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The Savings Habit

Lately, I’ve read a lot about the interest rate going down & who the real winners & losers are. It makes pretty interesting fodder during my lunch break.

I thought I’d share a bit about the my savings habits throughout the years, which I think might help out. Please read this with a pinch of salt, what works for me, might not necessarily work for you & bear in mind that I am not a licensed financial planner or do I even work in finance. Now with all the legalities out of the way, here’s my tips on building some savings.

1. Write down your earnings & spending
Do this how ever you are comfortable with – pen & paper, app or even a wall chart. I started out documenting it all in a simple notebook when I first moved to Perth & it’s evolved since, but now I use an app to quantify things. Being able to see what I spend my money on is usually the first step in constructing a functional budget.

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2. Save at least 10% of your earnings
This might sound hard, but trust me it is possible. I worked 2 days a week during uni & saved 10% then, which was quite a big portion as a student. Having that 10% in a high interest savings account & term deposits (back then it was almost 7%), made my meagre savings work for me. I have a modified version of that savings plan currently. All my excess money sits in my mortgage offset account, making my money work for me again.

3. Work out a functional budget
When I say functional, I mean don’t tie yourself down with being rigid about everything you spend each week/month, but be flexible & allow yourself some leeway to buy things or services you might want every now & then. For example, I lobbed my hair off over the weekend, which isn’t normally in my budget but I allow a small amount of money to be able to do stuff with. A girl’s gotta live ya know!

Hope these tips help somewhat in sorting out your finances!

The Big Chop

If you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while, you’ll know I’ve been pretty annoyed at my long hair & have been talking about lobbing it all off. I’ve talked myself into chopping it off, but never made it to the hairdressers till this weekend.

I felt ready to make the big chop & walked into the salon to get it chopped off & my hair washed as a bit of a treat to myself. I should’ve done this earlier, but am glad I got it all chopped off. Now, I get to grow it all out again & have my natural hair colour again.

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It feels like a big weight off my shoulders, quite literally. I am pretty pleased with it, but am waiting till it grows out a bit more so I can lob more layers into it 🙂

Sunday Afternoon Musings

It has been quite the weird week this week & I’m glad it is almost over. The Sunday is half gone so far & this is my view for the next few hours:

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I’ve got an assignment due on Friday & I’m not looking forward to it at all. It’s going to be a busy few weeks for me with things to go to, assignments to submit & potential jobs to apply for. I really need something like 35 hours a day to be able to do all the things I need to do.

 

I’ve got another stye starting to grow on my right lower eyelid, this will be the 2nd one this year & I cannot afford to call in sick for work any more with the whole casual situation. For long term followers, you will know that this was supposed to be a temp job, but has become a rolling contract which isn’t great due to the money situation. I’ve been applying for jobs since around the September mark & it’s really taking a toll as I keep getting rejection after rejection, plus not getting anywhere with it. Really needing to get past the next few weeks before taking time to apply for things more consistently as I need an out from my current situation. You would think having 2 degrees & working on a 3rd one, I’d be able to get something decent paying, but that’s hardly the case at all. I’ll have to compile the stats of jobs I’ve applied for in another post & have a look back to see how it all went.

 

Just need to keep breathing & keep calm for the next few weeks before I can have a bit of a rest before hitting the job application circuit again. If only I could strike the lotto, I’ll be able to do all the stuff I want to if I had the money. Enough ranting for the day, I just needed to have a bit of a breather before concentrating again. Have a good weekend!

Friday Matters 1st May 2015

I’ve decided to come up with hopefully a weekly series of Friday musings. It’s the day of the week I generally look forward to the most, given that I usually head over to Matt’s for the weekend & not have to worry about work for at least 2 whole days.

This Friday is slightly different as I’m at mine for the weekend due to an assignment which is due at midnight which I haven’t quite done much for. It’s a bad habit I have, leaving assignments till the last minute, but I find that I work the best under pressure. There’s a difference between pressure & tiredness & unfortunate these 2 nearly always intersect when I’m writing the assignment. No matter, I’ve got a plan to finish my assignment tonight as I’ve done a few bits & pieces. Also helps that the unit is a first year unit which is modified slightly for postgraduates. For that, I’m grateful.

The other night I tried my hand at some overnight curls for the 2nd time & it didn’t end very well. As my hair is very long & slightly dry, the curls stuck too much & I couldn’t separate them for then to look presentable. Instead, I looked like someone who had a bad day with an electric socket. I’ll spare you that picture, but he’s what I did to get those stubborn curls.

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When I woke up, I found all my bobby pins stored on my bedside table which was so weird. I must’ve taken it off in the middle of the night without realising it. Heh. Lesson learned from this experiment, don’t twist but curl & don’t put it all in a high pony tail to sleep.

Also an update on my flu shot arm, it’s gotten better & I’m only left with a slight discoloured ring on my arm & it’s not sore any more. Not bad I say.

Needing to get through work today & that assignment before the weekend here it’s Borderlands time! Also time to work on the next assignment which is due next Friday. I’m betting I’ll leave it all till the last minute again 😂

Anything exciting happen during the week? Let me know in the comment s