So, Victorian Energy Compare has certainly made it a bit easier, but I just have to say I want to tear my hair out!!! I still have no idea what to do about my Electricity and Gas bills after spending several hours on the task. It's all so damn confusing!
We currently have both bills with AGL, and we get a 14% discount off our usage if we pay on time (which we always do). So although our rates might be a little higher than some other companies, the discount does help. I called AGL hoping to negotiate down the daily supply charge rate, which seemed very high, but they just got me more confused! They offered an extra 20% discount if we combine the two bills. Which sounds great, but the discount is only off usage and our supply charge is usually higher than our usage. So now I need to go and do even more calculations to see if we'll come out in front against other companies with lower rates. It's all very boring 'back of the envelope' calculations which I really don't care for. No wonder people just give up!
Our bills actually aren't too ridiculous anyway. According to our electricity bills we use less electricity than the average 1 person household! What on earth do people do to use so much electricity?! And our gas bill is only crazy in winter, so we can cope with that too.
So I think I'll just stick with AGL and get the extra discount. Saves changing suppliers and setting up new online transfers. At least I'll save us a bit of money this year!
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Monday, July 25, 2016
False economies
No, I haven't sorted my gas and electricity bills yet. This week, I promise!
In the interim I thought I'd tell you a little story about a blouse. Last weekend I went to a friend's wedding, and I had nothing appropriate to wear - my one wedding outfit is a summer ensemble. So I asked a friend if I could borrow an outfit, and she obliged. It was a gorgeous colourful silk top and fancy skirt. I looked lovely and received lots of compliments on the night. And I was feeling rather smug that I hadn't needed to go out and spend lots of money on a new outfit!
However, disaster occurred when mains were served at the same time as speeches. I dropped an oily salad leaf down my front and there was a rather noticeable oil stain right on centre of the blouse. Disaster!
Anyway, to cut a long story cut short, I attempted to clean the blouse myself. I've always been a bit skeptical about the need for dry cleaning and I had done a quick hand wash before I wore it and it was fine. However, my scrubbing and the strong detergent completely ruined the top.
I felt physically ill as soon as I realised, and felt sick until I went around the next night to tell my friend the bad news. I knew it had been one of her favourite tops and on high rotation in her wardrobe. I wrote a 'sorry' card and withdrew a large amount of money so she could try to replace it and/or buy a whole new outfit.
In the end she was great about it and only accepted a token amount of the money. But it made me realise a few things:
In the interim I thought I'd tell you a little story about a blouse. Last weekend I went to a friend's wedding, and I had nothing appropriate to wear - my one wedding outfit is a summer ensemble. So I asked a friend if I could borrow an outfit, and she obliged. It was a gorgeous colourful silk top and fancy skirt. I looked lovely and received lots of compliments on the night. And I was feeling rather smug that I hadn't needed to go out and spend lots of money on a new outfit!
However, disaster occurred when mains were served at the same time as speeches. I dropped an oily salad leaf down my front and there was a rather noticeable oil stain right on centre of the blouse. Disaster!
Anyway, to cut a long story cut short, I attempted to clean the blouse myself. I've always been a bit skeptical about the need for dry cleaning and I had done a quick hand wash before I wore it and it was fine. However, my scrubbing and the strong detergent completely ruined the top.
I felt physically ill as soon as I realised, and felt sick until I went around the next night to tell my friend the bad news. I knew it had been one of her favourite tops and on high rotation in her wardrobe. I wrote a 'sorry' card and withdrew a large amount of money so she could try to replace it and/or buy a whole new outfit.
In the end she was great about it and only accepted a token amount of the money. But it made me realise a few things:
- 1) Don't be a tight arse. Spending money on dry cleaning would have probably saved the top. Another example of this is buying generic brand items that you know just aren't as good. I bought Aldi wraps last week (which I think are no good - one of the few Aldi 'fails' in my opinion) and they keep coming home in the lunch box. I should have spent the extra few dollars on the Mission brand ones.
- 2) Don't make decisions on a hangover! (See (1).)
- 3) Borrowing items may sound like a frugal option, but consider what will happen if things go wrong. Other examples of this include ruining a friend's old phone that they lent you or crashing their car.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Next items to tackle: Utilities
I can't bring myself to start reviewing our electricity and gas bills yet, although I know there is a great site that allows you to plug in your numbers and see if you can get a better deal - my friend Bec blogged about it over here. It's a government site called Victorian Energy Compare and apparently most households can save around $300 a year on their electricity bills. That will be next week's job as I'm exhausted after all the excitement of changing insurance providers last week.
In the interim I thought I'd talk about mobile phones. Over the last 20 years I have wasted a lot of money going with the two big providers, Telstra and Optus. Both are ridiculously expensive. I have also moved on from feeling the need to get a new phone every 2 years, just because.
