1. Grocery bill under $200, by sticking to the Menu Plan and by only buying what is in the Grocery List.

2. Entertainment exp no more than $100

3. Living expenses under $1,100

4. Spring Cleaning

5. Blog more often to stay motivated.

This is a bit late, was going to update my sidebar last week but had some computer problem.

Well, we did goal #4 last month and even had $150 extra, which I put in the holiday fund. I want to put at least another $1,000 in the holiday fund before our holiday in few months time.

I don't think I will bother putting in any money into next year's christmas fund until Dec. Once I put in $1K into the holiday fund I will put in as much more into the Household fund. I want to do more house repair this year rather than waiting for next year.

Our $19K challenge is still doing well but the grocery and entertainment budget is still looking very bad. Overall, we are ahead of our challenge. So we are halfway there and so far so good.

I met all my financial goals last month but didn't make a dent on the other stuff. We spent $1,820 out of the $19K challenge. About $1,200 of it was for our annual car and home & content insurance. It was a very good month overall.

I am particularly very happy about our $100 grocery challenge for the month. I guess the most obvious goal for this month is to make sure we keep the grocery expense within our normal grocery budget (which is about $230p/m). BTW we did our first grocery shopping for the month today and spent just over $120. I tried not to get too much meat, just in case we get another blackout. We lost our power the other, luckily it was for just over an hour (unlike some households who didn't have power for 2-3 days in a 40+ deg celcius heat).

Another good thing that happened last month is I managed to put more than double what I expected to put in the Household fund. yea!

And 17 NSD for the month! A record for us.

Anyway, here's my goal for the month of Feb:
* Declutter Spare Bedroom (Started)
* Put junk into boxes in garage
* Do some painting
* $1K into Saving/Invest
* $900 into H/hold fund
* Grocery budget under $240 ($119.56 left)
* 10 NSD for the month

I really hope to be able to get some of these non financial goals done this month.




1 Feb - 5:30pm

Our goals for next year are just a continuation to this year's goals:

1. Save $1,000 p/m into Saving/Investment.
I'm hoping to continue saving a thousand dollars a month, as we have been doing for the last 3 months.

2. Add $5,000 into the Household Fund (from Jan to May).
I want to fund the Household first because that is one that's been drained the other day with the recent repair work.

3. Add $3,000 into the EF (May - Aug).
I'm hoping (& should be able) to add some money into the EF at the end of this month which would increase it to $5,000. Adding another $3K will put us up to almost 5 months worth of living expenses without mortgage. Our ultimate goal is to have 12 months worth ($20K).

4. Add $4,000 into the Car Fund (Aug - Nov).
We will have $2,000 in the Car at the end of this year. I am hoping to put in another $3K next year to this total. The extra $1K next year is for car service/repair.

5. Put $1,000 into 2010 Christmas/Anniversary Fund in Dec.
We should be able to fund next year's Christmas expenses by the end of this month, thanks to DH's tax refund (the check is already coming our way). Our fund this year for xmas was $850, I'm going to make it an even $1K to include for our anniversary celebration.

6. Any extra (up to $1,000) put into Holiday Fund (as a reward!).

I really like funding one item at the time, I guess having some money into each fund already make it easier to do it this way. I've already set up a time line on when I expect to fund each item. It is based on what I expect we would be able to save each month. These savings are only base of our fixed income & income that I know is for sure, any extra will obviously speed up the timeframe (I'm obviously hoping for this to happen).


---what's with these weird characters---

I've made a decision to change the way I am going to go about the way I save for our funds. Rather than only spreading the minimum amount to each funds each month, I've decided to do a snowball effect instead. I will only be putting $500 in the Saving each month until each item is fully funded. This is how it is going to look like. Hopefully we can follow it and maybe even achieve our targets earlier.



With this new strategy, I hope to save a further $7,000 for the remaining of this year. The $10K (see sidebar) might just be a bit too much but with extra effort and with some extra income we could get there. We will see, and I will just leave that goal there for now.

