Our financial literacy goal this month is to research and make a decision about joining hubby up for kiwi saver. Being self- employed he doesn’t have to make the 2% contributions and some providers don’t require the self-employed to make an initial deposit or any regular contributions. This means we can join up and get the $1000 kick start as well as once a year deposit a lump sum to qualify for the tax credit but in the meantime we can have the money in our bank account keeping the interest down on our revolving mortgage. We already have a super that we started about six years ago which we can access once we are 55 and that we have to regularly contribute to, along with getting employer contributions. It has taken a beating at times over the last two years but the question now for us to work on is what type of portfolio do we want to go with/stay with for us to make the most of any economic recovery that may result over the coming years? There are lots of sources of information in the newspaper and the internet – some of them that we have been using are KiwiSaver Performance Survey – Returns to 30 September 2009 – Good Returns and http://www.sorted.org.nz/home/sorted-sections/kiwisaver.
Weekend trip to the Library
Hubby was looking for some info last weekend so I suggested we pop up to the local library. It’s at least eight years since I have been there – I had to re-enrol it has been so long! I had forgotten what a great place a library can be – you get to browse leisurely through books and magazines and can come away with lots of great books without having to spend any money. Hubby was also happy to hire weekend DVDs from there at $2 each saving us spending money at the local video store. One of the books I’ve been reading over the week is “Winning the Money War” by Lisa Dudson, the book based on the TV show Money Man. It’s a user friendly book and a good place to start if you want to start on the road to becoming financially literate. I enjoyed the book mostly because it reinforced how far hubby and I have come since I started writing this blog. It hasn’t been easy – hubby loves spending money and still finds our budget very hard sometimes, but little by little all the small steps are starting to pay off and we are no longer living from pay check to pay check which in turn spurs us on to save more. One of the money saving tips in the book that we used a lot last week was trading tasks or doing tasks for family. We babysat one evening for family, they fed us dinner before they went out. We did a family member’s gardening tasks, they gave us the $25 they normally give a company to do their gardening. Hubby helped do a building task, we got fed lunch in return. The money we earned went into our holiday savings for a holiday next year. The meals we were fed meant we have more food left in the cupboard/freezer this week and so don’t have to put as much this week on the grocery list. Small things but it truly is the little savings that make the difference over time.
Renting vs Buying
Renting instead of buying is not a new idea. However the British Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) believe that renting could be the secret weapon in fighting climate change and is calling for a fifth of all household spending to be converted to renting by 2020. In Britain it is predicted this change would result in a reduction of 13 million tonnes of CO2 a year. (Source Dom Post: 6/11/2009). In our household we tend to keep items for a long time and buy a lot of items second hand so we wouldn’t be great candidates for renting but I think lending is also a good way of reducing waste and saving money. Often family members live close together and each own the same item – it would be easy to lend items and just one household purchase the item. For instance we were given lots of glasses for our wedding years ago. When family members need extra glasses for special events they borrow ours rather than purchase glasses. We own a slow cooker which my mother borrows rather than buy her own as we both don’t use it full time. Items such as big cake tins for cooking the Xmas cake are often used only once a year, very easy to share around families. Two families in our family unit share a cat cage – it is an item used very few times in a year. It doesn’t work for everything as some items wear down with frequent use and other items require people to use them very carefully but it may be worth looking at for your family. Of course some families have people who don’t look after items or forget to give items back!
Not trying to keep up with the Joneses
With not a lot of spare money at the moment our house renovation has been sort of left three quarters finished. One of the areas not yet completed is the laundry. I’m embarrassed to say that I stupidly let the fact it wasn’t finished be this huge burden in my mind rather than just face up to reality and get on with doing something to make the room more useable. A few weeks ago the light bulb finally went off in my brain and I spent the afternoon tidying up the laundry which had become a dumping ground for everything. I found some colourful plastic cubes in the garage that we had used in the old house and these now neatly hold the dirty rags, clean rags etc. I resurrected a tall formica bookcase that my hubby had tried to get me to throw out before the renovation – it is perfect for holding all the various laundry things. Another small formica bookcase (also from the garage!) has made a great place for growing plants and seedlings as my laundry is a sun trap. Three week later I still love walking into my ‘new’ laundry and I’m even happy to leave the door open for visitors to be able to look in. It didn’t cost me a cent to improve my laundry – all I had to do was take off my “If only….” blinkers and use what I already owned.
Always read the fine print
I was worried last week about the bills due at the end of Oct – its a tight month with the IRD GST bill due. The life insurance bill was also due. Tidying up the account papers I came across my life insurance document and found a little section in it outlining a 30 days grace period. Thanks to reading the small print I can now delay my bill for a few weeks until mid -November when it will be a little more ‘comfortable’ to pay it.
I luv buying second hand
We finally made a decision to buy some furniture for our little sitting area. It took us a year to buy something and the two chairs cost us $55 second hand off Trade Me. We picked them up yesterday and already they are a clear favourite for our female puss.
