Steph's Weekly Low Buy Spending Recap #18
a thousand lives were squeezed into this week... I can't wait to tell you about it all!
Steph’s Spending Recap is a free newsletter brought to you every week by Steph from abundant on a budget! If you appreciate my content (either here or over on IG or TikTok) and would like to support the work I do, you can become a paid subscriber here - or subscribe for free! Even just sharing this post with a friend helps a lot and is greatly appreciated!
You might encounter affiliate links (and regular links) in this post, they also help support my work and cost you nothing, woohoo!
Previous recaps: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11 | #12 | #13 | #14 | #15| #16 | #17
Phew, I feel like I have lived 1000 lives since we last spoke… And that was only a week ago! How are you doing? How was your Easter?
Someone pat me on the back (it’s okay you don’t actually have to, I did it myself), I actually took yesterday (Easter Monday) off! I’ve had a bad habit over the past couple of years of working right through public holidays and never scheduling any time off, and it’s something I’m actively working on so I’m quite proud of myself that I am bringing this post to you on Tuesday instead of Monday, and completely guilt free!
As usual, this post is just too full of goodness for email, so make sure you click above and head to the app/website to read to its full potential!
I hope you had a really great Easter break! If you are in one of the Australian states that engages with daylight savings I hope that the time change wasn’t too rough on you… especially if you have kiddos. Apparently you guys out there who are parents don’t get an extra hour of sleep really like the rest of us… my condolences. 🫣
For anyone playing along at home, I am unfortunately still sick. I felt a small return of energy over the last few days, probably something also to do with actually resting. But I’m still getting other symptoms and that small return of energy is definitely that - small.
Now that I’ve typed that all out… I don’t actually remember whether I would’ve mentioned last week that I was sick, like I said… This past week has felt like many many weeks! I ended up making an appointment with my doctor mid week because it kind of hit me that I was really and properly sick, that this wasn’t just some passing little blip of not feeling 100%. I got a blood test over the weekend and I’ll find out on Friday whether I have glandular fever or Ross River virus!? Never thought I’d be here getting tested for those!
I’m also in the process of attempting an experiment… Decentralising my phone from my life.
I won’t write much about that here, because that’s not the point of this post, but I think I will (hopefully, if I have time) write some more posts here on this. I’ll definitely be making some video content about it… And yes I know that sounds ironic, but I’ll be filming it on my camera not my phone!
The preview though, is that originally I started thinking about this as just a weeklong challenge of living like it’s 2002… But the more I’ve thought about it and thought about detaching from my phone for the week (I even bought a dumb phone), the more I’ve realised that I don’t necessarily want this to just be a one week trend-based challenge where I go back to everything the exact same way it was the next week. I’ve been hugely uncomfortable with how long I spend on my phone for a really long time, and I want to do something about it that hopefully will help me get some of my brain back, long term. But that’s enough about that for this post, if you want to hear more don’t forget to subscribe!
We actually hit some really big milestones in our finances this past week! Last Monday (I actually hinted this in my last post) we fully paid off one of our zip pay accounts! I’m now funding what we were paying for that into our other zip pay account, and that should be paid off at the end of next month, so that’s very close as well. We are slowly chipping away at our debt in the background and while the progress is slow, it’s still so incredibly satisfying! And that will free up an extra $75 a fortnight!
I also was able to finish saving - well, mostly in all transparency - for my iMac!
That’s right, I bought the iMac. The one I’ve been talking about on here for many weeks, but have quietly been talking about in my real life for about a year or two. I’ll admit, I caved and bought it a little bit early. But, I don’t feel any guilt about it… I feel a lot of peace about it. I had saved up, separate to our emergency fund, most of the cost of the computer. I took about $400 from our emergency fund to top it off. I also hadn’t hit my YouTube monetisation goal yet, which was the main thing I had attached to this iMac purchase.
