Managing money to make life easier

[Clues_Of_Blue]

One of the big things that causes stress and sure kicks you about when you already have mental illness to play with is money. Whether you're in debt, just scraping by, or feel like you're working to much to maintain a lifestyle. Here is a place to talk about how to make your dollars go a bit further and take off some financial pressure.

I'll start with some basic pointers:

- Plan a little with food. Make work lunches, decide on meals for the week and stick to your shopping list. If you shop a bit later you're also likely to get a lot of fresh produce at a discount.

- Check regularly (every six months or so) on your utilities. Often there is a better plan out there to switch to. As customers, loyalty to a company usually just gets us a quietly growing bill instead of discounts or rewards. Vote with your feet.

- Same with your home loan, you can refinance to one with a better interest rate, just watch out for exit fees (and LMI if you still owe more than 80% of the house value)

If you have any tips or questions, feel free to share or ask.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

Sounds like the scholarship was a winner. I don't know much about those, having no (human) children. For some reason they don't let birds go to uni, haha.

Dual flush cisterns are great, I have one too, and still use my bottles to use less water. For those who don't have a dual flush and can't afford one, maybe 2 litre bottles in the cistern might work better for keeping costs down.

Rain water tanks are great and I think pay for themselves fairly quickly. Your grey water solutions are great for a gardener, though I'll add the point that choosing environmentally responsible washing liquids/powders is important if using washing water on food crops (I'm sure you already know that, but others reading might not have thought of it).

I have a water saving shower head too, though no timer. Some great water suggestions there, thanks for those.

Blue.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey RT,

I spend a lot of time online, too. Albeit mostly gaming or researching random things, haha. For me, the e-mail thing is much more about minimalism than budgeting, so that's appropriate. It's so easy to get bogged down in all those e-mails, digital decluttering is as valuable as doing it with physical things.

Thanks. I guess the meals are a bit random - I make what I know I'm good at and whatever the recipient is most likely to enjoy. Sorry to hear your family aren't so good to talk to about gifts, I guess I'm pretty lucky with mine on that score. It can be fun looking up stuff online, no harm in getting ideas. I don't have much of a plan for this year, yet. Life has been turned upside-down in recent months with my partner's surgery, he had a heart and lung transplant. Christmas has dropped off the priority list for the time being.

Boy, breathing is just too expensive, isn't it? Shocking what they can charge.

It's a good place to be in, able to have a few creature comforts, and be able to help others as well. I tend to make one-off donations to animal rescue charities when I have the money to spare.

Completely on board with all those things. I go a bit further, with making my own yoghurt and muesli, too. Quite fond of both, so I save an awful lot of money and have a healthier product without sugar and only ingredients I enjoy in it. You're so right about the eco footprint - with yoghurt in particular, I absolutely hate all those little single serve containers and pouches.

Whilst I don't in any way have EM's gardening prowess, another little trick I have is trying to grow anything from the supermarket that still has roots on. The one thing even I can't stuff up is spring onions. Use the main part, keep the root portion and stick that in a glass of water. Change the water regularly, and you'll have spring onions growing merrily for some while. Stuff like onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes are pretty likely to sprout if left too long, and they can be planted.

Blue.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

On a more frivolous note, when I'm paying my bills, Sir Pecks (eldest bird) loves nibbling at my budget and my bills. Too bad I can't get out of paying my bills by saying my bird ate them, hehe.

[ecomama]

"THE PARROT ATE MY BILLS!" lol won't wash Blue.

LOVE your food growing tips!
Leeks work too.
We need to tie that info into the Gardening thread!

Return and Earn
You asked about this on the Self-care thread Blue. I thought it best to answer here (as cheeky lorikeets are dancing around my feet!)

I'm in NSW. We have Return and Earn machines which my completely green gf lobbied for all over to get designed, made, happening. Our Major supermarkets agreed to be partners.

SO MANY containers can be taken to these machines & deposited.
The machine counts each one, 10c per container.

Don't laugh!
I got $27.90 yesterday!
That can feed our whole family for days. 🤨

We're greenies BUT the kids do have parties & many containers are left.
All visitors know our system. Purple bag for glass. Yellow bag for cans / plastics.
We also collect them from all sorts of places including relatives who keep them for us!
My brother drinks alot of beer, don't tell his Dr lol. He keeps his bottles in many milk crates & drops them off when they're full.

