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Here's what else I haven't been buying very much of at all: Take away food, dine-in food, snacks, treats, junk food, odds and ends.
This stuff is expensive and devours your budget - where I once might have spent fast cash on a Saturday brunch, a few coffees and sandwiches (fyi: UNSW offers no on-campus considerations for student budgets - I can get cheaper food in the middle of Balmain... what?), going out for noodles or dumplings, decent bottle of wine, maybe a book, splurge on a few drinks and a bite to eat with friends... how about an interesting magazine or that new t-shirt: Now with an ultra-restricted fortnightly budget (and I'm more or less keeping up with child sponsorship) .... the louche "ohh hahaha, look at me spending my salary having fun, la la la!" becomes:
- reading textbooks (easy when you study interesting things) and working on assignments
- raiding home bookshelves (also easy when rest of family are avid readers) or sharing with friends
- barely drinking any alcohol
- drinking less coffee
- not buying snacks, takeaway food, and instead waiting til I get home to eat
- rationing out the tasty things in the cupboard because that's all I have for 8 days.
- cooking properly with cheap food: legumes and pulses (just like the food pyramid says), fresh in-season vegies from the local market stall: Their stuff is fresher, local, cheaper, and profits go directly to the grower.
- proper cooking also means greater satisfaction at dinner time = eating less = leftovers for lunch and post-uni famished fridge raids.
Also, public transport everywhere - fuel is expensive, parking on campus is "what parking?!" - so much walking. (I am a bit chicken about riding my bike across the city, something about being drenched in sweat as I walk into a lecture for a whole day on campus and/or ending up underneath the wheels of an irate cycle-hating road-rager sort of doesn't appeal to me.)
All of these things might seem obvious to some, and they are, but when you're used to a regular salary and not a habitual saver, overcoming several bad financial habits takes work.
What stays? Well, the Badge Draw at the local is now at a $1200 jackpot - this is three Austudy payments so I see a quiet middy as a reasonable investment when I duck up to the pub those nights.
Pho for less than $10, or maybe long soup with dumplings in chinatown - also stays. Or two or three $3 plates at the sushi train in Galeries Vic. But even these treats are a once-fortnightly event.
I tell you what, my social life is suffering - ok, whatever, I've had my fun - but this really is good for the waistline.
Soon I will fit back into the clothes I grew out of, generating yet more realised savings in terms of money I don't need to spend on new clothes to fit my once-fat-ass.
Re-learning some good lessons here after a few years of profligacy on a slightly-above-average salary. Fiscal responsibility is not just the domain of Wayne Swan or the IMF: reality begins at home.
