Even though I wasn’t feeling well I decided that we really got to paint the bedroom ceiling now before the ceiling fan get installed later this week. I think it would be more of a pain to paint it after the ceiling fan is in. When we got home after our run/lunch I spent about half an hour preparing the room while DH did the mowing. I had to put the plastic drop sheets all around the walls, floor and furniture. It didn’t take long to paint; I used the paint brush around the side while DH used the paint roller. It only needed a coat, we are just refreshing it really. We were finish by 6pm, including cleaning up.

We bought the plastic drop sheets earlier yesterday, I was surprise to find out the price is so much cheaper now. I buy them all the time and they were always $1.50 each but yesterday it was for only 0.98 cents (it is not a sale price either), that’s 30% less than what it used to be. Since a new hardware store opened up down the road last year prices in this old hardware store has been a lot more competitive. I guess they have to lower prices because they have a policy that if you find an item cheaper somewhere else they will match it with % discount (I think it used to be 10%).

Another expense yesterday that was totally avoidable was the Thai takeaway. I was craving it and just did want to have hamburger for 3 nights in a row. And I just got lazy to cook anything else after doing the painting. I opted to pay half of it out of my allowance money, serves me right.

This morning I saw an ad on TV for an airfare sale, its buy one get another seat for free. Unfortunately, it’s only on Oct to early Dec and for limited number of flights. I called DH at work and we decided to visit his parents in late October. We will only go for a weekend, so only an overnight stay. Actually found an $89 (for two) for an early Saturday morning flight. But we have to pay $89 each for a Sunday night flight home. This was the best value we could find in peak time. Normally these days it will be at least $120 each 1-way. The total cost in the end is $283 (including a $16 fee to pick your on seats). DH thought it was necessary, he wanted us to seat together. I couldn’t care much for it because it is only an hour flight, but DH wanted it and it is nice to have DH seating next to me when I have ear pressure problem while flying, it can be very stressful and he helps me relax.
I’m budgeting $500 for this trip. Will need about $60-70 for taxi back and forth to the airport, the in-laws will pick up/drop us off from their end. We will give $100 to the little kiddies as belated/early birthday gifts. This will leave us around $50 for spending, just in case we will need to buy food.

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Update
Last night I finally got around to ordering the wedding gift basket, it has a bottle of nice sparkling, two champagne glasses, champagne bucket and chocolates. It should be delivered this afternoon, just got an email from them this morning telling me that they are about to dispatch it. I like their customer service. It cost $115, including $15 for delivery.
The pilaf turned out really well last night, it is a very good one pot meal. Tonight I’m planning to make Singaporean noodles but without prawns. Don’t have any and I’m allergic (but I still eat them coz I love them).

DH got told by the mechanic that they will have to keep the car for another day. He’s been told that there are 3 things wrong with it (all I recognise is that it needs a new brake pad). It will cost around $460 not including labour. DH will find out tomorrow, I’m afraid it will probably cost around $800 maybe more. Yikes! It will be a big hit to our Car Fund. At the moment we currently have $15,202 balance in the car fund. I really like it be at $15K balance, which means I will have to again put more money into it. I will hold it off until towards the end of the year when hopefully we have achieved all our financial goals for this year. I’m just hoping that we will have a bit of extra money to go toward this.

I vacuumed the ducted heater, all 5 outlets. I took out the filters and washed it. I also put few drops of eucalyptus oil in the duct, now the whole house smell like eucalyptus. I’m pretty sure if a koala where to walk by it will want to come in. Since the vac was out I decided to just vacuum the whole house, it was in my to-do list for tomorrow.

The cheesecake was really good, it did not crack at all, and that was my biggest worry about it. We had some after dinner. DH took another slice to work today. He was really happy coz I rarely make sweets and he loves them. He always claims that he has two stomachs, one is just for dessert. We only tend to have them when we are having a party or eating out.

Good news this morning our mortgage will be going down 40 basis points (0.4%) effective 11 of May. Not as good as 0.5% but not as bad as another bank who only lower it 0.32%, and some still haven’t made any announcement. They all want to keep some for themselves. And of course they lower the saving rate by the full 0.5%. They don’t want to leave anyone out, got to screw everyone right? And just to make it worst one of the bank that have not made a move yet just posted yet another record profit yesterday, we are talking billions. Even as a shareholder I don’t like it. Okay, enough of my ranting.

