Financial Overhaul

A change in my personal circumstances has me looking at a complete financial overhaul. For the first time, I will be outlining my actual expenses, my average income (being self employed it goes up and down) and the things I will be doing to reduce it. You are free to leave suggestions in the comments on how you might cut back in my position.

My income is approximately $1,900 a fortnight, not including royalties, which come every 6 months, but they are not a huge amount anyway. Some fortnights I earn more, but this is a safe average.

My expenses are:

House – $600

Food – $250

Petrol – $50

Speech Therapy – $270 to $520 depending on if both daughters attend and a couple of other things

Health insurance – $80

Car maintenance/insurance/rego – $50

Gas/electricity/water – $120

Phone/internet – $55

Preschool – $50

Sanity – $20

Savings – $205

Miscellaneous – $150

Total $1900

As you can see my total takes me right up to my income. The miscellaneous section includes clothing, entertainment, unexpected school and medical expenses, my therapy etc. It essentially sits in a savings account until needed.

I have some ways to reduce my food bill. I am gluten intolerant and we try to eat mostly fresh fruit and vegetables so that can push up the food bill, but there is room for improvement.

I am looking at learning how to do my own service, but am going to weigh up if the time it takes me is more cost effective than getting my mechanic who is really good do it.

I know my gas, water and electricity could all come down. I am looking at thermal cooking as well as more solar cooking now that the weather has warmed up. I’ve been using my oven a bit of late and this was reflected in my last bill.

I will be switching internet plans as I am on a higher plan than I really need. Some months I was using the whole amount, but I know I won’t be any more and with my provider if I go over they don’t charge extra, instead the speed just drops.

Preschool is $50 a fortnight, but obviously it is not an expense during school holidays. I have kept it at $50 as I need to get school uniforms and supplies for my older daughter, plus next year my younger daughter starts preschool and it will be increased to $60 a week instead of what I currently pay.

So that is where it currently sits. What would you do differently?

Forced Success Worked!

On the 9^th of October I wrote about my plans to force me to succeed. There were 2 major things I had kept meaning to do, but I never really found the time. I knew it was important to me and I should have been MAKING the time instead of trying to find the time, but I had lost motivation.

When I read about forced success (also known as precommitment) I knew this was what I needed to do. So I set myself up in a way that forced me to do what I had been planning on doing.

Today I had to finish a project and send it off. If I didn’t do it, it was going to cost me $1,000! You see, someone owes me money and I made an agreement with them that if I didn’t complete this project, they didn’t have to pay me back.

In case you haven’t noticed, money is a big incentive for me. This turned out to be exactly what I needed to do to find the motivation to finish the project.

I have another agreement like this with my sister over my body. As mentioned in the previous post, if I don’t get to the size/shape I want then I am paying for our whole holiday to Cairns and snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef next year. I have quite a few months and have been doing well. I want to look good in my bikini so have been working hard.

Along the same lines, recently we found out our daughters need a lot of extra care which would cost around $10,000 between now and February. At first this seemed impossible, but I decided to book everything in, then aim to find the money.

So far we have sold off lots, got over time and made enough money to cover everything as well as being able to source some of the care they need for free through my doctor and some referrals. By committing to the care plan, I made myself find a way to get the money to make it happen.

Have you ever tried something similar? Commit to something so you have to find a way to do it?

Force success

I just did something crazy. I had read a post and I can't remember it exactly but it was about creating a way to prevent failure and forcing yourself to succeed. It gave a few scenarios and I thought about it for a while.

Today it struck me. I knew 2 areas I really wanted to succeed in and while I have been doing it a bit, there is a long way to go with both of these goals. I immediately saw 2 ways to achieve these goals, but in a way where if I failed, it would really hurt.

The first is my body. I have a yellow bikini I want to look good in. I am pretty happy with my size and my shape is good, but I want to be more toned so I look good in this bikini.

The way I am forcing myself to succeed is through a holiday. April 2013 my sister and I are going to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and spend time in Cairns. I want to look good, but on top of that I am paying for everything and if I do not achieve my goal, she does not have to pay me back.

I am a fairly driven person. I want to wear this on our holiday and I hate to spend money I don't have to, so these are strong incentives for me to get my body in shape.

The second goal is something I have set a deadline for a few times, yet still not finished. Someone currently owes me over $1,000. I have an agreement with them now that if this goal is not completed by Friday 19th october, 2012, they keep $1,000 of what they owe me.

These 2 things stand to lose me a lot of money if I don't do them, but if I do achieve them I will be healthier and with the second goal I will have another income stream set up.

Have you ever thought of forcing yourself to succeed? What would you do?

90 Day Challenge - Play A Bigger Game!

I read Play A Bigger Game!: Achieve More! Be More! Do More! Have More! this weekend. It was a nice quick read, but it is a book that will make you think and is great for goal setting. In it there is a 90 day challenge which I think everyone should give a go. Basically, you focus on 1 goal, the most important goal to you for 90 days to achieve it.

You go through a variety of steps and really need to either write in the book itself or have paper and pen handy to make your notes and work out your goal.

A couple of the quotes I liked from the book were:
"The greatest waste in the world is the waste of potential." This is so true. How many times do we think we can't do something, so we don't try. If we never try, we can never succeed and we waste our potential.

"We have become a nation of watchers, not doers." The author, Rowdy, discusses in the book how we watch The Biggest Loser instead of exercising ourselves. We watch Masterchef, but then order take out. Instead of living our lives and doing things, we watch. I am slowly marking things off my bucket list and am determined to live my life and achieve what I set out to achieve instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching everything pass me by.

So to do the 90 day challenge, you write down 5 goals you have. It shouldn't take you long to do. Then to work out which is your number 1 goal, ask if the first is more important than the second. Is it more important than the third? And so on, with all the goals, until you find which one is the most important, second, third, fourth and fifth. You now know what your number 1 goal is, the thing that is most important to you to achieve.

Now you know your goal, write a vividly clear description of what it is like when you have achieved your goal. What does it look like, what does it feel like, what are you doing etc...

Next write 3 reasons it is important to you, followed by 3 actions you need to take to achieve this goal.

90 days is short enough to keep the goal at the forefront of your mind, but long enough to achieve larger goals too.

So what goal will you set and how will you do it? What do you think of this method of goal setting?