Team

I'm after some insights into how yall have reduced your cost of living over time.

For eg last year the Mrs and I worked out that if we do half our shopping at Aldi, as opposed to a full Woolies shop, we save a heap in groceries for a normal shop for us.

What life choices and alterations to living have you all made that have reduced your cost of living, either by a small amount or significantly?

Obviously access to factory outlets probably isn't at a premium where you guys are, but buy clothes and accessories/luxuries from outlets can save you a bomb. I know that for the company I work for, at certain times of the year, stock gets reduced by 50-65%

Guess some of the little things...

-Buy pretty much everything online bar fresh foods

-Cut down on electricity usage as well as by turning off standby devices (has made a huge difference to the overall bill)

I'm sure there were others I just can't think at the moment haha.

-PB

Bring lunch to work.
Buy meat and deli products at the Queen Vic Market (I'd do this anyway, but it would help with cost of living too).
Reduced the amount of drinking out, and increasing the range of restaurants to include quite a few cheaper places too.

We buy our meat in bulk, buy fruit and veg at our local market, costco for other things (Moccona Coffee discount is worth the trip to Costco alone).

Last year someone told us to inflate the car tyres 15% above the recommended PSI to increase fuel economy, but I haven't really tracked it to see if it works.

I also like to raise more money rather than cut down on things that I'm comfortable with when things get tough. I'm about to start driving for Uber on Friday/Saturday nights to increase my investment fund without having to cut down on other life comforts.

Yeah that was another big one that me and the missus need to do more of which is buy meat in bulk etc.

-PB

Notor's point about the power bill is a huge one.

So huge that I didn't even make it.

:lol:
Sorry Bagz! You guys are just slowly becoming one in my mind :lol:

I'm a university student so as you might imagine, save plenty of money by making own lunches, cheap asian foods, using free wifi, etc etc.

At home, wash clothes in cold water, shorter shower times, close blinds and doors when heating the home, and things of this sort.

Shop around for the best deal on things like electricity, gas, insurance etc.

Packed lunch for work is the big one. Buying lunch in the CBD is insanely expensive for anything other than fast food.

Sushi, salad, sandwiches, noodles etc are so expensive.

When buying pretty much anything of value... Negotiate.

Never cease to be amazed by how many people will buy a tv, refrigerator, etc., for the ticket price. Most electrical places will knock 5-10% off the price on the initial request for 'a better deal', if you go in hard you can get them down by scary amounts.

Also, seeing as this is still 442... Save money on football attendance by making friends with players/club officials - invariably free tickets will follow. I've only paid to see one A-League game in 10 years. ;)

Edited by Benjamin: 30/10/2014 12:14:21 PM

Walk down to Menya's. Good shit.

Back in the day I got a sub woofer and amp for cheap . Got it down so much that jb lost money on the install :lol:
The wife and I buy in bulk . Meats from tasman meats or werribee market . Lucky we live near the fruit farms so cheap fruit.

i installed solar hot water system on the roof of the main residence, with a monitored 3 speed transfer pump system, swapped all my low voltage downlights out with LED downlights, currently installing a 10KW solar array on my roof, on the Hot water systems in other building on my property i just knocked the thermostat back a few degrees, makes a huge difference, on all my irrigation pumps i put time clocks so the pumps aren't heading up all night, i have motion sensors in the rooms that people tend to leave burning all the time like the laundry and kitchen, i grow most of our veggies and slaughter my own chickens, pigs, cattle...i grow my own crops to help keep the livestock feed costs down, i don't buy manure i make it from my pigs, by firstly buying very cheap large round bales of meadow hay (usually spoilt) cost say $20, then i use it for pig bedding and to prevent mud and to manage their toilet area in the pig yards, then i collect with the tractor and mulch it for the garden, when the veggie garden is spent the pigs tractor it up and we start the cycle again...we sell vast amounts of surplus veggies, eggs and free range meat, and quite frankly if we didn't we would not have got through the GFC..... my wife makes jams, chutney's pickles and preserves a huge % of the crops we grow.....like i grew 400 corn cobs last year and we snap froze them, just going through the last few bags this month....same with pickled, artichoke,beans, chillis, cucumber ETC.....
the wife get the cheap shit from aldi and we refuse to shop at coles or woolworths only if we REALLY HAVE to......all the vehicles are turbo diesel.....including our fleet for the electrical/communications business, we have combustion stoves for winter and we have evap cooling for summer, both are very efficient.......

How much did that set you back?

about $3500

This so much, specially for insurances when they come up for renewal.

A lot of the time you can just go back online and re-quote and save more then just renewing outright.

-PB

Agreed although its easier to do so in Townsville as come this time of year you don't even need to turn on the hot water knob (or even have solar hot water lol).

-PB

For 10kw?

Shit must have mates in the business.

-PB

yes that's for sure, but i do love 4 seasons.

That's not very fair.

He's only been inside me twice.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

i feel very ill................

Wait until you hear how many times I've been inside him.

:-# :-# :-# :-# :-#

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

-PB

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hoooooooooooooooooo Leeeeeeee Sheitttttttttt this made made laugh =d>

Solar panels on the roof

surprised???

