We had beautiful weather on the weekend. We had a picnic and went for long walks.

Grocery = $55.60
Fuel = $41.55
Eating out = $43.70


This didn't work yesterday.

I wrote this two days ago but couldn't log on.

Good news, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. They found the fault in the power steering pressure switch so they replaced with a new one. Also the intake pipe needed to be repaired and put in some oil. They also did the usual service since it would have been due next month anyway. All up it cost $382.26, overall not as bad as we expected it to be.

We had car problem all weekend and because we had a long weekend DH couldn’t take it to the mechanic until this morning. I’m hoping it won’t cost too much and they can actually fix it.
Because of the car we cancelled our plan to go out on Sunday, we had planned to go to the farmer’s market again and we also had planned to go into the city. Instead me just spend some of our time at our local park, we got to watched a game of cricket.
However, we did chanced the car Saturday night were we had to be at a friend’s house for her daughter’s first birthday.

Grocery – since we didn’t want to drive the car too much we just walked to the store, which is just across the park. We went twice, Sunday and Monday, and took a backpack with us to help carry the groceries. The total of it was $31.65, I guess this is positive thing, and I managed to score some nice sales on meat.

Electricity – I actually tried to blog about this few days ago, it was a total fail. I actually tried to post a picture of our statement. It didn’t work to how I wanted it to come out and I just gave up on it, eventually. We got our statement for the billing period of 4 of Dec 2018 to 3 of Mar 2019 for a total of $93.20 credit. I can’t remember the breakdown of it now, but it was around $45 credit for this bill and it got added to last bill of $48 credit. We did really well considering we used it a great deal around Christmas time.

Coffee grinder – the other day DH ordered a coffee grinder online for $68, including postage. We have wanted to get one for a while now and we’ve also dried a bit of our herbs from the garden that might be good to have one to use for it.

We didn’t do much and I guess we had an in forced staycation on our long weekend. For some reason, I don’t even know how it happened but I ended watching a lot of Youtube. Particularly, the current politics in the US, this is usually not an interest of mind but I do like history of politics though. Anyway, I ended up in a rabbit hole about the current congresswoman from New York and then about the New Green Deal. Oh wow, very interesting. I also, watched a bit about what is currently happening in Canada. The word socialism got mentioned a lot, and it seemed like a lot of university students are really embracing it. This is interesting to me, here in Australia we tend to be few years behind the current trend, I think it used to be a decade behind but now with social media it is a bit quicker.

I also watched some videos about bullet journals, I have never journaled before and I think this might be a good one for me to have. I find that this is more suited to my personality. I always write things down but they tend to just be in a note book or just some random piece of paper. I think this will help me be more organised and have everything in one spot.

That was longer than expected.

Grocery = $91.25, bought a bit of fish for the freezer, $23 worth. Also we went to some sort of a market on Sunday, it was supposed to be a farmer’s market but there weren’t many farmer’s there at all.
Wedding = Last week a relative of mine got married we gave a $200 cash gift.

Garage sales = high chair for $1, this will be for my little niece when they comes for Christmas. It is still very good the guy just wants to get rid of it because they are selling up. There was also another garage sale on the same street and I got a set of lamps for $15. I want to build a headboard and I think I can used these lamps for it.

Garden = On the way home from the market we saw a sign for horse poo for sale, we end up getting a $7.50 worth. It better value than getting from the store. The best thing I got from the market were seedlings, they were only $1 each. I end up spending $12.

Christmas stuff = Got some more random stuff for Christmas to put under the tree (that’s if we are getting a tree this year???)

Making Sauerkraut = I made sauerkraut, for the first time ever.

Lunch out with friend and her family = On Saturday DH and I had lunch with a friend and her family. For some reason they end up paying for lunch so we picked up the bill for coffees and cakes afterwards, $18.50.

Change Registration Plate for Camper Trailer = DH had to get the registration for the camper trailer transferred to our state. He ended up spending $96. This included some once off fee, it will eventually be $59 per year.

This is very late but I’ve been away and got sick since the last day of our holiday. We got back Tuesday afternoon and I have just been trying to recover from it.

So Week 43 and 44 was spent away on our holiday, we went and visited relatives interstate. And then somehow end up getting a camper trailer – that was not planned at all. I will do a separate blog about this purchase and about our holiday later.

October Total = $4,706.26

CAMPER TRAILER = this includes the cost of camper trailer for $2,300.

GROCERY = $188.19

UTILITIES = only for electricity bill this month, $126.93. This was our first payable bill for the year.

