All in Budgeting
As 2019 drew to a close one of the things I was looking forward to was the fact I get to start a whole new BUDGET for 2020! I’m telling you this in my first blog post of the decade because I’m convinced that tracking income and expenses are a major reason why and how people take control of their money.
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
So far, in 2019, we have spent exactly $240 on eggs. We buy them from a woman who lives up the road who has chickens (obviously) and every Monday she drops them (or places them gently) in my mailbox, then I jump online and pay her $5 a dozen. That means we have eaten 48 dozen or 576 eggs this year to date. The moral of the story? PocketSmith can give you some detailed figures IF that is what you are looking for.
Have you given any thought to how much your car costs to run? I’m not just talking about how much petrol or diesel it uses. Until now I don’t think I had ever totalled up all of these costs specific to my vehicles. But after getting a question about cars, I decided to look into it a bit further and now its a case of “you can’t unsee what you have seen” dammit!
Any time of year is a great time to finally sit down and get your financial house in order, but January in particular, is a time when many people finally do it. One of the first tips I offer people who are wanting to take control of their personal finances is to tell them that it’s crucial that you track your earning and spending, otherwise, how do you know if you are getting ahead or falling behind?
Personal finance is deeply personal, and everyone goes about it slightly differently but the key to those who succeed and get ahead is working out exactly where their money is. One of the first tips I offer people who email me is to track their financial activity. Only when you do this in some form or other can you make the right changes and start to understand where all of your money is going.
At age 44 it feels like a bit of a milestone, to finally turn my back on ANY access to credit and lending of any kind. I seriously feel a bit like a grown up now and I’m kicking another Australian owned bank to the curb and chopping up my credit card.
Tracking every cent makes me calculate each and every time whether we made a good decision with our money. Money is hard to earn and easy to spend so I want to know that I use it as wisely as possible and not look at my bank account and wonder where the hell it all went.
Because I threw off the shackles of debt some time ago I have become a little out of touch with mortgages. I’ve had enough emails about “Offset Mortgages” to make me think that this is something I need to look into because there are obviously a few of you out there who either use this system of banking or want to know what it is all about. This blog post may ruffle a few feathers...
