My Simple Financial Plan

We got $320 left in March I was going to put it towards goal#2 but I instead put it towards goal#3 and have already spent it.

I found a great deal online for a place that we will go for our Anniversary. Our anniversary is not for another 6 months but this deal was really good it is to a place called Lake's Entrance. We love this place, it's about 3-3 1/2 hours away. We been there few times and even stayed there overnight as one of the places that we went to on our honeymoon (that was the last time we went there so it will be 8 yrs by the time we go back) . And DH was apparently conceived there (hahaha!). This resort that we will be going to was the one I really wanted to stay at on our honeymoon but since we were struggling then we just couldn't afford it. $200 a night was just too much for us then especially for just an overnight stay. The place was fairly new then. The deal I got is $299 for 3-nights (but will have surcharge of $60 for Saturday night stay) including breakfasts everyday, some credits on restaurant meals, drinks and massages. It also had other offers which I can't quite remember it all at the moment, I think one was a free tour to a blueberry farm nearby and some cooking class voucher. So there are a lot to do and I'm very much looking forward to it.

We will be going the weekend after our actual anniversary because it falls during school holidays I rather not go then, we will probably still go out somewhere on the actual night but it will be something small. I always make sure we do something special for our anniversary that's why it is in my financial goals. DH's birthday is just 2 days after our anniversary so it is even more reason to celebrate for us.

I normally try to limit the spending around $500 (definitely no more than $600) because I like to leave $1,500 to go towards Christmas spending.

My budget for this will look like this:
Accommodation - $299
surcharge - $60 I think this is payable later.
Transport - $30-50 This might include tolls if we want to get there quicker.
Food - $100 -$150 We will bring some food and drinks with us, unfortunately there is no kitchen so we will be limited on what we can bring. We will have at least one nice ("fancy") dinner out.

Anything more than this will have to come out of our allowances.


*No news about how much the car repair will amount to yet. DH will be home soon though, I'll find out then. I'm really hoping it is not too much. The no phone call from them kinds of a good news. They said that if it is small job they can do it today but if it is big we will have to book it some other time. If it is big and costly they would have called us by now.

Weekend was spent grocery shopping. We are a bit over with grocery shopping this month. A lot of this spending will be use in April so grocery expenses in April should be cheaper (it should be and it will because I will have to make sure of it). Also bought some new smoke alarms and led light bulbs. We didn't do much this weekend apart from going shopping we went for a run.

The weather this weekend was great and would have been nice to go somewhere for a day trip but our car is making some weird noise so just make short trips. DH thinks it might have something to do with the power steering. He looked it up online and the repair could cost from as cheap as $15 to $2,800. I just hope it won't cost as much as $2,800 that would be more than half what the car is worth at the moment. I'm not going to worry about it until we really know what is wrong. He will drop it off to the mechanics tomorrow.

On Monday we got our electric bill, so much better than the water bill drama http://shiela.savingadvice.com/2014/03/05/plumbing-drama_107579/ this one was at least $54.07 in credit because of our solar panels. I'm enjoying it for now it will not be the same next time because the days are getting shorter as we are heading towards winter plus my brother moving with us will sure adds a little towards the electric usage.

Speaking of my brother, he already gave me $200 for the months expenses. He wanted to give me more but I think $200 should be enough. I don't know what to do with this money at the money. I think with a bit of work and a bit of sacrifice we might be able to stay within our yearly budget without being too much over because of my brother. So for now I'm not adding this money to my excel spreadsheet. I will probably change my mine later, will see.

Our private health insurance is going up by a massive amount next month (as they do this time every year), it will be going up from around $273 to almost $350. Yikes! yikes! I hate it!!! So I got DH to go into their office on Tuesday during his lunch break to see what other options we got. If we drop some items that we don't really need at the moment we could get it down to $240 (this is around middle the road option) We have not sign up on it yet, DH wants to look at other health insurance company that might be even more reasonable.

