My Simple Financial Plan

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

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

We haven't had a NSD for over a week. Spent a bit of money last week. I bought some gifts, food, fuel, snacks and of course the tyre repair.

The other day we booked and paid for our accommodation for our up coming holiday. Not too bad i guess.

We didn't need a new tyre after all, they just had to plug the hole. It only cost $25 in total. So now it's as good as new, according to the repairer guy. It should be our tyre are pretty new, not even two years old.

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DH just got his tax return form, he should be getting $2,000. This is great news, we didn't expect anything. The most maybe couple hundred dollars. Our tax system is a lot diffent to the US, we don't do the witholding thing. Most of these money will go towards funding the household fund. Just in time really because we need a lot of work done around the house. Our dishwasher will definitely need replacing soon, I'm hoping not until next year. We also need some electrical work done. The front garden could also do some work. Oh man the list could go on. Really 2 grand is not enough for what we need done to the house. We are just prioritizing at the moment. Important things will have to come first.

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I finally bought some shares today, I've been waiting to get in for 2 weeks now. Today it finally hit my price. There's another stock that I want to get, just waiting for my right price.



That's all folks!

We got a screw/bolt stuck in the tyre on the way home tonight. Either we drove over it or someone put it in there. What a pain! I think we will need to get a new one. We managed to get home okay. We just left it in for now. We are scared to take it out, it might deflate quicker if we do. DH will take it to the shop tomorrow morning.

Most our major expenses are due at the beginning of the month. For the first week of this month we already spent $2,000 in total mainly because of the mortgage. Yesterday we also paid the Gas and Electricity bill and the credit card bill. Also did a big grocery shopping, and put some credit into my mobile phone. The rest was for little expenses like coffee, take away and bus pass. Oh and also my account was direct debited for my managed funds.

Today was a NSD, had 2 NSD so far for this month.

The soon to be new cafe near work offered free coffee to everyone in our building. The place is actually not opening for another week, but they are trying out their new coffee machine and wanted to get feedback on there coffee. It was very nice.

Did some shopping for gifts today, everyone here is having a sale at the moment because of end of financial year.

Also today I got my payment summary from work, which what we need to file for our tax. I just need to get my other financial information together this weekend and hopefully next week I should be able to send the info to my accountant. I should be getting over $1,000 back. Hopefully, I can get it by mid-next month.

I say for now because I really don't know how much I should be saving for this. I will probably put more money in this fund at the end of the year when I should have extra cash to throw around.

Funds Snowball

We managed to have $2,222 this month togo towards funding our funds. As usual, I'm paying myself first by putting $500 into saving ($100 of which will go towards "Sunny Day Saving"). Most of it went to tuition (due the end of this month), since the decision to do 2 subjects instead 1 was made we had to put money into this category first instead. Only put $100 into the holiday fund. We got over $1,800 balance in the holiday account now, we won't need much of it this year maybe next year. As for the household fund, in total I put in $500 although $155.50 was spent on things we need/want for the house and the left over $344.50 is what's put in the fund. We have to definitely start beefing this up more since we will probably use all the money in the fund hopefully this month or next month. Depending on when the repairer can come to do the house repairs.

Wow...definite sign that the US economy is slowing down.

Overall, June’s expenses were not too bad. The biggest expense was for our quarterly property rate/tax. The big increase in fuel consumption is due the changes in the way we are travelling to work. We are now driving more than taking public transport, it is actually about the same maybe even a bit cheaper (now that we converted our car to gas). Also the biggest advantage is it cuts our travel time, we get to go home almost an hour earlier. We are spending more fuel but have cut down on our public transport expense.

The usual suspect for over spending were quite good this month; grocery exp was reasonable and our entertainment spending was not bad (especially compare to last month).

First 6 Month Analysis:
We are at the half way point of our challenge so I thought I should analyse our progress thus far. Well the biggest worry is the Entertainment category - we are WAAAAAYYYY over, bloody hell we are over. We spent $720 in the last 6 months, which only leaves us less than $280 for the rest of the year. That’s $46 per month! It will be mission impossible to get this category under budget. Good thing we got our Allowances to fall back on. We are way under in these, especially DH’s side. I should have been worrying about our entertainment budget more than the grocery budget. But it is just so hard when friends got a get together, it is impossible to avoid spending. We can’t just sit there and watch everyone eat, could we? Plus there are two of us, so it doubles the expense. Ultimately I don’t regret the time we spend with our friends and really the experience is worth more than any money in the world. But in saying that I hate being this much over our budget, maybe the budget was too low to start with. Last year we spent $1,750 on entertainment, so maybe I was just too unrealistic. Or I’m I just trying to justify our over spending? Argh...

