The Finance Bible

Budgeting Tactics for a Stress-Free Splurge

February 08, 2024 Zeke Guenthroth and Oscar Don
Budgeting Tactics for a Stress-Free Splurge
The Finance Bible
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The Finance Bible
Budgeting Tactics for a Stress-Free Splurge
Feb 08, 2024
Zeke Guenthroth and Oscar Don

Get ready to chuckle and chart your financial future! Zeke and I take you on a lively journey from our latest escapades at Cottesloe Beach Club to the nitty-gritty of navigating your bills—big and small. Picture this: you're hit with a birthday bash and an insurance premium in the same month, but instead of sweating bullets, you're chilled out and ready to party. That's the savvy spending spirit we're instilling, with tales and tips on squirreling away just enough each week to keep those yearly financial surprises from feeling like a punch in the wallet.

Our laughter-laden conversation doesn't just leave you with a grin; it arms you with a treasure trove of budgeting tactics to ensure you're never bowled over by an unexpected expense again. We're not just talking shop; we're handing out golden nuggets of advice to make sure you can juggle your social life with your savings, stress-free. So if you're all about having your cake and eating it too (without the fiscal hangover), tune in, turn up the volume, and join us as we transform your approach to managing money—while still making time for those can't-miss beach club nights. Remember to hit follow or subscribe for more financial wisdom that's as entertaining as it is enlightening!

For any enquiries or to connect with Oscar, Zeke, or their company, Asset Road, listeners can visit the following links:

The advice shared on The Finance Bible is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. The Finance Bible exists purely for educational / entertainment purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Get ready to chuckle and chart your financial future! Zeke and I take you on a lively journey from our latest escapades at Cottesloe Beach Club to the nitty-gritty of navigating your bills—big and small. Picture this: you're hit with a birthday bash and an insurance premium in the same month, but instead of sweating bullets, you're chilled out and ready to party. That's the savvy spending spirit we're instilling, with tales and tips on squirreling away just enough each week to keep those yearly financial surprises from feeling like a punch in the wallet.

Our laughter-laden conversation doesn't just leave you with a grin; it arms you with a treasure trove of budgeting tactics to ensure you're never bowled over by an unexpected expense again. We're not just talking shop; we're handing out golden nuggets of advice to make sure you can juggle your social life with your savings, stress-free. So if you're all about having your cake and eating it too (without the fiscal hangover), tune in, turn up the volume, and join us as we transform your approach to managing money—while still making time for those can't-miss beach club nights. Remember to hit follow or subscribe for more financial wisdom that's as entertaining as it is enlightening!

For any enquiries or to connect with Oscar, Zeke, or their company, Asset Road, listeners can visit the following links:

The advice shared on The Finance Bible is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. The Finance Bible exists purely for educational / entertainment purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs

Zeke Guenthroth:

Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible Podcast, zeke here and your co-host, oscar. But before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice Of course, if that is what you are seeking, we will get you in touch with the correct professionals and get the job done properly.

Oscar Don:

Sit back relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Well, here we are, we are back on. Welcome back everybody Joined here by myself. Mr Zeke, Don, you are here too.

Oscar Don:

I am Welcome, thank you, thank you. Thank you, mate. Before we get into it, we are in Perth. We went to a great venue last night just on the coast of Perth. Excellent venue, Cottersload. Anyway, cottersload Beach Club, great place, can't confirm, can't recommend it enough. Great drinks, great music, great food, great vibes, 10 out of 10. But the most important thing that happened last night is Zeke. You fell in love. Oh, you have fallen hard. Fallen love, falling hard, you have fallen hard. So you don't explain.

Zeke Guenthroth:

There's not really a whole lot to explain there actually, there is. It was just a mutual moment of love.

Oscar Don:

I came to think it was mutual. It was very mutual. You would have had a locked door.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Well, you would want to hope so, wouldn't you? But no, nothing crazy, nothing to really discuss, Just a bit of mutual love. Man walks in the bar, man sees a lovely girl, lovely girl sees man, and that's all she wrote. But that's an antique that we had to think about. You know, going to that particular beach hotel and buying the drinks and buying the food and that kind of thing and spending the money on the Uber there, because we don't drink and drive, which concerningly, there's a couple people doing.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We did say some at the end and we actually had to go, we had to be. Yes, we said you should not be driving. There was a particular young lady I'm going to air the dirty laundry A particular young lady walking. I'll say walking, but it was an interesting movement towards a car. Anyway, she turns around and goes. That's my car back there.

Oscar Don:

And we saw her all night on the dance floor going off in a very high-pitched voice. She was excited.

Zeke Guenthroth:

She was like that's my car, and when I hopped in, I turned the music on and went to drive away, oscar and I being the very responsible young men that we are, we are very responsible.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We said excuse me, lovely lady, should you? Should you think about these actions? We might have saved a couple of lives there, but again, spending all that money doing that? We had to think about that. We do something called thinking about our discretionary and non-discretionary expenses. Is that time of the year again? We did an episode around this time last year.

Oscar Don:

Yeah, it was around this time.

Zeke Guenthroth:

That is correct how to save up for particular things and how to figure out how to afford things like insurance and that kind of thing that are coming up annual expenses or monthly expenses. How do you actually put together an?

Oscar Don:

appropriate budget. Let's start from the beginning. January, january, start of the year, fresh slate. You know that you have Christmas at the end of the year. You might know that. Yeah, your mom's birthdays in April, you know, friends birthdays, blah, blah, blah. Whatever you have. So plan ahead. If you have something in four months that you know you'll need to spend at least 200 bucks If you want to get a good, nice present or something like that, start contributing around even 25, 30 dollars a week into a savings account for presence or, you know, short-term savings, whatever you feel like is the best option, and Continue to use that. And by the time it comes the birthday or Christmas or whatever event you have going on, you have the money and you're not stressed out because the worst thing is knowing something's coming up and then Spending the money because you have to and you have a plan. And then you obviously 500 dollars Down the drain or whatever it may be, but start from the start. Plan ahead. That's.

