I don’t know about you but in our household the laptop is ALWAYS on.  The laptop is my husbands work computer and he never stops working! He is a university lecturer so he has student e-mails to answer, courses to design, tutors to keep track of, lectures to give and LOADS of assessment to mark -  all on top of his real job of research.  After dinner every night he is working on his laptop (no he’s not playing games) and every weekend he has papers to write or things to catch up on.  As a “professional”  you would expect that his income is quite considerable but we worked out that if we include all the unpaid overtime (thanks to a salary) he earns $10.50 an hour.  It’s hardly worth all the stress involved with the job but on the other hand it’s a guaranteed pay cheque every week.  It’s just sad to think that even with three degrees he would probably bring home more money packing shelves in Target!

I have just discovered that friends of mine (once again – you know who you are) have no budget to live by and simply don’t monitor their money.  I can’t believe this!  How do they save up for car registration, insurance, regular gas, electric and phone bills?  Perhaps I have been living from paycheck to paycheck for too long and have no understanding of actually having a surplus.  However if this is indeed their situation (having more than enough) I would strongly recommend to them and anyone in a similar situation to pay all debts with the surplus and save money for a house deposit or a high interest term deposit account.  At the very least you should track where your household income goes  ie: rent/mortgage, food, bills, car payment, entertainment etc but  ideally you should trace every dollar… yes… EVERY dollar.   Money slipping through your fingers can easily turn into a crippling situation when without realising it your expenses and expenditure exceed your household income.  Then you are in trouble!  Any household with more income than expenses SHOULD have savings.  You don’t know what’s around the corner… $5000 dental bill for example. (we are still paying that one off)… the car blows up… you lose your job!  What do you do then?  For all those people who live with no budget…what the “BLEEEEEPPP” are you thinking?

While I was hanging out the washing this morning I got a nice surprise as a $2 coin fell out of a pocket and onto the ground.  As I bent down to pick it up my mind flashed back to the time my husband an I had to find all the coins we had in order to buy bread.  And the time we were at the shops and we only had $4.50 between two accounts so via eftpos one of us bought bread and the other bought cheese so that we could have lunch.  There were times when I had to borrow money to buy baby formula but look at me now – $2 fell out of my pocket!!!  We don’t own our house and we are living on a single income but we are doing well.  Back when my first child was young and my husband was a uni student we would have loved to have $2 spare.  I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s important to remember where you have come from in order to see just how blessed you are.