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My Debt Free Life: Why I’m Allergic To Debt

Posted on February 11, 2021
Check out the 9 Reason's Why I am Allergic To Debt

Ever since I can remember I have felt ‘Allergic to Debt’.

As a young girl I noticed many conversations around me about people being in debt and the hardships that situation caused. I saw the strain debt put on families around me, including my own. Both my parents worked Full-Time from as early as I can remember. Five days a week, year after year, to keep up with their bills and debt repayments. However, the debt never seemed to go away, it just grew.

When I was sixteen, I started to save up for my first car. I did everything I thought was right. I worked whilst I was at school and soon enough had $5,000 saved. I paid for my own car and the repairs to get it back on the road. Then the rest of my savings went to the car registration and insurance as I couldn’t rely on my parents to help me out.

For the first six month, things were great. I was excited to finally have the freedom to drive myself to school, my exams and to see friends whenever I wanted. But I had bought a car that was 26 years old and barely 9 months after buying it, it broke down and was going to cost way more than the car was worth to fix it. I had spent all my savings on buying the car and paying for the insurance etc, so I now had nothing saved and was looking at a useless hunk of scrap metal.

For six months I car pooled with family and friends as I tried to save up as much cash as I could to get another car, but living between my Mum and my Dad’s and trying to get to TAFE and work with no car was becoming a huge chore, so I gave in and took out my first car loan for $3000 to buy another car.

Almost immediately that weekly debt repayment on my car loan started to bother me. I hated seeing that money come out of my bank account each week, taking my paycheck away from me. I was only working as a casual at the time as a Checkout Assistant at Coles, so when I got to the school holidays and I was rostered on for no shifts, anxiety hit me. I had a loan to pay and a job with hours that weren’t guaranteed.

Not long after, I decided it was time to get rid of that car loan as fast as possible. I wanted it and the stress around having a loan gone. Plus I wanted to keep my paycheck. It took me nine months of working extra shifts and paying extra on my car loan but I was finally debt-free and it felt amazing! Unfortunately, this debt-freeness didn’t last long because I was about to graduate from University with another debt to go with it.

I graduated University with $11,000 in Student Loans at just 20 years old. That may not sound like much nowadays but it was still a large number to someone who was just starting out in life. Especially when I was already trying to pay for my other expenses like board, my mobile phone, petrol and everything else.

Very quickly I realised that I still hated the idea of being in debt. For me, it just had this feeling of heaviness that I wasn’t liking one bit. I’d been here before, so I knew what to do and worked as many shifts as I was able to get between my now two jobs so I could pay out that loan again as fast as I could. I was very lucky to score an Accounting job soon after my graduation and within a year of starting my full-time job, I was able to pay off my Student Loans in full. I was again completely debt-free and so relieved!

I would love to say I never took on any consumer debt again from this point in my life but that isn’t true.

By my mid-20s I took on another car loan with the intention of paying it off in 12 months (which I did :)) and also took on $42,000 of Student Loans when I married my husband a couple of years later.

It would take us 6 years to pay off that $42,000 in Student Loans. Thankfully it was the last of our consumer debt. When we paid off those Student Loans in 2017 I knew that was the last time I ever wanted to take on another debt payment in my life (excluding my mortgage payment – but that was next to go!).

I’ve always had a bad feeling when I was in debt – that I was trapped and bound by someone else’s terms. There was no freedom. I was stuck paying those loans off regardless of what financial difficulties I might face and with a big goal to buy my first home in the not too distant future. I was now keen to stay out of debt for good.

Fast forward a few years and I am now in my early 30s (or is it mid now?? Shh!) and well aware of my ‘Allergy to Debt‘. Now that I am well into adulting, I can clarify why being in debt is not great in the long run and hopefully with the below list of reasons why I am allergic to debt, I can inspire you to do what you can to become debt-free (and stay that way) as well.

Debt may not be a ‘big deal’ but it certainly makes making ends meet a lot harder, particularly in hard times like when facing job loss, starting a family or losing an income.

Here’s 9 Reasons Why I’m Allergic to Debt and refuse to borrow money ever again (at least outside of a mortgage)! This list has grown over the years as I learn more and more about the reasons how debt holds us back financially.

9 Reasons Why I’m Allergic to Debt


1.Being in Debt Robs You of Your Financial Future

First and foremost, having debt repayments robs you of your financial future. The most important thing with investing to build wealth is to start early. That means that you ideally want to start investing for your retirement when you are in your 20s or 30s. By age 40-50 you have lost a lot of the time you need to grow your wealth with Compound Interest. It’s never really too late to start investing, but sooner is certainly better than later.

Look at this example. The first Graph shows a 30 year old who invests $50,000 for 35 years, at 7% p.a. return with no additional amounts invested after that initial $50,000. When this person is 65 they will have $600,000 in their retirement account.

In this next example, that same person didn’t start investing into their retirement at age 30 as they were tied down with debt. Instead they waited until they were 45 to invest their $50,000 so they only had 20 years to grow their investment. This person would retire at age 65 with only $200,000 – one third of the retirement of the person who put the same amount away, but 15 years earlier.

What would you rather $50k growing into $600k or $50k growing into $200k? When you put your car loan into this context that $50k loan for that fancy new car looks a lot more expensive!! Was it really such a good deal?

When it comes to investing in your future, time is money so the less money you have tied up in debt the better and more comfortable your lifestyle will be in retirement.

2. Being in Debt Allows You to Live Beyond Your Means aka ‘Fake Rich’

There are people all around us living beyond their means with the help of credit as Chris Hogan says ‘Fake Rich‘. You see the new college graduates with $60,000 salaries rocking up to work with their new $50,000 car, or young families buying $1 million properties leaving themselves in debt up to their eyeballs. You ask yourself how did they afford that? More often than not the answer is with Debt. Sure some of them genuinely can afford what they have, but not everyone.

With social media, where people are constantly sharing all the things they have bought; the nice home, the best makeup brands, the latest runners or technology gadgets it can be easy to feel left out with your average rented home and runabout car on your average salary. Soon enough we all want to keep up with the Kardashian’s and the temptation to take on debt in order to fit in with our peers is real.

The problem is, most of these people are living beyond their means and could never afford these things if they had to pay for them with their actual paycheck. It might seem like a dream come true to be able to have things that you can’t afford, but that dream can quickly turn into a nightmare.

The average minimum Credit Card repayment is only around 2% of the balance so just imagine the world of trouble people who keep charging purchases on their Credit Card are going to have when they no longer can afford the monthly repayment. Usually, by the time it catches up with people if they lose their job, or are facing an illness the financial hole they have dug themselves is too big to get out of.

I’m allergic to debt because I want to know that I can afford my lifestyle and am living within my means. I prefer to know that if anything happens to my health, my job etc, I don’t have debt repayments to maintain at a time when I need to focus on other things like my health or family.

3. Debt is Expensive

We’ve all been in this scenario. We are out shopping and see something we really want on sale. It’s such a bargain that we’d be crazy not to buy it. But we easily forget, most Credit Cards charge exorbitant interest rates, some over 20%. So that bargain top you bought isn’t such a bargain now when you take into account the huge Interest charges on that purchase if you don’t intend to pay off your credit card in full when the bill arrives.


A similar, but much more expensive scenario appears when you are shopping for a new car. If you finance a new car loan at the average interest rate of 6% on a $30,000 car over 7 years you are going to pay out the car cost plus another $6814 in interest to the financial provider over that 7 year period. That’s more than one-fifth of the value of the car!

