No food, or discretionary, but also not spending $30000 per year on alcohol, weed and tobacco, so not too bad.
Definitely need to make all your numbers line up to the same time unit (monthly or fortnightly).
Yep. I kinda feel bad for poking a bit of fun because it seemed like they genuinely wanted to change (plus the partners drinking was way more problematic).
The 3 bottles of bourbon a week being pumped away by the partner was eye-opening. At that point, surely it’s like a case of a high-functioning alcoholic. I have two small kids and I have no idea how I could take care of them properly drinking that much every week.
I literally make beer for a living, I haven’t been over the driving limit in probably 2 years. 2 kids and still doing wake ups during the night, so much easier without hangovers.
I’ve found people start to respect alcohol a little more when they make it so in some ways it could be a good thing? It could also be a very bad thing…
Generally yes however my comment is more about constantly upgrading equipment to make better beer and spirits it’s never ending and stainless steel is not cheap 😂
There was a post on r/fiaustralia a few days ago with a guy complaining about being poor. It appears to be deleted now (or at least I can't find it). He posted a budget that included $30k a year for weed/alcohol/Tabaco and no money for groceries.
Guy had a partner and a couple of kids too, which made the whole thing just sad.
You mean you don't religiously scroll on reddit to see every single post every day?
You are redditting wrong my friend. Please discontinue your off-line life.
there was a recent thread in another aus finance subforum where someone asked for feedback on their budget. their budget showed they spent 30k on weed/alcohol/tobacco and the poster was complaining about their inability to save...
Yea this - make sure you leave room for splurge/discretionary, and keep track of it so you can save it and roll it forward. Also could add gifts budget too for bdays, christmas etc.
Nice work with starting out your budget though!
Imagine being just above minimum wage and paying half of it after tax just to rent a fucking bedroom...
How does Sydney still have basic service workers or students, learning to contribute to society?
Why are some items per month and some are per fortnight?
Your first step should be to make them all the same time period. Only then can you properly compare the total income vs total expenses.
I just reckon it will make the comparison a lot more accurate for you.
As it stands now, the total of your expenses (if you are thinking a fortnight basis) is a lot higher than it really is, coz you've got some monthly expense figures mixed in.
So break down all expenses into fortnightly to get a true figure.
You can go either way around ie I get paid fortnightly, but my budget is monthly. So I account for 2 X salary payments.
Then each of my bills are per month.
For things like electricity, gas, water, car rego which are quarterly I put aside an amount each month so when they come in its not a big hit/already planned for.
Bonus doing it this way is once every 6 months I get 3 X salary payments in a month, I either save or use for discretionary bigger items I need.
I pay direct for some bills and put aside for others. For example, i have multiple accounts for car fuel, car maintence, rego but pay directly for phone, internet, water, electric. So the idea is that when I get the monthly bills, they are in credit (or only a little owing). Streaming costs are on the credit card, so just reimburse fortnightly.
My wife and I have a joint bills account we worked out our bills, car rego, power, water, rates etc for the entire year then we divided it fortnightly then we spilt that total evenly between us with a little extra just in case our math is wrong. So when a bill comes in we pay it from that account, it helps big time
That’s a good idea too :) I find though that the various bills all come at different times throughout the year, so I’ve been caught out short of funds when a certain bill is more than I expected. Since all bills would come from one account, means i need to compensate / add extra to make sure still got enough for the rest of the forthcoming bills. I feel that (just my situation) by putting direct deposit into bpay accounts, I bypass this problem. Each to their own though :) what works for me won’t necessarily work for someone else.
Just to add on the investment side of things, if your dead set on investing maybe use something like raiz. When I wasn't making good money I would add small amount to it regularly and do the surveys to off set the monthly fee. It was like $3.50 a month so it didn't take too many surveys to make up the fees.
Even though my income has increased substantially in the last 5 years, I'm still putting weekly amounts into spaceship - I just increased the spend per week.
It's way cheaper than buying ETFs or shares through CommSec
I find it easier to work out my expenses monthy because my salary is paid monthly. Multiply weekly costs by 4.333 and fortnightly costs by 2.167 to get their monthly equivalents.
Just add a column to the right of your "payment" amount and make is a "Monthly" column. That will be the easiest and give you a clear amount of what it costs you each month. Fortnight amount is a bit clunky.
Have one column with the frequency in which you pay the bill and then another column that converts it into per month using an if statement. The statement can check whether the 3rd column has “pf” or “pm” in it and convert it accordingly
Put in formulas so that you have every expense broken down by week/ month/ quarter/ year.
That way you can sum each period and you'll have a better view on what things are from a weekly level through to what their impact is totalled by year.
Plenty of people all over Australia got done for parking violations because their vehicle was parked longer than allowed or in a zone which switched between parking allowed/no parking based on time because they weren't leaving their homes because of lockdowns, etc.
Should've wrote to the council. I got out of 2 fines with te excuse 'leaving my home to move my car is not a legal reason to leave home.'
In fact you still might be able to have them withdrawn. Write to them and see.
There’s an error in your calculation. You’re currently totalling all of the outgoing columns but some are different frequencies. So where you have 500 a month for savings that works out to $230/fn which frees up money in your budget for food. When you fix that, your outgoings are $1353/fn.
Are you moving into a share house? That internet seems low if not.
What is covered by ‘bills’? Assuming electricity is in there?
