Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @outlander 

When my children were young and I was managing our finances at home, I used a system that was called Moneybags.  It used a set of envelopes to put money aside every week for things that were needed, which included accounts for water, electricity, telephone, petrol money, grocery shopping, clothing and shoes, medicals, school needs, gifts, etc.  it took a bit of working out, taking the water bill from the previous year and dividing it by 52 (weeks in the year) then putting that small amount into its envelope every week, same with all the other costs, guesstimating some of them.  For the system to work, you can only use the money in that envelope to pay what it is supposed to be for.  If you were careful with it, you could “borrow” from another envelope for a week or two to tide you over something unexpected (like an extra medical bill) but there was a spare miscellaneous envelope anyway for contingency stuff.  Putting away $5 a week in that envelope made a real difference.

That was a time when weekly pay came home as cash in an envelope.  When it started to go into the bank instead, I used pieces of paper in the envelopes instead of cash, but it helped me to know what I had sitting in the bank account for paying the bills, and how much Incoukd withdraw each week for what was needed.

One of mine spent a lot of time in hospital when she was little.  Her medical file was 5cm thick.  That was a challenge to keep up with, and I had to arrange smaller payments in all directions to get through it, and we ate simple sandwiches a lot !!

There is probably advice online now, or free aps for housekeeping management.

I hope this helps.  Contact your local community centre and ask if they have a financial support scheme (food vouchers) available if you get completely stuck, and contact Centrelink to see if there is any more financial support available in that direction maybe ?

[Former-Member]

Going back to basics @outlander  first step is to work out where your money is going - write down all expenses, every payment plan, rent, petrol, electricity, etc. 

[Faith-and-Hope]

^^^^

And the time span when they are due eg.  weekly, fortnightly, monthly, 2 months, 3 months, once a year ..... for the bills or regular payments.  

You might fond that that there are some weeks or months when everything seems to be coming up at once, so they are weeks or months to plan around, and not load them up even more with medical appointments, buying gifts for Christmas, etc.

As @Former-Member said, the first step is working out what is going out, and to where, and how often.

Being arty, it might help you to use a calendar and coloured dots for different payments ..... red for medicals, blue for grocery shop, green for utility bills, purple for phone, etc.  it can be easier to see the pattern of spending that way.

@outlander 

[Smc]

😞 Hard stuff @outlander.

First move is to trim out or reduce any that can be. If you've got credit cards, use them as little as possible. They've got one of the worst interest rates around.

What works for us is having all our regular bills on direct debit, with the money to cover them going in to a separate account. It's actually a passbook account. Very "old school", but only being able to withdraw over the counter means we think carefully when we do. You need to be able to put a bit more into the account than your bills are likely to be, so that if a bigger than usual bill comes through you're not overdrawn. This also works as our "emergency fund" because the "bit more" means we can usually accumulate a small amount of savings. Not heaps, but enough to help out with unexpected car repairs and suchlike. 

Everything else comes out of what's left over, including food. We've found that healthy eating is more about knowing what and how to cook than big grocery bills. I rarely pay over $10 per kilo for meat, which means keeping a good eye out for specials and markdowns, being willing to have mostly-veggie meals some nights, and knowing how to cook said veggies so that no-one feels like we're missing out. (Last night was a mostly-veg soup, but with a rich homemade chicken broth, a bit of reduced-to-clear cream, and a small amount of half price chorizo added. Was yummy with toast made from slightly stale bread... 😄 ) I know for you this will largely be dependent on what your Pop is happy to eat. It's not the kind of budget that puts steak or lamb chops on the plate- although roasts can be surprisingly affordable.

Our clothes are mostly second hand, but chosen with care. Furniture and household goods ditto. We do spend out a bit on hobbies- Hubby on "making things" so tools, timber etc., me on gardening, so plants and potting mix. But the latter gives us fresh fruit and vegs so possibly pays for itself.  Have never quite gotten around to doing its budget. And Hubby makes some useful things too. 🙂 We also allow a bit of money for a cuppa or occasional meal out. The hobbies and cuppas/outings are pretty important as self care.

[Smc]

I'll ditto what @Former-Member said about tracking expenses. I don't do so all the time, but every now and then I'll keep a record of all spending for a month, usually by writing it all down on the outside of an envelope, and putting the receipts inside the envelope. That way if gorcery spending, for example, looks unexpectedly high, I can pull out the relevant receipts and find out why.

I've found that tracking expenses is most useful when there's been a change in income, but oddly that includes times when income has increased. I think what happens is: income increases... we go "oh phew, we can relax a bit, and maybe buy xyz that we've been putting off"... and suddenly the money's short at the end of the fortnight. 😛

[outlander]

thank you @Faith-and-Hope @Smc @Former-Member for the tips!
im finding it abit tricky to manage both pays but ive taken a look at mine and pops today and written out the expenses etc over the past few weeks and seen what we are spending the most on what we could reduce on etc. I think im mainly stressing out because I also need to save up for the op in November which is proving to be quite expensive. every time I start to save something else goes wrong and I need to use what ive saved towards that such as pops specialists or the tests.

ive had a sit down and written out how we'll use my pay and pops pay over the next 3 weeks (we get paid alternate weeks) and it looks abit better looking. There isn't as many appointments to attend (yet) so ive been able to allocate a little extra to other bills to try and catch up again on those.

you guys are right in saying that a little extra can go along way. the little bit extra myself and pop can afford will go towards one bill and itll actually get rid of that specific bill all together so we wont have to worry about it all the time.

I think sometimes I get so caught up in trying to work on everything at once I forget to actually stop and look and think about where its going or what gets paid where etc.

[outlander]

i also think that maybe if i sell an item or i get any extra work that will go into my savings account rather then on the bills that way when i take a look at my 'operation saving account' as ive named it it wont look sodaunting either
what do you guys think?

[Smc]

All sounding good @outlander. 🙂

[outlander]

thanks @Smc
the credit card repayments are the biggest ones we are struggling to get on top with. when my nan passed away my pop kept using the credit card thinking it was his bank card with no repayments so the interest was sky high. ive had his card cancelled for about 4 months now so at least whatever we pay its taking it off the amount that's owed without having interest however theres around 5000 to still pay back most of which is interest (ridiculous hey!

[Smc]

Ouch. I think I remember you mentioning about the credit card. 😞

I don't know if anything can be done, but maybe ask Centrelink if they can refer you somewhere for financial counselling. Given that your Pop effectively ran up a credit card bill by mistake, and possibly wasn't mentally competent enough to realise what he was doing, I wonder if there might be compassionate grounds for asking for some or all of the interest charged to be reversed? No promises, but could be worthwhile at least finding out.