The soon to be new cafe near work offered free coffee to everyone in our building. The place is actually not opening for another week, but they are trying out their new coffee machine and wanted to get feedback on there coffee. It was very nice.

Did some shopping for gifts today, everyone here is having a sale at the moment because of end of financial year.

Also today I got my payment summary from work, which what we need to file for our tax. I just need to get my other financial information together this weekend and hopefully next week I should be able to send the info to my accountant. I should be getting over $1,000 back. Hopefully, I can get it by mid-next month.

Wow...definite sign that the US economy is slowing down.

Yesterday was a no spender, which made a 2 NSD in a row. We don't get much of those these days. So that was a good feeling. Today was a different story though. Went to Borders and got the Smurf Box Set for a gift. It was on special, a saving of $11. I also bought a book for myself, it was half price. I just realised it's the first book I bought for more than 1 year, maybe even 2 years. I really can't remember when the last time a book for myself. I used to always buy books to keep. This one is one of those authors that I collect. We also ended up eating out for dinner. That was $16 that we didn't need to spend. It was DH's shout, so it is coming out of his allowance money.


Interesting News: Just heard from the news today that Costco is opening a mega store here in Melbourne Australia. I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad news yet. I guess good that it will increase competition and eventually drive prices down. Something that we do need here is more competition. We don't have store like Costco at the moment so it would be very interesting to see how it affect the market.

We had a NSD yesterday, and today should also be a NSD (fingers crossed DH doesn't spend any money today). He shouldn't need to fill up the car, he did that the other day. There is no bill due until next week. But we have a birthday lunch to go to on Sat, so I will have to get a gift and lunch will cost a bit. We also need to get some more milk and maybe some bread.

I'm looking at getting some shares next week or so. I took some money from saving to put into my trading account. Some of it is the money from the car fund. Since we are not looking at getting another car for at least another 5 years, I rather use some of the money to get some shares. I put $5,000 in the account; $1,700 is from the car fund. I left $300 in the fund for the upcoming car service cost. I guess I will find out in the future whether this was a good idea or not. I don't think I will loss all $1,700, if for some reason it is not going the right way then I can always pull it out. Also I should also be able to getting some dividends.

Enrolment was done the other day. Payment is not due until late next month so we should have enough money for it if I put extra money in it this month and next month. Will be doing 2 subjects and it will cost over $2,000.
Have a great day everyone!

Yesterday's NSD did not eventuate due to DH getting fuel for the car. He decided to fill up yesterday because a lot of the service station already started putting the prices up so he took advantage of getting it before it goes up again.

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.

I'm hoping that today will be a NSD. It's public holiday today so no work for both DH and myself, it's our Queens Birthday. We are not planning to go any where so it would also be No Gas Day.
I'm just planning to do some cleaning and cooking.

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 today. Woo hoo.

I was hoping to have a NSD today but DH forgot his lunch this morning and had to get a loaf of bread. Luckily, he had some cans of tuna in his office and only had to get some bread. So he only spent a bit of money which will be coming out of his allowance.

Today was a NSD, first one for the month.
Nothing much is happening here, financial wise. We've been away also. Spent a bit of money but nothing major, which will come out of the holiday fund.

I'm so excited, DH got paid yesterday and it included some back pay of about $1,500. This means we might be able to fully fund not only the Xmas Fund but also the Emergency Fund this month. And should be able to put a bit more in the Car Fund.




I also just got a check from my health insurance, they are contributing $49.95 towards my $400 bill for the anesthesists. I'm still waiting for the Medicare check before I can pay the bill. Hopefully they will contribute a bit more, the more I can get from them the less I will have to pay out of pocket. But every little bit helps.

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On the news today, here in Victoria (Australia) we just reached a record high price of over $1.50 per litre of petrol. The highest one was actually $1.52(+). Converting that into US Gallon, it will be around $5.75 per gallon!!! Aren't you guys glad you are not driving your car around here? And I am just so glad that we converted to LPG!!

We just got back from our holiday, visiting families. I didn't have time to blog before we left last week. Our holiday was great, we just went interstate to New South Wales (near Sydney). All up we spent just over $220, this is including the airfare which was paid last year. I will take the costs out of our holiday fund, which should still leave us about $600 in there.

Well, I got to catch up reading everyones blog so catch up with you guys later.

Well we made our pizza for lunch yesterday. DH made the dough and I made the sauce and prepared all the toppings. We made two, one had the lot (with all toppings on it) the other one was half tomato and basil toppings and the other half had salami, grilled capsicum and chillies (DH loves chillies). Costs wise, I have estimated:
Dough ~ 55cents
Sauce ~ 30cents
Toppings ~ $1.65 (apart from salami, anchovies & olives and the rest were produce from the garden - grilled eggplant, tomatoes, basils, and chillies).
Cheese ~ $1.00 (I bought the cheese for $4.30 and used less than 1/4 of it)

Both DH and I like our pizza extra thin and not too many toppings, so we didn't really have to use up much. All up the 2 pizzas cost us about $3.50. We had about half of it for lunch.