On the mortgage news, DH got paid yesterday so we paid another $5K into the mortgage. A bit more this time because of the tax refund that we got, as I mentioned in my previous post. We are now under $60K

I actually wanted to put a little bit more but DH bought some shares (Entitlement Offer of one of his shares), not a bad deal so it was hard to passed up. He spent $837.50 on it.

We still got just over $500 left-over for the month (we use zero-based budgeting) whatever is left I will put under goal#2 household fund, there is only $1,000 left to achieve that goal for the year.

Received 2 cheques yesterday in the mail, one for DH and one for me, it's from our accountant. It was for last financial year tax refund (it always takes months, in the past is used to take us years to get it together). All up it add up to just over $2,500,they deducted the accountant fee of $440. Most of it will go towards the mortgage. DH will hopefully get some time today to deposit his I will have to wait until some time next week to go to the bank.

On another news my brother (much younger and only sibling) will be moving with us this weekend, he has already move in some boxes and will be coming today to drop off more stuff. He asked if he could stay with us for about 6 months. He is in the process of buying a house. He has been living with 2 other friends for years now and I guess they are now at that stage were they are looking for their own house. One is also going to buy a house and the other is moving back to his parents house to try to save money to also someday buy a house. Their lease was finishing so they didn't want to sign another year long lease. My brother already got enough for a deposit but his problem is he just started a new job at the start of the year (he got headhunted, better job than the other so he couldn't refuse) so he will have to wait 6 months to be illegible to get a loan. Financially he is pretty good, he doesn't have any debt, just like me he doesn't own a CC. He can probably work more on his savings which he is working hard on. He is now actually been living as if he has a mortgage. I've told him that he can pay us $200 a month, that should be enough to cover utilities and food.

Last week we got our garage roof fix, it cost us $1,100. I've been hoping to get this done for years now. I'm glad that is off the list

On the weekend we went away to an island (called Philip Island), only about 2 hrs from our house. We stayed there for 3 days/2 nights. All up we spend just around $350, I still have to get DH to check how much exactly we spend on tolls. We were good with food expenses because we cooked most of our meals and we got free buffet breakfast. The accommodation was only $239 using groupon. We did a lot of hiking and saw a lot of wild animals along the way. This Island is known for little penguins and seals. It also had a lake called "Swan lake" full of swans. lol Normally DH wouldn't get paid for days he takes off because he is a contact worker but this time he was owed a day so he was able to take the Monday off in lieu because he did few hours work at home on New Years day.

Arggh. I forgot to copy my post and it got eaten. I hate when that happen!

Was taking about our mortgage which got paid earlier this week.

$1218 normal monthly payment
$257.79 was interest
$960.21 to principal

Can't wait to see the principal hit $1K. This month (or should I say last month) was shorter so more went to the principal. According to my excel spreadsheet we should hit that $1K mark in June, if not definitely July. I prefer this principal to interest ratio a lot better than when it was reversed.


Note: Forgot to mention that I've updated my side bar with my goals for this year.

Yesterday we got our water bill for the last quarter. DH almost fainted when he saw it, it was almost $100 more than the previous bill. It shouldn't be that much, we have never gone over the low rate limit. About 20-30% of it got charge on the high rate. It couldn't possibly because we used so much more this time around it had to be more sinister. Sure enough DH remember that he saw a puddle of water in the side of the house that we barely go to over a week ago. He dismissed it because he thought it was just rain water. Also about a month ago we noticed water running along the gutter which starts from just in front of our property, we noticed every time we drive out and see birds bathing in it when we were in a heatwave. We also dismissed it and thought it had to do with the water company/ local council digging in front of our property and all along our street and other neighbouring streets (there has been a lot of "maintenance work" around), it happened just after they did that, so we just assumed.

I was hoping it wasn't in our property but no luck. DH called the plumber we used to installed our hot water tank last night and luckily he was able to do it this morning. I like him, he has been the best plumber I've found, I've dealt with some not so good one in the past. Luckily the pin hole that was causing the leak was just outside the house, it would have been a nightmare if it was under the house. He had to replace part of the copper pipe. In the end it cost $290, what a relief I was bracing myself last night for around $1K+ cost.

