DH just received $194.60 dividend for one of his stock, it will all be reinvested.

Most of our dividends are being paid this time of the year & I love it.

Got a phone call from our internet provider, they are calling again to get us to sign up for a 12-month contract with a 10% off. Last time they called I think they wanted 24 months, which DH said No to. This time DH agreed for the 12-month deal. They will also give us $10 credit per month for 6 months on our home phone, it is with the same provider. It is about $120 worth of saving for us.

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I've been enjoying reading everyone's $1K lists.

I think the only thing worth over 1K before I meet DH was my second hand car that was worth $2K. And I guess my education, which I haven't fully paid off yet anyway. DH and I spend a lot on our education almost every year on both formal and informal studies.

Apart from the House and Car which is really DH's purchases. Here's ours list, the ones that I can remember:

Wedding/Rings/Honeymoon ~$20K

Bed Set (Mattress, Bed frame, 2 bedside tables, and Tallboy) - $2.7K great sale price

Gift to Parent - $2K (2002)

Overseas Holiday - $3K

Laptop - $1.2K but it included wireless router and powerboard w/ surcharge and also got some tax refund for it, so this probably ended up to be less than $1K

Interstate Holiday - $1.3K

LPG Convertion for the Car - $2.4K but got 2K rebate back from the gov't and we have also saved so much more from reducing our fuel cost.

Gift to Parent - $4K (2008)

Dental Surgery ~$2K it included Hospital excess pay, but I did get some rebate so all up it would have been around that.

New Gutter - $2.9K

Roof Restoration - $1.3K

Gift to relative for hospital cost for major medical surgery - $3K (2008)

Electrical work - $1.9K (2009) There is more work that needs to be done here but hoping it won't be as much as this.

Repairs and renovation -$2.9K (so far this year). This incl plumbing work and materials, we did most of the labour ourselves.

*I call them "gift" because it is better to think of them that way, no resentment. I really don't believe in lending money to family and friends, it ruins relationships. We gave away quite a bit of money last year, but we were lucky too last year because we earnt so much more than expected. I've never talked about this before, not even here. I believe in helping out because we have been there before too and we were lucky to have someone help us out just for the seek of helping out without expecting anything back.

A lot of our big purchases is for house improvement and holidays. I'm amaze that a lot of our holidays didn't make the list. We do have our upcoming holiday that will most likely cost around $2.5K.

That's all I can think of for now, I don't think there's any left really.

We decided to start putting our monthly savings into our mortgage redraw again, starting this month. It is most likely that our interest rate will go up before the end of the year. So we want to put some extra money in it to keep within our current payments.

I've mentioned before how for a year now we been putting our monthly savings into the stock market. Lately, I haven't been able to find another stock to buy, not that I'm looking that hard though. I'm really waiting for the market to retrace a bit before getting in again. In the mean time there are few grand in the trading account waiting for the next buy. But we won't be putting any more money in it for the next few months, maybe not until next year again.

Sunday (which was yesterday here) was spent working around the house. DH and I got up late and had a very late breakfast. DH decided then to clean the gutter and resealed a couple of the joints where it has been leaking a bit. I on the other hand did some weeding in the herb garden and tidying up the front garden, raking leaves and pulling some more weeds. DH was also planning to do some spraying at the back but it's very windy around here at the moment so hoping he will get that done next weekend. I'm hoping we can get rid of the weeds in the next month coz I want to aerate the lawn soil and then spread more grass seeds before it gets too hot again.

The herbs are doing really well at the moment, I got some coriander (cilantro), flat parsley and rosemary. I just planted some basil last week, I don't know if they will survive, probably a bit early for them. The capsicums (bell peppers) are also doing well considering I haven't really been looking after it. There are about a dozen of them in just 2 small plants. I was going to pick 2 of them yesterday but the bee buzzing around kept me out.

All up we spent almost 3 hours outside working, it was nice weather except for the wind. Afterwards we had our afternoon tea in front of the tv watching Australian football. It was just a very nice Sunday at home and it was a NSD.