4. Being in Debt Makes You Feel Claustrophobic

It may feel good buying that new fancy car and driving it around and showing it off to your friends and family. The first few payments might not bother you too much, it might even feel worth it when you are cruising in your car. But most car loans are now 5 or 7 years. That’s a potential 84 monthly car payments! Did you catch that? 84 month repayments! Yikes! By Payment 12 I can guarantee that debt is going to get old.

I am so ‘allergic to debt’ I go a step further to protect my paycheck, and avoid signing up for lock-in contracts so my mobile phone, TV subscriptions and gym membership are all cancel-at-anytime arrangements. A 12 month contract is long enough to plan for let alone years when it comes to a larger purchase such as a car.

5. Being Debt Free Gives You More Opportunities to Enjoy Life

When I paid off the last of my student loans it freed up a whole lot of cash for me to spend how I want. And that feeling is something I hope you all will feel one day when you are consumer debt-free. When you don’t have any more payments there are so many more opportunities that arise.

You can use your new spare cash to travel, save for your kid’s education, cut hours back a work, retire early, leave a job you hate or pick up a new expensive hobby completely guilt-free!

When you are debt-free your money is finally yours to spend how you wish on the things that add value to your life. By being allergic to debt I have been able to travel to many places in the world, pay off all my consumer debt, and dream build about my future.

6. Debt Adds Stress to Relationships

One of the biggest causes of fights between couples is money. It can be challenging to get a spender and a saver on the same page when it comes to money. Even if you are on the same page, always worrying about money can cause huge amounts of stress for you and your partner.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With each debt we paid off, we felt a sense of freedom and it felt amazing to be working towards a common goal together and our financial future. I am allergic to debt because I am not keen to ever add the complexity and stress that having debt can have on a relationship or even my own happiness ever again. It’s the #debtfreelife for this millenial.

7. Debt Makes Rainy Days Much Harder

Being in the middle of a pandemic is one of the biggest financial red flags we have seen to date. Many people have lost their job or had to take reduced hours at work. This has caused huge financial stress for many of us. Having debt might be manageable when times are good, but it can be the straw that breaks the camels back when they aren’t.

If you are facing an injury, illness or any other emergency like having to care for a loved one, having debt can make the choices you need to make much harder.

One thing I always try to accept is that rainy days happen. The less you have your money tied up in debt repayments the better it will be for you when you are trying to face those challenge without an extra layer of difficulty that debt brings. The less debt you owe, the more peace of mind you will have when life throws you lemons.

8. I Learned From Others Mistakes With Debt

I knew that I didn’t want a large amount of debt in my life from an early age. It took me a decade or two to unpack all the lessons I learned over the years from others. These have allowed me to learn valuable lessons from others without necessarily having to make the same mistakes (although of course, I too have made many financial mistakes to date!).
When I was fourteen, my Grandfather retired, aged 73. He was barely one year into retirement when he died suddenly of a heart attack. This is a memory that has stuck with me my whole life, now 20 years later. My pop worked hard his whole life and didn’t get to enjoy his retirement and spend time with his wife, children or grandchildren. I knew at 14 that I didn’t want that to happen to me. I wanted to be able to retire much younger than my Grandfather was able to so I could enjoy my retirement longer than my Pop had the chance to.


I have seen family and friends working 6 or 7 days a week to make ends meet to pay for large homes and new cars. So much so that they didn’t even have the time to enjoy their beautiful home or have much time to spend with their family. After watching others work so hard, year on year, to afford those nice things, I decided early on that having those things weren’t as important to me as my physical and mental health. I wanted time to be able to see friends, family and my husband and to have time for me. I wanted to be able to sleep soundly at night and not have to worry about a massive mortgage or car that I couldn’t afford. And it didn’t’ make sense to me to work sixty hours plus a week to pay for a home I didn’t have the time to enjoy.

For a long time these lessons impacted my thoughts around money and shaped my values and how I felt allergic to debt.

9. The Minimalist Lifestyle Made Me More Content With Less


When I discovered the Minimalist Lifestyle a few years back, this cemented my feelings about my allergy to debt even more. I realised that I could be just as happy with less. I was happy in my modest home with my regular wardrobe and affordable car. Taking on Debt to pay for things I didn’t really need or want in exchange for my physical and mental health, as well as my most valuable resource – my time – wasn’t something that I was willing to do. The price really was too high.

Well there you have it Minimisers, the reasons why I am allergic to debt. I would love to know if you can relate to any of the above at all?

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. 

What made you realise that you were allergic to debt and motivated you to pay down your debt? Please let me know in the comments! 🙂

Budgeting

Time-Cost Budgeting: How Much Time Did That Cost You?

Posted on December 22, 2020
A notebook with a $ sign on it

Once we have our pay in our bank account, it can be hard to align our spending and the ‘time cost‘ that is, the time we gave up in order to earn that wage, with the purchases we make. Soon enough, as fast as that cash comes in, we are spending our hard-earned money unintentionally without considering the precious hours from our lives it took to earn it.

The idea of working out the Time-Cost of spending first occurred to me all the way back to when I had just started my first job as a Coles Checkout Assistant back when I was fifteen. I remember leading up to my first day of work, all I could think about was the cool skate shoes and Billabong boardies I could buy with my newly acquired paycheck.

As a teenager in a newly single-family home, brand name clothing and shoes was not something I was going to get unless I could pay for them myself. I was sick of having to shop at Best and Less and Payless Shoes so getting a job as soon as I was able to, was my ticket to finally get the things I wanted.

Over the next handful of month’s, I had bought the Etnies I’d wanted for so long, a brand-name jacket, jeans and some swimmers and boardies from my favourite Surf Shop. It felt so amazing to finally have some of the things I had always wanted, and even better – I had earned them. But soon enough, long hours of standing on my feet at the registers and missing out on seeing my friends got a bit old. Not long into my first job I started to consider the ‘time cost’ of my spending. 

I was earning a fairly decent $7.67 per hour at my job but when you are earning so little per hour, it’s hard to ignore how much of your life you are trading to buy everyday things. Each time I spent money I began to do the maths.

That Happy Meal from Maccas was a good 45 minutes of my shift. Those bordies I loved so much that I had paid $50 for, were going to take me 6.5 hours or 1.5 shifts to earn! The Etnies I bought were a whopping $130 the equivalent of a good 16 hours of my life or 3 nights – gone!

Eventually, the novelty of spending my money on expensive things wore off a bit as I realised how long it took me to earn that money. I was certainly not ‘a reformed spender’, but I became a bit more intentional with my spending after realising the true cost of my spending. 

Why you should consider the Time-Cost of Money

With avenues to Buy Now and Pay Later coming out of our ears, it’s good to have a few tools up our sleeves to help us control our spending and stick to our budgets.

Spending $50 on something might not seem like such a big deal, and maybe it isn’t. But when you reframe the purchase into how many hours of your life it took to pay for that item, you can get a new perspective on your consuming habits.

And of course, there is no secret that the more we spend, the more hours we have to work in order to keep up with our spending level. But this also works in reverse, the less we spend the less hours we need to work. So the less unnecessary stuff you buy can equate to more free time for you to spend however you like, whether that be spending more time with your kids and family, being more active, beach days – whatever floats your boat!

