Total for the month = $1,326.85
February is usually a low spend month for us even without trying.

Grocery = $310.61, we are over and I don’t really know why. I think it’s time to tighten our belts again with our grocery spending.

Entertainment = $125.89, under and I‘ve decided to put $10 into our challenge. Also put another $24 for 8 NSDs in Feb.

Other expenses worth nothing was for my license renewal, dog annual registration, and other personal and medical items.

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $40K).
We did very well in Feb.

*Save $3K for Holiday money.
We did not spend any money on this in Feb. We might look at doing something for Easter.

*Save $5K for "The Challenge"
As mentioned above, I added $34 dollars in Feb. I actually did a day-trade in Feb but that was to only see if my trading account still works. I made $10 and I decided not to bother putting that into this account. Speaking of account, I found out that I can open a sub-account in one of my bank account/trading account. I have only ever used this account for my long-term trading, but it does have an account for my cash and apparently I can have a sub-account. I just need to transfer cash into it.


Other –

*Read 200 books.
12 Before the Devil Breaks You - Libba Bray (5 Feb) - Audio
13 Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer (8 Feb)
14 How we Learn - Benedict Carey (12 Feb)
15 Killing Floor - Lee Child (14 Feb) - Audio
16 The Power of your Subconscious Mind - Joseph Murphy Ph.D. (18 Feb)
17 A Mind for Numbers - Barbara Oakley Ph.D. (20 Feb)
18 Linchpin - Seth Godin (22 Feb) - Audio
19 The Organized Mind - Daniel J. Levitin (25 Feb)
20 Night - Elie Wiesel (26 Feb)
21 Die Trying - Lee Child (28 Feb) - Audio

*Continue Learning Spanish.
Yes - I have also been watching some Spanish shows on Netflix (we installed Netflix again the other week)

* Wake-up early workout and or meditate 5 times a week.
It has been so hard to work out when the weather is so hot, around 36C (almost 100 Fahrenheit), 4 days in a row in that temperature last week. Sleeping has been hard.

*Blogging once per week.
I need to do better here.

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
Too bloody hot, I just had been trying to keep the plants that we have now alive. There hasn’t been rain for over 2 months now.

*Continue Decluttering.
We took another couple of bags to charity.

*Learn to Draw
I’ve been learning to sketch a bit; I’m bad a it.

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

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.

Total for the month was $1,247.36. Not too bad and it was mainly because we did not have utility bill due (this is going to be different story in Sept) and there was no property rate again in August (but it is starting again in Sept, for 10 months and we just receive the statement, it is going up a bit). Some highlights on our spending:

GROCERY = Total for the month was $246.99, under $250 so I’m happy. I think we will try to keep our grocery spending at this level, so around $45-50 per week.

TRAIN FARE = Big one this month $245.04. DH bought a 4 week pass on the last day of Aug. DH decided to take a break from taking the early train in September so he and I can do our workouts in the morning together. So he won’t be getting discount (well… he is still get a bit for buying bulk rather than the daily pass) on his train fare in September but it is now all paid for the next 4 weeks.

ENTERTAINMENT = this was not too bad actually $175.18

ALLOWANCE = but this was not so good…$165.39. DH had to go to a lot of farewell lunches at work.

