About five years ago I stumbled upon Author Gretchen Rubin's 'Happier' podcast. Each week Gretchen and her sister Elizabeth discuss ways in which we can make our lives a little bit happier. I look forward to the next instalment each week. FYI The Happier podcast drops on Wednesday afternoons.
Some of my favourite ' Try this at home' ideas are the one minute rule, Observe the family update (weekly email update of what's going on in your life to your family members - doesn't matter if you feel your news or life is boring, its the principle of keeping in contact despite the chaos (This is something I want to start. Family is important)), The power hour rule (put the timer on and see how many things you can get done in the hour), have a one word theme for the year (my 2020 theme word is Simplify), and celebrate minor holidays (valentines, labour day, make one up).
I VERY quickly realised that I love productivity life hacks. So, I decided to search the internet. I wanted to find someone out there in the cyber world who had a bunch of kids (more than 2 kids), knew how to walk the walk, and talk the talk. I wanted budgeting advice, I wanted time management advice, and I wanted productivity advice. I know I was asking for a lot, but the internet is amazing, and within a short time, I found Jordan Page, mum AND Budgeting/Productivity extraordinaire.
Jordan Page is something else. She has literally given birth to twins this week - baby 7 and baby 8, and in my humble opinion - Jordan is amazing!
I have found the 'Page's' system of budgeting brilliant, and have started using many of her methods. I adjusted the conversion rate to make it work here in Australia. Jordan is American (not that there is anything wrong with that), but where she is in Utah, it seems that their groceries are heaps cheaper than what we pay here in Queensland Australia.
The general gist is that Jordan allocates $100 per person per month, and then divides the total amount by how many weeks are in the month to get her weekly budget for food and groceries. The conversion rate for us works out to be about $150 per week. The formula is $150 times 6 divided by weeks in the month.
Part of the meal planning process means that I shop out of my freezer and also my pantry, and then I may need to budget a little money to find bulk meat deals etc. There's a couple of ideas I am trying to get my head around still, but this is the basics of budgeting using Jordan's method. Based on what I have in the freezer and pantry, is what we then build our meal plan on. If you want to know more, she has a youtube channel.
I really wanted to share this budgeting idea with you because I have been hearing a lot of families struggling financially, and there are ways to make better decisions with our money.
I'm still on the learning curve how to do this well, but I feel like I have been armed with some good advice and experienced wisdom. That old saying, 'when you know better, you do better', is so true. I thoroughly love trying to beat the system, and getting good deals. There is an art in it all, and it is time consuming in many respects, but I'm hoping that once I get my head around it all, we will in fact have more time and possibly more money to have a lot more fun.
What can I say, a girl is allowed to have some goals, who doesn't want more fun??!!
Here in Australia we have a few resources relating to money matters. One of them is a website called www.simplesavings.com.au, which is brilliant. It costs about $21 a year, but there is a lot of information on the site which will help a lot of people. Remember, not all advice will work for all situations. As a reader, it is important to see how the information will work in terms of your own budget. Not all good information is the right information for every reader.
Great Money Books everyone should have on their bookshelf (and to regularly take off the bookshelf are the following.
- Dave Ramsey - The Total Money Makeover
- Joel Gibson - Kill Bills
- Scott Pape - The Barefoot Investor Families
- David Koch - Kochies 11-Step Money Plan for a Better Life
Chat Soon!
