March total = $2,779.75

Groceries - $276.35 (under)
Utilities - $330.49
Internet – DH prepaid our internet again for $780.
Car repair and service - $382.26
Entertainment - $136.89 (under but just)
Clothes - $114.45, DH bought new running shoes and I bought some clothes.

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $40K).
We are 25% done, so we are tracking well so far.

*Save $3K for Holiday money.
N/A

*Save $5K for "The Challenge"
March NSDs were 10 days, so $30 into the challenge. Nothing more this month. Total so far for this challenge is $394.00

Other –

*Read 200 books.

22. Your Brain at Work - David Rock (1 Mar)
23. Crazy House - James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet (3 Mar) - Audio
24. Everyone Can Write - Howard Gelman (5 Mar)
25. Tripwire - Lee Child (8 Mar) - Audio
26. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks (10 Mar)
27. Healing with Iodine - Dr. Mark Sircus (13 Mar)
28. The Flower Girls - Alice Clark-Platts (13 Mar) - Audio
29. Peak Performance - Brad Stulberg & Steve Magness (17 Mar)
30. Handwiring Happiness - Rick Hanson (17 Mar) - Audio
31. Top Dog - Jens Lapidus (19 Mar) - Audio
32. Now You See Her - Heidi Perks (23 Mar)
34. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (27 Mar)
35. Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari (29 Mar)
36. The Break - Katherena Vermette (30 Mar) - Audio
37. Long Lost - Harlan Coben (31 Mar)

*Continue Learning Spanish.
Yes

* Wake-up early workout and or meditate 5 times a week.
Yes!

*Blogging once per week.
Yes

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
Some

*Continue Decluttering.
Very little

*Learn to Draw
Need to do some.

Happy New Year everyone!

This is very late because we had guests for almost 2 weeks and it has taken me a while to get back on my routine.

Total for Dec was $4,394.98

Grocery - it was by a lot, $448.14, extra 3 adults and a toddler can cost a bit.

Household goods – we bought a portable air conditioner, bed and bed frame for a total of $1,243.97.

Christmas Expense for December - $524.84

Car Registration – We renewed our annual car registration for $816.50. We looked at paying it quarterly but it would actually cost more.

Entertainment – We went out with our guest a few times, $268.59.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~000~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------2018 Goals---------

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). -DONE

*Save $4K for Holiday money. – Didn’t spend any this month

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – Spent $188.50, mainly fixing the main bathroom for our guest.


Other –

*Read 70 books. – didn’t have time to really read.
176 Breakfast with Einstein - Chad Orzel (2 Dec) - Audio
177 Saga Land - Karl Gislason & Richard Fidler (11 Dec) - Audio
178 The Spider and the Fly - Claudia Rowe (18 Dec) - Audio
179 The One Who Got Away - Caroline Overington (19 Dec) - Audio
180 The Fox - Frederick Forsyth (20 Dec) - Audio

*Learn Spanish. – still at it everyday
*Workout 3/4 times a week. – what is workout? Lol. Massive fail!!!

*Try new recipes every other week. - I’ve tried a bit of fermentation and I think a new recipe in the bbq.

*Blogging once per week. - failed

*Continue Garden/Landscaping. – yes still tiring out the front lawn, almost done. The back garden has been neglected and is not cover with pumpkin so we will have to wait until they are gone before we can finish the concreting bit.

*Wake-up early (before 7am) – yes but I finding myself slipping a bit. At one stage I was waking up around 6 am or just before but lately I’ve been getting up at 6:40am

*Continue Decluttering. – did it with the Christmas items.

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 = $951.07
UNDER 1 GRAND!!! I can’t remember if this has ever happened before.

This was a very low spend month but not very frugal because we went out a lot so Entertainment expense was high and for some reason we were craving a lot of Vietnamese food. We spent $287.29 under the Entertainment category. And then DH had few lunches out because there are a lot of people at his work that are left this month, so Allowance spending for the month was $58.95

GROCERY - $179.17 (under our $180 for the month). DH wants us to continue this challenge but I’m a bit reluctant I don’t even really know why. Although, I think this experiment has been really good for us, eating a lot less meat has been really good not just for monetary reason. Actually eating less overall has been an eye opener. It just shows that we might have been over eating. Cutting down on food spending meant we had to be selective and only buying food that is necessary and has high benefits for us. We never went hungry but sometimes I opted to skip some meals if I thought I don’t need to eat yet. I’ve discovered that it is sometimes okay not to eat until your body tells you so. I have been doing a bit of short-term (intermittent) fasting. I think it has been better for my insides too.

