On Sat 1st of April we went to a winery about 1 ½ hours away. I got a gift voucher for this place last year for my birthday and it was about to expire later this month. We went there with 4 other friends and in the end we only had to spend $10 extra.

Grocery – On Sunday we got groceries, total $80.68

Palm Tree Removal - Also on Sunday afternoon we got a knock on the door, it was a guy asking us if we want to remove our palm tree at the front. This is actually one of things that we have in our ‘to do lists’ for the outside landscaping (or should I say re-landscaping). This palm tree (almost 20 years old) has now grown too big and it is now touching some of the wires above. They were in the area trying to get some business; there were an army of them. To start with we weren’t very sure about it they seemed a bit dodgy but since they won’t really need to go inside the house and I kind of like that DH is home while we are getting it done so we said why not. Plus the price was really good, we thought removing this would have cost around $1,500 to $2,000, we eventually agreed on $800 but in the end we decided to give them $850. This tree was about 7 metres tall and about 1+ metre in diameter so it was hard work and the chainsaws kept getting clogged up which they had to stopped few times to cleaned it. They also grind the stumped and got rid of the rubbish, a truck load of it. I think we got a bargain.

Electric Bill – DH paid electricity bill for the 1st quarter of the year, $26.49.

Car (more car expenses) – Couple of weeks ago when DH took the car for service they end up turning off the radio which needed a code to turn it on again. So on Thursday DH had to take it to the Ford service mechanics to get the code, which cost $40. While there he decided to get the other (spare) key fixed that was not working properly and to also get the ABS looked at. In the end everything costs $370.

Lunch Date – Today we had our first lunch date for the year. This was kind of a reward for finishing Stage 1 of my workout. We went to some fancy restaurant. It was good but I expected more than good for the price so I doubt we will be going there again. Also, I had my first coke this year. I found the duck confit a bit too salty and wanted something to wash it down so I asked DH to get me a glass of coke while I went to the bathroom. I wished I just stuck to water and I wished DH asked how much it was before getting, it didn’t taste like it used to be and the worst part is it cost $6 for the 330ml glass of coke. Oh yeah I forgot, lunch cost $86.

Car Service/Repairs – Total cost was a whopping $836! We got 2 new tyres for $198, they suggested that the front tyres can last until the next service. They had to replace the front brake pads that cost $203.50, again the rear one can be done next time. They suggested to just re-gas the A/C, because our car is quite old now it would be better to just re-gas it every year or so it would cost a lot more to repair it. The re-gassing was $110. They had to replace 4 wheel nuts for $88. The rest was then for the all other car services that needed to be done.

Grocery – I got DH to do the grocery shopping again and told him we only got $16 left in the budget this month. He went to Aldi and only spent $15.70. With that he got a whole chicken, 3 litre milk, 4 bananas, 1 punnet of strawberries and 1 dozen eggs. We will probably need to get more milk later this week or we could use the long-life milk we have for emergency, we probably will I'm sure the expiry date on it is probably close.

Scanner App – We have started some of our paper work that we wanted to digitalised. We have an old scanner printer but it a pain to use, it take about 2 mins to just scan a page and then you have take out the SD card to save it into the computer. We thought about getting a new one and we almost did but then DH wanted to think about it some more. Last week DH took our old Electric bill and Gas bill to work to get it scanned, they’ve got great industrial scanner at work it only took him minutes to scan 7 years worth of bills. Now that we don’t get paper bills for these 2 we wanted to get the old scan them and throw them out (I actually shredded them and put it in the compost). We still got hundreds of paper work to scan which will not be possible for DH to take to work. He then looked into Scanner Apps, just using his phone camera he tried it a couple different Apps he preferred the second one he found. After using for a while he decided to buy it for $2.60 (was on sale from $5), worth paying to get rid of the watermark of their company logo. Anyway, it is so much more efficient than our old scanner. DH love using it. He was just sitting in front of the TV while watching a cricket game scanning away. This one it saves it automatically into a PDF and then DH can easily just email it to or save it google drive.

Other Spending – Got more soil for the garden, $11.85. Gas for the car was $42. I also gave my mum $300.

Grocery – We spent $61.94 on food this weekend. We only got $16 left in the budget for the rest of the month so we most likely won’t be able to stay on budget this month. We will try not to go over too much. We have been under budget in the last 2 months so there a little bit of a wiggle room, about $20.

House Repair - Fixed our bedroom door that wasn’t closing properly, the hinges was coming loose – easily fixed.

