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Archive for October, 2018

WEEK 42

October 23rd, 2018 at 09:06 am



We did a bit of gardening this weekend even though it rained a lot. Not much else really happened here.

Grocery = $57.10. This will be it for the month since we are going away.

Clothes = socks, tracksuit and leggings for $20.98

Sunscreen and eye drops = $15.45

SAVING CHALLENGE

October 19th, 2018 at 02:20 am



Saving for Caravan/Campervan/Camper Trailer Challenge

For the last couple of years now DH and I have been discussing that in the future we would like to get either a caravan, camper trailer or even a van that we can convert into a campervan. The reason why we hired one when we went to Tasmania back in May is because we wanted to try what it would be like sleeping in one. We want to travel around Australia (or at least part of it), this will probably happen in 5-years’ time and maybe hopefully even sooner than that. And we believed this one of the best way to see this beautiful country of ours.

AIM: $15K in 3 years (at least a starting point)

By/From:
- Gifts – any gifts we receive that’s useful to us (I will decide on individual basis)
- Savings from Grocery – we will stick to our $300 p/m budget if we spend less than this amount the leftover money will go to this saving challenge.
- Savings from Entertainment Money – same goes with this, we will have $150p/m budget (Netflix is included in this amount).
- Any Cash Rewards that we might get (eg. Credit card rewards)
- NSD’s – ($3 per NSD) – I actually still take note of our NSDs in my spreadsheets, so I would like to bring this back just like when I used to save up for my Sunny day savings few years back.
- Savings from buying something we NEED cheaper. Good incentive to make sure we are getting the best value for our money.
- Extra Income – if it happens I would like to put part of it in this saving challenge (Any of our current or future investment income, eg. Dividend money is not included in this)
- Tax refund – If any, I would like some of it to go here also.
- Trading Income – I very rarely do trading these days, the last time was over a year ago. I just haven’t been motivated enough to do all that work, I just been investing long-term, so much less work. But I think I might start doing it again but with very small amount of money and if I make some I will put a percent of the profit into this challenge. DH also pledges to contribute some money into this saving challenge if he makes some money from his trading. He does a bit more trading when he has time, he likes it, he likes following the market. I have just over $1,700 in my CFD trading account. DH probably got around that same amount in his account, whenever he gets his account above $2K he takes some out as reserves and when it goes below $1.5K he put some back in. It really is just “play” money.

I’m going to keep this money separate so I’m thinking of opening a new bank account or maybe a sub-account from our current savings account if it is available I haven’t checked yet.

Normally I would have started this challenge in the beginning of next year but I’m really eager so I’m going to start next month. I just read a book that also motivated me to start now, why wait? We will try to keep our spending plan to as close to this year for next year.
DH is about to finish the tax return for the last financial year; I’m hoping we will get some more money this time. Last time we had to pay a bit for DH.

So, here we go. I’m excited about this!




Car Service and some Financial Updates

October 17th, 2018 at 04:21 am


Car Service = Yesterday’s car service was $321.20 - it included the normal service and a change in fan belt.

Increase in Income = DH got an increase but only CPI rate, not surprising really, income here have mainly stagnated in the last few years.

Salary Sacrifice = We’ve decided to increase DH’s Super contribution to hopefully decrease his tax. He is salary sacrificing few hundred dollars per month. Now that the house is paid off this makes a lot of sense for us.

Garden = I’m still getting a lot of swiss chard, I even gave some away to a couple of friends. I’ve been trying out different dishes with it. The other night I made crust less quiche with it. It was very good. A lot of seedlings I planted couple of weekends ago are now coming through. I’m just hoping we get a bit more rain this summer.

WEEK 41

October 16th, 2018 at 03:50 am



Grocery = $54.96, almost on budget.

Car Fuel = $70.50, this was a lot but it was almost empty and prices are really high at the moment.

Carpet Cleaner Hire = On Saturday we went and hire one of those carpet cleaner for 24 hours. We cleaned couple of rooms that has carpet, 3 couches, 4 rugs and the car. It cost us $73.85 including the cleaning liquids that was needed for the machine and a spray bottle of a spot cleaner. There are enough leftovers we can use for next time. The hire of the machine for 24 hours was only $43.60 ($5 was for the upholstery handle). This is our first time using and I was happy with the result, I want to regularly do this, maybe at least once a year. With the dog around it’s good to give these things some deep cleaning.