And don’t forget a very important rule. When we save $1 by not spending it, we get to keep 100% of it. But if we earn $1 we only get to keep that amount less tax which could be only $0.70-$0.80 in our pockets so it is always more effective to save more than to earn more!

Related Post: 8 Questions to Ask Yourself to Stop Impulse Buying

How to Calculate the Time-Cost of Your Spending

Have you ever considered the true Time-Cost of your spending? Most of you will say no and that is okay and not at all unexpected, we aren’t all Accountants here 😉

But – it doesn’t hurt to have a rough idea of your Time-Cost in the back of your mind so you can be conscious of the hourly costs of the things you are bringing home, that is, how many hours you will have to work in order to pay for them. It’s also a great tool to use to help you reconsider unnecessary spending when you are looking at what that item will cost you in Time vs Dollars!

The simplest way to calculate the Time-Cost of your Spending is to grab your most recent Payslip and note your hourly rate. If you get paid a range of different rates and loadings, take your Gross Pay on your last payslip and divide it by the numbers of hours you worked on that payslip so you can get an average hourly rate.

I.e. You are were paid $400 (Before Tax) this pay and you worked 20 hours. Your Hourly Rate Before Tax would be $20 per hour.

So to apply the above example calculation to a real-life scenario, imagine you earn $20 an hour Before Tax, and are in a store deciding whether you should buy something for $40.

$40 is just $40 – who cares? What even is $40… Money comes and goes, right?

Yes, but this time we are going to not just take the dollars into account. We are going to consider the Time-Cost of the purchase, as we said before – that is the hours of work it took to earn that $40 so we can truly make an intentional purchasing decision.

In this example you earned $20 an hour (Before Tax) and at $40 to buy the item, that equates to over 2 hours of work for that purchase.  

Before putting that item in your basket or trolley  – with the above Time-Cost in mind, consider if this purchase is worth the hours of time you worked to earn that money? The hours you spent away from your family. That Saturday night you missed out on going to that concert last weekend cos you were working? Or time you could have spent doing more enjoyable things?

Consider this example above, and see if that item you are about to buy is worth the equivalent time you would have worked to get the money to pay for it. 

You can stretch this question even further by asking yourself, would I be willing to work for two hours to buy this right now? If you had to drop what you were doing, would you go and work for however many hours it would take you at your current pay rate to earn the money to buy that item?

If the answer is no – I could probably do without another pair of jeans cluttering up my closer, then maybe you could put that item back. If your answer is yes – I really want that bike and I will work what I have to to get it then you know that you are making an intentional decision and that purchase is going to be worth all your hard work! 

This is a very simplified example, you should also take taxes paid into consideration as in the above example I used a before tax hourly rate where you won’t receive the full $20 per hour as some of it will be payable in tax. However, having a rough idea in mind of your hourly rate and how many hours of your life it is going to take to make a purchase is a step in the right direction in order to make more thoughtful purchasing decisions.

Will you consider the Time-Cost the next time you are shopping? I would love to know if you have used this method before to help curb your spending? Please let me know in the comments 🙂

Budgeting

How I Went From Being Poor to Achieving Financial Freedom

Posted on July 26, 2020
A women enjoying nature thanks to spending her money intentionally

I’ve been on this Earth now for 33 years and have picked up some financial wisdom, valuable money and life lessons along the way which have helped me to achieve financial freedom. This post is going to walk you through where I started my financial journey and how I gradually took on life lessons thrown at me to completely change my financial future to achieve financial freedom.

When I was younger, I didn’t know much about money. It was never something that was openly discussed in my family which can be a good and a bad thing. No one had ever sat me down and taught me how to handle money, how to save it, how to make it, or anything of that ilk. I did my best to pick up what money advice I could over the years from those around me. Even if they didn’t know they were indirectly teaching me.

Despite my lack of money education, I was lucky to be naturally drawn to save my money from a young age.

My first memory of money was having a large container when I was around 5 years old marked as barbie clothes, which I soon turned into a cash box to save all my coins. I remember feeling excited each time I went to count my money and see how much more I had saved and when I had enough to buy a new Barbie.

Growing up, both my parents worked full-time, I guess you would say we were middle class although money always seemed tight. We’d get a few outfits twice a year for Winter and at Christmas. We’d often miss out on school camps and some excursions and shop for clothes at Best and Less, Kmart or Op shops to save money. I never felt that we were well off, but we had what we needed and a lovely home and I was always grateful for that. Although my parents didn’t talk much about money to us, they always worked hard to make ends meet and my brother and I certainly picked up their hard work ethic.

When I was 14 my parents separated and my Dad soon moved interstate, which meant we went from a two-income family to a one-income family, and moved from a big, modern home in a relatively safe suburb to a small home in a not so safe area of Western Sydney known as Mount Druitt.

Looking back, I can only imagine the struggle my Mum faced trying to pay bills and a mortgage and raise two kids on a $38,000 salary. I am ever so grateful that my Mum was able to put a roof over our head, keep the lights and water connected, and afford basic groceries all whilst dealing with the stress of a marriage breakdown. Although we didn’t have much at the time, I knew that we had more than others and she was doing her best for us.

Given that, at 14 other than my basic needs, I was pretty much on my own financially which was quite the wakeup call. Mum had just enough money for our needs; the mortgage, electricity and water, her car and some groceries and that was about it. After those expenses, there wasn’t much left. We didn’t have an internet connection or a computer which placed limits on my studies at that time. And there were many occasions where I would buy my own dinner after work because there wasn’t much left at home to eat.

Anything a normal teenager would want or need was not in the budget. I often bought my own toiletries and makeup and if I wanted new clothes, money to see friends, a mobile phone or anything else outside the essentials, I quickly realised it was all on me. A hard reality to face for someone who had only entered their teen years, but something I had to accept and adapt to.

Soon enough, I turned 14 and 9 months and was legally allowed to start working after school. I set off with a friend handing out my resume to anywhere that would take it in my area. I got a job at my local Coles Supermarket within the month and was soon working fifteen to twenty hours a week to afford to pay for my own things: clothes, my mobile phone and have enough money to go out with my friends occasionally. I was stoked at the thought of having my own money for the first time and being able to go our with friends and not have to miss out on things I wanted.

On many occasions, I had to choose between hanging with friends or relaxing after school, attending family events and sometimes even working during exam periods instead of studying so I could earn my own money and have the things I wanted and needed. I knew that working was great for experience and my resume, but resented that I had to work for things I needed like clothes and shoes that other kids didn’t have to. Especially when I knew had I not had to buy those things for myself I could be saving up for my own car, education and other things that I needed.

My job as a supermarket cashier opened my eyes even further to the financial struggles around me that others faced.

I saw families at the supermarket where I worked have to put food back that they couldn’t afford to pay for and decide if they needed milk or bread more.

I watched a Dad once take money from his kid’s wallet to pay for his smokes and watched as that child looked on in sadness at their money being spent.

Being financially responsible for myself at 14 wasn’t necessarily ideal but it gave me important life and money skills and let me make stupid money mistakes early on, which helped me to get where I am today. I quickly learned that unlike many people around me, I had to rely on myself to get by: no one was going to fund my wants, bail me out of debt, buy me a car to drive around in or pay for my university education. It was all on me and if I wanted something I was going to have to work hard and make sacrifices to get it.

These early financial lessons helped make me who I am today and shaped my financial mindset from my teenage years until now. From an early age, my experiences and learning from those around me, made me very aware that I never wanted to have to struggle financially and I was going to do whatever it took to make sure I never had to live without my basic needs and wants.

