A bit of a trim

Well that was rather terrifying.

I did my budget and discovered my present outgoings are over four figures per week averaged out.

I didn't even realise I earned that much, let alone spent it. And the even scarier thing is, I am not living extravagantly. I went over every item and most of it is necessary. Things like rent, mortgage, insurance, groceries, phone, petrol etc. 

Part of why it is so high is because I am paying rent and a mortgage simultaneously. Fortunately I have a tenant and their rent pretty much covers the mortgage portion. But even with that taken out of the equation I'm still paying out close to a grand each week. Some of those are business costs and therefore deductible, but still it is a scary number. 

I'm now in the process of trimming off a bit here and a bit there, to get the budget down.

 

I've just started an envelope system for home expenses: One for groceries, one for petrol, one for clothing etc. Each envelope gets its allotted amount of cash deposited at the beginning of the week and I use it as I need it. If I don't use it one week it rolls onto the next week and the cash adds up. This system is still in its embryonic stages but I see it will be very effective if I stick to it.

For example I've decided the grocery/takeaways/cafe budget is $100 per week, which is fine for two people. We are herbivorous eaters these days so it helps that we aren't scoffing down expensive bits of dead animals. I enjoy the grocery challenge, although I would probably look a bit weird if I took my envelope to the supermarket.

The petrol budget is $30 per week. At the moment I'm not using that much, so anything left over can accumulate for the next time the car needs a warrant or repairs. Etc. Etc.

I'm also going to start looking at other things like restructuring my mortgage and insurance policies. One thing at a time. It is all a bit overwhelming at once but trimming off a bit here and a bit there should add up to significant savings over time. 

Speaking of trimming, I gave myself a little trim yesterday.

I usually cut my own hair. This didn't actually start as a frugality measure. I just got sick of going to the hairdresser and not getting my hair cut right, or if they did get it right, I had to keep going back regularly and I could never be bothered so most of the time it looked grown out and scruffy. One evening after a wine or two I decided to have a go myself. I hopped on YouTube for a few pointers and off I went. The results were ok. I wouldn't win hairdresser of the year but no-one pointed and laughed either. (At least not to my face.)

Here are the results of yesterdays trimming session. I cut off about two inches of hair. Sorry for the crap picture quality but as I discovered, it is surprisingly hard to take pictures of myself without wobbling the camera and it was far too hot and I was far too lazy to bother with mounting the camera on something stable and doing the whole delayed picture palaver.

If I'm in the mood I can also brush it forward and become a female version of Mr Spock. Always handy.

Frugality and Simplicity

I've been thinking for a while about how high my outgoings have become. Lately I've been haemorrhaging money, largely due to the costs of moving, but also due to just spending because I feel like it. Also, I'm getting a bit worried about the cost of living. I'm not extravagant, but I suspect a lot of dosh is quietly slipping through my fingers.

I want a more simple life. I want to stop spending thoughtlessly.

For example I started to become one of those parents who buys their kid an ice cream whenever they ask, just to avoid hassles, and my daughter had started to expect that whenever we were out she could get a treat of some kind. Not good. We've also spent too much time in cafés eating food that is yummy but overpriced, eating takeaways and just generally frittering money.

Until recently I had an overdraft and credit card, both of which I nibbled away at with inconsequential purchases that I wouldn't have bought if there hadn't been easy money to borrow available. Being self-employed, my income tends to be feast or famine and it was so frustrating to receive a big payment and using it to pay off overdraft or credit card debts. 

I don't think it is teaching my daughter good values, and it definitely isn't doing my finances any good. Just because I can, doesn't necessarily mean I should when it comes to spending money. Especially if I want to get enough dosh to eventually buy a house in the area I'm living in or somewhere similar.

I also have a goal. Part of my mortgage is in a flexi account. I want to have that part of the mortgage paid off this year. In order to do that I'll need to generate a fair bit of income and all the money I save from my frugal habits will go into that account as well. I just want that debt gone.

So my New Years resolution, which is a bit late, but then I have been known to  procrastinate at times, is to have a frugal and simple year and get back to basics.

My biggest weekly expense at the moment is definitely housing, but I like living in an area where I can sleep at night and where there are lots of beaches, parks and walks close by (all free entertainment so I guess that is kinda frugal), so I'm not moving. I bet I can save on lots of other areas though. I've already cancelled the overdraft and paid off the credit card, so that's a start.

I quite enjoy being frugal and appreciating the simple things in life and I think it is better for kids as well. Today Stella and I went down to one of the many beaches around here. We collected shells, made sand sculptures, and didn't spend a cent. We had a great time. Now I'm all inspired to bring frugal habits into some other areas.

The first step is making a budget and working out exactly what I do spend at the moment. Not really looking forward to that, frankly, as I think it is going to be scary. The next bit is the fun part - working out where I can save, and how we can live well on a smaller amount. I've already worked out that for us it makes more sense not to do a big supermarket shop as I tend to buy more than I need, and throw things into the trolley that I wouldn't normally think to buy, or buying too much perishable food and then having it go off. I'm doing our shopping in bits instead and it is working out better. I'll need to keep an eye on how much all the 'bits' are adding up to though. 

If anyone else is interested in frugal living, I use this website for frugal tips and tricks, which includes a forum. Some of the folks on this forum are really frugal, more frugal than I'll ever be!

The good, the bad and the ugly so far

The Good things about living here:

• The weather. It has been fantastic, a perfect 20 to 24 degrees virtually every day since I've been here. I'll be interested to see how winter here compares to a Christchurch winter. 
  
• The beaches. We have several fantastic child friendly beaches either within a five minute walk or a five minute drive. We've been most days to puddle around at one or other of them.
• We enjoyed the hospitality last night of Tiki, and her two lovely girls who entertained Stella while we gossiped. Tiki is a fabulous cook and pressed vino on me at regular intervals. (Clearly the hostess genes DO run in the family). 

