Sigh. Money – root of all evil. Well, not quite but it seems to be playing a larger than normal part in our lives at the moment.
First off the government and money. We put in our claim for the baby bonus (which, as an aside, I don’t agree with. If I want to have babies, I should be able to pay for them, but I’m not stupid enough to say no when it’s being given out. Not sure what that says about me and my principles.) but the government gave us even more back; substantially more.
A few years ago the government gave us some money, then six months later decided we had to give it back. Part of their surprise payment this time around was giving that same amount back to us again! You can probably understand we are now reluctant to touch any of it, even though it harks back to the 02/03 and 03/04 tax years and you’d think after all this time the figures would be final. We’re going to request a review and to get confirmation in writing that the money is actually ours.
We’ve also started the hunt for a house in earnest. Veronica and Steve pointed us in the direction of Mortgage Choice so this evening we had John come over for a chat. The issue for us is that we are now driving around in what was a good chunk of our deposit, thanks to having two babies instead of one, so we need to save, save, save to get our deposit up. For the first time though we think we may actually be able to get a house to make a home for us and the kids. That’s a great feeling to have.
All of this monitoring of income and expenditure (I have figures going back years, I should have been an accountant like mum said) made me look at where my money ends up. I have my fortnightly ‘allowance’ for day to day stuff but thinking about it there are only two things I really spend it on. April to the end of August it goes on the footy (couple of beers, a Footy Record, something from the Tiger Den) which comes to about $20 a game.
The only other thing I regularly spend money on is coffee. Each weekend it’s a couple of large latte’s in the morning, a couple in the afternoon, same if I have the day off. The thing is that lately I feel like I’ve been wasting my money. Save for the ever reliable pizza boys at Shop 3 in the South Melbourne Market (try their calzone for breakfast, heaven) I haven’t had a good take away coffee in months. I realised I have probably spent a couple of hundred bucks in this time for something that’s disappointing me time and time again.
What should I do? I can always tell at the first sip that it’s no good. Stale coffee, not strong enough, milk boiled instead of heated, no idea how to make a latte – I’ve had ’em all. Should I be able to take it back? Is is worth complaining about? Or should I take my bits of the root of all evil and plant them somewhere else?