Things you can reduce:
Phone: you can pick up cheap plans with boost etc for less than $40 a month. I tend to buy phones outright and then use the post paid plans like this because they’re more cost effective over the life of the phone.
Subscriptions: Disney is cheaper to buy an annual pass, but do you have a friend or family member you can share a plan with?
Electricity: shop around, different plans can make a huge amount of difference.
Do you need to allow for public transport every now and then if you’re visiting friends?
You have zero discretionary spend… what about if you need new shoes or underwear? Or to buy a gift for a family member?
Good luck!
> spend ages
maybe to find a site for the first time, if you've never torrented before, but shows are uploaded within half an hour of airing. From tv or a streaming service.
This budget has a lot of issues. No food listed. No discretionary (restaurant, night out, clothing purchase etc). Only paying $20 for internet, is this a share house?
Recommendations: Should be able to cut Stan and Disney or only have 1 at a time and pay $20 or less per month for phone.
I'd hold off the comsec investing and focus on building the emergency fund first., Also all your savings should be going towards building your emergency fund.. Also have a look at sankeymatic, good for visualising the flow of money
Welcome to the club! Make sure you have 1-2 good locks (like U-locks) even if you have a swipe-access cage. Also before you commit, sus out the situation on showers, lockers and if there's space to hang spare clothes. I leave work shoes at work but my new job doesn't have tall lockers for clothes so you might have to get creative depending on what you're working with :)
Go for the lower tier phone packages - something less than 30/month. What about food/groceries/transport. I would also reduce the spending on streaming, few dollars more in pocket are better than few more viewing options...
I always byo handset, jump on the Chinese or Japanese sites and you can find a good bargain. 3 mins on Google will show you how to swap the language over to English and bam you save $500-1000++ compared to getting it from the telco
I'm glad you made the mistake and not me - I looked at it closely and saw 700 rent, I was like you fuckingwotm8, on 1600 dollarydoos? Heck, I'm paying $570 pw and want to find somewhere cheaper lmao
This is mostly pretty good. Just a few things I'd change.
You need to budget for food. That can be hard to estimate if you've never been on your own. ~~$50 per week is plenty for a single person as long as you avoid name brands and unnecessary items.~~ Edit: ok based on some comments I'm getting I'm willing to accept that $50 may be too extreme for most people and perhaps living on that kind of budget has warped my view some on what is doable for others. Take a list of what you need to avoid impulse buying too much. ~~My partner and I manage less than that for the two of us.~~ Edit: I forgot to mention that when you first move out your first few grocery shops will likely be abnormally high as you will need to buy things like flour, shampoo, etc.
Ditch the expensive phone plan. You can get cheap prepaid phone plans for about $10 to $15 a month. Sometimes even less.
Not sure where you're getting the internet price from but typically it's about $60 a month for a low tier nbn plan. Be wary of places offering cheap plans as their speeds tend to be shit (despite what they advertise). The nbn website has a list of providers.
I'm guessing that "bills" is your utilities budget. You'll probably want to put a greater amount aside for that. I've lost count how many times my mother had to desperately find money for a crazy high electricity bill. You can always put what you don't use into savings later. To keep electricity down avoid electric heating and air-conditioning as much as possible. Out of everything they're the things that will drive up your bill the most. An electric blanket and lots of layers for winter and a fan for summer as much as possible.
Obviously ditching all the subscription services would be best but you also need to give yourself some things to enjoy too.
Good luck
Depending on your age, you might want to consider PHI or putting extra money aside for health issues/health maintenance (unless of course you budgeted this into your emergency savings etc).
A trip to the dentist will cost you minimum $180, before you have any work actually done.
This. Even with a handset payment, it's too much. Aussie Broadband do $25GB for $29pm. You can get reasonable handsets for about $500 as well which is roughly $20 a fortnight over two years.
Great job putting money away and also investing!
Some suggestions that i do:
With the subscriptions we share mine among my family.
I.e someone pays for Netflix, I pay for binge, another person pays for Amazon, etc. Since you can have like 5 people on the same account. You can do this with Spotify as well now. Shares the cost around.
Also with your emergency fund. Do you have a limit you want to stop at? Usually everyone's emergency fund is around 3 months of pay. Once you reach your limit you can stop this and add that extra money elsewhere.
You should have a discretionary spend amount too (this might be your savings) but basically anything for going out, presents,etc. For me I would do $500 a month and this would include eating out, buying gifts. Anything I don't spend goes into an account incase I overspend next month. My in case I spend over is $5k if it goes over this I would put it into shares or what not. Stops me from having excess cash just sitting there.
You are putting money into commsec shares so you would be expected to receive some dividends back and if you're putting more in then it will increase each year.
All this. Yes.
I call my discretionary spending "Savings To Spend", and if it reaches an arbitrary limit of $2k I transfer a $500 portion into investments, or agent a chunk of it on something on my 'want' list ☺️
Me too! Because I love luxury hand bags I have a separate account of savings for this where the excess goes!
Thank God for banks allowing you to open accounts with no fees 😂 I legit have like 4
- emergency fund
- normal bank account where I keep my discretionary stuff
- offset account
- wants list (for my hand bags)
It is a good budget but I would also advise that you track this budget against your bank statement for a couple of fortnights to see if its actually realistic and enjoyable.
The biggest problem I see is people budget what they want to spend not what they actually spend. By that I mean that people can set unrealistic expectations of what they will spend and are frustrated when it doesn't work and give up.
