Budgeting Page

Thanks for creating this post and for all the contributions! It's great to be able to look out for each other and reduce the burden of living.

I haven't had a chance yet to read back through all of the posts, so forgive me if I'm repeating what other's have written.

There's something to be said for the old ways of living. Preserving, repairing, sustainable living principles. Growing and contributing what we can and swapping what we don't need for the bits that we do.

I happen to live in an area with a strong community support network. Local coffee shops have donation food stands, community outreach information sheets are posted up in multiple areas and shops. Online community pages advertising food distribution days, or community garden harvest/seed swaps.

Sometimes, you can get really cheap meat at the supermarkets at night when they mark the meat down for quick sale. Some stores may have a night that they tend to do this on, ie Friday night. If you have a freezer, you can then store it and cook as you need. Whole chickens for $4, as opposed to $14, etc.

FREE SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT SERVICE

Hello beautiful people

@8ppleTree @Glisten @tonys @Oaktree @TAB @saturnzoon @StuF and any interested parties!

I was on Libby the library app and was reading Australia's "Money Magazine" at home online for free.

Read the editorial and the journalists who contribute to the magazine were posed with the question what budgeting strategies they were using to get their finances under greater control in 2024

One of them said they were using the "Wendi" app free subscription management service to get control over unnecessary subscriptions. It caught my attention

Wendi looks through several years of your bank transaction data to identify things like streaming TV subscriptions, website subscriptions, insurance, professional memberships, club associations, health and fitness clubs memberships that are sucking you dry financially

I went through mine manually several years ago under the advice of a financial advisor that used to be on the Oprah TV show and thought I had all my bases covered.

I decided to go ahead with it as its free and has been vetted by the ACCC and has appeared widely in the press. I had no idea how many sneaky hidden subscriptions escaped my peripheral vision or the reality how much things cost that I thought I needed

My newspaper subscriptions were costing me a mint and I rang Newscorp and Fairfax Media to cancel my digital memberships and was offered sweeteners to stay in. Like half price memberships for 6 months only, after that full price. I declined. Then they said 12 articles for free daily. I declined. I chose to cancel it which was costing me $28/month. Same story with Fairfax Media. Offering me half price when I had been paying $19.48/month. Now its only $9.74/month

Noticed my you tube Premium was costing me $16.98/month to avoid annoying advertisements while watching online video content. When I tried to cancel online was offered other deals to retain my subscription but decided to cancel

Audible talking books was costing me $16.45/month They were offering options to pause the membership at no extra cost and come back later or other type of discount options to keep me in. I chose to cancel

Had a couple of anomalous entries for "G Suite" a strange amount for $11.09 which I cancelled and Microsoft 365 which I may possibly need that was also at $11.00.

All in all I saved myself a whopping $82.26/month. I was really happy with that. Have slashed my subscriptions in half

Its very easy to do.

You just go to the Wendi app

and enter your e-mail, paypal and the bank accounts you transact with plus any other banks you use for subscriptions. It will send a code to your bank inbox for permission to access your bank transactions. You enter in the code then it will start the process of trawling through your transactions over several years.

You will be surprised by what comes up.

Its what people in the money industry are using. The customer service lady from Newscorp was really interested. We had a nice chat over the phone and she personally gained something over the course of our conversation. It was a good convo. It was nice talking to her. She was just doing her job trying to keep people with their newspaper, but it was a personalised conversation between real people not so much a business deal. Everyone is feeling financial pressures even if you just want to squeeze more out of your budget like she was

That is how you do it folks! 🙂

It translates into $987.12/year for me!

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Hi @Former-Member

I canceled my subscriptions to G-suite, stan, netflix and disney plus last month saving myself around $50 per month.

Meggle

@Oaktree well done! 👍 We are savvy budgeters. I'm glad I did Wendi though

I'm now thinking of getting rid of my VoiP phone! I used VoiP in the past because of sound quality and no radiation entering my brain/ear. Mobiles can be a cancer risk going by what brain surgeons have said. Which is why I hardly never put a phone to my ear

Last year I had since invested in earphones that have a long hollow plastic air tube to carry sound while minimising radiation. So theres no need to have VoiP anymore, it won't operate during a power outage anyway so serves no real purpose. Its costing me $30/month so thats another thing ticked off my budgeting list.

Will have saved $110/month now

Loving the Capricornian new moon from last month, my wishes are carrying forward. I love reading Money Magazine online for free from the comfort of my home! ❤️ Yay GO US!

@Former-Member

Love hearing your excitement and optimism around your budgeting. I need to look over my Capricorn wishes and see how they did. Lunar New Year tomorrow, don’t forget to not wash your hair over the weekend. Otherwise you wash your fortune away. This is new for me!

