My Simple Financial Plan

I've been looking at the net and even contacted some travel agencies for over a month now trying to find a reasonable airfare price. Last night I finally found one that was very good, cost wise and travel time. With this one, we will have a stop over in Singapore airport but will not require to stay over night. The cheapest one that the travel agent found required stay over night in Singapore. We almost went with it but I thought to have one last look online last night. Luckily, I did because there were new flights available for our dates that was a lot cheaper. It's about $400 cheaper all up.

Accommodation and flights are now paid for. So far we've spent $1935. I'm hoping to only spend $3,000 for this trip. We still need to get shots and travel insurance. This will probably only leave us $700-800 to spend. Hmm I don't know if this is enough for 8 days. I think if DH and I try we could save about $200 from our allowances by then. This will give us $100-120 per day. So far we don't have plans to do much extra activities. We want to wait until we get there to see what we want to do and if the weather is good. I'll be just as happy staying by the pool or at the beach relaxing and also going to the market or shops to look around. I'm not that big on buying too much souvenirs. But I am thinking of getting DH a suit made over there but that will be taken out of our normal clothing budget.

After taking out the flights and accommodation cost we only have $340 left in the Holiday Fund this year. The other $1000 (for spending money, shots and insurance) will come from our Anniversary/Xmas Fund. It is just appropriate since we are going there for our 5 year anniversary. So we will only have $700 to spend on Christmas this year. Actually it will be less since we alreay spend some on gifts.

If things get really pricey, I always have my Sunny Day Savings to fall back on (see My Pages sidebar), it has about $850 in it right now.

I'm starting to really get excited about this trip now.


1 more day til pay day! Looking forward to putting some extra money into the mortgage tomorrow.

Bought some shares, not much, only got less than $600 worth. I'm honest enough to know that I am bottom picking here. It's a geothermal company, it has been as high as $2.20 but it has been recently as low as 15cents. I got 2000 shares at 0.28 as it bouncing back up. I honestly don't know where this stock will go from here but I think the upcoming carbon tax (if it goes ahead or not) will have an impact on it. Either way, I think I like to support this type of company.

Our new air conditioner was installed this morning. I had to pay an extra $150 to have the outdoor unit on a brace up rather than just having it on the ground. It is right by the drive way and it sticks out a bit so just in case, since there is not much room for our big car. Better safe than sorry I guess. Last night DH sent out the form to get a $200 pre-paid visa, it was a deal that came with the Fujitsu brand of air conditioner. I was really happy with the price we got the air conditioner for, with this $200 rebate, it end up less than half price than its normal retail price. Unfortunately, the installation cost end up more than the unit itself. Weird. We could have got a cheaper installer but since the store gurantee this installer for 5years we went with him. He was really good and very helpful. We still need to get the hole from the old unit fix.

2 more days until pay day. I'm counting.

We decided not to go to Vietnam afterall but we will still go ahead with Thailand. Unfortunately, Vietnam would cost us too much and it added too much time spending flying and waiting by the airports, which is not my idea of a holiday. Maybe one day we will visit DH's cousin now that he has decided to stay and live in Vietnam for a while.

The money that we were going to spend for Vietnam we decided to spend instead replacing our ~30 old air conditioner that is not working that well anymore. There was a nice sale on it the other week. Hopefully they will be installing it tomorrow.

Been going out a bit on lunch date with DH. It's middle of winter here but the weather has been really balmy. Great for lunch dates but it makes me think that our summer will be extra hot this year.

Friday was DH's payday. We decided to pay another $1500 into the principal of the mortgage.

Put in another $1K into the mortgage today. Yea!
DH is getting paid next week so we should be able to put a bit more again. I'm aiming to put $2K extra a month for the rest of the year.

Spent a bit of money in the last few days, we had relatives came and stayed with us. Grocery bill was a lot higher than normally, they are picky eaters. Also took them out for dinner, it was someones birthday and ended up spending close to $200. I'm glad this doesn't happen often.

We received a wedding invite last week, to be held in Vietnam in the same month we are planning to go to Thailand. At this stage we are hoping to do Thailand and Vietnam at the same time.

I suck at blogging!

