My Simple Financial Plan

DH forgot his lunch in the fridge this morning, silly boy. He called me around 10 this morning to let me know and to ask if we could used a restaurant voucher we got 2 months ago. The voucher is lunch for two to the value of $45, we bought it for just $19. I was happy to come along, it was a beautiful day today so it was nice to go out for lunch in the city. I got cajun chicken salad with a bottle of coke and DH got wagyu burger with salad, fries and bottle of lemon and lime drink. Not bad value when normally the burger with salad and fries is worth $19 itself.

It was a really nice unplanned day out.

Good news for the first time ever this month more than half of the pay of our normal monthly mortgage payment went to principal.

October payment = $1218
Interest = $609.45
Principal = $608.55 (it was so close to it last month)


November payment = $1218
Interest = $595.48
Principal = $622.52 (YEAH!!!)

Friday was payday and we have now achieve all our financial goals except for Goal #3 which I think we should be able to get out of the way by the end of this month.

Not much is really happening here financially, still putting every little bit of extra money into the mortgage. Anything extra into it for here on until the end of the year is just a bonus for us now.

Grocery - $220.00
Utilities - $200.00
Rates - $142.00
Home Phone - $70.00
Mobile - $50
Internet - $55.00
Fuel & Fare - $200.00
Health Insurance -$250.00
Entertainment -$110.00
Gifts -$50.00
Personal/Medical - $60.00
DH Allowance -$100.00
DW Allowance - $60.00
Miscellaneous - $30.00

TOTAL = $1,597.00

Grocery - $95.48 (under $114.52)
Utilities - $189.36 (over $9.36)
Rates - $142.00 (under $0.46)
Home Phone - $14.95 (under $10.05)
Mobile - $15.00 (under $15.00)
Internet - $49.95 (under $0.05)
Fuel & Fare - $222.61 (over $22.61)
Health Insurance -$249.21 (under $0.79)
Entertainment -$249.21 (over $59.45)
Gifts -$32.00 (under $68.00)
Personal/Medical - $29.95 (under $70.05)
DH Allowance -$100.00 (even)
DW Allowance - $75.00 (even)
Miscellaneous - $3.69 (under $26.31)

TOTAL = $1,448.19 (under $213.81)

Had 8 NSDs.
Put in more money into the mortgage.
Holiday Fund goal is now done.
Have also put a bit into the Household Fund.
We went away twice last month, at the start of the month and at the end.

Grocery - $210.00
Utilities - $180.00
Rates - $142.00
Home Phone - $25.00
Mobile - $20.00
Internet - $50.00
Fuel & Fare - $200.00
Health Insurance -$250.00
Entertainment -$170.00
Gifts -$100.00
Personal/Medical - $100.00
DH Allowance -$100.00
DW Allowance - $75.00
Miscellaneous - $30.00

TOTAL = $1,662.00

I had problem reading the blogs yesterday, it was weird.

I was meant to post this last night but was out for out anniversary.

Steps per day:
20 Sept – 10,111
21 Sept – 10,588
22 Sept – 11,714
23 Sept – 8,840 *FAIL* (Was up until 3:30am the night before, just couldn’t make it the next day)
24 Sept – 10,543
25 Sept – 11,559
26 Sept – 10,518
27 Sept – 10,141
28 Sept – 10,215
29 Sept – 10,297
30 Sept – 10,543

I think overall it was a success and I’m pretty happy to do it for charity.

Grocery - $309.70 (over $99.70) *Hmmm I’m not happy with this one.
Utilities - $360.64 (over $210.64) *I forgot the water bill, thought it will be due next month.
Rates - $141.54 (under $3.46)
Home Phone - $14.95 (under $10.05)
Mobile - $10.00 (under $10.00)
Internet - $49.95 (under $0.05)
Fuel & Fare - $193.24 (under $6.76)
Health Insurance -$249.21 (under $0.79)
Entertainment -$120.45 (over $10.45)
Gifts -$55.08 (over $5.08)
Personal/Medical - $186.87 (over $86.87) *we stocked up on some vitamins and meds there was a nice sale. This purchase should last for months, well into next year.
DH Allowance -$100.00 (even)
DW Allowance - $60.00 (even)
Miscellaneous - $32.95 (over $2.95)

TOTAL = $1,884.58 (OVER $384.58)


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Also got to put some money into various funds:
Holiday fund - $500
Household fund - $500
Xmas/Anniversary Fund - $652
(Anniversary weekend away - $100)
(Exercise Challenge - $52)
(Xmas Saving to be sent to family - $500)

Had 10 NSD for the month of September, so another $100 in my Sunny Day Saving

Also I will be sending $25 donation to the Cerebral Palsy Foundation for the Steptember challenge.

