Where has the time gone! The first three weeks of not working have been really busy – in a productive way. I’ll write about that later.
But for now, I wanted to update you on the family budget now that our income has been halved and I am not working – part 3 of my financial series.
As I mentioned, we have been to see a financial advisor on our superannuation and retirement needs, particularly now that David is nearly 50 and I am nearly 43. It’s important to understand the long game, and to understand how hard we have to work (or not work!) to ensure that we have both a reasonable standard of living now and in our retirement.
Main changes: I have reduced our food budget, and my mobile plan. There is not a lot of wriggle room in this budget – by the time we also get our allowances (which have also reduced) we have about $1000 spare per month. I intend to build this as a bit of a cash flow to help us on the heavier months when we have more expenses.
So our one income budget looks like this:
| Expenses | yearly | monthly | fortnightly | |
| 26 | 2 | |||
| Car rego | $ 2,200.00 | $ 84.62 | ||
| Car insurance | $ 1,100.00 | $ 42.31 | ||
| House ins | $ 1,100.00 | $ 42.31 | ||
| car services | $ 1,000.00 | $ 38.46 | ||
| petrol | $ 120.00 | |||
| Sundry | $ 300.00 | |||
| fernwood | $ 24.00 | |||
| internode | $ 75.00 | $ 37.50 | ||
| mobile | $ 35.00 | $ 17.50 | ||
| pocket money | $ 25.00 | |||
| cleaning | $ 65.00 | |||
| food | $ 400.00 | |||
| electricity | $ 1,200.00 | $ 46.15 | ||
| gas | $ 1,782.00 | $ 68.54 | ||
| water | $ 1,000.00 | $ 38.46 | ||
| rates | $ 1,300.00 | $ 50.00 | ||
| primary school fees | $ 100.00 | $ 50.00 | ||
| piano | $ 600.00 | $ 23.08 | ||
| netball | $ 350.00 | $ 26.00 | ||
| health insurance | $ 1,600.00 | $ 61.54 | ||
| girls clothing | $ 1,500.00 | $ 57.69 | ||
| movies | $ 100.00 | |||
| red cross | $ 25.00 | $ 12.50 | ||
| guitar | $ 600.00 | $ 23.08 | ||
| dancing | $ 400.00 | $ 15.38 | ||
| oxfam | $ 25.00 | $ 12.50 | ||
| Boys school fees | $ 4,624.00 | $ 177.85 | ||
| Girls school fees | $ 550.00 | $ 275.00 | ||
| Girls mobile | $ 30.00 | $ 15.00 | ||
| foxtel | $ 50.00 | $ 25.00 | ||
| gifts | $ 3,000.00 | $ 115.38 | ||
| boys expenses | $ 200.00 | $ 100.00 | ||
| total | $ 2,489.85 |
The main thing that I will focus on to reduce our food bill is to really cook from scratch. I like the health benefits of this as well, as I am really keen on reducing the amount of processed food that we buy. Things that I already cook from scratch include:
- Bread – sour dough is may favourite
- Yoghurt – greek and vanilla
- Mozzarella
- Pancetta
- Biscuits and cakes for the children
- Hommus (Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe is so yummy)
- Preserves – I preserve food when it is particularly season and tasty – like mangoes, apricots, peaches, tomatoes
The second way I will reduce the food budget is by buying in bulk from our local Food Co-operative. The food is organic and not packaged, which I really subscribe to. I take in my own jars and produce bags so there is no plastic packaging.
Finally, I will grow up to 50% of our fresh produce. My husband and I have just spent the weekend building three new vegetable beds. This weekend’s outlay has been around $1000 – I have spent all up around $2500 on the veggies beds – but they will pay themselves off in no time.
My job is to keep an eye on the family budget and to make sure that we are on track. Bottom line is if I don’t keep track of it, I am back to work so of course, keeping expenditure within budget is my number 1 priority! I am loving not working and providing really healthy produce for my family.
iheartsimpleliving 