The oven is still not working. We almost got a replacement on the weekend but then we opted to think about it some more. The sale price was really good but DH and I thought that we really need to research the brand first before buying it. They had 2 brands and about $400 the difference between the 2. They were both 20% off for one day only (on Sat). Unfortunately for us there are not much to pick, most store sell the electric oven and we need gas. Out of 20 brands they tend to only sell 2 brands that have gas oven. I guess they are mainly European brands and that what sells over there. We are willing to wait til the christmas sales, hopefully the price would have gone down by then and we should know which brand we want to get by then too.

Right now we are using the glass convection oven that we bought for $49 three weeks ago. So far so good, we've used it about half a dozen times now. We have cooked carrot cake, roast pork, vegies, etc. It's big enough for DH and me but I can't really have people over for roast. This should last us for a while or until we get the oven replacement.

---------
Over a week ago a friend of mine give me 2 tickets to a Kylie Minogue concert, I'm not really much of a fan but her show is great and it was free. DH and I made the most of it and decided to stay over night in the city in a nice hotel and dinner before the concert. We ended up spending a bit, it wasn't plan (ie wasn't in the budget) but it was great.

---------
We might end up going overseas after all this year for our 5 year anniversary. We got a really cheap deal on accommodation in Phuket, Thailand for 7 nights. We got 2 years to use it so if we can't make it this year then definitely next year. But now I'm thinking of using it for our annivesary instead of going up north to Cairns or somewhere (which DH is really keen on going). This might end up to be a bit cheaper. Well, it is not for few more months so we got time to look for cheap flights and make our final decision. The biggest problem is to see if DH can take time off. A whole week off might be a bit too much, if we go to Cairns we will probably only go for a 4 day weekend. It doesn't really matter where we go or if we even end up going as long as we are together.

---------
DH got paid on Friday, it was more than usual because of the short pay last time. We put in $2000 extra into the mortgage. Good news on the mortgage front we actually only need to come up with $1218 a month, instead of $1700 that we initally thought. It doesn't really matter how much it is, the more the better as long as the interest amount is the same.

---------
The 2011 $20K Challenge is still going well, expect for too much going out. Why is it so hard to curve this?

---------
We got our first Electric bill since having our solar panels. Unfortunately DH had to call them because they over charge us with the service fee of reprograming our meter to accommodate for the solar panels. So now we have to wait for a new bill that they will be re-sending. So far I can definitely see a difference in our bill and it should get better during summer when the days are longer.

I was about to make roast chicken last night when I couldn't get the oven to work. DH tried it but it was no use. The chicken was all seasoned and everything already. I had to put it back in the fridge. The chicken is now in the slow cooker, and I just hope that it turns out alright.

We've had problems with this oven for over a year now, first the door wouldn't shut tight anymore, then the igniter stopped working. For a year now we had to put it on manually. Now it won't light up anymore. I think getting it fix will cost a bit, although we haven't looked into it. I'm not that keen on getting a new one yet either because the stove part still works just fine. I think we could get away not using the oven for a while. I want to spend sometime looking into my options rather than buying one right away.

Life is funny sometimes. Last month we had a really good run in terms of good news, I guess now its for some negativity. Just the way life is.

Well unto some good news, I paid $1000 into the mortgage today.

DH got paid on Friday but it was missing a full week of pay. He figured it out on Monday that it was the fax machine's fault. He fax his timesheets but 1 of it didn't get sent. So now he has to wait for it until next pay. So my plan last week to put more into the mortgage will have to be postpone, oh well. I will still send some maybe tonight. Was meant to send it on the weekend but I wanted to make sure we found out what happen to DH's pay first. I will have to recalculate tonight how much I can send. Lucky we don't have any big bills to pay in the coming weeks. Oh well, something to blog about.

I've been a bit busy cleaning up. Moving back to our newly renovated bedroom is taking a while. I've decided not to just dump everything back, I'm trying to be selective on what we put back into the bedroom. It's nice and clean at the moment and I would love to keep it this way forever. DH and I are doing well so far.