The Bad:

• The ants. They are friggen everywhere outside and some places inside. Including in my kitchen although fortunately they confine themselves to one part by the sink, and only when I leave dirty dishes out. I am constantly drowning or squashing the little bastards but I have to admit they are a great incentive to do my dishes straight away. 
  
• Auckland house prices. Say no more. They are insane. How does anybody afford a nice house here? I'll need to figure that one out if I want to stay here.

The Ugly:

• The crap quality of mobile broadband and mobile phone service here. It is so slooooow at times and and just cuts out with no warning. Grrrrrrr. Fume. Many expletives. I was ready to throw the computer at the wall today but refrained considering it would be expensive to replace. But I cannot do business like this so I'm going to have to find another solution. Ironically a lot of the posher areas of Auckland have the crappiest cellphone and broadband because no one wants cell towers near their McMansions. 

I'd better post this before my broadband cuts out again so that's about it for now. Oddly enough I have great TV reception despite the hills. Not that there is much worth watching but that's New Zealand TV for you. 

Road Trip

Here I am, in the big smoke! Although where I am living is really pretty cruisy. Not much smoke at all really, big or otherwise. I'm five minutes walk from the beach, surrounded by huge Pohutakawa trees and Tuis. I even have some friendly Moreporks who serenade us each evening. The house is like a treehouse from the inside as we are on the second level, in the treetops. I love it!

Anyhow, this is a quick blog about the trip up.

I love road trips and this one was pretty good. I departed Christchurch at 6.30am on the first day and pulled into Picton at 11.30am. I made one stop on the way, at Kaikoura to have a second breakfast (the one I had at 5am wasn’t lasting the distance) where I pulled out my laptop to answer some emails.

Next thing, I had a staff member from the café asking me if I was working on a piece for the Lonely Planet. Apparently I look just like someone who works for the Lonely Planet. 

Ha! That means I’m cool, or at least looked cool enough for the half hour I was eating pancakes in the café to fool people. That’s a novelty, because I’ve NEVER been cool, and I'm still not, but working for the Lonely Planet sounds like something cool hip people would do, so I’ll take it.

Anyway as I was driving I had plenty of time to ruminate as I had forgotten to pack any CDs for the journey. At one point, I rummaged around in the glove box and unearthed a Linkin Park CD and an old Dido CD that I’d forgotten about. I know, not the most obvious of musical combinations, but I have eclectic (read bi-polar) taste in music. I’m totally over Dido so that left me with one CD, and although I like Linkin Park, I cannot listen to them for four and a half hours without feeling very aggressive. Not good when one is on the open road and wants to live.

So some of my random ruminations as I tootled benignly along in silence were:

We live in a BEYOOTIFUL country. We really do. Although our cities are in the main, pretty darned ugly (don’t even get me started on the concrete shite piles that pass for architecture here, or the way we randomly tear down the beautiful old buildings we do have, to put up more concrete shite piles) our scenery is world class. It is easy to sit in the city and grizzle about all the things wrong with this country, but I will admit, as I cruised though our countryside, I felt pretty lucky and proud to be a New Zealander.

Also, our roads are really good! The vast majority of our drivers are too, despite all the talk about the road toll. Our roads are in good condition, well signposted – a child could find their way from Christchurch to Picton without a map – and did I mention the scenery was awesome? I was ruminating about the engineering involved in getting the curves and angle in the road just right to maximize smoothness in turning and it occurred to me there is a LOT of work in a road. I don’t mind paying lots of taxes to have such nice roads.

Which led me to the next rumination: taxes and levies. I know people by and large hate paying them, but I really don’t mind. I quite like living in a country where we have decent roads with police to curb the maniac drivers, ACC, and clean running water, (all of which we take for granted).

Anyway, back to the road trip. I loved traveling on the ferry from Picton to Wellies. It gave me the spark of excitement I used to get from getting on a plane, and it was a relaxing way to spend three hours in preparation for the journey from Wellies to Aucks the following day.

Prior to taking this trip I had been warned that it was a bit of a mission to drive from Wellington to Auckland. Not Much Fun at All seemed to be the general consensus, along with It's An Awfully Long Way to Drive in One Day. So I didn't have terribly high expectations of actually enjoying that trip.

Although it would have to be pretty bad to match the Worst Road Journey I Ever Took which was when I was backpacking through Australia's east coast. I spent approximately 24 hours in an Australian bus, sitting bolt upright while squashed by my seatmate, a scary and smelly woman of generous proportions who seemed to feel entitled to half my seat as well as her own, while staring out at the endless Australian desert. Words cannot describe the boredom and discomfort of that journey.

After the memory of that, I found the journey from Wellies to Aucks if not exactly a breeze (the folks were right, it IS an awfully long way), was certainly not nearly as bad as some people made out. I quite enjoyed it actually. I liked stopping at various Tiny Towns in the Backwoods of Nowhere. I liked cruising along and taking in the scenery. 

Although some of my enjoyment may have been to do with the fact that my lovely daughter was taking a plane up to Auckland with her dad so I was driving alone. I didn't have to listen to "MuuuuuuuM!", or "I'm bored!" or "When are we going to get there?" or "I'm hungry/thirsty/too hot/too cold/need the toilet!"

I love her dearly but suspect if she had been with me, the trip might have given my Australian bus trip some stiff competition for its Worst Road Journey I Ever Took crown.

But on my own, it was great. Nothing to do but to get from point A to point B and preferably avoid being part of the holiday road toll. A breeze for a multi-tasking parent. I'd even venture to say that at some points it was downright relaxing.