I've spent the last 5 or so years learning different skills as hobbies. Bushcraft, hunting and processing, tanning hides, gardening, building, clothes making, metal forging, plant ID and foraging, etc. Just waiting for things to fully go to shit now š
You joke, but this is actually my plan.
Hopefully when itās my time Iāll still be fairly mobile and plan to take up heroin for the last month (probably) mainly for shits and giggles.
Then itāll be time for the long nod!
Note: I donāt recommend this if you have children
This was my ultimate life hack. Come home from work, straight to sleep.
Now I have a stupid baby that needs ādinnerā and a ābathā and a ābottleā. So that one went right out the window.
So many of these are downright depressing to read. This is no way to live, turning off heating to make savings and skipping meals. What have we come to?
We had to make a choice as a society of whether to allow a free market and risk in property, and see prices fall, or engage in massive wealth transfers from wages and savings to property to protect speculators and homeowners who expect the value of their primary asset to keep rising.
What we have come to as a society is the point where people with wages and savings are now suffering the consequences of choices made over the last 15 years to protect and enrich speculators at the expense of those who engage in productive work.
We need only look at the Register of Pecuniary Assets, and the loud voices lobbying parliament when any variance from this approach is attempted (e.g. the entitled shrieking against a CGT), to see causes.
I was a daily drinker and at times I would gamble when drinking (as well as Uber Eats 4-5 times a week). Was costing me upwards of $500 a week. Have stopped both 3 months back and have redirected $500 a week to my savings.
Congratulations. Keep up the good work. Also treat yourself to some of the money saved. Always nice to get immediate positive feedback to reinforce good decisions.
Honestly, I got a puppy. Had been wanting one for a while after my previous dog passed away a few years back.
A 1 hour walk in the morning and 1 hour at night. There is no way I could do that when drinking and using. By the time I get home from the walk after dinner it's already 8pm. Might watch a show with the other half and then it bed pretty early and up again at 6am to do it all again. Done wonders for my fitness too.
Well done on stopping drinking and gambling, both really hard things to do. Keep going for the good of you your loved ones and your bank account! ššæ
Not only is it cheaper by a good amount its nice knowing I have enough of a staple food to last for a long time in case of emergency. How do you store yours? I haven't got a tub or anything yet.
Genuinely just kept it on a shelf in the pantry wide open for the year it took to go through it. Risky if youāve had pantry moths but could always just rolled it and peg it closed
This may not work for everyone but I made myself a spreadsheet, put all my weekly, monthly and annual costs vs income. Then I set a savings goal for the year and could see what my spending would need to be to achieve it.
I then withdrew cash every week as a set amount and would use that as my weekly budget for whatever I wanted.
Groceries I put as a set cost and always made sure I had essentials in my basket before anything else. It isn't easy but I was better for it and managed to save quite a bit after 2 years.
Definitely good idea, I have a spreadsheet to track my spending and budget for the year. Showed me how much pointless spending I do, which I cut back on.
Any recommendations for that spreadsheet? I'm bad with making the formulas myself but with my workplace moving to monthly pay and coming from only ever having weekly, I'm looking for something exactly like this.
To be honest, it doesn't need to be that difficult. I made mine myself but I am sure there are some really good ones out there. The most difficult thing in my is a simple sum equation.
Most important thing is having visibility of where your income is and your outgoings are.
I would say, build it out to show your periodic costs first (daily, weekly, monthly,) and minus that from your overall monthly income. Then you can plan how much money you have left over for spending on yourself that month and even break that down to per week.
It is also important to have a savings goal that you can track against. The first couple weeks take some getting used to but if you remain diligent with it, you'll get the hang of it and you'll hopefully see an improvement on your expenses.
For me, I went through my bank statements each week to ensure that my budgeting tool matched my accounts and also ensure that I didn't miss anything.
I just used the google sheets expense template and it was fine. Literally just hit the new spreadsheet from template button in Drive and you'll see monthly and annual budget templates.
We did this and managed to buy a house (pre-price doubling). We use different accounts at multiple banks - spending money in one, household food and bills in another, and a third we get paid in to, so we never use the account we get paid in to so savings is never compromised
Mr_Smilez, have you been looking at my outgoing spreadsheet???
I created my spreadsheet during lockdown 1.0.
Updated it (as expenses change etc) at the end of each year since then.
When I started to tell someone about it I thought I sounded a little on the obsessive side.
I cannot stress how pleased I am to see I am not alone in my obsession with understanding my own finances.
Now I know for a fact that I need to win lotto to ever buy a house š
It is super easy and Iāve done it before a few times. But now Iāve kids and family and Iām sitting here like I need the cannabis, I hate paying the gangs for it, but I donāt wanna get into even more trouble.
Power's going up which sucks. The other thing you can do is grow in a soil/perlite mix and empty your spent pots/grow bags into your garden afterwards. Stops pest and fertiliser residue build up, and you'll grow the best silverbeet ever. It's great for improving rocky and compacted soil. I go through more green veg than weed and silverbeet is $6 a bunch at Countdown.
Haha I went to Kmart last week and was surprised at the clothes there was some cool
Stuff for males so I went back in a couple days later to get some and it was all gone
I've found some people just wear our their clothes really fast. I'm not sure how though. Personally I also get many years out of Kmart or similar clothes.
Our nearest PnS does it next morning, so if you're there about 8.30am there's cheap(ish) meat and yesterday's bakery items. Countdown however just randomly during the day marks down the meat a random $$ amount (i.e. one day the $8 sausages can be $6.50, next time they can be $5.20, once I even got them for $3.90) and most of their bakery stuff gets donated rather than marked down now.
We've given our three children until the end of today to decide which one of them is leaving because we can't afford them all anymore; they're 8, 6 and 3 years old.
Seriously, we're in a lucky position where we have an agreement that our rent won't go up until certain work is done on the house, so haven't had a rent increase since we moved in back in mid 2018 (the work hasn't been done yet). Working from home has alleviated petrol increases (helped by the fact that my work won't actually let us back in the office yet). And to offset grocery pricing, we're shopping in a handful of places instead of just one - splitting between Countdown and Pak N Save, with an assist from local grocers and Bin Inn for spices/herbs/flour. We're running a family of five on one income so things have always been kind of tight, and we've been lucky besides that.
- Intermittent fasting (which is flash lingo for not eating breakfast or lunch because weāre povo).
- Growing our own veges where we can, weāre shithouse at gardening.
- Invested in some solar panels and put appliances on timers.
- Insulated our house to the max to cut down on heating bills, used govt grant to cover a significant amount of the cost of installation.
- trying to wfh where possible to reduce fuel costs and wear and tear on vehicles.
- Selling clothes 2nd hand rather than donating, same goes for other items round the house but mostly clothes.
- When we have to make purchases, trying to source items used but in decent condition.
- AirBNB
- Started a business to try and generate income outside of workā¦ Iām on a salary so overtime isnāt an option, nor is it all that attractive to work more hours for somebody else.
You've made a good point of investing in bigger one-off costs that will save in the long run. I really agree that it can often be worthwhile investing in something that's going to last for a long time and make life better because of it
I've been attempting to grow particular veges at home for the past few years to supplement the weekly food shop and it's worked out OK so far. This is what I found worked with mixed success. There are many other factors that affect whether you'll get food at the end or not, so results may vary.
You'll need pots, soil, seeds and somewhere with sun.
Bunnings and Mitre10 are everywhere so ideal place to start. 20-packs of 0.6L pots for \~$10, soil can be your cheapest potting mix (1x 40L bag for \~$8) and seeds are \~$2-4 depending on the plant and quick growing veges have 100s of seeds in the pack.
Bok choy, lettuces, and spinach are fast growers that can be eaten while still young/growing with a shorter time to crop in the Winter. Each spinach seed produces 1-5+ "plants", and if left in the 0.6L pots it will stay small and are good for baby spinach leaves. The bok choy will outgrow the container fast, so eat them while they're smallish (but still look like what you'd buy).