The rest we spent on:
Gas - $103.72
Mobile Phone - $30
Household Goods - $96.34
Fuel - $40.70
Train Fare - $100
Personal/Medical - $31.00
Misc - $23.90

No Property Rates – for this month and next month.



~~~2018 GOALS~~~

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). – We got to put a bit of money this month because of low spending and 1 extra income. I think another 3 months and we might have this one done.

*Save $4K for Holiday money. – This is probably should have been labelled budget or limit instead of save. N/A this month

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – The same goes with this one. This is a budget and then anything extra goes under future remodelling of the house. Although, lately we have been thinking that we might just sell up and get something smaller and if that happens soon we might sell the house as is.


Other –

*Read 100 books. ---DONE! I never thought I could read more than 1 book a week but apparently I can read 3 books a week and might even be able to do better. Now that I’m used to it I think it is doable for me do read 4-5 books a week. Mindset!

87. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling (6 Jul) – Audio (I actually really enjoyed this audiobook. I was never able to read this book before. I have actually tried reading this book twice before but just could get into it, the same goes with those Twilight books. I know, I probably should be locked-up for admitting this. Lol)
88. Memory Man - David Baldacci (8 Jul)
89. The Joy of Less - Francine Jay (10 Jul)
90. You Can Do It! - Paul Hanna (12 Jul) - Audio
91. Goodbye, Things - Fumio Sasaki (13 Jul)
92. By the Book - Julia Sonneborn (14 Jul)
93. The Art of Tidying Up - Kim Carruthers (17 Jul)
94. Clutter Busting your Life - Brooks Palmer (19 Jul)
95. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (22 Jul)
96. The Perfect Stranger - Megan Miranda (23 Jul) - Audio
97. The World of Philosophy: Stoics and Epicureans - Daryl Hale (24 Jul) - Audio
98. A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind - Shoukei Matsumoto (25 Jul) - Audio
99. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne (26 Jul)
100. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (31 Jul) – I finally finished this one. It has taken me months to read it. It’s my own copy so I kept putting it aside for the library books.



*Learn Spanish. – Still going


*Workout 3/4 times a week. – Still trying


*Try new recipes every other week. – ummm I can’t remember, I think this might been a no.
**Actually I just went through my blog and I forgot about the brussels sprouts, that was definitely new to us**

*Blogging once per week. – Yes


*Continue Garden/Landscaping. – Too cold still. Only did some weeding in the veggie garden.


*Wake-up early (before 7am) – Yes


*Continue Decluttering. – Major one in the garage for our annual rubbish collection.

Total spending for June 2018 was $1,319.37. The cheapest month so far this year, this is going to be hard to beat but I’m hoping to be able to do it in July though.

A quick look at some of the numbers:

Groceries – Total for the month was $177.41, under than our $180 budget.

Water Bill – Was $207.07 for the quarter.

Vault Rental – We paid $288 for the year this month.

Entertainment– Netflix, eating out and other items that we consider as entertainment added to $105.19 for the month, this is about average for us.

Clothing – Mainly the shoes = $88.92

Allowance Money – $71.07, DH’s lunch couple of times and books and CDs we got from charity shops.

Doggie Items – $92.99, mainly for the bags.


==ooo00ooo00ooo --2018 GOALS-- ooo00ooo00ooo==

Financials-
*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). - We just calculated our net worth we are up $48K since the start of the year. It is always good to see we are heading at the right direction.

*Save $4K for Holiday money. – N/A for this month

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

Other –
*Read 100 books.
69. The Tattooist of Auschwitz -Heather Morris (1 Jun)
70. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson (3 Jun)
71. Lie to Me - J.T. Ellison (4 Jun) - Audio
72. The Barefoot Investor - Scott Pape (5 Jun) - Audio
73. The Power of Having Fun - Dave Crenshaw (6 Jun) - Audio
74. The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu - Joshua Hammer (7 Jun)
75. Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber (13 Jun)
76. Stories We Tell Ourselves - Sarah Francoise (14 Jun)
77. The 80/20 Principle - Richard Koch (15 Jun) - Audio
78. 29 Seconds - T.M. Logan (16 Jun)
79. Power Up your Mind - Bill Lucas (20 Jun) - Audio
80. Essential: Essays by the Minimalist - Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (22 Jun)
81. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway (25 Jun)
82. Work Simply - Carson Tate (27 Jun) - Audio
83. Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan (28 Jun)
84. Eat that Frog! - Brian Tracy (29 Jun) - Audio
85. The Art of Discarding - Nagisa Tatsumi (29 Jun)
86. Minimalism - live a meaningful life - Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (30 Jun)

*Learn Spanish.
Back up to 58 consecutive days again.

*Workout 3/4 times a week.
This is always a struggle, for some reason I just can get consistent with my workout but I try to do some 4 to 5 days a week but deep down I’m not happy with my effort. I feel like I should be doing more but I hate exercising. Weight wise I don’t have any issues. My weight has been fairly the same my adult life. I eat fairly healthy and I try now to over indulge. The thing that I need to watch out for is make sure my core strength is strong because when I don’t work on it that’s when I get lower back pain.

