What helped us.$$$

[jay see]

I've been sitting on this and I think I'll like to share with everyone.

We got to a point that we where living pay to pay and trying to figure out how we were going to pay bills and try to have a life. Both working we were on alright money, but still couldn't get ahead, sh!t we were having trouble paying bills some months.

What changed. We found a mortgage company, well actually there a financial institution. Without going into too much personal information we get a set amount of money every week to cover weekly living expenses, food, petrol and spending money. All bills are direct debit from the loan and all income is deposit in the loan. If you require additional funds a phone call or email (24 hours a day) before 10am and you will have the extra in your spending money account that night usually before 8pm.

We have been with them for 8 years now and we have managed to pretty much finish our house on the outside with a few extras here and there, bought a property overseas (much cheaper), take the normal holidays during and at the end of the year, have all the bills paid straight from the loan, manage to take something off the loan every month and stress levels are better.

I'm not saying that its the best thing out there, but it has and continues to work for us.

Here is the company.
http://crownmoneymanagement.com.au/

They use to have an incentive that if you refer someone and they sign up you get a cash payment. I'm not doing this for that reason, but if your happy with what they do for you and wish to mention me PM me and I'll pass on my details.

[BigRAWesty]

Mate that's tops to hear.
I too was in that position a year or 2 ago, we'll still am every now and then.
I did think about an institution like what you did but we've taken the road of weekly direct debits so each bill is payed for before the bill is due.
Makes it so much easier knowing what is in your account is yours.

I too posted incase it helped someone, and hopefully after your right up you can help someone to.

Congrats again mate.

[jay see]

Mate that's tops to hear.
I too was in that position a year or 2 ago, we'll still am every now and then.
I did think about an institution like what you did but we've taken the road of weekly direct debits so each bill is payed for before the bill is due.
Makes it so much easier knowing what is in your account is yours.

I too posted incase it helped someone, and hopefully after your right up you can help someone to.

Congrats again mate.

Things are better, but still need to watch spending, were not millionaires and never will, just nice to know that bills and be paid and we can enjoy life a little while the kids are still young enough.

I do remember your post well I think I'm thinking of the right one. I was going to add to it but couldn't find it.

[lucus30]

Good stuff mate more money to spend on the patrol haha

[Maxhead]

Glad you're on top of your finances mate, nothing worse then being in a money rut.

[Sir Roofy]

Glad you're on top of your finances mate, nothing worse then being in a money rut.

yes there is nothing worse we haven't that problem but I see the kids struggle at times and read on hear how some have a few problems as well if your struggling do as jay and westy have done get help it just might not be as bad as you think

[jay see]

Good stuff mate more money to spend on the patrol haha

Yeah right. Extra $$$ for me, not when while the kids are still at home.

Serially tho. If this gets to only one person and makes things better for them, I'm glad to have helped them.

[Chris79]

I like their no credit card approach. And setting you on a strict budget. Two things most people dont want to do themselves.

Do they have their own finance product or do they use your existing loan and just help you budget? What sort of costs are involved?

[lucus30]

I like their no credit card approach. And setting you on a strict budget. Two things most people dont want to do themselves.

Do they have their own finance product or do they use your existing loan and just help you budget? What sort of costs are involved?

My credit card saves me money. Use their money for a month means more of mine is sitting in the loan saving me interest. The credit card is free and I just pay it in full every month. So costs nothing

[jay see]

I like their no credit card approach. And setting you on a strict budget. Two things most people dont want to do themselves.

Do they have their own finance product or do they use your existing loan and just help you budget? What sort of costs are involved?

They use Advantage.
You get a monthly statement from Crown and a biannual one form Advantage.
Can't remember what set up fee were involved, but things are different now regarding changing loans. If any I think its just the government fees and maybe an one off.

[jay see]

My credit card saves me money. Use their money for a month means more of mine is sitting in the loan saving me interest. The credit card is free and I just pay it in full every month. So costs nothing

You have no fees at all?
Their system is similar to what your doing, just with a visa debit card and its your money, you have enough for the week, fortnight or month whichever way you want to set it up. No extra so it cut out impulse buying.

[lucus30]

You have no fees at all?
Their system is similar to what your doing, just with a visa debit card and its your money, you have enough for the week, fortnight or month whichever way you want to set it up. No extra so it cut out impulse buying.

