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Minimalism

How We Do Our Minimalist Christmas

Posted on December 18, 2019

Christmas gifts laying on a wood floor with a dark blue painted wall and green christmas tree cuttings placed around

Inspired by J. Money’s post earlier this week, Are you done with your Christmas shopping already?! and his families ‘gifting habits’, I thought I would throw together a post on our Christmas Gift Giving and attempt at a Minimalist Christmas.

Of course, these are our Christmas traditions and gifting ideas, and your gifting traditions don’t need to reflect what we do, and likewise, we won’t do that same as your family. I just think it is cool to see what other people’s Christmas gift giving traditions looks like! So here we go!

Our Minimalist Christmas

Who we buy gifts for: Our nephews (4), step nephews (8), step nieces (2), parents & step parents (6), siblings (4), grandparents (2)

So essentially we buy gifts for everyone in our entire immediate family. We have a reasonably big family so that’s 26 in total. (Or maybe that is considered small to some? hehe).

Who we don’t buy gifts for: Friends & Colleagues. Sorry to our friends & colleagues, but buying 26 gifts twice a year or more is a job in itself! I even opted out of my works Secret Santa and have done so for most of the recent years. John Smith who works down stairs and I have never spoken to doesn’t need a gift from me 😉 and I don’t need some random knick knack either.

Donations: For the past three years I have donated bags to the Share The Dignity #itsinthebag promotion and contribute to my works Salvos Christmas appeal.

What about for us?
When it comes to my husband and I we have a Christmas budget of $150 each to spend on each other. To some that will see like a lot, and to others that will seem like not much at all. To us it is a reasonable amount that won’t hack into our savings too much, but gives us enough to afford something we really want or need 🙂

Personally, I usually struggle to spend it all, as my birthday is two weeks after Christmas so at least by my birthday, my gift list is looking pretty empty.

This year my husband wanted some pricey Chilli sauce and European beers – which was fine with me. Consumables are the secret to this Minimalist’s heart! And I always find it so funny, when my husband often appears to be a bigger minimalist than me! (Maybe he is?! :p)

And for myself?

My Christmas gift is usually just a concoction of things I have seen over the months leading up to Christmas that I want or need. More often that not I will just buy what I need when I need it, but I do try and save a small number of items to put on my Christmas List as I know how much easier it is to just ask someone what they want, rather than trying to guess, and I certainly appreciate when others help me in the gifting process to know what they would find value in.

As a minimalist I am not keen on having people guess what will add value to my life, and I certainly don’t expect my husband to read my mind so this year we went shopping together for what I picked out.

I’m pretty boring and consistent and generally ask for the same things each year, my gift list usually looks something like this:

A new handbag or wallet to replace my old one. I buy one handbag a year and carry the kitchen sink around in it, so by years end it is usually a bit ‘how you goin’
A new pair of pajamas. I am the girl that will recycle old shirts as pajamas until the end of time, but once a year (or so) I will spoil myself with a new pair of pajamas
A small block of my favourite Lush soap
A lovely scented candle
A book I really want (it’s usually the only physical book I will buy the whole year)
Something zero waste I have been keeping my eye one (this year it is a safety razor)
Chocolate, I buy a sneaky box of my favourite Quality Streets. Yum! 😉 I’m a big kid at heart so decided to do a Chocolate hunt on Christmas day last year which is a tradition I think this chocolate lover might just keep 😀

Minimalist Inspired Gifts

Where we can, we will try to gift Minimalist Inspired Gifts. We try and avoid gifting things we don’t think our loved ones will absolutely love, I know the guilt of holding onto an unwanted gift so if something I really want to avoid doing to anyone else as much as possible. We aim to give things that won’t take up a lot of space (especially for the kids!), or potentially add to clutter especially when we know a loved one has recently downsized. We also keep in mind that the perfect gift is not something you will necessarily find in store! Or at least that is what we believe.

More often than not we will gift the following minimalist inspired gifts:

– Consumables: Chocolate, Alcohol, Christmas Confectionery stockings etc

– Movie vouchers

– Money – generally given with the intention it is used for a meal out or travel or an experience.

– Our time – we offer to babysit our nephews for the day and take them out

– Experiences – We take the kids to a movies for some quality time

If you want more ideas for Minimalist Gifts you can check out some others I have thrown together here and here

Keeping Organised at Christmas

With such a large family, I like to start our Christmas Shopping List as early as possible. I already have a bit of a list going by early November and add to is as I go. I use this Christmas Shopping List to keep track of who we need to buy for, what we are buying, which store to get it from, the budget and the actual cost, and of course have a check box to tick off and feel all those good vibes!

Every year it is my goal, for my sanity to finish Shopping before Dec 1st! I was a little bit behind this year as I got hit with an unrelenting virus, but didn’t finish too far off the finish line.

I used to shop up to Christmas Eve in the past and just found it super stressful, especially when you have to deal with parking, crowds etc. It was not enjoyable at all, so now I like to keep the lead up to Christmas as relaxing and stress free as possible and find finishing shopping earlier is just something that adds a lot to Christmas and is worth starting early. (Let me know when your Christmas shopping “deadline” usually is in the comments!)

New Christmas Gift Giving Traditions

If you want to start some new Christmas Gift Giving Traditions and minimise the number of gifts you are buying, or the amount you are spending on gifts at Christmas, you may wish to give these a try, or create your very own!

Something you Want, Need, Wear, Read – This gift tradition is a great way to not go overboard at Christmas with your kids, but still give them a selection of things they want and need. Let them pick out one thing they really want, and you can skip the excess, poor quality ones that will soon be across your floor.
Experience, Toy & Book – Mix up your kids gifts with a memory to create together, something they can keep and play with and a book to read many times together. Or any other combination you can come up with! Maybe yours will be consumable, new quilt, new pajamas, new book, new toy x 3. Or anything you like!
Experience/Holiday – you may choose to skip out on gifts all together this year and instead spend your money on a holiday or experience for your family to share that will create memories for many years to come, long after the usual toys are broken or no longer played with.
Secret Santa – If you have a large family, a Secret Santa is a great way to give one good, quality gift rather than many smaller, less quality gifts. Simply set a budget everyone is happy with and draw a name out of a hat.
Opting out of gifts for adults – Gifts for kids only – This can be a slightly more controversial option for some families as some people are adamant about keeping the gift giving tradition up for adults, but this one I believe does makes a lot of sense, particularly if you have a lot of kids in your family or even just a huge family.