1 machine it takes empty containers of:
* aluminium cans
* poppers
* ALL P.E.T. bottles with labels on for the machine to read including all water bottles.

In the other machine next to it glass:
* most drink bottles from the supermarket
* beer bottles
* almost all alcohol bottles.

It's all trial and error for a while to see which ones pay.

I have a box of disposable gloves in the back of my car to use bec it gets sticky!

Anyway the machine counts each accepted bottle and adds it all up - the total is tallied on the screen as you go.
When you've finished, the machine gives you the option of printing out the receipt or donating it to a great cause. I noticed that BB was on there yesterday!

If you take the receipt, you need to cash it in at a Woollies or Coles (they're usually right there near the machines).
OR you can fold the receipt carefully lol and cash it in when buying your groceries next time.
I cash it in immediately.

Basically we all keep a plastic bag in our bags / cars and fill them.
Then re-use the bags for our garbage bins.

NB: It doesn't take CRUSHED cans.
I keep these until I have minimum 1kg and cash in at the metal recyclers for $14 per kg.
Plus any and all other metals.
I've never walked away from the metal recyclers with less than $20 but up to $150 at times.
I save it up in a section of our garden that no one sees, then when I have a car full, I take it then.
I have a large car.

Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey there EM,

It's worth a try, right? 😛

Thanks. Mayhap while I have a smidgen of energy I should visit the garden thread (I may cheat and copy/paste for that...).

Cheeky lorikeets, you say. Are they yours, or are you in a park? When I was last in NSW all the birds were so tame, used to people feeding them I guess. The pigeons and lorikeets actually sat on me, and ate from my hands. Even an ibis ate from my hands! That just wouldn't happen, here.

Ah, okay, so Return and Earn is bottle and can recycling. I'm a South Aussie. We don't have those machines, but there are plenty of recycling depots. Humans sort and count the bottles and cans (even the crushed ones), grumble at you if you haven't taken the lids off the bottles, then give you a slip with the amount to take to the cashier. Very similar concept, different execution. And you bet the people there wear gloves, it is a mucky job.

I have a large bin out the back for my paid recycling. I don't go through a lot of cans and bottles, but every six months or so I can get $20 or thereabouts from it. Not huge, but every bit counts. I usually tie my recycling trips in with seeing my brother. He doesn't drive, so usually has a bit of a backlog to take in. I only have a couple of garbage bags full most times so there is room for his too, and we do a couple of trips. It buys a nice lunch of sushi or something while we're out together (or I use it for ingredients and make my own). 🙂

Blue.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Blue,

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear about your partner! I take it that means Christmas looks a little differently because of his capacity and recovery?

It's so ridiculous!

That's a great idea to make your own yoghurt and muesli! Baked bread is also so delicious homemade. I'm itching to make some granola myself too. I bought some seeds and things the other day and thought about this conversation - one container used to be coconut oil, another used to be a pasta sauce, another used to be a lolly jar..! and then I'd peeled off a big case for magnesium tablets to use as more storage!

As for bins, I do the 10c one too, as well as recycling, general waste, green waste, opp shops, ewaste (electronic) and redcycle- (soft plastics). I've even trained my partner in it all which I am very proud of 🙂

rt

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hi RT,

Thanks. He's actually bouncing back pretty well, he's a very resilient man. There are certainly challenges but his health was so bad before the surgery he is definitely in better shape now, even with a way to go with recovery. Finances are another matter, I've taken so much time off work I don't have an income at the moment, we're living off his Centrelink money. I paid a lot of bills ahead, but it still doesn't leave much after food and other basic things.

It really is.

Thanks. I put the yoghurt recipe in the Easy Peasy Recipes thread if you're interested. I haven't tried making bread, though I do want to. Granola sounds good, too. Good re-purposing of containers, there. I also look for recipes for all my favourite take-away things. It costs so much less, is healthier and I can experiment with little changes. I make pizza, laksa, pad thai, sweet and sour, teriyaki, lemon "chicken" (vegetarian substitute), sushi and so on.

That's great, especially training your partner, haha. I haven't quite got mine trained yet, but he tries.

