Well today I got up early and straight away clean the bedroom and put a load of washing in the washing machine, before I had my breakfast.

Yesterday was our end of financial year, so today I wanted to tidy up our finances. I called to get an online account for my managed fund, that took 5mins of waiting. I should get my access info in few days time. Also called my Super (retirement) fund to get access to my online account. I got log out because I forgot my password. That took about another 10mins of waiting. My account went down a bit. Can't wait for this market to turn around.

I'm in the process of calculationg our net worth for the end of the quarter. Had to get the end of yesterday's prices for our shares. I doesn't look good. So far it is not looking good at all. It is not finalise yet, I got to wait for my managed fund and also DH's retirement account. I have to wait for him to check it out.

Even though the numbers are not looking very good, I'm very satisfied at the work I've done today. I really got to keep on top of all these financial accounts we got. Calculating our Net worth every quarter sure keeps me motivated to check our accounts. I just got to get DH to keep up with his accounts too.

On another topic, last week's expenses was not too bad. We had 3 NSD which made it 11 NSD for the month (that's $55.00 towards the Laptop Fund - see My Pages).
The biggest expense was for textbooks, $200 worth. Home phone was also paid and I got train ticket.

I will put up my $20K Challenge later today.

Well it's Sunday 7pm here, so it is very safe to say that today is a NSD, This add up to 3 NSD for the week. Yesterday was a very spendy day. First we went out for a birthday lunch and then we went shopping for some items for the house that has been in our to do lists/ to get lists for a long time now. We were not as busy this weekend so we actually got some house work/repair done. We also got two pairs of work shoes for DH, he definitely needs new ones now. We decided to get two because they were really cheap. The store that we got them for was having a massive sales. The last thing we got yesterday was some groceries. We got some eggs, milk bread, vegies and oranges. All up it costs $9.75. Other expenses that we spend this week was for insurance, fuel, and $100 to my managed funds.

Last week was really busy again. The other night I finally got some down time and was able to try to check my blog, but for some reason I couldn't log on.

We managed to have 3 NSDs last week, I guess being busy can help cut on spending. We mainly spent money on Fuel, a month worth of Bus pass for me, Internet, my Health Insurance, some Clothing for DH and we also went out for dinner. We also spent money on Groceries, I stopped by at Aldi for milk but decided to stock up instead for the rest of the month. There is 0.65 cents left in the grocery budget, and probably still need to get some more milk for next week. Prices have definitely gone up here, even at Aldi's. The tuna that we used to get for 75 cents are now 89 cents. The can of whole tomatoes used to be 45cents have now gone up, lucky the can of diced tomatoes are still 45cents but I think they will go up soon too. So I stock up on those.

Did a lot of cleaning in the garden on the weekend. I pulled out the pumpkin, and while I was trying to pull it out I found 1 massive pumpkin hiding in the bush. It was a great suprise and already made some pumpkin soup and freshly made pasta with pumpkin. Still have plenty left over. My snowpeas are growing nicely and should be able to start harvesting in the next couple of weeks. The broccoli is starting to have flowerette (is that what's called?).

Anyway that was my week.

Last week we had 1 NSD (yesterday was also a NSD and hoping today will be a NSD as well). As per usual we paid the mortgage on the beginning of the month. The 2nd quarter property rate/tax was also due last week. Also did a big grocery shopping last week,spent more than 2/3 of the month's grocery budget. So not much money left for the rest of the month but we did get a lot of items that should last until next week.

Other payments made was for CC repayments and water bill.

We got couple of major expenses coming up this month. The most costly will be the tuition and textbooks. We have enough put away for 1 subject but if I decide to do two subject(not sure yet), then we have to fund this first this month and might cut down on funding the household and holiday fund this month.

Another potential expense this month is to get the car service, it's couple months over due.

We are also looking at doing some house repairs, but this is most likely be done next month just don't have time for it this month.