DH found out yesterday how much pay rise he will be getting. He came home very happy last night that I he even stopped by at the florist to get me flowers. I don't expect flowers all the time but once in awhile is a nice suprise. At this stage I was really happy to be getting a suprise and then he told me that he will be getting an extra $75 a day (before tax). I was estatic by then. We were hoping for about half of this, if that. This will be for 15 months contract. 9% of it will go to his compulsory retirement fund. And then the dreaded tax will be taken out. This should leave us around $30-$35 extra per day, so about $600-700 per month. Coincidently, this is about the amount our mortgage monthly payment have increase to. Sweeeeet.

Of course, since this is only a 15-month contract we still need to do our best to keep saving or paying extra to our mortgage. At this stage pre-paying the mortgage is our best bet, with the interest rate keep on increasing we really need to get rid of it.

DH's project however has already been funded for another 1 year after his 15-month contract finish. So he should most likely stay at this job for a bit longer. And then after that they can always ask for more funds. Who knows what can happen then.

I can't believe it but a money that was owing to me for work that I did about 10 months ago finally came. I have given up on actually getting this money that's why it has become now unexpected. Anyway, it was just a bit over $1,060. $1,000 will go to the mortgage. The rest we spent last night for dinner, we went to the casino here and had half a lobster, 1/2kg tiger prawns and pizza, they had a nice deal on seafood at the moment. All up it was only $61.60 including a glass of wine and soft drinks.

I won't bother putting the money into to the mortgage until this weekend. I'm going to wait for DH's pay this Friday. I'm hoping to put a bit this time. We shouldn't need much cash in the next 4 weeks. So far this month we are doing fairly well, we only need to pay our quarterly property rate, that will be $322. And maybe DH will need to fill up the car.

I went to the city today to finally get that haircut that I'm in desperate need of. Then afterwards I meet up with Dh for lunch. The weather today is terrible but it was good to get out of the house.

Today we received a cheque in the mail worth $300, this was unexpected money. I don't remember getting info about this, neither has DH. This was for a "special" dividend for one of DH's stock. Normally he has a DRP for this stock but for this special dividend it does not qualify for DRP. Either way we will take, it is 100% franked already too.

I will have to wait tonight to talk to DH on what we should do with this money. Right now I'm thinking mortgage. DH will probably want to re-invest it, it will be his decision since it is his stock.

On another news, our interest only mortgage has ended, so we are now variable which is roughly $1800 a month. We do intend to keep paying more than this.

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.

I do have a bit to update but I will keep it short.

March was an okay month could have been better but we still spending a bit on the renovation. We have also been helping my Aunty on her chemotherapy expenses, and it will continue this month also. She needs all the help she could get. We managed to put $3500 into various saving funds. A lot of it went to the household fund which is quickly deflating. I had to (well I guess it was more like I WANTed it) buy a new laptop. My old one broke last month. The household fund is really been hit. The 10 thousand budget to renovate two bathrooms and main bedroom was too low. Anyway, it's all done now. I will just have to wait a bit longer to do the other bathroom.

We are going away for Easter to visit relatives interstate. I put away $300 into the holiday fund, it should be plenty since our flight is already paid for and we won't need to pay for accomodation. We will probably mainly spend money on the little kiddies, since we deliberately didn't send them christmas presents.

This month will be very good in terms of income, it's double pay month! But we will also need to pay the solar panels this month, which will really put an end to the household fund.

Speaking of solar panels, we have had them up for 2 weeks now and we have put a bit of power back into the grid. I think we will get 60-68 cents per kilowatt.

Stock market:
I love this time of the year because it's dividend time. One of my stock got taken over and all the shares have been bought out. I really liked that share but I had to say goodbye to it. I received my pay out last week. I didn't include it as an income eventhough I doubled my money because I want to just put it back into the investment fund money. I will probably get 2 different stocks in the near future.

February numbers were pretty good, overall we were under by $12. We only went over budget on gifts (by over $70)and groceries by over $27. If we didn't get the Costco membership we would have been under. I'm reasonable happy with our spending so far this year. Although the renovation expenses is a bit higher than I anticipated it to be but at the same time we are saving few thousand dollar by doing most things. Eventhough it is taking longer but we are happy with it.

