Allowance

On Monday, May 5th, I'll be going back to work after 15 weeks of maternity leave. I'm a bit excited and worried at the same time. My return to work only means that my baby is about 7 weeks away from a stranger's child care. But that's another story.

During my leave I realized that I needed to give myself an allowance, just like my husband. He gets $150 for 10 days of work, or exactly 2 weeks. That's $15/day. While I can give myself the same, I feel that $15/day would be a bit much especially now that I plan to regularly pack our lunches. Plus of course having a baby increases our expenses. So I have decided on $10/day.

I can almost hear you say "Why does he get $15 and you don't?".

Well...I'm the financial manager, and that only means I control the moolah in this family. I have access to everything! *Devil's grin*

Seriously, though, that's true. J receives his allowance in his checking account. He does not even know when pay day is because he lives off on his allowance pretty much. He has access to everything too but not really into the details unlike me.

So, the question is, is $10/day enough? What is your daily allowance, may I ask?

End of month review: April

This month went by fast. Too many things seemed to have happened. For a quick review, which is really for my own visual sake, here's a rundown of things.

• Term Deposit - It matured and earned $16.96 at 8.45%. As planned, the $1,000 is invested in mutual funds instead of invested in term deposit again. $750 went to cash fund and $250 went to a multi-sector type. Cross fingers that I'm doing the right thing here!

• Credit Card Debt - Unfortunately we incurred a significant amount this month for the wedding dinner reception, but it's alright. It's one of those expenses that was worth it, a lovely evening spent with family and friends.

• Baby - Our boy is drinking more formula nowadays and I'm trying to produce some more milk. He is just a little less than 3 months old but can finish a big can of formula in 2 weeks or less. My breast pump also broke and I decided to get a new one. We got it for $99 at Moore Wilsons! That's cheap compared to Baby Factory and Baby Star where they sell for $115! And you'd think you'd get a good deal at specialty shops. Huh.

• KiwiSaver - Finally, J's retirement fund had kicked in! I also submitted my application this month and our baby's KiwiSaver is underway. We'll contribute $50 a month to the baby's KiwiSaver, and keep contributing $50/month to the baby fund. Our baby will be all set by the time he's 18!

So much more to plan for this May, one of which is child care. According to our budget, we can afford it but of course we're hoping to get one for cheaper. Can you imagine paying for as much as $320/week for child care?! Whoa!

Simplifying our finances

This post was inspired by Gather Little by Little's post on the same subject.

What's funny about it was to find out how similar we are in managing our finances. I'm in the IT industry myself and there is really something about analyzing a given scenario and thinking of simple ways to improve or solve something.

Here are the similarities GLBL guy and I share:

• Online Bill Pay - This is the most common way of paying bills here in NZ. I don't set up automatic payments because it costs money, like $2 each set up, and also because I know when our bills are due. I take pride in paying off our bills all the time.

• Use Excel for budgeting - I created our budget spreadsheet using MS Excel and uploaded it on Google Docs. This way my husband and I can update it anywhere. Since we have a straightforward budget strategy, using Excel or Google Docs is already adequate. I tried to switch to software-based financial tool and spent hours trying and reviewing them, but ended back to just using a simple spreadsheet. I didn't have to shell out money to get organized, hence savings.
  

• Debit Cards - We use a zero-fee-on-electronic-transactions EFTPOS card. It's easy to track our spending with this, and while I'm at it I also update our spreadsheet to reflect transactions as soon as they are made. I'm pretty good about doing this. I'm a maniac for organization!

• Budget meetings - J and I talk regularly about our finances. I initiate the discussion because J is not about the nitty gritty of things, and mainly because he trusts me. :)

• Don't receive paper statements - We stopped our checking accounts paper statements because that was an additional $3.50 per month. I wish we could do the same for our credit cards but I suppose that has its purpose. We recently found out that we could sign up for paperless bills for our electric bill as well. Awesome!

• De-clutter - I guess you could say that when I started having strong interest in PF, it triggered the de-cluttering much needed in our lives. It was not because we lived a disorganized life but it just got us sorted, you know? Now I have a better idea of what we'll financially be in a week, a month, a year, and that is good. No second guessing, or hoping, or wishing.

What about you? What's your strategy for simplifying your finances?

