Overall, June’s expenses were not too bad. The biggest expense was for our quarterly property rate/tax. The big increase in fuel consumption is due the changes in the way we are travelling to work. We are now driving more than taking public transport, it is actually about the same maybe even a bit cheaper (now that we converted our car to gas). Also the biggest advantage is it cuts our travel time, we get to go home almost an hour earlier. We are spending more fuel but have cut down on our public transport expense.

The usual suspect for over spending were quite good this month; grocery exp was reasonable and our entertainment spending was not bad (especially compare to last month).

First 6 Month Analysis:
We are at the half way point of our challenge so I thought I should analyse our progress thus far. Well the biggest worry is the Entertainment category - we are WAAAAAYYYY over, bloody hell we are over. We spent $720 in the last 6 months, which only leaves us less than $280 for the rest of the year. That’s $46 per month! It will be mission impossible to get this category under budget. Good thing we got our Allowances to fall back on. We are way under in these, especially DH’s side. I should have been worrying about our entertainment budget more than the grocery budget. But it is just so hard when friends got a get together, it is impossible to avoid spending. We can’t just sit there and watch everyone eat, could we? Plus there are two of us, so it doubles the expense. Ultimately I don’t regret the time we spend with our friends and really the experience is worth more than any money in the world. But in saying that I hate being this much over our budget, maybe the budget was too low to start with. Last year we spent $1,750 on entertainment, so maybe I was just too unrealistic. Or I’m I just trying to justify our over spending? Argh...

The other categories are very reasonable most things that are over are only over by few dollars. The mobile phone budget is way over but I’m not that worried about it, our usage (for 2 mobile phones) is ridiculously low compare to most people. In the old days I used to spend $150 in a month on my mobile phone! My how I’ve changed my ways – I guess I was very young and stupid then. Even our grocery bill is only $20 over, which I’m very happy about. Overall, we are under by $600+! I can’t wait until the end of the year.







Edit: Opps! Clothing is actually over.

So here's to the second half of 2008. cheers!

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.

DH just took the car to the repairer yesterday to get the brakes fix. It cost $273, the cheapest one we could find. Other places were quoting as double that!

We also just received our annual car insurance the other day, it is due on the 17th of Jan. It's over $677.

Paid Gas and Electric bill the other too. All up it was $158.86. The electric bill is a bit high, it has been really hot around here. New years day it got to 42 deg Celcius and didn't get below 30deg until 5am the next morning. So our air conditioner has been getting a work out. Today it will be 37deg, same as yesterday. It's bloody hot!

Okay finally got all the final totals for December. We managed to save 25% of our income this month. It was actually more but I decided to put $200 into the Car Fund, $50 in the EF and $250 into upcoming Medical expense.

So these are the final numbers for 2007 goals:
1. Pay $11,500 off cc by July.
Total Paid = $10,014 (83%)
NG: Pay $12,000 off CC in 2007.
Updated:25/11/07

2. Pay off Personal Loan ~ $3,000 (around $2,100 left).
Total Paid = $2034.50 (100%)
NG: Pay off Personal Loan by July.
PAID OFF 19/07/07

3. Contribute $1,000 to Ret Fund.
Current Total = $1,750 (175%)
DONE June 07

4. Have $3,000 EF.
Current Total = $2,000 (66%)

5. Have $5,000 Saving.
Current Total = $13,375.72
(267%)

6. Have $1,000 Car Fund.
TTD = $2,050 (205%)
Deduct = $247.00 (Service & Batt)
Deduct = $550 (LPG & Parts)
Deduct = $575.40 (Car Rego)
Current Total = $677.60

7. Have $3,000 Holiday Fund.
TTD = $3,600.00 (120%)
Deduct= $540.33 (April Holiday)
Deduct= $2,888.69(O'seas Holiday)
Current Total = $128.18

8. Have $1,000 Xmas Fund.
Current Total = $655 (65%)
Xmas Spending = $633.62

9. Put $5,000 into Investment.
Current Total = $5,198 (103%)
DONE Dec 07

This is our overall financial performance for 2007:



EDIT: For some reason I my pie chart is not showing. SO I will just write it out.

Debt Repayments - 33%
Household Expenses - 13%
Transportation Expenses - 5%
Insurance Expenses - 3%
Educational Expenses - 5%
Other Expenses - 10%
Superannuation (Retirement) - 2% (this does not included our employers compulsory contribution which should be 9% of our pre-tax income).
Shares (Investments) - 7%
Mini Savings - 6% (these are cash savings for near future expenses, I really see this as an expense as well not as a saving.
SAVINGS - 16%

Hopefully this year we will have a higher percentage in the saving and investment items

Well, it has been a great year, and we hope to have an even better year in 2008.
I’ve been blogging for almost a year now. One of the best things I did this year was to put my goals in my blog where I got to see it almost every day. I didn’t quite achieve all my goals; however, I was aiming really high.