GIFTS = we had few gifts to buy for $213.00




~~~2018 GOALS~~~


Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K).
Back in early to mid-July DH signed up to salary sacrificed more into his Superannuation (retirement) fund, which means he has been getting less take home pay but it should save around $3K a year in tax. So, we got less money to put into this goal but this should still get fully funded in around 2-3 months’ time.

*Save $4K for Holiday money.
N/A this month but we are thinking of going somewhere in November.

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


Other –

*Read 70 books. – For the month of August I challenged myself to finish 1 book a day and I actually managed to do it.

101. What Lies Between Us - Nayomi Munaweera (1 Aug)
102. Witness to a Trial: A short Story Prequel to The Whistler - John Grisham (2 Aug)
103. The Other Side of Happiness - Brock Bastian (3 Aug)
104. How you Learn is How you Live - David A. Kolb & Kay Paterson (4 Aug) - Audio
105. The Power of a Half Hour - Tommy Barnett (5 Aug) - Audio
106. The Whistler - John Grisham (6 Aug)
107. The Five Levels of Attachment (Toltec Wisdom for the Modern World) - don Miguel Ruiz Jr. (7 Aug)
108. Free Yourself from Debt - Paul Clitheroe (8 Aug)
109. Last Seen Alive - Claire Douglas (9 Aug) - Audio
110. The Breakfast Club for 40 Somethings - Vanessa Stoykov (9 Aug)
111. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho (10 Aug)
112. Frugal Isn't Cheap - Clare K. Levison, CPA (11 Aug)
113. Life in the Refrigerator Door - Alice Kuipers (12 Aug)
114. Hangman - Jack Heath (13 Aug)
115. Living Thin - Antonia Magee (14 Aug)
116. Happiness - Matthieu Ricard (15 Aug) - Audio
117. Broke Millennial - Erin Lowry (16 Aug)
118. Chaos to Calm - Shannah Kennedy & Lyndall Mitchell (17 Aug) - Audio
119. The Money Motivator - Paul Hannah (18 Aug) - Audio
120. The Mood Elevator - Larry Senn (19 Aug) - Audio
121. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (20 Aug)
122. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and it's all small stuff - Richard Carlson Ph.D. (21 Aug)
123. Hyper-Capitalism - Larry Gonick & Tim Kasser (22 Aug) - (Graphic book)
124. The Star Principle - Richard Koch (22 Aug) - Audio
125. The Money Motivator - Paul Hannah (23 Aug) - Audio
126. Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau (24 Aug)
127. Skin in the Game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (25 Aug)
128. Enchiridion - Epictetus (26 Aug)
129. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (27 Aug)
130. The Duel - Anton Chekhov (28 Aug)
131. Get to the Point - Joel Schwartzberg (29 Aug) - Audio
132. The Little Book of Big Happiness - Bernadette Fisers (30 Aug) - Audio
133. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos - Jordan B. Peterson (31 Aug)



*Learn Spanish.
Still been doing 15 on Doulingo and have been watching some YouTube videos in the last couple of weeks. I will focus more on this in September maybe spend 3-4 hours per day instead of just 20 mins.

*Workout 3/4 times a week.
DH and I are going to do a bit more extensive work out in September. It was okay this month but really nothing to write home about.

*Try new recipes every other week.
I tried a couple, one was a disaster.

*Blogging once per week.
Yes

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
Did do anything but we got to harvest some Swiss chard, snow peas and coriander from our dismal winter vegetable garden.

*Wake-up early (before 7am)
Yes

*Continue Decluttering.
Didn’t do anything this month but I will do some spring cleaning soon.

Total Spending for May 2018 was $2,685.64

Grocery – $281.53

Household goods/ Repairs/Garden total = $327.17. $250 was for the plumber.

Gifts – was a biggie because of mother’s day and a friend’s birthday, it was $214.06

Utilities – Only got to pay Gas for $91.51

Holiday – So most of the month’s expense was because of the holiday which was $1,154.23


= 2018 GOALS =
Financials-
*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). - we are around half way mark.

*Save $4K for Holiday money. – So far this year we have spent $1,746 that means we got $2,254 in our holiday spending plan for the year

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – We will put money under this once Goal #1 above is done.

Other –
*Read 70 100 books.
48. The Day Trader - Stephen Frey (3 May)
49. Bluebird's Egg and Other Stories - Margaret Atwood (4 May) - Audio
50. Every Single Secret - Emily Carpenter (8 May)
51. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari (11 May)
52. The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck (14 May)
53. Into the Water - Paula Hawkins (15 May) - Audio
54. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood (17 May)
55. The Happiest Refugee - Anh Do (17 May) - Audio
56. The Drunken Botanist - Amy Stewart (18 May) - it took 3 months to read this, I just like picking it up once in a while esp when I'm drinking.
57. 10 Key Steps to Wealth - Paul Clitheroe (18 May) - Audio (very short book)
58. The Break - Marian Keyes (21 May)
59. Lost Temple - Tom Harper (22 May) - Audio
60. Savings and Investment - Paul Clitheroe (23 May) - Audio (short book)
