monthly pays suck...
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Topic: monthly pays suck...
Posted By: Bizzy
Subject: monthly pays suck...
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 5:18pm
Its only been a couple of months since hubby swapped to being paid monthly and i was hoping to get the hang of it sooner ... but noooo. Am still scratching for money and its not even pay week this week either.
On a good note tho i did manage to get groceries for a week for 2 adults and 2 kids (incl a few extras for gabriels birthday picnic at the zoo and cake decorations) all for under $90. Well at least i hope i got everything we are going to need/want. 
I sure hope getting paid monthly gets easier...or should i say i get better at budgeting around a month. |
Replies:
Posted By: cuppatea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 5:24pm
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We were monthly paid in the Uk and it took some adjusting for us when we became weekly paid out here (we also had to get our heads round a different currency), it will all make sense soon and you will wonder why you ever struggled with budgeting it.
How the hell did you manage to get a week of groceries for $90? we easily spend double that every week and I wouldn't say that we waste money on luxuries. Would be really interested to know how people manage on less. We must be spending money that we don't need to somewhere but I'm buggered if I can work it out. ------------- 
 
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Posted By: Maya
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 5:34pm
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Yay on the grocery spend! I *wish* I could get ours that tight but I am too much of a rampant consumer!
-------------  Maya Grace (28/02/03)
 (02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 6:07pm
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luckily we have an excess of cans in our cupboard... last count 9 cans of baked beans - so they were off the list... meat we were frugal, x2 mince, some pork pieces and bacon for the pie i will make some time in the next week.
I do try and keep the cupboards and fridge/freezer well stocked and try to get extras when i do the BIG shop when the pay comes in... but did have to buy candles and balloons and chips and lollies for gabriels birthday, oh and lets not forget the fruit to take to kindy...i would feel so stink if i didnt have enough for that. i think i could prob have shaved at least $10 off if we werent all banana fanatics in this house too...
so therein lies my lesson in shopping...sorry! lol! |
Posted By: ginger
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 6:27pm
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The other b*gger with monthly pays is often payments such as rent/mortgage etc are fortnightly ... blah! ------------- Cuinn Lachlan 23.1.09 - 22:00 Antonia Helene 4.8.11 - 09:41 |
Posted By: sparkle
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 6:52pm
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I set all our "bills" phone, sky, power etc to come out in the first couple of days after pay day. I find it helps to get them all out of the way when the money is in bulk!!!! ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Bombshell
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 6:57pm
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i would hate a monthly pay....cause isnt each month different too so you need to work out a daily rate and budget from there....UGH!!!
I had a friend at Uni that spent $50 a week - ate a lot of mince but she was awesome and refused to take money if we came for dinner and blew out her meal planning for the week.....and she had a bubba too! she had budget everything and had some awesome recipes... me - ive done my uni days - ive did it WAAAYYYY tough for too many years to worry now.....but instant noodles and 99cent loaves of bread were often on the menu for half the week back then!!!! good on you for sticking to a budget and making it work! |
Posted By: Maya
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 6:59pm
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Must confess to eating a lot of two minute noodles in my time too. And when I was on my own with Maya I ate a lot of sausages coz they were easy to cook and cheap. ------------- Maya Grace (28/02/03)
(02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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Posted By: cuppatea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 7:55pm
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Yeah when I was working my apprenticeship towards the end of the month I quite often had to decide whether I would eat or put petrol in the car... not nice. Would not want to go through that again.
Normally you only get monthly paid if you are salary so each month you get the same amount. -------------
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Posted By: Tiff
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 7:58pm
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Yup we are on monthly pay here - it wasn't so bad when I was working too and getting paid weekly, but no longer!! Have been on only monthly pays since March and still haven't quite got to grips it yet. ------------- http://lilypie.com">  
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Posted By: jaz
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:00pm
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I only spent $80 this week on groceries (usually twice that) but the cupboards are well stocked. It must be those reach packs from the Parent and Child show. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: aimeejoy
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:01pm
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We used to do monthly and once you get everything sorted it seems to be a bit cheaper. I second the paying all the bills/mortgage etc as soon as you get the pay, do a big grocery shop for the month that week and get out cash/grocery vouchers for your top up groceries. We also used to buy petrol vouchers for the month so you knew you had enough for everything.
Cuppatea - a few months back we had some great threads on here about budgeting tips, how to cut your grocery bill etc... Very helpful. ------------- Aimee Hannah 22/10/05 Greer 11/02/08 |
Posted By: Aprilfools
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:06pm
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DH and I both get paid monthly. Our trick was to budget. We have everything planned out a year in advance, (possibly very anal!!) on a spreadsheet. After a while you adjust to getting paid monthly. We're out of our tough spot now but we still use our spreadsheet to plan ahead just in case. Our biggest thing was to have our income paid into one account and then pay ourselves weekly into another for weekly expenses such as petrol, groceries and spending money.