The remaining amount to fully fund each item is listed on top of the table. I estimated that we have about $2,300 left each month to distribute towards the funds/savings. We should be getting some extra money this month (the rebate I already received and DH should be getting a bit extra this month too). If I'm diligent in getting my tax return done in early July, I should get the refund in Aug. I estimate it to be around $1,000.

I want to fund the House Fund sooner that the others because we will be needing some of it sooner than later. As for the Holiday Fund, we got enough to spend for our weekend getaway this month. It should only cost us couple hundred dollars. We are also planning a long weekend away in Aug, which should only cost few hundred dollars. I think we have enough money in the funds to accommodate for these expenses. After all these, we won’t be able to get away until Oct and the destination will most likely be somewhere overseas. As for the Tuition, I am not in a hurry to fully fund this until the end of the year. We won’t need 1/3 of it until Nov/Dec.

With this new strategy we will be achieving something almost every month, which makes it more fun.

This is going to be our version of the $20 Challenge.



Our challenge for 2008 is to keep these items in the list under $20K for 2008. As can be seen, we spent over $23K+ on these items in 2007. Conservatively, we probably should budget $22K for these stuff but this is not called a challenge for nothing! I love a challenge, and so we are turning the knob a little bit tighter. I think if we can reduce the grocery, entertainment, gifts and miscellaneous items we should be able to do it. I do anticipate that the entertainment and gifts will be a lot lower this year (won’t be spending as much this year for our anniversary).
I’m already accounting for an increase in the utility bills (there has been a lot of talk in the media about this already). Property rate has already increase for the last 6 months and will continue for the next 6 months and will most likely increase further after that. Have increase the home phone but will try to not use the mobile phone as much. Our internet usage can be erratic, to be in the safe side I have increase it. Fuel should be lower this year since our gas conversion. Fare will be increasing in the middle of the year as per usual. For insurances, I just hope they won’t go up too much but we are already planning to increase our coverage for the health insurance (to include maternity) around the middle of the year. The amount for the Personal/Medical will not include the surgery that was meant for Dec in here (in my 2008 year budget I have put this as a separate item). I have lowered this quiet a bit, there were stuff that we did last year that we shouldn’t need this year, eg. I won’t need contact lenses I got enough that should last for over a year. The miscellaneous item is really the thing that I hope we can really keep down. Need to be more discipline about not buying useless stuff.
I would really like to save $3K for these items this year. That $3K would really be great contribution to the holiday fund (as a reward).
Things that are not in the ($20K challenge) list but are in the 2008 spending plan are:
Mortgage -$16,200
CC repayments – Will be paying minimum and will reassess at the end of the year on whether we want to just pay it off or not - $1,600
Medical (surgery) Expense - ~$1000
Tuitions – Depends on how many subject will be doing this year, still undecided (kind of playing it by ear on how busy it is at work) - $3,100 maybe
Text Books – Depends on above decision - $420 maybe
Various Funds:
Baby Fund - $50p/m ($600)
Car Fund - $150 p/m ($1,800)
EF - $50 p/m + some from extra income (until fully funded - $3000, only need $1K now) ($600)
Xmas Fund - $70 p/m ($840)
Repair/Furniture Fund - $500 p/m (planning to make some major repairs this year) ($6000)
Holiday Fund - $350 p/m (but if we can achieve our $20K challenge we won’t need to put away as much and will put more in the savings) ($4,200)
Various Retirement and Investments - $330 p/m ($4,000)

LONG TERM SAVINGS - $500 p/m + whatever extra left in the month’s income ($6,000).


I am really excited about 2008 it’s going to be a great year.

He will be getting some company shares, worth around $700+. That pushes us over the $5,000 mark, which means Goal #9 is now done.

Thanks everyone for your warm welcome and encouragement!

I decided to list more minor goals, these minor goals will help me achieve my big goals for 2007.

1. I will not buy any clothes in the next 6 months except for 2 winter coats and underwear. Clothing budget for the next 6 months is only $150.

2. Cut down on the groceries. I will try to only spend $50 this week, and try to use up what's in the pantry and fridge already.

3. Only spend $50 on entertainment this month.

4. Look into lowering the house insurance premium.

That's it for now.

By writing these down, I will be able to see whether I'm making progress. This is a good habit for me to get into.