredsheet to help me keep track of everything, but I honestly found paying all the necessities first thing via the net the easiest way to deal with everything.

If you make sure to do the necessities fist, savings next, and anything else after, it seems to be easier.

Oh - and also budget some money for you and your dh - either together as a couple or seperately. Even if its only 5 or 10 dollars a week, it makes it a bit easier to cope with the budget thing. (or it did for us anyway)

[jembelina]

These are all great tips, but am I the only one who never has a spare cent left over??? And let me tell you, we only buy the essentials each week! We cannot afford to put all our gold into a savings jar!! Even when I make lay bys ( for essential things like winter clothes for bub) i wonder how on earth i will manage to pay it off. I get frustrated when i hear about ideas for saving like - make lunches, don't use the dryer, walk instead of drive places, skip that latte, etc, etc - we do all these things - if we didn't we wouldn't have food on the table!!!

I'm sounding like a whinger now and I didn't mean to. But, are there others out there who are really, really struggling???

[morganm2b]

A great website for ideas on saving money on every day expenses is www.simplesavings.com.au. I hope this helps. We are both a little nervous about going down to one wage when we have bub in Aug, but I know there are things we can cut back on, ie. cancel gym membership (and go walking instead), change our internet plan, change our mobile phone plan to prepaid and reassess our home and health insurance policies.

Have a great day!!!

Julie

EDD - 13/8

[Biene]

I agree with ChristineM, the ING accounts are really good, we use a similar account, we don't have any bank fees for atms/eftpos etc. which when you look at your statement really adds up, so I find I can eftpos a lot of things without having to get cash out of my wallet, shop around for a decent bank, because it can make such a difference at the end of the month.

[morganm2b]

I would love it if you could email me your excess spread sheet budget. I certainly need to start budgeting more carefully. Have a good day everyone!! Julie

[mumoftwoboys2005]

Hi, could I please have a copy of the Excel Spreadsheet for budgeting?

Thank you so much.

Joanne.

[ETsMum]

I reckon you just don't spend it, works for me, but not for hubby!

Hey - Same in our family!! :D :D

[mumof2girls]

I to use an excel spreadsheet but mine goes for 12 months and we do fine, we use to struggle because we never use to know where our money was going, if you would like a copy then you can e-mail me at kaytaylor@aapt.net.au
(hope we can put our email addresses on here).

As for saving, we write out a weekly menu and then that's what we buy for the week, we pay on our bills weekly so when they come in they are usually paid off or we owe very little.
:)