*Try new recipes every other week.
I did so well in trying out few simple recipes this month.

*Blogging once per week.
Done

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
It’s cold so nothing much is happening out there

*Wake-up early (before 7am)
Check

*Continue Decluttering.
DH borrowed a bunch of books from the library about decluttering and minimalism and I have read some of them as well. These books have been helping us (mostly him since he has a bit more hard times letting some stuff go but I can also see some of my short comings). We are slowly getting rid of stuff for sure, it will take us awhile but I think we are doing it the right way for us.

This would have been a low spend month but because we pre-paid internet for a year it total to $2,568.13. Half of this was because of the internet, holiday expenses and my birthday celebration.

Internet – was big total for the month was $845.

Holiday – ended at $285.20. Some of this included money we spent on our Easter Holiday and some for another holiday we are going very soon.

Groceries – We only got few things this weekend because we didn’t need much and it only cost us $9.95. The total for the month was $296.20

Birthday Celebration – I had another birthday get together, with friends this time. We had lunch and then we went to an Escape Room and then had coffee afterwards. It was fun and it cost us $127.00. Overall, my birthday cost me $242.50, this includes that dinner I went with DH.

Eating Out – We did not cook at all the whole weekend. We went a bit crazy. On top of the lunch above we went out to another restaurant for Sunday lunch as well and we got takeaway food Saturday night, thankfully we had leftover and we ate that Sunday night. All the eating out, not including above amount was $61.90.

Fuel – got some $37.20


Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K).
More savings in April than in March - *happy dance*

*Save $4K for Holiday money.
Have spent some of this money at the start of the month and will continues to spend more money in May for our next holiday.

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel.
We should be able to start saving more for this in the second half of the year.


Other –

*Read 70 books.
28. Beyond Good and Evil - Frederick Nietzsche (3 Apr) - Read w/ Audio**
29. Money to Burn - James Grippando (5 Apr) - Audio
30. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (7 Apr)
31. On the Shortness of Life - Seneca (8 Apr)
32. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (10 Apr)
34. A is for Alibi - Sue Grafton (11 Apr) - Audio
35. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner (12 Apr)
36. The Checklist Manifesto: How to get things right - Atul Gawande (13 Apr)
37. Siddhartha -Hermann Hesse (15 Apr)
38. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan (17 Apr)
39. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (18 Apr) - Audio
40. You Need a Budget - Jesse Mecham (19 Apr)
41. Philosophy for Beginners - Max Charlesworth (20 Apr)
42. B is for Burglar - Sue Grafton (22 Apr) - Audio
43. The Pardon - James Grippando (23 Apr) - Audio
44. War and Gold - Kwasi Kwarteng (24 Apr)
45. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (26 Apr)
46. The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy (27 Apr) – Audio
47. C is for Corpse - Sue Grafton (30 Apr) – Audio

I’m more than half way to my goal! It’s amazing how cutting about 4 hours of television a day adds up. These days there’s not much worth watching unless you are into reality shows. I used to watch those cooking and renovation contest but they are not about cooking or renovations anymore, it’s always just about people fighting which I’m so over it.

As you can see I listened to a bit of audiobooks this month, they are all crime and mystery books except for the first one which I read along while listening to the audio. I already got a copy of ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ in my kindle and I borrowed the audio version from the library online. I do a lot of my listening to the audiobooks while I'm walking the dog, while cleaning and in the last several days while I was doing some painting.

Since I’m more than halfway to my goal already and I’ve increased my reading time while not really reading because of audiobooks I decided to increase the amounts of books I aim to read to 100 books this year.


*Learn Spanish.
Still going and I’m at 104 days streak at the moment.

*Workout 3/4 times a week.
Doing very poorly here, I’m still doing some but mainly just stretching and walking the dog, I need to do harder exercises when we get back from our holiday. This is becoming a bad pattern, me constantly waiting for something to happen before I get my act together. I need to break it.

*Try new recipes every other week.
I tried few and one of them was the Aloo Gobi that I got inspired by toilet-paper-tracker.

*Blogging once per week.
Check

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
As I mentioned in my previous blog entry DH built a screen wall outside to screen off the clothes line and I painted it.

*Wake-up early (before 7am)
Check

*Continue Decluttering.
DH has been putting our music from CDs to digital so we can listen to them whenever and wherever on our phones and the CDs themselves have been stored away into a plastic tub in the garage. It took him over a month copying them.

