THE MONEY – WORK EQUATION

By Monique Nickalls.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?” Money in reality is a very scarce commodity, one that has to be worked for. On the other hand, it is all too easy to spend! And every dollar you spend is a dollar that you have worked hard to earn.

It stands to reason then that if you don’t spend as much, you don’t need to earn as much (or work as hard). It is very possible to keep up a great lifestyle by making small changes to your spending habits. After my husband and I both started new businesses from scratch about 18 months ago, without either of us having other work or income, I have to admit I have become a fantastic budgeter and probably a bit of a scrooge. But you know what, it feels good! I know living on a shoestring budget can be done, and it really isn’t that hard at all.

One influence I have had is that I always remember my grandmother saying that she didn’t believe the wife in a family needed to work – it was her job to budget, live within means, and look after the children and the household. Obviously times have changed a lot but I have always admired my grandmother and her belief in budgeting at home so she didn’t have to work, and so my Grandfather didn’t have to work as hard if she was a big spender.

So I thought I might share with you some of the things that have worked for me, and allowed us to start and grow our businesses without needed other outside work. Because the money I was running the house with was minimal, it literally meant our personal income could be minimal too without us having to go into debt.

1. The first thing to do is change your mindset. Every time you go to buy something, think do I really NEED that or do I just WANT it. Remember your priorities, and if you don’t really need it, don’t buy it.

2. A big change I made was the frequency of grocery shopping. I went from doing a big shop once a week to shopping every 2 or 3 weeks. Buy homebrand or the cheapest brand. Then budget in between for items like bread, fruit and veg, and maybe meat.

3. Buy in bulk and divide it up to store or freeze. Also cook in bulk and freeze left-overs.

4. An old trick when cooking on a budget is to pad out meat with vegetables, legumes, rice and pasta. This does work, and you can feed a family and have left-overs with about 500g of meat.

5. You can find some of my family and budget friendly recipes at my blog: http://yourcheekymonkey.blogspot.com/search/label/recipes

6. Try not to buy take-aways or lunches out. Preparing your food at home saves hundreds of dollars. Include in this drinks.

7. Don’t buy yourself any new clothes or shoes (or anything else) in your budgeting time-frame.

8. If you do need to buy clothes, especially for your children, go over the sales racks in the shops or purchase second hand.

9. For a bit of extra income, sell items around your house you no longer need or want – I used ebay or the local paper to advertise.

10. Try and save on your power bill by turning off anything in use and minimise things like air-conditioning and the clothes dryer. Same with the telephone bill – minimise outgoing calls and texts.

11. Keep expensive activities and outings with the kids to a minimum. Try crafts at home, nature walks, playing in the garden, going to the beach or for a picnic, dancing to music etc.

12. Just be conscious of what you are spending and where – pay your bills first, and realise that any luxuries are on your wish list for the time being!

Finally, in summary, I would like to leave you with one of my favourite sayings to ponder by Coco Chanel – “There are people who have money and people who are rich”.

 

Monique Nickalls JP (Qual) BSc (hons) Dip Prof Couns., is the Owner of Your Cheeky Monkey www.YourCheekyMonkey.com.au where you will find gorgeous handcrafted products for Mums, Bubs & Kids.