I'm sure you'll get used to it. Groceries for $90 well done!! Out of curiosity can I ask what you bought? |
Posted By: mum2paris
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:23pm
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We are fotnightly here but have just found out mikes study break will be longer than anticipated.. ie from end of this month until 3rd march!! that's close to 3 months where we are $150 a week down! lucky we went and stocked up this shopping.. (truckload blowout at P&S actuallyhelped for once!) and we plan to do the same again next fortnight. I agree with making the bills go out - we have everything on AP in an account , the bills go out fortnightly on the day after we are paid so we know exactly by 2 days after pay how much we have over and we go by that.. we budget by my flat rate of pay and anything overtime/weekend rates etc is considered extra and that's how we do things. ------------- Janine and her 2 cool chicks, Paris & Ayja 
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Posted By: cuppatea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:25pm
We have a spreadsheet too . We have a seperate account that all our bills come out of and we budget paying enough in there to cover yearly insurances and WOFs, dog licenses etc, as well as the weekly and monthly bills. We also pay ourselves weekly a set amount to cover groceries, petrol and a bit of fun money.
Could definately not do groceries for $90, I spent $47 just on fruit and veg last week and it has all been eaten. I bought it from a produce place as well so it was cheaper. I don't buy any ready made stuff though, nothing with preservatives or colours etc so make everything from scratch which involves buying a lot of fresh produce, which isn't cheap. -------------
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Posted By: Aprilfools
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:39pm
| cuppatea you sound a lot like us. All our pay goes into our 'bills' account. From there we have all our ap's set up for all our bills, mortgages, insurance, phone etc and then we have an AP that goes to a savings account to cover warrants, regos, doctors visits, rates and so on; and then we also have a weekly payment into another account which is our spending account for our weekly expenses. I love budgeting, it's like a habit I can't break anymore. |
Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:39pm
meat we were frugal, x2 mince, some pork pieces and bacon, some ham from the deli. bananas, pears, potatoes. candles and balloons and chips and lollies for gabriels birthday. yoghurt, and snack stuff for hubbys lunch, biscuits for bribes for the kids and gabriels birthday. pastry, rice, pasta, peanut butter, milk, bread (x3) sick of paying overpriced dairy prices for it, marg, cheese, canned fruit salad, cat food (cant forget ziggy). i think thats about it ... i guess i was lucky in that i didnt need any cleaning stuff ... I am reluctant to pay my mortgage off monthly as you pay more doing it fortnightly but do pay my other bills off monthly and that is automatic so i dont even miss the money... Never thought of petrol vouchers before but i try and get my fuel at pak n save with their vouchers after the groceries...today i got 6 cents off per litre and i didnt even spend $100. Suppose it didnt help that i got extra money this month and frittered it on treating the kids and going to the docs and guy fawkes and then hubby had to drive over the shore cause his grandad is in hospital ... and it all adds up. What a pity i couldnt pay in caterpillars - i have a swan plant groaning under the weight of those!!!!
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Aprilfools wrote:Posted By: aimeejoy
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:41pm
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Spreadsheet and APs to various accounts here too!! ------------- Aimee Hannah 22/10/05 Greer 11/02/08 |
Posted By: jack_&_charli
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:54pm
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we are on fortnightly pays and that's bad enough sometimes! i'd hate to be on monthly pays we usually spend $150-160 on groceries each fortnight ------------- http://www.alternatickers.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Aprilfools
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:55pm
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Well I love caterpillars lol - How come you have so many?
With our shopping if I am going to the supermarket to do our shopping then I like to go in the morning because that's when they put the specials out for the meat. Just because you get paid monthly doesn't mean that you can't budget for bills that are paid weekly or fortnightly. You just have to plan ahead. It's not a sin to spend extra money on yourself or your kids either. You do have to have some fun too!! |
Posted By: jack_&_charli
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 8:55pm
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no, i lie.....i spend that at pak n save, then i go to funky pumpkin and spend another $20-30 on fruit and veges....cuppatea, where do you shop? ------------- http://www.alternatickers.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: cuppatea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:02pm
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Marshlands produce place, and then normally countdown in Kaiapoi.
I cannot stand pak n sav. I actually went in the one on moorhouse one day and got so annoyed that I wheeled my trolley to the boot of my car and just tipped it in. I'm all for packing my own bags, its what you do in the uk but there they put a conveyor going away from the till so you can pack. What on earth is the point of them packing it into the trolley, which takes just as long as packing into bags, for me to then have to repack. 
