Money Matters

I have been debating for awhile about doing a post about money. What is it they say... never talk about money, religion and politics. I think this saying has somewhat put me off talking about the subject. I thought why not share how I manage my money and if it helps other people to save money then that has to be a positive thing.

I thought I would start this first post of Money Matters and talk about the dreaded bills and how I budget for them. Unfortunately we all get them, whether its rent or a mortgage they still have to be paid.

We all get paid xxx number of $$$$ a pay check and we have to try and make it work for us. My hubby and I are very lucky in the fact that we do not have credit card debts, car loans etc.... but we do have the one debt many Australians have and that is a mortgage...

We pay our mortgage fortnightly which they tell you can save you thousands of $$$ on the overall interest payment of your mortgage. We have a mortgage with cash back facility and savings accounts that offset against the interest on the mortgage. Late last year when the interest rates were climbing I contacted our bank and had them take out a couple of hundred dollars a month more to account for the rising interest rates and payments. It turned out that in the peak of highest rates we were actually only over paying about $80 extra a month. Now that we are in lower interest rates I have kept our payments exactly the same as when the interest rates were high.
I think a trap people fall into is dropping the payment and not saving the difference. What would you do if something happened and you didn’t have that bit of extra payment to fall back on. If you can afford it pay up to the next whole $$ amount, even if it is only a couple of $$ extra a payment, it all adds up in the end.

With all our bills what I do is work out how much on average they are a fortnight and pay that amount, I do it per fortnight as this is when I get paid. It’s great when a bill comes in its already paid, or if you are disciplined enough put it into a high savings account and earn interest or offset your mortgage…

Budgeting for Household bills:
I know these are all our bills we have over the year so I estimate the $$ amount and work out fortnightly payments

Electricity 350 / 1/4 $60
Phone 40 / month $20
Mobile Phone 50 / month $20
Internet 70 / month $35
Car Rego x 2 1400 / year $60
Car Insurance x 2 700 / year $30
House Insurance 600 / year $25
Council Rates 2000 / year $85

Total / fortnight $305

Whatever money is left over after paying the mortgage and household bills is then used for transport to get to work, groceries, petrol and savings. There are no horror stories of not being able to afford to pay the bills. We live by the rule if you can’t afford to pay cash then you can’t afford to buy it.

Coffee Plant

Last year we went to the Nambour Home & Garden Expo and I bought a couple of coffee plants. Well I was rather excited to find this week that there is 5 beans!!! I know not enough to make a coffee but still very exciting. I have a couple of other coffee plants that are nowhere near as mature as these. I am looking forward to this years Home & Garden Expo hopefully I can get a couple more coffee plants.

February

Well I haven't posted for a month now. February was a rather busy month. We had my hubby's eldest son come to live with us from England. It was also hubby and I's birthday last month.
I have managed to get quite a bit of baking done however last month.

I made 3 pizza's and a garlic pizza for our neighbourhood get together for our joint birthday celebrations.



I have been experimenting with bread recipes and the below one is soy linseed bread.


The one below is a sundried tomato focaccia bread... I must say it is rather yummy!!

If anyone has a good recipe for stone ground wholemeal bread and would like to share please leave a comment. I have been experimenting with different recipes but haven't found one that I've really enjoyed...