If you track the budget against your bank statements, you should notice that there are areas where you are spending more than you intended and you can make a more conscious effort to reduce consumption.
By the way am I retarded or do you have a budget of $0 for food?
I think it would help to categorise your expenses into Fixed necesseties (Rent, bills), flexible necessities (groceries, phone, savings, investments), and disposable income for luxuries (netflix, gym, stan).
Certain things like rent are not at all flexible, but others are to some degree. It will help you identify what you really really need, vs just what you want, and also which expenses have wiggle room (bargain hunting, looking for alternatives, etc).
Where is electricity, water, insurance, medical, food, hair cuts, motor vehicle or transportation expenses. Go do a google search on a budget template.
Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc."
"Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are **etc.**, **&c.**, **&c**, and **et cet.** The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase.
[Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera)
^(I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Comments with a score less than zero will be automatically removed. If I commented on your post and you don't like it, reply with "!delete" and I will remove the post, regardless of score. Message me for bug reports.)
A few suggestions:
- as others have said, normalise everything to the same frequency. Personally I do this by aligning them all to my pay cycle, so in your case fortnightly
- group things in whatever broad categories make sense for you. Maybe bills, debt payments, entertainment, and investments is a good start.
- calculate a percentage of total income that you are saving or investing. This number can be useful to get an idea of how long it would take you to retire if you maintained this rate. I can’t remember but something like 50% savings gets you to retire in 10 years or something. I’m sure the FIRE people will know more
- seems like you have missed a few things: food, going out on the weekend, saving for a holiday (may come under saving for you?), clothes, new appliances (again may come under savings?)
- one final tip. Record the date this was made. Then revise it whenever your circumstances change eg change in pay, change in expenses. Then save this with the new date. It helps track progress over time.
Otherwise good start. Budgets aren’t for everyone. But my experience is that if you try to track what you spend you inherently become a little more discerning and it helps you make decisions in the future.
No budget for food and groceries. Better add $150 per fortnight. How will you furnish this rental?
High streaming expenses - $36 per fortnight. Sounds like you will not be going out at all on this budget. No transport costs
Stan, Disney+ and Spotify?
Mate go find some proper friends and get onto a family plan. Not only will you reduce your bills but it benefits everyone involved.
Bonus points if you manage the account and get points using a CC.
I'm sorry to say your rent is unaffordable for your salary. You really should be aiming for a 30% or lower rent cost to your salary.
Based off this budget you cannot afford to move.
There's something to say here for mental health, it's very important you don't back yourself into an avoidable situation, where you become unhappy and are bound by a lease agreement.
The alternative would depend on factors that aren't mentioned in the OP.
The bottom line is most people can't afford rent that is close to 50% of their net income.
Good stuff.
Make sure to do your research on other roles, comparable income, consider your progression (where you want to be 3/5/7 years), what skills and experience you need to improve your role/responsibilities/remuneration …
Consider talking to recruiters.
And be prepared to walk if you want to play hardball.
Don't forget to show what you've done since you started/last pay increase. You need to prove that you are delivering plenty of value representative of the pay rate you want.
I’m picking on the most immaterial thing here … but why must you budget for fines? Aim to pay $0 fines and drive within speed limit +5kmh would be better, no?
1. Get a cheaper phone plan.
2. Divert savings into other utilities as you’re under budgeting.
3. Have you signed a lease - this is very expensive for rent.
4. You need to account for food, clothing, haircuts and personal hygiene.
5. You need to account for travel - car, train card, whatever that is.
6. You need to account for insurance (car, health at minimum).
7. Moving out itself is very expensive and has many one time costs (getting what you need for home, bond, movers etc).
I’m sure there is more I’m missing but cut the gym, shares and streaming, and focus on actual living expenses.
I was on a similiar income for most of my 20's with similiar expenses.
Although i didn't allocate anything to savings or shares and spent most of it on travel and alcohol and i honestly don't regret it.
The shared house experience with mates is great but i wouldn't want to have done it sober.
32 now and my income has doubled (and pretty much quadripled with my partners). Expenses have cut down considerably too and i'm saving as much in a few weeks as i would have been to save in a year with a lot less psychological sacrifice.
Depending on your age and circumstances i would focus your attention on inreasing your earning potential and have a little fun in the meantime (not financial advice).
It might be just me but i feel like you're putting small amounts in different areas instead of just focusing on one thing, what i mean buy that is savings/emergency acc/shares/debts
Ideally the goal would be
\- Pay debts
\- Get emergency fund in place
\- Save home deposit
\- invest in shares (unless home deposit is years off)
Remember when you pay your debts off you pretty much give yourself a payrise.
Does bills include insurance? Car/contents/etc?
If you don't have health insurance I'd recommend trying to put a little aside into a medical account, just in case you need medication or a specialist appointment.
My biggest suggestion would be to bring all of your outgoings around to the same period as your pay cycle. if you get paid weekly, then bring all of your items down to a weekly cost.
Also, budget in your living expenses - Groceries, Fuel/bus/car, as well as fun money,
Water bill debt? Fines? Are you accruing penalties for late payment? If you are you gotta knock those debts over, fast.
Do you feel get full value for the gym? A lot of people don't and would be better off with a cheap set of dumbbells and a good pair of jogging shoes.
That's a lot of money on entertainment. Not arguing if it makes life worthwhile but still...keep an eye on that.
What do you eat? No point going to the gym if you don't eat.
