My Simple Financial Plan

Grocery = Week 39 - $146.92 and Week 40 - $81.20

Dentist = $450

Just found out about losing 6 months’ worth of blog entries, that sucks.

Anyway we have been away camping - spent $245.45, a very reasonable price we cooked all but one meal.

September total expense was $2598.63. Grocery was only $201.96.

I think I will skip most of my goal update in this entry, I’m not sure it’s worth it. But goal 1 is now pretty much done at least it will be by the end of this month.

Reading – didn’t get much reading done in September and most likely not make it to 200 books but it’s ok.
109 The Waiting Game - Sheila Bugler (2 Sep) - Audio
110 Financial Freedom - Grant Sabatier (3 Sep)
111 Retirement Planning in Eight Easy Steps - Joel Kranc (7 Sep) - Audio
112 Falling - Chris Mooney (9 Sep)
113 All Things Nice - Sheila Bugler (10 Sep) - Audio
114 The Dumb Things Smart People Do with their Money - Jill Schlesinger (12 Sep) - Audio
115 The Broken Man - Josephine Cox (17 Sep)
116 The Blind Side - Michael Lewis (21 Sep) - Audio
117 The Rosie Effect - Graeme Simsion (29 Sep) - Audio

Fixing the fridge part III – DH had another go at fixing the fridge, this time he change the heating element thingy (can’t remember what it is called), he apparently check it and it showed that it was dead. The part cost $40 this time. I think he is now 90% sure it has fixed it.

Groceries = $94.40 bought extra for an upcoming camping trip.
Other than grocery shopping we didn’t spend on anything else all weekend. We spend the weekend getting our camper trailer ready and clean out the garage a bit. I also did some tidying up in the garden and cleaning the car interior.

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.

Grocery - For the week was $58.35.

Filters - Got new water filters for $42.26 in total.

Movie - we had couple of movie passes for the Gold Class also it came with food voucher. We watched “Us” and end up spending $4.50 for extra drink.

Another relaxing weekend.

We had another quiet weekend.

Grocery = $68.15

Clothes = I actually went and bought some new clothes, $34.45.

Eating out = $27.80

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.

We had a heatwave so we didn’t get to do much on the weekend.

Grocery - $54.91

New Shoes - DH needed new running shoes, so he got one for $80 on sale with the original price of $120.

Toaster Oven – Aldi had them for $35, so we got one.

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.

We didn’t spend or do much on the weekend. I finished that online course that I started last month about 10 days ago. I really enjoyed it, and I decided to do another mini-course on the weekend. So, most of my time was spent doing that, but we did go out to do some grocery shopping and also went for a couple hours walk with our dog.

Grocery = $71.22

Annual Dog Registration Fee = $49.00

Grocery - $29.90 , we didn’t need much.

Takeaway – pizza, burger and chips - $44.80.

We didn’t do much all weekend.

Grocery - $116.99 spent on the weekend, hmmm… we are spending a bit lately. We will have to cut back in the next couple of weeks.

New Driver’s Licence – I had to renew my licence, it’s for 10 years and it cost $276.70

Grocery - we started off this month a bit higher than usual, $92.50. We got some extra stuff like 2 dishwashing power and 3 litres olive oil, and also some toothpaste and toothbrushes.

House Alarm – Our house alarm’s rechargeable battery needed replacement, and that cost us $55.

Total for the month was $2,289.32.

Groceries = total for the month was $254.63
Entertainment = $145.99, just under my pre-determined monthly allowable spending. I decided to turn-off Netflix for Feb, and might also do the same in March. I don’t have much time to watch Netflix at the moment. I’m sure I’ll put it back on again soon.
These two items are under my monthly budget. And I was supposed to put get a reward by putting some money into the Challenge but since it is only the start of the year I want to give myself some buffer for those months that we end up overspending.

Insurance = Total was $1,106.79 for both car and home.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OOOOOOO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Financials-

*Put as much money we possibly can into Investments (at least $40K).
January was a 3-pay month so even thought we had a bit of bills (in particular the insurances) we managed to put some in the Investment category.

*Save $3K for Holiday money.
N/A
*Save $5K for "The Challenge"
For this month, I’ve decided to put $100 of our tax refund into this challenge. After everything was said and done we got $494.90 return. Some of this left over will most likely go towards getting DH a new phone.
Another $30 is deposited (this reminds me I still need to open a Bank account for this), figuratively speaking, for having 10 NSDs for January.

