Financial Matters

How was your Friday the 13th? Mine’s been lovely. I spent some time with my nephew Jamie and his gorgeous mum Sunny. We went for a stroll along the water here where we live in Southport. The sky was deep blue with not a single cloud in sight; one of our first true winter-y days. Beautiful.

While managing money is definitely not one of my strengths (ex spend-aholic), I am slowly learning how to keep up with our finances. One of the best pieces of advice I have been given by an excellent accountant I know, was to decide who out of the two of us, would solely pay bills and manage the money. I’m sure a lot of couples out there can share this responsibility, and some couples just do their own thing and don’t share money or accounts. But for Shane and I, we were sharing money, sharing the responsibility of paying bills; and sharing the problems caused by that not really working out for us. We didn’t know who had paid what bill and this caused some late fees and frustrations.

Shane and I decided that as I have the extra time, it would be I who managed our money (I guess I drew the short straw here! Lol). It was tough at the start for me to have this level of responsibility on my shoulders, but I am slowly getting there. I think the biggest breakthrough for me, was when I realised in order to do this successfully, I needed to know exactly what was coming in, and what was going out (Duh!). I was curious to see just how much of our hard-earned money I was “fritting away” on Ahem, can I say crap in my blog?? Sure, it’s my blog.
So I kept a cute little notebook and pen in my bag at all times, and would write down every single dollar we spent while out. At the end of the week, I added it all up and basically, was shocked.

Needless to say once you know how much you earn, how much you spend, and how much, if any, you have left over to either save or pay off debt, life seems to become a whole lot more enjoyable, honest and (can I be a little Dr Phil here) REAL. I found I really needed to be down-right honest with myself about money and accept the fact that it is NOT acceptable to use the credit card for awesome new jeans and pretend that it is ok...

We still use a book to keep record of what we spend on shopping, food, bills and fuel etc, and this enables me to work out our budget. I actually enjoy it these days (especially getting out my cute little calculator), and I feel somewhat empowered.

I have already mentioned my trusty Bill List on a whiteboard near the kitchen. I use this to keep track of bills due. I also have another great thing in the house that keeps me organised with bills and general paper work to be filed. It’s a 3- tiered A4 size plastic container that stands up-right on the desk (will post photo. I got this from Officeworks). Each of the 3 tiers is labelled (naturally)- one is Bills to Pay; the next is Paper to File; and the third is Medical. As I am pregnant the Medical tier is relevant. In another stage of my life, this third drawer might become Outgoing Mail or such. I can imagine one day we might need another of these containers, for paper work such as School Notices. It does mean that I have to handle all my mail twice- into the container and then once it’s been “actioned” (for e.g. bill paid or school fete attended), into the filing cabinet or shredded (my favourite job!). Some Professional Organisers advise that you only handle paperwork once. But I don’t enjoy having to go to the filing cabinet every day; I find my system works for me.




Now if only I could get on top of rolling over my superannuation.... Suggestions anyone?? :-)Thanks for reading.

Organising in the Third Trimester

Today I've been working on yet another To-Do list, entitled "To-Do Before Peanut Arrives". There's quite alot on the list, and I'm sure it will grow over the coming weeks. While there's still about 8 weeks til baby Peanut is here, I know that this time will fly by and before we know it we will have this precious little person in our lives.

As the cold weather approaches, I will need to go through my winter clothes and find warm items that I fit now and will continue to be able to wear for the rest of my pregnancy. I'm a little apprehensive; I think this pile will be relatively small... which means I may need to borrow late-pregnancy maternity wear from friends or go op-shopping for some extra stretchy items. I don't want to spend alot of money on things I'm only going to use for a few weeks.

Next on the To-Do list is the dreary Centrelink and Medicare forms which will need to be done soon. In some ways I am a terrible procrastinator; especially anything to do with paperwork. When I was studying at university I would leave all of my written assignments til the very last, stressful minute (I worked better under pressure! or at least that was my excuse). Paperwork is still a challenge for me, it's something I really have to force myself to do. I try to get the tedious tasks such as these over and done with so I can move on to something more enjoyable. Like washing and sorting out the new gorgeous cloth nappies my MIL Rhonda gave us today, from http://www.beansproutbubba.com.au/

So, the list so far- winter maternity wear, paperwork, cloth nappies. Rhonda also gave us a toilet-fitting hose for hosing down the cloth nappies, so we will need to fit that onto the toilet tap. I think I will delegate that task to my husband.

I'm sure there's more to do than this though!! Do you have any suggestions? I would love to hear from expectant mothers what is on your "To-Do before Baby Comes" list. BTW we have already got the baby essentials- a cot, pram, change table, plenty of baby clothing, sling, baby bath, baby bouncer, and a whole lot more! I think we are fairly prepared in that department already :-)

I Love Lists

If you visit me at my home, you may find little lists all over the place. They may look random, but in fact they will be written and placed in very specific areas around the home. I have my meal planning list and groceries lists, on the kitchen bench. I have a list on the fridge of the meals I plan to make that fortnight (see my Meal Planning post). Granted, not all of you will have time to be this list-crazy. I am not working (although I do take my 'job' as house-wife, cook, cleaner, personal organiser to my husband, finances manager, and craftsperson, very seriously), so I do have the time to make all these lists that make our lives easier.