Not much really to report for Week 12 – spent $6.80 on grocery. Week 13 we were away for 10 days visiting DH’s parents interstate (12-hour drive away).

March 2018 highlights:

Total expense for March was $4,239.86

Groceries - $248.82 in total for the month, under because we weren’t home for over a week.

Water & Gas – Both add up to $322.02

Transportation Exp – Fuel, train fare and car repairs was a bit because of getting to re-gas the car air-conditioner, all up it was $452.74

Alcohol – Went out to stock up on alcohol and end up spending $153.15

Health Insurance – Half of March’s expense went to pre-paying the health insurance. $2,121.99, this included paying for the month of March’s health insurance.

HOLIDAY SPENDING – Overall, it was a fairly frugal holiday $479.09 in total. Fuel cost us $204.28 and the food and other expenses were $249.81. We bought groceries few times and cooked for everyone a couple of times. We also went out for dinner once to celebrate our nephew’s 22nd birthday. On the way home we opted to stop over night at about half-way point and camp for the night, the campsite cost us $25. The March portion for this holiday expense was $306.57 (I decided to divide the expenses to 2 months when the actual spending was done).

2018 Goal review:
Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). – Still motoring along

*Save $4K for Holiday money. – We spent some this month obviously

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


Other –

*Read 70 books. – I did a lot of reading this month.

10. Y is for Yesterday - Sue Grafton (4 Mar)
11. The Mark of a Millionaire - Dexter Yager & Ron Ball (5 Mar)
12. The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah (8 Mar)
13. The Confession - John Grisham (9 Mar)
14. Making Time, Making Money - Rita Davenport (11 Mar)
15. The Laws of Lifetime Growth - Dan Sullivan & Catherine Nomura (12 Mar)
16. China Rich Girlfriend - Kevin Kwan (15 Mar)
17. The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (17 Mar)
18. Sigmund Freud's Mission - Erich Fromm (18 Mar)
19. Unf*ck Your Finances - Melissa Browne (20 Mar)
20. Stock Market Strategies that Works in Australia - Matthew Brooks & Paul Nojin (21 Mar)
21. Red Sparrow - Jason Matthews (23 Mar)
22. The Day She Can't Forget - Meg Carter (24 Mar) – Audio**
23. The Travelling Companion - Ian Rankin (24 Mar)
24. 1984 - George Orwell (26 Mar)
25. On the Happy Life - Seneca (27 Mar)
26. Finance: Budgeting: Save Money, Invest for Retirement and get Debt Free - Andrew W. Welch (28 Mar)
27. Deal Breaker - Harlan Coben (29 Mar)

** I borrowed an audiobook from the library. This was good to listen to while doing some cleaning and packing. I eventually finished it while we travelled interstate. In the past I’ve tried audiobooks and found that I couldn’t follow it unless I’m also looking at the words, but this book was really good, the story was easy to follow.



*Learn Spanish. – Still doing about 15 to 20 minutes a day.

*Workout 3/4 times a week. – I didn’t do any while away but did a lot of walking and playing with the dog outdoors, like at the park and at the beach.

*Try new recipes every other week. – Only did one in March

*Blogging once per week. – I missed last week, I didn’t bring my laptop and so I left my personal finance spreadsheet at home.

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.¬ – We did a little bit of stuff before we went away.

*Wake-up early (before 7am) – I have been very good even on our holidays when I didn’t have my alarm clock on I was still waking up around 6am.

*Continue Decluttering. – We done a lot of shredding of old papers. DH has been downloading online statements and scanning the ones that he couldn’t get online. So the paper statements that we don’t need any more we shredded, I would say almost couple thousand pages. Our filing cabinet that was full to the brim is now less than half full.

Total spending for February was $1,750.36

I have been busy in the last 2 weeks, my brother and his family came and stayed with us and the next day after they left, I got sick, the baby gave me a parting gift. We ended up spending a bit more on food this month. Also took them to eat out for my brother’s partner’s birthday. Some notable expenses for the month:

Grocery - $346.68, we are really over for the month.

Household Goods etc – We went to Ikea and got a bunch of stuff so for the month we spent $233.44

Entertainment – all up it was very high $262.70

*******/////////*******/////////********

Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $45K). –still out top priority and working on it.
*Save $4K for Holiday money. – didn’t spend any
*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. – not needed yet


Other –

*Read 70 books.

I’ve been busy so I didn’t have much time to read.
6 The Racketeer - John Grisham (1 Feb)
7 Mindset - Dr Carol S. Dweck (6 Feb)
8 Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party - Alexander McCall Smith (7 Feb)
9 The Simple Path to Wealth - JL Collins (12 Feb)


*Learn Spanish. – everyday


*Workout 3/4 times a week. – still trying to do better


*Try new recipes every other week. –yes and it was not too bad


*Blogging once per week. – missed it last week


*Continue Garden/Landscaping. – we did a bit.


*Wake-up early (before 7am) – I have been great at this so far this year.


*Continue Decluttering. – we did a lot when we were cleaning before our guests came.