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Archive for January, 2008

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January 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am

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.

Car Expenses & Other Bills

January 4th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

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!

OUR $20K CHALLENGE

January 2nd, 2008 at 09:37 am

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.

Final Recap of 2007

January 1st, 2008 at 12:29 pm

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 Smile