PROPERTY RATES = $202.90 – for some reason they are now taking the money out of our account on the first of the month instead to the end of the month, so in September we actually didn’t had to pay this.

Household and Garden Items = $177.91

DH Birthday and Anniversary = 311.92

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

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). Buying the camper trailer made us missed out on achieving this goal in October but it should really happen in November.

*Save $4K for Holiday money. In the month of October we spent $439.14.

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel.


Other –

*Read 70 books. I didn’t get to do as much reading while on holiday.

148. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (2 Oct)
149. Unforgivable - Mike Thomas (4 Oct) - Audio
150. The Examined Life - Stephen Grosz (8 Oct)
151. The Other Half of Happiness - Ayisha Malik (9 Oct) - Audio
152. The Couple Next Door - Shari Lapena (11 Oct)
153. Unwritten - Jack Delosa (12 Oct) - Audio
154. The $1000 Project - Canna Campbell (15 Oct)
155. The Love that I Have - James Maloney (16 Oct) - Audio
156. 10% Happier - Dan Harris (17 Oct)
157. Anthem - Ayn Rand (18 Oct)
158. The Unquiet Dead - Ausma Zehanat Khan (25 Oct) – Audio
159. The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle (30 Oct)

*Learn Spanish. – yes, daily.

*Workout 3/4 times a week. – did really good before going away but we only did walking the dog while on holiday

*Try new recipes every other week. – Yes, I tried cooking beef brisket for the first time and I fermented some swiss chard before we left. The fermentation turned out well and we been having some for the last few days. I also tried baking bread in the bbq.

*Blogging once per week. - Failed

*Continue Garden/Landscaping. - Yes

*Wake-up early (before 7am) - Yes

*Continue Decluttering. - Yes

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.

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.

This was a big month. Total for the month $3189.60.

Some of the reasons why this was an above average month:

Birthdays & Anniversary – We tend to go out a bit in October to celebrate our anniversary and DH’s birthday, so entertainment expenses tend to be higher on this month.

GIFTS – This was extra high this month. Last weekend I took 3 of my friends out for brunch as birthday presents. And I got some clothes and toys for my new niece to take with us when we go visit. Total under this category was $315.47

CLOTHES – When we went out to get baby clothes we also bought some clothes for us. I replaced a couple of jeans that I have thrown out both had broken zippers and bought a black skinny jeans and I also got a leather jacket, something I’ve been thinking of getting. For DH we got him a bunch of underwear and a business shirt. End up spending $197.99, we only got about $60 left in our yearly budget for clothing, it should be doable. Good news though is I cleaned out our wardrobe again and thrown out/ give away 2 more bags of clothing this month. We are getting there with decluttering.

PLANE Tickets – We finally bought our tickets for our travels to Tasmania to visit my brother’s new baby. That was for $436. (There is yet another change of plans which I will blog about next time).

CAR SERVICE & REPAIRS – Yesterday DH had to take the car again for service. Last week while cleaning the car DH noticed that one of the back doors wouldn’t lock and also few months ago there is a part in the booth that broke which needed replacement. Since these things need done and our car is actually due for service in few weeks he just got the whole thing done. So on top of that tyre that needed replacement earlier this month in total we spent $766.70 on the car repairs and services this month. Yikes!

Some highlights for the month on top of the above expenses:

GROCERY – End of the month total is $280.19, under by almost $20 *happy dance*. This week end grocery shopping was $44.95.

ELECTRIC BILL – The last quarter bill was $156.24, the biggest for the year. Next bill should be a lot lower since the days are getting longer and we should be getting sun shining on our solar panels.

