Budgets and cost cutting

I was just marveling at my bank accounts. I may only have about $270 in all of them combined, but thats all mine. I don't OWE anything. Well, we don't count student loans because in New Zealand you have minimum payments and they are interest free so I like to just pretend it doesn't exist. But I don't have an overdraft, a credit card... I haven't been in this situation since, well, I'm not sure, but its a nice feeling and I'm going to enjoy it for a while.

Last night I had a review of my budget. Previously I was scrimping on everything and putting every spare cent into paying off my cards. So now I have a whole lot left over and need to allocate it somewhere else. I decided in the short term, I will just redirect that money straight into saving for a couple of goals. The first is the reward I promised myself for paying of my card, and the second saving for a house.

So after rent, phone, power, and internet, my biggest monthly costs are the $140 I need for travel (petrol and public transport) and $120 for food ($80 groceries, $40 eating out), with $20 allocations a month for cat food for my temporarily adopted friends, clothes, and the  garden. Its a simple life. Obviously these are just day-to-day costs and I need to have some put aside for irregular costs such as car fixing, warranting and registering, insurances, doctors visits, and that sort of thing. I try to pay these annually where possible to pay the least amount.

I still think I can save money on both food and travel. Travel-wise, I get paid milage for use of my car for work, so in some ways the gas and parking money I have to spend on that pays for itself. Living so far away from work (20 mins drive in good traffic - when is it ever good?) also is a bit of a challenge, with a return bus trip costing $11. However, I have found if I buy it after 9am it drops to $7.50. If I can manage my work day around that, it might be a saving there. That sounds a little tricky though, I wouldn't arrive at work till just before 10.

In the past few months I have been spending my whole food budget on eating out and getting no groceries. That is why 'eating frugally' is a big focus for me at the moment. The plan is to first try and get in the habit of eating at home, and then when I've mastered that, trying to get the food costs down and the healthy living up by changing what I eat. So for the moment if I need to by nasty convenience foods to get in the habit, then that is what I do. At the same time, really focussing on trying to get the veggie garden as productive as possible as quick as possible will help too. Along with any kind donations of meat from my hunting man, I could really drop the amount of food I need to buy.

The only problem is I will have to find the time to cook it! One habit at a time.