Zeke Guenthroth:

That's a massive one One that I always see people come and stuck with is insurance. A lot of people out there will have a home and they'll have building insurance and contents insurance and car insurance and personal insurance and all these different kinds of insurances that are normally annual premiums. So if a couple of them fall All simultaneously in terms of car insurance and house insurance and contents, then we might be talking an overall Scheme of about 10 grand all in that one moment. So how do you save up for that? Obviously, the previous year you paid for it, and probably the one before that. But when you get to that point, surely you're taking the the time to sit down and go okay, in 12 months time I'm gonna have to pay this premium again. It's probably gonna be higher, because that's the world that we live in.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Hmm, so me personally, my car insurance, I think, is like what for for grand or so. I think it actually dropped quite a bit when I moved back to Newcastle. Oddly enough, I dropped like one and a half grand from Rosebader Newcastle when it was four and a half grand. It's like 80 bucks a week that I need to decide to be able to pay for that. And then you throw in other insurances too, which I fortunately don't have to have, like house insurance or contents insurance.

Oscar Don:

But annual expenses like that are Hefty yeah, and if you're all of a sudden wake up one day and You're given a bill of the amount of money owing and let's just say you hadn't planned in advance You're pretty cooked. Well, I'm stressed, you're cooked. If you had plans that we're gonna go away with mates or have a big weekend at the clubs or whatever. Well, all of a sudden, that money that you're gonna spend on long islands for yourself Is there, is just gone, vanished To insurance, because you're gonna plan ahead, missing out?

Oscar Don:

on long islands. That's not good enough. That's what you love and you love the long island. That's your kind of thing. That's a tough thing for myself With my expenses. Let's just, for example, say my phone bill. I pay my phone bill monthly, I get paid weekly. So what I do to figure that out? Simple Just divide my phone bill by four and then, per week, I pop that amount in my bills account. So when my phone bill comes out in four weeks, I have saved enough money or put enough money aside so it can go straight away and it's there. So, pending on your pay frequency and when your bills come out, I could be a quarterly bill, monthly, weekly, whatever it may be. Use that to your advantage, calculate it and literally put it aside, because if it keeps happening, a lot of people put on credit cards if they can't afford it, and then, or by selling the compounding interest on the credit cards, and you're pretty cooked and you're in a big ball of debt.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, quarterly expenses to like gas, water, electricity, all of that kind of thing. If you pay them quarterly, that is Rates even for homeowners to these things normally every quarter you might be paying $4,000 as well. So calculating that, dividing it by 12 weeks if you paid weekly, and so on, really important.

Oscar Don:

Let's just start out throwing a quick example 2023 AFL grand final Collinwood football club vs Brisbane Lions MCG. Look, I'm a member of the ground. I was trying. My luck didn't get any, so I had to obviously buy a ticket. I hadn't planned in advance that my team was going to be in the grand final and that I was going to pay Hefty money for the ticket. I ended up paying a thousand dollars for the ticket.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Did.

Oscar Don:

I plan to pay. Pay a thousand dollars at the start of the year? No, not at all. I didn't even think we're gonna get in the granny. Well, that's just poor support. Well, no, actually, no, I did. I told you the prelim last year at Sydney.

Zeke Guenthroth:

That will win the granny next year, disappointed that you didn't, didn't stick to the guns and go. Well, I've got to spend a grand on a ticket.

Oscar Don:

Yeah, that's pretty piss poor actually. But it's a discretionary, non-fixed expense, that is true, but you know, I should Put money aside in a short term, set in a short term saving account, which I do have now, which I just throw extra money out for things like that, because they always come up. Your mate might ring you up on a Tuesday night and say Bebe is in town, let's go to his concert. I've got a couple tickets.

Zeke Guenthroth:

You know it's in a row.

Oscar Don:

Yeah. And then you say how much. You say 600 bucks. Oh, good news is I've been putting that much money. You must show the term savings. I can go See. That would be perfect. And that brings up a sour point between you and I with Bieber. How he canceled on us last year was last year. Yeah, oh yeah, it's very upsetting. We both move on to nights two nights in a row that we booked. We're gonna sing all that favorite songs, the best see on the world, but Poor, through a very upsetting yeah, we.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We normally try to bring a bit of an upbeat podcast here, but I just ruined, ruin the mood completely.

Oscar Don:

You can.

Zeke Guenthroth:

You can actually see the sound ways being recorded. They've gone down quite heavily. Let's bring it back. Let's get the energy back up. We've got discretionary, non-fixed expenses, right, so things you spend money on that you don't have to. You want to. If you didn't, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but you'd probably not be over the moon. You've also got fixed, non discretionary, so things that you absolutely have to commit to, for example, mortgage repayments, land rates, bills, quarterly gas, electricity, all of those kind of things. So for that kind of thing, as Oscar said, I have a bank account that you put the money in to actually cover that In advance, so that when it does come out you're not kicking yourself in the foot. And then, with the other ones where you've got regular savings and that kind of thing, for discretionary, non-fixed, then that's probably the way to go about it, again not telling you what to do. But this is just a recommendation actually think ahead, figure out what you need to spend money on, and it will make your life so much easier.

Oscar Don:

Hmm, well, that they kind of covers the majority of the points. Catch you all next time catch you then.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We hope you enjoyed the episode. As a laze, you know exactly what to do hit that follow button.

Oscar Don:

Subscribe whatever platform you listen to this podcast on. Also share it to friends, families, high workers, wherever you think. My benefit from it.

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