Money with Jess

Your 10 week household budgeting guide

Week 9: LIFESTYLE
“All the fun stuff.”

Budgets which fail to account for spending on all the fun things in life will inevitably fail – they are
too restrictive. But if money is tight, this is also a category where you can definitely cut back on
spending, as you need.

Importantly, my lifestyle category includes all spending on eating out, fast food and takeaways –
including those takeaway coffees! Any food you cook and eat at home goes under my “food”
category – everything else goes here.

All alcohol, including purchases consumed on-premises and at home, is also included in “lifestyle”.

Holidays are the biggest expense for many families under this category. It’s a good idea to set up a
Holiday Future Fund to set aside a little each month to cover these big ticket costs. I also have a
Christmas and Birthdays Fund into which I tip a little each month to cover these celebrations.

This week’s checklist is long, but do have a read right through it. It may spark some ideas for
incorporating a little more fun into both your budget and life!

Week 9 homework task:

Print out this PDF and estimate all your lifestyle costs in the table below. Start by filling out the $
amount for the payment frequency by which you actually pay. Manually calculate the rest.
Remember monthly sums are annual figures divided by 12 - not four weeks.

Expense Weekly Fortnightly Monthly Quarterly Annually

Meals out (restaurants, hotels, $ $ $ $ $
clubs)
Fast food, takeaway food & $ $ $ $ $
delivery services
Takeaway coffees $ $ $ $ $

School lunch money $ $ $ $ $

Alcohol (all of it - consumed $ $ $ $ $

either at home, or out)
Streaming services (Netflix, Stan, $ $ $ $ $
Foxtel etc)
Cameras and photographic $ $ $ $ $
equipment
Games consoles and computer $ $ $ $ $
games
Film and television (hire and $ $ $ $ $
purchase)
Music and audio (purchases and $ $ $ $ $
subscriptions)
Musical instruments

Cinema tickets $ $ $ $ $

Toys $ $ $ $ $

Camping and fishing equipment* $ $ $ $ $

Boat hire and purchase $ $ $ $ $

Arts and craft materials $ $ $ $ $

Hobbies $ $ $ $ $

Gambling (lottery tickets, TAB, $ $ $ $ $

gaming)
Spectator sport admission fees $ $ $ $ $

Theatre and concert tickets $ $ $ $ $

Dance and nightclub entry fees $ $ $ $ $

National park entry fees $ $ $ $ $

Zoo and theme park tickets $ $ $ $ $

Art gallery and museum tickets $ $ $ $ $

Parties and functions $ $ $ $ $

Holidays (travel, accommodation $ $ $ $ $

& all other expenses)
Gifts (birthdays, Christmas etc) $ $ $ $ $

Animal purchase (cost of food $ $ $ $ $

and health care are separate)
*sports and physical activity related equipment goes under “health”

That’s it for this week! Well done on making it this far! Next week we’ll tackle our last category:
professional fees.