When You Can’t Afford Christmas

If you are struggling financially, or even just gazelle intense with paying off your debt, and splashing out on gifts this Christmas is not an option, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to turn up empty handed to Christmas and feel like you’re going to miss Christmas.

There are so many things you can do together to make Christmas as special as ever, even without having a pile of gifts to open at Christmas.

Here are some frugal ways to still enjoy Christmas with your family:

Bake Home made cookies together or make Christmas Bark
Play board games as a family
Grab some Christmas themed books at a thrift store to read together each night
Watch a Christmas movie in the nights leading up to Christmas
Go Christmas light looking around your area.
Make some Christmas themed arts and crafts together like Christmas wreathes , or Santas with paper plates and cottons balls you have left over.
Go to your local Christmas carols event

And some extra frugal gift ideas for your family they will love:

If you are artistic, gift them a drawing or painting
make a DIY Scrub or face mask
Gift them a DIY gift, Brittany from Vasseur Beauty has some amazing ideas in her video
Bake some home-made cookies, hot chocolate or Christmas Pudding
Find a second hand book in the thrift store that they will love
Give a home cooked meal
Gift your time: Babysitting, something you can teach them
Walk around your house and see what you can gift e.g. repurpose a spare picture frame with an inspiring quote you printed off

[Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash]

This weeks comment Question: What are your holiday gift giving traditions? Have they changed over the years? Let me know in the comments!

If you found value in this post I would be super appreciative if you could share it with others who might also find value in it 🙂

Budgeting

6 Tips on How to Drastically Cut Your Grocery Bill

Posted on November 19, 2019

Cut Your Grocery Bill and Save Money with these 6 tips!

If your grocery budget is getting completely out of hand, it might be time to reconsider your grocery shopping habits.

You may not realise how big your monthly grocery budget is if you haven’t sat down to crunch the numbers. You might think you are only spending a small amount only to find you are blowing $1000 a month on food! If you are a large family, that might be a necessity, but if you are a smaller household, and you waste a lot of food, that is some serious cashing going down the drain! Not to mention the environmental cost of all that food going to landfill.

If you want to save some serious cash in your budget, a great place to start is with your grocery bill! And that best thing is, adjusting this area pays weekly dividends – every time you shop!

Check out 6 Tips on How to Drastically Cut Your Grocery Bill, without feeling like you’re missing out on the good stuff!

6 Tips on How to Drastically Cut Your Grocery Bill

1. Meal Planning

Meal Planning was one of the first habits I implemented in order to cut my grocery bill. If you haven’t given Meal Planning a go I urge you to start today! I am not kidding when I say this, for me learning how to Meal Plan was a huge game changer. I went from stressing over what to cook every meal, and spending more money on groceries than we needed to, to buying just what we needed and knowing in advance what we needed to prepare, take out of the freezer and cook. A nice bonus for this Zero Waste enthusiast was that we also reduced our food waste.

When we stopped buying more than we needed to eat in a week we saw the savings instantly. And the greatest part is those savings are in our bank account every week!

And it does take a little getting used to, as all new habits do, but once you are in a routine it becomes as normal as brushing your dishes! Make sure you set yourself one day a week (or whatever suits you!) to dedicate time to meal planning. For more tips on how to get started Meal Planning check them out here. And you can grab Your Weekly Meal Planner Printable from my store to get you started. You can even laminate it and write on it with white board marker to reuse!

2. Changing my stockpiling ways

Like your average shopper, I too, used to stockpile groceries. I remember one day my husband and I came home to unpack the groceries only to find we’d grabbed another two cans of corn when we already had 4 in the cupboard. I must say this was about the time I knew something had to change.

After discovering mininalism and decluttering over 50% of our stuff, I was keen to minimise the excess stuff we had to store in our kitchen, bathroom and laundry cabinets. Everything in our home was under review! Even the cans of corn.

In order to further cut my grocery bill, I began to only shop for what I needed for the week ahead. If I had enough dish washing tablets to last me until my next shop, I didn’t put them on my list. If I ran our of washing powder, I knew that I could easily grab some on my lunch break at the shops if I was really that desperate, or just wait for the weekend when I did my weekly shop.

Eventually I got used to buying things Just in time and realised that I didn’t need to keep so much on hand. This might not be ideal for you if you live rurally, or you have a large family, but for my family of 2 it worked perfectly for us and can be adapted to your needs! The key is to not buy in excess and don’t just fall for those sale signs! Be rational! If you have 6 months worth of dish washing liquid and you’ve got more bottles in your hands, put them down!

3. Taking notice of how often we needed things

Have you ever seen something on sale and proceeded to buy what you might not realise was a year or two years supply? It might surprise you to know that you probably have done this at least once, more than likely many, many times.

For me, I used to pick up a new lip balm or hand lotion every other shopping trip. And when deodorant or conditioner was on sale I’d grab a whole bunch of those as well. When I started decluttering our home, it became extremely obvious as I worked my way around our home how much of these items I had stockpiled. And so, I made myself use them up before buying anymore. The funny thing about this was it took me a good 1-2 years before I needed to buy a single lip balm or hand lotion. It really opened my eyes to how long your stuff lasts and how infrequently you need to buy them!

One toothpaste can last you a good six months. One can of deodorant for three. And eye shadow palette can last you 1-2 years. So the next time you run out and buying your favourite toiletries and beauty products, take a second and consider if you have just bought a years supply and if you really need to buy that all today or if 2 would be enough until the next sale. Be rational! If you have 6 months worth of dish washing liquid at home and you’ve got more bottles in your hands, put them down! They aren’t going anyway from that stores shelf and will be there when you need them next time!

