beebee said..
This has turned into a good thread.
Interesting to read about real people's financial situations - not headlines, or statistics, or anecdotes pushed by
vested interests.
Australia is stupidly expensive these days. Sure, we're very lucky to have the standard of living we have - health care, education, moderately clean environment, infrastructure, etc. - and that costs. But damn, it's still expensive

I spent 12 years living in the USA. Had a good career. Made good money. Had some sense to save and invest while the getting was good.
Been back in Oz for 4 years, and cannot find a suitable, permanent job. Many of the gigs I see advertised - including in Sydney and Melbourne - are offering 50-65K a year. I was making that much in Sydney 20 years ago. It's ridiculous.

Long story short. I'm leaving Oz to go and live in Asia again. I was married but don't have kids or debt. I have decent, but by no means comfortable savings and retirement investment. But buggered if i'm going to bash my financial head against a wall to stay barely afloat in Oz.
All of our situations and goals are different. Good luck to you all.

PS. My best mate from Uni had a good solution to financial stress - he married a British heiress.
Don't bother... I already asked him years ago if she has a sister. She doesn't.

Some really good replies here. Great to hear peoples actual scenarios and not just some faux case studies from sorted.org.nz or whatever.

At my house we are just coming of a 10 month maternity leave for the wife so have been living off my teachers salary for that time, and were treading water for the first few months, then decided for some reason to give the bathroom a reno. So haven't felt that good about having a bigger mortgage as a result.

It's reassuring to know that it is normal for people to be battling on through, I got a bit disillusioned when a couple of buddies started businesses that have gone gangbusters and now they are all rolling in dough. That can't be the norm for a business though by the sounds of it. Every time I see a VW Amarok around I think it must be another millionaire, but sure that can't be the case.

Good money saving tips that work for us:

Buy clothes from websites surfstich.com.au or NZsale.com or lastseason.com and wait for the sales where you can get clothes for sometimes 80% off. Then buy up large when you chance upon it, and stock pile clothes/ shoes/ rashies when you can get them dirt cheap. Anybody got any other good sites for cheap clothes etc?

Use a credit card that is linked to AirNZ points for every purchase possible. All flights for the last few years have been on the house from this. We never pay any interest because our limit is low, so we are forced to transfer money across to it every week or so.

Get a revolving credit account with the bank (if you have a mortgage). We used it to draw down for bathroom, but you can also save as much money as you like in there and it automatically wipes off the interest from your home loan (eg if mortgage was 400K and you saved 50K in it, you would only pay interest on 350K of mortgage). Interest is the killer.

Trying to eat less meat, schit is expensive!

My car is 1993. I sometimes wish I had a ranger or something, but I could still sell that thing for the same or more than I paid for it in 2010. It cannot depreciate any further.

I'd be keen to hear of anybody else's money hacks!

froghoppa said..
**** this might just be the most interesting and honest thread yet.
My two cents worth is< Why marry and have kids. I am not knocking u blokes who have chosen this path. Just why?

Peer pressure...

And biological success.

Needed to ensure my advantageous alleles were passed onto the gene pool, to improve the overall health of the species. I did the mating dance real good

One of Buddha's disciples came to him and said "I want to be happy"
The boods replied "easy, take away 'I want"

froghoppa said..
My two cents worth is< Why marry and have kids. I am not knocking u blokes who have chosen this path. Just why?

I was similar to you. Now best thing ever is shared water time with my lids. Gives life a meaning.

Plummet said..
Sounds like lots of family dudes are in a similar boat eeking out a living trying to fund a modest life for themselves and their families.

Man we burnt cash of groceries. $360/week, We managed to chop that back to $220 by buying budget brand stuff, veggies, fruit and meat only on special. That's $7500 per year! Do you really need the $5/kg apple when there's another type for $3/kg.

yeah if only I could tell my wife that's an easy saving, gluten free, organic, semi vegan blessed by himalayan monks, food in little packages like friggin squeeze yoghurt, easily adds up over $350pw, especially with 3-4 shopping trips in a week. I justify it to myself by saying it's $10 per person per day (family of 5), which doesn't seem much but hey she knows better.

Dave Whettingsteel said..

quikdrawMcgraw said..
One of Buddha's disciples came to him and said "I want to be happy"
The boods replied "easy, take away 'I want"

Could you explain what that means to dumbos like me?

Apparently he then sent his disciples of the get rid of all want. When they returned they said we have got rid of their wants.

He then said now get rid of the the want to get rid of all wants.

beebee said..

beebee said..
This has turned into a good thread.
Interesting to read about real people's financial situations - not headlines, or statistics, or anecdotes pushed by
vested interests.
Australia is stupidly expensive these days. Sure, we're very lucky to have the standard of living we have - health care, education, moderately clean environment, infrastructure, etc. - and that costs. But damn, it's still expensive

I spent 12 years living in the USA. Had a good career. Made good money. Had some sense to save and invest while the getting was good.
Been back in Oz for 4 years, and cannot find a suitable, permanent job. Many of the gigs I see advertised - including in Sydney and Melbourne - are offering 50-65K a year. I was making that much in Sydney 20 years ago. It's ridiculous.

Long story short. I'm leaving Oz to go and live in Asia again. I was married but don't have kids or debt. I have decent, but by no means comfortable savings and retirement investment. But buggered if i'm going to bash my financial head against a wall to stay barely afloat in Oz.
All of our situations and goals are different. Good luck to you all.

