*X-posted to budgeting board*

This is what my budget looked like yesterday (fortnightly figures, in Australian dollars, so some of the amounts may look a bit odd):

Savings             $200.00
Rent		                              $660.00
Groceries		                     $300.00
Fuel		                                 $50.00
Oil, car maintenance, car insurance, rego		 $100.00
Health insurance		          $88.00
Electricity		                        $30.00
Phone, internet	              $50.00
House & contents insurance		 $15.00
Takeaways, school lunches etc.	 $40.00
School expenses - uniforms, books, excursions	 $60.00
Holidays		                        $50.00
Entertainment - videos, going out etc.	 $25.00
Clothes, hair, etc.		        $60.00
Fun money	                    $44.00

No problem with it. It's what I've been following for nearly 12 months now, & it allowed for everything I spend, & with a fortnightly income of $1772, everything balanced out.

Until today.

I was flicking through the local paper, & came across a house to rent. Close to school, new kitchen, I even looked at it a month or so ago but decided that the $280 they were asking per week was not enough below my current $330 per week to move (I have a pool, fully air cond. etc - thought I liked my creature comforts too much!)

Now, they are advertising it at $200 per week. That's $130 less than what I'm paying now! I put in an application, & she rang me back pretty much straight away to say I had been approved!!

Now I have an extra $130 per week to put into my savings! For that price, I will buy an annual family membership to the local swimming pool ($172 per family) and still come out $6588 per year ahead, by my calculations. Cool!

So financial freedom, here I come.

Primm
*celebrating down under*

Primm, if you were attempting to get the numbers to line up, be sure to use spaces, not tabs, to space out the columns; tabs are at different spots on different machines, even when running the same software.

Primm, if you were attempting to get the numbers to line up, be sure to use spaces, not tabs, to space out the columns; tabs are at different spots on different machines, even when running the same software.

Thanks, I realised after posting that I had done that, but didn't preview (oops!) and couldn't be bothered going back & reposting!

Primm