After he finished I asked him he does roofing too our roofing in the garage needs capping, it was never done right by the previous owner that built it. He spent a bit of time measuring it and will call DH for a quote tomorrow. This has been in the to do list for years now it would be great to get it done.

Yikes! It has been a while. I don't really know what happened. I guess everything is pretty much on automatic that there is not much I can talk about on a daily basis. Basically I got bored posting same all boring stuff. And I was getting sick a lot during our winter here that really ruined my motivation. And then the warm weather came along we got pretty busy enjoying life.

But despite not blogging we are still doing pretty good with our finances, being frugal is really ingrained in us now. We were only $45.45 over our 2013 budget, we did an awesome job with that. This year I've increased our budget by $500 to $21,500. The biggest issue is our health insurance it will be increasing quite a bit starting next month. DH is already looking into changing it, I'm sure there will be a cheaper one.

All our financial goals were achieved last year. In particular goal #1 of paying off extra $30K we ended up paying $31,700. But the other goals I've set myself weren't that good especially health one, being sick for most of winter really ruined me. But I am been doing so much better in the last 4 months. I've lost 2kgs and now at my ideal weight. I still suck at running but I'm doing it and can actual run the track in 30mins.

Our mortgage balance at the moment is just above $62,000 (it was around $91K last time I blogged). Our long-term goal was to pay this off on DH's 40th birthday which is in 19 months away (and to also have $100K in equities) but I think we could pay it off by end of this year if we cash up our managed funds and then just concentrate on investing in shares next year. At the moment we have around $80K+ in shares including the managed funds which is around $20K.

The only issue we really have in achieving this goal/s is DH's job, his current contract is finishing in September and he doesn't know yet if it is going to be renewed. Last year a lot of his co-workers left because their contact weren't renewed. We are hoping that it will get renewed even just for 6 months. The employment market here doesn't look good at the moment, hopefully it will improve by then.

So, basically things are just going along nicely here. I will post my 2014 goals next time, which is very similar to last year.

I've been busy and haven't had time to blog. Been going to bed at 3am, staying up watching the cricket game between Australia and England. The day is a lot shorter when you wake up around 11am.

Anyway, week was the usual grocery shopping and managed to go for a run. Did not do to well with the running, the weather was bad really windy and again staying up late doesn't help. I was dying towards the end. But at least I've done it.

Saturday afternoon I went to the dentist for check up, clean, fluoride and x-ray. The clean and that came out $0 out of pocket but the x-ray (2sides) was $24.85. It would have been $217.10 if I didn't have private insurance. I have to come back for a filling though

DH was also meant to have a dentist appointment but the dentist was sick so he got re-schedule for next month. He could have seen another dentist on the day but he prepare to see this one particular dentist so he will have to wait until next month. This dentist is a lot better. The one I saw was rough and I think I will get my filling done by this guy too. DH have tried a different guy in the past and didn't like it at all. Butcher was a word he used to describe him.

After my dentist visit we stopped by at Costco, it's on the way home. Our membership is finishing this month and will not be we will not be renewing for a while. So we shopped like there is no tomorrow. Over $300! Yikes!

Things that we will not need to get for the rest of the year:
Rice - we got 25kgs
Honey - 3kgs
Coffee - massive can
Toothpaste - 4 tubes
Mayonnaise - gigantic jar

We also got some milk, eggs beef and fish and other items that I can't remember now. And got some pyrex containers with those snap on lid (BFA free). DH uses them for his lunch, the lids are so much better on these new ones. DH should be able to take soup now and his home made yogurt. That was $35+ for 9 various sizes and shapes. They are great, I think if I bought them individually they will end up costing over $100.

Also got a big box of Xerox paper. This should last me years.

So we are not almost $100 over on grocery budget for the month because of this Costco trip. Hopefully, we will be able to get back on track in the next couple of months.

Finally had low spend weekend. Apart from spending $100 for a gift card we sent to DH's cousin for his wedding we only spent just over $80 on weekend shopping (mainly groceries). Sunday was actually a NSD. We actually went for a run on Sunday (almost a month since last time we went for a ran) and came straight home for lunch.