DH dropped off the car at the shop today, DH doesn’t have a clue how much it will cost. I think they will give him a call about it later.

For the first time this year I put on the ducted gas heater this morning and it smell a bit and there were dusts coming out in every outlet. I turned it off right away. I will need to vacuum the filters in it but I’m procrastinating.

3rd time go at typing this, I don't know what is going on. I've decided to now use Notepad and will just cut and paste.

Just a quick update on what I've been doing in the last few day. Been a bit busy.

Tuesday night DH went to ALdi to get some groceries.
He spent $19.55 which left us with $7 in the grocery budget for the month. Will get sausages for lunch, should just have enough. Also bought a small mother's day gift for DH's mum. Will still have to think of something else to get for her. I'm running out of ideas.

Wednesday was our public holiday. Spent the morning helping mum buy a car. In the afternoon we stayed home to watch the footy game. We got pizza for dinner.

Thursday DH put in another $50 into his train pass, we are now over our transport budget.

Friday we decided to put another $1000 into the mortgage, apart from this it could have been a NSD.

Saturday we finally went to the dentist, our health insurance covered for it this time except for the $8 for a special toothpaste for DH. Also $12 for the day parking. After the dentist we decided to stay in the city, we thought may as well make good use of our parking. It was such a nice day to just hang out. There were a lot of street performance that kept us entertain. We stayed for lunch and coffee in the afternoon. We decided to use our allowances for this expenses. It was such a lovely day, was not planned especially the spending but worth it. Loved sitting by the riverside with coffee just people watching and listening to this couple basking/singing. Afterwards, on our way home we decided to stopped by the factory outlet place. Ended up spending $154 for 3 tops for me (I wanted more winter tops) and 2 t-shirts for DH and 1 business shirt for him.

Ralph Lauren was having 70% storewide, we got DH's business shirt from there and one of my top. DH should have enough work shirts now. I actually only really budgeted $50 for clothing this month, this is one of those things that I could never budget well.
Most months we don't buy clothing. But looking at our yearly budget we still got $300 in the clothing budget. This purchases now push as over by almost $100 for the month. The month ends tomorrow so it is not too bad.

I spent about 2 hours last night looking at used car online. It is not for us it is for my mum, 2 weeks ago today she had an accident and her car is no more. Her car insurance provided her a rental car but had to return it yesterday. So now she needs a new car. I found a couple last night and we will go tomorrow to have a look at it.

While looking a car for her I kind of had a quick look at one for us. Couple of years ago when our car was not doing too well, when we thought that we might have to get a new one, we went and had a look at some new cars. The one that we like is a lot cheaper now, it's great to know. Our car right now is still pretty good (knock on wood), we did spent over $1000 to get it fix. I'm hoping that it will last for another 3 years or so, when we hopefully pay off the house by then. There were also a lot older car that I won't mind get as a second car. But I don't know I'm still not that keen on having two cars.

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On another news, I mentioned a week ago here that we got invited to a wedding for next month. We opted not to attend but we will send a gift. I actually got some idea the other night of what gift we will send when I was going through websites that sell gift baskets. I think a basket with a nice bottle of champagne and other goodies would be nice. Unfortunately they don't have a gift registry, that would have been a lot easier. We are not going because the wedding is held about 2-3 hours away. I don't think they will mind, I've never meet the bride to be and I haven't seen/spoken to my friend for about 2 years. I think a lot of our friends won't be able to make it either. I hope they have a lovely day.

And oh yesterday was a NSD, for real this time.

I said yesterday was a NSD, well that was very late in the afternoon here and by then there was no way that we would be going out to spend any money. I was wrong.

After dinner I got thinking about mother's day, which is in 3 weeks time. DH's mum is hard to shop for and to top it off she lives in another state. I thought maybe a gift basket it can be delivered straight to her. No luck, she won't like most of it. She doesn't drink and she has a very strict diet. The only thing that might work is the chocolate basket but $50 worth of it is a bit much.