4. Sticking to the brands we loved

As I decluttered our home, I realised a lot of the stuff I wanted to throw out were items bought on impulse. Something new I saw in the store that I bought to try, only to realise I didn’t like the product at all, and after one or two uses, it would sit in the back of the cupboard unused as a reminder of why I shouldn’t impulse buy. You may not realise it, but these little ‘nagging’ bottles and the like, can really get to you. Particularly if they are getting in the way of you trying to reach things you do need.

And so I decided to ensure that in future we would just buy what we loved. It was okay to spend more on something we would love and that added value to our lives.

And I know what you are thinking? But the more expensive stuff I love, is going to cost me more, not save me money – right? As I mentioned above, after realising how long our beauty and other products lasted it really didn’t cost us more to buy these things as we stopped wasting our money on things that we didn’t love or need. We made sure to only buy what we loved, and what we needed, when we needed it. At most we would keep one or two spare items in one small container, we had designated for back up stock. That’s it. And by buying what we knew we would love and use, we saved money on buying random new items that were only going to end up in the bin.

5. Only Grocery Shop With a Shopping List

If you are hitting the supermarket with no list, you are more than likely throwing away hundreds of dollars of your hard earned cash every month. By making a rule, that you will only shop for groceries with a list in hand you can save yourself time and money. Armed with your list you can walk past the beauty aisle, knowing perfectly well that you already have shampoo in your bathroom vanity, or that you have plenty of mince in the freezer and don’t need to grab more. This helped us reduce impulse purchases in store and will help you cut your grocery bill.

If foundation or that bag of chips isn’t on the list, you shouldn’t be in the make up or chip aisle! This is a great method to help you set boundaries and resist the temptation of impulse buys. And I think we can all use any help we can get when it comes to our shopping cruxes!

We also made a habit of writing out our shopping list as we went, so as the coffee or milk ran out, it went on our shopping list, ready to grab before we hit the shops. Make sure you put it in an easy to see place like your fridge, so your family can add to it as things run out.

6. Do regular Fridge, Freezer and Pantry reviews

If you are shopping ‘blind’, that is, without even checking what you have in your house before you leave for the grocery store you are doing it backwards! Before you run out the door, give your pantry, fridge and freezer a once over and see what you do and do not need to replenish. This will only take you five minutes, but can save you from coming home with groceries that you do not need. Not to mention your sanity, so you don’t have to have a disorganised and overflowing pantry!

Have a think about what you need to use up in these spaces before it goes out of date. Ask yourself, do you have excess pasta you need to use up, or some frozen pizzas you need to clear out of the freezer, and plan your meals around those.

For more Tips on how to save money with your Grocery Budget check out 15 Tips to Reduce Food Waste and 10 Easy Tips to Save Money on Your Groceries Budget

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

This weeks comment question: How did you cut your grocery bill? I would love to know what strategies you have implemented for your family and what worked for you!

If you found value in this post I would be super appreciative if you could share it with others who might also find value in it 🙂

Minimalism

8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life

Posted on September 24, 2019

Declutter your home and live a more intentional life today

Before I started my decluttering journey I had no idea how much my stuff was holding me back. I wasn’t aware of the daily struggle clutter bought with it or how it added to my stress and anxiety.

When I decluttered my first set of drawers that contained my shirts and shorts, I was amazed at the difference this one small change made to me. It seems silly that such a small change – decluttering two drawers, had any impact on my life but it did and that positive change grew exponentially from there with each decluttering project I tackled.

Decluttering benefited me in many areas of my life that I couldn’t have ever expected. Here are 8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life.

8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life.

1. Decluttering highlighted my impulsive consumer habits

Very early on in my decluttering journey, I became aware of numerous impulsive consumer habits I had picked up over the years. My wardrobe and bathroom were hard evidence of these less than desirable shopping habits. As I decluttered my bathroom, I saw lip balm collections, a foundation for every day of the week, and hand lotion bottles galore.

I didn’t have what I needed – the essentials, or even just a little more in case I ran out before I could get to the shops. I was apparently preparing stockpiles for the shops to close for a good year based on my collections

As I decluttered each item: shampoos, conditioners, hair products, makeup, and the like, I realised that I really didn’t need all those excess items and over time implemented new consumer habits to limit what I was bringing into my home.

2. Decluttering helped me appreciate experiences over things

Before I decluttered my home and cleared the excess, I was your average shopper. Most likely addicted and spending mindlessly on things I didn’t need.

I’d wander on my lunch breaks shopping for nothing in particular, spending my hard-earned paycheck.

Buy things just because they were on sale, even if I had no idea what I would do with them when I got home.

Waste my weekends in the mall buying things I didn’t need instead of doing things that added value to me.

Decluttering helped me lead a more intentional life as I slowly saw the value in experiences over things. After clearing over half my wardrobe, a buy one get one free sale sign lost its pull over me. I slowly started replacing my habits of buying things on impulse and instead learned to appreciate experiences. Experiences I could remember, and think back on with fondness, that didn’t require me to take some item into my home where I would have to find a place to store it, dust, and maintain it.

Over time I saw myself spending less money at the mall. Instead, I spent my money on experiences that I could enjoy and share with others, like going to the movies, a concert, or travelling. I noticed later in the year I’d long forgotten the new jewellery and perfume I got for Christmas, but years later remembered my first trip to New Zealand for my 30th with fondness and my honeymoon to Europe. I realised that when I invested my time and money into experiences and things I truly enjoyed, I didn’t need to go and shop to fill some void.

Declutter With Me Decluttering Course

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed and stressed out by clutter in your home?

If you’re looking to minimise the excess in your life, Declutter With Me: A 12 Week Guide to Declutter Your Home is a go-at-your-own-pace course that will give you the step-by-step, room-by-room instructions to help you clear the clutter in your home in as soon as just 12 weeks!

But clearing the clutter isn’t just about getting rid of your excess stuff. It’s important to change your behaviour and consumer habits so you can avoid re-cluttering your space once you have decluttered. Included in Declutter With Me, are “Keep It Minimal” tips for each area in your home + 7 Tips To Help You Keep Your Home Minimal, to give you strategies you can implement to help you spend with intention so you can avoid bringing clutter back into your home.

