commitments & percentage of your income

[brenx]

Originally Posted by vctxr6ute

thank you so far fellas,just so you know its a less personal form to list your commitments as percentages of your wage.and it give a easier average.

The reason i asked this ,is we are 3/4 way building our new home and now doing the extras/furniture/accessories/air con ,
pergola, shed, gardens, fences, landscaping and find the $$$$$$ go very quickly these days.
But I dont know if Im alone in the big financial rollercoaster

You aint alone.

I've never added it up but I'd say my mrs and I would be in the 80-90% mark. We've got a personal loan due to be paid out next year I think. Then that'll drop by around 10%. Then the next loan will be due out 3 years later and that'll drop us by another 10-15%.

External debt and children (not mortage) is what kills your $.

I spend $150-200 per fortnight on fuel. I don't go visiting if possible. My biggest killer is we do heaps of k's for work. We kill cars quickly by clocking up heaps of k's. We usually replace a car every 5 years. Which means we always have a car loan of some form. The reason we keep replacing them as it's generally cheaper than taking time off work to have them fixed. Trade them when there are starting to have mechanical failures etc.

[RPO83]

Originally Posted by Racecraft

Mortgage = 40%
that is the only real expense each week but I consider the following as necessities too

Fixed Bills- Foxtel, BigPuddle, Mobile, saving for Rates, power and gas etc = 5%
Food and Fuel = 10%

I can still save some coin a week but like you vctxr6ute, I have grandiose plans for the house, new deck, a spa/pool, an outdoor entertaining area, re-do the driveway and landscaping, then onto the inside, so the tokens don't seem to go very far.

Level 5 water restrictions in Brisbane is going to make the whole pool/spa idea fun!

[JADED6]

Every time I add up this sort of thing it ends up over what I'm earning. No idea how ends meet but they do.
Partner & baby to support on 1 income is a huge difference compared to the previous double income no kids (DINKS i think they call that)

[Ultimate]

Fuel $50
Carloan $200
Food $50-70
Rent $50 (Good to have friend with vacant houses)
Phone $25-$60
Electricity $20

$550 a week, I dont end up with to much cash left over as there always stuff like Police Fines

[redranga]

My home loans is 43% of my take home wage per week

[Teza_XR8ute]

im lucky... kinda
my wage for one week covers my home loan for the month.
another week pays for our 2 cars expences and bills. my misses doesnt pay for fuel. she drives about 170km a day!
the next weeks wage goes to savings
the last week is play money.

misses wage goes straight to an offset account for our new block we have just purchesed.

we have friends who are so over committed thay cant afford much. i dont know how some people live. i really feel for some people and every week, they can still smile!

[robjh80]

We're also on single income, missus stays home and looks after the 2 kids, she hasn't worked for 9 years, only loan commitment we have is a personal loan which takes 5% of my income, had a new house built about 3 years ago.........went over budget as you normally do when building!!, got more expensive bricks, fancy leadlight front door, off white mortar, bigger pergola etc etc etc.........took the loan to pay for all these extras, ............it all adds up, ended up with a nice grand total in the end!!

[gtfpv]

Originally Posted by Teza_XR8ute

im lucky... kinda
my wage for one week covers my home loan for the month.
another week pays for our 2 cars expences and bills. my misses doesnt pay for fuel. she drives about 170km a day!
the next weeks wage goes to savings
the last week is play money.

misses wage goes straight to an offset account for our new block we have just purchesed.

we have friends who are so over committed thay cant afford much. i dont know how some people live. i really feel for some people and every week, they can still smile!

OHHHH RIGHT . just wait till you build that lovely house your thinkin of and have kids .
and dont say you'll pay for it all 1st because if you do . you will be a daddy when you should be just about a grand daddy , which is a worse option . GOOD LUCK .

[Deadman]

Home Loan and Car Lease are it (don't like the idea of owing money on anything unless it's tax wise, an investment or I can live in it. Hrmmm, I'm sure I could fit a sleeping bag in a FPV... :P)

About 20% of our joint income after tax goes to both of those. But we put a lot more % on to the Home Loan to get more equity, reduce interest payable etc, not to mention try to get a buffer for when we think about kids in a few years and might need to redraw on some of that when the wife takes time off work

[Gabbs]

Works out to be 25% on the car for me so its pretty easy for me.
I'm on monthly pay and I have my pay split into two accounts. So one account is for my car and savings and the rest is for all my bills and stuff. Works out really well you just have to not dip into the other account and force yourself to not spend it on things you don't need.