After that I decided to look at Groupon and other sites like it. I was thinking of maybe a weekend getaway but it can't be too far from their place, she don't fly so it must be driving distance. Nothing at the moment, I will keep trying.

Anyway, while going through the Groupon website I found a handheld steamer for $49 each or $90 for two. Unfortunately, MIL already got one. I asked her about it and apparently it is not bad. I'm willing to give it a try for this price. MIL one cost her over $200 but it came with the vacuum cleaner. I got 2, I will give the other one to my mum as part of her Mother's day gift. I used my birthday money for my one, MIL actually suggested it.

So to recap, I officially spent $45 last night for Mother's day gift for next month. And I've taken $45 out of my allowance for my steamer.

After yesterday's lazy day, I was so much more productive today.

- I cleaned our bathroom, I gave it good scrub.
- Did a bit of dusting
- Vaccuumed the floors
- Got the laundry ready for tomorrow, including soaking some of the whites. We try to do our laundry on the weekend when its off-peak time for our electricity.
- Also did some gardening. I re-potted an orchid got 4 bigger pots out of it. It really needed it, I actually had to break the old pot to get it out. I got another 3 or 4 more to do. I will need to get more of the bigger pots. Also planted some of my coriander seedlings into its permanent place.
- Called and sorted my super fund (retirement fund) to get access to it online. Good news it is up, more than I expected it to be. I normally contribute to it $40 twice a month and then I get a co-contribution from the government - around $1000 per year. Because I haven't work for months now there hasn't been anymore money going into it but my little contribution.
- Cooked dinner early, no chance of take away tonight. And that made it a NSD today.

It should have been NSD again today until I got too lazy to cook dinner. We had a bit of left over and there are even some stuff in the freezer but I got a craving for Thai curry. I called DH to get some on his way home, $12.90. I will take this out of my allowance money to be fair.

I spent some time this afternoon trying to log on to my retirement fund but for some reason it wouldn't let me. I will have to give them a call tomorrow.

I also checked my managed funds, it is slowly going up. I only put $200 per month so I don't really expect much from it but it is good to know that it is going in the right direction.

Last night's dinner was very good, DH had to have extra. And he said that he was looking forward to having it again for lunch. And we should have enough left over for two more meals, for some reason casserole taste even better reheated. So I don't need to cook tonight, I might just make some quinoa salad.

Nothing financial much is happening here. DH yesterday topped up his train pass, $50.

Received couple of cheques, totalling just ove $86. Hoping to cash them in soon.

Just paid the credit cards this month, another low balance this month. We have been doing really well with our credit cards this year.

Amex =$327
Mastercard = $465

Below $1000 is always a good balance.

We normally go away to the in-laws, which is in the other state for easter, this year we decided to stay home. The in-laws decided to go visit my sister in-law instead in another state, we could have meet up with them there which is more of a half-way point (which would have been only 6 hours drive). DH has not been feeling that well so we thought for his sake we stay home and get a proper rest. We did a lot of sleeping in.

It has been pretty good just staying home, we did do a bit of eating out. So, we spent a bit of money this long weekend but not as much as if we went away.

Thursday night I meet up with DH and some of his co-workers for after work drinks. Then afterwards DH and I stayed in city for dinner we had dumplings and noodles, it was nice and cheap. We will definitely go back there again it is only about a block away from DH's office, I think it will be nice place for lunch date.

Friday was a quiet day at home, just ate a lot of seafood.

Saturday we went crazy with shopping, most of it was things that we needed, mainly groceries. We did have lunch out at a celebrity chef's restaurant, it wasn't bad at all, I was expecting expensive stuff but only spent $31 and we couldn't finish it. It's a nice place right by the river where people rides their bikes and go for a jog/run and the food was amazing. Sometimes places like these are just over-rated. Plus this place is close to our favourite nursery, about 5 mins walk along the river.

Sunday, I got a haircut and afterwards we watched The Hunger Games. I've read all the books couple of months ago, of course the book is always better but the movie was pretty good, except we had to move seats to the back becuase we both got a bit sick watching it too close when the camera moves too much. We went out for dinner again, to one of our favourite restaurant. Afterwards we went for a walk to a nearby pier, where DH once proposed . It is one of our favourite place in the world.

