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Browsing tag: money

  • November 23, 2009

    Spending roundup – Nov 22

    I worked on Saturday afternoon, so my weekend consisted of Thursday off and Sunday. We had lunch at Mercury Plaza and drove over to Mission Bay, where we were going to hire out a tandem bike and go for a ride, but decided not to because the weather was pretty crappy. On Sunday, we hit DressSmart and bought T a new wallet and me some new underwear, then he cooked up a huge roast and we had a group for friends over for dinner.

    $110 groceries, plus an anticipated $20 for lunches
    $47.60 eating out
    $83 for a full tank of gas (HAS to last us two weeks!)
    $28 for T’s wallet
    $6.50 for clothing

  • November 18, 2009

    Spending roundup – Nov 18

    $146 groceries (yep, a super pricey week. T bought a lot of lunch foods; I’m trying to get him to eat better, and eat more. He doesn’t eat breakfast and often skips lunch too. Is it any surprise he often has an upset stomach?)$146 groceries (yep, a super pricey week. T bought a lot of lunch foods; I’m trying to get him to eat better, and eat more. He doesn’t eat breakfast and often skips lunch too. Is it any surprise he often has an upset stomach?)
    $29 gas
    $20 brake fluid
    $30 to top his cell phone up (I earned a free topup through YourVoice this quarter, doing surveys)
    $18 on eating out
    $7 for eye drops
    $10 on a three-piece roasting/baking dish set
    $16 for two wicker baskets (we’ll be making up hampers for Christmas presents for our families)

    Also spent: $37 on pizza and drinks at Carpark, and $39 on a taxi to work on Sunday, both to be reimbursed.

  • November 18, 2009

    What my degree cost me

    800px-GraduationIt’s going to cost me $75 to graduate *splutter* what with all the graduation regalia I have to hire. I could just NOT do the ceremony…but I’m a ceremonial type. I like events. I like pomp and circumstance (well, within reason). I attended all school awards and prizegivings, went to our 2006 high school leaver’s dinner (paying something like $65 to sit at a table and eat dinner with my friends, ignoring the majority of the rest of our year whom I hated), did my best to be in every class photo and saved all my yearbooks. It’s our chance to be recognised for our work over the past three years and I’m going to be there, dammit!

    But I’ve been pretty lucky in terms of education costs. I had a scholarship which covered almost all my tuition over the three years – looking back in my records, I paid (out of pocket) just $1358. That’s $644 this year, $212 in 2008 and $182 for 2007.

    I got away with buying very few books – and got most of those secondhand. I’d say I spent under $150 on textbooks.

    Stationery I got a lot of from work for free – pens, reporter’s notebooks and the like. Let’s say I bought two folders and two pads of refill a year – that’s $36. I also had to buy a bunch of extra arty gear – special pens, paper etc for my advertising paper last year, which cost about $40. For photography, I used the old SLR I had from high school, but film and paper together probably cost me $250. I also bought a digital voice recorder this year, which to be honest, I’ve hardly used. Most of my interviews were done over the phone, and I never got around to getting a pluggy thing to connect it up…I could totally have got away without buying it. That cost me $120.

    Finally, bus fares. I would have had to bus into town for work anyway, but I’ll include it all. At 13 weeks a semester and two semesters a year, $27 a week (rounded) comes to $2106 over three years.

    So a rough total puts me at $2029 in directly related costs, plus $2106 in travel. That’s $4135, or roughly the cost of a year’s tuition alone. Can’t really complain.

    (My post on the cost of eating out is in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by M is for Money!)

    Photo / Quimbero

  • November 15, 2009

    Money talks

    They always say that you should never disclose how much you currently get paid to a potential new employer. Whoever names their number first in an interview loses the upper hand. And it also shows your lack of experience at negotiation. (I also thought this was an interesting comment from career consultant Kim Wendleton: “If the job is too low-level, don’t ask about the money, upgrade the job!”)

    I’ve been asked how much I make, twice. Both were for relatively low-paying, basic jobs. The first time I was absolutely stunned, and didn’t even consider lying. I was too shocked to be anything but honest, and ended up on a relatively low wage.