I also want to do what I can to help other people to avoid similar financial struggles, so want to share with you how all these life lessons shaped my relationship with money and How I Went From Being Poor to Financially Free.

How I Went From Being Poor to Financially Free

These are the financial habits I developed over the last two decades, starting from a place where I had nothing, where I lived week to week and spent everything I earned almost as soon as it was in my bank account, to now, where I am consumer debt-free, can save and invest and have worked towards achieving financial freedom.

By Financial Freedom I don’t mean in the sense of I don’t have to work to earn money, or that I am rich, or even that I can spend my money frivolously on whatever I want. When I say Financial Freedom, I mean:

  • Free from stress about money, not worrying about how you are going to pay your bills
  • Consumer debt free – no repayments outside of having a mortgage
  • Being able to afford more than just the essentials and live comfortably

And my goal is to help you learn basic fundamentals of money so you can achieve Financial Freedom too, no matter where you are starting from. Achieving Financial Freedom is not something I did overnight, or even in a few years. These are money habits that I discovered, implemented and persisted with, year after year, hitting one goal at a time. Here’s How I Went From Poor to Financially Free.

I Saved Up an Emergency Fund

A long time ago, I realised that financial emergencies were just a part of life and were going to happen whether you were prepared or not. I suffered from something called financial anxiety, a feeling of worry, fear or unease about your finances. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I grew up without much of a financial safety net. If I didn’t have money for my car registration or car repairs or anything else, that was on me. I wasn’t able to just ask my parents to bail me out if I needed help. And many of us don’t have that option.

I quickly learned the importance of having a savings buffer, an Emergency Fund to take the stress and anxiety out of what could and would go wrong. Whether it be a flat tyre or oil leak on my car – or whatever other emergency came up, I didn’t need to make myself sick with worry over how I was going to pay for it. I simply used my Emergency Fund and built it up again as quickly as I could.

When you have an Emergency Fund to cover these unexpected financial emergencies, there is no need to pay for things with a credit card where you could potentially end up wracking up a huge amount of debt over the years. By having a small savings buffer of $2000 in my bank account I was able to eliminate any need to go into debt for small financial emergencies.

An Emergency Fund won’t appear overnight, but a slow and consistent savings plan, along with selling whatever you can will help you build one up sooner than you might think.

Related Post: Why You Need an Emergency Fund

I Set Up Sinking Funds

When I was in my early 20s I had about $1200 saved up in my savings account which gave me that warm fuzzy feeling that kept my financial anxiety at bay. That was until I got my Car Registration and Greenslip bill in the mail and realised that I would soon only have $50 to my name until my next payday. This was the first time I realised that although I thought I had been financially responsible, even $1200 was not as great a savings buffer as I thought. From that day, I set aside enough for my car expenses plus repairs from every paycheck.

In the 12 years since then, I have never faced a situation where I didn’t have enough to cover a car service, a gift for my Mum or car repair because I made sure to also put away for these expenses in advance with Sinking Funds.

Sinking Funds, is just a fancy word for saving up for your annual expenses such as a Christmas fund, a holiday, your car expenses, medical expenses or any other need or want by taking a bit from each pay check, rather than waiting for the bill and wondering how you can find X amount of dollars in the next two weeks.

You can learn more about Sinking Funds and how they can help keep financial anxiety at bay here.

I Became Allergic to Debt

When I was much younger, I was never fully made aware of my family’s debt, but as I approached my teen years I was beginning to notice the financial stress it was causing my parents and other adults around me. This set a distaste for debt from a very young age: debt lead to stress and I didn’t like that at all.

That feeling was embedded in me subconsciously so much, that in my early 20s, I paid off any debt I took on with the ‘kill it with fire’ mentality. Making those debt repayments week after week, month after month did not sit well with me. I certainly had tried ‘to do debt’ and realised pretty quickly, that it wasn’t for me. So very quickly, paying off those loans became priority numero uno.

After that, I knew that I would never take on any more debt other than to buy a house.

If I wanted to buy something I needed to save up for it in cash, and only then could I have what I wanted. AfterPay and other payment options have come into the market and I still treat them the same – If I am not using my own cash I am not buying it. It’s a rule that has allowed me to save myself some of the financial pain that many others face when stuck in the cycle of debt.

I Adopted a Minimalist Lifestyle 

When I was in my late 20s, I discovered the Minimalists and soon fell in love with the Minimalism Lifestyle. As someone who had grown up in a family of many hoarders, this new way of life: where you simplified, and only brought into your home what you loved and what added value, quickly caught my attention.

In a couple of years, I had managed to declutter over 70% of mine and my husband’s belongings as well as taking a long hard look at my spending and consumer habits. I realised how often I shopped as a past time, rather because I needed anything but out of entertainment and boredom.

Minimalism helped me to realise how many things we had bought into our home that didn’t add value to our lives.

Over much self-reflection time, I was able to rethink my prior spending habits that weren’t adding to my happiness, instead just adding to my anxiety. Over the next few years, we donated what we no longer wanted or needed, sold our clutter and made some serious cash and cleared the excess in our home.

We became much more intentional with our spending and learned to make do with what we had.

Minimalism has provided a whole new level of financial freedom and helped me to stop chasing that ‘more is better’ attitude.

We buy less impulsively and we are more content with what we have and less concerned with impressing those around us.

Saving up for something you really want is a lot easier and motivating than paying off something you already have that has lost it's sparkle.

Stopped Bracket Creep

Every paycheck you receive is an opportunity to change your financial future if it is used with intention.

A couple of years into getting my first full-time job I set myself a spending budget and stuck with it through the years. Getting a pay raise in the past had been an excuse to spend more and celebrate, but I quickly realised that if I spent my raise as quickly as I had earned it, I was not going to have anything to show for my increase in income over the years.

Instead, I set a monthly spending budget for myself and kept it at that amount, regardless of the raises or bonuses I earned. If I got a raise, I would work out the new amount above my last pay and transfer that extra cash to a savings goal each month – whether it be to my mortgage, consumer debt, a savings account, or investing. Of course, each year there were some expenses that would go up like home and contents or health insurance and so on, so I would take out what I needed to cover those increased costs but made sure what was left I saved.

Although it may be difficult at first to stick to a spending budget, in time it will get easier as you get used to your budget. And we all work hard for our money so the more intentional we are with how we spend it the better we will feel 🙂

I Budgeted and Automated My Savings

If you have to rely on yourself to manually save money each paycheque you are probably going to find that you will struggle to save money. Some of you Savers out there might find it easy to save money, but not all of us are so naturally disciplined with money, so for the Spenders out there (And I get you, these days I fall somewhere in between both types) taking the leg work out of savings is going to remove a huge barrier to you becoming financially free.

When I first started working full-time I had no plan for my money and only saved what was leftover at the end of the month. With no plan in place for my money I was on a path to just let my paycheck slip through my fingers. And I did just that – some months I saved nothing, other months I managed to put away a few hundred dollars. After a while of just ‘winging’ things with my money, I realised that I had blown half my annual salary and had next to nothing to show for it (including 6 years of casual work before it!). I looked around at my old car, my wardrobe and the small number of possessions I had, namely a stereo, guitar and laptop and wondered where all my hard-earned money had gone.

