At last, it finally feels like we’re back on an even keel! T is bringing in an income and now that the random payroll snafu that resulted in me missing my December paycheque (I got it in January) is sorted, we’re basically all caught up financially.
So, his new job. It involved a big initial outlay; that happens when you go from the kind of jobs where you have a uniform or can wear your normal casual clothes to a white-collar environment – particularly in face-to-face sales. As much as I hate to say it, those shirts and pants and ties and shoes were an investment.
The hours are long, though – 9-10 hour days and only three days off a fortnight. (Whether this is sustainable long-term is another matter – time will tell, I guess.) Now he’s past the training month, it’s entirely commission based, so his income is 100% variable.
The big bonus is the near total elimination of car expenses. Company car, a certain amount of fuel per week, not to mention the savings on insurance, registration and maintenance. I’m super stoked, because car expenses are ALWAYS what kill us.
The most logical way to manage our money seems to be to live off mine (the regular) and save his (the irregular) – even if that makes me feel a little uneasy. There is room to still save a little from my pay, which makes me happier. Here’s my projection for our weekly expenses (yes, we pay rent weekly in NZ, for any newcomers).
- Rent – $280
- Groceries – $130
- Bills – $120 (I put this amount into my ‘bills’ account for power, water, bus fare, insurance, and all those boring things)
- T’s allowance – $80 (spending money plus lunch money – their $6 subsidised cafeteria meals look amazing and are good value – this is a small luxury of convenience for the both of us)
- Fun money – $80 (generally consists of us going out to eat, plus room to spend $20-30 on petrol for our own use)
The big hairy goal is saving for a house, but I’ve come to realize we probably first need to save for a second car, because we won’t be able to afford a house in a convenient suburb. Much as I would like to be able to save a 20% down payment, 10% is more realistic, and can be done through a Welcome Home loan.
Finding a house for under $485,000 isn’t easy (but at least they’ve updated their price threshold – they previously classed affordable houses as under something like $300,000, which was so far off the mark it wasn’t even funny). As for the income criteria, unless T turns out to be a total ninja sales star, or some flush-with-funding startup decides they need my wordsmithing skills like I need my weekly fix of Scandal and shower me with buckets of cash, we should be safe. I try not to think about one of my old classmates, an accountant who would’ve started out making roughly the same income as me, but then doubled that in her second job (I bet she’s into the six figures now) and is only going to go up from there. I try not to think about the fact that I will probably never crack $90k in my working life, and focus on the fact that I have the dream job that I actually enjoy going to every day. But why, oh why, couldn’t my talents and interests have had more lucrative leanings? Don’t answer that.
