Well, I have.

And today I wanted to share with you the fruits of owning a Sunbeam Pie Maker.

I love a good hot savory pie. And I have bought many over the years, as have a lot of Australians. You could say it’s our National Dish. And like many others I usually buy mine from corner stores, bakeries or (more recently) dedicated pie shops.

But no more! This Sunbeam Pie Maker will be saving me a lot of money over the coming months and years.

I made my first patch of pies from it today and to be honest (and less than modest) they were great! And it was probably the cheapest lunch I have had in ages. Each pie cost me only $1.00.

I bought the pastry sheets for $5.00 for a pack of 5 sheets. Each sheet will make 3 pies, so there are potentially 15 pies in each $5.00 pack. If you divide 15 into $5.00 you get each pie costing approximately 33 cents for the pastry. But you also have to fill it.

Today I used left over Kangaroo meat and roast vegetables from a mini-roast I cooked two nights ago. I didn’t figure out the exact cost of the roast meal but it would of been in the vicinity of $10.00 for the ingredients. Halve this as I had one good meal out of the roast already, and that leaves you with a cost of $5.00 for the pie filling. Divide this by the number of pies made, which was 8, and that comes out at a cost for the fillings at approximately 63 cents per pie.

Add that to the 33 cents for the pastry and you get a grand total of 96 cents per pie. Or close enough to $1.00. And only about 30 minutes of my time.

Not bad considering that I bought a Big Dad’s pie for $5.00 the other day for lunch. Two of mine would be equivalent of one of those pies at a cost a mere $2.00. Less than half the price.

The great thing about the pies you make is that you can freeze them and re-heat them later. Great for taking to work for lunch.

And how good did the pies look? Well, see for yourself:

And they tasted as good as they look!

Image credit: Sunbeam

I don’t own a car, and for a very good reason: they are money-munches. Yes, sometimes I miss the freedom of owning a car, but most of the time I love the freedom of having money because I don’t own one.

But for those of you who do own a car (and I am sure that would be most of you) it might be time to think about factoring in the rising cost of petrol into your budgets now, rather than just waiting and suffering later.

The first thing you need to do is to figure out how much you spend on petrol now. If you don’t have any idea, for the next two week record every cent you spend on petrol. This is a simple thing to do and it will give you a better idea of how much you will need to put aside now for future petrol price rises.

Two quick and easy ways to record how much you spend on petrol is to write down how much you spend each time you go to the petrol station (on petrol, not on drinks or chocolates), or simply keep your receipts when you pay for your petrol - you can just stick them in the glove compartment until you need them.

Once you know how much you spend, you will need to figure out how much petrol will rise over the next year or two. But unless you have a crystal ball you won’t know exactly, but you can figure out rough estimates based on what has happened over previous years.

Petrol prices over the last few years have, despite the doom and gloom of media reports, fluctuated a fair bit. In May of 2006 the average price was $1.35/litre, while in May of 2007, the price had dropped to $1.30 a litre. And as you are probably aware, in May of 2008, the price of petrol has increased to around $1.45 a litre.

You can see from this data that the price of petrol has increased by 10% over this time last year. But had decreased by 4% from 2006 to 2007. So what will it be May of 2009?

Like I stated before, no-one is absolutely sure but if you have a look at the historical data from the last 7 years you will see that there has been a 32% increase in petrol prices over that time, which comes out at a 5% increase each year over the 7 years. (The maths isn’t as simple as dividing 32 into 7, that’s why the 5% figure is different).

Looking at the figures in the long-run it seems likely that petrol prices will continue to rise but not as dramatically as they are at present. Although in the short-term that may not be the case.

Also, other factors are at work now that were not around in the past: the increasing demand from China and India, troubles in the Middle East, and a shortness in long-term supply.

So how much more should you factor in when working out your budget? Based on the data available, I would say between 5-10% more. This will give you a nice cushion against any future price-rises.

The next thing to do is to re-write your budget to factor in this extra 5-10% increase. Say you spend $50 per week on petrol now and you decide to play it real safe and factor in a 10% increase. If you start putting aside $55 per week now (and saving any left over money) you will have built up a nice buffer (as in extra cash) if the price does increase by another 10% over time. And if the price drops for a while, keep budgeting $55 for petrol per week and you will not be stung in the future if prices rise again.