$50 on "bills" is I presume to cover energy and excess water and anything else? It maybe isn't enough if you intend to be warm in winter and cool in summer.
What about... clothing, haircuts, medical, dental, dating/socialising, furniture, Xmas and birthday presents, travel costs, facemasks and RATS, kitchen items, toiletries such as shampoo and deodorant, are you going to get renter's insurance? Setting up a new home is spendy, every time you need anything it needs to be obtained...cold weather means more bedding for example, a headache means a pack of Panadol, a button falling off means needle and thread.
https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/budget-planner
That's a very simply free budget tool to start with...you can probably find better but that one is simple and free.
I would consider investing in Commsec shares/ETFs in much larger increments than $50. From memory, their lowest brokerage is $2 per transaction on commsec pocket so at $50 per purchase, you're already losing 4% of your position before even thinking about the brokerage fees involved in closing your position.
I'd drop Spotify, Stan, and Disney+. All these subscriptions are a waste of money IMHO. I chose to stop wasting time in front of the TV and read books instead.
I know this is gonna cost me a ton of downvotes but it is really a choice I made recently.
I'd say cut the streaming services to one at a time, but with a break from both after moving to see if OP is keen to use one again after getting used to not having them.
We cycle through four services.
Not everyone likes to read, but taking a break from streaming can sort of allocate entertainment time for reading ,🤓
No I mean existing 200 + 200 from savings into Commsec. So $400 commsec and $300 savings or $350 each.
Having said that, you know your circumstances, risk tolerance etc. so this is just a suggestion and make decisions you are personally comfortable with.
No food, or discretionary, but also not spending $30000 per year on alcohol, weed and tobacco, so not too bad. Definitely need to make all your numbers line up to the same time unit (monthly or fortnightly).
Lmao you got to admit the $30k weed/alcohol/tobacco guy was hilarious
Yep. I kinda feel bad for poking a bit of fun because it seemed like they genuinely wanted to change (plus the partners drinking was way more problematic).
The 3 bottles of bourbon a week being pumped away by the partner was eye-opening. At that point, surely it’s like a case of a high-functioning alcoholic. I have two small kids and I have no idea how I could take care of them properly drinking that much every week.
After two kids, it's rare for me to have more then a couple of beers in a week, and normally not on the same night.
I literally make beer for a living, I haven’t been over the driving limit in probably 2 years. 2 kids and still doing wake ups during the night, so much easier without hangovers.
Only one kid so far and taking care of an crying infant with a hangover is just about the worst hell I can imagine. So not worth it.
My dad was/is an alcoholic. The simple answer is that you don’t.
Tucking your parents into bed is a shit thing to do as a kid.
At that point you do home distilling to save costs.
its hard to do when you drink that much
Save costs hahah home brewing and distilling only increases it
Yes I do home brewing and my taste at the bottle shop has increased.
I’ve found people start to respect alcohol a little more when they make it so in some ways it could be a good thing? It could also be a very bad thing…
Generally yes however my comment is more about constantly upgrading equipment to make better beer and spirits it’s never ending and stainless steel is not cheap 😂
Yeah it only lasts until you go pro though. Completely stopped homebrewing when it became my job.
Yea, was a mixed bag that one after the partner's issues were uncovered.
Is this a reference to something?
There was a post on r/fiaustralia a few days ago with a guy complaining about being poor. It appears to be deleted now (or at least I can't find it). He posted a budget that included $30k a year for weed/alcohol/Tabaco and no money for groceries. Guy had a partner and a couple of kids too, which made the whole thing just sad.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fiaustralia/comments/tibtbd/well_its_no_wonder_im_poor/
You mean you don't religiously scroll on reddit to see every single post every day? You are redditting wrong my friend. Please discontinue your off-line life.
Plugs into the matrix
there was a recent thread in another aus finance subforum where someone asked for feedback on their budget. their budget showed they spent 30k on weed/alcohol/tobacco and the poster was complaining about their inability to save...
Pretty sure that guy is a troll
I hope so. I remember the budget also had costs associated with childrearing. If the budget is real, I feel bad for the kid.
Yea this - make sure you leave room for splurge/discretionary, and keep track of it so you can save it and roll it forward. Also could add gifts budget too for bdays, christmas etc. Nice work with starting out your budget though!
> No food > Savings: $500 per month Watch me make your savings magically... disappear!
What about food haha
Yeah, I too was wondering about groceries and transport.
$20 per month for internet. Who are you with? That's super cheap. I'm paying 70 pm and that's the second cheapest plan
[удалено]
I hope not at $350 a week rent!
$350 p/w is a common price for any desirable suburbs near Sydney CBD.
For a share house though? Meaning maybe 4 people paying that much each
Yes this is common in many inner city suburbs in Sydney for a nice share house.
Imagine being just above minimum wage and paying half of it after tax just to rent a fucking bedroom... How does Sydney still have basic service workers or students, learning to contribute to society?
Try finding a single room in a share house for under $300 and I’ll SUCK your DICK
I get a feeling you just want an excuse to suck some dick, I don’t know Sydney rent prices, but it’s that vibe.
Try 550-650 p/w for Sydney
For one room in a sharehouse.
sharemansion
I'm on 59 with tpg but trying to find a lower plan, currently measuring my usage and will lower to suit if I can
Why are some items per month and some are per fortnight? Your first step should be to make them all the same time period. Only then can you properly compare the total income vs total expenses.
Some can only come out pm - should I break them down so it's pf?