Mum - We went to my mum’s place for lunch on Sunday. She had an eye surgery on Friday for cataract so we thought we visit her to see how she was going. DH was actually the one that picked her up after her surgery. The hospital was near the city so DH drove to work on Friday, parking cost was $16. He left work an hour early to pick her up and the parking at the hospital was $10.20. DH also went to the pharmacy to get her prescription meds which he paid for just under $17.

Shopping – After lunch we left our dog at my mum to go shopping. My mum actually used to own this dog, long story short we feel in-love with her and kind of stole her. Spent an hour shopping for DH’s running shoes ($110), also got myself a wallet (my current one is all scuffed up) it was 40% off for $35, and we got a cup of latte to share for $4.70.

That’s pretty much our spending for the weekend. Tomorrow DH is taking the car for service including getting new tyres and I think maybe also getting the air con looked at. I have a feeling it is going to cost a bit.

Camping – We went camping last weekend, finally! DH was very happy about. The weather was just perfect for camping. We took the dog for the first time camping, she did well but didn’t get much nap so she was very tired when we got home. The cost for the site was $25 and we got food for $22.70, so less than $50 for a weekend away. Pretty good. The area where we went to is known for mineral spring water most people that go here go to mineral spas. And since it is only about an hour away from Melbourne it is very popular place. The camping site actually have a pump set up so people would just go there to get fresh mineral spring water. You have to go on a short hike to get there but it is pretty easy walk and along the way there were wild blackberries everywhere which were very sweet.

Hot air balloon- We got woken up Sunday morning by a hot air balloon being set up only about 100 metres away from our camp. Some people were not happy about it because it was pretty loud but really it was already 7am so it wasn’t really that early. I thought it was really cool seeing it up close and it only lasted about 15 minutes and they were off. But someone woman got very upset about it.

Groceries – Last weekend on the way home we stopped by at Aldi and spent $86.95. This weekend we spent $135.11. A bit more than I was hoping to spend but I found porterhouse steaks at 40% off, so I ended up getting 2 trays for just over $20. Just have to grab them when they are that cheap because they never seemed to be on sale when I actually want to get some. I also bought a 20kilo bag of rice which should last for months.

Fish Tank – The filter in the fish tank died and also it started leaking. DH bought a new filter for $44.82 and he also got a tube of silicone to fix the tank.

Other Expenses – I bought some clothes $33. DH got train ticket and filled up the car. Also the water bill for just under $230.

Ended up to be a quiet weekend. During the week we talked about going camping but we weren’t too sure about the weather. We should have gone the weather was wonderful especially on Sunday. Oh well.

Groceries –On Saturday DH did the shopping alone, since we didn’t need much and also don’t have much left in the grocery budget it was a very short shopping list. DH did really well, I told him that we only got $30 left in the budget and that all we really need are a couple dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, few bananas, a red capsicum and a 2litre milk to top up the milk we already bought on Thursday. The rest of the money, if there are any left, he can get some more fruits and vegetables. He ended up spending $21.90, on top of the items above he also got a punnet of strawberries, a punnet of blackberries, a bag of carrots, Japanese pumpkin and a massive bag of zucchini which he found on sale. DH was very proud of going way under the budget, he took it very serious.

BBQ – On Sunday we took the doggy to the park and also shop to get DH a new exercise band for $28. Seeing that the weather was so nice DH suggested we should have a bbq, I guess if we did went camping we would have had a bbq there. So on our way home we decided to get some meat to bbq. I ended up getting some chicken drumsticks it was on sale for only $3 a kilo even cheaper than the wings that were $4 a kilo, got 6 pieces for $2.80. DH also barbequed some of the vegetables (zucchini, pumpkin and carrots) to go with the chicken, we just put a bit of salt, pepper, rosemary and olive oil.

Groceries - We did our usual Saturday morning shopping for food. Spent $82.33, it would have been about $20 less but I found a Porterhouse steaks that was 50% off (normal price was $32 a kilo) and also got some pork chops that were 20% off (can’t remember the original price). Total for the month so far is $269.42 (budget $300), so just over $30 for the rest of the month. It’s tight but I think we can do it. I’ve done a rough meal plan for this week which should help. Also the pantry is still really full we still got a lot of stuff in there to get through. I think we will just need milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables next shopping trip.

Other Spending – I bought myself a new running shoes, it was on sale for $90. I’m overdue for a new one. DH will also need a new one soon too. His is actually worse than mine but we couldn’t find one that he likes at the shop that we went to and we didn’t have time to shop around.

Cooking – I did a bit of cooking on Sunday. I made spring rolls and meatballs to put in the freezer. Also made butter chicken in the slow cooker, which feed us for 4 meals. And I used up some frozen banana that I had to make a banana cake.