Bills, etc

It's not winter yet here in New Zealand but it's getting chilly, hence the need to start using heaters. As my few readership know, my folks are here until next month and coming from a tropical country they are freezing at 15C already.

As soon as our orders (1 tiny and cute furnace and 1 oil heater) arrived, they were put to good use. The furnace runs from late afternoon until around 10PM. My folks use an electric blanket running all night and sometimes the furnace to push the cold air out of their room. We use the oil heater but lately have started using the furnace as well.

Last billing cycle, I was surprised that our bill was less than $100. It was usually between $110 and $120. I kinda knew something would surprise me. And it did! Our current bill is at its highest this year at $200! I was expecting around $150, but well, it's cold and there are 5 people living in our home at the moment.

I forgot to blog about our breadmaker purchase. I love that invention! We make our own breads now but I'm not sure if I can justify the electric usage. Baking one requires at least 3 hours of electricity. When I read the increase of basic commodities though, I feel that justifies it in addition to eating home-made bread - warm and yummy!

When J read about the rice price hikes a month ago, we immediately decided to buy 2 25kg bags. A few days before that we bought a 25kg bag as well, which went directly to our rice box. I know it can sound excessive to non-rice eaters but to me, a rice eater, it's not. Good thing rice does not spoil.

Oy! All these price hikes and troubles all over the world! I really wonder what it will be like in 10 years time. Maybe we should really get ourselves a house soon. I mean the interest we computed for is in today's dollars. It's not like $400,000 today still has the same value in 25 years time.

Whatchathink?

Housing

Now that J and I are parents, it's easier to get more interested in getting our own home. Renting can be tiring especially when you can't do anything in the property besides clean it. I've been thinking about getting myself a bag hanger and I instantly think of the type attached to the wall. Since we are not allowed to make holes in the walls, my only idea left is to get a coat rack, which will cost us more.

Anyway, we have been looking on TradeMe and several real estate websites. Last Monday we went to visit a house on sale. It was a good house - sun all day, great heating system, glazed windows, nice neighborhood - but it was a bit small. It would not allow us to re-arrange because of its compact built. We were also asked to possibly make an offer the next day. As if.

We slept on it and the next day we realized certain things we didn't like about it. You could say we talked ourselves out of it. For one, it had 2 bedrooms and the smaller one was only half of the other. We are not talking big here as the house is only about 70sqm. Now it would be fine to have the baby sleep in the smaller room but it would not be comfortable for when he's a teenager. It has no bath and J has been enjoying baths more, and our baby is showing signs of love for the water as well. It's a townhouse and I'd feel much better buying a detached unit.

While we are still looking at houses we are also looking at our current financial status. Realistically it is not feasible because we don't have enough savings for a down payment that would save us from huge interests in the long run. I'm appalled to have found out that a 25-year $350,000 mortgage on 9.5% interest could mean around $480,000 interest we'd pay should we opt to get 100% financing! Ack!

I also looked for mortgage financing online apart from banks and found Fundit - a site for borrowers to receive bids from lenders who would want to offer financing. We've just submitted an application and heard back from them today. We'll see what happens.

KiwiSaver

As we were walking to our car to go home after giving birth to my son, a stranger beamed at us for having a newborn and told us to start his KiwiSaver. I really did not realize that I could do that for a minor, but I'm in the process of completing the information to apply for his KiwiSaver.

In January, J had applied for his but it was only this month that his first contribution got deducted from his salary. It would take 3 months before IRD releases information regarding his his 3-month contributions together with the one-off $1,000 government kick-start. My application was recently sent in the mail. The reason for the delay was the review I did of the providers and of which scheme I'd like to invest in. I decided on ING's Lifetimes option. I'm going to invest our baby's KiwiSaver with ING as well.

Staying positive

Wow, 2 more sleeps and it's pay day once again. What I'm excited about is the fact that we have managed to keep our net balance in the positive side this pay period. This just means that none of the incoming income will go straight to overdraft payment. Yay to us!

For the past 3 pay periods (or 6 weeks, 1 pay period=fortnight), we have over drafted. Though they were between $100 and $200, every dollar counted during that time because I was only earning maternity benefits. What was different about this pay period is simply spending less. It helped that this pay period did not carry our monthly dues as well. Being disciplined this period will hopefully get us back again on track, which is having positive net balances.