This month's spending should be reasonably lower again.
------------------------------------

On another news, we decided to get solar panels. Our federal government have had this solar panel scheme here for a while now and they are winding it down next month. We have been talking and researching about it for about a year now, debating whether we should do it. Since the start of this year we pretty much have been talking about it almost daily because yet again the electric company have decided to increase their rates. Also the prices on solar panels have become very competitive in the last few months. So we thought to just do it now. This is probably not the best time to do it now with all the renovation expenses and all. We have enough in the household fund for it but this would mean that we have to hold off on renovating the main bath room for few months or so. The main bathroom probably won't get done until the end of the year or even early next year, it is not such a big deal especially when we get the ensuite done.

Overall the cost for 6 solar panels including installation will be $7857 but the government is putting in $5360 so it will only cost us $2497. DH calculated that it would take us 4 years to break-even and sooner if the electric price keep going up. The solar panels itself has 20 yrs warranty and other parts for 10yrs. I just hope we made the right decision.

DH got a phone call from one of our credit card company telling him that we went over the limit and that he should make a payment right away. I just paid the last statement for this card at the start of the month but most of the charges in it didn't account for our recent expenses which included over $1,000 on insurances and another 1K for the new shower and base and around 2K for the skylight, ventilation and other materials that we have been charging like crazy lately. This card only got a $4,000 limit, that's why it went over. DH paid 1K last night hopefully that would be enough until we get the next statement to be paid at the start of next month. I'm just hoping they haven't slugged us a fee for going over the limit. We have never done this before, this was rare for us to be spending this much on credit card. We normally average on this card around $1,500-2,000 a month, this is the card that we use most often. The only other card that we use for purchasing is AMEX. We also have a Citibank but we tend to use this one as a debit card, we always have extra money in it.

===========================================

Did some digging around the garden this morning and found about 2kgs of potatoes and some garlic. This should help a bit with grocery this month.

Friday night we did go to Costco. In my previous post I stupidly said I was only going to spend $100 (excluding membership fee), well umm that amount ended to almost $180! Yikes. Plus $60 for the annual membership. I spent the left over money in the grocery budget last month towards the membership fee, so I still had to add another $32 out of this month's grocery budget. In the end we only got $28 left for groceries this month. I really don't know how we spent that much, we didn't get anything that we don't need. DH wanted to get some mini Reese's and I even said no to that, no junk food at all in this shopping trip, we hardly buy them really. I will work hard not to go over too much this month but I think this will be impossible. We shouldn't need much anymore, maybe milk and fresh fruits and veg. We should have enough meat for the rest of the month. Being a shorter month should help too.

Items we won't need to get in the next 3-5 months:
-Toilet paper
-Toothpaste
-Coffee
-Shampoo
-Olives
-Gherkins
-Cheese
-Stag Chilli - DH likes to take this to work for lunch when we don't have leftovers.

So I weekend start very expensive and it continued thru Saturday. Spent another $630+ more on materials for the renovation, this included sound insulation for the external walls.

Thankfully, Sunday was a NSD ! I'm tired from all the spending.

Friday night we did go to Costco. In my previous post I stupidly said I was only going to spend $100 (excluding membership fee), well umm that amount ended to almost $180! Yikes. Plus $60 for the annual membership. I spent the left over money in the grocery budget last month towards the membership fee, so I still had to add another $32 out of this month's grocery budget. In the end we only got $28 left for groceries this month. I really don't know how we spent that much, we didn't get anything that we don't need. DH wanted to get some mini Reese's and I even said no to that, no junk food at all in this shopping trip, we hardly buy them really. I will work hard not to go over too much this month but I think this will be impossible. We shouldn't need much anymore, maybe milk and fresh fruits and veg. We should have enough meat for the rest of the month. Being a shorter month should help too.

Items we won't need to get in the next 3-5 months:
-Toilet paper
-Toothpaste
-Coffee
-Shampoo
-Olives
-Gherkins
-Cheese
-Stag Chilli - DH likes to take this to work for lunch when we don't have leftovers.

So I weekend start very expensive and it continued thru Saturday. Spent another $630+ more on materials for the renovation, this included sound insulation for the external walls.

Thankfully, Sunday was a NSD ! I'm tired from all the spending.