When my last contract was up I finally owned my phone (I was on a 2 year contract where you pay off the phone) and I was finally free to shop around. It became clear that the 2 cheapest/best value options were Amayasim and Aldi. I went with Aldi as it's on the Telstra network and I hated the Optus network coverage when I was with them.
And it is SO cheap! I used to pay over $60 a month for a similar plan, and I now pay $20/month. They tell me I could do the $15 a month plan with my current usage, but I like to have a bit of a buffer. Anyway, that's an annual saving of $480!
So if you own your phone I would strongly recommend shopping around for a better deal. The same goes for your home internet provider. I'm with TPG on a $50/month plan that provides 200GB, which is pretty cheap and was a very good deal when I signed up many years ago. I still think this is very good value, but with the advent of streaming most providers are now doing better deals for more (or even unlimited) data. So again, check your usage and shop around.
In the interim I thought I'd talk about mobile phones. Over the last 20 years I have wasted a lot of money going with the two big providers, Telstra and Optus. Both are ridiculously expensive. I have also moved on from feeling the need to get a new phone every 2 years, just because.
When my last contract was up I finally owned my phone (I was on a 2 year contract where you pay off the phone) and I was finally free to shop around. It became clear that the 2 cheapest/best value options were Amayasim and Aldi. I went with Aldi as it's on the Telstra network and I hated the Optus network coverage when I was with them.
And it is SO cheap! I used to pay over $60 a month for a similar plan, and I now pay $20/month. They tell me I could do the $15 a month plan with my current usage, but I like to have a bit of a buffer. Anyway, that's an annual saving of $480!
So if you own your phone I would strongly recommend shopping around for a better deal. The same goes for your home internet provider. I'm with TPG on a $50/month plan that provides 200GB, which is pretty cheap and was a very good deal when I signed up many years ago. I still think this is very good value, but with the advent of streaming most providers are now doing better deals for more (or even unlimited) data. So again, check your usage and shop around.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Insurance sorted!
Well, it was painful and time consuming, but I have just changed our car, house contents and health insurance policies and saved us a whopping $1988.94 a year!
Approximately half of that was reducing our health insurance from the top hospital cover to the mid-range one that doesn't include obstetrics/pregnancy related items. I should have done this a year ago as soon as my (third and final) baby was born. But it didn't even cross my mind! At least we have used the policy a lot over the last year so I don't feel too ripped off. And I loved having my baby in a private hospital!
On that note, I read an article a few years ago about hospital extras cover, saying that insurance companies make most of their money from the extras cover and that for most people paying for extras cover doesn't make financial sense. Of course it depends on your circumstances, but I did the sums back then and we got rid of our extras cover (saving us a conservative $250/year). However, I have lots of friends who say they definitely get more back from their cover than they pay (they are probably good and go to the dentist more than me!). So if you pay for extras cover each month, it's a good idea to assess if you are getting your money's worth.
The rest of the savings came by switching our car and house contents insurance (we rent) to another company. We'd been with AAMI for 7 years and I hadn't been bothered to check if we were getting a good deal or not. I think the lesson here is don't be lazy like me! When you get your annual renewal put aside an evening or afternoon (many insurance companies are open in the evenings and weekends) and do some comparisons. Yes, it is extremely time consuming (I was on the phone to Youi for nearly an hour sorting out both policies, as well as to AAMI seeing if they could do better and finally cancelling the policies) and rather boring, but I now feel very proud of myself! You can start with comparison websites but unfortunately you need to talk to people to get your insurance finalised.
So here is a breakdown of our savings. Hopefully it inspires you to pull out your policies and see if you can get a better deal!
Car insurance: comprehensive cover on a Volvo worth around $6000
Approximately half of that was reducing our health insurance from the top hospital cover to the mid-range one that doesn't include obstetrics/pregnancy related items. I should have done this a year ago as soon as my (third and final) baby was born. But it didn't even cross my mind! At least we have used the policy a lot over the last year so I don't feel too ripped off. And I loved having my baby in a private hospital!
On that note, I read an article a few years ago about hospital extras cover, saying that insurance companies make most of their money from the extras cover and that for most people paying for extras cover doesn't make financial sense. Of course it depends on your circumstances, but I did the sums back then and we got rid of our extras cover (saving us a conservative $250/year). However, I have lots of friends who say they definitely get more back from their cover than they pay (they are probably good and go to the dentist more than me!). So if you pay for extras cover each month, it's a good idea to assess if you are getting your money's worth.
The rest of the savings came by switching our car and house contents insurance (we rent) to another company. We'd been with AAMI for 7 years and I hadn't been bothered to check if we were getting a good deal or not. I think the lesson here is don't be lazy like me! When you get your annual renewal put aside an evening or afternoon (many insurance companies are open in the evenings and weekends) and do some comparisons. Yes, it is extremely time consuming (I was on the phone to Youi for nearly an hour sorting out both policies, as well as to AAMI seeing if they could do better and finally cancelling the policies) and rather boring, but I now feel very proud of myself! You can start with comparison websites but unfortunately you need to talk to people to get your insurance finalised.