Actually spent more on groceries than usual, it was because a new grocer just open up a shop in our local shopping centre. They had some pretty good opening sales so I bought a lot more produces than I usually get in a week.

I finally copied my photos into my computer. This was what the ceiling looked like after I sanded and patched it.



This is what the wall looked liked. That left side needed serious sanding. And I also took out an old telephone socket, that what the holes were about.



The old door, really need replacing



New door and the new walls.






I am slowly putting things back but a lot of our books will be put away in the big plastic container with lid in the garage.

I still want to replace the light fixture, maybe this summer when I get the electrician to put the new ceiling fan in the lounge room.

The most expensive thing that I bought for the work was the blind and I also bought a hand sander that was I think $30 (but this will be used for future projects). Also bought a new door knob and hinges about $15.

By the way, the tulips have now blossomed and they are yellow. I didn't know what it will be so that was a nice surprise. The tulip was $12 and pot was only $3.60 on sale.

Oh this is the ceiling now.

Start of new financial year so Health Insurance has gone up again.

Gift expense is going to be big this month, we got 1 wedding and 2 major birthday to buy for.

Overall we were under budget



Had 11 NSDs for the month and put in $560 into Goal #4. Also paid some extra into the mortgage.

Today is payday. Happy! happy! joy! joy!

We are having fish and chip tonight.

The weather is terrible and it doesn't look like it will get any better for the rest of the weekend. There's prediction of hail and storm, not looking good for running again this weekend. I'm hoping we can still go for a run.

The door is done, I'm just waiting for it to dry before I can hang it. I also painted another door that's right next to the study door.

We almost had 5 days of NSDs last week, from Monday to Friday we didn't spend on anything except for DH putting more money into his train pass for $50.

The weekend is a different story. The weather was terrible all weekend so we missed out on running but now shopping though.

Saturday morning DH got up early to go to Aldi, during the week we saw an ad they had for a sound bar and subwoofer. DH been looking at getting one for over a year now but the one we wanted to get is $250 which I thought was too much. The Aldi one is only $99, so got one to try it, if we don't like it we can always return it. They have 60-days money back, no question ask guarantee. So far we are loving it. He also got mobile accessories for $9.95, it had a pouch for his mobile and car charger. The pouch was a bit small so he had to return it. But he got another one somewhere else later that day for $19.95, it had no pouch but the car charger two USB outlet and few different connections. We can both charge our phone at the same time and other gadget can connect to it too. DH had to get another audio connector for the sound bar, it was only $7.50.

Later that day we went to get a quote to replace the window in the study and another small one at the end of our hallway. It came to around $1500 for both windows and labour. Too much I thought. I think we could find somewhere else for about $1000.

Got a venetian blind for the study window for $78, it was 40% off normally around $120. Lucky I saw the ad for this too.

The rest of the day we went back to Aldi to return the mobile phone accessories and to do some grocery shopping. Spent just over $40.

On Sunday we went to the meat market and spent $32 on meat. Had lunch at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant, $20. Afterward, DH got a haircut for $11. This is the cheapest haircut ever.

DH skyped his mum and asked her if she wanted a new phone for her birthday and the answer was a resounding yes. She was kind of giving hints that she wants a new phone with Bluetooth in it to go with their new car that they just ordered. So DH ordered another phone for her mum, exactly the same one that he got. It's good that they will have the same phone that way if she got any problem with it DH will be able to help her out easy.


Reno update:
Painting is all done except around the window. My project for this week is to replace the door in the study. We have been meaning to replace this for couple of years now, we actually got the new door in the garage for all that time. The door jam is not standard size anymore (old house, nothing is standard) so I will have to trim the door a bit, just a bit fiddly. It will also need to be painted.

I was meant to post this yesterday. I like to do weekend updates because it is when we tend to spend a bit of money.

Friday just stayed home and watch of football team play (we won, yeah!). DH the cc bills and the electricity and gas bill too. Also DH got data connected to his mobile phone. He got $100 for 10gb that could last for 1 year. He thinks this should be enough for him to use for the whole year. When he is at home he can connect to our wifi, the same at work and even at my mum's place. This is why I thought his phone would cost $250, it includes $100 worth of data. Not bad.