DH gets paid today and last night he paid an extra $1,000 into the mortgage principal.

We might try to go to Costco after work tonight, which means probably we will be spending a bit of money, $60 for membership and probably around $100 in groceries. I will try to not to spend more than that. We tend to overspend at Costco.

As usual January is the most expensive month for us. The annual Car and Home insurance are due in Jan. That's more than $1000 right there. But since we stuck to our spending plan we were underbudget by almost $200. Everything was under budget but the home phone.

This month's spending plan will be about 60% to that of last month. It normally less than that for this month but we need to send DH's cousin an engagement gift. We are not going because it is interstate (in Queensland where all the weather is at the moment), and we are not really expected to go so we will just send something. Also an old high school friend, who now also lives in Queensland, is coming down next weekend and we already plan to go out next Saturday. I offered to pay for her meal already because it is her birthday next month and she sent me a gift just before christmas last year so I think I owe her one. I will be taking her somewhere a bit upmarket so I anticipate to spend around $120 for our meal.

-----------------
We spent more than $2,500 yesterday for our bathroom/bedroom renovation. We got the window brick in, got the shower screen and shower base delivered, we also got the skylight and attic ventilation installed. It is a bit of money to spend but I am glad that we got these things done. We are moving along nicely.

Our weekend was really busy and very very hot. We got a heatwave for almost a week now and still more to come.

Saturday we spent all morning driving around shopping. We went for a small grocery shopping to Aldi only spent over $26. We did really well with our grocery budget in January, we still got over $36 leftover. The budget for Jan was $230, so we only used less than $200. I am trying to decide whether to get the annual Costco membership this week, they are having some sales at the moment to celebrate their 2nd year of trading here in Melbourne. The annual fee is $60, so I was thingking of using that $36 and then the rest will come from Feb grocery budget.

We also stop by to the Skylight/Roof ventilation shop to pay for the deposit. Someone will be coming by tomorrow to install them, I can't wait. I am hoping the roof ventilation will help to get rid of the hot air in the roof. The skylight will be install in our new ensuite bathroom.

Saturday afternoon we went to buy some floor tiles, we managed to get them really cheap. Only spent $144 for 8 meter sqaure and it also included a big bag of tile glue. We also score free 2 soap holders and 2 toilet holders. I don't know if we will actually used them yet maybe the soap holder will work. They are worth around $15-$20 each, so not a bad score.

We then went to the hardware store near our place to get some timber to use as studs, we also decided to get supplies that we will need eventually. All up that cost us almost $300, the most expensive thing was the waterproof paint and stuff, that was around $150 but definitely worth doing it now. We also had to get some floor boards to replace one that is rooten and a couple where the old shower drain pipe used to be.

We put up the studs to were the new walls is going to be, we still need to get more timber. Unfortunately we couldn't carry all of what we need in the car. We finished everything we need to do for now by Sunday lunch. We thought about going back to the hardware store to get more supplies but the temperature got too hot to bother doing anymore work. We are just doing a bit at the time, both DH and I are enjoying it. These are skills that we are willing to learn, it comes handy. Couple years ago we did our laundry and my FIL helped us and taught us everything we know now. In the past I used to stress out so much over the cracks in the walls/ceilings. I used to worry that the whole ceiling will collapse on top of us and now it doesn't bother me at all anymore because now I know how to fix it myself.

Yesterday I blogged about needing more cash/cash flow in the next month or so to pay for trades people that we will need to hire. I was actually thinking of withdrawing money out of my bankwest account (which is the EF accout) or out or the redraw account. I almost did it too especially after I received our AMEX bill of over $2300, the cost of the new fridge that we got last month is in it now. I was really hoping that I didn't need to, I talked to DH about it we both decided to wait until mid next month the AMEX is due to withdraw the money out. He thinks we might not need to withdraw any money out since he will get paid next Friday. And if still short of cash we then withdraw some from those accounts.

Well today we just happened to received our tax refund (for 2009/10),2 cheques 1 in my name and the other under DH, in total just a bit over $2,900. I called DH right away and not even an hour later we were in the bank near DH's work depositing in the cheques. They say it might take few days for it to clear. I knew that and that is why I was really keen to cash it in right away because tomorrow is public holiday here and will most likely have tradies coming on Thurs/Fri, so I really didn't want to wait until Sat to deposit it into the bank. I can now relax about the cash flow shortage issue. Sometimes things just workout.

