Living Expenses

Ours is quite a bit more than that but add another child and a dog in the mix as well!!

 

i would not put it that way- i just have funds that are in the offset for PPOR - once i get another IP the funds goes out and becomes tax deductible with my home loan split.

 

Our personal expences are assigned easily using 'Xero' accounting online and iphone App. You'de be surprised where your money goes if its really broken down. Here is our January expences. I've cut out income, IP expences, and IP (business income) which is normally shown in differenent sections above these. We made some lump sum payments in Jan hence some higher than the average expences. We also eat only organic (after watching mindblowing doco's on netflix!)
Our personal expences are treated as 'operating expences' in Xero world. Makes for excellent decision making and finding money, you didn't know you had. 2 ppl, toddler & dog.

 

Make sure you're sitting down.

 

I rang xero and spoke with a rep and they said their products couldn't help me with monitoring personal finances??

 

@bob shovel treat your whole life like a business and they wont know any better

 

i walk to work in CBD - so no tram fare (save $1500) and i have a salad for lunch for health purposes. cook at home and once a week have a meal outside

 

Strange they turned away. They'd still get their money from me. Atleast they have honest advice I guess... Or they don't really understanding what their product can be used for!

 

I agree with your comments but depending on the retirement lifestyle your after, you'll end up spending "lunch money, uniforms, transport costs" on long lunches, active wear and holidays.
Best to aim high in my opinion

 

@bob shovel i got our accountants to set it up (lee and lee accountants -brisbane). Paid them the $120 annual fee and i set it up myself once they got the login.

 

i rarely switch on the heating too and just wear more. my dog is smart enough to get under the blanket too

 

Also agree aiming high is good, but in many cases investing has been left extremely late and has to be looked at realistically. It is more achievable to first look at what is "needed" and if that is achieved what the stretch target is for a more expensive retirement

 

Our average would prob be around $6k per month easy - some months are a lot more. Especially if there's a trip away. That's two adults, three kids and a dog.

Cheers

Jamie

 

We use Saasu - Online Accounting Software for the same thing. These products are great for tracking and reporting, but they falldown for budgeting. We use ynab.com (you need a budget) for that... brilliant app.

 

Budgeting about 10k inc mortgage and exc trip to uk this year. Recent months higher due to kids birthdays Christmas etc but now budgeting in advance to reduce the shock. Reducing this to say 8k would be hard and probably not worth it vs effort to make 2k more.

 

Took me 3 months to get me and wife used to budgeting and tracking spending. Its a hard habit to get into but really worthwhile. I use ynab (although they are retiring the app now and moving to the cloud). I love being able to.click on say doctor and see the expense and medicare rebates in one box totalled.up. same for childcare. real feeling of being on top of it all. Excel doesnt cut it. Proper software is key! Once ynab retires will move to double entry accounting.

 

not keen on the cloud version? I find the mobile app for the new ynab better than ynab 4, allows you to reassign funds to different categories..

 

Pocketbook is great too. Well I use it and happy so far.

 

I havent tried it but their page says its more expensive, i cannot import my ynab4 data and it works differently and ive just learned ynab4. So overall not convinced. Now i am used to budgeting i may switch to something more hardcore like gnucash which is free/open source.

 

I'd never thought I lived frugally until I saw this thread and now I'm starting to think I'm a freaking miser...

I check in at $480 a week including car expenses (not repayment), rent, health insurance, internet, foxtel, phone, bills and the budget of eating out for every meal.