[brenx]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

OHHHH RIGHT . just wait till you build that lovely house your thinkin of and have kids .
and dont say you'll pay for it all 1st because if you do . you will be a daddy when you should be just about a grand daddy , which is a worse option . GOOD LUCK .

lol so true. I'll be mid 40's and mine will be both gone, provided there is no uni happening.

[dan.76]

save up for having kids


not wrong there , used to have heaps of equity in my loans until the wife had two difficult pregnacies in a row , 400km round trip to the specialist every month and living away from home for 7 weeks till they got better costs heaps lol

[normxb]

Just a few ideas if you're "Payment % verses Income" is high and you're "feeling the pinch" , this is how we get by :-

1/ Approach your lender and see if you can make "Weekly" house payments instead of monthly , most loans are calculated on a daily basis . IF you can manage $5 - $10 a week all the better , you would be surprised how much you will save over the life of the loan . Also if you get ahead and find youself in a tight spot , some lenders will hold off the payments for a week or two , ours does .

2/ Approach your local Electricity/Gas supplier and get a payment card and pay them $25-$50 a week or fortnight , sometimes we have been in Credit when the bill comes in . A lot better than trying to find a large sum in one go .

3/ Phone Company "As Above" .

4/ Keep a couple of Envelopes , A/ Cars Ins, B/ Car Rego, C/ Council Rates, D/ House and Contents Ins . What you must do here is get your average Bill , divide by 52 and put that away each week . You could possibly do with car loans as well .

Here's where it will be a success or fall apart , you MUST stick to it and DON'T dip into the funds .....The Mrs has been doing this for the last 9 years and it does work . Home is like a business , and the magic word is BUDGET .

Sit down ,put pen to paper and see if it works for you .

Norm

[chich]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

i know it is very costly but my advice to young people is to grow up and get out , learn to be self sufficiant . as all the past generations did before you . my parants and grandparents generation were all out between 16 and 18 years old , some travelling overseas for work . my generation most were out by 22. dont become a hoarder , many people are at home at 30 with no savings. what a wasted life . seriously if you are 22 you need to be thinking about not living at home and getting out by 25 at the latest . sorry for taking this thread of topic . but i strongly feel it needed to be said .

Bah.. being self sufficient is over rated. Being of European decent, I'm still living at home at the age of 25 and plan to keep it that way until the girlfriend runs out of patience with me. As for board, whats that?? :hihi:

Having said that though i understand where you're coming from regarding those who remain at home at age 30 with nothing to their name. Personally i'd love to move in with the girlfriend to test ourselves out before taking the next step, but the reality is staying at home give us both the opportunity to put some decent cash aside and put ourselves on the front foot from the get-go.

[HLC]

i earn anywhere between $150 - 400 pw (i have 3 jobs. 2 are fixed shifts totalling 150- and one is at maccas, and depends if i tell them i can work or not/what shifts they give me)

$80 per week petrol.

the rest is saved towards car expenses. about 4 months of that. then i save for personal items/concert tickets.

[robjh80]

Originally Posted by normxb

Just a few ideas if you're "Payment % verses Income" is high and you're "feeling the pinch" , this is how we get by :-

1/ Approach your lender and see if you can make "Weekly" house payments instead of monthly , most loans are calculated on a daily basis . IF you can manage $5 - $10 a week all the better , you would be surprised how much you will save over the life of the loan . Also if you get ahead and find youself in a tight spot , some lenders will hold off the payments for a week or two , ours does .

2/ Approach your local Electricity/Gas supplier and get a payment card and pay them $25-$50 a week or fortnight , sometimes we have been in Credit when the bill comes in . A lot better than trying to find a large sum in one go .

3/ Phone Company "As Above" .

4/ Keep a couple of Envelopes , A/ Cars Ins, B/ Car Rego, C/ Council Rates, D/ House and Contents Ins . What you must do here is get your average Bill , divide by 52 and put that away each week . You could possibly do with car loans as well .

