Today my legs are killing me. It was painful trying to get out of bed this morning. I can't believe that jog yesterday was going to be this painful. I actually didn't even jog all the way through. I walked some parts of it, while DH jogged ahead and would came back to me. I'm not a runner that's for sure. I get bad stitch after 5 minutes of running. DH used to compete nationally when he was younger, as a sprinter and hurdler. I think he gets bored coz I'm too slow. I've spend the day icing and heating it, and also I've jump on the exercise bike for few minutes doing it very slowly. It is feeling a lot better this afternoon.

I’m thinking of making rice pilaf for dinner tonight. I've not made this before but always wanted to try it. I got a little bit of chorizo that I think would be nice in it.

6 months ago I decided to have a go at trading full time. Since I quit my work mid last year, it was a good opportunity to do what I’ve always wanted. I’m starting very small; my main aim is to just work on my trading strategies and plan.

My goal in this first year of trading is to survive and if possible do the following:
1.Keep my capital
2.Outperform the XAO (Australian Index) = 3-5% during trade period
3.Outperform the Online Savings interest rate = ~ 6%
4.Outperform our Mortgage interest rate = ~ 7%

I’ve decided to analyse my trade every 20 trades, I think it is just enough number to have a comprehensive statistics.

Trade Period = 6 months
Total Number of Trades = 20
Total Number of Winning Trades = 8 (40%)
Total Number of Losing Trades = 12 (60%)
Average Win to Loss Ratio = 2.7
Average Trade Hold Time = 31.7 days
Average Winning Trade Hold Time = 51 days
Average Losing Trade Hold Time = 18.6 days
Percentage Return on Capital Outlay = 53%
Percentage Return on Total Capital = 15%

Trading is hard work but it can be very satisfying. I like the lifestyle, I love working from home and I can do it anytime I want.

15% is not that bad considering the Australian market has pretty much gone sideways in the last 6 months. There is definitely room for improvement (hopefully).

Today was a great day. We slept in. The weather was pretty good so we decided to go for a jog. On the way to jogging we stop by at a store to buy a new iron. Our 15 year old iron (which was handed down to us 11 years ago by MIL) has not been working that well in the last couple of months, so it was time to get a new one. We looked at 2 stores and second one was slightly cheaper and was giving us a further $5 dollars off. We went for another Philips, I was looking at two models one was the cheap one for $50 and the one that we got was for $95 (this was more powerful and had an auto shut off). After we decided to get the more expensive one we found out that there is $20 cash back for this model (but none for the cheaper one). So it will end up being only $75. The sales person was of course trying to sell us the $300-400 once. Those ones claim to cut your ironing in half. Well if it cost 4 times as much I expect it to cut my ironing time to a quarter. I used the iron tonight and it was fantastic, I might actually start to like ironing - Not!

We went jogging for an hour along the river, and afterwards had little picnic. We brought sandwiches with us. We did well considering we went jogging pass one of our favourite café who make really yummy cakes. For 1 hour of jogging I put in $6 worth in the exercise challenge (xmas fund).

Afterward we came home and planted the kaffir lime, passion fruit and the strawberries that I got yesterday. I’m not too sure how the strawberries will go planting it in autumn. I hope it will survive the winter. I planted in a big bag so that I can move it around. It is an experiment; if it works I’ll be enjoying some strawberries in spring.


The bag only cost $2 and the seedlings was $2.95 and probably used about $5 worth of soil/manure/sugar cane.

Just checked online our mortgage and the May payment went through yesterday.

Interest Paid = $765.51
Principal Payment = $461.49

And I just decided to put in an extra $600 payment.

Current Balance = $134.943.68

So now we are below $135K

We pretty much spent the whole day out shopping. The weather was terrible; the sun never came out, non-stop shower and was freezing cold. First stop was the Asian shop, spent $79.61, $38.00 was for a big bag of Jasmine rice. We definitely got more out of money, for example coriander and Vietnamese mint were only 65cent for a bunch - normally it will be $2 a bunch at the supermarket. Then we went to the market, we got a whole chicken, over 3 kilos of pork (different cuts), a kilo of fish, 2 different kinds of cheeses, more fruits and vegetables.

We came home for lunch, just had some leftover. DH put the washing in the dryer and put on another load of washing is machine. While he did that I decided to make chicken stock to use for dinner.

We then decided to go to hardware/nursery store. We end up getting 4 bags of potting mix, strawberry seedlings and 2 metres of share cloth. We also decided to get my mum another gift, it cost just over $150. I called my brother to see if he wanted to go in with us, he will give me $50. I could have got her the cheaper version but I think this one is nicer and my brother was very happy to just put in money for it. I will just give her the steamer for her birthday in few months’ time. I don’t think I will receive it for another month anyway. So now mother’s day is sorted.

Then after the hardware store, we stop at Aldi which was next door. We got milk, bacon, honey, breakfast items eggs and paper towel.

We got home around 4:30pm. I decided to make my chicken stock into Vietnamese Pho soup for dinner … so good in this weather.

We got our car back today. In the end it cost $720. DH is really happy with the work, I think we finally found a good mechanic and the best thing is the shop is actually really close to us. The shop is only a block away from a train station which makes it so much easier for DH to go to work after dropping it off and pick up. They were very thorough with the car service and I like how they itemised everything in the invoice. They actually fixed the shaking problem that we’ve had for the last 2 years. The other places have never been able to fix it. I won’t mind going for drives again now.

