Lowincomelady's Financial Life

I thought I would share my shopping list for next fortnight that I wrote out last night. It is a work in progress so this is not a final version.

Aldi

2 powdered skim milk 4.29*2
jam 1.39
honey 2.99
2 peanut butter 1.89*2
choc eclairs 1.49
noodles (5 pack) 1.09
2 cheese twists 0.89*2
tomato paste 1.19
2 tissues 1.19*2
3 salmon 1.99*3
3 beetroot 0.65*3
8 tomato soup 0.99*8
5 cans of peaches in juice 1.79*5
3 cans of spaghetti 0.79*3
3 cans of baked beans 0.79*3
minced garlic 0.99
3 lemonade 0.69*3
4 cordial 2.19*4
garbage bags 2.49
2 carrots 0.99*2
5kg apples 1.99*5
oranges 3kg 2.99
pears 1kg 3.00
1kg tomatoes 2.49
bananas about $4 worth at 1.99 kg
packet of snow peas 2.50
4 red capsicum 2.89
half pumpkin 2.50
brushed potato 4kg 3.99
grapes 3.00
2kg chicken breast 19.00
4 cheese 500g 2.99*4
3 margarine olive oil spread 1.99*3
baby peas 1.49
fish fingers 1.99
12 party meat pies 3.19
4 white bread 0.99 * 4
2 soy and linseed bread 1.99*3
3 eggs 1.99*3

Coles

shapes multipak 4.74
3 vitsweat 2.58*3
6 evaporated light milk 1.99*6
2 frozen onions 2.29*2
beef stock 2.49
ground coriander 2.50
cumin 2.50
pickles 1.55
pecks paste 1.62
fresh fish $10 worth

Coles should cost about $50
Aldi $166

We also have to get 3 prescriptions which will cost $14.70 and we will get $125 cash out. All up $355. I will improve on the shopping list as the fortnight goes by, we might not need as many tomato soup or other things!

School Snacks: DS has 1 vegemite sandwich and 1 peanut butter sandwich for lunch. And he has a packet of chips and a packet of shapes or tiny teddies for recess. He won't have fruit because he doesn't like it when its warm and it just comes home again. So I get the 20 pack of chips from Aldi for $3.99 and that will last about 5 weeks. He has 3 sandwiches on a Monday only because that's the day he gets his pocket money and he buys rubbish from the canteen. I used to just give him sandwiches but his schoolfriends gave him chips and snacks anyway so I gave in.

My menu plan is not really set out. My son is very fussy and will only eat a limited amount of stuff and I cook my own meals so I cook twice. Mum cooks for herself and Dad and sometimes I share in their meals. So I guess my menu plan would not really be suited to anyone else's family as sometimes it works out that we are cooking 4 meals on the one night. My Mum will cook my Dad a meal which she doesn't want to have so she has something separate. And the only meal that I can share with my son is spag bol.

Here are some of the meals that my Mum cooks:

Nasi Goring (you can google the recipe). It is spicy but yum! We use pecks paste for the shrimp paste.

Beef casserole with gravy beef. Just cut up beef, flour, then cut up potato, carrot and any other veggies and cover with beef stock in a casserole dish, cover and cook for 2-3 hours at 180 degrees. Its yum!

T-bone with veg

Mongolian beef and rice

rissoles and veg

homemade hamburgers with lettuce, beetroot, cheese, egg and tomato.

porcupine casserole, this is meatballs with cooked rice added with tomato soup and canned diced tomatoes, tomato paste and oregano.

chicken strogonoff and rice (with light evaporated milk)

chicken curry and rice (the curry has cabbage, grated carrot, capsicum and onion added)

battered fish (from Aldi) and veg

fresh fish in foil and veg

salmon patties and veg

I have some of the same meals and I have a lot of stir fries, I usually make the recipe up as I go along!

I went shopping yesterday. I only spent $185 dollars on groceries and that should do us for the fortnight.

The next credit card bill is looking good, there is only about $160 on it at the moment and hopefully it will stay that way. I have given my credit card to Mum so I don't use it for stupid stuff like takeaway food which I have been known to do. I still have a access to money but I don't tend to spend cash in the account.