61. The Woman in the Window - A. J. Finn (24 May)
62. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout (24 May) - Audio
63. How to be Debt-Free - Paul Clitheroe (25 May) - Audio (short book)
64. Work Smarter: Live Better - Cyril Peupion (27 May)
65. Most Dangerous Place - James Grippando (28 May) - Audio
66. Turtle All the Way Down - John Green (29 May)
67. The 10 Pillars of Wealth - Alex Becker (29 May) - Audio
68. 7 Money Rules for Life - Mary Hunt (30 May)

*Learn Spanish.
I missed one day when we went away to Tasmania, I just totally forgot. After 100+ consecutive days, I’m now back to having 20+ consecutive days again.

*Workout 3/4 times a week.
Since we got back from our holiday I have been working out 6 days a week, just having Sundays off. I’m hoping to continue doing this for 100 days in a row.

*Try new recipes every other week.
I tried one new rice dish.

*Blogging once per week.
Done

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
Put up new clothesline

*Wake-up early (before 7am)
Still getting up early and I have been reading first thing in the morning.

*Continue Decluttering.
DH has been doing most of the decluttering this month, he has been listening to the minimalist podcast and every night has been going through more of our paperwork in the office room. He has done a lot of shredding. A week ago I went through our clothes to get rid of some summer clothes that we won’t need next summer. We are just doing a bit at a time.

There you go another month down.

Total spending for January $ 2,687.99, more than $1,400 of this was for the 2 insurance bills. The lowest we’ve had for a long time in January. Under 3 grand spending in January needs to be celebrated.

Entertainment Spending - To celebrate a low spend month in January we went out for dinner last night. We went to a local Vietnamese restaurant and spent $21 for dinner. It was a really cheap celebration and it was generous serving too we both couldn’t even finish both our meals so we didn’t bother getting entrée or deserts and the tea is free so no need to get drinks either. This was our first restaurant dinner for the year but we got some takeaway meals throughout the month. Overall entertainment spending for the month was $99, which includes the movie tickets.

Grocery for the month – only $265.98, our lowest for a long time, over a year at least

New Mobile Phone – received my new mobile phone that DH ordered for me over Christmas. I’m put on the Doulingo App on it and have been able to learn some Spanish words even when I’ve been out an about. The actual phone got paid last month (Dec 2017) but I did have to get a case for it and also had top up this month so under mobile phone spending was $52.

Other – apart from usual, normally fixed amount items, we haven’t spent crazy amount in January. We only spent just over $130 for the garden and miscellaneous household items such as replacement for our water filter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~00000000000000~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). – Doing very well so far and it helped that DH got paid 3 times this month.
*Save $4K for Holiday money. – not needed yet
*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – I’m thinking of maybe opening a new bank account for this.


Other –

*Read 70 books.
1 Outwitting the Devil - Napoleon Hill (6 Jan)
2 The One Thing - Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (13 Jan)
3 Rich Habits - Thomas C. Corley (15 Jan)
4 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (25 Jan)
5 Irrational Exuberance - Robert J. Shiller (28 Jan)


*Learn Spanish. – I have been doing this every day for about 15 minutes

*Workout 3/4 times a week. – I was doing well but I didn’t do much last week when the weather was ridiculously hot.

*Try new recipes every other week. – I did one (it was okay, DH liked it but I didn’t) and I’ll try another one maybe on the weekend

*Blogging once per week. – Yes so far

*Continue Garden/Landscaping. – We have been doing some on the weekend when the weather is nice.

*Wake-up early (before 7am) – I have been really good, it helps that DH has been getting up really early so by the time he leaves home at 6:30 I already been having my coffee.

*Continue Decluttering. – Still happening, slowly but surely.

Total spending was $1,744.98, it’s always very good when it is under 2 grand. Although for the first time this year we went over our grocery budget of $300, end up spending $316.43. It would have been under but we saw chicken breasts on sale and got over 2 kilos of it. Nothing major really happened last month that why spending was relatively low. Everything was fairly normal except for the gifts category because of Mother’s day. Only thing that we got that would be under sundry category would be the garment streamer for $49 our old one died. They are a lot cheaper and better quality these days and cheaper than always get clothes dry cleaned.

Books - Still doing a bit of reading.
22. Glimpse of Death - Leslie Wolfe (7 May)
23. Untouched, The Girl in the Box - Robert J. Crane (15 May)