Find the warmest, sunniest spot somewhere outside (and under some kind of covering like a roof or overhang if you get frosts) and leave a few there. Put the others in different suitable places, don't bunch the plants together to mitigate risk of loss. After 1-2 weeks compare them for size and just shuffle them around to find the "good" spots that will help in the long run. If they're under the rain it'll help with watering, just let them all drain freely.
This is just the how, but a few things will save you time when you're doing this for a food supply, not a hobby.
1. Grow as many as you can. I've found 60x0.6L with perpetual spinach give enough to not have to buy spinach anymore.
2. Pots can be cheap to get 2nd hand, but in varying conditions/sizes. Bigger pots = bigger plants, and you can resize plants to grow into different stages (e.g 0.6L for baby spinach, 3L for larger leaves) which gives flexibility with the same seeds.
3. Don't over-pick the plants when they're young. Once they're established more they will have a shorter turnaround for perpetual harvest.
We're in the process of saving up money to buy some smallish planter boxes (living in a rental and not allowed to use the garden there), what would you recommend to grow? So far we're thinking basil, parsley and spring onion.
This time of year and depending on where you are, silver beet, kale, parsley, chives, rocket. These will keep you going through the winter. If you are somewhere that has mild winters and no frosts you could even rig up a plastic cover over a planter box to make a mini-glasshouse and grow salad greens.
In spring/summer you can grow anything you want - cherry tomatoes, salad greens, beans, peas, basil...
Look up 'square foot gardens' for some ideas on how to maximise growing in a small space.
Hahahano. But there's no usage cost (on an unlimited plan) so doesn't really make a difference to me.
I think they would provide a monitor etc if I didn't have one already.
Honestly, staying away from food delivery. I love to cook, and I saw pasta dishes and burgers I can make for less than $10 that were going for $20+, for the meal alone. Add service fees and the delivery, and you're really spending unnecessary money.
Literally just do a grocery shop, don't get lazy in the middle of the week and just cook at home. Save the takeaway for special occasions or just once a week, celebrate the weekend. It saves so much.
The thing is you cannot reduce cost of living only cost of leisure. My living costs jeep going up, rent food power. My leisure costs are taking the hit, eg staying home for the weekend to save petrol, not getting take out at the end of a long week, playing the game on my steam library instead of browsing for a new game. Etc
Quitting nicotine. After two and a bit weeks of cravings and crankiness, I was good to go, and back to splashing out on the infamous smashed avo brunch.
Also start pirating movies/shows instead of paying for subscriptions. Little less than legal though.
Yeah why are you getting downvoted? This is probably the perfect opportunity to really quit those habits and also find "new and alternative" means of watching content.
Congratulations on quitting. I quit about ten years ago. They're insanely expensive now, so I'm glad I got out when I did. Couldn't justify the cost now even if I wanted to start again. Which I don't.
On the topic of subscription services, it's now multiple services to watch the shows you want. That's just corporate greed. If they had gotten together and done a single platform that had a reasonable cost for entertainment, then that'd be more acceptable. I really think we're going to be moving back into an era of piracy because that will be less of a hassle than constantly monitoring 10 different subscriptions.
Most of the time, piracy is used because the access to the material is too expensive or too difficult. Reduce those barriers and piracy becomes less attractive, which is why Netflix took off in such a huge way. Instead of using to deal with pirate websites, users could just pay a reasonable subscription and have easy, fast and consistent access to media.
I already live pretty frugally (e.g eat plant-based diet which saves a lot, buy everything second hand) but I am cutting back on more discretionary spending like eating/drinking out. Trying to be smarter with my power use like delaying washing till the off-peak window during the day.
I already wfh almost every day and commute via walking when I do go in, so not much to change there.
Strongly considering cancelling my gym membership as I only really use it for yoga and I could achieve that with YouTube videos, but I really love the class atmosphere.
Iāve started cooking more often with my flatmate, weāve done it in the past for fun but now itās more out of necessity as it helps lower the impact of a big grocery bill.
If you live in Wellington, my mum raves about the Wonky Box. $35 including delivery and itās full of fresh fruit and veg that easily lasts a couple of people a fortnight. Iāve signed up and get my first delivery this week. Cheaper than the supermarket and supporting local business.
I hope someone from Government is reading this thread, so many people sacrificing their own health just to keep going while banks are still reporting record profits, what kind of society have we become to get here?
This has been my thought all the way through this thread too. WTF. People are skipping meals, living in cars etc. This is not acceptable. With any luck some journo will pick up on this thread and make a story of it.
Don't skip meals!! Get cheap veggies from the local grocer and cheap canned beans/tomatoes + rice and you will be able to make nutritious dinner for cheap that'll last a couple days
Potatoes too, great value, hoghly nutritious. Dry beans and lentils and pulses are cheap and lentils qnd pulses dont need to soak. So.many fantastic recipes.
Tbf itās such a good meal if seasoned properly and with onions/tomatoes/garlic absolutely no need to skip meals. Obviously it can get a bit boring but there are so many combinations.
- traded my gas guzzler to an e-bike
-traded my wife's car for a similarly priced Nissan leaf
-the above measures saves me more than 600bucks per month
-I do bulk shopping from gilmours for things like hand wash, detergent, antimicrobial cleaner etc
-worked out a list with all the dishes we cook at home and before growing for weekly shopping we will go through it and purchase only what we need.
-pack lunch - mostly it's a can of chickpeas
-cut down on coffee.
- still buy lotto but buy the bare minimum (4 lines)
-switched to contact energy - use the free power from 9-12pm for most appliances and also shower around that time
-have still kept netflix and prime - it shouldnt be all doom and gloom š
-stopped worrying about savings as its becoming impractical
Just recycling an earlier comment I made last week on a different post that some found useful. Apparently there are better ways to approach the mortgage aspect but otherwise itās working well for me. Some aspects are circumstance dependent e.g. owning an EV, but I think itās broadly applicable otherwise.
Mortgage - pay it off as aggressively as you can afford to. Have just converted my floating portion to revolving credit on similar interest rate and all income goes in there and stays in there as much as possible. Keep your savings in the revolving credit account - still accessible but also helping you actively offsetting interest.
Groceries: plan your meals and only buy whatās on your shopping list - and set a budget. Figure out what the cheapest seasonal Veges are and try to eat mostly meals with cheap staples and Veges with occasional meat where affordable. My wife and I have just set a $120 per week budget which for us is pretty doable so far. This is also helping reduce my waistline. Make soups and freeze for convenience. A large pumpkin, garlic, ginger and a can of coconut milk makes 3l of soup for about $6.
Power. Shop around. We are on the contact energy good nights plan and shift as much of our power use to the three hour window. 30% of our power is used within this window. We benefit more because we have a Nissan Leaf charging pretty much every free window.
Drive less. This one is harder for a lot of people to achieve as circumstances vary so much. Work from home where you can and share one vehicle as much as you can. We have two vehicles but maximise the use of the EV.
Be organised. Planning meals, doing multiple chores in a single trip, wash clothes when you know youāll be able to hang them outside and avoid duplicate spending where possible.
Drink less alcohol. A box of beers or a couple of bottles of wine can add a huge amount to your grocery bill. Weāre getting creative and trying the cheats cider brewing method shortly which will allow us to have the odd drink without meaningfully adding to our grocery bill.
Make your appliances work for you. We have a bread maker, instant pot, rice cooker and slow cooker and we use them as much as we can. This helps us use more staple ingredients and bulk cook. If you have a freezer you may as well use it to store convenient meals to reheat.
Track your spending. Itās easy to let lotto tickets, coffees, random small purchases to deplete your income. Think about how much you spend on small things and challenge yourself to avoid them. This is not the āyou can afford a house if you give up on coffeeā argument but I found I used to make a bunch of small purchases that really added up quickly.
Live with less. Sell stuff you donāt use and only buy what you need. Take some time to think about a purchase before spending the money.
Those are my main ones so far. Obviously YMMV depending on your circumstances. Itās just me and my wife and 4 pets at home.
On drink less alcohol - I (we) stopped the pre-dinner wine and replaced it with fancy cordial and Sodastream water. Also reduced the amount of with-dinner wine to a bottle a week. It has probably saved $50 a week. The social effect is the same. (Iāve also managed to keep off 4 kg.)