About 1/2 an hour after lunch my mum stopped by for a visit and had some of the pizza. She like the one with the lot, not so much the one with chillies, a bit too hot for her.

The rest of the pizza we ate just before we went out for dinner for a friend's birthday.

At last night's dinner I only had soup, I was still too full and couldn't even finish it. I did also have a little bit of DH's burger and fries. I thought the burger wasn't that good and DH actually mentioned it this morning that he didn't enjoy it that much. It didn't have sauce and the patty was not very good at all. Oh well, we went there for the company not for the food.

The weather today was 40 degrees Celcius (about 105 deg F.), so it was a stinker. I had a massive headache all day. It was really hard to concentrate at work, I thought I was going to throw up a few times. I had to go to the bathroom and wash my face with some cold water and took couple of tablets. I was probably dehydrated, even though I keep drinking water it was still not enough.

After work we had to go get some milk and other stuff. It was such a relief being inside the shops where it was so much cooler. We do have an air conditioner at work but it's not working properly, if we put it too low it gets really icy cold, especially for the girl that sits right under the vent. Anyway, so DH and I decided to stay in the shops until it cooled down outside (a late change was forecast). Since we were there we decided to get some needed clothing for DH and some not so needed ones for me. Luckily everyone seems to be having a sale. DH really needed some running socks and work pants. All up we spent just over $83, and with it we got:
5 pairs of socks - $9.45
2 business pants - $25.00
2 long sleeves tops - $19.00
2 sweaters - $30.00

While shopping we started talking about making pizza for dinner, we both agreed to not bother. DH was still really full from his big lunch at work (they went to an all you can eat place), and I wasn't that hungry either. So, we decided to postpone the pizza until lunch tomorrow (we will be going out tomorrow night) and just shared something light which cost $8.50 including a can of drink.

By the time we got out it ws already 8:30pm and the weather has cool down to about 30deg (86degF). This is very typical of our weather here, a shift in the wind direction can change the temp quite dramatically.

When we got home it was already 9pm but the house was still hot, so we had to open the doors and windows to let the cool air in. 9pm is just too late to start making pizza, not too mention it was too hot, so eating out wasn't such a bad idea under these circumstances.

Well tonight, I was able to harvest a leek, capsicum, some chillies, more tomatoes and eggplants. Also got some more basil and parsley. DH was also able to get 2 figs from our fig tree.

Tonight's dinner was chicken with leek and figs cooked in a dash of balsamic vinegar, a little bit of chicken stock and a dollop of cream, then garnish with parsley. Only used about 200g of chicken breast. The chicken stock and cream were leftovers and did to finish it off before it goes off. All up this dish probably only cost about $2.50.

To go with it was spaghetti pasta with home made basil pesto, which I made a few weeks ago and have just put in the freezer. This probably cost about 70cents. There are some left overs which I will have for lunch tomorrow at work.

Also made some more tomato and basil salad. Maybe 10cents for the extra virgin olive oil! ha!

Tonight's dinner all up cost about $3.40 ($1.70 p/person). This also includes my lunch tomorrow. DH will be going out for lunch tomorrow, he is invited to a farewell lunch. He will have pay for his own food though.

Oh tomorrow night's dinner will be pizza. I will be using the eggplant and capsicum, which I've already grilled tonight. I will write more about it tomorrow.

We came home from work tonight and before I even came inside the house, I went to look at our vegetable garden ( which I tend to do most days). I just love coming home and seeing what new things has grown in the garden.

We didn't have anything organised for dinner, so I decide dinner will be what ever we've got in the garden. I didn't want to spent too much time cooking tonight, I wanted something healthy, light and quick to cook.

Well, I ended up making 3 small dishes. I was able to pick some eggplants, few ripe tomatoes (2 different kinds), basil and parsley. Oh and DH was able to pick 2 small strawberries lol.. they are really out of season now here.

Out of those I made:

Tomato and Basil with olives Salad - I thinly sliced the tomatoes, spread on a plate and then spread a hand-torn basil on top with a handful of olives. Drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. There is something about tomatoes and basil they just go so well together.

Eggplant with Scrambled Eggs - I cooked the eggplant over open flame (with skin on). The charred/burnt flavour is really nice. Once soft, peel off the burnt skin and flatten eggplant with fork gently. I scrambled 4 eggs just with salt and pepper. I also put some of the basil and parsley in the eggs. Dip the eggplant into the eggs and then pan fried.

Diced Tomatoes with Scrambled eggs - with the left over eggs I cooked it with diced tomatoes, garlic, spring onions, the left over basil and parsley.

Had all of this with steamed rice. All up it took about 25mins from picking the vegies to our first delicious bite.

Financially our dinner only cost about:
4 eggs = 65cents
rice = 10cents
olives = 35cents
garlic & spring onions = 20cents
salt & pepper = 2cents
oil = 15cents
Water & Gas = 3cents
tomatoes = free
Eggplants = free
Basil = free
Parsley = free

TOTAL ~ $1.50 (which is 75cents per person)
hahaha .. I'm just being silly now! but it's really interesting.