Much as I want to snowball our current net balance to one of our CC debts, I had already made plans to run errands tomorrow. One of which is to apply for a marriage certificate that costs $26. I will also mail out my KiwiSaver application tomorrow. Finally I got it all ready! It's about time I do it.

In less than 2 weeks I'll be back to work and will earn regular income again. I'm also excited to find out how much my increase will be this year. Last year I got ~3% after only 2 months in the job. So this year it will have to be more than that because I know I did well. Despite all the future income increases, there is not much room for blow money because we now have a child.

We've also been looking into the property market more closely this time. Ooh, mortgage. We made our first visit to a house on sale but that will be another post.

Surprise! Surprise!

This morning I surprised my parents with the news that J and I bought them return tickets to a 3-day holiday in ChristChurch. Surprise! I got the what-were-you-thinking reaction. Nice.

It was the cheapest air fare we could find ($242 for 2 adults) so you could say it wasn't bad. The idea is that we wanted to thank them for their amazing help to us during our first months of parenthood by treating them to a short holiday in South Island. My dad is not the traveling kind. He likes to stay at home. My mom would go so long as dad goes, but she does not seem to give me the indication that she would try to convince dad. I don't even know why they won't consider. Even accommodation will be paid for. Good thing we have not confirmed our reservation on their hotel yet; Otherwise, we'd have spent more.

If they truly decide not to go, there is nothing we could do to get our money back. We can't even transfer the air fares to our names, so that we could at least enjoy the spent money. I'm annoyed, frustrated, and disappointed.

This is the joy of giving.

$1 Hotel Rooms

Hey, look at this. It says $1 a night.

$1 Rooms in New Zealand

I tried it but I've gotten 3 steps further and didn't see $1. Uhm.

Not possible I think

After posting the last entry, I realized that it might not be possible to bring down our credit card debt to $6,400 this month after looking at our financial spreadsheet. We can only afford to put $150 to CC debt for the next half of the month. So to rectify it the new April goal is to bring down debt to ~$6,600.

My plans keep changing and I'm sure nobody would miss that. One example is to invest 25% of the Term Deposit ($250) in some new fund instead of in the No Purpose (Yet) Savings. Our only investment is mutual fund and we want to diversify bit by bit. I'll have to choose one from the many funds available first and build it up to $1,500 the way we will with the first one, hence $750 from the Term Deposit maturing end of this month. I had planned on putting that much for every fund we decide to invest in. I get impatient to get wealthy! :)

Small steps at a time

A part of me decided today to break down goals into smaller parts, and in order for me to achieve small goals I had to break down our assets. So there, in the sidebar are the digits of what we actually have. The goals I added are just randomly thought of.

We've decided not to re-invest our term deposit but will put 75% of it to our investment (mutual fund) and the rest to our no-purpose-yet savings.

The main goal at the moment is to eliminate debts!!!

April goal: Bring down credit card debt to $6,400.

Wedding, gifts, budget

We received 4 gift cards with a total of $325, $100 of which was actually not a wedding gift but a thank-you gift to J at work. 3 of the gift cards are from Farmers and 1 from Freedom. I can't think of what to spend them for yet. Maybe it would be good to save them for much later, but I get excited. :)

We paid less than a thousand for the dinner and that made J happy. Not everybody made it though which was a little disappointing because as immigrants to NZ, and new to the country (2 years soon), we have very few friends to invite and celebrate special occasions with.

J and I enjoyed our wedding dinner reception. It's during moments like that that makes my financial worries go out the window even for a while. However, I'd like to note that since my previous post about deciding not to worry about finances as much as I did, I have been good about following through. Today though I thought about possibly having a weekly budget for grocery between $100 and $150. It just might work if we try to. Uhm. We have been spending roughly $300 for 2 or 3 weeks and it kind of pans out in the same way if I decide to micro manage it on a weekly basis.

I forgot to note that we had a decline in electricity bill since my parents have lived with us. It's strange but I'm not too surprised since my parents are frugal. They have been adamant about taking advantage of sunshine in drying clothes instead of using the dryer. I think that that contributed greatly to our electricity savings. They also don't like to eat out if they can help it although at this time of their lives they can choose splurge all they want and yet they don't.

We received 3 non-cash presents that I planned on keeping for a while until needed or until we have our own home and have a few new items to use/display. However J decided that he liked them used now and opened them and threw out their packaging. So now we have a vase that sits on our dining table that has nothing in it. We have decided to put colored marbles in it but I don't know where to put it that would look pleasing.

