DH earned some extra money this month (couple hundred dollars on overtime) and we are thinking of spending it on a day trip.

The trip will probably cost a bit more than couple hundred dollars so we might have to take some out from our allowances or holiday fund.

There is nothing really to update here. I'm still trying to save as much from our grocery budget. It is slowly getting better but I think we might to have a challenge next month to only spend $150-$180 on grocery. It will require a lot of planning but I think it can be done. It would mean doing menu planning again.

DH just got paid and he is getting just over $100 a month extra due to his pay rise and also the recent tax cuts. Our financial plan will continue as it is, no major changes at all.

Expenses this month has been really good so far, most bills has been paid for. So hopefully no suprises will come up.

Just got info that DH will be getting a pay rise this month. Don't know exactly how much it will but we should find out sometime next month. It won't be much, probably only around $80 per month after tax and super. Better than nothing I guess, considering this wasn't on the cards for this year at all. Few months ago they were told that there won't be a pay rise this year. So this was a suprise. A nice little suprise.

Really haven't done much in the last week, I've done the painting job. I just can't be bothered at the moment.

I'm still waiting for my $900 stimulus payment from the our government. I don't think I will be able to get it this month, which means we won't be able to fully fund the Car fund.

That's all I got today.

After living it up Friday night and Saturday, Sunday was much more low key. We got up really late (after 10am, we had late night watching cricket). DH made pancakes and cafe latte for breakfast. Afterwards we went grocery shopping, hardly spent any money (just over $20), we didn't need to get any meat only fruits and vegies.

Our afternoon spent cleaning the garden, in particular trimming the trees. Our yearly green pick up is coming up next week. This is the time were you can put out as much green items (branches, grass clippings, big items that can't fit into our normal rubbish bin, etc).

After that we did a lot of cooking. I made roast capsicum and tomato soup, while DH made bread in the breadmaker. I also made chickpeas and vegies curry, while DH cooked some steam rice. I'm trying to make more vegetable dishes this winter.


Soup and Bread

Our night was then spent sipping red wine while watching CSI and tinkering with the computer. DH was looking at margin loans, he is seriously looking at getting it. We've been talking about this for a while now, and now might be the best time when the rate is very low and the prices are low. No final decision is made yet, we will see.

I was paying some bills online and I also did some stock research on my computer, I'm looking to get in but I don't think there will be an entry this week. I also check my current stocks and they are all doing well SO FAR (I try not to count my eggs...you know).

and its great.

Last night (Friday night), DH took me out to a nice Greek restaurant. Their antipasto and dips were so good. DH paid for it out of his own money (the money I gave him as a bonus for hardly spending his allowance last year - can you believe he still hasn't spent much). This was of course already been deducted as an expense last year. The man just doesn't know how to spend his money.

Today we got up late and decided to go for a day trip to the Yarra Valley wineries, it's about an hour away from our place. There are probably about 100 wineries in the area. First winery we went to was Domaine Chandon winery. Their facility is really nice, people can actually see where they make the wines.


Biggest cork I've ever seen.






We had lunch at a nice bakery (it is suppose to be Australia's best bakery - I'm not really sure about this claim, nice but not great). It was however a lot cheaper then having lunch at a winery restaurant. Overall we only spent $20, light lunches at the winery would have costs at least $17.00 per dish.

After lunch we went to another winery called De Bortoli. This one is pretty famous here is Australia, especially for their cheap wines. In this winery, they also had some nice cheeses. We got an $8 worth of cheese platter and crackers, and took it with us when we went wine tasting.


This place almost got distroyed in the recent summer bushfire. This is bad photo but if you look closely, those brown trees in the background actually got burnt in the fire.

Going home we took the back road and in some area one side of the road got burnt and the other side was lush green.

Also when we were driving home we drove through a small place called Kangaroo Grounds, I was jokingly complaining to DH about how it is called Kangaroo grounds and all I see are cows. About 2 mins later while driving through a winding road, we could see 2 kangaroos hopping towards the road. Knowing that they were most likely going to cross the road DH slowed right down. The car coming from the opposite direction from us hardly slowed down at all and almost hit the second kangaroo. We don't think he saw the second one at all, probably just assumed there was only one. Needless to say, we almost had kangaroo steak for dinner (just kidding!).