We paid our council rates and insurance in full last year but we are going to pay quarterly for the rates and monthly for the insurance starting in August this year. The rates will be about $200 a quarter and tha insurance would be about $80 a month. I will know exact figures for the rates about June this year and the insurance in late July/early August.

Also I will be getting a $959.95 lump sum payment in July this year that will be going straight off the mortgage. I should find one of those lump sum calculators on the net to find out how much interest I would be saving by doing this.

I am going on an easter picnic today! We will spend a couple of dollars getting hot chips for my son and an ice cream probably! I am taking my own food and drinks. We should have a good time!

I went to the doctor today and asked him for a referral to a psychologist but it turns out I need a half hour appointment with him to do a care plan if I want to do that. So I have booked it in for Wednesday next week. I will just have to duck into my diet group, get weighed, then go straight to the appointment.

I went to the doctor with mum so bus fares cost $5. We also bought a bag of oranges at Aldi and they cost $3.

I am going to a major shopping centre tomorrow, about a 45 minute bus trip away. I have to get 2 batteries for the cordless phone as the old ones have worn out. The phone has 2 handsets and the new batteries cost $33 each! I can't get any cheaper ones as the $33 dollar ones are the generic ones. I also have to buy 3 tracksuits for my son but my mum will pay for those with her pocket money. I will also buy a draft stopper for the door but that should only cost 2 or 3 dollars.

To pay for the batteries, I am withdrawing $70 from the mortgage offset account, and I already have the money for the tracksuits and draft stopper. The bus fare will only cost $2.50.

So an expensive time tomorrow!

Well, We went to craft today and did some shopping which we put on the credit card. We spent $25.40 at Coles on 500 grams of Nescafe Coffee which was on special, a replacement light bulb for my bathroom which cost $4.69, a 5 pack of quikease for my Dad and a 5 pack of lifesavers which my Dad wanted. We also spent $12.05 cash at Aldi on a easter egg which Dad and I shared, grapes, bananas, tomatoes and pears.

Yesterday, I gave my son his $4 pocket moeny and also spent $3 on him at the fruit shop and told him not to ask me if I had any more money this week when he got off the bus!

And that's the spending up to date!

My Mum just bought some corn meat and bread rolls yesterday after she went to vote in the NSW election and the day before on Friday was just $2 for my son's kids club. I got a lift with the next door neighbour to go and vote, I was pleased as it's an uphill climb to where I had to go and it was a very hot day yesterday!

Today should be a no spend day as well, it's church today and there is a planning meeting afterwards which I am attending. I am bringing my son's Playstation to church so he doesn't get bored during the meeting.

Oh yes and I earned a $20 Coles gift card doing surveys for AC Neilson. I should receive that in the next couple of weeks.

Cheers

lowincomelady

My son had toothace so I booked him into the free school dentist and he needed 2 fillings! He was a brave boy and did exactly what he was told, I was so proud of him! The dentist was a lady, she was brilliant with him!

I spent $5.50 on a treat for him and a diet chocolate bar for me. The bus fares cost $8.30.

Also today was payday and I left $88.62 in my account for the school fees which will be taken out tomorrow by direct debit, Plus I left $20 in there as well for emergencies in case any of us get caught short of cash when we are out. And the $450 minimum payment comes out as well. The rest, over $1100 went to the offset account.

Everything is going well, the credit card is due by the 12 April and I will pay that on the 5th April. The amount that is due is about $789. We had an expensive month last month. Here's to a better month in April!

Went to a buffet restaurant today and it cost $13.50. I also spent $2.20 on a drink and contributed $5 to the petrol. Before I went there I spent $4 on cereal at Aldi that we needed and it cost $1.40 in the bus to get to town.

Tomorrow, I have to take my son to the government dentist which is free. I managed to get him an appointment because it is free. The bus fares will cost $2.50 for me and about $6 for my son.

I have a personal issue financially that I can't do anything about until the 10 April and it is really worrying me, I don't owe anyone any money or anything, or anything really bad, its just that my life as I know it is under threat and it won't be resolved for a couple of months until I know the outcome. It is making me nervous and is affecting me rather badly. It is not doing my stress levels any good...and stress is what makes my disability play up! I hope everything turns out ok...

I've been looking at some blogs on the saving advice site and I really love this community on here. It is such a supportive community and I miss that on my other blog I started! So I think I will post here occasionally as well.