Here's where it will be a success or fall apart , you MUST stick to it and DON'T dip into the funds .....The Mrs has been doing this for the last 9 years and it does work . Home is like a business , and the magic word is BUDGET .

Sit down ,put pen to paper and see if it works for you .

Norm

All very good advice Norm, we do a similar thing whereas we run 2 bank accounts, one for me and one for the missus,........ why?

Because she doesn't work all the money is placed in her account, as she is of course under the tax free threshold any interest earnt is tax free.
If the money was in my account the tax earned would have to be declared and hence lost to the nice tax man, my pay goes into my account and I only ever keep around the $1000 minimum in it to avoid bank charges etc incurred on the account.

We also keep two A4 size excercise books, one for each account.
We draw up 5 lines down each page with the following headings........Date, Description, Debit, Credit, Balance.

If we go to the ATM to draw out cash or make an Eftpos purchase we would then instinctively write the entry into the correct excercise book that the account relates to,........ ie: $200 would be placed in the "Debit" column with something in the "Description" coloumn like "Cash Withdrawal ATM" or "New Tyres" or whatever the case may be and the "Balance" coloumn would be ammended accordingly.

We have done this for many years, it's a throwback to the days where we had a big mortgage and had to budget accordingly, we have simply just carried it on to this day and will continue to do so.

The benefits of course are that everything is tracked and accounted for, I dont need a bank statement to tell me how much is in each account and I can look back through the books to determine exactly when the next bill is coming in whether it be rates, electricity, car rego etc.

It takes a little discipline to start doing but once under way it just becomes instinct and we have found it very worthwhile..........have also managed to catch the bank out a couple of times as well when they send the bank statement out with incorrect withdrawals etc.

Can't recommend it enough to anyone losing track of where all their hard earned money is going.

[jason71]

4/ Keep a couple of Envelopes , A/ Cars Ins, B/ Car Rego, C/ Council Rates, D/ House and Contents Ins . What you must do here is get your average Bill , divide by 52 and put that away each week . You could possibly do with car loans as well .

We do similar but instead of putting the money in envelopes we put it into our home loan and keep track of it in a note book.

[gtfpv]

Originally Posted by chich

Bah.. being self sufficient is over rated. Being of European decent, I'm still living at home at the age of 25 and plan to keep it that way until the girlfriend runs out of patience with me. As for board, whats that?? :hihi:

Having said that though i understand where you're coming from regarding those who remain at home at age 30 with nothing to their name. Personally i'd love to move in with the girlfriend to test ourselves out before taking the next step, but the reality is staying at home give us both the opportunity to put some decent cash aside and put ourselves on the front foot from the get-go.

mate each to there own . but as i said earlier, i thought of all these things at 16 . i was out at 19, a tadesman at 20 and married at 24 , with 50g's all saved . had 1st child at 29 and fully owned home at 30. and this was the norm . and i am only 38 now . you see times are changing . you cant do it the same way now. but you still should have started a plan in your teens. my poarents generation ( european ) were traveling across the world for a job at 18 . some of them all over the world including australians were being kicked out at 15 to make there own way. i really feel sorry for 30 year old children . it aint right. being an adult and standing on your 2 feet is everything !!!!
my dad couldn't send me to my room at 19 . youurs can as long as you live there . sereiously guys life is too short. before you know it your old so start young . i still know women in mid 30s who haven't had a child yet, and women at 40 who have left it too late and cannot. by the way my nan was a granmother at 40. we dont live till 135 . by 35 your 1/2 way over .

[Deadman]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

mate each to there own

you're post would have been better if you stopped there

Petrol - $40
Going out fri/sat nights - $150 odd.

Wait... that's it - cause i still live at home and bludge off the olds

[Casper]

Originally Posted by MattyJ

Petrol - $40
Going out fri/sat nights - $150 odd.

Wait... that's it - cause i still live at home and bludge off the olds

Must be awesome taking the hot chick back home to your bedroom as "mums place" :

Moved out when I was 21.. and have stood on my own 2 feet since then. Even that was too late, should have started at 19, could have been 2 years further ahead now.