PS. My best mate from Uni had a good solution to financial stress - he married a British heiress.
Don't bother... I already asked him years ago if she has a sister. She doesn't.

A brother maybe, apparently quite trendy in today's world

The last couple of years have been a bit of a challenge. Because of health reasons the wife, who earned more than me had to stop working. Adjusting has been quite tough. Taking on as much overtime as I can to help make ends meet and and the stress of your partner not doing too well takes it's toll. One thing we did learn is that we wasted so much without realising it. So much unessasery crap. But I have to say that finally being able to kite again has reduced the stress so much. As long as I can get on the water every now and again keeps me sain
And I realize it's not all bad.

cauncy said..

maxpower1 said..
The last couple of years have been a bit of a challenge. Because of health reasons the wife, who earned more than me had to stop working. Adjusting has been quite tough. Taking on as much overtime as I can to help make ends meet and and the stress of your partner not doing too well takes it's toll. One thing we did learn is that we wasted so much without realising it. So much unessasery crap. But I have to say that finally being able to kite again has reduced the stress so much. As long as I can get on the water every now and again keeps me sain
And I realize it's not all bad.

Doesn't matter how crap a day you've had
a kite session makes it all go away

So long as you don't break your gear or something

beebee said..

Plummet said..

Yeah, I had similar battles. Put in context of one year savings. $7k man, That's a family holiday, a new car, several kites or 2.5 years knocked off the mortgage.

Those stupid expensive squeeze yoghurt packets a bad for the environment aswell. Buy 1kg of yoghurt and put it in a washable container.
The fair trade, vegan Himalayan monks will have to fend for themselves for a while.

RE: Yoghurt.
Better still, make your own. There's cheap kits out there. It's just a container.
So easy. All you need is a sachet to add to milk.
Add some warm water, leave overnight. A fresh, big tub of fresh yoghurt in the morning.
Lasts for a week or more in the fridge.
Minimal packaging, no additives or sugar if you choose sachet carefully, and waaaay cheaper over a short time.

We go through 2 x 1kg Jalna greek yoghurts a week, we re-use containers for food scraps, water for chickens but collect so many containers I eventually have to throw them out.

We used to make our own yoghurt, satchels not that much cheaper might try it again. Make our own kefir. Also make own kombucha about 100 times cheaper than bought.

sir ROWDY said..
You can never leave.

"Welcome to the Hotel California.
You can checkout anytime you like, but ..."

bjw said..

Peahi said..

beebee said..

Plummet said..

Yeah, I had similar battles. Put in context of one year savings. $7k man, That's a family holiday, a new car, several kites or 2.5 years knocked off the mortgage.

Those stupid expensive squeeze yoghurt packets a bad for the environment aswell. Buy 1kg of yoghurt and put it in a washable container.
The fair trade, vegan Himalayan monks will have to fend for themselves for a while.

RE: Yoghurt.
Better still, make your own. There's cheap kits out there. It's just a container.
So easy. All you need is a sachet to add to milk.
Add some warm water, leave overnight. A fresh, big tub of fresh yoghurt in the morning.
Lasts for a week or more in the fridge.
Minimal packaging, no additives or sugar if you choose sachet carefully, and waaaay cheaper over a short time.

We go through 2 x 1kg Jalna greek yoghurts a week, we re-use containers for food scraps, water for chickens but collect so many containers I eventually have to throw them out.

We used to make our own yoghurt, satchels not that much cheaper might try it again. Make our own kefir. Also make own kombucha about 100 times cheaper than bought.

My wife just uses a couple of spoons of her previous yogurt. No sachets used.

Clearly the windy season is over..

I'll try that.
Yes, clearly the season is coming to an end.
Good thread though. ;-)

laurie said..

sir ROWDY said..
You can never leave.

"Welcome to the Hotel California.
You can checkout anytime you like, but ..."

unless you get suspended or expelled

Peahi said..

beebee said..

Plummet said..

Yeah, I had similar battles. Put in context of one year savings. $7k man, That's a family holiday, a new car, several kites or 2.5 years knocked off the mortgage.

Those stupid expensive squeeze yoghurt packets a bad for the environment aswell. Buy 1kg of yoghurt and put it in a washable container.
The fair trade, vegan Himalayan monks will have to fend for themselves for a while.

RE: Yoghurt.
Better still, make your own. There's cheap kits out there. It's just a container.
So easy. All you need is a sachet to add to milk.
Add some warm water, leave overnight. A fresh, big tub of fresh yoghurt in the morning.
Lasts for a week or more in the fridge.
Minimal packaging, no additives or sugar if you choose sachet carefully, and waaaay cheaper over a short time.

We go through 2 x 1kg Jalna greek yoghurts a week, we re-use containers for food scraps, water for chickens but collect so many containers I eventually have to throw them out.

We used to make our own yoghurt, satchels not that much cheaper might try it again. Make our own kefir. Also make own kombucha about 100 times cheaper than bought.

Mmmm, cheap kombucha, we make our own too for a fraction of shop price.
Also, grow our own fruit & veggies & dry, freeze or pickle excess, (big saving when vegetarian), eggs from our chooks, cooking gas from our biogas digester, run some of our diesel vehicles on free used cooking oil from the local caf?, buy good used cars and trucks, do most of our own repairs & maintenance, do a bit of bartering, solar panels on the roof & solar hot water, let the kangaroos eat the lawn so it doesn't need mowing as much, only try and beat the jones's by having great kite & foil gear

Have fun & eat well, Dave