How much are we all earning? How does your profession add up? How are women your age spending their money? Is everyone in debt? And is the cost of living crisis biting everyone?
It’s time for some honest, candid conversations about money and budgets as we steer down a recession – so welcome to our new series ‘Money, Honey’, where we’ll be diving deep into the bank accounts of wahine across the country to truly get a sense of what’s going on in our piggybanks.
Up this week it’s Christchurch business owner Millie!
Name: Millie, 35
Location: Christchurch
Living situation: With my partner and two kids, six and two-and-a-half. We own our first home.
Job: Business owner. I run a small online shop.
Salary per year, and your household’s total income: It depends on how the business is going of course but in the last financial year I took home $85,221 in drawings. This was almost on par with the previous year but it has been very tough, the cost of living crisis honestly is a thing and business has been down, especially from when I first entered business in 2018. My partner is a plumber and he made $130,000, which was a great year for him.
Any other income: We half-own a rental property with our best friends. In total the rent is $510 a week and that goes straight to its mortgage.
Take-home pay per week: As I said above, it depends. If some months are tough I won’t pay myself, but when we have good months I’ll try and make up for it.
Investment returns: None yet because all of the money goes to its mortgage.
My situation:
I live with my partner Dan and our kids, Daisy and Leo. We bought our first house at the height of the market in 2021 because we were scared we’d miss the boat on property if we didn’t and now honestly we regret it because our house isn’t worth what we paid right now, but because we had a second child our current place is too small and we’d like to move, but we don’t want to lose money. And also we have struggled with our mortgage rate going up so much, but it’s about to go down quite a bit thank GOD so we’ll have more money in our pockets.
Weekly budget:
Rent/mortgage: $960 a week
Food: I try and budget $250 for all of our food including a Bargain Box which we like and we can stretch to lunches too. Some weeks I succeed but sometimes I don’t. We will get takeaways once a week, usually on a Saturday.
Bills: Power, internet, phones, water is usually around $85 a week
Childcare: My mum looks after Leo for two days a week alongside his cousin, and he goes to daycare the other two. I have Thursdays off. I’m so lucky I have Mum. I pay $180 for two days. This will get easier this year when the free hours come on.
Investments: I have just started trying to put $25 a week ($100 a month) aside to Sharsies but I’ve just started this.
Debt payments: Apart from our mortgage I have a credit card I’m pretty good at paying off (I used to have it just for Airpoints but we haven’t been anywhere in a while!). My current debt is $2480.
Savings: I save when I can, usually in big lumps depending on how much I’m earning. Dan puts $250 in from each fortnightly pay.
Spending: I don’t have a budget. If I want something, I’ll buy it and then dial back for a while until something else comes up but if it’s a big purchase, anything over $400 or so, I’ll clear it with Dan, and he’s the same.
What’s inside your bank account?
Savings: Combined we have $35,33. We are currently saving for a wedding.
Kiwisaver: Mine is at $24,995. I drained it when we bought the house.
How do you approach budgeting? It’s always a loose budget because when you have two kids, stuff pops up like uniforms, swimming lessons and stuff so I try my best but I also don’t beat myself up if we’re $50 over in food for the week because I wanted a bottle of sav or we needed to buy a new school polo shirt. It’s not like we’re rolling in money but we’re privileged enough to have buffers and savings.
Are you a spender or a saver? Naturally a spender. Now I get to shop for a living so that helps!
Do you have any debt, and what is it from? Apart from my credit card debt, no. We have had hire purchases before and it’s just a bad idea, and I had an overdraft that got out of control when I was younger, so I’m cautious with cards and things like that these days.
Money, Honey – how do you feel about your financial situation?
How has the cost-of-living crisis affected you and your spending? Most definitely. I feel like I have this huge list of things in my notes app of things I want to buy myself and my kids and Dan, but now I prioritise it a bit more. Also now we’re saving for a wedding (hopefully next year in Rarotonga) it’s easier to resist the urge. But on the plus side, I want people buying from the boutique!
What are your financial goals? We bought the rental property with our friends with the view that it will be a great move in the next 10 years or so when we can sell, and further our capital gains with another rental home we own outright. If we can keep working the property ladder, we’re hopeful we will be in a good spot come retirement time. But you have to start somewhere!
What’s the best thing you’ve bought in the last three months? A beautiful abstract print from the website. It cheers me up every time I look at it at home.
What’s the thing you regret buying the most in the last three months? Pretty much everything from TikTok I decided I needed after a cocktail. Also a pair of black pants I thought I needed but I found the ones I thought I had misplaced three days after buying these new ones.
What (if anything) are you saving towards? The wedding.
Aside from the big stuff (rent/mortgage, bills etc) what’s your biggest source of discretionary spending? For me it’s homewares. I love our house and I’m so proud we own a home, I’m forever trying to improve it as much as I can.
Do you worry about money? When I have a bad month in store, then sometimes I get a bit worried, but not enough to keep me up at night. We’re doing ok.
How much money (honestly) do you think you’d spend on an average day? About $20 after a coffee and or a smoothie, and sometimes lunch if it’s been crazy in the mornings. We don’t spend too much on weekends.
Where do you think it’s worth spending money, and where do you think you can save it? I’m a big quality over quantity person. I would rather have less than buy shit. Quality, New Zealand-made items are always my first go-to.
Do you have any money-saving tips you’d like to share that work for you? Not really. The only one I use regularly is the stand-down period theory. I don’t buy something instantly, instead I’ll wait a week and see if I still want it.
What’s the first and last thing you would cut from your spending if you had to make some savings? I’d cut smoothies. The last thing would be coffee. We just can’t make good stuff at home no matter how hard we try!
(Names have been changed for privacy)