We had a great day and hardly spent any money. Apart from spending money on lunch and the cheese platter, the only other thing we got was a bottle of wine. We still got about 2 dozens at home so we didn't want to get too many, we are running out of place to put them.

Well that's my weekend so far, Monday is our Queen's birthday holiday...so it's a long weekend!

He has been away for work since Monday, so he has been away for 3 nights. This is the first time ever since we got married that we been apart. I'm really not used to it, and it's been so quiet at home alone.

Financially, while he has been away I haven't spent a cent, not even for bills. DH will get (reimburse) $50 a night for food spending, knowing him he probably hardly spent any. I won't know exactly until he gets home but I suspect he will come out ahead.

We got a lot of work done around the house on the weekend. Have put up couple of the doors up, did some sanding and painting and some yard work as well. Still got a lot to do though. My main goal this month was to clean the garage, well I did some of it but have now also put more junk/stuff in there again.

We also managed to go out and watched X-men:Wolverine, it was really good.

We just bought 3 new doors to replace the old ones. Also got new handles with it. I hope it's not too hard to put them up.

I will be doing some painting soon, so I will need to get some paint. We will also be getting some electrical and plumbing work done. I got a lot of work to do in the next week or so. And a lot of spending too (bad but necessary spending).

Our hot water wasn't working the other day so we had to get someone to have a look at it yesterday. The guy came in and replaced the controller, it took him not even 20 mins. Labour cost $110 and the rest was for the new part. Where can I get a job like that? Not bad at all.

Wow I haven't been here for over a month, we have been very busy. We had people over and then we went away for a while. I'm still trying to calculate what we have spent our money in the last month or so. I don't think it that bad but I think the grocery budget will be way over. Hopefully I will finished my caculation today.

Got a letter from our internet provider today, wanting us to renew with them for 12 months (i.e. go on another 12 months contract with them) for 10% discount. DH and I are thinking about it. Last year we did research on finding a better internet deal but we come to a decision that this company's deal is what is best for us. So yeah we are thinking about this deal. I don't think we will be changing provider in the next 12 months, so may as well right? Although it is really not much saving around $50 for the whole year. We have been out of contract for couple of years or so now. Generally, we don't like to be locked in but in this case it might not be a bad idea, especially since we have been with them for about the last 7 years. DH will give them a ring hopefully tomorrow and he will decide then whether we will go ahead or not.


8 Jan - 8:30pm

Received a $75 cheque from our electrical company today for overcharging us last month. Also I was checking my saving account online tonight to make sure I have enough funds in there, to my suprise there was a $35.53 deposit in there from my health insurance. Keep them comin'!

It will all go towards the household fund.




7 Jan - 11pm

It's a really nice Sunday afternoon right now, we are just relaxing gearing up for tomorrow's back to work day . Lunch was riccotta and spinach in filo pastry with a side of salad (mostly from the garden - lettuce and rockets were from the garden).

We got the statement for our annual car insurance (due in a week or so). It is less than what I anticipated it to be, which is fine by me . It will only be $686.60, under budget by $23.40 (great start for our 2009 challenge). Last year the increase for this insurance was around $50 more than the previous year, but it only increase by less than $10 this year...yipee!

Oh today should be a NSD. 3 days in a row for us!

Basically he doesn't use it so he loses it -lol. He seems to have problem spending his allowance money. Most of it this year was only spent when he forgets his lunch or if there was a special occasion at work were he might need to spend some of it. But most of the time he spend it either on something for us or on me.

I on the other hand spend what I got up to the very last amount, as evident in this year's allowance spending. I tend to stick to my budget. But because DH spend his money on me it kind of like I got double allowance so if I don't have it in the budget I won't be tempted to think that I got some money reserve somewhere.

DH has been so good that he sure deserves a good reward. Since we are under on our $20K challenge by $260, he got $150 to get whatever he wants with it.

Dh and I had a very nice new year last night.

Still really busy here and been spedning quite a bit of money. I haven't really added it all up, I'm kind of scared. I should be able to finalize my 2008 $20K challenge later today and will post it maybe tomorrow.

Again have a safe new year everyone.

We've been really busy with christmas stuff, so I haven't been here for few days. I need to catch up on what every one has been up to. I will update when things settle down here, hopefully in few days time.

