Magda's Journal

[Magda]

This is my first journal entry. I will be posting daily or weekly about stuff related to my daily life, budgeting and my ERE solutions.
Enjoy

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Food: I cook every single day! Good, very pleased with that. It's also very comforting to have a warm meal at work, which I prepared the day before.
I also reduced our food waste. I buy once every 3 days (for the next 3 days). It's easier to meal plan for such a small amount of time. After those 3 days I usually have some food left, so I keep that in mind when I prepare my next meal plan.

Monthly budget: My monthly budget is 850 PLN. I spent less than that in July, so that's a very good result. I hope that August will be good as well. Monthly goals work really well for me.

Entertainment: I try to find free entertainment possibilities, offered by our city. We had a lot of that recently: Tall Ships Races 2013 and 2 evenings of Pyromagic (fireworks show). Amazing stuff!

Transportation: I try to walk everywhere. The weather is great, lots of sun and warm air. It rains from time to time, but it's not that big of a deal.

Friends & Family: There will be a big birthday party this week. My BF's aunt turns 70. I really enjoy spending time with his family, so I look forward to seeing them !
Even though I'm not a big fan of buying gifts, I have a stable category in my monthly budget for this kind of occasions. I can buy a gift any time, without breaking my budget.

[Magda]

Food: I plan to incorporate 3 vegetarian days to our weekly meals. I want it to be our food routine. I suppose that this will be easier than I think. My BF has nothing against beans or chickpeas, which is a huge plus.

Transportation: I have my driving license, but I don't like to drive. I don't know if I will ever own a car. I adore walking. I'm also a big fan of trains and buses, which give me a sense of "adventure". My friends & family think that something is wrong with me...

Clothing: My capsule wardrobe works really well (about 40 pieces of clothing for 4 seasons, including shoes, scarfs and coats). Very easy to wash, maintain and mix&match. Not to mention the packing process for when I travel: about 5-10 minutes.

[spoonman]

Welcome to the forums! Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

I'm also a big fan of walking, within certain practical limits. The bus network in LA is good, but the train network is not as well developed. Despite of that, I love riding the train whenever I can.

[Magda]

Hello spoonman and thank you for your welcome!

I don't know what it is about trains, but they can be very relaxing.
Besides, they are also time efficient. One can always read or do other things while traveling, which is not possible when riding a car. That's a win win for me

[Magda]

Food: I want to show you something... I don't have an oven in my kitchen. Instead of buying one and making a required makeover of the kitchen space, we bought this jewel of Polish technology, about 3 years ago: Prodiż http://tinyurl.com/nrf3j2f
Sadly, he is not so popular anymore.

It's similar to Remoska: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remoska

I personally don't like the idea of heating an entire oven just to make a small meal for myself. Prodiż is great when you want to cook for 1-2 people.
Mine has 2 sources of heat, on the top (450 W) and at the bottom (200 W). The bottom heat source is optional. You can turn it off if you want.
You can also buy an older model of Prodiż with only one heat source, on the top.

The photos will show you that it is possible to cook your ingredients directly in the Prodiż.
I personally like to put them into an oven proof dish. It's much easier to clean.

It's also wonderful for baking !

[Magda]

Clothing: I want to return to thrift-shopping when I wear out some of my clothes. I miss that "treasure hunt" feel.

Money: I made an estimate for my ERE a couple of months ago. I have a precise goal for every year, a fixed amount which involves my savings and future investments. I look at my savings now and I see that I already reached my finacial goal for 2013, without even starting on my investments. If everything goes well, I will also reach my 2014 goal before 2013 ends ! Nice surprise.
The only problem is that I'm still a little bit frightened by the idea of investing. Without it, my ERE will never happen.
I have 11.000 PLN that I could invest right now. I read a lot of good things about index funds. It’s a novel on the Polish market. The offer is very modest. And some of them are far beyond my reach: 200.000 PLN just to start.
However, I found one index fund where I only need 100 PLN to start. I will combine it with bonds and maybe some mutual funds. That will create my beginner portfolio.
I will try and see if the results satisfy me.
I read about dividend investing, because I saw that some of you prefer this system. Sadly, that’s too early for me.

[Magda]

Household: We got rid of our TV bill, that we were kepping "just in case our guests would like to watch evening news". That happened like twice (!) during the last 3 years .
So now I will pay 55 PLN instead of 65 PLN. Not that big of a difference, but why keep paying for something that you don't use?

Recently I was also in the middle of a cleaning extravaganza. I got rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff. My kitchen is clean and FUNCTIONAL. It holds only those items, that I use frequently when cooking. I also developed an immediate reaction towards dirty dishes and other messy stuff. I clean it right away, no more excuses here. If I had to give you a daily cooking advice, that would be it: always have a clean and functional kitchen. This will keep you motivated.

Food: I noticed that I no longer like the taste of highly processed foods. I suppose that this is a side effect of my diet. Good for me. I crave fresh veggies and fruit all the time. And I don't enjoy chocolate bars, crisps or fizzy drinks at all.

[Magda]

Transportation: Today I walked almost 6,5 kilometers because I was too tightwadish to pay for a taxi...

[Magda]

Oh my, where is the "Edit" button? :/

That TV bill thing.... We had a combined bill "TV + Internet" for 65 PLN, so now the sum 55 PLN that I wrote above concerns only the Internet.

[Magda]

Monthly budget: My budget for 1 month was 950 PLN not so long ago. At that time I was convinced that this was the lowest sum possible.
However, I managed to get it down to 850.
I plan to spend only 830 next month and maintain that state as long as I can. Even though I can't stop the inflation, I still want to keep my monthly budget as low as possible.
My goal is to spend 800 PLN per month. That would result in 9.600 PLN in annual expenses. Great perspective.

[Magda]

Monthly budget: I'm too excited by the "800 PLN" vision, so I will give it a go.

My plan for September 2013:
Food (for 2 people) - 342 PLN
Cosmetics (for 2 people) & household cleaning stuff - 42 PLN
My medication - 45 PLN
Mobile - 30 PLN
Public transportation - 42 PLN
Bills (Internet & Electricity) - 157 PLN
Other - 142 PLN (Every month I put aside that amount, so that I can pay later for things like insurance, taxes for appartment, gifts etc. Pretty much everything that doesn't fit in previous categories)

= 800 PLN

I earn 2520 PLN now, so 800 PLN represents about 32% of my income.

[Stahlmann]

Monthly budget: I'm too excited by the "800 PLN" vision, so I will give it a go.

My plan for September 2013:
Food (for 2 people) - 342 PLN
Cosmetics (for 2 people) & household cleaning stuff - 42 PLN
My medication - 45 PLN
Mobile - 30 PLN
Public transportation - 42 PLN
Bills (Internet & Electricity) - 157 PLN
Other - 142 PLN (Every month I put aside that amount, so that I can pay later for things like insurance, taxes for appartment, gifts etc. Pretty much everything that doesn't fit in previous categories)

= 800 PLN

I earn 2520 PLN now, so 800 PLN represents about 32% of my income.

how do you do?

PS. In most forum script the user can choose to receive email notification per email if one of mentioned actions happens: somebody wrote in topic created by said user, quoted them, befriended them or send PM. I simply assume that Magda uses the same mail for ordinary stuff and that will come back here

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm confused by they resurrection of a 5+ year old journal.

PS - Magda, if you're reading this, fellow Pole here.