Also, you may look at using your car less, but that is a whole other post.

How are you handling the rising cost of petrol?

Image credits: Maccanti and Zimpenfish

The 1% Medicare Levy will now only apply to single people who earn $100,000 or more annually (instead of a mere $50,000 as it now stands).

This means a saving of about $600 for the average person per year, or around $50 per month.

This is great news as I always hated being slugged with the Medicare levy just because I chose not to join a private health scheme (which I think is a serious waste of money).

I have just finished reading this book and I want to impart some of what I learned from it. But before I do I just wanted to say that why I recommend this book, it isn’t a book on personal finance, but rather a great book to get you thinking about what it really means to be wealthy (as opposed to just earning a lot).

It shows you who the real wealthy in America are and how they got that way. And it wasn’t through spending lavishly on imported sports cars and gold watches, but rather by working hard on their money, living below their means and being frugal.

It’s a good book to get you thinking and will place you in the right frame of mind for budgeting and saving.

This is what I learned from The Millionaire Next Door:

• Live below your means.
• Be frugal with your money.
• Invest heavily.
• Reduce your taxable income (legally!).
• Research and comparison shop on large purchases.
• Spend time each month on your finances.
• Hire a good accountant.
• Keep your investments for the long-term.
• Invest for your retirement (super).
• Risk is part of life and sometimes necessary.
• Don’t accept expensive gifts.

Out of all the above list the last one was the one that stuck with me the most.

The authors tell a story of a millionaire, Mr Allan, who was going to be receiving a Rolls-Royce from some of the people he had helped to stay in business over the years, as a kind of thank-you gift. He was uneasy about receiving this gift and eventually told them thanks, but no thanks. Why?

Because Mr Allan understood the dangers of having status symbols such as a Rolls-Royce, and how having one status product can lead to purchases others “to fill up the socially conspicuous puzzle.”

In other words, items have a way of changing you. You could say that you are what you purchase.

Have you also read The Millionaire Next Door? What did you think? Did you learn anything from it?

Image credit: Gary Bridgman

I am not too sure why this is. Maybe its the temporary nature of food: it’s here one day and gone the next. Or maybe it’s because you have to buy it so frequently. No matter what the reason, it was the first place that I looked to when I was trying to cut my spending and save more money.

That’s not to say that I am starving myself. I like food, it’s just that I used to spend so much money on it and I am sure I am not the only one.

Already, two of my posts for this site include ways to save money on food. Both posts - How To Save Money When Dining Out and Looking For Ways To Save - showed easy ways in which you can save when eating away from home.

But there are ways to save money when eating at home as well.

About 3 months ago I bought a Sunbeam Pie Maker. It has been siting in my bedroom (of all places) gathering dust, but today I finally took it out of the box and read the instructions. It also came with a small book crammed with yummy ideas and recipes for pies.

I used to own one of these about 10 years ago and I loved it then, just as I am sure I will love it now.

The great thing about the Sunbeam Pie Maker is that it can make more than just pies: it makes damper, muffins, quiches, both savory or sweet pies and even cheesecakes. The thing is brilliant! But it can also save you money.

By making your own pies you don’t have to buy them from the corner store or frozen from the supermarket. And it’s ability to make a variety of different types of food will leave you spoiled for choice and richer in the pocket.

The best thing about it though is that your can pretty much throw anything into the pie you like. It’s great for finishing left-overs from the night before and you can readily freeze the pies for weeks at a time.

I know this post sounds a lot like a plug for the Sunbeam Pie Maker but I don’t care. The thing is truly a gift from the Kitchen Gods. And now that I have mine all set up I will be using it regularly to not only make myself some tasty pies (or damper, muffins and quiches) but also to save money.

Have you got a Sunbeam Pie Maker? Is there any other kitchen product you use that saves you money?

Image credit: Galant

It’s a good habit to get into and it maybe time for you to have a serious think about where your money goes and what you spend it on. And this doesn’t need to apply just to big purchases either. The little amounts that you spend quickly add up.

There are two major changes I have made that have saved me quite a bit of money.

