How to buy a house by watching cracking classic films

A few years ago my then-boyfriend-now-husband Reggie and I were lying in our bed in our rented house in Windsor. It was an ace house filled with cracks and splinters. It was next to a pub with an pink elephant on the roof and it was home for five years.

We had been asleep for about an hour. I was sleep stressing because I had to get up at 4.30am the next morning to work on a film shoot. So I had one eye open and on the clock.

I must have drifted because when I heard the HUGE gunshot outside my window I leaped out of bed and peeked through the corner of my curtain.

There was a man lying on the ground softly saying 'Help, help'. Reggie was already out the door (and fully dressed - no shoes) helping the man get off the road. My neighbour's boyfriend was next to him (wearing his girlfriend's pj's) and they were chatting to the shot dude seeing if he was ok.

Within minutes an ambulance and a couple of cop cars turned up. The shooter was nowhere to be seen and it was all a little scary.

Cheef Dog hid under the quilt the whole time. The shot guy was ok, lost a bit of blood from his leg and was taken to hospital. A giant vacuum cleaner came and swept the street and washed the blood down the drain. By the time I left for work, it looked like nothing had EVER happened there. Except every time I walked past my fence, I would notice the bullet hole that sat right in front of our bedroom.

So we decided to buy a house. We'd been looking for a bit and had saved a little deposit, but it was time to get serious. But we had to save more money and quickly.

I sat and thought hard. Super hard. How could I save ALL my money but still have a life? It was coming up to winter, movie night time!

I sent all the people I liked an email asking for their all-time top five favourite films listed in order. I took all these lists and created a giant list of 100 films I had never seen and watched them over winter and spring. The idea was to hire VIDEOS each week instead of going to the pub and boozing on.

And it worked. I saved HEAPS of money. We were finally able to move out of Windsor to the western suburbs of Melbourne (because that's safer... right?)

Here's my top ten films in order if you are planning to buy a house:

1. High Noon

2. Cool Hand Luke

3. Bullitt

4. The Wild Bunch

5. The Apartment

6. The Last Picture Show

7. Roadhouse

8. 12 Angry Men

9. Hud

10. How the West Was Won

Happy savings!
xx