Blue.

[ecomama]

Lol my kids are trained. They know which food scraps in the chicken's bucket (with a lid) and which stuff goes to the worm farms / composts.
Plus with Return and Earn too. I've earnt up to enough to equal my House Insurance at times.

But I pay House Insurance yearly as it costs around $200 more to pay it monthly.
I found that with ALL insurances, except Health Fund. We only pay for extras and it's SO worth it for our glasses and my chiro.

I thought of this thread on the weekend when I was putting on my dishwasher lol...

Years ago, I searched the cheapest times for electricity here and ONLY put my dishwasher and washing machine on between those hours.
I'm not as fussy now but still did it over the weekend lol.

I also had an off-peak thingy installed on our hot water system many years ago.

I re-rigged my clothesline up on the weekend too.
During Covid with ALL of us working many more hours than usual, we used the drier only for our wet washing.
We could barely cope as it was, so wherever I could decrease our workload, I did.

Now it's more back to normal for us; I cut back to 3 days but the kids all work lots still after school and on weekends.

Still I've only paid $160 for electricity in 8 months, so I'm very happy!
I'm still paying a no interest loan for the solar panels which goes for another 2y and 2 months but who's counting lol!
ME!

I'm putting in a cabin / bungalow way down the back yard in the future.. income minimum of $375 but we might get $450 / week.
My fiancee began converting my hand drawn floor plan for the bungalow into a proper plan with a program he has.

I want to put tenants in there and have allowed more than regulation garden space for them to have their dogs. Most places won't allow pets and this breaks my heart lol.

IF (only IF lol) I'm clever enough, I hope to pay for the building of it as I go. I don't want to borrow against my mortgage for it but may use my credit card at times.

I'm designing it to live in MYSELF should need be further down the track, so it's our own design which is far more expensive for a Builder to build than an off the plan build of their own.

1 year - 18 months for the plans to be completely drawn up with all specs.

Heaven knows what curved balls will come in that time lol as they always seem to!
But that's my plan anyway.

Pretty exciting!

Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Good work training your kids. Still working on that with my partner, he's a pretty absent minded sort.

I've found the same with insurance, and pay it annually when possible. Same with rego. Unfortunately this is another area where it gets expensive to be poor if you can't pay it in one go. Been there.

Gods, washing is the worst with Covid, it has to be done so much more often. Good work keeping the times to the off peak periods.

If you can avoid a loan on your bungalow it could be a great income earner. Believe it or not, old Blue was a landlord once, but owing to it being on a mortgage, that went poorly. I had to move in a hurry and tried keeping the old place as an investment. I failed, but I know a lot more about investing than I did before, I may try again down the track when I'm in a more appropriate position to do so.

I think we've talked about things like redraw on mortgages - that can be a great pool for savings, dropping interest being paid and providing a pool to draw from when it's needed for stuff like your bungalow.

Blue.

[ecomama]

Yes I believe it!
I was a Landlady once upon an eon ago before hell began... again.

Lol, throw it on the pile of great learnings!

A condition of my remortgaging (during Courts to pay out ex) was that I couldn't have a re-draw on my home loan. I also had lots of dependents at 100% care which cut my borrowing capacity.

And my AGE oh dear lol!

So I asked for an off-set account to sit against my mortgage and that was granted.

But as predicted the bank contacted me last week asking if I wanted to redraw lol.
The property market surged JUST as Settlement was being paid out - that week in fact - and I'm grateful that it's remained very stable ever since.

SO the property is worth double what it was for Settlement because Karma exists in this case!
LOL!

And my income on full time is more than when I remortgaged.
We've had 2 pay rises since.

And maybe this is my window (but I DON'T want to borrow any more - mortgage is big enough as it is)... a few of my children are older than 18 now but not sure if they're still classified as dependents. Most still live at home but earn lots lol...

The AWESOME Bank Manager gave me her private mobile number to contact her any time.
She'd been thru DV also, so was on board to help as much as possible.

I still don't think I'll borrow more.... but come to think of it, if I leave the internal fence, pathway and possibly retaining wall until last, and I've spent all I have after the bungalow is built, I could borrow to have all that built to get tenants in faster.

IDK... all food for thought.

EM