If you are keen to minimise your unwanted clutter check out Declutter With Me so you can create a home you love!

learn more

3. Decluttering helped me be more mindful of gifts I gave to others

As I decluttered my home, I noticed a lot of gifts, that were bought with generosity and good intentions from family and friends had gone unused or weren’t adding value to us anymore. This made me reconsider my own gift-giving habits and be more intentional with what I gifted others. I stopped my usual gift buying habit of heading to the shop and browsing for the perfect gift, realising that the perfect gift isn’t always going to be found on a shelf at the mall.

I started to get more creative with my gifts. Some new habits I’ve implemented:

Buying experience gifts such a a massage, tickets to a concert, musical or kids attraction
Asking people directly what they would like for a gift
Taking a loved one out for a meal or experience
Making a contribution to a loved one’s travel savings fund
Performing or recording a song for a loved one
Gifting gift cards to their favourite store

If I know someone needs something for their home or wants something specifically I am more than happy to go out and get that item for them, but the shops are now something I only step into with intention when it comes to buying gifts

4. Decluttering made me more intentional with my time

After decluttering my home, I knew that I would never, ever, let my home get into the cluttered state that it was ever again. I wasn’t prepared to make all that decluttering progress just to go back into old clutter-accumulation habits. I was done.

Decluttering also made me see how unintentional I had been with my time.

Whether that be the time I spent looking for things around the house that had been misplaced, the time I spent trying to keep up with an overflowing wardrobe and the laundry that ensued, and the time I had spent shopping for things only to cluttering up my home that took up my very limited and valuable time.

I realised how I had used shopping as a hobby rather than a tool to buy things I needed as I needed them. As I decluttered the excess in my home I chose to utilise my time going forward more intentionally. Instead of shopping every week or on my break by default, I built up a list over time and only went to the shops once a month and made one trip. This saved me battling traffic and car spaces on multiple trips and meant I could free up some time to do things that actually added value to me.

5. Decluttering made me more intentional with my money

After decluttering over 70% of our belongings, I was faced with the realisation of how much money I had thrown away over the years on stuff I didn’t need. I added up in my head the dollars each time I donated an item of clothing that still had the tags on or the art project or book I had never gotten around to. It was certainly an eye-opening experience and made me think long and hard each day that I tackled my clutter about how I could start being more intentional with my money.

Decluttering my home helped me to see the wasted money. I refused to continue to waste my money on impulse purchases that I didn’t need any longer, I had wasted enough. I wasted money on clothes that didn’t fit or suit me because I was too lazy to try them on. There was wasted money on shoes I bought that were not something I would ever wear, I just liked the idea of them. There was waste when I bought more makeup than I could possibly use up before it expired.

When I decided to spend more intentionally, it had a huge positive impact on our finances. We were less stressed about money, we had more money to pay down debt and work towards our financial goals, and could justify spending money guilt-free on things like an overseas trip.

It wasn’t my expectation when I started my decluttering journey to save money but was a hugely welcome side effect!

6. Decluttering made me more mindful in other areas of my life

When you eliminate the excess in your home, it’s bound to make you more mindful of other aspects of your life. It is not uncommon to declutter your home and decide to move houses, get a new job, or end a toxic friendship. Decluttering makes you assess everything you bring into your home and soon you will apply those same tools and skills to other aspects of your life.

The Minimalists talk about how they decluttered their homes and soon after, changed their spending habits, left their corporate jobs to start their own blog and both moved homes. Like The Minimalists experiences, decluttering helped me realise what did and didn’t add value to my life.

As I previously mentioned, I realised that shopping regularly did not add value to my life, so I reduced how often I spent shopping and built a list to get in one go. It helped me to reassess relationships and made me more appreciative of the friends and family that made an effort to be in our lives. It helped me realise what was and wasn’t important to me and gave me permission to let go of things like the hoard of books I’d hoped to get to and instead put my time and energy into things I was truly passionate about, such as this very blog

7. Decluttering made us more content with what we had

Decluttering helped us see that we didn’t need much to be happy. We have now been in our fairly modest-sized home for 8 years and a bigger home hasn’t been on our agenda for some time now, and we don’t see the need to upsize our home when now that we just keep the things we truly enjoy and use.

We still have the same TV we bought 8 years ago when we moved in, the same Fridge and Dishwasher and most of the same instruments

We try to make do with what we have and use up what we have before we buy more. I keep limited stocks of makeup and hair products, I’ve just bought my first new sneakers in 5 years and shock horror I buy one book at a time to read.

I don’t miss the days of duplicated nail polish, too many books to read, and the guilt that comes with that and having enough eyeshadow to commission an artwork. We try to be content with what we have rather than constantly chasing what others tell us we need.

8. Decluttering helped me to realise that it is okay to let things go

As a former hoarder, and a girl who was surrounded by many other hoarders growing up and probably picked up a few bad habits along the way, I completely get that it is hard to let go of things. I was so worried when I let things go that I would regret them and curse the day I started decluttering my home.

But to be completely honest with you. That hasn’t happened once.

I found ways to ease my inner hoarder such as taking photos of sentimental items before disposing of them and asking myself questions like ‘would I buy this again today?’ which helped me part with the excess in my home again and again. And most things that I thought I might need Just in Case, I knew I could apply The Minimalists 20/20 Rule and get them at the shop if there ever really came a time when I needed that item again.

And letting go of the excess came with so many benefits that outweigh any need to hold onto things. You’ll have more space to enjoy your home, homes are meant for living not storage. You have the ability to find and display the things that do add value to you, such as your favourite books not being covered by ones you’ll probably never read and the freedom of knowing that if you ever wanted to move, change careers, cities, or anything else, you won’t be burdened by all your clutter holding you back.

[Photo by: Samantha Gades on Unsplash.com]

What’s your biggest decluttering struggle? Let me know in the comments!

Budgeting

How to Use the Envelope Budgeting Method

Posted on August 26, 2019

Budgeting Envelopes are a great tool to help you stick to your budget

The Envelope Budgeting Method is a great tool to help you with your Zero Based Budget to stay within your budget. It’s an easy method to track your spending in by category and to keep you informed of when you’ve spent your budgeted amount for a particular expense. If you are struggling to stick to your budget and finding trying to budget blind isn’t working for you, the Envelope Budgeting Method is a great way to give you some control and a birds eye view of your budget expenditure.

