Come join me in my quest to live a happier more frugal way of life, while enjoying the more traditional family values.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Thoughts about October,s Goals / Australias Layby Facility



Australia has a wonderful system in place for allowing shoppers the opportunity to buy goods with an extended payment plan, it,s called layby. It works by allowing shoppers to buy an article for say $60 and make weekly or fortnightly payments over 6 weeks or until such times as you make your final payment and then you can pick up your purchase. So no interest, although sometimes you may be charged an extra $1 or $2 for account keeping and storage as shops need to have an area to put these buys until you collect them. In July many of the larger stores such as Target and Kmart have huge toy sales with no deposit layby and they will keep the toys for you until Christmas Eve, which is a great idea if you have kids who hunt for presents.
This was all new to me when I arrived in australia from Scotland as we never had anything quite like this form of shopping, and I used and abused the system time and time again. Now that I am older and wiser I no longer make rash purchases, but now and again if there is something I really need and don,t have the available cash then I would still use this option.
Perhaps I,m preaching to the converted and you already do this in your corner of the globe, but as more and more stores have there own credit cards I can see this time worn tradition getting phased out in favour of a high interest line of credit.

I have no cash money to show YET for the first month of my spend less year, but I,m delighted to say that everything is paid up to date and all purchases for the Wedding have been paid in cash. This Wedding has absolutely on debt attached to it, and we could,nt be happier.

My Son and his Wife have just bought a new house, they have gone from a small 3 bedroomed starter home to 4 bedroomed 2 bathroomed home complete with swimming pool. They are not overstretching their budget as these two are very careful with money and are great budgeters. I am so proud of them both and so pleased that they are not following in our footsteps. Now all I have to do is persuade them to have Christmas dinner at their new place so I can have a swim.

Payday tomorrow and I have to make the last payment on my electricity Bill and also pay for the portable toilets we have had to hire for the Wedding, as we do not want to have a succession of people using our house. That might sound a little mean, but we don,t want anybody having to go inside the house, I don,t mind cleaning up the yard the next day but I don,t want to have to clean the house as well. Plus my elderly parents and MIL might want to go to bed earlier than the rest of us and I want the inside of the house to be a lot quieter than the outside.
I have had a few more overtime hours this week, so more snowflakes to come.

FOOTNOTE

As you can imagine my footnote today is about my Son. He was a rebellious young man who was travelling down the wrong road. But by the time he was in his early twenties he had turned his thinking and his life around. So no Mum could be prouder than I am when he visits with his Wife of 5 years and his beautiful Daughter. He is now a Landscape Designer for a large Australian Company and is almost finished his degree at Uni. Which he studies for part time.
So I raise my glass and toast TO MY HANDSOME TALENTED SON XXX

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on raising a wonderful young man Maureen! It's so great to hear how he has turned his life around and is doing so well now. That just shows us that as parents we can never ever give up on our kids no matter what they get up to. And the fact that you're putting on a wedding with NO DEBT is absolutely amazing.
    We used to have that system of shopping here - it was called layaway - but not for years and years. All the stores here seem to have their own credit card but the interest rates are absurd, like 28%. Needless to say I don't have any of THOSE credit cards.
    Happy snowflaking:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm raising my coffee mug as I read this, because it brought a tear to my eye...You deserve to be very proud!!

    We have what's called Lay-away, same as you. It had all but disappeared until the recession hit and stores were realizing that it was the only way they would get business. I haven't used it, but I remember my Mom using it years ago, before credit cards were so rampant.

    GREAT job this month on not going into any debt, especially for the wedding! Those expenses can get out of control..fast.

    I kind of chuckled when you said you wanted to "go for a swim" on Christmas...and then I remembered it's your summer! We'll be having much cooler weather, for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  3. how sweet!

    you are doing an amazing job! what a great month you are having! keep up the amazing work

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good for you on not going into debt for the wedding! That can be so difficult to do.

    And I completely understand about a son who goes down the wrong path and then does finally get it together. It is a proud moment and I know you are beaming with pride. :)

    ReplyDelete

All spam will be deleted