Hope everyone had a great christmas.

It's hot here today (above 30deg Celcius) and very windy. I did a load of washing this morning, I put it out to dry (we don't use dryer) and less than an hour later I checked it to make sure that nothing has flown away, it was already dry so I've taken it all inside now.

It is just after midday here and I've actually done quite a bit of house work this morning already . I think I earn to just take it easy this afternoon when it will really gets hotter.

Have a great day everyone.

I've really got nothing to say, haven't done anything. The handyman finished yesterday and nothing has been happening since then.

Lunch today will be eggplant from the garden. I was thinking of going to the market but DH is not feeling well and still in bed trying to sleep it off. I'll probably just do the washing and some light cleaning. I should also be able to finish my financial planning for next year and will post it later.

There are 12 days to go until the end of the year and I got around $600 left in the 20K challenge and $106 will go towards to 2 charities that we've picked to give to this christmas. All the bills due this month has been paid, I wanted to pay it all off before the holidays so I won't forget about it. We got over charge by $60 in our electricity bill this month. Hopefully we should get a credit in the next bill. Also for some reason our gas bill has been coming due a week earlier (it started previous bill)than what it used to be, which make it now due a month early. This latest gas bill should have been due the first week of Jan, but its now due on 31st of Dec. This kind of ruined the utilities budget for the year. But not too worry we had enough in the 20K challenge to cover it.

I have been working on another challenge for next year, it will be very similar to this year. This type of budgeting is not for everyone but it works for someone like me who like having something to aim at and it restrict me from overspending.

Cleaned the cupboard under the sink and wiped the cupboard doors. I also got down on my knees and brush the floor really good. My kitchen is now sparkling.

Now I just got to keep it like this for the next week or so.

I'm in the middle of doing that right now, and I'm so over it! I've done about 7-8 items and still got about 5 to go. And one of the item is so big that I'm not really sure how to tackle it. It is taking me so long to do it. I'm so tired of always losing the end of the tape. Oh well that's enough ranting and better get back to it.

Just paid our car registration today worth $593.80

Amex was also paid today worth more than 2 grand

Sigh....

Since the start of the month I have been on a crusade of cleaning/de-cluttering the kitchen. Although somewhat by accident, I didn’t really intend to clean the whole kitchen (I only wanted to clean the pantry), but kind of on a roll now. So in my spare time I have just been taking one area of the kitchen to concentrate on to clean, I think I might have found a way of cleaning that suits my personality. In the past tackling the whole kitchen would have driven me crazy half way through it and would have probably given up.

Anyway, I managed to clean the fridge the other day and then last night I scrubbed the oven spotless, man that took a lot of effort. I think I might tackle the scary cupboard under the sink next.

Spent most of my weekend buying christmas presents and I think I'm all done. Just food shopping to go and we don't do most of it until a day before because we tend to get seafood for christmas. That's what people tend to have around here, I mean we still have ham and even occasionally turkey but because it get so hot that slaving in the kitchen with the hot oven on is just not fun. So seafood (in particular prawn/shrimp and lobster) tend to be more the tradition here. You know the "throw a shimp on the barbie" thing. Yeah that's just not a saying for us, Christmas day is normally spent outside BBQing, and it last to the wee hour of night because daylight don't end until about 9-9:30 at night.

I would love to have a white christmas one day.

Got just over $160 left in the Xmas Fund.

Managed to clean another shelf on the food pantry. While cleaning I'm also taking note of what we have and what we need. I think we could get by not buying anymore stuff for the pantry until next month. We sure have enough Oats and Muesli, so breakfast is taken care of, except of course for milk. Oil, rice, all kind of flour, sauces, herbs and spices are all well stocked. I just need to get some more salt and nuts.

I don't need to do much grocery shopping except for christmas food shopping this month at all. We will only really need fresh produce and meat. I also think (although I haven't really looked yet) we won't need to buy things for the bathrooms either, we sure have enough toilet paper to last the next 2 months.

----------------------------

A comment on my previous entry(2 entry ago)by Joan of the Arch has really made me think about frugal cooking. I'm not really sure if I am that frugal when it comes to cooking. I do know how to make some really frugal food that is beyond PBJ sandwiches or ramen noddles. And I guess the influences come from my background and other people that have influenced me in my life.

