Start of new financial year so Health Insurance has gone up again.

Gift expense is going to be big this month, we got 1 wedding and 2 major birthday to buy for.

Overall we were under budget



Had 11 NSDs for the month and put in $560 into Goal #4. Also paid some extra into the mortgage.

Budget for this month.

Pretty good month.



Had $420 leftover for the month, I decided to put it into Goal #4. We will need probably around $500 for our anniversary in 3 months time.

The main things that happened to us financially these last few months:
- Our net worth hit the $500K mark.
- Our mortgage is now under the $100K mark.

I don't really know where the time went. We have been away a bit and just haven't had the energy to blog, which is not good financially. Luckily, we haven't gone too crazy and we got some more money come in than expected. I have been keeping up with my financial recording just not blogging.

We got back from our overseas holiday late Feb (it was a great holiday; we had a nice family reunion). We packed in a lot in a short time. There was a lot of flying and driving around. Unfortunately, 3 days after we got home DH's grandmother passed away. We again flew away to interstate for the funeral. We were there for few days. I don't really know what happen to March, it really took me a whole month to recover from our trips. Financially it was good (it was a two pay month for DH) we got to put $3,000 extra into the mortgage and a bit more into our other goals for this year (see side bar).

April was again busy, I had my birthday celebration and a close friend's wedding (there was a lot of going out including hen’s night, etc.). Our entertainment budget got a workout, we spent ¼ of our whole year entertainment budget in that month. Yikes! Income was lower than usual, DH’s pay was wrong again. I didn’t put anything extra into the mortgage that month but put $1550 into Goal#3.

May was a normal month, we went a bit over on groceries and gifts for mother’s day. There was a bit more income because of April pay mistake. Put $3500 extra into the mortgage and $1K into the household fund.

So far this month we haven’t spent that much. We went away again on the weekend (we had a 3-day weekend here –the Queen’s birthday public holiday). Tomorrow would have been DH’s grandmother’s 93rd birthday. We bought the plane tickets back in December for this month long-weekend to see her, unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. DH’s parent was at least happy to have us again over and we did go to the cemetery to pay our respect. Only spent $163 for the trip, the tickets were paid back in December. We got some extra money this month because of tax refund and DH’s parents gave us $500, they got some inheritance money.

DH just ordered a new phone it will be around $160, hopefully it will be a good one. DH ordered it last week just before he got the cash gift from his parents, good timing I say.

This month's spending plan



Not planning to do much this month since we will be away for most of it.

We could only put in another $1,000 extra into the mortgage this month.

Also put $1330 into the Holiday Fund.

Only read 1 book - massive fail.

We run 6 times in the month. My best time was just over 32 minutes (just over 4km track).

I almost forgot to post this. We did well last year by posting our monthly budget here. It just helps so much.




We are in a bit of heatwave here at the moment. Today it will most likely hit 40+ celsius. And the wind is picking up which is not good, it's the same condition we experienced during that horrible Black Saturday, 4 years ago. Today is a total fire ban, this includes a ban on using power tools like a grinder.

Because of this heat DH and I haven't been able to go running since New year's day. I'm hoping we will be able to go tomorrow when the weather will be under 30.

This is what our 2013 spending plan looks like. We are again aiming to only spend $21K for these items.

I've spent a bit of time this afternoon setting up my 2013 personal finance excel. I pretty much just copied the 2012 set up. I have worked out our master plan for the whole year. It has the monthly budget from Jan to Dec and also the estimated income (based on the 2012 numbers). It pretty much tells me where every cent should go every month. It is also set up to ensure our financial goals next year will be achieve by having an action plan.

Today I came up with another goal (non-financial) to be able to run around the track that we normally run at twice by the end of next year. I came up with it while running. Right now it take me about 40-45mins to go around it (once). I can't even imagine running around it twice yet. Half of the time I spend my time walking instead of running/jogging. I think if I can do it non-stop I can get my time down to around 30mins.