Budget help

Edited by Flake

Sorry I may be having a hormonal moment, but Im not sure what you are asking.

Are you trying to figure out how much you will have spare after each pay?

Or were you looking for tips on how to cut back

We work out (on a spreadsheet) the frequency and amount of all payments, then break them down into the weekly amount. Power, phone, insurances, rates, credit cards etc are all on DD. We get $20 a week spending money each (hey big spender ). For warrants etc, I calculate how much it is over the year then put it into a weekly allotment and that gets set aside. We also have money aside for Christmas, birthdays etc. Without my budget we'd be screwed.

we also have a great thread all about cloth nappies. if you are not using these already, they will save you a bundle. We had two in nappies, but worked out by buying them a pack each, they had paid for themselves after 9 weeks!!! Saved us a fortune seriously!

a LOT of baby stuff is pretty, cute but unnecessary. For us - we got HEAPS of soft toys - the boys had NO interest in them

Clothing can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. Opshops have some great kids things - but in my experience, you need to be visiting two or three times a week to pick up the decent quality, good price stuff. Also, on facebook there is a group about swapping kids clothes.

Ringing around your power, phone, insurance companies can save you lots of money. we reassessed our power company (got a $100 credit), changed our phone plan (saved $25 a month) and looked at our banking fees (saved $30 a month).

www.simplesavings.co.nz has some great tips about surviving on a budget, and I think has some stuff about babies - on a budget.

Also going to a budget advisor is a great idea - you can get new ideas about how to save.

In reality, babies don't NEED to cost a fortune, but they can if you get carried away about "keeping up with the Joneses" and I find mums of little girls have much more pressure on them to keep their girls looking "pretty" whereas it seems more acceptable to have boys in scruffy clothing.

If Huggies are working well, you might want to try Nanny's nappies - I bought a bulk load in October (about 350 for $117) and I'm still working my way through them - wholesale nappy company. I find that they're better than Huggies.

Congrats on the mortgage!

We do the same as some above - I work out how much each bill is monthly (inc rates) and then we transfer that bulk amount to our joint account. When a bill comes in, we don't need to worry as we know the $ is there.

I usually start to save for xmas presents later in the year but once we go down to one income that won't be an option so I will definitely start the saving of a small amount each mon for xmas & bday pressies for the year.

we do the same as a lot of other people have said - break things down weekly and put money aside, but I go one step further and have heaps of separate bank accounts - ie: one for pay to go into that is effectively our "overflow" account. from this I pay out into a bills account, savings, house (mortgage, rates & insurance) and I even made up a 2nd savings account to put money aside for baby gear and gifts... this one gets dipped into far too often!

I find this system is the easiest for knowing exactly how much money we have (if any!) leftover, and the bills are ALWAYS taken care of, so no issues at the end of the month when they all roll in...