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Too Much Month, Not Enough Money
There are times when no matter how carefully we budget and plan, the money runs out and payday is still a few days away. Sometimes it’s an unexpected expense or sometimes it’s just that there wasn’t enough money.
The average hourly pay rate in Australia is $35.50, or $68,900 per year for basic workers.
Here are some tips to get you through those money-less days; most of them are no-brainers, things you are most likely well aware of, but that you tend to forget or push to the back of your mind.
1. Cancel the coffee on the way to work, take your lunch from home, make dinner each evening. Stop spending money on extra food when you already have a fridge, freezer and pantry full of things to eat at home.
These are really no-brainers; if you can't pay the bills, you really can't afford take-away coffee or convenience foods. These little expenses as one-offs won't make a huge deal of difference, but when you add them up, they sure do.
One popular coffee shop here in Melbourne has just put the price of a small flat white up to $6. One flat white a day over the working week is $30; over a working year that's $2,392. Working for the average hourly rate ($35.30 gross, $27.95 net) you'd need to work 85.5 hours - over two weeks - just to cover the cost of that coffee five days a week.
2. Drink water – it’s better for you, already on hand and is much, much cheaper than soft drinks or cordials. Water is the best thirst quencher there is, and again, it’s cheap at under 1 cent per glass of tap water (and in Australia our tap water is clean and safe).
A 600ml bottle of water costs $1.15 or $1.92 per litre (generic, store brand). One a day over a working year costs $264.50; two a day costs $529. You'd need to work 19 hours to pay for your bottled water habit. Just imagine what the cost would be, and how long you would ned to work if you drank Coke or other soft drinks regularly!
I'd rather spend $55 on a Yeti insulated water bottle, and refill it with tap water. It would only take two hours to earn the cost of the water bottle, and the water would cost $1.51 a year to refill it. Sounds like a sensible option!
3. Think of frugal meals – omelettes, pasta and sauce, macaroni cheese, stir-fried veggies, toasted sandwiches, soup or fried rice. These are all meals that can be made quickly and cheaply with food that you would already have in the house.
4. Out of bread? Make scones – quick, easy and different for lunches. Add them to the top of a surprise stew to make stew and dumplings – it's filling and stretches the meal.
What’s surprise stew? In our house surprise stew is just that – a surprise. All the leftovers in the fridge are put into the crockpot with a tin of tomatoes, and a tin of tomato soup. Cooked on low all day, it’s delicious for dinner. And virtually free, since it’s made from leftovers.
5. Learn the secrets to stretching meals – more veggies, less meat. Cut the meat portions in half and fill up on veggies. Use bread (or scones or dumplings) to stretch the meal further. Add TVP to a casserole, stew or pasta sauce and you can double the quantity without doubling the cost. TVP is available in most supermarkets or from the health food shop.
Add grated carrot to mince dishes to add nutrition, colour, flavour and to bulk it out. Carrot is one vegetable that is still relatively inexpensive, costing between 65 cents and $1 per kilo, depending on where you shop.
Grated zucchini, if you grow them, is fabulous for bulking out sauces and stews.
6. Milk! The price goes up, the price goes down. When powdered milk is cheap, make your milk up half and half. Add 1 litre reconstituted powdered milk to 1 litre regular milk. Or use long-life milk; keep some long-life or powdered milk on hand for emergencies and you won’t have to worry about a quick trip to the corner store or stop at the supermarket on your way home. At the moment, fresh milk is $1.50 per litre, while UHT milk is $1.60 per litre, so you'll save 10 cents a litre buying fresh. Over a year, for the average family that uses nine litres of milk a week, that's 90 cents a week or $46.80 a year.
7. Now that petrol is heading towards $2.20/litre, consider other means of transportation. This week the ABC reported that it was time to get used to ULP being $2.20 a litre; oil prices keep increasing, and while those increases take a while to reach Australia, they are all about to hit at once. So walk the kids to school, walk to work, ride a bike, catch the bus or train, car pool. Think of ways you can leave the car in the garage for those short, regular trips.
Lighten the load - empty the junk out of the car. Get rid of the toys and books, bags, sports equipment, and yes, the rubbish. Every kilo impacts fuel economy.
Drive smoothly. If you're on highways or freeways, use cruise control, it really does help fuel economy (and please, don't try to use it around town, there is just too much traffic and it's plain dangerous, save it for the open road).
8. Need cash? Empty the change tin, search your pockets, the bottom of your handbag or look on top of the fridge. Just about everyone has a place where they drop their loose change. Collect it all – you’ll be amazed at how much cash you have.
