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Archive for August, 2011

End of winter!

August 31st, 2011 at 08:36 am

It's our last day of winter today. And I'm exicted about the warmer weather.

Last night I bought some coupon from groupon and ourdeal. Deals are around 50-60% off. I'm trying to used these site to cut down on our spending on restaurants. We go out at least once a month and spend on average $60-$70. Cost of food is a lot more expensive here than that in Europe or in the US. These daily deal sites are big in the US but it is only just starting to become very popular here in Australia. I love them and will have to tell myself to not get too crazy.

End of the month numbers:
-Only put in an extra $1500 into the mortgage, I was aiming for $2000.
-I did however put in $500 into holiday fund, just in case we will need it on our trip.
-Overall spending this month was fairly good.

We should be able to put more money into the mortgage next month (but then again that's what I said last month!). The tax money should get into our account by then.



Spendy Saturday, No Spend Day Sunday

August 29th, 2011 at 07:59 am

Costco - $108
Aldi - $16.45
Fruit Shop - $3
Dinner Out for a friend's birthday - $110

After that spending we decided not to go anywhere on Sunday.

Today should be a NSD too.

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I decided to buy some shares today.

Boring

August 26th, 2011 at 05:23 am

It is such a quiet boring day today. Not much to do but at least the weather is fantastic. Just been outside actually, doing some cleaning.

Last night DH had to go see the doctor about his eyelid and a lump around his hip/groin area. He has got an eye infection and will have to take antibiotics in the next 5 days. ANd he will have to get an ultrasound for the lump. Only cost was for antibiotics ($13.40), also the ultrasound should be free. But if the antibiotics doesn't work they might have to get his eyelid cut open. He is not looking forward to this at all.

Today should be a NSD.

Tomorrow we really need to go grocery shopping, need vegs and fruits. Then we go to a restaurant for a birthday dinner tomorrow night. I already got the present but dinner will cost a bit.

Spendy

August 25th, 2011 at 03:56 am

We have been spending a lot in the last 2 days!
I feel bad so I decided to put another $500 into the mortgage this month. Best to put it in there before we end up spending it.

Hole and Tax

August 22nd, 2011 at 08:18 am

So now that we got a new airconditioner we need to get rid of the old one. It will require a bit of work, bricking in the hole outside and patching the wall, which will need plastering and painting.

I think this might be something we can do ourselves when DH's arm feel better. I did get someone in today to get a quote and it will cost $760 (excluding painting). The only thing that I'm not confidient with is the brickwork, but this might be a little project to start learning. If we did do this ourself, I think we could do it for less than $100. The only thing we really need is mortar. We got everything else, we got plenty of spare bricks, plasterboard, tools, etc. But of course, it will take us probably a whole weekend to do it.

Another option we got is to just put a small window in the hole and let some light into the dark side of the room. But I'm not sure how it will look and affect the tv since we do like watching the tv in that dark part of the room.

Has any one ever had to get deal with those old airconditioner? What did you do?

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Finally received the papers for our tax refund to sign and send to the tax office. This is a refund for 2009-10 financial year. Believe it or not we are actually getting better at this. We are normally always 3 years behind on filling out our tax. And even better we are almost finish with the 2010-11, just waiting on a couple more items.

We will get $1800 after accountant fees. I don't think we will actually get the cash until next month. I'm already thinking of putting $1000 into the mortgage. For the rest I will decide later.

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I'm hoping for today to be a NSD Smile




Over did it

August 21st, 2011 at 06:40 am

Last night's dinner was great, great value for money. I kind of over-indulge and now paying for it. DH and I went with a couple of friends, so we ended up getting 2 free bottles of wine with our meal vouchers. Since all 3 of them had to drive they couldn't drink too much. It was really nice wine and I didn't want to waste much of it, so I kind of had more than usual.

Only spent $7 for coffee afterwards.

Good food, good company, good time!

Mortgage

August 20th, 2011 at 07:52 am

Yesterday was DH's payday. Decided to put $1000 into the mortgage last night.