Saturday, we did the usual grocery shopping. We got a lot of stuff from Aldi, spent almost $70. Also went to Coles for about $20 worth of shopping. We got a lot of snacks, which we don't normally get but we had people over that night. We had lunch out sushi and McDonald's (got a craving for McDonald's that I don't normally get), I took out this spending off my allowance money. Afterwards, we went to a hardware store to get some supplies, spent $13.50. On the way home DH fill up the car.

Saturday night, we had couple of friends over to watch a movie (we watch Pitch Perfect). We ordered pizza and ate a lot of junk food. Spent $20 on pizza.

Sunday we went for a run. I almost made it to under 30mins and probably could have if it wasn't for the wind, it was a bit strong. Afterwards we went straight to my mum's place for a bbq. We got change at her place. So, lunch and even dinner was free (we got to take some food home). But I did gave my mum some money to spend for her 60th next month.

All up it was a very expensive weekend but spending was mostly for necessary items except for those snacks.

The study painting is still going. The ceiling is done, which looks so much better. I've now decided to just redo the whole room and we are also thinking of replacing the window in that room. It really needs a new one and it might be best to do it now.

We got woken up early this morning by a delivery man. DH got his new mobile phone. They will now take the money off his account, I think he used PayPal. I budgeted $300 for mobile phones this month because I thought this new phone would cost $250 but apparently I missed heard DH and it is actually only for $150. Not bad. I'm happy about that. It came with a lot of extras, including a spare battery pack.

I've now started preparing the ceiling in the study for painting. Had to scrapped off the old paint that started peeling off. There are few areas that had to be fixed but the worst is around the light bulb. I'm also fixing a wall where a paint got ripped off because of picture hook that came off. This will keep me busy for a while. I'm not in a hurry, I want to do a good job, so I'm taking my time.

Budget for this month.

Pretty good month.



Had $420 leftover for the month, I decided to put it into Goal #4. We will need probably around $500 for our anniversary in 3 months time.

Friday night we stayed home. DH started fixing my laptop, it has been acting up lately. He backed up everything that was in it. Right now I don't have access to my excel spreadsheet of my finances so I can't finalise my June numbers yet. DH haven't had the time to reinstall Office yet, it should get done tonight.

Saturday, I did a load of washing (colours) then we went to the bank to deposit a cheque. After we did some grocery shopping at Aldi, only spent just over $18. Also went to couple of other stores for items that we couldn't get at ALdi. Also got personal items and found monopoly board game on sale for only $25, I always wanted to get one. Then DH got some USB sticks to use for backup. I've asked him to save my financial spreadsheet to couple of different places. I'm just paranoid about losing it.

On the way home we got some gas, I think it was for only $25-30. DH did a bit more work on my laptop and until we went out for dinner with some friend, I think we spent about $65 for dinner. Afterwards we went and watch Man of Steel, that was for free a friend got connection. The movie was good, not what I expected, different to old superman movies.

We didn't get home until midnight, DH spent another hour to finish uninstalling everything in my laptop.

Sunday, DH made yogurt and did another load of washing (whites this time). He also started reinstalling stuff that I wanted back into my laptop. The weather was good yesterday that I actually decided to put the washing out on the clothes line. Around midday DH went for a run, I ran my PB! I've still got a lot to go to achieve my goal for the year but I'm getting there.

Afterwards we rewarded our self and had lunch at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. I love this place, great food but cheap. Only spent $17.80 for two very big dishes.

We then went to the hardware store to get a new hand sander, that was $30. While there I found a tool caddy for $8.

When we got home I was disappointed to find out that the pork I got out for roasting for dinner was still frozen. We decided that we would get Thai take-away for dinner instead. We spent just over half an hour washing the car, it really needed it and we got it done just before it got dark.

The rest of the night I just watched tv while doing some crocheting and icing my sore legs. DH in the main time was skyping his parents while doing more reinstalling with my laptop, it has taken a long time, there was ridiculous amount of updates.