Anyway, tonight we had homemade pasties. The filling I made yesterday. It is really only some ground meat with diced vegies. I made a double batch. I halved the filling and last night I put in a whole can of baked beans as the sauce base and we just had it on rice. And that was what we had for lunch too (it actually taste nicer the next day). So tonight the rest was made into pasties. And while that was cooking in the oven DH also made some potato chips. Oh and he also cooked the leftover puff pastry (the scraps) with some jam. It turned out really nice, kind of like a crispy croissant that already has jam inside.

Dh and I just came home from watching Wicked (the musical show), it was fantastic! The best thing was it was for free, although we still spent some money on some food, drinks and parking.

Other than going to the show our weekend was spent just doing some housework and gardening. The zucchini that almost died a few weeks ago is still surviving well, even though it was the biggest seedling to start with it has caught up with the other plants. 2 of the other zucchini plants are already flowering. Also started organising the pantry again, I've managed to clean 1 whole shelf! I'm doing it one at the time because I can actually get it done that way. I've been meaning to clean this pantry for 2-3 months now and everytime I think about doing it I get so overwhelmed that I just never start it. So I think by cleaning/organising it one shelf at the time I might actually get it done.

Well that was my weekend and tomorrow is back to work again...sigh.

Yesterday was the last day for calculation how much our home made meals costs us for a week (as my previous post was all about). Well it was ruined yesterday because DH forgot to bring his lunch yesterday and had to buy subway. The money came out of his allowance (not from the grocery). I also wasn't an angel yesterday. I been getting hives lately so after work DH and I stopped by at the doctors to see whether I should be tested, he doesn't believe it is necessary for me to do since it is mild allergy I just have to take anithestimane when it flares up. Anyway back to the challenge - because we got stuck in traffic for over an hour and spent another half an hour or so at the doctors I thought it was best I buy my dinner and DH can have his lunch that he left in the fridge. So yeah I also spent money on food yesterday, which will also came out of my allowance money.

So this was the rest of the challenge (the first 4 days is on my previous post):


19 Nov – $7.60
Breakfast – Oats & Coffee - $0.60
Lunch – Sandwiches (Tuna with Mayo) and Egg Sandwich - $1.00
Dinner – Chicken and Mushroom with Pasta (& we also open a bottled of red wine) - $3.50 & $6.00

20 Nov – $5.60
Breakfast – Muesli (for DH), Scramble Egg, Mushroom & Tomato with Toast and Coffee – $1.40
Lunch – Leftover Chicken & Mushroom Pasta - $0
Dinner - Fried Rice & Beef with Potato, Carrots and Peas with Soysauce (and leftover wine from yesterday) – $4.20

21 Nov – $15.50 (including takeout)
Breakfast- Oats & Coffee - $0.60
Lunch – DH forgot his lunch and bought Subway $7.90 & I had leftovers from last night - $0
Dinner – DH had his lunch he forgot to bring to work - $0 and I had Chicken Kebab - $7.00


So overall for the week we spent just under $53 (including the $14.90 food that was brought). If we didn't get takeout then it would probably be around $45-$48 for the week, which would have been an average of about $6.50 (rounded up) per day. At this average our main meals cost us about $200p/m. This make sense to me because right now we are averaging less than $250p/m on groceries which includes toilettres, cleaning products for the bathroom and kitchen, snacks such as coffee and tea, etc.. You get the point...

The more we make our meals at home the cheaper it is for us obviously but I never realise how cheap it can be. This sure has given me a lot to think about. Even though the meals that we bought yesterday were cheap meals they were still a lot more expensive compare to if we had just cooked it at home.

Last week I heard someone say that they think that cooking at home is more expensive than getting takeaway (takeout). These people normally get takeaways. And when they cook at home, they thinks its more expensive. They made something at home last week and thought it costs them more (it costs them over $20 for the meal for 2 of them).

Are you serious! Probably because they shop at the wrong places and probably only buy brand name expensive stuff.

This really got me thinking on how much our food actually cost per meal. So for the last few days I have been calculating our meals. These are our meals and costs for 2 adults. I'm thinking of doing this for a week, so I'm half way there.