Meggle

Yes it was nice of @Glisten to mention that. Wont be washing or cutting hair tomorrow. Don't sweep the house either according to feng shui.

I wear a silver coin now in my mojo crystal pouch. Silver metaphysically generates wealth. Was told to do this. If you want more prosperity wear silver or gold!

Since yesterday have been able to shave ~ $2000 off my annual budget:

* By getting rid of voiceover internet phone (VoiP) $360/year

* Eliminating subscriptions with Wendi computer generated subscription database $1320/year

* Getting ~$320/year off my electricity bill by switching elec/gas plans today. They just introduced a new electricity plan recently so hopped on board.

I also had a small windfall of money this week.

Last month was given electrical hot water under a fast tracking process through government solar makeovers program but with a heavy discount. Still have to pay it off but its not outrageous pricing

All I can say is get a silver or gold ingot or coin and wear it Meggle!!! Even if its silver or gold jewellery that you may have. it seems to be working for me. My energy field is obviously attracting prosperity!

Yes Aquarian new moon wishes seeded tomorrow after the new moon. I will go over the list and see what I want to manifest tomorrow!

@Oaktree @Glisten @saturnzoon @tonys @TAB @8ppleTree and interested parties.

HOW TO AVOID BEING TARGETED BY A SCAM

There are so many scams out there and they are becoming so sophisticated nowadays that they can easily bypass anyones better judgement. They come in a variety of forms, investment scams and billing and phishing scams

Aussies lost $480M to scams last year in 2023 and the methods for extracting money from unwary people is set to get a whole lot worse with the advent if artificial intelligence and a multitude of payment platforms making it exceedingly harder to escape detection.

The categories of scams include but are not limited to Romance, Job/employment, Marketplace and Impersonation

There was a book put out last year by the ACCC called "The Little Black Book of Scams" which goes into extensive detail about the way in which these scams operate and catch people off guard. It comes both in easy to read large print for the visually impaired or in audio format

https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/publications/the-little-black-book-of-scams?utm_content=this_week_were_talking_about_scams_and_how_to_avoid_them&list_name=2126_age_mysmallbusiness&promote_channel=edmail&utm_campaign=real-money&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=2024-02-11&mbnr=MzAwMDQwMDc&instance=2024-02-11-06-30-AEDT&jobid=30232054

Even if you are fully aware of what goes on with scams there is still no guarantee that you won't fall prey to one as there are lots of scams that seem credible enough on the surface of things and look very legitimate.

Things to look for is if they are calling you to act hastily or instilling a sense of fear in you if you fail to act within a limited amount of time - these are typical hallmarks of scams

Even if you think that its ok to proceed and looks like a genuine offer its worth holding back and double checking.

Signs of a scam include badly spelled URL's, demanding a wire or PayID money transfer, or offering a friend or family to come and pick up an item you're selling.

Scammers have ways to try and deceive you into believing that they are who they claim to be, so if you have any reservations it pays to delete the message and follow up with separate communications.

You can easily see if the company contacting you is a hoax or not by double checking with the real company on their official phone number and asking them if they had this offer, competition or whatever that has been presented to you to see if its authentic or not

They can easily inform you if they have had trouble in the past with scammers using their official logo to act as imposters and scam people.

Be wary of what you share on social media and maybe adjust your privacy settings to protect yourself.

Many scammers try and send direct messages on facebook and twitter so it pays not to engage with unsolicited messages and maybe put a bar on strangers contacting you via direct messaging on these platforms.

There are also ways unscrupulous scammers that can call you impersonating your loved ones saying they are your son or daughter requiring money

If in the event of falling for a scam, the key is to act quickly!

The advice I have read is to contact your bank straight away and cancel your credit card. If you have paid via Paypal there are ways to retrieve lost funds and banks may be able to put a freeze on funds.

Other things you can do is contact:

IDCARE, a national identity a cyber support organisation 1800 595 160 https://www.idcare.org

Scamwatch to report the scam https://scamwatch.gov.au

Hi @Former-Member

I typed you a whole long reply about your scam post but it got lost in the ether. It’s not in my posts waiting to be reviewed so who knows?

Just thanks for all that info. It’s so easy to fall for a scam these days and I think we get more vulnerable to them as we get older.

@Former-Member Thanks for sharing! That's very thorough and informative. I'll definitely pass that info along to some of my family members who aren't as tech-savvy 🙂

Thats good its so easy to get caught off guard. Saw some more scams through facebook marketplace and gumtree yesterday after I posted it yesterday. These scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. I have written down IDCARE's phone number in my addressbook just in case as well as the link to Scamwatch for future reference @8ppleTree