So that was our weekend, spent just a bit over $300, too much eating out.

Currently we have just over $7,5000 in it. We started the year with almost $3,500 and have now added $6K into it for the year.

Almost everything that's house related is taken out of this account. For example, the plants that we bought on the weekend is taken out of this account. The most expensive thing that we had to spend on this year was back in January when we had to get a new motor for our window shutter (it broke), taht was for $500 and we also had to hire a skip bin for $240 that month. We also got a chain saw, a lot of plastic containers, and other small items.

Most of this money will be spent on renovation around the house and also to replace furniture that we might need in the future.

I have a list of things that we need and want and they are mainly household stuff that will come out from this fund. First thing in the list at the moment is painting the study, the ceiling really needs it and as for the walls I just want a bit of change. We have most of the materials at hand already, leftover from previous renovation, so I don't think I will need much do this job. I will also need to do this in the living room ceiling (but I will get it done when the weather is warmer).

Not much is happening here, just waiting for the month to end to finalise our finances.

We've are having a lot of NSDs this month, which obviously good for the finance.

I just fully funded goal #3, I can now tick that off the list.

Friday was payday, there was again missing amount, annoying as hell. I was looking forward to putting a bit more into the mortgage but will have to wait now. DH paid $2,500 to pre-pay his margin loan for the year.

Saturday we went for a run then afterwards had lunch at cafe in our favourite nursery which very close the where we go for a run. After our lunch I bought couple of small indoor plants and a couple of asparagus roots/crowns and we also got a cherry tree. We have been talking about getting a cherry tree for years now, thought now is a good time. We will hopefully put it where the palm tree that fell few months ago was.

Afterward, we went to a store that sells rubber and foam items. We got DH some gym rubber mats, we used it to put his weight bench on. On the way home we stopped by at Aldi.

On Sunday, DH mowed the lawn and poisoned some weeds. I did clothes washing, cooked some beef ribs in the slow cooker and cleaned the back room. We are turning this room into DH's room (man cave). We finally moved back his weight bench back into that room, he can use it again now. We had to move it out when we renovated that room about 4-5 years ago. The rubber mats looks good but I think we need few more for the weights.

We were going to go out for coffee afterwards but we decided to just stay home and relax. So, Sunday was a NSD. DH instead skyped his parents and I did some knitting and did the ironing.

Apart from prepaying the margin loan we only spent just less than $250. It's always good when we spend less than $300 on the weekend.

We have our annual green collection (garden stuff) this week. DH and I spent most of the weekend cleaning the garden. We did a lot of trimming and also cut down a couple of small size trees. Our garden have been neglected this year we just haven't had the time to do it. Back in March we had a really bad weather and one of our palm tree in the back fell on the fence. Luckily the fence broke in a way that we managed to fix it right back up without having to spent money on it. However, we had to get a chain saw to cut up the palm tree. Fortunately, we got one for only $69 normally they are $99. DH has only been able to throw out some of the palm tree every forth night into our green rubbish bin but this week we are allowed to put it all out at the front of our house for the local council to collect.

Also on the weekend we went grocery shopping a bought $63 worth of meat, it should last for the rest of the month maybe even for 3 weeks. Also went to Aldi and spent just over $41 there.

Yesterday and the day before were both NSDs.

Today I decided to pay an extra $2000 int the mortgage.

Nothing much is happening here, I'm just trying to recover from a cold.

The main things that happened to us financially these last few months:
- Our net worth hit the $500K mark.
- Our mortgage is now under the $100K mark.

I don't really know where the time went. We have been away a bit and just haven't had the energy to blog, which is not good financially. Luckily, we haven't gone too crazy and we got some more money come in than expected. I have been keeping up with my financial recording just not blogging.

We got back from our overseas holiday late Feb (it was a great holiday; we had a nice family reunion). We packed in a lot in a short time. There was a lot of flying and driving around. Unfortunately, 3 days after we got home DH's grandmother passed away. We again flew away to interstate for the funeral. We were there for few days. I don't really know what happen to March, it really took me a whole month to recover from our trips. Financially it was good (it was a two pay month for DH) we got to put $3,000 extra into the mortgage and a bit more into our other goals for this year (see side bar).