INTERNET - Good thing about this month was our internet was free!


~~~~~OOO000OOO~~~~~

BOOKS - I challenged myself to read one book a day for 5 days at the start of the month. I did pretty well; although I must be honest and say that I kind of cheated since the first two books I already started a bit last month. Still I was pretty happy about it. Then the week after when I was sick I couldn’t read a thing. It would have been a good time to do some reading since I was in bed for most of it but I just couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading.

47 Making Money Made Simple - Noel Whittaker (2 Oct)
48 The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferris (3 Oct)
49 Cannery Row - John Steinbeck (4 Oct)
50 Seneca - Letters from a Stoic - Translated by Robin Campbell (5 Oct)
51 The Art of Free Travel (A Frugal Family Adventure) - Patrick Jones & Meg Ulman (6 Oct)
52 Ego is the Enemy - Ryan Holiday (16 Oct)
53 The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (22 Oct)
54 Nietzsche: A Complete Introduction - Dr Roy Jackson (25 Oct)
55 How to Become a Stoic - Massimo Pigliucci (29 Oct)
56 Stoicism and the Art of Happiness - Donald Robertson (31 Oct)

I forgot to note that I made it to my goal of reading 50 books this year. Sweet! I'm still gonna keep going and see how many I'll end up reading by the end of the year. I'm almost half way through reading the new Dan Brown book 'Origin' right now.

I was sick all week last week and still at the tail of this annoying cold. So in the last month I’ve had a head cold and was better for about a week then last week was even worst cold (I got it from DH) and it has taken a while to recover from it, almost 3 boxes of tissues later I can finally think again. The last couple of days has been a lot better but still have been coughing but hopefully it won’t come back again.

Groceries – First week spent $60.91 and on the weekend we spent $50.97, so we are doing well so far this month.

Zoo – Last Sunday (before I got sick, although I was starting to feel awful then) we took a friend for lunch and then to one of the zoo here in Melbourne, she is from overseas and only here for couple of months. We spent all up $115.12, we used our annual zoo passes but we paid for our friend.

Flat Tyre – Last Friday night DH was about to get pizza for dinner when he notice the car felt funny when he drive it out of the driveway, luckily he noticed it right away as was able to get back in the garage. Friday night pizza got cancelled. DH changed the flat into the spare the next morning and then took it to the nearest tyre place. Luckily the one that got a nail on it was one of the old tyres at the back that would have needed replacing soon. On March (was on my March 28th 2017 blog) when we got the car serviced they replaced the 2 front tyres and suggested that the back ones will be done in the next service. DH asked them about the other back tyre and they feel like it could last a bit longer still. So the one tyre replacement was $110.

Roadside Assistance – On the topic of our car, last night DH just paid our annual roadside service assistance it was for $99.75

Groupon – On Sunday even though I still wasn’t fine we went out for dinner for couple of hours, it was good to be out of the house though. We booked this thing a month or so ago so we didn’t want to cancel it. We had tapas and it was okay it was lacking something though it was a bit bland for my taste. Luckily, we got Groupon because if I had to pay full price it would have been very disappointing. $45 for dinner and drinks and also paid $10.08 for parking (8 cents for card processing, and there was no cash option).

I think that's all I got for now.

On Sat 1st of April we went to a winery about 1 ½ hours away. I got a gift voucher for this place last year for my birthday and it was about to expire later this month. We went there with 4 other friends and in the end we only had to spend $10 extra.

Grocery – On Sunday we got groceries, total $80.68

Palm Tree Removal - Also on Sunday afternoon we got a knock on the door, it was a guy asking us if we want to remove our palm tree at the front. This is actually one of things that we have in our ‘to do lists’ for the outside landscaping (or should I say re-landscaping). This palm tree (almost 20 years old) has now grown too big and it is now touching some of the wires above. They were in the area trying to get some business; there were an army of them. To start with we weren’t very sure about it they seemed a bit dodgy but since they won’t really need to go inside the house and I kind of like that DH is home while we are getting it done so we said why not. Plus the price was really good, we thought removing this would have cost around $1,500 to $2,000, we eventually agreed on $800 but in the end we decided to give them $850. This tree was about 7 metres tall and about 1+ metre in diameter so it was hard work and the chainsaws kept getting clogged up which they had to stopped few times to cleaned it. They also grind the stumped and got rid of the rubbish, a truck load of it. I think we got a bargain.

Electric Bill – DH paid electricity bill for the 1st quarter of the year, $26.49.

Car (more car expenses) – Couple of weeks ago when DH took the car for service they end up turning off the radio which needed a code to turn it on again. So on Thursday DH had to take it to the Ford service mechanics to get the code, which cost $40. While there he decided to get the other (spare) key fixed that was not working properly and to also get the ABS looked at. In the end everything costs $370.

