Was meant to do this blog few days ago but I have been in pain. My neck and left shoulder has been really sore for a week now. It was worst yesterday, DH had to help me get out of bed.It is feeling a bit better today after taking few painkillers yesterday. I hate taking medicines, I normally refuse to take any until I can't take it anymore. Typing still hurts my shoulder a bit but the neck is a lot better.

Anyway, our final total for 2010 for our living expenses (excluding mortgage) came to $22,468. That is $3,468 over the budget. The main problem were:

-Entertainment over $1,141 (we went crazy and the budget was not realistic, I have increase this item this year)

-Medical/Personal Expense over $702 (a lot of major injuries last year and it appears that is still continuing now)

-Clothes/Manchester over $606 (had to buy DH a new suit for new job and other items that we probably didn't need)

-Fuel & Fare over $433 (just general increase in price, i have also increase the budgeted amount for these items this year.

- Utilities over $326 (again fees have been going up and will continue to this year)

- Groceries over $246 (this is not bad at all, our budget here is tight to start with but a $3,046 groceries for a year for 2 adults who loves food is fairly reasonable)

- Misc Items over $179 (we need to cut this out this year).

Well, there you go not a very good year last year but I am hoping to improve this year.

We did managed to more than achieved our financial goals (sidebar goals), however I wasn't as good at keeping up with the non-financial goals. The good thing about a new year is we can start and try again. I have a feeling that this year will be better than 2010. DH and I had good talked yesterday (while I was stuck on the sofa dealing with my neck and shoulder) about what we want to achieved this year. Our priority will be to renovate the bathrooms and then pre-paying the mortgage as much as possible. To start with we put in $500 into the mortgage principal yesterday in the middle of our discussions. And we also agreed to put in another $1000 on Friday when DH gets paid for this month. We could put a bit more but we need to keep cash on hand for the renovation.

I will put up my 2011 goals later, I think I need to rest my shoulder for now.

I hope everyone is having a great new year so far.