When this reality sunk in, it bothered me. I realised that my more casual approach to finances was going to lead me into missing out on some huge financial goals, like traveling and saving up for a first home deposit. At 22 I was pretty keen to move out as soon as I could so blowing my cash wasn’t going to be something I could do for much longer if I wanted to achieve any of those goals.

It wasn’t until I created a budget and set up my automated savings transfers that I started to make progress with my savings goals. By setting up automatic savings transfers I took the work out of saving, and it also made it easier to stick to my budget as I knew what I had left to spend. My savings were already accounted for and safely in a separate savings account earning interest and working towards my bigger financial goals.

If you want to achieve Financial Freedom, don’t leave saving money, or your financial goals up to fate. Take charge today, create a budget and tell your money where to go in advance, before you spend it.

You want to ideally be saving 10-20% of each paycheck. If you can’t save that much, even a small amount from each paycheck goes a long way and will help you to build your savings muscle.

Need help with getting started with Saving Money? Check out my 52 Week Savings Challenge! 

I Lived Within My Means

If you spend more money than you make and use credit to fund your lifestyle you are living beyond your means. With credit so easily available today, many of us do just that. This lifestyle is all around us. It’s your workmate who just bought a brand new BMW with finance, it’s your friend who has an expensive wardrobe but only works as a cashier, it’s that friend who always seems to have the latest phone, guitar or insert whatever gadget you like here.

The reality is when you spend more than you make you are never going to get ahead financially and stunting your financial future.

So many people take on debt solely on the basis that they can afford the repayments today.

What many don’t realise is that at any moment (and an ever more real reality with the current coronavirus pandemic) you could find yourself unemployed, or have an injury where you need to take an extended amount of time off work. And in these times, those debt repayments are still going to fall due regardless of your circumstances.

Eventually in time, if you don’t check your need to have the best of everything and stay on a debt trajectory your debt will catch up with you and you may find that you are unable to make even the minimum repayments on your debt.

Once I made the decision to live within my means, reaching financial freedom became an achievable goal rather than a faraway dream. When you aren’t playing catch up week after week and paying for purchases you shouldn’t have made weeks, months or years ago you can start to use your money to achieve your not so distant financial goals.

I Learned From Other People’s Mistakes

Growing up I did my best to take in the world around me. This taught me a lot of what I know today, even though these “lessons” weren’t taught to me in any direct fashion. Here are a select few lessons that had the most impact on my relationship with money and lead me to want to achieve financial freedom as soon as I could.

  1. My grandfather passed away when I was 14 at a young 73 years old. One of the things that really hit me at such a young age, was that he had only retired from working full-time two years earlier. That really struck me and has stayed with me to this day. I knew that old age isn’t a given and I didn’t want to work my entire life and die suddenly a couple of years into retirement without any time to enjoy life. I have known that working until I die is not something I want and I was going to do anything I possibly could avoid that scenario in my older years.
  2. I had watched many people around me chase bigger houses and brand new cars and more and more stuff which came with more and more debt. I knew these people around me worked long hours and went to work up to six days a week in order to pay for these things and it never really made sense to me to have a lovely home that you never had any spare time to enjoy with your family. As a young adult, I knew I wanted to avoid being stuck working to exhaustion just to have a nice big home and a new car every few years. I saw the value in my time over what money could buy.
  3.  Growing up I never travelled with my family. I left my State, NSW for the first time when my father moved to QLD when I was 16. Other than that, apart from travelling to local beach suburbs close to home and any school excursions or occasional camps my parents could afford, I didn’t do any traveling at all. I wouldn’t travel interstate again until I was around 20 and could pay my own way.

I felt like I lost so much time in my youth where I could have travelled and explored new places. My family never had the money to travel, and never treated experiences as a priority. That was something I realised as an adult that I wanted to change when I had the means to do so.

These few life experiences stood out to me from a young age and further cemented my desire to make my life different.

  • When I was in my mid 20s I bought a house I could afford, rather than one that was going to cause me to lose sleep night after night.
  • When I was 24 I went on my first overseas holiday and have since been to over 12 countries
  • And I will do whatever I can to retire well before my 70s as my Grand Dad did.

These were just some examples of things I noticed growing up and they were always in the back of my mind and played a part in how I chose to spend my money.

I Gave Myself Permission to Spend My Money Where I Saw Value 

To be financially free doesn’t have to mean that you miss out on all the fun things in life, but it does mean that you need to be a little more selective with spending your money.

I personally love to travel and would forgo other things that didn’t mean so much to me, like having a nicer car, the latest phone or designer clothes so that I could afford to put more towards my travel budget.

And these savings don’t even need to necessarily mean that you miss out on something you want. These are some ways I have saved money to spend on things that added value to my life, like travel without necessarily having to cut back on things I want.

  • Instead of paying $50 a month or more for a Foxtel subscription, we signed up for Netflix which was only $10. We get the same experience and value from this for 1/5th of the price.
  • I made sure to research service renewals regularly rather than just paying the bill without a thought. When the insurance renewals came though I would get two more online quotes and then call up my insurer to see what was the best deal I could get from them. This didn’t take very long and had saved me money that I could spend on things that added more value to me, over lining the insurer’s pockets.
  • I researched phone provider plans every six to twelve months to make sure I was getting the best bang for my buck.
  • Instead of owning 50 pairs of shoes that I bought on the cheap, I slowly replaced my shoes with more quality pieces that would last longer and be more comfortable, saving me money and pain in the long term!
  • I spend 10 minutes a week meal planning in order to spend my grocery money more effectively, reduce food waste, and save money. As a bonus, I get to make amazing food that I love!
  • I checked my mortgage interest rate every 6-12 months to make sure I was at least getting their best-advertised rate, saving me thousands on my mortgage each year.

If you take a small amount of effort to save in the areas that don’t matter so much to you, (no one gets joy from overpaying on their insurance) and continue to build on these money savings habits, over time the savings will compound and you’ll have more money to enjoy life, pay down debt and save or invest.

These are all financial behaviors I learned and adopted over the course of my adult life that have helped me go from living week to week to living a more financially free life. I hope they will help you to find ways that you too can break away from financial stress and anxiety and achieve financial freedom.

Want to Know More About How You Can Set Yourself Up on a Path to Financial Freedom?

If you would like to learn more about how you can achieve financial freedom, don’t forget to check out my new course Financial Minimalism: How to Set Yourself up on a Path to Financial Freedom.

This week’s comment question: What is the most important financial lesson you have learned to date? 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

12 Financial Goals That Should Be On Your Agenda

Posted on May 19, 2020
A board walk with arrows painting forward to signify moving forward, not backwards with your financial goals

What are your financial goals?

Are you well on your way to knocking some of them down? Or is that a problem for future you?

Setting financial goals is an important part of life, just like eating healthy food, exercising and looking after your mental health. When we set financial goals, and our finances are in order and working for us it eliminates a huge stress barrier in our lives. And let’s agree that life is stressful enough without having to worry about finances on top of other stresses!

I was inspired reading P.J. Money at budgets are sexy’s blog A Checklist of 15 Financial Goals to hit and decided I would too, throw together what my own 12 Financial Goals goals and what I would encourage anyone else to aim for!

If you can work towards these goals, no matter what age you are or how long it takes, you are going to set yourself up for a financially successful future.

These are all things that I have done over the past 8 years, ever since I moved out of home. Utilising one pay cheque at a time, to slowly but surely achieve each financial goal I set for myself.