The other categories are very reasonable most things that are over are only over by few dollars. The mobile phone budget is way over but I’m not that worried about it, our usage (for 2 mobile phones) is ridiculously low compare to most people. In the old days I used to spend $150 in a month on my mobile phone! My how I’ve changed my ways – I guess I was very young and stupid then. Even our grocery bill is only $20 over, which I’m very happy about. Overall, we are under by $600+! I can’t wait until the end of the year.







Edit: Opps! Clothing is actually over.

So here's to the second half of 2008. cheers!

Well today I got up early and straight away clean the bedroom and put a load of washing in the washing machine, before I had my breakfast.

Yesterday was our end of financial year, so today I wanted to tidy up our finances. I called to get an online account for my managed fund, that took 5mins of waiting. I should get my access info in few days time. Also called my Super (retirement) fund to get access to my online account. I got log out because I forgot my password. That took about another 10mins of waiting. My account went down a bit. Can't wait for this market to turn around.

I'm in the process of calculationg our net worth for the end of the quarter. Had to get the end of yesterday's prices for our shares. I doesn't look good. So far it is not looking good at all. It is not finalise yet, I got to wait for my managed fund and also DH's retirement account. I have to wait for him to check it out.

Even though the numbers are not looking very good, I'm very satisfied at the work I've done today. I really got to keep on top of all these financial accounts we got. Calculating our Net worth every quarter sure keeps me motivated to check our accounts. I just got to get DH to keep up with his accounts too.

On another topic, last week's expenses was not too bad. We had 3 NSD which made it 11 NSD for the month (that's $55.00 towards the Laptop Fund - see My Pages).
The biggest expense was for textbooks, $200 worth. Home phone was also paid and I got train ticket.

I will put up my $20K Challenge later today.

Well it's Sunday 7pm here, so it is very safe to say that today is a NSD, This add up to 3 NSD for the week. Yesterday was a very spendy day. First we went out for a birthday lunch and then we went shopping for some items for the house that has been in our to do lists/ to get lists for a long time now. We were not as busy this weekend so we actually got some house work/repair done. We also got two pairs of work shoes for DH, he definitely needs new ones now. We decided to get two because they were really cheap. The store that we got them for was having a massive sales. The last thing we got yesterday was some groceries. We got some eggs, milk bread, vegies and oranges. All up it costs $9.75. Other expenses that we spend this week was for insurance, fuel, and $100 to my managed funds.

Yesterday was a no spender, which made a 2 NSD in a row. We don't get much of those these days. So that was a good feeling. Today was a different story though. Went to Borders and got the Smurf Box Set for a gift. It was on special, a saving of $11. I also bought a book for myself, it was half price. I just realised it's the first book I bought for more than 1 year, maybe even 2 years. I really can't remember when the last time a book for myself. I used to always buy books to keep. This one is one of those authors that I collect. We also ended up eating out for dinner. That was $16 that we didn't need to spend. It was DH's shout, so it is coming out of his allowance money.


Interesting News: Just heard from the news today that Costco is opening a mega store here in Melbourne Australia. I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad news yet. I guess good that it will increase competition and eventually drive prices down. Something that we do need here is more competition. We don't have store like Costco at the moment so it would be very interesting to see how it affect the market.

We had a NSD yesterday, and today should also be a NSD (fingers crossed DH doesn't spend any money today). He shouldn't need to fill up the car, he did that the other day. There is no bill due until next week. But we have a birthday lunch to go to on Sat, so I will have to get a gift and lunch will cost a bit. We also need to get some more milk and maybe some bread.

