Make your Dollars go Further

What with high mortgage interest rates, petrol and food price rises and KiwiSaver contributions, pay packets don’t go as far as they did this time last year. These times are reminiscent of the 1980’s when newspapers and magazines were full of tips on how to save money.

Rummaging through recipe books one weekend recently, I came across an old pull-out recipe book from that era titled “How to feed a family on $100 a week”. Lo and behold, that same weekend a Sunday newspaper ran a story on “How to feed a family on $170 a week”. Well, I guess that’s inflation for you!

Now we have headlines about negative economic growth and TV news items about how to make your mince go further or cook a family meal for less than ten dollars. Shades of depression? We’ve had it so good for the last few years that we’ve forgotten how to cope when times are tough. Here’s a few tips to get you started on trimming your budget.

1. Decide what’s important to spend your money on. Separate wants from needs and avoid impulse buying.
2. Do grocery shopping once a week with a list, preferably when you are not feeling hungry!
3. Improve your health as well as your budget by giving up or cutting down on smoking, drinking, snacking between meals, frozen foods and fast foods.
4. Take your own lunch to work.
5. Grow your own green vegetables in between your flowers or in a container.
6. Don’t renew subscriptions for non-essentials such as satellite TV, magazines or memberships. You can always sign up again next year.
7. Save petrol by doing as many errands as possible in one trip to town.
8. Cut back on gifts. Your friends and relatives will appreciate you making the first move to spend less.
9. Stop using your credit card and transfer the balance to a low interest card.
10. Set aside a small amount of money each week to cover unexpected bills. One way of doing this is to put your coins into a jar at the end of each day.
11. Use several bank accounts to manage your money rather than having all your money go in and out of one account. Have one account for automatic payments and direct debits, one for household expenses such as food and power, and one for personal expenses such as clothes and entertainment.
12. If you’re not good at budgeting, get some free assistance from a budget adviser. For a list of budget advisers, see www.familybudgeting.org.nz. 

Reading through this list, you might think that budgeting is all about depriving yourself of things you enjoy. A budget should always have rewards in it as well. Yes, you may have to give up some things, but allow yourself to use part of your savings for something special, whether it be a celebratory dinner, a show, or a weekend away somewhere. It’s all about prioritisation, not deprivation.