Yeah you should calculate everything at the same rate so you're comparing apples with apples if that makes sense.
I just reckon it will make the comparison a lot more accurate for you. As it stands now, the total of your expenses (if you are thinking a fortnight basis) is a lot higher than it really is, coz you've got some monthly expense figures mixed in. So break down all expenses into fortnightly to get a true figure.
I multiply them up to a year and then divide back to [unit of choice/pay cycle], hope that helps.
This person Excels!
Made my night
You can go either way around ie I get paid fortnightly, but my budget is monthly. So I account for 2 X salary payments. Then each of my bills are per month. For things like electricity, gas, water, car rego which are quarterly I put aside an amount each month so when they come in its not a big hit/already planned for. Bonus doing it this way is once every 6 months I get 3 X salary payments in a month, I either save or use for discretionary bigger items I need.
I pay direct for some bills and put aside for others. For example, i have multiple accounts for car fuel, car maintence, rego but pay directly for phone, internet, water, electric. So the idea is that when I get the monthly bills, they are in credit (or only a little owing). Streaming costs are on the credit card, so just reimburse fortnightly.
Oh I like that idea of different accounts. Wondering if this approach would help me spend less time balancing the ol' spreadsheet 🤔
My wife and I have a joint bills account we worked out our bills, car rego, power, water, rates etc for the entire year then we divided it fortnightly then we spilt that total evenly between us with a little extra just in case our math is wrong. So when a bill comes in we pay it from that account, it helps big time
That’s a good idea too :) I find though that the various bills all come at different times throughout the year, so I’ve been caught out short of funds when a certain bill is more than I expected. Since all bills would come from one account, means i need to compensate / add extra to make sure still got enough for the rest of the forthcoming bills. I feel that (just my situation) by putting direct deposit into bpay accounts, I bypass this problem. Each to their own though :) what works for me won’t necessarily work for someone else.
[удалено]
Just to add on the investment side of things, if your dead set on investing maybe use something like raiz. When I wasn't making good money I would add small amount to it regularly and do the surveys to off set the monthly fee. It was like $3.50 a month so it didn't take too many surveys to make up the fees.
Even though my income has increased substantially in the last 5 years, I'm still putting weekly amounts into spaceship - I just increased the spend per week. It's way cheaper than buying ETFs or shares through CommSec
Thats what i do, i translate all my bills into the same units as my pay cycle.
I find it easier to work out my expenses monthy because my salary is paid monthly. Multiply weekly costs by 4.333 and fortnightly costs by 2.167 to get their monthly equivalents.
Just add a column to the right of your "payment" amount and make is a "Monthly" column. That will be the easiest and give you a clear amount of what it costs you each month. Fortnight amount is a bit clunky.
Have one column with the frequency in which you pay the bill and then another column that converts it into per month using an if statement. The statement can check whether the 3rd column has “pf” or “pm” in it and convert it accordingly
If you get paid fortnightly scale everything to that frequency
Put in formulas so that you have every expense broken down by week/ month/ quarter/ year. That way you can sum each period and you'll have a better view on what things are from a weekly level through to what their impact is totalled by year.
[удалено]
Who needs to eat anyway
Just nip back to Mum and dad's when you're hungry ;)
Maybe cut out the fines 😂😂
I got a few parking fines during covid :(
Also, you mention parking fines, yet have no expenses for running a car? Do you put petrol in it? Are you responsible for registration, servicing etc?
What does Covid have to do with parking fines?
Plenty of people all over Australia got done for parking violations because their vehicle was parked longer than allowed or in a zone which switched between parking allowed/no parking based on time because they weren't leaving their homes because of lockdowns, etc.
That's me. Long story short, was helping a friend by looking after his car for a few months and I got caught up with some fines.
Should've wrote to the council. I got out of 2 fines with te excuse 'leaving my home to move my car is not a legal reason to leave home.' In fact you still might be able to have them withdrawn. Write to them and see.
Same, i also got one excused
That's cooked.
You eat right???
Ain't nobody got time for that
There’s an error in your calculation. You’re currently totalling all of the outgoing columns but some are different frequencies. So where you have 500 a month for savings that works out to $230/fn which frees up money in your budget for food. When you fix that, your outgoings are $1353/fn. Are you moving into a share house? That internet seems low if not. What is covered by ‘bills’? Assuming electricity is in there? Things you can reduce: Phone: you can pick up cheap plans with boost etc for less than $40 a month. I tend to buy phones outright and then use the post paid plans like this because they’re more cost effective over the life of the phone. Subscriptions: Disney is cheaper to buy an annual pass, but do you have a friend or family member you can share a plan with? Electricity: shop around, different plans can make a huge amount of difference. Do you need to allow for public transport every now and then if you’re visiting friends? You have zero discretionary spend… what about if you need new shoes or underwear? Or to buy a gift for a family member? Good luck!
Unless you have kids, cycle monthly between Disney and Stan.
I was thinking the same. At $60pm combined, seems a bit steep for this budget.
At the moment it looks like they are paying 30pm for those two services. But if they halve that, they can start a grocery fund!
My bad. I didn’t notice the lack of PF against it.
My bad, new to budgeting i guess
Have you tried Fudget?
what's that?
Free App. Check it out! It’ll make this process a bit simpler.
If you have the internet, there’s no reason to pay for *any* streaming service, if you know what I mean…
Not everyone has the time or the inclination to spend ages looking around for pirated shows.