Battles of interests

This is perhaps the only battle that I enjoy because it is to our advantage. There is an ongoing battle of online call account interest rates happening here in NZ.

For 2 months in a row, RaboPlus increased their online call account interest rate to 8.35%. This month, PSIS raised theirs to 8.40%. We have accounts with both banks!

Deals we enjoyed in NZ

We are going to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of our move to NZ this year. Hubs and I have our likes and dislikes about living here, but our most liked are the deals we've taken advantage of.

Fuel discounts
We love this! When you spend a certain amount (I think at least $40) at supermarkets, you get the fuel voucher. During Easter, Pak'N'Save gave out 20 cents off per litre! Most of the year you'd perhaps get something between 4 and 10 cents.

The Deal
We have gotten pretty good deals from this website. The latest to boast are the 2 new heaters for less than $200, and they are really functioning well.

Entertainment Book
Hubs and I wined and dined at a few fancy places and enjoyed great take-aways and got awesome discounts, thanks to Entertainment Book. I said "few" because it stopped during my pregnancy. I was sensitive in the first trimester and then we just sort of forgot all about it. It's annually renewed and now that it's expiring soon, we felt a sense of urgency to maximize it. Unfortunately we are in the process of altering our entertainment expenses and can't really do this. Books vary from location to location and cost $55 here in Wellington. I suggest you try it out!

Grab a Seat
Cheap flights that you must grab once available. This website was the reason why we ended up traveling to Sydney. We got it for very cheap, inclusive of taxes and fees, not to mention how much fun we had knowing we got a great deal.

HooHaa
I get paid for receiving SMS alerts. 10 cents per message. The messages are not only about marketing but it also gives out info on great deals around town, such as $6 all day parking place in CBD. But the messages don't come often. Expect 1 message per month, but that should increase over time now that they have started with their TV adverts. Get your 10 cents now!

Sale, sale, sale
It's the strangest thing, but I'm not one to complain, that sales here don't seem to ever end. There are so many reasons to go on sale, it's like a celebration of some sort. Season Sale, End of Season Sale, Easter Sale, Boxing Day Sale (that runs for a week or so), etc. I can't keep track!

I'm sure there are tons out there that we have not discovered yet. When we are keen to be out and about for socializing and enjoying what the city has to offer, we usually check Wotzon. If you are planning to move or to travel to NZ, you're in for fun!

My Debt Frustration

As you can see in the right panel, the credit card debt bar is now gone. I've decided to remove it because it was useless to move back and forth adjusting it. We are still using our credit cards to accumulate more debt. What's the point, right? Unlike our car loan, student loan, and hire purchases (TV and lounge) that are decreasing steadily every month, our credit cards go up and down. It's still a goal to pay off credit card debt this year but at this time I'm just getting frustrated with its lack of systematic deductions.

The other night I told J that I will stop stressing about paying off debts because we are doing something about it and I will be back to work soon, which means I'll be back to earning my regular salary. In 3 months, we are again up for salary reviews and I know that we'll get our increases. We are paying debts little by little. We are not hopeless.

I also worked out tax-related questions today and found out that I'll get a refund of $1,024. Windfall!!! I also made the decision to channel all that money to our car loan payments.

So it still looks like our goals will be met by the end of this year. Yay to us!

I Do, You Do Spending

Spending can be out of control and at this time of our lives, I feel that I'm to be blamed because I'm the main financial admin in my family.

Just a short couple of weeks ago, we have 2 of 3 of our credit cards paid off. Now those 2 have balances again. The balances are wedding related:

Rings
$611 for the pair

Clothes + Shoes
After trying on some of my still unused clothes, I decided to shop for a skirt to match a black and white chinese-collared blouse. When I got to the shops, I instantly considered possibly going for a dress if I have to. So I ended up buying a long cardi dress and a corset-like dress (or girdle?) for a total of $160. I went to the shop next door for a new pair of black heeled shoes for $99.95. Had our dog not destroyed my (only) previous pair last winter, I would not have bought a new one. I got to have a black pair!

Celebrate marriage
After getting hitched, we went to a nearby pub and had bubblies and munchies. $148. There's the delayed wedding dinner reception on Saturday night for 20 people at $50 each, drinks not included. That means we'll pay at least $1000. I will wear something I already have.