After the bank, DH and I decided to have lunch out together again. This was not plan. It was a lot nicer than Taco Bill though. We had Thai where they had their lunch specials for $10.50 a meal including drinks. I had chicken satay and rice with coke and DH had red curry and rice with a glass of red wine. DH will have to bring back his packed lunch home again tonight, which means I don't need to cook dinner tonight. Eventhough it was plan and we now only got about $4 in the entertainment/eating out money, we were glad we went out for lunch today to make up for last week's lunch date.

- NSD on Friday and Sunday, which make it 12 NSD for the month.

- Went grocery shopping on Sat, spent just over $56. Also picked up drycleaning for $31.90.

- Then we went to the Hardware store to get stuff we need for our renovation. Spent over $122. Sat afternoon and Sunday morning DH managed to take down the sliding door and it's frame. We also took out the old shower after, the only way it would fit through. It is weird seeing it laying flat in the garage now. We have taken about half of the wall off. Next weekend we hope to put up more studs to replace where the sliding door used to be, we have decided to move the door to the other side . BTW I hated the sliding door and so glad it is now gone...

- We also went to a skylight store, just to get an idea on what's out there. Now that we decided to brick up the window we will need a skylight. The one the both DH and I like is really good but it's not the cheapest (around the middle range). This window really need replacement, so we decided to just brick it up. By doing so it will solve few of our problems, one is noisy neighbour. And we eventually want to install a water tank in that space which should help the problem with the gutter overflowing too much when there is a really heavy rain.

I really really want to put more money into the mortgage but I have to hold off. Unfortunately most trades people only accept cash, which is fair enough.

The other problem we also have it that no one calls back when they say they would call back and the one that does over-charge a lot. The guy that says he will call back about 2 weeks ago now never did and when we tried to call him his phone is not working anymore. It's weird.

I remember 8 years or so ago we used to have people knocking on our door asking if we need worked done around the house. We did but unfortunately we didn't have the cash then to do it. I wish I had the money then but I am also glad that we didn't go on debt for it.

We will eventually get it done but now I know that it will take a lot longer than that I hope for.

After the asbestos removalist left yesterday I decided to go to the city to meet up with DH for lunch. We try to have a lunch date at least once a month. For some reason after last month's lunch date we walked passed Taco Bill and decided then that this month's lunch date we will go there. I actually haven't been there for about 10 years, so I was keen to see what it is like these days and DH always wants nachos. Well it was terrible, it cost us over $27 for 2 tacos with a bit of mexican rice, a plate of nacho and 2 small drinks. It tasted awful. For that amount of money I could have made it so much better. Now I remember why I stopped going there, never again. We were so disappointed that we decided to go somewhere else for dessert and coffee.

For coffee and dessert we went to a nice but a bit more expensive French patisserie. Their macaroons are to die for, it is so yummy. We spent $20.15 there for 2 lattes, 2 macaroons and a cake. I decided to pay for it out of my allowance. It is the first time I spent any money out of my allowance this month. I really don't have anything I want to spend my money on this month. I think I want to save my money to get an ipod later this year...maybe. I been wanting 1 for a while now but it one of those things that I can live without.

I got someone here at the moment removing the asbestos that was under the old tiles in our ensuite bathroom. It will cost me $300, this was definitely not in my budget for this renovation but at the same time I did thought that we might have asbestos somewhere. It was widely used when this house was built in the 60's. Oh well, $300 is a lot but I would rather be safe than sorry. The boss guy yesterday said that unfortunately $300 is their minimum charge so even if the area was twice as big it would cost about the same.

At least I know how much to budget for it in the main bathroom when we start renovating that in few months time. Unfortunately, we have the same tiles in the main bathroom and we are 99% sure that the underlay underneath will be the same.