I want one of this:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/love-to-ride-your-bicycle-try-this-paper-giant/story-e6frfrnr-1226473443447


Today should make it 3 NSDs in a row.


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18 Sept: 10,884 steps
19 Sept: 11,226 steps (DH did the last 500, he decided to put the pedometer on while I was in the shower).

Last Friday night when we went out for drinks with some of DH’s co-workers we got talking about mobile phones. One of them was complaining that her phone is a lot slower now because she has too many apps in it, she have tried to delete some of it but was finding it hard to pick which ones. The talk eventually turned to DH’s mobile phone, apparently there has been some friendly banter between them and DH about how old his mobile phone is. They keep asking when he will ever join the 21st century. Then DH would jokingly brag how he only has to plug in his mobile phone once a week whenever someone complain how the battery never last.

Anyway, on Friday I showed everyone my old Nokia 1100 and we all just laughed. DH by the way has the old Nokia 1110. I think we both got them in 2006, so it is now 6 years old. I laugh how it still works even though we have both dropped them many times already. Although in the last few months my alarm clock has not been working but since I don’t really need it these days, it’s not such a big deal. Maybe one day I will upgrade to one of those newer flip phone .

So far this year we’ve only spent $70 on both phones!

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17 Sept: 10,065 steps - I did not do too well yesterday, I guess painting doesn’t require much walking. I had to do a bit of walking around the couch to get to 10K. Today I made sure to do a bit of jogging on the spot before I started painting again.

I’ve been really busy. Yesterday we went to my mum’s place to fix her bathroom door, it wasn’t closing properly. Today I’m painting an old wardrobe, I decided to sand it and paint it white. It will go in the guestroom where the other furniture in it is all white. I have not spent money on it so far but I will need to buy a new one handle that is missing an important part. It will probably cost around $6-7, a bit expensive but I have to get the same as the old ones.

Interesting thing I found in one of the drawer of the wardrobe, it has been stamped with some info about where it was made and then it says “European Labour Only”. A quick google and I found some interesting thing I’ve never knew about. Apparently, stamped like these were common from 1900 to 50’s (actually it was compulsory by law to state if a furniture was made by Chinese labour). Crazy to think things like that happened in the past.

http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au/biogs/CH00016b.htm

Hmmm…maybe I shouldn’t have painted it, I didn’t realise it could be really old. I assumed it could have been 1980’s, not 1950’s or even earlier. We got it years ago (just after we moved to this house 11 years ago) from a garage sale. We can’t remember how much for now, would have been less than $50, we couldn’t afford to buy much stuff then. One of the legs had a split and it had one broken handle.

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DH will be signing his new contract soon. The company have now sent a purchase order (I know I laughed when I heard this) to his agency. Good news is that his and the others in his team will be signing for 2 years from date of the current one expires (they had previously thought it might be from June 30, end of financial year). Unfortunately, some people in other teams have only got renewed for 3 months and some have been given 2- months’ notice. So we are very thankful.


16 Sept: 10,393 steps

DH got paid on Friday and he put in another $3,000 into the mortgage. So happy because we are not under the $120K mark in our mortgage and that means Goal #1 is DONE! It’s good to get that out of the way, so much earlier than I expected. When I came up with this goal at the start of the year I thought it was going to be really hard to get it knowing that income will be few thousands lower than last year. The interest rate cuts this year helped a bit in achieving this goal easier, unlike last year where interest rate went up few times throughout the year.

Mortgage Current Balance = $119,690.85

I deposited my cheque on Friday as well it probably won’t get through to the account until Tuesday. So I went to the city to do it and had a late lunch with DH (just a quick sushi near his work) and then afterwards just did a bit of window shopping in a hope to get ideas for Christmas gifts and was also looking to get a birthday gift for DH but I could find it. I think can only get it online these days. I did get a free vegetable peeler just for watching this guy in one of the department store demonstrating a set of knives for about 5 mins. I needed to take a break from all the walking that I’ve done by that stage anyway (I did really well this day with my walking challenge). I then meet up with DH and few of his workmate for drinks. We went to a nice German pub for happy hour they had a really nice refreshing beer. And then after that DH and I went to have dumplings for dinner (less than $15 for dinner and a can of coke, great value). I think the whole day only ended of spending about $50, not bad (DH covered the drinks and I picked up the bill for the dumplings). We both got a bit saved up of our allowance at this stage so we don’t mind spending a bit of it, although I still want to save up as much of my allowance for when we go on holiday sometime next year.