We are going out tonight but it has been paid for already, couple months ago we bought a voucher for 2 for the price of 1 dinner. It will include 4 courses with a bottle of wine included.

Last night we spent a bit of money, $6.95 to rent 6 weekly bluray/DVDs. I think we will do something like this on payday.

Booked our flights

August 18th, 2011 at 06:05 am

I've been looking at the net and even contacted some travel agencies for over a month now trying to find a reasonable airfare price. Last night I finally found one that was very good, cost wise and travel time. With this one, we will have a stop over in Singapore airport but will not require to stay over night. The cheapest one that the travel agent found required stay over night in Singapore. We almost went with it but I thought to have one last look online last night. Luckily, I did because there were new flights available for our dates that was a lot cheaper. It's about $400 cheaper all up.

Accommodation and flights are now paid for. So far we've spent $1935. I'm hoping to only spend $3,000 for this trip. We still need to get shots and travel insurance. This will probably only leave us $700-800 to spend. Hmm I don't know if this is enough for 8 days. I think if DH and I try we could save about $200 from our allowances by then. This will give us $100-120 per day. So far we don't have plans to do much extra activities. We want to wait until we get there to see what we want to do and if the weather is good. I'll be just as happy staying by the pool or at the beach relaxing and also going to the market or shops to look around. I'm not that big on buying too much souvenirs. But I am thinking of getting DH a suit made over there but that will be taken out of our normal clothing budget.

After taking out the flights and accommodation cost we only have $340 left in the Holiday Fund this year. The other $1000 (for spending money, shots and insurance) will come from our Anniversary/Xmas Fund. It is just appropriate since we are going there for our 5 year anniversary. So we will only have $700 to spend on Christmas this year. Actually it will be less since we alreay spend some on gifts.

If things get really pricey, I always have my Sunny Day Savings to fall back on (see My Pages sidebar), it has about $850 in it right now.

I'm starting to really get excited about this trip now.


1 more day til pay day! Looking forward to putting some extra money into the mortgage tomorrow.

Buying low I hope

August 17th, 2011 at 06:38 am

Bought some shares, not much, only got less than $600 worth. I'm honest enough to know that I am bottom picking here. It's a geothermal company, it has been as high as $2.20 but it has been recently as low as 15cents. I got 2000 shares at 0.28 as it bouncing back up. I honestly don't know where this stock will go from here but I think the upcoming carbon tax (if it goes ahead or not) will have an impact on it. Either way, I think I like to support this type of company.

Our new air conditioner was installed this morning. I had to pay an extra $150 to have the outdoor unit on a brace up rather than just having it on the ground. It is right by the drive way and it sticks out a bit so just in case, since there is not much room for our big car. Better safe than sorry I guess. Last night DH sent out the form to get a $200 pre-paid visa, it was a deal that came with the Fujitsu brand of air conditioner. I was really happy with the price we got the air conditioner for, with this $200 rebate, it end up less than half price than its normal retail price. Unfortunately, the installation cost end up more than the unit itself. Weird. We could have got a cheaper installer but since the store gurantee this installer for 5years we went with him. He was really good and very helpful. We still need to get the hole from the old unit fix.

2 more days until pay day. I'm counting.

No Vietnam, Yes to Airconditioner.

August 16th, 2011 at 08:07 am

We decided not to go to Vietnam afterall but we will still go ahead with Thailand. Unfortunately, Vietnam would cost us too much and it added too much time spending flying and waiting by the airports, which is not my idea of a holiday. Maybe one day we will visit DH's cousin now that he has decided to stay and live in Vietnam for a while.

The money that we were going to spend for Vietnam we decided to spend instead replacing our ~30 old air conditioner that is not working that well anymore. There was a nice sale on it the other week. Hopefully they will be installing it tomorrow.

Been going out a bit on lunch date with DH. It's middle of winter here but the weather has been really balmy. Great for lunch dates but it makes me think that our summer will be extra hot this year.