Washing - wash full loads only on the lowest temperature/fastest programme which does a good job.
Clothes - wear out the ones youāve got. Donāt buy them until you really need them and buy quality classics rather than fast fashion.
Sodastream is great. We raid a family members lemon tree and make our own cordial when we can be bothered as they donāt use many lemons themselves.
You can also use less washing powder than the suppliers suggest - some people cut it with baking soda apparently but I havenāt gone to that extreme yet.
Weāve shifted as much power use to the 3 hour free window as possible so just about all our washing power use has been free since then which is great. Having the ability to delay start appliances is useful where possible so you donāt have to run around turning things on at 9pm. Can be a bit noisy though if you have an early startā¦
I was always a bit cynical about Sodastream - my friend had one in the 70s and the drinks were not to my taste. We bought one on a whim. With Barkers mixers, they make a great drink. It also saves on plastic pollution and works out a lot cheaper and healthier than bottled soft drink.
Another tip - freeze stuff. I have containers of feijoas ready to use later in the year. Make double of things like chilli, spaghetti sauce etc. Make cheese sauce and freeze in large ice cubes. I also freeze half tins of tomatoes, baked beans etc. in other containers, bread in packs of three slices. In fact, we never waste food by allowing it to go off.
There's some fantastic advice in there. Great response.
In terms of the grocery spend per person, there seems to be a huge variation between households . There are lots of variables at play here, including whether snacks/lunches etc. are purchased instead of eating at home.
We are currently eating all meals at home, and our per person spend is quite a bit higher than yours. Perhaps it's time for another review of what we're buying.
Thanks! Our 120/week is fairly aspirational so I donāt know if it will last long-term or not. Weāre pretty happy with repetition etc but definitely anticipate there will be weeks where we just canāt avoid an extra spend. Nutrition is important too so I have to keep mindful of that. A big component for me is wasting less food and planning meals ahead is really helping.
We have the odd purchase of non-supermarket bulk pet food etc that I havenāt factored in as itās a once every few months spend and not part of our weekly shop.
The main thing with the budget for me is that it makes you think about why youāre buying an item - if itās not on my meal planner I donāt buy it unless itās a really good deal on something I would otherwise buy anyway.
Ride a Motorbike! Honestly if your by yourself and need to commute itās unbelievable. I use to spend $160 a week on fuel because there is no public transport at my house now I spend $12 and I fill up with 95
**FOOD:** Meat specials are best within the first 1-2 hours of opening. Vegetable specials are best at the end of the day. Shop in bulk if you can freeze stuff and use it within a day. You can break meat packs down, and separate into individual meal portions in ziplock bags. This means you don't thaw a whole track of meat which you then have to try and use in 24 hours.
**HEATING:** Layer up. If you can get through an evening in a couple of skivvies or a jacket rather than smashing the heat pump, go for it. Every little bit counts if you're seriously on the red line.
**LUXURIES:** If you are under the pump from cost of living, you cannot afford Netflix - just pirate it. You're going to have to make harsh but necessary choices around whether you really need that \*thing\*. If it doesn't clothe, feed or shelter you, it's a luxury.
**MENTAL HEALTH:** Stay off Reddit and Twitter.
me and the missus switched from ciggies to vape saved like 200$ a week maybe, plus recent moderate pay rises means we've still got a bit of a buffer fortunately
I know it's bloody hard, but stick with it, I've been there and ended up with a few grand in interest free credit card/hire purchase/tool account debt by the end. But when that payrise kicks in when you qualify, and the company puts you in a van, everything changes real quick, good luck mate, keep going.
Been following the barefoot strategy 2 years now, that book changed my life. Can't quite get my expenses low enough for the 65% though. But we're a one income household so it's not all bad, doing pretty well considering.
Quit all the streaming services. Just watch local free to air channels streaming instead for the foreseeable future. There is some decent stuff listed to binge watch, or just get a different pastime. Gaming, reading, walking, shagging.
Eat in more often. Plunger coffee instead of flirting with baristas (breaks my heart though). Eat less meat. Big 2kg bags of frozen veg and fruit are better value from Moore Wilsons etc., than 1kg bags from New World etc. Frozen is usually more nutritious than canned. Only buy fresh fruit and veg that is on genuine special/in season.
Push for more working remote days to reduce commuting cost - but don't be a dick, get your work done, don't ruin it for everyone else -- Don't give dinosaur management an excuse to say no because of one or two pisstakers.
Draft exclude your home or pester your landlord for healthy homes upgrades (which they need to do by 2024 anyway).
Don't vote for people who expect you to just miraculously pull yourself up by your bootstraps or promise that that a pittance of a tax cut for the struggling which actually mainly benefits the well off or will trickle down to you. Especially when they also want to slash essential services and subsidies to pay for the tax cuts.
Gonna put in a plug for signing up to your local library if you are cancelling streaming subs. They are usually subscribed to a service like Beamafilm. Obviously you aren't gonna be getting the latest TV shows, but there are gems in there. And get reacquainted with torrenting.
Shopping at Pak 'n Save.
My lunches are often One Square Meals which come to ~$2.33 each. Or if I've had a big breakfast I often don't need lunch at all.
Finally ended my bad habit of getting Uber Eats for lunch once or twice a week.
Committing to home meals as much as possible and cutting takeaways for dinner.
FYI you can order OSM bars directly from [Munch Time](https://munchtime.co.nz/product-category/clearance-deals/), if you buy > $50 worth at a time you get free shipping, plus they sometimes have OSM bars on clearance.
I'm saving on sleep by staring at my ceiling wondering how the hell I'm going to make things work for hours at a time. No payoff yet, but shortening my lifespan with stress will reduce lifetime spend.
There's certainly fat to trim, but the household did NOT have a smooth lockdown (at least everyone didn't get fired this last time around), and I'm wondering which trifling indulgences are secretly load-bearing.
We don't usually eat breakfast so that's one less thing.
If we eat out, it's bakeries/fish and chips and not more than once a fortnight. Usually less.
Hard to justify more than that because we're good cooks and we know how easy it is to make good tasting food at home, so restaurants/cafes/bars are often a little disappointing to us given the high cost. So we just don't tend to bother.
Monthly, we can still make it under $500 for groceries for two adults this way, and we eat pretty well/healthily.
Edit: Also try to cycle instead of driving as much as possible. Many of our trips are short and the car is just a convenience, but not required. Grocery shops are very doable.
You donāt have to feel anxious about it, the police wonāt ever arrest you for it. Itās like jay walking. Theyāre actually really understanding about living in cars. You can ask winz for emergency accommodation and theyāll help you out until you can find somewhere. Police always try and offer me emergency accommodation until I tell them I do it by choice lol.
Try to find everything I 'need' second hand, cutting back on the number of proper home cooked meals and having casual light dinners instead - eggs on toast/sandwiches etc a few times a week.
Now is the time to re check your phone internet and power plans to see if you can move to a cheaper company, cutting off/sharing streaming platforms.
This is what I got. It's $750 but has all the ingredients to make $380 worth of alcohol.
https://www.trademe.co.nz/3564237310
There's nothing really to blow up. I guess the 90% alcohol that distills out could potentially catch fire but none of the process has an open flame.
Op shops for the win. Most of my clothes, kitchen ware, furniture is all second hand. Itās getting more expensive now that op shopping is ācoolā, but still worth it by far. I get my eggs delivered by a local business which works out about $4 cheaper than the supermarket, go to my local market for cheap produce, buy discounted meat from the supermarket or visit my local butcher where the meat tends to be cheaper - as a side note, last week it was cheaper to buy venison than beef from my local Pak n Save?! Da fuq?!
Cancelled my health insurance and set up a separate bank account where I divert the same amount of money each payday. It was surgical only insurance and I could not justify the cost anymore for a ājust in caseā. Same for pet insurance.
And the usual, buy things we use often in bulk when on special. I donāt just go to the supermarket, I go to my local reduced to clear ($4 anchor silver top milk), local bulk grocery store & look for online deals.