Lunch Date – Today we had our first lunch date for the year. This was kind of a reward for finishing Stage 1 of my workout. We went to some fancy restaurant. It was good but I expected more than good for the price so I doubt we will be going there again. Also, I had my first coke this year. I found the duck confit a bit too salty and wanted something to wash it down so I asked DH to get me a glass of coke while I went to the bathroom. I wished I just stuck to water and I wished DH asked how much it was before getting, it didn’t taste like it used to be and the worst part is it cost $6 for the 330ml glass of coke. Oh yeah I forgot, lunch cost $86.

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.

On Wednesday DH took the car to the shop to get repaired, that cost us $264 but DH will need to take it to get the ABS looked at. The mechanic can't fix the ABS, it will need an electrician of some sort.

Thursday afternoon we decided to cancelled our camping booking because the weather was going to be terrible, we were heading to the Highlands and the weather was going to be snowing, wet and windy. Just unfortunate because the weekend before that the weather would have been perfect. This trip was planned about 2 months ago, when we got a voucher for it. I think we will go in October instead now.

Luckily, we cancelled it because on Friday when DH and I decided to go out shopping (DH was home because he took a holiday on Friday for the camping trip), we noticed a lot of liquid/oil pouring out of the car as we were driving out of the driveway . So instead of going to the shops we just drove it straight to the car repairer. The repair shop is closed to an Asian store so we went there instead and got some stuff (spent $14.15 for a bit of stuff good value for money) and just walked home (less than 30 mins away).

Apparently, when they were replacing something in the car on Wednesday they accidentally bumped something off. It was an easy fix but the car was there for 3 hours. Lucky we found this out while we were near home and not while were camping. DH didn't noticed anything when he drove the car back home Wednesday night so it didn't get trigger until we drove it out that Friday. Now we have a trail of fluid all the way from the garage to the road and maybe even all the way to the repairer place, by the time we got there it ws empty.
Saturday we did our proper grocery shopping, we went to Aldi and got Milo at Woolworths, all up we spent $64.45 on food this week. And then we got something for Mother's day and also got myself a couple of jumpers and a pair of socks. The jumpers and socks only cost me $21. Also got DH new work shoes but we will need to go back and get it replaced.

On Mother's day we went to my mum's place and had a bbq my brother was there as well and we all got a lot of left over to take home.

I know it's halfway through the week already, I'm a bit late.

Yesterday DH got his pay for last month (last one from his old agency), 3 weeks worth. A lot more than expected, which is good since last week's pay was less than I expected.

Did do much on the weekend but grocery shopping and got a cast iron French pan from Aldi, it was only for $25 and it's great. The grocery only came to $55.52, probably the lowest amount for the year.

The menu for this week was:
Sat - Pizza, we made it and got some leftover dough in the freezer. Probably cost around $8 to make.
Sun - Meatloaf and roasted vegetables (est. cost $6)
Mon - Butter chicken with Rice (around $10)
Tue - Spaghetti Bolognese (pretty cheap probably less than $5)
Wed - Today I'm planning to have grilled salmons with salad (probably est. cost of around $9)
Thu - Leftover - planning to have leftovers we still have some of those chilli con carne in the freezer.
Fri - Ratatouille with Tuna and Egg Salad and Quinoa (maybe $6-7 worth).

Our car is due for service, it will most likely need a new exhaust pipe or something. A bit of it feel off last month. Hopefully it won't cost to much.

DH was right that it had something to do with the power steering. After replacing some part of it and other things that needed to be done to it that weird noise is gone and all up it only added up to $132. A lot better than what I was expecting it to be, so I'm very happy about it.

We got $320 left in March I was going to put it towards goal#2 but I instead put it towards goal#3 and have already spent it.

I found a great deal online for a place that we will go for our Anniversary. Our anniversary is not for another 6 months but this deal was really good it is to a place called Lake's Entrance. We love this place, it's about 3-3 1/2 hours away. We been there few times and even stayed there overnight as one of the places that we went to on our honeymoon (that was the last time we went there so it will be 8 yrs by the time we go back) . And DH was apparently conceived there (hahaha!). This resort that we will be going to was the one I really wanted to stay at on our honeymoon but since we were struggling then we just couldn't afford it. $200 a night was just too much for us then especially for just an overnight stay. The place was fairly new then. The deal I got is $299 for 3-nights (but will have surcharge of $60 for Saturday night stay) including breakfasts everyday, some credits on restaurant meals, drinks and massages. It also had other offers which I can't quite remember it all at the moment, I think one was a free tour to a blueberry farm nearby and some cooking class voucher. So there are a lot to do and I'm very much looking forward to it.

We will be going the weekend after our actual anniversary because it falls during school holidays I rather not go then, we will probably still go out somewhere on the actual night but it will be something small. I always make sure we do something special for our anniversary that's why it is in my financial goals. DH's birthday is just 2 days after our anniversary so it is even more reason to celebrate for us.