Winter
It's getting cold here in NZ and we planned to get heaters for the upcoming winter since spring last year. So we just did. Cost $140 (I think. J did it recently and has not reflected yet.).

All the items mentioned were and will be charged to either of the previously zero-balance credit cards. More debts to pay! Darn it. I don't want to use whatever's left of our savings because we had already touched it to pay off the 2 plastics over the last 3 months. This time we really need to step up with minimizing spending.

On the good side of things, the HDD DVR (DVD Recorder) is already posted on TradeMe. Within minutes it already received its first bid of $50. We're hoping to sell it for at least $350. Here's the auction.

Plan: Get rid of the extras

One of the many things I love about my husband is that he listens to my money rants. Maybe because he's very involved in that aspect of our life, or maybe I just manage to start the discussion when he's most interested in that topic.

There is probably no chat before bedtime that I didn't once mention my dire want to pay off our debts. J is a relaxed person and takes on life as it comes, whereas I worry when things start to slip out of my control. It's hard to go to sleep, like tonight, thinking about ways to lessen our debt sooner.

Earlier tonight we came up with possibilities with mostly selling unnecessary stuff.

HDD DVR - It was a mistake buying this item, as J said. He thought it would perform like Tivo. We will definitely try to sell this on TradeMe and I hope somebody would buy it. It was bought for $700 and was hardly used. I'd consider offers from $350.

iMac - After purchasing this, our beat up old PowerBook was replaced through insurance and now we have 2 computers. I thought of selling the iMac because I think we can manage with just 1 computer. I'm still not decided though. It is my first, and probably only, Apple computer. I don't think I'd plan on getting a new one in another 3 years or more. Let's park this item for now. If I were to sell it though, I'd consider offers from $800.

Land line - J brought up possibly getting rid of our home phone because we can manage with using our cell phones. I know that's a smart move but I think having a land line comes in handy. I still have to sit down one day and write down all the positives and negatives about having a land line. We can also sell our phone units as well. Cell phone bills wouldn't really go up because we don't really call people.

Digital TV - Uhm. I suppose we could get rid of it. If I wanted movies we could easily rent them, or maybe download them off the internet. This plus the land line would mean a good deduction to our monthly bills. We hardly go to the cinema to watch movies. Maybe in a year, we go 3 times.

Those are the things we could live without. We don't have a lot of junk. Maybe once the baby is bigger we can start getting rid of some of his things. Speaking of which, I'm glad that after spending 45 minutes at Baby Factory today, I didn't buy anything! I was close to buying 2 clothes and a mobile but decided against them after being practical about toys. They have a lot of items on sale again. However, I did some shopping for myself but I'll post about that separately.

It's time to get some sleep!

We're not doing so bad after all

I've read many a blog about paying off debts. I've come across bloggers that are halfway through paying off debts. It was just today when I came across a blog that has just started paying off debts.

DebtBeater has around $262,000.00 of debts and six children!!!

When I read his blog, I was carrying my baby and I felt that we definitely can leave our debts behind in a very foreseeable future. I guess being a mother made me stress more about debts and wanting to have a home of our own. I mean we are making very good progress with debt payments and it's not as much as $200,000. I should just strive to reach our goals and be positive!

Some guys get all the luck

There are actually 2 lucky people - me and J.

Why me? The other day, a cold rainy day, I decided to brave it and mail our wedding dinner invites and deposit a cheque into J's account. On our way back home (I was with my mom), my passport accidentally fell out of my raincoat. Why I had it with me? It was actually in the bag I was carrying that day and when we bought a couple of big sized things we decided to put them in the bag. I wanted to protect my passport from getting crushed so I put it in the inner pocket of the raincoat I was wearing. The raincoat was J's and I didn't know that the inner pocket wasn't stitched at the bottom. So yesterday I got a call from an old man named Tim and met him at McDonald's Newtown. I was convinced that it was damaged from the rain but to my surprise it wasn't! I was already calculating how much it would cost us to replace my passport and the returning resident's visa in it ($220 in fact). I am so lucky I got it back in perfect condition!

Why J? His dad decided to give him his 1964 Series 1 E-Type Jaguar Convertible! Wow! He has loved it since he was 5 years old. Sweet as. :)