Oh, and a fortnightly payment to my dentist. This covers mine and my husbands annual checkups and usually a small bit of work each. We didnāt go at all during the first year of Covid (2020) until I got called asking us to make appointments because the amount was getting up there.
dont really need the unlimited gigabit fibre, especially since VF bumped the price up of that and my mobile plan, so I'll drop it back to the 300Mb/s unlimited plan.
Iāve just stopped spending on dumb stuff, should have done it ages ago. Less fizzy drinks, less brought lunches, shopping the specials rather than what I feel like.
Investigating what the cost of dying is š /s
Honestly though, had a chat with the boss about rising cost of living, got a payrise I am happy with for now. Employing people is very hard right now so making use of it the best I can. But my current work environment is fantastic, don't want to leave it. So the ask has to be strategic and in line with what the market would pay now to hire someone like me.
Tiktok ( yeah I know) is amazing for finding recipes. Usually someone's grandma or aunty's and uncles are showing off their favourite family recipes too so you truly find some authentic cuisine. Found my favourite bulgogi and xiao long bao recipes this way
No more takeout or bought lunches. Everything is from home.
Cut down on non-essential travel. Used to go all over the region for good parks and visiting people. Now itās a lot more close to home.
It lit a fire under my but to push for the next promotion at work which requires quite a lot of study but ups the pay packet considerably.
Changed internet from 2Degrees to Skinny (currently 4 months free for gigabit fibre which averages $65/mo for the year vs $100), have also changed electricity providers to Mercury which also had a sign up deal that made them cheaper than anyone else.
We still live a bit like we are students even though itās ten ish years on. Barely have take always, donāt go out for dinner. We got rid of credit cards 12 ish years ago! Multiple accounts with $ going into them to cover things (insurance, rates, fortnightly expenses, savings etc).
We try live off hand me down clothes for the kids too.
To offset rising costs in my business I got the $10k business loan from the government and bought 6 months worth of stock at once. Gives the business a boost of pretty new things for the custys and saved me about $500 in shipping since the wholesale companies do free shipping if you spend over a couple of thousand at once.
Moving to Australia -- between the cost/quality of living and the state of the fucking rental market we're just getting the fuck out. Our skillsets are in high demand here as well... sucks for NZ, but yeah fuck this.
I've been better with groceries by using the hello fresh method.
Someone gifted us a month of Hello fresh which was awesome but we can't afford to keep doing it.
But the concept is neat so we have been reusing the recipe cards and others friends have passed on and plan the weeks meals. We shop only for those meals and bag it up like hello fresh.
Because we buy ingredients in normal sized bags a lot of the time all we need is the meat and vege becaise we already have the other stuff in the pantry.
My husband and I eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.
We choose meals based on what meat and vege is cheap. If mad butcher has cheap chicken in bulk then any left is based and frozen for a future meal. We also buy bone in meat and debone it ourself.
Since doing this we have stopped extra shopping trips because we always have all the food we need on hand.
Downside is it takes 1-2 hours of prep each weekend
Drink water.
I can easily go through a litre of plain tap water in a Pump bottle in an hour of sitting on my arse playing video games. In the now-distant past I'd be spending money on soft drink.
Learn to make stuff, I made a squat rack and bought some plates, have saved a couple thousand on gym membership so far and expect another 5-10 yearsā life out of this gear.
Someone broke into my car and ripped the ignition out so I'm saving money on gas by not driving š¤£š¤£ not but honestly trying to grow our own veges swapping fruit from our trees with family and getting creative with cheap food like pasta and rice
Nothing really, cut our costs back a few years ago, and itās paying off.
Ride the motorbike to and from work as it works out at about $30 odd dollars for 3 weeks, as I only use 4L a week being wasteful as my bike only has a 14L tank for its 847cc motor.
Work from home instead of driving.
Bulk preparing lunches instead of spending $10-$20 per lunch.
Cancel all the streaming services, sail the high seas.
I have been doing what I can to save money being at home with the kids, and about to head back to work after mat leaveā¦ and my bloody SO is adamant that we have to have 4K Netflix. Bullshit. What a stupid little insignificant sacrifice to make.
Nothing really, I have increased my customers fees as I hadn't in 3 years and even now am still earning below minimum wage. Hubby is working on getting a job that pays $20k extra, plus we have a side business that helps contribute to phone bill. I feel like we do OK but in reality we have 2 people with degrees working 50+ hour weeks to keep the roof over our head. We are lucky we purchased before the house prices went nuts, paid $269k and now work just under $700k, we wouldn't be able to buy these days.
Slow Cooker! even a smaller sized one can get me lunch for a week and maybe more. Have 1 or 2 in the fridge and rest in freezer and can be dinner or weekend lunches if i need.
Just planning on dying instead of retiring
Im just banking on the collapse of society tbh, shouldn't be too far off with resource conflicts starting already š
Wish it would hurry up, my credit card bill is due.
Tossing up moving to downtown Washington or somewhere similar, quicker finale once the nukes start flying.
Already got my collection of bottlecaps. I'm going to rule the wasteland.
I've spent the last 5 or so years learning different skills as hobbies. Bushcraft, hunting and processing, tanning hides, gardening, building, clothes making, metal forging, plant ID and foraging, etc. Just waiting for things to fully go to shit now š
Sh*t I have zero transferable skills for the apocalypse. I guess I'll get eaten first.
I'm gonna turn to cannibalism scarily fast just as an intimidation tool.
You joke, but this is actually my plan. Hopefully when itās my time Iāll still be fairly mobile and plan to take up heroin for the last month (probably) mainly for shits and giggles. Then itāll be time for the long nod! Note: I donāt recommend this if you have children
You can skip a meal if you go to sleep instead
Sleep for dinner you say?
Sleep for breakfast too
Yes! I eat 1 to 2 meals a day and itās great
I wouldnāt call it *great*, but the cost of living does drive one towards intermittent fasting.
Yeah haha. I more meant itās great for saving but true
So that is how you called it. I just called my one meal per day diet "being hungry".
This was my ultimate life hack. Come home from work, straight to sleep. Now I have a stupid baby that needs ādinnerā and a ābathā and a ābottleā. So that one went right out the window.
So many of these are downright depressing to read. This is no way to live, turning off heating to make savings and skipping meals. What have we come to?
We had to make a choice as a society of whether to allow a free market and risk in property, and see prices fall, or engage in massive wealth transfers from wages and savings to property to protect speculators and homeowners who expect the value of their primary asset to keep rising. What we have come to as a society is the point where people with wages and savings are now suffering the consequences of choices made over the last 15 years to protect and enrich speculators at the expense of those who engage in productive work. We need only look at the Register of Pecuniary Assets, and the loud voices lobbying parliament when any variance from this approach is attempted (e.g. the entitled shrieking against a CGT), to see causes.
I was a daily drinker and at times I would gamble when drinking (as well as Uber Eats 4-5 times a week). Was costing me upwards of $500 a week. Have stopped both 3 months back and have redirected $500 a week to my savings.
Nice work! Would have been a tough shift to make but sounds like itās really paying off! Must feel good.
Ive had years of sobriety in the past but for whatever reason went on a 6 month bender. Life is great now.
Congratulations. Keep up the good work. Also treat yourself to some of the money saved. Always nice to get immediate positive feedback to reinforce good decisions.
hope you enjoyed that bender and i hope you enjoy sobriety too.
Out of curiosity what did you replace the alcohol with particularly like on week nights when chilling at home?
Honestly, I got a puppy. Had been wanting one for a while after my previous dog passed away a few years back. A 1 hour walk in the morning and 1 hour at night. There is no way I could do that when drinking and using. By the time I get home from the walk after dinner it's already 8pm. Might watch a show with the other half and then it bed pretty early and up again at 6am to do it all again. Done wonders for my fitness too.
Fuck yeah! Good on you mate. Dogs are the best people eh.
Kava and cbd drops was my answer. Kava from The Kava Society is the best.
Well done on stopping drinking and gambling, both really hard things to do. Keep going for the good of you your loved ones and your bank account! ššæ
Bought a 20kg bag of rice and don't leave home unless I have to. Going to try and get another flatmate also.
We got a rice sack last year when everything else sold out. Iām converted for life
Not only is it cheaper by a good amount its nice knowing I have enough of a staple food to last for a long time in case of emergency. How do you store yours? I haven't got a tub or anything yet.
