Term holidays

Happy to say I'm in the midst of Term 2 holidays! Less happy to say I only have one day to be paid for in the next pay cycle, and four days in the cycle after that. So it goes as a casual teacher. Youngest turned 16 recently and it was pretty low-key. I'm buying him a sofa as a birthday gift. And some Lego, slippers and a new dressing gown. Not sure what he thinks of the sofa idea - don't think he's thrilled - but it is practical. It did take a fair chunk of my savings though. Hopefully I'll get a tax refund - I have an appointment booked next Wednesday and have tallied up my possible deductions. Except my World Vision sponsorship stuff as that wasn't available. Will check again before my appointment. I'm going to try to save 30% of my future pays - 10% to cover the holidays, 10% for home deposit savings and 10% for car replacement. That won't include FTB or CS though. I'm trying to use CS mainly for kids' expenses - clothes, school, shoes etc. FTB I have been using to build up my mojo. The eldest will be 18 in November! How time flies.

Change in focus

So when I started, my focus was on the amount of $500 as a figure to live within. Now I think I'm gravitating towards a more flexible view, in which I'm focussed more on living within my means and saving for my dreams, while understanding that there are things I value that are not affordable within the $500 amount. I had made an exception for kids' expenses already but I was still finding it very restrictive. I had to replace my car battery on Thursday, at a cost of $180. I have managed to get my Mojo budget category up to $2000 which is exciting but I've also used my car rego savings (which was insufficient anyway). So may need to use Mojo for that, depending on how much I save beforehand and the results of the pink slip inspection. Fingers crossed there is nothing major from that. Which reminds me that I need to book it in.

Almost payday

This is the week when the money comes in... my pay, Centrelink and child support... next week nothing... the week after my pay and Centrelink... the child support is monthly-ish. So I did weaken in my resolve last night and we had dinner out. It was expensive and not that good. And car rego is coming up real quick... I have less than a month. Poo. I haven't really saved anything much for it - like $60. So it will probably wipe my home deposit savings. Then C's 16th birthday is a month later. But you do what you can, and don't worry about the rest. I am not working today as C has an appointment in about half an hour. I was given a pumpkin and am going to make up a big batch of soup after I drop C back to school.

Still on the wagon and making progress

So my slackness in posting has not been concurrent with a slackness in budgeting, generally. I have overspent on groceries but other than that, I've been doing pretty well. Part of the grocery spending was to qualify for $50 from flybuys, so that does reduce the grocery overspend as I've now qualified. Unfortunately, I will not have enough in my bills budget to cover the electricity bill. CS is currently late but if / when that comes through, it will be used to pay the rest of the power bill and then to buy some winter clothes for the boys.

The costs of kids

I can't do the $500 challenge inclusive of kids' expenses. I forgot about the 15yo's art classes @ $150 a term. Then he comes home with a note for a $60 excursion next Tuesday. The eldest has $200 payable for an excursion later. I haven't paid school fees yet. So... there is going to have be some flexibility here... $500 excluding specific kid expenses - but I will be conscious of keeping those down. Other than that, went to Coles. Spent $107, including a $30 mobile credit recharge. Qualified for $50 if I spend $80 next week. Eating a lot of chicken this week. Have made a chicken and cauliflower soup which is ok but not exciting. Planned meals for the rest of the week. Might need to get some bread and milk before then - well probably will actually. Was hungry when I went shopping so I did buy - and eat - a 2 pack of capsicum and chilli I think bread rolls. Oh! I meant to buy some little tins of baked beans. I need to get to bed early tonight - I am so tired.

Lunches

Today I managed to buy a week's worth of lunches for the boys for under $20. I got bread, ham, cheese, pickles, oranges, chips and biscuits. Made and froze sandwiches and packaged up some chips and biscuits for recess snacks, along with the oranges. Pleased with that! In less positive news, kids' expenses is overdrawn thanks to a MathsOnline subscription I had forgotten to account for. DS17 has agreed to pay $10 a week for that though.

An early pothole

I just remembered that I need to budget for union fees! I'm not willing to give this up so my plan is to take $5 a week from water and $1 from groceries and put it towards union fees. Let it rain! Later edit: also NESA accreditation fee - took another $2 from groceries to cover.

What is this?

The $500 challenge is my own invention. I have decided it is an amount I could live off, not easily but possibly. I am fortunate to have really low rent, only $110 per week, so the remaining $390 would need to cover food, bills and expenses for myself and my two teenaged sons. They also work part time so will cover their own prepaid mobile phone costs and the youngest contributes $10 a week towards the upkeep of his rabbits. $500 is not a tiny amount, given my low rent, but it represents a significantly smaller sum than I have been spending. I am thinking I might try to keep my spending to around $110 a week for groceries, $30 a week for fuel, $100 a week to cover phone and internet / electricity / mobile / gas bills, $30 for health insurance, $45 for car and contents insurance and rego, $25 for kids expenses (TKD, clothing), $20 a week for youngest son's music lessons and $19 a week for spending (hair, grooming, clothing, coffee, contact lenses, takeaway). It's a little bit breathtaking to think about actually. My first step has been to set up my budget. I use YNAB which is a subscription I need to budget for, along with Netflix, iCloud and Apple Music. I've decided I'm going to ditch Netflix and ask the kids to contribute $2 a week each for Apple Music and iCloud (we have Family Sharing set up for these). There are plenty of shows I can watch on iview and SBS On Demand and truthfully, I don't want to spend too much time watching TV anyway. I have a weakness for books and there are a couple I want to buy at the moment but I'm going to borrow them from the library or just save up my personal spending money. Or if I can find stuff I can sell, I might be able to fund that. TKD costs $50 a month for both kids so that will take quite a chunk of the kids' expenses budget @ $12.50ish per week. The rest needs to cover their clothing and school expenses. I'm not sure how realistic that is. But they are working part-time so might help out there. We're coming up to winter in a month so I'm going to try really hard to minimise heater / drier usage and keep the electric bill down. Blankets, jumpers etc. Will need to take care with car travel to minimise petrol usage and costs too. Groceries is going to be a big challenge. I've had a few thoughts - switching from the bakery bread and real butter I love to cheap bread and marg, eating more meatless meals, getting eggs from my mum's chooks, buying the generic brands more and buying supermarket brand milk. Plus cheaper cereals, like weetbix. If I need to buy eggs though, I will buy free range. I have a heap of rice so maybe some stir fries and fried rice. Dahl. Cheaper ham and cheese for kids' sandwiches. Takeaway will just not be an option. Maybe hot chips once a week. No coffees. I will shop more at Coles and make the most of Flybuys offers that are in line with my budget for shopping. I'm growing out my hair and won't worry about colouring it, although I only did that occasionally anyway. I'd like to budget a bit for regular waxing but not sure if that will really be doable.