Today, we slept in. Then went to my mum for lunch. We came home this afternoon with a bag full of goodies. Today was a NSD!

Nothing much going on here.
The only spending this week so far was for gas, $77.33 and the voip phone for $4.45

I have been keeping up with the exercise challange so far.
Tuesday I added $2 for 100 sit-ups and 30min bike.
Yesterday I added $1 for 50 sit-ups, 50 push ups and some lunges and squat exercises. I also did a bit of stretching, which what I really need to do more of. Also DH put in $1 yesterday for a session on the exersice bike.

That add up to $7 so far this week.

at DH's pay or should I say the agency that deals with DH's pay.

DH came home yesterday and said that he got his payslip and that he also got another email from them with a list of dates of his pay period for the rest of the year. Well it seems like he will be back to the 4 week schedule again. I just don't understand why they did that pay 2 weeks ago. It is really stuffing up my budget for this month. His next schedule pay won't be until early next month. So now we are short this month in terms of income versus expenses. This is the worst month to do it to since it is the most expensive month because of annual bills being due.

The worst thing is because of the holidays, which Dh doesn't gets paid means he only got paid 8 days worth instead of 10 days. We have to try to live off 8 days worth of pay for a month, impossible! Specially with the extra high bill month we will be short about $1100, if we try our hardest to be extra tight this month.

Cash wise we will be okay. Thank goodness we don't live paycheck to paycheck. Knowing that DH pay differ almost every month I've always made sure that we have enough cash in various accounts to cover the next months CC bills and mortgage. Also, and I cannot believe I am even saying this, I'm kind of glad that we got that hole in our tyre 2 weeks ago because it made us stay home during the boxing day sales. I had planned to go out that day to buy DH new business shirts and beddings and would no doubt some other unnecessary stuff. All those things can wait for few months.

Because we mainly paid cash for christmas spending our CC bills this month has been ultra low. I just paid one the other day for just over $1,100 and the Amex is not due until next week and that is just a little over $500, and that is for the this month. The only other bill that needs cash right not is the mortgage and that is due aroun 3-5th of the month. DH next pay should be on the 3rd but just in case I will make sure we have enough cash for from this pay. All other bill we should be able to use CC for it and maybe just a bit of cash for groceries and allowance money.

My plan of paying extra on mortgage this month is now impossible. Everytime I mention here that I plan to pay extra on the mortgage something always happen that prevents it. lol

I'm a bit late to the New Year party. I've just been so lazy. We've had a bit of heatwave here at the start of the year and I just couldn't bothered doing anything. All we managed to do on those few days was stay in side the airconditioned room and watch a lot of movies. I'm just thankful that we decided to get the air conditioner during winter.

It has cooled down a bit in the last two days. I created my 2012 spreadsheet yesterday, it is now all set up and ready to go. I had to do a bit of fiddling because I change from using Open office last year to the new Microsoft Office. I'm now happy with it and it will not take much effort to update it every now and then.

We've decide to up our living expenses this year to $21K from $20K last year. We were over $1,715 last year which is the worse we have done since I've started blogging and keeping records. The main problem was medical and entertainment. I think we should be able to keep it at $21K this year. I think I need to get back to making small monthly goals again. I think it will help a lot.

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Our tyre is now fix, free of charge. I gave my brother 1 of our restaurant voucher as a thank you gift. He also organised for us to get 2 of our worn out tyres to get replace this Saturday. He thinks we should really get it replace soon and that right now this place he sent us to go is having a sale. It will cost $238 for 2 new tyres. This will come out of the Car Fund, I'm glad I decided to put a bit extra in there last month.

Due getting some unexpected pay this month, I've had to make changes to my goals for next year. And I've now posted it on my sidebar.


2012 GOALS:

Goal 1: Get mortgage down to $120K (Bal. Dec 2011 = $149K)
Action Plan: Must put in $2,500 per month.

Goal 2: Put $5000 into the Holiday Fund.
Action Plan: Will put $500 until Oct.

Goal 3: Save $2000 into the Xmas/Anniversary Fund.
Action Plan: To be fully funded by Dec.

Goal 4: Add $7000 into the Household Fund for new windows, etc.
Action Plan: To be fully funded by Dec.

