The Vicky Challenge Week 2.

This was the first full week of the challenge! As I expected it was very interesting!
The long and short of it is just thinking about what things actually cost in the shops and what various services cost is quite an education!
I have had a few shocks!

During the week I sailed along and noted obvious savings. Mostly small.

I put some turkish bread in the freezer that I found on special saving $4 each on two packs = $8.

In Woolworths I found massive marked downs on white china. I got three cake stands for my gift cupboard. They were marked down to $5 each.  It was a saving of $75. I am so pleased.

My idea is that when there is a Birthday to bake a cake or cup cakes and present them on the stands. It will look really nice and make a great gift! I almost wish I got some more of these!

I worked out some other savings and came up with a figure I can add each time instead of needing to re calculate endlessly. This one is for Andy's fortnightly fishing trip. I pack a days worth of food and drinks for two. I send plenty! I checked the bakery, Subway and around to come up with the price of four meat and salad rolls (which is sometimes pizza or other things) two large bottles of drink and four snacks ie muffins. Surprisingly I hit between $60 and $70 each time. I have decided to say $50 saved to be safe and cover my costs.

Assembling pizzas, added our own cherry tomatoes.

This week one of the things I sent was pizzas. I made four large individual pizzas while I made ours for dinner. I made an extra for Andy's Monday lunch box while I was at it.  I had two bowls of dough rising all Saturday.

Next I counted doing my nails and toes. I use Sally Hansen Gel nails that comes off with ordinary nail varnish remover. The reason I used to pay for this is I always bit my nails! I sort myself out and stop but then go back to messing them up. Awful. So for many years I had my nails done every fortnight. This kind of led to having my toenails done too.
Once I discovered easy gel nails without the lamp etc I practiced doing them myself.
So doing my nails myself saves $38 each fortnight.
My toes and feet saves $80 every couple of months.
Eek thats a lot. I did them both this week.

As the week wore on I thought my savings were pretty good but nothing to write home about. Then this happened...
As you know I am painting the house. I went tot he hardware store to look at paint and prices, get charts etc.
I took some photos on my phone. A big tin of exterior paint (10L) was $204. I was shocked by that. Paint has gone crazy since I painted my last house.
I noted some prices and started comparing around and comparing brands etc.

I decided before I start anything to go through the paint in the shed. I have paint left over from this house that the previous owners left behind. Paint left over from the last house, from when we did up the kitchen and various projects as I am always painting something. I had forgotten that a few months ago when the neighbors were cleaning up they put out a 10L tin of white paint and I put it in the shed incase I want to paint something. We lifted the lid and I honestly think they had only used a teaspoon. It was the same brand that was $204 a tin!
After going through it all and throwing out what was no good, bad colours etc I was left with plenty of what I want... white for walls, semi gloss for skirting boards. I added it up and it is over $600 worth!
All from picking up and saving left overs. In our laundry I want to have lemon walls. I will get a sample pot of yellow and tint up one tin of white myself.
So I am counting $600 saved right there! I am so glad I picked up that tin my neighbors were tossing out!

I am counting $6 for about two punnets of home grown tomatoes.
Also $3 for a bunch of parsley I used over a salad but picked from the garden.

So from the things I can see I saved on my total is $979 good old tax fee money!
Seriously?!

Most things I always do like housework I didn't count. It is totally up to you what you do and don't count.

I have figured out quite a few new savings. Postage is going up here. It is getting quite expensive full stop. I have made a rule that all overseas parcels must fit in an A4 envelope. This itself will be a big challenge as I don't want to give less gift wise I just want to beat the postage. Over all if I do this is will save me a few hundred dollars a year though.

When Andy cleaned up the yard it made me wonder how much the neighbours pay for this, plus mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge which he does a few times a year. A lot would be my guess! But he always does these things. Dilemma....will I count these savings or not? (I didn't)

I have learned that when you consider if a saving is worthwhile looking at it as a yearly cost rather than a weekly cost is more convincing!

I have found it really motivating and when I told Andy what I counted and what it added up to last night he was very impressed! He said I earn more than him and pay no tax on it!
He also said how if we paid for all those things we couldn't do them.  And as yesterday was the fishing day he said how beautiful their lunch was and how greatly this adds to the fun of the day.

Now I am getting interested to see what a months total will be!

For anyone joining in I really hope this has been a revealing and motivating week!
Feel free to report in anyway, you do not need to disclose financial details if you don't want to. Any helpful discoveries and savings tips might really help someone else (and me!)
Also encouragement is a big thing! It is easy to feel like the only person in the world trying to save money and doing things yourself. But as a team we know that we are all trying to build up our homes and savings and we are not alone at all.

Have a wonderful new week.

Today I have to take a trip into the hills. Two of our chickens are roosters! We had an arrangement that we can swap roosters back. These are the two hens we are keeping...

It is a bit sad as we love them all and they all have lovely personalities. We even hoped to have non verbal roosters or quiet crowers. But no they have started up and there is nothing quiet about them! I hope I will return with two more hens or order two at least.

xxx