Nope none. Plenty of cards around don't
If you qualify for the platinum card you get a few bonuses like travel insurance and extended warranty also for free

Oh and I also get no foreign transaction fees when overseas or buying from overseas

Edit: the only downside to the free credit cards is the interest rate is much higher but like I said I pay in full every month so never pay any interest so doesn't impact me.

[macca]

Great to see you are in control, makes you feel a whole lot better I'll wager.

Our credit cards are used, but we have a saying when we go on a spend "make sure you have some spare change"

What that means we don't spend more than we have and have never paid interest, ever.

Might be easier said than done, it has worked for us and our kids.

[jay see]

I think the important thing here is that you can pay your bills and have a little or a lot left over. The sooner you can pay off your house the better.
Whichever way that works for you.

[macca]

I think the important thing here is that you can pay your bills and have a little or a lot left over. The sooner you can pay off your house the better.
Whichever way that works for you.

Blood oath

[Cuppa]

What that means we don't spend more than we have .

Same for us. Never have.

Just in case I might be misinterpreted I post the following not to preach (although I must admit reading it, it does sound a bit preachy - but I’ll still post with good intent) or gloat or criticise what anyone here does or doesn’t do, only to try to convey what has worked for us in the hope that it might offer something useful to the discussion. Much will sound similar to what jay see has learned over the past 8 years, but possibly with one difference.

From our experience there is one small warning bell that rings for me reading jay see’s account. “manage to take something off the loan every month’ - the primary thing apart from frugality which has got us ahead has been making number one priority paying as much as we could off the mortgage as soon as possible, trying to reduce debt. I may be wrong, but wonder if companies like Crown Money Management whilst providing initially useful assistance also have a significant interest in maintaining loans for as long as possible.

Holidays were not ’normal’ for us, there were many years for example that holidays were time spent renovating the house or just having cheap short camping breaks away. We had no holiday at all during the five years we were saving for our trip around Australia. For us that priority was clear. If the priority is ’now’ rather than later’ it’s a valid choice, but I know if it were one we had taken we would not be in the position we are today. In the late 80’s mortgage interest rates were up to 18% but when they came down, we continued the same repayments. It was a struggle but got easier over time. We could potentially have owned much more or have been far better off than we are. We have lived our working lives modestly but comfortably. Our retirement dream is to travel for as long as we wish & we believe we can afford to do so provided we continue to be careful with our money, doing this shouldn’t be hard, we’ve had plenty of practice. We know we can travel for a year on what some folk spend on 3 months of travel. We have always budgeted, we know our annual bill expenses & put away enough each month to cover these. MrsTea does the ‘books’.

It worries me that there must be so many folk out there who are used to low interest & low inflation rates combined with high wages from mining etc. The smart among them will know that the bubble won’t last for ever & will have set themselves up for when the bubble bursts, losing their ‘windfall’ income. Those who have used their high incomes to get huge mortgages for McMansions, & collections of expensive toys & holidays & other luxuries will, sooner or later regret their decisions.

Living frugally is a mindset & living within our means is what has enabled us to spend on the bigger ticket items to enable us to make dreams come true. When younger and both of us working full-time as nurses & paying a mortgage our single/only treat each month was one take away pizza. We walked to the pizza shop because we couldn’t afford fuel other than to get to work & back.Never were we tempted to borrow to get more ’things’, we knew we couldn’t afford it, but paying the mortgage eventually got us ahead, enough that we were able to arrive in Australia with $60k in the bank to start afresh with. Since then we’ve been able to pay off a mortgage here, live in a small very modest house but have been 100% debt free for around 15 years. Since then I have not had any income & have lived on Mrstea’s salary. For many years we were able to save $1000 a fortnight, but that changed when we moved a year ago. We went back to living ‘hand to mouth’ which has improved since MrsTea has picked up an increased client load, albeit with a lower rate of pay. With an income of around $2000 a fortnight after tax we are still able to save $800 a fortnight. I include what we are now spending on fitting out the Patrol & shed as ’savings’, - this is what is necessary to enable our travel plans.