Decluttering – I went through our pots and pans and decided to throw out 2 old pans and 1 wok. I’ve also been going through a box full of papers/notes that I wanted to type out or scan, it will take me a while to get through the box but at least it is good to get it started since I’ve wanted to do this for years now.

Passports – We need to re-new our passports, it expired last year. We are thinking of going overseas this winter so we need to get new ones soon. I don’t know how much they are now these days it has been ten years since we got the last one.

Not much is happening here.

Grocery – Spent just under $100 ($98.26) bought some special stuff for Valentine ’s Day dinner; steaks, fancy cheeses, oysters, and some other yummy stuff that we don’t normally get. We prefer to have nice dinner at home instead of going out to restaurant for Valentine’s Day.

Takeaway – At the market where we did our grocery shopping this weekend we got a couple of dim sims and croissants to take to the nearby park where we walked the dog. There’s a café at the park where we bought a cup of coffee to share to go with the croissants.

Fuel – got some fuel, it was for $55.80.

Other - we got some fabrics to use to cover the couch, $44.00. Also spent some money for the garden just under $40.

Garden – I planted a bird-eye chilli last summer. Got a couple handfuls of chillies last summer, it wasn’t looking good during winter and I thought it was going to die. I trimmed it and hoped for the best and it is doing well again. So far it has produces more than double that we got last summer.

Decluttering – I emptied DH’s clothes drawers. I put all the clothes that I thought don’t belong in the drawers anymore in a laundry basket and then DH went through each one, some he tried on to see if still fits. Most of it got thrown away, about 5 went back into drawers and a few he wanted to keep (souvenirs items) that we put into a plastic container to store away.

Weekend – We did the grocery shopping Saturday morning and spent $75.33, right on our weekly budget. Saturday night we went out for dinner to celebrate paying off the mortgage. We went to a Croatian restaurant it was very yummy but pricey. It cost $106 for 4 entrée size dishes (we wanted to try variety of dishes) and a glass of wine for me and Croatian beer for DH. We used a $50 gift card and I received last year for my birthday (expiring in couple of months so it was good time to use it), so was out of pocket for $56, still a tad costly. Lately I’ve been rather anti going out to restaurants, I mean I still like eating out but I don’t like spending all that money and then sometimes you go out you get disappointed with either the meal or the service and end up feeling that it was such a waste of money. A $100 is more than a week worth of food for us or for that amount of money we could invite a bunch of friends and have a pretty good dinner party. We also spent $6 for 2 hour parking, we should have really parked further for free but they are hard to find. We spent most of our Sunday building a vegetable garden using old bricks from the old brick fence that we used to have. That brick fence collapsed last year when we had a really strong wind, it was already in bad shape to start with.

Mortgage – Our very last interest payment was $14.62. They actually now owe us some money, just under $300 because they just took out the usual monthly payment. I’m sure it will get all sorted out soon. And depending on how much the closing cost is we might still owe them some.

Gardening – I have not done much with the veggie garden this summer. I just did not have much time but I did make sure to plant some tomatoes and basils, I've got a bit of tomatoes already.

Dinner party – Saturday night we had few friends over for dinner, card games and a Netflix movie. It was a lot of fun. It increased our grocery bill this month but it would have been a lot cheaper than going out to a restaurant.

Long weekend – DH is taking Friday off and since Thursday is a public holiday (Australia Day) then he will have 4-day weekend. We are thinking of going for a day trip somewhere maybe fishing, we have not done that for couple of years.

Grocery – Our grocery budget for this year is $300 per month. So far this month we are at $260.45, half of it was spent on the weekend when we did a big shop and bought some extra stuff for the dinner party. Even though we only got $40 left for this weekend it should be plenty, I’m hoping we might not even have to spend all of it. Right now we got a lot of leftovers in the freezer and the pantry is full.

Saturday we went to shopping for food, we didn't get (nor do we needed much), spent $37.41.

Went and watch my brother play footy again, it was his 50th game, they won again 202 to 26, I think it was. Only spent $1 for a cup of coffee there, we actually took some sandwiches and some fruit that we got shopping that day to have for lunch.

That night we got invited to someone's 65th birthday. Bought a card for $1 and gave $50 cash gift.

On Sunday the only thing that got charged was my mobile phone, it get automatically get topped up when my credit gets below $2. That was for $10.

Total spending for the weekend was $99.41 - it's good to see it under $100.

We had a relatively quiet weekend. Our car was making some weird noises so we didn't wantto drive it too much. We just went grocery shopping and dropped off some stuff to the Salvo, which was just a crossed the street of the Aldi that we went to. Spending for the weekend was less than $100.