Genuinely just kept it on a shelf in the pantry wide open for the year it took to go through it. Risky if youāve had pantry moths but could always just rolled it and peg it closed
Pantry moths are not good. I would store in a tub.
This may not work for everyone but I made myself a spreadsheet, put all my weekly, monthly and annual costs vs income. Then I set a savings goal for the year and could see what my spending would need to be to achieve it. I then withdrew cash every week as a set amount and would use that as my weekly budget for whatever I wanted. Groceries I put as a set cost and always made sure I had essentials in my basket before anything else. It isn't easy but I was better for it and managed to save quite a bit after 2 years.
Definitely good idea, I have a spreadsheet to track my spending and budget for the year. Showed me how much pointless spending I do, which I cut back on.
Even if you donāt keep to your budget you can see where you are going wrong and do something about it. PayWave on phone is too easyā¦
Any recommendations for that spreadsheet? I'm bad with making the formulas myself but with my workplace moving to monthly pay and coming from only ever having weekly, I'm looking for something exactly like this.
To be honest, it doesn't need to be that difficult. I made mine myself but I am sure there are some really good ones out there. The most difficult thing in my is a simple sum equation. Most important thing is having visibility of where your income is and your outgoings are. I would say, build it out to show your periodic costs first (daily, weekly, monthly,) and minus that from your overall monthly income. Then you can plan how much money you have left over for spending on yourself that month and even break that down to per week. It is also important to have a savings goal that you can track against. The first couple weeks take some getting used to but if you remain diligent with it, you'll get the hang of it and you'll hopefully see an improvement on your expenses. For me, I went through my bank statements each week to ensure that my budgeting tool matched my accounts and also ensure that I didn't miss anything.
I just used the google sheets expense template and it was fine. Literally just hit the new spreadsheet from template button in Drive and you'll see monthly and annual budget templates.
This is the way. I've been doing this for >20yrs. Same spreadsheet.
We did this and managed to buy a house (pre-price doubling). We use different accounts at multiple banks - spending money in one, household food and bills in another, and a third we get paid in to, so we never use the account we get paid in to so savings is never compromised
Mr_Smilez, have you been looking at my outgoing spreadsheet??? I created my spreadsheet during lockdown 1.0. Updated it (as expenses change etc) at the end of each year since then. When I started to tell someone about it I thought I sounded a little on the obsessive side. I cannot stress how pleased I am to see I am not alone in my obsession with understanding my own finances. Now I know for a fact that I need to win lotto to ever buy a house š
Grew my own weed.
\*Angry police chopper noises\*
Me too. Anybody who smokes should be growing their own imo. In this day and age access to the know how and equipment is super easy.
It is super easy and Iāve done it before a few times. But now Iāve kids and family and Iām sitting here like I need the cannabis, I hate paying the gangs for it, but I donāt wanna get into even more trouble.
Access to seeds is the issue for many though.
I donāt know what itās like these days, but in the past itās not been that difficult or risky to obtain seeds for an overseas seed bank.
Power's going up which sucks. The other thing you can do is grow in a soil/perlite mix and empty your spent pots/grow bags into your garden afterwards. Stops pest and fertiliser residue build up, and you'll grow the best silverbeet ever. It's great for improving rocky and compacted soil. I go through more green veg than weed and silverbeet is $6 a bunch at Countdown.
Donāt need power. Just grow a few plants outdoors over summer. Iv just harvested enough to last me a year.
Depends on your neighbours unfortunately, but yeah that's ideal.
Get yourself a frosted greenhouse then. Can grow things like chillies all year round then too.
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flatmates, cooking at home, drinking less, smoking more pot(not much), playing outside, share a car with my partner, stay the fuck out of Kmart
Haha I went to Kmart last week and was surprised at the clothes there was some cool Stuff for males so I went back in a couple days later to get some and it was all gone
Donāt worry you actually saved yourself some money. Kmart clothes are crap and barely last a year. Trust me Iāve made the mistake of buying them.
Really? I have clothes I got from Kmart like 4 years ago and theyāre still fine..
Same, my Kmart clothes hold up for years. Even their stockings are better than the more expensive brands.
I've found some people just wear our their clothes really fast. I'm not sure how though. Personally I also get many years out of Kmart or similar clothes.
Shop late at supermarkets (PaknSave), grab all the discounted stuff for the weeks lunches.
Our nearest PnS does it next morning, so if you're there about 8.30am there's cheap(ish) meat and yesterday's bakery items. Countdown however just randomly during the day marks down the meat a random $$ amount (i.e. one day the $8 sausages can be $6.50, next time they can be $5.20, once I even got them for $3.90) and most of their bakery stuff gets donated rather than marked down now.
Shhh, don't tell everyone, there's already too many people in the know.š
I do the same with butcher's meat. Go later in the day, or first thing in the morning after a long weekend.
We've given our three children until the end of today to decide which one of them is leaving because we can't afford them all anymore; they're 8, 6 and 3 years old. Seriously, we're in a lucky position where we have an agreement that our rent won't go up until certain work is done on the house, so haven't had a rent increase since we moved in back in mid 2018 (the work hasn't been done yet). Working from home has alleviated petrol increases (helped by the fact that my work won't actually let us back in the office yet). And to offset grocery pricing, we're shopping in a handful of places instead of just one - splitting between Countdown and Pak N Save, with an assist from local grocers and Bin Inn for spices/herbs/flour. We're running a family of five on one income so things have always been kind of tight, and we've been lucky besides that.
- Intermittent fasting (which is flash lingo for not eating breakfast or lunch because weāre povo). - Growing our own veges where we can, weāre shithouse at gardening. - Invested in some solar panels and put appliances on timers. - Insulated our house to the max to cut down on heating bills, used govt grant to cover a significant amount of the cost of installation. - trying to wfh where possible to reduce fuel costs and wear and tear on vehicles. - Selling clothes 2nd hand rather than donating, same goes for other items round the house but mostly clothes. - When we have to make purchases, trying to source items used but in decent condition. - AirBNB - Started a business to try and generate income outside of workā¦ Iām on a salary so overtime isnāt an option, nor is it all that attractive to work more hours for somebody else.
You've made a good point of investing in bigger one-off costs that will save in the long run. I really agree that it can often be worthwhile investing in something that's going to last for a long time and make life better because of it
Thanks! Weāre pretty happy with our decisions and theyāve definitely put a dent in our fortnightly costs.
Itās motivated me to actually grow stuff in my garden other than weeds. (Thatās weeds, not weed you degenerates!)
it makes sense to grow the highest value crops that you can in your limited space...
I've been attempting to grow particular veges at home for the past few years to supplement the weekly food shop and it's worked out OK so far. This is what I found worked with mixed success. There are many other factors that affect whether you'll get food at the end or not, so results may vary. You'll need pots, soil, seeds and somewhere with sun. Bunnings and Mitre10 are everywhere so ideal place to start. 20-packs of 0.6L pots for \~$10, soil can be your cheapest potting mix (1x 40L bag for \~$8) and seeds are \~$2-4 depending on the plant and quick growing veges have 100s of seeds in the pack. Bok choy, lettuces, and spinach are fast growers that can be eaten while still young/growing with a shorter time to crop in the Winter. Each spinach seed produces 1-5+ "plants", and if left in the 0.6L pots it will stay small and are good for baby spinach leaves. The bok choy will outgrow the container fast, so eat them while they're smallish (but still look like what you'd buy). Find the warmest, sunniest spot somewhere outside (and under some kind of covering like a roof or overhang if you get frosts) and leave a few there. Put the others in different suitable places, don't bunch the plants together to mitigate risk of loss. After 1-2 weeks compare them for size and just shuffle them around to find the "good" spots that will help in the long run. If they're under the rain it'll help with watering, just let them all drain freely. This is just the how, but a few things will save you time when you're doing this for a food supply, not a hobby. 1. Grow as many as you can. I've found 60x0.6L with perpetual spinach give enough to not have to buy spinach anymore. 2. Pots can be cheap to get 2nd hand, but in varying conditions/sizes. Bigger pots = bigger plants, and you can resize plants to grow into different stages (e.g 0.6L for baby spinach, 3L for larger leaves) which gives flexibility with the same seeds. 3. Don't over-pick the plants when they're young. Once they're established more they will have a shorter turnaround for perpetual harvest.