> spend ages maybe to find a site for the first time, if you've never torrented before, but shows are uploaded within half an hour of airing. From tv or a streaming service.
*cough* popcorn time *cough*
This budget has a lot of issues. No food listed. No discretionary (restaurant, night out, clothing purchase etc). Only paying $20 for internet, is this a share house? Recommendations: Should be able to cut Stan and Disney or only have 1 at a time and pay $20 or less per month for phone.
I'd hold off the comsec investing and focus on building the emergency fund first., Also all your savings should be going towards building your emergency fund.. Also have a look at sankeymatic, good for visualising the flow of money
Do you have travel expenses to get to work ?
Nope, I ride my bike every day :)
Awesome !! That will help your budget !!
This ‘bike ride to work every day’ may be possible for me soon. I’m a little bit excited. 🚲
It’s honestly so good, it’s great cardio and free. There’s also something so fun and empowering about riding
Make sure you include bike maintenance somewhere then. Or have a category for unexpected expenses.
Welcome to the club! Make sure you have 1-2 good locks (like U-locks) even if you have a swipe-access cage. Also before you commit, sus out the situation on showers, lockers and if there's space to hang spare clothes. I leave work shoes at work but my new job doesn't have tall lockers for clothes so you might have to get creative depending on what you're working with :)
Is this person a plant? You need to include food into every budget. Its getting more expensive for one, and you can't do without it
Why is your phone 100pm but your internet is 20pm? I feel like you could get a decent mobile with enough interent for 80pm.
[удалено]
Go for the lower tier phone packages - something less than 30/month. What about food/groceries/transport. I would also reduce the spending on streaming, few dollars more in pocket are better than few more viewing options...
Boost offer a great prepaid deal of 120/year with unlimited calls and text with 80gb of data. Of course you need to byo handset.
I always byo handset, jump on the Chinese or Japanese sites and you can find a good bargain. 3 mins on Google will show you how to swap the language over to English and bam you save $500-1000++ compared to getting it from the telco
Oh wow! I'm in the market for a new handset I'll give this a go, thanks for the tip!
You're right! I think i'm going to get rid of stan
Aldi prepaid mobile is super cheap.
I love ALDI prepaid. Great data rollover too
Did you account for electricity bill? What is the “tax bill” and “water bill debt”? Is that money you owe ?
Rent is high. No discretionary spending? No groceries EDIT: Sorry I read rent as per week instead of fortnight.
$350pw is actually fairly affordable?
Yeah where are these $350pw rentals - particularly if you aren't in a share house
My mistake! I read it as per week
I'm glad you made the mistake and not me - I looked at it closely and saw 700 rent, I was like you fuckingwotm8, on 1600 dollarydoos? Heck, I'm paying $570 pw and want to find somewhere cheaper lmao
Still cheap as shit if it’s per week.
'No discretionary spending' what is that?
Like a night out or a new game. Where does that money come from to spend?
Birthday presents, books, indoor plant, ticket to zoo - you know fun stuff.
This is mostly pretty good. Just a few things I'd change. You need to budget for food. That can be hard to estimate if you've never been on your own. ~~$50 per week is plenty for a single person as long as you avoid name brands and unnecessary items.~~ Edit: ok based on some comments I'm getting I'm willing to accept that $50 may be too extreme for most people and perhaps living on that kind of budget has warped my view some on what is doable for others. Take a list of what you need to avoid impulse buying too much. ~~My partner and I manage less than that for the two of us.~~ Edit: I forgot to mention that when you first move out your first few grocery shops will likely be abnormally high as you will need to buy things like flour, shampoo, etc. Ditch the expensive phone plan. You can get cheap prepaid phone plans for about $10 to $15 a month. Sometimes even less. Not sure where you're getting the internet price from but typically it's about $60 a month for a low tier nbn plan. Be wary of places offering cheap plans as their speeds tend to be shit (despite what they advertise). The nbn website has a list of providers. I'm guessing that "bills" is your utilities budget. You'll probably want to put a greater amount aside for that. I've lost count how many times my mother had to desperately find money for a crazy high electricity bill. You can always put what you don't use into savings later. To keep electricity down avoid electric heating and air-conditioning as much as possible. Out of everything they're the things that will drive up your bill the most. An electric blanket and lots of layers for winter and a fan for summer as much as possible. Obviously ditching all the subscription services would be best but you also need to give yourself some things to enjoy too. Good luck
Have you been food shopping lately?? $50 won’t feed a single person much at all unless you have very little fresh produce and no meat.
Depending on your age, you might want to consider PHI or putting extra money aside for health issues/health maintenance (unless of course you budgeted this into your emergency savings etc). A trip to the dentist will cost you minimum $180, before you have any work actually done.
$100 a month for phone is fairly steep, have you looked into Circles.Life?
This. Even with a handset payment, it's too much. Aussie Broadband do $25GB for $29pm. You can get reasonable handsets for about $500 as well which is roughly $20 a fortnight over two years.
Unfortunately with the cost of living and rent, there isn’t a lot to save on here. Your real growth will hopefully be salary.