Cash Budgeting Envelopes

Generally the Envelope Budgeting Method uses cash that is divided up and placed into separate envelopes with an expense tracker on front of the envelope to tally up your spending as you go. Each time you spend money you would take the cash out of the envelope for the appropriate category, for example, if you were buying groceries you would take cash out of the grocery envelope, you would then note the following on the front of your Grocery Envelope:

Date
Store
Description and
Amount

You would then calculate what budget you had left over, by subtracting your total budget for the month from what you just spent and entering that amount in the Balance column. You would place your receipt inside the envelope.

I would avoid using cash envelopes to hold large amounts of money i.e. If you are using cash envelopes to save up for your annual Insurance or Car Expenses which might involve leaving hundreds of dollars around the house. For these, I would use a completely separate account for your Sinking Funds where you can put away for larger, ongoing expenses.

Digital Budgeting Envelopes

I have hacked the Envelope Budgeting Method which usually involves a cash envelope system after giving it a go for a handful of months and created a Digital Budgeting Envelopes which I found suited me more. It is essentially the same concept except it eliminates the need to carry around lots of cash and physical envelopes in your bag. It also eliminates the issue with couples not having access to the envelope when the other partner has it.

To use the Digital Budgeting Envelope you can track your expenditure in the digital envelope file via your Google sheets which you can access from your phone at any time and share with your partner so you can both access and update the same file in real-time.

Again, if you spend money here you would note the Date, Store, Description and the Amount but this time the final balance will calculate for you in the Balance Column.

The Digital Budgeting Envelopes also don’t require you to physically set up the envelopes every month, you simply duplicate the worksheet and just change the month.

Setting up your Envelopes

Cash Envelopes: If you are using the Envelope Budgeting Method with Cash Envelopes you can simply withdraw your cash from your bank account and put the cash into the envelope. Fill in the Category, Month, and Budgeted amount, print off your Envelopes and glue them onto your envelope (110x220mm).

Digital Envelopes: The best way to track your digital envelopes is to set up an account that will be used exclusively for your envelopes budget. For example, if you have 5 envelopes that you want to track and that total budget is $1000 for the month you would transfer $1000 each month to an account exclusively for your envelopes. If your envelopes start on the 1st of the month on the 1st you would deposit your $1000 amount and ideally have at least $1 remaining by the 30th or 31st to show that you are in budget.

What to do with Unspent Budgeted Amounts?

At the end of the month with the Envelope Budgeting Method for both the Cash & Digital Envelopes, the final balance of each Budget Category will be totaled so you can see what is left.

For example, if your monthly grocery budget is $400 and you’ve only spent $360 this month, you could either transfer the $40 to your savings or use it to pay off debt if you have debt, or you can carry that amount across to your next months envelope. So with the cash envelopes you would move the physical $40 into your new envelope for the next month and with your digital envelopes you could just add in a line at the top of your grocery list and just adding carry over from prior month and then adding a -40 and that will add to your total budget so the following month you would actually have $440.

With the cash envelope you would deposit your $40 into your account and move it to your savings or pay it onto Debt. Or you could add the $40 cash into your next month’s envelope, it is totally up to you. If you want to take advantage of being under budget, by all means, put it to good use and save it or put it towards paying off your debt!

With the digital envelope you would simply transfer the money from your envelope bank account to your savings or pay it onto your debt. Alternatively, leave the cash in the account which would carry over to the following months envelope.

Don’t forget to note the movement on your envelopes if you carry the cash over from prior month by adding a $40 into your prior month to show that money is allocated and adding a -$40 into the new months envelope to show that amount has been added to your new months budget for that category. So in this example the following month you would actually have $440 for your groceries budget category.

What if I am Over Budget in a Category?

It’s important to avoid borrowing money from the following month’s envelopes if you are over budget, this is a slippery slope and will become a bad habit you might never catch up with. Instead, borrow within the same month from other categories. In the above example, if you had $40 leftover in your Grocery fund and you wanted to buy some take out later in the month but had used all all your take out budget, you could carry that amount across to your Entertainment Budget. To do so you would add in a line in the Grocery Category: e.g. “Transfer to Entertainment” $40 and in the Entertainment envelope you would add in “Transfer from Groceries” -$40. Make sure to take the money out you enter the amount as a positive and to add it into the other category you pick it up as a negative! Double-check your balance to the right of the entry to make sure you picked up the transfer correctly!

Categories of Budgeting Envelopes

Budgeting envelopes are mainly designed to help you to control your spending in problem spending categories, those categories that aren’t always so easy to stay in budget. For example, you’re probably not going to go nuts buying excess petrol and your electricity bill might increase of decrease with the change of seasons but isn’t really going to blow out in a spending spree. But your clothing budget might and you might easily spend $800 on your groceries instead of the $400 you budgeted, so with the budget envelopes, we want to focus on the more fluctuating expense categories.

The idea is not to have 30 separate envelopes which will be too tedious and for little benefit, the goal is to stick to the main problem spending areas in your budget.

These might be:

Groceries
Miscellaneous Spending
Home Repairs
Concerts
Entertainment
Clothing
Kids Expenses
Alcohol
Beauty

or any other categories relevant to your budget.

Filling in Your Budgeting Envelopes

It does take some getting used to and get into a habit of writing down what you spent as you go and it can sometimes be a nuisance writing down what you’ve spent when you’re trying to battle kids and a grocery trolley through the car park, but there are ways to make the budgeting envelopes work for you. We want to make budgeting work around you, not be onerous and too difficult to maintain!

I came up with a slightly more flexible system that worked for myself with the envelopes. As I spent money, I would stick the receipt in my bag as I exited the grocery store or left the drive-through and then once I got home and unpacked everything, or had a moment spare, I’d then go and grab my receipt and fill in my envelope and record the expenditure.

Another method for people that don’t want to just fill in their envelopes 24/7 is to fill out your envelopes in smaller chunks. To do this I have a small plastic wallet in my handbag where I collate all receipts and once or twice a week I will go through those receipts and add them into my digital budget envelope or cash envelope. I will tick the top of the receipt on any that I have picked up and will also scan the receipt and save it in my Google Drive if it’s a receipt I want to keep a digital record of. Otherwise once I have picked up a receipt if it is for something I don’t need to keep I will just shred or recycle it once I have recorded the expense.