This guys are at least pretty good though, they came right on time when they say they will be here. Unlike the guy we hire the other week to brick in our window. He said he will call back last week to confirm when he can do it but we haven't heard from him at all. We might have to call someone else now. Well he missed out cause I actually was going to hire for a lot more other stuff around the house to do. He could have made a bit of money from us. I guess it is better to find out now that later when he is half way through a job that won't get finish.

Oh they just finish, I better go and pay them.

Thursday and Friday happened to be a NSDs. We are doing really well with our NSD this month, 8 out of 17 so far.

Saturday we went grocery shopping, spent just over $57 all up, $28 was spent at Aldi and the rest at the market.

Also found out that Dh paid for our annual car insurance, he was meant to do that last weekend but he wanted to do a bit of research during the week to try and get us a better deal. In the end we are staying with the current company we are with but he opted to get the lesser claim, I think instead of $8800 we will only get $7700 for our car. This over all saved just over $22.

We also spent money on cricket tickets for Sunday game. They had special cheap tickets to celebrate 30years of one day games.


ARGGGHHH>>>> I lost half of my entry!!! WHY???


I can't be stuffed typing it all again, I got to get dinner ready now. This has been happening a lot lately, I've lost entries 3 times this month already. This is really annoying.


I will talk about finding what is most likely an asbestos in our ensuite bathroom when DH started pulling out the tiles on Saturday next time.

Got to go for now.

Yesterday a couple of bananas wasn't going to survive much longer so I made banana bread out of them.

Today I am currently making chicken stock out of the leftover chicken roast I made few days ago.

Yesterday was a NSD and today could be also if we don't go grocery shopping. We are running out of milk so we definitely need to go get some either tonight or tomorrow. Maybe if it stops raining tonight we will go.

DH is getting a promotion starting next month, but no extra pay until end of June. Basically, it is in a trial basis so if DH or the company wants to bail out they can. We both don't mind about the money, DH is just happy that he is finally getting some good recognition for his hard work. And that his decision to quit his previous job has turn out to be for the best, not only for better money but also better future prospect. There was no future in that previous job and I believed that he stayed in that job a year longer than he should have but then again the economy a year ago was really bad so he had to suck it up a bit then. While, after 3 months in this job he is already getting a promotion. It is also a recognition for getting his MBA (2 years of sacrifice while working full-time).

No extra money but it is still a really big deal for DH. June is not that far away anyway. Plus he wasn't expecting a pay rise until his current contract ends in 2 years so getting one in June will be a bonus.

I've decided to pay myself $10 instead of $5 for every NSD we have this year. This of course would again go into my "Sunny Day Savings" (see under my Pages on the sidebar). I started this saving since 2007, I got the idea after reading a personal finance book. I can't remember what the book is called now, but the idea is somewhat opposite to an emergency fund. I used it when I see a good bargain. Back in 2008-2009 I used to put $200 a month into it but have now cut it out and have only put NSD savings into it. In previous years, I've bought shares with this money and so far they have been a pretty good buy. Last year we spend some of the money on our holiday to Fiji and to buy my Kindle.

Basically this money I use for things that I consider as an "opportunity", not necessary to make us extra money, although all those shares that I've bought with this money so far has, but also for things that I consider a bargain. The fijian holiday for example the flights were half price. And the kindle I bought because the Australian dollar went above the US (which hasn't happened for about 30 years?), which made it a lot cheaper than back when it first came out and I have been wanting to get one since.

Anyway, it is really just a saving with no name for it. It is just some sort of a game that I play with myself. It make saving more fun for me, getting a reward for having a NSD.

This year we decided to go back using cash only on Groceries, Entertainment, and our Allowances. I think by using cash we get a better hold of our expenses. We used to only used cash on these things but last couple of years we stopped, I don't really know why? I guess, it is a bit of a hassle going to ATM to get the cash. It is a lot easier to just use the cards, and that is the problem it is too easy to spend the money without thinking about it.

Today is DH's payday, the money will probably not go into to our bank account until late tonight.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and spent just over $51. I'm hoping not to go shopping again until next weekend.

This weekend I got a lot of bills to pay and I was going to put $1,000 into the mortgage but I might wait another week just in case we might need the case to pay labourers that we might hire next week.

Other than paying bills this weekend we will be spending our time clearing out the ensuite, maybe even taking out the old tiles.