Other –

*Read 200 books.
1. Stockholm Delete - Jens Lapidus (2 Jan) - Audio
2. Killing Kate - Alex Lake (7 Jan)
3. Kiss Me Kill Me - J.S. Carol (10 Jan) - Audio
4. I Invited her In - Adele Parks (14 Jan)
5. Nomad - James Swallow (18 Jan) - Audio
6. How to Have a Beautiful Mind - Edward De Bono (21 Jan) - Audio
7. Mindshift - Barbara Oakley, PhD (22 Jan)
8. The First 20 Hours (How to Learn Anything) - Josh Kaufman - (26 Jan)
9. Fluent Forever - Gabriel Wyner (26 Jan) - Audio
10. Tribes - Seth Godin (29 Jan) - Audio
11. Million Dollar Habits - Brian Tracy (31 Jan)

*Learn Spanish.
Yes – except yesterday Doulingo told me that I missed a day (2nd of Feb), so back to day 1 I go 

* Wake-up early workout and or meditate 5 times a week.
Too hot to be doing hard core workout but we have been doing more walks with the dog very early in the mornings and at night. And I’ve been doing few mini-workouts throughout the day.

*Blogging once per week.
I missed 1 I think???

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.
The vegetable garden is very productive at the moment despite the extreme heat. I spend a bit of time watering.

*Continue Decluttering.
No decluttering in Jan, need to do some again soon.

*Learn to Draw
Haven’t had time yet, been spending time doing an online course instead.

We had a 3-day weekend - it was a public holiday for Australia day.

Grocery = $98.40. We had celebrated Australia day by having a bbq. We end up getting a lot of meat, about $60 worth, we didn’t it all though.

Dinner = I also went out on the weekend to catch up some friends. Dinner and drinks was $43.50.

DH’s Phone = DH dropped his phone last week, the screen is shuttered (a lot) but the phone still function. He will need a replacement. He has looked into just replacing the screen, it doesn’t very promising. He’s been hoarding some cash he received as gift, not enough to get a phone that he wants.

Online course = Last week I decided to start an online course (for free), so far I am enjoying it, but it is keeping me a bit busy. It’s a 4 week course.

We had a quiet weekend, apart from grocery shopping we went out for an afternoon drinks at a café/bar in a nearby golf course.

Grocery = we didn’t get much, spent $24.15 in total.

Outing = Spent $33

DH had to do a back-up of my computer and then he cleared everything in my computer and then re-installed everything. I think my computer has needed doing that for months now. So I haven’t had time to do my spreadsheet for this year and to write a blog post for the last week.

Anyway, recent spending for the first 2 weeks of this year:

Groceries – Week 1 = $59.09
Week 2 = $72.99 – We went to the market on Sunday, got the sweetest strawberries I’ve ever tasted for $5 for a kilo and also got 2.5 kilo beetroot (with a freebie small pumpkin) for $6. Then we went to a nearby pier to buy a kilo mussel off someone’s boat for also $6. Then we bought fish and chips nearby and had an impromptu picnic by the water.

New Kettle – Our 10 year old kettle stopped working last week. So we bought a new one for $59.

Insurance – Today both our car and home insurance got paid. Car is $455.35 and home is $651.44. We managed to lower the car insurance by changing and upping the excess.

Garden – since Christmas we have been getting a steady harvest of vegetables (tomato, cucumber, beans, zucchini, and herbs). I’m really enjoying gardening this summer but in the last few days we have been experiencing a heatwave and we haven’t had a decent rain since about a week from Christmas.

I’m pretty much sticking to last year’s goals with only slight difference and added a couple of things that might be fun to do.

Financials-

*Add $40K into Investments.
I’m lowering it this year since we’ve increased contribution to DH superannuation (retirement fund).

*Stick to $3K budget for Holiday.

* Keep saving money for that “Challenge”


Other –

*Read 200 books.
I read 180 in 2018, I want to see if I can make it to 200 this year. So far, I haven’t done much reading but I’m starting to get into my routine again.

*Continue learning Spanish.

* Wake-up early workout and or meditate 5 times a week.
Let’s see if I can do better at this in 2019.

*Blogging once per week.
Good habit for me to have.

*Continue Garden/Landscaping.

*Continue Decluttering.

*Learn to draw.


Also other thing that I really want to work on is menu planning and having a shopping list that is based on that menu plan. First that I want to do this week or so is to go through our pantry and freezer to take stock of what we got at hand. It is good time right now for us to eat out from the pantry and freezer.

TOTAL = $30,651.89. This not too bad I like our spending to be at $30K per year but the camper trailer and other purchases made in December really what push it over. Overall, I’m fairly happy with it. It included 3 holidays and some purchases. It also included bills that we pre-paid which should benefit us in 2019.