And I can attest that this list of financial goals has helped me to stress less about money and worry less about the future. And whilst doing so I haven’t ever completely deprived myself of enjoying life. I just make sure I’m frugal where I can be, I only buy things that bring me joy and that I have thought about long before I’ve clicked buy or walked into the store.

Here are my top 12 Financial Goals that should be on your agenda so you can set yourself up on a path to financial success and less financial stress.

12 Top Financial Goals That Should Be On Your Agenda

1. Save an Emergency Fund 
In the words of ‘I can’t stress this enough people’ guy from the Simpsons, please, please, if you do nothing but this, have an Emergency Fund of at least $2000, ideally 3-6 months of your expenses and don’t touch it for any reason other than actual emergencies.

Have an emergency fund of $2000.

An emergency is not a European vacation or a shopping spree. It is a buffer between you and all the financial mud that is going to come your way, whether it be the unexpected dental visit you have, needing new tyres on your car or needing to replace your hot water heater. Be kind to future you and prepare!

A great way to jump-start your Emergency Fund is to look around your house and sell any unwanted things to help grow this fund quickly.

With the current economic climate, it has never been more important to have an emergency fund and this is why this is my #1 Top financial goal that should be on your agenda!

2. Pay off all consumer debt; Car loans, Credit cards, medical debt, After or Zip Pay & Student Loans.
Until you say no to going into more debt, you will be stuck in a debt spiral of borrowing and repaying money and the struggle of trying to juggle keep up with those repayments. Even the most confident spender will one day be caught out when they can’t afford their minimum repayments and all the balls their trying to spin in the air drop.

Don’t be that person who gets caught out. Pay off your consumer debt as soon as you can and set yourself a new personal value to stay out of further debt.

The Barefoot Investor says Debt is Compound interest in reverse. So if you want your money to build wealth, you need to start investing in things that make you money, rather than throwing all your hard-earned cash to interest repayments with zero plan to ever pay them out.

Debt is compound interest in reverse – The Barefoot Investor 

3. Save up a deposit for a home or pay down your mortgage when you have paid off all consumer debt.
If you don’t have any consumer debt and have an emergency fund of 3 months of expenses (a huge congratulations to you!), now is your opportunity to do one of the following with your freed up cash that used to go to debt repayments:

  • Bank your spare money in a high-interest savings account and save up a deposit for your first home. You should be aiming to save 10-20% of your income each month.
  • Pay down your mortgage faster.

You should be aiming to save 10-20% of your income each month. If you can’t save that or put something similar to your mortgage, you have two options:

1. Review your budget to see what expenses you can minimise I.e. cancel your cable or any other unnecessary subscriptions, find cheaper mobile plans, consider finding a cheaper place to rent or moving closer to work to save on transport costs. Everything needs to be on the table and you can choose what you are willing to cut and what you aren’t.

2. You need to see how you can increase your income. This could involve getting a better paid job, working towards a pay increase at your current job over the next 6-12 months, up-skilling so you can move up a role, speaking to your partner about returning to work to bring in more cash or helping to encourage and support them to get a better paying job. Or getting creative with side hustles in your spare time and selling your unwanted items to make some extra cash each month.

Between cutting expenses and increasing income, you will hopefully find some new avenues in your budget to start saving up that house deposit or paying down your mortgage faster.

4. Contribute extra to your retirement 

In Australia we have the Superannuation Guarantee, which means that if you are an employee over 18 who works over 30 hours, you should be getting paid 11% of your salary into your Superannuation. Luckily for us we already have a nice portion of our wage, going into our retirement account.

The key to building wealth is to start early. If you have the capacity to do so, for example if you are debt free and have money to save, you may want to start topping up your Superannuation (401k or equivalent in your home country). There may be tax incentives for you to contribute to your retirement which is a great bonus. Speak to a financial adviser or your retirement fund to determine what is the appropriate investment decision for you.

Remember, Iit’s never too late to start contributing to your retirement, just remember, the sooner you start, the sooner you can benefit from the effects of compound interest!

5. Track your expenses for 1-3 months
If you have never tracked your expenses, you might have no clarity over what you are spending your money on a month to month basis. Knowing what you spend is the first step in controlling any out of control spending.

If you buy everything on a credit or debit card, this is an easy exercise of downloading all your bank statements into one document. Alternatively, if you are a ‘cash is king’ kind of guy or gal, simply keep a notebook handy every time you spend money over a 12 week period and note down what you spent. If 3 months is too prohibitive, at least do the exercise for one month so you get an idea of where your regular spending falls.

6. Create a Zero-Based Budget
Carrying on from the expenses review, one of the most important financial goals you should now tackle is to create a Zero Based Budget so you can see if you are living within your means and what you are earning Vs. what you are spending. It’s important when planning for your financial future that you know where your finances are at this moment so you can start making decisions about your finances.

The Zero-Based Budget will give you a snapshot of where your budget is and where you might need to reduce spending, or increase saving. To help you get started, you can grab your free Zero Based Budget Worksheet template.

7. Set up automated Savings Transfers
If you have trouble budgeting and saving money, the easiest way to be successful is to set up automated savings transfers. Taking the physical work out of budgeting and savings and constant decision making out makes it much easier to save. And it is important to always ‘pay yourself first’, that is, save some of your money before you pay your bills or spend money on anything else.

Don’t let saving be an afterthought. Set up a regular savings transfer of whatever you can afford out of each pay cheque. Even if it is just $20 a week it will add up, of course, the more you can save the better. And once you get used to the habit of saving and building that savings muscles, it will become easier and easier to add extra money to that regular savings transfer and build up your savings faster.

Don’t forget to put your savings somewhere you won’t be tempted to touch them like a separate high-interest account. And treat the money like it isn’t yours. The more you ‘detach’ from it the harder it will be to spend unnecessarily and be there when you really need it!

8. Set up your Sinking Fund accounts
If you have never heard of Sinking Funds, never fear, I am going to give you the down-low on them, so they too can change your financial future. In my early 20s I was opening some mail, minding my own business when I was hit with an unexpected $1200 vehicle registration and medical insurance (Greenslip) bill. Ouch!

But the truth is, it wasn’t really that unexpected. You see, this bill came at the same time every year and everyone knows well in advance what date their registration is due, it used to be noted on a little sticker on our window screen at the time. Now we are just expected to memorise it in our head, but still. We know when it is coming up.

Somehow it had completely slipped my mind, lets put it down to being in my early 20s and still figuring out life. And so I had to deplete my entire savings account to pay for these two bills and keep my car on the road (and me in a job!). Which left me with $25 to my name. That was a huge scare and I couldn’t be more thankful that it happened to me in my early 20s as that is when I learnt about the magic of Sinking Funds.

If you want one fail-proof system for managing your finances and bills, and not leaving yourself deciding between buying groceries and getting your car on the road like me all those years ago, set up your Sinking Funds.

Simply make a list of all your non-monthly bills or expenses, anything that you can reasonably estimate and get the total for the year. I.e. your annual car insurance bill, clothing, miscellaneous expense etc. And work out the monthly cost.

You want to put that monthly amount away in a separate account where you will pay into each pay check to cover these costs as they come up. Please check out my Sinking Funds post for more information on how to set up your own sinking funds and say goodbye to bill shock forever! 🙂

9. Get your bills direct debited to save you time and automate your finances.
Now that you know your monthly expenses, and have set up your Sinking Fund accounts as mentioned above, you can safely set up your direct debits to come out of your Bills Sinking Fund Account. Set them to come out a day after your pay day so if there are any issues with your pay, you can pause the transfer if need be before it is withdrawn.