15 Nov - $10.20
Breakfast - Oats & Coffee - $0.70
Lunch - Hotdogs and Salad - $4.25
Dinner - Roast Chicken with Gravy & Vegies - $5.25

16 Nov - $5.00
Breakfast - Toast with Eggs $ Bacon & Coffee - $1.20
Lunch - Leftover Roast Chicken with Gravy & Salad - $0.50
Dinner - Stirfry with Rice - $3.30

17 Nov - $6.50
Breakfast - Oats & Coffee - $0.70
Lunch - Leftover - No cost
Dinner - Homemade Tacos with loads of vegies - $5.80

18 Nov - $2.50
Breakfast – Muesli, Toast & Coffee - $0.80
Lunch – Leftover Taco with boiled Potato with sour cream- $0.70
Dinner - More Tacos (DH just loves it so much) and I also had some Tuna and mayo sandwich - $1.00


Let's just round it up to $25 shall we. So our main meals for 4 days only cost us $25, thats $6.25 per day for two people!
Okay we do eat a lot of leftovers because we normally cook in large batches, main reasons is we like to take leftovers for lunches to work. This might be boring for some but it doesn't bother us. And we also make things from scratch which really helps to cut the cost down. In above menus even the taco seasoning and gravy are made home made. And we also like to have a lot of either salad &/or vegies with each meal, apart from breakfast of course. Speaking of breakfast, I can't believe that for most morning it actually cost us less than $1 to make.

Okay, so I will have to concede that you can't just buy 50cents worth of sour cream for example, you actually have to buy the whole bottle. Sometimes you will end up having waste but if you are resourceful you should be able make something else with it.

Can you believe it, this year has gone by so fast! This is the time of the year when I start analysing our year's performance and also start doing next year's spending plan/budget.

This year has been very good for saving. All our goals this year has already all been achieved beyond expectation. Unfortunately next year won't be as good but because of what we have achieved this year it means we won't need to be as agressive in trying to save for everything next year. This year's achievement has really given as a lot of breathing room. The main thing that we want to concentrate on next year is to put more money into the car fund and house repair fund. There's still $2.5K left in the holiday funds, not sure if we will have time to go overseas next year, if we do then I can add some more but for now I'm happy with how much is in there for now.

And of course around this time of the year is when I start thinking about christmas. I've bought enough presents for the little ones (nephews and nieces) and some for adults, we don't really buy much for adults so I'm almost done with buying presents. Right now we just got over $400 left in the Xmas fund.

Can't wait for christmas!

Well today is pay day but it wouldn't clear until tomorrow. DH also got paid earlier this week. We now fully funded the tuition fund. And have now achieved all our goals for all our funds this year.

At the end of this month we should have $500-$600 extra money this month. That is even after already putting away savings and paying off a lot of bills. So now we got to decided what to do with the extra money. There are a lot of options of coure. Should we just put the extra money towards savings or should we keep putting more money towards our various funds? Right now I am not all that happy with our EF especially now with all this economic disasters. Also the the car fund is not as much as I want it to be, particulary now that we will probably need to get the brakes replace. And we could always use more in the house fund for all the projects/repairs we need done around here. So I guess starting on next year's goals wouldn't be so bad. And maybe also putting more towards savings.

So I guess that kind of answered my question. It always help to think things out loud. I will of course need to discuss all of these with DH, he might have some other ideas. We will see at the end of the month what we will end up doing.

It's really quiet at work at the moment, so I got time to do some blogging .

Financial wise it has been pretty quiet as well. Since I paid a bunch of bills on the weekend we havent really done much except for getting takeaway on Monday. We spent $12.85 for fish and chips. It was of course bad, it broke our no takeaway streak. We lasted 20 days. I was hoping to last for a month. Oh well, there's something to aim for next time.

Yesterday was a NSD, and I'm also hoping today would be one too (would make it 5 for this month so far). Oh and yesterday I got a free train pass. A nice stranger gave me her pass (she didn't need it anymore), So she saved me almost $5. Thank you, nice lady.

So far this week it has been really cheap. We do have an expensive weekend coming up. We are going out on Saturday night and I'm also going to get some stuff for our vegie garden. It's staring to warm up around here so now is the great time to start getting the garden for spring and summer crops. You just cant bet home grown tomatoes, yummo!