Goal 5: Add $3000 into the EF - this will get us to a very tight 6 months living expenses.
Action Plan: Put any extra money towards this goal.

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It has been a pretty quiet and feels really sloooow week. We had a bit of NSD this week because we couldn't go anywhere. I actually had plans to go shopping on Boxing day sales, I was hoping to get some christmas stuff for next year. I need to get more christmas wrapping paper and decorations and maybe even a new christmas tree.

The only spending this week was phone bill, less than $20, also the locknut key for $40 and yesterday DH bought an air pump thingy to pump the spare tyre and that only cost $20. DH wanted to have one in the car handy, only need to attach it to the cigarette lighter.

Tomorrow I will need to go grocery shopping and maybe have a look if there are any christmas wrapping left.

I need to finalise my Spending Plan for next year and hope to post it this weekend. We are now over $1500 this year, not good but some of the spending could not be helped. I am hoping to do better next year

We actually managed to have a white christmas here this year, well sort of. We got a massive storm on the afternoon of Christmas day and it there were hail almost the size of golf balls.





But our adventure actually started christmas eve. On that day DH and I did a bit of grocery shopping and then went to my mum's place to drop off the turkey, she decided to cook it at her place instead and I cooked the roast pork at my place. Anyway, on the way home DH and I talked about giving the car a wash that day, it really needed it. We got home around lunch time but decide to wash the car later that day when the sun is not as hot, it was another 30deg+ day. We decided to finally start washing it around 5pm. Half-way through washing DH found a bolt stuck to one of the back tyre (again! this happened to us few years ago, the same spot/tyre too). Again we suspect we got it from the road to/from my mum's place, there are few roadworks pretty much all the way to her place and there are a lot of crap around the road.

DH tried to replaced the tyre with the spare but he found out that the locknut key is totally worn out and will not grip. We could not do anything else that day but call my brother to ask him if he could drive us to mum for christmas lunch, it was not a problem for him since we are on the way for him.

When my brother came over he also had a look at the busted tyre he said it will only need to be patch up, which is good news since I was expecting that we might have to get a new one. My brother work for Bridgestone and know a bit about tyres. He said that if we could get it off then he will pick it up and get it fix for us at his work, which won't be until at least Wednesday since we have a 4 day weekend here for christmas and boxing day holiday (most businesses were closed except for department stores and shopping centres that are open for boxing day sales).

We had to borrow my mum's car to go and visit my friend after lunch. We wanted to just stop by to say hello to my other friend who was also visiting from the country that day. We planned to go there for couple of hours while my mum and brother had a nap, then we were going to come back for dinner at my mum again. Half an hour later when we got to my friends place the rain finally started, heavy storm was forecast and it has been threatning all morning but it never came until that afternoon. Because it has been very humid which is very unusual for us here, we normally just get a dry heat during summer, the rain actually brought with it some hail. It started with just small hail, about the size of corn kernel for about 5 mins and then it stopped for 5 mins and then it started again and now the hail is about the size of ping pong balls. I was freaking out about my mum's car, there was nothing we could do about it but watch it from the balcony, it was park on the street with no protection at all. There were about 20 other cars outside in my friend's neigbourhood. Everyone was having a christmas party some managed to cover their car with car mats.

It came and finished very quickly but did enough to make a bit of damage. My friend's kitchen started leaking and so did a couple of rooms upstairs. I found out the next day that their gutter actually came off from the weight of the ice. There was water everywhere, it got into their cabinets and appliances and on the floor.

I heard someone said that there were more bad weather coming, DH and I decided to leave right away, I wanted to put my mum's car back into her garage. Luckily, it only took us about 10-15mins to get back. When we got to my mum, it has not rain there at all. When I was telling her what happened she thought I was joking. Then 10mins later it started raining and again hail the size of ping pong, now my mum was freaking out coz it was so loud when it hit the tin roof. At this stage I was like I told you so!

Afterwards, we checked her car in the garage and there was only 1 ding that I could see and it wasn't that noticable. We were really lucky coz other people got major damage in thier car and some houses their ceiling caved in because it.

