budget advice

[jsp]

so i work minmum wage with a weekly bonus they supply my dinner.
after tax child support and fines im left with 1.034 in the hand rent is 250 food etc round 80 gas is about 60 other bills 150 but i always seem to be broke by friday what are some good places to get some budgeting advice so i can save 200-300 a week

 

[bond_servant]

@jsp $1034 a week in hand after tax and child support?? If you do mobile banking, I would suggest making different accounts for different bills. If you have monthly payments, split it into 4 week and transfer small amounts each week. Stick stuff into savings and remove $50 or $100 in cash to use for the week

 

[walkaway]

@bond_servant Important to keep in some months have more than 4 weeks, so having the assumption that 4 weeks is a month might put you into a bad spot.

 

[bond_servant]

@walkaway My wife's wage covers out bills which is fortnightly. If we have monthly bills, we always split it into 4 then pay two weeks at a time. But of course yeah, it's good to have a little extra there. I do round bills up to nearest whole figure so if it's $45 a fortnight I'll just do $50. Never hurts to have extra incase you can't pay one week

 

[sidl02]

@walkaway Not op, I get paid monthly and budget for 4.5 weeks for important bills (rent, power, etc) so if rents 250 a week, ill put away 1125 for rent instead of 1000, and that generally sets me right for whenever we have a bigger month.

Food wise, averaged to 4.5 weeks, but then ill let myself touch my 'unaccounted money' to top up if i need.

'unaccounted money' Is essentially fun money not used for bills / food, and savings.

 

[godisworking101]

@jsp Ask your local CAB to point you in the direction of local budgeting services

 

[childoflight555]

@starvinmarvin It’ll be fritter - alcohol, odd takeaway popping to the supermarket for milk - walking out with $50 groceries, Netflix etc

 

[starvinmarvin]

@jsp Spending around 420 a week based on your numbers. There’s something you’re not accounting for.

 

[jsp]

@childoflight555 your right take aways if dinner supplied is yuk lol could be 20+ a night i dont drink but yeah i waste alot but cant seem to stop

 

[jesusreigns]

@jsp Just put 200 straight to a savings account so you can’t chip away at it.

 

[mousegirl0]

@jsp Talk to CAB as others have suggested.
Consider going to get paper statements for your accounts for the last 3 months, take an evening to sit down and look at your out goings, you might be spending more than you expect on things through the week if you're eating out, paying subscriptions, buying recreational /things/, could be anything but the first step any budget advisor will do is look at your outgoing expenses and find what isn't essential spending and work backwards from there.

 

[resjudicata]

@jsp $1000 after tax on minimum? Is the math not mathing?

 

[pemuoi96]

@resjudicata Yeah this makes no sense unless op doing overtime

 

[godislove333]

@pemuoi96 Oh! I didn’t even see that. Does OP mean $1000 a month perhaps? Or minimum wage after tax? As in once tax is taken out they get $25 an hour? I mean I was on $32-$35 an hour when I left my old career to have a baby. I got nothing supplied by the company, no food even at night, nothing except a token gesture towards my phone bill, due to being on call. Even with lots of overtime and on-call, working 16 hours every second weekend at times, I was lucky to make $1000 a week net before mortgage, food and other expenses came out. I didn’t have a lot because I was doing IVF out of town at the time. I feel like OP should be a lot better off than he says he is. Child support is based on your income surely, so not more than he can afford? Although he says he has fines - for missing child support? Vehicle offenses? Oh but wait, he says he has $1000 in the hand after all that is paid. So how can he be on minimum wage? You’re right it’s not mathing right.

 

[aturtle]

@jsp MoneyTalks 0800 345 123. They can refer you to a budgeting service near you.

 

[henchwill]

@jsp After tax $1034 means you have $103 for fun money. $103 for saving for big spending items.

$618 for food, rent and bills. Then $206 for paying off debt or saving for a house/retirement.

If you cannot afford your food, rent bills within $618, use the $206 to supplement basic necessities until your income increases.

This is how barefoot investor recommends in the book from Aus

 

[whatgoeshere]

@jsp When I started saving this is what worked for me to kind of 'gamify' saving. I had 4 accounts:

1. spending/eftpos account

2. Bills

3. little savings

4. big savings

every payday I moved what I needed for bills (power, phone, insurance whatever) into 2.

Then I put $200 or so into 3. whatever was reasonable, and left the rest in 1.

The goal was to try and get $1000 into 3.

I could take money out of 3 for bills or emergencies, or even heck I want a pizza without any guilt but once I had $1000 in 3, I immediately moved it to 4 - and once money is in 4 I wasnt allowed to touch it unless it was for the item I was saving for.

My banking (ASB) has a feature where you can 'hide' accounts, so I kept 4 hidden to avoid temptation.

Made it into a fun challenge to try and reach $1000 and having that extra step of moving funds out of 3 if you really want to spend it often helped me reconsider.

 

[wordsearch]

@jsp CAB for sure, or Christian’s against poverty is another good place to check in. While run by Christian’s you don’t need to be a Christian or even believe in any kind of religion. They will meet with you and actively support you to create and stick with your budget. Will also help with cv and job stuff too

 

[godislove333]

@wordsearch Yes I found CAP helpful to budget my $500 a week with a mortgage and a child! On $1000 a week just for myself that I was getting before, I felt like king of the world. But even CAP don’t have access to miracles unfortunately haha. I did the course online because they don’t offer it where I live. They also give you tools on their website you can use forever.

 

[babychristian10]

@jsp I would wait until April to make a whole new budget since your child support will likely increase and focus on minimising costs in the meantime.

Bike or carpool with coworkers if it's feasible, but I can't blame you if you cbf with a 60hr week. Buy less junk food or whatever else you're spending $400 a week on.