DH already booked the car for service on Wednesday. Its next service is not until next month but since it is making that noise and we are going camping this weekend we need to get it check before driving it 3-4 hours drive to the country.

DH spent some of his weekend applying for jobs. The rest of the weekend I spent tinkering in the garden, DH helped a bit too. He loves being outside, it was great to see him a lot more relaxed on the weekend. He was a bit stressed out again on Wed and Thurs night, he keep wondering whether he has done the right thing quitting. I assured him that he did and that we will be alright. From what he has been telling me about his work I am 100% sure that he is doing the right thing. So far this year DH counted 15 people that has left (that's about 1 a week). He has seen 3 people this year that cried because of work issues.

The other developer is now also considering of leaving earlier than end of June, she doesn't want to take on DH's job. She knows how much ha was to do and deal with, not only dealing with the customer that they support but also dealing with the boss (DB). She's also thinking of travelling in mid-June. Not sure if she will actually do it but she has told few people about already.

DH got a couple of lead today about some work so hopefully something will pan out soon.

Tree Stump
We finally got the tree stump and roots out. It has taken us over 2 weeks working on it a bit every day. It is a very heavy bugger so we just left it in the front yard. We are not sure what to do with it, we talked about making a feature out of it or just put it in the rubbish. I think we might have our annual green rubbish collection in May, I'm pretty sure it was in May that they collected it last year. I won’t be surprise if we get the notification for in next month. If we throw it out DH will have to cut it smaller they will not accept it at this size, too heavy. DH should be able to use the chain saw on it now.

Garden Bed
Most of soil that we dug out we used to build a couple of raised garden beds. We just added some chicken manure and mushroom compost. So far I have planted snow peas and kale from seeds in our usual veggie garden patch. In the new garden beds I got some seedling for it, so far I planted lemon grass, coriander and cabbage.

We will be building couple more garden beds, just need to clean more of the bricks. It takes a bit of effort to do I'm not in a hurry so just doing a bit every day.

Grocery Shopping
We did some food shopping this weekend. We went to the market to stock up the freezer. Then we went to Aldi to get the usual food items we need for the week. And then lastly, we went to another store to mainly get toilet rolls and other things that we couldn't get at Aldi.

At the shopping centre car park, we ended up waiting for this lady to get out so we could get her car park space. When she finished putting her shopping in the car I offered to put her trolley away, just to hurry things along it was easier for both of us (and I gave her a dollar to swap for the dollar she had in the trolley). She could get out quicker while DH could get in to the space while I put the trolley away. Anyway, she left her receipt in the trolley and there was a discount of $10 off for the store we were about to go and there were other discounts for their liquor store as well. I didn’t even knew that they do those discounts in this store but I think you have to spend over $200 to get those, which obviously she did. I knew about the liquor store discount but hose normally involves buying 1 and you get another 1 free type of discount. So the $15 plus shopping only cost us $5 or so. It paid for the toilet rolls. I find that a lot of people tend to just leave their shopping receipts in the trolley and I tend to just pick them up and put them in the bin. I will be checking them a closer from now on.

We only spent $8.90 on mainly vegetables and $3 for milk. I don't think we will need anything else for the rest of the month. So, all up this month grocery bill came to $211.33. A lot better than what it was in the last quarter. Now we just need to keep it up.

This week's menu:

Saturday night we had a get together with friends. Spent $66 including parking.

Sunday, we spent most of the day cleaning up the garage and afterwards I decided that I really wanted burgers so we got Hungry Jack's (Burger King). I paid for it out of my allowance, $23.

Monday: Yesterday I made Thai fried rice with pork.

Tues: Today we are going to have tuna and salad.

Wed: Ribs - DH wants more ribs.

Thu: Leftover and chickpea/beans salad.

Fri: Either we will get pizza (Domino's pizza are now selling for $5) or we might be going out.

This week's grocery spending wasn't too bad, ended up spending $66.96.

Hardly did any cooking this week. We went to a party on the weekend and got to take home some food. and also DH got free lunch and snacks from work yesterday. I'm going to try have even less grocery spending this weekend. We got a lot of stuff that we can use next week.

DH got the car repaired the other day, they installed a brand new exhaust and did a lot of other services to it. All up it cost $462. Less than what I expected.

Paid the normal monthly mortgage repayment on Friday. The usual $1218, $219.89 went to the interest and $998.11 to the principal (so close to $1K)

Saturday we went to an antique market (1hr away), a short day trip. We bought some stuff, one of the random stuff I got was Life magazines from the 1947 and 1948, interesting read. I love the old advertisements in it too. DH got an old shaving razor, he collects them.