And honestly, I don’t know if I have any deep thoughts on this. I don’t think everything has to actually be a deep thing! This wasn’t an impulse purchase, and while waiting another month or two would have been the “most responsible way to do it“, I didn’t do it in a completely irresponsible way. In the past, I would have probably ended up putting it on zip pay, or it would’ve completely run our savings dry and neither of those are factors in this! Our savings are still looking healthy and I know that this was a good purchase. That’s all there is to it 🤷🏼♀️
And, it is actually making my digital life better. It’s helping me to keep most of my Internet and computer usage stuck to my desk, it’s making my work a lot easier and more pleasant, it’s brightened up my environment and made my desk less cluttered and overwhelming. It’s done all the things that I knew it would because it’s a purchase I had deeply considered! And that is the whole point of everything I talk about!
But, in true fashion, I did get the best price. I price matched Officeworks at JB hi-fi!
Anyway, let’s get on with the day by day recap!
Like I said, Monday was zippay day! I paid $17.75 more than my usual pay payment to get that fully paid off, that was completely worth it. And we put another $65 towards Matt zip pay. I’m looking forward to that being fully paid off!
This was the day we bought the iMac! I say we, Matt actually picked it up for me on his way home from work because I was really not up for going anywhere.
I did also buy a dumb phone at the time which you can see in the photo above, I don’t exactly regret that purchase… But I also I’m not happy with my purchase. But I don’t know if I really would’ve been able to find that out in any way other than trial and error? I might make another post or a YouTube video about that. I bought the cheapest dumb phone that JB hi-fi had and… Well, let’s just say it feels cheap. And that made it much less enjoyable to use. And going a little bit more analog, or decentralising your phone, whatever you wanna call it… that doesn’t mean that you have to be miserable the entire time! Or that you should be miserable. As I’ve said before, I think the key to changing our habits for the better and living life in a way that aligns more with our values of beliefs, is actually putting a lot of effort and intention into enjoyment.
So, I ended up buying another (better) dumb phone. I actually did that yesterday, Easter Monday, so I’ll talk more about that in next week’s post.
There’s not a lot to say here other than Wednesday was definitely when I was feeling extra sick. This was the day that made me actually book a doctors appointment, something I don’t do often. I was feeling really weird and struggling with the idea of food as well because of everything, so we got gami chicken for dinner. Sadly, it wasn’t a great batch. You know how sometimes you order from a takeaway place and it’s just not as good as it usually is? But I think it’s putting me off my mild gami chicken obsession for now… Which probably isn’t a bad thing. 😅
I had acupuncture this morning, and my husband was amazing and took a few hours off in the morning to take me because I was in no condition to drive there. But it was an appointment that I really needed and I think it helped.
When we got home the only food that sounded appealing with soup, so we ordered some through Uber eats from Coles to get delivered. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at our takeaway spend this week, considering I haven’t been feeling well I think only spending $70… and having that be spread across multiple transactions and days… is quite good!
We ordered groceries this day! We had them delivered on Saturday. We couldn’t have had them delivered on Friday if we wanted to because it was Good Friday, but I also was nowhere near up for meal planning and ordering the groceries so Matt helped me out with that on Friday. There were a few things that I wanted that I wasn’t able to get in the online order, so we topped up on those on Sunday - namely almond milk! One of my favourite almond milk brands has been half price this week at Woolworths which is an absolute bargain, so I’ve been stocking up as much as I can.
I mentioned this a little bit in my grocery haul which you can see below, stockpiling for me isn’t just about future proofing or warding against potential world calamities, it’s also a way of buying the things that we want was still sticking to as small a grocery budget as we can. Buying almond milk in bulk, having a stock pile of the type that I like, means that I can wait until it’s a good price, until it’s on special, to buy more. And that applies to so many things!
So it turns out that Big W has just released a bunch of Gilmore girls items!
I’m a massive Gilmore girls fan and this is one of those things that I think is worth buying whenever it comes out. Call it a low buy exception 😂 A lot of shows have readily available merch, but Gilmore Girls doesn’t tend to have a lot of merch out and about that you can just buy easily. Cotton On had some items recently, but they didn’t really suit my taste personally, whereas these items at big W definitely do!