Back to our car, the next day, during Boxing Day we called for our roadside assitance company to see if they could get the locknut out, unfortunately he couldn't. He suggested that if we want he could come back on Wednesday, when car garages will be open, to pump up the tyre so DH can then drive it to get it fix. Other option DH got was to buy a new locknut key, which again we couldn't do until Wednesday. This was the better option, since we still need it if we ever need to get the other tyres out, which is very likely soon.

On Wednesday DH had to go back to work and had to walked to the train station, the closes one from our place is only 10 mins away but it is in a different zone to the one that DH normally catches the train on which cost him almost $5 more per day. The other train station would have taken half an hour walk but only few minutes to drive. Luckily it is very quiet at his work this week and had plenty of time to ring around for the locknut, the first place that DH called was closed until 3 of Jan. The second one was out of stock but they could order it but unfortunately that place is closed for business until 9 of Jan. Finally, the third one actually had the right serial number key in stock and luckily they are only few minutes from my mum's place. My mum went and bought one for us. They cost just under $33 but DH transfered $40 into my mum's bank account, I didn't have any cash with me at all.

After work yesterday, DH got the tyre off and my brother picked it up this afternoon after work, hopefully he will be able to get it fix tomorrow, they will only have half a day business tomorrow if it can't get done we will have to wait until next Tuesday coz again we have another 3 day long weekend. But at least we should be able to do some grocery shopping this Saturday once DH get the spare tyre pump up a bit, it is a bit flat at the moment. Luckily, we don't have a plan to go anywhere this NYE, again the weather is going to be very hot and I have opted to celebrate it at homw this year.

Never been so excited to get this bill. For those who are not aware we installed solar panels earlier this year. We spent $2500 after government rebate. The best thing about it is that we actually get credit back if we put anything extra into the grid.

Anyway, because we are in the summer season now, we actually managed to put a bit of extra energy back to the grid. So the bill today got a Credit Balance of $86.94 (including a $21.86 balance brought forward from last bill, they couldn't get a proper ready the first time around so they had to estimate).

Its a great feeling getting a bill but they actually owe you money. We are hoping to get enough credit to pay for the winter season when the sun won't be shining as much. I think we can actually get cash if wanted to but I don't think we will bother with it at this time.

We actually got two letters from our electric company today, the other one was a letter letting us know that they will be increasing everyones rate. Yikes. I'm just so glad that we could afford to take advantage of the solar panel rebate. I know a lot of people would have love to get it but couldn't afford it. According to our calculation it will take us around 3 years to get our money back. We've save around $520 so far.

Friday night the mortgage got paid, regular payment of $1218, over $950 went to interest and only $267 went toward the principal. I can't wait until next month's regular payment, I'm hoping it will be under $900 interest by then. The big extra payment that we made late last month and the recent interest cut should take full affect next month. Also I should be able to make some extra payment by this weekend after DH get paid this Friday.

Our private health insurance also got paid, $230.69.

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we went to the beach. Had lunch there, fish and chip at the beach for $17.40. We also had to fill up the car, that was just over $48.

When we got home both of us agreed to go out for dinner, we used one of our deal voucher. $39 for a jug of sangria and a big platter of mixed tapas. It was very nice, it's a new restaurant, just opened 6 weeks ago so the restaurant was pretty empty. I even scored a free glass of coke, he would not let us pay for it.

Sunday was a NSD. Just did some cleaning and washing.

Just came home from a lunch date with DH. Spent $33.10. We had chinese, the food was nice but we felt hurried. They were very abrupt and they never smiled. We had Jasmine tea, everytime we took a sip (and I mean a sip, the cup is not even half empty) not long after someone would come in and fill up the cup, which was nice but after a few times it kind of got annoying because she has to reach over to the othe side of the table and we have to stop eat/talking everytime she did it. Being Friday there were people lining up by the door so I guess they want people in and out.

Just received our yearly car registration bill yesterday, it is not due until 15 of Dec. It has gone up $17.40 from last year, we are now paying $641.50 for the whole year.

I picked up my new glasses last night. I've been wearing them all day today, so far so good.

Lost my original entry

They finally deposited DH's missing pay! We will transfer it straight to the mortgage either tonight or tomorrow.

