10 Things We Have Cut From our Budget

[arve url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX5DoSRFjN4" mode="lazyload" align="center" /] For the last couple of years we haven't been super diligent on not spending money. Now we are focusing on saving money and here's 10 things we are cutting from our budgets. 0:00 - Our mindset about spending less 2:12 - #1: Groceries 3:27 - #2: Phone plans 5:42 - #3: Smashed Avocado 7:40 - #4: Insurance 9:24- #5: Alcohol 10:40 - #6: Power Bills (by Installing Solar Panels) 12:23 - #7: Daily Coffee's + Energy Drinks 14:02 - #8: Mortgage Interest 16:26 - #9: Rent Savings 17:15 - #10: Tax Savings BONUSES 19:29 - #11: Living a Minimalist Life 20:017 - #12: Not Eating Meat Recommended Videos How We Feel About Credit Cards - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnM7YvcG7oE Transcription: For the last couple of years, myself and Ben have kind of not really been super diligent on not spending money. We've been spraying Kashmir, let's face it, we just sold a couch the other day and my son, grandson, he gets the money and he's just like. It was hilarious. But yeah, we haven't been super diligent on lowering the expenses in our life. We've been mainly focused on growing our income, which were both definitely done, but now we're at a point where it's come time to focus again on saving money in our lives, both in our personal lives and in our business. And so today we want to talk about 10 things that we've cut from our budget. I'll do five Ben, we'll do five as well and hopefully you guys can get some help. Some tips out of this as well. Yeah, for sure. Because there's been some money that, you know, I didn't even realize I was spending probably like you guys right now and you know, hopefully this video will let a lot of cleanup those costs. Yep. So it is, it does feel really liberating to really start to focus on this and work out how can I still live a really good life, but how can I spend less money at the same time? So this isn't about living off baked beans for the next three years, hating your life, driving your health into the ground because you're not eating properly or living in a complete dump. This is about areas of your life that you can cut expenses, but you can still live a really happy life and a really fulfilling life and have some of those little luxuries as well. The thought of taking something away that's not the reason why I've been cutting costs in my life. Like it's just been because I just like saving money and I don't like overspending on things where I can say to hate the money. So the things that I've cut haven't been for a particular raising it, it's more just because I enjoy doing that as a, as something to do. So it's less about just, I don't know, it's less about just living super frugally, but it's more about, yeah, saving that extra money that you can then use to invest that you can then use to achieve financial freedom faster. Definitely. So this might be to save a deposit. This might be to buy a property or this might be to pay off debt if you've got those foundational properties to pay them off faster. Absolutely. So what's your number one? Okay, so number one is groceries. Now I've got two kids who are dairy and gluten intolerant and so naturally a lot of the groceries that we were buying can get quite expensive when you're looking at those sorts of dietary requirements. But there were a lot of stuff in the groceries that were just. We didn't need to spend as much on even things like milk because we drink soy and almond milk. Buying that from Audi. Instead of buying that from Woolworth, you're paying a dollar 80 instead of $3 and Addie is saved because my wife and I shop there too, at least 35 percent at least. It's insane how much money it saves you. So I think saving on groceries has been a big thing and also just focusing on buying exactly what groceries that we need and then eating the groceries that we have. There's so many times that things have just gone to waste because you know, we've bought too much and haven't focused on just buying what we need is a whole thing there as well. Like you and I both liked this concept of just slow living and more thoughtful living in. I think wasting is one of the worst things that you can do for the planet. You know, not that that's what it's about, but I just, I liked the idea of doing less formal. So groceries have been a massive one for me to cut it up, isn't it? What about your eighth? We'll have to edit that. Start out that we were getting like your five then my five. Um, so one for one. A simple one that I think you guys could easily applies. I've obviously always been with life at Telstra, Vodafone or an obvious for them on a ball. I thought it was just normal to pay 100, 120 bucks a month for unlimited everything. Audi, who is a supermarket brand car brand is sponsored by Audi guys. It's definitely not, um, that, you know, I've just hooked onto their phone playing my work