11 February 2018

WHAT WE SPENT, WHAT WE DIDN'T SPEND AND WHAT WE SAVED WEEK 6

The spending this week has been crazy and all over the place! And it's No Spending Month and I not only bought a bunch of craft stuff, but had lunch out. It was a cheap lunch, I took my own water, and it wasn't planned, but rather a spontaneous treat, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - so perhaps $7 well spent - well it's cheaper than therapy and the advice, love and laughter I received from my friends is priceless.

This is what we spent:

Aldi: $8.99
Coles: $5.40
Craft: $108.62
Lunch out: $7

This is what we didn't spend (and what was moved into savings/slush fund/holiday fund):

Craft: Even though it's No Spending Month, I did spend money on craft materials. Kaisercraft at DFO Moorabbin was closing down and had 70% off everything. I spent $108.62 , a saving of $253.75  . These materials will all be used for birthday and Christmas gifts, specific projects and to make more cards for sale.  The money for these purchases came from my mad money, the gift account and some birthday money I have been saving.

Lunches: Packed Wayne's lunch ever day this week. Used either a freezer meal or ingredients we already had to make lunches. To keep them cool on the very hot days I made sure I packed them with lots of ice bricks. I lined the bottom of his insulated lunch sack with ice bricks, put in his food, then put ice bricks on top. Worked like a charm - he's on the road so his lunch sits in the van until he's ready to eat it. That's fine when he's driving and the air-con is on, but when he's at a job, the van heats up quickly. He did talk about buying lunch on the very hot days, but this solved the problem. Cost to make the five lunches - around $5. He didn't spend $70 on lunches this week.

Coffee: Wayne is still using the Keep Cup and we are both still having iced coffee in the mornings. I've been making up Iced Coffee Syrup, using expresso from my machine and MOO vanilla extract. Total cost: $3.82 for 1 litre of coffee syrup, that makes 20 iced coffees (I use 50ml per drink). Our iced coffees cost just 40 cents each (200ml milk costs 20c, 50ml syrup is 20c). Between the two of us, over seven mornings, we didn't spend $52.50 on iced coffee this week!

Petrol: No petrol needed in my car this week, I still have half a tank, so I didn't spend $80 on petrol.

Meals: We didn't spend $376 again on takeaway this week - even though it was our anniversary and we had some very hot days and nights.

Pizza: Wayne and AJ had pizza for tea on Thursday night, MOO of course. Two pizzas, using ingredients we have, cost $2.30 to make. We didn't spend $14.70 on pizza this week (two medium pizzas, delivered, costs $17 from our local Pizza Hut).

Condensed Milk: With the hot weather I've been doing a bit of "no" baking, and most of my recipes (well the ones we really like) use condensed milk. Condensed milk is so expensive to buy, especially when you consider that the size of the tin is shrinking and the price is going up. I MOO condensed milk and get the equivalent of two 400g tins for less than the cost of one, even considering butter has gone up. It freezes, so when I'm making a batch, I always at least double it. This week I made four times the recipe and didn't spend $20.16 on condensed milk. I moved $20 to our holiday savings.

Total spent this week:  $130.01
Total not spent this week: $717.11
And moved to savings:  $167.20

Remember, money isn't saved until it is safely in the bank. Until then it is just not spent - hence my "what we didn't spend" list and making sure I move money from the relevant categories into our savings accounts.



3 comments:

  1. Hi Cath and I would have purchased the craft items being so discounted too.

    We also had an unexpected week of spending money as well so we did spend money instead of the no spend or low spend we planned.

    What we spent was in total was -
    - We went to a conference near Brisbane and saw fuel for 22c per litre cheaper than we can get in our country town and filled our fuel tank costing $35.26 saving a total of $6.69 over local prices here and also banked.This will be taken out of our fuel budget for this month starting on the 20th as we don't think we will need any more fuel until the following 6 weekly shopping rolls around.
    - On special also at Aldi was tins of lychees at $1.68 per tin, the usual prices here are $2.75 per tin so an all up saving of $38.52 and we banked the savings on this.
    - Another bargain I saw was on eBay for Woolworths grocery E vouchers getting a $350 voucher for $300 (shop name woolworthssupermarkets thought this discount might help others stock their pantries at cheaper prices too) of which I purchased one which saves us 16.66% on all groceries we purchase with that card. With this we will fairly much be able to top up the most used grocery items in the home to a 12 month level. This will mean we will be banking our pantry stocking budget over the coming months instead of using it to account for the added grocery expenditure. I will couple this with specials I see on line that we need to stock up on.

    What we saved and moved to savings this week was a total of just over $500 into our saving for our home deposit account. This was partially due to us not spending in other budgeted categories and that our household expenses are way under our wage too.

    Sewingcreations15.

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    Replies
    1. I've already had an order for six birthday cards using my new supplies - a third of the cost already recouped, so I am very happy. You did well with the petrol - it is so up and down all over the place - I saw it for $122.9 this morning but I don't need any. That's a great deal on your groceries, and will be a relief to be able to get your stockpile up to 12 months - I get nervous when we get under the 12 month supply. Great savings and a wonderful boost to your saving for your home deposit account - you are an inspiration :)

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  2. Wow Cath that is wonderful that you have already recouped 1/3 of the cost of materials for making your cards :) . Bringing in extra income when you can at any time is always a blessing. Your homemade cards must be beautiful.

    We got our fuel for $1.159 per litre at a Metro service station versus $137.9 per litre here we just couldn't pass it up at that price. Fuel prices are all over the place here too but since we go to conferences in the city about once every 3 months we keep an eye out for cheaper prices than we can get on the RACQ fuel watch site and plan ahead.

    Thank you for your encouragement :) ,as DH is on a military pension due to injuries and myself on a carer's pension any savings/earnings we can manage help greatly in our home as well as increases our saving for our house deposit.

    Sewingcreations15

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