24. A Time to Kill - John Grisham (29 May)- I thought I've read this before but I don't think I have because I can't remember the story at all. It must be the only early of his books that I've missed.
25. The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason (31 May)- This one was definite a re-read, I try to it once a year.

Also doing really well in all of my goals I have even been waking up around quarter to 7 in the morning although, I probably need to clean my email in box again. I’m very happy with decluttering this month we got rid of a bit of stuff.

January

January is normally the most expensive month for us because our annual car insurance and home and content insurance is due. This year it was 1,288.45 in total. We had to change car insurer because the old one went up too much. We also almost change the home and content too but when we called them they said that they have been sending clients the wrong quotes and reduced ours to a more reasonable amount (by over $100). Dodgy bugger! I have a feeling they would have never changed it if we didn’t call them. And for some reason this year they sent the quotes really late, we only had a week to pay for it, normally in the past they would sent it over a month earlier. I wonder how many people they screwed over.

January spending looked like this:

Mortgage - $1,218

Living Expenses (including the above insurance expenses) - $2,495.29

DH did a certification study (including materials and online exam) - $332.52

Other - $288.48 (Office supplies, camping items, plants, exercise tubes, 1 year fishing licenses for both of us and other small household items).

TOTAL = $4,334.29

February

Normally February is one of the lower spending month.

Mortgage - $1,218

Living Expenses - $1,128.02

We bought a New Mattress - $287.99 (got this online and was very surprise at the price because we been looking around in the shops and the cheapest we could find for the same kind was $800).

We went away for a weekend of camping and fishing - $65.80 (this included the fee for the camping site, food and bait for fishing – such an inexpensive weekend away and we caught a fish).

Other - $169.85
The 'other' expenses includes getting a laminator, 3 sets of cooking pots, garden supplies – pot plants and soil, and eco clothes washer from Aldi. The washer was about half the price than getting it at a camping store. DH and I has been talking about going away camping for few weeks, the washer would come handy.

TOTAL = $2,869.66

How did we go in the 2nd quarter of 2014?



DH went to his interview Friday, it went fine. He had to change in the car though. Also on Friday, everyone in his team at work got to sign their new employment contract. As of today, they are now fixed full-time employees for the next 12 months.

On the weekend we hit the half-way mark of our workout program. We went crazy and rewarded ourselves by buying a PVR and 3D Blu-ray combo. For years now the in-laws have been telling us that we should get one. Every time we went out to see how much they were we always thought they were too pricey. But with technologies these days if you just wait long enough you should be able to afford it. Plus because it June 30 is our end of the financial year, every stores have their massive sales. We got one for $318.40 (down from $466). The first time the in-laws suggested that we should get one they were around $800+. Even at the price we bought it at we were still not too sure about it. We went to 4 stores until we decided to go for it.

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.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we had 10 NSDs in April. That�s $100 towards my Sunny Day Saving.

May Budget:
Grocery - $250
Utilities - $100
Rates - $340*
Home Phone - $25
Mobile - $20
Internet - $50
Fuel & Fare - $200
Health Insurance -$250
Entertainment -$200^
Gifts -$200**
Personal/Medical - $50
Clothing - $30
DH Allowance -$100
DW Allowance - $60
Miscellanous - $25

TOTAL = $1,900

*Our quarterly property rate should be due later this month.
**Will need to order that wedding gift this weekend.
^I�m not really sure how much to budget for entertainment this month. We already got two dinners out plan, so I�ve decided to budget more just in case something else will come up later in the month.

I haven't done much blogging because there hasn't been much happening here financially.


Grocery - $150.00 (under $4.35)
Utilities - $90.00 (under $12.67)
Home Phone - $25.00 (under 0.61)
Mobiles - $30.00 (under $15)
Internet - $45.00 (under 0.10)
Fuel & Fare - $170.00 (over $3.54)
Car Insurance - $477.95 (-)
Home & Content - $566.55 (-)
Health Insurance - $230.00 (over 0.69)
Entertainment - $80.00 (under $65.10)
Gifts - $40.00 (under $1.00)
Per/Med - $30.00 (over $18.90)
DH Allowance - $100.00 (-)
My Allowance - $75.00 (-)
Misc Items - $20.00 (over $7.80)

TOTAL = $2,129.50 (budget)
TOTAL = $2,061.60 (actual) (under $67.90)


We did really well with our living expenses budget this month. Hoping next month will be the same. But our overall expenses this month is $646.10 over than the income received. This Friday is payday so we should be able to pay it back from that.