I'm looking at getting some shares next week or so. I took some money from saving to put into my trading account. Some of it is the money from the car fund. Since we are not looking at getting another car for at least another 5 years, I rather use some of the money to get some shares. I put $5,000 in the account; $1,700 is from the car fund. I left $300 in the fund for the upcoming car service cost. I guess I will find out in the future whether this was a good idea or not. I don't think I will loss all $1,700, if for some reason it is not going the right way then I can always pull it out. Also I should also be able to getting some dividends.

Enrolment was done the other day. Payment is not due until late next month so we should have enough money for it if I put extra money in it this month and next month. Will be doing 2 subjects and it will cost over $2,000.
Have a great day everyone!

Last week was really busy again. The other night I finally got some down time and was able to try to check my blog, but for some reason I couldn't log on.

We managed to have 3 NSDs last week, I guess being busy can help cut on spending. We mainly spent money on Fuel, a month worth of Bus pass for me, Internet, my Health Insurance, some Clothing for DH and we also went out for dinner. We also spent money on Groceries, I stopped by at Aldi for milk but decided to stock up instead for the rest of the month. There is 0.65 cents left in the grocery budget, and probably still need to get some more milk for next week. Prices have definitely gone up here, even at Aldi's. The tuna that we used to get for 75 cents are now 89 cents. The can of whole tomatoes used to be 45cents have now gone up, lucky the can of diced tomatoes are still 45cents but I think they will go up soon too. So I stock up on those.

Did a lot of cleaning in the garden on the weekend. I pulled out the pumpkin, and while I was trying to pull it out I found 1 massive pumpkin hiding in the bush. It was a great suprise and already made some pumpkin soup and freshly made pasta with pumpkin. Still have plenty left over. My snowpeas are growing nicely and should be able to start harvesting in the next couple of weeks. The broccoli is starting to have flowerette (is that what's called?).

Anyway that was my week.

Yesterday's NSD did not eventuate due to DH getting fuel for the car. He decided to fill up yesterday because a lot of the service station already started putting the prices up so he took advantage of getting it before it goes up again.

Last week we had 1 NSD (yesterday was also a NSD and hoping today will be a NSD as well). As per usual we paid the mortgage on the beginning of the month. The 2nd quarter property rate/tax was also due last week. Also did a big grocery shopping last week,spent more than 2/3 of the month's grocery budget. So not much money left for the rest of the month but we did get a lot of items that should last until next week.

Other payments made was for CC repayments and water bill.

We got couple of major expenses coming up this month. The most costly will be the tuition and textbooks. We have enough put away for 1 subject but if I decide to do two subject(not sure yet), then we have to fund this first this month and might cut down on funding the household and holiday fund this month.

Another potential expense this month is to get the car service, it's couple months over due.

We are also looking at doing some house repairs, but this is most likely be done next month just don't have time for it this month.

I'm hoping that today will be a NSD. It's public holiday today so no work for both DH and myself, it's our Queens Birthday. We are not planning to go any where so it would also be No Gas Day.
I'm just planning to do some cleaning and cooking.

Just a quick update of my 20K Challenge. Been so busy lately just don't have much time to blog. But I should at least update my challenge. Overall, May was a very good month, although we went over our entertainment budget by quite a bit.

MAY 20K CHALLENGE


TIME v $




I will also be updating my Funds Snowball, just check it out under My Pages.

We spent just under $20 on the weekend, which leaves us with $13 in the grocery budget for the rest of the month. Probably enough for milk more milk. Might have to have some powdered milk. We will see if we can hold out.

Today DH got paid and we finally able to find out his new monthly salary. It is $60 more than I anticipated, which is fine by me! This will most likely change again in two months time because of the new tax cut that the government is giving us, I think it should take affect in July. It should be another $15-20 a week extra to his salary. We also found out that his company is contributing almost $600 per month to his superannuation (retirement) fund. So that's over $7000 to his retirement per year.

It's the middle of the month and we only got $32 left in the grocery budget. So it is going to be tough trying to get through the month without going over. Hopefully we can get by without going over by much. We only need to get few essential items; we are running out of milk and don't have anymore eggs. We will be going shopping for these items tomorrow and will probably also get some fruits and vegies and maybe some chicken. Hope to only spend $15-20 this week. Oh boy this is going to be tough. With the prices going up so much it is getting a lot harder to stay under budget. Unfortunately, we don't have much competition with our supermarkets The big store pretty much can put up the prices as much as they want. Luckily, Aldi is around but I think we need more competition.