I just created a big grocery shopping list. I’m planning to go to the market for meat, seafood, vegetables and fruits. I’m also planning to go to the Asian shop, not far from the market, to get a big bag of rice and other Asian goodies. And if we can swing it maybe also go to ALdi.

DH got told by the mechanic that they will have to keep the car for another day. He’s been told that there are 3 things wrong with it (all I recognise is that it needs a new brake pad). It will cost around $460 not including labour. DH will find out tomorrow, I’m afraid it will probably cost around $800 maybe more. Yikes! It will be a big hit to our Car Fund. At the moment we currently have $15,202 balance in the car fund. I really like it be at $15K balance, which means I will have to again put more money into it. I will hold it off until towards the end of the year when hopefully we have achieved all our financial goals for this year. I’m just hoping that we will have a bit of extra money to go toward this.

I vacuumed the ducted heater, all 5 outlets. I took out the filters and washed it. I also put few drops of eucalyptus oil in the duct, now the whole house smell like eucalyptus. I’m pretty sure if a koala where to walk by it will want to come in. Since the vac was out I decided to just vacuum the whole house, it was in my to-do list for tomorrow.

The cheesecake was really good, it did not crack at all, and that was my biggest worry about it. We had some after dinner. DH took another slice to work today. He was really happy coz I rarely make sweets and he loves them. He always claims that he has two stomachs, one is just for dessert. We only tend to have them when we are having a party or eating out.

Good news this morning our mortgage will be going down 40 basis points (0.4%) effective 11 of May. Not as good as 0.5% but not as bad as another bank who only lower it 0.32%, and some still haven’t made any announcement. They all want to keep some for themselves. And of course they lower the saving rate by the full 0.5%. They don’t want to leave anyone out, got to screw everyone right? And just to make it worst one of the bank that have not made a move yet just posted yet another record profit yesterday, we are talking billions. Even as a shareholder I don’t like it. Okay, enough of my ranting.

DH dropped off the car at the shop today, DH doesn’t have a clue how much it will cost. I think they will give him a call about it later.

For the first time this year I put on the ducted gas heater this morning and it smell a bit and there were dusts coming out in every outlet. I turned it off right away. I will need to vacuum the filters in it but I’m procrastinating.

DH left work early today to go see a doctor about his uvula. They have been sore since our dentist visit on Saturday. He said that the dentist accidently hit it and now it's swollen. He tried gargling with salt water last night it helped but decided to still see the GP. The doctor visit is free but the medicine cost him $12.99. And he will have to go back next week for a follow up.

While at the doctor he also asked the doctor to have a look his moles. She suggested to him to see another doctor in the same clinic who specialise on it. He has some sort of machine that he uses. He will now have to go back to the clinic twice next week. He couldn't book the same day but he managed to book for 7pm for both so he won't need to leave work early.

Yesterday afternoon the Australian reserve bank lowered the cash rate by 50 basis points (half a per cent). The official cash rate right now is down to 3.75%. They are anticipating tough times ahead; the unemployment rate will sure increase in the near future and property sales have slowed down considerably.

This is good news for us mortgage holders but not so great for the in-laws who rely on the interest of their savings to live on. Everyone in the media believes that the bank will not fully pass on this cut, actually almost but one has not made a decision to cut rate yet. They will take their sweet time about it. Every day could mean millions saving for them.

Even a cut of quarter per cent I will be happy. Hoping to find out in the next few days about how much cut we will get.


For the first time in my life I am making cheesecake, so far so good. I’ve been craving it since the weekend when I saw some at a cake shop. I got DH to get the ingredients last night it cost just under $10, the one in the store were $8.50 per slice. Although I did not realise that will have to wait for hours for it to cool down/chill in the fridge. I was hoping to have some for afternoon tea. I might have to wait to have it for dessert after dinner tonight instead.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we had 10 NSDs in April. That’s $100 towards my Sunny Day Saving.

May Budget:
Grocery - $250
Utilities - $100
Rates - $340*
Home Phone - $25
Mobile - $20
Internet - $50
Fuel & Fare - $200
Health Insurance -$250
Entertainment -$200^
Gifts -$200**
Personal/Medical - $50
Clothing - $30
DH Allowance -$100
DW Allowance - $60
Miscellanous - $25

TOTAL = $1,900

*Our quarterly property rate should be due later this month.
**Will need to order that wedding gift this weekend.
^I’m not really sure how much to budget for entertainment this month. We already got two dinners out plan, so I’ve decided to budget more just in case something else will come up later in the month.

Grocery - $230.00 ---(over $1.07)
Utilities - $100.00 --- (under $100)
Home Phone - $20.00 --- (under $3.77)
Mobile Phone - $40.00 --- (under $10.00)
Internet - $50.00 --- (under $0.05)
Fuel & Fare - $180.00 --- (over $48.15)*
Health Insurance - $250.00 --- (under $0.79)
Entertainment - $200.00 --- (over $19.19)
Gifts - $150.00 --- (over $63.50)**
Per/Med - $200.00 --- (under $30.19)
DH Allowance - $100.00 --- ($0)
My Allowance - $75.00 --- ($0)
Misc Items - $25.00 --- (over $11.65)

TOTAL = $1,670.00 --- (OVER $117.38)

Overall we went over by $117.38.
*Will have to be more realistic with my budget in our monthly transportation cost.
**Both some mother’s day gifts that I wasn’t planning to get until next month.