Quick summary:
Household Expenses - $12,576.93
Transportation - $4,201.30
Entertainment - $2,086.28 (for 2019 I’m hoping to cut down on our takeaway food purchases)
Personal/Medical - $3,821.41
Other Expenses - $1,878.57
Holiday Expenses - $4,754.63
Xmas/Anniversary& Birthdays - $1,332.77 (we end up spending a bit more for Christmas than I was hoping).

Now let’s see what 2019 brings…

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.

I’m so busy at the moment but I want to record this.

Grocery = $76.96
Gift Card = DH won a $150 worth of gift card at his Christmas lunch at work. He was one of I think about 30 people that won a door price. We are glad that he won the gift card instead of the other prices that we don’t really need or want. The gift card is for one of the main supermarket chain here (called Coles). We decided to put $50 of it towards the “Challenge” and the rest for Christmas food.

Garden = It has been raining a lot here lately so we haven’t done anymore concreting between the rocks. But I have been so busy with something anyway. Probably won’t have another time to do it until after the holidays.

I’m currently fixated with gardening, in particular trying to grow carrots. I’ve been spending too much time watching gardening videos on Youtube.

We are still doing the cementing thing in one of the garden bed, when it is done I will post a photo. We are trying to do one bag a day but sometimes when the weather is either too hot or raining we can’t. I tried to do it by myself but it was hard to try and get it done before the mix gets dry. We are so much in a hurry now that the rocks are back on its place. For few days we had to roll them off to the lawn area and that made the lawn yellow. They are still a bit yellow now but I’m hoping with some rain coming our way in the next few days it will be green again.

Grocery - We went to another market this one was the best so far. Overall, grocery spending for the week was $74.85.

Lunch out – We had lunch out to get together with friends to celebrate Christmas ($44.50).

Was meant to post this yesterday but my internet wasn’t working properly when I had time to do it. Anyways…

Grocery = $72.46. We went to another farmer’s market on Saturday. This was better than last weekend but they had a $2 per person entrance fee, although it went to the Rotary Club so I didn’t mind too much.

Electricity bill – We got the last one for the year and it was a credit for $49.46. so I’m happy about that.

Cements = We had to buy 6 bags of 20kg of cements to put between big rocks that border the back garden. It has been a lot of work, we have been at it since the weekend. We took the rocks off, they are heavy - some of them are about 40-50 kilos in weight. Then we had to make sure to get rid of weeds and grass roots that have gone under the concrete that is between these rocks and the lawns. And now we are putting it back together again and also making sure to put cements between the gaps. We are only half way and I think we will need another 6 bags of cements.

Total for the month of November is $2,490.82.

We mainly spent it on:

Grocery = we were under budget, spent $236.29. I’ve decided to put $20 in the challenge because we are under this month.

Household Expenses = $500.87, it was mainly for the Skip Hire.

Transport Related = $290.96, DH hasn't been taking the early train and this also includes fuel and the registration for the camper trailer.

Entertainment total = $184.93

Gifts = was high this month because of my cousin’s wedding, that was $300 for the month.

Holiday (November portion) = $269.49

Christmas = $253.51, started getting stuff for Christmas. This year and for the past few years I budgeted $1,200 for our birthdays, anniversary and Christmas, we didn’t spend much for our birthdays and anniversary this year so we got a bit of money still in this category. We still got over $800 in it available for the rest of the year. I don’t intent to spend this much for Christmas though, hoping to only spend half.

**CHALLENGE** we had 10 NSDs in November so $30 to the Challenge Fund plus the $20 from the being under in grocery, so $50 for the month. I still need to set up an actual bank account for this. For now it is just written down in my spreadsheet.



Financials-

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

*Save $4K for Holiday money. = We have now spent $4,754.63 under this category because of the camper trailer.

*Save $5K for future House Repairs/Future Remodel. = We will most likely end up spending around $1K under this category this year, not too bad.


Other –

*Read 70 books.
160. The Scandal - Fredrik Backman (3 Nov)
161. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa (9 Nov)
162. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty (10 Nov) - Audio
163. Zealot - Reza Aslan (13 Nov)
164. Started Early, Took my Dog - Kate Atkinson (14 Nov) - Audio
165. Smiling Mind - James Tutton & Jane Martino (15 Nov) - Audio
166. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (17Nov) - Audio
167. #NOW: The Suprising Truth About the Power of Now - Dr. Max McKeown (17 Nov) - Audio
168. The Brain that Changes Itself - Norman Doidge, MD (18 Nov) - Audio
169. The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben (20 Nov) - Audio
170. Aristotle's Way - Edith Hall (21 Nov)
171. Revenge - Andrew Holmes & James Patterson (22 Nov) - Audio
172. The Lion Tamer who Lost - Louise Beech (25 Nov)
173. The Brain's Way of Healing - Norman Doidge (27 Nov) - Audio
174. The Science of Getting Rich - Wallace D. Wattles (28 Nov) - Audio
175. Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe (30 Nov) - Audio

In the last couple of weeks I’ve spent a lot of time in the garden, didn’t have as much time actually reading but I been loving listening to audiobooks while gardening.