The first was not buying lunch every day. This is a relatively easy step anyone can make and will save you a lot of money every month. To illustrate this let’s look at some numbers. On the rare occasion I do buy my lunch I would spend on average about $8.00. If I did this every day of the week that’s $40 per week (5 x $8= $40) or $160 per month!

Just think about what else you could be doing with that money! Like saving it, or paying some more off your credit card, or even paying the gas or electricity bill on time.

The best way to stop buying lunch every day is to brown bag it. And a good source for lunches are left-overs. Cooking for one leaves me with plenty of left-overs from dinner the night before, and I regularly take this to work for lunch the next day. Or I make sure I leave enough time in the morning to throw together a cold meat and salad sandwich. It’s surprisingly easy!

The second way that I have saved a bit of money is through renting DVDs only once a week.

I learned that my local movie rental store has all its movies to rent for only $1 each on Tuesdays. I am a huge movie fan and I regularly rent and buy DVDs (my one real purchasing weakness). But I have reduced my renting to only Tuesday nights and this has saved me quite a bit of money. Normally they charge $6.00 for an overnight hire on a new release, but by renting it on Tuesday I save myself $5.00.

I am not entirely sure how they stay in business by doing this, but that’s not my concern (unless they go out of business, but I will cross that bridge if and when I come to it).

Over a month that’s a $20.00 saving. Not huge but enough to warrant the effort.

And it’s kind of cool to have a dedicated “movie night” that I look forward to each week. And if the movie I hire turns out to be a lemon I don’t care that much as I only paid $1.00. :)

What do you do to save money?

Image credit: ToastyKen

Over 55% of the applications received by APRA last year for early release of Superannuation funds were for mortgage assistance. This far exceeds the second highest reason, medical treatment, which was a mere 15% if applications.

This seems like one of the worst ideas I have heard of in many years. Taking money from your retirement fund, your future, to pay debts now. And it reminds me of a married couple who are friends of mine.

About 12 months ago I helped them landscape the backyard of their home. It was the most physical labour I had done in years but it was fun (except the blisters) and by the end it looked great.

A few months later they told me they were selling up. I was a little surprised but they told me that they couldn’t afford the mortgage on the place any more. They were a two-income family (they had a little girl as well) but the wife had lost her job after her company re-shuffled. And the mortgage on their 2-bedroom house (with a fabulously landscaped backyard) was too much for just one income.

So they had decided to sell it and buy a (much cheaper) unit.

I was really proud of them for making that decision. And it is a lesson that others, including these people who are raiding their super, should learn. If you are having difficulties financially you need to come up with various ways of dealing with it and make some hard decisions.

I am sure it wasn’t easy for my friends to move into a smaller place (especially from a house into a unit), but they had to make a hard choice. And dipping into their retirement wasn’t one they wanted to make.

The end of the article that I linked to has a chilling last line that was quoted from David Tennant, head of Care, a financial counselling service:

My experience . . . is that all it does is shift the date on which foreclosure takes place.

Do you anyone you know thinking about raiding their superannuation?

Image credit: itjournalist

The economy is a strange beast, but one that is fairly predictable over the mid-to-long term. There is a well-known cycle to most economies that you can use to your advantage. It is known as the Economic Clock.

The cycle runs something like this:

Rising Interest Rates - Falling Share Price - Falling Commodity Prices - Falling Inflation - Static Property Values - Falling Interest Rates - Rising Share Prices - Rising Commodity Prices - Rising Inflation - Rising Property Values - (Back to Rising Interest Rate) - and so on…

At the moment, as you are probably aware, Australia has experienced rising interest rates for the last couple of years now and their has been falling share prices over the last few months. The next stage Australia should experience is, according to the cycle above, a fall in commodity prices and then a fall in inflation.

Given that our inflation is still quite high and their is fear of it rising even further, I would estimate that Australia is somewhere between falling share prices and falling commodity prices. Given that the cycle spans approximately 5-7 years, means that over the coming months and years we should see a drop in commodity prices, falling inflation, static property values and then (finally!) falling interest rates.

This is the time where you should be saving as much as you can. Why? Because the next stage after falling interest rates is rising stock prices. And you want to have as much money as you can to invest in the stock market before this rise in share prices takes effect.

As to exactly when all this will take place is still anyone’s guess but the cycle is quite reliable on a macro level. Of course micro-economic factors play their part and the cycle doesn’t always run smoothly, but it is a fairly good predictor of what is to come.

