Frugal 2010

i'm going to try and not use the credit card. I get annoyed at the amount of pizza that gets put on there.

the whole take out when cant be bothered cooking thing is such a have... i know that i can do a quicker and nicer meal than going to the takeaway, but laziness wins out!

i am going to try and make that pizza dough someone posted in the recipes thread instead of using brought bases...

I'm in for this definitely!
I was looking at that pizza recipe recently too, used to make one in the breadmaker but started buying bases cos its a hassle to drag the breadmaker out.
We've never had a credit card, oh well we have a warehouse card thats the same thing really lol. Gonna get that paid off and try not to use it anymore though.
I've got to stay away from trademe, actually all online shopping..its just too easy! And I love getting packages delivered!
And then theres those times I go to buy bread and milk but spend over $30..

great idea (budget wise) We totally need to take serious look at our budget in the new year.

I spent $100 on cornchips tonight ..thats all I popped out to get....but I found some other things we "needed".

Food is our biggest budget blow out but I like food and I want to have nice stuff too. We dont buy a lot of pre packaged food (dont like it) and we grow some veges so you'd think we could control it...I dont know what we spend it on to be honest...the price of food is just bloody ridiculous down here.

Kel, The most success I have had was to work out how much each bill costs on a weekly or fortnightly (pay period) basis and then transfer that amount into a separate account. Then have bills come directly out of that account. That way money kinda accumulates there for the bills and you always know there is enough there. It was a great feeling to buy 4 new tyres and know we could afford it. Unfortunately I havent got it set up like that at the moment and I am struggling...I just cant be arsed changing ALL the direct debits..but that s a poor excuse.

fattykat me too..cuppatea I'm with you on this one!

We did really well with our budget last year, we were only on one income. I made my own bread, pizza bases, and did a lot of home baking.

Then I started working part time... We ended up increasing our spending! Our grocery bill has gone from being $230 a fortnight to over $350. Not good! I want to study this year but at the moment we can't afford it because we have got used to the 2 wages again. I don't have a job any more either so as of this week we are knuckling down (Great timing!)

I'll join in, with an unexpected bub on the way we seriously need to look at what we spend.

Our big thing is also food, particularly getting take out when we can't be a*sed cooking and buying lunches.

Nikki - thats what we do with our mortgage and rates payments and its great! We've been slowly accumulating extra in that account and now have enough for an extra mortgage payment. We should really do that with everything else too.

I'm in. We should be able to afford to live off one of our incomes but we still manage to spend $300 a week from the other one. That really needs to change if we're going down to one income...

I'm in too. We don't do too bad with most our spending, like you guys its mainly food but then we have improved lots. But food has also gone up sooo much and I'm trying to get us to eat healthier too and thats expensive all by itself. Milk and squeezed orange juice (I have it after my workout) is way way way more expensive than fizzy drink sh*t. Gah

I'm in as well! We really need to watch where our one income is going, especially with another baby on the way. We will need to find a way to fork out for a new vehicle, which means cracking down in other areas to get some savings under our belts. Have cleared out the overgrown gardens and am starting in hard on the vege patch come new years! I got the gardening diary from the supermarket and it's going to be my new bible lol