Anyone who has ever tried to renovate knows how quickly a budget can go out the window. Now imagine doing it while building an entire house on The Block, where every dollar counts and the judges are waiting to see what you’ve pulled off.
For Lisa and Rosco, keeping their renovation costs under control has paid off in a big way. The pair won the most recent $10,000 CommBank Better Budgeting Award, which rewards the team that does the best job of predicting and managing its construction expenses.
But this week, Lisa found herself with a problem most renovators would probably love to have. She’d come in under budget, leaving her with money to spare, so she likely wouldn’t win the $10,000 budget prize.
Her solution? A rather unexpected shopping trip.
Lisa told WHO why she spent $1,800 on bar stools she wouldn’t normally buy, and how a little teamwork helped her and Rosco secure the win.
How Lisa and Rosco won $10,000
For Lisa, winning the budget challenge came down to teamwork and keeping a close eye on labour costs. She described it as “basic maths, really”, but said getting her trades on board was crucial.
The key was making sure everyone communicated when a job ran over its predicted hours, rather than letting overtime quietly add up.
“They knew that if they went over their predicted hours each day, they needed to tell me,” Lisa explained. “We couldn’t just have people staying back on overtime without me being aware of it.”
That close attention to the numbers paid off, but it also left Lisa with an unexpected problem: money to spare.
‘I ended up spending $1,800 on bar stools‘
Lisa usually builds a buffer into her budget to cover unexpected costs, explaining that things had previously tended to go wrong. This week, though, “nothing financially went wrong”, leaving her almost $2000 under her estimate.
“I ended up spending $1,800 on bar stools, which I never would have normally done,” she said.
She also revealed what her first reaction was upon discovering the discrepancy. “I was like, ‘crap'”, she told us.
Lisa explained that she would usually opt for a sponsored product, but with money left over and the $10,000 prize on the line, she decided to put it towards the stools instead.
The purchase was a big one, but as Lisa saw it, spending the extra money could help secure a much bigger prize.
“I had to go and spend $1,800 on bar stools, which, yeah, is a massive spend. I never would have done that, but basically, I was like, ‘Well, I need to spend $1,800 to win $10,000’.”
Honestly, it’s hard to argue with that maths. Spending nearly $2,000 on bar stools might not have been part of Lisa’s original plan, but it helped her and Rosco secure a $10,000 win. Not a bad return on investment.
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