I do recommend when you first start your budgeting envelopes that you do fill them in frequently as you go, rather than chunk as you will be getting to know your budget and your budget limits and it will take a few months to get used to that and if you don’t update them as you spend you might find that you do go over budget, so until you feel confident of your budget, do update your envelopes as you go. Of course, if updating it as you go is your preference then just stick with that.

Storing your Envelopes & Receipts

With the digital budgeting envelopes I would suggest you keep one file for each year. Start a new one at the start of a new year, so you can choose whether you start that in January or July whether you want calendar or financial year. Set up your Google Drive folders or equivalent by expense category e.g. Clothing, Home Repairs, Warranty and so on so you can easily find your scanned receipts when you need them.

With your cash envelopes they will build up over time so I would suggest once every three months you take a photo of the front of any older envelopes for reference and recycle them. Then scan what receipts you wan to keep copies of, e.g. for returns, warranties, or for insurance purposes and shred or recycle the other ones you don’t need to keep like groceries, beauty expenses, etc.

And there you have it how to use envelopes for your budget. And to get you started I have a Cash Budgeting Envelope Printable and a Digital Budgeting Envelope in my store which you can check out. These come with detailed instructions for how to set up your cash or digital envelopes.

Do You Want to Learn How to Spend Your Money With Intention?

If you want to take control of your financial future, stop stressing about money and learn how to spend your money with intention, book in for your free Q&A call to see how Minimise With Me Financial Coaching can help you gain clarity around your finances!

You can learn more about Minimise With Me Financial Coaching services here.

This week’s comment question: Have you ever used budgeting envelopes? Did you find they helped you to stay on budget? Let me know in the comments below!

Budgeting

How to Create a Monthly Zero Based Budget

Posted on August 21, 2019

Are you sick of living week to week? Get on top of your finances now by creating a Zero Based Budget

A budget is a bridge between you and financial freedom. If you have no plans in place for where your money goes, it’s going to be gone just as fast as it came in. We all work hard for our money so why not take a little bit of effort to make sure all our hard work is not going to waste.

When you Create A Monthly Zero Based Budget you can spend guilt-free on what things matter to you. It doesn’t have to be this noose around your neck demanding you enjoy nothing and miss out on everything you want. If anything, a budget is the complete opposite of that. As Rachel Cruze says it ‘gives you permission to spend’, you don’t have to feel guilty about buying that coffee every morning when you know that your bills will be paid and that your savings have already been transferred across.

Bonus: I’ve included a link to grab your own Zero-Based Budget worksheet at the end of this post to help get you started on creating your own budget.

Rule of Thumbs

Budget Percentages Guidelines
A good rule of thumb for budgeting often shared is to Save 20%, Spend 50% and Enjoy 30%. If you have Consumer Debt you would replace the 20% Savings with 20% to Debt Repayment. However, guides and rules of thumb, are just that – a guide. Your budget should reflect your values and be completely unique to you. No two budgets will look the same!

Emergency Fund
It’s important to have an Emergency Fund which will help you create a buffer between your budget and unexpected expenses like a Dental Bill or a flat tyre. An Emergency Fund should be a minimum of $2,000, that is – enough to weather you through most storms! But of course, the sooner you can build your Emergency Fund up to 3 months of expenses, the better!

Before we start on the ‘How’ of budgeting, let’s get onto the ‘Why’ of budgeting.

Know Your Why

Before you even start your zero-based budget, you should know your ‘Why‘, that is why you want to change your finances. This is particularly important if you are trying to sell the idea to your partner. Demanding you cut all expenditure and sell everything not bolted down isn’t going to be the greatest proposal out of nowhere.

First, you must ask why do you want to work on your finances? Is it cos you work too hard to live week to week? Are you saving up for a huge goal like buying your first home or paying off your student debts? Maybe you are earning good money and spending even better money and you want to get a handle on where your money is going? Write it down somewhere and put it somewhere you can easily see it, such as your fridge.

Some of your why might be:

To pay for our children’s future education
To go on a trip to Disneyland
To be mortgage-free so you can afford to work less
To reduce stress and arguing around money with your partner
To live a more intentional life

Once you know your motivation it’s time to start on your budget.

How to Create a Monthly Zero Based Budget

1. Put all your money on the table

Grab all payslips or anything else you need to work out what you and your partner (if you have one), earn. If you have a partner but have separate finances, do a separate budget to them. It’s up to you how you want to allocate expenses whether it be a 50/50 split or expenses are based on a percentage of income.

It’s amazing how many people can’t answer the question: what is your monthly after-tax income. We are going to change that today.

List your expected income for the month as we are going to prepare 12 budgets a year, one for each month. The cut-off date is not important, you can start it from today, or the 1st of the month. Whatever you prefer.

Calculating your income

If you are paid monthly you will only need to enter one amount for each person. If you are paid weekly or fortnightly you can put the 2-5 pays you will receive for each person. Include any other pay from second jobs, side hustles etc in their own income line.

If you have differing income payment periods that is not a problem. If you get paid $800 every Wednesday and there are four Wednesdays this month your total income for that income stream for the month would be $800 x 4 = $3200. If you have a second household salary that is paid monthly of $5000 you would add that on a separate income line to make a total income for that month would be $8200.

The following month there might be 5 Wednesdays so that month you would enter into your budget 5 x $800 = $4000 for the weekly pay plus the monthly salary of $5000 so your total income would be $9000.

Don’t forget to add in any other income that month such as bonuses, pay raises, tax refunds etc.

Budgeting for Irregular Income

If you have irregular income, so your income fluctuates, start off with the minimum you expect to earn. Base this on an average from your last three months’ pay. You might need to do some digging to get these figures.

Simply add up your total pay of the last three months and divide it by 3 and use this as your budgeting income figure. For an even more accurate minimum estimate go back six months and again, add up all income from that job and divide by 6. Total the income for the month, this is what you have to work with. This income estimate of course, will need to be reviewed regularly.

