Somehow, in my first year of teaching, I saved $20,000 (Wooh! Go me!). Over the next three years, I only managed to save $10,000... over three years! And I was earning more! Where did it all go?! Good question!

I honestly believe that we all live within our means. God I feel so old saying that. I don't think I've ever used that phrase before ever because I've never really understood it until just now. In my first year of full time work I wasn't used to the dollars, so naturally, they all built up as savings. Then I got a taste for them and they all disappeared as fast as they entered my account because I had started living a more indulged lifestyle. When I resigned from my job, I knew I was going to have to save every penny I could so I decided to create a budget. But first I needed to figure out where all my money was going. I went through my bank statements to see what I was spending money on each month. Warning! It's pretty shocking when you first sit down and work all this out. 

Spendings (monthly):

1. Rent $600 

2. Bills (water, gas, electricity, netflix, internet)  $250

3. Car expenses (loan, insurance, petrol, registration) $750

4. Health Insurance $100

5. Food $400 (eating out often made this one balloon out a lot!)

6. Phone Bill $35 

7. World Vision $60 

8. Spotify $20

9. Gym $100

10. Nails $50

11. Hair $100 

12. Laser $40

13. Leisure (movies, shopping, presents etc.) $300

Almost $3000 worth of expenses a month. And that's before any major random expenses like holidays, fines or medical expenses come into the mix. Congrats! If you've managed to face your spendings then you're doing better than most! Now this is the point where you can work out how much money you can save.

Numbers 7-13 on the list are non-essential so see-ya later.. you're gone. $670 a month saved just like that. Mind you, the conversation with World Vision was extremely tough. And I only just bought the Spotify subscription for the family for Christmas so that one will have to stay. But still, so many savings! The coronavirus only makes it a billion times easier to stop spending money on these things too! 

Want to save another $1000+ a month? Move back in with your parents. Cheers coronavirus! My phone bill I reduced to a $25 a month plan because I mainly use the internet when I'm connected to wifi anyway. The car was a bit of a situation because I obviously wasn't going to need it whilst travelling. So I used $6000 of my savings to cover my car loan until January. I'm so glad I did because that's a huge expense no one wants jumping up at them each month when they're unemployed. I also checked all the policies I had bought when I started my loan and it turns out I'd bought pretty much every extra on the planet. So I called to cancel whatever I could and I got another couple of grand back.

Over the past two years I paid with cash only. Whenever I went through the Woolies checkout I would religiously get cash-out. Whenever I received change, I would put the goldies into one savings money tin, and the silvers into another. When I finally went to deposit it all at the bank, I had saved $1800!

I said I'd never get a credit card but since deciding to travel, I was sucked in by the point system. I'm actually so obsessed with it now! Highly recommend the Westpac Altitude Black card. As long as you pay back what you've spent straight away it works out to be an amazing way of building rewards points. I'll be spending mine on flights! 

Another way I saved heaps of money was by holding a Camberwell Market stall and selling my old clothes. I made a couple of grand in a few hours and it was so much easier than selling things online and then having to deal with people who mess you around. I highly recommend doing a clean out while we've got so much time at the moment!