I normally try to limit the spending around $500 (definitely no more than $600) because I like to leave $1,500 to go towards Christmas spending.

My budget for this will look like this:
Accommodation - $299
surcharge - $60 I think this is payable later.
Transport - $30-50 This might include tolls if we want to get there quicker.
Food - $100 -$150 We will bring some food and drinks with us, unfortunately there is no kitchen so we will be limited on what we can bring. We will have at least one nice ("fancy") dinner out.

Anything more than this will have to come out of our allowances.


*No news about how much the car repair will amount to yet. DH will be home soon though, I'll find out then. I'm really hoping it is not too much. The no phone call from them kinds of a good news. They said that if it is small job they can do it today but if it is big we will have to book it some other time. If it is big and costly they would have called us by now.

Weekend was spent grocery shopping. We are a bit over with grocery shopping this month. A lot of this spending will be use in April so grocery expenses in April should be cheaper (it should be and it will because I will have to make sure of it). Also bought some new smoke alarms and led light bulbs. We didn't do much this weekend apart from going shopping we went for a run.

The weather this weekend was great and would have been nice to go somewhere for a day trip but our car is making some weird noise so just make short trips. DH thinks it might have something to do with the power steering. He looked it up online and the repair could cost from as cheap as $15 to $2,800. I just hope it won't cost as much as $2,800 that would be more than half what the car is worth at the moment. I'm not going to worry about it until we really know what is wrong. He will drop it off to the mechanics tomorrow.

We decided that we will get a roof rack put on our car. Since we converted our car into LPG we lost a bit of space in our boot. We need to pick up a bookshelf that we bought from a charity store on the weekend. So instead of renting a pick-up truck for a cost of around $60 we decided to just get the roof racks done, in the long run it should save us a bit. I think it will get use a bit in the next few months; we already have plans to get doors for our wardrobe and maybe a new tallboy chest. The roof rack that DH wants to get will cost $340 (including installation). The other option would cost $310 but the more expensive one can be used to 90% of other type car, so we could move it to another if need to. Was not planning to get a roof rack until we get a new car, but I�m hoping that our current car can last few more years, since we need one now, I think this is the best solution.

I have been doing some redecorating in the last two weeks. I got great deals on some nice framed prints, got 4 for only $60. I got them at a store that sells furniture and decoration used from ex-display homes. Couple of them are perfect to go in our bedroom it will go very well with another couple drawings that I should get next week created by my artist friend. The other two got some scratches on them but should be able to fix them.

The other day I emptied out a cabinet in the family room. This is a built in cabinet that we just put junk in. I found about 100 candles in there, different sizes, some scented, most of them I got as a gift. So I think it�s about time I start using them. There were also a lot of old light bulbs that we don�t use anymore, I will take them to Ikea next time because they have recycle bin for them, also got boxes full of old tapes and another with games. I decided to paint it yesterday because it was looking very shabby. I also decided to trim some of the shelves thinner, so it will be even and will be able to put the ironing board in there. I already put the iron and other ironing items in there already. I don�t like putting them in the laundry because it is all the way to the back of the house just too far to lug around since I like to do my ironing in the side of the house where the tv is.

We got our car back today. In the end it cost $720. DH is really happy with the work, I think we finally found a good mechanic and the best thing is the shop is actually really close to us. The shop is only a block away from a train station which makes it so much easier for DH to go to work after dropping it off and pick up. They were very thorough with the car service and I like how they itemised everything in the invoice. They actually fixed the shaking problem that we�ve had for the last 2 years. The other places have never been able to fix it. I won�t mind going for drives again now.

I just created a big grocery shopping list. I�m planning to go to the market for meat, seafood, vegetables and fruits. I�m also planning to go to the Asian shop, not far from the market, to get a big bag of rice and other Asian goodies. And if we can swing it maybe also go to ALdi.

Just came home from a lunch date with DH. Spent $33.10. We had chinese, the food was nice but we felt hurried. They were very abrupt and they never smiled. We had Jasmine tea, everytime we took a sip (and I mean a sip, the cup is not even half empty) not long after someone would come in and fill up the cup, which was nice but after a few times it kind of got annoying because she has to reach over to the othe side of the table and we have to stop eat/talking everytime she did it. Being Friday there were people lining up by the door so I guess they want people in and out.

Just received our yearly car registration bill yesterday, it is not due until 15 of Dec. It has gone up $17.40 from last year, we are now paying $641.50 for the whole year.