Smart phone plan: $70/m = $1680
Smart phone outright + byo plan (Vaya, Jenee etc.): $900 + $20/m = $1380

Not a huge saving but gets you probably more data. If you don't care about upgrading phones that often it works well. Might be some other benefits I don't know about with the phone plan though. If you don't care about upgrading phones that often it works well.

Edited by jparraga: 31/10/2014 01:42:59 PM

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: +1.

Will definitely look into the thermostat because the main thing we use hot water for is showers and washing dishes, and both are severely too hot.

I've wanted solar panels for ages now, but haven't had the luxury of the initial cash to pay for them. But our electricity bill is already super low - we use less than the average household of one does (we have two people, 1 cat living at home) and I am yet to see a bill for over $300 for a quarter, which all of my friends and family have said is amazingly low. How much off an electricity bill will solar panels (let's say an average size/kw) cut back, dollar wise?

Dont go on mobile plans where you rent the phone. Find a great deal on the phone you like and buy it outright. liveconnected is great mobile company on the Optus network as they have no call centre support only email support you can save heaps per month. I pay 40 buck a month for two plans and your not locked in. You can cancel anytime.

http://www.liveconnected.com.au/mobile-plans-4g-2

what, that I put them on the roof or that their saving me $$$$

10kw cost me $9,000

solar hws cost $2,500

LED downlights cost $ 1,000

if your bill is that low, solar panels are not going to be cost beneficial.......

my quarterly bill is $2,500.......having said that i have three houses, 2 machinery shed, 2 irrigation pumps a cool room and about 10 people here on and off between family and staff, so the 10kw array is suppose to run the entire load during the daylight hours and then i pay for it during the night, so we are planning to reprogram all of our auto stuff to operate during the day................

no just don't get what your post meant....sorry :oops:

That's more like it lol.

-PB

Don't drink or smoke.

I ticked that I was aboriginal/Torres Straight Islander by accident on a form once..... (joke, relax).

Packed lunches. My job also assists where I can be sent to the middle of nowhere for weeks at a time!

Your consistent contempt for other Australians is disgusting.

I currently live in a small townhouse with my wife and a baby and in summer we make money on our power bill due to our solar panels, the bills are in the negative. It's definitely worth it. Our solar panels are tiny too.

the thing to watch is how many years is required for your ROI for installing solar?

Become a TRP and save money by not taking out, or being nice (in a monetary sense) to your significant other.

When you ARE THE MAN that woman want to fuck you can save yourself shitloads of cash on frivolous things like dinners and presents and all that other rubbish.

:lol: yeah nah . If you think notor is such a dick then I feel for you . He may be a trp but he isn't the dick wad he portrays himself to be

pardon my ignorance but what is a TRP

The red pill . Ask notor . People say it's a female hating thing .

oh...sounds very unattractive

I always thought TRP was just opening your mind up to the truth as opposed to remaining ignorant and conforming to social norms

We better ask notor and or g.a . Notor cops a lot of grief over it but like I said he isn't such a dick wad he portrays himself to be

Please note that I did not intend for this thread to become a TRP thread :lol:

But forum law does state the longer a thread stays open, the probablity that the thread becomes about TRP approaches 1

WTF is TRP

TRP = The Red Pill, did you not get this answered about 3 posts ago?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=What+is+The+Red+Pill

Edited by pv4: 3/11/2014 03:01:05 PM

yes but "redshirtwilly" through a spanner in the works and it was not resolved......

I think it is what you make of it. Go here for further details

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=95096

I realised my bank account was giving me dick for interest so I looked around and changed to one with much better interest & no fees.

any more than a whole extra 1.5% ?

If you want to know what TRP is, you should ask Draups. I can hear his mangina itching from here.

yep

use less toilet paper...also good for the enviroment

Only use the loo at work. Not only will you save money on toilet paper, but you'll also be getting paid.

Depends on how much you want to spend on booze/smokes/gambling/tits/cars/sports.

Work out remaining funds after that.

As a further question to this..

What, roughly, is everyone's water bills per quarter?

I'm currently at around $300 per quarter, with two of us living here plus a garden we liked to keep watered regularly. Is that value we're using considered high, or low, or average compared to yall?

I'd have to check our rates but even then I don't think it gives us an actual dollar amount.

-PB

I DON'T PAY WATER RATES.................

Do you have a dam at your place or solely tanks?

3 dams for gardens, 2 x 120,000 litre in ground concrete tanks and many smaller rapidplas tanks on all the sheds

Price of petrol is getting reasonable at present, shame we had that 10c State Tax brought in a few years ago here in Qld, otherwise we'd be below $1 per litre at present.

But petrol at around $1.08-$1.15 in most State capitals at the moment is about 'fair rate' for petrol.

yeah but hasn't diesel followed??? still up there

Cheapest in Adelaide is about $1.16

Diesel has only partly followed here. Petrol is $1.09, diesel is still $1.33

Fuck me :lol:

Fuel is still $1.45 here for regular.

I'm paying $1.59 for 98RON

-PB

Fast internet, expensive fuel. You can't have it all ;)

Damn regional cities.

-PB

everyone has choices where to live :lol: win lose no matter where.