You’ll then need to base your Zero-based budget off this minimum income figure with anything extra being a bonus that you can choose to add to your Emergency Fund, add to your debt snowball to pay down debt, save it or spend it.

2. Identify your essential expenses.

It is important to prioritise your most important expenses in your zero-based budget. This ensures that you don’t go on a clothes shopping spree and leave yourself short to cover your electricity bill or groceries. You can live without a new outfit, you can’t live without food or electricity and it’s not fun not having the basics for a quality living standard. Estimate your monthly essential expenses, these might be:

Groceries
Electricity and gas
Water
Health insurance
Mortgage or rent
Medical prescriptions
Child care
House insurance
Petrol
Car Expenses
Mobile
Internet

These expenses need to come before all discretionary or debt repayments. If you can’t put fuel in the car or pay the child care bill so you can go to work you’re not going to be able to earn your income to pay any debts which is why these need to come first.

3. Set up your Sinking funds

Sinking Funds allow us to prepare ahead for things we know we need to save for in advance. Rather than waiting for November to start thinking about budgeting for Christmas, we can start allowing an amount in our budget to split the cost over 12 months. ‘The same goes for car expenses, your insurance and registration bills come every year so you need to plan ahead for them rather than stressing when the bill comes and you only have 6 weeks to find $1200!

List any items that you need to plan ahead for in your budget here. For example, if you take an annual holiday estimate your budget and put 1/12th each month away.

Some sinking fund examples are:

Christmas
Gifts
Medical/Dental
Holidays
Home Repairs & Maintenance
Car Maintenance
Home Renos
Clothing
Beauty
Miscellaneous expenses

Estimate the monthly cost of each Sinking Fund and list these in your budget. You might need to do a bit of math in order to make an accurate estimation. E.g. add up how many gifts you need to buy at Christmas and how much you will spend on each. Check out my Christmas Gift List Printable to get you started. And go through your car expense receipts from the prior year to estimate how much your insurance and registration will be and add in a buffer services and any unexpected repairs that are required.

A great way to track your Sinking Funds is to set them up in a separate bank account and track them with the Sinking Funds Printable or Worksheet where you can update each month how much you have put away and spent on each Sinking Fund Category and know if you are under or over budget in that category.

4. Debt and repayments

The next thing you need for your zero-based budget is to add in your debt repayments.

It is important not to think of debt as just the minimum repayment. Just because your credit card lets you pay only 2% on your debt balance doesn’t mean that you should. With that outlook, you can view debts as smaller than they are and disregard the impact the true debt has on your budget. Often people spend themselves into more debt, justified by them being able to afford the minimum repayments only to realise thousands of dollars later the financial hole you’ve dug yourself into.

The Debt Snowball Method
List all your debts excluding your mortgage from smallest to largest in a worksheet like the Debt Snowball Calculator and note the interest rate and minimum repayments. Use a debt repayment strategy such as the Debt Snowball Method to pay them down as quickly as you can. This is where you pay the minimums on all debt but the little one which you throw any spare dollars at.

Go back to your budget and mark in the total minimum monthly repayments for all debts. Then add in an additional amount for extra debt repayment. You should aim for 15-20% of your total income going to debt repayments (for all consumer debt excluding the mortgage).

Of course, if you find that your Sinking Funds and Essential Expenses are consuming all your income and you have nothing extra to throw into your Debt Snowball, this will mean you need to either cut back on expenditure or increase your income.

5. Non-essential expenses

Next, we will list the lifestyle, non-essential expenses. The things that we could live without temporarily when faced with a crisis like a job loss.

In this area we include:

Personal Spending
Subscriptions
Sports/Lessons
Entertainment
Beauty
Hobbies

Estimate the monthly cost of each and list in your budget.

6. Saving and investing

If you are not paying off consumer debt with the Debt Snowball (just one debt repayment method) you should be aiming to save or invest at least 10% of your pay cheque. If you can shoot for 20% even better! Pay yourself first!

If you can’t that’s something you can aim for and work towards in time, but at least mark in something for savings even if it is only $20 a week. A big part of savings is making the habit, set up your savings as an automatic transfer to come out of your pay before you even have a chance to spend it.

Balancing Your Budget

The goal with a Zero Based Budget is to ensure that every dollar is allocated to an expense or saving amount with the balance of total income less total expenses being $0. If your budget balance has gone into negative you will need to consider what you can cut from the above categories starting with the Non-Essential Expenditure. And if it is positive you can add more to Debt Repayments or Savings & Investing!

If you are short here is the time to think outside the box in order to balance the budget. Of course, it is always a good idea to find ways to save money and make more income!

Some ideas to help you balance your budget could be:

– Sell your car and pay out the loan and buy a cheaper car with cash freeing up one debt repayment

– Start Meal Planning to save in your grocery budget

– Cut your electricity bill by being more mindful of turning off power points and only using the heater and air-con on extra cold/hot days

– Pick up a side hustle to increase your income temporarily to kick start your Debt Repayment

– Bring your lunch to work and save going out with colleagues for once a week

– Ask your kids to pick one extra-curricular activity at a time until things are financially a bit less tight

– Renegotiate your interest rate on your mortgage and other debt to get interest savings

Tracking your Budget Vs Actuals

Of course, there is no point budgeting if you are going to not track it at all to make sure you stayed under budget. Make sure that you keep track of your Actual vs Budgeted expenditure each month. A great way to do this is with a PDF Printable Expense Tracker or Expense Tracker Worksheet.

Simply take note of where your money is being spent as you go and add it into your Expense Tracker. Note the Date, Store, Description of what was purchased, enter a Category and the Amount.

Add up how much you spent in each category and note it in your Zero-Based Budget worksheet ‘Actual’ column and your budget will calculate if you were under or over budget in each category and by how much.

To help you get started, click the link below to grab your free Zero-Based Budget Worksheet, so you can get started spending your money with more intention today!

grab your free zero-based budget worksheet

This weeks comment Question: What did you cut from your budget that didn’t seem so bad once you’d made the cut? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

Minimalism

Simplify Your Life in 2019 With These 9 Easy Tips

Posted on June 11, 2019

A couple relaxing by a lake in a hammock in the afternoon sun after simplifying their life

Learn more

Forget perfection.