phone is now 15 bucks a month for unlimited calls, unlimited texts and my personal phone is 45 bucks a month and that gives me unlimited calls, texts plus, um, everything that I need Internet wise. So instead of spending 200 to 20 month, um, you know, effectively between them spending 60 bucks, it's a massive saving. I had the same thing and that was from the video that we created where we're talking about this sort of stuff is that I went from spending about, I think it was 145 per month. I had a plan that had just finished. I was actually looking at upgrading to one of the newer iphones, which would then put me on a plan for about $150 per month. But instead I decided to try Audi, which didn't work. I had this weird, I had this weird porting issue that was super rare. Anyway, I went back to Telstra, but I'm on Telstra prepaid and I pay $30 a month. I get unlimited calls, unlimited text and I get eight Gig of data. So I've gone from $145 a month down to $30 a month. And then I was looking, my phone was broken and so I was looking at a new phone and I just bought an old iphone seven off Ebay. I think I spent $360 to get an iphone seven rather than upgrading to the iphone 10 or what I did, like I bought my phone outright so that I could get on the cheaper plan and it's a huge saving over a two year plan. Even the phone costs plus 30 bucks a month. That might be like $700. That'll pay over the course of a year. That's. So that's like four or five months of a regular plan of $150. So. Awesome. Yeah, so we both have that one. My next one is smashed avocado, smashed down. What I mean by this is that I love my coffee, which you guys probably know if you love coffee too, you're one of my people, but often I would go out for coffee, but then I would also get breakfast. Then I would go out with my kids and then I would also get them breakfast or I would buy them one of those gluten free dairy free cupcakes. That's like $9. So now instead of going out for breakfast and doing that, I just do that a lot less. So it's not that I never do it, it's that I just don't do it religiously. Like I was doing it multiple times per week and now I'll do it on special occasions. Like if we're going out, I know that we're going out on, no, we're going to spend money on that and I'll choose a place where I'll get good food for not as much pen and paper because I need to write that one down. For me, one of my favorite things to do because I'm a dad of three, they're all young, is to just walk down the road where I leave and as some epic little coffee shops down there and you know, I don't drink coffee so I'll have to buy food and it ends up being a $60 plugin, coffee run, um, at least twice a week we do that and it's just such a huge waste of money when the quality of the food in my house, in the projects and I'm buying so much better anyway. It's just something that goes so quickly, something that you don't notice when you're not conscious about it and you just go out for coffee and end up buying breakfast for everyone. It's just like shivers there go $60, $70. How did that even happen? So just being conscious of that and cutting that out. Then I'll go out, I'll get a coffee and then I'll go to the bakery next door and I'll buy some stuff from the kids there. So I ended up spending $15 on the whole morning instead of 60. Oh that's cool man. Get the morning out, take them to the beach or take them to the park, which is an epic spot to have breakfast. I'll have coffee anyway. Just not eating enough the cafes, but taking it out. It's hard way you've been living too because far out there's some good places and another one for me is for years and years and years, like from buying properties and owning cars and stuff. I've just sort of always been with the one insurance provider. I don't know why. I think there's a, there's a rule in insurance in banking, which is if you've got more than three products with somebody, the likelihood of that client leaving is about five percent of the longterm. Like that is so hooked in and that's why they constantly trying to sell you into multiple products because they know that it keeps retention. And what I did recently is I just reviewed all of my insurances and ended up saving myself about 30, 35 percent again. And who did you end up going to? Um, so I've always been with Allianz, which are, from my perspective, they've been fantastic from a coverage perspective. Like, I've had a couple of, I had a client of attendant burned down one of my granny flats and they were amazing to deal with through that thing because I had the right cover in place, um, but I've, you know, been seeing the ads on TV and seeing those guys talking about saving money. And so what I did is I went to, I went to Suncorp and I went to, um, I was really sick a few weeks ago and had two days to do nothing and I went to Ra Ricq and then I compared them on every single one of my policies across every product and the four providers.