Monday, 20 June 2016

Money Monday....Budgeting app!

Today for Money Monday I wanted to share with you the budgeting app that we use. In our budget we literally account for every dollar that we spend. For example if we go shopping and the kids want donuts (their favourite shopping treat), then that $6 gets documented. We are on a exciting journey to become debt free, so we have put together a budget that fits not only our income but also our goals.

Although I love all things budgeting, I’m too busy to use any system that is really time consuming or complicated. This app that I found earlier this year is a little bit like an electronic envelope system. We personally don’t deal in cash a lot, so it works fabulously for us. One thing that we don’t use this app for is our bills. You definitely can put them in, but we have all our bills come out of a bills account, that an allocated amount of money gets put into every week. So for us, we use this app for all spending money.  Because we like to keep things really simple & un-complicated, we only use 3 categories:
*Groceries – Records all our grocery spending
*Petrol –Records our petrol
*Entertainment & Eat out – Records all of our spending that does not fit into the above 2 categories and is not a loan or bill. So that is everything from clothing, shoes, birthday presents, Christmas presents, holidays, house renovations, take out etc, etc.

The app is called "Track My Spend" by ASIC's Money Smart.
Here are some pictures of the app (these are images from the net, so are not my personal information),  which will help me explain all the different features.

Along the bottom of the app, you have 5 tabs...Expenses, Summary, Favourites, History & Settings. Head to the Settings tab and you will come to the above page. This is where you enter your spending cycle, Spending limit (where you can enter amounts for each category) and a few other details. Once that is set up, all you need to do is enter the details when you make a purchase.

The Expense tab (pictured above left) shows how much you have spent in total and how much you have left in your budget overall. When you want you add a purchase, go to the expenses tab and hit the "add new expense" button and you will be directed to the picture below. After you enter the amount & description, you choose the category that it was spent from. If you want to see how much you have spent in each category, head to the summary tab and you will see a page like the one pictured above on the right. It shows you how much you have spent out of each category and how much you have left. 



The History tab lists all the things that you have purchased in date order and also includes the category that it was spent from.

And that is it in a nutshell. It is super easy to use and having it on your phone is very convenient. 

This app is free to download, so why not give it a try and see if it works for you!

Kylie xx

Monday, 13 June 2016

Money Monday's...Is your clutter costing you money??

The other day I went into the garage to put some next size up clothes into a storage box that I have for my littlest munchkin. It’s a massive box because I never say no to second hand clothes that my friends and family are getting rid of.  I know exactly where the box is and it is the only box of clothes I store in the garage....well so I thought! I found another box. Knowing that I am not someone who would keep 2 massive boxes of the same size clothes, I started to go through it. I was so disappointed! All of the clothes were the size that she is wearing now or she has already grown out of. Some were gorgeous clothes that her big sister had worn. They had been passed down to both my nieces and have come back again. They were my absolute favorites! And then there were gorgeous brand new clothes that I had bought while I was pregnant with her, still all with the tags on. The entire box was all things that I had completely forgotten about and all things that I had paid to buy again because I didn't realise that I had.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me. I have forgotten about clothes that I owned and bought more. I have wasted money on food because my fridge is so messy that I can’t see what is at the back and things get lost and then need to be thrown out. Then there is the furniture and storage systems that I have paid for to house all my stuff. And I know for a fact that I am not the only person that lives like this. So it got me thinking...How much does clutter cost people??

Here are some statistics I found....

* Planet storage reported 
 - We wear 20% of the clothes that we own 80% of the time.
- The average person spends 12 weeks a year looking for items they own but can’t find.  
- Eliminating Clutter cuts housework by 40% in the average home!
- A typical house contains $1600 worth of unused clutter.

*Harris Interactive reported that 23% of adults say they pay bills late (and incur fees) because they loose them.

*Agency Sales magazine reported that 80% of what we keep we rarely use.

*The State of Waste of Australia reported that up to 40% of the average household garbage bin is food. For The average Australian household $1,036 of food is thrown away each year.

It is pretty clear that clutter costs time and money.  
Do you have too much clutter? What is your clutter costing you??

Kylie xx




Thursday, 9 June 2016

Soft Sugar Cookies

Yesterday I made a sugar free cake for my sister’s birthday. It was terrible!! I mean seriously bad lol! We all had a good laugh about how bad it was. Clearly I don't have a  knack for baking without sugar!  Anyway, the cake (that got thrown in the bin) needed 12 egg whites….That’s right, 12!!!! So I then had 12 egg yolks I needed to use. So I went on the hunt for some recipes. I was trying to find things that used more than 1 egg yolk, otherwise I was going to be cooking all day!! I tried 3 different recipes…one was shocking (homemade mayonnaise), one was ok (breakfast burritos, but I used Turkey mince & I didn’t love it) but the other 1 turned out great. To make up for the disgusting no sugar cake,  I made naughty but very delicious “soft sugar cookies”. Butter...yum! Sugar...yum! So without further ado, here is the recipe….

Ingredients:
* 2 ½ cups plain flour
* ¾ tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 160g butter, softened
* 1 ¼ cups sugar
* 3 egg yolks
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* ¼ cup sugar, for rolling


Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2.  In a large bowl, cream together butter & sugar until combined.
3. Add egg yolks & vanilla extract and mix till combined.
4. Add flour, baking powder & baking soda and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix it.
5. Roll into balls (I got 42) and roll in the remaining sugar.
6. Place onto lined baking trays and flatten slightly with palm of your hand.
7. Cook for 15 minutes or until the tops of the cookies slightly crack.
8. Store for up to a week in an airtight container.

Enjoy the rest of your day,
Kylie xx





Sunday, 5 June 2016

Money Monday's - Christmas Savings Plan

 If you haven’t already started saving for Christmas, then now is the time. Christmas is the time of year when a lot of people start making extra purchases on their credit cards because they haven’t factored in the cost of Christmas to their budgets or they just get caught up in the spending frenzy. The shops LOVE you but you start the New Year with extra debt!  There is 29 weeks till Christmas. This 26 week savings plans will have you save $663 by the last week of Nov/1st week of Dec. Just in time for you to do gift and food shopping. Or if you’re one of those people (Like me) that purchases presents throughout the year, it could be some extra money to do some fun things with your family over the Christmas season.
The plan starts this week but at the low amount of $13.

Week Starting
Deposit
Balance
5th June
13.00
13.00
12th June
14.00
27.00
19th June
15.00
42.00
26th June
16.00
58.00
3rd July
17.00
75.00
10th July
18.00
93.00
17th July
19.00
112.00
24th July
20.00
132.00
31st July
21.00
153.00
7th August
22.00
175.00
14th August
23.00
198.00
21st August
24.00
222.00
28th August
25.00
247.00
4th September
26.00
273.00
11th September
27.00
300.00
18th September
28.00
328.00
25th September
29.00
357.00
2nd October
30.00
387.00
9th October
31.00
418.00
16th October
32.00
450.00
23rd October
33.00
483.00
30th October
34.00
517.00
6th November
35.00
552.00
13th November
36.00
588.00
20th November
37.00
625.00
27th November
38.00
663.00

Enjoy Saving!


Kylie xx