9. Play a game. See how long you can go without spending a cent. Rise to the challenge and it payday won’t seem so far away.
The average hourly pay rate in Australia is $35.50, or $68,900 per year for basic workers.
Here are some tips to get you through those money-less days; most of them are no-brainers, things you are most likely well aware of, but that you tend to forget or push to the back of your mind.
1. Cancel the coffee on the way to work, take your lunch from home, make dinner each evening. Stop spending money on extra food when you already have a fridge, freezer and pantry full of things to eat at home.
These are really no-brainers; if you can't pay the bills, you really can't afford take-away coffee or convenience foods. These little expenses as one-offs won't make a huge deal of difference, but when you add them up, they sure do.
One popular coffee shop here in Melbourne has just put the price of a small flat white up to $6. One flat white a day over the working week is $30; over a working year that's $2,392. Working for the average hourly rate ($35.30 gross, $27.95 net) you'd need to work 85.5 hours - over two weeks - just to cover the cost of that coffee five days a week.
2. Drink water – it’s better for you, already on hand and is much, much cheaper than soft drinks or cordials. Water is the best thirst quencher there is, and again, it’s cheap at under 1 cent per glass of tap water (and in Australia our tap water is clean and safe).
A 600ml bottle of water costs $1.15 or $1.92 per litre (generic, store brand). One a day over a working year costs $264.50; two a day costs $529. You'd need to work 19 hours to pay for your bottled water habit. Just imagine what the cost would be, and how long you would ned to work if you drank Coke or other soft drinks regularly!
I'd rather spend $55 on a Yeti insulated water bottle, and refill it with tap water. It would only take two hours to earn the cost of the water bottle, and the water would cost $1.51 a year to refill it. Sounds like a sensible option!
3. Think of frugal meals – omelettes, pasta and sauce, macaroni cheese, stir-fried veggies, toasted sandwiches, soup or fried rice. These are all meals that can be made quickly and cheaply with food that you would already have in the house.
4. Out of bread? Make scones – quick, easy and different for lunches. Add them to the top of a surprise stew to make stew and dumplings – it's filling and stretches the meal.
What’s surprise stew? In our house surprise stew is just that – a surprise. All the leftovers in the fridge are put into the crockpot with a tin of tomatoes, and a tin of tomato soup. Cooked on low all day, it’s delicious for dinner. And virtually free, since it’s made from leftovers.
5. Learn the secrets to stretching meals – more veggies, less meat. Cut the meat portions in half and fill up on veggies. Use bread (or scones or dumplings) to stretch the meal further. Add TVP to a casserole, stew or pasta sauce and you can double the quantity without doubling the cost. TVP is available in most supermarkets or from the health food shop.
Add grated carrot to mince dishes to add nutrition, colour, flavour and to bulk it out. Carrot is one vegetable that is still relatively inexpensive, costing between 65 cents and $1 per kilo, depending on where you shop.
Grated zucchini, if you grow them, is fabulous for bulking out sauces and stews.
6. Milk! The price goes up, the price goes down. When powdered milk is cheap, make your milk up half and half. Add 1 litre reconstituted powdered milk to 1 litre regular milk. Or use long-life milk; keep some long-life or powdered milk on hand for emergencies and you won’t have to worry about a quick trip to the corner store or stop at the supermarket on your way home. At the moment, fresh milk is $1.50 per litre, while UHT milk is $1.60 per litre, so you'll save 10 cents a litre buying fresh. Over a year, for the average family that uses nine litres of milk a week, that's 90 cents a week or $46.80 a year.
7. Now that petrol is heading towards $2.20/litre, consider other means of transportation. This week the ABC reported that it was time to get used to ULP being $2.20 a litre; oil prices keep increasing, and while those increases take a while to reach Australia, they are all about to hit at once. So walk the kids to school, walk to work, ride a bike, catch the bus or train, car pool. Think of ways you can leave the car in the garage for those short, regular trips.
Lighten the load - empty the junk out of the car. Get rid of the toys and books, bags, sports equipment, and yes, the rubbish. Every kilo impacts fuel economy.
Drive smoothly. If you're on highways or freeways, use cruise control, it really does help fuel economy (and please, don't try to use it around town, there is just too much traffic and it's plain dangerous, save it for the open road).
8. Need cash? Empty the change tin, search your pockets, the bottom of your handbag or look on top of the fridge. Just about everyone has a place where they drop their loose change. Collect it all – you’ll be amazed at how much cash you have.
9. Play a game. See how long you can go without spending a cent. Rise to the challenge and it payday won’t seem so far away.
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