Never get a late fee for a bill again. And now you can take ‘pay bills’ off your to-do list and do something more fund instead 🙂

10. Start Reading finance books and getting yourself educated.
It may not be your thing to read finance books, but if you can get through 3 of them, you’ll be able to take in a lot of financial wisdom from some of the best financial experts around!

I suggest; Dave Ramsey’s, Total Money Make Over, The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape, and Remit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to be Rich as a great place to start with your financial education.

11. Start savings for ‘big things’ you want in life
If you want motivation to get saving, this is it. Pick something that you want to save for that means the world to you. It could be that European holiday you’ve always wanted. Your upcoming wedding. A car upgrade. Your kid’s university education funds, or your first home.

Whatever it is, having those financial goals at the forefront of your mind will help you to save money. Every time you go to spend money on something non-essential ask yourself if that purchase is more important to you than your savings goal. Keep that big savings goal at the forefront of your mind.

When we planned our wedding, we had to ask ourselves this question constantly for 19 months whilst we saved up and planned our debt-free wedding. Sure it involved lots of sacrifices, date nights at home, saying no to seeing some of our favourite band, not having any money to do updates on our house etc, but it was all worth it to come home from our Honeymoon to Europe and not have one single debt repayment to make. And driving a car, or travelling to a new destination is going to be so much more enjoyable when you know that it was a reward for your hard work in saving up for it beforehand.

12. Change your consumer spending habits
As you work towards implementing the above financial goals, it’s important to reassess your spending habits so you can spend in line with your values, rather than just how you always have, such as buying things out of boredom or because they are on sale and you just can’t resist a good sale. I know myself, after years of living out of home I had accumulated a large amount of excess crap that I had wasted who knows how much on and after turning my finances around all that money I had wasted really hit me.

If you have debt or savings goals and want to temporarily boost your income, and make some changes to your spending habits a great way to do that, is to turn your clutter into cash. Kill two birds with one stone, and make it one of your financial goals to declutter your home and make some extra money for your Debt Snowball or savings goals at the same time. And I guarantee, after going through the process of selling your excess stuff, you won’t be able to walk away without changing your consumer habits and spending your money more intentionally.  Especially when you have some huge financial goals to achieve that will be more alluring than another pair of shoes.

Photo by Jungwoo Hong on Unsplash

General Advice Dislaimer: The information on this site is of a general nature. It does not take your specific needs or circumstances into consideration, so you should look at your own financial position, objectives and requirements and seek financial advice before making any financial decisions.

Budgeting

19 Things I Did in 2019 to Save Money

Posted on December 31, 2019
Happy New Year Text written in neon pinkish white

The past couple of years, I have done a post on the things I did that year to save money, here I am sticking with that tradition, and have compiled a list of the 19 Things I did in 2019 to Save Money to help inspire you with new ways to save your hard-earned cash! Don’t forget to check out my prior post 17 Things I Did in 2017 to Save Money for more ideas on how you can save money! And don’t forget to sign up to the Minimise With Me Mailing list for your free eBook ‘101 Ways to Save Money, Whilst Still Living Awesomely’!

19 Things I Did in 2019 to Save Money

  1. Saved On Electricity By Using My Utility App

Early in the year, I discovered that my utility company had a handy, dandy app that was super helpful in monitoring Electricity and Gas usage at our home. I downloaded my utility app and monitored it to get electricity use and our bill down. It was great to see how much electricity and gas we used day-to-day and to experiment with how to get it down. I managed to get one of our Electricity quarterly bills down from the initial predicted $550 amount, to a much smaller $400. It’s a great motivator when you can see your bill is going to be high so you can make more of an effort to reduce your bill.

It also allowed me to enter my gas meter reading so the charges would be accurate rather than an estimate.

Some adjustments we made to our electricity use, as a result, were turning off stand-by power, setting our aircon to 24 degrees instead of 18 (I was more than happy as I am not keen on living in Antarctica ;)) and just trying to be more mindful of our power use E.g. Turning off lights that were not necessary and leaving the heater off until it was really needed.

With water restrictions, I am doing my best to save water and money on water.

Estimated savings: $200 a year

2. Resisted Upgrading My Phone Plan

My husband and I have sat on our 15GB data phone plans all year, despite easily being able to quadruple our data for $10 or $20 a month extra but instead, we just made the 15GB plans we had work.

Estimated savings: About $10 each, a month – total $240

3.  Taking Advantage Of Big Sales

If I ever need to buy any big ticket items, I do my best to buy those things when they are on sale, such as on June 30 for end-of-year sales or Black Friday.

Of course, we don’t go looking for things to buy, but buy what we specifically want or need. Earlier in the year I was after a new quilt and picked one up from Adairs for 50% off saving $100 (although I would never pay $200 for a quilt ‘:)) and scored some new shoes for 35% off, saving myself $35 and replaced my old jeans with new ones when they had a buy one get one free offer.

And whilst I am there, I do research on as many purchases as I can! You can’t imagine the time I spend researching something that is $60 (it can be annoying to buy things I can’t deny), but at least when I buy something, I know I really need or want it, and it should be a quality product that will last. At least I do my darndest to make sure it is 🙂

Estimated savings: Who knows, would be in the hundreds!

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4. Cancelled Our Second Streaming Services

At the start of the year, we were paying for both Netflix and Stan but realised that one is enough. There is only so much time in a day! So we cancelled Stan which was a$10/mth saving. We still have our Netflix subscription, which adds value to our lives regularly, but if we ever find we have nothing we want to watch on that platform, we’ll happily cancel it, or switch it for something else.

Estimated savings: $120 a year

5. Takeaway “Hacking”

I am completely making up the term, takeaway hacking, it’s really just a phrase to describe how we cut our eating out budget by getting takeaway vs dining out, more often. My husband and I both LOVE good food, so one thing we have both said we will justify spending on in our budget, is the food we love! But, there are always ways to save money, so we started finding creative ways to still eat food we love from restaurants, but save at the same time.

Often instead of dining out and paying $55-70 for a meal like we did 1 – 2 times a week in the past, we would instead eat at home. This way we were able to cook our own rice, eat our frozen stash of naans, and have drinks from home saving us about $15-20 a meal.  So at least once a week, instead of paying our usual $55 or $75 to dine out, we would get takeaway for $40. This alone has saved us about $780 over the year. 

We then ‘hack’ our eating out further by splitting our takeaway into two (or more) meals where we can, for lunch or dinner the next day to make further savings.

And we don’t feel like we are missing out. We skip the issues with slow service, paying top dollar for drinks, and a bit of a personal gripe of mine, paying $8 for the equivalent of $0.50 of rice.

We often buy naans for $13 for a pack of 15, which alone saves us about $8 by having our own naan instead of ordering them each time. We did the same by buying frozen samosas in bulk which cost us a few dollars, instead of the $10 cost of each entree. Of course, we don’t always do this, sometimes we will go out and buy what we want, but it certainly has made us rethink what we order. Now we often get dishes we can share and therefore end up ordering less and will skip the entree on other occasions. And when we eat out, we always ask for a takeaway container so nothing is ever wasted!