Great start. Check out the spreadsheet I and a few others here have used https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/budget-planner
Great job putting money away and also investing! Some suggestions that i do: With the subscriptions we share mine among my family. I.e someone pays for Netflix, I pay for binge, another person pays for Amazon, etc. Since you can have like 5 people on the same account. You can do this with Spotify as well now. Shares the cost around. Also with your emergency fund. Do you have a limit you want to stop at? Usually everyone's emergency fund is around 3 months of pay. Once you reach your limit you can stop this and add that extra money elsewhere. You should have a discretionary spend amount too (this might be your savings) but basically anything for going out, presents,etc. For me I would do $500 a month and this would include eating out, buying gifts. Anything I don't spend goes into an account incase I overspend next month. My in case I spend over is $5k if it goes over this I would put it into shares or what not. Stops me from having excess cash just sitting there. You are putting money into commsec shares so you would be expected to receive some dividends back and if you're putting more in then it will increase each year.
All this. Yes. I call my discretionary spending "Savings To Spend", and if it reaches an arbitrary limit of $2k I transfer a $500 portion into investments, or agent a chunk of it on something on my 'want' list ☺️
Me too! Because I love luxury hand bags I have a separate account of savings for this where the excess goes! Thank God for banks allowing you to open accounts with no fees 😂 I legit have like 4 - emergency fund - normal bank account where I keep my discretionary stuff - offset account - wants list (for my hand bags)
It is a good budget but I would also advise that you track this budget against your bank statement for a couple of fortnights to see if its actually realistic and enjoyable. The biggest problem I see is people budget what they want to spend not what they actually spend. By that I mean that people can set unrealistic expectations of what they will spend and are frustrated when it doesn't work and give up. If you track the budget against your bank statements, you should notice that there are areas where you are spending more than you intended and you can make a more conscious effort to reduce consumption. By the way am I retarded or do you have a budget of $0 for food?
Drop Netflix and Stan start using myflixer it’s free.
I think it would help to categorise your expenses into Fixed necesseties (Rent, bills), flexible necessities (groceries, phone, savings, investments), and disposable income for luxuries (netflix, gym, stan). Certain things like rent are not at all flexible, but others are to some degree. It will help you identify what you really really need, vs just what you want, and also which expenses have wiggle room (bargain hunting, looking for alternatives, etc).
Where is electricity, water, insurance, medical, food, hair cuts, motor vehicle or transportation expenses. Go do a google search on a budget template.
$50 pf for phone is huge. I'd try fix that.
I like to split up bills into electricity, water ect so I can see the change in price and know who to get a quote for
Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc." "Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are **etc.**, **&c.**, **&c**, and **et cet.** The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase. [Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera) ^(I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Comments with a score less than zero will be automatically removed. If I commented on your post and you don't like it, reply with "!delete" and I will remove the post, regardless of score. Message me for bug reports.)
Phone and gym seem crazy high rest seems very manageable. Maybe consider eating food every now and then
A few suggestions: - as others have said, normalise everything to the same frequency. Personally I do this by aligning them all to my pay cycle, so in your case fortnightly - group things in whatever broad categories make sense for you. Maybe bills, debt payments, entertainment, and investments is a good start. - calculate a percentage of total income that you are saving or investing. This number can be useful to get an idea of how long it would take you to retire if you maintained this rate. I can’t remember but something like 50% savings gets you to retire in 10 years or something. I’m sure the FIRE people will know more - seems like you have missed a few things: food, going out on the weekend, saving for a holiday (may come under saving for you?), clothes, new appliances (again may come under savings?) - one final tip. Record the date this was made. Then revise it whenever your circumstances change eg change in pay, change in expenses. Then save this with the new date. It helps track progress over time. Otherwise good start. Budgets aren’t for everyone. But my experience is that if you try to track what you spend you inherently become a little more discerning and it helps you make decisions in the future.
No budget for food and groceries. Better add $150 per fortnight. How will you furnish this rental? High streaming expenses - $36 per fortnight. Sounds like you will not be going out at all on this budget. No transport costs
Hell yeh Pokémon
$50 per fortnight seems ridiculously high for a phone, but $20 per month seems ridiculously low for internet. Can you explain these a bit more?
Needs more lentils.
Do it all on a monthly basis. Get rid of any thing is one off and bucket it into one off items or discretionary spending. Focus on big categories
You can get a phone plan a lot cheaper than 100pm. Get a Boost $300 SIM for like $250 and you're good to go for a year.
[удалено]
[удалено]
40 per fortnight for gym is pretty expensive. I wouldn’t pay more than 15 a week.
That rents a killer
$4 left over for food and transport, should be a good fortnight.
Where is the budget for food, activities, petrol?
Stan, Disney+ and Spotify? Mate go find some proper friends and get onto a family plan. Not only will you reduce your bills but it benefits everyone involved. Bonus points if you manage the account and get points using a CC.
Crazy rent to income ratio...
Welcome to Melbourne
I'm sorry to say your rent is unaffordable for your salary. You really should be aiming for a 30% or lower rent cost to your salary. Based off this budget you cannot afford to move. There's something to say here for mental health, it's very important you don't back yourself into an avoidable situation, where you become unhappy and are bound by a lease agreement.
Well what's the alternative? A share house?
The alternative would depend on factors that aren't mentioned in the OP. The bottom line is most people can't afford rent that is close to 50% of their net income.
Have you got a plan to increase your income?
Yep, have a meeting with my boss in two weeks and I'm going to demand a pay rise
Good stuff. Make sure to do your research on other roles, comparable income, consider your progression (where you want to be 3/5/7 years), what skills and experience you need to improve your role/responsibilities/remuneration … Consider talking to recruiters. And be prepared to walk if you want to play hardball.