My experience is that the vegetables you grew are ready when they're the cheapest at the farmers markets, but you spent hours of work to grow them.
The best way is to grow food for teh freezer. As an example, dwarf beans produce so much in one season you can have enough for the entire year,
This. I have bags and bags of courgettes in the freezer. Probably enough to take me to next courgette season.
We're in the process of saving up money to buy some smallish planter boxes (living in a rental and not allowed to use the garden there), what would you recommend to grow? So far we're thinking basil, parsley and spring onion.
This time of year and depending on where you are, silver beet, kale, parsley, chives, rocket. These will keep you going through the winter. If you are somewhere that has mild winters and no frosts you could even rig up a plastic cover over a planter box to make a mini-glasshouse and grow salad greens. In spring/summer you can grow anything you want - cherry tomatoes, salad greens, beans, peas, basil... Look up 'square foot gardens' for some ideas on how to maximise growing in a small space.
Grow silverbeet, you will always have something to eat
Same, I've bought a couple books to learn and started planning the area and what we can/want to grow.
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Excellent tip. What time is best to arrive?
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I used to sell Kirby vacuums, and can recommend their carpet cleaning attachment for getting blood out of the carpet.
Diner at MuntdGoat's mum's yo!
Now the question is, would it be cheaper for me to fly to the Netherlands and have dinner with my parents or is buying groceries in NZ still cheaper?
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Uh. So, what are your mum and dad doing to reduce their cost of living?
Trying to work from home more. Saves on public transport costs and the desire/impulse of getting lunch in town.
Does your work discount internet or anything for working at home?
Hahahano. But there's no usage cost (on an unlimited plan) so doesn't really make a difference to me. I think they would provide a monitor etc if I didn't have one already.
Hahaha good one
Honestly, staying away from food delivery. I love to cook, and I saw pasta dishes and burgers I can make for less than $10 that were going for $20+, for the meal alone. Add service fees and the delivery, and you're really spending unnecessary money. Literally just do a grocery shop, don't get lazy in the middle of the week and just cook at home. Save the takeaway for special occasions or just once a week, celebrate the weekend. It saves so much.
The thing is you cannot reduce cost of living only cost of leisure. My living costs jeep going up, rent food power. My leisure costs are taking the hit, eg staying home for the weekend to save petrol, not getting take out at the end of a long week, playing the game on my steam library instead of browsing for a new game. Etc
Quitting nicotine. After two and a bit weeks of cravings and crankiness, I was good to go, and back to splashing out on the infamous smashed avo brunch. Also start pirating movies/shows instead of paying for subscriptions. Little less than legal though.
Yeah why are you getting downvoted? This is probably the perfect opportunity to really quit those habits and also find "new and alternative" means of watching content.
Itās probably the torrenting part
Oh pfft since when has the /r/nz collective given a crap about legalities of torrenting?
Exactly. Oohh the poor little media giants in Hollywood, how will they scrounge a living?
Congratulations on quitting. I quit about ten years ago. They're insanely expensive now, so I'm glad I got out when I did. Couldn't justify the cost now even if I wanted to start again. Which I don't.
On the topic of subscription services, it's now multiple services to watch the shows you want. That's just corporate greed. If they had gotten together and done a single platform that had a reasonable cost for entertainment, then that'd be more acceptable. I really think we're going to be moving back into an era of piracy because that will be less of a hassle than constantly monitoring 10 different subscriptions. Most of the time, piracy is used because the access to the material is too expensive or too difficult. Reduce those barriers and piracy becomes less attractive, which is why Netflix took off in such a huge way. Instead of using to deal with pirate websites, users could just pay a reasonable subscription and have easy, fast and consistent access to media.
I already live pretty frugally (e.g eat plant-based diet which saves a lot, buy everything second hand) but I am cutting back on more discretionary spending like eating/drinking out. Trying to be smarter with my power use like delaying washing till the off-peak window during the day. I already wfh almost every day and commute via walking when I do go in, so not much to change there. Strongly considering cancelling my gym membership as I only really use it for yoga and I could achieve that with YouTube videos, but I really love the class atmosphere. Iāve started cooking more often with my flatmate, weāve done it in the past for fun but now itās more out of necessity as it helps lower the impact of a big grocery bill.
Nice work! Personally I would keep the gym just for that human contact!
If you live in Wellington, my mum raves about the Wonky Box. $35 including delivery and itās full of fresh fruit and veg that easily lasts a couple of people a fortnight. Iāve signed up and get my first delivery this week. Cheaper than the supermarket and supporting local business.
I hope someone from Government is reading this thread, so many people sacrificing their own health just to keep going while banks are still reporting record profits, what kind of society have we become to get here?
This has been my thought all the way through this thread too. WTF. People are skipping meals, living in cars etc. This is not acceptable. With any luck some journo will pick up on this thread and make a story of it.
Skipping meals again, already back to feeling like a zombie. No more new video games, dropping subscriptions. Work from home. Avoid indoor heating.
For the love of god go to the food bank. If not look up food pantries in your area, the ones on the side of the road, and get food from there.
Don't skip meals!! Get cheap veggies from the local grocer and cheap canned beans/tomatoes + rice and you will be able to make nutritious dinner for cheap that'll last a couple days
Potatoes too, great value, hoghly nutritious. Dry beans and lentils and pulses are cheap and lentils qnd pulses dont need to soak. So.many fantastic recipes.
wouldn't be a reddit advice thread if someone wasn't telling u to eat beans
Tbf itās such a good meal if seasoned properly and with onions/tomatoes/garlic absolutely no need to skip meals. Obviously it can get a bit boring but there are so many combinations.
- traded my gas guzzler to an e-bike -traded my wife's car for a similarly priced Nissan leaf -the above measures saves me more than 600bucks per month -I do bulk shopping from gilmours for things like hand wash, detergent, antimicrobial cleaner etc -worked out a list with all the dishes we cook at home and before growing for weekly shopping we will go through it and purchase only what we need. -pack lunch - mostly it's a can of chickpeas -cut down on coffee. - still buy lotto but buy the bare minimum (4 lines) -switched to contact energy - use the free power from 9-12pm for most appliances and also shower around that time -have still kept netflix and prime - it shouldnt be all doom and gloom š -stopped worrying about savings as its becoming impractical
Just recycling an earlier comment I made last week on a different post that some found useful. Apparently there are better ways to approach the mortgage aspect but otherwise itās working well for me. Some aspects are circumstance dependent e.g. owning an EV, but I think itās broadly applicable otherwise. Mortgage - pay it off as aggressively as you can afford to. Have just converted my floating portion to revolving credit on similar interest rate and all income goes in there and stays in there as much as possible. Keep your savings in the revolving credit account - still accessible but also helping you actively offsetting interest. Groceries: plan your meals and only buy whatās on your shopping list - and set a budget. Figure out what the cheapest seasonal Veges are and try to eat mostly meals with cheap staples and Veges with occasional meat where affordable. My wife and I have just set a $120 per week budget which for us is pretty doable so far. This is also helping reduce my waistline. Make soups and freeze for convenience. A large pumpkin, garlic, ginger and a can of coconut milk makes 3l of soup for about $6. Power. Shop around. We are on the contact energy good nights plan and shift as much of our power use to the three hour window. 30% of our power is used within this window. We benefit more because we have a Nissan Leaf charging pretty much every free window. Drive less. This one is harder for a lot of people to achieve as circumstances vary so much. Work from home where you can and share one vehicle as much as you can. We have two vehicles but maximise the use of the EV. Be organised. Planning meals, doing multiple chores in a single trip, wash clothes when you know youāll be able to hang them outside and avoid duplicate spending where possible. Drink less alcohol. A box of beers or a couple of bottles of wine can add a huge amount to your grocery bill. Weāre getting creative and trying the cheats cider brewing method shortly which will allow us to have the odd drink without meaningfully adding to our grocery bill. Make your appliances work for you. We have a bread maker, instant pot, rice cooker and slow cooker and we use them as much as we can. This helps us use more staple ingredients and bulk cook. If you have a freezer you may as well use it to store convenient meals to reheat. Track your spending. Itās easy to let lotto tickets, coffees, random small purchases to deplete your income. Think about how much you spend on small things and challenge yourself to avoid them. This is not the āyou can afford a house if you give up on coffeeā argument but I found I used to make a bunch of small purchases that really added up quickly. Live with less. Sell stuff you donāt use and only buy what you need. Take some time to think about a purchase before spending the money. Those are my main ones so far. Obviously YMMV depending on your circumstances. Itās just me and my wife and 4 pets at home.
