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Home > Archive: March, 2018

Archive for March, 2018

WEEK 11

March 18th, 2018 at 10:19 pm


Had to spend a bit of money this week…

Groceries – we don’t need much this week, spent $36.35

Car – DH took the car to get the air conditioning re-gassed, unfortunately the filter need to also be replaced because it was blocked. All up it cost $200.20

Private Health Insurance – This one is a biggie. We got an email asking us if we wanted to prepay our health insurance for a year. Prepaying would mean we can pay using the current price instead of the new rate that will increase starting next month. It will increase by around 7-8%, I believe, which is $11.80 increase per month. It cost $1,958.76 with a total saving of $141.84. It doesn’t seem much but it still a saving. This is another example of where having savings helps you save money by taking advantage (opportunity costs) of these types of opportunities.

Electric Bill – (yet another example of taking advantage of an opportunity cost), by having a solar panels we now have so much lower electric bill. Although it cost us some money (over $2K) to get it installed it has now paid dividend. Last bill was $17.10 CREDIT and this current bill was $77.62 CREDIT, I love summer! Anyway we now have a total credit of $94.72 that will hopefully offset some, if not most of next bill. It is a paradox whereby only the “rich” can afford to buy cheap (not that I’m saying I’m rich or anything like that!) but every bit helps.

Portable Speaker – Using a gift card (another one we got as a gift for Christmas) DH bought one of those portable speaker. DH wanted to get one to mainly use in the car for when he wants to listen to podcasts and music. It sounds so much better than just using the phone speaker or our 18 year old car’s speaker and no need for cable with Bluetooth connection. We went to the store looking to buy one he looked at online but he saw another one, the same brand, which was just a little bit better in terms of hours play. He looked it up online store for this store to see how much they were selling it for; online it was $20 less so he asked the lady at the counter if could get it for the price online, it was no problem. It saved him the hassled of buying it online. So he paid $59, which leaves us with $41 left in the gift card.

WEEK 10

March 13th, 2018 at 01:32 am


We had a 3-day week-end here. We mainly just relaxed, did a couple of hours of tinkering outside in the garden and we went to the zoo for few hours on Sunday. We were going to do a good clean out of the garage but I think we are going to try and do that next month instead, after Easter holidays. We were going to hire a skip bin, they are around $250-$300 (the one we normally hire, they drop off the empty bin, we fill it up and they pick it up) but I think we are going to try and take the rubbish to the tip ourselves and hire a trailer instead, they are around $30-50 to hire for 4 hours (depending on size) and the tip pay is around $60-80 per trailer load. We probably got about 2 to 3 trailer load. Most of the rubbish is broken bricks, soils and building materials which would require extra pay if we hire that skip bin.

We did a little bit of spending this weekend.

Groceries – was $113.47. We stocked up on some dental products; toothpaste, mouthwash, toothbrushes and floss. Also got some snack for a trip we are going on later this month.

Clothes – There was a sale and I kind of did some new underwear so spent $33.92

Gifts – Got a gift for $25.97

Zoo – Zoo spending was minimal since we already got the annual passes which are expiring next month. Only spent on $2 parking and $5 on a pricey latte, DH and I shared even though the large was very small.

Netflix – Cancelled Netflix again since I probably won’t be watching it much for the next month or so. I will probably put it on again in June; a lot of new shows/seasons will be release then.

WEEK 9

March 6th, 2018 at 04:47 am


The spending have slowed down – could only be a good thing.

Grocery – was a tad high went to the butcher place where I been going to once a month for the last 4 months. Total for the week was $92.20

Train Pass – DH topped up his train pass, he put in $50. DH has been doing so well this year I think he has saved around $100 already by getting to work early. He has been taking advantage of Early Bird Train Travel. Here your journey is free if you get to your destination before 7.15am. He has done this except on 2 occasions.

Garden – Bought some bags sands for paving worth $31.16

Salvo – we took some stuff to the Salvation Army, while there I bought 3 books worth $6.75 (funny I got rid of 4 books but gain 3 back). This money came out from my birthday money from last year I still got over $50 left I haven’t spent. I barely spent my allocated allowance money these days, I’ll probably buy a new laptop next year.

Feb 2018 (Week 7 & 8)

March 2nd, 2018 at 07:34 am

Total spending for February was $1,750.36

I have been busy in the last 2 weeks, my brother and his family came and stayed with us and the next day after they left, I got sick, the baby gave me a parting gift. We ended up spending a bit more on food this month. Also took them to eat out for my brother’s partner’s birthday. Some notable expenses for the month:

Grocery - $346.68, we are really over for the month.

Household Goods etc – We went to Ikea and got a bunch of stuff so for the month we spent $233.44

Entertainment – all up it was very high $262.70

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Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). –still out top priority and working on it.
*Save $4K for Holiday money. – didn’t spend any
*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – not needed yet


Other –

*Read 70 books.

I’ve been busy so I didn’t have much time to read.
6 The Racketeer - John Grisham (1 Feb)
7 Mindset - Dr Carol S. Dweck (6 Feb)
8 Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party - Alexander McCall Smith (7 Feb)
9 The Simple Path to Wealth - JL Collins (12 Feb)


*Learn Spanish. – everyday


*Workout 3/4 times a week. – still trying to do better


*Try new recipes every other week. –yes and it was not too bad


*Blogging once per week. – missed it last week


*Continue Garden/Landscaping. – we did a bit.


*Wake-up early (before 7am) – I have been great at this so far this year.


*Continue Decluttering. – we did a lot when we were cleaning before our guests came.