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12 Sept: 10,414 steps (getting to 10K is getting easier now )

13 Sept: 11,251 steps

14 Sept: 18,087 (the window shopping did it, although my legs that night was so sore I had to get a massage)

15 Sept: 10,256 (took it easy yesterday, my legs needed to recover a bit)

I just got an email from DH telling me that his contract renewal has been approved, for another 2 years. That’s a relief to know. Now we can continue with our plans/goals. To celebrate, I am going to put $2,000 into the mortgage right now. DH deposited his cheque on Monday so this is where part of it is going. I will get mine done on Friday, I got a bit busy here at home to go.

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Steptember Update

10 Sept: 10,038 steps
11 Sept: 10,272 steps

8 Sept:11,075 steps

9 Sept: 12,884 steps

We went for a run yesterday morning so that helped a lot yesterday. Although today my legs are a bit sore so I don't know how well I'm going to do today, I will try to push myself.

By the way, I have been putting $2 into the christmas fund for every 10,000 steps.

Only spending yesterday was for a couple of KFC burgers after our run. I got some craving for burgers afer our run. It will come out of my allowance money since I suggested it ($10.20). Now I kind of regretted that purchase.

Late last night my friend contacted me and told me that she was not feeling well so her housewarming get together will have to be cancelled. She was hoping to do it on Sunday instead. Then this morning she text again saying that she was feeling better and that the party was on again today. We decided to have a sleep in this morning so when I got her text at 9:30 this morning we were still in bed. She lives over an hour away no way we could make it for lunch.

After breakfast, as we planned we went to our bank. Well, unfortunately they don’t open on Saturday anymore. We went to another branch the same story. So now I will have to go to the city during the week to deposit my cheque, DH can get his one done on Monday there is one just across his office. I will go when the weather gets a bit better. In the last two days we’ve had what we call ‘typical’ Melbourne weather, which is having four seasons in one day. Actually today it was more like four seasons in an hour. The sun would shine and it would be nice and warm but then all of the sudden it would start raining and be icy cold.

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7 Sept: 10,032 steps (had to do a bit of pacing up and down to get to 10K lastnight)

I’m already over 10,000 today have been walking a bit. When we went to the second branch we decided to also go to the Asian shop across the road too to get some groceries. Instead of parking close by, where it is crazy especially on Saturdays, we decided to park 2 blocks away and just walk the rest. We also went to Costco this afternoon and did a bit of walking around then too.

Near Costco there is a store called Royal Doulton, they were having a sale up to 80% off. I got this for $2.95, down from $10.


Well since I bought this I guess I don't have enough now...

I'm having tea with it right now

I didn’t think it would come for another week or so, definitely wasn’t expecting it today. For both of us it added to just over $3,300, then we will be paying the accountant $440. We will have to get to the bank tomorrow morning to deposit the cheques because the bank is only open until 1pm on Saturdays.

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Did not have salad last night but had lots of roasted vegetables to go with the roasted chicken. Half way through cooking the roast chicken I had a craving for Japanese food so I made some tempura (using carrots, zucchini and mushrooms). It helped with the craving.
Tonight we will be watching our football team so we will be having meat pie (store bought) and sausage rolls (free from mum’s friend). I will make some rocket salad to go with it. I think DH is getting some snacks to have for the game. It’s a big deal game so we are both looking forward to it.

Tomorrow we are going to a friend’s housewarming party for lunch. She will be making the mains but have asked us to bring other stuff I elected to bring some SALAD!

6 Sept: 10,133 steps

I am making sure not to fail at least in the first week of this challenge. I’m finding that I am getting a lot of spring cleaning done because of this challenge. Yesterday I was moving a lot of stuff around the house. I tidied up and move furniture around in one of the spare bedroom. I’m trying to turn this room into crafts/storage room.

Yesterday was NSD.

We are waiting at the moment for our tax refund it should come this month. Also still waiting for DH’s contract renewal, apparently the papers are now with the ‘final’ guy to look through it. Hopefully they will be finalising it next week. DH’s contract ends next week.