We haven't done that well with the mortgage lately. I had to buy my son his school uniform as what he had didn't have a logo on it and he got into trouble for not having the correct uniform. So there went $355. Plus I spent $55 on 2 pairs of shoes, sports joggers and school shoes. The school shoes turned out a bit big for him so he will have to grow into them. So I have a size 2 now and plus I have a size 3 pair I already had. So the mortgage is only down about $500 for the month...

Anyway, next month should be a better month! I am hoping not to get the credit card up too high this month. I want to keep it to maximum $300 a month. that way we can pay off the variable loan by November this year, then start throwing money to the fixed loan. We can pay $10,000 extra to the fixed loan a year and we haven't put any to it yet because the variable loan has a higher interest rate.

Thats all for now!

I have decided to move this blog to http://lowincomelady.blogspot.com/ Blogger has more features and I have more control over the look of my blog and more options on what I want to do. I love the community here but the features are too limited here.

You are most welcome to visit me there!

Cheers

lowincomelady

I have found some mind mapping software and I am busy putting all my memories into it.

here is the website: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

It's great software, I really love it. I picked up how to use it really quickly! I travelled to England when I was 4 and it's surprising how much I remember!

It looks like I will have a no spend day today: yesterday I spent $4.45 on oranges, a golden rough chocolate and half a cabbage. Then in the afternoon I spent $2.70 on corn meat and kids club cost $3 for my son.

Spening total for yesterday: $10.15

I did the shopping yesterday. The bill came to $280.66 and also I got $165 out to cover expenses for the fortnight so all up I spent $445.66. I had budgeted $447 so I came slightly under budget.

I also spent $84 on an item which I won't reveal here but it was necessary!

I managed to put $184.44 into my savings account for a total of $235.42. I am going to put aside 135.42 into a separate savings account to save up for an air conditioner. I'll need to save about $2500 to $3000 for that.

I helped a lady with her budget yesterday. We worked out that her only expense which she could lower is her food budget so I have found heaps of budget recipes for her and printed them out and put in a display book. I can't wait to give them to her this afternoon. Also I am going to teach her how to use a computer. She will pay me a small amount, like a tutoring fee. I have worked out a rough guideline to follow as she doesn't even know how to open up her laptop, let alone turn it on! So that will be interesting! I'm not sure how much I will earn doing this but we will work it out next week!

I prayed in the train coming from Sydney on Tuesday that I could get some work and 2 days later its answered! WOW! It's been a long time since I prayed something specific and it was answered like that!

The credit card bill came today for $377.01 and the due date is not till the 15 March which means I can pay it on the 8 March, not tomorrow which means I can make the $900 mortgage payment plus put some into savings. I should be able to save about $290 depending how much the shopping is tomorrow. We have just started to eat healthy and the food bill has gone up as a result. Eating healthy is $$$. But it's worth it and we can still make double repayments on the mortgage.

Plus I will have about $51 in my savings account from selling stuff on Oztion which is an Australian site, like ebay except it has no listing fees, just a 3.25% final value fee.

So I should have about $341 by this Friday in my saving account.

Well I spent the $8.50 for the diet club (I stayed the same weight by the way). I didn't have to pay any pig fine. (which is $1 if you put on weight and it goes towards the Christmas party at the end of the year).

I also bought 2 DVD holders like a book with 192 spaces for CDs/DVDs in each of them. I was going to buy them tomorrow but I decided to buy them today because the shop is out of the way and I have enough to do tomorrow! They cost 9.95 each so I spent 19.90

Total spent today: $28.40

I sold my February copy of Money magazine ($3.50) and also Suze Orman's Australian edition of 9 steps to Financial Freedom. ($2). I am also making a profit of 50 cents on the postage. So that is $6 - 21 cents final value fee - total profit of $5.79. I will get $8.50 in my bank account so I will take the postage costs out of money I already have and add that to my savings account. I will have $51.48 in there once I transfer the $8.50.

It's my diet group today and I don't think I have lost weight...boohoo!

I intend to spend $5 for the weekly fee for the group, $2.50 for transport and $1 for rent and if I have put on weight there is another $1 fee which I am not sure if I have to pay as yet, I'll see what the scales say in a few hours. Yes its 3.19 in the morning!