Not much is happening here financially. DH bought more shares, probably the last one for the year, not much left in the trading account. There is however one of DH stock going to be liquidating soon, they are being bought out. I think that would amount to just under $1000. DH only bought $500 worth couple of years ago, so almost double his money- not bad, I wish he got more but at that time we didn't have as much money. Plus, it was considered risky stock so we didn't want to put too much into it.

I think starting next year we might be able to start putting $500 a month into our trading accounts. This should be doable without slowing down the mortgage repayment too much.

Here in Australia, there is no incentives to put the mortgage repayment on hold, especially with high interest rate right now (7.11% ours right now, probably one of the lower ones at the moment). In the past when interest rate was low we spent more of our money on buying more shares but right now its best to prepay the mortgage. There are talk about rate going down, if it does go down enough we might change strategy again.

The other day I spent the whole day reading through a prospectus I received for investing in a company Notes. In the end DH and I decided to stick with prepaying the mortgage. The payment for the Notes would have been around 8% p.a., still not enough for us because of the risks to would have. With the mortgage prepayment means a guarantee 7.11% savings for us. But it does gets me excited about the future when we will be able to invest on those type of instruments. Notes would definitely be something I would be interested in investing.

They finally deposited DH's missing pay! I hope to transfer it tonight/tomorrow straight to the mortgage.

Not much happening here financially.

Just replaced the filters in our sink water filter, both filters cost $55. DH is actually getting really good at replacing them. It used to take him hours to do it but now it only took him less than 1 hour.

DH has been really eager to buy more shares. He got 2 stocks the other day. I have to tell him to slow down a bit. We have got a bit of shares in the last few months already. We definitely need to start putting more money into the trading account. But it will have to wait until next year.

Can't wait for this month to finish to finalise everything.

Thank goodness.

Had to spend all day yesterday running various virus etc scanner. It took a while but my little baby is back

I have not spent much money in the last 2 days. Today was a NSD.

- Got in the mail today another electric bill, apparently the last bill was only an estimate. I knew the guy that read the meter last month had some problem, he mentioned to me as I was helping him with our gate that he couldn't get a reading, he also mentioned that he did dropped his machine.lol. And another guy had to come and read it again the week after. Anyway, we paid that bill already it was due yesterday. The initial bill was $87+ now the revised bill is for only $66.01. So now we will be credited that $21 in the next bill. The good news is that we did even better, and I'm hoping that we won't have an electric bill in the summer months.

- Laptop is still not fix, Dh will work on it tonight. He thinks it will take a while to fix it.

- Just spent $18 today to get our mail on hold while we are away.

- Dh just converted $50 worth of Thai Baht, unfortunately he picked today when our dollar is at its lowest in the last 12 months. I've asked him to get some last month when it was $1.06 US, now it is around 95cents US dollar. I think it also cost an additional $8 for fee. This is for just in case cash, especially since we will get to Thailand very late that night (almost midnight).

- Daylight saving time started the other here and it has been very hard to get used to so far. I've been getting headaches lately, I don't know it its to do with my wacky sleeping pattern lately. My eyes been really sore and I think this is where the headache is coming from. I might just need to replace my glasses. Probably time to get a new one, it is 5years old. It has a lot of scratches now. I was hoping to wait til next year for a new one but I think it might be best to get one now just before the end of the year when the our health insurance benefits re-adjust (is that the term they used?). May as well use it I guess. I will deal with this when we come back from our holiday.

- Last night dinner was good. We used a voucher, $39 for 2 mains and a bottle of wine. It would have cost us $70, if you discount the left over wine that we couldn't finish. There was probably 1 to 2 glasses left. DH was driving so he could't have too much and I had a headache. Afterwards we went somewhere else for dessert. Spent $5.80 for a flourless cake and hot chocolate, we just shared we were too full by then.

My computer got some nasty virus late last night so I'm using my old computer that switches off when it gets too hot and it doesn't take much for it to get too hot either so I have to keep giving it a break every 10 mins.

Dh tried to figure it out last night. He did managed to save my spreadsheets into a usb stick by using linux (I don't really know how he did it). At least I don't have to worry about trying to figure out all our financial stuff, no way I would remember months worth of info. This is a great reminder that I should be backing up my stuff more often. This was a really bad virus for some reason it hid all my work. And some crazy stuff kept popping up. I was stressing out but luckily DH deal with these kind of stuff at work all the time. He said he has some plan of action but unfortunately it was getting too late for him to fix it last night. He might not get around to it until Tuesday night, we have to go out tonight for DH's birthday. I'm sure he doesn't want to deal with it tonight on his birthday.