Although we have spent what for us were large chunks of money on things like travel & the Patrol & more recently the Tvan & the new shed, all of this has been saved first. I would have loved an Iveco based ’Scrubmaster’ 4x4 motorhome, but we’d never have the sort of money for something like that unless we borrowed it, & if we borrowed it the repayments would prevent us being able to afford to use it! So the Patrol & Tvan it is. ’Traditionally’ we’ve run ‘old bangers’ bought cheap & used until they died or became too expensive to fix. The 2006 Patrol is the newest & most expensive vehicle we’ve ever owned (or ever will). We don’t hardly drink, & like our own company so rarely go out to socialise in places which cost to do so. I was horrified when we went out with a city mate in Melbourne a couple of years ago ‘for a coffee’. 4 of us had a coffee & cake & the cost was something like $60, plus additional cost for parking! For our friends this was a regular occurrence they thought nothing of. (mindset). For us we could have had better coffee & cake at home for a small fraction of the cost. Likewise we grow as much of our food as we can, where we are now we have a very small veggie garden, but still managed to grow a significant amount of our own. Frugality & ‘making do’ are second nature. I have no problem wearing op shop clothes, & much of my wardrobe is made up of clothing over 15 or 20 years old, often bought bought second hand. I wouldn’t dream of paying for branded items like Nike, Billabong or whatever the latest ‘must have’ is, when I can be warm & comfortable in clothing which costs a tenth of the price. I do believe in buying quality though - it works out cheaper in the long run, & gives greater satisfaction. We have never dabbled in the money market, I hate the ’smoke & mirrors of such things, we either earned & saved it, or didn’t have it. We also have never been ‘lucky’ with buying /selling houses like some of our friends. Essentially our houses have been our home, not an ‘investment’. Our savings are in term deposits. (Currently getting a whopping 3% - woohoo!). I know we could get better ‘returns’ investing in other things but prefer the certainty of knowing what we have, rather than what we might, or did have. We went to see a centrelink financial advisor not long back to see if he thought our planning was making sense in terms of us both being retired within in the next 12 months or so. We were reassured by his positive response. We may one day need a government pension but chances are we’ll be too old to travel by then ....... if we live that long.

For many here retirement is a million years away & I can’t honestly say that we’ve thought a lot about it over the years - we’ve lived the life we wanted to, just without the need for the latest new things. I used to work with ‘disadvantaged’ families & was used to visiting homes with carboard over the windows, nothing in the fridge, virtually no furniture but a huge plasma Tv & a highly polished desirable set of wheels parked outside. Life is greatly influenced by the priorities of the person living it, but a common factor among folk living like that was a sense that life was being ‘done’ to them. Has to say something? Finding ways to be in charge of one’s own life, even in small ways, is liberating.

[jay see]

Same for us. Never have.

Just in case I might be misinterpreted I post the following not to preach (although I must admit reading it, it does sound a bit preachy - but I’ll still post with good intent) or gloat or criticise what anyone here does or doesn’t do, only to try to convey what has worked for us in the hope that it might offer something useful to the discussion. Much will sound similar to what jay see has learned over the past 8 years, but possibly with one difference.

From our experience there is one small warning bell that rings for me reading jay see’s account. “manage to take something off the loan every month’ - the primary thing apart from frugality which has got us ahead has been making number one priority paying as much as we could off the mortgage as soon as possible, trying to reduce debt. I may be wrong, but wonder if companies like Crown Money Management whilst providing initially useful assistance also have a significant interest in maintaining loans for as long as possible.

Holidays were not ’normal’ for us, there were many years for example that holidays were time spent renovating the house or just having cheap short camping breaks away. We had no holiday at all during the five years we were saving for our trip around Australia. For us that priority was clear. If the priority is ’now’ rather than later’ it’s a valid choice, but I know if it were one we had taken we would not be in the position we are today. In the late 80’s mortgage interest rates were up to 18% but when they came down, we continued the same repayments. It was a struggle but got easier over time. We could potentially have owned much more or have been far better off than we are. We have lived our working lives modestly but comfortably. Our retirement dream is to travel for as long as we wish & we believe we can afford to do so provided we continue to be careful with our money, doing this shouldn’t be hard, we’ve had plenty of practice. We know we can travel for a year on what some folk spend on 3 months of travel. We have always budgeted, we know our annual bill expenses & put away enough each month to cover these. MrsTea does the ‘books’.

It worries me that there must be so many folk out there who are used to low interest & low inflation rates combined with high wages from mining etc. The smart among them will know that the bubble won’t last for ever & will have set themselves up for when the bubble bursts, losing their ‘windfall’ income. Those who have used their high incomes to get huge mortgages for McMansions, & collections of expensive toys & holidays & other luxuries will, sooner or later regret their decisions.

