Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

Well, there was no update last week, because there wasn’t much to update. My purse was raided by Hubby, no fuel was put in the car so I had to keep that money for when it did need filling up, and I spent the entire food budget getting stocked for this week (grocery spending so far this week is up to $60, minus about $10 that will be reimbursed). BUT today I had a win. Finally filling up the car for the last two weeks (budget $50 per week, so $100) came to $49.75 - leaving me with $50.25 to add to the savings challenge. That puts me OH SO CLOSE to my target, I can taste it. $225.15 is the new total, leaving me with $24.85 to find before my first goal is reached (exercise bike). I really think I can do that this week with the groceries!

As I mentioned last week, we got our registration bill for the car. This often results in an avalanche of paperwork from the CTP insurer’s in Queensland. Just to make life interesting. One such offer arrived yesterday from RACQ. While all our insurances are through AAMI, we have RACQ cover for when I lock my keys in the car or leave the lights on. Those incidents have been non-existant since we got this car in 2004, but that’s a whole other post.

The offer this time from RACQ was a reduction by $10 on our bill if we switched our CTP insurance to them. While this offer would result in a $10 saving this year (the costs for insurance are exactly the same) the effects on our other insurance policies wouldn’t be noticed until March next year when all our other insurances are due. See having 4 policies (CTP, Comprehensive Car Insurance, Home and Contents Insurance) with the one provider, gets us a discount of about 15%. 10% on Car ($660) and Home & Contents ($650) policies is a LOT more than $10 (over $100!).

Obviously it’s sometimes worth looking at these offers and always worth running the numbers, for the most part offers that offer a saving for switching some part of your insurnace to another provider increases costs elsewhere. If you are considering switching providers anyway, this is obviously a good time to do it, and increase the benefits in your pocket. Alls I’m saying is, sometimes an advertised saving isn’t a saving at all, if you look beneath the surface.

Rego: $523.00
Rates: $2067.00
Electricity: $142.60
Total: $2732.60

Eeek. Electricity is good, it’s down HEAPS. Like, about $60. Rego I was expecting and has not changed. Rates have gone up $180. NOT happy with that. And my step-mother was complaining about her $1600 rates bill. I can only dream of a rates bill like that.

The end of another week, and surprisingly I have some substantial additions to my savings stash this week.

1. From my spendings money last week I have saved the tragic amount of $1.90.

2. From the fuel budget I have saved $24 by not using the car as much as normal

3. Also from the budget, groceries this week came in well under, meaning a saving of $51

Thus, the savings for this week total $76.90, bringing my new savings total to $92.90. A few more weeks like this and I’ll have achieved my first $250 savings challenge! Go me!

An Island just off the coast:

So, as you can see, leaving here isn’t exactly an easy choice. There are a couple of issues. One is the cost of living. I’m sure you can imagine the value of some of those houses in the first shot, and the real estate value of my old workplace? If not, here’s a little hint. Add six zero’s and you’ll be getting close. Anyway, on top of that, wages don’t necessarily fit the area. In fact being a regional area, wages are notoriously low, despite the obvious affluence of the region. Through a series of lucky coincidences (and bloody hard work) we’ve been able to buy here, even though at times it’s been a bit of a struggle. But with child #3 around the corner, and Miss nearly 4 starting school in 18 months, other considerations added to our decision to make the move. The area we have picked in Brisbane to move to has an excellent reputation for schools, family friendly facilities, is precicely 40 minutes drive from my parents, and close to many long time, and new internet friends. All these combine to make the decision easier.

But back to the topic. What was it again? Oh yes, thinking about the future. A couple of posts on Get Rich Slowly that have given me pause lately. I first came across Get Rich Slowly through a link to this article on Renting vs Buying which explores the possibility that buying is not always necessarily the best option. Reading through the comments it’s obvious that the majority reject this notion. This aversion to non-traditional-home-ownership options can be seen further in the earlier article “Is it Better to Invest or Prepay a Mortgage?”

The reason this has come up for discussion in this household, is the cash we will walk away with from the sale of this house, is a decent start to a savings plan, and as we’re looking at renting anyway, for a while, until we get used to the area, what would happen if we didn’t buy? Continued renting and put all our spare money into a decent (balanced) managed fund? Conservative estimates put our retirement at 10 years away. That was an eye opener. Yes, we’d have to continue renting for that time, and continue to rent ever after, but for Hubby, who’s not a fan of his industry, the prospect of retiring at 49 definitely makes him stop and pay attention.

Now at this stage, it’s an interesting idea, and just that. But even taking into account buying a house at retirement, it would only take 12 years to save that money. And very conservative estimates.

Were we to buy a house, put all our spare money in, it would still take 20 years to pay off. Is renting for 12 years a good enough price to pay for retirement potentially 23 years earlier? This is the question we’ll be asking ourselves before we make the final decision.

Kind of. As the week draws to a close I turn my attention to the small pile of coins I have accumulated next to my bed 65 cents. Yes, it really is a paltry sum. I do. however, have high hopes of managing some actual savings over the next few weeks, now that a large number of our financial burdens have been lifted. Meanwhile, my new total is an inspiring $16.00.

After a few very lean weeks for the $250 Savings Challenge, I am pleased to announce that we have made it through. I know things aren’t over yet, but we are at a place I’m comfortable with. Thanks to the 3 fortnightly pays in August, there is automatically one extra home loan payment available. My first instinct was to spend it, but instead I will leave it in the account as further backup savings. I am also anticipating my Tax Return in a week or so, which will relieve the pressure immeasurably. Put simply: things are looking up. It is pay day tomorrow, we haven’t starved, our electricity or phones haven’t been cut off, and I can see money coming in from various sources for a few weeks to come.

Back to the topic: This week I am depositing exactly $4 into the fund. I know it’s not much, but considering that’s 36% of what’s already in there, I’m impressed. This money is leftover cash that has found itself into my purse. Bringing the total to $15.35. This is slow going, but I WILL get there.

Sometimes when a crisis hits, money can be hard to find. Several people espouse the “Emergency Fund” theory (minimum $1000) and while that’s great if you’ve got that organised (see my total in the $250 savings challenge to the right) if you don’t have that it can be quite disheartening.

This week I had cause to find $800 in a hurry to pay two bills that have somehow become overdue, textbooks for uni, food and petrol for a week. It was tough, but I think I’ve managed it.

1. I assessed all the money we had access to: $300 on the home loan, $160 in assorted accounts and $15.45 in cash.
2. I did a menu plan, then a shopping list. Shopping list total $11.20. I’ll pay for that with cash.
3. I used the $300 to pay towards the biggest (and most overdue) bill, and the $160 for text books.
This left me with $260 in bills and petrol to find money for.
4. I found $140 worth of medicare claims that have now being cashed, and will go off the rest of the bills.
5. I sent out emails listing my excess Tupperware stock for 20% off RRP. Have since sold $160 worth. As I’ve paid for this stock months ago, this is all profit.
6. Contacted other Tupperware demonstrators to ask if they had any clients they couldn’t service. Got two names and a $500 order - min $100 in commission.
7. Contacted the daycare centre and arranged for a fundraising Tupperware party next week. Hopefully that will bring in a bit too.

So all up I have found (so far) $860 without leaving the house, and doing hardly any work. As well these measures I’ve put in motion should continue to bring in some money for a while yet.

So what do you do when you have to find money quickly?