I plan on using this time before the next share market boom to save as much as I can to invest so I can take maximum advantage of this economic cycle. Also, it would be a good time to educate yourself a little more on how the share market works and the best way to invest your money.

Have you had any thoughts on investing lately?

Image credit: PPDIGITAL

I love shopping at Amazon.com.

Amazon.com and eBay.com.au are my two favourite places to shop online.

Despite this I don’t know very many people who shop at Amazon and I have no idea why. As it has the potential to save you hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year.

Maybe it has something to do with it being located overseas in America and they think the shipping costs will be prohibitive. I am not sure. But I couldn’t be without it.

Not only does it save me money, it gives me access to items that I cannot get in Australia or that haven’t been released here yet.

Given my obvious love for it and seeing as how I mention Amazon.com a lot in my posts I thought I would give you a run down on why I think it is so good and what to expect.

For those of you who don’t know what Amazon.com is it is the biggest online department store in the world. It started its life way back in the 1990s as a book seller and has gone from strength to strength from there.

The real trick with Amazon (and maybe this is why a lot of Australian don’t order from them) is you need to buy a few items at a time to bring down the delivery costs per item.

There are several separate pricing structures for delivery to Australia, depending on how quickly you want your items and what the items are. The delivery times are: 18-32 business days, 8-16 business days and 3-5 business days. As you would expect, the faster you want your items the more it will cost you. You can find all the information about these rates here at Amazon’s Australian shipping cost structure page.

I always choose the 8-16 business days delivery as I have learned that most of the time you receive your items in less than a week, despite what they say. It also depends on what you are ordering. I usually only order books or DVDs, but you can find out more about the cost of shipping other items here.

The cost of shipping books or DVDs for the 8-16 business days time frame is a base rate of US$13.99, plus US$5.99 per book or US$3.99 per DVD. This may sound rather steep but with the discounts Amazon.com give you on each item and if you stick to ordering 3 or more items you will come out in front every time. A great example of this is in my post on comparison shopping.

But I would really like to illustrate this point further, so I have selected three DVDs at random to see how much they would cost us if we ordered them from Amazon and also see what they would cost us if ordered from an Australian online retailer, say EzyDVD.

NOTE: When you order DVDs from the USA they will be Region 1 formatted so you will need to have a DVD player that will play them. Most DVD players do these days, but this is something to be aware of.

To make this comparison fair I have chosen three DVDs pretty much randomly but I have chosen one older movie (Charlie’s Angels), one new release movie (Alien vs Predator 2) and one TV show (Lost, Season 3).

You can see the prices of each of the DVDs from the respective sites below and I have taken time to convert the US prices on Amazon to Australia Dollars (using an independent third site: XE’s Universal Currency Converter).

This table speaks volumes. Even with EzyDVD’s free shipping, Amazon beats their total price by AU$43.42. Do you really need any more proof to showcase how Amazon.com can save you money?

Sure you may have to wait a couple of extra days for the items to arrive but isn’t that worth an extra $43 to you? I know it is to me.

The trick to shopping at Amazon is to be patient, and create a wish list of items you want to buy. Then, when you are ready to purchase some items then you can choose a handful of the ones in your wish list and save yourself some money!

Have you ever shopped at Amazon.com?

Image credit: Command-Tab

I just finished reading an article on making a move from spender to saver over at Get Rich Slowly and I have to agree with J.D completely.

Ever since starting to take control of my money and budgeting, I have lost most of my desire to spend. Sure, I still put aside some money each pay (10% actually) to buy whatever I wish, guilt-free, but most of the time I hang on to it.

I always think and re-think any purchases I make these days. Which isn’t to say that I live an unhappy and boring life, making myself go without. It’s that I want to go without. I enjoy having that money and watching it grow into a nice nest egg, much more than spending it on stuff that I probably will get bored with after a couple of weeks.

There are still many things that I still need and want to buy, but right now I have few urges to buy them.

I am starting to wonder if this loss of the spending urge goes hand-in-hand with someone’s decision to start to budget and desire to save. It seems once you are finally ready to make that decision to save and take control of your money, the urge to spend diminishes.

What do you think? Have you felt the same way?

Image credit: Noii