Budget Crisis

I though when I started writing a blog that it would be so easy! I mean how had can it be to write about something you feel passionate about?
well I was wrong it turns out that even though I am really passionate about getting out of debt and making our present and our future as a family even brighter, I still find it hard to think of something to write about.
some weeks seem to come and go with no significant change to the norm and no straying from the budget just plain old boring routine. But this week I thought that it would be the same old same old again and mostly it will be I think but for one or two things.

See last week even though I have taken monetary access off my lovely husband he still manages to spend more then is allocated to him. I think I have to call the bank and change the over draw feature of his key card!
I was also going to buy these curtains that I have been eyeing off for like ever from ikea, but as I got to the register and popped into the asis section I found the perfect single bed for toddler mister Harry and it was reduced from $358 to $49 so back go the curtains till I can find another spare $50.
I am also planing a trip to see my family in Sydney with my mum and the three kids.
the tickets are paid for and the accommodation is free as we are staying with family. But there are things like food and a trip to the zoo that has to be paid for along with any other expeditions that come up along the way. So here is the dilemma how do I stick to the budget for the next few weeks but save up for the week in Sydney and then whilst in Sydney how do I still stick to the weekly budget?
I also have to save about $1000 for a family holiday in December, I have to pay for Christmas and all that entails, we also have one little girls fourth birthday to tend to in September. Oh and don't forget the redgo in September as well Yay!
Now I am not entirely sure how I am going to pay for all of this and keep the budget going when the budget is still in the red ! Now there will be a tax refund but who the hell knows what they will be getting back or when and there is also the child care tax rebate that come in quartally so I should get at least two of them before Christmas I think but I do not want to count on these things unless I am desperate as you just don't know when or if they are coming or exactly how much they will be!

so short of a miracle I am not sure how this is going to work! But stay tuned and I guess we will find out together!

TTFN
Beth

I have recently descouvered that a lot of people are going thruogh or have just been through the same situation as we are at the moment, but it is funny how money is still a toboo subject amoung friends and family.

I have found great comfort in confinding in my friends and my family, but my husband still does not want these people to know what he earns or what we owe he thinks that, well I am not sure why he thinks this exactly. But I have simply found that I can learn from my friends and family and their mistakes and triumphs. I also know that money was not something that I was taught much about as a kid and its not a tradition that I want to pass onto my children I would like to teach them how to stay in front of the budget and not always be playing catch up the way we always seem to be.



I have also decided that alot of people spend very differently at the grocery store and I have been researching this a little over the past few months as to see if what I spend on groceries is okay or extravigant.

It turns out I am about mid range I think, with a budget of $180 a week although we very rarley actually spend this much, I know thats what I can afford ( and this includes things like cleaning, tioletries, medicine and toilet paper and stuff like that.)

I am also keeping track of what I spend on groceries each week in a book and I just thought of going through and making a spread sheet or something to track the price cycle kind of like at the petrol pump where in our local area the cheap day is about thursday so we try and make that the day we fuel up so if I track the food price cycle I might be able to do the same thing.

I am still trying to cut our grocery bill down but with three kids and a husband that is an almost impossible task.

I would love to hear any tips on cutting down your grocery bill or how much you spend at the register!

thanks and I will talk yo you all soon.

Beth

No money for you !!!!

I am sorry it has taken so log between blogs! It has been a crazy few weeks and I know that is a lame excuse but that's it, that's all I can say.



Now I have been trying to get our household budget under control and get us heading towards the black again.

This has been an extremely hard task considering our out goings are more then our in comings and the fact that I am married to a man that if there is money there then it will burn a hole in his pocket ( so to speak) till he spends it.