SALVO = we took a bag of stuff to the charity, then I got a couple of books and DH got a Wii game, total $10.

This morning DH dropped off the car to the mechanic, not sure how much it will cost yet.

WEEK 40

October 9th, 2018 at 01:44 am

Week 40 already, 12 weeks to go for end of the year. Man that went fast.

Last week we celebrated our 12th anniversary and on the weekend DH’s birthday.

GROCERY – $76.13 bought some extra stuff for DH birthday get together.

Anniversary & Birthday – We went out for our anniversary spent $120. We had Italian. For DH’s birthday we spent $144.92 for gift, sweets, snacks and drinks. We had bbq, the weather was beautiful.

Laundry – We were meant to get our winter quilt washed a couple of weeks ago but it got push back, we finally did it on Sunday. It cost us $9. And also got a latte to share while waiting for the washing, it cost $4.80.

Added: I forgot to mentioned that I got a hair cut on the weekend - $20.

SEPTEMBER 2018

October 3rd, 2018 at 05:39 am



Total Spending for the month = $1600.05

GROCERY = $277.35, a bit more than I was hoping for but still under $300 so we are still doing very well since September had 5 Saturdays.

WATER & GAS BILL = $393.60

HOUSEHOLD & GARDEN = $215.15

ENTERTAINMENT = $349.59 , high, very high. Celebrated few birthdays and got far too much takeaway food.

GIFTS = $157.75

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2018 GOALS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K).
We are now at $42K, so we should achieve this goal in October.
*Save $4K for Holiday money.
N/A this month
*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel.
Still not sure what we want to do with the house but I decided that the savings that we have been contributing to the “Car Fund” will now be for this (if we ever need it). We have been putting $200 into a couple managed funds for 10 years now; it has mainly been earmark as “Car Fund”. Last year the account got to just over $40K, we decided to take out $10K (we don’t need $40K to buy a new car, if when we get a new car we will be getting the one around $20-25K). So, that 10K got invest into something else. Anyway, last time I looked it was again almost to $40K mark (although it might have gone down since then, the market has been down in the last few weeks). We will just continue putting $200 a month and see where it can get to.

Other –

*Read 70 books.
I didn’t have as much time to read. I listen to a bit of audio books while doing the grout. Also I finally found a Dave Ramsay book, first time reading his book.
134. One of Us is Lying - Karen Mcmanus (2 Sep)
135. The House - Simon Lelic (6 Sep) - Audio
136. Stuffocation - James Wallman (7 Sep)
137. Minimalist: A Better Life with Less - Anthony Wright (9 Sep)
138. Altruism - Matthieu Ricard (14 Sep) - Audio
139. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank (15 Sep)
140. The Honourable Thief - Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios (17 Sep) - Audio
141. Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood (19 Sep) - Audio
142. The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsay (20 Sep)
143. The Awakened Millionaire - Joe Vitale (23 Sep)
144. Don't Wake Up - Liz Lawler (24 Sep) - Audio
145. Econobabble - Richard Deniss (25 Sep)
146. Find Your Why - Simon Sinek (26 Sep)
147. Ash and Bones - Mike Thomas (29 Sep) - Audio


*Learn Spanish.
I put in more time on this in September.

*Workout 3/4 times a week.
I would actually give myself an A here for September, I just need to keep it going in October.

*Try new recipes every other week.
I forgot about this in September. I cooked a lot of stir fry because we got a lot of snow peas and swiss chard right now in the garden.

*Blogging once per week.
Yes.

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
Have been doing a bit more work outside.

*Wake-up early (before 7am)
Yes

*Continue Decluttering.
Yes – we have been doing some spring cleaning. I need to drop some more stuff to the charity place.

WEEK 39

October 1st, 2018 at 06:04 am



GROCERY – $43.07 – it could have been less but we bought some snacks to have for the football grand final game, our team was in the grand final but unfortunately we lost (maybe next year). But we had fun eating chips, dips and cheese and drinking beer while watching it.

GARDENING/LANDSCAPING – Spent $109.21 on stuff for the garden, it is best time to start working in the garden again. I also bought some more seedlings and seeds.

FABRIC – Also got some fabric to cover the couch, $60 (9 meters long).

Eating Out – Still been loving the Vietnamese food too much and being out an about we have been getting some food on the run - $49.30. We can’t seem to stop.