It was a very tiring day, DH and I spent the whole day shopping. Spending (and making) money can be tiring. Got some really nice bargain today though. We bought:
An engagement gift for next week for $29 (down from $70)
Slazenger sunglasses for DH, good for when he plays tennis or go running - only $15 down from $100, 85% off!
I also got 2 sunglasses, I only really was planning to get 1 but it was such a good price that I decided to get 2 coz I couldn't decided which one to get and plus it was within my budget. I budgeted $200 for a new sunglasses. I ended up paying just over $203 for a Gucci and an Oroton brand. I'm normally not that into brand names but these were good and most importantly actually fit my face. Besides the only other ones that I liked and fitted my face was already around $170-$199. Also the Oroton one is prescriptibles, it will be nice to wear sunglasses without having to have contact lenses on, which I hate wearing.
We also stopped by at Aldi, the tomatoes and mushrooms were really cheap today. Only spent $21.22 on groceries today. We should have enough food for the rest of the month.

Well that was our Saturday, now I'm beat and all I want now is to eat dinner and watch tv all night.

Costco just opened its first ever store here in Australia yesterday. Its first store is in Melbourne so it is not that far from where we are. Apparently there were some people that drove for hours just to go to Costco. I'm not sure if I want to pay $60 (Aust dollar) just to have a look. I don't think we buy enough to make it worthy of becoming a member. I think I will wait and see what it is like in few months time. I still think this is good for increasing competion around here. We need it.

We had a big weekend spent way too much at Nobu, but it was so good. We really didn't do much because the weather was horrible, raining and really windy.

Not much to update these days. We've been pretty good with NSDs so far this month.

We will be going out to Nubo Japanese restaurant this weekend for some celebration so that will be quite pricey.

The Aust market is still going up like crazy, I've closed out my short trade. Loss some from it but the up side of my individual shares more than covered by almost 3 times. The portfolio just hit 40% profit today, I really doubt that this will stay up this high though.

Nothing much happening here. Just paid off our accommodation for our next vacation.

We haven't been grocery shopping for over 2 weeks, apart from getting milk, bread and that, I just been using up whatever we got in the pantry and freezer. But I think we really need to go this weekend. I might make a menu plan and shopping list later today.

Just heard from the news that our employment numbers are a lot better than expected. Our economy is looking a lot better that before and this could mean an increase to our interest rate by the end of the year. We have definitely avoided the recession here in Australia.

Stock market talk - could be boring for some.

I'm just thinking out loud here, just sorting out information in my head.

Few entries back I talked about my share portfolio. It is still doing well and it is now up 31%. The Australian stock market has been going up for 3 weeks up without a decent retracement. SO you know sooner or later this thing will need to go down. Right now there is this urge of selling all or some of my shares, but really I don't want to do this because:
1) I still think they could still go up in the long-run and I don't mind keeping these investments for few years yet.
2) Capital Gains Tax is also an issue - most of them are less than 12 months old therefore here in Australia I will have to pay full tax on them (here if it is more than 12 months you only need to pay CGT on 50% of them).
3) They are all about to pay dividends in the next month or so. That should be another 3-5% increase in the portfolio.

The option that I am leaning at the moment, instead of selling up, is to maybe cover some of it by going short on the Aust index (futures contract). And at the same time just keep moving up those stop loss order.

I got to do more research.

The actual trip it self wasn't as much as I expected it to be, it was about $100 less than I anticipated (all up we spent just under $310. What cost a bit that wasn't in my budget was when I broke my favourite sunnies . While trying to put my gear on I dropped it and simultaneously took a step forward, with my ski boot on I stepped on it breaking it into several pieces. There was no rescuing it. I bought that thing less than 3 years ago for $180, so that was the unexpected cost. I will need a new one before we go away for our vacation to the Whitsundays (to the beach) in few weeks time . I was actually thinking already of getting a new one (with prescription) this christmas. I guess I will be getting it earlier than planned but I will just get an ordinary sunnies and keep wearing contact lenses. I was also already planning to get my new prescription glass this month but I think I might get them around Christmas time and I think I will get one with transition lenses instead. I seem to have a lot to think about .

Fortunately and unfortunately it wasn't sunny, so I didn't really need my sunglasses but it wasn't the best condition for skiing. There wasn't much fresh snow so it was more ice. This is not the best snow field in Victoria, and we would definitely will go somewhere else next time. The place took almost 4 hours to get to, next time I would rather we go to the ones that take 6 hours or so but nicer resorts. I would also prefer to go for few days rather than just a day trip to get more time on the snow.



Not the best weather. Loved watching the kids and some adults getting ski and snow board lessons.