Estimated Savings: $780

6. I Brought My Lunch To Work More

Continuing with the food theme, I also upped my bringing my lunch to work game and most weeks did so 2-4 days a week. This saved me about $6 a day! So on a 2 day a week saving alone, this is about $600 a year saving. Not to mention when my husband does the same.  He spends a lot more on food in a day, so if I assume, just one lunch was brought from home a week that is another $780 saved 😀

Estimated Savings: $600+780 total of $1380

7. Continuing to Meal Plan

In 2019 we continued with our Meal Planning routine, which has helped us stick to our $400 a month grocery budget.

We haven’t technically saved money here, as we have been doing this for some time, but by sticking to meal planning, we are not spending more money than we needed to on groceries so I think it counts!

Estimated Savings: Nothing extra in 2018, but we aren’t spending more, so yay!

8. Travelling Domestically

We knew we had plans to travel overseas in 2020, so in 2019 we traveled only domestically. Including a staycation in our own city for 3 nights for our 5-year wedding anniversary. We could have spent a lot more, but we decided to instead do something smaller and do some overseas travel in 2020 (Update: Ha! Joke was on us! Our next overseas trip was in Dec of 2022. Splah!).

Estimated Savings: Not having to pay for overseas flights alone would have saved us a pretty penny!

9. Maintaining Our Cars

After years of being slack with car repairs, thinking I was saving money by delaying my service, and just generally being slack at booking in services when I was supposed to, I eventually realised that that is why so many of our cars in the past have died!

I now make sure I service our cars on time and hopefully will avoid any major car issues! We’ve had my husband’s car now for 5 years and mine for 3 so touch wood we can keep them for a lot longer by looking after them! (Update: It’s Dec 2022 and both our cars are still going strong at 11 and 6 years respectively).

Estimated Savings: In the thousands!

10. I Sold More Clutter

Continuing with my prior year clutter selling goals, in 2019 we continued to sell anything that did not add any value to our lives!

Estimated Savings: I actually lost track of this year, but it was at least $500. 

11. I Cut My Own Hair

I’ve been dying my own year for years, and this year decided to continue that saving by cutting my own hair. I never liked sitting at hairdressers anyway so not missing out here, and any trip I don’t have to make to the shops is a good thing in my eyes!

Estimated Savings: Approximately $200 a year

12. I Utilised The 7/11 App For Petrol

A friend of mine recommended me the 7/11 petrol app (Australians only sorry!) which has been such a lifesaver! Our petrol now jumps up about 35 cents with the petrol cycle (updated Dec 22: It now jumps up 50c!), so having to fill up on the high days, really hurts your hip pockets! By locking in the cheaper price, we save about $13 for my car’s tank and about $20 for my husband’s. It takes a bit of paying attention to the price cycle and locking in the price at the right time, and remembering to use the voucher before it expires, but the effort is totally worth it when you see your $15 savings! That is some serious cash!

Estimated Savings: Basing it on a fortnightly fill up about $858! I’d estimate it is more though! 

13. We Stayed Home More and Thought of New Ways to Have Fun

We have become masters of cheap entertainment! Some of our free & fun activities are:

  • Watching comedy or docos on Netflix. Netflix keeps putting up some great stand-up comedy!
  • Watching a movie or new TV show
  • Playing board games like Rummikub, Scrabble, or our Nintendo Switch
  • Going for a late-night walks
  • Watching interesting interviews on YT or ones on things to do on our next holiday in our chosen destination.
  • Make dessert at home e.g. homemade waffles

We keep outings for things that we really want to do, like seeing a movie we are keen to see or going to see a favourite band play or musical.

Estimated Savings: If we estimate that we save $20 a week on entertainment that’s $1040

14. We Chose to Invest Over Spending

Here’s where that old rule ‘Pay yourself first’ comes into play. We realised how behind the ballgame we were on investing, so in 2019 we prioritised adding to our investments over spending money. When you can save or invest your money, it really takes away from any thoughts you may have about spending everything! Some people feel the urge to spend every last cent, so why not spend it on something that will in time grow your wealth?! We of course spend on things we need or want at times, but do prioritise travel, saving, and investing.

Estimated Savings: Hard to say here, but instead of buying things that depreciate, we are buying things that create a passive income!

15. We Continued To Save All Lump Sums We Got Over The Year

All extra funds on top of our regular salaries – tax refunds, bonuses, pay raises, additional holiday pay, etc were utilised to throw onto our mortgage. We keep 10% in a house fund for updates and the rest goes straight to our mortgage. Again, money we could have eaten up with lifestyle creep or spending and upgrading our electronics and decor, etc, but we chose to pay off debt!

Estimated Savings:  Very approximately $3600 a year based on Dec 2018 vs Dec 2019 interest (annually)

16. We Went Digital

We went digital as much as possible saving ourselves on ink and paper costs. No more printing insurance or bank statements, and any statement that cost a fee to be mailed out was negated by switching to e-statements. Not a huge saving here but everything adds up.

Approximate savings: $100

17. I Went to the Dentist More

This is certainly a weird one, but a valuable lesson for us people trying to adult. My husband has a really bad tooth chip in 2019 that he left until the last minute when he was in excruciating pain. Turns out the sooner you go to the dentist, the cheaper the visit is, so like the car service, I am learning prevention is the best medicine and paying $150 for a dental visit is a lot better than paying $1,500 for a root canal (plus – ouch!!!!!!).

I’ve had a very irrational fear of dentists since I was little and am still working on this hehe, but at least now in the back of my head, I have a potentially huge bill to encourage me to make those necessary regular appointments! Now the $150 visits don’t hurt as much either 😉 (December 2022 Update: Pleased to report that I found an amazing dentist and go to the dentist for regular check-ups each year now and my pearly whites are thankful for it!)

Approximate savings: Not sure, but could be lots – and more importantly saving on more severe dental work!  

18. I Picked Up a New Side Hustle

In addition to my side hustle of selling unloved clutter, I created an Etsy store to sell organisational printables and budgeting worksheets to help readers of Minimise With Me get organised with their lives and finances! It doesn’t make a lot of money but is an avenue for me to add some income in the future and something I enjoy doing as my passion is to help people minimise stress in their lives and help them on the path to build wealth!

Approximate savings: ??? 

19. We Went Without

To save money in 2019, we sometimes just went without.

I’ve been wanting a newRobovac for over a year now, but still have not gone out and bought one seeing as our Dyson V8 is still working perfectly fine. Our lounge has a couple of dodgy recliners, but again we have made do as otherwise our lounge still does the job. We have the same television we first bought when we moved in 8 years ago. We could have upgraded to a new smart TV but, instead decided to invest $99 into a Chromecast to make it perfectly functional. We did upgrade some things, like a few pieces of decor and a new dining table but mostly we have just made do with what we had or got creative. I recently sprayed out kitchen handles black for a DIY budget kitchen upgrade and just focus on creating neat and tidy spaces we love rather than spending and upgrading every time there is the urge.

Approximate savings: n/a

[Photo by Crazy nana on Unsplash]

Don’t forget to sign up to the Minimise With Me Mailing list for your free eBook ‘101 Ways to Save Money, Whilst Still Living Awesomely’!

Of course this is all in unison with everything I have done over the prior years, don’t forget to check out my prior post 17 Things I Did in 2017 to Save Money! 

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 🙂

Question: Which of the above suggestions are you hoping to implement in 2023 to save money? Let me know in the comments 🙂  

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!

Start saving money today with your Weekly Meal Planner Printable!

 

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.

 

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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 🙂