On the way home we stopped by this small town where they had a small farmer's market. Got $13.30 dollars worth of vegetables, fresh from the market near by.

In the late afternoon we went to Aldi and other stores to do more grocery shopping. All up we spent a total of $63.30.

I'm working hard on trying to get our grocery budget back to a reasonable state. So back to doing a weekly menu. Most of the time I just have a rough idea of what I'm going to make for the week, and we normally do alright to stay close to the budget until this few months. Making a weekly menu and just grocery shopping based on that should help cut down on grocery expenses. And I'm even going further by estimating the cost of each meal (I think I need a hobby lol). This was the menu for this week:

Sat: Paella - this costs roughly $6.40
Sun (lunch): Pumpkin and Lentil Stew - costs roughly $1.10
Sun (dinner): Chicken Drumettes marinated in homemade Nando's style sauce - costs around $4.00
Mon: Chilli Con Carne - costs roughly $11.20 (made a lot, put some in the freezer). The red wine cost a bit but we got to enjoy the rest of it with the meal.
Tue: Pasta carbonara sauce - ~$2.00
Wed: Beef ribs (currently cooking in the slow cooker) - cost roughly $6.00
Thu: We will have leftovers tomorrow. My brother won't be eating with us. We will most likely have ribs leftover.
Fri: Spanish Omelette - around $2.00? Potatoes are in season right now, very cheap.

Okay, I'm gonna have to work on next week's menu.

Weekend was spent grocery shopping. We are a bit over with grocery shopping this month. A lot of this spending will be use in April so grocery expenses in April should be cheaper (it should be and it will because I will have to make sure of it). Also bought some new smoke alarms and led light bulbs. We didn't do much this weekend apart from going shopping we went for a run.

The weather this weekend was great and would have been nice to go somewhere for a day trip but our car is making some weird noise so just make short trips. DH thinks it might have something to do with the power steering. He looked it up online and the repair could cost from as cheap as $15 to $2,800. I just hope it won't cost as much as $2,800 that would be more than half what the car is worth at the moment. I'm not going to worry about it until we really know what is wrong. He will drop it off to the mechanics tomorrow.

I've been busy and haven't had time to blog. Been going to bed at 3am, staying up watching the cricket game between Australia and England. The day is a lot shorter when you wake up around 11am.

Anyway, week was the usual grocery shopping and managed to go for a run. Did not do to well with the running, the weather was bad really windy and again staying up late doesn't help. I was dying towards the end. But at least I've done it.

Saturday afternoon I went to the dentist for check up, clean, fluoride and x-ray. The clean and that came out $0 out of pocket but the x-ray (2sides) was $24.85. It would have been $217.10 if I didn't have private insurance. I have to come back for a filling though

DH was also meant to have a dentist appointment but the dentist was sick so he got re-schedule for next month. He could have seen another dentist on the day but he prepare to see this one particular dentist so he will have to wait until next month. This dentist is a lot better. The one I saw was rough and I think I will get my filling done by this guy too. DH have tried a different guy in the past and didn't like it at all. Butcher was a word he used to describe him.

After my dentist visit we stopped by at Costco, it's on the way home. Our membership is finishing this month and will not be we will not be renewing for a while. So we shopped like there is no tomorrow. Over $300! Yikes!

Things that we will not need to get for the rest of the year:
Rice - we got 25kgs
Honey - 3kgs
Coffee - massive can
Toothpaste - 4 tubes
Mayonnaise - gigantic jar

We also got some milk, eggs beef and fish and other items that I can't remember now. And got some pyrex containers with those snap on lid (BFA free). DH uses them for his lunch, the lids are so much better on these new ones. DH should be able to take soup now and his home made yogurt. That was $35+ for 9 various sizes and shapes. They are great, I think if I bought them individually they will end up costing over $100.

Also got a big box of Xerox paper. This should last me years.

So we are not almost $100 over on grocery budget for the month because of this Costco trip. Hopefully, we will be able to get back on track in the next couple of months.

We almost had 5 days of NSDs last week, from Monday to Friday we didn't spend on anything except for DH putting more money into his train pass for $50.

The weekend is a different story. The weather was terrible all weekend so we missed out on running but now shopping though.

Saturday morning DH got up early to go to Aldi, during the week we saw an ad they had for a sound bar and subwoofer. DH been looking at getting one for over a year now but the one we wanted to get is $250 which I thought was too much. The Aldi one is only $99, so got one to try it, if we don't like it we can always return it. They have 60-days money back, no question ask guarantee. So far we are loving it. He also got mobile accessories for $9.95, it had a pouch for his mobile and car charger. The pouch was a bit small so he had to return it. But he got another one somewhere else later that day for $19.95, it had no pouch but the car charger two USB outlet and few different connections. We can both charge our phone at the same time and other gadget can connect to it too. DH had to get another audio connector for the sound bar, it was only $7.50.