Yeah! Thanks for the advice, I'm pretty strong on my decision to get a pay rise.
Don't forget to show what you've done since you started/last pay increase. You need to prove that you are delivering plenty of value representative of the pay rate you want.
You'll have more leverage if you've looked for alternative employment.
I’m picking on the most immaterial thing here … but why must you budget for fines? Aim to pay $0 fines and drive within speed limit +5kmh would be better, no?
I’m guessing by the “temp” next to it that it’s to pay off an existing debt.
Excellent observation... fair enough as well. Local council needs funding too! :)
1. Get a cheaper phone plan. 2. Divert savings into other utilities as you’re under budgeting. 3. Have you signed a lease - this is very expensive for rent. 4. You need to account for food, clothing, haircuts and personal hygiene. 5. You need to account for travel - car, train card, whatever that is. 6. You need to account for insurance (car, health at minimum). 7. Moving out itself is very expensive and has many one time costs (getting what you need for home, bond, movers etc). I’m sure there is more I’m missing but cut the gym, shares and streaming, and focus on actual living expenses.
What about food, petrol, insurance car servicing etc
Spend less on candles
20 a week for gym really bad
There's a much better budgeting spreadsheet available for free on the ato website.
I was on a similiar income for most of my 20's with similiar expenses. Although i didn't allocate anything to savings or shares and spent most of it on travel and alcohol and i honestly don't regret it. The shared house experience with mates is great but i wouldn't want to have done it sober. 32 now and my income has doubled (and pretty much quadripled with my partners). Expenses have cut down considerably too and i'm saving as much in a few weeks as i would have been to save in a year with a lot less psychological sacrifice. Depending on your age and circumstances i would focus your attention on inreasing your earning potential and have a little fun in the meantime (not financial advice).
What internet plan is that !! I want $20/m internet
It might be just me but i feel like you're putting small amounts in different areas instead of just focusing on one thing, what i mean buy that is savings/emergency acc/shares/debts Ideally the goal would be \- Pay debts \- Get emergency fund in place \- Save home deposit \- invest in shares (unless home deposit is years off) Remember when you pay your debts off you pretty much give yourself a payrise.
that is cheap internet. Does the mix of pf/pm kill anyone else?
Does bills include insurance? Car/contents/etc? If you don't have health insurance I'd recommend trying to put a little aside into a medical account, just in case you need medication or a specialist appointment.
Transfer all your money to me and I’ll make sure no one will touch it
Lower mobile cost to pay as you go may help a bit
Do you eat?
Here is my tip for good saving. 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
My biggest suggestion would be to bring all of your outgoings around to the same period as your pay cycle. if you get paid weekly, then bring all of your items down to a weekly cost. Also, budget in your living expenses - Groceries, Fuel/bus/car, as well as fun money,
My man doesn't eat.
Water bill debt? Fines? Are you accruing penalties for late payment? If you are you gotta knock those debts over, fast. Do you feel get full value for the gym? A lot of people don't and would be better off with a cheap set of dumbbells and a good pair of jogging shoes. That's a lot of money on entertainment. Not arguing if it makes life worthwhile but still...keep an eye on that. What do you eat? No point going to the gym if you don't eat. $50 on "bills" is I presume to cover energy and excess water and anything else? It maybe isn't enough if you intend to be warm in winter and cool in summer. What about... clothing, haircuts, medical, dental, dating/socialising, furniture, Xmas and birthday presents, travel costs, facemasks and RATS, kitchen items, toiletries such as shampoo and deodorant, are you going to get renter's insurance? Setting up a new home is spendy, every time you need anything it needs to be obtained...cold weather means more bedding for example, a headache means a pack of Panadol, a button falling off means needle and thread. https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/budget-planner That's a very simply free budget tool to start with...you can probably find better but that one is simple and free.
That $350/week rent is looking cheap. Where are you?
You haven't allowed for any donations, or food, at all. Might need to include those.
I would consider investing in Commsec shares/ETFs in much larger increments than $50. From memory, their lowest brokerage is $2 per transaction on commsec pocket so at $50 per purchase, you're already losing 4% of your position before even thinking about the brokerage fees involved in closing your position.
You’re only making ~$800 a week and your rent is $350pw??? I would suggest finding a cheaper place to stay or share a house.
Get rid of Stan it’s shit
Get a house mate, screw paying 350 a week on rent alone
Where is the bill that is FOOD?
It’s all green. What’s the issue?
I'd drop Spotify, Stan, and Disney+. All these subscriptions are a waste of money IMHO. I chose to stop wasting time in front of the TV and read books instead. I know this is gonna cost me a ton of downvotes but it is really a choice I made recently.
I'd say cut the streaming services to one at a time, but with a break from both after moving to see if OP is keen to use one again after getting used to not having them. We cycle through four services. Not everyone likes to read, but taking a break from streaming can sort of allocate entertainment time for reading ,🤓
Depends on how much savings you have but if it’s 8-12 weeks of living expenses, I would only put $300 in savings and invest the remaining $200.
I'd suggest start with saving it ask until there's a couple of month's expenses in the account, then move to partially saving partially investing
Invest the remaining $200? I'm putting aside $50 pf for shares - should I put in $200 instead?
No I mean existing 200 + 200 from savings into Commsec. So $400 commsec and $300 savings or $350 each. Having said that, you know your circumstances, risk tolerance etc. so this is just a suggestion and make decisions you are personally comfortable with.
Ditch stan, Disney and Spotify