Lower price promise saved on a new cistern

I saved an easy $40 recently on a new cistern by price shopping between competitors! I first checked the prices at both Bunnings and Mitre 10 and found the latter to be the dearer option. Seeing as they promise to better the lower price on the same item, I showed them the proof of the cheaper Bunnings price. They did indeed hold true to their promise and charged me another 15% less than the lower Bunnings price!

No more shopping lists with free app

We have eliminated paper shopping lists by using a free app called Our Groceries. You can link the app via entering one email address, so everyone who does the shopping at your house has the up to date grocery list at any time. The best thing is, you can customise the list to be very specific about what you want. There is a paid version of the app but we have been successfully using the free version and love it. No more wasted paper and no more forgetting things as the list is always with us!

$25,000 saved in three years

I was renting for nearly three years on a medium salary and really just living day by day. I decided that I wanted to get out of the renting cycle, so thought I would become educated financially. I started reading the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' by Robert Kiyosaki series of books and immediately I saw there was no way out unless I changed my psychological views dramatically and acted on them.

I started a savings plan by setting up three bank accounts - one for daily spending (which gave me a small amount of easily accessed money), one for bills (which I used to pay credit cards and so on) and one for long term savings (through ING Direct) which was only to be touched for large goal purchases.

I requested my employer split my pay 30% in the daily and 70% in the bills accounts. Once the 30% ran out, I just sacrificed a bit more and went without the usual luxuries until the next pay. I soon found that I would spread the money out for longer until I hardly ever ran out. At the end of each month (or whenever the deadly credit cards had been paid), whatever balance was left in the bills account was transferred to my savings account.

I am happy to say that after three years, I have managed to save nearly $25,000 for a deposit for my new home, whilst accumulating 5.25% interest!

One tablespoon only per wash

Slash your washing powder costs by using a tablespoon of washing powder in your machine instead of a scoop. It works just as well! My sister was learning about budgeting and the speaker mentioned that you could get the same wash results by using one flat tablespoon of washing powder as you could if you used a whole scoop. I decided to test this theory and found that even with a full load of washing this proved to be true. I buy a top brand washing powder that costs around $10 per two kilo box and it contains around 148 tablespoons. I used to go through a two kilo box of powder every four to six weeks when I was using a scoop. Generally I do a load of washing every second day, so using one tablespoon per wash, my box of washing powder should now last me nearly 10 months! Just changing this small habit will save me $90 every 10 months on washing powder!