I have a list by my computer of websites and blogs to visit and read when I have time, otherwise I would forgot what it was that I wanted to read but didnt have the time. There's a list by my bed for those 'middle of the night cant sleep coz I have to remember to do that thing tomorrow' s. This crucial piece of paper and pen by my bed enables me to get a good night's sleep. I have my own To-Do list and I also create a To-Do list for my husband. My To-do is under my kitchen calendar, and Shane's To- Do is by his computer, where I know he will read it (no excuses! :-)) Shane is the bread-winner in our family at the moment, so I have taken on almost all of the other tasks around the home, but there are still things occasionally that I need him to do, like call Telstra to sort out an error of theirs, as this makes me very stressed ;->

Another essential list in our home is a 'Bills to Pay' list, on a small whiteboard mounted on the laundry door. I love this list, I can clearly see what bill I have to pay and when, and this prevents any late fees and helps me do our fortnightly budget (more on finances and budgeting another day!) I find once you are honest about how much money you have to spend that fortnight on bills, you are more likely to stick with your budget and not over-spend. And there's nothing more satisfying than wiping that bill off the white-board once its paid!!

Do you have lists around your home or do you just have a good memory? I'd love to know what you make lists of, and for.

Meal Planning

I am fairly new to the wonderful world of regularly cooking and preparing nutritious and yummy meals for my husband and myself. I'm not sure why it has taken til my early 30's to get into the rhythm of planning and cooking meals on a daily basis. I guess initially, it was due to the recent change in our finances and needing to cut back on our eating budget. We are expecting our first baby in about 8 weeks, and I haven't been working for most of the pregnancy. This was partly because my work is very physical, and partly because we have only just moved to the Gold Coast and I am yet to build up my client base (in professional organising) here.

So we have been living on one income, and this forced me to re-evaluate our spending and eating habits. I discovered it is much cheaper, and healthier, to cook at home every day. It took me a while to get used to this as Shane and I were accustomed to eating out regularly. He is a chef and while he is passionate about cooking, he rarely feels up to it in his down time. Fair enough too! Mind you he cooks me spectacular meals for a special treat now and then :-)

My biggest challenge with being the main cook in our home was coming up with new and exciting meals to make, and once I had, realising that I just didn't have the right ingredients in the pantry to actually make the meal then and there. So I decided to start meal planning. This was something I had read about in many organising blogs, and I was curious to try it.

This was a process I've learnt slowly and it is still evolving. I began by assembling all of my favourite recipes into a new recipe binder. I am lucky to have a vast library of amazing cookbooks thanks to my husband's passion, and I started reading through some that didn't seem as intimidating as others. (i.e. have you seen the book on current best restaurant in the world called Noma, in Denmark? I don't even recognise most of that as being food! Its more like art). A few non-chef-people-friendly books of my husbands that I love, are-

Neil Perry's 'Good Food'; Gordon Ramsay 'Makes it Easy'; the beautiful Maggie Beer's 'Maggie's Harvest'; and Matthew Evan's 'the Real Food Companion'.
I photocopy my favourite recipes from these and others, and compile them in my recipe binder. I also use magazines such as Woman's weekly, handed down to me by my mum, for recipe inspiration; and websites such as taste.com.au

Back to the meal planning. Every fortnight I sit down sometimes with my husband and sometimes on my own, and flip through my recipe binder. I usually like to plan around 10 - 12 meals for the fortnight. I find planning and shopping for a fortnight rather than for a week, much more time-efficient. When I cook, I try to make enough for the meal and also for another meal or two the following day. Sometimes I make a large meal such as spaghetti bolognaise and freeze portions which will last a long time. Good tupperware is essential for storing left-overs so we don't have to use too much gladwrap. (More on storing and organising your tupperware, a common complaint of my clients, in another blog another day!).

I make a list of groceries I need to create the 10 or so meals. I then organise the list into separate lists named by where we will purchase the ingredients. For example, we buy our meat and cheese and some dry goods such as organic tomato paste, from Aldi. Aldi have excellent quality Australian produced (very important!) meats such as Free range chicken, at excellent prices. A lot of people don't realise this, and I think a common mis-conception is that Aldi has mostly foreign produce. In fact, most of the produce especially the meat, fruit and veg, is Aussie. There are a few items that we have to buy from Woolworths much to our dislike. We buy A2 milk from Woolworths and also special cat food for our fussy little Princess (yes, that is actually her name!) and a few other things when we cant find them at Aldi. My biggest peeve with Aldi is the inconsistency, one week there'll be something fantastic and the next time you go, its no longer in stock. This doesn't happen very often luckily. They have a great range of organic items like spaghetti, tinned tomatoes and yoghurt.

We buy our fruit and veg from local markets. I highly recommend you try this, if you haven't already. I find the produce is not only cheaper, but stays fresher in the fridge much, much longer. This would be due to the fact that the stall holders buy the produce locally and sell it almost immediately, as opposed to the major supermarkets storing and freezing their produce for alarmingly long amounts of time.

So usually, I have one list for Aldi, one list for Woolworths and one list for the markets. Occasionally we will buy meat in bulk at a big meat supplier such as Patton's meats, as well.

I find this method of creating very specific lists and really sticking to them, very helpful and enables us to keep to our budget. It also creates a lot less wastage, as I know exactly what to do with what I have in the fridge! No more wondering "now what will I do with that half a cabbage" and then throwing it out the following week when its gone off.

It sounds like a lot of work, but believe me, it actually saves me time and stressful headaches caused by not knowing what to make for dinner. Its also much healthier as we can plan well balanced meals and create them quickly with ease, having all the right ingredients there. This prevents the "I'm hungry and want to eat now, so lets get take way" syndrome.

Also, just another point, I always try to make enough at the time for lunch or dinner the following day. Shane takes his left-overs to work with him, which saves us alot of money on bought lunches. I try to cook as much as I can at the one time, using the same boiling water for several vegies for eg, to also save on power. The oven and stove top can add considerably to your power bill, so its great to do things like steaming one type of veg over a pot of another veg cooking. Efficient, healthy and enviro-friendly cooking!

I hope this has given you some inspiration to try meal planning. I was a slow-starter but now that I'm there, there's no going back for me!