So to over come this hurdle I am taking control of all the family money, this includes his income and all family tax benefits and every cent that comes in or out of our hands. Yes that means I am taking his key cards off him and changing all passwords to something he could never guess. I know this sounds harsh, but we had a four hour heated discussion last week about how the budget will not work and how I am living in dream land if I think for one second it will work for us. So I am getting in the trenches and hauling this family out of debt single handedly, meanwhile I will be doing my usually house work and keeping the family fed and cleaned and I will also be job hunting, to add to the funds. See whilst I am trying to achieve all this I am also trying to start a business and make new friends and catch up with the old. I guess now I know why the octopus was created.

Okay, so task one done! I have taken accsses of hubby and it now all lies with me!
(CRAP! what was I thinking?)
I know this will work eventually but somehow I need to prove this to hubby soon.
see at least once a week we have a rather heated discussion about this issue and quiet frankly I am sick of hitting my head against a brick wall all time.

My next task is to open up a bills account and a savings account so that I can put money into both all be it not allot but something so that one day when hubby goes "I would like to get a new TV or new tyres for the car"
Then I can go "well lets do it today the money is there so why not "
so that is the first task I would like to accomplish the next would have to be
find a job I guess!
While I don't particular want to go back to work I need to inject more funds into the budget so until I find a better way to do this I will have to keep searching for the right job for me and the family.
My other goal is keep working on my business.
I am a qualified pasrty chef and I love making birthday cakes and wedding cakes so if any of you out there in blog land are having either of these things or you just feel like getting your self something special then head over to my website www.asliceofindulgence.com.au

Now that I have got that plug in here I better head off and do some much dreaded house work so I shall chat to all real soon (I
promise)

Beth

This morning I have been looking for inspiration! See for a little while now I have felt a little unfulfilled I guess.

I have felt that there is a part of myself that has not yet seen the light of day!

For reasons that I am not sure are great excuses anymore.

Whilst the money is still a large issue, one of my other excuses was what if I no longer fit in?

Well the one of two things that pop into my mind is (something my mothers cousin is famous for,) A forehead slap directed straight at me!

The other is something one of the lovely ladies told me when I was attending a course (that I think every stay at home mum should attend) Run by the Wise foundation called buziness babes, one of the little tasks we had to do throughout the course was to write down a goal we had set ourselves and achieved, I had originally written down finishing my pastry chef apprenticeship, and whilst i am proud of achieving this while everyone had started to share there goals I had the urge to change mine and I placed my hand up to share it immediately my goal was throughout the whole course I had to be myself and I didn't care what people thought of me, but I had to do it for myself! and I had ! so that's what I was proud of, and one of the many lovely ladies sitting next to me turned to me and said " And we all like you anyway!" well at that I nearly cried !

Any way back to my point I had lost sight of that a little and gone back into being the Beth for everyone else and not myself.

So my plan for the next month is to be myself and do things that I like and don't care what anyone thinks about it or me for that matter.

I am going to spend my ten dollars a week of personal spending money that is allocated to me in our budget on stuff I love and not just on cheap magazines and junk.

So look out second hand shops around Brisbane I have money and will spend it!

Talk to you all soon!

Beth

Took the kids to daycare on the bus on Tuesday, and this is the thing I don't get cause it would not cost me the $7.20 in petrol that it cost me to catch the two buses there and then home again.

It also would not take me nearly three hours to walk that far in fact if I thought that the kids would make it I would have just walked the whole way as it used to only take me half an hour each way and that was when I was about six our seven months pregnant.

so my question is this what is the incentive for the general public to catch public transport?

It is not convenient, it is not cheap and it is not quick.

I mean I get it if you are on your way out and it is cheaper then a taxi but then you are not really in a hurry and if you have to go into the city for work where is little or no parking, and I get that some people have no other choice, but what about the rest of us I mean those of us who have lots of errands to run and only a limited amount of time to do them in ?

I am as you may know a stay at home mum ( for the moment anyway) and when I look at what I would like to get done today I know I could have used those two extra hours a lot better and what if I was not a stay at home mum and had to catch public transport to drop the kids at day care and then get too work?