I got the pyjamas, T-shirt and jumper. We also took this opportunity to grab another pair of sunglasses for Matt. The poor guy, he used to absolutely love his properly branded Ray-Bans, but he’s just so likely to lose or break his sunglasses that it’s not practical to have expensive ones.
I was still feeling weird food wise, in fact simply walking from the car park into Big W and back was probably overdoing it for me on this day, so we stopped at Spud Bar and got a baked potato for my lunch. It really hit the spot, and meant that I was still eating, which is the main thing!
We got some almond milk! Matt also ordered his fortnightly One Piece manga, he always orders a One Piece with his spending money when I do the budget, and this past week was budget week.
He also took it upon himself to order me a dressing gown. I haven’t had a dressing gown in about two years, it’s an item of clothing that I’m incredibly fussy about when it comes to sensory preferences. I’m a little bit nervous about it being an online purchase, I’m hoping that it’s not too fluffy and overwhelming, but it doesn’t look like it in the photos.
But I’m also really fussy with the design of it, I find myself wanting to steer clear of trends more and more, but a lot of the more “affordable” dressing gown options in department store like Kmart and Target seem to be very trended based, or they’re weird fabrics… Or they don’t have pockets… Or they’re too fluffy.
I found this dressing gown online after a lot of hunting. I wish it wasn’t $149, but it is. At least he got free shipping!
Because of the way that our budget is set up, Matt really ever buys me things as a surprise, partly because it’s very difficult to surprise me and partly because we generally don’t buy things that aren’t budgeted for as you would have picked up on, but between me finally finding something that I like to design wise and how absolutely miserable I’ve been physically the past few weeks, I think he felt a little bit sorry for me to be honest 🤣
He did end up telling me about it and saying he was happy to cancel the order if I really felt uncomfortable with the purchase especially because it’s not a cheap dressing gown like I mentioned, but I’m going to just go along with it. I’m trying to be better at… I don’t know how to phrase it, respecting myself? Being okay with allowing good things to happen to me? And like I said, our savings are still in a spot that I am comfortable with… And I don’t exactly picture myself buying another dressing gown any time soon… I aim to have this one until it falls apart!
Now cross your fingers for me that it’s as nice in person as it seems to be online! It’s so cheerful and makes me happy to look at! And it’s nice and long! With pockets!
And that’s it for the week! Our total spend was only $3060.47 and to be honest, I expected it to be much much higher considering the $149 dressing gown, the $82 spent a Big W and buying the iMac and phone. When you take away the tech purchases, the total spend for the week was well within our normal limits I’d say! And damn, that feels really good.
It’s funny, when I was earlier in my personal finance and budgeting journey I was so resistant to tracking our expenses. Which makes a lot of sense, I was overwhelmed by it all and my nervous system wasn’t at a point where it was able to handle looking at the details. It was enough to just be vaguely sticking to a budget. But now I have made as much progress as I have and my nervous system is as comfortable with our finances as it is now, it actually feels so good every week to be looking at all of our expenses and 9 out of 10 times be able to say to myself “yeah, we did a really good job this week!“ We’re spending in line with our values and what we want out of life, and that’s a feeling that can’t be replaced!
So with that, I’ll bid you adieu for another week. I hope you’ve had a really good week and like I said, I hope you had a really good long weekend as well and are feeling rested. I’m just going to sit here and bask in our achievements, especially paying off and closing off that zip pay account! We’ve been working on that for about two years now slowly but surely.
Let me know if you’re celebrating anything this week!
P.S. If we’re just meeting here on Substack, you can also:
Find me on Instagram,
Find me on TikTok,
Find me on YouTube,
Or buy me a chai latte if you’d like! (Aka buy me a coffee)
Most importantly, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss future posts! I post these fun Spending Recaps, but also other articles, tips, essays and general stuff around living a cozy, millennial-friendly, budget-friendly life! Paid subscribers get access to my full archive as well as more personal posts or personal parts of posts. I’m working on coming up with some other bonuses for paid subscribers… if you’ve got any ideas or things you’d love to see or have seen elsewhere I would LOVE your feedback!
Plus, you’re helping to support my content, which helps me keep putting out everything that I do, which is so appreciated ❤️