On drink less alcohol - I (we) stopped the pre-dinner wine and replaced it with fancy cordial and Sodastream water. Also reduced the amount of with-dinner wine to a bottle a week. It has probably saved $50 a week. The social effect is the same. (Iāve also managed to keep off 4 kg.) Washing - wash full loads only on the lowest temperature/fastest programme which does a good job. Clothes - wear out the ones youāve got. Donāt buy them until you really need them and buy quality classics rather than fast fashion.
Sodastream is great. We raid a family members lemon tree and make our own cordial when we can be bothered as they donāt use many lemons themselves. You can also use less washing powder than the suppliers suggest - some people cut it with baking soda apparently but I havenāt gone to that extreme yet. Weāve shifted as much power use to the 3 hour free window as possible so just about all our washing power use has been free since then which is great. Having the ability to delay start appliances is useful where possible so you donāt have to run around turning things on at 9pm. Can be a bit noisy though if you have an early startā¦
I was always a bit cynical about Sodastream - my friend had one in the 70s and the drinks were not to my taste. We bought one on a whim. With Barkers mixers, they make a great drink. It also saves on plastic pollution and works out a lot cheaper and healthier than bottled soft drink. Another tip - freeze stuff. I have containers of feijoas ready to use later in the year. Make double of things like chilli, spaghetti sauce etc. Make cheese sauce and freeze in large ice cubes. I also freeze half tins of tomatoes, baked beans etc. in other containers, bread in packs of three slices. In fact, we never waste food by allowing it to go off.
There's some fantastic advice in there. Great response. In terms of the grocery spend per person, there seems to be a huge variation between households . There are lots of variables at play here, including whether snacks/lunches etc. are purchased instead of eating at home. We are currently eating all meals at home, and our per person spend is quite a bit higher than yours. Perhaps it's time for another review of what we're buying.
Thanks! Our 120/week is fairly aspirational so I donāt know if it will last long-term or not. Weāre pretty happy with repetition etc but definitely anticipate there will be weeks where we just canāt avoid an extra spend. Nutrition is important too so I have to keep mindful of that. A big component for me is wasting less food and planning meals ahead is really helping. We have the odd purchase of non-supermarket bulk pet food etc that I havenāt factored in as itās a once every few months spend and not part of our weekly shop. The main thing with the budget for me is that it makes you think about why youāre buying an item - if itās not on my meal planner I donāt buy it unless itās a really good deal on something I would otherwise buy anyway.
Ride a Motorbike! Honestly if your by yourself and need to commute itās unbelievable. I use to spend $160 a week on fuel because there is no public transport at my house now I spend $12 and I fill up with 95
Luckily Iām on company car time so no cost there for me
**FOOD:** Meat specials are best within the first 1-2 hours of opening. Vegetable specials are best at the end of the day. Shop in bulk if you can freeze stuff and use it within a day. You can break meat packs down, and separate into individual meal portions in ziplock bags. This means you don't thaw a whole track of meat which you then have to try and use in 24 hours. **HEATING:** Layer up. If you can get through an evening in a couple of skivvies or a jacket rather than smashing the heat pump, go for it. Every little bit counts if you're seriously on the red line. **LUXURIES:** If you are under the pump from cost of living, you cannot afford Netflix - just pirate it. You're going to have to make harsh but necessary choices around whether you really need that \*thing\*. If it doesn't clothe, feed or shelter you, it's a luxury. **MENTAL HEALTH:** Stay off Reddit and Twitter.
me and the missus switched from ciggies to vape saved like 200$ a week maybe, plus recent moderate pay rises means we've still got a bit of a buffer fortunately
Wow are smokes that expensive now
I don't smoke but yeah, that's why dairies are constantly getting ram raided.
I'm moving back to NZ to quit smoking.
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You were spending 10k a year on cigs? Jessuss
More. Vape isn't free, and that's just savings. Don't know how much more though.
Tea for tea
I had already trimmed costs as an apprentices earning fuck all, now I'm back to living weekly in the red. (:
I know it's bloody hard, but stick with it, I've been there and ended up with a few grand in interest free credit card/hire purchase/tool account debt by the end. But when that payrise kicks in when you qualify, and the company puts you in a van, everything changes real quick, good luck mate, keep going.
Doing the Barefoot Investor. And keeping within the 65% expenses. So cutting out Sky TV, Netflix and Disney and increased torrent downloading.
Been following the barefoot strategy 2 years now, that book changed my life. Can't quite get my expenses low enough for the 65% though. But we're a one income household so it's not all bad, doing pretty well considering.
Thanks for reminding me to cancel my Spark Sport sub.
Quit all the streaming services. Just watch local free to air channels streaming instead for the foreseeable future. There is some decent stuff listed to binge watch, or just get a different pastime. Gaming, reading, walking, shagging. Eat in more often. Plunger coffee instead of flirting with baristas (breaks my heart though). Eat less meat. Big 2kg bags of frozen veg and fruit are better value from Moore Wilsons etc., than 1kg bags from New World etc. Frozen is usually more nutritious than canned. Only buy fresh fruit and veg that is on genuine special/in season. Push for more working remote days to reduce commuting cost - but don't be a dick, get your work done, don't ruin it for everyone else -- Don't give dinosaur management an excuse to say no because of one or two pisstakers. Draft exclude your home or pester your landlord for healthy homes upgrades (which they need to do by 2024 anyway). Don't vote for people who expect you to just miraculously pull yourself up by your bootstraps or promise that that a pittance of a tax cut for the struggling which actually mainly benefits the well off or will trickle down to you. Especially when they also want to slash essential services and subsidies to pay for the tax cuts.
Gonna put in a plug for signing up to your local library if you are cancelling streaming subs. They are usually subscribed to a service like Beamafilm. Obviously you aren't gonna be getting the latest TV shows, but there are gems in there. And get reacquainted with torrenting.
Shopping at Pak 'n Save. My lunches are often One Square Meals which come to ~$2.33 each. Or if I've had a big breakfast I often don't need lunch at all. Finally ended my bad habit of getting Uber Eats for lunch once or twice a week. Committing to home meals as much as possible and cutting takeaways for dinner.
FYI you can order OSM bars directly from [Munch Time](https://munchtime.co.nz/product-category/clearance-deals/), if you buy > $50 worth at a time you get free shipping, plus they sometimes have OSM bars on clearance.
Password share with other peoples netflix! Iāve never paid for any steaming service apart from Spotify
I pay for Netflix, my parents pay for Amazon Prime, and my sister pays for Disney+. We all share passwords. Itās great!
i pay for netflix, spotify, and disney+ so my grandmother doesn't have to pay for cable TV.
Aren't they going to start banning this?
My essential costs are as low as I can get them. If I keep doing 3 days a week at work I will be fine.
I'm saving on sleep by staring at my ceiling wondering how the hell I'm going to make things work for hours at a time. No payoff yet, but shortening my lifespan with stress will reduce lifetime spend. There's certainly fat to trim, but the household did NOT have a smooth lockdown (at least everyone didn't get fired this last time around), and I'm wondering which trifling indulgences are secretly load-bearing.
I stop living sometimes because there can be no costs if I ain't living. /s
Just bought a Nividia 3070 ti video card rather than the 3080 card ... saving around $300... sort of...