Later that day we went to get a quote to replace the window in the study and another small one at the end of our hallway. It came to around $1500 for both windows and labour. Too much I thought. I think we could find somewhere else for about $1000.

Got a venetian blind for the study window for $78, it was 40% off normally around $120. Lucky I saw the ad for this too.

The rest of the day we went back to Aldi to return the mobile phone accessories and to do some grocery shopping. Spent just over $40.

On Sunday we went to the meat market and spent $32 on meat. Had lunch at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant, $20. Afterward, DH got a haircut for $11. This is the cheapest haircut ever.

DH skyped his mum and asked her if she wanted a new phone for her birthday and the answer was a resounding yes. She was kind of giving hints that she wants a new phone with Bluetooth in it to go with their new car that they just ordered. So DH ordered another phone for her mum, exactly the same one that he got. It's good that they will have the same phone that way if she got any problem with it DH will be able to help her out easy.


Reno update:
Painting is all done except around the window. My project for this week is to replace the door in the study. We have been meaning to replace this for couple of years now, we actually got the new door in the garage for all that time. The door jam is not standard size anymore (old house, nothing is standard) so I will have to trim the door a bit, just a bit fiddly. It will also need to be painted.

Friday night we stayed home. DH started fixing my laptop, it has been acting up lately. He backed up everything that was in it. Right now I don't have access to my excel spreadsheet of my finances so I can't finalise my June numbers yet. DH haven't had the time to reinstall Office yet, it should get done tonight.

Saturday, I did a load of washing (colours) then we went to the bank to deposit a cheque. After we did some grocery shopping at Aldi, only spent just over $18. Also went to couple of other stores for items that we couldn't get at ALdi. Also got personal items and found monopoly board game on sale for only $25, I always wanted to get one. Then DH got some USB sticks to use for backup. I've asked him to save my financial spreadsheet to couple of different places. I'm just paranoid about losing it.

On the way home we got some gas, I think it was for only $25-30. DH did a bit more work on my laptop and until we went out for dinner with some friend, I think we spent about $65 for dinner. Afterwards we went and watch Man of Steel, that was for free a friend got connection. The movie was good, not what I expected, different to old superman movies.

We didn't get home until midnight, DH spent another hour to finish uninstalling everything in my laptop.

Sunday, DH made yogurt and did another load of washing (whites this time). He also started reinstalling stuff that I wanted back into my laptop. The weather was good yesterday that I actually decided to put the washing out on the clothes line. Around midday DH went for a run, I ran my PB! I've still got a lot to go to achieve my goal for the year but I'm getting there.

Afterwards we rewarded our self and had lunch at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. I love this place, great food but cheap. Only spent $17.80 for two very big dishes.

We then went to the hardware store to get a new hand sander, that was $30. While there I found a tool caddy for $8.

When we got home I was disappointed to find out that the pork I got out for roasting for dinner was still frozen. We decided that we would get Thai take-away for dinner instead. We spent just over half an hour washing the car, it really needed it and we got it done just before it got dark.

The rest of the night I just watched tv while doing some crocheting and icing my sore legs. DH in the main time was skyping his parents while doing more reinstalling with my laptop, it has taken a long time, there was ridiculous amount of updates.

So that was our weekend, spent just a bit over $300, too much eating out.

We have our annual green collection (garden stuff) this week. DH and I spent most of the weekend cleaning the garden. We did a lot of trimming and also cut down a couple of small size trees. Our garden have been neglected this year we just haven't had the time to do it. Back in March we had a really bad weather and one of our palm tree in the back fell on the fence. Luckily the fence broke in a way that we managed to fix it right back up without having to spent money on it. However, we had to get a chain saw to cut up the palm tree. Fortunately, we got one for only $69 normally they are $99. DH has only been able to throw out some of the palm tree every forth night into our green rubbish bin but this week we are allowed to put it all out at the front of our house for the local council to collect.

Also on the weekend we went grocery shopping a bought $63 worth of meat, it should last for the rest of the month maybe even for 3 weeks. Also went to Aldi and spent just over $41 there.

I was just checking my personal finance spreadsheet this morning and I just realised that we've had 4 NSD in the last 5 days. It just happened.

Monday and Tuesday were NSDs.
Wednesday paid the gas bill ($71.15).
Thursday and Friday were again NSDs.