We haven’t bought many stocks this year until now. The stock market here is starting to look a bit better again. DH had bought some the other day in his superannuation (retirement fund) and we have also agreed to put in some buy orders in our margin loan account. We are looking at buying up to $20,000 worth but we will probably only get $10,000 this time around. I’m hoping this trend will continue and if does we will probably get some more again at the end of the year.

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Steptember Challenge:

I just made it to 10K yesterday.

5 Sept: 10,051 steps

It was a bit of a struggle. I had to keep reminding myself to get up and move around. I had no idea how long it take to do 10,000 steps. I’ve realise now that on normal days I probably only do 5000-6000 steps in one day and on lazy days probably only get up to 4000 steps. It will need a bit of effort to get to 10K. Last night we went to Aldi, normally I would just get DH to stop by after work but last night I got him to pick me up at home first so I could come and walk around the shopping centre.

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Salad lastnight was just simple baby rockets (i like the peppery taste of it), mushrooms, tomatoes (got some lastnight)and olives with just balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dressing. Still loving salads right now.

Regular monthly mortgage payment:
Paid = $1218.00
Interest =$653.60
Principal = $564.40
Current Balance = $124,690.85 (Yes we are now below $125K)

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I did pretty well yesterday with my 10,000 steps challenge (Steptember).
4 Sept: 11,257 steps
I did a bit of walking around the city yesterday so it was not hard to get to 10K. However, I think it will be hard to do when I’m just at home I have to make sure I keep moving around. I woke up an hour earlier today, so hopefully that will help a bit.

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Lastnight I made couscous and chickpea salad. I put in some kalamata olives, mint, parsley and lemon juice. It went well with the beef casserole. DH is not big on couscous but he still eat it. We have a lot of mint, parsley and coriander in the garden at the moment, so I've been putting those in everything at the moment.

When I was doing our September budget the other day I had a feeling that I was forgetting something. When I got home from lunch today there it was in the mail this quarter’s water bill, I totally forgot to put it in the budget this month. Oops… it is due September 21. It’s a big one too. Normally, our water bill is around $150-$160 per quarter but this one includes an annual waterways & drainage charge and annual parks charge worth about $87 (total bill $240.10). I think I might have miscounted the months and thought that it’s due next month. Oh well, over the budget already and it is only the start of the month.

Lunch was great. We had dumplings and honey chicken with rice. Then afterwards we went to a Japanese bakery for some sweet goodies and got a cup of coffee to share. All up it cost just over $25. DH was feeling rich and offered to take this out of his allowance money. He is feeling rich today because he won $51 yesterday. He got the jackpot in the footy tipping at work, it could have been more but he had to share it with another person. They both picked all the winning teams on the weekend (9/9), lucky too because that was the last week for the season. He paid $20 at the start of the season, so actual winning is really only $31.

I'm about to go out to meet up with DH for lunch. 2 weeks ago he asked me to go out for lunch in the city but I did not want to go out because it was soo cold. It's amazing how quickly the weather can change. Today it will get to 22 degrees Celcius, so it will be a beautiful day.

I've got my pedometer on already and will be doing a lot of walking around in the city. I hoping I can get to 10,000 steps today.

I've been having a lot of salad lately and been trying new ones. Last night I made Thai green mango salad, it was really nice. According to DH "it's a keeper", which means he'd like to have it again in the future. I put shredded carrot, cashews, string beans, mint and coriander. I was suppose to put tomatoes in it but we didn't have any. For the sauce I put chilli, fish sauce, lemon juice and palm sugar. I used the mortar and pestle to crush and mix the sauce together.

I wish I found out about this a couple of weeks ago.

steptember.org.au/about-steptember/overview/

It’s too late now to organise a group together. It needs a group of 4 people to register for $25 each (donated to Cerebral Palsy). It starts tomorrow so I’m a bit late but I’m thinking of still doing it by myself and in the end of the month I will donate $25 to the cerebral palsy alliance. I’m going to aim to do 10,000 steps per day. All I need is a pedometer which I already got and I think I can use the Wii Fit to make it a bit more interesting. I guess I’m all set for tomorrow, I just have to remember to wear the pedometer.

We had amazing spring weather this weekend. It was a beaut!

On Saturday we had BBQ at my mum’s place. I made potato salad and bought a bag of charcoal.

On the way there we filled up the car, lucky too. As DH was filling up they were in the process of changing the petrol price from 135.9 cents per litre to 155.9 cents per litre. 20 cents increase in price – YIKES!