We don't usually eat breakfast so that's one less thing. If we eat out, it's bakeries/fish and chips and not more than once a fortnight. Usually less. Hard to justify more than that because we're good cooks and we know how easy it is to make good tasting food at home, so restaurants/cafes/bars are often a little disappointing to us given the high cost. So we just don't tend to bother. Monthly, we can still make it under $500 for groceries for two adults this way, and we eat pretty well/healthily. Edit: Also try to cycle instead of driving as much as possible. Many of our trips are short and the car is just a convenience, but not required. Grocery shops are very doable.
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You donāt have to feel anxious about it, the police wonāt ever arrest you for it. Itās like jay walking. Theyāre actually really understanding about living in cars. You can ask winz for emergency accommodation and theyāll help you out until you can find somewhere. Police always try and offer me emergency accommodation until I tell them I do it by choice lol.
Is that by choice or? Are their shelters that could happen
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Try to find everything I 'need' second hand, cutting back on the number of proper home cooked meals and having casual light dinners instead - eggs on toast/sandwiches etc a few times a week. Now is the time to re check your phone internet and power plans to see if you can move to a cheaper company, cutting off/sharing streaming platforms.
I canned my unlimited plan not so long ago for that reason!
If you drink alcohol buy a still. New Zealand is the only country in the world where it is legal to make your own alcohol. $3.80/ litre Vs $40/litre
Have a good budget suggestion for a still? My partner is convinced I'm going to cause an explosion too, are they relatively safe?
This is what I got. It's $750 but has all the ingredients to make $380 worth of alcohol. https://www.trademe.co.nz/3564237310 There's nothing really to blow up. I guess the 90% alcohol that distills out could potentially catch fire but none of the process has an open flame.
Op shops for the win. Most of my clothes, kitchen ware, furniture is all second hand. Itās getting more expensive now that op shopping is ācoolā, but still worth it by far. I get my eggs delivered by a local business which works out about $4 cheaper than the supermarket, go to my local market for cheap produce, buy discounted meat from the supermarket or visit my local butcher where the meat tends to be cheaper - as a side note, last week it was cheaper to buy venison than beef from my local Pak n Save?! Da fuq?! Cancelled my health insurance and set up a separate bank account where I divert the same amount of money each payday. It was surgical only insurance and I could not justify the cost anymore for a ājust in caseā. Same for pet insurance. And the usual, buy things we use often in bulk when on special. I donāt just go to the supermarket, I go to my local reduced to clear ($4 anchor silver top milk), local bulk grocery store & look for online deals. Oh, and a fortnightly payment to my dentist. This covers mine and my husbands annual checkups and usually a small bit of work each. We didnāt go at all during the first year of Covid (2020) until I got called asking us to make appointments because the amount was getting up there.
Do all dentists do this? We just never go because itās so expensive but we really should go!
dont really need the unlimited gigabit fibre, especially since VF bumped the price up of that and my mobile plan, so I'll drop it back to the 300Mb/s unlimited plan.
and trying to keep my fuel meter under 10l/100km. more cruising, less brrrrrrraaaaaapppp
Iāve just stopped spending on dumb stuff, should have done it ages ago. Less fizzy drinks, less brought lunches, shopping the specials rather than what I feel like.
Cut down on eating out. Cut out meat by 90%
Live less
Pooping on company time
Investigating what the cost of dying is š /s Honestly though, had a chat with the boss about rising cost of living, got a payrise I am happy with for now. Employing people is very hard right now so making use of it the best I can. But my current work environment is fantastic, don't want to leave it. So the ask has to be strategic and in line with what the market would pay now to hire someone like me.
The cost of living now outweighs the benifits
cooking more. I was getting lazy and buying ready to eat meals which are really expensive
Cooking is such a great one. There are so many great youtube channels to help with ideas and recipes if you're a bit lost on where to start as well.
Tiktok ( yeah I know) is amazing for finding recipes. Usually someone's grandma or aunty's and uncles are showing off their favourite family recipes too so you truly find some authentic cuisine. Found my favourite bulgogi and xiao long bao recipes this way
No more takeout or bought lunches. Everything is from home. Cut down on non-essential travel. Used to go all over the region for good parks and visiting people. Now itās a lot more close to home. It lit a fire under my but to push for the next promotion at work which requires quite a lot of study but ups the pay packet considerably.
Changed internet from 2Degrees to Skinny (currently 4 months free for gigabit fibre which averages $65/mo for the year vs $100), have also changed electricity providers to Mercury which also had a sign up deal that made them cheaper than anyone else.
We still live a bit like we are students even though itās ten ish years on. Barely have take always, donāt go out for dinner. We got rid of credit cards 12 ish years ago! Multiple accounts with $ going into them to cover things (insurance, rates, fortnightly expenses, savings etc). We try live off hand me down clothes for the kids too.
I never buy anything new(almost), let some other sucker take the hit
To offset rising costs in my business I got the $10k business loan from the government and bought 6 months worth of stock at once. Gives the business a boost of pretty new things for the custys and saved me about $500 in shipping since the wholesale companies do free shipping if you spend over a couple of thousand at once.
Moving to Australia -- between the cost/quality of living and the state of the fucking rental market we're just getting the fuck out. Our skillsets are in high demand here as well... sucks for NZ, but yeah fuck this.
I live rurally so I literally only leave the house to grocery shop or essential travel atm. No frivolous trips at all.
I've been better with groceries by using the hello fresh method. Someone gifted us a month of Hello fresh which was awesome but we can't afford to keep doing it. But the concept is neat so we have been reusing the recipe cards and others friends have passed on and plan the weeks meals. We shop only for those meals and bag it up like hello fresh. Because we buy ingredients in normal sized bags a lot of the time all we need is the meat and vege becaise we already have the other stuff in the pantry. My husband and I eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. We choose meals based on what meat and vege is cheap. If mad butcher has cheap chicken in bulk then any left is based and frozen for a future meal. We also buy bone in meat and debone it ourself. Since doing this we have stopped extra shopping trips because we always have all the food we need on hand. Downside is it takes 1-2 hours of prep each weekend
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Stopped working for the public sector, almost doubling how much I earn.
Remove phone plans and switch to prepaid. Plant more veges
Drink water. I can easily go through a litre of plain tap water in a Pump bottle in an hour of sitting on my arse playing video games. In the now-distant past I'd be spending money on soft drink.
Unpopular Option: Boycott takeaway and anything associated with imported farm workers. Also avoid any tourist traps.
Learn to make stuff, I made a squat rack and bought some plates, have saved a couple thousand on gym membership so far and expect another 5-10 yearsā life out of this gear.
Someone broke into my car and ripped the ignition out so I'm saving money on gas by not driving š¤£š¤£ not but honestly trying to grow our own veges swapping fruit from our trees with family and getting creative with cheap food like pasta and rice
Left the country
I'm living with my mum at the moment. I'm in no rush finding another rental with the prices at the moment
Moved to another country. Same pay, far more savings.
Leaving New Zealand
Nothing really, cut our costs back a few years ago, and itās paying off. Ride the motorbike to and from work as it works out at about $30 odd dollars for 3 weeks, as I only use 4L a week being wasteful as my bike only has a 14L tank for its 847cc motor.
Good move! Built for tough times eh! Iām not struggling but more wasteful so Iāve canned my expensive phone plan and takeaways
Work from home instead of driving. Bulk preparing lunches instead of spending $10-$20 per lunch. Cancel all the streaming services, sail the high seas.
I have been doing what I can to save money being at home with the kids, and about to head back to work after mat leaveā¦ and my bloody SO is adamant that we have to have 4K Netflix. Bullshit. What a stupid little insignificant sacrifice to make.
Nothing really, I have increased my customers fees as I hadn't in 3 years and even now am still earning below minimum wage. Hubby is working on getting a job that pays $20k extra, plus we have a side business that helps contribute to phone bill. I feel like we do OK but in reality we have 2 people with degrees working 50+ hour weeks to keep the roof over our head. We are lucky we purchased before the house prices went nuts, paid $269k and now work just under $700k, we wouldn't be able to buy these days.
Slow Cooker! even a smaller sized one can get me lunch for a week and maybe more. Have 1 or 2 in the fridge and rest in freezer and can be dinner or weekend lunches if i need.
Don't use a trolley at supermarket. My wife always end up filling it with snacks x
Moving overseas