In the mail today, I got 2 dividend cheques worth $87 and another dividend worth over $113, this was reinvested (4 extra shares!).

Our football team didn't quiet make it this year. The injuries really killed us. Oh well, there's always next year. And right now I am currently in front of the tv watching the rugby league grand final, I am not as into this game specially since our state team got knocked out last week. Now that footy season is over our attention is starting to switching to cricket. We love to watch sports .

Yesterday morning we got up early and went to the city to have our buffet break. We went to the same hotel that we stayed at on our wedding night. We did contemplate of doing the whole staying in hotel thing but we wanted to save the money instead since we are going on our holiday very soon.

The breakfast was amazing, they have everything you can think of. They make the eggs and pancake right there. Every kind of juice, the rasberry smoothie was so yummy. The fruit platters was great, they even have the chocolate fountain going. Strawberries with chocolate was definitely an unusual thing to have for breakfast. The typical stuff was there too from bacon, toast (with so many different condiments) to bakedbeans, but it also had smoked salmon and pastries and mini muffins. I couldn't try them all or I would have burst!

We spent a bit of money this weekend. We decided to get some new summer pajamas. And DH finally found a new sunglasses. It was for $157, he decided to used his $100 birthday gift he got from his parents and the rest I covered as part of his birthday present from me. I also got him a levis jean for $35, he desperately need another one.

Yesterday's NSD didn't happen. I decided to make chicken satay and needed some coconut cream. So I had to get DH to go to the shop to get me some. Unfortunately he came home with $5.20 worth of snacks (although these are snacks we will probably want to have for tomorrow's grand final game) with the 85 cents can of coconut cream!

Anyway we still ended up with 12 NSDs in the month, not a bad month.

I am starting to get really excited and nervous about tomorrow's game. We are a bit of a die hard. Our opponents are really good but we did finish the year on top of the ladder. So it is going to be very close. This time tomorrow I'm either going to be very happy or sad. I really hope it is the happy part.

We made it to 5 NSD in a row, the best thing about it is we weren't even trying, it just happened.

Tonight we are getting pizza for dinner while watching our football team play in the semi-final. I hope they can make it to the final again this year. They are the defending champion, so 2 in a row would be nice.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we have been invited to have dinner at my friend's place, it should be a fun night.

DH's pay yesterday was missing another one week worth so now I can't put in $3000 this month into the mortgage. Everytime I say I'll put big amount of money into the mortgage something always happens that prevents it. Next time I will blog about it afterwards. It sucks getting excited about something and then failing. Because DH is a contract employee he doesn't get paid by the company's HR directly, he has to fax his timesheet to his agency. Anyway, I don't quite understand it but it seems very complicated to me and sometimes DH gets too busy at work that he doesn't fax it right on time. Oh well, at least we are not short, the tax refund helped. The funny thing is that the tax refund is almost exactly the same as the amount missing.

I decided to not put that $500 into my trading account, I'll wait until next month.

Last night I did put in $1000 into the mortgage, that's all we can do for now. We have to pay bills that are due while we are away next month. Since DH next payday won't be until we are away we have to pay those bills out of this pay.

Had a busy day today. Went to the city and while there I deposited my cheque near DH's work. Afterward I meet up with DH. We went to our favourite greek restaurant and then had coffee. It was a beautiful day to be out and about. I got back home at 3pm and decided to clean the house, I even clean the tile grout in the kitchen floor with an old toothbrush. I needed to do a bit of cleaning today because I won't have as much time to do it tomorrow and we got a visitor coming tomorrow afternoon.

DH came home limping tonight, it's the same hamstring as last year (and this is now the 3rd time he has hurt it - the same spot, the first time when he was younger competiting in running). He has done it while running to get the train. He is hoping it is not as bad and icing it like crazy right now. I hope it is not another tear and just a twinge. Just when he is finally getting over his tennis elbow now this. Poor thing, he was very upset when he got home.