If I worked in the city and started at 8 Am I would have to get up at about 5am and have the kids at daycare at 6 to 6.30 am and then get into the city by at least 7.30 am and I know for a fact that the buses around here do not start that early. it makes for a very long and argues day don't you think?
Talk to you all soon.

Beth

Okay! It's Saturday morning and the kids are all out playing in the back yard and hubby is sound asleep in bed after a late night, I am trying to work out a menu for the rest of the week and write a grocery list, but I find this task rather difficult as I am scared I am going to miss something and then because I have spent the budget I will just have to make do, or what if I don't get enough stuff for the week and we find ourselves short a meal or two?
I know the right answer to this is Beth don't be so silly you have been buying the groceries now for how long?
I know that I am over reacting but this could make or break our whole budget!

Meanwhile, why I hesitate to get the groceries the money in the bank is dwindling fast and I don't know where it is going, do bank accounts get holes in them?
If this whole budget thing is going to work I think I am going to have to grow a pair of ( excuse the saying!) balls!!


Okay so my to do list for today is as follows:

• Clean out second fridge and turn it off
• Finish all the washing ( damn! out of laundry powder, crap that means I have to do the shopping first! :( )
• Grocery shopping

on top of the normal house work and feeding the kids( and hubby!) and keeping them all from killing each other. Somebody remind me what a weekend is again!

Sorry its only a short one today but I just felt the need to have a whinge!!!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Beth

The Family Budget

I have many things I wish to write about here but I guess I will just share with you a little of me.

I am a wife, a mother of three, a qualified pastry chef, and a women in my own right.
I have thoughts, beliefs and opinions, so here I am going to share them with you On just every day things weather it is something that happened to me that day or something from the news.
I will share with you parts of my journeys I am on, and things I am doing.

So now that that is out of the way, the major journey I am partaking in which I am sure many families in Australia are going through right now, is one to semi financial freedom. Now when I say semi I meant that as a one income family I know that we will be paying off our mortgage for a long time yet.

Now my husband quiet often says to me when I try to talk about money issues with him is that " If we had a million dollars in the bank, you would still want more! "
Know just to clarify, all I want is to live comfortably and be able to pay the bills as they come in and buy the things we need and some that we want without too much stress.
Is that too much to ask for ?

After nearly loosing our car to the bank we decided that we needed to re asses the way we handle our money. We sort the help of a local financial councilor to help us get things in control, and what we found was that our out goings where far more than our in comings.
(no wonder we could never get ahead!)
So now our challenge is to see if we can trim that down so we are living well within our means again. So to do this we have to keep track of everything we spend, and only spend what we have budgeted for. For instance if we have only budgeted for $70 for petrol that's all we spend on petrol and if we don't need to spend that much we keep it aside for when we need to spend more then $70 on Petrol.
The other thing that we were unaware of was exactly how much we spent on groceries. this means every trip to the corner store for more milk and bread, or down to the supermarket 'cause we feel like something extra special for dinner.
So now we have set ourselves a budget of $180 a week for all things groceries and while both hubby and I think this might be too much ( not forgetting we are a family of five) I am scared that I can't make this work. Now I know that is a stupid thought because we have to make it work, But I can't help but think 'what if I stuff this up?' silly I know, and as a result I have been putting off doing the groceries shopping this week!

So I am going to set myself some challenges to accomplish this week

• Write out a menu for the next week until payday, and do the shopping, and stay within the budget.

• Shop around for a better deal on the electricity.

• Buy a bike (cheaply of cause ).

I hope you enjoy my blog and I hope to hear your thoughts.

I just want to leave you with something to ponder.

Why is it we never learnt anything about our private finances at school? and I don't know about the rest of you but growing up we never talked about the family budget or money of any sort really ( this is something I plan to change in my family.) So its no wounder people like you and me fall into debt faster than we realize.

So thats it for now I guess. I hope to see you again soon.

Beth.