Went to Aldi and bought some tomato seedlings and some seeds (cucumber, spring onions, radish, beans and basils). Aldi had great sales on them.

On Sunday DH mowed while I planted some tomato seedlings and basil seeds. Then we trimmed a palm tree and did some weeding at the front of the house.

Afterwards we went to the hardware store to get some materials for more works we need to do around the house. Now that the weather is warming up, it’s time to do more repairs around the house.

I love this time of the year, not too hot or too cold, just perfect

Grocery - $210
Utilities - $150
Rates - $145.00 *
Home Phone - $25.00
Mobile - $20.00
Internet - $50.00
Fuel & Fare - $200.00
Health Insurance -$250.00
Entertainment -$110.00
Gifts -$50.00
Personal/Medical - $100.00
DH Allowance -$100.00
DW Allowance - $60.00
Miscellaneous - $30.00

TOTAL = $1,500.00

*Property Rate bill just came last week. We normally pay this quarterly (and this bill should have been due 1st of Oct) but now they have allowed a monthly direct debit payment for 10 months starting from Sept to Jun. So the yearly amount will be divided by ten, I know confusing. DH is currently filling out the form for the monthly direct debit payment this weekend.

This is a bit early it is only in the morning of the 31st of August here but I can’t wait anymore.

Grocery - $389 (over $149.78)*
Home Phone - $14.95 (under $10.05)
Mobile - $20 (under $20.00)
Internet - $49.95 (under $0.05)
Fuel & Fare - $141.66 (under $58.34)
Health Insurance -$249.21 (under $0.79)
Entertainment -$185.60 (under $14.40)
Gifts -$120.47 (under $29.53)
Personal/Medical - $52.05 (over $22.05)
Clothing - $291.60 (over $251.60)*
DH Allowance -$100 (even)
DW Allowance - $60 (even)
Miscellaneous - $17.75 (under $12.25)

TOTAL = $1,673.02 (over $278.02)

*These are the culprits of the over spending this month. The grocery expense includes the $60 Costco membership fee. And the main over spending was in the clothing category. Basically we have used up our entire clothing budget for the year now. Overall, it is not too bad it just mean we can’t go clothing shopping anymore until next year.

Today should be a NSD, that makes it 10 for the month. So another $100 into my Sunny Day Fund.

I've added $500 into the Holiday Fund and $1400 into the Household Fund. Also saved in $200 for anniversary in October.

DH just got a new laptop. He found a good deal for only $279 (down from $449). He also used a $50 gift card he got from his sister last Christmas towards the purchase so it ended to be $229 out of his pocket. This purchase will come out of the household fund.

The old laptop still works (it is about 8 years old) we will give it to my mum. It will be good enough for her.

I found and already booked a place to stay for our anniversary. We will be going south, about 3+ hours away from our place. The town is called Warrnambool, it is on the coast just pass The Great Ocean Road. It is known for whale watching, I’m hoping we will be able to see one, October is the end of the season though so I’m not expecting too much. The place we will be staying at is near an underground aquifer and so they have their own naturally heated geothermal spa, I can’t wait to try that.

The overnight stay will cost $129 including breakfast, bottle of sparkling wine, unlimited access to the geothermal spa (they are normally $15 per person) and late check-out. This will leave us with $171 for gas, food and fun stuff that we would like to do. We will probably bring some food with us too.

I'm bored right now, just waiting for this month to end so I can finalise August numbers. Had NSDs on Monday and Tuesday.

I'm starting to plan for our annivesary, which is in October. We will probably stay overnight somewhere. I think we could do it for $300 for everything. We both don't want to do anything big this year, we just want to go somewhere in our state that we haven't been to and just relax for the weekend. I will be saving $200 for it this month and another $100 next month.

I don't think we really need $2000 for christmas/anniversary (Goal #3) this year I think we can get away with $1000-$1200. We would rather save it for our overseas holiday next year.

Went to Costco and renewed our membership. End up spending just over $200 including the $60 membership fee. Most of the stuff I got was for gifts and the rest will come out of grocery budget. Also stopped by at a market for fruits and vegetables, spent $51.

Yesterday was NSD.

I'm currently reading The Millionaire Next Door. I caved and bought it for my kindle. I've always wanted to read it but could never find it in the library and did not want to pay $20+ for it. It's a lot cheaper in kindle now, last time I checked it was worth over $12 but last week it was down to $7.46 (AUD). I was happy to pay for that. I'm almost half through reading it so far so good. It is confirming that we are heading the right direction.