So I am spending between $8.50 and $9.50 today. I'll have to get money out which is sitting in my account at the moment. And tomorrow is shopping! After I have been shopping a lady who has 6 kids is coming over so I can help with her budget... I don't know how I'll do!

I'm back from my trip, I travelled for 5 hours all up and I only spent the $2.50 on my bus/train ticket and also the $4 for the stamps to post my book but the buyer paid the postage so it didn't cost me anything. I resisted subway and a cold drink which I was tempted to buy.

I am pleased with the day!

Well I leave in less than an hour to go to Sydney. I have a medical appointment. It takes 2 and a half hours to get there so a 5 hour round trip. I am taking my MP3 player that I got as a gift last year and a book on Queen Victoria as I am into Victorian royal history. I still intend to only spend $2.50 but I also have to buy $4 worth of stamps because I don't have enough to post the book I sold last week. So all up I am looking to spend $6.50 today. I have prepared my food and my drinks so I don't need to buy anything, I am all set! I will report here at the end of the day what I spent.

By the way, I love this community already, I have already had quite a few comments and over 200 hits! I read quite a few of savingadvice blogs and they are great! I hope mine meets the standard that has already been set!

Well we have an upcoming payday this Thursday:

Income 1702.72 + $30(book I sold) + 5.18 (in savings account)
so Income of 1737.90

Mortgage 852
Food plus weekly money and pocket money 420
School Fees: 88.62
Credit Card $377.01

which leaves 27 cents. I'm not sure exactly how much the shopping will be. The credit card money will sit in my savings account until it is paid about the 5th March. I like the mortgage payment to be $900 at least and the minimum payemnt is $450 a fortnight but we will try and make it up next pay by paying at least $950 next time.

I have given my son $4 for pocket money this morning. He usually spends it at the canteen.

I am preparing a list for shopping laster this week. We are on a bit of a health kick so there is plenty of fruit and veggies on the list!

I was taught as a child to hate debt. My parents are very frugal and I am also. I hate to wate money, I rarely go shopping for fun. I stick to a list when grocery shopping. I buy clothes from thrift shops, I hate to pay full price.

I have just bought a friend her birthday present for $2.61. It is an ebook written by a personal finance blogger and it is designed to be printed out. So I will print it out and present it nicely for her. She is debt-free and is saving money so hopefully it will be helpful for her.

I also did some shopping this morning on grocery items. I spent $19.90 on some fruit, cordial and minced garlic as we had run out of these things.

We get paid on Thursday so hopefully we will be able to get through till then. I want to do my shopping then as there is a special at Aldi for boys underwear that I want to get.

I also have to go to Sydney on Tuesday, I just intend to spend $2.50 on my train fare and that's all. I will take my food and drinks with me.

So spending tally today is $22.51

I am a lady on a low income. Well thats what the website says! I am a disabled single parent with a young 7 year old son living with my parents. Together with my parents, I have a mortgage and I manage to send my son to a private school. My personal income is low but together with my parent's income we manage to survive. We are even on track to pay $112 000 of mortgage debt by 2012. We are very frugal people, we do not have any addictions. We have enough to eat.

I need to be able to pay off this mortgage while we have the income to pay it off quickly. There is no way I can afford to pay it off without my parents.

To be exact, our current debt is $112 110.84 and the credit card is $377.01. We will pay the credit card off in full by the 5th of next month. Our household income is 1702.72 a fortnight. That amount will go up by $30 next month.

Our shopping bill is about $250 a fortnight and we pay about $300 for meat every 3-4 months. Bills work out to be about $150 a fortnight.

My Dad collects stamps. This costs $45 a month. He also plays chess, this costs about $13 for every tournament he enters every couple of months. I have a membership at a local video store that costs $44.95 a month. I'm not sure if I will continue with this.

The stamps and the videos are paid for by our $25 a fortnight pocket money. So pocket money for my Mum Dad and I costs $75 a fortnight.

I also go to a weight loss group that costs $8.50 a week, ($5 a week which is given back at the end of the year in a lump sum, $2.50 transport and $1 rent)

Thats all I can think of for now. Join me as I track my budget, my spending and my failures and successes!