    The second time, I was also pretty taken aback, but perhaps a part of me was expecting it, as it was a new role and no doubt they had no reference as to what it was worth. I was pleasantly surprised at the offer they came back with, and got about what I thought the position was worth.

    Have you ever been in a situation like that?

  • November 14, 2009

    Going paperless

    I can safely say that the majority of the mail I get consists of bank statements. I chuck them on my desk and at the end of the month, file them away. (I’m getting better, I promise: I used to do it even less frequently! But in an effort to simplify and declutter, I’ve reorganised my desk and filing system).

    But I’ve been thinking: Should I stop my paper statements? I do all my banking online and don’t actually read the physical copies, because I’ve already seen it all. I keep them more for my records and in case I ever need to check something out – I’ve been told my bank only stores electronic statements for 12 to 18 months.

    What do you think? Do you still receive statements in the mail? And what if you need to confirm a transaction from, say, two years ago?

  • November 12, 2009

    Eating in vs eating out

    2745938812_1dc4cb6febDebt Hater and Fabulously Broke recently blogged about the costs of cooking at home versus eating out every meal. Honestly, I think eating out every day would be bliss – but it’s a luxury FB says gets old, fast, and sometimes you just want a simple basic meal instead of heavy, restaurant fare. Something I can totally understand.

    We spend around $120 a week on groceries for the two of us. Sometimes it’s more, especially when we get lots of fruit and veg. (This also usually includes bits and bobs like cleaning products and toilet paper). I have to admit, we’re usually out of food by the Saturday and eat breakfast and lunch out. But the $120, by and large, covers most of all our basic meals.

    If we were to eat out three times a day, it would cost us $294. That’s cutting it really low, too – I’m talking a pie or roll from the bakery for breakfast, and an average food court/fast food meal for lunch and dinner. It would probably also be enough for sushi, a salad or something similar at that price.

    Breakfasts – 14 x $3  ($42)
    Lunches – 14 x $9 ($126)
    Dinners – 14 x $9 ($126)

    Ouch! Dinners alone would be the equivalent of our weekly shop. I’ve thought about this topic a lot, but never actually sat down to crunch the numbers. Looks like it’s definitely worth it for us to cook and eat at home.

    (Just as a side thought: why are all the quintessentially NZ foods so greasy and fatty? Fish and chips, pies, sausage rolls…)

    Photo / midorisyu

  • November 10, 2009

    Weekly spending

    An extraordinarily spendy week…

    $9 – Saturday and Sunday breakfast
    $34.30 – eating out over the rest of the weekend
    $26 – two shirts, two singlets for T
    $11 – five pairs of socks for me
    $68 contacts (3 mo)
    $9.50 car battery terminals (overtightened and broke when BF was doing stuff with the sound system)
    $90 for groceries (woohoo! We went to the crazy expensive new New World in New Lynn as we were in the area, but shopped all the specials, and made out pretty well. The service is bordering on stalkerish- the trolley boy followed us from the door, across the carpark, and to the car. And they pack your bags for you. It’s great that it creates much-needed jobs, but I suppose that’s what jacks the prices up.)

    I also tweeted last week  about this phone that I was thinking of buying. It’s a very very basic one, with a touch screen, but it has a much better camera than mine and is a huge upgrade from my 4 year old Sharp GX17!

    T was also in need of a new phone – he’s been begging and borrowing other people’s castoffs for a few months now. And at half price, we figured this was a pretty good deal – ignoring the weirdness of us having the same model of phone.

    The time has never seemed right for me to get a new phone, but this felt as good a time as any.

    T already has his: I’m off to buy mine today. JB Hi-Fi was advertising it for cheaper than Vodafone itself (bless their hearts), so I’ll get it for $133 and hopefully sell the sim card pack for about $30. His phone cost $149, which he will pay back over the next few weeks. (He sold the sim card pack that came with it for $30, so that brings it down to $120).

    Also, I took part in my first carnival! It’s now up: check out the Carnival of Personal Finance #230 at Canadian Finance blog.


  • November 9, 2009

    The cost of living

    After posts from Well Heeled on drugstore foundation and Carrie on the cost of living, I was seriously jealous! $6 for a foundation? $5 for a weekday movie ticket? Kiwis, we’re being ripped off!

