Wonder how many posters have worked out a budget. I didn't do so, until relatively recently when a friend was complaining how she couldn't make ends meet. On a pension and teaches students in her own home, cash in hand. So I worked out my budget.
I am talking Council rates per year, water, gas, electricity, body corporate fees, chemist and prescription medicines, odd jobs man, mowing once a month, insurances (including private health, in my case), occasional plants, mulch, fertilisers, etc for small garden, (modest) meal out with friends perhaps once a month, coffee perhaps fortnightly with friend/s, cinema with friends (perhaps 10 times per year) food costs, modest gifts for family members and friends, hair cuts/colours/products, etc, car (registration, insurance, petrol, roadside assist, service charges), telephone/s, miscellaneous items (hearing aid batteries, newspapers/magazines, extra expenses at Christmas time, bus and train journeys, etc), miscellaneous (yearly rent of community garden plot, weekly seniors' exercise class).
So, a single homeowner received $863 per fortnight = $22,428 per year. When I remove Private Health Insurance, include nothing for clothes, illness which requires expensive medicines, household assistance, or donations to charities, etc then my unavoidable expenses are $820 per fortnight.
So good luck with that remaining $43 per fortnight saved to equal $1,118 for that yearly holiday. However, I guess that $21.50 each week would go in things I have not considered, eg household cleaning products, a bottle of chardonnay, etc. So, perhaps $500 per year is left? Whoopy do.
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