We are also already over our fuel budget but this was intentional. DH has been driving to work instead of taking public transport. So we are putting the money for his fare ticket to the fuel money. We are just testing this at the moment, hopefully it won't be costing us too much more (even better hopefully it might even cost us less). Also he gets home a lot earlier this way.

a NSD today. Woo hoo.

I was hoping to have a NSD today but DH forgot his lunch this morning and had to get a loaf of bread. Luckily, he had some cans of tuna in his office and only had to get some bread. So he only spent a bit of money which will be coming out of his allowance.

a NSD, but I had to get a Mother's day card today. So, it saw a very low spend day today.

I will be paying my last dental bill tomorrow, it's not too bad $200.10 worth.

Property rate (tax) bill came today. It is actually due early next month, I thought it would have been due this month. This actually works out great for us since we got extra expenses to pay this month.

That's all for today folks!

Today was a NSD, first one for the month.
Nothing much is happening here, financial wise. We've been away also. Spent a bit of money but nothing major, which will come out of the holiday fund.

Here's our April actual numbers:



Overall, we did really well but we over spent on groceries this month. This was mainly due to stocking up on some essentials. Also, entertainment was way over than where it should be and I've got to cut down on my snack consumption.

We are ahead by about $300 or 1.3% as you can see on this graph.



We are going pretty well at the moment but there are some areas that we need to improve. So for May we will try to cut down on entertainment and my allowance budget.

Due to extra income this month we got both the Xmas Fund and EF fully funded. It's a great feeling. We also managed to put $630 extra towards the Car fund this month.

I've updated the "Funds Snowball" page in My Pages (sidebar). I've put in another table which I will update every month.

Goal #3 and #4 is done.

We should be able to fund the Car Fund next month. Although I anticipate a bit more expenses next month. I think our property rate is due again. Also I just got my rebate check from Medicare and all up I will have to cover $200 towards the payment for my anesthesists, I'm happy with that, it's like getting 50% off.

I will update our $20K challenge later. Overall, it looks very good but as usual there where overbudget on some categories.

I was listening to an Audio Book called "The Money Motivator" last week. The only new thing that I got from it was the idea of Saving for Sunny Day. People usually save for rainy day, which is what Emergency Fund is all about. I think we have come to a point in our personal finance journey to start saving for sunny days. This will be a fund for when a great opportunies will come along. So saving for it now, should help give us an opportunity to take advatage of what ever will come along in the future. I don't know what it is yet but would like to save up for it. I will take $100 out of the $500 per month saving just for this.

WooHoo!! We haven't done that for a while.
We are up to 6 NSD for the month, still not very good. Hopefully we can manage another 2 before the end of the month.

Done more yard work and still tackling the garage.

...is happening around here. We did a lot of yard work on the weekend, and I am still trying to clean the garage. It's a lot more work that I anticipated.

Been spending a bit of money this month, we've only had 4 NSD this month so far. I think this is the lowest NSD month ever. We are already over our entertainment budget for the month. We went to Nobu, really expensive but soooo good. Sashimi...yum! So, no more going out for the rest of the month for us.

DH just got back from getting the car (the LPG gas) tuned, he reckon it's still not running efficiently enough. He thought it would cost around $100, but the guy only took couple minutes tuning it and didn't charge DH for it. Hopefully it will be working better now, which should save us a bit more fuel exp.

That’s about it folks.

I'm so excited, DH got paid yesterday and it included some back pay of about $1,500. This means we might be able to fully fund not only the Xmas Fund but also the Emergency Fund this month. And should be able to put a bit more in the Car Fund.




I also just got a check from my health insurance, they are contributing $49.95 towards my $400 bill for the anesthesists. I'm still waiting for the Medicare check before I can pay the bill. Hopefully they will contribute a bit more, the more I can get from them the less I will have to pay out of pocket. But every little bit helps.

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On the news today, here in Victoria (Australia) we just reached a record high price of over $1.50 per litre of petrol. The highest one was actually $1.52(+). Converting that into US Gallon, it will be around $5.75 per gallon!!! Aren't you guys glad you are not driving your car around here? And I am just so glad that we converted to LPG!!