So here is a breakdown of our savings. Hopefully it inspires you to pull out your policies and see if you can get a better deal!
Car insurance: comprehensive cover on a Volvo worth around $6000
- Was $120.80/month or $1449.60/year with AAMI (we paid monthly which increased the premium significantly).
- Now $886.16/year with Youi.
- Saving of $563.44/year
- Was $839.20/year with AAMI. Seven years ago when we moved in this was good value as I shopped around.
- Now $335.90/year with Youi.
- Saving of $503.30/year
- Was $302.40/month. This was Premium hospital with HCF, without extras. I wanted pregnancy to be covered so I could have my third child in a private hospital.
- Now $225.55/month. This is Mid hospital with HCF, as we no longer need obstetrics.
- Saving of $922.20/year
Saturday, July 2, 2016
The new frontier
The first month with only a monthly shop (and top up veggies) is over and it was surprisingly easy. Just goes to show what a little planning can achieve. The month's grocery spend was quite high in the end (about $700) but I put that down to having to do a major re-stock after the no-spend month. I'm confident I can keep the grocery budget to about $600 a month from now on, which is a pretty drastic improvement on the previous average spend of over $1000 a month.
Well, that's what I thought our average grocery spend was, but it turns out that I was only looking at the previous 3 months of spending. This week I did a full 2015-2016 spending analysis by exporting all our data from our online banking system which has a budgeting function allowing each spend to be allocated to a category. This makes ongoing tracking nice and easy and allows for relatively quick and easy analysis (using pivot tables in Excel - the geek in me is coming out!).
What I was shocked to find was that the three months prior to no-spend month were actually an anomaly! Our grocery spend across the financial year had increased very quickly from $550 last July to averaging $1100 per month from November! So what happened?
I think 'Hello Fresh' boxes had a lot to do with it. I got sucked in by the half-price first couple of boxes and the convenience and excitement of trying new recipes each week. But I was also getting the usual CERES fruit and veg box each week as well as spending a lot of time popping into Coles for a few things here and there. My baby also started on solids at around this time and she loves her food!
I also think that getting into the rhythm of not working and being at home with the kids affected my shopping. At a time when I should have been becoming extra frugal due to the one income situation, I was popping to the shops on a regular basis as an outing. The shops are a 10 minute walk and there is a park on the way, so this was the perfect way to get out of the house and get among people and give the kids a run-around. The silly thing is that I can go to the park (and library which is near the shops) and not spend any money! Now I walk through the shopping centre on my way to the library to get my 'getting among people' fix, and do my best not to buy anything except the odd loaf of bread.
So now that I feel the grocery spend is under control, and the 'food and dining' (read cafe) spend has been drastically reduced too (although still way too high...) the next step in saving our budget is cutting 'fixed' expenses, like insurance premiums and utility bills. This is something I have been putting off for a very long time, as I can think of nothing worse than sitting on the phone getting insurance quotes, but I know that I can do better, particularly with our car insurance. So stay tuned!
Well, that's what I thought our average grocery spend was, but it turns out that I was only looking at the previous 3 months of spending. This week I did a full 2015-2016 spending analysis by exporting all our data from our online banking system which has a budgeting function allowing each spend to be allocated to a category. This makes ongoing tracking nice and easy and allows for relatively quick and easy analysis (using pivot tables in Excel - the geek in me is coming out!).
What I was shocked to find was that the three months prior to no-spend month were actually an anomaly! Our grocery spend across the financial year had increased very quickly from $550 last July to averaging $1100 per month from November! So what happened?
I think 'Hello Fresh' boxes had a lot to do with it. I got sucked in by the half-price first couple of boxes and the convenience and excitement of trying new recipes each week. But I was also getting the usual CERES fruit and veg box each week as well as spending a lot of time popping into Coles for a few things here and there. My baby also started on solids at around this time and she loves her food!
I also think that getting into the rhythm of not working and being at home with the kids affected my shopping. At a time when I should have been becoming extra frugal due to the one income situation, I was popping to the shops on a regular basis as an outing. The shops are a 10 minute walk and there is a park on the way, so this was the perfect way to get out of the house and get among people and give the kids a run-around. The silly thing is that I can go to the park (and library which is near the shops) and not spend any money! Now I walk through the shopping centre on my way to the library to get my 'getting among people' fix, and do my best not to buy anything except the odd loaf of bread.
So now that I feel the grocery spend is under control, and the 'food and dining' (read cafe) spend has been drastically reduced too (although still way too high...) the next step in saving our budget is cutting 'fixed' expenses, like insurance premiums and utility bills. This is something I have been putting off for a very long time, as I can think of nothing worse than sitting on the phone getting insurance quotes, but I know that I can do better, particularly with our car insurance. So stay tuned!
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