*Learn Spanish. = Still going everyday

*Workout 3/4 times a week. = failed but I been doing so much physical work in the garden that I been going to bed dog tired.

*Try new recipes every other week.
Made lemon tart and tomato chutney for the first time.

*Blogging once per week. = I missed one when we were away

*Continue Garden/Landscaping. = We did a lot and still going.

*Wake-up early (before 7am) = yes

*Continue Decluttering. = YES!

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.

Grocery = $55.91, a fairly regular shop. Got a good deal on broccoli, 4 heads for a dollar, it was great baked with cream and cheeses.

Clothing = bought a dress for a wedding that we are going to be attending this month, that was for $46.

Cleaned the Garage & Hired a Skip = we spent most of our weekend cleaning the garage and throwing out stuff we couldn’t get rid of during our annual hard rubbish collection. Mainly broken bricks, building materials and we also dug up rotten wood borders that held our front lawn. We have also started digging up our front lawn (or should I say front weeds). Since we cut down the massive palm tree in the front yard we can finally do more work there. The roots are still there and it would probably few years for it to compost so we will just work the design around it. So far I am happy how it is going. We put some soil that was under the lawn on top of it and I put in some seeds to see if it is any good at all. So far a couple sunflowers are growing and some radishes. I’m hoping radishes will help break up the soils a bit. I also put is some flowers (seeds), not much luck yet though.

Dinner Out = after all that hard work we had dinner our on Sunday. We had Vietnamese food for $36.50.

Grocery = $89.13 did a bit of shopping when we got home and then we did a big shop on the weekend. We got a little bit more stuff than usual since our fridge was really empty. I’m happy that vegetables are cheaper now that the weather is warming up. I particularly got a good deal on tomatoes; it was over a kilo for only $2. I know we can’t finish it all before it goes off so yesterday I made tomato chutney (for the first time), used up about half of the tomatoes.

Christmas Shopping = Started getting some stuff for Christmas, $206.56 worth. Couple of weeks ago my brother called me to asked if they could come at our place for Christmas, before that I was thinking of not really doing much for Christmas but now we got guest so I will have to do more shopping. I don’t mind I get to see my little niece again. Apparently she is running now.

Some people requested photos of our new (to us) camper trailer. Hope this works. I haven’t posted a photo here for years.


This camp site has great view of the lake and the sunset


There's so much room in this tent.

I don't have any photo of the little kitchen next time we go camping I'll make sure to get one and post it.

EDIT: DH actually had a photo of the kitchen.

We went away for 2 weeks, total spend was $708.63.

Accommodation = $105.00 for 3 nights camping
Transportation = Fuel cost $303.10
Food = $300.53


October (portion) = $439.14
November (portion) = $269.49

It was a great holiday just relaxed and watched the sunset (a lot).

On our 3rd day there, as we were driving from the market, just a block from the in-laws house at this parking area by the lake there was a sign for sale next to this camper trailer. A guy and his family were there, they had the tailer set up. We thought that looks interesting and we wondered how much it would be. We didn't bother stopping by because we wanted to get home (i.e. to the in-laws place) for lunch. Anyway, we talked about it during lunch and decided that we should go back and check it out. At this stage we didn’t think we would get it, we thought it would cost around $5k but we were interested to see what it was like. We were surprise that the price was for only $2,650 and that we would like it. We umm and ahh and slept on it. The next day they lowered the price on Gumtree (this is probably like Craig’s List in the US). We felt that they just want to get rid of it because they already got a replacement, an upgrade, they bought a caravan. So they don’t have room anymore in the garage for it.

We message them to ask to look at it again and if they are willing to accept $2300. They agreed. We made sure we could tow it in our car; it was all good so we bought it. It has a nice little kitchen, we can hook it up to power and there are a lot of space. It is a good solid trailer and can be taken off road if we want it to.

We decided to put this under holiday spending. So far this year we have spent $2,454.63 on holidays, I budgeted $4,000 for the year so we are way under, with a leftover of $1,545.37. We don’t have plans to go anywhere until next year.

Change to our Challenge?
We are going to still go ahead with our saving challenge. We will most likely keep this camper trailer for 5 years and then maybe upgrade? That's what tends to happen.