Layout:
Home > Archive: March, 2017

Archive for March, 2017

Car Service and Repairs

March 28th, 2017 at 09:11 am

Car Service/Repairs – Total cost was a whopping $836! We got 2 new tyres for $198, they suggested that the front tyres can last until the next service. They had to replace the front brake pads that cost $203.50, again the rear one can be done next time. They suggested to just re-gas the A/C, because our car is quite old now it would be better to just re-gas it every year or so it would cost a lot more to repair it. The re-gassing was $110. They had to replace 4 wheel nuts for $88. The rest was then for the all other car services that needed to be done.

Grocery – I got DH to do the grocery shopping again and told him we only got $16 left in the budget this month. He went to Aldi and only spent $15.70. With that he got a whole chicken, 3 litre milk, 4 bananas, 1 punnet of strawberries and 1 dozen eggs. We will probably need to get more milk later this week or we could use the long-life milk we have for emergency, we probably will I'm sure the expiry date on it is probably close.

Scanner App – We have started some of our paper work that we wanted to digitalised. We have an old scanner printer but it a pain to use, it take about 2 mins to just scan a page and then you have take out the SD card to save it into the computer. We thought about getting a new one and we almost did but then DH wanted to think about it some more. Last week DH took our old Electric bill and Gas bill to work to get it scanned, they’ve got great industrial scanner at work it only took him minutes to scan 7 years worth of bills. Now that we don’t get paper bills for these 2 we wanted to get the old scan them and throw them out (I actually shredded them and put it in the compost). We still got hundreds of paper work to scan which will not be possible for DH to take to work. He then looked into Scanner Apps, just using his phone camera he tried it a couple different Apps he preferred the second one he found. After using for a while he decided to buy it for $2.60 (was on sale from $5), worth paying to get rid of the watermark of their company logo. Anyway, it is so much more efficient than our old scanner. DH love using it. He was just sitting in front of the TV while watching a cricket game scanning away. This one it saves it automatically into a PDF and then DH can easily just email it to or save it google drive.

Other Spending – Got more soil for the garden, $11.85. Gas for the car was $42. I also gave my mum $300.

More shoes shopping

March 20th, 2017 at 09:44 am

Grocery – We spent $61.94 on food this weekend. We only got $16 left in the budget for the rest of the month so we most likely won’t be able to stay on budget this month. We will try not to go over too much. We have been under budget in the last 2 months so there a little bit of a wiggle room, about $20.

House Repair - Fixed our bedroom door that wasn’t closing properly, the hinges was coming loose – easily fixed.

Mum - We went to my mum’s place for lunch on Sunday. She had an eye surgery on Friday for cataract so we thought we visit her to see how she was going. DH was actually the one that picked her up after her surgery. The hospital was near the city so DH drove to work on Friday, parking cost was $16. He left work an hour early to pick her up and the parking at the hospital was $10.20. DH also went to the pharmacy to get her prescription meds which he paid for just under $17.

Shopping – After lunch we left our dog at my mum to go shopping. My mum actually used to own this dog, long story short we feel in-love with her and kind of stole her. Spent an hour shopping for DH’s running shoes ($110), also got myself a wallet (my current one is all scuffed up) it was 40% off for $35, and we got a cup of latte to share for $4.70.

That’s pretty much our spending for the weekend. Tomorrow DH is taking the car for service including getting new tyres and I think maybe also getting the air con looked at. I have a feeling it is going to cost a bit.

Last 2 weeks

March 15th, 2017 at 06:56 am

Camping – We went camping last weekend, finally! DH was very happy about. The weather was just perfect for camping. We took the dog for the first time camping, she did well but didn’t get much nap so she was very tired when we got home. The cost for the site was $25 and we got food for $22.70, so less than $50 for a weekend away. Pretty good. The area where we went to is known for mineral spring water most people that go here go to mineral spas. And since it is only about an hour away from Melbourne it is very popular place. The camping site actually have a pump set up so people would just go there to get fresh mineral spring water. You have to go on a short hike to get there but it is pretty easy walk and along the way there were wild blackberries everywhere which were very sweet.

Hot air balloon- We got woken up Sunday morning by a hot air balloon being set up only about 100 metres away from our camp. Some people were not happy about it because it was pretty loud but really it was already 7am so it wasn’t really that early. I thought it was really cool seeing it up close and it only lasted about 15 minutes and they were off. But someone woman got very upset about it.

Groceries – Last weekend on the way home we stopped by at Aldi and spent $86.95. This weekend we spent $135.11. A bit more than I was hoping to spend but I found porterhouse steaks at 40% off, so I ended up getting 2 trays for just over $20. Just have to grab them when they are that cheap because they never seemed to be on sale when I actually want to get some. I also bought a 20kilo bag of rice which should last for months.

Fish Tank – The filter in the fish tank died and also it started leaking. DH bought a new filter for $44.82 and he also got a tube of silicone to fix the tank.

Other Expenses – I bought some clothes $33. DH got train ticket and filled up the car. Also the water bill for just under $230.

FEB 2017

March 7th, 2017 at 01:25 am

FEBRUARY NUMBERS –
Mortgage was $918.79.
Other Expenses totalled $1,338.76, I love Feb it’s normally a very low expense month. There was no utilities bill due this month.

Books – Not as many as Jan but I started another 3 books around the same time last month - don’t know why I did that. Also in the last week or so we decided to try out Foxtel (cable), so instead of reading I’ve been catching up on GOT, The Walking Dead, Wentworth and so many other shows that only on Foxtel. We only got the free trial for 2 weeks, ending this Friday so I’m trying to watch it as much as I can humanly do.
Kill Switch - Steven Lee (4 Feb)
The Whisper of Stars -Nick Jones (8 Feb)
The Devil's Secret - T.G. Stevens (10 Feb)
Someone to Love - Jude Deveraux (15 Feb)
Avoidables - Rachel Medhurst (18 Feb)


*Workout 4 times a week – did alright on this. I’ve finished the program that I was following and I’ve now again started it, another 4 months of it.

*Continue the 'no buying soft drinks' rule this year. Still haven’t bought any.

*Get back to blogging, at least once per week. Done

*Re-do landscaping in both front and back yard. Still working on it, this will be a year-long projects.

*Use floss and piksters everyday. Have not failed yet

*Wake-up before 7am. I’m failing at this miserably.

*Continue getting rid of "Stuff". Still doing well I got another big bag of stuff I need to take to goodwill. I’ve also shredded a lot of papers.

*Organise my emails. I still need to do this and worst thing is that in the last few months I’ve been getting a bit of spams.