My home loan cost $3623 in February. That’s the minimum repayment required by my lender. I have an offset account on my loan, so any extra savings I have go into there.

I have about $625,000 outstanding on the home loan on my principal place of residence (aka my current home!). The latest 0.25 percentage point hike by the Reserve Bank means my minimum repayment will go up by $78 to $3701 next month. And probably again soon after that.

While I don’t LOVE it when rates go up, I usually remind myself that I am fortunate to have got a place on the property ladder at all. It’s manageable for me.

I do also have another loan on an investment property, but I keep a separate tally for that and don’t include it here in my monthly living expenses. Why? Because although it is loss-making in the short-term (ie I don’t collect as much in rent as it costs me in interest and other expenses) I do also benefit from rising property prices.

It’s an investment expense, rather than a living expense, so I try not to freak myself out by including it here. It impacts on my cash flow, of course, and I haven’t forgotten it. Let me know if this is something you’d like me to write more about in future newsletters - it’s definitely something I get into in the upcoming second edition of ‘Money with Jess’ coming later this year which expands to cover investing…

Again, #grateful because I am on the property ladder, but again #ouch for the strata fees that come from living in an apartment. Yes, they cover building insurance and maintenance that you would otherwise also have to pay as a free-standing homeowner, but you’re less in control. Anyhoo, I set aside $992.09 each month into my Household Future Fund to cover strata fees, local council rates, home insurance and water rates. I’ve already realised this is insufficient, as my strata fees have gone up again, so I may have to tweak/increase my contributions for the rest of the year.

As variable household expenses go, I spent $77.62 on hygiene supplies, $14 on cleaning supplies and $6.19 on ‘maintenance and repair’ via a trip to Bunnings to buy a shower seal strip to go under my shower door to stop leaks and honestly, it’s the purchase that has bought me most joy all month!

It’s the kind of niggly thing you just don’t get around to when you’re working full time. So it’s been nice to have the headspace to give to such matters.

I switched electricity provider again at the end of last year using www.energymadeeasy.gov.au. There seems to be a sneaky new trend where the companies that tend to top the list as the cheapest are also the companies that hike you onto a much more expensive plan at the next price review round. So, if you do go with one of the littler guys, you need to stay on top of it and get shopping again if they hike too hard.

My electricity bill came in at $204.57 this month, covering the 56 days since I made the switch. My daily supply charge is $1.0846 and my rate per kilowatt hour is 30.62 cents. Go on, get out your bill and see how your rates compare! At this rate, my annual power bill for my 2-bedroom unit is looking at coming in at about $1333, which I think is about right.

My 100mbps NBN internet plan cost $65 for the month and my 25GB SIM-only mobile plan cost $25. It’s time to shop around on the phone, because I just reset off a 50% discount, and I know from checking www.whistleout.com.au that I could be paying more like $12.40. So that’s my homework for the month!

Finally, I paid $14.99 for 2TB of cloud storage - seems to be no avoiding it for the peace of mind of having my photos backed up to the cloud hassle-free.

I was thanking my lucky stars for both my Car Future Fund and my decision to renew my roadside assist membership when I woke up one Monday morning to discover a flat tyre on the school run. Mondays, right?!

The culprit? A rather large screw embedded in my tyre shoulder - unrepairable, unfortunately. I knew I was due for four new tyres, so I bit the bullet and called a local tyre shop and asked for their best ‘buy 3 get one free’ deal, which they ordered in and I had installed the next day. All up, was $726.98 for four PT5 Dunlop tyres and $110 for a wheel alignment.

This is all covered by my Car Future Fund, for which I set aside $328.33 per month throughout the year.

For variable expenses, I filled up a tank of petrol for $113.86, recharged my public transport card for $40 and paid $27.31 in parking around town for various events.

We’re lazy here 😀

Well, sometimes we’re just overwhelmed or time poor or stressed out. Interesting to note how many of the major chains have teamed up with a delivery service lately - Woolies is with Uber, Aldi is with DoorDash and Harris Farm is with Amazon Prime.

This month I gave Aldi via DoorDash a crack. I didn’t like all the plastic packaging for the fruit and veg, and filling up your kitchen sink cupboard with stacks of paper bags seems unavoidable if you opt for home delivery. But, all in all, it was convenient and, on that day, I felt worth the $11.99 delivery charge I paid. It was fun to see all my old Aldi favourites again (hello frozen prawn hargow!). I do enjoy variety when it comes to my grocery shopping.

All up, I paid $702.81 for grocery store bought food this month (ie excluding takeaways). This would have been a lower had I not included $79 I spent on new water filters for my Brita water filter. This was about in line with my January spend of $690. I know I can do better, but being a bit more liberal with my food spending is preventing me from splurging on take-out at the moment, I reckon.

Ya girl is noticing some mid-life mood and other changes, so we are spending some time and money to make sure I’m getting as much support as I can (more on that to come in future months, I’m sure).