Living frugally is a mindset & living within our means is what has enabled us to spend on the bigger ticket items to enable us to make dreams come true. When younger and both of us working full-time as nurses & paying a mortgage our single/only treat each month was one take away pizza. We walked to the pizza shop because we couldn’t afford fuel other than to get to work & back.Never were we tempted to borrow to get more ’things’, we knew we couldn’t afford it, but paying the mortgage eventually got us ahead, enough that we were able to arrive in Australia with $60k in the bank to start afresh with. Since then we’ve been able to pay off a mortgage here, live in a small very modest house but have been 100% debt free for around 15 years. Since then I have not had any income & have lived on Mrstea’s salary. For many years we were able to save $1000 a fortnight, but that changed when we moved a year ago. We went back to living ‘hand to mouth’ which has improved since MrsTea has picked up an increased client load, albeit with a lower rate of pay. With an income of around $2000 a fortnight after tax we are still able to save $800 a fortnight. I include what we are now spending on fitting out the Patrol & shed as ’savings’, - this is what is necessary to enable our travel plans.

Although we have spent what for us were large chunks of money on things like travel & the Patrol & more recently the Tvan & the new shed, all of this has been saved first. I would have loved an Iveco based ’Scrubmaster’ 4x4 motorhome, but we’d never have the sort of money for something like that unless we borrowed it, & if we borrowed it the repayments would prevent us being able to afford to use it! So the Patrol & Tvan it is. ’Traditionally’ we’ve run ‘old bangers’ bought cheap & used until they died or became too expensive to fix. The 2006 Patrol is the newest & most expensive vehicle we’ve ever owned (or ever will). We don’t hardly drink, & like our own company so rarely go out to socialise in places which cost to do so. I was horrified when we went out with a city mate in Melbourne a couple of years ago ‘for a coffee’. 4 of us had a coffee & cake & the cost was something like $60, plus additional cost for parking! For our friends this was a regular occurrence they thought nothing of. (mindset). For us we could have had better coffee & cake at home for a small fraction of the cost. Likewise we grow as much of our food as we can, where we are now we have a very small veggie garden, but still managed to grow a significant amount of our own. Frugality & ‘making do’ are second nature. I have no problem wearing op shop clothes, & much of my wardrobe is made up of clothing over 15 or 20 years old, often bought bought second hand. I wouldn’t dream of paying for branded items like Nike, Billabong or whatever the latest ‘must have’ is, when I can be warm & comfortable in clothing which costs a tenth of the price. I do believe in buying quality though - it works out cheaper in the long run, & gives greater satisfaction. We have never dabbled in the money market, I hate the ’smoke & mirrors of such things, we either earned & saved it, or didn’t have it. We also have never been ‘lucky’ with buying /selling houses like some of our friends. Essentially our houses have been our home, not an ‘investment’. Our savings are in term deposits. (Currently getting a whopping 3% - woohoo!). I know we could get better ‘returns’ investing in other things but prefer the certainty of knowing what we have, rather than what we might, or did have. We went to see a centrelink financial advisor not long back to see if he thought our planning was making sense in terms of us both being retired within in the next 12 months or so. We were reassured by his positive response. We may one day need a government pension but chances are we’ll be too old to travel by then ....... if we live that long.

For many here retirement is a million years away & I can’t honestly say that we’ve thought a lot about it over the years - we’ve lived the life we wanted to, just without the need for the latest new things. I used to work with ‘disadvantaged’ families & was used to visiting homes with carboard over the windows, nothing in the fridge, virtually no furniture but a huge plasma Tv & a highly polished desirable set of wheels parked outside. Life is greatly influenced by the priorities of the person living it, but a common factor among folk living like that was a sense that life was being ‘done’ to them. Has to say something? Finding ways to be in charge of one’s own life, even in small ways, is liberating.

Thanks cuppa, but I'm going to have to read this one tomorrow.

[jay see]

Cuppa.
I agree with a lot of what you say here. I have a slightly different outlook on life. I mentioned on this forum a little about me in the R U OK day thread. It took me a few years to relies what is important. As long as the bills are paid, there's food on the table and my family have clothes on there backs, we are going to enjoy life. Nothing over the top life is too short and the kids grow up too quickly. If it take an extra 5-10 years to pay our loan so be it.

[Cuppa]

Thanks for reading my rather lengthy post jay see. You sound like you know what you are doing & what your priorities are. That’s what is important. Not everyone has that clarity. My post was more about trying to suggest the need for clarity than it was about suggesting what that clarity should look like.