Now what to do with those 2 small strawberries (which are about the size of a couple of peas!).

Hoping today will be a NSD.
Every bit helps.
So far this month we've already spent over $6,000! We are not even half way the month yet! Oh my!
The biggest items are tuition, surgery, and mortgage. These items alone adds up to about over $5,800.
I did have $1,500 in the funds to cover some of the tuition and surgery. Unfortunately, the surgery was twice as much as I budgeted it to be. I decided to go for a more experience expert surgeon, I didn't want to risk it. Overall, I'm glad I did, no regrets at all. I should be able to get some money back (rebate) from my insurance, maybe about $350-$400 back.

Well, the reserve bank has increase our official rate again!! WHY?? Another quarter of percent, which means another $35-$40 per month for us. ARGHHH!!!
Somebody stop the bleeding. This is the 12th consecutive rate increase. And there's talks of more to come this year.

In my last post, I blogged about our problem with our home phone and internet bill, well after two phone calls in two days, we are getting our money back. They have overcharged our internet bill so they will be crediting $10 off to our next bill, there was a miscalculation. The $22+ they were going to charge us for some sort of fee for our home phone has now been taken off (to be fair they offer to take it off before we could asked for it). So that’s over $30 we don’t have to spend. I know it not much but it means a lot to our $20K challenge, to achieve our goal we really have watch every dollar we spend. I would really rather spend that $30 on something that I care about. I could buy 10 cups of coffee with that .

I don’t know what is going on with these companies; two months ago our gas company was trying to charge us extra $24 (which was about 30% of the total bill). The overcharge according to them was for “gas market congestion charge”, that is because for 1 day during winter it was so cold that they run out of gas and had to get more from some supplier for a premium. It was really stupid, things like this should only be part of running a business. Thankfully, they come to their senses and withdrew the charges few days later. Probably after everyone calling them up, complaining about it. I’m sure that was not legal thing to do and they probably got in trouble for it.

All these incidents prove that we should really be aware of our Credit card charges and bills. I’m sure these companies make a lot of money from people who don’t check their bills. A simple phone call could solve most of the problem. Although ringing them can take a lot of time, as DH found out, even though our home phone and internet is in a bundle package he still had to make two phone calls.

So, the reserve bank did increase our official rate to another 1/4%. So for us it means another $35-$40 per month in interest extra to pay.

Not only is our inflation is getting out of control, which making everything else very expensive to buy but housing is really expensive right now.

I guess this is good for our retirement investments, but retirement is 30+ years away!

Although, DH and I are pretty lucky to have bought a house when the prices weren't as crazy as it is now. Right a lot of people can't afford to buy there own house. And with this new interest increases a lot of people will be force to foreclose thier homes. They predict that thousands of people could loss their homes this year (keep in mind Aust only has a population of just over 20million).

So, eventhough I am complaining about it, overall we are very lucky. We have some savings and our only small amount CC debt is very low rate for the life of it.

Just seating here watching the news and waiting to see whether the reserve bank will increase the rate again. Some are saying that they might increase it another 1/2 percent. it was only last month the the bank (without the reserve bank increasing it) increase their rates. So it could mean another $50 increase per month.

The reserve bank is force to increase it because of inflation rate is getting out of control.

Luckily, we should be getting at least 20K+ next month, which we will put in the mortgage.

Saved money today by washing the car by hand. You might think what's the big deal, people wash their own car everyday. Well, here in Victoria, Australia due to the drought we have water restrictions right now and part of it is we are only allowed to wash our car using a bucket (we cannot use the hose). Or you can go to a carwash that use recycle water, which cost quite a bit. It took forever to wash the darn thing (it was filthy, haven't been wash for months), and was really hot too.

It saved me around $15-$20 dollars.

I been meaning to blog but for some reason something always gets in the way. I've even started a blog couple of times but never managed to finish it.

There have been a lot of things happening here. We just got a letter from our electric company last week advising us that our bill will now be going up by 14%. Thanks for that!

Also last week our mortgage company has again increase rate by 0.2%. So, that's another ~$35p/m. Thank you very much!

Plus there's more, our water bill will also be going up around 20% per year for the next 5years to cover the cost for the new desalination (sp?) plant. Yeah baby!

Really these are just the few reasons to tighten the spending further.

We did a lot of cooking this weekend. I've already got my menu set up for the rest of the month and we shouldn't need to get much more stuff. We probably will need more milk and some fresh veggies, another $10 worth of food. Still got ~$40 in the grocery budget so, I'm really hoping to be able to save some money on groceries this month.

We have so far spent 3% (%585.72) of the $20K Challenge.

Ahhh, I need sleep now. Good night.

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!

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!

It has a link to the savingadvice forum.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/29/pf/bestweb_tracking.moneymag/index.htm?postversion=2007120413