This month, I paid $95.10 out-of-pocket for a 30-minute session with my GP ($180 minus $84.90 Medicare rebate). I then paid $25 for a 2-month supply of hormone replacement therapy. I had been paying $31.60 per month previously, but apparently now because my dosage has stabilised, they’re able to prescribe the 2-month packs and they’re much cheaper?! I’m not sure of the ins-and outs, but worth a question to your GP If you’re on them!

My health insurance was $120.50 for basic hospital and extras. I’m on a mission to use up all my extras, which reset in January (some insurers reset in July). I had the lenses in my old glasses replaced for $180, but I don’t count this in my spending tally as it was 100% covered by benefits. I also got $50 off my contact lenses meaning I paid only $83.98 out-of-pocket for a 6-month supply.

I paid $294 for my CrossFit gym membership during the month, which I nowadays consider pretty much an essential for both my mental and physical health - we are training to be able to get up off the floor and the toilet, people! I made it to the gym 10 times, making a per-visit cost of $29.40.

I must say I am making maximum use of my public library lately. They’re starting to recognise me, which is nice. However, I still spent $73.49 on books in February.

This month’s book club book was Wuthering Heights, which I read before going to see the movie (see ‘live entertainment’ costs later under Lifestyle category!).

I haven’t enjoyed reading a book so much in a while - it’s so pacey and descriptive. I love how Emily Bronte doesn’t just say ‘He went outside’, but something more like: Summonsing all his strength of will and fortitude, he made the precarious journey across the room, eschewing all glances, and made his way to the door, which he promptly slammed on exit, leaving a shattering sense of abandonment and despair in all who watched the proceedings…. Lol. Like, dude, he went outside 😂

But I cannot speak a lie, I love me some oldie time speak (and I love me some Heathcliff, which I understand is problematic in the highest degree and I intend to work on it with my therapist 😆 Actually, I think it’s ok to fancy movie-Healthcliff, but not book-Heathcliff…but I digress!).

Before I move on, if you want a belly laugh, and heaps of spoilers for the movie, you must watch this Instagram reel series of ‘POV Facetiming your gay best friend who just watched Wuthering Heights’ here…. but come back after, ok?!

Also in education, I set aside $1640.38 as a monthly payment to my Education Future Fund to cover school fees.

Nadda. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

See above heading.

My lifestyle category is where the fun happens. This month I spent $223.87 on eating out, including ordering school canteen lunches. This is actually pretty low compared to previous months. With more time on my hands not working, I am definitely able to minimise eating out costs by cooking more from scratch. I did spend $41.65 on beers at the pub.

Most enjoyably, I spent $119.75 on ‘live entertainment’ including cinema tickets for both Wuthering Heights and ‘Iron Lung’, which is a viral self-directed and self-acted hit from YouTuber Markiplier which is redefining the way movies get produced (ie built from fan base rather than studio decided) and which I actually enjoyed (bit long, and I think you would benefit from having seen his walk-through of the actual Steam game in advance).

Re Wuthering, I’m not sure if I’m in spoilers territory here… but I loved it! No, it’s not the book. But I loved it in its own way. 5 stars.

Elsewhere, I spent $106.97 on streaming services this month, mostly because I again bit the bullet and paid $79 for an annual Amazon Prime membership. I’ll use the free postage on packages and we like watching ‘Ghosts’ on Prime currently (including the Australian spin-off). Lots of great free alternatives, of course, like ABC iView, SBS On Demand and 9NOW (I’ve just finished Love Island UK All Stars!) but I’m a bit of a homebody these days and I get value from enjoying a few streaming services, so here we are.

Finally, I put $411.62 aside for my Holidays Future Fund and $91.67 for my Gifts Future Fund which gets me ahead of Christmas and birthdays throughout the year.

I paid $60 for an annual membership of the Economics Society of Australia (NSW Branch) which lets you sign up to watch lunchtime webinars by prominent economists. I listened to economist Peter Abelson talk about house prices (TLDR: we need a multi-faceted approach to both boost supply (including social housing) AND reduce demand, but the Howard government’s 50% concession on capital gains tax on investments probably didn’t have as much of an effect as many argue, but we should probably reconsider it anyway) and Professor Agneiszka Tymula talk about why people make choices that seem irrational (TLDR: we only have so much brain energy and choices are hard. Fun fact: the brain accounts for 20% of our body’s total energy use each day!).

I paid my accountant $125 (on top of $375 last month) to get my FY25 taxes finalised (a slight refund thanks largely to negative gearing which I claimed for the first time) and $92.50 in pocket money.

If you have read this far, wow, can we be best friends?! Seriously, thank you 😍

Friends who budget together, stay together, I believe. So, if you’re keen to give all this a go yourself and start using the same system I use to track my money each month, I currently have my The Money Diary book and highlighter sets on sale in my online store for just $39.95, plus flat-rate Australia-wide postage of $9.95. Head to www.moneywithjess.com.au/shop.

And if money’s tight, you can also access all my free worksheets there too - just add them to your cart for FREE dollars 😀

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