What have we achieved this year?

Credit Card debt – we managed to pay off more than 2/3rd of our CC debt. We could pay it all off now but choose not to. For us it makes more sense to put the money in the mortgage redraw account instead because of its higher interest rate. Will most likely get rid of it by the end of 2008 (maybe?).

Personal Loan and Retirement – The personal loan was paid off half way through the year. We used to pay $40 a week for this loan. We now used half of that amount to fund my retirement account, which the Australian government match it by 150%. Unfortunately, they only match up to $1K, that’s why I only put $40 every two weeks.

Emergency Fund – Sad to say that we only achieved 65% of this goal but might still have a bit of money to put in at the end of this month. I guess this wasn’t high in our priority list mainly because the saving in the redraw account of our mortgage can also be thought of as our EF but I really don’t want to think of this way. I really don’t want to touch that money unless we really really really have to. I’ve decided next year I’m going to set up a regular deposit into this account, plus any extra money I could find until it is fully funded.

Long Term Saving (Redraw Account) – It’s looking like that after this month we should have almost $14K into this account (although I will probably take some money out to put in the medical fund and other slush funds that need extra funding). So overall, we should have at least $13K into this account, which means we more than double my saving goal! We should be able to double this amount next year because DH will be receiving a big bonus and a severance payment after the work his working now finishes. The great thing is he already has a new job line up.

Car Fund – Although we more than achieved the goal, I would have really like to have a bit more in there to start saving for our next car. Also, our car insurance should be due next month (haven’t received the bill yet but I think it will be coming soon), which means this fund will be deflated even further. I think next year I will have a separate account for the car registration and car insurance as the Car Fund (for repairs and money towards the new car).

Holiday Fund – we are 20% over the budget but no regret what so ever. Next year will be more than this year we are already planning a nice couple of holidays. We will have to budget $5-$6K for it, I think. Of course, will try to spend less than that.

Christmas Fund – although was not fully funded we managed to have a great Christmas without going over the budget.
Investments – this went beyond my expectation, I really didn’t think we would have been able to achieve this one but somehow it did. This amount is not even including interests and/or dividends that we received.

Overall, this year our Net Worth surpassed the $100K mark.

Just cash in DH 2005 tax refund today, as promised I will put some of it to the EF. But decided to only put $300 (instead of $500 as I initially wanted) and put the $200 towards a medical expense that is schedule for some time in the next two months. I've already set up a Fund for it last month and already got $250, so this would make it $450 (about half way there). I might even put more money in it at the end of this month, depends how much saving we have at the end of this month.

Well, we managed to stay under budget. We still got just over $21 left in the Xmas fund.
I think I will use the left over for NY eve celebration. Our christmas was good, ate too much as per usual. Spent most of it buying great gifts. Just love giving gifts. It's great to have money set a side for this kind of occassions, no stress at all. We will be doing it again next year. I'm thinking of putting $70 p/month for it.

I'm still tinkering with my spending plan for next year, pretty much done. I'm getting really excited about next year, we will be focusing more on investing and saving. There will be quiet a bit of money coming in around early next year.

We are about to open 2 managed funds (maybe be 2?), domestic and international. Pretty much decided which once ones we want to get, we already got the money set aside for it (from the company shares that we sold few months ago). We will then be putting $100 p/m for each funds. Hoping to keep these for at least 10years or more, maybe until retirement. We'll see.

Overall, our spending this year has been very good, way better than the previous years. But I would like to do even better next year. I've already told DH of an idea I got on lowering our expenses (it will be our personal challenge for 2008), he seems to be with me in this one. I am in the process of putting together a plan to achieve this goal/challenge. And will blog about it once it's done. In my head it's achievable!

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.

It's that time of the month to update my sidebar numbers.

We managed to save 13% of Nov's income.
I've put a bit more money in the xmas Fund. I will also empty my piggy bank maybe next week, and that money will also go towards the xmas fund.

Last month of this year-long challenge, I can't believe we achieved so much. Budgeting does really help!

This is our Jan-Jun expenses and savings:



I can't believe half of our income went to Debt repayments!

This is what we hope to get in the next 6 months:





I will do more itemised analysis later.