    I mean, Loreal and Almay foundations cost at least double in New Zealand, from what I can see. Movie tickets are $15.50 (except for Tuesdays), a round of bowling costs about the same. A beer at a bar is around $8. I’ve already covered food prices in a previous post. A fixed home phone costs at least $40 a month and in terms of broadband, I think the most you can get for another $40 is 5GB.

    I haven’t taken the exchange rate into account, but as far as I know, wages and salaries aren’t hugely different here. In fact, people often say the rates companies pay here is on the low side.

    I guess being a small country that’s REALLY far away from everywhere else, good are bound to cost more – to ship, etc. And at least we don’t have to tip when we go out!

  • November 8, 2009

    Should I or shouldn’t I?

    I’m thinking about signing up to Fatso. I’ve signed up with them before (had 2 free two-week trials) but always cancelled my membership before the grace period ended. I guess I just never rented enough movies/TV series to warrant it.

    But now my evenings and weekends are mine, all mine, and I have soooo many movies to catch up on – hopefully I can remember them all – as well as more Buffy, Mad Men (only seen two episodes), True Blood (none) Dexter (a couple) and maybe at some point when I’m REALLY bored, Gilmore Girls, because I definitely missed a lot of episodes towards the end.

    One of the things I hate most about borrowing DVDs  is late fees. We’re usually pretty good with returning DVDs (although, I wish video rentals were more like libraries – you can return books to any branch library, not just the one where you checked out the book!).

    But among T’s family, passing around movies is like a sacred tradition. He’ll get a DVD out, watch it, gush about it, and share it with his mother, sister, brother, whoever. And when money’s at stake, you just can’t rely on others.

    For example, his sister racked up a $42 fine on our tab (an overnight movie, returned a WEEK later), his uncle another $24 or so, and once a friend of his “forgot” that he had a game they hired  from Video Ezy – bam, $30 fine.

    So…I still have a bit of a fear of commitment, but it’s not like a contract; I can cancel at any time. So that just leaves me with the question: which plan?

    I don’t know how much I’m actually going to watch. I’m looking at four choices:

    • 2 DVDs a month for $9.95 (one at a time),
    • 4 DVDs a month for $15.95 (two at a time),
    • 6 DVDs a month for $21.95 (three at a time)
    • or unlimited for $27.95 (two at a time).

    There are two more unlimited packages which let you borrow even more at a time, but I KNOW that’s way overkill.

    Thoughts?

  • November 7, 2009

    From spender to scrooge: breaking down my habits

    Most of us struggle with frugality on a day to day basis. I know I’m no different. I may not have a “latte factor” that’s dragging me down, but one of my big weaknesses is food! I could easily eat out every meal, but my budget doesn’t stretch quite that far. Luckily, I think I more than balance out my spending on food with my more frugal habits.

    SPLURGES

    Food – I love to eat out, whether it’s greasy takeaways or restaurant meals!
    Travel – I rarely go on holidays, but don’t get me wrong – I wish I could. We usually manage a couple of days down at the snow every year, and the odd weekend road trip away. This year we also staycationed in hotels in the city twice (overnight), and I want to kickstart a travel fund so T and I can have a midwinter escape next year to a sunny Pacific island. (Tonga? Samoa? Whichever is the best deal at the time)
    Hair – I wash and condition every single day. I have limp, greasy lifeless hair – this is not optional.

    FRUGAL 85423657

    I don’t buy tupperware – I wash and reuse plastic takeaway containers
    I don’t dye my hair, get manicures, or go to spas
    I bring lunch almost every single day. That’s nothing to scoff at, either – I eat a lot!
    I never buy clothing at full price. And I often shop secondhand.
    I don’t drink coffee.
    I’m a voracious reader, but I always use the library
    I have a prepaid cell phone, which costs me a mere $20 a month.
    I don’t tend to go to concerts or events (barring Cirque du Soleil earlier this year)

    SUPER STINGY
    Confession: I sometimes water down our milk – after all, it’s almost 10 per cent of our total grocery budget and T goes through it like a baby on steroids.

    What about you? Or do you think some of my frugal ways are just plain scroogey?

    Photo / milki.c

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