I picked up my new glasses last night. I've been wearing them all day today, so far so good.

I meant to do a financial update last week but got too busy.

DH pay came while we were on our holiday, and again they forgot to pay him that 1 week that they missed last month. It's starting to get really annoying. Lucky we are not living paycheck to paycheck. DH had to again chase it up, he doesn't have time to waste with these things, especially he had so much to catch up on last week. Anyway, according to DH they will "look into it" (again!)and might have to do a special payment. I hope so.

I paid an extra $2,500 into the mortgage on the weekend. Just got the AMEX bill (not due til mid next month couple days after next payday) and we actually don't owe much. Only really used the CC in the resort, most of the time we either paid cash or used the Pre-paid Visa that we got as a rebate for our airconditioner last month. We used that for DH's suit and other stuff. I think there's still around $20 left on it.

We might even be able to put more into the mortgage if I wait to pay the AMEX on the last day. And will definitely put more if the "special pay" comes. I am really getting excited to get our mortgage under 150,000 and I'm hoping to get there this year. At the moment we still got over 6,300 to get there. $500 - 600 will come from regular payments in the last two months. So I need to come up with another $5,800 to make it.

Another crazy goal that I have right now it to fully fund the car fund this year. We have almost 12K in it and our ultimate goal for this is 15K. We should be able to get 5K for our current car, so 20K for a new car is more than enough. I probably should explain here that some of this 12K is actually in our mortgage redraw account (it helps lower interest rate pay) and some I bought some shares about 4 years ago. It has made a bit of money due to increase in price and DRIP, but I'm not including that profit as part of the car fund.

First priority at the moment is the mortgage. The car fund will definitely be fully funded by early next year, if not this year.

Wow it has been a month since I last posted. I read probably about 50% of the blogs but just didn't have much time to blog. I don't know why but most times I don't have much to say. ANd if I thought of something it is always when I am doing something else.

Anyway, last month was a big month. I celebrated my birthday with hubby and then we went away during easter break to visit family. Spent a bit cash giving to nephews and nieces. It was also a big month in terms of income, it was a double income month. We put 5000 into the car fund, that is now fully funded for the year. Also managed to pay 3000 into the mortgage principal. And a little bit extra into the other saving funds. I wish every month would be like. ALthough, DH should be getting a pay rise in the next month or two. He doesn't know how much it will be yet.

We went over by $36 in our April budget. It was because I didn't budget enough for the utilities, it is not too bad.

I'm hoping to achieve Goal 1 through 4 by the end of next month. That would just then leave Goal number 5 to focus on for the rest of the year.

We are having car problem at the moment. This is the bad news. Although my March car challenge is looking pretty good right now since the car haven't been used at all this month, it's not working. There's not much I can do about it but laugh really.

The repair cost a lot and our car fund has deflated. We are now seriously looking at getting another slightly newer car. We got a lot to think about at the moment. I really don't want to get another car yet but it might be the best course of action for us.

I feel like we are spending/ wasting a lot of money this year, we really need to get our act together. Here's hoping the rest of the year will be better.

The only thing that I must finish today is the IRONING (I hate doing the ironing!)...(DONE!!) I also managed to clean the toilet and fridge. The house is now mighty clean

DH couldn't get the car started yesterday afternoon, he was at work trying to get home. He had to get the roadside service assistant, which cost $280 but at least this means we are now a member for the next 12 months. Next year the membership should be a lot cheaper. The guy said that it there is something wrong with the fuel pump or something. He managed to get the car started to get home. Today he will need to take the car to the shop again, I didn't know that last week they didn't actually service the entire car, they only looked at the brakes and the radiator, not enough time. I guess our car is 10 years old now and we will probably be expecting more car repairs from now on. We really need to beef up the car fund sooner than later.

I got my $900 stimulus cheque late yesterday. I deposited it right away this morning. It will all go towards the Car Fund. Cool. Now I'm happy.

Yesterday it was the home & content insurance and today our annual car insurance bill in due . Its bad but I kind of glad that most of these big expenses are out of the way early in the year and we don't have to worry about them for next 12 months.

Last night's dinner was steak with gravy & roasted vegies. I also made lasagne for lunch and dinner today, so no cooking tonight.

Better go and pay that car insurance now.




16 Jan - 9:30am

Well today we got our car service and it come to almost $700, ouch! I'm hoping this it for a while for car expenses. There was a lot of work done to it, I guess since we are using the car a lot more these days we need to get it service more often.

This month has already been very spendy, lucky we are getting a bit of tax refund back. Easy come, easy go I guess.