I just can't shop there, it isn't good for my blood pressure...lol -------------
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Posted By: Aprilfools
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:06pm
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I'm not a fan of Pak'n'Save either. They charge 10 cents for a plastic bag that actually costs less than 1 cent to make and if it breaks on the way to your car they will not refund your 10 cents!!
Plus their stores just look untidy and disorganised. |
Posted By: emmapea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:38pm
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i cant stand pak n save... I dont think it actually saves me any money either. And well I used to work there, so that makes me hate it even more! he hee hee ------------- http://lilypie.com">  
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Posted By: emmapea
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:43pm
Oh and I hate monthly pays too...! I dont have them anymore though, but only cause I dont get paid for my SAHM job!  ------------- http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: Rachael21
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:51pm
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I love pak n save.
I really need to cute down on my spending I spent $250 today ona fortnight shop but then will spend about $50 on fruit veges and milk next week. Theres a website (which I can't remember) and people manage to go shopping for $21 a week I'm guna check it out and try and cut my bill down, its getting stupid. |
Posted By: Rachael21
Date Posted: 06 November 2007 at 9:52pm
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Anyway monthly pays would suck I struggle enough on weekly pays when all our bills get taken out that first day
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Posted By: fattartsrock
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 8:54am
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its called simplesavings.co.nz, rachandjack ------------- The Honest Un PC Parent of 2, usually stuck in the naughty corner! :P |
Posted By: Bobbie
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 8:56am
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We've been struggling a little since my DH's monthly pay in his new job got moved to the same day as mine. It used to be paid a week before mine so we had a bit of wiggle room but no more!
Generally we do ok. We have a budget and we make sure the bills are covered first before we do anything else. But those 5 week months can be a killer! And lately we've had so many unexpected expenses - including an IRD bill for $550 I'm still trying to sort out. -------------  
 
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Posted By: yummymummy
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 9:01am
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I've been getting paid monthly for years now. Sure it takes some getting used to, but it gets to be a breeze - I don't even notice it any more.
That said, I have arunning budget, with all money coming in and all money going out ie mortgage, weekly bills, monthly bills etc and we stick to it as much as we can. It does help to also budget to have some money left over as it's sooo easy to overspend. ------------- http://lilypie.com">  http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: Kazzle
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 9:37am
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we are on monthly pay and have been for as long as i have been with kent.
our tricks are: we both have a fortnightly budget of $100 each, and all our takeaways, magazines, and other stuff we want (like movies etc )(expect clothing) comes out of that. We have a food budget of between $100-120 a week We have a book where we write down everything we have spent out of our account, so we can keep a track of it. We pay our credit card bill off in full every month. It took us about 3 mths to settle down into it, but now we just cruise along. we actually find most months we are saving money, we also put aside money for any big ticket bills we have, like insurance etc, so when they come in we arent hit hard. It does get easier, and now we dont even notice we aer on monthly pay ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Redbedrock
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 10:11am
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[QUOTE=cuppatea] We were monthly paid in the Uk and it took some adjusting for us when we became weekly paid out here [QUOTE]
Same here, it still seems strange having fortnightly pay and bills, especially when Neil and I are/were paid on different fortnights so a dollop of money goes in every week. On monthly pay there always seemed a lot of month left at the end of the money. But you will get your head round it ------------- http://www.babysfirstsite.com"> 
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Posted By: daikini
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 12:53pm
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Spreadsheet and APs to different accounts/Visa here too!
Mind you, we have to live tight... we've just finished finalising our budget now that we have a good idea of what our expenses are living here, and we should have about $10 left a fortnight. Anything left out of the grocery/petrol budget gets left on the credit card for extra-ordinary expenses because we are less likely to just spend it then. ------------- Becca, mum of 2 girls & 3 boys |
Posted By: tashzmum
Date Posted: 07 November 2007 at 1:41pm
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i normally spend around $60 a week at the supermarket. but in saying that we dont buy meat and only buy milk for me as i cant drink it out of the vat while preggy.
we live off a super duper tight budget. i think i have mentioned before how much we live off a week-$230, that is for everything except insurance, ph, savings(emergancy money). but at the moment df and i are talking about changing that as we are starting to struggle a bit with trying to save for the twins(not an emergancy so dfs parents wont let us touch the savings, and df needs one of their signatures to access the account. in regards to being paid monthly(sorry i went off topic)- when we finally go sharemilking(lower order to start with) we will be paid monthly, and while the cows are dry we wont get paid at all..... ------------- Natasha Jayde, 1-01-05(7lb3oz) Caroline Elisabeth, 9-04-08 (4lb15oz) Izabella Kate, 9-04-08(6lb7oz) Lexi Brenna, 23-01--2011(6lb6oz) |