The people we bought them from are able to start clearing out their spare room a bit more which will make their lives feel a bit more organized – a win/win situation. My ideal would be a way to purchase things like this through bartering rather than cash – for instance handy hubby could easily do some handy building work for a couple of hours which would be well in excess of $55. Any bartering sites out there?
Food Challenge Update
We made it! Tomorrow we get to shop after not food shopping last week and instead living the week from what was already in the house. I have to confess we did cheat for the cats and buy them cat food because they kicked up a fuss over cheese on toast when the cat meat ran out. Male cat got a little grumpy and started boxing female cat’s ears so we realised that perhaps not every member of a household is able to live within the confines of a food challenge. Hubby also cheated by buying his lunch for work –he will only go so far with food challenges. If I was living alone I could probably go a few more days without shopping but I will give in as hubby is hanging out for his weekend bacon and eggs.
This morning I whipped up a batch of anzac biscuits (see recipes A-L) as we have nothing sweet in the house and then went through the cookbooks to see if there was anything I could make from the ingredients we had left. Found Alison Holst’s recipe for scone dough and whipped up my first ever batch of scones, adding cheese and home grown chives. (I have made scones years ago but always from a pack!). When I got home later hubby had already sampled the scones and was placing his order that the next batch should be cheese and onion so I’m guessing they passed the seal of approval.
Basic Scone Dough
2C self – raising flour, 25g butter, ¾ C milk
Measure the flour into the food processor bowl. Add the butter cut into cubes and process until chopped into small pieces. Tip into a bowl and add the milk all at once. Cut and stir the liquid into the dry ingredients. Add a little more milk or flour if the mixture seems too dry or wet. The scones will rise better if the mixture has been lightly kneaded with your fingertips before it is rolled out. Pat or roll the scone mix into a 20cm square shape. Cut into 9 squares and place on a baking tray 1cm apart. Bake at 200 degrees C for 10-15 minutes.
Source:Alison Holst’s Meals Without Meat 1990
(I don’t use a food processor – when I was young my mum taught me the trick of grating cold butter into the flour and then rubbing the flour/butter between your hands. You get the same effect as a food processor and it only takes about a minute) .
Buying Second Hand
Every time I sit down to write my blog I am reminded of the value of second hand goods – I bought my laptop for $400 a few years back and it is still going strong, giving much pleasure. Our house is furnished with second hand furniture – dining room table, king size bed, wardrobe, bedroom mirror, hall table. Second hand clothes hang in my wardrobe. A new nephew is due to arrive in two months time – last week I picked up some lovely second hand toys for his arrival. We have never bought a first hand car in our lives. Although the last few years have definitely had an impact on my buying second hand I think that even when things ease a little I will as much as possible make it my first option over brand new. Ten things you should never buy new – Money Expert – Diana Clement – Financial Planning, Career, Investing, Economy, Property – MSN NZ. Sites such as Trade Me have made buying second hand a lot easier, a smaller site is Zillion http://www.zillion.co.nz/. You can also give away/get things for free – The Freecycle Network – about the Wellington Group is for those things that you can’t be bothered selling, but really don’t want to chuck away – I just joined up today. Come to think of it I even have second hand cats, compliments of the Cat Protection League!
Domestic Goddess Morning
I have a few days off from work at the moment so have the luxury of not having to race out of the house in the morning. I got a call today from a friend wanting to pop around so I had a quick look at what I could make. We are stretching our food at the moment so we are three days past our shopping day. The lemons were starting to look past their best so it was time to use them – 20 mins later a dozen Alison Holst Crunchy Lemon muffins were in the oven (some destined for the freezer) and all the spare lemons had been juiced and put into the ice cube tray so I can have lemon juice available for emergencies. Part way through mixing the muffins I realized I hadn’t cleaned the bathroom this weekend so quickly raced around with vinegar and baking soda, not a stressful job anymore as it can be sprayed on all surfaces – all ready for visitors! Rags went into the laundry- not a single paper towel used. Checked the fridge – cream, milk and mushrooms are getting close to their use by date so I grabbed a few slices of bacon, puff pastry and cheese out of the freezer – time to make some little quiches for lunch the next few days. Popped hubby’s work clothes into the washing machine to soak for a few hours in cold water to get stains out – saves on stain removal. Sat down to the computer to finalise the accounts for September and analyse our spending – looks like we’ve saved money this month again, this is slowly getting a little easier each month as changes in our lives become second nature. Think I deserve to put my feet up this afternoon after my productive morning!
Rag Day
Today is rag day in our house. It’s the day that the rag bucket gets emptied and all the rags are washed and put out in the sun to dry. It can look a little weird – last time we had rag day we had visitors and had to explain why we had strange looking bits of ripped/torn clothing hanging on the clothes horse. It makes the cleaning a lot cheaper than using store bought cloths or paper towels and is a good way to reuse clothes that are too old to be worn by anyone else. It also means you have lots of clean cloths for places like the kitchen and bathroom which is more hygienic than having the same Kleenex cloth day after day.