I've been having lower back problem all week so I haven't been anywhere. Also DH haven't had to top up his train pass this week. So, it has been a great week except for the sore back thing, which doesn't help with the running goal. I think I went a bit too hard with the running, I need to slow down a bit.

Today we need to get some groceries and will be going out for dinner. We got coupon for this dinner so it shouldn't be too much.

We went to my mum’s place again last night. She called me while I was making dinner. I’ve asked her to get me something from her work to give as a birthday present to a friend. Her birthday is not until next month but I’m not sure I will see her next month so I will be giving it to her tonight, it just happened we’ve organised a get together few weeks ago, so it came just in time. I gave my mum $10 for it.

While there I helped my mum make some more empanadas, she is getting more and more orders now. She is actually finding it hard to keep up. Last night she was trying to make 120, one order. She got a friend who does cake decorations of some sort and has an online business for it. Anyway she asked my mum if she wants to put her empanada on her website, my mum actually said no because she is afraid that she won’t be able to do it. I’m actually thinking of getting her an empanada maker, I’m not sure where to get it or if it is even available here in Australia. It will be a good birthday/Christmas present for her. The bread maker has help her make the dough but she still needs to roll it out. I’ve actually got her to try the pasta maker but she didn’t like it because it’s too thin. And our pasta maker is hopeless you pretty much need two people to use it. It’s alright for making small amount of pasta but I think it will get tiresome if you need to make a lot of it.

Also she asked me if I wanted some instant coffee, this was one thing that I wanted to get at Costco, we are half way to our last jar. So I said yes! She got a box of 6/200g jars of Nescafe Gold Blend. She got all of them for $40 so less than $7 a jar. I just looked on-line and they are around $16-18 a jar at the supermarket. At Costco a similar type would probably be around $13-14. She got them from another friend who works for Nestle. Apparently the customer/s didn’t like them because of the jar design; I think they got consumers complaining about it. I can see why from just looking at it the jar is too top heavy and would be hard to grip (esp for small hands like mine) when opening it. I got two. The jar don’t bother me I will just put it into my coffee canister once I open it. Also score a bag of powdered milk, also from Nestle, DH use powdered milk all the time for making yogurt. I will give her $20 for all of them next time I see her. It will come out of the grocery budget.

We went grocery shopping today.

Spent $66.95 at the market, bought mainly meat at the market and some deli items, also got some apples, pears and lemons for only 99cents a kilo. We should have enough meat for the next 3 weeks. Got a really good deal on really nice cuts of eye fillets, was normally $22 a kilo but was reduced to $10 a kilo. We end up getting the last two pieces for just over $8. Will cook one tonight for dinner, DH and I will share one because they are too big I don’t think I could finish one all by myself. We like meat and eat it most days but we try to not eat too much, big portion. DH wants to have it with some potato chips but I forgot to get some potatoes. He’s thinking of going to get some cooked ones at the fish and chip shops but I think I will try to convince him to just have it with roasted pumpkin and steam carrots and peas. And I can make gravy with garlic and mushrooms and to make DH happy will put some chillies in it. Let’s see if I can convince him to not bother getting the hot chips.

We also went to the Asian shop, got lots of vegetables; couple different variety of mushrooms, okra, baby eggplants, ginger, and a lot of greens. We also stocked up on some essentials like sushi rice, nori, coconut milk, egg noodles, etc. All up we spent $35.17.

Yesterday was NSD, that makes it 2 this week.

Today, I just put another $1,200 into the mortgage. Extra payment into the mortgage so far this month is $1,700. I'm hoping to make it to put $2.5K extra this month. Next Friday is payday I should be able to put more then. Starting on the 18th of June our interest in the mortgage will go down another 0.21%. I think that should be a reduction of $15-20 per month. Can't wait to see next month's regular payment, I'm pretty sure the principal payment side should be more than $500. something to celebrate about but not too much because the interest side would still be around $700. I be definitely celebrating more when the principal payment is greater than the interest payment.

It's Saturday, normally it's our grocery shopping day. We don't really need anything, not even milk (I only just opened the new bottle yesterday but DH wants to get more so he can make some yogurt. I actually need to start using up the produce soon, we got too much stuff in the last two shopping trip. Last night, I made ratatouille just to use up some of the tomato and capsicum, we got too much.
I cooked a whole fish last night not knowing that DH ordered a sushi platter for tonight’s dinner. So we are having more fish today. The platter will cost $29, it normally cost $65 but we got a coupon deal.

Today we got up very late. I got breakfast in bed , nothing special just oats and coffee but it was still nice to stay in the nice warm bed.