April was again busy, I had my birthday celebration and a close friend's wedding (there was a lot of going out including hen’s night, etc.). Our entertainment budget got a workout, we spent ¼ of our whole year entertainment budget in that month. Yikes! Income was lower than usual, DH’s pay was wrong again. I didn’t put anything extra into the mortgage that month but put $1550 into Goal#3.

May was a normal month, we went a bit over on groceries and gifts for mother’s day. There was a bit more income because of April pay mistake. Put $3500 extra into the mortgage and $1K into the household fund.

So far this month we haven’t spent that much. We went away again on the weekend (we had a 3-day weekend here –the Queen’s birthday public holiday). Tomorrow would have been DH’s grandmother’s 93rd birthday. We bought the plane tickets back in December for this month long-weekend to see her, unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. DH’s parent was at least happy to have us again over and we did go to the cemetery to pay our respect. Only spent $163 for the trip, the tickets were paid back in December. We got some extra money this month because of tax refund and DH’s parents gave us $500, they got some inheritance money.

DH just ordered a new phone it will be around $160, hopefully it will be a good one. DH ordered it last week just before he got the cash gift from his parents, good timing I say.

This month's spending plan



Not planning to do much this month since we will be away for most of it.

We could only put in another $1,000 extra into the mortgage this month.

Also put $1330 into the Holiday Fund.

Only read 1 book - massive fail.

We run 6 times in the month. My best time was just over 32 minutes (just over 4km track).

Just got back from the doctor to get my alergy test results. It's been confirmed that I am not allergic to most foods (eggs, peanuts, kiwi, etc) and pine trees (which means can again have fresh christmas tree next year, yeah!) BUT I am highly allergic to prawns, shrimps and crabs (and ohh moderately allergic to lobsters). WHY? One of my favourite food in the world and I'm now allergic to it. Just cruel!

Lastnight, DH and I went to a greek restaurant, we had a voucher for a 4 course set menu, it included garlic prawns. I was drooling at it while DH had it all.

Anyway, I'm having a pity party. We are off to go for a run now, I don't know how it will go we are both a bit injured/sore.

I was just checking my personal finance spreadsheet this morning and I just realised that we've had 4 NSD in the last 5 days. It just happened.

Monday and Tuesday were NSDs.
Wednesday paid the gas bill ($71.15).
Thursday and Friday were again NSDs.

I've been having lower back problem all week so I haven't been anywhere. Also DH haven't had to top up his train pass this week. So, it has been a great week except for the sore back thing, which doesn't help with the running goal. I think I went a bit too hard with the running, I need to slow down a bit.

Today we need to get some groceries and will be going out for dinner. We got coupon for this dinner so it shouldn't be too much.

We have been getting a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis from the garden this summer. There has also some strawberries and a handful of blueberries. We have been having salads everyday.

All this week DH has to catch the bus part way to work instead of the train all the way because they are doing some work on the train tracks. Not all buses has the ticketing facilities, I think most of them are school buses they have no need for it (it is our school holiday that's why they are using them). So DH hasn't been paying for some of his trip. I think it will be at least $20 savings for the week. And because of the inconvenience they have been providing breakfast, DH got free banana yesterday. They've also been giving away bbq breakfast sausages, he has opted not to have any of those.

ARghh! Lost my post!

Yesterday we got an entitlement and acceptance form for one of DH’s stock. He is entitled to acquire 4 new shares for every 5 existing shares, at an offer price of 20cents per shares. All up it amounted to $110.20. I’ve decided to use the Sunny Day Savings for this.

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I’ve added another goal for this year – to read at least 5 books per month. Right now I am re-reading “The Magic of Thinking Big”. I have not read this for about 15 years. This was the first ‘self-help’ book that I read. Someone gave this book to my mum in the early 90’s and just sat in the bookshelf for years until one day (I must have been bored) I picked it up. I’ve probably read 100 self-help books since then.