[chich]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

mate each to there own . but as i said earlier, i thought of all these things at 16 . i was out at 19, a tadesman at 20 and married at 24 , with 50g's all saved . had 1st child at 29 and fully owned home at 30. and this was the norm . and i am only 38 now . you see times are changing . you cant do it the same way now. but you still should have started a plan in your teens.

Mate, I started planning these things out when I was young too.. the fact that i'm still at home doesn't mean that I didn't or havn't thought about the future. As an example, most of my mates are the same age as myself, we all earn good money and the only thing most of them have to their name is a few grand in savings and the new (expensive) car they bought under finance 2-3 years ago. They also live at home but find themselves 4-5 years behind the 8-ball. Where i'm getting ready to buy a house, they're busy planning another $10K European trip. The point is that it doesn't make a difference if you're living in or out of home... if you don't plan ahead and control your finances you're doomed.

Originally Posted by Casper

Must be awesome taking the hot chick back home to your bedroom as "mums place" :

Moved out when I was 21.. and have stood on my own 2 feet since then. Even that was too late, should have started at 19, could have been 2 years further ahead now.

LOL!

I just turned 18 mate and i'm at university... Parents are never home anyway :thebirds:

[Casper]

Originally Posted by MattyJ

LOL!

I just turned 18 mate and i'm at university... Parents are never home anyway :thebirds:

I was just stirring you up.. I remembered what it was like living at home and picking up a hotty (who also lived at home). No where to go, it was a bummer

[bonspeed]

Originally Posted by Casper

I was just stirring you up.. I remembered what it was like living at home and picking up a hotty (who also lived at home). No where to go, it was a bummer

Thats what the car is for

[atec77]

Originally Posted by Casper

I was just stirring you up.. I remembered what it was like living at home and picking up a hotty (who also lived at home). No where to go, it was a bummer

I tok a couple home . Mum got seriously upset about it
I bought a van

[gtfpv]

Originally Posted by atec77

I tok a couple home . Mum got seriously upset about it
I bought a van

yep i did too . very embarrasing had to dob myself in as well as mum thought i had a mate around . dad never spoke to me for 6 weeks .drinks and chicks mixed together . nearly get you all the time .. haha . minjd you i became more responsible when i moved out . lived with a chick and never touched her once, because her boyfriend was a fitness freak , and blackbelt in marshal arts . :

[XR06T]

when house finishes in 3 months, my situation will be this:
house 45%
car 8%
bills/food 18%
car expenses ~15%

currently:
car 34%
house 25%
bills food 18%
car expenses ~15%

as you can see i am currently in pretty tight (23yo) but my house isn't finished and it will be worth it.. i will owe ~300k on the house but it should be worth late 300's when it is done and costing 45%.

[XRchic]

Mortgage repayment 25% of monthly income.

Then there are, in monetary terms:

$1000 a month on other loans (no credit cars and own the car outright)
$1200 a month on groceries
$2000 a month on school fees for the older kids
$700 a month on childcare for the baby
$800 a month for phone bill (includes 4 mobiles and one home line)
$400 a month on fuel (if not going away on a trip)

Plenty of other stuff spent randomly - mostly on car ($8K will be spent on it in April), general entertainment (DVD/JB Hi Fi addiction, movies, restaurants, takeaway etc)... kids random stuff like school uniforms, sports fees, camp fees, random plane tickets, internet, clothes....

Hmm the list goes on... seems like too much goes out!

I got 4 months paid leave when I had the baby, which was great. Then went back to work - no way we could afford to lose my income. Just the reality of it. However, the baby loves the childcare centre, he doesnt go full time (he goes with his grandparents during the week too, who spoil him rotten) and I really do enjoy my work at the moment (I probably would like to be home more though) much more than I did before. I also have a flexible deal at work so if the baby is sick or I need leave for any reason, I can have it really. Plus, the housewife thing is not really for me.

Public holiday today - YAY!

[BAFalconXT]

At the moment these are my expenses. Earnings down, expenses up :(
electricity 2%
rent 18%
phone 2%
petrol 21%
food 14%
car servicing etc 7%
insurance 5%
alcohol/going out 24%
savings 7% plus whatever not spent on alcohol/going out

Its been afew years since living at home, but I used to spend....
petrol 10%
food 5%
alcohol/going out 85%

Spending up to $800 a week on getting ****ed and going out still isnt as good as moving out of home. :