Even though it was a very gloomy and it showered on and off all day we decided to go for a run. We went to a park about 25 mins away. We decided to go to this park which is a bit further than the one we been going to because I wanted to go shopping near there afterwards. We run around the man-made lake for almost an hour, we were pretty lucky because it stopped raining just before and didn’t start again very lightly, just 5 mins before we finished.

After our run we drove to a market 2 blocks away and had lunch at our favourite Spanish restaurant, we both had a plate of paella each and shared a cup of chilli hot chocolate, it was so good.

Spent $6.50 at the market for fruits and vegetables, we got some bananas, capsicum, bok choy and potatoes. We then went to a store across the road to get a ladle, meat tenderiser and a sifter. I love this store they have everything you need for the kitchen, they actually cater for restaurants (I think they get discounts for buying bulk) but the general public can also come in.

Then just another block away is an Aldi, we only spend $16.61 on grocery and DH got a pipe drain cleaner hose for only $6.99. Just in time because he will need to clean the bathroom drain tomorrow. We won’t need to go to the hardware store to get one.

The last stop was to a fabric/ household item type store. I wanted to go there because they are having some sale, this was the main reason why I wanted to go to this place. I wanted to get a window blind for the small window in the toilet. Unfortunately, the one that I wanted (which is the same to what we already got in the other rooms) is not on sale. I will wait because they usually have a sale every couple of months. The trip however wasn’t a waste because I found a good sale on flannelette sheets set. We got a set earlier this year, both DH and I really like it so we wanted to get another set. Was not planning to get it today thought but it was on sale. Also got more knitting yarn, I need another one to finish DH’s scarf that I started last month, he wanted a longer one and got another big yarn that should be good to make into a throw rug/blanket. The knitting stuff will come out of my allowance money, my little hobby.

It was not a No spend day either. DH decided to get milk at Aldi last night (we will be running out of it today). He used most of it on Sunday making yogurt. He thought of getting it last night just in case he will be coming home very late tonight. Since he was near his favourite petrol station he decided to fill up the car too. So that was all of yesterday’s spending.

Also yesterday I finally finish the renovation, well my part anyway. DH will have to move the cistern so we can paint behind it. We could just leave it as it is but I know it will annoy me knowing that it wasn’t done. He will do it on the weekend.

Last night our home phone and internet was off for about 6 hours. I suspect it was because of the storm. I didn't even know about it until my mum tried to call me at home. Luckily our mobile phone is with a different provider and that was working.

I said I was planning to only spend $70 on groceries today, well was I wrong. All up it ended up to be $107. Spent $21.29 at the Asian shop, $9.36 at Woolworths (we didn't bother going to Aldi, it's out of the way and we didn't need to get much stuff from there) and the rest was spent at the market. Decided to get about a month's worth of meat, all up we spent almost $54. It was cheaper to get 2kilos worth of stuff than just a kilo that's why we got more than I was planning. I didn't mind, I prefer we only go to the market once a month instead of twice because of the crazy parking. We also got $18 worth of cheeses (got 5 different types of cheese) and salami at the deli.

So we only got $113 left in the budget for the month (about $28-30 p/week). I think it is doable.

Planning to do a big grocery shopping tomorrow, I just wrote a shopping list and it is rather long. We will have to go to the market to get meat, cheeses (Gouda and mozzarella), salami, bread, fruits and vegetables. Then to the Asian shop for soy sauce, noodles, etc. We will also need to go to Aldi for milk, marmalade, butter and eggs. I’m hoping to spend under $70.

DH went to Aldi Friday night to get some hamburger buns for dinner, he also some other items that we needed. All up he spent $13.21.

Today we got some fruits and vegetables, $12.45. And we also got a big pack of toilet paper. I didn't get any chicken because we didn't go to the market.

We only got $15.16 left in the grocery budget for the month. We will definitely need to buy more milk next weekend. We got more than enough meat to last the month. Apart from milk I don't know what else we will need, I guess I will see next weekend.

Tonight our football team is playing against the team that beat us in the grand final last season. DH and I are really looking forward to watching it live on tv tonight. I thought it would be a good time to have sausage roll and homemade hamburger. Good food to eat in front of the tv.

DH will have to stop by at Aldi tonight to get burger buns, milk and other things we will need to get from Aldi. This will save us a trip there tomorrow. We will only need to go to the market tomorrow for fruits, vegetables and maybe some chicken if it is good price.

I didn’t do much cleaning today just cleaned all the cabinet doors in the kitchen and also cleaned the microwave, it only took a quick wipe it was pretty clean to start with.

I spent a bit of time knitting today I decided to bring out my knitting basket. I’m about to finish one that I started last year. I tend to get excited starting one but fizzle out towards the end. But it is good hobby to do while I watch the stock market take a dive today.