As a clean freak I often get caught up in needing everything to be done find it hard to focus on things when I am surrounded by clutter and mess. It can be hard for a lot of us, to ignore the desperate need to vacuum or clean up the kitchen and so on. Sometimes you just need to say it can wait. Sometimes 30 minutes to yourself needs to come first, so give yourself a break and occasionally let the mess wait. You’ll get to it later on or tomorrow.

Meal Plan

Meal Planning can help take a lot of the mental hassle out of planning meals for your family. There is enough stress in life without having to add what you are going to cook into the pile. Take the stress and chaos out of your life by shopping more intentionally and planning ahead. You can check out meal planning tips here to help you get started.

Make less extravagant meals

Simplify your life and put less pressure on yourself to make fancy meals. Don’t worry so much about finding and trying out new recipes. Limit that to once a month or every now and then and stick with 10-15 or so favourites, which should give you enough variety for the whole family. By sticking with what recipes you know you’ll get better at making your favourite meals and can experiment with changing those up, rather than trying to make newer dishes all the time and adding more stress and complication into the kitchen. And if it means once a week your family eats bacon and eggs or ham and cheese jaffles for dinner, so be it. They’ll live! And it’s a great way to free up some time for other important goals. We realised if we made a super easy meal on Monday nights we could get to the gym after work and still have dinner by 7.30. A small sacrifice for a good pay off.

Just donate it

I made over $5000 from selling my clutter and though that was amazing and it was great to have some extra cash, it was time consuming and tedious! The amount of messages I received with questions that were answered in the ad as well as time wasters does really did add a huge annoyance and hassle to the sale process, and I would say that some sales were less worth it than others. If you don’t need the cash, consider just donating your excess and do away with hassle of selling the item, or keep it your sales effort reserved for the higher value items. Holding onto clutter longer than necessary causes us unnecessary stress which isn’t really worth it for a few bucks so if you are having a hard time selling something, it might be better to just donate it and put your energy into more important things.

Consider downsizing

If you’re in a home that is more than big enough for your family, you might be able to simplify your life simply by considering a downsize into a smaller place. With downsizing comes less maintenance, less cleaning and more time for you. Not to mention the savings you will make on rent or mortgage repayments. For more pros on downsizing check out the post Benefits of Living In a Smaller Home.

Get out into nature

If your regular form of entertainment is hitting the mall, consider a change of scenery. Simplify your life by swapping the aisles and clothing racks for a day in nature. Go for a hike, bike ride or walk to clear your mind and let go of any stress. Not only are you having much needed fresh air and time for yourself, but you won’t be buying things you might not need into your home or spending money that you might not have.

Simplify your digital space

Learn more

Forget perfection.

Meal Plan

Make less extravagant meals

Just donate it

Consider downsizing

Get out into nature

Simplify your digital space

In order to simplify your life you can take stock of your digital space in addition to your physical one. This can cover a whole range of areas in your digital world. It might be deleting excess or blurry photos on your phone as you go and only keeping the best shots, unfollowing people whose posts don’t add value on social media, unsubscribing from unwanted emails cluttering up your inbox or blocking people online who are toxic and add stress to your life. Whilst you are aiming to simplify your life and digital space, you might reconsider spending so much time on social media all together. You might have one day a week where you log off from social media all together like The Minimalist do on Screenless Saturdays. Or even a certain time of day where you put your phone away and read a book or watch a movie. If you are looking for more ways to simplify your life in 2019, check out 15 Ways to Simplify Your Life for even more tips on how you can simplify and live a more intentional lifestyle! This Weeks comment question: How have your simplified your life so far this year? Please let us know your tips in the comments! If you found value in this post I would be super appreciative if you could share it with others who might also find value in it 🙂Want to Simplify your life this year and reduce stress and live a more intentional life? Sometimes we get so used the chaos that is life that we forget to check in with ourselves and ask important questions like; am I happy? Am I prioritising what matters to me? Am I doing too much? How can I do less of what isn’t feeding my soul and more of what does? If you are looking for some new ways to minimise stress in your life and get back to living with intention, finding news ways to simplify can help you achieve your goals. When we pull ourselves away from the hustle and bustle and daily grind and rethink our priorities and consider if they are aligning with life choices and actions, we can reroute to a more intentional path. Whether that might involve spending less time scrolling through spam on Facebook and more time exercising, finding more time to be creative or giving yourself permission to spend in an area that will add value to your life. Here are 9 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Life in 2019 to get your started with a more intentional life.

Make a cleaning schedule or hire a cleaner.

If you are struggling to keep up with your housework consider simplify your life by making a cleaning schedule. This will allow you to break up cleaning tasks into easy, bite-sized chunks. This is also a great opportunity to get family involved and helping out and give you an opportunity to delegate some of the workload. Another option to help you simplify your life is to consider making the investment in hiring a cleaner to help take the load off. Even if it is just once a quarter for the bigger stuff you never have the time or energy for.

Worry Less

There are plenty of things to worry about in life and they will always find us. Simplify your life this year by being more attentive of your feelings and recognise who, or what is causing your unnecessary stress. If you have a friend, family member or work colleague that are constantly going through some drama and pulling you into their web of endless issues, accept that you can’t change what they do but you can change how you react. Accept that you have no control over other people’s choices or actions and if they bring stress on themselves, that is not something that you need to take on. Some people are genuinely going through a tough time, like an illness or job loss, but there are those more toxic people who seem to find drama everywhere they go and make sure you are close by to hear all about it. You can support them and listen to them, but you don’t need to wear their stress, particularly when it’s circumstances they bring on themselves. Make this year a simpler one by saying no to taking on more stress and worry and being a little more selective with who you share your valuable time with.

Declutter With Me Decluttering Course

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed and stressed out by clutter in your home? If you’re looking to minimise the excess in your life, Declutter With Me: A 12 Week Guide to Declutter Your Home is a go-at-your-own-pace course that will give you the step-by-step, room-by-room instructions to help you clear the clutter in your home in as soon as just 12 weeks!

If you are keen to minimise your unwanted clutter check out Declutter With Me so you can create a home you love!