Today DH got paid and we finally able to find out his new monthly salary. It is $60 more than I anticipated, which is fine by me! This will most likely change again in two months time because of the new tax cut that the government is giving us, I think it should take affect in July. It should be another $15-20 a week extra to his salary. We also found out that his company is contributing almost $600 per month to his superannuation (retirement) fund. So that's over $7000 to his retirement per year.

It's the middle of the month and we only got $32 left in the grocery budget. So it is going to be tough trying to get through the month without going over. Hopefully we can get by without going over by much. We only need to get few essential items; we are running out of milk and don't have anymore eggs. We will be going shopping for these items tomorrow and will probably also get some fruits and vegies and maybe some chicken. Hope to only spend $15-20 this week. Oh boy this is going to be tough. With the prices going up so much it is getting a lot harder to stay under budget. Unfortunately, we don't have much competition with our supermarkets The big store pretty much can put up the prices as much as they want. Luckily, Aldi is around but I think we need more competition.

We are also already over our fuel budget but this was intentional. DH has been driving to work instead of taking public transport. So we are putting the money for his fare ticket to the fuel money. We are just testing this at the moment, hopefully it won't be costing us too much more (even better hopefully it might even cost us less). Also he gets home a lot earlier this way.

a NSD, but I had to get a Mother's day card today. So, it saw a very low spend day today.

I will be paying my last dental bill tomorrow, it's not too bad $200.10 worth.

Property rate (tax) bill came today. It is actually due early next month, I thought it would have been due this month. This actually works out great for us since we got extra expenses to pay this month.

That's all for today folks!

Here's our April actual numbers:



Overall, we did really well but we over spent on groceries this month. This was mainly due to stocking up on some essentials. Also, entertainment was way over than where it should be and I've got to cut down on my snack consumption.

We are ahead by about $300 or 1.3% as you can see on this graph.



We are going pretty well at the moment but there are some areas that we need to improve. So for May we will try to cut down on entertainment and my allowance budget.

Yesterday we got our home phone bill, they charge us an extra $20 for what we think is for a late fee. DH will ring them and try to dispute it. We don't know what really happened maybe it's our fault, if it is then we will pay it.

Also, our intenet bill is really confusing, and we think they have over charged us by about $15. By the way both our home phone and internet is own by the same company. Recently the look of their statement has change and it's really confusing how they calculate it now.

Hopefully, we won't have to pay the extra $20.

A lot has been happening here, financially, for the last week. This could be a long post, unless I get tired.

Firstly, we finally got our car converted from "petrol" to "LPG (gas)". It cost $2400 but it was only $400 out of pocket because we will be able to get a $2,000 rebate back from the federal government (which should take 2 weeks to get processed). We should be able to save around 40-60% on our fuel bill from now on. It was interesting to see the difference in prices. Last week before the conversion we filled up the car (although there was still some in the tank) and it cost us $72 whereas the cost to fill up the LPG tank for the first time was only $40, a saving of $32 (44% saving). DH thinks the saving should pay off the conversion in about 5-6 months time. We are planning to keep the car for another 7-10 years. I was thinking to keep budgeting the same amount for fuel per month and will just save up any saving towards the car fund (for repairs, rego, car insurance and for our next "new to us" car).

On another financial news, I counted my coins in my piggy banks and there are $135 that I can add to our xmas fund. In total we have $655. Already spent over $200, already bought turkey and bought about half of the gifts already. Only need to get some seafood (can't do that until the day or two before xmas)and already thought of what to get for the other gifts just needs to get them. Most of the gifts for the inlaws I just got online they live interstate so it was easier and cheaper.

It was spendy yesterday, I bought a lot of clothes, it was planned and did get a lot for my money. Spent $114.89 for 3 tops (work clothes), 2 jackets (work clothes), 1 top and bottom summer pj, and 5 pairs of sport socks.

Well thats it for me for now. Hopefully we will be able to stay under budget for xmas, I will update my total after christmas.